As one of our mainstay features, Aaron is writing posts highlighting every single player in the NBA. Role players, superstars, key cogs, or players who are barely as useful as ballboys -- none are exempt from the prying eyes of our readers. Check the index for a lowdown on order, intent, and all that jazz. Today's trio includes Derrick Favors, Andrew Bynum, and Jrue Holiday.

• • •

[011] Favors, Derrick

I see a lot of promise in Favors' game. He was a decent defender as a rookie -- not a major plus defender like Ekpe Udoh or Greg Monroe, but a solid defensive player for a rook. He clearly worked hard on that end. In general, his game is fun to watch for someone like me -- it's generally predicated on hard work, even if he doesn't always know exactly what he should be doing. He's always bodying up and trying to establish position underneath the basket, working really hard to get himself in position. It doesn't tend to lead to much of anything, as Devin Harris doesn't really like setting him up (for whatever reason), but his effort at trying to get himself open even in the face of rarely getting the ball is nice. He sets killer picks, too, which is always a great sign for a young player.

And don't beat around the bush -- Favors is YOUNG. He was, in fact, the youngest player in the NBA last year, and has the distinction of being one of only two players currently in the NBA born in 1991. Which is pretty absurd, all things considered. His statistics aren't great, and honestly, watching him you tend to see why -- he fouls out far too soon, doesn't seem to have a great grasp on how to deal with tough defense, and gets somewhat discouraged when he has a bad game. But he's hyper athletic, very talented, and has shown promising signs of someday being a major player for a contender. He has games where you wonder why he's in the NBA at all, then has games like the late season Jazz win against the Lakers last year where he defended Pau very well and showed some signs of someday being a go-to big in the league. As I said, lots of promise.

The one issue I have with him, really, is that he came from an absolutely horrible college coach that developed him poorly and it's essentially going to be up to Ty Corbin to make sure he turns out alright. "Promise" cases don't always turn out happily and there's no particular reason to think Favors is going to make it -- his rookie stats are, again, really terrible. And while I see promise, I could also see him simply remaining one of those Ian Maihinmi-type players who seem to exist solely to be the big men on the recieving end of the star calls that Kobe, Wade, and LeBron get so often. And, again -- Ty Corbin? Color me not-so-confident. I do hope he turns out well, though. As I said before -- hard worker, seems like a good kid. Best case scenario is a poor man's Kevin Garnett. That's not a bad best case at all. It's up to him to make sure it happens, I suppose.

• • •

[012] Bynum, Andrew

I really, really do not like Andrew Bynum. Emphatically so. This isn't because his game is overrated -- it may actually be underrated. I completely agree with the Laker fans who insist that Bynum would be a top three center in the league if he stays healthy. I agree that he often shows more hustle and grit than anyone on the Lakers, and I agree he has that elusive will to win that makes him valuable for a contender. If you ever hear from a Laker fan that there were only two players that even gave a crap in a Laker game, chances are pretty high that Bynum was one of them. And he's not lacking in dominant performances -- see his 42-15 game, or any number of the times he's gotten high 20s in points with high teens in rebounds on 60-70% shooting. When Bynum is on, there are few centers in the league who can match him on offense, or even contain him. And his defense? Extremely good. Never will be league-best -- not while Bogut and Dwight are around -- but Bynum is a major plus defender and a great guy to have in your corner. The Lakers, you may remember, rolled to a 17-1 record straight after the All-Star break -- the primary reason for their insane play was Bynum, whose defense was about as good as it could reasonably be expected to ever be. Shades of Dikembe Mutombo, even.

So, I basically just described a player I should like quite a bit. His style is a nice combination of everything I like watching, in a very generalized sense. Why don't I? Pretty simple. He's an arrogant S.O.B. who thinks his game is essentially perfect as is (given that he's refused repeated offers from Kareem of personal tutoring dozens of times). He spends such an absurd amount of time injured that the Laker fan diatribes about how great he is are generally undermined and worthless. Most of all? Great defender, sure, but he's also an immature and dirty player. The completely terrible bush league hit on J.J. Barea at the end of the Mavs sweep that he felt wasn't all that big of a deal wasn't the only example. Check this hit on Beasley, if you want to see dirty. Perhaps this hit on Gerald Wallace is more to your taste? Keep in mind that these are all from the last few months of this season. It's starting to become a somewhat concerning pattern. And while I'm certainly among those who think that the league might have gotten a bit too soft in its reaction to the 80s and 90s, I don't particularly want to see a league where players are starting Kermit Washington-style deckings on a nightly basis.

Andrew Bynum, for better or for worse (and in my view, strongly worse), is the highest profile player with any chance of doing that. More than KG, who shirks from actual bodily harm. More than Charlie Villanueva, who probably just needs to go to therapy. Like, a lot. Andrew Bynum has the requisite combination of rage, heft, and immaturity to physically harm another player -- on purpose. I don't like that. I root for the Cleveland Indians, after all -- I'm more than familiar with the story of Ray Chapman's untimely death at the hands of Carl Mays. If there's any NBA player who fits the dossier of a modern day Mays, it'd probably be Bynum with his inability to take responsibility for his actions and his rampant disregard for the amount of damage he could do to another player. I'd like to think that won't happen, though. I hope.

Anyhow. One of my Laker fan friends, Cesar, started a religion. The Disciples of Bynum-Jesus, I think they're called -- a reference to the now-defunct demo of NBA Elite 2k11 where Bynum "stands in the middle of the court like Jesus or something" due to a hilarious clipping error. For Cesar's Bynum-Bible, I contributed a Psalm. I guess I'll end this capsule with it?

53 They met at the foot of a great mountain, Jesus and Phil
54 " I need to go smoke some peyote, have fun with mike brown"
55 And the Bynum Jesus stared sadly into the sunset as Phil vanished
56 To calm his nerves, he punched a Puerto Rican midget
57 And it was good

• • •

[013] Holiday, Jrue

Man, I really like Jrue. I'm no big UCLA guy, but I can't deny that Howland does a pretty good job preparing his boys for the NBA. Jrue was incredibly underrated his rookie year, due to the glut of flashy and quality point guards that were around his freshman year. Steph Curry, Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, etc. For my money, he's always been a better defensive point than any of them -- and while point guard defense isn't a humongously valuable asset due to the minor role they play in a team's defensive structure, having a point guard who can switch out and defend the better of the opposing team's two guards is an underrated asset to having a solid defender as your floor general. As for offense, while I think he was clearly worse than all three of those guys his freshman year on that end of the floor, he's recouped his sophomore year and added a few more moves and became a better pick and roll passer.

Jrue couldn't really be more dissimilar to Brandon Jennings in style and general swag, but as a scorer, their skillsets are actually extremely comparable. Both of them have decent (not great, but decent) outside shots. Jennings takes a few more shots, but their games both fall apart at the rim, where neither of them have very advanced finishing talent. Decent shooters, both, but poor at drawing contact -- both of them incidentally have the strong potential to improve on that front, much like Iverson and Rose did later in their careers. They're both very good floor generals, and they run their teams well. The Sixers have more offensive options than the Bucks (depressing, but true) and Jrue gives the ball up more than Brandon does because of that, but with the exception of the number of shots they feel they need to take, there's not much differentiating the two.

Except age, which is really the avenue where Jrue's most underrated -- like Favors above, Jrue is incredibly young. He was born in 1990, in fact, and was the first player to play a game in the NBA born in the 1990s. He's already a decent floor general, and the potential to improve from his current state (good point guard who could definitely start for a contender) to a key franchise guard is clearly there. Long story short, there's a lot of potential with Jrue. And unlike Favors, he's already made good on a lot of it, enough so that if he never improves he'll still be a very valuable, worthy player in the league. Not too bad for a guy who played his first crunch time minutes in a playoff win months before his 21st birthday.

• • •

Here's your daily riddle. Only one player tomorrow, but he's a long one.

014: AUUAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Until next time.

Continue reading

As one of our mainstay features, Aaron is writing posts highlighting every single player in the NBA. Role players, superstars, key cogs, or players who are barely as useful as ballboys -- none are exempt from the prying eyes of our readers. Check the index for a lowdown on order, intent, and all that jazz. Today's trio includes Danny Granger, J.R. Smith, and Nate Robinson.

• • •

[008] Granger, Danny

Danny Granger, the starting small forward and resident low-tier star of the Indiana Pacers. If I'm honest, Granger is pretty frustrating. He goes from nights where he looks like a legit second option for a championship contender to nights where he looks like he barely belongs in the NBA -- he's a high variance player, as one would say. If you catch the wrong/right games, you'd be perfectly justified in thinking he's anything from a D-League washout to a superstar.

