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

• • •

Follow Rudy Gay on Twitter at @rudygay22.

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

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

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

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

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

• • •

_Follow Emeka Okafor on Twitter at __@BigMek50._

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

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

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

• • •

Follow Brandon Jennings on Twitter at @BRAND0NJENNINGS.
__

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

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

• • •

Follow Jeremy Lin on Twitter at @JLin7.

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

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

What a difference a year makes, huh?

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

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

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

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

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

• • •

_Follow Demar DeRozan on Twitter at __@DeMar_DeRozan._

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

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

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

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

• • •

Follow Roy Hibbert on Twitter at @Hoya2aPacer.
__

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

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

• • •

Follow Dirk Nowitzki on Twitter at @swish41.

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

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

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

READ DIRK NOWITZKI'S EXTENDED CAPSULE AT SBNATION DALLAS.

• • •

F__ollow Stephen Jackson on Twitter at @DaTrillStak5._____

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

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

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

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

• • •

Follow Avery Bradley on Twitter at @Aabradley11.
__

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

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

• • •

Follow Greg Stiemsma on Twitter at @gregstiemsma.

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

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

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

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

• • •

F__ollow Vince Carter on Twitter at @mrvincecarter15._____

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

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

• • •

Follow Patty Mills on Twitter at @Patty_Mills.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• • •

F__ollow Kris Humphries on Twitter at @KrisHumphries._____

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

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

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

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

• • •

Follow James Anderson on Twitter at @25_Anderson.__

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

• • •

Follow Omer Asik on Twitter at @AsikOmer.

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

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

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

• • •

Follow Manny Harris on Twitter at @313MannyHarris.__

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

• • •

Follow Tim Duncan's example and tweet through .

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

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

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

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

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

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

• • •

F__ollow Jonny Flynn on Twitter at_ _@__J_Flynn._

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

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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

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

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

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

• • •

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

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

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 Nikola Pekovic, Evan Turner, and Greivis Vasquez.

• • •

Follow Nikola Pekovic on Twitter at @14pek.

Let's say you're a mad scientist. You're the Dr. Marc Franken-Stein of science, a hoops connoisseur with lab and a mission. You're hired by David Khan. (Who else?) He wants you to build the perfect frontcourt partner for his superstar, Kevin Love. You think on it a while. It's an interesting question -- statistically, you don't need Love's partner to be the greatest player ever, but you need to hit some key benchmarks. He needs to be a good post player, so he can draw help and allow Love easy room to shoot the three. By percentage, Love is one of the premier defensive rebounding talents in the league, but he's average or slightly below for a big man on the offensive glass -- if you give Love's partner an excellent nose for the ball on the offensive end, the Wolves will hardly ever lose the possession battle, and that'll help compensate for the team's anemic defense. In order to keep the Timberwolves offense flowing, the center can't be a poor free throw shooter -- every possession, you want the ball in Rubio or Love's hands, and keep their sacred flow intact. Ideally, Love's partner would be a great defensive player in his own right, and help the Timberwolves out of the gutter -- barring that, at least having a partner with some offensive rebounding ability (as previously stated) is crucial. In an aesthetic sense, you probably want a bit of a bulldog, a tough and imposing figure to place next to Love's more aloof stylings. If you were this scientist, and you were successful? You'd probably have built Nikola Pekovic. Almost exactly.

There are a few gaps, but not many -- Pekovic is an absolute bruiser in the post, with a mid-size array of moves but an adept sense of how to convert the moves he has. Last season, Pekovic had the second highest offensive rebounding percentage in the game after Kenneth Faried -- the Wolves defense was incredibly permissive, but by simply gobbling up every shot and letting their deadly offense run its course in more possessions than the other team could muster, the Wolves had stretches of nearly-elite play. Poor free throw shooter? Hardly -- at 74%, Pekovic had the 6th highest free throw percentage among centers that played more than 25 minutes a night. Pekovic was a promising, bruising defensive player in his own right -- his help defense was lacking, to be sure, but Pekovic had a unique ability to roughhouse and nestle opposing centers with his size and strength. Most centers entered the year looking forward to a matchup with the Timberwolves -- not since the days of Rasho have the Wolves had a remotely imposing player at the center position. Pekovic takes that former position of weakness and spits on it, crumples it up, and flings it into the abyss of hell. (Yes, this speaks to the last bit of aesthetics -- Pekovic is about as tough as you get.)

