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 Quincy Pondexter, Kurt Thomas, and Paul Millsap.

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_Follow Quincy Pondexter on Twitter at __@QuincyPondexter.___

Quincy Pondexter isn't a terrible player, or even a particularly bad one. His stats aren't great, but he had a definite use for last year's Grizzlies team, and his statistics underrate the fact that he's a very decent wing defender. Off-ball, on-ball, whatever -- Pondexter has solid defensive fundamentals, with a good handle on creatively slipping out of screens and a relatively solid sense of space. Doesn't foul a ton for a wing, too, which means he can stay on the court in pressure situations without giving an inch. Very reasonable talent. Offensively, his three is a bit broken (as I'll discuss in a second), but he does have a decent rate of rim-conversion (and an above-average talent at getting to the rim, as well!) and a decent long two that would tend to imply that he may shoot better later in his career. His usage is relatively low and he isn't very heavily utilized on offense, but he has some upside value as a 3-and-D player in his future. If he can learn to shoot threes, that is.

The issue with Pondexter is less what he is and more what he isn't, much like the general problem with the last few years of Grizzlies. For years, the Grizzlies have needed better three point shooters. NEED them. Their offense -- as is -- has the potential to be a fantastic top-10 unit, if only they'd properly fill it out and get a few players who can knock down a consistent three around their two bruising low-post threats. Unfortunately, the Grizzlies have continued to pick up 3-and-D players ad infinitum that produce the D, but can't really make threes. At least not outside of extremely situational roles. In the case of Pondexter, his 30% three point shooting has less upside than you'd perhaps think. Pondexter understands that he isn't a fantastic shooter, and as such, he takes virtually all of his three pointers from the corners. That means he's taking, essentially, the easiest three point shots he can. Last season, exactly 70% of his three point shots came from the corners, the closest and easiest three point shot.

Pondexter converted only 34% of those 49 three point shots -- of all three point shots he took outside the corner, Pondexter converted on only a startling 20% of them. So the net result is a player who -- essentially -- understands his limitations and doesn't overstep them, but is well below average on the corner three (the league as a whole averaged 39% from the corner last season) and astonishingly below average on any shot outside the corners. Partly because he's rarely open, partly because of an internal lack of skill. This matches the general trend in Memphis -- just about everyone on the Memphis team can play at least reasonably solid defense, but beyond Mike Conley, virtually nobody on the team can make a reasonable percentage of their threes. The Bayless acquisition might help, if Bayless can keep his percentages at his career highs of last season. But what the Grizzlies honestly need is a player that teams earnestly _fear_from the three point line -- doing so will help open the floor and make the other three point shooters just a tad bit more open. One or two players like that, and the Grizzlies' offense could be as title-ready as their defense. Teams would most likely key into those few players, leaving the Pondexters and Allens of the world the space to improve their numbers and turn the offense into a brilliant machine. Here's hoping the Grizzlies wise up to their potential and can wrangle up a few ringers -- before age steals Randolph away and they find it's just a bit too late.

• • •

Follow Kurt Thomas by staying at your job for the rest of your life.

Kurt Thomas is the oldest player in the NBA this season. Due to this -- at some point -- Thomas is probably going to fall off the rails and stop being productive. But his sheer longevity has reached a level where it (in and of itself) is pretty impressive. There are exactly ten big men who lasted in the league at the age of 40 or older -- if he can survive the coming season and comes back at the minimum for one more go-around (a likely possibility, if he can avoid injury -- the man loves the game), he'll leave the league as a 42 year old. Which is about as crazy as it sounds! In the 65 year history of the league, a grand total of three other big men made it that far -- Kevin Willis, Dikembe Mutombo, and Robert Parish. Being old-for-your-job is rarely an accomplishment worthy of note, but in Thomas' case, he's made it so far you really have to tip your cap. Especially being, as he is, a relatively limited player -- Thomas is solid, but he's never really been a phenomenal player at any stage of his career. He's essentially always been a limited-but-useful player with a good attitude and a singular focus on helping his team.

As for what he gives the Knicks, given his age and condition? Not a whole lot, but he gives enough that he'll probably remain somewhat useful. Even at his age, Thomas is still a great rebounder to have coming off the bench, and his last-season defensive rebounding mark was virtually exactly the same as his career average. On defense he tends to take a few more possessions off than he used to, simply by dint of his declining athleticism and the slow creep of his size disadvantage taking effect. While Thomas plays like a classical center, it's a little-known truth that Thomas is actually 6'9" -- far shorter than most of the players he's so good at guarding. As he gets older and loses more and more of his lift, the general size disadvantage his effort always overrode is beginning to take a toll on his game. Not immediately, but it's getting there. So that could, unfortunately, detract from the defensive mark he makes on the court. As always, offensively, Thomas makes his bread on a relatively well-developed pick-and-pop midrange game -- he can drain shots from the midrange and the long two like few other centers can, and that in and of itself provides value. Additionally so because his shot has shown no real falloff with age -- he shoots about as well now as he did 10 years ago.

Going forward, he may start for the Knicks for a short period of time while they wait for Amare to return. Assuming, of course, that Woodson doesn't realize the Carmelo-as-PF experiment works very well for the Knicks and maximizes Carmelo's talents. I'm not sure he will -- he's kind of clueless about innovations like that, and tended to be really stodgy and uncreative in Atlanta, back in the day. He may end up being a more effective starter than Amare would be in his current state, though -- while you completely lose all of Amare's rim-rocking off-ball cuts, you gain a solid presence on defense and better picks. And, frankly, a slightly better midrange shot. On a team with a ball-dominant scorer like Carmelo, it's often better to surround him with players that have specific situational uses and let Melo do the majority of the freewheeling -- Thomas actually fits that role better than Amare did last season, so it's possible Amare's absence will be good for the Knicks even if Woodson doesn't go strong into the "Melo-as-PF" experiment. Still. Even when Amare comes back, Thomas should help their bench depth a bit, and provide a nice presence in the locker room. Can't play more than 10-15 minutes a night, but those minutes should help. He's something of a role model for role-players, in general -- it's hard to imagine any role-player ever carving out a better career than Thomas has. Clock your hours, do your job, pay your dues. Good things sometimes happen. That's the "moral" of the Kurt Thomas story, if there ever was one, and always a welcome one to see in the locker room.

• • •

Follow Paul Millsap by attending Grambling in Grambling.

Here are a few things most people don't know about Paul Millsap.

• Despite Millsap's height, he's regularly among the league leaders in at-rim percentage. Seriously! He's a crafty finisher, not necessarily an emphatic one. Of Millsap's 306 at-rim field goal attempts (top 20 in the league), a scant 57 of them were dunks. Compare that to, say, Blake Griffin. He took 475 shots at the rim, but 192 of his attempts were dunks. His percentage isn't supremely low, but as Jazz fans would note, he gets a definitively lower percentage of his at-rim field goals from dunks than Jefferson, Favors, or Kanter. Crafty, though. Lots of tip-ins, side scoops, short shots. Very creative, very effective.

• The Jazz defended better with Millsap on the court than with Millsap off, which is a bit shocking given his size and his visually-unimpressive defense. The key to Millsap's defense, in my view, tends to be rooted in the expectations of the offensive player who gets him on a switch -- most bigs tend to expect Millsap will lay off due to his size, but he hustles and gets into his man's body on post-ups. He's also got deceptively long arms, as Millsap features a 7'1" wingspan in a 6'6" frame -- this helps him in the steals department, as Millsap's regularly among the league leaders in steal percentage despite being way larger than every other steal-talented player. Overall, he's a decent individual defender, but none of his defensive talents really fit into a team defensive concept -- his lack of size and guard-esque defensive game is rare for a big man, and very hard to build a scheme around.

• When fans name the toughest players in the NBA, they rarely tab Millsap as one of them. They go for the obvious -- Kobe, Nash, Manu, et cetera. All things considered, though, Millsap should probably be in the conversation. He takes a beating in the post almost every night, guarding far taller players and far stronger men. He plays through more injuries than virtually ANYONE gives him credit for, last season playing through a badly sprained wrist to end the year and a variety of minor maladies throughout his career. Look at the 2011 season, for instance. Over the course of that season, Millsap dealt with the following issues: tendonitis, a purple-bruised left big toe (that one lasted the entire season), a dislocated pinkie, a badly bruised thumb, occasional back spasms, a sprained ankle, a bad flu, and other minor things. How many games did all of these conditions lead him to miss, in 2011? SIX GAMES. That's it. Make no mistake -- Millsap is among the toughest players in the league, and if I really had to choose, I'd probably name him the toughest.

The full picture is pretty neat, with Millsap. He gives you a big man who -- while undersized -- combines a lethal scoring instinct at the rim with above-average rebounding and solid defense. His toughness and general demeanor is immensely valuable in and of itself, and while he isn't quite suited for a starring role in a key defense, his individually-decent defense means he could play a starring role in a team with a defensive superstar next to him. His offense is above average from every area of the floor but the true midrange, as he has a decently effective long two that he's developed over the last few years, and his post-up game is far better than most players at any height. He's one of the best cutters in the game, as well -- despite Utah's lack of a passing point guard last season, Millsap rated out as one of the most effective players scoring off of cuts in the sport. Above average assist rate, below average turnover rate. Higher usage than most big men, too -- it's not like you can really find fault in low sample size, for a player that scores as much as Millsap does.

Had he been in the Eastern Conference, Millsap would've been a clear pick for the all-star team -- and even in the west, there were some who felt he deserved it. Myself included. Now, though? An offseason later, after a good preseason from Kanter (who has reportedly looked incredible in the Utah preseason -- I haven't been paying a wealth of attention, because I'm always extremely wary of preseason, but he's looked good) and a good postseason from Favors (who solidified his status as the primary cog of the future in Utah's machinations), many Jazz fans I've talked to would like to see Millsap or Jefferson moved. Or both, even. It's actually pretty funny, since both of them were fringe all-stars and Millsap probably deserved to make the team -- it's not often that two all-star caliber bigs come to market. Still, it's an open question how much value the Jazz are going to be able to get from a trade of either -- Millsap's too quixotic, Jefferson's too expensive. And with Millsap's injury concerns, there is the additional rumbling fear that Millsap could be headed for an early fall, as the injuries finally accumulate too quickly and sap his game before he's reached his true prime. That's going to artificially deflate his trade value, unfortunately for the Jazz.

Looking at the trade potential on its face, though... what do the Jazz really need? More talent at the guard positions, beyond just Mo Williams and Alec Burks. If they could find a way to flip Millsap or Jefferson for a player like Arron Afflalo, they could very well be set as a possible contender. As-is, though, given their problems with fit and their generally idiosyncratic games, the Jazz may run into trouble finding a suitor that can offer what they need. And they probably aren't going to get a true value-match for a player as underheralded as Millsap or Jefferson. I think, if they end up trading Millsap this season, they may find themselves settling for a package with salary relief, a few young prospects (say, Matthews/Williams via POR, Green/Neal via SAS, Calderon/Johnson via TOR, or some similarly underwhelming package), and a pick or some money besides. It's an open question whether that's all that much better than just playing out the string with their monstrously stacked frontcourt and hoping to flip them in an offseason to a desperate team for (perhaps) a bit more value than they could get at the deadline. You know, like the Rockets flipped Dalembert and the Blazers flipped Felton this past offseason. I'm not really sure, though. The ongoing "will they, won't they" trade saga with the Jazz front office and their loaded frontcourt is going to be one of the more interesting subplots this season, and I highly recommend paying close attention to it.

And also, a programming note. The statsheet is correct -- Paul Millsap is the last Jazz player I'll be covering in the capsules. Oh my! The Jazz are the first team to complete their full contingent of players. Had to happen to someone eventually. They'll also be the only team whose capsules will be completely done before the season starts. Congratulations, I suppose? If you're a Jazz fan who'd like to see my assessments of the individual members of your team, you can now go to the 2013 Jazz page in the Gothic Ginobili Capsule Directory to locate the capsules of every non-rookie rotation player of your incoming team. Thanks for following the series, and I do hope you'll stick around and read sporadically going forward. Even if I'm done with your current team, there are certainly some current and former Jazzmen on the way -- Kirilenko, for one! In any event, thanks for following and reading.

Good luck this season, Jazz fans. See you in the playoffs.

• • •

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. Okman and Chilai got today's spot-on. Nice guessing.

• Player #232 is a very good defender. If he can ever get the whole "offensive end of the court" part of the game, he could be one of the 3 or 4 best players on a champion. Might become one anyway, given that stacked team. Heh.
• Player #233 is the aging and wizened skipper. Atlanta, Washington, and other teams galore have fared well with his services. Huge dropoff for his current team, though. And I'm not sure he deserved the one-minded obsession the team had with his acquisition in the first place.
• Player #234 has been something of a disappointment for his current team. Great at-rim numbers, but unless he can ever make a shot? Rotation fodder. At best.

Just a note. On Friday, I'll be doing one of my semi-regular Q&A sessions. 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. Happy midweek.

• • •

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As Josh Hudelson prepares to leave Deep Springs College and head to Columbia University as an anthropology major, there are a few things he is taking care of—among them, slaughtering a cow and spending the night with the corpse in a 40-degree meat locker... In addition to sleeping with the slaughtered, frozen cows, he has been tanning sheepskin, for what purpose he doesn’t know yet. But there are scraps of sheep flesh lying all over the living quarters and in the shower, the way most college dorm rooms are littered with pizza crusts. “This place smells because I’ve got some rotting materials,” he says, breezing through the dorm. He has no plans to clean it up.

The above excerpt is taken -- unedited -- from an excellent article by Evgenia Perez highlighting a place that few even know exists. It describes an episode from the undergraduate experience of a current Ph.D. student studying ethnomusicology at New York University. The average reaction tends to range somewhere between utter revulsion and complete befuddlement. "Where in God's name would something like that happen?" It reads like a deranged farm story, a cautionary tale of an agricultural experiment gone -- perhaps -- a tad too far.

Funny enough, that isn't actually that far off.

Located in an expanse of the dessicated Sierra valleys athwart California and Nevada, Deep Springs College is essentially the successful realization of a centuries-old dream. More specifically, it's the successful realization of the alternatingly beautiful and horrifying fever-dream of founder L.L. Nunn. The conceit is simple -- take some of America's best and brightest and force them to pave their own way, living on the land and by their own devices in a self-governed, self-sustaining Christian paradise. Hard labor with a dose of Derrida. Take the boys far away from the trappings of modernity and technology, allowing them to become men within the crucible of spiritual isolation and hard labor. From such curious beginnings, Nunn felt the leaders of tomorrow would rise up and take their rightful place as the leading lights in modern society, squelching the flow of progressivism and exhorting a new conformity. The meek shall inherit the Earth, but only if the new-age Cowboy doesn't get there first.

