As our summer mainstay, Aaron was writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. As the summer dies down and the leaves turn, this quixotic quest of a series has happily reached the last third. But it's certainly not done yet! Today we continue with Zaza Pachulia, Jason Thompson, and Nene.

• • •

Follow _Zaza Pachulia on Twitter at __@zaza27.___

Zaza Pachulia isn't a fantastic player, but he's patently decent -- a proportionally-sized center in a league bereft of them. Last season, due to injuries to seemingly every big man on the Atlanta roster, Pachulia was forced into double duty -- quite literally double, as he played roughly double the minutes per night as he played in 2010 and 2011 combined. Without Pachulia stepping up in increased minutes, the 2012 Hawks could've been a serious disappointment. But they weren't, and Pachulia's strong defensive contributions and ship-steadying efforts were absolutely essential to that team's success. On offense, he's hardly a low-post wizard -- Pachulia shot 55.8% at the rim, which may seem fine at a glance, but ranked well within the bottom 20% of all NBA centers. His 3-9 foot post-ups were even worse, relativistically, and he isn't generally a great midrange guy (although he posted VERY good numbers from midrange and the long two last year that were probably a bit fluky). Where Pachulia really helps a team is on defense, where he isn't afraid to get a bit dirty and muddy the game up. It's a useful change of pace on a team that generally was a bit soft, pre-Ivan Johnson, and by playing as much as he did last year Pachulia totally changed the defensive tenor of the Woodson-era Hawks to a new normal. Whether the Hawks resign him or not, he WILL make money next season as a good defensive scrapper with passable offense. And a nice dude.

Really. Off the court, Pachulia seems to be a genuinely nice guy. Most people know him for his patented combination of a dubious command of the English language with hilarious passion for the game, and honestly, that's a pretty decent summary of it. This all is best exemplified in one of the best postgame interviews in the history of the game, where Pachulia was interviewed after the Hawks pulled the surprising upset in Game 6 of the Hawks' 2008 first-round series against the Celtics. Pachulia had a great game that night, going almost 30 minutes (less than a minute shy of his season high) with fantastic defense and electric hustle to force the would-be champs to a winner-take-all final contest. So, for the first time in his career, Pachulia was interviewed. His response? Ignoring the interviewer's single question, instead taking the mic and screaming to the crowd in a stream of incoherent emotion and love. It was great. It is great. One of the best basketball interviews, for sure. And he seems to be a really nice guy outside of that one moment -- in 2011, there was a single game where Pachulia was given a totally mispelled "Pcahulia" jersey. An Atlanta Hawks blogger promised to give anybody his house if they sent him the mispelled jersey -- Zaza proceeded to send it himself. Pachulia noted that he actually read the blog (!!!), thought it would be a nice gesture to give him the jersey he loved so much, and didn't even want his house!

Modern day saint, I swear. God bless you, Zaza.

• • •

_Follow Jason Thompson on Twitter at __@jtthekid.___

Jason Thompson is an extremely rarely-discussed player, although not without reason. He's started 204/300 career games, but few NBA fans would be able to pick him out of a crowd or say virtually anything about his game offhand. Partly this is a function of his playing style. He's not exactly the most flamboyant of players, and his general style is similar to that of virtually every other nameless bench big in the league. He's also had a relatively small role (despite all the starts) on a team that's been among the worst in the league over his entire career. A related, not-so-fun fact: Thompson has, in his career, been on the court for just 86 wins and 214 losses. Despite being in the league for 5 more seasons than Thompson, LeBron James has only been on the court for 249 regular season losses -- just 35 more than Thompson! That should adequately clue you in as to how Thompson is so unknown after 4 decently productive years. Didn't help that -- as Basketball Prospectus recently noted -- Thompson came from an incredibly small college program at Rider University. When you weren't well known in college and you only arrive to toil in obscurity on one of the NBA's worst teams... yes, you'll generally evade discussion.

His accomplishments last season were rooted in a discovery of distribution -- Thompson finally figured out that he needed to take the ball inside a bit more after years of decently effective long jumpers and one-move finishes, and it caused a lot of good things to happen. One thing that the folks at Cowbell Kingdom mentioned that the tape absolutely bears out is that Thompson finally figured out how to convert with either hand last season. That added skill left him with a significantly easier time getting an open shot at the rim, and forced teams to essentially rewrite the book on how to guard him. The old scouting reports were out of date, so to speak -- most teams either didn't catch on or didn't have a good answer last season, which left Thompson the opening to have his most personally efficient season ever. This spread to many other parts of his offensive game as well -- by taking fewer long range shots, he shot better on them. By actually showing a stronger threat at the rim, Thompson drew more defensive attention and had more opportunities to pass to open teammates, which led to his highest assist rate of his career. He stopped turning the ball over in the post quite as much as he used to, posting a career low in turnover rate.

Defensively, the picture's more negative. Thompson emphatically straddles between positions -- he can't really guard fours well, as he's not quick enough, but he's too lanky to provide a solid post-up defensive threat. He was defensively neutral last season on one of the worst defensive teams in the league, and had no clear position of defensive strength. His defensive footage didn't look awful to me, but it screamed average at best with a tendency towards physical mismatches. At the age of 25, it's tough to really see how he improves on this end -- it's common for big men to build former shaky strengths into better defensive assets as their careers age, but it's quite rare for a big man with no active defensive strengths to do so. Just not much to build on. For this reason, I'm pretty down on the 5-year $30 million dollar contract the Kings extended him during this offseason. It may not sound like that much ("$5 million a year? Not bad!"), but even if he remains at his offensive peak of last season for the duration of the contract, his lack of a place on defense will sabotage any dreams of a larger role. Also: it's early, but the offense itself might've been a bit fluky -- he's had trouble finishing to his left this year, in an extremely small sample. Fans would be best served paying attention to that going forward -- if that talent evades him, his contract has the potential to go from bad to worse extremely quickly.

• • •

Follow Nene by naming your first son Maybyner.

For the longest time, Nene was extremely underrated. The man was one of the best offensive big men in the game for quite some time, with relatively decent defense to boot. When healthy, Nene's got every component of a well-rounded offensive skillset you want a big guy to have -- passable midrange shot, decent longball, and an extremely effective at-rim game that a team can count on for 5-6 shots a night that puts opposing defenders in a blender. His defense has always been decent, if nothing phenomenal -- he's never led a particularly imposing defensive unit, but Nene-led defenses are rarely worst-in-the-league on that end and regularly overachieve. That's primarily due to his excellent habit of switching onto guards and causing havoc in their passing lanes, even if he's no great shakes at guarding strong post-up players that are significantly larger than he is (that is, most centers) or pick-and-pop based offenses. He's no great shakes at blocking shots or rebounding, either, which definitely detracts from his usefulness as a player -- without very strong rebounders around him, Nene's teams have a lot of trouble securing rebounds and generating extra possessions. Which is clearly not ideal. The biggest issue with Nene to me is one of position -- never in his career has he been a particularly effective "true" center, and he's far more of a burly large forward in his sort of game and orientation. In my view, Nene's height and size compared with most NBA centers could be the reason he's spent so much of his career injured.

He's simply very undersized compared to most centers, which led to Nene having to put on more burly muscle and leads to him overcompensating for his lack of size every dang night in the post. Eventually, this takes a toll on your body -- constantly overcompensating for his generally low vertical, his lower center of gravity, and carrying the extra weight to bang in the post has got to be stressful on the body at large. And make no mistake -- more than any other aspect of his game, Nene's injuries are the one that detracts by far the most on-court value. Nene's a good lock to miss 10-15 games a year with various minor bone bruises and nagging injuries he's never quite been able to fix, and that matters a lot for a contending team. Nene should be in or around his prime, but there's a legitimate question as to whether his injuries have artificially closed his window, per se. Will he still be in his prime when he finally plays an uninjured season? Nobody really knows, which is the main reason Denver chose to trade him for the peril and promise of Javale McGee. Which, by the way, I still think was a kind of silly trade even understanding their reasoning. They signed McGee for far too much money without any real knowledge as to what McGee would provide going forward, and if they really wanted to keep contending and knew they were willing to spend that much on McGee, they should've just rode out Nene's injury. He isn't making THAT much more, only a few million a year. Or at least tried to get something better than McGee for him, as they traded him at the absolute nadir of his value. Minor quibble, I suppose, but seriously -- I don't think I like that trade at all from Denver's side.

Most everyone is aware of it, but it's always worth repeating: it's pretty astonishing that Nene is still playing at all. In early 2008, Nene took a sudden and unexpected leave of absence from the Nuggets, with few having any idea why. Three days later, Nene had a tumor excised -- turns out, he'd developed testicular cancer. He came back a few months later, and most of us now look over that fact in passing as we're so vastly separated from his downtime. But it's still pretty amazing. We often forget that one of the bright spots of playing in the modern NBA (for the players, the fans, and society in general) is the constant and mandatory doctor checkups -- it makes it significantly more likely that a sports star's major illness will get caught, were they to develop one. Had Nene been anywhere but a well-funded major sport, it's no given that he would've been able to get treatment as quickly and effectively for the cancer. Sports is an ephemeral, meaningless pastime to many people. And that's fine. But it's worth recognizing that the increased medical attention and focus on health can -- and does -- save lives. It's what kept Jeff Green from playing on an arrhythmic heart, what found Tyson Chandler's foot problem, and (of course) what found Nene's cancer and ensured the big-hearted Brazilian would remain on this Earth for a longer time. And in the big picture, more than any fleeting ring, the lives helped and enriched by Nene's saved one is where the virtues of sport take on the most clarity. At least to me.

Also, there's this...

• • •

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.

• Player #262 has no conscience, and will take shots regardless of the in-game situation or his likelihood of making the shot. He's still extraordinarily effective at it, though, and will probably get a very nice contract next offseason after he playing a strong bench role on a very good team this year.
• If you rewrote "La Cucaracha" around the name of Player #263, you wouldn't need to change much. Would still have a pretty decent rhythm! Great passing talent, too.
• Player #264 is about as raw as raw gets. Personally, really hoping he sees more time this year -- his team sure isn't going anywhere.

My apologies if these start taking a turn into some sadness over the coming weeks. I'm really, REALLY trying not to do it... but it's becoming sort of difficult. Until tomorrow.

• • •

Continue reading

As our summer mainstay, Aaron was writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. As the summer dies down and the leaves turn, this quixotic quest of a series has happily reached the last third. But it's certainly not done yet! Today we continue with Kosta Koufos, Luol Deng, and Nick Young.

• • •

Follow _Kosta Koufos on Twitter at @kostakoufos.
_

It's a bit funny. The Denver Nuggets have a vast surfeit of depth, or so we're led to believe. They've got more wing talent than you can shake a stick at, several decent point guards, and a veritable army of big men. All of them are above replacement level, all of them have their individual strengths, and (in theory) a bench unit comprised of such players should be blowing every team off the court. But there's a problem with simply assessing players as above or below replacement level without properly contextualizing their stats, and the Nuggets (to me) seem to embody this gap. First, replacement level on defense is extremely situational and hard to assess without seeing players on the court together. Simple as that. A good rotating pick and roll defender is still going to look pretty bad if he's surrounded by players who can't defend worth a damn, while an individually solid post defender who's asked to protect the rim is rarely going to get a chance to show off his talents. A shutdown wing who has to roam instead of key in to a superstar may look worse than they'd look if they were acting as a shutdown wing. And so on and so forth. The role you play on defense is a lot more valuable than we tend to give heed, and can completely change how you look on defense in a scheme poorly suited for your defensive talents. Or, conversely, can make you look a lot better than you are.

The problem with Denver's roster right now isn't that they lack of good players. They have a great many solid offensive players, and by the end of the year, I'd be shocked if their offense wasn't floating around top 10 (although I still think spacing will be an issue without acquiring another three point shooter). The issue is their defense, which is currently completely rudderless -- and if I'm honest, I don't see that changing for a while. And I think the fact that Kosta Koufos represents their biggest hope on that end is a good indicator why. While the Nuggets have a ton of big men who are above-replacement-level and solid offensive players, only one of the Nuggets' big men is currently a plus defender -- Koufos. The other Denver big men can stumble into good defensive plays, from time to time (see: McGee's block average, Faried's occasional possessions of post brilliance) but none have been able to solidly capture that defensive intensity in a manner that screams "build the defense around me." And frankly, neither has Koufos. He's a decent pick and roll defender that appears to fall apart when matched by someone larger than he is. He doesn't do one-on-one coverage very well, but he can help defend plays. Unfortunately, given the other defensive frontcourt talent on the Nuggets, he doesn't JUST need to defend plays -- he also needs to do man-to-man post defense, and he needs to try and protect the rim, and he needs to do so many things to make this team hum defensively that his actual defensive skills get buried in the miasma.

It's not all bad for Denver. Iguodala's defense will come back, and that will help. But you cannot build a positive defensive team around a single positive defender that isn't defending the paint -- not against an NBA where 30-40% of each team's shots come around the rim, not against an NBA where slashing and paint scoring is the path of least resistance to putting a lot of points on the board. And so Koufos sits. He's a decent offensive player, I suppose, in a limited role -- he converts well at the rim and has a nice little baby hook he employs with some success from short range. He has absolutely no offensive game outside of 10 feet, and thankfully for Denver, he doesn't pretend he does -- ceasing to pretend you have a midrange game when you don't is one of those steps that good players take that indicates both the merits of self-restraint and a better self-awareness than most. He's an excellent rebounder, although it is worth noting that last season's excellent rebounding numbers come with the caveat that he played scant minutes and has rarely had to rebound against starting-caliber bigs. Still. Koufos is a good player, if a bit of a situational roleplayer. The fact that Karl looked at his big man rotation and assessed Koufos the starter isn't necessarily a knock on Koufos, but more a knock on the Nuggets' frontcourt as a defensive unit -- at their best, the Nuggets will hum offensively as few other teams in the league do. But the defensive troubles that allowed Miami to post an offensive rating of 126 points per 100 possessions against the poor team aren't going away as soon as Iguodala comes back to full form.

• • •

Follow _Luol Deng on Twitter at __@LuolDeng9.___

You can ask friends of mine, if you want. They'd all tell you the same thing -- I may not be a fan of the Bulls, but I am a completely unabashed Luol Deng fan. I think Deng is one of the best small forwards in the league, and believe him to be a target of too much unjust criticism for things he can't really control. He finds himself dogged on both ends -- criticism of his lower-than-expectations offense override the context in which he gets his numbers, while his defense is considered "nice" but a step below that of Iguodala or LeBron. His contract is constantly referenced as a gigantic, frustrating overpay and an albatross. He's constantly mentioned as trade bait. He plays injured and plays often, pooh-poohing injury in an effort to help his team out -- but because his statistics take a dive while injured, he tends to suffer the ill effects of his injury twice, both in the disappointment of having the injury and disappointment in his statistics. It's not fun. But let's discuss each of his trouble points one-by-one.

• Poor offensive player. Not really. His percentages aren't great, but Deng does have some skills. The biggest issue Deng faces isn't really his skillset causing problems but the Bulls' relatively flawed offensive scheme to begin with. Thibodeau's understanding of offense tends to lead him towards a halfcourt, grind-it-out offense that relieson wings popping for long twos and bigs flashing to accept short passes (which, incidentally, raises his assist rate -- he's a bit above average in that department). It's fundamentally similar to the Boston offense around Paul Pierce. The problem? Deng isn't Paul Pierce -- he's no midrange wizard. When Deng's healthy, he's a good three point shooter (36% last season!), and he's quite good at slashing to the rim. But instead, Thibodeau's general offensive schema has essentially forced Deng to take an absurd excess of midrange shots in his time as a Bull, which has laid to waste his efficiency numbers given how absolutely awful he is at them. Now that he's injured, his shot has a very bad wrist-related hitch, and his aggression in getting to the rim is harmed by his difficulty dribbling. So now the critics can point and go "Hey! Look! Deng sucks at offense!" Problem is he doesn't, and the falloff is essentially all related to his injury. But keep saying that, sure.