This isn't to say Pekovic doesn't have his limitations. He doesn't really have a competent shot outside the paint. As mentioned, he's not the greatest defensive rebounder on the face of the earth -- although he came a percentage point from leading the league in offensive rebounding rate, his defensive rebounding rate was the 2nd lowest among centers that averaged more than 25 minutes a night. Attribute that to Love, if you want, but be wary -- his pace-adjusted offensive rebounding numbers were almost always superior to his defensive rebounding numbers in the Euroleague. Occam's razor dictates that he's probably just not as good at defensive rebounding as he is offensive rebounding. Which, as I've noted, is perfectly fine -- next to Love, one of the greatest defensive rebounders ever, I'd argue that's exactly what you want. But in a different context, where Pekovic isn't next to one of the greatest defensive rebounders in the game, his lacking command of the defensive glass could become a problem. So too could his help defense, which is definitively not an asset. Pekovic is probably the strongest player in the league, and it shows in his ability to individually cover all sorts of dominant centers. But with that strength comes a lot less of the mobility and fluidity that makes defenders like Kevin Garnett and Anderson Varejao effective as helpers in a broader scheme.

Still, that strength has advantages too -- although he hasn't gotten in the habit of setting a surplus of illegal screens (a la Garnett), Pekovic sets (according to many guards, including Tony Parker) the most painful screens in the NBA. And as I've outlined, Pekovic is a fantastic frontcourt partner for Kevin Love -- if his help defense was better, he'd be virtually perfect. It isn't, and given his obsessive desire to add strength to his frame and the resultant lacking fluidity, it's hard to imagine Pekovic becoming a game-changing help defender. The mobility is so crucial to that, and I just don't see how he develops it. Still, combine all his skills with the roster around him and you have a roster that's at a minimum contending for the playoffs in a loaded west, and a roster that could sniff home court advantage if a few things swing their way. Really can't wait to watch the Big Three on this Wolves team develop. Can you? Imagine Playoff Pek. Think about Love with the usual Olympic game-enhancement. Muse on Rubio with a full training camp. Lordy. It's going to be really, really fun to watch this Wolves team ply their trade. Can't wait.

• • •

F__ollow Evan Turner on Twitter at_ _@__thekidet._

I don't really know what to make of Evan Turner. As a rookie, I thought him rather disappointing. As a sophomore, my opinion of him seemed to change every time I watched him. One day you'd watch Turner and he'd be excellent -- rebounding like a big man from the guard position, chipping in on offense, and applying effective defensive pressure in the Collins scheme. He had games that impressed, and made it seem like he was making the most of his high draft selection. Then, seemingly at random, he'd have games that were terrible beyond reason -- 3-10 shooting nights against questionable defensive pressure, 22% shooting on 22 shots, and complete no-show performances in games the Sixers could've won. Hard to assess players that can translate to that last game less than a week after doing things like this, you know?

In how he's approached the regular season, you can see some moderately bad signs for his development. Consider his shot distribution, located here. From his rookie year to his sophomore year, Turner increased the number of shots he was taking outside of 10 feet while decreasing his free throw rate -- very bad signs going forward. Turner is an player who is at his best when he's on the attack, driving into the lane and slashing to the rim to draw free throws or get fouled. He's honestly pretty awful when he's trying to act as a large rebounding guard -- he camps out in the midrange, takes a bunch of ill-advised jump shots, and doesn't aggressively take the game and make it his own. That's really the key with Turner -- when he shows aggression and confidence, he shows flashes. But when he simply settles for what the defense gives him and allows himself to camp out at the long two or the three, he's just not very good. Turner is a large wing that should be playing the three-spot. Now that Iguodala's gone, he'll probably get to do that.

So, what is Evan Turner, exactly? He's a wing with a phenomenal touch for the boards, for one thing. Turner is one of the better pound-for-pound rebounding talents in the entire league, which does count for something. He's also a wing without a three point shot, which counts for something in the opposite sentiment. He's a decent passer, but nowhere near Iguodala's level -- he can set up the obvious basket, or find the open man, but he'll just as often throw the ball into a scrum and give the opposition a crucial fast break in a close game. When he shows confidence and aggression, he's great -- when he shows confidence in his jump shot, he's just about the worst player on the court. Overall, it averages out to a player with insane highs and stark lows. And a player that's as hard to predict as he is to assess. Jordan Sams could be right -- Turner could be poised for a breakout season. He also could be completely wrong, and this could be a season where everyone else in the league finally finds themselves fully acquainted with Turner's flaws. After all, good defenses seem to be getting better and better at goading him into his flawed and broken jump shot -- what happens when the entire league figures it out? I'm not really sure, and Turner's high variance game makes nothing assured. He could be great, he could be awful. In any event, he'll be an interesting player to watch next year, if not a bit of a stressful one for Ohio State and Philadelphia fans alike.

