For our inaugural post for our "Shades of Willis Reed" feature, I was planning on doing a post about one of the league's injury-ignoring resident badasses (most likely Kobe or Manu). Then I was looking through my player capsule stuff and realized that, given the feature isn't primarily about injury and more just about moments where a player simply does something undeniably awesome, I had a perfect anecdote to start the feature off with right under my nose. Our starting player? Not a well-known star or an injury-prone fighter, no. He's not even a regular starter, or a well-known player. But he is the subject of one of my most impressive personal basketball anecdotes, and that's all you really need to make this feature. So without further ado: today's post is about Ty Lawson.

Spoiler alert: I went to Duke. Not my favorite place in the world, not the best three years of my life, but I did go there and I did go to a bunch of Duke games. I halfheartedly rooted for our basketball team while I was a student (though hated the team before I went there and currently find myself relatively neutral on it) and actually don't particularly care about the UNC rivalry. Most likely because my girlfriend currently goes to UNC. And I have a lot of friends at UNC, enough so that I can't in good conscience hate the university with the requisite vim. So, that's me. A Duke alumni who doesn't really care about UNC. That's odd.

Still. Going to Duke, you get a lot of funny rivalry stories over the years. This one is probably my favorite. At Duke, you need to tent if you want to make it to the Duke vs UNC game in Cameron. Tenting involves living in a tent for several months with a few of your friends to hold your place in the ticket line for when the free student tickets get distributed. I was never a crazy enough Duke fan to tent for a ticket to Duke vs UNC, but one of my good friends was exactly that crazy. In fact, his group started tenting virtually the second you could start it. They actually ended their winter breaks early to come tent. That was how crazy it was. As it turned out, he was just crazy enough about it to end up being in the front row, on game night. Right at the edge of the section behind Carolina basket. Easily visible for most of the game. It was pretty sweet. He got all dressed up, and the cameras regularly would drift to him as they went off to commercial breaks.

The game started out well enough -- I was watching in the common room with a bunch of other friends who didn't intend to tent for tickets, and we'd cheer every time we saw him or anyone else from our dorm in the crowds. We were leading pretty big as we approached the end of the first half. Given that Duke was a fringe contender that year and UNC was one of the greatest teams of the last decade, it was a big accomplishment. But there's one moment that I distinctly remembered. The camera drifted to my friend right as he started yelling some not-particularly-safe-for-work stuff at some UNC player who happened to be walking by. We all got a laugh out of it.

UNC proceeded to make a huge run and went to the half with all the momentum as Duke clung to a single-digit lead. UNC ended up dropping 57 points in the second half and blew Duke out in Cameron Indoor, becoming the first team in 9 years to score triple digits against Duke and winners of four straight on Duke's home court -- making Hansbrough and Green (both seniors) two of only four players to win four games at Cameron Indoor in their collegiate career. They joined Rusty LaRue and Tim Duncan. Yes, Virginia, THAT Tim Duncan. Pretty wild. Anyway. Suffice to say, we got the stuffing kicked out of us.

I saw my friend later that night and didn't want to say anything. He was sad, angry, and disappointed. There wasn't much that would console him, and I felt like saying something would only needle him. But... well, don't ask me why -- I don't remember -- but I decided to throw all that to the wind and ask, because that image of him yelling at one of the Carolina players was stuck in my head.

"Man, who were you yelling at before the half?"

"Wait, you saw that?"

"Yeah. You were on TV."

"Dude... it was Lawson. I was yelling at Lawson."

"Wait, what? He scored, like, all of his points in the second half."

"Goddamnit, don't remind me, I know. We'd just scored and we were up by 15 or something and I yelled some catcalls and stuff, and someone else followed up with some shit about his mom. He looked back at us, grabbed the ball, drove down the court, and crushed all our guys to get an easy layup. He was staring at our corner all the way down the court. Next time Coach K called time, he walked up to me and basically told me I was a bastard from a shit school whose shit talk had guaranteed we'd lose. He told us to go fuck ourselves, and said that after he dealt with us he'd be laughing all the way to the NBA. Then he laughed at us while we stared at him and walked back to the bench. Then you know what happened. Twenty one fucking points in the second half. Ran the offense like a pro. And every one he scored, he catcalled the crowd. Kept looking at us and laughing. He was having a great time. Nobody could stop him. It was the worst fucking thing. Now I feel like I cost Duke the game and ruined our season. How the fuck do we come back from a loss like that?"