• • •

Properly appreciating James Harden requires a level of contextualization and examination that -- in a general sense -- is beyond most people. Myself included. Take for instance this actual scene from late last season, its skeleton far too common. I turn down the volume on a Thunder game, watching for hours of enraptured silence at the quiet brilliance of Durant and the fearless showmanship of Westbrook. I look at the box score, later, only to stare in shock -- Russell had 15, Durant had 29, and Harden -- somehow -- had put up 40! He'd dropped 40 points, and I'd barely even noticed! It's rarely quite that stark, but the point stands. There are certain players whose time on the court actively marks you. They come off the bench to an electric jolt -- they grasp your collar, wrench you upright, and demand your attention. They force you to come to terms with their play, whether good or bad. They burrow into your mind and force you to consider them. James Harden is not one of those players. I keep thinking back to the general way that the public describes Harden's game. Namely, in relation to his spiritual predecessor. I cringe every time people compare James Harden to the symphonic fusillade of Manu Ginobili -- their games are similar in a statistical sense alone, Harden's wooden shot falling well-short of the beatified sparkle that underlines Manu's craft. They are similar in tertiaries and statistical profiles -- but they are worlds apart in their aesthetics and the joy they take in their craft.

Their statistical metrics are similar, and it's certainly possible that Harden could be much better. Someday. But he can scarcely hope to reach Manu's style. Not yet, anyway. There's a sense, with Manu, that he can -- and will -- take over at any point of the game. That he'll simply start taking and making a barrage of unstoppable, unconscionable threes. Can Harden do that? Perhaps -- but his aesthetics, to this point, don't indicate it. This isn't to say he's bad. Harden does just about everything you'd want from a star player in the NBA, scoring-wise. He draws a ridiculous number of free throws, drains threes like nobody's business, and stays within his boundaries on the offensive end. Harden does not overreach, as a general rule. He does not ball-hog, he does not assert. He slithers, more aptly, hiding on the offensive end behind screens and misdirections, vanishing in a parade of smoke and mirrors that makes the release -- when it comes -- so easy and yawn-worthy that people ignore the hoops he had to jump through to get there. Not to mention the fact that simply being able to get himself open so consistently -- as Harden is wont to do -- is a skill in and of itself. A rather underheralded one, and one that Harden is as good at as Durant is bad.

Is it an indictment on the NBA commentariat that Harden isn't "more" noticed? Not really, and I'd argue it's because of the exact contrapositive to the things that make him excellent. There are flaws to Harden's game, and many lie in the exact things that make his game whole. While he's excellent at getting himself open, he's also not phenomenal at shooting even lightly contested shots -- in last year's NBA Finals, this problem came to full display. When faced with constant pressure from Wade and a smothering defense, Harden found himself unable to enact his skillset and unable to take the open shots he so feasted upon in the regular season. Even against the relatively permissive Spurs defense, Harden had trouble getting wide open shots, and it bothered him enough in that series to force Durant to step to another level. When his free throw attempts dry up, he struggles to generate efficient offense on his lonesome. His passing -- good when he isn't pressured -- gets worse and worse as you assign him more responsibility. His lack of overreaching -- while admirable -- is taken a level too far, on many occasions. There is a happy medium between shooting too much and shooting too little. Harden is not that happy medium. Frankly, to this point? He's not even all that close. And he needs to draw closer, as he grows into his frame and his game.

• • •

"Sounds like a weird cowboy cult for repressed homosexuals." (User provis99 of the Democratic Underground)

One of the funnier contradictions about Deep Springs that most don't realize is that -- in actuality -- it's a hilariously inefficient project. At least as a farm. Sure, the labor is free, but the quality is so godawful that it scarcely matters. There's a single-minded focus and intensity you need to actually be successful farmers, to successfully live on the land. By definition, Deep Springs attendees don't tend to have that. After all -- how could they? Deep Springs is a relatively elitist institution, at its core. If you don't have SAT scores in the top 1%, you stand almost no chance of getting in. You need to write somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-200 pages of essays to even be considered, per some sources. 50-75% of Deep Springs "graduates" go on to get an actual bachelors from an Ivy League school. Eggheads don't just stumble unknowingly into Deep Springs -- to get to that kind of a situation, you need to be of a certain kind of person, a certain sort of duck.

Harden is a similar sort of odd duck, if you take him in his proper context. Here, you have a player that actually sent Sam Presti a letter detailing the many reasons why he'd be an excellent fit in Oklahoma City. A player who understood -- before he was old enough to legally drink! -- that he wanted to be the quixotic sixth-man on a star-studded future contender. He had played with Durant and Westbrook through AAU ball, but as relative equals -- before Miami had come together, before the Lakers had their sterling offseason, before the "superteam" became a much-ballyhooed reality. Before all that, Harden himself could see so clearly the outlines of a superteam, so clearly delineated roles, he did his part to actively seek it out. More than most players, Harden deserves credit for the way he found his team. He did as much to form the Thunder's big three as Westbrook or Durant did themselves. And this is, admittedly, something of an oddball route. Most people accept their draft position as an exogenous factor they can't really control. Harden wanted to take control in an offseason only to cede control in the real season. An odd way to go.

Speaking of odd ways to go, here's a shocker: people who willingly write 200 pages of essays simply don't tend to be ranchers, either. Not good ones, anyway. They're creative, thoughtful, odd. But not ranchers. If you read the musings of those who graduate -- for instance, the Deep Springs portion of this interview with writer William T. Vollman -- you notice a few consistent themes. In my experience with his work, I don't think it's out of line to say that Vollman tends to be a bit too pleased with himself. Here, though, he can't really get too exultant with his self-praise: he says he did merely "OK" with the manual labor. He also notes that the students were pretty arrogant, and that he had never really worked with his hands at all before he got to Deep Springs. All reasonable. Vollman's story tends to be the norm, among the non-admissions-catalogue Deep Springs stories I've read. Nobody who goes to Deep Springs thinks they're very bad at their jobs, but they often admit that OTHER students are arrogant, and OTHERS aren't great at their job. But the point wasn't really for anyone to be phenomenal at their jobs -- the point was to be OK, and to learn the true meaning of self-sufficiency. To use labor and work as a means to learn about themselves and the world around them.

In the NBA, self-sufficiency isn't necessarily gunning for numbers. And craving it isn't necessarily detrimental to the broader context of an NBA team. In fact, I'd argue it's exactly the opposite. Self-sufficiency in the NBA is figuring out how to sidle into the team concept in a way that helps everyone around you improve. Gunning for your own numbers doesn't necessarily keep you in the league for long -- look at Stephon Marbury, or Gilbert Arenas, or Allen Iverson. The game left them behind before they left the game behind. The true meaning of self-sufficiency in the NBA is somewhat of an anathema to the concept's lonely ideal -- being self-sufficient to ensure your own longevity regardless of situation requires a measured assessment. You need to determine what to provide that maximizes your appearance as a player by maximizing your team's potential. Right now? That's exactly what Harden does, and while he hasn't made that personal leap into an all-star or an all-NBA player quite yet, he's been placed into a journey that's a bit less straightforward than that of a Kyrie Irving or a Blake Griffin.

• • •

So, what does the ultimate fulfillment of an elitist fever-dream of isolation and farming have to teach us about a player like Harden? What's important about Harden is much like what's actually important about Deep Springs -- it's not about the profits, or the classes, or the final result of their initial labors. It's not about the seeds you plant, it's about the planting of the seeds. What makes Harden interesting to watch is the broad-scale picture that surrounds and cushions his game, not the intimate moments where players like Manu and Westbrook and Dirk bludgeon with their craft. Harden's is an off-kilter journey, to be sure. It's one of learning to coexist before you take over. It's one of coming, learning, accepting lumps. A disappointment his rookie season, but one that drifted closer and closer to star status with every month that followed. And now? One of the best 20-something players in the league, and the heir apparent for the title of "greatest shooting guard on the planet."

Within the central contradiction of Deep Springs -- the inefficient labor of the non-laboring students -- lies the grain of truth that skims the cream from the milk. The point of Deep Springs is not (and has never been) to act as an enterprise meant to make money. Or, more broadly, to operate within the prearranged format of society, culture, or profit at all. The point is to provide a sandbox that allows the self-selected group of elites to tear down those structures. The point is to make them anew. You may not make them perfectly, you may not create immaculate structures on the first go-around. Or, really, ever. But that's not the point. The point is the journey of creation, the joy of discovering for oneself the things that make one whole. Self-sufficiency as a means to an end. It's not vocational training for the sake of itself -- it's vocational training as a broader mechanism to learn how to approach the world. The most successful Deep Springs graduates seem to internalize this general grain of wisdom.

Harden never went to Deep Springs. But he seems to have gotten the picture. He's now a player whose potential for more shines through in such an overwhelming radiance that not one team in the NBA would refuse him a max contract, if he decides to go searching. And like the suburbanite elites of Deep Springs, if you're only working off the broader descriptions, you can't imagine he wouldn't, can you? He's not exactly a country boy -- nothing about Harden screams "Oklahoma." The parties, the eccentrics, the California vibe that underlines his style. He's about as out-of-place in Oklahoma as the average Deep Springs first-year on their first cattle herding. But both adapt. Both throw themselves into the team concept. They solve the situation. Both arrive to positions where they have the opportunity to move on. In Harden's case, to almost any team he wants to. But if he decides to stay, that's fine too. The journey doesn't have to come to some neat and tidy conclusion. The journey can be messy, odd, and off-kilter. It can come in waves and crests. The mystery of an unknown close is part of what makes it so enticing and alluring -- it doesn't need to end in some predefined, prepackaged way.

In fact, to those as young as he? It really doesn't have to end at all.

• • •

"Everything is arranged so that it be this way, this is what is called Culture."

• For more capsules on members of the Oklahoma City Thunder, see our Thunder directory. •

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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 Ivan Johnson, James Harden, and Patrick Patterson.

• • •

Follow Ivan Johnson by taking a page of Rasheed's legacy.

“My thing is, I don’t really watch basketball so I don’t know who anybody is. I know the major players like LeBron, Kobe, Wade but all the extra ones I don’t know. Even if I did know them, I’m not going to be afraid. We are playing basketball.”

Have you ever wondered what the NBA would look like if, from here on out, it was played in a horrifying alternate reality where the players all suited up with guns, knives, and all manner of arcane weaponry before taking a step on the court? Ever considered the possibility that the aforementioned dystopic "court" was actually a hotbed of scorching asphault? Ever pondered who would be the NBA player best suited to run down scores of his former teammates in a 10 cylinder roving deathtrap? Just mowing them all down, immobile atop his instrument of destruction, unfeeling as he ends the lives of those he once called friends. He is the tough, the gritty, the loud. He is the man with the diamond grill and the heart of stone. He is the gatling gun from Red Dead Redemption, applied to humanity. He is the unflinching picture of stoic sensibilities.

He is Ivan Johnson.

Okay, seriously. It takes a rare sort of complexion to actually create that sort of a scenario in my mind. No player before Johnson really brought that kind of vivid dystopian imagery to my head. And if someone like Darko never did, I have my doubts that any others ever will. It's like I'm Johnny Smith and Johnson's Greg Stillson. I don't know how it happens, I don't know where in God's name it comes from, but I know for a fact it's in the cards. A possibility. A looming potentiality. Someday, this situation just "feels" right. It feels like something that would happen to Ivan Johnson, his teammates, and his coaches. Just this Mad Max world taken straight from the pages of a shock-and-awe story, with Ivan Johnson playing the central role as the antagonist, protagonist, and orthodontist to the toothache we call humanity. Never had a chance to read a piece about him? Let me try to fill in the gaps. Johnson's tough. Ridiculously tough. "Banned-from-two-pro-leagues" tough. Some hardscrabble stuff.

Which isn't to say that "tough" is the only descriptor of his game. He's genuinely a useful backup, in ways that go beyond his aggression. He's a pretty good rebounder in limited burn -- not overwhelmingly tall or physically talented, but he wrests boards from the air with a welcome abandon. His offensive game is a bit limited -- not a good outside shooter by any stretch of the imagination, and he takes too many for that to be the case. Sky high turnover rate, and for some reason, tends to take over the ball a bit. Needs to work on that, definitively. But Johnson's big value comes on the other end -- he's one of the best bulldog bench-defenders there are. His approach tends to be summarized in the quote I began this piece with -- he doesn't care who you are, what you've won, where you've come from. All he really cares about is the idea that nobody's identity really matters. They're playing basketball, not poker. He gets intensely physical, muddy, and rough when he steps on the court. That's just his deal. And honestly? When you defend with the raw intensity that Johnson does, you're going to stay in this league for quite some time.

He has issues, mind you. The turnovers, the fouls, the technicals -- all those are harmful, and will serve to curtail his playing time significantly going forward. But his defense is really quite solid, individually. I'm not entirely sure how well he works within the team concept, defensively. His high-intensity high-voltage style on the defensive end is best described as the defensive equivalent of a volume shooter's style on offense. He gets the defensive highlights with his blocks and physical shoves, and he sort of forces you to pay attention to him. But if opposing coaches gameplan around him and run misdirection plays, his defense isn't insurmountable. It's not a cog in an overwhelming team concept any more than Monta Ellis is a cog in an overwhelming team offense. He's an individual performer on the defensive end, to this point, and while he can certainly emerge to be more than that he simply hasn't yet. Entering next season at the age of 28 (and 1/3 of the way to the age of 29), Johnson isn't quite young enough that he can be expected to get remarkably better. But as he adapts to the game and learns some tricks of the trade, I'd expect him to build his value and stick around a good while -- 4 or 5 years, minimum. After that, we'll see. For now, though? Solid player. Solid guy. Solid backbone to every nightmare I'll have for the next 4 months. Thanks, Ivan Johnson.

• • •

_Follow James Harden on Twitter at __@JHarden13.___

For today's James Harden capsule, I once again got a tad fancy with my framing. I readily admit this. I spent many hours trying to figure out the best way to cast Harden and his general game into the Capsule (Plus) framework I've built over the past few months -- I felt there was something untapped that I had to say about him, but wasn't really sure how to reach it. On what seems like the 5th or 6th go-around, partly due to a completely unexpected assist from Nick Flynt, I finally figured something out. The angle needed to be as odd and off-the-wall as Harden for the capsule to really come together -- it needed to touch on his odd mental makeup, his strange career trajectory, and the generally lacking aesthetics of his hyper-efficient game. I needed something that could bring this all together and allow a closer examination into the concept of self-sufficiency that, in my view, guides most everything that Harden does. But of course! I needed... an isolated elitist ranching utopia!

... Wait, what?

Harden is a similar sort of odd duck, if you take him in his proper context. Here, you have a player that actually sent Sam Presti a letter detailing the many reasons why he'd be an excellent fit in Oklahoma City. A player who understood -- before he was old enough to legally drink! -- that he wanted to be the quixotic sixth-man on a star-studded future contender. He had played with Durant and Westbrook through AAU ball, but as relative equals -- before Miami had come together, before the Lakers had their sterling offseason, before the "superteam" became a much-ballyhooed reality. Before all that, Harden himself could see so clearly the outlines of a superteam, so clearly delineated roles, he did his part to actively seek it out. More than most players, Harden deserves credit for the way he found his team. He did as much to form the Thunder's big three as Westbrook or Durant did themselves. And this is, admittedly, something of an oddball route. Most people accept their draft position as an exogenous factor they can't really control. Harden wanted to take control in an offseason only to cede control in the real season. An odd way to go.

For more on James Harden, please read his Player Capsule (Plus).