Regardless of his variance, his game is pretty damn slick. A few year's back, before he had a few nasty little injuries, he more often than not looked like a future superstar. Impossibly smooth midrange J, more than passable defense, and a ton of swagger that nobody notices because he plays on an awful team. His defense is rather underrated even considering the rest of his gifts -- outside of Iggy, he's one of the better post defenders among wings in the league, and he's decent on help defense (if a bit lazy on his man on the perimeter). Now, though, he's widely considered a middling-tier option that the Pacers actually shopped at the deadline, trying to trade him for little more than picks and young talent.What happened? Honestly, if there was ever a case of a coach single-handedly producing major harm to a very good player's career, this is probably it. Granger came into the 2010 season dealing with nagging injuries -- instead of letting him rest and get into game shape gradually, O'Brien threw him in and played him roughly 40 minutes per game until he predictably tore his plantar fascia. Playing injured is never a good idea.

He hasn't been consistently dominant since, his lift that was once one of his primiere attributes is essentially evaporated, and it's sort of up in the air whether he's ever going to fully heal from his nagging leg injuries. Which is a shame, because he's actually very fun to watch when he's got it going. He has a smoother jumpshot than virtually anyone in the league, and while he's not a ballhandling wing like LeBron or Iggy, he's got enough hops to rebound passably and his defense is very solid. Which all overlooks the fact that he's also a ridiculously nice guy. Granger was the first NBA player to even consider doing anything for the arena workers who are all losing jobs to the lockout -- specifically, he proposed taking all the Conesco Fieldhouse workers out to dinner, and was the first player to suggest playing regular season games with semi-full rosters in abandoned arenas for charity. It isn't mentioned in that article, but he's also throwing a raffle to raise money for the laid off Conesco Fieldhouse workers. Some serious player-of-the-people stuff, that. By all accounts he's a stand-up guy, and I really do hope he recovers from his injury woes. The NBA would be better with him in superstar form, I think.

• • •

[009] Smith, J.R.

My feelings about J.R. Smith are essentially schizophrenic, and I don't think I'm alone on this. Half the time I watch him, I'm utterly and completely enthralled. The other half I simply can't stop cringing. I don't really think he has a fraction of a chance of ever putting it together at this point. He's got arguably the greatest athletic gifts in the league, and a boatload of talent -- when J.R. is on, the sorts of absurd pocket passes he'll complete and the crazy shots he'll make are matched only by the league's superstars. When J.R. is off, there's not a single player in the league who can be more harmful to their team -- he will make the single most horrible decisions of any player in the league, he'll gun the ball every time he touches it no matter his coverage and no matter how much of a zone he's in, and he'll up his showboating to compensate for his otherwise hemorrhaging game whenever he gets the slightest change.

On defense, he's about what you'd expect for a player as prone to massive fluctuations in his production as J.R. -- incredibly up and down. When on, he can make these occasional miracle defensive plays where he does something absolutely crazy and groundbreaking only to immediately forget how he did that and immediately make the most boneheaded defensive plays you can imagine a player making. It can actually be hilarious to watch. Once, I remember, he was lazily batting at the ball while guarding someone, then perfectly timed his jump to elbow-tapped the players' pass, grab it in the other hand, and start furiously driving across the court. He literally looked surprised the entire fast break. I don't remember the outcome of the dunk, though I do remember he gave up easy open shots as he tried in vain to replicate the feat for the next few possessions. As for the finisher on the fast break? I don't remember if he made the dunk or not, but it would be very J.R. Smith of him to completely shank the dunk after trying to do some ridiculous 720 windmill two handed jam or something.

Long story short, if real life was NBA Jam, J.R. would be a superstar. But it's not, and he's terrible. Next.

• • •

[010] Robinson, Nate

Oh, Nate. The super-short chucking point guard for the Oklahoma City Thunder. After Nate got traded from the Celtics to the Thunder, I remember reading someone on CelticsBlog, I think, writing a semi-obit to Nate's "career" with the Celtics. I can't remember exactly what he said, but the gist was basically that Nate's real value to a team is in his attitude. He treats every minute he spends in the game like the last minutes of a blowout win, for better or for worse. Does that make him entertaining? Yes. Most of the time. Does that make him a good player? Not particularly -- I get the sense that he spent too long with the rudderless sideshow that was the Isiah Knicks in the mid 2000s, as he has the same devil-may-care attitude towards the outcome on the court that comes with growing as a player on a team as awful as those Knicks teams. It often seems like Nate mostly just worries himself with making sure that he's entertaining doing whatever he does. Which, given how limited his skillset is, may not be the worst thing in the world.

He has boundless energy and confidence and will take shots without setting up his teammates, chuck it as though he's trying to break a record, and mug the crowd every minute he's out there. You don't win too many games because of Nate Robinson, but you win many in spite of him, and every once in a while he'll have a night where he's so on you feel like he could actually be a starting quality guard someday. (Hint: NO.) But those nights combined with Nate's general demeanor can paint fans a decent picture of how to really root for Nate. You can get over his chucking, his inability to play any defense whatsoever, his boneheaded moments. That's all rather tertiary. Because frankly, the amount of entertainment you get at watching someone as good-natured and fan-friendly as Robinson on your favorite team is probably worth the severe lack of polish and his bonehead transgressions.

His dunk contest wins may have been travesty (hint: 'may have been' my ass, they were a travesty then and they're a travesty now) but he's a nice guy whose energy is infectious. He's the guy that makes blowouts fun, not because he's bad, but because he's just so goddamn excited about every stupid little thing that happens. Yes, he's a poor basketball player who isn't even replacement level. No, I don't care. I'm still going to be amused watching him do his thing, and so will most fans of his teams. Off the court, he's similarly amusing -- check out his lockout video blog where he does menial tasks as he tries to while away his time until the lockout finally ends. Or check out the police reports where he got charged with public urinatio--wait, what? Nate, seriously? I just spent like three paragraphs painting a positive picture of a terrible player. Nate, I am disappointed. Not because I care that you urinated somewhere. Mostly just because I'm not even sure how I was supposed to respond to that being the first news article that came up when I was looking for what you've been up to recently.

Goodbye, Nate Robinson. Please don't urinate on my car.

• • •

I originally had riddles at the end of each set about the next few, for people who wanted to guess who the random number generator had designated would come next. Might as well bring that back. Today's riddles for your next three players:

011: Decent rookie big man. Promising future, though like Durant, hasn't shown us much yet.
012: Suffers daily through a seething hatred for people smaller than him. Probably.
013: I'm very up on his game. A super-young point guard with an absurd amount of upside.

Until next time.

Continue reading

Today, I read two very important articles within about 15 minutes of each other. They set off an incredibly angry tirade in my head that I couldn't do all that much about, and still can't. Except write it down. Which, as millions of NBA fans everywhere are uncomfortably discovering, is virtually all we can do. We hold no leverage, no power, no pull. And while I'm not saying we should have all that much power here, there are moments when I can't help but get depressed by the fact that we have absolutely nothing we can do but wait and see what happens while borderline insane factions of owners battle a downtrodden and de-toothed player's union. Nonetheless. The first story I read, thanks to Kelly Dwyer, was a somewhat interesting exchange from the run up to the 1999 lockout.

During the mass owner-player meeting yesterday, Jordan engaged in a heated exchange with Wizards owner Abe Pollin. Jordan's showdown with Pollin and fellow Bull Steve Kerr's verbal battle with David Stern were the highlights of the 11/2-hour meeting, according to several players.

According to players, Pollin said about his fellow owners, "You just have to trust us."

Jordan fired back, saying, "You've got to trust our negotiators." Jordan also blasted owners for not bargaining in good faith in the offseason and said to Pollin, "If you can't make a profit, you should sell your team."

Sound familiar? Dan Gilbert's "trust my gut" line isn't really a new sentiment. Abe Pollin's pleading for the players' trust is just about the same, and just about as baseless. There's no particular reason to trust an ownership group who is trying to kill your union. Jordan was right for standing up to the owners. But, really -- the 1999 lockout isn't the 2011 lockout, as we're discovering. And to be honest? The owners during the 1999 lockout were clearly operating from a position of better faith than the 2011 lockout. As I discovered firsthand from this particularly infuriating piece from the New York Times outlining the demands of a certain faction of the owners. Led by none other than the league's all-time golden boy. The same person from the previous story, in fact.

A faction of 50 N.B.A. players is threatening to dissolve the union if it compromises further on player salaries. The league is facing an equivalent threat from a trenchant group of owners, who are vowing to oppose any deal that gives players more than 50 percent of revenue.

The owners’ faction includes between 10 and 14 owners and is being led by Charlotte’s Michael Jordan, according to a person who has spoken with the owners. That group wanted the players’ share set no higher than 47 percent, and it was upset when league negotiators proposed a 50-50 split last month. According to the person who spoke with the owners, Jordan’s faction intends to vote against the 50-50 deal, if negotiations get that far. Saturday’s owners meeting was arranged in part to address that concern. ...