(He did. Duke bowed out early that year.)

• • •

At the time, this story made me greatly dislike Ty Lawson. With the benefit of time and separation from college ball, however, I now see it as a pretty amazing story about a great point guard who put the team on his back and actually did something about the kids who were mussin' on him. Honestly? Good on you, Ty Lawson. This story is badass as fuck and if it wasn't UNC vs Duke I would've recognized that long ago. Shades of Willis Reed up in here, in fact.

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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. For the starting five, we'll begin with Joakim Noah, Shawn Marion, and John Salmons.

• • •

[001] Noah, Joakim

Joakim Noah – starting center for the Chicago Bulls, and starting stoner in the hearts of NBA fans everywhere. Widely known because of the fact that he’s incredibly and hilariously unattractive, NCAA hoops fans would remember the fact that he won back to back titles under Billy Donovan at Florida. People who actually watch real grown-up basketball (just kidding, NCAA fans -- sort of) would remember the fact that, when healthy, Noah is among the best help defenders in the league. He's also surprisingly competent offensively – Noah doesn't have that many moves, but he's quick, huge, and rather good at establishing position. For all the dap he gets over his solid defense, Noah is also a relatively underrated cog in the Bulls offense, too -- his pivot passing really smooths out the holes in their offense when things are going well. Which wasn't very often under Vinny Del Negro, but as last season showed, things go well quite a bit more often when you aren’t, well, coached by Vinny Del Negro. For much of last season, Noah was actually more important to the Bulls' offensive flow than he was to their defensive flow.

He's also way more fast than a dude as ugly and large as him has any right whatsoever to be -- if you watch him stride down the court, he is actually fast enough to outrun the majority of the bigs in the NBA. This was made explicit in the classic Bulls vs Celtics series from 2009, wherein Noah had 3 or 4 hilarious fast break dunks where he shocked the world by taking the ball up the floor. If Thibodeau ran more fast break plays, and Rose was better at outlet passes on the break, he could establish position and score a great deal of points on the break. As is, though – he’s a very good player. Great defender, though perhaps a tad overrated – while he’s a great help defender and among the league’s best, he’s a not-particularly-special man defender and his overall impact on the Bulls’ team defense was a bit lessened last season both by Noah’s constant injuries and the Bulls’ bench bigs breaking out with some unexpectedly great defense. When you're backed up by Omer Asik and Taj Gibson, your defensive contributions are less noticeable.

If he can stay healthy sometime in the next 3-4 years I believe the Bulls will have a serious shot at another 65 to 70 win season. Which is pretty odd – the Bulls are suddenly really well-established for the future, and given the shitshow that Chicago underwent over the past decade, that’s strange to me. I've gotten sort of used to the Bulls being a bit of a punchline and having them go from "may challenge for a marquee free agent" to "oh my god they got Boozer sorry Chicago" to "...wait, they're still elite? What?" in the course of a season surprised me a bit. I would say, though, that his injury history has to be considered in any appraisal of Noah’s present and future value. And given it? He may very well be the most expendable core starter going forward for the Bulls. Ignoring Boozer because Boozer’s contract is absolutely untradeable, look at the Bulls' core pieces. Luol Deng’s durability has been questionable over his career but if last season is any indication he has a better chance of being an iron man going forward than Noah. He’s also far less tradeable, as his contract (fairly or not) has Luol seen around the league as a giant financial anchor. Rose is the franchise cornerstone. Taj Gibson and Omer Asik are both extremely young and talented bigs that were dependable and grew as the season went on – I’d be very hesitant to trade either if I were Chicago, especially given the price they've got their services at for the forseeable future.