• • •

_Follow Patrick Patterson on Twitter at __@pdpatt.___

The Rockets waived a lot of players this summer. Jon Leuer, Josh Harrellson, Luis Scola -- all waived. Four others, too! Had you told me the Rockets would end up waiving seven players during the offseason, there's one player I would've bet just about anything on them sending off. Relatively low ceiling, a low-promise sophomore campaign, and a general situation where it looks like he'll get virtually no playing time going forward. At least if they're smart. He's not young, and while he'd probably dominate an overseas league with his sheer size, he's a rather situational player in the NBA. Would've bet quite a lot that they'd waive him. The "him", of course, is Patrick Patterson. The past-tense is because, indeed, the Rockets didn't waive him. They decided to pick up his $2 million dollar team option and give him another stab at their rotation. If they were willing to waive Harrellson and Leuer, why bring back Patterson? I'm not so sure.

Patterson had, by all accounts, a pretty substandard year for the Rockets last year. He played more minutes, which was a big plus. Simply having the ability to play 20 NBA minutes at a time is a skill many of the league's most productive back-ups don't have. So that's a good sign, if you state it devoid of context. The problem is, Patterson's productivity essentially bottomed out in those minutes, at least from his rookie ideals -- McHale chose to inexplicably utilize Patterson as a long midrange pivot-man, taking him away from the basket and running play after play intended to get Patterson a spot-up long two or a midrange shot. The results? Mixed at best. He wasn't bad at those shots -- indeed, Patterson posted a well-above average percentage from both the midrange and the long two for a big man. But were they great shots? Heck no. Patterson shot about 43% from the long two and 38% from midrange -- both solid in comparison to other players taking those shots, but if you're forcing a player to do virtually nothing else, he needs to be a lot more above average than that.

This goes double given Patterson's general disinterest on the defensive end, either on the boards or on his man. He posted one of the lowest defensive rebounding percentages among any bigs in the league last season, with only five power forwards carving out a worse percentage than his 13.7 -- Tyler Hansbrough, Jared Jeffries, Anthony Tolliver, Nick Collison, and Ekpe Udoh. His man-to-man defense was substandard as well, at least in my view. He has the size and the tools to be a good defender but he needs quite a bit of help to overcome his generally NBA-lacking mobility, and he struggles badly when he's tasked with defending smaller players on the perimeter. Furthermore, while he's strong in the aggregate, he doesn't tend to use his strength all that well on the block -- he can be a bulldog in the right situations, but those aren't particularly common. It's worth noting that the numbers don't totally bear out my interpretation here -- his Synergy stats aren't world-beating but they aren't bad, although last year's Rockets played worse on both ends when Patterson took the court. Perhaps in large part due to his oddly defined role and his defensive disinterest.

Going forward, the path is pretty clear. Patterson needs to hone his defensive skillset and infuse it with much more of focus on some aspect he can excel at -- whether through shedding some weight for added pick and roll mobility or adding some weight for stronger post defense. Given the Asik acquisition, I'd assume his best shot going forward would be to lose the weight, and try to create a game-changing defensive pairing as the big forward next to Asik. Barring that, he simply needs McHale to throw him a bone and let him shoot a few more times at the rim, and use his decent midrange as a pressure valve rather than the be-all and end-all of his offense. Patterson has the pieces to be a decent player, at some point -- he simply isn't quite there yet, and given the sheer number of players the Rockets jettisoned this past offseason, I would've guessed they'd have given up on him. They haven't, and now the onus is on him, McHale, and the franchise as a whole to make sure that wasn't a silly decision. Let's stay tuned.

LATE ADDENDUM: Something I was genuinely unaware of that I probably should've known -- Patterson had surgery during the lockout. So, I'll state that outright here. In this case, I have to fault the Rockets organization more than Patterson himself for the majority of his problems last season. Apologies for the miss. I watch a lot, research a ton, and try to fairly evaluate every player for these capsules. But I admit that things will fall through the cracks from time to time in a 370 part series. In my defense, one can generally tell when a player has been out for surgery by a scattered return-to-play schedule. Patterson didn't really have that, as he played on the third game of the season and had already been tabbed for 20 minutes a night by his 5th game of the year. I figured he was playing that much after a healthy offseason because, quite frankly, when a player gets surgery very few teams push him back into peak usage so quickly. Patterson shouldn't have played quite that much quite that quickly, not with the surgery as an ever-present factor.

ANOTHER ADDENDUM: There's also one other thing I probably should have emphasized -- I'm not saying that Patterson necessarily should have been waived. If he improves, his play on a $2 million dollar deal is reasonably solid. I'm saying that given the Rockets' waiving/trading of Scola, Leuer, and Harrellson (all of whom were significantly better than Patterson last year, and all of whom I believe have roughly the upside that Patterson shows), I would expect the Rockets to waive someone like Patterson. It's a mark of an organization that has a lot of confidence in him, not necessarily a huge mistake or a big problem. As I said in the last paragraph, Patterson isn't a lost cause -- at 23, though, he's a reasonably old-for-his-draft player who seems somewhat low upside to my eyes. If he's utilized correctly and improves back to his rookie highs, he'll be a fine player. I don't think he'll be better than Leuer (who is far more slept on than he should be after a very good rookie season) or Harrellson (whose situational role is a lot more interesting and flexible than that of Patterson), but he could be good and he could surpass my expectations relatively handily if they stop using him the way they did last season.

• • •

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. 3/3 guesses from Utsav and Okman last Friday. Good work, folks.

• Perhaps better than you think -- still not very good, though. This former husky has NBA in his blood, his uncle being a former Bulls player. Hates Doakes.
• Player #230 may still be passable this year -- he wasn't bad last year, by any means. But when you get THAT old, every year you don't collapse into dust is a "good" year for you.
• He's clearly one of the three or four best players on his team, and as a solid big, most teams could use a guy like Player #231. But his position is so incoherent and his fit so poor with his current team, it's likely he'll be traded for cents on the dollar. A pity -- not two years ago, he was burying clutch shots and demolishing the Heat.

Apologies for the lack of capsules yesterday. The next 10-15 players are going to be relatively short by my standards, so I'll have a shot at getting a few double-dip days. Here's hoping I don't have to scramble as much tomorrow. Also: season's in one week. Wow. Get ready.

• • •

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 Amir Johnson, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, and Vernon Macklin.

• • •

_Follow Amir Johnson on Twitter at__ @IamAmirJohnson.___

Every day, I give riddles as to the next day's trio. The riddle I gave yesterday for Johnson implied that he was expected to take a larger role after the departure of a team's superstar, and that he had failed. I stretched a bit for the sake of the riddle -- I wasn't totally fair to say that, although there is a good point to be made. Few people pay much attention to him, but when you do, you realize that Amir Johnson's per minute numbers really aren't bad at all. Look at just this last season. He was in the top 10% of big men for field goal percentage from both the rim and the 3-9 foot post-up range. He wasn't very good outside of 10 feet (and has never been in his career), but that wasn't a huge deal, because he made his free throws (mostly) and took over 60% of his shots from inside that range. Although he didn't take very many free throws, he was efficient enough from the field to essentially completely offset that. His rebounding was slightly above average, with his defensive rebounding below-average but his offensive rebounding far above average to carry the boat. Sure, his assist rate is relatively low and his turnover rate is sky high. But with offense that efficient and per-minute numbers that solid, it was sort of confusing that he didn't get more minutes.

Or perhaps not. In the last two seasons, Johnson has shown himself to be dramatically more effective in smaller minutes than larger minutes -- his two best games last season (a 19-11-3 against Minnesota on 9 shots and an 18-13-2 against Washington on 13 shots) happened with Amir getting just barely above his minutes average -- he played 30 minutes in the Minnesota game and 26 in the Washington game. I don't know if it's fatigue, happenstance, or what. But Johnson doesn't tend to translate his per-minute productivity very well over a longer span of time -- he played almost 38 minutes in a loss to the Bobcats this season, and while his rebounding was solid (15 rebounds) his shooting was completely busted (at 3-9 -- with all baskets coming in the second half, albeit). In general, when Johnson plays a lot of minutes or is given a lot of shots, it's actually rather rare for his per-minute numbers to seriously translate to the sorts of 15-10 performances you'd expect if you threw him a few extra shots and kept him in for a full 36 minutes. He's a classic low-usage by design player -- he doesn't lack the ball because coaches are trying to keep him down, he lacks the ball because he and his coach have come to an understanding about how much usage you need to lop off to make him an efficient, useful player.

Which does have relatively strong implications. It means that the general hypetrain regarding Johnson was -- and still is, to some extent -- unwarranted. Before the fact and after the fact. I don't know whether Triano or Casey have ever outright stated that they wanted Johnson to "replace" Chris Bosh, but I know for a fact I've heard multiple Raptors fans express serious disappointment with Johnson's development. I'm not sure that's fair. While Johnson has gotten over his early-career bouts with foul trouble, not every NBA player has the ability to play the ironman and get on the court for 34-38 minutes a night. For many reasons. They may not have the breath for it, like the asthma-striken Roy Hibbert. They may not have the sheer ability to do it, like the foul-trouble magnet of an early career Amir Johnson. Or, they could be like Johnson is today. They probably could play more minutes, but they've been previously worse on a per-minute basis when they do that. Their defense falls off as they get more tired, their offense sloughs off efficiency if you pump their usage up too high, and they simply don't have the constitution to do it. Regrettable? Yes. Some per-minute mavens are productive potential stars just waiting for a broader role. Look at Kevin Love. But for every Kevin Love, you have others like Johnson, who are per-minute mavens precisely because of their role -- a broader one would just detract from the things he's already good at. He and his coaches get that, and his minutes are managed accordingly.

• • •

_Follow Luc Richard Mbah a Moute on Twitter at __@mbahamoute.

---

Gotta admit. While today's set isn't exactly a bunch of heralded superstars, this list has three of the top ten player names in the NBA. Amir Johnson is cool simply because "Amir" is one of the coolest names a guy can have, and juxtaposed with the plain-jane "Johnson" last name makes it hilarious. Vernon Macklin may not be long for the league, but I've always thought Vernon was an underrated name -- V-names are rather rare in the first place, and Vernon has the flexibility to call yourself V, Vern, Vernie, Von, or Big V. (I don't know why you would call yourself "Big V", but we'll put that out there anyway.) Macklin is just a cool last name -- rolls off the tongue, and can be pronounced a variety of different ways. Mack-lin, McLean, Mak-line, Mickey Mou--... just those first three, thanks. And then there's Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, which is for my money the best non-Pooh name in the league. It's just so ornate. It sounds like royalty -- which makes sense, because he's actually a prince. It's ornate, simple, and spectacular. It's a great name.

(Wait, I can't just end the capsule at having sung his name's praises? ... okay, okay.)

I like Mbah a Moute a lot, honestly. Although, to start with the obvious: there's a good reason he hasn't ever played more than 27 minutes a night in a single season. While his defense is spectacular and his hustle is incontrovertible, his offense is extremely touch-and-go. He can finish at the rim if you set him up with just the right shot, but he's also prone to turning the ball over or offensive-charging a savvy defender. He's one of the few players who you can say with 100% certainty would be completely unable to score on himself if he was playing a clone in an open gym -- the game would end in 0-0 frustration, played into the infinite until they finally tire of trying to do the impossible. His offensive skillset is so threadbare and minimalist that it's simply impossible to envision a world where Mbah a Moute could score on himself. He'd cut off the driving lanes and either take the charge or block the shot on every single excursion to the rim. It'd be hilarious, in a sad way. Neither clone would score on the other. Eternal equilibrium.

It's hard to give serious minutes to a player with offensive limitations as far-reaching as Mbah a Moute. But he does carve out a good 25-27 minutes a night simply by playing the way he's always played -- incredible, game-changing defense from the wing and solid rebounding all the while. With an offensive skillset like his, it's very hard to play Mbah a Moute for long stretches without a high-volume scorer by his side. In that sense, it's actually a good thing for the Bucks that they've acquired Monta Ellis. Ellis and Jennings can go 6-7 possessions straight having taken every shot on the floor -- if they do that, that's 6-7 possessions where Mbah a Moute hasn't had to worry about serious offensive responsibilities, which makes it easier for him to play larger minutes. If Ellis and Jennings shoot as often as I'm personally expecting, it could actually help make the team a bit more than the sum of its parts by allowing Mbah a Moute and Udoh to see more floor time without having to disappoint on the offensive end. We'll have to see, obviously -- if Ellis and Jennings can't score at least slightly efficiently, there's no way this works. But in my head, I can see this working out pretty well, with the defensive savants focusing on that end while the high-volume chuckers just keep throwing up shots to keep the ball out of the defensive stars' hands. Ellis and Jennings may end up with pretty strange numbers, and the entire team may have weird stats. It could go up in flames. But I could see a possibility that it works a lot better than most people expect, and that's probably the possibility that made Hammond approve of the deal.

While Mbah a Moute's defense isn't best-in-the-league level, it's certainly up there -- he's among the best perimeter defenders in the NBA and his rebounding is very good for a wing. The problem is, again, one of range. He shoots under 25% from outside the immediate vicinity of the rim, and that's a pointed 25% -- it's so bad, he simply shouldn't shoot from those ranges. At all. Ever. This has led many, including John Hollinger, to assert that Mbah a Moute should be playing the four. Defensively, though, Mbah a Moute is far more of a fit at the three. Me? I think he should play the three, regardless of how awful his offense fits for that role -- he's a positive defender whose use is almost entirely on that end, and the team (as I just explicated) just combined two of the most ball-dominant guards it possibly could. With Mbah a Moute set to see far fewer shots than he's ever seen before (most likely), what's to lose by playing him at his natural position and simply not running offensive plays for him? Defenses will be able to shade off him and apply added pressure to Ellis and Jennings, sure, but the exact same thing was true at the four. I think the Bucks would be best served by trying to keep Mbah a Moute on the wing, playing him 25-30 minutes a night, and seeing if the volume-scorer + defensive-savant strategy can work. I don't know if it can, but it's their best and only chance of competing for the central division title, so why not give it a shot?

Off the court, Mbah a Moute is notable as a Cameroonian prince. He's also notable as -- reportedly -- an extremely nice guy. He didn't start playing basketball until his mid-teens, which probably starts to explain many of his issues on the offensive end of the court. It's harder to learn how to shoot when you didn't start shooting until you were midway through puberty. Pretty cool accomplishment for him to be this good despite that. One of the coolest things about Mbah a Moute is that he's one of the last remaining regularly-updating player bloggers. There were never a great wealth of them, mind you -- Stephon Marbury had a blog at one point, as did Gerald Henderson, but I'm having trouble thinking of more off the top of my head. He throws Truehoop a bone from time to time and gives Henry Abbott scouting reports to put up at the blog. Absolutely amazing, in my view -- while I occasionally disagree with him, Mbah a Moute puts an incredible amount of time and effort into his scouting and knowledge sharing for his blogging exploits. It's a great set of posts. Hard to organize them all together, but here's an example from the playoffs, and here's his note on the Thunder. Highly recommended reading, and I highly recommend keeping tabs on Truehoop when the reports go up. Quite a lot of fun.

