As our summer mainstay, Aaron's writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. Intent is to get you talking, thinking, and appreciating the myriad of wonderful folks who play in our favorite sports league. Today we continue with Hasheem Thabeet, Rajon Rondo, and Baron Davis.

• • •

Follow Hasheem Thabeet on Twitter at @HasheemTheDream.

Has Hasheem Thabeet succeeded? I find this a more interesting question for Thabeet than I do for most players. If you're looking at it from the right context, for most players, the answer is usually an unqualified affirmative. Few NBA players could make the sort of money they make in their sport elsewhere. Few NBA talents come from wealth -- by playing in the NBA and entertaining millions, they've made more money than they'd have possibly made in their lives, and opened their lives up to a plethora of new experiences they wouldn't have otherwise had. They work on their game for years and years, spending untold hours in the weight room and keeping their bodies in peak physical condition to play a beautiful game for a discerning audience. You get to be one of the several hundred greatest-on-earth at the game you love, and you get to live a ridiculous lifestyle. How cool is that?

On the other hand, you have players like Hasheem Thabeet, who have been tarnished with the label of an eternal, bottomless bust. A seven foot stiff that "wouldn't be in the game" if it wasn't for his height. A failure on the court, if nothing else. Thabeet was drafted at 2nd overall, and it's worth noting that even at the time this was seen as something of a reach. For instance, Bill Simmons called him "either a homeless man's Dikembe Mutombo or a rich man's Keith Closs Jr." Not exactly sparkling praise. People weren't really sure what to make of anyone past the first pick in the 2009 draft, and while it's true that Thabeet has disappointed relative to his draft position (I count at least 25 players selected after Thabeet that have up-to-now had better NBA careers), it's hard to really argue that at the time Thabeet was any especially hyped up or expectation-laden second pick. He was just an overdrafted player that nobody expected huge things out of. This is what bugs me about the concept of a "bust." We're necessarily decoupling the player from his humanity and turning him into a concept -- some sort of icon for severe disappointment.

Look, Thabeet is reasonably good at basketball. He's no amazing player, but he's proven to be effective in limited minutes as an off-the-bench change of pace for numerous teams. He was decent in college, if not sea changing. On next year's Thunder, I expect him to play 7-10 minutes a night and be instrumental in a win or two for one of the finest teams in the NBA. It's not great, but hell -- look at where he came from. Thabeet comes from Tanzania, and is actually the first ever NBA player from his country. He'll finish his career having made around $20,000,000 in U.S. dollars -- given the current exchange rate ($1.00 U.S. dollar = 1,572 Tanzanian Shillings as of August 29th, 2012), Thabeet may very well be among the 10 richest Tanzanians in the world! Only by decoupling Thabeet's broader life can we really come to the conclusion that he's some kind of a failure. He may not be as great an NBA player as we'd like him to be, but it's not like he's dramatically underperformed the already-low expectations he had coming in. And relative to his background, he's done some pretty amazing stuff. That's context that I think is essential to grasp Thabeet's place in both life and the NBA, and to understand what makes him interesting. Even if he's a veritably penniless man's Dikembe Mutombo. (Which he basically is. Reasonably good call, Simmons.)

• • •

_Follow Rajon Rondo on Twitter at __@RajonRondo._

Let's say I'm examining an NBA player. He's Team #1's primary man in the middle -- he played 2,838 minutes in the season we're focusing on, over 70% of the minutes available for the team. No other big on the team came remotely close. Let's say the team he plays for is a winning team -- in this case, a team that just made a conference finals! It's a really good team, but not a great team. Now, let's say Team #1 has a rather... unique way of winning games. They rated out over a full season as the 23rd out of 30 teams, defensively -- offensively, however, they were #1 with a bullet. Absolutely dominant. But their defense? Hide the children, seriously. Team #1 barely ever forced turnovers, and while they kept teams to a league-average field goal percentage, it didn't really matter that much when they can't get a rebound to save their lives. It was bad. Even though they were 23rd of 30, they were barely a point out of 25th in the league. It's rough. Very one-sided team. The thought process would generally lead to some element of blame. Some aspect of "hey, Mr. NBA Center, please play better defense. This is your fault." You look at their offensive dominance and wonder just how incredible the team would be if the center could really play defense.

What I just described was the situation of Amare Stoudemire and the 2010 Phoenix Suns. The Suns were a good team, but not a great one. And there was a strange, surreal ceiling to the Suns teams that featured him. He was fated to carry them offensively but disappoint defensively, and always bore the brunt of the blame for the Suns' constantly failing defense. After all, he was the big man. Controlling the defense is the primary responsibility of a team's largest player -- that's as close to gospel as you can get, in this sport. So, I present this question to you. If we're going to blame a primary big man for a team's defense consistently failing, why don't we blame the primary playmaker for a team's offense consistently failing? That question -- and the implications thereof -- brings us to today's main player. I don't want to bash Rajon Rondo, because I think he's a wonderful player to watch. Some call him immature -- I'd simply call him a loveable weirdo who doesn't seem to take the media too seriously. His oddness is refreshing, and while I doubt I'll get too far into it today, I highly recommend checking these videos out. Rondo is great, in a lot of ways.

But let's get real: at what point does Rondo need to bear some element of responsibility for Boston's abysmal offense? Don't cut corners -- the Boston offense is exactly that. The Suns defense I described finished as the 23rd worst defense in the league. Boston's offensive rating in the 2012 season tied the Wizards and Pistons as the 27th worst in the league. Relative to league average, it was significantly worse than the 2010 Suns, and among the worst ever to make a conference finals. If we're divvying up "credit" for the Suns performance, I don't know how you point out anyone but Amare. He was the primary defender on all those blown coverages. Amare's reputation has always included as an asterisk his defensive failings -- it's always included his inability to properly cover, and the odd habit he's got of being the primary defensive center on teams that are abysmal at defense. That's just part of the package. As for the Celtics' awful offense, how do you really point to anyone but Rondo as the catalyst? There isn't a single team in the league with the offensive weaponry of the Celtics in their stratosphere of offensive teams -- they had a 40% three point shooter, one of the best midrange big men in basketball, and a still-potent, efficient, volume-shooting wing. And various nice pieces off the bench, too!

It isn't that Rondo's a bad player, at all, but this is an honest to God curiosity for me -- why is it that basketball fans as a collective pillory big men whose teams are defensively suspect but completely excuse point guards who helm demonstrably bad offenses? The Celtics' offense is the epitome of drudgery. It's "give the ball to Rondo and let him do everything." He creates a lot of decent shots, but not a surfeit of great shots -- the Celtics offense is based around moving pieces trying to get open around a point guard who's great at passing, and taking the shot whether it's still open or not. It's a relatively uncreative design for an offense with so many good offensive pieces, and you have to wonder whether there's a better way. Rondo's passing is a work of art. It's a Dali, a Pollock, a Chavel. But in basketball, you play the game to a measure of results -- the aestheticism is compelling, and can at times be more than enough. But aestheticism shouldn't (and can't) completely erase the facts of a situation. I love watching Stephon Marbury (when he's not playing next to Duncan, obviously), but that doesn't mean I excuse the fact that he's an incredibly inefficient player.

In the same way, as fun as Rondo is to watch, you really have to wonder when people are going to catch on to the dirty little secret that underlines his beautiful game. He's a great passer, in a vacuum. But if we're assessing how much a singular player contributes to their team, it's hard to dock Rondo some for the dismal offense he's responsible for. Blame Doc some-- he deserves some for putting together a poor scheme like that around a player with Rondo's talents. But some has to be on Rondo. The idea that the Boston offense would be markedly worse without Rondo seems flawed to me -- if you took Rondo out and replaced him with a point guard that could generate more efficient offense of their own alongside worse passing like Stephen Curry or Ty Lawson, are we really saying that players like Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett would find themselves completely unable to make a shot?

The problem with assigning paramount post-aesthetic value to Rondo's passing and offense is that you are necessarily assuming that to be the case. You're saying that an offense that ranked 27th out of 30 teams would suddenly collapse unto itself, a black hole of dust and woe, if Rondo left the picture. That a team with those pieces and that bench would suddenly become the worst offense in the history of the sport. Because there's little room to fall beyond where they already are. His aesthetics are doubtlessly incomparable, and I've no problem with calling him things like the most entertaining player in the game, or the best showman in the sport. Where I find fault is when we conflate his incredible showmanship with efficient and effective usage of the pieces around him, and assign incomparable basketball value to a player whose presence isn't demonstrably sea-changing in the aspect of the game he's most attuned to impact. After all. He's an incredible player, and a very valuable piece. But the results that underly Amare's defensive failings will never leave our thoughts, and will never allow us to exogenize our distaste for his teams' defense in favor of a unbiased look at his career.

If that's the case, whither Rondo?

• • •

Follow Baron Davis on Twitter at @Baron_Davis.
__

It's rather strange to look at Baron Davis' numbers and facts to realize how little time he has left. After all, consider his age -- he's 33 years old, right now, a solid 5 years younger than Steve Nash and 6 younger than Jason Kidd. Both of those guys just got two year contracts. Unlike those two, though, Davis recently suffered what may turn out to be a career-ending injury -- he went through an exceedingly brutal injury in the 2012 playoffs where he not only completely tore his ACL and MCL, he also suffered a partial tear of his patella tendon. As Knickerblogger pointed out at the time, a tendon injury like that isn't an injury players tend to whistle their way back from -- when Antonio McDyess suffered a similar tear, he missed 72 games of the 2001 season to try and recover. He then proceeded to completely tear the tendon in the 2002 preseason and missed another entire season. Given that he's out for the entirety of the 2013 season and may still be recovering when 2014 begins, it's exceedingly unlikely Davis makes a big comeback. His numbers have been declining for years, and he hasn't really been capital-B Baron since 2008.

Still, if this is really it, what is there really to say about a player like Davis? As compelling as he's been -- the wonder of leading the 2007 Warriors to the biggest upset ever can never be taken away -- there is certainly a sense that he's left something on the table. His abysmal conditioning throughout his career didn't cause his career-ending injury, but it couldn't have helped him recover from all the minor injuries he's suffered over the years. Despite the disappointments, Davis is the 37th highest earning player in NBA history. That's a suitably absurd place for Davis to be, in-context. He hasn't been a failure, necessarily -- there have been brilliant successes in his career, and there have been awful nadirs. A bit of a disappointment in totality, but hand wringing over that doesn't erase the fact that Davis has made hundreds of millions of dollars and will likely make even more in a variety of entertaining post-retirement moves. He's a smart guy, a cerebral guy, and an entertainer through and through. If we aren't making the case that he's an all-time elite (and, well, nobody in the known universe is), that's about all one can really ask for, isn't it?

• • •

At the end of each post, I'll be scribing riddles for the next group. Whoever gets the most right will get a shout out at the end of the next post. Tweet me your answers at @docrostov, or post them in the comments. A friend of mine from work got 2/3, as did "my funeral" (?!?!?!?), and mgallop from the comments. Good work folks.

• The most famous Czech in Serbia, Player #127 has avoided making a serious impact in the NBA. (Yet.)
• He was a revelation in last year's playoffs, but I've got doubts that Player #128 can play with CP3.
• After Player #129 does anything on the court, the only reaction allowed is "CARLOS!"

I shall now prepare to be lit on fire by the people of Twitter. See you tomorrow if I'm still alive, friends.

As our summer mainstay, Aaron's writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. Intent is to get you talking, thinking, and appreciating the myriad of wonderful folks who play in our favorite sports league. Today we continue with Luke Harangody, Chris Bosh, and Sebastian Telfair.

• • •

Follow Luke Harangody on Twitter at @lukeharangody. (Warning: May Not Actually Be Luke Harangody.)

There aren't a ton of things to say about Luke Harangody. I like the Cleveland Cavaliers. I like most of the players on the Cavaliers. I appreciate their contributions to the team. But Harangody? I find it difficult to really appreciate the things he brings to the Cavaliers, primarily because I genuinely have no idea what they are. Samardo Samuels gives us a constant stream of beautiful yet incomprehensible slop to pass on to our grandchildren. Luke Walton gives us a bro, on those nights where we simply need a bro. Omri Casspi I don't need to go into again. But Harangody? He's the end-of-the-bench guy to end all guys. He's the last living soul I want to see on a basketball court. Perhaps somewhere there's someone who goes to Cavs games eagerly awaiting Harangody's presence. If that someone exists, I never want to meet them, because I feel like they're probably a bit off-kilter, and would probably kill on sight.

I'm not going to go hyperbolic enough to say that I'd outplay him (because I sure as hell wouldn't, and I'll get back to that later), but dear god, he is not an NBA player. To begin with shooting: he's one of the worst shooters (and worst finishers) ever to play in the league. Let me put it this way. Luke Harangody has made 102 shots in his NBA career. 85 of them were assisted. _In almost 1000 NBA minutes, Harangody has made 17 unassisted shots. __In total.___ Despite the gaudy assisted-to-created percentage, Harangody has shot an astonishingly low 37% from the field over his NBA career, including 24% from three point range. He makes a single three pointer for every four he puts up, and he's put up 80 in his two-year career. That's... not very good, folks. Glancing upon the other reasons Harangody's NBA minutes befuddle me... how about his rebounding rate? It's under 15%, which is atrocious for a big forward. At least he's a great passer, posting an assist rate of 4.2% in 2012. Oh wait. That was the 73rd worst assist rate in the entire league. Well, uh, dang.

Just about the only reason you can credibly come up with for Harangody's playing time is his exceptional ability to keep from turning the ball over, as he posted a turnover rate of 5.4% in 2012. That was the 53rd lowest turnover rate ever registered by a 10+ MPG player in the history of the league. Which, I admit, is pretty cool. It's pretty cool that Luke Harangody managed to go through 231 garbage time minutes and only have four turnovers. Does that really excuse his complete inability of any other basketball talent? I... no, not really. I don't think so. Luke Harangody is a good basketball player relative to the folks at your local YMCA, and he'd probably be a half-decent starter for a second-place team in a German league. But Harangody is akin to a constant reminder at the back of your head, this nudging note that any old average white-bred semi-athlete would look like crap in the NBA. We all know good old Johnny McFlippant at the gym, that one guy who complains that NBA players "don't work hard at all" and that he'd dominate seamlessly at the NBA level. I suppose that's why Harangody exists. It's this constant drumbeat reminder that Johnny McFlippant is completely and utterly wrong. That's how I've decided to rationalize Luke Harangody's presence in the NBA. It's Stern's constant reminder of just how embarrassing it would be if I were an NBA player. I've finally figured it out. Thanks, Player Capsules.

• • •

_Follow Chris Bosh on Twitter at __@chrisbosh._

I'm not really sure what to say about Chris Bosh, because everyone seems to write about the Heat and everyone seems to have said their piece on him already. Let's talk about expectations and reputations, I suppose. I think the most pointed observation one can make about him is that he -- even more than LeBron, more than Wade, and (perhaps) even more than the Heat franchise itself -- is the single Heat player whose public reputation reflects the weight of the Heat's collective reputation. What I mean by that is relatively straightforward, but it's a hard-to-parse statement, so I'll explain by example. After the 2011 season, when the Heat made the finals and folded against a Mavericks team that was on a historic run, very few people seemed eager to criticize Wade. When people eviscerated LeBron they didn't simply do it based on his Heat collapse. LeBron criticism was necessarily rooted in LeBron's past -- his "disappointing" runs in Cleveland, his 2010 disaster, et cetera. LeBron certainly bore the load, but the load was based on his career in its totality, not on a single run.