For a team that absolutely positively NEEDS an upgrade at shooting guard and a second scorer to take the pressure off Rose, Noah may be their best bargaining chip. They’ll be drafting in the bottom ten for the foreseeable future, so lottery talent is going to be unavailable. The Bulls are, frankly, a pretty poor drafting team historically anyway. (Though you have to give them dap for Taj and Omer. Still. What they need is a miracle trade that retains Noah and trades their pu pu platter of awful off-guards with every draft pick they can possibly give up away for someone like George Hill, Courtney Lee, Delonte West, or any strong young guard talent. That sort of a trade isn't going to happen particularly often, though, and it's doubtful any team in the league is going to bite on that. The best chance they have at upgrading their two guard is probably to part with Noah. Which may seem like a steep price, but building a championship team is hard, and when you're a player away and you have a deal to get rid of one of your repeating pieces for that piece, you usually have to consider it. Outside of his game, though, Noah is generally known for -- yes -- being kind of a stoner and having a really hot girlfriend (you can google the pictures yourself if you really want to). He's also incredibly outspoken. In 2010 he said Cleveland sucks. As someone who roots for the Cavs and whose mother's family is from Cleveland this basically eliminates ability to root for Noah, ever.

So, screw you too, Noah.

• • •

[002] Marion, Shawn

Shawn Marion, starting small forward for the Dallas Mavericks. Shawn Marion is most famous for the fact that his shooting motion has and always will be a strong contender for the most awkward and hilarious shooting motion in the league. He basically crosses his legs, pops up like Michigan J. Frog, and has this ridiculous hitch in his release that's pretty much impossible to describe. In fact, just go watch it. Seriously, look at this. It's fun to watch.

In his heyday, Marion probably should have been known for more than his hilarious shot. He was by far the best defender on Mike D'Antoni's 55+ win Phoenix teams in the mid 2000s, and basically was tasked with defending players of any position on a nightly basis to cover for how D'Antoni never had a clue how to operate his teams on the defensive end. Opposing team's best player was a point guard? Whatever, D'Antoni would stick Marion on him. A center? Stick Marion on him. Shaq in his prime? Stick Marion on him and cry yourself to sleep as you lose by 200 points. Granted, those Suns teams royally sucked on defense, but they were never absolute last in the league, and some weren't even in the bottom 10. Given D'Antoni's limitations? That's a huge accomplishment. And that was basically entirely thanks to Marion's work, as seen by Phoenix's imploding pretend-defense after he left.

One thing that's worth noting and rarely gets mentioned by the commentariat who use Gentry's performance with the post-D'Antoni Suns as evidence that D'Antoni isn't as clueless as Gentry on defense is that D'Antoni's departure and Marion's departure came at roughly the same time. Gentry isn't good at coaching defense, don't get me wrong, but the fact that Gentry has done a worse job with the Suns roster on defense than D'Antoni ever did isn't a credit to D'Antoni, it's mostly a credit to Marion's ability to cover up for D'Antoni's defensive incompetence and his rather awesome ability at his peak to defend every position on the planet. Not necessarily amazingly well, but that versatility was an integral part of the run-and-gun Suns and deserved a lot more recognition than he got for it.

Regardless. Now he's more of a past-his-prime journeyman, but he's got some skills. In the Mavs' magic run to the 2011 title, Marion was a key low post presence who was one of the main beneficiaries of Kidd's remaining passing ability -- he has great chemistry with Kidd, who has Marion's Dallas offense better than it was in Miami by leaps and bounds. Still. His defense has fallen off quite a bit, which detracts from his value a lot. He's not a insanely big factor anymore on D, as he was in his prime, although he did do a reasonably good job on LeBron in the finals. I'd say he did better, but I don't think he was a factor on LeBron as much as LeBron was a factor on LeBron. If that makes sense. So that's Shawn Marion. You can also call him "The Matrix." You know. If you're an asshole.