• • •

_Follow Vernon Macklin on Twitter at __@vernon_macklin.___

I can see why most are somewhat low on the wonderful Mr. Macklin. His free throw stroke was bad, his general offensive skillset was nigh nonexistent, and he didn't really rate out too well by his tertiaries. Some would point to his field goal percentage as a stat in his favor -- I'd note that he took over 70% of his shots at the rim and rated in the bottom 25% of big men in his at-rim conversion percentage. Some would note he had one of the lowest turnover rates in the league -- I'd note that he accomplished that primarily due to his usage rate being virtually nil. Some would note that his rebounding was really, really good for a rookie -- I'd note that... well... there's no dark side whatsoever to that statement, he rebounded phenomenally well in limited minutes. Which does get to my point -- while I can see exactly why most people aren't high on him, I actually think he has/had a chance to be a decent player in the NBA.

Sure, his offense isn't great. Pretty sub-par, even, for an NBA-level big man. Making only 55% of your at-rim baskets as an NBA big is usually one's death knell in the league. But his rebounding numbers were really, really good. That's not a useless skill, especially not when you pair it with what Macklin was bringing on the side -- solid defense, a nose for the ball, and an emphasis on running the coach's playbook. Macklin's numbers were produced in 135 garbage time minutes, but look at what he did in the D-League -- he averaged 14-14 while tearing other D-League big men apart, defensively. That, combined with solid per-minute stats in garbage time, tends to indicate a player whose ceiling is at the very least that of a patently decent NBA backup. He also has decent size -- he's a legitimate 6'10" and combines that with solid length (his 7'4" wingspan is definitively NBA-quality). If he puts on a few pounds, he could be a bullish low post defender. His instincts already look relatively decent in the pick and roll, too -- I really do feel like he's got a shot at being a nice spot-minutes player providing defense off the bench with some vicious rebounding besides.

So, how's he going to look on next year's Pistons? Invisible, unfortunately. Due to the Pistons' surfeit of intriguing new big men, Macklin is on the outs. He didn't receive a qualifying offer from the Pistons and has reluctantly parted ways with the organization, going to Europe via the Turkish league, via the "Royal Hali Gazintep" team. While he had several training camp invitations, he decided against going to camp in favor of getting consistent minutes overseas and trying his luck again next year. Patrick Hayes at PistonPowered touched on this earlier this summer, and noted something I think more people need to recognize. It was really hard to be a second round pick during last year's lockout-shortened season. You can see the impact all over the place -- Jon Leuer, Vernon Macklin, and Josh Harrellson were all waived despite putting up signs of being productive NBA-level talent. Without a proper training camp or a preseason to establish their names and games in the hearts of their coaches, it was really difficult for a non-marquee rookie to gain traction with their coach. Keep that in mind, as the second round gems of last year try to carve out a place once more in this year. Or, as in the case of Macklin, simply fade out of the league and hope they'll call him back in a year.

• • •

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. No 3/3 guesses, but someone got each of the 3 riddles right, so I will count that as a victory for myself. The winning 2/3 guesses go to Okman, Matt, Chilai, and Der_K.

• Player #226 rocks a diamond grill. And backboards, too.
• Player #227 regularly loses his birds. Will be a Player Capsule (Plus).
• Player #228's team waived virtually everyone this summer. Except for him. Their reasons? ... I have no idea.

Have a good weekend, folks.

• • •

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 Brandan Wright, Rodrigue Beaubois, and Boris Diaw.

• • •

_Follow Brandan Wright on Twitter at__ @bwright34.___

Brandan Wright -- he of the oddest spelling of "Brendan" I've read in my life -- is one of the more interesting pieces in the Dallas rotation, simply because we don't exactly know what they're going to get out of him. Even compared to most big men, Wright is money at the rim -- he shot a ridiculous 11% over the at-rim average for NBA bigs, converting on 76% of his at-rim shots. Offensively, he was actually an asset from every area of the court, at least relative to most bigs -- he shot right around average from 3-9 feet (40%), a bit above average from the true midrange (42%), and way above average on his rarely-used long two (55%). Still, with at-rim numbers like that and a usage rating so low, you wonder why he got outside the basket at all. To put it this way -- Tyson Chandler led the league last year with a field goal percentage of 67%, acquired primarily because he was so good at the basket he rarely ventured outside of it. If Wright distributed his shots the same way Chandler distributed his -- that is to say, taking the same share of shots at the rim, from midrange, etc -- Wright would've "shot" 70% on the season. Which would've been the 2nd best FG% season by a player that played 15+ minutes a night in the history of the league. Crazy.

He's actually been doing neat stuff on offense for a few seasons -- the issue has less been his offensive efficiency and more his lack of a true position, relatively poor rebounding, and shaky defense. He doesn't really have the strength to defend centers, which is a problem given that he's too large to effectively defend power forwards. Carlisle is probably the best coach for him to be working under, though -- Carlisle has done an excellent job putting Wright in some of the few defensive schemes he can actually succeed, like a floating zone or a disconnected helper off an offensively shiftless center. Still, even Carlisle can't do this long enough to get Wright big minutes, which emphasizes the problem with Wright. So long as his offense stays at the level he's demonstrated in Dallas, Wright will have amazing per-minute scoring stats and ridiculous field goal percentages. With a slight tweak to his shot chart, he'd be in rarefied air. But he still probably wouldn't be able to play more than 15-20 minutes a night, simply because his defensive skillset is so bare and his tertiary skills are so shaky. Going forward, if he works on strength training and spends some serious time working on his defensive instincts, he could potentially be a nice first-big-off-the-bench -- we'll have to see, though.

This much doubt would be rather strange to read if you were a kid in Tennessee during the mid-aughts. Little known fact: Wright led his high school team to an unprecedented four straight state championships, and was named Tennessee's "Mr. Basketball" an also-unprecedented three years in a row. His one-year stint at Chapel Hill was pretty good, though his defensive issues were beginning to take root. Which is kind of funny -- he's stated in interviews that Kevin Garnett was his favorite player growing up, so you'd think he'd be just a bit more focused on the defensive end. There was never any real doubt that he'd be a halfway decent NBA player once he went pro, though. Unfortunately for him, Golden State sort of botched his development -- what he's done with Dallas so far is in no way surprising if you look solely at his pre-NBA background. To be fair, Golden State was something of a mess when Wright was drafted. But that doesn't really excuse just how poorly the Warriors messed up his trajectory. The fact that the Mavericks managed to snag a player with Wright's talent for such a paucity of money is a reasonably nice coup for Dallas. Although he's hardly a cure-all, I'm looking forward to seeing how he improves under Carlisle going forward.

• • •

_Follow Rodrigue Beaubois and eat a baguette, huh huh huh.__

---

Hey, look! It's Roddy Buckets! While Beaubois has been a pretty big disappointment for most who expected a series of quantum leaps after an impressive rookie year, he's not terrible. He looked solid his rookie year, especially in the playoffs -- I think I speak for most Spurs fans when I say that Beaubois terrified us a bit in the 2010 first round series. The Spurs won, but not without a few big scares and Carlisle keeping Beaubois (essentially) leashed to the bench. When Beaubois played in that series, he played extremely well. And he changed the composition of the Dallas offense just enough to confuse the Spurs defense and put them on their heels. Really interesting stuff. The thought was that coming off that performance, Beaubois would take a step forward by improving his shot and improving his skills as a distributor. Instead, he suffered a series of annoying lingering injuries and never really got all that much better. The spark-plug that could've helped the Mavs upset the Spurs in 2010 turned into a "DNP-Ever" during the Mavericks' title run, benched due to a pesky sprained ankle he suffered right before the playoff run. He's still in about the same place as he was when he was a rookie. Some promising aspects, some caution-inspiring ones, and a general sense that he's not quite as good as we all had hoped. Which isn't to say he's chopped liver or anything. Just not quite there yet.

While he's not an incredibly efficient player, posting below-average shooting percentages at all but one range (the 3-9 foot range, where he's got a nice little floater and a good pull-up on a dime), he's not egregiously bad from any range but the three. Just really average. He's a very good rebounder for a guard, which is a non-inconsequential skill. His assist totals are somewhat paltry, but also a bit misleading -- he gets a lot more value out of his assists than a lot of other players (in terms of setting up easy shots rather than difficult ones), and last year, the Dallas offense did look better with Beaubois on the court. About 3 points per 100 possessions better, to be exact. Not all of that is Beaubois, certainly, but he isn't offensively useless. He takes a few too many shots and really needs to fix up his three-ball, but he's not completely shiftless. Defensively, he's a decent shot blocker who doesn't really have much else in his arsenal. He isn't good at getting under his man on defense, and he doesn't really have a great set of instincts as to when he really has the room to try for a steal. He's blazing quick on offense, but perhaps a step slow on defense -- really embodies that odd disconnect in the playing styles on different ends of the court for really fast players. Lightning-fast on offense, but consistently several steps slow on defense. Never quite understood how that works, but if you want to watch a player who has that problem, Roddy's a good one to watch. He has good shot blocking instincts, but until he tamps down the stupid steal attempts, his defense is going to be a problem.

Next year should be an interesting one, for Beaubois. The hype he used to have is all-but-gone, which could have a wide range of impacts. He could be disdainful of his new and lesser status and play even worse than he has been (a la Rudy Fernandez). He could use it as motivation and put up one of his better years and rebuild the derailed hype-train (a la Dorell Wright). He could be blissfully unaware that there ever was a hype-train and the stakes (that is, his career essentially being on the line) may simply be unknown to him (a la JaVale McGee, forever and always). Beaubois should be healthy for more of the year than he's been since his rookie contest. Theoretically. He's shown signs of occasional competence in recent years -- if he can start producing that with consistency, he'll make quite a bit of NBA money and help the Mavericks out quite a bit as well. With Delonte West experiencing his current round of trouble, it's possible more time will open up for Beaubois than he's ever had before. He's the prototypical two-guard in a one's body, but I have a feeling he won't acquaint himself all that badly if he gets cast to be the Mavericks' pace-changing ball-hogging backup point guard off the bench. Maybe it's just the long-faded echos of 2010 tugging at my mind, though. I did fear Beaubois in that series, and perhaps more often than we'd like to admit, fear and faith go hand in hand. We'll see.

• • •

Follow Boris Diaw and eat the whole bakery, huh huh huh.

I spent almost 15 minutes trying to track down the tweets... but I couldn't, so you're just going to have to believe me. Early in the 2012 season, I was watching Boris Diaw hilariously closely. My reason? Through three games (yes, it was VERY early, shush), Boris Diaw's season average was 11-11-8. He had done this despite, in those three games, putting up just a single double-double and no triple doubles. He had carved out an average -- in a hilariously small sample size, mind you -- that was just two assists per game from a triple double... despite never actually having had a triple double in the season! He was averaging a double double having only had a single one on the year in three games! So, me... I was watching Boris' averages very closely. I think I called it #BorisDiawOscarWatch or something. Because, well, think about it. Wouldn't it be the single most hilarious accomplishment in NBA history if a player like Boris Diaw was the second player EVER to average a triple double -- and to do it without ever actually fielding one in a single game? We spend so long frittering about arbitrary accomplishments and whether players like LeBron can do it -- if a player like Diaw had managed it, I feel like the whole conversation changes in a better way. Less about arbitrary guidelines, more about what's really valuable. Of course, then Diaw averaged 8-5-4 in his next 15 games and totally ruined my dreams.

"Thanks, Boris."

It's funny, though. When Diaw was unceremoniously cut from the Bobcats, my thinking was less on my early-season Diaw fever (I watched the first 10 games of the 2012 Bobcats season in their entirety! I CAUGHT THE FEVER!) and more on how he actually rates out as a player. A more multifaceted story, to be sure. When Diaw is in a limited role on a good team, he's a very decent player -- when he feels the need to act as a superstar and dominate the ball on a bad team, he's hilariously awful. The Boris Diaw who started over half the season for one of the worst teams in the history of the league had only a few traits in common with the Boris Diaw who ended the year as a key cog in the conference finalist Spurs. He shot the ball FAR too much despite being out of shape and lazy with his shots. He focused on the accumulation of individual stats at the expense of actually helping the team, quite often. And he was incomprehensibly out of shape. These are the three big problems that made his Charlotte tenure so incredibly bad that the team seriously felt the need to waive him.

But what's Diaw like when he's active, keyed in, and engaged? Very, very good. He's a great passer -- almost too willingly, sometimes -- and he quickly develops a solid within-post passing relationship with every good big man he plays with. In the Spurs' motion offense, his passing provides a beautiful added wrinkle. His rebounding has always been solid, and when he tamps down on the sheer volume of shots he takes, he gets markedly more efficient. What's more, when he's put within a decent defensive scheme and given strict guidelines of what he should be doing on defense, he actually does a reasonably good job -- he's a widebody defender for sure, but he has a lot of length and his weight makes it extremely hard to move him around. He's no Asik or Fesenko, but his sheer bulk and his long arms make him an excellent one-on-one cover for large and small big men alike, at least when they isolate. This bites back in a big way when he's tasked with defending the pick and roll, as his weight that makes him an asset on post-up play types makes him a problem when defending fluid, active plays like the pick and roll or spot-up recoveries after a blown rotation.

So, what's Boris "Babacar" Diaw got in store for us this year? Who knows, really? If I had to guess, I'd say he plays at a level somewhere in between his crummy Bobcats-inspired uselessness and his insane Spurs-inspired stretch. He's not THAT good, but he's not THAT bad either. He's getting a bit old (especially when you factor in the added age degradation due to his poor conditioning), and I'd expect his skills to continue their gradual falloff next year -- especially his defense, which was always a bit too good to be true in San Antonio. I'd expect slightly less offensive efficiency, slightly less mustard on his passes (he's going to eat it eventually, you know), slightly more head-scratching moments, and slightly lower mobility on the defensive end. Nothing particularly dramatic, just nothing quite as good as he looked last year. By the end of the season, I'd also expect him to be a bit better than he starts the season, if only because Diaw is going to be a bit more in shape once his restaurant's "Boris Diaw Burgers" finally flush out of his system entirely. It's also possible Diaw's presence enacts a somewhat subtle shift in some aspects of the Spurs playbook, as well -- he and Tony Parker are high school teammates and national team friends, and if Pop massages their minutes to keep them on the court together, there could be a few really interesting new plays that you'd only see from players with that kind of a history. Could be interesting. Watch out for that.

Almost done, but I would be quite remiss if I completed the Diaw capsule without linking to a particularly great piece by my friend Angelo Benedetti, Cleveland's leading connoisseur of substandard horror, substandard basketball, and Troll 2 jokes. Mr. Benedetti graced the world with this thought-provoking piece analyzing the special, wonderful, and beautiful underpinnings of Boris Diaw's play. Er. Wait. Not his play, exactly. More accurately, his weight -- as a professional athlete, Boris Diaw burns an insane number of calories a day. In order to continue being incredibly overweight, it takes a minor miracle of consumption and preparation for Diaw to remain in prime Pillsbury shape. In this article, Angelo tackles the tough questions -- how many calories would he need to eat to do this? How many animals is that? How many months would it take for Boris Diaw's calories to equal the energy of a dynamite explosion? Just... just go read it. It answers every question you could've possibly had about Diaw and more you couldn't even think about. Trust me.

(Ed. Note: His twitter handle is actually @theborisdiaw. I couldn't resist the gag.)