• Not super-elite defensively. I have to question this. Do the people that say this watch Deng play defense? The man's a beast, and although he's not quite the shutdown wizard Iguodala is, I'd argue that he's about as valuable as LeBron James in the regular season. What really differentiates Deng (and Tony Allen, to be fair) from Iguodala and James and the rest of the NBA's best large perimeter defenders is that Deng's motor never, EVER stops. The man has never taken a defensive possession off in his life, for better or worse -- he hustles up the court every possession, whether it's a fast break or a halfcourt grind-out. He's ubiquitous, surveying the court with an eagle eye for any defensive breakdown he needs to assist. He doesn't quit, and for as good as Thibodeau is at putting together defensive schemes, without Deng his defense would be far less potent. He's the best one-on-one defender in the Bulls' starting five and makes the whole defensive system move correctly when he's on the court. He's far more important to the Bulls' defense than most give him credit for.

• Overpaid relative to his production. Honestly? I just think this is wrong. Plain and simple. Yes, he's a bit under the league's best wings -- he's no Kobe, he's no Harden, he's no LeBron. But which of the sub-elite wings is he that much worse than? I'd assess him to be clearly superior to Rudy Gay or Danny Granger, two players with marginally better offensive games but significantly worse defensive games (although they're still positive defenders). Pierce is better (for now) but also gets paid $3 million more per season. Luol Deng signed a $71 million dollar contract, but it was pre-lockout and it lasts for 6 years. That's a touch over $12 million a year. Big money, but for Deng's defensive and offensive production and the NBA average contract size, it's not THAT egregious, nor is it so out-of-sorts as to seriously merit griping. Not to mention the elephant in the room -- Deng is consistently among the top 5-10 players in the game in terms of the minutes he's on the court, plays through injury, and simply gets way more burn than many of the players with contracts commensurate to his. The fact that the Bulls don't really need to price in a serious backup for Deng (not with the minutes he plays) has to be a relative value-add to the contract as well, even if I (and many others) feel he needs to stop playing all those minutes.

So, that's that. This isn't to say that Deng is absent of problems, obviously. He should've gotten surgery on his torn wrist ligament during the offseason, and while I realize he wants to play tough and help his team, without Rose this Bulls team is relatively shiftless. It'd be far more valuable to his franchise and his life as a whole if he just got the surgery, recovered, and came back without the injury-forced hitch in his shooting stroke. I realize he wanted to play for his country, and quite frankly, I'm glad he did. But immediately after his Olympic play ended he should've gotten the surgery. Yes, he'd be out a month or two. No, I don't think anyone knowledgeable on the face of the earth would begrudge him for it. And as I mentioned -- he plays more minutes than just about anyone, which is both a value-add and a curse. It's a value-add because you don't need to worry about getting a particularly competent backup -- when your backup only has rotational room to play 5-10 minutes a night (considering smallball/largeball lineups), the franchise can fill it with minimum guys and experience little-to-no dropoff. It's a curse because Deng's offensive statistics (and occasional defensive possessions) may be significantly more inefficient than he'd produce if he played the 33-35 MPG nights of is peers.

While I love Deng's game, I love his off-court endeavors and past quite a bit more. He's one of the most likeable talents to ever attend Duke University (in a group with Kyrie Irving and Grant Hill), and he's lived through more than you or I could ever dream. Deng was born in a nine child family in the war-torn nation of Sudan, moving to Egypt at a young age to escape the ongoing civil war. After he got out and got his NBA contract, it would've been pretty easy for Deng to simply throw money at it and look past it. He doesn't. He's been personally extremely involved in Sudanese charities, with a special emphasis on the Lost Boys of Sudan. The "Lost Boys" part refers to one of the tens of thousands of boys of the Nuer or Dinka ethnic groups displaced or orphaned during Sudan's grisly civil war. I don't know if any of you have ever read Dave Egger's book, "What is the What" -- it's not commonly assigned reading. But if you haven't, I strongly suggest you carve out some time for it. It's the story of one of Sudan's Lost Boys who escapes, makes his way to America, and is mugged and troubled. Among other things, of course, like his history and the road he traveled. It's a great work in more ways than one, and it's rather representative of the program Luol Deng has put his heart and soul into helping. And there's a good reason for that, as well -- Deng is of the Dinka tribe, so he himself is technically of the lost boy designation.

Deng escaped the brunt of the horrors his peers underwent, but they're widely considered the most traumatized large-scale group of children to ever survive a war. They often had to walk -- rarely with shoes -- for years, searching for safe refuge in a journey where their journeying peers fell to death around them to starvation, wild animals, and soldiers. Then there were the lost girls, taken as hostages and sexually assaulted by massive armies before being sold into slavery. The worst part about the plight of the Lost Girls (relative to the Lost Boys) is that as they were sold to different families, they "technically" aren't eligible for the same supported resettlement to America that the Lost Boys are (through the charity foundations Deng supports). Which is pretty awful, much like virtually everything related to that period of Sudanese history. It's an incredible gift that we get to watch Luol Deng perform at this level, and it's a gift that Deng has achieved the success he has. He's established his own charity foundation, one that works to build schools in Sudan. He and his family visit Sudan yearly, often helping with government work and the establishment of a new independent state in south Sudan.

He's a hero, plain and simple -- one of the best people in the NBA, for sure. And for all the whining and hand-wringing about him being "overpaid"... can we all step back for a second and admit that a man who builds schools by his own hand to help build back a war-torn nation probably "deserves" about as much money as the world can give him? Yes? We can be on the same page for a minute? Good. Now go ahead and return to calling him an overpaid fraud-star, if you'd like -- just know that you'll hear virtually this entire capsule restated in the course of a minute if you say that to me personally. Fair warning, you know.

• • •

Follow _Nick Young on Twitter at __@NickSwagyPYoung.___

The nice thing about having a few of these left for the NBA season is that, occasionally, I'll see a player do something that absolutely needs to be in their capsule. Must be there. A singular moment in a random game that just exemplifies that player's style or general approach to the game. Today, for Nick Young, we have one such video that was taken from last night's game between the New York Knicks and the Philadelphia 76ers, Young's new team. The place? Philadelphia. The time? First quarter, right around the end. The action? SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS.

But I repeat myself. Please watch this.

Look, I usually try to avoid putting too much into a single play, but this is the single most representative play I've ever seen in my life. I have to have watched it 10-20 times at this point. Look at Young's complete and utter clock awareness -- he turned away from the arena shot clocks with almost 15 seconds on the clock, then ran into the corner without ever coming close to setting his feet or checking the clock again. The Sixers deserve some blame for passing him the ball in the first place, but my assumption would be that nobody on Earth really would think that a pass to someone as closely-guarded as that would actually lead to a shot. Young turns, and before he can even see the basket, he jumps to shoot -- not straight up, as one would generally expect, but backwards heading towards the corner. It's a Dirk-style fadeaway, only from so far into the corner that he's essentially taking it from behind the basket. After the shot, he doesn't seem to make any emotional gestures or faces that would indicate any awareness of what he's done. Just a sort of a shrug, and a slow "I guess I'll get back on defense... even though we had the last shot with enough time to run an actual play."

That's Nick Young for you. The man has never met a shot he didn't like. Ever. I don't know whether he was born this way or whether Gilbert Arenas -- one of Young's best friends in Washington -- helped bring out his latent chucker. But that's what Nick Young does. He makes Monta Ellis look like a willing distributor, last year posting one of the lowest assist rates in the entire league. For all his love of shots, the only real assist Nick Young enjoys is one that has a chance to go into the basket and score a bucket for Swaggy P himself. He's a massive black hole, essentially. Repeat after me, NBA friends: don't pass Nick Young the ball. Because if you DO decide to pass Nick Young the ball, be prepared -- Nick Young has the paperwork signed and notarized to adopt the ball as a child and put it under protective custody. You are not seeing that ball again without supervised visits, bud. To Young's credit, he's a bit more efficient than most chucking guards -- he shoots around 38% on his career from three point territory and he's not that bad from the long midrange. The problem is, he has no sense of self-control or ability to self-regulate his shots to eliminate all the bad ones. He takes more contested midrange shots per-minute-on-the-court than almost anyone in the league, doesn't play defense (or, rather, doesn't play effective defense -- he puts no effort in staying on his man and ballhawks without the ability to actually convert on steals). He's a 6'6" guard that rebounds as poorly as Earl Boykins, and has a handle that's high enough that he has trouble controlling the ball in pressure situations unless he shoots it within 2 or 3 seconds of getting the ball. (Hint: he will do that.)

As for why the Philadelphia 76ers felt they needed to get rid of Lou Williams only to pay Nick Young a higher salary? I... I really don't know. I covered this in the Lou Williams capsule earlier this year, but Williams was somewhat of an underrated player. He was a good passer, a solid shooter, and (although he tended to isolate a bit much in crunch time) so good at handling the ball without stupid turnovers that you felt relatively safe with Lou Williams running crunch time offense, especially since Holiday wasn't quite ready to do it yet. Nick Young? I'd feel about as safe giving him the keys to my crunch time offense as I would giving him the scalpel to perform open-heart surgery on an ailing grandmother. ESPECIALLY when dealing with an offense where you really want Andrew Bynum taking your shots in crunch time -- does anyone seriously think Young is going to pass to Bynum when the game's on the line? Or, perhaps more aptly, does anyone seriously think Young is going to pass to him if he's open? Maybe he's not, in which case Young will pass to him in order to "prove" that Nick Young needs to be the one taking the shots. I don't know. But in any event, he's a Sixer now. So I suppose we'll have to see if the Philadelphia organization's faith in Young is worthy.

• • •

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 2/3 guesses yesterday, but nobody got Luol Deng. (Seriously, he's the best player on the Bulls. Why does nobody realize he exists? WHY DOES NOBODY TALK ABOUT HIM?!) Anyway. Good job to Chilai, BaronZbimg, and J for good guesses.

• For Player #259... NOTHING IS EASY WHATSOEVER.
• Player #260 had high hopes going into this season. Through 4 games, though, he's been pretty awful. His decent career per-minute rebounding numbers have balked, his scoring has been inefficient, and he's been abhorrent defensively. One hopes he'll get better soon, or else his team will go from cellar-dweller to "worst in the league" very quickly.
• Player #261 is injured. Again. Contract looks bad. Again. But he's pretty solid when he's healthy, and could be a big asset in a push for a better position in their conference if he comes back. They need him. Because this one looks like a very bad team without him.

Adios, amigos.

• • •

Continue reading

As our summer mainstay, Aaron was writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. As the summer dies down and the leaves turn, this quixotic quest of a series has happily reached the last third. But it's certainly not done yet! Today we continue with Mike Miller, Tony Parker, and Andrew Bynum.

• • •

Follow _Mike Miller on Twitter at @m33m.
_

Mike Miller, in recent memory, has not a very productive basketball player. In fact, Miller serves as evidence to an angle that rarely gets much media play. The Miami front office did a picture-perfect job putting their big three together. Obviously one of the greatest offseason coups of all time. But most people don't give much credit to the fact that just about every move they made immediately afterwards has turned out poorly for the franchise. Right after signing their triumverate, the Heat made moves to lock up Joel Anthony, Udonis Haslem, and Mike Miller. Their deals were each for 5 years, meaning that each would still be under contract when their big three reached their ETO decision in year 4. The deals take each player to a state well past their primes -- Anthony to 33, Haslem to 35, and Miller to 35. Haslem's is for $20 million, Anthony's $18 million, and Miller's $30 million. In theory, all are relatively small sums. But when you combine the three contracts, the picture's more grim -- the Heat have three contracts that effectively make up a 5-year $68,000,000 deal. That's almost $13.5 million dollars a year for a group of players that were arguably past their prime when the contracts were signed in the first place. The gravity of this mistake became exceedingly clear in last year's finals, where the $68 million dollar men combined to play just 127 minutes in five games -- or 25 minutes a game across the three of them. Anthony got only two minutes of burn in the entire series and Miller was the only one even remotely resembling a decent NBA player (in his game 5 outburst, of course -- prior to that, he'd played around 5 ineffective minutes a night and missed every single three he took).

What an outburst it was, though. Seven of eight threes, a steal, five rebounds? Insane shooting, by anyone's standards. It was far and away Miller's best game in a Heat jersey, and one of the best of his career even ignoring the added gravity of the Finals. It does need to come with a grain of salt, though -- hard to bury it with praise without noting the inconvenient truth that he was atrocious in the first 120 games of his Heat tenure, prone to over-passing and often actively refusing to shoot when open and passed to. His shooting outside the arc has still been pretty good, but it happens so infrequently it's hard to make much of it. His rebounding has been good, but he brings virtually nothing else to the table. He can't make his own shot particularly well -- 80% of his shots were assisted, and as you watch him, you wonder if that understates it. It's not really his fault that he's fallen so far, mind you. He's been prone to massive back problems in Miami and his game has fallen off considerably, even going back to his fractured thumb and torn ligament he suffered in practice before he first took the court in a Heat jersey at all. His laundry-list of injuries would cause even the most medically inclined to cringe, and watching him labor up and down the court is one of the saddest things in the entire league right now. His injuries have sapped everything. His creativity, his aggression, his overall abilities... everything.

He's still gritty and smart, but that has its limitations as well -- his defense, where his grittiness should help him, is let down by circumstance. He tries the good try at making his rotations, but his lack of speed makes it pretty easy for good offensive teams to exploit his lack of lateral movement. He can still stick to his man pretty well when the Heat face slow-pace halfcourt offense, but good luck defending with Miller when the pace speeds up and he's forced to make quicker decisions. Which is all fine and well, if he wasn't making around $6 million a year during the next three to ply his trade, and in a state where everything's downhill from here. There are three years left, for all of these three guys, with player options and no team-side method of termination. It's true -- the Heat had no way of knowing for sure that Miller and Haslem's injuries were worse than expected, nor did they necessarily have the capacity to predict that Joel Anthony would be rendered utterly obsolete by the Heat's dominant 2012 gameplan. But looking back, the whole thing is retrospectively sad, and something probably worthy of more note. If the Heat find themselves unable to keep either LeBron or Bosh due to either terminating their contract in search of a better situation, the extent to which these three contracts tied the Heat's hands could end up being the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Kept them out of the running for most serious roster upgrades, took up three roster spots, forced each of their stars to play larger-than-necessary minutes in the regular season to compensate for the lacking talent, et cetera. We'll have to see, of course. But right now -- affable and kindly though he may be (and he is; Miller's a great guy) -- Miller is one representative of some of the worst-luck decisions the Heat franchise made in the last decade, and that's not a look that suits him well. Alas.

• • •

Follow _Tony Parker on Twitter at __@tp9network.___

For today's Tony Parker capsule, it took me a while to figure out how to say exactly what I was looking for. Full disclosure: I'm not Parker's biggest fan. I wouldn't exactly say I'm a card-carrying member of the "TRADE TONY PARKER!" brigade, but I will say that I definitely don't appreciate Parker as much as I do a player like Tim Duncan or Manu Ginobili. On a personal level, I don't think it's at all unusual to prefer both of them to Parker -- but on both an aesthetic and a productive level I prefer their play to his as well. Manu plays with this breakneck energy that Parker never has quite embodied, and Duncan's defense is (probably) my favorite thing to watch in the entire league. Parker is simply there, and although he certainly works his heart out against certain matchups, there's no sense with Parker that he's really laying bare the contents of his soul in order to win the game. And he's not THAT productive, statistically. But for the capsule I watched Parker more closely than I've ever watched him before, and watched a ton of backdated Spurs tapes in an effort to expand my frame of reference. And, as tends to happen with these larger capsules, I felt I gained a far greater appreciation for Parker's game than I had before I started. Perhaps that's all that Tony's critics need to do. Perhaps a lot of game tape and a more understanding eye is all a Parker-loving individual need prescribe for the hater in all our souls.

... or maybe he's just kind of a douchey French guy. I dunno, could be either.