As for Bosh? I saw numerous people criticize Bosh as an ill-fitting piece, or one that needed to be traded immediately. They questioned his toughness and his ability to act as a center on a title team. They questioned every aspect of his game and then some, and continued to do so throughout the entire offseason. There was no real reflection on the rest of his career -- the entire criticism was necessarily centered around his single playoff run, and the team's results after the failed run. Bosh bore the brunt of the Heat's failure, in the erosion of his own personal brand and reputation as a star in the league. It lasted through the entirety of last season -- until the finals, that is. Now? Belay that reputation, Captain. As the Heat refused to fold this year and upset a favored Thunder team in an embarrassingly lopsided Finals, Bosh found his reputation take a complete 180 in no time flat. Whereas 2011 Bosh was the weak link that disappointed the basketball universe with his "soft" play and inadequate interior defense, 2012 Bosh was a crucial piece and the best big man on a title team. He's now virtually invaluable, in the eyes of NBA consigliati -- arguably one of the 10 best players in the league, and many would now assess him the greatest power forward in the league. Twitter goes nuts at everything he says, and he's seen as this changed and much-improved player off of last year's disappointment.

The problem with this 180, at least to me, is that it isn't really rooted in anything Bosh has done differently. There was one big difference between 2011 Bosh and 2012 Bosh -- one played on a team with LeBron James playing up to his potential, and the other didn't. That's about it. In the 2011 playoffs, Chris Bosh averaged 19-9-1 in around 40 minutes a game. In the 2012 playoffs, Chris Bosh averaged 14-8-1 in about 32 minutes a game. His rebounding rate was a slight bit higher in 2012, and his field goal percentage was a bit higher as well. Perhaps he passed a little more willingly. The Heat were slightly better in the playoffs defensively in 2012 than they were in 2011, and Bosh played a role in that as well, but I thought he did a remarkably decent job on defense in 2011 given his lacking credentials on that end from his Toronto tenure. I'm not sure the gap between the two years defensively is as vast as most people assess. You could chalk it up to his absence in the 2012 playoffs showing his value, but I think that's actually kind of absurd -- the Heat went 5-4 without Bosh in the 2012 playoffs, not 0-943. And beyond a single blowout loss to the Pacers, there wasn't a single other embarrassing loss in that span. The Heat weren't as good without Bosh, but they weren't some hapless hobo puppy either.

The point I'm generally trying to make is that many conflate the results of Bosh's unit with the performance of Bosh himself. Bosh is important to the Heat, don't get me wrong -- he's their only good big man, and even in the modern league's lessened emphasis on strong frontcourts, that's still a ridiculously important thing. But this sudden surge of Bosh appreciation, and this sudden desire to express a whole scale reversal of Bosh's previous reputation befuddles me. Bosh is a really good player, and he's always been one. The Heat lost last year as a result of what everyone on the team did, and they won this year as a result of what everyone on the team did. Some players played better (namely LeBron, Chalmers, and the supporting bananas), some players played worse (namely Wade), and some players played virtually the exact same (Bosh). To go from assessing Bosh to be a nigh-worthless Flintstones-era diva to some kind of incredible all-NBA talent based on the contributions of others simply seems like a hilarious flip, to me. I understand it, mind you -- I'm guilty of the same thing, for various players and coaches alike. Just not for Bosh, I suppose.

• • •

Follow Sebastian Telfair on Twitter at @BassyS31T.
__

Do you remember? Do you remember when Sebastian Telfair was young, and he had all the promise the world could offer? I do. Only vaguely, though. I didn't follow basketball nearly as much when I was a teenager, as I was when Telfair was a prospect. But I do remember one thing -- he was hyped. Telfair wasn't just another old preps-to-pros players, he was a revolution for the point guard position. In Telfair, you had the first ever true point guard drafted straight out of high school. Generally, teams considered point guard the position that needed the most development -- you needed to let a point guard evolve and forge within flames of college ball. You had to let him see multiple coaches, multiple styles, multiple casts. A point guard developed a certain language with every coach they played under, and the NBA saw them as translators. You couldn't have a translator that had only learned a single language, and you couldn't have a point guard that hadn't learned to play with multiple coaches. It just wasn't done.

Until Telfair, that is. He changed all that. Him and Livingston, that year. The first two ever. And he was set to take the NBA by storm, too -- just look at this 2004 Sports Illustrated profile. When Kyrie Irving chose to abdicate the NCAA after his maiden season, there were few who really thought it strange or unreasonable to make the jump so early. It was through the efforts of Telfair, Jennings, Wall and the like that the practice has become commonplace. But Telfair was the first, and in terms of how he was viewed before he made the leap, perhaps the most highly rated. Just about everyone seemed to think the question with Telfair wasn't how good he could be, but how good he would be. Sure, he was a little undersized. Sure, he couldn't really... er... shoot. But these concerns were tertiary -- his passing vision was incredible, his floor sense was impeccable, and the thought held that he didn't really "need" the experience of adapting to different coaches. He was good enough to bypass that completely.

Now? Well... I don't like admitting this about players, but relative to expectations, it's hard to argue that Telfair has been anything beyond an unmitigated failure in the NBA. As I said, he's undersized -- at the time he entered the league, he weighed in at 165 pounds and a hair under 6'0". That's extremely small. And as I noted... his shooting is abhorrent. Any analysis of Telfair as a player has to start and end with his shooting, which completely undermines every positive aspect of his game. He doesn't even have a remotely passable three point shot, and he doesn't really have any particularly effective jumpers from any range. The problem with Bassy isn't that he can't get open, either -- despite his height, he has a killer half-step and an insane crossover dribble that regularly floors the competition. Telfair has little trouble getting himself open, when he's handling the ball. The problem comes in the fact that even as a wide-open shooter, Telfair simply isn't a very good one. His shooting motion has had a bad hitch since day one, he compulsively rushes his shots, and he tends to chuck the ball with even a modicum of open air. Which is bad, since (as I just said) his jumpshot is terribly broken.

As for defense? Passing? Rebounding? Not great, none of it. He's good at creating in the open floor, but when you force Telfair to mold a game plan around better players surrounding him on his team, he struggles mightily. And that's sort of the point, if you're a point guard that isn't the best player on the team. The question I've had for a while -- and it's strange to ask, but it's legitimate -- is how Telfair would look in a world where he actually was the best player on a team. I'm talking a busted Euroleague squad, a decent CBA team, a good Turkish League club -- how would Telfair look if you let him combine his relentless hustle with the ability to spend every possession creating in the open court and full license to chuck with abandon? I was thinking I'd probably get my chance to see that around the middle of last season, where he'd been absolutely awful for the Suns and looked to have his ticket punched to an undisclosed overseas location.

But then something rather amazing happened, as the good folk at Valley of the Sun described here. For the last quarter of the season, Telfair apparently forgot that his career has been a disappointment. He forgot that he'd spent an entire career playing like a 3rd string point guard with obvious, glaring faults. He forgot all of that, showed his trademark confidence, and played his game. And you know what? He was really friggin' good. The Suns picked him up for the 2013 season, and it looks like the hot streak combined with his hustle may keep Telfair from the murkier waters abroad for at least a season or two longer. You know what? Good for him. He'll make double the money and have a chance to rehabilitate his career, a touch, playing for a pretty bad team with a coach that cares about him regardless. That's a good situation. And while Telfair has been a failure in the NBA, he's keeping that flicker of hope alive. After all, he's only 27. He's got time. Right?

... alright, no, not really. We can't always get what we want, I suppose.

• • •

At the end of each post, I'll be scribing riddles for the next group. Whoever gets the most right will get a shout out at the end of the next post. Tweet me your answers at @docrostov, or post them in the comments. We returned to some element of normalcy yesterday, where someone got each player right but nobody got all of them right. Props to Brian for being the only one to get Harangody right, and props to basically everyone for getting 2/3 of them right.

• Time's running out. If Player #124 wants to beat DeJuan Blair at anything, it's time to start... you know... doing it.
• Never in NBA history has the PG helming the 25th best offense in the league gotten as much effusive praise as Player #125.
• Harden's beard will never have a thing on yours, Player #126. Even when you retire.

Sorry for the late post. Family emergencies and four hour drives take a lot out of you. See you tomorrow.

As our summer mainstay, Aaron's writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. Intent is to get you talking, thinking, and appreciating the myriad of wonderful folks who play in our favorite sports league. Today we continue with Paul Pierce, Shane Battier, Al Horford.

• • •

Follow Paul Pierce on Twitter at @paulpierce34.

Sometimes, when writing about certain players, my thoughts run long and I end up with something far too long to turn into a subsection of these three-player packages. I’m making it a point to explicitly allow the leeway to produce those sorts of long capsules, but I’m trying to also use them as an opportunity to spread word of the project to new readers. To that end, I’m going to take these super-long post-sized capsules and spread them to different institutions we’re partnering with. Today, Paul Pierce’s capsule goes up at Hardwood Paroxysm. In it I share a personal story about a man named Max, and try to reconcile my general distaste for Paul Pierce with the facts about his life and game.

Some will bring up Pierce's gang ties for a reason they hate him. I think that's a bit ridiculous. While Pierce was fined by the league for throwing up an ersatz gang sign back in 2008, he denied it heavily and pointed out that it would be kind of absurd for a person with a foundation dedicated to keeping kids out of gangs and off the streets to be throwing up gang signs on purpose. And it's worth noting that Pierce has faced more hardship than most -- his father abandoned his family at the age of six, and Pierce has always dealt with that with a maturity far outstripping his years. You may mention the ridiculous wheelchair moment all you want -- I can name exactly zero other NBA stars who came back within the week after being stabbed 11 times. And having to go through lung surgery to fix puncture wounds to the lungs. And only getting stabbed for trying to break up a fight before it got violent. It's not exactly a common feat. Pierce exudes toughness, grit, and a highly respectable fortitude. Sure, he may be a little annoying on the court (although, again, he and Kobe are the models most expect and demand younger players emulate, so the annoying qualities can hardly be considered as such in the broad scheme of things), but his off-court steadfastness and respectability tends to indicate a person better than he generally gets credit for.

And, again. I kind of hate him.

Read more about Paul Pierce at Hardwood Paroxysm.

• • •

_Follow Shane Battier on Twitter at __@ShaneBattier._

I can't be the only person in the world who thinks Battier is somewhat overrated, right? I'll admit -- in his prime, he was a defensive force, and a genuinely talented all-defensive type that changed the game (in the regular season only) for numerous teams. His run this year with the Miami Heat has redefined his legacy, a tad. Some have taken to calling Battier one of the keys to the Heat's run, and point to his incredible work ethic and genuinely excellent ability to play the press. They also point to a downright excellent NBA finals, where Battier sunk seemingly every open three he got and played "gritty" defense for the team that won. But a single series doesn't make the man, and a single (excellent) New York Times profile shouldn't make us unable to register several evident facts about Battier's current game. While he scouts with the best of them, Battier's lost the versatile lateral mobility that made him a notably tough defensive player back when he was younger.

He's still good, mind you, but he's not exceptional. And when you combine his falling-off defense with his offense (never lights out, Battier can only convert 50% of his shots at the rim and just barely reaches the 33% mendoza line from the three point line, despite playing with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade to open up the arc), you get a picture of a player who isn't long for the league. Regardless of his solid NBA finals performance. This may seem a bit caustic for a player whose personality is hilarious and whose general demeanor is a breath of fresh air. He's a nice guy. I don't personally mind him. I admit that. This general desire to disprove theories that Battier is some amazing player could be a result of a bias that's not Battier's fault. To try and explain my bias, let's go over a story.

I was at a showing of one of Duke's final four matchup against West Virginia in 2010, in Cameron Stadium. There were some frat boys sitting behind me, because at Duke, that's virtually always the case. They were talking about Duke's retired jerseys, and pointing up at them. I was working on some coursework, as it was one of the last breaks in the game and I had to get back into "doing work" mode. They suddenly get to Shane Battier. One of them yells "BATTIER, YEAH!" and slaps the other one hard on the back. Some beer splashes onto the back of my head, so I turn up and hear the following.

"What, bro?"

"Yeah, dude, that's my favorite player of all time. He's literally the greatest to play the game."

"... wait, what? Legit? What about like... Michael Jordan, bro?"

"Literally inferior."

"Haha, dude, that's crazy."

"My bro Shane is mad underrated, are you one of those #*$# who don't know the score?"

"Uh... I guess so, I think he's pretty average and stuff, I mean he's real good but like nah dude."

"Holy *#@$ dude $*#& you holy $&*#."

"Uh..."

"Shane Battier is one of the greatest players alive and you just have to live with it."

"Wait wh--"

"Easily top ten in the NBA and the only players better are Carlos Boozer and Kobe Bryant so suck my $#&@."

"... are you joking?"

"DOES IT LOOK LIKE I'M JOKING, @#&%$???"

He then proceeded to storm out of Cameron stadium and throw his beer at a random bystander. ("No, sir, it does not look like you're joking.") Given that he and his friend had cheered when Da'Sean Butler was injured, I wasn't all that sorry to see him go. But it remains to this day among the most hilarious "basketball facts" I've heard someone share without shame or remorse, and has inspired within me a constant desire to make sure nobody ever thinks remotely similar things about Shane Battier again. Sorry, Shane. I don't mind you or anything, but some Duke fratstars made this my personal goal. It's nothing personal. You understand, right?

• • •

Follow Al Horford on Twitter at @Al_Horford.
__

I don't think there are many people who understand how good Horford is, when he's on the court. Seriously. For the past two or three years, I've been waiting for him to have a fully healthy year where people actually watch the Hawks and start to understand how lights out he's been for that team. Nothing going. Last year in particular, Horford was injured virtually all season long. The year before that? He was injured in the playoffs, leading to constant talk of how he wasn't good enough to hack it there. After all, the 2011 Hawks went on one of the better-looking playoff runs in the last decade -- they made it to the second round, but not in a fluky sort of tedious way. They dominated the Magic, then they legitimately challenged the Bulls. And they did it with Horford injured and playing poorly. It was refreshing, in some ways, but it was also distressing -- it just contributed to the layman's view of Horford as a genuinely useless (or at least tertiary) player to Atlanta's core. Which is absurd. He's been their best player since he turned 23 and he'll be their best player for years and years to come.

There are a lot of people who don't feel Al Horford has deserved his multiple all-star nods. I think that's pretty absurd. It's true that Horford's position has been miscast for virtually his entire career -- the man's a floor-spread power forward who tends to operate from the post when he's not spotting up to spread the floor, not a bruising center that requires to be in the post at all times. But his miscast role hasn't stopped him from being brilliantly productive in his minutes. He's one of the better floor-spacing power forwards in the league, and for his career, he's shot an incredible 47% from the long midrange. Wondering where that ranks among the league? Consider this. Last season, only eight players in the entire league matched Horford's career average from that distance. Which, suffice to say, is pretty insane. He also shoots, for his career, over 70% on at-rim shots and 42% on "true midrange" shots. While he doesn't hog the ball or demand more touches, he's about as efficient as a player could possibly be with the touches he gets. His only real flaw is a somewhat lacking suite of post moves -- admittedly, the Hawks don't tend to enter the ball to him in the post in very good situations, but there's no doubt that Horford needs to get better at converting from the low post.