• • •

[003] Salmons, John

John Salmons was the starting shooting guard for the Milwaukee Bucks last year. He was to be again, until the Sacramento Maloofs decided that they really really wanted to move down in the draft to acquire the glorious talents of John Salmons. Which... might rank as the most idiotic draft day trade I can remember in a while. Seriously. The Kings moved DOWN in the draft in order to acquire a chucker with poor shooting numbers who likes to think he's really swag but who actually kind of blows. They also gave up Beno Udrih, a decent stopgap point guard who has a lot of value as a bench guard. For John friggin' Salmons.

Salmons, though? He's basically the epitome of a contract year player. He plays really well right up to when he has to sign a contract, at which point his shooting percentages magically fall off a cliff, his decisionmaking falls to about 1st grade levels, and his demeanor on the court goes from desperate and high energy to a sort of "fuck you got mine" kind of aimless shot-hogging style that torpedoes his teams more often than not. His defense is abhorrent regardless of whether he's in a contract year or not. He'll occasionally make "big" shots, but frankly, he takes so many of them it's less of a skill and more of a "he has to make a few, right?" proposition. More often than not, Salmons will simply chuck his way to oblivion. He is named after a fish because he is not a crab. I don't actually know what I just said, but I'm not going to delete it, as pressing the backspace key to erase that sentence would take more effort than Salmons puts in for the first two years after he signs a new deal.

I'm just gonna leave it at that.

• • •

That's all for now. More tomorrow.

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As a regular lockout feature, we will be highlighting old masters through a series of classic NBA games in our Eye on the Classics series. For our first featured game, I'll be taking a look at Bernard King's classic 60 point bomb in Madison Square Garden during one of the few successful seasons in a long and rarely noted career.

As a statistician, I'm always one of the strongest proponents of the idea that the average fan vastly overrates the importance of a volume scorer on a contending team. Rebounding, passing, and lockdown defense are all roughly as important as volume scoring -- in a vacuum. But even the most curmugeonly among us (Berri exempted) can't deny the sheer joy a basketball fan can find in a virtuoso scoring performance. Players who end a game having scored over half their team's points in an altogether dominating fashion are, at the moment they take their leave of the court, the most important thing a basketball player can be. They're the franchise. At least for a game. They vindicate their decision to regularly dominate the ball, again, at least for a single game. And they captivate us. They get our attention, no matter how negative we are about their skills.

In short, scoring may not be the single most important thing a player can do on the court. But it is, without question, the most electrifying. And Bernard King, bless his soul, exemplifies it. This game in particular. Like all record-setting or challenging performances, this one didn't really start with any particular fanfare. A lot like Kobe's 81. King misses his first several shots and actually fades badly in the second half, enough so that the Nets win the game despite his outburst and despite the Knicks being one of the four best teams in the league that season. But the failures are important for our purposes -- his misses allow watchers of this game the levity to properly examine King's offensive game, as well as differences in the general offensive strategy in the 80s compared to today.

The first observation I had when I watched the full game is that King's offensive game would fit just fine in the modern NBA. He can finish with both hands smoothly, and would still be one of the best in the league at that today. His shot is wet as a newly beached seal. And, perhaps most importantly, he draws free throws like an absolute boss. In an era with less whistle-heavy refs, no less. The announcer says he's the most physical offensive player in the leauge in the 80s. I don't really have any players off the top of my head that would refute that opinion. One comparison I think is at least somewhat apt is that King is the Melo of his era. Pretty easy to see where it comes from. First, obviously, both are Knicks and both are borderline franchise guys. Their offensive games are somewhat similar -- both extremely physical in the post, but with a smooth enough midrange shot (both long and short) that both are a serious threat from any spot on the court inside the three point line. Even the best defenders can't really do much against either of them. Play them close? They'll outmuscle you and get to the hole. Lay off? Silky midrange stepback in your grill. It's tough. The best way is to force them to ballhog and turn it over.

Not particularly difficult to do, if one's honest. But still.