Despite the misgivings of some owners, Commissioner David Stern has said publicly that he can garner support for a 50-50 deal and will continue pushing for it. But the longer the negotiations drag on, and the more games are canceled, it is more likely that the hard-line owners will demand reductions. That group backed an initial proposal that would have cut the players’ share to 37 percent (from 57), eliminated guaranteed contracts, rolled back current salaries and imposed a hard salary cap. The league has since dropped those demands over the objections of those owners.

This is a lot to digest. So let's start at the top. The picture I started this post with is a photo of Michael Jordan's house. Jordan bought that house in 2010. It's worth $12.4 million dollars -- $4.8 million for the land, $7.6 million for the construction. It's highly likely that my net worth over my entire career will be less than this house he built, using money he earned as a player and as an icon. And that's quite his right. What I don't think is quite his right is demanding that players submit to completely fucking insane draconian proposals. Jordan always had his brand behind him, and from the time he took off in the NBA, he essentially was set for life. Jordan was never a middle-class NBA player -- a star from day one, all things considered. But he didn't let that stop him from fighting for the players in 1999, and helped the players get a deal that was -- frankly -- the best deal any professional athletes had in any league.

Now? It appears that Jordan has pulled a Harvey Dent. He has lived long enough to not only become the biggest villain we've seen in this lockout, but to become a grotesque caricature of one to boot. A villain who demands the players' unconditional surrender with no recompense, despite the fact that not less than 10 years ago he was among their ranks. A villain who would rather endanger the legacies and careers of dozens of young stars with a lockout that lasts not just months, but years than accept a deal that lets the players save face and protect their sport for future players. You couldn't write a better comic book villain here. You may not remember when the owners released their original proposal -- nobody paid it much attention, because it was fucking crazy. The rollback of all current salaries? No guaranteed contracts? A rock-hard punitive cap, and a reduction of the player's BRI share by TWENTY PERCENT? No way any owner actually thought that was reasonable, the story went. There's nobody on the owner's side who's that crazy. That's the equivalent of walking into a new car lot, demanding a Mercedes for a nickel, then being flabberghasted that they won't sell you the Mercedes for five dollars -- after all, you've made some SERIOUS concessions. Nobody could possibly demand that in good faith. Right?

Oh. Wait. It looks like Jordan's batshit crazy competitive desire doesn't just apply to basketball. It doesn't just apply to the obsessive way he approaches gambling. It doesn't just apply to his rude, cantankerous, and altogether inappropriate Hall of Fame speeches. It also applies to the way he does business. And unfortunately for NBA fans, Jordan has finally latched onto the one place where he CAN do business this way -- if Jordan ran a business in a competitive market and made demands like this, nobody would work for him, and he wouldn't be able to be quite this insane and still pull a profit. But the NBA isn't a competitive market, it's a cartel. The owners have a monopoly on the only professional basketball league in the country -- there's no ABA to go to, no backup plan for the players. It's NBA or bust. And if the owners want to be pathetic racists a la Donald Sterling, the only person who can really do anything about it is Stern. If the owners want to be money-grubbing crazy people like Robert Sarver, nobody really can bat an eye. And if the owners want to demand insane concessions and cry foul at the players for trying to preserve their livelihood? Well, looks like nobody can even say much of anything.

After all, he's God disguised as Michael Jordan. Right?

Continue reading

So, according to our friends at Public Policy Polling, Aaron Rodgers has a 89% approval rating in Wisconsin, to go with a 4% disapproval rating and 7% having no opinion. These are, according to them, the best favorability numbers they've gotten in any poll they've ever conducted. As a statistician I don't find that particularly hard to fathom -- Aaron Rodgers has the ideal mix of being a franchise cornerstone coming off a magical season and unexpected playoff run in the most popular sport in America. He's nice, nonconfrontational, and beloved.

The poll did raise the question with me, though -- what athletes would match it? That is, are there any athletes on earth with Rodgers' combination of widespread love and widespread knowledge? That is -- anybody with 90%+ approval and 7% or less nonresponse. Given how relatively neat and simple the line seems to be, I shall hereby refer to it as "the Rodgers test." It is the test of an athlete so beloved and well-known that they could outpoll God in their sphere of influence. But what's a test without some cold hard facts? For your consumption, I revved up the Poll-O-Matic 3000 and decided to pose the question with the power of instant and unbelievably accurate polling -- could any random athletes who came to mind beat Aaron Rodgers? My brilliant, groundbreaking, publishing-quality results follow.

Disclaimer: None of these are real polls. At all. They are canon, though.

• Manny Pacquiano: 87% approval, 2% disapproval, 11% no opinion (n=242 adults in the Philippines)

  Clearly, Manny is hurt by the lack of knowledge the general populace has of boxing. If only he played something popular, like Rugby, or Checkers, or Chess -- then he would truly pass The Rodgers Test.

• Manu Ginobili: 85% approval, 7% disapproval, 8% no opinion (n=467 adults in Argentina)

  I'm getting word that Manu's 7% disapproval comes from confused Argentinians who thought we were asking about Manchester United. I... whoops. My bad. The Poll-O-Matic has some kinks to be ironed out, Ray Davies style.

• David Robinson: 94% approval, 1% disapproval, 5% no opinion (n=145 adults in San Antonio)

  I looked at the results for this one. The 1% disapproval comes from David Robinson himself, who gave the interviewer a two hour sermon on how disappointed he would be with himself if he were to ever give himself credit he felt he was not due. It changed the interviewer's life and he converted to Christianity on the spot. Anyway, good job David.

• Michael Jordan: 85% approval, 16% "too cool" for an opinion (n=26 hipsters in Chicago)

  Wait, what? Poll-O-Matic, what the hell kind of a sample size is that?

• Roger Mason Jr.: 1% approval, 84% disapproval, 15% shot themselves immediately (n=40 adults in New York)
  

  Oh sweet Jesus what have I done.

Continue reading

As one of our mainstay features, Aaron is writing posts highlighting every single player in the NBA. Role players, superstars, key cogs, or players who are barely as useful as ballboys -- none are exempt from the prying eyes of our readers. Check the index for a lowdown on order, intent, and all that jazz. Today's player is Kevin Durant, a player important and interesting enough to warrant his own long post.

• • •

[007] Durant, Kevin

Originally, this post wasn't really all that long. Durant was actually the fourth player when I originally rolled these out, and his post was about 300 words long, if even that. I didn't really see myself getting through 300+ of these if I wrote long ones back when I started, so I tried to keep my first dozen or so extremely short. Now that I'm going back over them, I'm extending some of the early ones that didn't quite get their due. Durant's up, and he deserves a better post than I wrote before. So let's talk some Durant.

First off, I think it bears repeating that Kevin Durant is 22 years old. That's young, even for basketball players -- there were only 56 players in the league younger than Durant last season, and only 15 starters younger than he is. He may be entering his 5th season, but he's got quite a few good years left. How good? Well, according to Chris Palmer, he's basically the fast track to the hall of fame. After all, a top fiver at the age of 21? Pretty great. Via twitter:

thechrispalmer
Six Best 21-year-olds ever (Revised list): 1. Kareem 2. Kobe 3. LeBron 4. MJ 5. T-Mac 6. @KDTrey5
9 hours ago

Something about this seemed wrong to me, though, after last season. So I looked at the numbers to see where all of them ranked all-time among seasons at the age of 21. Here's a table showing the 10 best 21 year old seasons, by win shares. Perhaps that'll shed some light on why I felt somewhat uneasy with signing on to that.

=========================================================================================
============================ TOP NBA SEASONS BY WS AT AGE 21 ============================
============================================ FG% STATS ========= PER GAME ===============
.................... YEAR ... GS MP ..... FG%   3P%   FT% ... PTS   TRB   AST ... WS/48 .
1  Shaquille O'Neal  1994 ORL 81 3224    .599  .000  .554     29.3  13.2  2.4     0.252 .
2  Kevin Durant      2010 OKC 82 3239    .476  .365  .900     30.1  7.6   2.8     0.238 .
3  LeBron James      2006 CLE 79 3361    .480  .335  .738     31.4  7.0   6.6     0.232 .
4  John Drew         1976 ATL 77 2351    .502  .000  .744     21.6  8.6   1.9     0.216 .
5  Michael Jordan    1985 CHI 82 3144    .515  .173  .845     28.2  6.5   5.9     0.213 .
6  Kobe Bryant       2000 LAL 62 2524    .468  .319  .821     22.5  6.3   4.9     0.202 .
7  Adrian Dantley    1978 TOT 79 2933    .512  .000  .796     21.5  7.8   3.2     0.199 .
8  Andrei Kirilenko  2003 UTA 11 2213    .491  .325  .800     12.0  5.3   1.7     0.199 .
9  Tim Duncan        1998 SAS 82 3204    .549  .000  .662     21.1  11.9  2.7     0.192 .
10 Tracy McGrady     2001 ORL 77 3087    .457  .355  .733     26.8  7.5   4.6     0.189 .
=========================================================================================

First off, the omission of Kareem is no error whatsoever. Kareem didn't play in the NBA at age 21. I suppose you can make the argument that his 1969 UCLA season was worthy of being put on this list, but that's somewhat outside my pay grade, given that he won that title when my father was entering college. And I'm assuming Palmer primarily has him there because he saw 21-year-old Kareem in person. Frankly? Kareem doesn't get enough love. So I'm fine with that. I'm more interested in the players I've seen, so I'm going to glance over Dantley and Drew. First, Durant at #6 is reasonable, if not low. The omission of Shaq and Duncan, both of whom were great on D their first few seasons and single-handedly guided their franchises from irrelevant seasons to fringe contenders, is a bit jarring -- very for Shaq, less so for Duncan, who was amazing (and whose D makes him top 5 or 6 easily) but not quite legendary yet.