Isn't it kind of funny that a point guard with such a conventional toolbox forms the basis of the Spurs' current offense? This isn't an insult -- just consider Tony Parker. No, he doesn't have a three point shot. Yet. But Parker is, at his core, a pick and roll point guard with a strong slashing ability, an excellent floater, and a decent midrange shot to keep defenders honest. Parker's archetype is hardly one without compare in the league's annals -- look at Andre Miller for a modern example. It's a well-worn, conventional toolbox. Parker puts it in a blender with his unique blend of speed and control, it's true, and Parker's finishing may be among the best in the history of the game from the guard position. Which is what makes the trade-bait stuff a bit too wild for my tastes. But nobody is going to argue that Parker plies his trade with a surfeit of insane athleticism or game-breaking shooting talent. We've come to expect this in this generation of point guards, and Parker subsists without.

For more on Tony Parker, visit his Player Capsule (Plus) at 48 Minutes of Hell.

• • •

Follow _Andrew Bynum on MySpace to discover that he was a hilariously normal high schooler._

One of the more interesting questions of the season -- and one that looks to be regrettably delayed -- is the simple question of whether Andrew Bynum is going to be better or worse in Philadelphia. It's not as easy to answer as one would think. There's a natural inclination to assume that Bynum, a highly efficient offensive center who played a tiny bit better with Kobe off the court, will be better in a starring role. Perhaps a bit more inefficient, as per the usage-efficiency tradeoff, but a more prolific scorer with his customarily dominant rebounding. Theoretically. But the Bynum question is more complex than that. Bynum was great with Kobe off the court in Los Angeles, but the majority of Bynum's non-Kobe minutes came with Gasol on the court. This helped grease along the ongoing development of their pet two-man passing game, one of the more enjoyable Laker hook-ups of recent memory. Of Bynum's 103 assists last season, 35% of them went to Pau Gasol buckets -- similarly, of Gasol's 279 assists, 25% of them went to Bynum buckets! They passed to each other beautifully, and Gasol's expert passing helped Bynum flash past pesky double-teams and convert a heck of a lot more wide open baskets than a man his size had any reason to get.

This isn't to say that he didn't face doubles -- for large stretches of Bynum's tenure as a Laker, Bynum faced more doubles than Kobe Bryant did. He was the Lakers' most efficient and most effective option, which led many of the smarter teams to double him viciously. Unfortunately for his new team, when Bynum was doubled in Los Angeles, it tended to work. Last season, Andrew Bynum was faced with 250 double teams in the post. He turned the ball over on 62 of them; 25% of the time. To contextualize how bad this is relative to Bynum's norm, realize that among all possessions where Bynum wasn't double teamed in the post, he turned the ball over only 10% of the time. Huuuge gap. Bynum was doubled quite a lot in Los Angeles, and it's a testament to his efficiency elsewhere on the court that he was still such an incredible offensive big man. The big problem lies in the fact that Bynum, despite his many skills, is one of the worst ballhandlers in the league. Whenever Bynum needs to take more than 2 or 3 dribbles in the post, awful things happen. He's lumbering, and he telegraphs his motions far too much -- with even the most cursory of scouting, it's relatively easy to tell what Bynum's going to do when he has to make a move in the post. Beckley Mason went over it aptly: a banging shuffle baseline, totally overlook the incoming double, spin to the middle, and... turn the ball over. A lot, as the tape indicates.

So, how is Andrew Bynum going to acquit himself in Philadelphia? I'm not entirely sure. His rebounding should be welcome addition to this Sixers team -- he's been among the best rebounders in the entire league over the last two seasons, and last year's Philadelphia team was already excellent on the boards. With Bynum improving their team rebounding, they could very well be best-in-class at rebounding other team's misses and keeping the opposing offense to a single possession. Which should in turn help their defense set. He draws a ton of free throws, which should help the Sixers generate more points from the line than they used to. But he's going to find himself doubled quite a bit more in Philadelphia than he did in Los Angeles, which is a pretty bad state of affairs for the efficiency of his offense -- he may still put up misleadingly high field goal percentages, but with a menu of more double teams, expect his turnover rate to skyrocket and provide harm the Sixers' league-best turnover rate from last season. And then there's the defense. One of the staples of Philadelphia's defensive attack last season was the infectious effort Collins got from all his players. Bynum isn't a bad defender, but his effort level on the defensive end is consistently pretty poor, and while he tends to be a decent defender despite that, it's an open question to wonder whether Bynum's laissez-faire paint protection isn't going to clash a bit with Collins' high intensity style.

Still, all of this is pretty theoretical. We don't know exactly how this is going to play out, and I for one can't want to see how it turns out -- Bynum is a relatively excellent player despite his myriad flaws, and while the pressure of starring for a team may exacerbate many of them, figuring out what of his skillset properly translates and what doesn't is going to be about as interesting an experiment as the Harden-to-Houston shocker. None of this is to say that I like Andrew Bynum. I don't. To me, Bynum is more defined by his bush-league hits (see: this, this, or this!) than his quality play. He doesn't seem to care about that, either -- he personally thought the Barea hit "wasn't a big deal." Compound that with his outward refusal to work on his game (and his general disinterest in the game of basketball in general), and you don't really have the blueprint for a player I like on a personal level. I do admit -- his off-court focus on tinkering and electronics is absolutely wonderful, and if you've never read about it, you need to click this right now. One of the coolest little sub-stories of any NBA star. If he was a bit less focused on murdering the opposing team's players I'd probably like him a lot more. Then again... the dude builds state-of-the art computers, gets paid tens of millions of dollars to play a game he doesn't care deeply about, and parties at playboy mansion. Sincerely doubt Bynum gives a crap about what you or I think of him. Just a hunch.

• • •

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. Props to Greg for being the first to figure out Miller to complete the trio, and props as well to Der_K, Jacob Harmon, Geezer, and Okman for hitching to the right bandwagon (albeit lesser props.)

• Player #256's team has one of the deepest big man rotations in the league, but he's the starter for now. Kind of funny, because most people could pick him up in the last round of fantasy -- essentially nobody wanted to draft him.
• Player #257 is the best player on his team right now. His team is much-discussed. I've seen -- quite literally -- ZERO articles about him at this point. Only best-player-on-his-team who never gets discussed? Perhaps.
• Player #258 has swag. Unfortunately, he has very little else. At least he can shoot threes. Honestly can't believe his team let his predecessor go only to pay this guy the same amount.

Hope you enjoyed today's capsules. This Wednesday, I'll be attempting to post up two sets of these things. Need to get ahead if I want to keep to my Christmas Eve schedule. Fingers crossed.

• • •

Continue reading

As our summer mainstay, Aaron was writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. As the summer dies down and the leaves turn, this quixotic quest of a series has happily reached the last third. But it's certainly not done yet! Today we continue with Alan Anderson, Metta World Peace, and Chris Singleton.

• • •

Follow Alan Anderson by traveling the world.

Last year, Alan Anderson made an intensely surprising comeback. An undrafted player out of Michigan State (who made the Final Four in his senior season, way back when in 2005), Anderson went undrafted and was picked up on a minimum deal by the Charlotte Bobcats during the 2006 season. They waived him one month into the 2007 season, and after a season of excellent play in the D-League (with a few more Bobcats call-ups tacked on at the end of the year), Anderson went abroad in an effort to get guaranteed money and legitimate playing time. He flipped, over the next 5 years, almost interchangeably between the D-League and Europe -- played for six different European clubs, and three different D-League teams. Finally, last season, he got the second chance he wanted -- the Raptors brought him up, he earned Coach Casey's trust, and was picked up for both the rest of the 2012 season and the 2013 season as well. By the end of last year, he was actually starting over James Johnson. It was pretty wild.

As for his upside? Minimal, but that's A-OK. Turned 30 years old a few weeks ago, actually -- what you see is essentially what you get. But he looked quite good in last year's 17 games. Definitely NBA-caliber, if nothing else; there's a reason they traded James Johnson. Anderson was quite effective from both beyond the arc and the free throw line, canning nearly 40% of his three point shots despite taking only about a third of his shots from the corner. His defense was also very effective -- he's a rugged, in-your-face defender that combines a veteran sensibility borne of his years abroad with NBA-level athleticism and Izzo-developed guile. Sticks to his man well, and while his age may lead to a quicker-than-expected decline on that end, you have to like a player who's as good at cutting off the offensive player's breathing room as Anderson is. He doesn't necessarily disrupt every passing lane, but he does make it virtually impossible for his man to get open enough to receive a pass, which generally leads teams to try and avoid whatever wing option he's guarding when he's on the floor. He certainly has his downsides -- last year he put up one of the highest turnover rates in the year and generally puts up poor rebounding and assist numbers -- but if his role is better-regulated to serve as a defensive asset who keeps to spot-up shots on offense rather than an offensive creator who happens to play defense, he'll be a perfectly fine member of the Toronto rotation.

Off the court, Anderson has some of the most interesting stories in the league. As a veteran of the European circuit, he has a litany of firsthand stories from some of the strangest leagues on Earth. And some of the most violent fans, too. Even though there are metal detectors to make sure European fans can't throw lighters at the players, the fans are resourceful -- according to Anderson, fans would regularly dismantle the arena toilets and throw the toilet's component pieces at the opposing team's players to heckle. Another funny story from that neat article: in China, Anderson felt completely unsafe eating anything but fast food. I also recently had a chance to read a great profile from Eric Koreen, for his "Get to know a Raptor" series. You can find it here. In case you don't get a chance to read it, though, here's my favorite part. Another player I love personally (although his game is significantly more lacking), Landry Fields, comes along in the middle of the interview and completely stops the proceedings to grab Anderson's arm.

(Landry Fields grabs Anderson’s arm when walking by)
AA: What is wrong with you? What are you doing? Who is this guy?
LF: Did you know it’s your birthday tomorrow?
AA: Ahhh. Is it?
LF: Shut up.
AA: Is it? It’s my birthday?
LF: Yeah.
AA [lying]: No it’s not. My birthday is next month.
LF: I have it marked on my calendar with a heart.

Me too, Landry. Gonna circle October 16th in a heart going forward. Aw yeah.

Also, speaking of... Alberto? 223 days left.

• • •

_Follow Metta World Peace on Twitter at __@MettaWorldPeace .___

NOTE: I have trouble referring to him as "Metta World Peace", so I think I'll just call him Ron Artest in this post. Sorry, Metta.

By the end of the 2011 season, Ron Artest was on top of the world. He'd posted -- by all accounts -- one of the best off-court years of his life. He'd won a title, which had quelled a great number of his haters and began to re-write the book on Artest's off-court extracurriculars. He'd raffled his championship ring to raise over half a million dollars for mental health awareness, becoming one of the NBA's most outspoken advocates for the mentally unstable. His rehabilitation was so thorough that he ended up winning the Walter J. Kennedy citizenship award -- the suggestion that he'd eventually win the NBA's prime citizenship award would've gotten you laughed out of a room in the years after the Brawl, and most would've never seen a year like that coming. Then, in 2012? Well... things got a bit weird. His on-court play declined dramatically, as he quickly became the Lakers' 3nd or 4th best option at the wing on a team that was anything but deep. His mental health advocacy became a bit more quiet -- or, perhaps more accurately, it wasn't in quite as press-friendly a presentation. His reputation began a slow crawl back to where it was before the title. And then? Well, then he nearly broke James Harden's neck. That essentially erased the whole slate, and suddenly, Artest was right back where he started. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

There are a few troubling tics that maintain in Artest's public reputation that bug me. Quite a bit. The first is the idea that Artest's mental illness was "cured" by the time he won his title, or that it had been altogether transmuted into some more palatable form. That's... not really how mental illness works, at least not usually. Take it from personal experience. Mental illness is less something you conquer and more something you tame. It doesn't vanish -- it lies in wait, and it enacts a constant struggle inside your subconscious in its attempts to break out from whatever cage you've put it in. The mass public understands that cancer goes into remission. Why don't they understand that mental illness is the same way? You don't just wake up one day without your depression or without your bipolar disorder. You tame your disease with medication, if you can. And you fight to make every day as absent a breakdown as you possibly can. But it never totally vanishes -- it's a disease in remission, not a disease cured. Most of the pop culture coverage of Artest in the aftermath of 2010 focused on Artest as a man forever changed, and a man who'd "conquered" his demons. That's not quite true -- he's a man who fought a courageous fight to get to where he was, but quite a bit more importantly, still fought it daily. There is no tapping out when you're battling a mental illness. And it doesn't stop fighting you, either.

While I suppose I should've expected it, the genuinely off-base positive coverage of Artest's mental disorders during the Lakers' high times led somewhat slowly into the far too negative coverage Artest got last year. People thought Artest had "cured" his disorders, which meant that when he did odd things, people either chalked it up to Artest being a big ol' weirdo or "not taking the team seriously." And then, near the end of the year, the other shoe dropped -- Artest purposefully threw an elbow that (given his strength) could've legitimately broken James Harden's neck. Suddenly, the slow drip of negative coverage turned into a flood. People called to ban him from the league. People wondered how such a threat to society could've possibly made the league in the first place. Et cetera, et cetera. And through it all, I just didn't really know what to say. Sure, Artest shouldn't have done it. It was an awful thing, and I thought he probably should've been suspended a few more games -- ESPECIALLY when he refused to apologize. But instead of screaming bloody murder about the sins of a man who's got a reasonable explanation, why not examine the context that made him such a villain in the first place? It isn't really his fault that the media chose to cover his title as though he'd recovered from all his past sins. It isn't really his fault that he will always battle mental lapses that none of us can fully understand.

Artest does not deserve to be excused of his faults because of his mental illness, at all -- during the rehabilitation stage, there was some element of that, and it wasn't deserved. But he hardly deserves to executed for them either -- he's not a threat to society purely by his own design. His virtues don't exist in the intensity of a black or a white -- he's a monochromatic gray, balancing between two poles but never quite reaching either side. Neither the media nor the general public deals well with shades of gray, but that's exactly how someone like Artest needs to be approached. He's no savior, but he's no criminal either. And treating him like either does a disservice to both Artest as a person and mental health as a broad subject.

As for his game, it's somewhat darkly befitting a player of his mental struggles. Much as with Delonte West, on the defensive end, Artest will have good games and Artest will have bad games. He'll put up fantastic nights of bltizkrieg stopping power that stack up to any defender in the league. He'll then follow that up with tepid, angry, and frustrated performances where he couldn't conceive of stopping a fly. His offense is a bit more consistent, but not in a good way -- he's a consistently abysmal offensive player, far too often taking completely unnecessary isolation possessions and trying to ballhandle when he has no good reason to do so. At this point in his career, Artest has barely got the lift to take a shot at the rim, let alone actually make one. He's not good in structured offense, because he rarely takes the time to really understand the structure he's been placed in... but he's even worse when given enough leeway to really hurt the team. So there's that. Artest should not be taking very many shots this season. He really shouldn't. And I stand by my general assertion from yesterday's riddles -- if by the end of the season Artest is continuing to take the number of nasty 5-10 second isolations that he has in the last two Laker games, that will be some sort of a sign that something will have gone terribly wrong with this Laker team. Terribly, terribly wrong. Just... let Nash handle the ball, Metta. Pretty please?

• • •

_Follow Chris Singleton on Twitter at __@C_SING31.___

The story is relatively simple for Singleton. For him to stick around in the league, he has to become a better offensive player. Simply has to. Last year's Wizards were not renown for offensive wizardry -- they were the 25th ranked offense in the league, and the reality was even uglier than it looked. No cohesion whatsoever, poor ball movement, poor sets. Most of the players on the team were inefficient in at least one sense. But very, very few were inefficient in as many ways as Chris Singleton. Singleton's field goal percentage was in the bottom 25% among all small forwards for every range of the court but three, where he barely passed the 50th percentile. To be explicit about it, I'll list them -- his rookie season, Chris Singleton shot 59% at the rim (average: 63%), 24% from 3-9 feet (34%), 26% from 10-15 feet (36%), and 31% from 16-23 feet (35%). He made up for some of that by shooting 34% from three, which was 5th on the Wizards. Still not GOOD, but he had some value that way. Make no mistake, though: Singleton was brutal on offense. Just about the only real skill he offered was the ability to make the corner three, but problematically, nobody on the Wizards roster seemed to be able to set him up from that range. He took just 40 corner threes to 87 above-the-break threes, despite shooting 38% from the corner but 33% outside of it. Net and net, though, Singleton's not a scorer nor is he expected to be. He's a defensive-minded guard with good fundamentals and a strong frame -- strong enough, in fact, that it has some wondering if he'd fit better in the frontcourt than the wings.