As for his tertiaries, you can't find much to impugn there either. He's not among the best rebounding talents in the game, but he's certainly good enough, and he'll get you a double double in decent minutes with relative ease. He's a lights-out passer, too -- in 2011 (his last healthy season), Horford sported 3.5 assists a night. That was by far the best among centers in the league. And even if you compare him to players at his natural position of power forward, the only players that season who matched him in assists per 48 minutes were Lamar Odom and Tim Duncan. His assist rate was less than a percentage point separated from Mike Bibby, who played big minutes at point guard for the finals runner-up Heat. As for his defense, that's not a place to knock him either. He's not a natural center, and the numbers show it. If you look at Horford's splits, throughout his career, he's virtually always defended centers worse than power forwards and wings. He's an amazing switch-defender. But he doesn't do an outright bad job covering centers, he simply doesn't do an excellent job. Against power forwards, he's one of the better defenders in the league -- if the Hawks would pick up an actual center to put next to Horford, they'd be much improved.

Basically? Horford was (and still is) great. The only two real knocks on his game you can come up with in good conscience is to point out that it isn't exciting and his conditioning is a mite bit suspect. He's easily fatigued, essentially. Isn't a great fourth quarter player, because he tends to be exhausted by the end of games and the moves that dominated the first few quarters fail at the close. You could argue that his poor conditioning is a contributing factor to Horford's injury woes, but that's a pretty tenuous case to make. He's an excellent player who works hard and produces at the absolute peak of what he could possibly produce. And the best part? That contract. Horford is locked in through a period that may span his entire prime making $12 million a year for the production of a slightly sub-max player. It's a ridiculous coup for an Atlanta front office that isn't used to making them, and I'll admit... I've got some hopes that a surprising Hawks team this season that finally emerges from the dredgery of iso-Joe and Woodson-style hardball forces people to pay attention to Horford. He's good, alright? Better than most people think. I promise.

• • •

At the end of each post, I'll be scribing riddles for the next group. Whoever gets the most right will get a shout out at the end of the next post. Tweet me your answers at @docrostov, or post them in the comments. Bunch of 2/3s, no 3/3s. Big announcement for the day? We're doing a soft rollout of a new database structure we're using to organize the capsules, located here. We're still working out the kinks, but try it out -- you can filter by team, sort by age, or do all manner of cool things to our broader list of capsules. It's really rad. Big ups to Alex Dewey, who did the backend coding of the database. Now for today's riddles.

• The Cavaliers spent absolutely nothing to acquire Player #121. It was still too high a price.
• Player #122's importance to the Heat was made explicitly obvious in the playoffs last year. But does Taco Bell know?
• One of John Krolik's favorite players. Hard to really dislike Player #123 after that documentary, unless you actually have to watch him play.

As our summer mainstay, Aaron's writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. Intent is to get you talking, thinking, and appreciating the myriad of wonderful folks who play in our favorite sports league. Today we continue with Rudy Gay, Emeka Okafor, and Brandon Jennings.

• • •

Follow Rudy Gay on Twitter at @rudygay22.

Rudy Gay is a reasonably interesting player, in theory. A reasonably clutch player ("No! Not Rudy Gay! NO!!!"), Gay is a decent scorer and a surprisingly good defender. Seriously, watch him play defense. He's not some huge plus defender in the make of Tony Allen, but he keeps to his man without fading off, rarely gets lost, and defends without the sorts of cheap fouls that are an occupational hazard to most subpar wing defenders. Most second tier volume scorers -- Monta Ellis, Kevin Martin, J.R. Smith -- see their scoring as a justification to go space cadet on their defensive responsibilities. Not so for Rudy Gay, although the number of times I've seen his defense praised can be counted on a single hand. I suppose it's not incredibly praiseworthy; after all, he's not an incredible plus defender, he's simply a decent defender who happens to actually put in his time on that end. It's kind of sad that scorers like Iverson and Melo have lowered the defensive expectations for volume scorers to a level that's low enough for "literally putting in effort and being a non-liability" to be worthy of praise. But that's where we are, so he should be praised for that.

His numbers have fallen off, as of late, and many non-Grizzlies fans have wondered why. There are two reasons. First, he's simply listened to a bit too much of his own hype. Gay has never been an extremely good heavily-guarded long-ball shooter -- in 2011 he shot 39% from three (on three heaves a night!) but beyond that he's tended to be slightly above average to below average from three over his career. He's tended to be relatively above average for the long two (with his career high of 45% from the long two in his sophomore season standing up to some of the best numbers a volume scorer can post from that range, ever) and relatively above average from the midrange, with his biggest problem being post-ups and short 3-9 foot jump shots. Still, the more you guard his shot, the worse he shoots -- last season, he not only skewed his game almost entirely to long balls, but to well-guarded ones. As a result? Gay posted his worst season in his career, even though he was healthy the whole year. He's not a double-team player. He'd be a fantastic 1st scoring option if he stopped trying to shoot over double teams and actually use his reasonably solid passing ability every once in a while. But until he does, he's a middling-to-deficient one.

One of the other big problems, for Rudy Gay? He simply can't seem to internalize the importance of free throws. Grizzlies fans would love to see Gay get more aggressive and try to force the issue on getting to the line, especially since he's such a good free throw shooter -- he took only four free throw attempts per game last year, putting him below 50 NBA players. Here are a sampling of the 50 players that shot more free throws a game (or just as many) as Rudy Gay.

• The Flaming Ghost of Amare Stoudemire
• Danny "I Am The Danger" Granger
• A phantasmic projection resembling Tyreke Evans
• Jerome Dyso-- wait are you kidding me Jerome Dyson really oh my god seriously.

Ridiculous? Yes. I say that's ridiculous. Still, I feel like a lot of NBA analysts have already written him off. Not sure that's apt. While he's extremely overpaid, relative to last year's performance, he's not particularly overpaid relative to his 2011 performance and at his age there's little reason to believe he's permanently fallen from those heights. If he could do what Derrick Rose did in the 2011 season -- start jumping INTO contact instead of shying from it -- he'd get a hell of a lot more free throws, and at his ridiculously good percentages, that would vastly improve his scoring efficiency. Combine that with a return to form from the long two and the three (which he'd get if he stopped trying to shoot over double teams and work on USING that vastly improved passing he showed off in 2011), and you have a player that's very valuable. Not really worth his contract, all things considered, but a useful player and a good guy to have. If the Grizzlies chose to keep him, of course.

• • •

_Follow Emeka Okafor on Twitter at __@BigMek50._

We'll start out with some history, for Emeka Okafor. It may seem weird to bring this up now, but at the time the Magic first drafted Dwight Howard, there were a significant number of general managers that thought Orlando had made a huge, franchise-killing mistake. Okafor was seen as the far safer, more-skilled pick -- while Howard was coming straight out of high school, Okafor had been through the wringer in three star-crossed years at UConn. At first, the Magic looked like they'd lost out -- Okafor spent the first 2 or 3 years of his NBA career as Howard's superior, even winning Rookie of the Year over him. Partly, this was due to injuries. Okafor spent much of his second and third seasons injured, unable to really stay on the court, which made his numbers look (perhaps) a bit stronger than what he was actually giving the Bobcats. But make no mistake -- Okafor was good, for the Bobcats, and although he suffered copious injuries in his time in Charlotte, he was a very effective, developing starting center. The thing is, while Dwight developed at rapid, breakneck speeds after his 2nd season, Okafor just sort of stagnated. He's about as good now as he was during his 2nd and 3rd seasons, and while that's decent for a starting center, it's nothing particularly exceptional.

He's a positive rebounder (though not overwhelmingly positive) and a limited-but-effective offensive player. His use on offense is primarily in the fact that he usually doesn't take poor shots -- in 2011, on the best team he ever played for, Okafor took 90% of his shots within 10 feet of the basket (and made 57% of all shots he took on the year, an excellent mark). Last year he erased that, though, and took almost a third of his shots outside that range -- predictably, his field goal percentage went down precipitously, and due to his customarily poor free throw shooting (under 60%, for the 6th season straight) his overall scoring efficiency was abhorrent. On defense, he's very solid. His individual defense is decent, but where he really makes his bones is help defense -- he's been a key cog in Monty's system the last two years, and his ability to shade off-ball while keeping his man in check is really something special. While he's no Dwight Howard, he's definitely a useful player -- I really like his fit in Washington, even if some would say he's overpriced. I don't think he's all that overpriced for what you get, and given his age/burn numbers, it's quite unlikely he falls off precipitously until his next contract. For Rashard's expiring, Ariza/Okafor is actually a really solid collection to get, and although their upside is essentially that of the pre-Johnson trade Hawks, the Wizards do stand a chance to be a competitive outfit this year. First time in a while.

A few personal facts, before we leave him behind. Okafor is only one generation separated from Nigeria -- his parents fled the Nigerian Civil War to live in Houston, where he was born. Emeka was not his birth name -- he was actually born "Chukwuemeka Ndubisi Okafor", which... well... you can kind of see why they shortened it, I suppose. Anyhow. By all accounts, Okafor is actually a really good guy. Extremely smart -- he graduated from UConn in three years with a degree in Finance. As I graduated in three years, I can attest that it's REALLY not an easy feat -- especially in a quantitative major where courses build on each other. According to Charlotte waiters, he tips well, and in every interview I've ever read he's been incredibly grateful and happy to have made the sort of NBA money he has. Back when he was growing up, his favorite player (surprisingly) wasn't Jordan -- it was Clyde Drexler. He modeled his game after Hakeem Olajuwon. He's a useful player and apparently a great locker room guy -- excited to get some chances to interview him next season at Wizards games.

• • •

Follow Brandon Jennings on Twitter at @BRAND0NJENNINGS.
__

You know how you get this weirdly nostalgic feeling when you watch certain players? This sense that if only they'd put it all together, they'd reach the heights you've seen them hit before? I feel like Brandon Jennings has spent -- quite literally -- his entire career at that stage for me. It was a while back, but even before his 55-point explosion put the world on notice in his career's 7th game, he was turning heads. I made it a point to watch him against the Warriors that night, because I hadn't had a chance to see any of his really impressive first few contests, and I wanted a chance to catch the Milwaukee guard that was starting to look like a real shot for Rookie of the Year (even in just a few games of work). What I was treated to was obviously way more than I was expecting. Jennings didn't just take over the game, he owned the game in a way that NBA players rarely do. He just... he seemed to drain every three he took. Every shot he considered was a good one, even if it'd be a terrible one out of context. His form looked immaculate. His passing was pinpoint. This right here, with Brandon Jennings conducting, was what the dominant scoring point guard of the next generation looked like. It was wonderous, beautiful, and one of the great individual performances of what ended up being a pretty great NBA season.

Unfortunately, Jennings was on borrowed time. The shot he relied on for that performance was fundamentally flawed, with a bad hitch in the release and a strange lean to his jumper. Most people -- myself included -- either blinded themselves to it or assumed he'd figure it out before the magic ended. He didn't. As his rookie year went on, Jennings' three point shot began to drown under the weight of his flawed mechanics, and in the three seasons since he simply hasn't recapture that three point stroke in any meaningful way. It's actually pretty sad -- in Jennings' first two months, he shot almost 50% from three. That went down to 34% in the remainder of the year, which went down to 32% in the following season, and remained at 33% the rest of the year. Beyond that single beautiful month, Jennings has relatively consistently shown himself to be a roughly league average three point shooter. This isn't to say he couldn't be better. As his first month showed, when Jennings gets hot, even his flawed mechanics couldn't stop him from burying treys like a dog with Trey Bonez. I maintain that if he spent a few months with Chip Engelland, the Spurs' shooting coach, Jennings would be able to come back and shoot an excellent 36-37% from the three point line, easily -- even given the insane number of three point shots he takes off the dribble. The Bucks have always seemed like a franchise with a somewhat deficient player development system, at least to me. Jennings' inability to develop his shot contributes to that view.

If Jennings ever actually improved his form and improved his percentages, he'd be one of the deadliest scorers in the league. His shot distribution chart would be manna from heaven on a guard who was a better three point shooter -- he takes the oft-mentioned admonition to "step behind the line!" seriously, and while he chucked up almost 6 three pointers a night last season, he only put up three long two pointers a night. WAY less than most volume scoring guards, at least proportionally, and a mark of decent efficiency from Jennings. He also eschewed the sneakily-tricky close post-up and the true midrange, with five more of his shots coming entirely at the rim -- that's 11 of his 17 shots a game coming from the two most efficient distances for a guard to shoot at (especially given his improved at-rim conversion rates this year), and in terms of his long two stroke, he's one of the better long two shooters in the game (converting them at an almost 40% clip). Again -- if the Bucks would take the time to figure out what kind of a shooting coach he needs and help him develop his form, Jennings could be an extremely efficient 20-25 points-per-game scorer. Alas, it doesn't seem to be in the cards. Outside of his scoring (inefficient now, could be great if he got a good shooting coach), he's a relatively talented guard at the tertiaries -- he's not nearly as bad a passing talent as most people think, and while his assist percentage is low, you get the sense watching him that he's not as bad a passer as his poor assist percentage would tend to indicate. He's one of the least turnover-prone point guards in the league, sporting the second-lowest turnover rate of every point guard in the league. On defense, he isn't exactly Gary Payton, but he keeps to his man and doesn't wander much, and does about as good a job as any point guard in the league. It's decent stuff.

Still, although everything's decent with Jennings, nothing is particularly otherworldly. His three point stroke obviously needs a lot of work, and even at his improved rates he absolutely needs to keep improving his at-rim percentages. His distribution of shots is essentially the ideal, but his conversion rates are so skewed that he ends up as a net-negative ballhog half the time anyway. There are so many indications that in the right situation, Jennings would be a star-type player. But he's in a poor situation right now, and it's tough to see how he'll get to really improve that. Short of Milwaukee trading Jennings, Ilyasova, and some package of prospects to San Antonio for Tony Parker, it's hard to fathom how Jennings gets onto a better team when he hits free agency after this season. None of the places with cap room are very good fits for him, and none of the contenders who could use him have much reason to take a flier on him. He's going to get a decent contract, but not an amazing one. And people like me, whose first exposure to Jennings came in one of the greatest one-night performances in an otherwise unremarkable-to-this-point career, will continue to watch him and feel wanting. Always desiring another taste of that glorious game. Kind of a shame. At least Jennings is one of the most entertaining players in the league, with (in my opinion) the coolest shoe line in the league (OBAMA AGREES, DARN IT!) and hilarious random slams of superstar players on Twitter. (And, as you can see below, a voice of the people!) One of my favorite NBA follows. Throw him a bone.

• • •

At the end of each post, I'll be scribing riddles for the next group. Whoever gets the most right will get a shout out at the end of the next post. Tweet me your answers at @docrostov, or post them in the comments. We had a few 3/3 votes yesterday, coming from Flotze, NickD378, Chilai, and Luke (in that order). Good job guessing, folks.

• Most know him for his elbow J, but Player #118's defense is underheralded. Will be a Player Capsule (Plus).
• One of the most "Duke" players ever, Player #119's defensive reputation may be overrated at this point, but he's still OK.
• Don't sleep on him after his injury-lost 2012 season. Player #120 is an extremely underrated big, especially on that contract.