Overall, looking simply at age 21 numbers, Durant is perhaps underrated by the stats and team record aspect of his performance -- he had an amazing 2010 season, becoming the youngest scoring leader in history on decent percentages and nigh-legendary free throw form. His defense was lacking, but other than Kobe, so was everyone else on the list. Kobe's defense, by the way, might not really be enough to push him to two -- yes, he won a ring that year, but he only played 62 games because of injury, shot less than 33% on threes, and in general rode beast-mode Shaq's coattails to that particular ring. Not all three, but 2000's title? Yeah. If I had to make my own top five list, after looking at this? I'd still omit Kareem due to my lacking NCAA knowledge and my lack of having seen any footage of Kareem at that age. I'd say the five best 21 year old seasons are Shaq, LeBron, Durant, Jordan, Kobe, Duncan. I didn't watch Jordan's, Shaq's, or Duncan's all that extensively -- but I've seen games from those seasons and I know how they played as they age, and I think I have a reasonably good sense of how those numbers would work with each player's skillset. And that would seem to undermine my general thought that we should stop short of naming Durant our savior. Until we look at the same table for seasons played by 22 year olds, that is.

===========================================================================================================
============================== TOP NBA SEASONS BY WS AT AGE 22, PARTIAL TABLE =============================
============================================ FG% STATS ========= PER GAME =============== CHG from 21-22 ==
.................... YEAR ... GS MP ..... FG%   3P%   FT% ... PTS   TRB   AST ... WS/48 . ( WS/48,   RK) ..
1   Chris Paul       2008 NOH 80 3006    .488  .369  .851     21.1  4.0  11.6     0.284 . (+0.109, + 12) ..
5   Shaquille O'Neal 1995 ORL 79 2923    .583  .000  .533     29.3 11.4   2.7     0.230 . (-0.022, -  4) ..
6   Dirk Nowitzki    2001 DAL 82 3125    .474  .387  .838     21.8  9.2   2.1     0.224 . (+0.101, + 36) ..
9   Tim Duncan       1999 SAS 50 1963    .495  .143  .690     21.7 11.4   2.4     0.213 . (+0.021, +  0) ..
12  Oscar Robertson  1961 CIN 71 3032    .473        .822     30.5 10.1   9.7     0.210 . (     --     ) ..
13  Derrick Rose     2011 CHI 81 3026    .445  .332  .858     25.0  4.1   7.7     0.208 . (+0.108, + 50) ..
15  LeBron James     2007 CLE 78 3190    .476  .319  .698     27.3  6.7   6.0     0.206 . (-0.026, - 12) ..
16  Dwight Howard    2008 ORL 82 3088    .599  .000  .590     20.7 14.2   1.3     0.200 . (+0.043, +  8) ..
17  Kobe Bryant      2001 LAL 68 2783    .464  .305  .853     28.5  5.9   5.0     0.196 . (-0.006, - 11) ..
22  Kevin Durant     2011 OKC 78 3038    .462  .350  .880     27.7  6.8   2.7     0.189 . (-0.049, - 20) ..
24  Tracy McGrady    2002 ORL 76 2912    .451  .364  .748     25.6  7.9   5.3     0.189 . (-0.001, - 14) ..
26  Lew Alcindor     1970 MIL 82 3534    .518        .653     28.8 14.5   4.1     0.187 . (     --     ) ..
===========================================================================================================

So now I see it. With the exception of a few players that took stratospheric jumps their sophomore season, these are the players we saw before. This isn't a strict top players list -- the number to the left is their actual rank among all 22 year old seasons. I took out some for readability, and added a differential. For the most part, it's chalk -- Shaq, Kobe, and LeBron all got worse. Duncan was the only member of the top six to get better. Dirk, Rose, Paul and Dwight take pretty huge jumps to enter the top 20. And Durant? Durant got worse, moreso than anyone else on the list. He didn't exactly fall off a cliff -- he was still a star, and he went from a very solid 30-8 with great percentages kind of prime Dirk pure scorer to a 28-7 player who took more shots for less return, turned the ball over more,and didn't improve on defense. Which isn't bad. It's still a franchise table stake. And he led them to within three games of a finals, which is better than the Sonics ever were with Ray Allen. So it's impossible to say he's a BAD player, strictly. His last season, rather, just revealed him to be an incomplete player.

Which leads me to my basic point. We don't really know what Durant is going to show us, yet. His season at 21 was one of the greatest 21 year old seasons in history. There's not much to refute that. But he fell back to the pack last year, hard. His game is primarily built around getting easier shots than most volume scorers due to his height and length. He isn't a great passer, he is a substandard rebounder (though, to be fair, has thus far stepped up his rebounding incredibly in the playoffs, indicating he may just whiff on it in the regular season to conserve energy), and he doesn't have many go-to moves yet. While many of the players with great seasons at 21 had some fallout when they turned 22, Durant's is both more statistically concerning and more noticable when you simply watched him play. He looked like a star, but an incomplete and unfinished one -- whereas he went into the season a serious MVP candidate he left the season as an afterthought. After his lights-out performances for Team USA (which Alex and I discussed in great detail in an earlier blog project) it looked like he was on the fast track to being a legend.

But at the moment, he really isn't one. He's one of the 10 best players in the league, sure, but he's closer to 10 than 1. And the gap between a player like Durant and a player like Dwight or LeBron now looks a lot more massive than most of us are comfortable admitting. The general consensus seems to be that we're a step short of anointing him to the hall of fame. Really? I don't think so. I think he's got a ways to go. And given that he's by all accounts the nicest and most humble superstar the NBA's had since, well, ever? I'll be rooting for him to be a legend. I'll be rooting for him to be Kobe's killer instinct with Dwight's playfulness, LeBron's talent with Dirk's folksy charm. I'll be rooting for Durantula to be as great as we all imagine him to be. But I'd caution you from thinking he's already there. Given how we tend to look at him, it isn't much of a stretch to say that we see Durant only in his possibilities and potential -- his demeanor and his talent demand it so.

But the journey is half the battle, and I'm pretty sure Durant would tell you the same thing.

Continue reading

In celebration of our personal opening night, we're going to try the good try to make up for the NBA's lack of one. We're going to make it up to you by posting three full classics of NBA matchups of the teams that WOULD have been playing on opening night, if the season's schedule hadn't been scrapped. Here's game #3: a reprisal of a rivalry so old that few fans remember it existed.

This matchup is the Hakeem Rockets versus the Stockton-Malone Jazz, this time for all the marbles. And there were a lot of marbles: Yes, their only 90s titles came from the Spurs and the Rockets. But the Western Conference also included two of the greatest Finals runner-ups in the history of the game in the 1997 and 1998 Jazz, two teams featuring all-time centers, some great Portland teams, the Barkley Suns, and some amazing Sonics teams. In short: quite a few marbles, even if Jordan kept them from winning the rings to show for the marbles they had in abundance. This metaphor is getting confusing. Let's watch some hoops. This post is formatted like a retroactive liveblog. Simmons-style.*

*We have nothing else in common with Bill Simmons...Well, except all these footnotes.

• • •

Click here for the full game in 12 parts on Youtube, courtesy of patvilhauer.

This retro-liveblog begins at the half, because this is somewhat hard to coordinate, and it's our first time doing this. We're also very wordy. A four-quarter liveblog would most likely be all too long to be read by anyone. As is, it's a bit much. But hopefully you can find something out of it anyway. Read on!

THIRD QUARTER (Time is in time remaining)

12:00 - Coming out of the half, the Jazz came in with a magical lead -- they got a three off Jeff Hornacek making a great play to get off the shot with less than 0.7 seconds left, and in fact left the game on a 10-0 run. It's pretty incredible watching the Jazz at full speed. And then, immediately coming off the half? Hakeem seems to get injured. That's not good. No, my green-texted friend, it is not. That's Alex, by the way. It's not easy being green, but somebody has to do it.