Count me as one who's not sure about that one, although there are some issues with him on the wing right now. Watching him, you can definitely see times when the offensive player got ahead of him at small forward. Too quick. He wasn't great at covering the quickest of the quick -- he struggled mightily trying to match the quickness and core strength of players like LeBron, Iguodala, and Carmelo. A lot of that can be chalked up to conditioning, though, especially in the context of the shortened lockout season and the subsequent lack of practice and training camp exposure to the NBA fitness grind. And while big men would be somewhat less quick, they'd be quite a bit stronger. The strength gap would be even worse. And Singleton was an actively poor rebounder as a wing, posting a well-below-average overall rebounding percentage for the position. He would need to work on that quite a lot to be anywhere close to an asset as a big man. Big men who can't rebound don't last long in this league. Questions of his true position notwithstanding, there were some fundamentally good signs for Mr. Singleton. By the numbers, the Wizards defended significantly better with Singleton on the court -- they gave up a lower field goal percentage, and allowed 6 points less per 100 possessions. He wasn't quite the stopper of an Iman Shumpert level, but he was more effective than he looked and was clearly not in the peak conditioning he'd show in the NBA. I'd like to see him defending after a summer filled with an NBA weight room -- I have a good feeling he's going to defend better this year, even if his offense continues to torpedo his playing time.

As for his off-court ventures? I liked Singleton at Florida State and I like Singleton now. A few fun facts about the promising defensive baller include the following: he's evidently quite a bit more honest about his performance with the media than many others, as when asked to self-grade his rookie season, Singleton didn't pull punches, grading himself a D for inconsistent play and promising he'd come back better. According to the awesome team at Truth About It, Singleton was engaging all year with the fans and seemed to legitimately enjoy it -- he signed autographs before almost every game, gave away game-worn shoes to Facebook fans, and never once turned down a picture request. He seems to get into his city, at least to some degree --when asked in the doldrums of the lockout about something that made him sad, he mentioned that the Cowboys had recently beaten the Redskins, and that he didn't like that because they "need more winning teams in D.C.", his Wizards included. Pretty dope line, especially given this answer from a personal Q&A session he did with his fans.

What is the reason behind wearing the number 31?
Both my grandfathers and my father (3) have passed away and I’m the only (1) left.

So, you try rooting against him. I sure as hell can't. Hope you feel better about this year's play, Chris.

• • •

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. Props to Geezer and @MillerNBA for yet another 3/3. Really need to up the difficulty, although I have a feeling today's are easier than I intended.

• Player #253 is dealing with back problems that I can barely even fathom. Kind of shocked he hasn't retired, although he's making so much money he probably couldn't rationalize it.
• Player #254 is average-or-below in just about everything but speed. In theory. In practice, though, he's maximized every iota of potential and become a full realization of all his highest hopes. Which is pretty phenomenal. #TeamDrake. Will be a Player Capsule (Plus).
• Player #255 is kind of capricious, sort of a jerk, and a bit socially awkward. But he loves building computers, and for that, I can't completely hate the foul-less wonder.

Long week. It's possible I actually don't get the Capsule (Plus) version of #254 out until next week, but we'll see. Hopefully I can power through my rough draft tonight before all of the night's action. Au revoir for now.

• • •

Continue reading

As our summer mainstay, Aaron was writing a 370-part series discussing almost every notable player who was -- as of last season -- getting minutes in the NBA. As the summer dies down and the leaves turn, this quixotic quest of a series has happily reached the last third. But it's certainly not done yet! Today we continue with Amare Stoudemire, Eduardo Najera, and Ryan Gomes.

• • •

_Follow Amare Stoudemire on Twitter at __@Amareisreal.___

Pretty apt timing, I suppose. Oftentimes the vagaries of random distributions have me posting a capsule just before some brand-new story completely changes the game for that particular player. See: the fact that I posted a Capsule (Plus) on Harden not less than a week before he got traded. Timely! Today's the inverse, though -- Amare Stoudemire's final injury assessment dropped yesterday, and I'm in a unique position to discuss it in the frame of these capsules. Before I do, I'll start with an assessment of his game, where he was, and where he is. And I'll cop and say it now, to set the frame. In his prime, Amare was one of the best offensive big men in the history of the game. Not just "in the league", or "in his era" -- Prime Amare is among the very best offensive bigs in the history of the game. Just look at his 2008 season. Amare AVERAGED 25 points on just 15 shots a game. In just 34 minutes per game! Insanely good. Despite that heavy usage, Amare shot 59% from the field. That was good enough to slot him in as 5th in the entire league at field goal percentage. People might scoff, saying that his entire game was an at-rim cacophony of smashes and dunks.

Those people would be very, very wrong.

While most of his shots came at the rim (7/15), he took 8 shots per game outside the rim, and a significant percentage from each of the cardinal three distances (3-9 feet, 10-15 foot midrange, 15-23 foot long two). Amare Stoudemire -- that "rim-only" player -- made 48% from 3-9 feet, 51% from the true midrange, and 48% from 16-23 feet. Which would put him in the top 25% of ALL league players from every single one of those ranges, had he put those numbers up last year -- not just big men, although he'd probably be top 5% among all big men in each. Eldritch. While that was a moderately fluky season, in some ways, it was quite representative of Amare as a whole -- his offensive game didn't used to be completely one-sided (as it's now become), and he used to flourish as a pick-and-pop big man who was impossible to effectively guard. Give him the space to shoot? He'd fire, and kill you. Get too close? He'd drive past you and mutilate the rim. Play picture-perfect defense? He'd still have a 40-45% chance of making the dang shot. A barely sub-prime Steve Nash helped a lot, and the attention Shaq drew down low helped him keep his great start going as the season went on. Were the game played on offense alone, Amare would be a living legend.

Of course, it's not. And when the final book is written on Amare's career, any retelling that doesn't include fair mention of his defense is like a discussion of the history of the British empire written without mention of the empire's transgressions in conquest. It's the giant elephant in the room with Amare. And that's primarily because -- quite frankly -- it didn't have to be. One thing Knicks fans always complained to me about after the Amare signing was that I was being too harsh on Amare's defense. When he plays up to his potential, he's a great defender! Look at all these possessions! They'd point out individual moments of defensive brilliance, competency, and well-formed decisioning. And that's fine. But that's precisely the characteristic that makes Amare such a frustrating nut to crack on the defensive end. When Amare is focused, he's a relatively decent possession-by-possession defender. But his main issue isn't some constant drumbeat of awful defense -- Amare's main identifying factor on the defensive end is the "one possession on, two possessions off" concept. This describes the constant pattern where Amare will -- after every positive defensive possession, immediately follow the possession up with two absent absent possessions, getting lost and barely contesting even the most easily guarded of shots. It's so predictable, teams like the Spurs were able to leverage the mere expectation of Amare's poor possessions into a cohesive offensive strategy -- after Amare would have a good defensive possession, the Spurs would consistently make sure to dump the ball to Duncan and let him go to work on Amare. More often than not? Score the basket, with little delay.

Which leads to a rather interesting dichotomy. Amare had excellent defensive possessions, in his prime. Shot blocks out of nowhere that completely blew up a good opposing possession, excellent man defense, et cetera. But he'd always -- ALWAYS -- follow them up with so many awful ones that you never quite knew what the hell to think about his defense. It was like having a relief pitcher who was absolutely guaranteed to strike out the 1st man in the batting order, the 4th, and the 7th on a nightly basis... only to give up home runs to the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th and 9th. It didn't matter the quality of the hitters. He could be pitching to the best player in the entire league at the 4th spot, and he'd always strike them out. He could be pitching to a just-deceased 90-year-old with a whiffleball bat in the 9th spot. Homers! Homers! EVERYWHERE! How do you even scheme a player like that, defensively? D'Antoni had lots of trouble with Amare, but it wasn't really D'Antoni's fault -- there is absolutely no way to actually gameplan a competent defensive scheme around someone that contributes it in such a touch-and-go manner. You end up with a player whose offense is so phenomenally brilliant that he's be an all-time legend when it comes to scoring big men... but a player whose defense is so easy to break within-game, you can scarcely even imagine it.

Unfortunately, age and nagging injuries have by large margin sapped his game of that offense. The defensive incompetence is still there, with the exact same "on one, off two" construction that made him so easy to score on as a younger man. But the offensive bravado has waned, leaving him with but a bitter shell of the varied moves he used to have outside the basket. He can still finish -- kind of -- although his finishing has declined from "far and away best in class" to "semi-effective lumbering as though he's a broken-leg elephant" levels. He still finishes well, but he simply can't finish as often as he used to, and while his numbers are still very good (even last season, Amare was in the top 25% of all big men in at-rim percentage!) the share of his shot distribution these at-rim forays took up was less than ever before. He took 60% of his shots from outside the rim, and unfortunately, he looked completely awful doing it. Just an abysmal display of post moves, and his long jumper looks completely broken at this point. Massive hitch in his shot, massive problems getting the ball off quick enough to beat the defense, massive inefficiency. Rough news. Amare shot barely 33% from outside 10 feet, and to the neutral observer, that seemed positively charitable. Still, even as you combine this with his falling-off-a-cliff rebounding, I'm not sure Amare's absence really helps the Knicks in any forseeable way. Part of the point with the Knicks' elderly signings was that the team would have depth so long as the young pieces stayed on the court. We're now heading for a situation where Novak, Melo, Thomas, Sheed, and Camby have to play a combined 96 minutes a game in the frontcourt to cover for both Chandler and Amare. That's... not optimal, no.

Amare isn't great, anymore, and his offensive game's decline has made his defensive problems that much more prominent. But he's not the worst player in the world. He's still one of the better finishers at the rim, if you set him up in a good spot. He's still valuable if used in a situational role, and isn't allowed to dominate the ball. No, the Knicks shouldn't be running their offense through him. No, he's not a player you want to have a usage rate above 20 going forward. But if you used him situationally, much like you use Tyson Chandler's offense? You can still extract some value from Amare's game. And you can avoid playing a trio of 38+ big men over 25 minutes a night to cover for absences they don't have the capability to withstand. Yes, the Melo-at-PF experiment is a noble one -- and if it works out, it could save the Knicks season. But you can't really help but feel sorry for Amare at this point. The injuries are mounting and sapping his game far younger than anyone could've ever expected, and the entire situation screams "worst case scenario" -- there's no world where Knicks fans or the Knicks front office could've reasonably expected that Amare would look like this just two years into the contract. His game has been creeping to the point where he's now a more effective off-ball sixth man than an important starter on the team. And now he has to miss potentially two months of his season recovering from yet another surgery? Cripes. Amare is a classy, smart, and generally kind man. I wouldn't wish this kind of within-career hellstorm on anyone, and especially not anyone dealing with the New York media. So, while I've never been Amare's grandest fan... please get better, Amare. Hope you're back soon.

• • •

Follow _Eduardo Najera on Twitter at __@eduardo_najera.___

Yesterday I covered Jason Terry, a player I really dislike. Today, apparently, I need to write yet another one of these blasted things about a player I rather irrationally dislike. Thanks, random numbers! Today's player isn't a player I dislike for many emphatic reasons, though, like Terry -- with Terry, I can't stand him for all he is, and for how he composes and carries himself. All that stuff. I'm a hater in totality. "The hatingest hater who ever did was, I tell you what." Eduardo Najera, though? How could anyone hate Najera like that? I dislike him for a single, solitary moment. One instance, one fleeting second in the span of a long NBA career. Which is kind of funny, really -- off the court, I must confess, Najera seems like one of the good guys. Extremely smart player, one whose post-playing career looks to (potentially) make him a name to remember. He was recently hired as the head coach of the Texas Legends, the Mavericks' D-League affiliate. He'll also have part-ownership of the franchise and will consult closely with Del Harris -- as that article notes, that has the potential to be a very fortuitous relationship for Najera. Eleven of Del Harris' coaching assistants have made it as NBA coaches at some point in their coaching career. Najera's certainly smart enough for it, someday.

As the first player drafted out of Mexico in the history of the league, Najera acquitted himself reasonably well over his career. He was never a star by any means whatsoever, or even a particularly useful asset. But he had a few seasons of 6-and-6 type performance, and his defense was always semi-decent. A bit dirty, but semi-decent. Unfortunately for him, he suffered a barrage of injuries around the 2009 season that devastated his game. Unfortunately for the Nets, they'd just so happened to sign him to a 4-year $12 million dollar deal with no real way out directly before that happened. Which, by the way, was kind of funny -- he was coming off a 47% shooting season where he averaged just 10-7 per 36 minutes despite playing on an immensely fast-paced team. I realize 4/12 isn't THAT huge with the league as a frame of reference... but really? After that season? Four years. Boy, I don't know. Najera maintained in the league for four years after that, his contract a constant wheel-greasing piece in trade machinations all over the place. He bounced around, offering a milquetoast-style version of the game he used to happily peddle -- lots of semi-dirty screens, a lack of a real offensive skillset, and a decent locker room presence on generally losing teams. Solid, I suppose, though not quite what you're expecting on a 4 year $12 million dollar contract.

As for why I dislike him? This moment, from the 2010 playoffs, where Najera essentially tried to kill Manu Ginobili. ... OK, no, he didn't try to kill him. It was essentially a classic clothesline with a twist, though, and it was one of the dirtiest-looking hits I've seen in playoff basketball. The Mavs had already accidentally broken Manu's nose earlier in the series -- Najera decided to take it a step further by actively going for Manu's nose on the foul, but missing. He had to settle for grabbing Manu's neck as he dragged him out of the sky from a lightly-contested fastbreak layup attempt. It was nasty. Graydon Gordian once posited that the hard foul could be a thing of beauty. A singular moment of frustrated self-loathing, a gasping breath for air and a not-so-subtle way of admitting that a team simply can't hope to guard a player. Which is fine. And in that series, it was exactly what the foul represented -- Manu obliterated the Mavericks' defense for the entire game, and the foul represented the collective frustration of the Mavericks and their fans for styling on them to such a degree that only a broken nose and a hit to the neck would stop his onslaught.

... but my GOD man, did you really have to grab his neck____?

• • •

Follow _Ryan Gomes on Twitter at __@GotGomes.___

In the quietest amnesty waiver ever, the Clippers let go of Ryan Gomes this July. I say quietest because it's one of the first things I've come across in these capsules that I honestly do not remember happening. I watch NBA news voraciously, mind you, and I tend to think I'm pretty plugged in. Always on the Twitters, this one. But I somehow completely missed Gomes! Which is actually... kind of ironic, as my pal Jaryd would attest. In the first incarnation of these capsules, I tried to make sure I (at a bare minimum) covered the regular starting lineups of every team. Despite thinking I'd gotten them, I quickly realized that I had totally forgotten Gomes (the Clippers' regular starter in 2011), only remembering to write his capsule late in the game and adding 70 players to the original list primarily as cover for actually getting Gomes down. Also, fun fact -- although they don't look similar and their games are completely different, I constantly get Ryan Gomes and Randy Foye's names mixed up in my head. If I refer to him as Foye in this capsule (at the time I write this, I've had to correct the error 4 times already), now you know why. Anyway. The amnesty isn't altogether surprising, as Gomes was astonishingly bad last year. Let's put it in context -- in 2011, Gomes started 62 of the 76 games he played in. He averaged 28 minutes a game. His numbers declined a bit from his 2010 career highs, shooting 34% from three instead of 37% and drawing way fewer free throws. But he wasn't AWFUL, and he had a few uses. Decent rebounding from the wing, could occasionally put the ball into play, and virtually never turned the ball over. Replacement level.