• • •

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. Easy peasy. 3/3s today from Adam Koscielak, J, Luke, Chilai, Atori, @JoshsPseudonym, and @MillerNBA. Excelling work, folks.

• Fate can be fickle. Not so long ago, Player #223 was a team's best hope to replace their departed star forward. Now he's a per-minute whiz-kid that's been on the block for a year.

• One of the best defensive players in the league. Intensely smart basketball mind, although he's never played over 27 minutes a night for a reason.

• He only played 135 minutes last year, but he has a cool name and I have a strong feeling he could be a decent last-on-the-bench guy. I could be crazy, though. Hope Player #225 sticks.

I was hoping to get 6 posts done this week, but that seems unlikely. Hopefully I can get ahead of the game this weekend.

• • •

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 Raymond Felton, Antawn Jamison, and Al Harrington.

• • •

Follow Raymond Felton by calling the Butterball Turkey Hotline.

Veteran leadership is a nice buzzword. It's a thing that media-savvy teams say when they need to convince their fanbase they didn't just make a grievous error. "Oh, we know that [X] is more productive than [Y]... we just figured that [Y]'s veteran leadership would raise the tide for everyone around him, thus making the entire team better. [X] will just be focused on his own numbers. [Y] will be unselfish, and defer. It'll work out better for everyone. We didn't need [X] anyway." ... Okay, honestly, until this offseason, I can't remember a time when I've actually heard a team put down a player they hyped up less than two months earlier through the false paradigm of "veteran leadership." I can't really recall any other teams being quite that breathtakingly duplicitous and disrespectful. For the most part, when teams let a player go, it's because of reasonable ignorance of a player's potential or simply getting priced out of the market. Having a good backup in place can push the needle, too. Teams don't tend to try and push a completely false narrative to their fans. There's spin, and there always will be, but it's never completely rooted in falsehood. But you know what? With the Knicks, it basically is. Let's take apart each of the given reasons for the Felton/Lin swap.

• Reasonable ignorance of a player's potential. Well, given that Lin put together one of the hottest streaks of any rookie-level player in the last... er... ever? Don't think this is very fair. You tend to have at least some facsimile of an idea of a player's potential when you create entire ad campaigns based around that player's talent. There are a great wealth of things the Knicks don't know. "How good Jeremy Lin could be" is not one of them.

• Priced out of the market. The New York Knicks are one of the most profitable teams in the NBA. Dolan has gone deep into the luxury tax virtually every year in the last ten. The Knicks getting "priced out of the market" is like Richard Branson saying he's too down-on-his-luck to tip a limo driver. Alas, even if you could make an argument that the "situation has changed"... the Knicks paid Felton/Kidd $24 million dollars. They would have paid Lin $25 million. They quite literally spent the exact same amount of money on their two new acquisitions as they would've on keeping Lin around. It was completely lateral.

• Already had a good backup in place. I'll assume the Knicks knew they could get Felton if they tried hard enough. We'll ignore Kidd, because I already discussed him and most people will admit that he was a completely unnecessary throw-in here. This basically comes down to Felton vs Lin, and how much you value either of them. Lin is the not-quite-as-good-as-he-seemed 25 game wonder. Felton is the terrible-career-numbers guy who is ALSO a 25-game-wonder in New York. So, wait. It was another completely lateral move? Well... snap.

Look. Knicks fans. I'd like to tell you that this is going to be alright. That the Knicks made an error, but it wasn't egregious and it won't affect your bottom line going forward. But you know what? It will. Lin may be in for a rough season this year as he recovers from his meniscus surgery. But had the Knicks taken a bit more of an interest in C.J. Watson (who, by the way, is still better than Felton) as a stopgap and accepted the fact that without Shumpert on the floor, the Knicks' ceiling isn't very high to begin with? They could've actually ridden out Lin's downtime due to surgery and waited for Lin -- a young, athletic, improving point guard -- to get back to full form and raise the ceiling of their team. They didn't. They chose instead to go for Felton. Other than the guy whose "veteran leadership" was just utilized in Portland to oust a beloved coach and help the team rationalize giving up on a loving fanbase... who is Felton, really?

Well. Raymond Felton is a point guard who -- over the course of his career -- has always had a relatively decent reputation. He's also a point guard who benefits from exactly the same thing Lin benefits from. The only difference is, with Felton, we actually have the adequate sample size to establish that the hot streak was statistical noise. For 26 games in the 2011 season, Felton played incredibly good ball for the Knicks and posted numbers of 19-4-10 (with 4 turnovers a game) on 45-36-90 shooting. Very solid numbers. However, if you do the same thing a lot of people are now doing and take that hot streak out of his career numbers? Felton averages -- in a sample size of 17,523 minutes and 500 games -- 13 points a night, less than seven assists, and 3 rebounds a game. He averages 3 turnovers a game. He shoots just barely over 40% from the floor, and 32.5% from three. 78% from the line. He isn't doing this in small-game minutes, either -- he averages 35 minutes per game over his outside-the-streak career.

The common refrain I hear is that Felton's hot play with the Knicks is indicative of his "new" career average if he played with the Knicks. That he'll play just as well as he did during his hot streak simply because he loves New York and can't stand those evil small market teams like Portland or Denver or Charlotte. I'd be more inclined to consider this possibility if we didn't already have evidence that it's full of baloney. Look at his Knicks numbers. After Felton's excellent play in his first 26 games with the team, his numbers in his last 24 games as a Knick fell back to his career averages and he started to... well... kind of suck, again. He went from 19-4-10 to 15-3-9 in almost 39 minutes a night, and his shooting tanked from 45-36-90 to 38-28-83. Felton's play in his last month as a Knick was essentially what he'd look like over the course of his career if he'd played a few more minutes and played his whole career in the D'Antoni-style "EVERYONE'S OPEN!" offense. Almost indistinguishable. Which makes the whole "Felton will be markedly better in New York" hype even more befuddling. It's not only as though the Knicks and their fans are applying tunnel vision to Felton's Knick career, it's like they're applying tunnel vision to one specific 25 game sample of Felton's Knick career.

The reason Lin is intriguing to me is that we don't really have a good idea of what his real value is as a player. He's interesting because we don't exactly know how representative his hot streak is of his broader career. With Felton, we know exactly how representative it is -- barely representative at all, and it was arrived at in a different offensive system than the Knicks currently employ. Different coach, different surrounding players, different Amare. Felton is two years older, now and even above his lazy effort, he looked as though he took a step back last year athletically. His formerly decent defense was nowhere to be found, replaced with slow lateral recovery and an inability to stay with anybody. The Blazers played better defense with him on the court, but that was more because Felton shared the vast majority of his minutes with LaMarcus Aldridge rather than a display of Felton's superior defensive chops -- he looked slow, sluggish, and his reaction times were all messed up. He was certainly a bit better defensively than Lin, who was pretty poor this year, but he's also older and any decrease in his athletic potential will markedly decrease the efficacy of his defense. When you're so prone to getting completely out of shape as Felton is, your athleticism is prone to decline earlier. That's just how it is. Fitness matters, and at some point, you can't simply put in a few extra hours at the gym in hopes of returning to athletic glories you frittered away.

All this said? We'll have to see how he does in New York. I could be completely wrong, and he could be the 20-4-10 guy that New Yorkers think he's destined to be. It's possible, definitely, and he has "already done it" in a certain sense, just like Lin. But I just don't see it. I could be eating crow in a few months, as Felton makes the all-star appearance he looked to shakily deserve back in 2011. But, again -- can't see it happening. We'll have to see. Until then, I'll continue to stare befuddled at the Knicks front office, wondering how in God's name they can continue topping their own absurdity.

(Oh, also. Happy birthday, Wes. Hope it rocks. Now stop bashing Lin. Jesus Christ, Marie.)

• • •

Follow Antawn Jamison by naming your son Cortez, the best name possible.

I've spent an overly long amount of time trying to figure out what I think about Antawn Jamison. His existence as a player is quasi-schizophrenic, qualitatively. His off-the-court endeavors are as classy and respectable as a player can get. Absolutely wonderful interview, loves his teammates, works his heart out. If there's any player whose off-court interview style and general demeanor lent itself to overrating the player's game, it's Jamison. Classy as all get-out. Great dude. What makes him qualitatively schizophrenic is that despite all of this high character on a personal level, and despite all the reasons to love his humble demeanor and respectable hobbies? Jamison's on-court play is more frustrating than virtually anyone else in the entire league. It's HORRIBLE. His offense involves rampant chuckery in the oeuvre of a Starbury or an Iverson more than a team-centric concept, and his rebounding (while misleadingly high) has been falling off for years. He's not BAD at this offense, but he puts up too much of it on teams where there are clear better options -- he puts up three after three after three, despite being a barely-above-par three point shooter. He has a poor handle, he barely ever passes, and he is highly prone to responding to slumps by continuing to shoot.

And all of this is decent and reasonable compared to his defense. I won't cut corners -- defensively, Jamison is the worst player in the NBA. He isn't "among the worst" or "in a low class." He is__ the worst.__ He doesn't have the strength to keep his position on post-ups. He doesn't have the mobility to recover on spot-up shooters. Despite his 14 years of experience in the NBA, he still hasn't figured out how to make correct reads or correct help decisions in tense defensive situations. Driving past Jamison is about as difficult as outgaining a turtle in the 100 yard dash. Baskets scored on Antawn Jamison should be counted as a single point to address how easy they are to get. That's how bad he is on defense. It's weird, because I'm not a big fan of slamming players or being a jerk about a player's legacy. In the case of Jamison, though, I can't help but fall into it. Most people don't really understand how bad he is on defense -- I certainly didn't until he came to Cleveland. I viscerally understood that Jamison wasn't very good on that end, but figured that Brown's system and a new location would give him the ability to fix up his defense and figure things out. Nope. The pick and roll specifically was an exercise in brutality -- against the Antawn Jamison Cavaliers, teams could absolutely obliterate the Cavs whenever Jamison was on the court by simply running pick and rolls down Jamison's throat and working the ball through Antawn's man. He refused to commit, make any effort to alter the shot, or show any engagement on defense whatsoever -- which, in turn, made it astonishingly easy for the Boston Celtics to simply run the ball through Kevin Garnett and rely on the Rondo pick and roll, slowly plunging the knife deeper in the heart of the LeBron era as Jamison fiddled with his dribble. It's not strictly Jamison's fault that the 2010 Cavaliers failed. But he was a huge, huge part of it. That cannot be denied.

I don't hate his acquisition for the Lakers, truth be told. I don't love it, but for the veteran's minimum, Jamison is a pretty awesome get. After all, he still scored something like a point every two minutes and converted well at the rim. His floor spacing could potentially be helpful, as well, even if he's essentially no better than a 32-33% "true" three point shooter at this point in his career. Kyrie's pinpoint passing was extremely helpful to Jamison's shooting, in one of those tics people probably didn't notice unless they watched a lot of Cavs games. With Kyrie on the court, Jamison shot 35% from three, and the vast majority of his makes were off assists from Uncle Drew. With Kyrie off, he shot 32%, and (frankly) that's quite a bit closer to what his true talent level is from that range at this stage of his career. The hope is that Steve Nash's passing can keep him above the Mendoza line from three-point-range, and given history, you probably wouldn't be too off-base if you were to predict that. But if Jamison's playing enough minutes for him and Nash to share a bunch, the Lakers might be in trouble -- while Dwight Howard has covered up for a lot of bad defensive players in the past, I don't think any defensive player Dwight's covered for has been nearly as bad as Jamison. Which is less a rousing endorsement of the regularly awful defenders the Magic put next to him and more a statement of utmost honesty regarding Jamison's defense. And if the Lakers actually follow through and play him at the wing, as Brown has suggested they'll do? I hope they'll be alright with opposing wings going off for 25-30 points a night. Jamison isn't active enough to cover creaky, athletically suspect big men. Good luck covering guys like Iggy or LeBron, Antawn. Just... good luck with that.

• • •

_Follow Al Harrington on Twitter at __@cheddahcheese7.___

Not Harrington's biggest fan, by any means, but I can't begrudge what he gave the Nuggets last year. In what was almost certainly his best season as a pro, Harrington finally showed some talent on the defensive end and became adept at (as Hollinger aptly pointed out) "pulling the chair" on larger post players. This refers to the practice of a player feigning strong physical contact in the post, causing the offensive player to overcompensate for it and go strong to the rim -- instead of actually creating the contact, though, the defending player simply steps back into the air and lets the player storm forward, generally tripping them up and inducing a traveling violation. It's one of those defensive moves that's a bit kitschy and not incredibly common, but when you lack a ton of athleticism and have never been able to develop solid defensive instincts, it's an easy move to learn and a way to add a lot of extra defensive value. At least until teams start scouting it and warning their post players. Still, Harrington improved on defense this last season, and that (combined with a possibly-fluky good year offensively) made him a "valuable" enough trade asset that the Orlando Magic preferred Harrington's deadweight contract to that of Jason Richardson.

Offensively, while he was somewhat of a minor asset in 2012, I prefer to think of his offense in the context of his whole career. Knickerblogger's Mike Kurylo once described him with one of the most memorable and effective analogies I've ever heard -- to him, Harrington is essentially cheap beer. As he said: "it's not what you want when things are going well, but when you're desperate to keep the buzz going it's what you'll accept." You don't want Harrington when your team is in a good situation, and everything is going well. You'll sometimes want Harrington when you can't buy a bucket -- you'll also, usually, regret it. The party was over, you didn't really need that few more hours of buzz just to get a worse hangover in the morning. That's Harrington for you. He got you the basket, but he also chucked up 3 or 4 completely unnecessary shots to get it, turned it over once, and froze out two or three completely open shots in pursuit of his points. Harrington tends to shoot a bunch of long jumpers, ostensibly trying to space the floor for his superior driving ability. In practice, this doesn't actually matter much -- defenses long-ago realized that this was exactly what Harrington was trying to do, and responded by shrugging it off and just letting him do it. "Shoot all the long-balls you want, Al. Nobody's falling for this trick again."

Overall, he wasn't a supremely useful player, but at least he was situationally decent. Here's the thing, though -- when a player on this side of 30 has his best season as a pro, chances are EXTREMELY high the player relapses into relative uselessness. So while the Magic were relatively convinced Harrington was a more valuable contract to take back than Richardson's, I have to call foul. His next two years (after this one) are only 50% guaranteed, which is a nice wrinkle if Harrington is god-awful this year (as I kind of expect him to be), but it's going to be pretty hard to find a willing trade partner to offload his contract. Not unless they use Harrington as salary fodder in a Redick trade, or something like that. In the end, he's a below average defender, passer, and rebounder who scores inefficiently. Not great. He's got his value as he's begun to figure out his place in the league in his wizened age, but not a ton -- just a bit too late to put it together, I'm afraid. One fun fact about Al Harrington -- he's responsible for what should probably be the most-remembered quotes of the 2010 offseason, back when he was figuring out which team he'd sign with. I can't find the source, but I promise this happened. Harrington had two big options that offseason -- the Dallas Mavericks or the Denver Nuggets. He chose the Nuggets, and had a press conference where he stated outright that the Nuggets were "far closer" than the Mavericks to an NBA title, and had "way more potential" going forward. He also said, if I remember right, that he was pretty sure the Mavs would have a worse record than the Nuggets for the next 3 or 4 years, at least. Do I even need to say it? The Nuggets were ousted in an inglorious 5 game gentleman's sweep, while the Mavericks went on to win the 2011 title. Al Harrington: prediction wizard.