7:32 - Turns out Hakeem's injury was only a funny bone thing. We got the diagnosis from Utah's designated "funny bone guru." I love the Delta Center. Hornacek the last few minutes makes me think that any player in the history of the league could've put up 200 assists per game in John Stockton's place. He's making some fucking insane shots. Yeah. Also, Jeff Hornacek looks like Data. Antoine Carr looks like Geordi Laforge with his visor. I guess Sloan looks like... Patrick Stewart, yeah... But who would Worf be? <Six paragraphs omitted> Yeah...we don't have to add this all to the live-blog, I think.

3:09 - The Big Men are starting to take over, even more than they already have been. Most of the offense is going through Hakeem or Malone either as starters or as finishers. In a memorable sequence, Hakeem made a beautiful full-court outlet to Kenny Smith, who was stripped right under the basket and recovered by Malone for a 20-second T. Malone has been showing his knack for cross-court passes through double-teams and his impeccable patience and timing that allows him to draw infuriating fouls in the midrange. As Drexler's sweet shot fades (the curse of the rhythm shooter), Hakeem is continuing to demonstrate his mastery of the midrange jumper that - along with his amazing footwork, defense, and passing abilities - made him so dominant for this stretch. Both Malone and Hakeem are getting to the line a good deal - announcer points out Dream's elbow as a possible factor in Hakeem's passivity. At one point Olajuwon missed a rebound and the Jazz eventually got 1-2 Malone FTs on the second chance. On the next possession (where we are now). _Malone just set up Hornacek on a beautiful cut for a dunk. The Jazz are opening a solid 8-point lead almost literally on the differential between Malone and Hakeem in this period._

1:51 - So, Utah is actually beginning to take a huge lead at this point -- Rockets haven't made a field goal in almost four minutes, and the Jazz are getting whatever they want. Things are looking rather grim here for the defending champs. No threes are going down. So the Rockets finally wake up and feed Hakeem, who beats up Antoine Carr with a great fake and spin, but his basket is ruled out as a foul. Didn't matter much, as the Rockets beat their slide with some free throws. Ballin'. The Jazz offense follows with a BRUTAL possession, but like many Jazz possessions in the 90s, it didn't matter in the least, as Karl Malone makes a brilliant rainbow J and renders the preceding offensive incompetence completely irrelevant. I read somewhere that Hakeem would often begin his drop step in midair, so he could get an extra spin on opponents. Watch the move right here for an example of that -- the basket is waved off, but he manages to dropstep in midair while catching it, and spins without traveling. This is amazing. Prime Hakeem is seriously unfair, when he's on.

0:00 - Okay, dude, this is absurd. Apparently the Rockets have gotten only two points from their bench at this point of the game. Literally three quarters in with only a deuce from the bench? That's... wow. Unfathomable. I mean, I've watched this game, and I have no idea how that happened. Partly it's because Rudy didn't go strong to the bench. And partly it's because, I mean, shit -- their bench is horrible and is completely shrinking from this game. Thoughts, my greenly feathered friend? None. I'm still stuck on Hakeem's move at about 40 seconds where he caught the ball in the middle of four defenders and still made the bucket. That's a Shaq/Duncan move. That's insane. Yeah, uh, as you said before -- literally unfair. Still. The Rockets bench has two points, Hakeem and Drexler have combined for 50 in three quarters. The Jazz have 71 to the Rockets' 64. And I honestly have no idea how the Rockets are going to go about trying to win this game. Yet. The Jazz are pretty thoroughly outclassing them, though they aren't up as much as they should be.

FOURTH QUARTER

10:27 - Oh. That's how. Drexler just made a few clutch free throws, then after a similarly awful offensive possession for the one I mentioned earlier from Malone, the Rockets just chuck it to Hakeem. Who proceeds to brutalize two defenders and make an incredibly tricky over-strong bank shot that had to be aimed perfectly or it wouldn't have had a shot at going in at all. Hits nothing but net. Life is easier when you have one of the greatest centers of all time on your team, it appears. Rockets now only down five. There's an exit strategy possible, now. They just need to pretend there are only two players on the floor on the offensive end.

9:44 - Malone has 16 ft attempts. He's not a bad free throw shooter, but I'm starting to think hack a Shaq should be Malone's namesake. Because it seems like the Rockets simply give up on all attempts at letting Malone beat them from the field at some point. Also, a Miller Draft Genuine Playoff Moment. This is so surreal.. I... I don't even know what to say about that. You have to see it to understand. I don't get why this was shown. I don't get why I'm alive. I simply do not understand. Nor do I. Antoine Carr is inexplicably beasting right now. _Make that Geordi Laforge, Ensign. _That was fucking terrible. Noted. (Alex: I'll just leave this here)

8:03 - Can you even call timeout in midair anymore? I don't think so, but even if you can, who the hell would do that anymore? Manu has to be the only one, I'd think.

6:22 - Totally unrelated, unnecessary aside -- Mario Elie was hilarious on the 1999 Spurs - The Spurs consisted of all these intellectuals and enigmatic cast-offs, and Mario Elie called them out midseason, saying, "I never get my daps from them. We never chest-bump. I've never been on a team that chest-bumps so little.," which is only a mild paraphrase. Anyway, since he's on the Rockets and he's not named Hakeem, he's... a 3-point dagger shooter that can swing the ball around the perimeter well. Yeah. This whole Rockets team style is reminiscent of the 2009 Orlando Magic, just with a better array of chuckers and a better staple player. Don't forget, though, Elie was money in the playoffs back in 94.

5:18 - Hornacek is the Icarus of the impossible. He goes way too close to impossibility and burns in mid-airball._I don't know what that means, but I'm pretty sure I agree with you. 82-75 Jazz, currently. Hakeem misses two huge free throws. Big problems for the Rockets -- they have time to get back into the game, but they need to stop giving up Hornacek threes and... oh god... are they playing the Rocky music??? Oh my god, I think I'm in love with the Delta Center. Someone help me. I refuse. Still. Both teams have turned to a penetration and kick-out game. Of course, when your frontcourts feature Karl Malone or Hakeem Olajuwon, that's not so much of a change as you might think. You know, because they can both penetrate and hit midrange shots. Kind of physical freaks, really._

3:50 - I'm 90% sure that the Jazz arena is simply 100% devoted to erasing beautiful Olajuwon shots. He's made at least 5 shots this game that were somewhat unremarkably removed from the record by the refs, replaced with free throws he has quite a bit more trouble with. Still. Very annoying. Hakeem makes some pressure shots regardless, followed by Drexler going nuts and getting full-court. This is pretty fucking awesome. Also, Hakeem puts in so much more than is recorded in the box score. It's too bad so much of it is disqualified by fouls marginally assessed before the fact.

2:31 - Benoit has had the last 4 shots for the Jazz. In a related story, the Jazz have put virtually nothing on the board in those offensive possessions, and are sitting on a 3 minute scoring drought. Hm. I wonder if there's some connection between the Jazz not getting the ball to any of their good offensive players and their offense suddenly vanishing. How strange. Drexler makes a clutch free throw, then misses one. The Jazz are up one. They are playing "Surfin' U.S.A." on their PA system. The Delta Center is my new true love. Sorry Kathryn. Surfin' U.S.A. being the infamous Beach Boys rip-off of Choke Berry. The Jazz are choking, is what I'm trying to convey here.

1:51 - Stockton takes an awful shot -- he's been absolutely brutal this game. Rockets suddenly have the lead, and suddenly, Hakeem makes a tough fadeaway to put the Rockets up 3. With how the Jazz are scoring, that may be insurmountable. Yuk yuk yuk. Just as I say that, Malone finally gets the ball in a position to score and does so over Hakeem's great defense. Game isn't quite over yet.

1:03 - ARE YOU KIDDING ME DID THEY JUST ERASE ANOTHER HAKEEM SHOT.

0:42 - Hakeem is just dominating every possession for the Rockets. Malone hit a clutch turnaround over Hakeem, but technically I don't think you can call it clutch if you choked to make it necessary. Still, it was a nice shot. Almost as good as one of the last 5 Hakeem possessions. Robert Horry tackled John Stockton on the next possession. Wait. I mean Hornacek. Yeah. That was Hornacek. I realize he looks like a tall, old, disturbing Stockton... but a man's gotta have his standards, dogg.

0:15 - Suddenly, Rockets up 4. Then... a Malone three? What the fuck kind of a crunch time play was this? I don't mind the Stockton-Malone Jazz, but dear god. They played like champions up until the 7 minute mark of the fourth. Suddenly, they became a completely incompetent broken team that couldn't do a damn thing. This is just absurd. They draw a foul and make both shots -- but now there's only 15 seconds left. The exact same thing happened with the Mavericks over the Jazz in 2001. Absolute choke. I mean, yes, they're facing legendary offensive players in both cases. But come on, their offense completely falls apart. It's not like their offense should be affected either way by clutch. They do pick and rolls and penetrations, both with a lot of options. Sloan had them practice their offensive positioning thousands of times. He is legendary for that. Did he plant a time bomb in Karl Malone? Does he secretly hate Karl Malone?