Last season? Gomes played in just 32 of 66 games, and started two of them. He went from averaging 27.6 minutes a night to 13.3, almost out of nowhere. After making more than 70 three pointers a year over the last three years, Gomes made four in 2012. No, not per game. Four made threes. The entire season. On 29 attempts. That's... not good. He compounded that by shooting poorly from every other range as well, upping his turnovers, and lowering his foul rate even more. Gomes played extremely poorly last year, and given that, the amnesty isn't really surprising. Frankly, I'm more surprised that teams have been so reluctant to give him another shot. Gomes is dealing with chronic injuries that are sapping his game, and I totally understand not bringing him back on account of this. But the same could be said for Sasha Pavlovic, or Derek Fisher, or any number of crusty veteran reclamation projects that continue to get re-signed and given heavy burn. He turned 30 less than two months back, and most teams are A-OK giving a flyer on a wing in the 29-32 range so long as they aren't that far from their peak production. Gomes fits that bill, and while he's dealing with some injuries, he's not that far off from his peak. I can't say I think he'd be a great player if they brought him back, just somewhat surprising that nobody's taken a flyer yet. Perhaps teams are learning.

... Or, like me, they continually forget that Gomes exists at all. Doh!

• • •

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. Props to J, Geezer, Sir Thursday, and @MillerNBA for their expert guessing.

• Player #250 shocked last year. Won't be quite as effective from three this year in (assuredly) more than 17 games, but my lord, this guy was better than anyone had any reason to expect.
• Last night was a good reminder. If multiple possessions a game end in a Player #251, his team is not doing it right.
• Player #252 was a decent defender, even as a rookie last season. But the offense REALLY needs some work.

Another day, another... something. If you happened to miss Dewey's excellent post on the problems with power rankings yesterday, I highly recommend checking that one out. Also, I did a short recap of the DAL/LAL nightcap for ESPN's Daily Dime, which you can see in the Around the Association column here. So check that out too, if you're in the mood.

• • •

Continue reading

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 James Johnson, Jason Terry, and John Lucas.

• • •

Follow James Johnson by becoming an undefeated kickboxer.

If you haven't drafted your fantasy basketball team yet, I have a super hot tip for you. Super hot, fresh off the presses. James Johnson is a solid player to have in fantasy. For real. He hurts your percentages a bit -- the shooting is poor, with bad three point conversion and a sub-par free throw percentage. And he doesn't tend to put up 30 minutes a game, for good reason. But he's extraordinarily effective at the tertiary stats -- Johnson proudly puts up best-in-class per-minute numbers for both steals and blocks, and features above average assist and rebounding rates for his position. He turns the ball over an incomprehensibly large amount, but not all leagues even pay attention to turnovers. And in most category leagues, a player that puts up tertiary statistics in the oft-forgotten categories like Johnson can end up being one of the most valuable fantasy players around. In leagues where people don't know a ton about fantasy sports, he can be extremely useful simply because he's incredibly nondescript and can be had in a relatively late round without anyone ever realizing he's a good get. Sneaky, folks. Very sneaky. Oh, don't you worry. I'll make sure to give more hot fantasy tips after all your drafts are done and gone next year, too. You're welcome.

I mention his fantasy chops primarily because, in my opinion, those are basically the most valuable of all chops present. I don't really love Johnson as a player outside of his fantasy value. Yet -- he has the potential to get better. Johnson tends to take a lot of extremely bad long-two-point shots that tank his percentages across the board, and diminish his offensive usefulness. He takes a lot of shots at the rim -- above the position average, in fact -- but last season converted on a below-average proportion of those at-rim shots and doesn't have any particular talent for finishing at the rim, except when he's matched on much smaller players. (In other words, when he's not playing out of position at the large forward.) He's decent at the dunk, but no artist like Demar DeRozan or power slammer like Chandler or Howard. Still, that wouldn't matter quite so much if his offensive game had any real polish outside of 3 feet -- merely average shooting outside that range combined with his usual 55-58% showings at the rim would average out to a well-above-par offensive player. Unfortunately, he isn't at par or anywhere close -- he was below the small forward average from every range outside of 9 feet, often by quite a lot. And, again, way too many long two pointers -- almost 30% of his shots last season came from 15-23 feet, which is absurd and quite unnecessary.

Defensively, he's no perimeter stopper (yet) but he's a useful fellow to have in your corner. Doesn't necessarily have the quickness to get around screens efficiently or the nimble footing needed to individually check quick wings. But he's got a lot of size, and he has the ability to absolutely overwhelm smaller players who attempt to post him up. He tends to focus more on getting the steal or the block than I'd like, and while he's a good weakside shot blocker, at his position I'd rather have a guy who goes one on one and gives strong contests than someone like Johnson who tends to cherry pick and go after the average statistical metrics. His defense didn't really impact the Toronto system much, a sign of both how oddly underutilized he is as a power forward and how effective Casey's system was at generating incredible defense even without his best defensive wing on the floor. Still, his defense is helpful to a team who's generally defenseless, so his presence should be much appreciated by the Kings -- there were very few positive defensive players on the Kings last year, and in Johnson, they finally have one with some positive skills. And the potential to get a lot better, if he works on his focus when defending individual players and develops a bit more quickness. He could be a shut-down defender someday if he could just focus his stat-grabbing powers into the things that really make defenders excel. He's got the body for it, and he could carve out a more effective career as a role player if he did it.

Off the court? Kickboxer from a family of martial artists. Went 20-0 professionally. Don't mess with James Johnson.

• • •

_Follow Jason Terry on Twitter at __@jasonterry31.___

At some point, people who dislike Jason Terry -- myself included -- need to step back and simply start appreciating his production. And let's get this straight now -- I am no fan of Terry's. I think he's bombastic, self-obsessed, and preening. He needs to realize, at some point, that he is not an airplane. That is not him. He is not such an object. He is a man, and men cannot fly -- for they lack the wings and aerodynamically functional curves required to do so. No, Terry is not a plane, nor an NBA superstar. He has an irrational amount of self-confidence, and a frankly somewhat incredible ability to spin anything said about his play or his team's chances as a terrible insult. He's one of those guys who you may like on your team -- perhaps -- but who you absolutely despise playing against. And that's all, to some extent, to his credit. Even if it makes me dislike him.

But you know what? He probably was underrated in #NBARank, and in a general sense, Terry is of inconceivably low repute to a vast majority of the NBA's fans. And it makes no sense to me. Last season, Terry was the 5th best shooting guard in the NBA. Really. There were the obvious betters -- Kobe, Wade, Harden, Manu -- and you could make a reasonable case that Joe Johnson was better. Beyond those five? Nobody. Not a one. If you count Iguodala a shooting guard, he's better too -- but that's about it. You have to imagine that anyone else with his statistical resume last season in Los Angeles or New York would have gotten quite a bit more hype for it.

• Jason Terry shot an above average percentage from every single range of the floor, despite being assisted on less than 50% of his shots. (The average NBA shooting guard was assisted on 60% of their shots last season -- Ray Allen was assisted on over 75% of his.) There were few real flaws to Terry's offensive game -- he didn't get to the rim as much as he used to, and he drew fewer free throws, but he improved his jumper's accuracy to compensate and had a good year passing.

• Speaking of the passing, Terry's passing has been chronically underrated throughout his career. He's a gunner, but he's not one who never passes -- for his career he's posted an assist percentage around 25%, meaning that while Terry is on the floor, he assists on 25% of all field goals made. That's... actually quite good for a shooting guard, and in his late career, he's kept to roughly similar numbers. Turns the ball over a bit more than one would perhaps hope, but given his above-average assist rate, it's nothing phenomenally concerning -- he often acts as a pseudo-point when he's playing without a point guard, and that does tend to inflate one's turnover rate.

• He did all of this at the age of 34, well past his prime. He played over 30 minutes a night and missed only three games across the entire season. John Hollinger aptly described Terry as "the Ageless Wonder", and I have to agree. Let me put it this way -- in 2010, after Terry's objectively terrible playoffs, I had a sneaking suspicion that he'd be out of the rotation in favor of Rodrigue Beaubois in a year's time. Two years later, he's still one of the 5 or 6 best players at his position in the entire league. Eldritch.

No surprise, then -- I think Boston's switch from Ray Allen to Jason Terry is actually a pretty massive win for them. I don't know how much longer Terry's going to be able to continue putting up numbers like this, but I'm through with assuming he's got one foot out the door. The Boston offense should improve a decent amount with a player like Terry putting up 30 minutes of self-contained, efficient scoring. Terry is hardly dependent on the pieces around him to pass him the ball in exactly the right situation -- Allen was. The movement will help. I'm of the view that fewer minutes for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce in favor of Brandon Bass and Jeff Green (as well as Avery Bradley being out or hobbling for 2-3 months) is going to completely cancel out the Allen upgrade. But that's just it -- Allen to Terry isn't a lateral move, as most seem to imply. It's a legitimate upgrade. At least for this season. It's possible that Terry finally begins to show his age. He will, at some point in this Celtics contract. But this season alone? Rondo's passing and Doc's crisp rotations should keep him as fresh (and annoying) as ever.

• • •

_Follow John Lucas on Twitter at __@Luke1luk.___

It's a constant refrain, here in the capsules. Per-minute productivity doesn't mean the player's necessarily a lock to be a decent player, nor does it necessarily translate to larger minutes. There's a general reason why this is true, one that's relatively less understood than it should be in sporting circles. So, let's try to explain it. Say we have a player -- call him George. George plays around 10 minutes a night... usually. He's one of two backups to a team's treasured star -- call him Geraldo. Let's say Geraldo is injured, and will be out for 7 or 8 games. How will George's minutes increase? Well, it's actually extremely unpredictable -- because there are two options, while we know his minutes will increase, we don't really know the magnitude of the jump. And that's primarily because if George is playing and he's put in 15 or so crummy minutes, the coach isn't just going to leave George on the court -- he'll play the other backup primary burn and relegate George to spot minutes. So, even in the presence of high-value playing time, George isn't necessarily going to play all of it -- he's going to play when he's good and sit when he's bad. Conversely, if he has 15 high-value minutes, chances are high George will double or triple his usual playing time -- the time is available, in theory, but it will likely only be extended to him if he's having a good game.

What I just described is the primary reason a backup who's generally average can end up with shockingly good statistics. If a player plays 5-10 minutes a night, a few outlier high-burn nights can skew the averages considerably. And with these kinds of players, high-burn nights simply don't happen unless the player is having a good night in the first place. Whether they found a good matchup, woke up on the right side of the bed, ate their Wheaties, etc -- games where fringe-ish players end up with 20-30 minutes tend to be games where the player is going supernova. Let's use last season's performance by John Lucas as an example. In his five top performances in minutes played, he accrued 156 minutes -- that calculates out to about 20% of the minutes he played in the entire season. In just five games. Were his minutes evenly distributed, we'd expect a five game sample to comprise 10% of his minutes played. How does this disparity translate to points? Well, he scored 109 points in these five games. He only scored 369 points in the season overall, meaning that in just five games, Lucas provided almost 30% of the points he scored in 2012. Consider: Lucas played fewer than 9 minutes in more than a third of his games this season. When you're dealing with such a low baseline, you end up giving a huge relative weight to these (fundamentally) skewed values.

This can have a rather outsized impact on raw averages -- in the field of statistics, this is a situation where an analyst would generally want to see the overall distance between the median and the mean and start to build intuition about why, exactly, they're so different. Then, potentially, take a long hard look at using the median as the descriptive statistic of choice. Despite being an extremely small sample, these five nights make up 30% of his scoring output. And it's a biased sample, too! If Lucas was having a poor night, he would've been promptly yanked. Which goes back to my original point -- high-minute nights for bit players are fundamentally biased samples, but they have a fundamentally higher impact on a player's averages. Ever wondered why some guy who performs like a scrub in all but a few random games every year has stats befitting an average, decent player? This general idea is your explanation. They get to overweight their best games in a way rotation players that have to play 30-35 minutes a night, off night or no, don't get to do. To sum it up -- if John Lucas goes 0-3, he'll be out at the next timeout. If Chris Bosh goes 0-3, he'll play 40 and have the chance to go 1-18.

All that said? John Lucas wasn't bad backup at all. Nor was any of this meant to imply he was. It IS meant to imply that stats are a bit useless without context when it comes time to assess where John Lucas fits in the game. The median trumps the mean, oftentimes, when it comes to assessing the value of players with skewed minutes distributions. That's the general point, not one about Lucas in particular -- I personally really like John Lucas as a guard off the bench. He's a good three point shooter, an aggressive scorer, and a decent ballhandler. He's quite undersized for a shooting guard, despite that being his natural position; no real point guard skills of note, although his size forces him to be matched with them. He had decent results as a defender by the numbers (adjusted +/- and Synergy), but watching tape, you can start to tell that less of his value comes from self-made defense than the general Chicago defensive schema Thibodeau put him in. Asik, Noah, and Gibson help out a lot, and cover for his size in a way he never quite got in his early career. He wasn't bad, per se -- used his quickness well, made the most out of the size he has, showed good ability to stay with guys laterally -- but his excellent defensive stats weren't necessarily something he caused more than something he lucked into with the help of the overall defense. Lucas turns 30 in less than a month, and he doesn't really have a ton of upside. But as a possible first-off-the-bench backup for Lowry in the event of a Calderon swap, the Raptors could do a lot worse. And this doesn't even cover Lucas as a person -- he's by all accounts an extraordinarily nice guy, and who's the feature of many heartwarming articles you can read if you want confirmation.

• • •

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. Mike L. got yesterday's riddles with a 3/3. (Although, I admit, Patrick... Derek Fisher would've been a great answer for the 2nd riddle as well.)

• Player #247 is constantly injured and doesn't fit with his team. Really needs to get his hops back. And come off the bench, too.
• Player #248 in 2010, was responsible for a huge bush league hit on Manu Ginobili in the playoffs. It infuriates me when thinking about it. Ugh.
• Player #249 was one of the quietest amnesties ever. I somehow didn't realize he was amnestied until preseason. He hasn't made it to a team... despite being barely 30 and having started 62 relatively decent games in 2011. "What. Really? What."

The season quite literally starts tonight. Lordy. I actually just got to a milestone of my own, here -- we're now officially 66% of the way through the capsules. Two thirds! The milestones will start going by a lot faster at this juncture, with the season as a backdrop to make time even quicker. Current projections of my end-date have the series, fittingly, wrapped up and tied with a bow on Christmas Eve. A nice gift. For now, enjoy the season's tidings. We'll have a general feature on Power Rankings up later today, as well -- hope you all enjoy it.

• • •

Continue reading

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 Elliot Williams, Andris Biedrins, and Kenneth Faried.

• • •

_Follow Elliot Williams on Twitter at __@ewill901.___

Elliot Williams looked pretty good last season. He didn't play an incredible amount of minutes, mind you -- he only played 24 games, and in those 24 games, he played only 6.2 minutes a night. And given that the game was virtually always decided when he stepped on the court, the defensive intensity Williams found himself faced with was regularly atrocious. But even given all those caveats? The man shot at an above-position-average percentage for every range but three, and shot an extremely efficient distribution besides, with almost 50% of his field goal attempts coming at the rim. Given what I saw of him in college and his general skillset, I think there's a lot of promise in his game, even if you try to extrapolate beyond the garbage time. He's never going to be a great three point shooter, no. At the NBA level, that hurts. But Williams has serious NBA athleticism, and above-average height from the guard position -- 6'5" is a bit under what he seemed the handful of times I met him at Duke. (The only reason I say this is because I'm 6'4" -- relative to my height, he seemed more like two inches taller than one.) To be fair, though, we were both in shoes and it's not like I've ever had my height accurately measured by the draftnik doctors. So, whatever. Even then, 6'5" is a solid height for a guard -- especially one who's viciously athletic, with a solid at-rim game and a decent midrange shot. His free throw form is good enough that I'd assess 75-80% to be closer to his true free throw mean than the 33% performance he put up last season.