As our summer mainstay, Aaron's writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. Intent is to get you talking, thinking, and appreciating the myriad of wonderful folks who play in our favorite sports league. Today we continue with Jeremy Lin, Demar DeRozan, Roy Hibbert.

• • •

Follow Jeremy Lin on Twitter at @JLin7.

To start this capsule, I'm going to loosely copy what I wrote about Jeremy Lin this time last year, when I wrote his capsule for the first series of player capsules. As I often remind, the 2011 capsules are essentially lost to the ether of private forums and the simple fact that they're all completely unedited and occasionally written under the influence. So beyond the paucity of edited ones, very few will ever see the light of day. But the Jeremy Lin one will, and long-time followers in the comments who followed the first series of capsules can confirm or deny if this is actually what I said.

Jeremy Lin was a standout college player at Harvard. He was then picked by the Golden State Warriors, where he played... well, less than 300 minutes in his rookie year and was reassigned to the D-League about halfway through the year. Why? Because he's simply not an NBA player. at least not yet. There's a fringe possibility that someday Jeremy Lin will have made enough progress that he can -- hopes run high -- be the Adam Morrison-type "creepy guy on the bench in a suit who people dominate in practice" player in the NBA who lasts 3 or 4 years. Perhaps that's just dreaming. More likely, he stays in the D-League for the rest of a very short NBA career, then goes overseas where he Harvard-level dominates either the European or Asian circuits. Maybe. To be totally honest with you, he's kind of a low IQ player from what I've seen -- extremely smart off the court but his on the court game most resembles a Stephon Marbury sort of relentless gunning, lacking defensive effort, and a "turn it over as often as you assist" kind of game. It would be really cool if he was a good NBA player. As of yet, he isn't, and was basically just drafted in a sort of transparent ploy to get the Asian community to come to Warriors games.

What a difference a year makes, huh?

I admit, while I was certainly off in some parts, I don't completely abandon that characterization of his game. I wrote about the Lin phenomenon earlier this year and heavily noted the fact that "high IQ" has never been a good characterization for how Jeremy Lin approaches the game. He certainly works hard, and he's a good player, but calling him a high IQ player is conflating off-court and on-court achievements. This idea that a better school means a smarter player is intrinsically present in most, and it's regularly wrong. The problem is, the things that make a basketball player "high IQ" are completely and utterly disconnected from the things that make an academic high-achiever "high IQ." Much like the generally accepted disconnect between street smarts and book smarts, being a high IQ basketball player tends to mean you react quicker to on-court stimuli, and see plays a move or two in advance. A high IQ player doesn't take stupid chances on defense and doesn't take bad shots if they can figure out a better one to set up instead. A high IQ player approaches the on-court machinations of basketball as a game of chess rather than a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Realistically, high IQ indicates a more instinctual triumph than an intellectual one. And while Lin has fantastic scoring instincts, as a point guard, were he a truly "high IQ" player, it'd be expected that he'd have significantly better passing instincts than those he demonstrated. His passing is very much a work in progress -- he virtually always makes the correct pass in the macro sense, but in terms of the manner of delivery, the fundamentals of the pass are generally lacking -- whether it's in the location the pass lands (often requiring more of a reach to pick up than most elite passers in the league), the difficulty of the thrown pass (often far more difficult than it needed to be), or the motion the pass is meant to match (often matching the wrong shooter's motion, leading to a somewhat awkward shot-off-the-pass for everyone but Steve Novak). It doesn't hurt matters that Lin spent most of the year in D'Antoni's offense, which is designed to get tertiary scorers more open than any other offense in the league. Still, there's his scoring. He's got the stuff to be a decent scoring guard in the NBA -- he is genuinely a talented slasher, and he has an excellent driving bank shot he'll rely on more and more as teams key to his driving and try to force the pass-out. I said this in my earlier column this year and continue to back it now -- the key to Lin's sustained success in the NBA is going to be the success of his banker and the development of a consistent three point shot (no, 32% is not consistent whatsoever.)

On the plus side, if he continues taking three triples a game at an anemic 32%, maybe people will stop viscerally calling him a high IQ player without actually backing it up with analytics. Accuracy through attrition! Still. The way Lin knifes through the lane and figures out his plan of attack isn't always basketball-smart, but it's almost always entertaining and engaging. And as many have pointed out, characterizing him as simply a book-smart flash in the pan is silly -- Lin's physical gifts were considerable even before he burst onto the scene in New York. He tested out as one of the most athletic guards in his pre-draft combine, and while he may look like an unassuming Asian-American in an odd fit of a role, when you've got his combination of wingspan, height, and length you're going to have a shot at being a pretty decent NBA player. Lin's story isn't one of a random, unheralded D-League guard bursting into stardom. It's a story of a guard whose physical talents were unjustly slept on due to his race and looks, and whose generally lacking passing was good enough for a D'Antoni system and developed quickly into an asset he used to get an incredible contract.

Of course, that leads us to now. I'm not entirely sure which is going to harm Lin more -- the lack of talent on the Houston roster, the strange fit Kevin McHale is to his game, or his injury from this year lingering into the next. As Lin relies a lot on his physical gifts, I lean towards the injury. While he has a much better chance of turning out OK after sitting out the Knicks' futile first round struggle against the Heat, lingering injuries have derailed the careers of too many promising young guards to count. So that's concerning. The other two aforementioned problems are as well -- I'm not really sure how well Kevin McHale fits with his game, and he rather thoroughly managed to disenfranchise both of the Rockets' excellent point guards just last season and never proved particularly adept at developing point guard talent in Minnesota. That's a problem. And the talent around him? There are a few interesting pick and roll combinations -- in particular, Donatas Motiejunas looked like a good pick and roll scorer in the Las Vegas summer league. But the Rockets lack a proven pick-and-roll scoring big man, and they lack the perfect complementary pieces that Lin had in New York. It's quite likely that the Lin contract doesn't start paying off until the Rockets replace their coach and get some more talent.

I know that in my case, my expectations are extremely low for the Rockets -- I expect them to be a cellar-dwelling, 20-30 win team at best, and it's likely that the hype and wonder of Linsanity drops off the face of the Earth for a year or two as those three aforementioned factors combine to make him seem feeble in the same way last season's factors collided to make him seem invincible. But as the talent comes back around him and he truly recoups from his injury, I wouldn't be surprised to see a return to form somewhere in the late reaches of his contract. He's too physically talented and mentally strong not to. Lin may not be exactly as good as that magical week indicated, but he's no chopped liver either. He was a phenomenon, a beacon of hope, and a brilliant fad. And then, when that all fades? He'll be what he's always been -- a talented basketball player with a lot of promise and a lot of ability, if you put the right pieces around him. And on the decent contract he's got? That's enough.

• • •

_Follow Demar DeRozan on Twitter at __@DeMar_DeRozan._

I'd love to say I have a lot of hope and promise for DeRozan, but that would be an incredibly silly (and unnecessary) lie. I don't. DeRozan has his talents, I won't cut corners around it -- he's arguably the greatest dunk artist in the NBA today(and he should've won the 2011 dunk contest, damnit!), and he has the tools to be a very good defender. His short range jump shot is exsquisitely pure in form, and his overall offensive repertoire looks really, really nice. There's a lot of aesthetically pleasing aspects to his game. Pizzazz, style, all that stuff. The problem? Style does not an effective NBA player make, and beyond his style, there's a player with very little efficiency and very little in clear role. DeRozan is one of those players who isn't simply a score first guard -- he's a score first, second, third, and fourth guard, whose fifth option is "hey did I mention I score sometimes???". DeRozan scores, but he does every single thing a basketball player could do outside of score poorly. If one had to characterize the other aspects of his game, I don't know how you'd come to any conclusions other than assessing his defense porous, his rebounding anemic, and his passing ghastly.

And you know what? I'm not even sure you could fairly assess him as a totally positive scorer. After all, DeRozan may score buckets with the best of them -- averaging about 20 points per 40 minutes, or a point every two minutes on the court -- but the only thing he does actively above average is his shooting from the line, where he's a career 80% free throw shooter. He shoots around 60% from the rim on his career, which is good but not phenomenal, and he shoots around 45-50% on his short within-9-foot jump shot, which is (again) good but not phenomenal. Get him outside that range? Lord almighty, that's a bad look. In perhaps the best example, during the 2011 season DeRozan took 52 three pointers. He made five. That's nine percent from behind the arc, if you're counting. Because that was such an encouraging percentage, he took 92 three pointers this season, making a blistering 24 of them. And hey! That's above 25%! Too bad that's still an ABHORRENT percentage from three. It matches his percentage from the long jumper in general -- he shoots a relatively lacking percentage on the long two. In his career, he also takes seven such shots from that general range (midrange to three) a night. Again -- not a good look.

This isn't to say he has no shot at being a good NBA player, or that he's a bad person. I respect DeRozan a lot -- he grew up in a very hard situation in Compton, and unlike some players who leave college just because they don't really like college (though there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, as a later capsule may outline), DeRozan only left because his mother was ill with a life threatening condition and the family needed the money. And in terms of positives, there are some -- he draws fouls at a ridiculous rate, which makes his highly inefficient shooting at least slightly efficient. And as I mentioned, he shoots a good-though-not-phenomenal rate from the short to midrange jump shot, and does it relatively unassisted. If that efficiency increases with a good point guard to set him up in his pet spots, DeRozan has a good shot to become one of the most effective scorers in the league from that range. For DeRozan, there are a few keys. First, he simply has to develop some tertiary skills -- whether they be rebounding, defense, passing, SOMETHING. Anything! He simply needs to have a dimension to his game that isn't purely based around his scoring. Second, he needs to cut back on the threes, and keep to the assisted long twos instead of the unassisted off-the-dribble pull ups. He isn't good at those. There's no reason to take seven of them a game, especially when a good 3-4 of them are completely unassisted and off the dribble. If he can do that, and Lowry can put him in good positions? DeRozan will be a very solid player in the league, someday.

If not? Well... at least with his scoring numbers he'll probably get a good contract from a dumb GM, right? Bright sides!

• • •

Follow Roy Hibbert on Twitter at @Hoya2aPacer.
__

I have a soft spot for Roy Hibbert. While I don't think Hibbert is the best center in the league, or even one of the best three, it's hard to find a two-way threat as effective as he is. When you ask the average fan what the most unguardable shot in the NBA is, you'll probably hear something from a guard -- a Ray Allen three, a Kobe pull-up, a Dirk anything. All good answers. But for my money, there's a single shot in the league that's essentially impossible to consistently stop, and that's Roy Hibbert's Duncan-improved hook shot. Seriously. Show me a single NBA player that's had consistent success against it -- Hibbert is 7'2" with an insane wingspan, and when he rises up to take his hook shot, I'm not sure if there's a single player in the league that can really stop it. Nobody's that tall, nobody's that long, and nobody can really touch it. Unfortunately for the Pacers, as they lack a true point guard, they find it relatively hard to actually get the ball into Hibbert on a regular basis -- that's what killed them in the playoffs this last year, as they simply couldn't consistently enter the ball to the post. Because of that -- and Hibbert's own personal issues with getting himself open and getting in proper offensive position -- Hibbert isn't a really efficient offensive player in his totality.

I suppose Hibbert "technically" has a long jumper, in the sense that he takes a lot of them for no particularly good reason, but in their totality it ruins his offensive game. Within the paint and post-up range, Hibbert is an excellent offensive option -- once you get to the midrange and the long two, Hibbert's value essentially drops off the face of the Earth into an conscience-free abyss usually reserved for Stephon Marbury's offensive stylings and Kobe Bryant's everyday chucks. It's rough, is what I'm saying. He's no Zydrunas Ilgauskas from range, that's for sure. Still. While Hibbert's hook shot is the unguardable sky-occupied limit to his offense, his real bread is made on defense. Hibbert isn't the most mobile player in the known universe, but he's an absolute bull in the post, and bothers even the best centers in the league with his raw size and length. His pick and roll defense leaves a bit to be desired, as the world discovered in the Pacers' second round rubber match with the Miami Heat. His lacking mobility and lateral movement hurts him on that front. But in terms of a one-on-one post defender, and a last line of defense in a very good one, Hibbert's hard to beat. He could stand to work on his rebounding a bit, but he's made strides in the time he's been in the league and at this point it looks like there's nowhere to go but up.

By the way? Little known fact -- Hibbert has asthma. I know a lot of people with asthma, and one trait endemic to the illness is that staying in shape gets a whole lot harder. You get winded at the slightest workout, and playing organized sports with friends becomes really tough -- people go for you on defense, once word of the asthma gets around, and they actively try and play faster to tire you out. It's rough. Given the context of his illness, that puts a wholly different context on how strong an achievement Hibbert's career actually is. Here you have a mountain of a man, a 7'2" behemoth, who plays the game with a compulsory shortage of breath. Despite the lack of breath, Hibbert still manages to play as many minutes as he's able, hustles his tail off, and has put in an incredible amount of work at the weight room ever since his lacking fitness to open his college career. And don't cut corners on it -- Hibbert has lacked fitness since the day he entered the league. Seriously. Check out this brilliant profile of Hibbert by Jordan Conn over at Grantland, specifically the bit where it talks about Hibbert in high school.

It's absolutely hilarious to hear stories of the high school version of Hibbert, who had virtually no athletic ability and simply went home to play simulated versions of himself on his Playstation. And take that in context of his late diagnosis of asthma and you start to see why I find myself so impressed with the level that Hibbert's managed to raise his game. Heck, I'm ridiculously unathletic -- I'm remotely passable at pickup, because I'm 6'4", but that's with no help from my so-called athleticism. It took Hibbert years and years of conditioning and training to rise from the level of a seven foot stiff to a seven foot ringer. Now, years later? He's at the heights. One of the best centers on earth, and while many would ridiculously needle that he "won the genetic lottery", you go tell that to most people with asthma and no natural athleticism. Don't think they'll appreciate it. It takes work to do what Hibbert's done, and he's earned everything he's gotten up to now. No -- Hibbert is one of those guys you can't really help but root for more as you learn more about him. He was an absolutely wonderful find for Indiana, and while the max contract may be a slight overpay, I can't really say I'd expect it to be one they'll have much regret for going forward. Can't wait to watch him continue to move forward and develop.

• • •

At the end of each post, I'll be scribing riddles for the next group. Whoever gets the most right will get a shout out at the end of the next post. Tweet me your answers at @docrostov, or post them in the comments. Good correction-guesses. Mike was the first one who aced this one, with a well-earned 3/3 -- Chilai got it as well. I know that Roy Hibbert is Mike's favorite player (and the Pacers are his team), so it's a good day for the dude. Win the riddle guessing, AND get your favorite player! Nice. Also: happy belated birthday! (He's a good friend of mine, and a great person. Love that guy.)

• Franchise player? Hardly. Paid that way, though, and when Player #115 got the contract, it didn't look THAT bad.
• Surprisingly useful center. One of the weirdest Rookie of the Year winners ever, retrospectively. Player #116 has some talent.
• His career has been on a prolonged downslide since a blistering start to his rookie year, but I believe in Player #117. Too much swag not to.

As our summer mainstay, Aaron's writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. Intent is to get you talking, thinking, and appreciating the myriad of wonderful folks who play in our favorite sports league. Today we continue with Dirk Nowitzki, Stephen Jackson, and Avery Bradley.

• • •

Follow Dirk Nowitzki on Twitter at @swish41.