• • •

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. I should probably make this a bit easier, as J and Peter Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam were the only ones to get any of yesterday's riddles (by both correctly isolating Raymond Felton). Let's see...

• This center hasn't quite shown he has the Wright stuff, yet. But he's getting there. Good prospect.
• On the other hand, this Frenchman hasn't quite shown much. Looked promising to close 2010, but since then? Nothing. This season, he REALLY needs to show us something, or his team may officially give up on him.
• Early in the 2012 season, I declared that we were on-notice for a Player #222 "triple-double-average season." One of my grandest goals was to watch as this player actually managed to average a 10-10-10 triple double despite never actually getting a triple double over the course of the season. This... this didn't happen. It emphatically didn't happen. He got waived. But I wish it had, and next season, I will continue quixotically desiring it.

Those feel "easier" than yesterday's. Let me know, heh.

• • •

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 Will Bynum, Norris Cole, and Glen Davis.

• • •

Follow Will Bynum by throwing up a prayer.

At this point, it's pretty fair to wonder what you're really going to get out of Will Bynum. While most fans still think of him as a young guy, he's no rookie anymore -- he's a 5-year vet who's bordering on 30. Bynum struggled through injuries last year and played barely half his games. More worryingly, he suffered through a series of pesky foot injuries, which had a two-pronged effect. First, it made him a literal nonentity for the 45.5% of his games he missed outright. Second, it made him a virtual nonentity for the 54.5% of the games he could actually play. Everything looked bad for the poor guy. His defense (never world beating) descended to incomprehensibly gross levels, his passing fell off a cliff, and his world-renowned speed took a turn for a scary mortality. While Bynum has been an effective player in the past, without his customary blazing speed, his general skillset goes from a decent asset to a shaky problem in about 5 seconds flat.

Bynum shoots the ball first, second, third and fourth -- with an occasional shot at fifth if nobody else is open. When his speed is on, that's not necessarily a bad thing -- you'd never want him starting, but as a change-of-pace guard off the bench, it's solid. Before this last season, he averaged somewhere around 57% from at-rim plays while getting to the rim on a larger share of his possessions than almost anyone else at his position. Of course, then last season happened. He only finished 52% of his shots at the rim last year, and outside the rim, the picture was even worse -- he didn't even make 25% on his outside-the-rim shots in 2012. That's especially rough given his always-shaky passing game -- his assist rate declined from "a bit below average" to "among the worst in the league", posting an assist rate in the bottom 10% of all point guards. His rebounding was OK, but hardly anything to write home about, and he posted more per possession turnovers than the majority of NBA point guards. As for his defense? Run away. The stats looked bad, but the eye test looked even worse -- watching him on defense was like watching a bad villain in a horror movie. The guy was hiding around every corner, slow to reach his prey, easy to lose in the forest. Really, really rough.

So, will he improve? Not sure. He recently said he spent the summer working on both a series of improvements to his defensive game and a "new dunk." Being as they are fans of the Pistons, most Pistons fans I talked to were excited about his theoretical focus on defense. Me? I'm really not sure how good he can actually get -- undersized players can be excellent defenders (see: Bradley, Avery) but it's extremely rare for a 30-something defensive nonentity to transform himself into a positive defender overnight. I'm just not sure how either of these things help his overall picture. I like how Bynum played before last season's horror show sapped his game, in general -- he played offense fearlessly, set up teammates to a semi-reasonable degree, and seemed to work as hard as anyone else in the league. He dominated the ball a bit much, but his blazing speed and general talents were solid enough that you'd put up with a bit of hogging. If last season was borne of the foot problems alone, he's fine. If it represented a broader trend, like Bynum's age catching up to him and taking away the things that made him good? No amount of new dunks or defensive improvements are going to help him, and he isn't going to get any time.

Simple as that, unfortunately.

• • •

Follow Norris Cole by destroying the college game

In his rookie year, Norris Cole was inconsistent at best and actively harmful at worst. He showed a proclivity for defensive pressure and a whole lot of gusto, but in terms of actual productivity, there wasn't much there. That was a pity for me -- I kind of hoped that he'd tear the league up. Why? Here's the thing. I watched some of Cole in college, because my family's Cleveland roots guide me to root for even the most inconsequential of Cleveland teams. He played for Cleveland State, a minor school whose main claim to fame -- athletically, in our lifetimes -- lies in a first-round upset of a fourth seeded Wake Forest in a year where my roommate picked Wake to make the final four. Not usually on anyone's radar, but emphatically on mine. I watched their games with some frequency, and paid close attention to Cole -- after all, there was hardly anyone else to watch. And you know what? At Cleveland State, Cole was dominant. He wasn't "very good", he wasn't "a decent talent." He was dominant, and he owned the college game in a way few players ever own ANY game.

Don't believe me? Here. Take a look at this. Nope, no typos. On February 12th, 2011, Norris Cole hung the Youngstown State for 41 points. To go with that 41, he added 20 rebounds, 9 assists, 3 steals, and (somehow) only 2 turnovers. It was among the most dominant college basketball performances in years. Absolute video game numbers, ESPECIALLY for a 6'2" guard -- there's a general reason that point guards don't tend to get excellent rebounding numbers. They're short. Even against college kids, Cole's 6'2" is usually too short to corral boards with that kind of efficiency. But he plays hard, and if the opposing team isn't careful, he'll find the seam and get a board you aren't expecting, or play a creative angle in the off-chance the ball takes a strange bounce. He's creative in how he gets his stats, even if the underlying numbers are -- at times -- not that great. That was, at least, what he was like in college. Engaging, ridiculous, awesome. He had this relentless hustle and grit that -- combined with his natural talent -- made me think he was going to be an NBA natural, even if he was a bit undersized. His creativity would carry over, I figured.

Unfortunately for Cole, the reality didn't really fit my expectations -- after a blazing start in the Heat's first few games, Cole proceeded to crash badly. He played great against the Celtics his second night on the floor, putting up an incredibly solid 20-4-4 line in an efficient, effective, and sneaky performance. But then things fell apart -- Cole's shot stopped falling, he passed sloppily, and he turned the ball over almost compulsively from then on out. As teams began to scout him, Cole's play essentially wilted. It wasn't fun. That is, until game 5, where Cole put up an insane line of 8-2-2 -- ... okay, alright, no. It wasn't that insane. Come on. Even I can't pretend that. But it WAS one of Cole's best games of the year, which basically tells you all you need to know about how good his year was after that blazing start. Locked in a human body, Cole embodied the 2011 Cavaliers -- strong start with an unexpected personal win over Boston, vaguely resembled a playoff-caliber player for a month or so, then fell into a deep funk as his production tailed into the ether. A few tinctures of hope to finish the string, but mostly hollow accomplishment after a season of dismal cringing.

Rough times. Hope he can rebound next year.

• • •

_Follow Glen Davis on Twitter at __@iambigbaby11.___

Quietly, Glen Davis posted a pretty solid season last year. It wasn't exactly mindblowing, and there were still a lot of his usual Glen Davis style flaws. ("Glendam Style?" I'll show myself out.) It comes with the territory. But it wasn't THAT bad. His playoff numbers were misleadingly excellent, and if you want a real assessment of what Davis is likely to bring going forward, you need to examine his overall play in the regular season. He played much better in the second half of the season than he did in the first on offense, but he also played SIGNIFICANTLY worse on defense when he was asked to act as a center. Therein lies the big problem with Davis, which this season highlighted explicitly. His game is not well suited for the power forward role, and he's prone to chucking up remarkably bad long two pointers when he's forced to squeeze into that role. His defense, though, works just fine from the power forward position -- his wide body and strong stance make him rather excellent at exploiting how thin and wiry most modern power forwards are, and while his rebounding isn't good, he's better than most people realize at the invisible tap-out and getting his man out of rebounding position with his weight. He throws his weight around well.

As a center, though? You see offensive improvement, as he's forced to play a more around-the-rim game and eschew the longballs that torpedo his efficiency and efficacy. He tends to get better personal rebounds, and his field goal percentage rises as he remembers that he's actually not too bad at playing the at-rim game. But his defense falls off the proverbial cliff, twitching sadly in a broken mess at the bottom of the ravine. He simply can't cover centers. Not a single one. There's no center in the league Glen Davis can effectively shut down -- this is in no way his fault, as he's certainly not tall enough and definitely not athletic enough to be expected to do it. But it's a fact. So, when I hear Orlando fans cite his excellent numbers at center, I have to cry foul -- those offensive numbers ARE a legitimate improvement, and he even rebounds better. But the defensive dropoff is bad enough that I can't really take Davis-as-center seriously as a full-year, big-minute concept. The only way it would really work would be if Davis found himself next to a center prospect like Anthony Davis or an old wolf like Kevin Garnett -- someone who could switch to power forward on offense while cross-matching with Davis on defense without really skipping a beat. But that has its own opportunity cost, in the form of confusion in rotations and a lot of information to keep track of for the players. Might not work very well.

You could probably write a capsule by itself about Davis' off-court adventures. Perhaps you'd start with the Shrek thing, back when he was a Celtic. Last season included several instant classic bits, though -- there was the lighthearted pap with the Tas Melas dance-off, the triumphant return of the prodigal son in a dismal game where the Magic ended up getting the stuffing beaten out of them (and their backs as contenders broken), and the true dramatic tension -- Davis forsaking his closest friends and letting fame wrest away his love for "real New York knish." Noble mensches across the world feel a tug of the heartstrings whenever it's mentioned. I've got the sniffles just thinking about it. Clearly, though, his life is a Shakespearian comedy. He's got himself a solid head start on this year's act by writing his very own in-arena song. While nothing Davis makes will ever reach the storied heights of the Q's beautiful "mogotti.wav", it's pretty catchy and honestly hilarious that an NBA player seriously made music that the arena intends to use whenever he does anything of value. I'm highly impressed. Keep doing you, Glen Davis. Keep doing you. Because you know what they say...

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

(Okay, only Glen Davis actually says that. Still.)

• • •

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. Sorry the site was down for a short time yesterday -- clear your cache if you still intermittently get those domain messages on any of your GG-browsing devices. Yesterday's riddles were arrived at on a 2/3 basis by Mike L., Sir Thursday, Chilai, and Atori.

• According to @CardboardGerald, this player experiences #CardboardGeralding in the offseason by eating copious quantities of shrimp bought from Mr. Cardboard Gerald.
• Torn on Player #218. Seems like an awesome dude, his interviews are nice, really seems cool. But it is UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE to watch him play for your team and not want to punch yourself in the face. Repeatedly. Forever.
• Until last season, I would've just repeated the last riddle for Player #219. But he was actually pretty good last season, and while it was fluky, at least his contract isn't TOTALLY guaranteed.

Really tired today. Sincerely need a soothing siesta.

• • •

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 a three-pack of Bobcats, current and gone -- Ben Gordon, Jamario Moon, and Kemba Walker.

• • •

_Follow Ben Gordon on Twitter at __@BenGordon8.___

Generally, I don't think marginal gains in the shooting talent employed on the wing add a ton to a team's bottom line. It can help fill in the edges, sure. But most of the time you're talking about the difference between a single 33% three-point shooter and a single 35% three-point shooter, or some such small gain that's hardly going to impact the way the team plays offense. It's one of the reasons the Ben Gordon signing was somewhat unnecessary for the Detroit Pistons in the first place. Gordon has one legitimate use on the floor -- he shoots the lights out. They added Gordon with the intent to upgrade their three point shooting, but the thing is? It wasn't really that bad the season before, at least from the wing. Sure, the Pistons weren't top 10 or anything (24th, actually), but their youngest bomber (Afflalo) shot 40%, Prince and Hamilton were both converting around 36%. They weren't exactly absent three point shooters from the wing, they simply thought Gordon's play and internal improvement from Gordon would dramatically improve their bottom line. Somehow.

They then proceeded to trade Afflalo for virtually nothing and sign Ben Gordon to fill Afflalo's role -- essentially spending gobs and gobs of money on a few percentage points of an upgrade in their wing shooting. The problem with Gordon on the Pistons, in my view, was one of marginal improvement -- in 2010, Gordon suffered several injuries and gave nothing approaching his true value from behind the arc. But in 2011 and 2012, Gordon shot around 40% from behind the arc, and the Pistons were still a relatively awful team. Which is generally my point -- even if things had gone completely right in 2010, a few percentage points of improvement from three wasn't going to dramatically change the overall team structure of 2009 Pistons, they of an inglorious first-round sweep. And when you compound that with the dramatic slide of the Pistons' defensive mindset in the post-Sheed, post-Wallace era? You have exactly what you got in 2011 and 2012. A relatively shiftless and awful team whose three point shooting -- while a tiny bit better than it was in the last few years of the Pistons' dynasty years -- barely moved the needle on the team's effectiveness.

All that said, let's look at the 2012 Bobcats. Here are their top 5 three point shooters (minimum 1 attempt per game):

1. Corey Maggette; 36.4%, 2.1 attempts per game
2. D.J. Augustin; 34.1%, 3.7 attempts per game
3. Reggie Williams; 30.8%, 3.2 attempts per game
4. Kemba Walker; 30.5%, 3.4 attempts per game
5. Eduardo Najera; 27.6%, 2.3 attempts per game

When the 5th best shooter on your team makes under 30% of their threes, you're in BIG trouble. All told, the 2012 Bobcats shot 29.5% from three last season, an abhorrent number that only one other team in the last decade matched. There were two reinforcing issues that resulted from this outside shooting deficiency. First, teams gave virtually no respect to any option plays that Silas ran with the express intent of getting one of their three point shooters open. Teams shaded the post and rotated slowly, knowing full well that getting caught on a cross-match and giving up an open three point shot to Kemba Walker was about as threatening as Boris Diaw threatening to diet. Second, when the three wasn't run on a play and was part of an isolated half-court enterprise, the Bobcats' lack of serious screeners would essentially ensure that the defense would leave defenders home on the Bobcats' three point shooters and make it virtually impossible to get an open three. Which helped feed into the lack of respect that made the first point problematic, which in turn made it easier for teams to justify almost never sending a rotating cover on a three point shooter. Vicious cycle, that.

This is all to say that I think the Bobcats may be a significantly better fit for Gordon than the Pistons. If you simply look at it on the basis of what it gives a team on-the-margin, the Gordon acquisition is one of the few this summer that makes an active, tangible change to how a team operates. With Gordon on the court, the Bobcats will finally have a shooter you can't leave unguarded. The 2012 Bobcats had absolutely none of that. The closest was Maggette, whose career 32% three point shooting (last year's "hot" season included) was hardly scaring anyone. In Gordon, the Bobcats will have a career 40% three point shooter. His game is limited, and he can't really make plays at the rim -- but frankly, simply having the THREAT of a player that can make that many threes will improve the Bobcats' prospects going forward. As long as they relegate Gordon to a spot-up role and don't force him to act outside his true value, he'll be a fine player. And when you're looking at a historically bad three-point shooting team with nobody a team needed to guard? A single player who can strike a bit of beyond-the-arc fear into the hearts of a defense could portend a boost. Not just for their three point shooting in a vacuum, but in the success rates of option plays, in how other three point shooters can get, and in their general offensive coherency. Gordon should help. The Bobcats will be bad, but he's a piece that fits and a serious upgrade in something that actively changes how a team plays offense.