Unfortunately, Williams has suffered greatly from a wealth of freak injuries. Out of seemingly nowhere, he's battled a range of problems that could end his career before it really began. His knees basically exploded prior to the 2011 season in a contact practice with the Blazers, requiring surgery on both kneecaps before he could see the court again. After a long period of rehabilitation, he re-entered the game late last season, and Williams' low minutes total was mostly attributed (reasonably) to the Blazers wanting to let him get gradually back into the game. Then, in a rough late March practice, ill omens struck again and Williams found himself sidelined with a dislocated shoulder. Quite gross. He missed the rest of the season, rehabilitated over the summer, and finally looked ready to play in the NBA... only to completely rupture his Achilles tendon in a workout right before the start of training camp. I mean, Christ. Really? He got surgery, and most likely, he'll be out the entire season. The whole thing is incredibly sad. These season-ending injuries have somehow all occurred to different body parts, indicating a player who lacks the sorts of foundational problems that tend to indicate an injury-prone player. He's like someone who won the worst lottery in the world, 3 years in a row. My heart goes out to Elliot.

Not just because of his skills, either. As for personally, Williams has always had my utmost respect. While he was beloved at Duke to a level incoherently high relative to his play, he left that and the university behind his last two seasons in order to transfer to Memphis in order to be closer to his cancer-stricken mother. Which I thought was pretty great of him -- he sacrificed few spots in his draft status, most likely, and he risked (at the time) having to redshirt a season before the NCAA approved a special waiver of the redshirt restriction on account of his mother's condition. Which would be heartwarming if it wasn't absolutely ridiculous that players need to redshirt a season in the first place. Not only do college athletes have no control over any portion of the money they generate for the school, nor any licensing rights over their own brands... there are also arbitrary restrictions in how they can move from team to team. Love the NCAA. Heck of a sports league, Brownie. In any event, his mother's breast cancer is in remission, which is absolutely wonderful. Here's hoping the cancer stays away and that Elliot gets another chance in the league -- you have to think he'd be a better backup than most of the awful wings the Blazers have stockpiled behind Matthews and Batum, right?

• • •

Follow Andris Biedrins by -- ... you know what, actually, just don't.

Anyone remember how good Andris Biedrins was a few years back? Let me remind you.

• In 2008, Andris Biedrins led the league in field goal percentage. But that's just one year. Try three -- from 2007-2009, Biedrins had one of the top 3 field goal percentages in the league each year.

• In the 2009 season, Biedrins put up per-36 averages of 14-13 with 2 assists, 2 blocks, and 2 steals a night. You can't make this stuff up.

• Andris Biedrins posted a career high free throw percentage of 62% in the 2008 season -- not great, but would've been average for an NBA center last season.

Yeah. Well, good thing he put up those excellent stats to remember him by. Because that's all we're doing now. Remembering, that is. In the past few seasons, Biedrins has fallen off the cliff-to-end-all-cliffs, and done so fast enough that we're still left wondering what the hell happened. It all started in 2010, when Biedrins had one of the worst starts to a season he could've possibly had -- it literally took a month for Biedrins to make his first free throw of the year, and by the all-star break, he'd gone an inconceivable 3-23 from the free throw line. This didn't hurt his broader offense... at first. It mostly was a source of amusement, as Biedrins continued to score efficiently. As he was coming off of injuries and not in the best of sorts, he took fewer field goals a night and his rebounding fell off from being among the best in the league to being a relatively average. But he didn't look like a bad player by any means, and he still looked like one that was genuinely worth his contract.

Then, in 2011, things got markedly worse. He tried to take a more active role in the offense again, but quickly discovered the obvious. If you shoot 16% on free throws in a season, as he did in 2010, you are going to get fouled and you're going to have to make opposing defenses at least pretend to respect your free throw form. So as the season went on and he began to get fouled at a higher rate, he began to go to increasingly absurd lengths to simply not get fouled. I'm talking ballerina twists, contorting his frame in C-shapes to miss the defender, immediately passing out if he had a post-up opportunity (leading to a career high assist rate! YEAH!), et cetera. He posted the worst rebound rates he'd put up since his sophomore season, his field goal percentage was (by far) a career worst, and he genuinely looked awful. Then 2012 happened... and he was even worse. His rebounding fell off a cliff, with Biedrins posting his worst rate ever by a country mile. His defense was abominable. His usage percentage -- never particularly high -- fell to the comically absurd rate of 5%. His free throw shooting actually ended up WORSE than 2010, with Biedrins making only one free throw the entire season for a free throw percentage of 11%. His confidence was shot, he absolutely refused to take shots (and in his off-ball movement, Biedrins actively fled angles he could have snagged a pass from and worked hard to keep himself from ever getting open), and the contorting and terror at the concept of free throws was obvious to anyone who watched him. It was sad. Although he's entering his 9th NBA season, Biedrins is exactly 366 days younger than Gustavo Ayon. He SHOULD be entering the prime of his career. Instead, he's a waiver candidate who looks unlikely to have more than a year or two of burn left in the NBA. A really weird career arc, to date.

Free throws and ruined games aside, Biedrins was responsible for the odd photographs that were -- for my money -- the most hilarious NBA story of the summer. I speak of course of the risque, absolutely not safe for work photos that depict Andris Biedrins both receiving oral sex in a car and watching in a garage as one of his friends receives the same. Don't click those photos if you're at work. Please. This isn't to say that the photos are funny all by themselves -- on their own, they're basically just your garden variety "dear lord, this athlete's 'friends' are terrible at being friends" type photographs. But look further, dear reader. Remember all the talk about his lacking confidence and his too-rapidly exploded game? I do as well, given that I wrote it less than a paragraph ago. Now, in that context, look at those photos. They depict a player on top of the world, probably hopped on something, and completely devoted to the pursuit of happiness. Er, sexually. In public. With his friends. One of whom has a camera. The brazen disregard for logic and reason here in pursuit of a fleeting high is absurd, and when you put it in the context of his disappointing basketball career and his completely broken confidence, is ABSOLUTELY hilarious. Somehow, we have a player who's scared to take a single free throw but not scared to receive oral sex in public and smoke up right next to his friend as he watches the friend receive it. From what looks like the same person.

I... what? For real, what? How can you be confident enough that these photos won't be posted that you do all of this grinning like an idiot but can't find the confidence in your heart to take and make a freaking FREE THROW? Luckily for Golden State, this came up right before the year they'll be trying to really compete. Because now, they actually know what to do with Biedrins! Marc Jackson needs to find out what drugs were in Andris Biedrins' system when these photos were taken. Have a private investigator do it, have Biedrins tell him straight up, whatever. Once he knows, though, he needs to begin enforcing a strict rule where Biedrins cannot step onto the court for the Warriors if he does not takes those same drugs before every game. Sure, having a high-out-of-his-mind Biedrins on the court will probably lead to some miscommunication. He MIGHT start humping the ball, or grinning and smoking in the middle of the stadium, or get Adam Morrison confused with the unknown girl in the pictures and try to solicit him for sex on an off-ball defensive possession. You know what? I don't care, and neither should Jackson! If that's the only way to bring back his confidence, then it's the only way to bring back his confidence. Where there's a will, there's a way! Andris Biedrins: 2013 comeback player of the year? TASTE THE FEVER! (Because you know he did.)

• • •

_Follow Kenneth Faried on Twitter at __@KennethFaried35.___

Last season's League Pass darling, Kenneth Faried is an interesting player with a lot of talent. Faried made a big impact last season -- he didn't play quite enough minutes to make leaderboard criteria, but Faried's overall rebounding percentage around 20% would've been top-3 in the entire league. His field goal percentage of 58.6% does sort of hide his offensive limitations -- namely, he can't buy a shot outside of 9 feet and every team in the NBA knows it -- but he actively avoided taking shots outside his range, and in doing that, Faried showed a lot more self-awareness and general knowledge of what worked for his game than many players ever realize in their careers. He took almost 90% of his shots from within 9 feet, which is exactly what you should be doing early in your career when you're a high energy finisher like Faried -- you don't mess with adding a long shot or developing a mid-range jumper. That's for practice, at least in your first year or two. Not competitive games. Outside his rebounding and his scoring, Faried isn't a hugely productive player -- he had an above average block/steal rate that hid a lot of his defensive problems, and an above average turnover rate for his position. His high-energy offense helped take Denver's already potent potables to an even higher level -- the Nuggets scored almost 108 points per 100 possessions with Faried on the court, which is legitimately insane, and almost 3 points above their average with Faried off the court.

Unfortunately, there's a dark side to that -- while their offense was completely off-the-chain with Faried on the floor, their defense was utterly abysmal. The Nuggets may have scored 107.5 points per 100 possessions with Faried on the floor, but they were also making opposing offenses look like Gods -- with Faried on the floor, they also allowed 107.1 points per 100. Which amounts to a barely-above-0.500 differential and a nagging problem to those who'd love to see Faried get more minutes. I'm sure Karl would like the same -- Karl's a fan of high-energy sparkplug-type players, as evinced by Chris Andersen's long tenure in Denver. The problem is, so long as Faried's defense is that bad, it's hard to really carve out more than 25-30 minutes a night for him. And this isn't a fundamentally trivial problem, either -- the reasons Faried is poor defensively (lacking height, lacking core strength, poor instincts) aren't just going to go away with practice. He can work on his strength, and that will come around, but the height trouble and his actively wrong instincts defending the pick and roll simply aren't going to vanish into the vastness of space. And even if he works on his strength -- high energy players like Faried do tend to have high foul rates. When you go for the ball with reckless abandon and produce incidental contact solely through your playing style, you're probably going to get called on it. That may serve to artificially compress his minutes in the future, as well.

This isn't to say he's a bad player, at all. He's really talented, and while his defense is pretty abysmal, he has some talents as a weakside shot-blocker (although, again, he took too many chances and was about as bad at holding position as I'd be at holding these capsules to 500 words apiece). His phenomenal talent for gobbling up boards -- especially offensively -- is going to be useful on a Denver team who may experience trouble stopping opposing possessions. His offense is strong, if a bit limited, and while teams may be able to scout his offense and decrease the general efficacy (see: his 53% shooting against Los Angeles in the playoffs), as long as he remains this active, he'll be a huge asset on that end. You know who Faried reminds me of, in a somewhat odd way? DeJuan Blair. People scoff at the comparison given how good Faried seems right now, but it's a lot more apt than many would like to admit. To compare them on the same baseline... per 36 minutes, Faried averaged 16-12-1-1-2 on 59% shooting. Blair averaged 15-13-2-1-1 on 56% shooting his rookie year -- he was a slightly more effective rebounder, a slightly worse scorer, and just about as shiftless and difficult-to-play defensively as Faried. He had his dominant nights -- and still does -- but Blair's height and talents are fundamentally not well-suited to the defensive end, and until he figures out a way to operate within a real defensive scheme, his flaws on that end going to continue to chip away at his minutes and keep him off the court. Even with excellent per-minute productivity, as Blair has maintained throughout his career. While I think Faried's future should be better than Blair's present, I think it's worth noting that Blair represents a very possible future if Faried's defense doesn't get in order quickly. He has a shot to be something special. He also has a shot to be DeJuan Blair v2.0 -- an above average offensive player whose sieve-like defense and relatively constrained role keep him from playing up to his per-36 averages. We'll have to wait and see to figure out exactly which end of the spectrum he lands on.

• • •

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. JKim got an excellent 3/3 last Friday, amidst a few good guesses. Good work, mate.

• Player #244 is one of those small-name players who is excellent for a fantasy basketball team. Really gets you value in almost every stat category. In terms of actual NBA player value? Significantly less value.
• Player #245 is probably the single most despised player in the NBA by fans of the San Antonio Spurs. I've grown to not care about him, but rest assured, I once completely hated his guts.
• Player #246 played rather well at the point for a good team last year, but his minutes were scant and his promise for future playing time slim. Still, could be a decent player someday.

Hope everyone had a good weekend. If you missed all our great Friday content, go back and check it out! We had a lot of stuff celebrating our 1st birthday. Here's hoping Sandy doesn't threaten any of your livelihoods -- please be safe. Batten down the hatches, secure everything you can, and get to higher ground. The season starts tomorrow, folks -- stay safe, so you can start it with us.

• • •

Continue reading

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 Roger Mason Jr., Daniel "Booby" Gibson, and Josh Harrellson. Stay tuned over the rest of the day for lots of other Gothic Ginobili anniversary-related material -- and some unrelated stuff, too!

• • •

_Follow Roger Mason on Twitter at __@MoneyMase.___

I'm not really sure how much longer Mason is for the league. Most crusty old veterans with no real investment in broader league politics would've been long-gone at this point, lost to roster churn and the slow but sure drift of age. Mason, though, has managed to stick around. And it might be a good thing he has, too -- while he's been an exceedingly marginal player over his entire career, he's actually been a relatively active figure in the league's labor politics, serving as the union vice president through much of the last 5-10 years. And all things considered? With the exception of his hilarious "Looking like a season. How u" styled gaffe back in the thick of the lockout, he's been relatively effective at reaching out to players and forming the sorts of connections and knowledge that makes running a massive labor organization go (relatively) smoothly. He and others were key figures in the labor organizations and among the owners were absolutely essential in breaking the stalemate between Hunter, Stern, and the owners. And for that, to me, Mason can stay in the league however long he darn well wants. He's earned it, you know?

At least he earned it somehow. With the exception of his one beautiful Spurs season, Mason's been pretty marginal over the course of his career. Keep in mind that in his best season ever, he still played markedly worse basketball than virtually anyone the Spurs employ at the wing today, including Neal, Green, De Colo, Leonard, or Mills. He made a few game winners, which are far and away the most wonderful highlights of the guy's career, but outside of that the cupboard is rather bare. Fun with averages: he's shot around 38% from three in his entire career, but that's actually pretty hilariously misleading, as well over 50% of the three point shots he's ever taken in his career came from a two-year stretch that includes his highlight Spurs season and his decent season with the 2008 Wizards. Mason shot 32% from three before that stretch, and has shot 35% since -- in fact, he only has three individual seasons over his average, with five individual seasons clocking in at well below. His defense has never been fantastic, and his offensive repertoire beyond the three is ghastly beyond compare. You do not want Roger Mason Jr. taking any shot but a three for you, if you can prevent it. You simply don't want that.

He was on the rocks this past season, playing for a contract and coming off one of the worst years of his career. He caught the lockout fever, though, and acquitted himself pretty well in Washington. Enough to earn a single-year minimum contract with the Hornets. He should be pretty decent, I'd think -- he won't be phenomenal or anything, because he never really is, but at this point his entire value is rooted in his ability to make open threes no matter how crusty and old he gets. With Davis in the post and Anderson drawing double teams on the perimeter, there should be open threes for him to can if the Hornets can actually get him the ball. Given that the best point guard on their roster is noted scoring aficionado Grevis Vasquez, I'm hesitant to call that a lock. But we'll see. For now, I just entreat you to consider the role Mason had in ending the lockout, understand that he's a hilariously marginal player whose career highlight was most likely a Christmas Day game-winner in a season where the Spurs lost in the first round, and appreciate him for what he is. Leader, shooter, all-around-good-dude. "How u?"

• • •

_Follow Daniel Gibson on Twitter at __@BooBysWorld1.___

It's true. Daniel "Booby" Gibson has fallen upon hard times. His offense has advanced in virtually no respects since his rookie season, with his three point percentage staying right around his rookie highs (41.9%) and his two point percentage plummeting as teams began to realize that even a modicum of pressure would make him incomprehensibly bad at scoring from inside the arc. Although, to be fair, the pressure doesn't totally explain his positively absurd showing this past season -- as John Hollinger expertly pointed out, Daniel Gibson shot 29.4% on two pointers this past season. Twenty-nine percent. How did that happen? I'll break it out for you! He shot 60% at the rim, but took only 0.7 shots a game there, because he has a lot of trouble actually getting to the rim at his size and barely even tries. He then proceeded to take:

• 0.6 shots a game from3-9 feet -- of these, he made 23.8%.
• 0.2 shots a game from 10-15 feet -- of these, he made 14.3%.
• 1.6 shots a game from 16-23 feet -- of these, he made 19.6%.