0:09 - Okay. Game over. Jazz have 87, Rockets have 92. Realize that the number was 82-75 less than 6 minutes ago. The Rockets closed the game with 17 points, the Jazz 5. That's pretty, uh, awful. And I don't like piling on from our last points, but the time bomb thing is exactly what comes to mind. Stockton is great at running an offense, and Sloan is a great coach, but Malone and Stockton simply seem to fall apart at the end of games -- WHY, though? I have no idea. I don't even have a reasonable theory.

0:06 - As if to mock me, the Jazz make a miracle three to make things interesting.

0:00 - ... and promptly lose the game. Goodnight, sweet Jazz. Lost by 3, in the end. Fought a good fight, too. Apparently, Barkley believes that the Suns can't beat the Rockets in a seven-game series. I guess he's not even a role model....for compulsive gamblers! Ah ha ha ha....(the Suns of course lost to the Rockets, who won the title that year). (Alex: I'm such a zany humorist).

Conclusion (Alex):

No one can question the physical toughness of John Stockton and Karl Malone. For the much better part of two decades they had arguably the best conditioning in the league. They played despite Stockton's occasional horrible injuries (he sprained his ankle in the first quarter of this very game and later fell down from a slight screen). He played spot minutes with the Dream Team despite a broken leg. Malone endured the slings and arrows of the post for twenty years. Yet in this, possibly their most important game to date (Malone in the first half calls it "the most important game for the franchise") they played high-caliber, if-not-brilliant-then-brilliantly-effective basketball that was creative on individual and collective levels. And then, seven minutes before they were to take on the '95 Suns for their trouble, Stockton and Malone - for all their brilliance and conditioning - collapsed like balsa wood in ugly offense that shined a light on mediocre defense. There is no obvious explanation for this - and they've done this before with leads: completely choked offensively against superior offenses right at the end of the game. It's just kind of strange, I guess: The only reason we question their mental toughness specifically is because their physical toughness is so axiomatic.

For the Rockets, not much more need be said: Hakeem's dominance in this series on both ends would blossom even further in a staggering march through the West and then against the Magic as Houston held the throne for one more year. Thanks for reading and watching along on the opening day that wasn't - but was still just as time-consuming and interesting for those of us here at the Gothic Ginobili.

Postscript: Here's a similar nostalgic take from The Dream Shake back in March.

Continue reading

In celebration of our opening night, we're going to try the good try to make up for the NBA's lack of one. We're going to try and make it up to you by posting three full classics of NBA matchups of the teams that WOULD have been playing on opening night, if the season's schedule hadn't been scrapped. Here's game #2: the chill zombies of Seattle vs a star-studded Lakers team.

When I noticed that OKC was playing on the opening night that was not to be, I had a short debate with Alex as to whether we should restrict our search for games in the last few years where the franchise was actually in OKC (and games from when the Hornets were in OKC) or just open ourselves up to Seattle in hopes of using some actual classic games. It didn't take all that long for us to decide we'd extend our search. After all, what kind of a classic is a 2010 playoff game, really? Nonetheless. The game we have for you may not actually feature OKC, but it's still a pretty great one -- it has a still-rookie Magic, a still-spry Kareem, a still-ballin Dennis Johnson, and a still-underrated Gus Johnson. It also was the clinching game of the eastern conference finals, with Kareem doing what Kareem did in clinching situations.

Click the jump to watch the full game on Youtube (credit to lakeptic), with my "expert" commentary.

• • •

Click here for the full playlist with all 12 parts of this game.

When the game begins, the first anachronism lies in the announcing team -- namely, that it includes Bill Russell. And don't get me wrong. This is a great game. For the basketball, yes, but most of all for the fact that Bill Russell is part of the announcing team. I mean. Really. I can't overstate this. You have Bill Russell, doing color for a clinching game in the old LA forum. Really. Is he good? Not really, in the usual sense of the word. Though he's entertaining, witty, and soft-spoken -- not necessarily what you'd usually expect out of a color guy, but for some reason, it works. I don't think it'd work for any other commentator, but for Bill Russell? It just works. Hearing him compare every other Kareem play to something he did is pretty hilarious, too, and overall it's a worthy try as a big-game commentator. I wouldn't watch an old game just to watch, say, Kevin Harlan (a tried and true murderer (not really)) commentate, but I can't say I would be opposed to watching an old game simply to watch Bill Russell commentate it. He brings something to the games most color guys don't in this day and age. And that's worth something.

It's also worth something to stare longingly at his tendency to give the Lakers literally zero credit for anything they succeed at doing on the court -- the game begins, on this note, with Russell essentially predicting that the Lakers will lose the series if they lose tonight's game, despite holding a 3-1 series lead, because "Seattle can't be beat at home" (Russ: Seattle had already lost two games at home in THIS SERIES) and "anyone can win a game seven" (Russ: YOU NEVER LOST A GAME SEVEN IN YOUR LIFE YOU ARE THE SINGLE LEAST LIKELY PERSON TO SAY THAT). It's kind of hilarious. Also hilarious is the awkward attempts the other announcers make at talking with him -- he clearly is not comfortable with them and dislikes them. A lot.

So, actual basketball time.

You know the showtime Lakers. But the Sonics? Who are they? For lack of a better word, they're an incredibly scrappy team. The team you see here are the defending NBA champions despite having only one HoF player in an aging Dennis Johnson, and few particularly generation-defining players beyond him. They hawk the passing lanes quite well, and they take full advantage of Magic's occasional over-passing. They're GREAT at penetrating, and their offensive sets use every player on the floor -- the difference in styles between these Lakers and these Sonics is huge. Whereas the Sonics play a five man offense where you don't know who's going to be scoring (though Gus Johnson is a strong "the world is falling apart and we need a basket" option, for this game only), the Lakers essentially give Magic and Kareem the ball on every possession and give them the levity do something with it -- the other players on the floor are, for this year, little more than agents to catch passes, take shots, and establish pivots.

On that subject: Kareem is amazing in this game. Absolutely splendid. His fight on the boards, his offense, his shot blocking -- it's great. He had 3 blocks in the first 7 minutes, seriously. It's hard to find fault with Kareem's game, too much. He dominates on offense, runs the Lakers' offense, and runs up the floor like a gazelle. He had some great weakside blocks, some great pocket passes, and multiple "only Kareem could do that" type shots. But given the way I composed this paragraph so far, there's a caveat. And it's rather big. It's his defense. Honestly, it isn't nearly as good as I was expecting. Despite his legendary blocking ability, the Sonics were getting virtually anything they wanted inside. As it turns out, if Kareem doesn't block your shot, he doesn't even try to contest it. He's a great shot blocker, so that's still a relatively valuable contribution, but his general intangibles on defense are honestly pretty poor. He uses his size poorly on defense, and gets caught sleeping on defense way, way too often.

And LA's other defenders? All pretty poor. Seattle took advantage of LA's poor interior defense all night long, first by faking out Kareem and then by taking advantage of a two-cut strategy -- one Seattle player would cut into the lane, the LA bigs would all collapse on them, then while they were out of position because they were ball-watching, another guard would cut in, recieve the ball, and either get an open shot for himself or one of his teammates. It seemed like almost every play of the first half featured some variation on this whenever the Sonics were having any trouble getting an open shot -- even Bill Russell commented on it, as well he should. The problem? The Lakers were infinitely more talented than the Sonics, and cut their (reasonably good) defensive schemes to shreds on the other end simply with Magic and Kareem (easily the best player on the 1980 team, no offense to Magic) outworking and outhustling every Sonics defender. There are some benefits to having two all-time players on your team. Even though their defense was, again, pretty poor.

Perhaps the best play to demonstrate the Lakers' general malaise on the defensive end is this gem -- here, Magic throws an absolutely spot-on fully guarded cross court pass to Kareem, resulting in a surprisingly not wide-open (but open enough) jam for Kareem. Instead of rushing back on D, or cutting off the pass, Kareem throws his arms up and entices the crowd to cheer louder. The Sonics take advantage of Kareem ignoring them to throw an unguarded cross halfcourt pass, which is immediately flung to a cutting Sonic. This tends to summarize the defensive style of the Showtime Lakers pre-Worthy -- borderline GOAT play on offense, distracted and disinterested defense as they struggle to do basic defensive tasks like "pay any attention at all." Or "apply a modicum of focus to preventing the cutter from entering the lane." Or "full court anything."