• • •

Follow Greivis Vasquez on Twitter at @greivisvasquez.__

You know how Evan Turner is going to get his own shot at playing a starring role next year? So will this guy. There isn't a single other point guard on the Hornets' roster, as it stands. When, exactly, are people going to notice this? I probably sound like a crotchety old man, but come on. It's one thing when you have Jarrett Jack there, and Vasquez acting as his backup -- they gave Jarrett Jack to the Warriors for virtually nothing, and they're left with a ridiculously strange conundrum at the point. Look at this depth chart. There aren't any point guards on the Hornets' roster other than Vasquez, and before you say Austin Rivers, let me tell you something. I watch point guards, I know point guards, point guards are friends of mine. Senator, Austin Rivers is no point guard. There's a reason I don't analyze rookies in this feature. It's harder to find footage of rookies, and I'm not a big college guy. But I went to Duke, so I have a passing interest in Duke's team and watch some of their games. So I can talk about Austin Rivers.

... and dear god, Austin Rivers is a bad passer. Rivers is a Jamal Crawford type player -- he has no problem getting his shot, anywhere on the court. He's got a great crossover -- seriously, it's legitimately great -- and he breaks more ankles with it than a toddler-sized Tonya Harding. That doesn't mean he can make shots from everywhere, but he sure as hell can get shots from anywhere. But his passing? Well... okay, I'm going to assume you're familiar with the problems with college statistics. Namely that a player's college stats have been acquired in a league where that player is being asked to do very different things than they will at the college level -- just because a 6'0" swingman averages 20-7-5 in college doesn't mean they'll have the ability to leverage even a 10-3-2 in the pros, because size matters and if they got five assists per contest as the primary ball-handler on a college team there's no way they'll get much more than 2 or 3 assists a night in the NBA. Simply no way.

Austin Rivers -- despite being Duke's primary ballhandler for the majority of the season and having a veritably insane amount of free reign from Coach Krzyzewski -- averaged two assists per game. In 33 minutes a night, in college. He was on a team emphasizing passing and getting open, and on a team with FOUR PLAYERS shooting over 40% from three, and two players "shooting" 60% from the floor (due to the fact that they took nothing but at-rim slams and tip-ins). He combined those 2.1 assists with 2.3 turnovers a night -- yes, he had an assist to turnover ratio that was actually below one. In Duke's last three games -- against Florida State, Lehigh, and Virginia Tech -- Austin Rivers played 108 minutes. He registered four assists over those 108 minutes. Total. One assist per 27 minutes of play. Again -- in college. Look, you can try and explain away a few individual problems in Rivers' game, and you can say that he'll get better. But Rivers-as-a-point-guard is a concept with more red flags than Tomáš ?epka. And I'm supposed to buy that Monty Williams -- an excellent coach with a good sense on how to put together the best rotation possible -- is going to play Rivers 20-30 minutes a night at point guard? Fat chance.

No, Vasquez is about to get a golden opportunity. He's going to be playing a ton of minutes on a relatively decent team, he's going to be starting for the majority of the season, and he's going to get ample opportunities to work on his busted three point shot. Vasquez isn't exactly a high upside player -- he's got lacking lateral quickness for the NBA game, his outside shot is poor, and he's already 25 years old. But he's got a lot of positives -- insanely prolific setup man (Vasquez sported the 13th highest assist percentage in the league last year, right behind Andre Miller and Kyrie Irving), very good size for his position (he's a legitimate 6'6" as a point guard, which is a huge asset for guarding post-up point guards like Andre Miller), and a ceaseless motor that should be the envy of every borderline NBA player in the league. I admit, I HATED Vasquez at Duke (and honestly, was there anybody in the ACC that DIDN'T hate him, outside of Maryland?) and I hated him in 2011 when he was slicing the Spurs up in the first round of the playoffs. His boundless confidence, his annoying smile, his skill at getting under the skin of opposing teams -- all of it rubbed me the wrong way. To some extent, it still does, but I thought he was fun to watch last year. So some of it has faded. I like what the Hornets are doing, and I'm excited to see what Vasquez does with a bigger role -- it's rare that a team puts this much confidence in a player after one decent season as a backup, but I think it'll turn out well in the end.

(... still think the Hornets should've picked Kendall Marshall, tho.)

• • •

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. For the first time in a long time, the best guess was 1/3! Come on, guys. The only player anyone got right was Pekovic. Crazy stuff.

• Player #97 is very interested in psychology. He likes magic, too.
• I absolutely loved watching him in college, even given my dislike for Syracuse. But watching Player #98 in the NBA is a painful experience.
• May be a bust now, but just wait til Player #99 steals Gordon Hayward's minutes! Wait. Dang.

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 Michael Redd, Andrea Bargnani, and Hakim Warrick.

• • •

Follow Michael Redd on Twitter by buying a bible.