So, yeah. That could've gone a bit better.

Most of Gibson's value comes in his ability to shoot the ball. If he can't make two pointers, he's little more than a spot-up three point gunner on offense who doesn't need to be guarded inside the arc. And that's a pretty bad omen for his NBA career going forward. That, and his general lack of a passing game -- he's only once in his career posted an assist percentage above 15%, which is usually the death knell for an NBA point guard. For good reason. He's an awful passer for his position, almost incomprehensibly so. His turnover rate also spiked, as he posted a higher turnover rate than over 75% of NBA point guards despite barely ever handling the ball. Which is... not very good. It's possible his shooting could recoup, which would make him a rotation player again -- as long as he's shooting well and you don't have to play him as your primary ballhandler, he's a guard you like to play. Unexpectedly solid defense, doesn't dominate the ball (although he DOES take some shots you wish you'd have back), doesn't really hurt you a ton. Solid rebounding, too. This all requires that his shooting comes back. If it doesn't, he's toast -- there is absolutely no way he's staying in the NBA if he continues to make under 20% of his midrange shots. No way whatsoever.

Now, before we move on, I'd like to focus on something that I've always found really funny. The Finals-bound 2007 Cavaliers were lacking in a lot of ways. They were well below-average, offensively, at virtually every position on the court that wasn't played by LeBron James. Some good defensive talent, but offensively, quite deficient. Except, well... here's the thing that most people don't realize. In the past decade, the bar for being a competent, average, and reasonably decent point guard in the NBA finals is set astonishingly low. So much so, in fact, that a rookie Daniel Gibson somehow actually rated out as a barely-below-average point guard in the NBA finals. Seriously! Look at this chart -- it includes every point guard that started in the NBA finals over the past decade, averaged across all finals starts.

Be honest. How ridiculous is it that despite his maligned game, despite his general lack of value, despite his overall lacking skillset... as a rookie, Daniel Gibson seriously performed as a barely-below-average point guard in the NBA finals. He shot better than average, despite shooting FAR under his career averages. The Cavs had him taking a few less shots than most of these guys did, so his overall scoring total wasn't quite as good as normal, but he shot well above par and played about the average minutes-total. He stole the ball more than average (and, again, was solid defensively beyond the simple steals metric), and although he posted the worst assists total of any of the players, he overall rates out as a slightly-below-average Finals-caliber point guard. This is hilarious to me. When Daniel Gibson's agent is negotiating his next contract, he needs to make full use of this chart. "Hey, look. My client is tantalizingly close to the NBA Finals average for starting point guard. Don't you want to make a finals? Don't you need a veteran finals point guard? Booby's your guy! SIGN HIM!"

... Yep, exit's that way, I'll leave now.

• • •

_Follow Josh Harrellson on Twitter at __@BigJorts55.___

I actually like Josh Harrellson's game, at least as a prospect going forward. He makes a lot of sense as a stretch four, as he posted roughly average three point shooting in his very few tries at Kentucky and was able to quickly adapt to the NBA's three point line. If a player doesn't really pick up the shot their rookie year, it's actually relatively rare for the player to really recoup later in their career and learn how to shoot the three. So the fact that he was an average three point shooter his rookie year tends to indicate he's at least got a solid shot of being an average three point shooter for a long time going forward. He was also better defensively than most people realize -- he's a pest, in all the best ways. He gets up in a player's grill without actually fouling them, and when in the paint, he goes up straight to cut off angles and does an unexpectedly effective job of it. As teams scout his defense, he may need to adapt, but he was quite effective in a limited role his rookie year. His rebounding was pretty phenomenal, too -- Harrellson was in the top 25% of per-minute big-men rebounders on both defense and offense, and took the boards in about as viciously as a rookie ever does.

There were flaws, of course. Always are. His at-rim scoring was anemic at best, and his overall offensive game outside of the three point ball is relatively limited. Decent midrange, but he rarely uncorked it. Which is good, because the midrange shot sort of sucks. His defense was great overall, but (as expected), he struggles when matched up against gigantic post threats like Bynum or Howard. I mean... everyone does. But still. Despite all that, simply being able to be a three-point-shooting big man is valuable, and being able to do that while contributing on the defensive end of the court is a phenomenal plus. Add in his rebounding, if it holds up over his broader career, and he's the kind of super-effective role player that could actually make a mark on a good team. He might be the most important player the Heat picked up this summer, at least when it comes to keeping their talent around -- if Ray Allen's bone spurs finish their brutal forced aging and Rashard Lewis is as absurdly done as everyone seems to expect he is, the Heat will have a bunch of extremely old refuse lying around when Bosh and LeBron are facing their ETO decision, two summers from now. Harrellson is young, he's played very well, and his game appears to be the kind that can stand up to a few seasons of scouting. We'll see, 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. Excellent guessing -- J got a 3/3, although I have to give a special shout-out to Sir Thursday as well for being the first to figure out the riddle I'd deemed impossible.

• Player #241 was a borderline decent player at Duke, although very few people remember he went there at this point. Now, it's more just wondering when he'll actually get to show his talents at a leaguewide level. Not sure when that'll be.
• Player #242 got caught in some hot water this summer after some incredibly lewd and ridiculous pictures made their way stateside from one of his parties in his home country. My guess? He's already made as many papers as he'll make over the course of the entire season.
• Player #243 couldn't defend anyone worth a lick last season, and he's pretty undersized. But his coach absolutely needs to play him more minutes anyway -- he's young, his motor is incredible, and at some point the raw numbers become too overwhelming to keep him benched for long. He's reached that point.

TONS of stuff going up today. We will, quite literally, have 6 or 7 posts up today when all's said and done. A lot of work went into our stuff today. Hope you all enjoy it, and even if not, hope to see you next week for another week of capsules and the season's happy beginnings.

• • •

Continue reading

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. This afternoon we continue with Lance Thomas, Wayne Ellington, and Ty Lawson.

• • •

Follow Lance Thomas' example and buy a black diamond Jesus head.

As far as I know, most of the people who actively follow this blog are NBA fans -- few that I know of follow the NCAA with any sort of fervor or interest. I count myself in this general group. I don't like watching college basketball all that much, honestly. The talent is dismal, the excessive shot clock leads to overcomplicated and aimless offensive sets, the coaches lord over their players, chalk rules in a boring regular season, and the "possession arrow" is quite possibly the stupidest major-sport concept I've ever seen. March Madness is a lot of fun, and the crowds are neat. But I watch college basketball with this inherent sense that I'd get a better aesthetic experience by watching any average NBA team with an obsessive fanbase like Portland or Golden State. The defense is interesting, at times, but the requirements of the game tend to make successful college-level defensive schemes actively harmful to a player's development as a professional league defensive talent -- far too much of an emphasis on reach-ins, ball-watching, and zone protection. Simply not enough focus in the college game on single coverage, or on understanding ways to truly shut down a play. There's a reason most rookies are terrible at defense -- their college coaches do them a great disservice.

The reason I mention this is that I'd like to talk about a recently-broken story that most NBA fans have only glancingly heard about. The story broke this summer, and has intimately to do with Lance Thomas. Basically goes like this. Early in the 2010 season, Duke University's men's basketball team was in New York to play Gonzaga. They won by 35 points, then the team generally dispersed for a short winter break before a return to campus a bit over a week later. Lance Thomas -- alone, with nobody beside him -- went to an upscale jewelry store in New York and bought a black diamond necklace, a diamond-encrusted watch, a diamond cross, diamond earrings, and a black diamond pendant in the shape of Jesus' head. (... yeah, really.) The cost was $97,800. He paid $30,000, but the jeweler allowed him to take the rest on a bill-of-sale agreement that he'd pay the rest of the total within 15 days. The payment never came, Thomas stopped returning his calls, and the man eventually gave up trying and took him to court this summer. The two eventually came to a very carefully worded settlement, one where the money was conditional on the store not cooperating with any internal NCAA investigators and one where neither Thomas nor the jeweler would release the terms of the settlement otherwise. So, nothing will happen.

But, you know... that wasn't a given. For about two weeks, NCAA media types reported endlessly about the potential looming issues. The basic problem is that the jeweler gave Thomas a $67,800 loan with no interest and no certain terms. According to anyone with a functioning brain and a sense of logic, there's no way that kind of a loan happens if Thomas isn't a semi-professional athlete with a good shot at going pro. The fact of Thomas having $30,000 on hand is ridiculous, but not nearly as actionable -- perhaps that was a college fund his scholarship freed up, or money he earned somehow. There is virtually no chance that either of those statements are true. Thomas most likely got it from someone based on his basketball at Duke. But actually litigating the $30,000 would take firepower the NCAA doesn't have -- instead, the NCAA intended to litigate the loan, upon the argument that the loan itself was an intangible benefit given to Thomas, which would in turn disqualify not only Thomas as a player, but every single Duke team Lance Thomas played on. It would vacate the 2010 championship, Thomas' college career, and irrevocably stain the offending school. This story summarizes just about everything that puts college basketball over the top for me. It takes it from a sport I merely don't like to a sport I vehemently detest. You know why?

Via NCAA rules, this makes perfect sense. Via actual human reality, nothing about this litigation does.

There is absolutely no logical reason that Thomas' university should actually be punished for this, even if you accept the NCAA's bull that college athletes deserve no payment (they sure as hell do) and that Thomas used his Duke credentials to get benefits he wouldn't have gotten otherwise (he sure as hell did). Absolutely nobody at Duke had any idea Thomas was at the jeweler. Absolutely nobody at Duke -- at any point -- knew anything about this scandal before the news broke. Anything. Perhaps some of his teammates saw the jewelry -- who knows what they say in the locker room? But the coaches certainly didn't know, the athletics department was clueless as all get-out, and the hyperconservative Krzyzewski surely didn't know about it (because he'd probably have personally had Lance Thomas killed if had). The idea of vacating a title due to something nobody on the team had any way whatsoever to know about is absurd to me. It's like suspending Miami's big three because Dexter Pittman tried to kill Stephenson. It's throwing out Gregg Popovich because one of the fans in the crowd yelled an expletive. It's vacating half of Phil Jackson's titles because he doesn't smoke peyote.

This sort of thing happens all the time in the NCAA's warped reality. These absurd and illogical applications of rules that, as they stand, mean virtually nothing and create incomprehensible hazards a college basketball team can't possibly account for. A team playing under NCAA rules and regulations is better off locking every single player in separate cages (without pay, per NCAA guidelines!) than letting them traipse the world with an ounce of humanity intact. The NCAA's rules and regulations treat players as though they're indentured servents of their alma mater, not people. Rules like this only add to the general air of entitlement that belies just about every college coach and athletic director in the game. They all think they're great, and why wouldn't they? They pocket and take credit for every dollar the school makes off a series of phenomenally talented athletes who (for the most part) could probably use the money. This scandal is just another reminder of what anyone who watches a lot of NCAA ball already knows -- the NCAA rules are broken, and while I hated my time at Duke and earnestly disliked most members of that championship team (and especially Thomas), there's not a bone in my body that sympathizes with anything the NCAA is trying to do here. Not here, not against North Carolina's "egregious" missteps, not against Coach Calipari's somehow outlandish prospect that he'll actually treat his players like the young adults they are and let them see the fruits of their labor. The NCAA is a pathetic institution with a tenuous grasp on reality and the most insultingly warped views of their own players they could possibly have. They take a beautiful game and makes it a legal, moral, and exploitative disaster.

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the player?"

Honestly, Lance Thomas isn't very good. He doesn't have any professional-level scoring talents, and while he's finally figured out how to operate in a defensive scheme (with an emphasis on breaking up the pick and roll, a valuable skill) and bought nicely into Monty Williams' system, unless he can improve his outside tertiaries to anything resembling average he won't be long for the league. He'd probably be a decent player to land in an organization like the Pacers or the Spurs, where the coaching staff could put together lineups that cover him up offensively with a bounty of weapons and use him as a situational stick of dynamite to bust up any pick-and-roll play the other team deigns to run. But on a team like the Hornets, whose best scorers are Eric Gordon, Ryan Anderson, and a retired Monty Williams? Not quite what the team needs. If he could perfect his midrange shot and pick up a few more ball handling skills, he might be able to stick in the league longer as a situational wing, but again -- he needs a lot of massaging and work just to fit in a lineup as he stands, and the jury's out as to whether he's got the ability to provide that. On a personal level, I'll be totally honest with you -- I think he's probably the 4th best NBA talent on Duke's 2010 championship roster. Two of the players above him -- Jon Scheyer and Brian Zoubek -- never made the league, with Zoubek retiring to start a cream puff shop in New Jersey (NO, SERIOUSLY!) The other one, Nolan Smith, has looked absolutely terrible up to this point. A bit shocked Thomas has stuck around, but perhaps he's finally dealt with his college issues of lackadaisical work ethic. For Monty to praise him, he probably has to. So good on you, Mr. Thomas. You grew up. Good to hear. (Now stop buying diamond-plated Jesus heads.)

• • •

_Follow Wayne Ellington on Twitter at __@WayneElli22.___

Given the ridiculously long rant I went on in the Thomas capsule, I'll try to make this one a bit short. The Grizzlies traded for Ellington this offseason, and all things considered, I think this is a pretty decent pickup for Memphis. Although I admit, I remain unconvinced they couldn't have gotten a tad bit more for Dante Cunningham. As I outlined in Cunningham's capsule (which I am now reminded was a startling 229 players ago, dear lord), Cunningham is a decent 2nd-or-3rd big and he's got a few definitive NBA talents, despite suffering from somewhat tweener size. There are a lot of teams in the league that could use a player like him, and you wonder if the Grizzlies could've gotten a bit of a better package. Still. Ellington is coming off a pretty poor season, and although his defensive numbers are solid, they're a bit misleading -- watching 10-15 minutes of defensive play from Ellington reinforces the idea that he's a "lucky" defender whose man tends to miss wide open shots, somehow. He's not bad, but he's lucky, and eventually the other shoe will drop and his defensive numbers are going to look a lot worse through no fault of his own. It's not his fault his numbers are a bit inflated, and he's a decent defender... but it's incumbent on me to remind you of the fact.

Still. Ellington's spot in the league isn't for his defense, it's for his shooting -- on his career, he's a very good shooter from outside 15 feet, rating out as a mid-to-high 40s long two shooter and a high 30s three point gunner. In college, he was more than any mere gunner -- he was a remarkably effective sniper and his shooting talent looked to get him a long and profitable NBA career if he could step out a foot or two. His first two seasons were excellent from that regard, as he shot around 39% from three and looked to be a decent pickup by the Wolves, even if he wasn't an excellent player. This last season, though, he shot only 32% from three, and if he repeats that kind of a performance, the Grizzlies' trade is going to end up being yet another trade that was in-theory great but in-practice busted. I don't expect that, though -- I think his poor season will help teams lay off him, and the post threats on the Grizzlies will draw the defense in enough that Ellington will have ample room to take (and make) a ton of threes this year. If that happens and he can actually play the role of the token three-point sniper, the Grizzlies have a lot more upside potential than most give them credit for. Even if this doesn't work out (his offensive game really did look like absolute trash last season, it's worth noting), it's an admirable attempt to shore up a serious weakness. And a classic case of a team trading on fit rather than raw quality, which is something I do tend to get annoyed when teams ignore. So... good on you, Grizzlies.