Anyway. Net result? I could be wrong, but I'm rather confident that Gordon will be a useful player this year.

• • •

Follow Jamario Moon by learning crazy dribble tricks.

It kind of pains me to say this, but Jamario Moon was probably the worst player in the NBA this past season. This pains me to say because I've always been a fan of Moon's, even going back to his days in Vietna--... uh, I mean, the 2010 Cavaliers. He's not very good at basketball, mind you, but he's always been entertaining. Moon got his start as an upstart talent out of Mississippi's Meridian Community College, leaving early to declare for the 2001 NBA draft. After teams refused to take a flyer on him, he was signed into the D-League by the Mobile Revelers for two seasons, being drafted in actuality by the D-League's Huntsville Flight in 2004. In-between his D-League stints and his NBA career, he played for teams in the USBL, Mexico, Rome, the CBA, and the WBA. My favorite, though? His short-lived stint with the Harlem Globetrotters back in 2004. Dude's been AROUND. After years of trying, Jamario finally made it to an NBA team after an excellent training camp with the Toronto Raptors in 2007.

Here's the issue, with Super Jamario. Beyond his athleticism, he really doesn't have a ton of active talents. He's a "good" defender relative to many, simply because he has the athleticism to play the NBA game. But his reputation as a defensive stopper has always been vastly overstated. He can cover a player, for a possession or two, but he isn't all that creative and he's pretty bad at getting around screens. As he gets older he's gotten worse and worse at recovering on spot-up shooters, and he doesn't really have any defensive talents other than "possessing the requisite athleticism to do the occasional thing." His only serious offensive skill is his dunking -- he's a solid dunk artist who, at his prime, could go dunk-for-dunk with any of the league's top enthusiasts. Some style, some pizzazz, some vigor. And he did it often. According to 82games.com estimates, on his career, Jamario had roughly one converted dunk for every 6 field goals he took -- given that you shoot (almost by definition) 90%+ on dunks, that combined with his career field goal percentage (46%) should tell you about how well he did at every other type of shot -- not very good at all. Including tip shots, short shots, and all manner of non-dunk close baskets, Jamario shot 37% on non-dunks in his career. Yikes.

Last year, Jamario didn't dunk. Not once. Wondering why he was so bad? Well... there's that. At this point, designating his athleticism as "waning" is flat-out charitable. He's no longer athletic enough to even pretend to be a positive defender, and his handle has collapsed within itself to the point that he's a turnover threat every second he touches the court. This is a massive, massive shame. When he was in his relative prime and still good enough to contribute to an NBA team, he was one of the more fun guys to keep an eye on during garbage time. He'd quite often break out some of the crazy globetrotter dribbles, and go the extra mile on a completely meaningless dunk. He'd do it all with a grin and a goosey, pointing at the crowd and making everything just a tad bit more fun. Showboat? A bit. But it was always fun showboating, and there was a genuine sense that it was born out of his years in the NBA's various minor leagues. This was a man who knew to appreciate his fleeting time in the league before it was gone -- he was a natural entertainer who did his part to make any random Cavs or Raptors game as entertaining as he could muster. While he may be gone now, and he was such a marginal player I doubt many will remember any of this, you shouldn't forget it. Remember the times we had, Jamario. You were awesome.

Anyway. A capsule on Jamario is -- almost by definition -- an entire capsule on trivialities, so I may as well end with a few more. Jamario Moon's middle name is "Raman." Which, given his total career earnings (pre-tax) peter out at a tad bit under $7 million dollars, may nicely reflect his dining choices going forward. Yuk yuk yuk. I'm a jokester. (No, honestly though. Legitimate ramen -- the actual stuff -- is pretty tasty. The haute cuisine of the college-inclined notwithstanding, give me some legitimate ramen any day. That stuff is nice.) Off the court he refurbishes old cars and plays video games. His favorite food is a "cheese biscuit." He really wants to end his career playing with this year's Hawks team for some reason (I bet they have great cheese biscuits), although it looks rather unlikely he makes it. Someday, I hope to meet Jamario. He seems like a really solid dude. Great entertainer, brilliant smile, named Jamario? Simply awesome.

• • •

_Follow Kemba Walker on Twitter at __@KembaWalker.___

I don't think Kemba Walker's rookie year was a failure. Let's start with that. If you were starting with a reasonable expectation for what he'd give an NBA team, I don't see how you can be particularly disappointed in what he gave. Entering the NBA, there were a few things we knew for sure about Walker, if we cared to look. First we knew the ephemeral -- he "knew how to win" since he'd won an NCAA title, he "could play big minutes" since he'd played 5 excellent games in 5 nights to win the big east tournament, and he "had a lot of swag and poise" since... well... he had a lot of swag and poise. All pretty simple observations, but also mostly worthless -- winning an NCAA title has virtually nothing to do with your success in the NBA (just ask Jon Scheyer), trying to assert a player's ability to play big NBA minutes with a 5-game stretch is like predicting a runner's mile time from their 100 yard lap (barely correlated), and merely having swag and poise doesn't tell you a thing about a player's proclivity for NBA dominance. Bad teams have stylish players quite often -- look at Nick Young, Monta Ellis, or Jamal Crawford.

No, these were the things that would lead you to blithely overrate Walker going into the season, and people who tended to focus on these attributes found themselves sorely disappointed in Walker's performance. But when one looked beyond the title-team minutiae, one could glean a few scouting gems from watching Walker play. In my observations, I found the following to be true about Kemba Walker, after the conclusion of the 2011 college basketball season and his declaration to the draft:

• Walker was not a shooter. In college, he shot roughly 33% from behind the three point line. He shot under 43% his final two seasons, and while his usage rate was extremely high, those numbers tended to indicate a player whose shot would never be utterly perfect. Something to work off, perhaps, but more likely a 25-30% three point shooter who needed a few seasons to rebuild his shot from scratch.

• Walker relied on free throws. While Walker was a brilliant scorer his senior year, he wasn't EXACTLY killing teams through excellent isolation plays. That helped, and he was always good at making space for himself, but a huge proportion of Walker's scoring output relied on taking massive amounts of free throws he probably wouldn't be getting immediately at the NBA level, if he ever got them at all. And that in and of itself was going to depress his scoring numbers from his college highs, even if he didn't get worse in the presence of better defenders.

• Walker was not a very good passer. In his senior season, despite taking utter and complete ownership of his Connecticut team, Walker posted a 28% assist percentage. That's honestly pretty bad for a star point guard on one of the best teams in his sport, and looking at the numbers, it does tend to bear that out -- the only star point guard prospects who had a lower assist percentage in their last year of college were Jrue Holiday, Brandon Knight, Jeff Teague, Toney Douglas, and Eric Bledsoe. Not exactly a murderer's row. Some people expected Walker to be an awesome passer right off the bat -- that was an exceedingly unrealistic expectation.

How did these individual traits pan out in one season of NBA action? About as expected, with a few surprises. First, he emphatically WAS NOT a shooter his first year -- although he was in the Bobcats' top five three point shooters, he still shot remarkably poorly, posting below average from every single area of the court and barely hitting 30% on his threes. More impressively, after being an at-rim aficionado in college, the NBA game quickly revealed a fatal flaw in Walker's current approach to at-rim scoring -- as a result of that second factor I noted above, Walker relies so much on the free throws he drew in college that once those vanished his scoring efficiency dropped considerably. He was in the bottom eighth of all point guards in at-rim scoring, actually shooting below 50% at the rim. Rough. Finally -- and the particularly hopeful nugget here -- was his passing. He wasn't phenomenal by any stretch, and he was still well below average in his per-possession passing statistics and his general control of the ball. But he wasn't any worse. He posted an assist percentage of 30%, slightly above his percentage in his senior year of college -- that tends to indicate he's got at least a slightly higher ceiling on that end than he displayed in college, which could be valuable later as he continues adapting to his more tertiary role in the NBA.

Beyond all that, he was predictably awful on defense and shockingly good on the boards -- while the Bobcats weren't really good with anyone on the court, they were slightly better with Walker than without. His priorities need to be rather simple -- if he intends to be a good player in the NBA, he's going to need to get past his yips and go full-hog for contact until referees finally start calling it. At 6'1", one of the few advantages he has is that it's a mite bit easier to draw contact for incidental hits. Beyond getting his free throw attempts back, he needs to work on actually using his separation talents. He's always been great at sliding out to create separation off a solid screen -- now the trouble is actually making the open shot, and fixing his general form to the point where teams actually have to plan for him. Finally, he needs to continue developing his passing game -- while the step forward he took in the NBA is a great start, it's certainly not enough. If Walker wants to be anything more than a 20-25 minute a night backup, he's going to need to take some serious steps. Realistically? He's already somewhat improved from what I expected he'd be coming out of college, and I don't think he's anywhere near his ceiling. I don't think he's ever going to be a serious starting-quality player, but he could definitely develop into a solid pace-changing 15-20 minute a night guard leading the string for a contending team. That's, in my view, a realistic place for Kemba in the NBA. Now let's see how it goes.

• • •

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. Last Friday's riddles were won by a bunch of 2/3 guesses -- I thought the "satellite" key-in would be a dead giveaway for Jamario, but thinking back, I'm not sure anyone even realized he was a Bobcat last year. The key riddle problem. Anyway. Good job to Sir Thursday, J, Chilai, Atori, and the world's leading expert on pig backs, Dr. "wul.f".

• This player has the same last name of another NBA star. No relation -- their heights should tell you that much.
• One of the few exceedingly minor players in the league who has had at least one game of extreme dominance. It was in college, but it was among the best individual performances in the NCAA of the last few decades. Just crazy stuff.
• "I just want to make sure I’m [Player #216] wherever I’m at. I think I can be [Player #216] wherever. It just depends on the system, the people around the system, who’s going to let [Player #216] be [Player #216], not make [Player #216] something they think he should be."

Stay frosty, friends.

• • •

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 Corey Brewer, DeMarcus Cousins, and Derrick Rose.

• • •

_Follow Corey Brewer on Twitter at __@CoreyBrewer13.___

You know, it's actually pretty uncanny how similar Corey Brewer is to a player I covered earlier this week -- namely the similarly named Ronnie Brewer. Beyond their last name (no relation, surprisingly), they have two big things in common. First, they both look primed to play key roles (important bench sparks, if not outright starters) for patently decent barely-below-contender teams. Second, they're both relatively rudderless on the offensive end and show virtually all their value on one end of the court. Period. I talked on Monday about how Ronnie Brewer was somewhat screwed by free agency -- as bad as he is on offense, he's a legitimately elite perimeter defender and worth far, far more than the minimum. The idea that the Knicks were able to snag him for the pittance they spent on him seems laughable to me. At a bare minimum, he should've been able to snag a salary similar to that of today's Brewer, at $3 million or so. Especially at his young age.

Regardless. All things considered, Ronnie might actually be better than Corey. On the offensive end, I talked at length about how his biggest issue was that he was misdistributing his shots -- he actually posted above-average numbers within 9 feet, he just inexplicably refused to use that part of his offensive game. Corey Brewer has a similar issue, from virtually the exact same ranges -- he converted at a slightly above average from 3-15 feet, but posted inordinately low numbers from every other shooting range on the court. Never quite in the bottom 25%, but immensely close on multiple levels. The big differentiating factor is that Ronnie distributes his shots terribly while Corey distributes his shots reasonably well -- if Ronnie stopped taking an inordinate amount of shots he can't seem to make, and Corey started actually making more of his at-rim plays that aren't uncontested fast-break dunks? They could both theoretically improve to be only <i>slightly</i> below average on the offensive end. As for defense, both are stoppers, though I'd argue Ronnie a bit more effective than Corey.

His on/off court statistics were gaudy for Denver last year, although one wonders whether that was primarily a function of his defense or primarily a function of Afflalo playing such dismal defense after the dust of his new contract settled. He's an athletic type who hawks passing lanes like a pro and is at his best outside a halfcourt, grind-it-out game. Being as he is a relatively thin and spindly guy -- at least as compared to the NBA average -- Corey Brewer tends to be outmuscled in big-time matchups and (subjectively) tends to find himself overwhelmed more frequently by sheer size than a player like Ronnie Brewer (who instead tends to lay back, keep from fouling, and rough the player up through screen misdirection and other sneaky tricks). On an everyday basis, Brewer is an excellent defender -- he fouls a lot, granted, but his value in the open court and in the passing lanes pays dividends. His problem is that down the stretch, when the game becomes more focused on halfcourt defense and scoutable matchups, he has fewer opportunities to do those things he excels at -- he becomes pigeonholed into guarding wings larger than he is, and gets lost on his coverage and outmuscled in the post. Problems. Ideally, though, having Iguodala on the Nuggets will help -- if there's any good mentor in the league right now on the subject of defense it's Andre Iguodala, quite possibly the best defensive wing the game's seen in a decade or two. I'd expect Brewer to make a small and miniature leap under Iguodala's guidance this year, on the defensive year. On offense? Probably not. But with defense this solid, you can accept a few missed shots.

• • •

_Follow DeMarcus Cousins on Twitter at __@boogiecousins.___

Ethan Strauss asked an interesting question last night. Namely, what a re-draft of the 2010 draft would look like if you did it today. We're two years into the careers of those players -- isn't it soon enough for us to start assessing how they stacked up? The issue you quickly realize is that even now, at only two years into their careers, we really don't know all that much more than we started with. We know a few of the surprises, and we have a decent sense of most of the busts. We have a very vague, general sense of the top 3 or 4 players of the class. But we know scant few things beyond that, it's actually pretty hard to rate players within these tiers. Just look at the top four. We know -- in a very, very general sense -- that the top four players of the draft are John Wall, Derrick Favors, DeMarcus Cousins, and Greg Monroe. Paul George, Gordon Hayward, and Avery Bradley sup among the fringes, but I'd say those four are relatively agreeable as the current "best" outputs of the draft. How do you really rank them? If you like offensive productivity, Greg Monroe is a sky above any of them. If you like defensive potential, Favors is your guy. Incredible passing? Try John Wall.

And then you have DeMarcus Cousins, the incredible dancing enigma.

Prior to Westphal's firing, it looked as though this season was set to be of the "oh, he's not very good, let's pile on him" sort. It certainly looked to be the case through a few weeks of games, with Cousins putting up absolutely anemic averages on incredibly inefficient shooting. But Westphal got fired, Smart got through to him, and many of Cousins' troubles seemed to fade into the ether. His focus improved, his defense got FAR better (more on this in a second), and his shot selection got slightly less egregious. Some big picture issues remain, granted -- if you're a center who's shooting roughly 45% from the floor, you absolutely need some more polish on the offensive end. And when you look at the locations he shoots at to get those numbers, you actually get even less hopeful -- it's not that he has a bad shot distribution profile, but simply that he's been incredibly easy to stop on the block in his career to-date. He's in the bottom 20% of all centers in at-rim field goal percentage, and quite For a player who so often brings to mind images of Webber, O'Neal, and Moses? That's not good. He should be unguardable that close to the basket. He should he a machine, scoring 10-15 points a night on dunks alone through dominating at-rim play. If he ever fully gets in shape, perhaps he will.