A few things before I link today's edition of Player Capsules (Plus), starring Dirk Nowitzki. First, I'll cop to it now. I dislike the Mavericks. Quite a lot, actually. As with most Spurs fans, I can't really stand them -- I find Mark Cuban a bit boorish, Jason Terry completely intolerable, and Jason Kidd one of the least-likeable players in the league. Luckily, Terry is gone and Kidd is too, so maybe I'll like the Mavs a bit more next season. Although, maybe I won't. There's the Mavericks-Spurs rivalry in the background, those annoying uniforms, et cetera. So many pressure points. Anyway. Despite the distaste, I have a reasonably large amount of respect for the Mavericks. This respect comes on two fronts, mainly. There's a lot of respect for Rick Carlisle, who I think is one of the better coaches in the league. Great feel for the game, great ability to maximize the talent his team gives him. Also: he's got a great amount of restraint for a coach, and knows when to defer to his trained assistants. And seems like a great guy outside of the game, as well. Fantastic coach.

Beyond that, and the main point? I have a huge amount of respect for Dirk Nowitzki, who I think takes his place among the best players ever. Certainly one of the best at his position to ever play the game, even with his odd and modern skillset. Relatively poor casts around him, for years, but Dirk's been a singular talent and a singular star in the dismal fog of the Dallas ensemble. He's incredible. In today's extended capsule on Dirk, I go heavily into Dirk as a generational offensive talent -- I examine what exactly makes his offensive game so potent, and (in extensive detail) cover why it's absurd to let LeBron's brilliant 2012 run eschew the incredible accomplishment of Dirk's 2011 run. In this excerpt from today's capsule (going up as a feature at SBNation Dallas, with great thanks to Jonathan Tjarks for offering to post it), I discuss one of the things that makes Dirk's offensive game so impossible to guard. Namely, the idea that Dirk plays possum.

There's this fish -- it's a cichlid of the "Haplochromis Livingstoni" sort, and many people actually have it in their homes as a pet. There's something special about it, though. Many animals in the world are adept at "playing dead" -- essentially acting as though they're dead or paralyzed in self defense. Sharks, lizards, and possums alike do it. There are thousands of animals that take the tactic on, using temporary paralysis as a strategy to end the hunt. But there's a single fish (the aforementioned cichlid) that actually uses it as an offensive tactic. The fish will play dead at the bottom of the ocean, lying in wait as smaller fish come to eat it. Then, as the others prepare to feast, the fish springs into action and devours any scavenger that doesn't flee immediately. That's how Dirk treats defenders -- he'll cup his dribble, let a defender push him slightly off his position, and allow the defense to set a strong contest. Then he'll simply spring from his position of supposed weakness and make the shot anyway. And he does this in a way that wears defenders down. By the end of the game, most defenders find themselves frustrated enough that they change their defensive strategy on Dirk, in ways that very rarely work. It's part of what contributes to Dirk's brilliant fourth quarter numbers -- in a war of attrition between a defense and Dirk's shot, more often than not, the defense loses miserably.

READ DIRK NOWITZKI'S EXTENDED CAPSULE AT SBNATION DALLAS.

• • •

F__ollow Stephen Jackson on Twitter at @DaTrillStak5._____

There are two ways that Stephen Jackson's basketball talents can manifest on a team, to distill his game down to its essence -- he can come to a season, a game, or a possession as either Good Jax or Bad Jax. Usually in a single game, he'll oscillate between the two, but with a heavy focus on one or the other. You can usually tell which sphere he's going to be tilted towards after the end of training camp, after you've gotten a sense of how he's feeling out the pieces alongside him and how he's getting along with his coach. Up until the season, though, determining who exactly Jackson's going to be in the upcoming season is a fun little game. It's a cracker-jack mystery. There's a high level of variance in how Jackson's teams perform, and oftentimes, the gap between perception and the reality (either a good gap or a bad gap) can be attributed entirely to how Jackson chooses to play in any particular year.

So, there's Good Jax. When Jackson becomes Good Jax, he's one of the most valuable wings you can put on the floor. He's a confidence-dripping shooter who's as good off ball as he is on it, with a crafty talent at getting himself open and a fantastic shot whether it's off the dribble or off a pinpoint pass. Good Jax knows he has the size to post-up small guards, and more importantly, he actually does it. He's not the most excellent passer ever, but when he's Good Jax, he's a willing cog in a possession's passing machine, only taking a shot if he knows for sure that it's the best one available. Good Jax is a solid rebounder for his size, and a dirty-work player that knows exactly what the team needs from him on any particular possession. Good Jax is a brilliant defender, using his size and strength to bother scoring guards with the best of them, and staying stuck to his man without making silly fouls. Good Jax is just about the easiest player for a coach to integrate into a contending lineup that one could ask for. He's fantastic. Fans LOVE him.

Then, out of nowhere, there's Bad Jax. When Jackson becomes Bad Jax, he's one of the least valuable wings in the history of the human race. He's a confidence-excess shooter who despite being good off ball refuses to actually test out that whole "off ball" thing, dribbling into the infinite without a care in the world for the players around him. Bad Jax knows he has the size to post-up small guards, but more importantly, doesn't give a crap that he does. Not only does he rarely pass, but when he does, it turns into a horror show of passing-into-traffic or passing-into-a-triple-teamed-teammate, almost as though he's making explicitly bad passes just to reveal to everyone a reason as to why he should never pass again. Bad Jax eschews rebounding, considering it the work of a lesser man, and acts like he's Jordan for reasons unknown to all. Bad Jax is a good defender, at least in his fundamentals, but completely gives away every point he fought to guard by making silly overaggressive fouls and screaming at the referees in temper-fueled tirades that virtually always lead to technicals. Bad Jax is just about the hardest player for a coach to integrate into a contending lineup... well, ever. He'll haggle over his contract when he's playing like crap. Fans HATE him.

There's two sides to every coin, and as Jackson might say, he makes so much coin he's basically a coin himself. The thing with Jackson that makes him so incredibly endearing to his fans (me included) is that the off-court "Bad Jax" is a figure that's rarely evident in any public part of his personality. Tim Duncan once said that Jackson was "the ultimate teammate" in San Antonio, and Lang Whitaker once wrote that Jackson has always been one of the best players to talk to in the league. He's got a well-deserved reputation for taking young players under his wing, and during the lockout, an often-forgotten storyline was that Kevin Durant considered Stephen Jackson his closest confidant on figuring out whether or not he should go overseas. Everyone that knows Jackson personally says he's a great person, and despite all the technicals and the on-court fire, he's been awarded recognition multiple times for his extensive community outreach and wide-spanning charity work. What you see on the court -- in terms of his temper, his ballhogging, his "Bad Jax" side altogether -- doesn't at all reflect the great person Jackson is off the court. He's also the best rapper in the NBA, one of the funniest players in the NBA, and he's the most honest man in the NBA. It's true -- Jackson is getting old, and it's unlikely he's long for the league. But as with many with undeserved reps, there's a lot to like if you abandon the preconceived notions of Jack as a team-killing cancer. And all things considered? I'm really, really glad he got a chance to come back to San Antonio.

• • •

Follow Avery Bradley on Twitter at @Aabradley11.
__

There's a little trap that NBA writers, analysts, and fans often get suckered into when we're watching games. It's a manner of confirmation bias. You have a certain archetype in your head, a certain predisposition you assume every player that's good at something will embody. For post players, it's bulkiness -- if a post player isn't bulky, with heft to their step, we tend to assume they're bad at playing the post. For scoring guards, it's Jordan-imitation -- if a shoot-first guard isn't imitating Jordan in every step of his game and career, we tend to assume they're worse scorers. And finally, for wing defenders, it's size -- if a wing defender isn't a huge and muscular athletic freak, we tend to assume they aren't a very good defender. Because of the bias and our inherent assumptions about what these players should look like, we actively find it difficult to watch and understand when players break the mold -- the burden of proof ends up being on the mold-breaker to demonstrate they can dominate in a different way. And it works the other way around, too -- some players can survive on reputation alone, if they fit the mold of what a player of their type "should" look like. Just look at Ben Gordon.

In Avery Bradley's case, he's the very definition of a mold-breaker. Bradley is diminutive, weighing in at a lighter-than-me 180 and a shorter-than-me 6'2". Generally, with size like that, you'd expect teams to force Bradley to the point guard position. You'd expect coaches to look at his size and go "okay, look, there's absolutely no way you're guarding bigger players, so we're going to hide you on the point guard." This would've probably signaled the end of Bradley's career, as he's no offensive dynamo -- he's developed a solid three point stroke, but he's got no 3-15 foot jump shot to speak of and his only notable offensive talent beyond his three and his finishing ability is a suspect long two. He's also a relatively poor passing talent -- he's yet to register 100 assists in his career (though, to be fair, he's at 99) and he's simply not been blessed with notable court vision. No, if Bradley was playing point guard, he'd be an unrepentant failure to this point of his career. He isn't a point guard at all, despite being a highly undersized player at the two. Given our expectations for defenders at the two, he'd be expected to be a terrible, quasi-useless player.

The thing is? He isn't. He REALLY isn't. Bradley is among the best defenders in the game, despite having only been in the league two seasons and barely playing at all in 2011. His size should, theoretically, harm his defense -- in practice, it absolutely hasn't. With Bradley on the court, the 2012 Celtics defense was 4.5 points better. Which is actually pretty incredible, given how stingy the Celtics defense was at all times -- the raw defensive rating the Celtics posted with Bradley on the court (96) was better than that of any other guard in that top 50, and better than all but 2 big men (Omer Asik and Taj Gibson). No player on the Celtics that played over 500 minutes improved the Celtics' defense more than Bradley did. He uses his size to his advantage in a way that reminds me somewhat of Gary Payton -- he gets under point guards, and uses his small frame to (in a way) get under their dribble and into their skin. He moves fluidly, never quite shading enough to let the opposing offensive player get room to put up a shot or the daylight to drive all the way past him. He's always a threat to steal, but virtually never a threat to lose his position. He's simply an amazing defender, and for Kobe Bryant's mail-it-in 2012 defensive season to get an all-defensive nod over the brilliance Bradley put forth is not only laughable, it's actively insane.

The only worry I have with Bradley's career at this point is in his injury. In last year's playoffs, Bradley suffered an injury to his left shoulder -- a tear, not a full separation -- but an injury that figured to have him out for a few games to start the year. Unfortunately, a little over a month ago, Bradley had to go back under the knife -- he had to go through a second surgery, on his right shoulder this time -- yes, the opposite shoulder to his first surgery. I don't think I need to tell you this, but that's really bad news. Shoulder rehab takes a while, and it's unlikely Bradley will be back to full-form until the end of the season, if at all -- I had a roommate who suffered a minor shoulder tear during his time as a javelin thrower, and the rehab took him almost a year. If Bradley's rehab takes a year, he may be able to play this season, but he certainly won't be the player he's been up to now. So that's a concern. Given the Celtics' addition of Courtney Lee, Bradley's absence may not absolutely destroy them, but it is a definite concern given how underrated and important Bradley is to this Celtics team. He's their best perimeter defender, their best option at the two, and an incredibly good fit with Rajon Rondo as a cohesive backcourt unit. Still. Bradley's shoulder injuries weren't structural problems, so it's likely that he'll be back to full-form by 2014. The question is whether the Celtics will still be a title contender at that point, and if not, whether he'll still be as valuable on a middling-tier playoff team as a member of the core. I suppose we'll see. Until then, I entreat you to let Bradley's example be a constant reminder -- not every player fits the molds we've got entrenched in our heads.

• • •

At the end of each post, I'll be scribing riddles for the next group. Whoever gets the most right will get a shout out at the end of the next post. Tweet me your answers at @docrostov, or post them in the comments. Alright, riddles were harder than I intended them to be yesterday, as nobody did better than 1/3. My bad. Will try to make them at least slightly more comprehensible today.

• While Player #112 will be under dimmer lights this season, more than the lessened exposure, I think his injury will be what saps his game.
• I've never been very impressed with this young Raptor's game, but I can't deny Player #113's quasi-insane confidence.
• Player #114 always seemed like a good guy to me, and that's BEFORE he worked with Tim Duncan for a summer!

As our summer mainstay, Aaron's writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. Intent is to get you talking, thinking, and appreciating the myriad of wonderful folks who play in our favorite sports league. Today we continue with Greg Stiemsma, Vince Carter, and Jordan Farmar.

• • •

Follow Greg Stiemsma on Twitter at @gregstiemsma.

I'm not exactly Greg Stiemsma's biggest fan, nor am I unerringly positive about his potential as a player. After all -- he was a 26-year-old rookie last year with the Celtics, and while he's a decent shot-blocker, he's awful at staying on the court. Absolutely can't resist fouling people, primarily because he's tall and spindly and has slower reaction times than most of his more crafty, more athletic brethren. His instincts are spectacular, hence his amazing block rate and his well-above-average steal rate. But his lacking athleticism puts him at a genuine disadvantage against the majority of NBA centers, to the point that it's not altogether unreasonable to wonder if he'll ever NOT be plagued with massive foul trouble in his career. Again, though -- decent shot blocker, and while his individual defense isn't spectacular (it's good on the whole, especially when he gets switched onto smaller guys, but larger centers mess him up pretty badly), his overall defensive game accounting for his excellent help defense is notably solid and his offensive game is sneakily good. He's got a nice little jumper from within about 20 feet that he's able to get off over just about anyone, if he's in the right position. And while he can't post up whatsoever, he knocks down free throws at a well-above-average rate for a center. So there's that. Still. While I'm not his biggest fan, I'd like you to try and find the time to read this.

It's an interview with Stiemsma and the trainer that quite literally saved his life. You see, Stiemsma had depression, back in college. It manifested itself through a blatant disregard for his studies, resulting in academic probation for a semester and caused a coach to advocate for him and push him forward, past the miasma and the quagmire that had threatened to eat Stiemsma up entirely. All in all, it's a brilliant piece of writing. It does an excellent job putting to paper some of the things that make depression so awful and disturbing to those who suffer with it. It was an absolutely underheralded story, back last January -- in my case, I didn't see it until near the end of the season. And that makes sense. After all, when it was published, the league was shiny and new to the lot of us. Stiemsma didn't look like all that much more than a D-League castaway center, and in general, people don't feature stories about such a player. But the fact remains -- Stiemsma opened up to the press about something most people can barely open up to their families about. He allowed a journalist into the deepest recesses of his life, and offered a startlingly honest portrayal of what it's like to truly suffer from depression. If that's not worthy of respect, I don't know what is.

He's said previously that he didn't want to be a spokesperson for depression, per se, but that in choosing to publicize his struggle and the long road back he wanted to actively fight the stigmas and cultural sticking points associated with depression. To me, that is a very personal struggle and a very noble battle. I've known too many people -- including myself -- who've found themselves muzzled and held back by the way society treats depression at various points in life. A neurosis or a mental illness isn't some problem that's all in a person's head -- it's a disease just like any other. And unfortunately, the way many refuse to treat depression and neurotic behavior as a legitimate illness actively harms the ability of the depressed and the struggling to get help. There's nothing wrong with seeing a therapist, or a psychiatrist, or actively trying to improve your mood and condition through medication and adventures with friends. But the more depression is marginalized as a figment of one's imagination, the more people find themselves driven to incredibly dark measures to get themselves out.