• • •

_Follow Ty Lawson on Twitter at __@TyLawson3.___

There are a lot of reasons to like Ty Lawson. Chief among them is a fact that often gets overlooked for players like Lawson -- he simply doesn't have any pressing faults. His shooting percentages are above average from almost every spot on the court, his turnover rate is relatively low for an NBA point guard, and if you're an opposing defense it's really hard to scout a scheme to account for him. This is all pretty phenomenal, but it's also somewhat underrated -- often, people gaze upon Lawson's skills and don't see anything particularly great. They see a good scorer, good passer, good defender, good handle. But they don't see anything great beyond his blazing speed, which most people know intuitively doesn't always translate to NBA-great talent. (Just look at Ish Smith.) The general refrain is to compare each individual component of his game to one of his betters -- say, people comparing his passing skills to those of Rondo or his shooting to that of Nash or his defense to that of Westbrook. You look at a player through nothing but his individual components, and the whole view ends up looking mixed and shaky. How can he be a great player if he's so far behind the greats in fields like that?

Well, it's as I said -- there just aren't any real weaknesses in his game. Rondo can't reliably shoot -- Lawson can. Nash turns the ball over like it's nobody's business -- Lawson doesn't. Westbrook can get overly aggressive and can shoot his team out of games -- Lawson threads the fine line between aggression and passivity like a 7-year pro. Lawson's greatest gift is that he's good-to-great in every individual aspect of the game, which makes him add up to far more than the sum of his component parts. He masterfully directs one of the best offenses in the sport, leading his pieces both verbally and in-his-play. He and Andre Miller orchestrate a complex series of plays, movements, and actions that make Denver such an entertaining team to watch -- both are phenomenal offensive players, above and beyond their "above-average" traditional passing stats. Lawson adds to that brilliance a fantastic three point stroke, a reliable midrange shot, and already next to Tony Parker as one of the best at-rim scorers from the guard position. He's fast, but never out of control -- his motor is sublime, and the way Lawson changes speeds effortlessly from the top of the key is something to behold. His defense isn't an active, in-your-face press. He's more of a sneaky, shifty, spot-picking defender whose quickness is good enough to stay with more guards than most but hesitant enough to keep from getting himself in bad foul trouble. Doesn't take a lot of chances, but he does a good job keeping his hands in a player's face and cutting off angles. He's no Westbrook, but he's a sight better than the average NBA guard.

Make no mistake -- Lawson isn't as heralded as the big names like Deron Williams or Kyrie Irving, but he's phenomenal. One of the 30-something best players in the league, in my view. He's one of the best kept secrets in the league, combining an electric play-style with one of the most amusing off-court natures out there. Which does lead me to once again admit something that most don't realize -- Lawson is freakishly competitive, to the point of often being a jerk. One of the first posts I wrote for Gothic Ginobili was a retelling of one of my favorite college anecdotes, a story about how Ty Lawson utterly shredded a good Duke team to pieces simply because someone in the crowd pissed him off. You can read the story here. I highly recommend it, if only because understanding Lawson's amazing competitive streak is absolutely necessary to fully appreciate how great he actually is on the court. His hot temper and his competitive nature hasn't shut down in the interim, either -- look at his amazing performance against the Lakers in last year's playoffs, or his brazen declaration that this year's Nuggets are the team to beat in the West. Just hilariously confident in everything -- the crisis of confidence I outlined for Austin Daye would never get past a blink from Lawson. Even in college I had trouble rooting against such a phenomenally lovable, self-assured jerk -- now, in the NBA, at least I don't have to pretend I dislike him. Lawson's great. Watch him this season, as much as you possibly can, whether he's playing laser tag or filleting every defense that deigns to face him -- he may not make the all-star team, but chances are he'll very much deserve 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. This morning's riddles were admittedly pretty patchwork -- nobody got a single one correct. Alexander Smith wins a shout-out despite not guessing, though, because he posted one of the most hilarious comments anyone's ever put up here. Let's see if these riddles are more to your liking!

• Player #238 made enough clutch shots for a massive highlight reel not less than 3 years ago. He is now barely in the league. Funny how ("u") things work.
• Player #239 started in the finals in the past decade, despite his low repute. He actually resembles the average Finals starter at his position, at least in the modern era. Teams don't tend to have great players at his position when they win a title, at least not recently.
• Here's a riddle only one or two people on earth will know. One of our writers, Alex Arnon, covered the 2012 summer league. He witnessed Player #240 laughing and miming at what could've been a deadly spine injury. I may have indicated his relative praises earlier this week in the most amusingly controversial capsules I've ever written, but lord almighty, if he got waived because of his attitude I completely understand it. Also: that stupid, stupid nickname. Oh my lord.

Just a note, once more. Tomorrow, I'll be doing one of my semi-regular Q&A sessions. (As well as a lot of other stuff.) Topics are, as always, quite flexible. If you ask it, I shall answer. Most likely. Gothic Ginobili is significantly more popular now than it was back when the last few occurred, so I'm guessing there will be a few more questions than there used to be. I'll probably be answering questions for most of the day, but if you'd like to get in questions early, please email your questions to staff (at) gothicginobili (dot) com. Thanks for reading.

Also, in case you didn't notice: I updated twice today. If you missed the first set, check them out here.

• • •

Continue reading

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 Thabo Sefolosha, Kirk Hinrich, and Austin Daye.

• • •

_Follow _Thabo Sefolosha _on Twitter at @ThaboSefolosha.___

Standing tall for a wing at a picture-perfect 6'7", Thabo Sefolosha has ample size to defend both guard positions. He does it with a breathtaking efficiency, too, on both an individual and a scheme-breaking level. That is to say, he can either isolate onto a guard and shut them down or float on defense and destroy plays with his relentless energy. Not all defenders are that versatile. Few are, in fact. While the 2012 playoffs featured a lot of excellent performances -- LeBron's explosion against the Celtics, Westbrook's pantheon finals night, Duncan's dominant series-opening smash against the hapless Clippers -- I don't think any of them resonated with me as much as Sefolosha's unfettered brutality in game three of the Western Conference Finals. It was Sefolosha at his absolute scheme-busting best. The Spurs could scarcely run a play without Sefolosha's long arms destroying the rhythm -- the man broke up more action than a parochial school Bishop. In that game, he had 6 steals -- in the last decade, only three players have ever posted more in a single playoff game. And it still felt like the statline underrated him! One of the most dominant defensive performances I've ever seen from a backcourt player. And yes, that does include Bruce Bowen.

Unfortunately, Sefolosha suffers from a problem that usually shows up in reverse for the average NBA wing. Most wings are solid scorers that can't defend a lick, whose poor defense keeps them off the court when the games begin to matter. Your Jamal Crawfords, your Nick Youngs, your Gary Neals. They can't really play more than 20 or 30 minutes a night before their disgustingly poor defense starts to actively torpedo their team's chances. Sefolosha, on the other hand? He suffers the opposite flaw -- while his defense is so good you absolutely need to get him minutes, his offense is so bad that you'd be best to keep him off the court. Defenses tend to give him 4-5 feet of room without really caring -- you could hang a neon "come and get us!" sign on Sefolosha's locker and leave a coupon for free continental breakfast at the three point line. He's still not going to hurt you, usually. In fact, when he does, the Thunder tend to become unbeatable straight out of nowhere. One of the biggest things that sunk the Spurs in last year's Western Conference Finals was a Sefolosha-related shocker that completely annihilated the Spurs' general defensive scheme against the Thunder -- that is to say, Thabo started draining threes. Lots of them.

It's certainly possible that Sefolosha's sudden outbreak in the Western Conference Finals was a fluke -- after all, in the Finals, Sefolosha resumed his usual practice of "making nothing whatsoever" and made Spurs fans everywhere tear their hair out in woe and dismay. But I don't think he took particularly poor threes, either, and his form looked (to me) fundamentally better in 2012 than it did in 2011 -- his overall shooting was fluky, but with a better release, it looked more natural and it seemed more likely that he'd be able to make at least some element of his high-percentage three point shooting stick going forward. And it's worth noting that had Sefalosha made another wide open three or two -- not a ton more, just one or two -- the Thunder would've been up 3-2 going back to Oklahoma City in the Finals. Or even better. Which kind of underlines the point. If Thabo Sefolosha can add even a modicum of an offensive skill to his myriad defensive talents, it blows up the ceiling of a team that's already a title contender without it. If -- and yes, it's an if -- but if Sefolosha can actually grow into his slowly-improving three point shot, he could very well spearhead a Thunder defense improved enough to fully stifle Dwyane Wade and force LeBron into classic Cavalier mode. And if that happens? The Thunder could beat the Heat, and do it pretty handily. It's not all on Sefolosha -- many members of that team could improve and make this a reality. But I have an odd feeling that the Thabo we saw in the Western Conference Finals is closer to the Thabo we'll see this season.

For teams that aren't Oklahoma-dreaming? A scary thought, to be sure.

• • •

Follow Kirk Hinrich by fighting Klingon warships.

I'm sure Kirk Hinrich is a really nice guy. Positive, even. In his relatively long NBA career, I've never read a single negative word about him from a player or a coach. He comes in, does his job, doesn't really complain that much. Works hard, too. Nobody really has anything mean to say about him, and that's probably telling. He isn't exciting, obviously -- in an effort to tell reports fun facts about himself, Hinrich once shared that he "actually made his own Myspace page." Cool story, bro... but that would probably be way more interesting if he'd provided a bio more complicated than "I play basketball." His favorite movie is Old School and his most interesting purchase after his first big NBA contract was a Hummer H2. He's basically the exact same as I would be if I was an NBA player, at least in off-court stories -- vanilla to a fault, well-organized, buttoned up. A simple man with simple plans.

But you know what? Regardless of how nice a guy he probably is, I have to cry foul here. It's not his fault, but... seriously, HE'S the Bulls' big offseason acquisition? Kirk Hinrich? I hate to be the bearer of bad news to the Bulls' front office, but Hinrich was extraordinarily awful last season and he's been a sub-par NBA player for almost 2 years now. He's suffered a laundry list of annoying, nagging injuries that have sapped his game and made his once-formidable defense into a bit of a sieve. Crafty guards realize that the Hinrich of today is nowhere near as mobile and active as the Hinrich of yesteryear, and they use this to their advantage. Hinrich's decreased mobility means that he has to take a longer, costlier path if he wants to get around a screen these days -- this means he's virtually always on his heels when a shot goes off out of a well-run screen play. His synergy stats are a bit deceiving -- the more tape you watch, the more you realize just how far he fell off on defense last season. There was clear discomfort and clear stickiness to the way he moved across the court when he was tasked with defending on-ball.

And really, it's not just the screen action. This whole trend of declining defensive efficacy is made far worse by the fact that he can't honestly stay as close on a moving target as he used to in the first place, leading to a lot of blown coverages. He had some relatively successful attempts to draw more charges as a substitute for fundamentally sound defense, but beyond that, his defensive powers were pretty anemic last year. Wouldn't be the end of the world if he'd been picked up to be a bench-locked guard with a bit of versatility to spell Rose and play beside him. Shoot the three, play some D. Unfortunately, that isn't really what they wanted, and by signing him to a multi-year deal that locked them into a tricky cap situation, the Bulls ensured that Hinrich (healthy or not) would be a key part of their rotation going forward. And instead of simply being able to let him be as he may and develop as a tertiary player, the Rose injury pole-vaults Hinrich front and center from the shores of a wasted few years into the tepid waters of high expectations. Hinrich is not Derrick Rose. Even at his best, he was nowhere close. But these last few years, Hinrich been more awful than most people even really understand.

To wit: last year, the good Captain posted...

• An assist rate of 16%... which rates in the bottom 10% of all point guards. Rose, a "non-traditional" point, posted an assist rate of 40%.

• A turnover rate of 16%... because a 1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio is exactly what you want in your "pure" floor general, right?

• Awful efficiency despite a 13% usage rate... which is barely a third of what Derrick Rose gave the Bulls before.

I don't have anything against Hinrich, and this is absolutely nothing personal. I kind of hope he has a nice comeback -- it'd be a cool story, and the city of Chicago seems to have a nice love for him from his years toiling for the franchise. But I simply don't see the hype, even if it really is only coming from the Bulls' front office. So-called veteran leadership really isn't worth the investment the Bulls made, here -- I just don't get what the Bulls front office is doing. And while there's a non-negligible chance that Hinrich finally throws off the injury-monkey and returns to his pre-trade highs... I certainly wouldn't bet on it. And I sure as hell wouldn't give him a two-year guaranteed contract that virtually requires that he keep producing at that kind of a level to make the whole endeavor worth it. I suppose the Bulls organization just has more faith than I -- we'll see if that was warranted soon enough.

• • •

_Follow Austin Daye on Twitter at __@Adaye5.___

Austin Daye has had his chances. He's been with the Pistons for 3 years running, developing at something approximating a snail's pace and losing out on chances at starter's minutes just about every season he's played. Daye has a lot of talent, and offensively, there have always been a few really nice positives to his game. He's got a nice looking stroke from behind the arc, and in his sophomore year, Daye put up an effortless 40% from beyond the three point line that had many (myself included) thinking he had a decent potential as a trey-draining wing with a penchant for timely shots that doesn't really kill your team anywhere else on the court. That was the ideal, and after his sophomore season, it looked like Daye was well on his way to achieving that. Turned out to be little more than a flukey-nice season in the middle of two far more concerning seasons of absent jumpers and shaken confidence. Not a good look, Austin. Really need to work on that.

On defense? Nothing really special. Sort of crummy, even. He's slightly bouncy, at least, and his instincts for following spot-up shooters aren't too bad. His bounciness leads to a useful split-second advantage when it comes to contesting a spot-up -- not insanely meaningful, but in a game of millimeters like defending a spot-up shooter, every little bit counts for bunch. What he gains in the spot-up reaction time he gives back in everything else, though -- he isn't good at assessing direction shifts when the offense keys in to force him to make a play, and he's a tweener to the core. Too spindly to guard big men, too lumbering to guard guards. And at the pure wing, playing as a small forward, he's simply not athletic enough to make any of the defensive plays that are incumbent on him to make. The other big problem is that his defense has literally shown zero improvement in three years of league play. You'd think, by now, that Daye would've shown something. Some semblance of a defensive skill. Alas. The passion doesn't seem to be there.

Daye does do a few things pretty well. Rather ironically, while we all discuss his shooting, his best area on the floor has traditionally been his around-the-rim game. Last season he made around 66% of his shots at the rim -- well above average for a wing player -- and a reasonably decent amount of his post-ups. His big problem? Not enough of either -- despite the nice conversion rates, Daye took barely 15% of his shots from the around-the-rim area, among the bottom 10% of all wings in the game. He took almost two thirds of his shots from beyond 15 feet despite shooting well under 25% from that distance, too. Absolutely incomprehensible. Daye's future with the Pistons is pretty murky -- he spent this last summer putting on weight in an effort to play in the frontcourt instead of on the wing, and while I admit that his at-rim numbers look promising, I have my doubts he'll ever be a passable defender from the 4 and he's putting himself in competition for minutes with the Pistons' two best players, Monroe and Drummond. Just a sort of strange move. All things considered, it's hard to see how he fits on this team going forward. And entering this final year of his rookie deal, Daye really needs to show something this season if he intends to stay in the NBA. Because if he doesn't, chances are high he's shilling his wares in Europe in no less than 12 months. Stakes are pretty high.

• • •

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. Several 2/3 answers -- I admit, I would've been pretty surprised if anyone placed Daye. Shout-outs to Geezer, J, Atori, and @MillerNBA.

• Player #235 was a_ total freaking tool_ in college. I should know. I was there.
• Actually, Player #236 sort of was as well. Don't know this quite as well as I do with #235, but I've heard some rumors.
• And you know what? Player #237 was a phenomenal jerk too, but he was such a spectacular one I can't help but respect and root for him. Now that we aren't in college.

I will be -- for once -- actually delivering on the "two post" promise! I have the second set of capsules for today just about done and queued up. Includes a HUGE rant about the NCAA, heh. I'll edit them on my lunch break. They'll drop around 1 or 2 PM, eastern time. Most likely. See you then.

• • •

Continue reading