Where King separates himself from Melo is in the fact that he basically takes everything Melo does and does it a bit better. Where Melo puts no effort in on the defensive end, King puts a bit of effort in -- he isn't a great defender (just watch his decisionmaking in the second half if you don't believe me, it's atrocious), but you can't really say he's really lacking in effort on that end if he puts in even a modicum of effort in such a lights out offensive performance. He's a marginally better passer, and beyond that, has a markedly better sense on how to get his teammates into the game than Melo does. King's general quality as a player at his peak shows in how different his peak playoff record is from Melo's current grind. In Melo's prime, he was the best player on a talent-rich Pistons-esque Nuggets team that went to a WCF after beating a straight up bad Mavs team and a wildly mediocre and broken Hornets team, only to get subsequently crushed by the Lakers. Who were, quite frankly, barely even trying until the finals.

King, though? Just look at this game. The Knicks team featured here ended up pushing the would-be champion Celtics to 7 games in the second round after upsetting Isiah's Pistons in the first round. Both of those are all-time great teams, with the Pistons a year away from becoming a serious title contender -- the argument could easily be made that King's Knicks were the 2nd or 3rd best team in the league in 1985. Very hard to make that argument about any of Melo's teams, and despite that, Melo had far more talent. Bernard King's teams were all extremely bare in the cupboard when it came to supporting casts around his scoring, whether in defense or tertiary scorers. The great tragedy of his career is how, like many mid-80s stars, it got derailed by injury. A devastating ACL injury, as a matter of fact, that made him miss almost 3 seasons and sapped him of the majority of his explosiveness. While King came back from the injury and eventually was a productive player again (making him the first major pro athlete to return to his sport from an ACL tear -- a big triumph for medicine) he was still never quite the same. Which is a shame. In an era filled with high scoring wingmen (see: Adrian Dantley, Mark Aguirre) King was one of the better ones. And his injury was a ridiculous shame.

One last thing I'd like to mention. While you can get a sense of King's scoring from the video above that highlights all of his scored points, you don't really get a sense of what a game in Madison Square Garden was like in the 80s. And I think that's worth looking at, if you ever see an 80s Knicks game on TV. Madison Square Garden is essentially the most famous arena in the country -- so called mecca of basketball and all that. And I think it's worth asking... why, exactly? Why not the Forum? Why not the Boston Garden? Why, exactly, is MSG so special? It isn't the Knicks, honestly. They've been an irrelevant team more often than a contender over the last 30-40 years. The Forum and the Garden are both more historically relevant. This game gives a bit of insight into why MSG is so revered. The 80s crowd that MSG draws is nothing like any other regular season 80s game I've seen. The crowd is into it and rocking. But I find it sort of funny that despite how nice it is compared to other 80s games, the crowd honestly pales in comparison to the crowds that are drawn by big games nowadays. There's a tendency to exalt the past as some incredible time when every game was rocking and people "really" followed the NBA, unlike today's contrived arenas and poor crowds.

But honestly, a big game at any arena across the country would give you a similar atmosphere to the 80s MSG now, which is less a mark of how poor the 80s MSG was (it wasn't) and more a mark of how far the NBA has come in improving the crowds and the customer experience. MSG deserves its place in NBA lore, don't get me wrong -- as I said, this game is probably the most rockin' of any game I've seen from the mid 80s, and being one of the better arenas in terms of crowd coverage over the course of NBA history is undoubtedly worth something. But with the Knicks franchise being somewhat irrelevant over the course of most post-1975 basketball history and the majority of MSG's lore coming from boxing, college hoops, and New York's incredible streetball culture I don't think it's particularly accurate or reasonable to call it the mecca of basketball persay. New York? Sure, maybe. But MSG itself? It's an institution in and of itself, above basketball or any particular sport. The arena has its own mythos quite separate from the NBA -- it would be nice if TV announcers started recognizing it instead of going with the intellectually lazy conflation of New York's basketball culture with MSG's singular mythos and the almost entirely unrelated New York Knicks.

That's my two cents, anyway. It was a fun game. I really hope King makes the Hall of Fame sometime soon.

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