Whenever I read about a depressed person who's lost their battle, I feel lucky. Lucky that I (like Stiemsma) had loved ones, teachers, and friends I felt comfortable reaching out to when I reached rock bottom -- and perhaps more importantly, people who helped counteract the societal pressure I felt to keep it inside and deal with it on my own time. So for my own part, I hold a lot of regard for anyone notable that takes their struggle public and chips away (if only just) at that mountain. That worldly weight that hangs heavy on the shoulders of the depressed and downtrodden. Stiemsma could've simply done what many athletes do -- called it a personal problem, said he needed to spend time with family, and dealt with his depression in the dark. It's what I did, basically -- when I was struggling, there weren't more than 2 or 3 people who even knew I was getting therapy for it. But he chose to go public and continue the slow march towards public acceptance of depression as a legitimate mental illness, and for that, I thank him profusely.

• • •

F__ollow Vince Carter on Twitter at @mrvincecarter15._____

In the aftermath of this year's Dwight Howard saga and last year's Carmelo Anthony boondoggle, I admit, I have more sympathy for him than I did a few years back. It's not that he really handled his Toronto tenure well -- he emphatically didn't, and just as Dwight did, he torpedoed his own trade value and forced his way out in a garish, unsightly way. He spent his last year in a Raptors jersey paying no heed to the concepts of effort or hard work. No, Carter is hardly a saint. But distance makes the heart grow fonder, and in that sense, as we head further down the path of "every single star doing the exact same thing", we start to lose track of why exactly we hated the stars who did it before. Just look at Kareem Abdul Jabbar, perhaps the most egregious trade-demanding jerk to the franchise who drafted him in the history of the league. I like Kareem's game, but it's worth mentioning over and over again -- he completely screwed Milwaukee over and refused to play there despite being three years off one of the most dominant titles in the history of the league. It would've been like LeBron winning the title in 2009 with that excellent Cavs team, then leaving for Miami after personally setting the entirety of downtown Cleveland on fire with gasoline purchased from Art Modell. I like Kareem because he was in Airplane, my favorite movie, but it's hard to deny that he was the prototype for all of today's capricious team-abandoning superstars. It's also hard to deny that virtually nobody remembers it, and thinks of him only through his years as a Laker.

Still, although I have "more" sympathy for Carter now than I did back before LeBron changed the game, it's not significantly more. You know how technically, if you find a penny on the ground, you're "more" wealthy than you were a few minutes ago? Yeah. That's how I'd assess the level of my marginally increased sympathy for Vince Carter. Carter was a once in a generation talent whose natural ability and dazzling athleticism redefined the wing position. He was one of the most popular players ever -- did you know that he led the league in all-star game voting for four of five years between 2000 to 2004 (coming in second only once, narrowly missing the leading vote-getting total to Kobe in 2003)? It's crazy. He was insanely popular, just about as much so as Jordan, Shaq, or Kobe. And he did it in Toronto! It's ridiculous. Statistically, some of Carter's best seasons align favorably with those produced by any guard in the last several decades. But his nadirs are just about as low as any -- you can bemoan the lack of talent around him all you want, but Carter has never led a team to serious contention. In fact, his two "best" years for MVP voting were his second and third year seasons, when he finished 10th and 11th respectively -- he's never broken the top 10 for MVP voting, despite his statistically brilliant career.

Many people watched him, loved him, rooted for him. But his marginal accomplishments have made his overriding legacy less about what we've watched him do and more a legacy of what never was -- his legacy is rooted in the titles he never won, and the competition he never dominated, and the playoff runs he never had. His career isn't highlighted by his statistical achievements or his body of work, it's highlighted by all the elements missing. To the point that I honestly don't think he deserves to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame -- he'd be the first player ever with over 20,000 points in his career left out of the Hall, but really, is there any more fitting end for Carter's career? Vinsanity -- the legend, the myth, the soul-crushing disappointment and the first of his kind. Perhaps the only one of his kind -- much to Toronto's relief.

He did dunk over Frederic Weis that one time, though. That's worth something, right?

• • •

Follow Jordan Farmar on Twitter by squinting really hard and making a face.
__

I'm kind of a hypocrite. I spent the entire Omri Casspi capsule talking about how meaningful Omri's faith was to me as a man of serious Jewish descent. I appreciate Casspi so much, and get a special joy from watching him play. Which is all well and good. But then there's Jordan Farmar. Farmar comes from Jewish descent too. He's arguably a better player than Casspi. He's worked just as hard, paid as many dues, and played a decently important role on two title-winning teams. And yet... I don't really care for or against Farmar. I'm just utterly neutral on him, you know? It might be the Laker thing, combined with the UCLA thing. I don't have a ton against UCLA, but I'm not the biggest fan either, so that's not exactly a mark in his favor. But then Farmar was drafted by the Lakers, a franchise I've never been great shakes for appreciating, and proceeded to disappoint. Really, think about this -- he literally had four years to push a constantly aging, mediocre-at-best Fisher out of his starting spot. He failed miserably. Farmar showed no ability to interface with the Lakers in a way that actively changed their team.

It basically goes like this -- if you couldn't prove you were better than Derek Fisher, there was no way you were starting over a player with his gravitas. Luckily, most point guards in the league can demonstrably prove to be better than Derek Fisher in at least one or two respects -- unluckily for Farmar, he is not most point guards. He's a poor shooter who thinks he's an amazing shooter (only once has he shot above 38% from three, but he still takes 6 three point shots per 36 minutes over his career), he's a point guard with virtually no passing ability (in Los Angeles, he never registered an assist percentage significantly above 20% -- absolutely abysmal for a point guard), and he gets caught sleeping on defense all the time. And what's worse? By the time he was nearing the end of his time in Los Angeles, he was actively demanding starter's minutes and a starting spot over Fisher. Which would be fine, if it was some kind of tragedy that he wasn't getting the starting nod -- it wasn't. Virtually every guard in the league could make a reasonable case that they deserved to start over Derek Fisher, but Farmar was so disappointing in Los Angeles he could hardly make that case for himself. Simply ridiculous.

Still. He's relatively young, so I suppose there's still a small bit of room for improvement. And it's worth noting that he's been quietly better in New Jersey than he was in Los Angeles -- he's shot the three ball better, he's passed WAY better outside of the triangle, and while he's been awfully turnover prone, he hasn't explicitly hurt his team on the court. I kind of liked his fit in Atlanta, until they waived him and decided to trade for Devin Harris. Now? He's off to Turkey, playing with Anadolu Efes in Istanbul on a three-year deal. He's making $10.5 million over those three years, which is an absolutely solid contract for a guy who will most likely emerge as a dominant international point guard. Still, I suppose this is something of a requiem to his NBA career. Jordan Farmar was better in New Jersey than he was in Los Angeles, and the triangle probably hurt his game more than anything Jackson, Fisher, or Kobe did to him. Still. He was something of a Jewish icon in Los Angeles, but from my perspective, not one I really cared for or against that much. So here's to you, Jordan Farmar. A bit disappointing, a bit underwhelming, and a bit... gone.

• • •

At the end of each post, I'll be scribing riddles for the next group. Whoever gets the most right will get a shout out at the end of the next post. Tweet me your answers at @docrostov, or post them in the comments. Everyone thought Stiemsma was going to be Scalabrine, and I admit, I kind of made that an intentional red herring. Best was 2/3, from many people. If the riddle's too easy, sometimes it's a misdirection! (Why? Because I'm a jerk! Take that!) Anyway.

• Barely anyone remembers what Player #109 did in 2011 anymore. So let's remember. Will appear... elsewhere.
• Surprises people to realize that Player #110 is so easy to root for. But he is -- he's fantastic.
• While Player #111 is absolutely DOMINANT defensively, he's also injured -- I really hope those subside, though.

As our summer mainstay, Aaron's writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. Intent is to get you talking, thinking, and appreciating the myriad of wonderful folks who play in our favorite sports league. Today we continue with Patty Mills, Kris Humphries, and James Anderson.

• • •

Follow Patty Mills on Twitter at @Patty_Mills.

While most people have heard the word "aboriginal" before, not everyone knows exactly what it means. Let's explain with a short history. Aboriginal refers to indigenous Australians -- essentially, the aboriginal people are to Australia what the Native Americans are to America and what the Aztec civilization was to central Mexico. They were there before Australia became Great Britain's puzzling dumping ground for the worst criminals they could find. Just as Britain brought European plagues like measles, smallpox, and tuberculosis to America when they settled, so too did they bring the same to Australia -- throughout the 19th century, non-native disease was the primary cause of death among the aboriginal people. Gradually, the European settlers took over Australia, slowly pinching the water supply and the land ownership of the aboriginals -- although they nominally had the right to vote, in practice those of aboriginal descent were denied a vote unless they renounced their culture and joined the "mainstream" of Australian culture. And then, the kicker. The Stolen Generations.

There's so much we don't know about the process -- how many were taken, how many were killed, why exactly it happened. There are theories. The Stolen Generations resulted from the codified removal of children from aboriginal households -- after the Aboriginal Protection Act of 1869 (a positively Orwellian twist of the tongue, given the content of the legislation), tens of thousands of aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in group homes, orphanages, and Catholic-run boarding schools. The children were told by and large that their parents "didn't want them" -- in practice, this was a lie. The manner in which children were taken was unbelievably barbaric and cruel -- often rending the children from their mother's arms and driving away without looking back. The authorities kept lacking documentation, as well -- when the act finally was repealed in the 1960s, it was found that piecing together the lives of many removed children was essentially impossible. The parents weren't always kept track of, sometimes keeping even their first names out of the records of the stolen child. Children's names were regularly changed once they were removed, and oftentimes never changed back to their former surname.

In America, no matter our political affiliation, we tend to think of both sides of our politicians as having perfected the denial of facts and legitimate argument to a level no other country could reach. I think many Australians would disagree, especially those sympathetic to the plight of Australia's indigenous people -- there's a massive faction of the Australian Conservative Party that simply refuses to accept that children were removed without just cause. They outright deny it, bluster about it, and refuse to accept that historical events actually occurred. Or, if they choose to accept it, they call into question the idea that there was any malicious intent, or actively question whether forcibly removing 10-20% of all children from their natural homes properly constitutes a "generation." I really hate America's political system, and I can't stand the ideologues on both sides. I can't cut corners, though -- the outright denial of Australia's historical atrocities among large factions of their right-wing party really bugs me. I mean REALLY bugs me. I just find it actively insane -- it's as though every man in the U.S. Senate was Trent Lott, or as though occasional bills get pushed through congress questioning whether the trail of tears actually happened. It rubs me the wrong way.

So. What all does this have to do with Patty Mills? Well, the story of the stolen generation is a very personal one for Mills -- in fact, his own mother was taken from her family at the age of two. Mills doesn't talk about this aspect of his history often, but when he does, there's a definite sense of venom and disgust in the way he addresses it. And as he says in the above-linked article, Mills carries a massive chip on his shoulder. He knows that an entire side of his family never got to watch him play, and he thinks he represents more beyond the Australian flag. As Mills once said, "not only do I wave the Australian flag, but I wave both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander [flags as well] and that's something that means more to me than most things." He represents more than simply another of the many Australian players in the NBA -- he's become something of a national icon, one of the country's most famous basketball players. He was the star of the Australian national team, and every step Mills takes to become more and more of a globally recognized player is that much more of a step forward for Australian race relations, a step forward for good families, and a step past this dark chapter in Australian history.

As for his game? I've kind of written myself into a corner where I can't talk a ton about it, but I can mention a few things. First, while he's emphatically a backup guard in the NBA, that's not for lack of talent. Mills is a gifted scorer, combining a highly efficient three point stroke with an excellent touch from the free throw line and an incredible amount of hustle across the court. His problems? Far too many turnovers -- although he's a relatively gifted passer, he sometimes will go for incredible highlight plays over the smart pass, and he often gets burned. Under Nate McMillan in Portland, he didn't really get the chance to make mistakes. If he turned the ball over or fouled (which he did often), Nate would pull him immediately -- Coach Pop was a bit less inclined to do so, giving him more regular minutes in the regular season. Mills impressed enough that the Spurs brought him back on a fair, million-per-year deal -- he'll be the Spurs primary backup point guard in the 2013 season, assuming Pop moves Neal to his natural spot at the two guard and Nando spends some time with the Toros. If Mills impresses, it's likely he'll be brought back as long as he's on a fair contract. Excited to see it.

The reason I discussed the stolen generations aspect so much in this capsule is two-fold. First, I think it's a story that very few people know about and that should be more commonly known. Second, I think it's actively amazing to look at Patty Mills -- by all accounts a stand-up, incredibly great guy -- and take a moment to think about his upbringing. How his mother was one of the stolen generations, and his father was a native of the Torrey Straits Islands. Consider the fact that the Aboriginal Removal Act was explicitly meant to prevent people like Patty Mills from ever existing. After all -- an aboriginal mother AND father? That's exactly what the act was trying to prevent. Mills grew up in a loving, supportive family -- the basketball league he played in during his youth, the "Shadows", was actually established by his parents in an effort to bring the game to the indigenous people. It was the first basketball club in the country that brought the game to aboriginals. It's amazing to watch Mills play and realize how much love, care, and hardship had to be overcome to get Mills to the place he's at now. It's a testament to the human spirit and the love of a good family. When I watch Patty Mills, this all tends to be at the back of my mind. Even on the Portland Trailblazers I found it impossible to root against Patty, even if the Blazers were playing a team I liked more -- Patty is that kind of a guy, and one of the most likeable people in the NBA besides. Who else makes commercials for charity that are as awesome as this one? Am I the only one who cannot at all wait for Patty to appear in an H.E.B. advertisement?

I can't wait for Act II of this "Patty Mills comes to San Antonio" arc. Great player, great guy, great story. Love Patty.

• • •

F__ollow Kris Humphries on Twitter at @KrisHumphries._____

Alright. Here's my problem with Kris Humphries. It's a somewhat well-known fact that I went to Duke. It's a lesser known fact that I graduated with my degree in three years, and if they'd kept me from graduating in three years, I probably would've transferred elsewhere. While I met a lot of people I liked at Duke, and had a few cliques of friends I hung out with from time to time (between work and overload classes and TAing and such), I also met a veritable flood of people I simply couldn't stand at all. Most people know the type -- they're the people that everyone thinks of when Duke comes to mind. The frat-stars, the sorority obsessives, the ladder climbers so obsessed with self advancement that they refuse to respect anyone around them as more than a tool to climb the social ladder. I met a lot of people like that at Duke, and they tended to mar my Duke experience a bit. (As did the administration, but that's a story for another day.)

Anyway. I know a lot of people that fit this archetype, and unfortunately for Kris Humphries, that's exactly how he comes across. There's this strangely decided air of superiority -- it comes from the media, partly, and how he carries himself. This sense that Kris Humphries is better than everyone around him, and that he's accomplished every single thing he's done in his life without the help of a single person. This faint shadow of a sneer, this strange glint to his stare, this strange overhanging fog of belittlement hanging over his words. Is Humphries really that bad? I have absolutely no idea. Seriously. That reality show he was on? Didn't watch it, at all. I don't keep up with the tabloid drama between Humphries and Kardashian, so I'm really not qualified to talk about that stuff. Essentially my only "interaction" with Humphries comes at the impersonal level -- how Humphries composes himself on the court, how his game is designed, how he tends to operate in his postgame interviews. And I simply don't like what I see. It's nothing personal, really, it's just a vibe. Call it a Fratty Radar if you like -- a Frat-Dar, if you won't. (Shoulda just called it fratty radar, huh?)