But really? This team had Magic entering his prime, Kareem still in his, and a borderline decent supporting cast. What the hell else was going to happen this game? The Sonics were a good team. DJ is a hall of fame player. But while they were a good defensive team, no defensive-oriented team short of "all-time great team starring Moses Malone or Hakeem Olajuwon" was going to deny Magic and Kareem when they were both in prime playoff form. The only way you were going to beat the Showtime Lakers was by having players who could outscore Kareem and Magic and shutting down the Lakers' tertiary pieces. The second wasn't hard to do. The first? Come on, now.

Long story short? Alex got the brew, I got the chronic depression. Also, the Lakers beat the SuperSonics.

Continue reading

Hey, everybody! Tonight designates the official unveiling of The Gothic Ginobili, the premier basketblog about hoopsketball on the internet. This is primarily because there is nobody else who calls themselves a "basketblog" and hoopsketball is not actually a sport that exists. The NBA has cheated us out and refused us the sanctity of our beacon league's opening night, so we're trying to fill the gap by making our opening night a spectacular simulation of the actual opening night. In doing so, we'll be reposting three great full classic basketball games between the matchups the NBA robbed us of from the night, some fun features, and enough content to entertain any depressed NBA fan who comes across us tonight.

Here's the starting five for tonight's content, with all times in ET.

• 8:00 PM: Chicago vs Dallas, 1996 -- a regular season game where MJ and Pippen run roughshod on a bad Mavs team propped up by an impossibly good young Jason Kidd. Presented by Alex.
• 8:45 PM: The Worst Halloween Ever -- a story about Tim Duncan's failed attempt at dressing up as a psychopath for Halloween, completely foiled by the sad fact that Tim Duncan can actually read. Presented by Alex.
• 9:45 PM: Lakers vs Supersonics, 1980 -- game 5 of the 1980 Western Conference finals, where a young Kareem shows off how unstoppable he was at his prime while simultaneously demonstrating why the pre-Worthy 80s Lakers were nowhere near as good as the 90s Bulls despite having two top 10 players in the history of the human race. Presented by Aaron.
• 11:00 PM: Utah vs Houston, 1995 -- a playoff matchup between two bitter rivals in a rivalry nobody seems to remember existed. Hakeem vs Malone. Stockton vs Drexler. Texas vs Utah. Rick Perry vs Mitt Romney. Wait, not that last one, belay that. Presented in a retro-liveblog by both Alex and Aaron.
• 11:30 PM: Player Capsule #7, Kevin Durant -- To end the night, an example of what happens when I get far, far too in depth with a player capsule. Long story short: they turn into advanced scouting reports, legacy considerations, and reflections that totally go beyond the scope of the project. Not like I don't enjoy writing them, though. Presented by Aaron.

Glad you could join us. Hope you like what you see, and hope you chance to stick around!

-- The Gothic Ginobili staff (AKA Alex, Aaron, and the mop in Aaron's closet)

Continue reading

"Tonight, the Texas Rangers of Dallas, Texas won the World Series."

... Except for the part where they didn't. Explanation time. I wrote those words at roughly 11:41 PM, EST. The Cardinals were coming up for their last half inning. The Rangers were up 2, and had Neftali Feliz coming out -- a closer who, like Valverde, makes you sweat a little but reliably gets his three outs about as well as anyone. And yes, he certainly made it interesting. Struck out The Riot to get the Cards down to two outs, gave up a double to Pujols, walked Berkman, and got Craig on a nasty pitch. Then he got David Freese out to his last strike. Cards still down two. So I looked away from the TV and continued writing my post.

Whoops. With the game suddenly and without warning tied, I put down the computer and watched the game. Within 10 minutes, the Rangers had once again built a two run lead in the 10th on a clutch Andrus single and a Hambone homer. And once again, I picked up my computer and continued to add things to this post -- I was intending on posting it last night, after all. And once again, in the bottom of the 10th, the Cardinals were down to their last strike, and pulled out a clutch Berkman hit to tie the game and send it to another inning. But the Rangers' magic was gone -- they wouldn't score again, while Freese would proceed to blast Mark Lowe's fifth pitch of the game into the stands to make Lowe the game's loser and to force a game 7 that looked completely inconceivable not but an hour before. And made this post almost completely irrelevant, where it will only become useful if the Rangers win the world series tonight -- a tough thing to call.

... Whoops.

• • •

Let's start from the top, I'll get back to the Rangers later. I root for teams like the Browns, Indians, and Cavs, and I often find myself lumped as simply a Cleveland fan. A blank-slate advocate of the Cleveland losers. But that’s not really true. Each of those three franchises means a very, very different thing to me. Their mythos and history has a different impact. A title in any sport would have some kind of a meaning to me — just different ones. I am a fan of all the franchises, but I’m not just a blank slate who views each teams in exactly the same way. The teams are, simply put, entirely different things. And while the similarities may be jarring, when they’re different sports, it’s pretty hard to make any kind of a “look at these similar teams, look at these Cleveland fans” equivocation with a straight face knowing how completely differently I personally view the different teams that make me a “Cleveland Fan.”

What does this have to do with the Rangers? Well, I felt like it’d be decent to write a post about the similarities between the 2011 Dallas Mavericks and the 2011 Texas Rangers. In a broad sense, the Rangers and the Mavericks are in similar positions right now relative to their history. The Mavs were, historically, a broken team deep in Texas that never got anything done in the playoffs. The Rangers were the same. The Mavs went through a period of turbulence and change under a hotshot new owner that was willing to spend for talent and didn’t like to take losing for an answer, and came out of it with a two finals appearances and a title. The Rangers were the same (belaying the title part — after losing this game, I have sincere doubts that the Rangers are going to win it this year, but that’s a story that hasn’t been written yet). The Rangers would’ve won the series in six after falling behind 2-1 in the series in a set of three games that could’ve easily been 3-0. The Mavs, well, you know the deal.

There were a lot of alluring subtexts to latch on to, and a lot of interesting similarities. It certainly warrants a post. But I couldn't get far in the post because I realized that on a visceral level I take issue with this narrative. It's for the same reason I take issue with the "Cleveland fan" meme. I feel that making that sorts of equivocations about two very different Dallas teams inherently disrespects people who, like me, may not really give a flying fuck about one of the teams in question. The idea that the two teams weren’t just two great teams that happened to be in the same city, but two wayward franchises on the exact same eldritch path to success. It's the same problem I have with lazy writers calling Cleveland sports teams perennial losers or calling Boston a winner’s town. To compare the Rangers and the Mavericks on a basic level and note their similarities and the way they’ve both turned their franchises around is one thing, so long as you continue to respect their individual identities as teams. But to go farther, to haphazardly conflate their narratives into one combined mess? That’s another story. There's nothing that really legitimizes the practice of describing all of a city’s franchises in a simple “this city’s a loser, this city’s a winner!” sort of way. Which is exactly what most of the journalism highlighting these franchises has done.

The Mavericks’ title was a Dallas title, and their title will forever be a part of Dallas’ sports lore. But it’s the Mavericks’ title first and Dallas’ title second. And were the Rangers to win a title -- theirs would be a Rangers title first, a Dallas title second. No real connection other than the city, a few overlapping fans for whom the franchises still mean very different things, and the magic of journalism. A few specious comparisons make for some interesting analysis, but it's not really all that valuable -- even if it may have the potential to be the enduring storyline among sports journalists, it's not what the fans will remember, and it's really just not what's important.

In the end? Really weren't all that similar after all. Fancy that.

Continue reading

As one of our mainstay features, Aaron is writing posts highlighting every single player in the NBA. Role players, superstars, key cogs, or players who are barely as useful as ballboys -- none are exempt from the prying eyes of our readers. Check the index for a lowdown on order, intent, and all that jazz. Today's batch includes Antawn Jamison, Glen Davis, and Carl Landry.

• • •

[004] Jamison, Antawn

For more on Antawn Jamison, see Aaron's player preview at Fear the Sword.

I don't really know what to say about Antawn. He's a class act. Really really nice dude. Watching interviews with him is usually heartwarming and he seems like a genuinely awesome, humble man. When the Cavs got him, I wasn't obscenely excited, because I always thought he was a tad overrated, but I was really glad I'd get to root for a class act like Antawn on my favorite team. A character guy like that? On that stacked Cavs team? Awesome. I thought. Then I had to spend a few games watching him. And let me just say: never again will I assume watchability based on personality. EVER. Seriously... I don't even know where to start. When he was on the Wizards, I didn't pay all that much attention to him. It was mostly all Gil, or Caron, or whoever the Wizards were playing. And rooting against them. Antawn always rather faded into the background for me.