And let's be honest. It WOULD be pretty cool if he did that. Because quite frankly, if he ever gets that whole "producing a non-negative value on offense" thing figured out, last season he seemed to put everything else together that he possibly could. With the exception of an overly high turnover rate (primarily caused by the insane number of doubles Cousins faced this year on the block), just about every other stat you could possibly cite spells happy things for Cousins. He's one of the 3 or 4 best rebounders on the planet Earth, from either end of the court. He's a decent passer, if not an extraordinarily prolific one -- John Hollinger aptly noted in his player profiles that Cousins assists on more dunks, layups, and threes than the vast majority of big men, and if you adjust his assist percentage for assist quality he ranks high among all centers. Best of all, for Kings fans? He's -- shockingly -- developed into quite the solid defender. He was among the best at recovering on spot-up shooters when the Kings cross-matched him on long-shooting power forwards like the recent Tim Duncan or the always Dirk Nowitzki. He uses his extreme length well, posting steal rates much akin to a guard without regularly getting far out of position. He isn't exactly a bulldog in the post, yet -- one-on-one defense is still a flaw, and the varied art of defending plays rather than defending shots is still something of a mystery to Cousins. But the broad strokes to a dominant player are there.

All things considered, it's rather difficult to project how Cousins is going to acquaint himself going forward. Given his age -- he turned 22 not more than two months ago -- you have to like the upside potential here. If he works his conditioning into its logical extent, and Smart builds a better offense that puts Cousins in a better position on offense? He has some serious potential to be a game-changing type of two-way big that typifies the next generation. And luckily for him, with his age as low as it is, he stands a good shot of being one of the best big men in the league for a span of the decade to come. He hasn't quite arrived, yet. But his defense is coming and his tertiaries show promise. Two years into a player's career, we can hardly state that we know anything for sure about a player's future. That was the point of opening with Strauss' question -- it's tricky, and even though it feels like we have a large enough sample size to compare, we aren't even a third of the way to most players' peaks. We can't say, yet. And if Cousins can improve his finishing and develop his body into an adult form? Well, honestly, there are few things he can't do. Sky's the limit, wouldn't you know.

• • •

Follow Derrick Rose by inspiring a city.

I barely discussed it in the capsule proper, so I suppose I'll state it here -- Derrick Rose's 2013 season is likely to be punted. If the Bulls were smart, they'd simply sit their star out for the duration of the year and let him do the slowest, most exacting rehabilitation he could possibly get his hands on. Injuries like those Rose suffered in last year's playoffs are exceedingly rare and exceedingly harmful -- the only known truth about them is that, as with any injury, rushing back to overexert oneself immediately is just about the worst thing you can do. Rose relies on several things to be an amazing player. His ethic, his guile, his vision. But chief among them? His athleticism. The deleterious effects of a vanishing athleticism could sap his game to the harshest degree. Anything that gives him a better shot of maintaining that is something the Bulls should be doing. Period.

Still, while I've been often critical of Rose (and don't personally enjoy his playing style nearly as much as most do), I can't deny a certain overwhelming respect I have for Rose as a person. The trappings of NCAA basketball tend to turn Calipari players into pop-media "villains", as commentators snipe over their "corruption" and how they "abuse" the system. The echo chamber amplifies any and all perceived faults and slights, and in a broad sense, completely misses the point on players like Rose. The point shouldn't be that Rose falsified a test score -- the point should be a closer examination of the harsh life that pushed Rose into a situation where he'd need to. The point shouldn't be a hatred of Rose for not being whitewashed and collegian like a Hansbrough or a Fredette -- the point should be an examination of how Rose embodies the American dream more than almost anyone on earth could hope to. In pursuit of that message, I decided to go the somewhat odd route of approaching Rose's life and legacy through the parallel lens of James Joyce, the broader city of Chicago, and the trappings of fame. Let me know if I succeeded.

Derrick Rose was born on October 4th, 1988. It was a calm day, with temperatures in the high 40s and a slightly nippy wind. This calm was antithetical to the situation the boy was thrust in. Unlike Joyce, Rose all but skipped the younger "prosperous" stage of life -- his father walked out on the family before Rose was born, and as a child, Rose was left to be raised by his mother and three older brothers in the neighborhood of Englewood, Chicago. A bit of needed context: Englewood is arguably the most dangerous neighborhood in America. It features a poverty rate that consistently brushes 50%, massive gang infusions in just about every square of possible territory, and crime beyond comprehension to many. It's very hard to live in Englewood, and harder still to do so cleanly. Consider -- in a 5 month period surrounding Derrick's draft, 28 people were shot within the block surrounding the court Derrick learned the game on. Rough situation? Ridiculous understatement.

For more on Derrick Rose, please read today's Player Capsule (Plus).

• • •

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 sleuthing by Chilai and Geezer, who both got 3/3 guesses for the first time in what feels like weeks. (And to Zewo and wul.f, who piggybacked off Geezer's expert guessing.)

• This Bobcat is a welcome shooter.
• This Bobcat is a waived satellite.
• This Bobcat is a waltzing swagman.

Apologies for the lateness. The Rose post took some re-readings some of Joyce's work and research into some historical facts to properly contextualize, which obviously took a little while given Joyce's general difficulty. Not to mention a few unexpected financial oddities that arose when I returned to Vegas, as well as a swamp of things at work. Which, incidentally, is where I'm off to now, my machete primed to exact vengeance on the outcroppings. I'll be attempting to do a few extra capsules a week for the next few weeks -- I want to finish by Christmas and give myself a bit of wiggle room, and that would be the best way to accomplish that. "Attempt" and "succeed" are two different things, though, so I suppose we'll have to see. Have a good weekend, folks.

• • •

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“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”

James Joyce was born on February 2nd, 1882. His father was a tax collector, his mother was a homemaker, and his siblings were dead. Growing up, this boy found himself in a unique situation relative to many of his time -- although his family was not of extraordinarily high means, his father was extraordinarily supportive of his son's literary side. To a level above and beyond most people outside the absolute pinnacle of the Irish social ladder. In fact, at the age of 9, the boy already had his first "published" work -- a poem on the death of Charles Parnell, printed among friends and officially submitted (although not accepted, much to the chagrin of many historians who'd like to read it) into the Vatican Library before the boy had even reached double digits. Promising, no?

As Joyce grew older, his situation changed. The world grew. His father turned to alcoholism, his family's situation crumbled around him, and Joyce became a man of the world. Or, more aptly, a man of the city of Dublin. He came to acquire knowledge much like children acquire candy or a collegian acquires alcohol. He learned and learned and learned, and all the while absorbed as much worldly experience a man could consume. And once he'd filled himself to the brim with knowledge, experience, and a sharp development of his natural wit? He gave a whooping breath, inhaled his surroundings, and spewed in a broad stroke the contents of his city. The result was a manuscript published under the title Ulysses, considered by many to be the greatest book of the 20th century. He was a modernist, an avant garde trend-setter, and one of the most influential writers of all time. Today, there's a semi-national holiday in Dublin based after his work. There are museums erected in Ireland in honor of Joyce's work. A cottage tourism industry. A pub in his name and honor. Essentially a national hero, at this point.

• • •

Derrick Rose was born on October 4th, 1988. It was a calm day, with temperatures in the high 40s and a slightly nippy wind. This calm was antithetical to the situation the boy was thrust in. Unlike Joyce, Rose all but skipped the younger "prosperous" stage of life -- his father walked out on the family before Rose was born, and as a child, Rose was left to be raised by his mother and three older brothers in the neighborhood of Englewood, Chicago. A bit of needed context: Englewood is arguably the most dangerous neighborhood in America. It features a poverty rate that consistently brushes 50%, massive gang infusions in just about every square of possible territory, and crime beyond comprehension to many. It's very hard to live in Englewood, and harder still to do so cleanly. Consider -- in a 5 month period surrounding Derrick's draft, 28 people were shot within the block surrounding the court Derrick learned the game on. Rough situation? Ridiculous understatement.

But Rose's mother and brothers persevered, trying desperately to give the young prodigy a life better than the one he'd been born into. They drove him everywhere -- Rose never had a practice in school without one of his brothers in the stands -- and actively picked schools so that Derrick wouldn't have to walk through multiple territories. Not to mention the media -- until Rose picked his college, the family refused to let him do interviews or sign with vicious street agents. This was far more necessary than the disconnected may initially think -- Englewood's violence isn't simply reserved for gang members, it also weighs heavy against those who inspire jealousy. At Rose's own alma mater, there was the teachable and tragic story of Ben "Benji" Wilson. Wilson was Chicago's first #1 ranked prospect in the sport of basketball. "Magic Johnson with a jumper." He too hailed out of Englewood, and he too went to Rose's high school. He began to get focused on in newspapers, media events, and national hype. It looked as though Wilson had a promising, wonderful career in his future.

Until he was shot dead at the age of 17, that is.

Rose's family saw the tragedy. They saw the spectres looming around every dangerous Englewood corner. And they knew Rose's talent was special. So they did every single thing they could. They kept their tight-knit family afloat, propped him up, and gave him a shot. That was their lot, and they succeeded beyond all reasonable expectation. Rose's family deserves an astonishing amount of credit for giving Rose the opportunity to become the person he is. They offered the crucial support and love that greases the skids of a dream. And above all, they supported Rose. Held him up. Kept him afloat. Let him become his own man, with faith that the man would be true to their values. And, it must be said, Rose put up his end of the bargain, and then some. I don't want to bury you with anecdotes about how humble and wonderful Rose is -- you can find most of them anywhere.

But I will share one, because I've only ever read it in one place and it deserves special note. For Rose's first media appearance, he held a press conference to announce which college he'd attend. It was the first conference of his career -- Rose's family had learned from the lessons in Wilson's untimely death, and they curtailed his media appearances to an extreme extent. But for this press conference, Rose had a single request. He would not do the press conference unless two minor members of his high school team -- two of his best friends -- were able to use it as their own conference to announce their own college decisions as well. Neither made the NBA, nor were either a nationally-recognized player. Later asked by a related reporter as to why he was so stringent on demanding their presence at a conference that was supposed to be "his" day, Rose had an exceedingly short answer for him.

"They deserve a press conference too."

• • •

"I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book."

Once, over coffee, I asked an Irishman a misleadingly simple question.

"Is James Joyce the greatest writer who ever lived?"

Personally? I'd say emphatically not. There are three main prongs to a great piece of writing -- craftwork, creativity, and communication. While some (including a younger me) may take issue with how he does it, I don't think you can really argue that Joyce misses the mark on craftwork -- he's created some of the most intriguing and carefully-crafted metaphors that any writer ever has. Creativity? Come now. There's no one greater, at least from that regard. He essentially invented the western form of our now-common conception that stream-of-consciousness thought can actually improve our reasoning. It was rare in his time, and now it's a staple of reasonable thinkers -- that one's on Joyce. Not really sure how you can be more creative than that. But then there's the last one, and that's the bugaboo -- communication. And that's where my argument lies.

It's easy to talk about how brilliant Ulysses is in the abstract. It's easy to use your experience reading its highs to spread across the whole novel, and assert a constant stream of incredible brilliance. It's easy to be drawn in by his creativity, his intriguing concepts, his general ideas. But you know what? Honestly? None of that really changes the fact that Ulysses is effectively impossible to read on a single go-around. The book is about 300,000 words of disconnected, indirect speech. By one professional count, it contains more than 30,000 unique words, without counting the new words Joyce made up on the fly. The book's inherent in-jokes and generally over-explicit verbiage come back to haunt it, for new readers -- you regularly feel like a starving artist wandering a statistical conference, aimlessly frittering from room to room in search of something you can possibly relate to. Anything.

Because of this communication barrier, there's an element of overwhelming heft to Ulysses. To many readers young and old, it's a heft that makes it less a literary work and more a literary challenge. It's a giant, mysterious tome whose heavy pages and ornate structures are virtually inscrutable without layers and layers of complex analysis. It borders on the nonsensical, at times, and can drift into word salad on a moment's notice. It's not the most important quality, and it's not required to be great. But it IS required to be globally transcendent as more than a "great writer." You need to be able to communicate ideas on a level that people can understand. You can hardly hope to have a productive conversation if your audience thinks you're speaking in utter gibberish. So, no. I don't quite agree with experts who think Joyce is the greatest writer who ever lived. I'm not quite there, although I've come to appreciate Ulysses quite a lot more as I've aged as a reader.

But there's a point to this tangent. Back to the Irish.

The man I posed the question to thought for a moment. He looked into his coffee, sipped it, and smiled mischievously. He shook his head. And then he said something akin to this: "Nah. I don't think he's the greatest of all time. But I don't think it matters, either. He's one of the greats, and he's one of the legends. He's not quite there, but he's as close as any other. And who really cares if he's the greatest or not? After all, he's ours. He's MY writer. Better grasp on my soul than any writer his better, I'd say. So no, he may not be the 'greatest.' At least in any conventional sense. But he's mine. And sometimes that's all that matters."

• • •

It cannot be effectively argued that Rose -- despite his singular game, his startling feats, his humble grace -- is the greatest player in the sport. And even if he comes back fully rejuvenated in a season or two, he probably still won't be quite there. Too many gaps in his game for that, as of yet. Not a good enough shooter. Not a good enough passer. Et cetera, et cetera. Not to mention the other problem -- Rose exists within and for a city that has experienced exactly that. Nothing Rose does will ever stand up to six titles in eight years. Derrick Rose is not Michael Jordan, either, and in his stardom in Chicago, Rose often finds himself unfairly compared with Jordan.

But there's something Rose can do. Something that Jordan never could.

It's rather simple. He's a player who -- at his peak -- has the potential to give a picture of Chicago's best attributes so complete that if the city suddenly disappeared from the earth, it could be reconstructed out of the person and life of Rose. He's a player of hardship, hard luck, and hard paths. He's a player who worked for what he got and triumphed in the face of massive uncertainty and significant strife. He's a player who represents not simply his personal game, but also the city he came from -- he represents the American dream in a modern world and adds a hometown flair to his on-court dominance. His Chicago-style crossover, his apposite humility, his sea-changing athleticism -- Rose isn't simply a player. He's a concept. He's a man who triumphed over fate. He's a hometown hero.

And Joyce? Hobbyists like myself can doubt his work, and come up with reasons he isn't the greatest. But that's entirely besides the point to a whole score of people. To them, Joyce isn't just a writer -- he's their writer. In his roots, in his thoughts, and in his soul. Rose is similar. The wealthy, the vagabonds, and the transplants of Chicago alike can look up to Derrick Rose and see a man of impeccable principle and unimagined accomplishment. They can see his talent, his struggle, his gift. But most of all, they can see a reflection of their person and their journies. And perhaps, if they squint hard enough? A sliver of their soul as well.

Come back soon, Derrick. The game befits you.

• • •

"They lived and laughed and loved and left."

• For more capsules on members of the Chicago Bulls, see our Bulls directory. •

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