As for his game, as I said -- while he composes himself in sort of a douchey way, his game only contributes to my general distaste for the man. Humphries has never met a weakside assignment he could properly cover, and he's never met a rebound he wouldn't get out of position to try and get. Against Humphries, you may not be able to get a rebound from him, but it doesn't really matter -- if you're the man he's guarding, you probably are going to get 5 or 6 open shots in the game, if not more. He doesn't get out of rebounding position to help on defense, which would be fine if he was next to a help-friendly big man that covered up his defensive failings like Bismack Biyombo, Tyson Chandler, or Marcus Camby. He's not. He's next to Brook Lopez, a center essentially allergic to the concept of help defense. There's a reason the Nets have been one of the worst defenses in the league since Williams came over, and it's not that Williams is a poor defender at his position -- even when Lopez was healthy and providing a modicum of support down low (as I'll discuss in the Lopez capsule), they were still playing no-help Humphries big minutes. His rebounding is impressive, no doubt, and the way he's reined in his errant shots since the 201o season is admirable. But I'm not going to pretend I really appreciate his game. He's a no-defense rebounding beast who's finally stopped taking that many bad shots. His rebounding is good enough to make him a starter, and now that he's reined in his broken shot, he's finally a good enough scorer to deserve starter's minutes. Is he worth $12 million a year, with defense like that? Heck no. And would I like seeing him on a team I root for?

Again: heck no! I rooted for enough of those at Duke, you know!

• • •

Follow James Anderson on Twitter at @25_Anderson.__

This might end up being one of the shortest capsules yet, simply because I don't know what to say about Anderson. If I had to pick my least-favorite Spur, he'd probably edge out Gary Neal by a hair -- his agent has repeatedly said he wanted the Spurs to cut Anderson, and that does sort of leave a bad taste in my mouth. I realize Pop doesn't give Anderson many minutes, but Pop has shown many times that if you contribute in practice and work hard on your game, you'll get time. He's had two years in the Spurs system, with access to the same shooting coaches that rehabilitated Kawhi Leonard's broken three point shot, Duncan's late-career elbow jumper, and a myriad of other successful projects. The same system that's produced so many success stories with players that displayed his general skillset. The best coach in the game, the greatest mentors a player could ask for, an excellent front office with a knack for getting a good deal for the player. And yet... his agent publicly asked the Spurs to drop him, so he could get picked up by a lottery team and get more minutes. (Big Chris Kaman move, bro.)

It's one thing to ask for a trade, it's another to make the trade request public and ruin your team's ability to flip you for an asset. Is it a business? Sure. Is there anything actively wrong about what Anderson did? Not at all. But there's a certain sense of entitlement in some NBA players, like they simply deserve minutes because of their draft spot or their perceived talent. If I could talk to Anderson, I'd try to figure out what makes him tick -- what reason would the Spurs have to give him minutes, with how he's played so far? He hasn't shown any defensive ability in the major leagues (a shame, because before he came up I figured him to be a defensive plus at Oklahoma State), he's been an absolutely abhorrent shooter, he's been a turnover machine even playing in garbage time, and he didn't even play all that well in the D-League (averaging an impressive 15-5-2... but doing it on 44% shooting and 34% from beyond the arc.) The Spurs were contending for a title last year. Where, exactly, did they have room for a player like Anderson? Why make it public? How was that supposed to make Anderson more palatable to other teams, who knew immediately they could wait until the offseason and sign him outright? I just don't get it. I was higher on Anderson before last season's disappointment. But his early-career stress fracture in his foot seems to have derailed his career something fierce, and while the potential he once showed is still there, his eschewing of the opportunity to play a small role on a well-constructed development-focused contender in favor of playing a ton of minutes on a lottery team doesn't seem like a good omen for the future. Sorry, Anderson. Not a good look.

• • •

At the end of each post, I'll be scribing riddles for the next group. Whoever gets the most right will get a shout out at the end of the next post. Tweet me your answers at @docrostov, or post them in the comments. Commenter Mike got a 3/3 last Friday -- nice guessing, Mike! Let's go Jeopardy style for today's riddles.

• A former beantown favorite, Player #106 was as prototypical a Celtic as you can get.
• Most famous for a soul-crushing dunk, Player #107 is absolutely infamous in the Toronto area.
• The original NBA Jewish-dude, though Player #108's rings may be responsible for that.

As our summer mainstay, Aaron's writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. Intent is to get you talking, thinking, and appreciating the myriad of wonderful folks who play in our favorite sports league. Today we continue with Omer Asik, Kevin Garnett, and Manny Harris.

• • •

Follow Omer Asik on Twitter at @AsikOmer.

How good is Omer Asik, and how much is he really worth? It's a fair question, and one that's been asked more often than ever since Morey's "poison pill" offer sheet dissuaded the Bulls from resigning him. We'll start with a few inherent traits about Asik. One thing most people ignore is that Asik came into the NBA relatively old. Not in a general sense, but for a third-year player, Asik is up there in the years. Last year, Asik was the 10th oldest sophomore in the league, and if you're only counting sophomores that played more than 50 games, he was the 3rd oldest. He'll be 27 at the end of next year's playoffs, and by the time Morey's contract expires, Asik may very well be starting to fall off. If we contextualize the fact that this may be Asik's only "big" contract, that does tend to put the whole ordeal into a different light. The second important fact about Asik is size -- while size alone means little, Asik is a legitimate 7'0" on the court, and he doesn't combine that with any particularly lacking tertiaries -- he's got excellent shoulders, a strong lower body, and a 7'2" wingspan. Players with those size qualities tend to get paid in their prime regardless of if they're any good, as long as they're passable enough to play 15-20 minutes a night.

Let's cover the on-court stuff. There are two things Asik does well. First, he's a plus defender. In fact, simply calling him a "plus" defender might underrate him -- Asik is essentially a transformative defender when he's on the court. As an example courtesy of Kevin Pelton: when Asik was on the floor against the Miami Heat this season, the Heat shot 29% from the restricted area. When he was off the court in Heat/Chicago matchups? They shot 61%. As good as we think Joakim Noah is defensively, Asik has always gotten results at another level entirely on the defensive end. When he was in the game, nobody scored on the Bulls in the paint. Secondly, Asik is a great rebounder. In limited minutes, mind you, but still. Asik's total rebound percentage of 20% was actively insane, and while he didn't meet the minutes minimum to make the league leaderboards, that percentage would've been 3rd overall among all NBA players. What does Asik do poorly? Simple. All manner of offense (he shoots under 50% from the free throw line! THE FREE THROW LINE!), keeping from fouling (why do you think he plays so few minutes?), and simply keeping hold of the ball when it's passed to him (if you want a laugh, go to Youtube and queue up videos of Asik receiving passes, then play them with this video in the background). These are Asik's biggest weaknesses.

So, addressing the question of his worth -- I think Morey overpaid him a slight bit, I don't think the contract he was offered was really all that bad. In the Bulls' version of the offer sheet, Asik was paid a reasonable $5 million for two years, then became a $15 million expiring contract in year three. For a player of Asik's size and defensive acumen, in his prime? Are you really going to be paying less than $5 million a year? No. Yes, the single year at $15 million is tough to swallow (and ironically, Houston's having to pay him almost $9 million a year is almost certainly a worse contract over the full duration), but at that point you've got a somewhat portable expiring deal you can use to help a team with a free agent target clean their books. Plus, it's only one year at an insane rate -- if he disappoints, you don't have to bring him back after that year, and if you're savvy about your salary you may not even have to pay the tax outside of that single year. I think the Bulls made a slight mistake in not bringing him back on Morey's, but the real mistake was made years ago. When the Bulls brought Asik to Chicago, why in God's name didn't they negotiate into one or two team-option years at the end of that contract? Team options at the end of second round deals are quite possibly the biggest value-add propositions an NBA team can do when they're signing potentially useful players with very little cap leverage. In Asik's case, he had little leverage, so the fact that the Bulls simply didn't put a team option on a relatively lucrative contract for Asik's first speaks to genuinely stupid asset management on the part of Chicago. These are the kind of mistakes we string up lesser franchises for all the time -- Philadelphia was slammed for literally forgetting to do this with Lavoy Allen, New York was slammed in some circles for forgetting to do the same with Landry Fields. Chicago shouldn't get a free ride for the same. (To be fair: they aren't totally getting a free ride. Some have noticed.)

• • •

__F__ollow Kevin Garnett on Twitter by going to your local rec league and eating the stanchion____._

There's one big thing about Kevin Garnett you need to remember: he's still really good. In last year's playoffs, the four best players were LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Tim Duncan, and Kevin Garnett. That's how good Garnett and Duncan were in last year's postseason. While we don't know how Garnett and Duncan will age going forward, it's worth appreciating how insane it is that two 35 year old men were that valuable in one of the more exciting postseasons we've seen in a while. Both Boston and San Antonio seem to have excellent medical personnel, and both teams are making distinct efforts to keep their star big men's minutes in check during the regular season. Whereas Duncan's offensive game has migrated out to a set-shot jumper game, leveraging his passing to build up the offense through constant motion (and leveraging his status as the only big man on the team who still has defensive chops to keep the Spurs from being the worst defense in the universe), Garnett's offensive game is the same as always, if not a bit less efficient. Garnett is a bit less effective as a rebounder than he used to be, and a bit less of a useful passer. But he's still a fantastic defensive player, combining incredible help coverage with vicious (and, to be fair, often unabashedly filthy) one-on-one shutdown capabilities. Without Garnett, I'm convinced that the Celtics would be a middling NBA defense with a proclivity for dirty play -- he does so much for them, and keeps them above water in so many ways. It's simply ridiculous what he's been able to do at this stage of his career, and it's insane that when I read about his $27 million dollar contract I found myself completely unsurprised and completely convinced that he was worth it. Let's reflect on how crazy that is.

Alright, reflection over. As Duncan's ubiquity in the first paragraph indicates, it's really hard to talk about Garnett without talking about Tim Duncan. The Garnett-vs-Duncan argument has always interested me. There's two basic factions to the argument. The first is that Garnett -- in Duncan's situation, entering the league with David Robinson and Gregg Popovich flanking him -- would've won as many or more titles than Duncan did, because Garnett is a "better" player in a completely exogenous environment. The second is that the first faction is insane, and no matter how good Garnett was statistically (and he was excellent), there were outside factors from Duncan's dominance that Garnett could never have accomplished. We're never really going to have a true answer to this question. Personally? I think proponents of the Garnett side are partly basing their conclusions on a flawed premise. You simply can't switch the two out and imagine Duncan wasting away in Minnesota for 10 years of his career. Lost in the KG/Duncan debate is the simple fact that Garnett stayed in Minnesota because they were willing to pay him an insane amount of money to keep him. Nothing in Duncan's countenance suggests that he would've done the same thing -- he would've been a prized free agent and he would've been pursued by countless other teams. While Minnesota would've paid him more, the main reason he stayed in San Antonio was that he trusted the franchise more. So, no. I have no faith that he would've trusted the early-aughts Timberwolves to surround him with good pieces. I think he would've gone to Orlando, with Grant Hill, if he'd been placed on a situation that dire.

Perhaps I'm alone in this, but I think Duncan would've made more than a few finals on a team like that. While Grant Hill was awful due to injuries, McGrady was still an amazing player in Orlando. Duncan was an incomparable defensive anchor in his prime. It wouldn't have been quite as deep as his late-aughts Spurs units, and he probably wouldn't still be playing today -- he would've had to play more minutes, certainly, and that would've affected his longevity. But in an Eastern Conference as low-down and weak as the early aughts? I don't think it's at all a stretch to say that Duncan would've still made 3 or 4 NBA Finals, and with how dominant he was in 2003, I think he still would've schooled Garnett's Spurs or the Shaq/Kobe Lakers in that theoretical finals. (Most likely the Shaq/Kobe Lakers. The 2003 Spurs were positively barren on non-washed up talent outside of Duncan -- his carrying that woeful group to a title was an underrated, difficult task.) Perhaps done the same in 2004 or 2002, as well. Duncan's career would be very different, no doubt, and Garnett would probably have 2 or 3 rings as opposed to one. But the idea that Duncan and Garnett would simply swap ring totals if you swapped the two seems ridiculous to me. You can't overlook Duncan's demeanor, and you can't overlook Duncan's sustained playoff dominance -- in the playoffs, Garnett has had a career PER of 21.5. Very, very good. But his regular season PER has been 23.3 -- in Duncan's career, he's had a career regular season PER of 24.7, and a career playoff PER of 25.3. Traditionally, Garnett has gotten worse in the playoffs, while Duncan's gotten better. You think that wouldn't have impacted the Spurs' title hopes in years like 2007, against that brilliant Suns team? Or 2005, against a great Pistons team?

... Alright, look, I'm ranting. They're two great players -- they're in rarefied air among the greatest big men of all time. They're living, breathing, ballin' legends. While Kevin Garnett's fury and rage have alienated many and subjectively depressed the views of many on his career, when he's retired and we start truly appreciating what he accomplished, I think future generations will be pleasantly surprised. Sort of a jerk, but a legend all the same. (By the way, hate to pick at a scab here, but is he even that much of a jerk compared to the all-time "greats"? Karl Malone is one of the most contemptible people on the face of the Earth, Shaquille O'Neal blatantly stole the ideas of teammates and ripped off numerous associates in his day, and I don't even need to start talking about Jordan. We complain about Garnett because his actions are over-analyzed in the modern Twitter-powered sports media machine, and he hams it up for the crowd something fierce. That's perfectly fine that we do. But we need to stop pretending that every all-time great is some kind of lovely stand-up role model. They aren't. And relative to most of the jerks that make up the hall of fame, Garnett isn't really all that bad. At least he has a reason for closing up to the outside world and taking solace in feckless rage. Not many NBA stars lose their best friend in the league as a 23 year old. Might've had a bit of an impact on Garnett's general approach to the game. Death changes people. Is it too far a leap to think it changed him too?)

• • •

Follow Manny Harris on Twitter at @313MannyHarris.__

I'll admit it. I really liked Manny Harris, at one point. Harris -- full name "Corperryale L'Adorable Harris" -- was a shooting guard prospect the Cavaliers picked up off the D-League back in the dismal depths of the 2011 season. There was something very attractive about his game, to me. Maybe it was the fact that he played harder than anyone else did on that awful team, maybe it was the fact that he had some limited amount of swagger when he shot the ball, maybe it was the fact that he simply wasn't tarred with quite as much of the runoff from the season as everyone else. Whatever it was, I liked watching him, and tended to ignore the fact that he may very well be the worst shooter in the entire league -- he shot 37% from the field his rookie year, despite taking a very reasonable array of makeable shots. Still, he had a decent handle, he drew fouls like a pro, and he had an aggressive demeanor. After all, he had a very solid shot distribution his rookie year -- he'd get better his sophomore season with a little bit more polish to his shot, right?

Not so much. While his shooting improved marginally from every location of the floor as a sophomore, Harris took that as reason to dramatically increase the number of long twos he took. That would be reasonable, if he didn't shoot a startlingly awful 25% on shots from 10-23 feet. That's not a typo. He made one of every four shots from that distance, despite taking almost two such shots a game in extremely limited minutes. While I love his aggressiveness almost as much as I love his full name, there's a point where I reach the end of my rope. When you play only 17 minutes a night, share minutes with one of the most efficient offensive players in the entire league, and STILL find the time to take two shots from a range where you shoot 25%? Stop. Cease. Desist. Needless to say, while I was a bit sad at the departure of L'Adorable, I can't say I was shocked that it happened or overly torn up about it.