But when he's playing for your own team you end up watching him pretty closely. And when you do that, you discover a lot about Antawn. And post-discovery? Christ, do I hate him. Not a single more frustrating player in the league, though Anthony Parker's chuck-friendly game comes close sometimes. Tawn's game is an amalgam of everything I dislike about modern NBA bigs -- big men thinking they have infinitely more range than they do (attention Antawn: you aren't a three point gunner no matter how many times Austin Carr sings his praises for your three-ball shot, get the hell inside), big men refusing to get position and lock down rebounds (I'm not exaggerating when I say that Antawn Jamison is the worst player at completing a simple box out in the entire league), and big men who cannot defend anyone (his defensive incompetence was bad before Cleveland, but the 2011 version of Antawn Jamison was a bold new talent in allowing every single opposing big man to score billions of points every fucking night). You'd know if you watched more than 50 of the 2011 Cavaliers' games. Which I did. Torturously. Jamison was without question the least enjoyable player to watch, night-in and night-out.

Do you remember that whole Yi Jianlin vs the world his team's chair debacle? The chair's defensive acumen is far beyond Jamison's. He is an actively horrible defensive player whose defense quite frankly GIVES the opposing team buckets. The man can't play within any defensive system with any success. There's a reason he's never been past the second round, you know. And this all isn't to say that he doesn't have some really nice pieces to his game -- the main one worth talking about is his ridiculous command of banking angles and his ability to get acrobatic, sideways roll shots through the hoop better than mostin the league. Because he does have that, and it's pretty cool to watch him make those crazy shots a few times a game. Sometimes. But there are so many goddamn flaws, you know? His game is the epitome of an empty lottery team stat-padder, which is a shame, because as dude he's a stand-up guy and it'd be pretty cool if his game matched the quality of his character. I'd feel a lot more sorry for him if I hadn't watched the 2011 Cavs. Now I just feel absolutely horrible for anyone who has had to consistently watch this guy over the course of his career. Yeesh.

• • •

[005] Davis, Glen

Glen Davis isn't a great player. But he's boisterous, high energy, and entertaining -- all the requisite pieces to be a fan favorite and an overrated fan-loved tertiary piece for a contender. He's a minus defender on his fundamentals, but he makes up for it by being dependably in the right place and taking a lot of charges. His offensive game has seen a lot of turbulence in the years since he entered the league -- Davis has transformed from an inside player to a big man whose J is essentially his only weapon. To wit, examine a small table I cooked up. %SHT indicates the percentage of his shots that came from that range, and FG% is how well he shot from the range on the shots he took.

========= AT RIM ======= JUMPER ====
....... %SHT   FG% ... %SHT   FG% ..
2008    0.61  0.54     0.39  0.33 ..
2009    0.33  0.59     0.67  0.40 ..
2010    0.48  0.52     0.52  0.37 ..
2011    0.30  0.63     0.70  0.39 ..
====================================

See the pattern? Essentially, Davis spent his rookie year trying to be an at-the-rim player. He only took 37 jump shots in his entire rookie season. The next year, though, he began to lean heavily on his improving jumper and for the most part quit forcing things in the post. That pattern has held relatively constant going forward, which is where the crux of his value comes into play. Davis is an extremely poor rebounder on both ends of the court (though he's a better offensive rebounder than a defensive rebounder), he's not a great man defender, and he isn't a reliable back to the basket presence. But he hustles, he can make a midrange shot when Rondo gets him open, and he sets decent screens. He knows the Celtics playbook and most likely has about 2-3x more value for them than he does for any other team in the league. So I'd normally think he'd be a lock to get resigned by the Celts once the lockout ends. Not positive that happens, though -- Davis has been sort of a jackass to the Celtics organization since the playoffs ended, and has confusingly stated that he wants to play starter's minutes (which... he's already playing for the Celtics, actually) and that he wants to get back to "Glen being Glen" instead of giving up his game for Boston's stars. So he may be heading out when the lockout ends. Personally, I don't think that would be such a bad thing for Celtics' fans -- I get the sense most of them think more of Davis than they should, and have visions of him as their big of the future. News flash: no. And that's all I have to say about that.

Off the court? I'm not one to talk about NBA players being dumb. Frankly, I think most athletes are given a horribly raw deal by a predominantly white media collective that loves to talk down to their intelligence and assume they're little more than mental midgets. Most NBA players are reasonably intelligent, and while we rarely consider it, the smarts it takes to master the mechanics of a basketball-playing body to become a good defender or a good shooter would be a significant mental asset if applied to any other field. What's more, modern NBA players tend to be businessmen, and while they hire people to help them out at the end of the day NBA players are making big decisions with large sums of money. Tim Duncan wrote a published thesis on the psychology of interpersonal reactions to excessive egoism. Steve Nash is a marketing genius who makes more money in a year on marketing than most people will ever make in their lives. Stephon Marbury may be a headcase, but even he built a more successful business operation than 95% of the world is capable of building. Intelligence isn't just how book smart you are, and NBA players have a lot of business intelligence, marketing acumen, and -- yes, Mr. Simmons -- plenty of intellectual capital to spare. Just because they have muscles doesn't mean they don't have brains.

Having said all that, Glen Davis strikes me as being, well, sort of dumb. His twitter is one of the most incomprehensible streams of idiotic babble this side of Dejuan Blair (a player I love, but who strikes me as a bit lacking in smarts). He's a funny guy, sort of, if you like humor like that -- me, personally, I always feel like I'm laughing more at him than with him, which makes me feel a little sad because I'm positive that's not his intent. Still. His relatively low mental faculties do lead to some funny quotes. Like the aforementioned "Glen being Glen" quote, in which he refers to himself in the third person not once, not twice, but five times in the span of three sentences:

“I just want to make sure I’m Glen Davis wherever I’m at. I think I can be Glen Davis wherever. It just depends on the system, the people around the system, who’s going to let Glen Davis be Glen Davis, not make Glen Davis something they think he should be.’’

That much third person is quite an accomplishment, really. If you're honest.

• • •

[006] Landry, Carl

Man. This dude fell off a cliff. He's been rather poor the last year and a half. Though, it wasn't always this way. In fact, at the time Kevin Martin got traded for Landry, I actually thought Landry was the best player in the deal. I was then proven so incredibly wrong it's hard to fathom how I ever thought that -- while Kevin Martin was an all-star quality player last year, Landry was barely replacement level. If even that. Regardless. We know how that turned out. Back in Houston, Landry was a 6MotY type burst scorer off the bench. He had an eldritch talent for drawing free throws, a decent post up game if he can catch his defender off balance, and a knack for snagging the contested offensive rebound to try a putback. He had a good sense of space on defense and although his size (extremely short for PF or C, his natural position) puts him at a disadvantage in a lot of cases he's decent at getting past his size. He uses his size to impose a quickness advantage versus the usual big men he faces -- in doing so, he becomes a tough individual defender, as his man can't regularly drive past him or lose control of the ball for fear that he'll hawk it.

The negatives? Well, first off, all that described his Houston game -- after he went to Sacramento, he became a tentative and nervous player who played passive on offense and rarely used the efficient burst scoring that made him an effective sixth man in Adelman's schemes. If he's not playing with a decent point guard who has some chemistry with him and can set him up with easy baskets, he tends to play as though he's having a bad night and eschews shots in order to keep out of the core offense. He's also a terrible help defender -- while he covers for his own size-challenged defense by funneling his man to the help (hence why he was so effective playing alongside Emeka Okafor, a great help defender) he gets lost on rotations and has trouble following guards. His biggest flaw, though, isn't any of those things -- it's his rebounding. He is quite possibly the least interested rebounder in the league, on the defensive end. While he's on the court, expect his man to get plenty of offensive rebounding opportunities -- he doesn't have the size to box out nor the will to contest, most of the time.

So, overall? You get a poor rebounding, undersized big man who doesn't have the ability to create his own offense or stay aggressive unless he's being set up by a guard he has a lot of chemistry with. Not a particularly good recipe for success. When he's on? Very efficient. Great sixth man. But not really a great player. Off the court, though, one has to give their due -- Landry is tough as nails. In mid 2009 he got shot in one of the stranger attacks I've heard an NBA player have to go through -- his car got slammed into on a city street, and when he got out to survey the damage and trade insurance information, the occupants of the offending car got out, shot him, and sped away. They only got his calf, but Landry was in a relatively remote location and ended up walking several miles to find help. With a bullet in his leg, and a dislocated finger from the accident. Pretty amazing, really. He also came back to the court less than three weeks after being shot, which is absurd as hell. Knock his game for how badly it has fallen off since his Houston days, but give the man his due -- dude is tough as hell.

• • •

To conclude, one last Big Baby quote. This time on the subject of why Big Baby hates Kobe Bryant.

“He just pisses me off on the court. You stress him out and he might speak some Spanish to you and you’re like, ‘What are you talking about?’ I know you’re from Italy or somewhere, but his charisma and just the way he’s so poised, it just gets under my skin.”

Continue reading