I do know one person who was probably pretty torn up, though. His twitter has long since been deleted, but there was this one guy who absolutely loved trolling Cavs fans on twitter about Manny Harris. His twitter handle was @str8tkilla9 -- note the extra T! -- and he was hilarious. I wish his twitter was still around so I could link you the tweets, but a few legitimate, serious thoughts that our friend bestowed upon us:

• "If the Magic had picked up Manny Harris off waivers, they would've won the east and Howard would've stayed." (Title town!)

• "I will hunt you down and pick off your family." (Said to a Cavs writer who said Manny was "erratic.")

• Absolutely no idea what he said to accomplish this, but he said something that resulted in him being blocked and muted by Stephon friggin' Marbury.

• Tweeted Jeremy Lin asking if he remembered the time he'd spent in the D-League on different teams than Manny Harris. When Lin did not respond with solemn remembrance, he went on a 10 tweet curse-laden tirade at him.

• Absolutely flipped out at a New York writer who refused to RT him because he used too many expletives, resulting in the writer blocking him. This is the last thing I remember him doing, so this may have actually been what resulted in his account's deletion.

Clinically insane fans. Gotta love 'em. I welcome any additions to the detailed verbal history of @str8tkilla9 in the comments section, from any of the writers he interacted with. I'm sure I'm missing some. EDIT: Okay, if you don't read Angelo's long comment on the dark and sordid story of Str8TKilla9, I don't even want to know you.

• • •

At the end of each post, I'll be scribing riddles for the next group. Whoever gets the most right will get a shout out at the end of the next post. Tweet me your answers at @docrostov, or post them in the comments. Got a solid 3/3 yesterday, courtesy of Sean. Good call, Sean. Must be a Cavs fan who had to deal with the straight-T-killer.

• Player #103 is a somewhat marginal player in the scheme of things, but he's still one of my favorite current Spurs. Great guy.
• On the other hand, I've never liked Player #104, and the current reality show tenor of his life makes him even less likeable!
• I remember Spurs fans were excited about Player #105, as a rookie. Now? Not even sure he'll be in the league in 3 years. Disappointing.

As our summer mainstay, Aaron's writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. Intent is to get you talking, thinking, and appreciating the myriad of wonderful folks who play in our favorite sports league. Today we continue with Tim Duncan, Jonny Flynn, and Marvin Williams.

• • •

Follow Tim Duncan's example and tweet through .

In doing a series like this, you encounter problems. Most are organizational and motivational. Finding time to write and edit all the copy outside of my time-consuming day job, finding the motivation to keep to my schedule, staving off the desire to skip around in the list, et cetera. Those issues pale in comparison to the one I'm struggling with today, though. If you're writing about anything comprehensive, how do you properly feature your favorite? How do you make a post that's altogether fitting, special, and meaningful to feature the player dearest to you? I've been tending to go philosophical on the more important players -- I've covered Hobbes, Rand, and Dr. Lawyer IndianChief. I've got notes down for future capsules relating the league's brightest lights to ideas espoused by Tolstoy, Gogol, and Kierkegaard -- I've got ideas galore, and all the players in the world to use them on.

But what about Tim Duncan, my favorite player ever? There simply isn't an idea that seems good enough. Everything seems contrived and overwrought. I don't have any personal stories -- I've never met Duncan, and I've never had any personal interaction with him. Basketball itself has gotten me through tough personal turmoil, but there's no particular story I have to share that features Duncan heavily. Talking about his legacy would work, but that seems too impersonal. You see my problem? I've spent weeks dreading this post, knowing that without a good idea of how to approach Duncan, it'll never live up to my brightest hopes. Then, the other day, I was having breakfast and salting my scrambled eggs. And all at once, it hit me. I realized that -- just like Duncan -- the answer was staring right in front of me. Today, at 48 Minutes of Hell, you can read the results of my efforts.

To frame the metaphor I'm going for, let's describe the Spurs. Many pieces have been written likening the San Antonio Spurs to a clockwork machine. The pinpoint offense, the crisp rotations, the sly execution -- all of it combines to create a mechanical process seemingly fated to produce startling on-court success, greater than the sum of its parts. I've always found this an effective metaphor, even if I disagree with those who use it to put down the personality of the Spurs as nonextant or absent. Still, there's something lacking about it. The metaphoric "well-oiled machine" is one of a singular purpose -- a car that goes fast, a clock, an instrument. The Spurs are more akin to a combination of many machines, or a process that everyone takes for granted. The Spurs system involves coaching the players in a position where they succeed, drafting the right players for the role, and developing players as well or better than any team in the league. At every step, the Spurs set new standards and build new cultural mores for the basketball universe.

With such a convolution of moving pieces, simply calling it a machine isn't wide-ranging enough. No -- the Spurs are the basketball equivalent of a network, a process, and a system. And, in fact, I'd argue they're the basketball equivalent of one of man's greatest achievements. Modern first-world civilization is driven by a process so finely tuned, so long-running that it's faded into the background and become a given. People just assume it to be there, without ever really thinking about how astonishing and glorious an achievement it was (and continues to be) for a first world civilization. I refer, of course, to our global food distribution network -- we've taken the specialization of food to an insane extent, putting at the fingertips of first-world countries every sort of comestible we can possibly produce, at any given moment. There's something tremendously beautiful about it -- thousands of years in the making, people 500 years ago could scarcely imagine the convenience of the modern grocery store. It's incredible. And it owes a great debt to refrigeration, and the ongoing study of food preservation.

Before refrigeration? There was salt. Before salt? There was nothing.

FOR MORE ON TIM DUNCAN, SEE TODAY'S PLAYER CAPSULE + ON 48 MINUTES OF HELL.

• • •

F__ollow Jonny Flynn on Twitter at_ _@__J_Flynn._

Jonny Flynn's career has been something of a disappointment so far, but I can't deny that I really wanted him to work out. While I'm not a connoisseur of the college game, I do catch the occasional high-profile game. And as luck would have it, I somehow managed to make 2009's 6-OT Syracuse-Connecticut tournament game the only full game of Big East play I watched in the 2009 season. And I saw it the whole way through, too! I was just sitting there in my freshman dorm, working on some sketches for my drawing class, when I found myself compelled to watch some of the Big East tournament. I hoofed it to the common room. There was nobody else there, for once, because it was spring break and I was seemingly the only person at Duke that didn't have the funds to justify any sort of trip -- even just a trip home. I had the entire common room to myself. So I did what any self-respecting college student would do -- I made some popcorn, grabbed my laptop, and plopped down to watch the last few minutes of West Virginia's upset blowout of a solid Pittsburgh team in preparation for the last game of the night.

And oh, what a game it was. When it began, there was little sense that it was going to be an all-time classic. Syracuse got out to a nicely sized lead about midway through the first half, and while they were fun to watch, there wasn't any aura of all-time greatness. Just a bunch of college kids playing for keeps in Madison Square Garden. I called a friend of mine, a Syracuse dropout, and asked him to get online so we could comment on the game in concert. After all, it'd be a big upset if the Orange pulled it off. But then Connecticut came back -- and in truth, looking at the play by play, I don't know why I ever felt like they were truly out of it. They were only down five, which speaks to the warping power of retrospection -- a game as close as this turned out to be retrospectively made a five point lead into some kind of insane mountain. Regardless. Connecticut "came back", the game got close, the game got chippy, Kemba Walker made a brilliant last-possession layup to force a tie, and they went to overtime. At this point, my friend and I were pretty entertained, and we made a pact to keep watching until the game finished. But like the Isner-Mahut epic, it refused to finish. The first overtime came and went, with UConn in pole position until Flynn and Rautins staged a grand comeback to tie it again. The second overtime was much the same -- except instead of a grand comeback, Orange tied it with about a minute to go and the Huskies simply couldn't get a score, leading to, well... the third OT.

At this point, you started to see active fatigue from everyone involved -- the announcing crew was getting tired, the players were coping in their own ways, and the coaches were far less animated than they'd been not 30 minutes before. The basketball slowly degraded in quality, reaching a ridiculous low in the anemic, exhausted play from both teams in the fifth overtime -- it roared back with a vengeance to open the sixth, though, as Syracuse decided there was no way they'd lose a game they'd put that much effort into. But all through it all, there was a conductor leading anyone who was even glancingly rooting for the Orange to pull the upset (as I was, thanks in part to my friend). Jonny Flynn was his name, and hype was his game -- like a pint-sized Clipper Darrell, Flynn grinned and grinned and collapsed to the floor at the advent of every new overtime, eyes pinched shut as his laughter rang through the stadium. At one point, he even leaned against the press box and told the announcers -- I'm serious, this happened -- "man, this game is crazy. What? I mean, what?" It was simply amazing. It broke the fourth wall, and took the experience of watching the 6OT thriller from interesting basketball oddity to seminal basketball experience. Flynn's infectious enthusiasm carried the night, and turned everything into a joy.

I'll be honest. When Flynn was drafted, I was REALLY hoping he'd turn out well. I knew the warning signs -- too short, too confident, too bereft in the most cursory of fundamentals. He never had a great three point shot, and while he was a decent passer, it was very easy to imagine that when faced with NBA athleticism the defense would essentially cut his passing game off completely. But I retained my hopes that Flynn would develop into the next pint-sized wonder, a new generational Earl Boykins or a J.J. Barea. This... this didn't happen. He's small and crafty, and he can create space to get his initial shooting form completed, but he's ALWAYS pressured on the release in a way he never was in college. And it detracts from his game, quite a lot. His passing has predictably fallen off in the NBA -- too close to the ground, too predictable, too easy to telegraph. He improved on it last season, but he still played like he was a shoot-first guard, averaging 12 shots per 36 minutes despite producing above average offense from quite literally no area of the court. He doesn't even draw fouls very well. It's really sad, and unless he completely changes his shot and increases his creativity, I'm honestly not sure how he'll get any better. But I'll say this. Bogart and Bergman will always have Paris, Nash and Dirk will always have Dallas, and Flynn and I will always have that one night where it seemed like Flynn would live forever, an infinite conductor of basketball joy and wonder leading an audience through the longest game that may ever be played. I miss that Flynn, but I suppose we'll always have the memories.

• • •

Follow Marvin Williams on Twitter at oh god I have to write about Marvin Williams.__

Marvin Williams is interesting more in what he represents than any actual merit or demerit to his game. On the court, Williams is almost entirely average -- he's an average scoring talent who's not particularly amazing at anything in particular but not particularly awful at anything either. He's an average passer for his position, that of a large small forward -- not great, but his passing doesn't exactly kill your team, and at least he's got an assist to turnover ratio over one. He's a decent rebounder -- not a great rebounder by any stretch of the imagination, but a decent one. He'll eat minutes, as well. Not a ton of minutes, mind you -- you can't really play him 33-36 minutes or he'll be prone to injury, but slot him in at 25 to 30 minutes a night and he's golden. He's not young enough that his potential impresses anyone, but he's not old enough to be staring age-related falloff in the face. He's not a good defender, per se, but he won't actively harm your team. He's not good enough to lead your bench unit, but he's so blasted average at everything you're necessarily letting someone who's worse at something than Williams start if you leave him on the bench.

All things considered? Williams is arguably the last of a long-standing breed of overdrafted players that's finally coming to an end. In 2005, Marvin Williams won an NCAA title with Roy Williams and the UNC Tar Heels. He was a freshman. He immediately left college and was drafted second overall. But he wasn't the only UNC player drafted far higher than he should've been -- that team had an astonishing four players taken in the lottery -- Marvin Williams, Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants, and Sean May. You may be surprised to know that out of those four players, not only was Williams the least overdrafted pick, he was actually the most productive. Examine this excellent Basketball Reference post, where Justin Kubatko establishes a formula for the "expected value" of each and every pick in the NBA draft based on their first four years of production. According to Kubatko's EV calculations, not only was Marvin Williams the most productive of all four title-winning UNC picks, he was the least overdrafted as well.

A little hard to read, but the essentials -- this shows UNC's four 2005 lottery picks, as well as the win shares each player produced in their first four seasons. It then shows, given their draft pick's "expected value", what a player of that pick should have produced in their first four seasons. Then it shows their actual value minus their expected value. As you can see? Williams was not the most egregious overdraft from the 2005 UNC title team, and in fact, he was arguably the most deserving of UNC's lottery picks. Indeed, 2005 was a down year for the draft -- there were only four players in the entire draft that produced more in their first four years than their "expected value" would've predicted. If you did a re-draft of the 2005 draft, Williams' first four year production would put him at eighth overall in that anemic class. Still, Williams was clearly over-drafted, and in that sense, the 2005 UNC class arguably the last collective example of their kind. Relative to the previous decade, in the last 4 or 5 years, very few college students have been egregiously over-drafted out of college based on strong postseason performances. Nobody in 2012 was overpicked, I don't think, and in 2011 the only arguable premature selection was Kemba Walker (who admittedly does have some limited upside). In 2010, not a single member of Duke's 2010 title team was drafted into the NBA. Hansbrough and Lawson were drafted in reasonable selections, and Chalmers was actually relatively underpicked after an excellent title run.

Anyway. All things considered, Williams was drafted too highly. In the sum of his NBA career, Williams is an exceedingly average, low-upside talent. He's clearly good enough to play in the NBA and clearly good enough to contribute to a good team. But in what capacity is not so clear. Is he a minutes-sopping wing on a team with no star wings, like the Lakers? Is he a sixth man off the bench to spot minutes for an aging superstar? Not really sure. I do know this. Marvin Williams -- in his distressingly average play -- is a pretty terrible fit for this Jazz team. This is a Jazz team that should be getting Gordon Hayward and Alec Burks all the minutes they can possibly handle -- instead, they're picking up frustratingly average-to-poor veterans and letting Tyrone Corbin play them over their budding high-upside young guns. No, I don't think Williams is a bad player. But he's a player that deserves about 25-30 minutes a game, and on this Jazz team, he absolutely shouldn't be playing 25-30 minutes a game. Yes, Williams only has two more years on the books. He'll be out of there soon. But the entire move just strikes me as picking up an overpriced hard-to-trade asset for the sake of picking up the asset, not really doing any sort of coherent teambuilding. Young players are wonderful, but if you don't get them the minutes they need to make mistakes and build their confidence, they're never going to cash in on their talent. And while the acquisition may make the Jazz a tiny bit better next season, I wonder if the Marvin Williams acquisition really helps with their future.

You know. Even if he can solve a Rubik's Cube in under two minutes.

• • •

At the end of each post, I'll be scribing riddles for the next group. Whoever gets the most right will get a shout out at the end of the next post. Tweet me your answers at @docrostov, or post them in the comments. Yesterday, for the first time in a while, we had a 3/3! Good work Brian. Exemplary guessing.

• The first of last season's Bulls to grace the capsules. I think, next season, they'll wish Player #100 was still a bull.
• ... wait, the RNG seriously is putting Player #101 this close to Duncan... but slightly after him, just like in reality! Oh, RNG.
• It's a 50-50 proposition that Player #102 even sees the court this season. Cavs fans who don't recognize him will continue to get endlessly trolled by that one guy on twitter for it, though.