One of the neater stories of last year's NBA season was a relatively archetypal one. An old NBA veteran -- widely considered washed up and finished -- with no expectations goes to a good training staff, suddenly rebounds back from a precipitous dive into a useful player (to some extent) and shows flashes of brilliance as a sometimes-reminder of how good he used to be. In 2010, it was Antonio McDyess. In 2011, it was Tracy McGrady. In 2012? The former sweet-shooting Milwaukee star, Michael Redd. It was something of a feel-good story, and to anyone following last year's dismal Suns team, it often seemed like the only one. Redd wasn't fantastic last year, as most can tell -- after all, the once-efficient shooter only converted a scant 31% from three point range and barely sniffed a league average PER (average is 15, his was 13.9). And even atop his offensive struggles, Redd's defense was absolutely awful, far below replacement level. Which makes one think, after saying all this, that I'm crazy to call him a feel-good story. How can a player performing that badly be a feel-good story? Well, two reasons.

First, he got better as the year went on. And not just a little better -- the Redd we saw in April was markedly better than we'd seen the entire year, shooting 40% from three point range and 42% from two point range, despite taking almost no shots at the rim and acting at times as a primary floor spacer for a playoff-contending Suns team. He upped his minutes per game back to 18.8 during the season's closing month, and chipped in a few rebounds and an assist per game besides. He scored around 12 points in those 18 minutes, which roughly translates to a per-36 scoring average of 23 points a night, right above his career average. Some would say that the performance was fluky, and in some sense, I agree -- Redd certainly can't be expected to produce 23 points a night on 36 minutes a game anymore, and roughly a point every two minutes in limited burn is probably all we can expect. But if you were, like Redd, coming back from spates of season-ending injuries and working your way back into game shape after you thought you might retire, wouldn't you peak near the end? Wouldn't you be expected to play poorly until you got into shape? I'd say yes, and as such, I think the Redd that finished the season with Phoenix is a bit more akin to the Redd we'll see in the swan song of his career than the hollow husk that started the year.

The second reason? Expectations, expectations, expectations. Sure, if Redd had been expected to score 25 a night and act as Phoenix's second star, this would've been an incredibly disappointing year for him. But was anyone even expecting Redd to see the court? One of my favorite examples of this was in Bright Side of the Sun's season ending evaluation for Michael Redd, where Leiland Tanner (an excellent writer, by the way) extracted examples of what people had said at the time Redd was signed. My favorite was Scott Howard's comment that if Redd was the answer, the question you were asking was "how do you become the worst team in the NBA." Redd wasn't exactly a lights out star, but he sure as hell wasn't THAT bad. And he certainly was that bad the previous two seasons, so there wasn't all that much reason to expect Redd would recoup and have a solid better-as-he-gets-in-shape season. Really wasn't any reason to expect that. Because of that, the simple fact that Redd was able to be a contributor was impressive. Going forward? I'd expect Redd to recoup a bit from his health troubles and stay at a level somewhat close to the high he closed the season on for a few more seasons. Decent shooting, no defense, volume scoring backup. Not amazing -- especially for a guy who has been an incredible scoring talent his entire career -- but a suitable closing act for a guy whose injury-tarred demise in Milwaukee was far less than he rightfully deserved.

• • •

F__ollow Andrea Bargnani on Twitter at_ _@__AndreaBargnani._

Andrea Bargnani is an interesting player, to me. I think he's a heck of a lot better than most people think, especially defensively. You think I'm insane? Perhaps. But I'll list off a few facts that Matt Moore shared back in the summer of 2010, when he first got access to Synergy's video database and took some time to parse through the numbers. I saved them, and spent the entire next season paying extremely close attention to both players in an effort to see if the Synergy-based assertions matched what I was seeing. (I didn't have Synergy until mid-2012, so I could only really watch stuff like this by living on League Pass.)

1. While Bosh was in Toronto, Bargnani guarded the better opposing big 9 out of 10 times.
2. Despite guarding the better big Bargnani's man D was better than Bosh's man D.
3. He's actually a very effective post defender, and uses his athleticism and size to make easy shots challenging.
4. He's recently been in the top 15% of NBA players in isolation defense. When guarding big men shooting jumpers, Bargnani holds them to 30% shooting.
5. Despite all this, he's still been a net negative defender on the Raptors over his career.

When I first read all of these but #5, I thought Moore was playing a practical joke on all his basketball-inclined followers. Bargnani has been a notably defective help defender for years, to the point that his awful help defense can be noticed even by those who don't have a particularly trained eye for a player's defensive acumen. Bargnani ignores cutters, doesn't help off his man, and simply doesn't take the role of "protecting the paint" seriously when he's playing center. He always wants to float and focus on his man, which is fine when he's playing the large forward and playing alongside an actual center but atrocious when he's supposed to be the last line of defense. But note that I haven't said Moore was wrong. That's because, honestly, he wasn't. I can't assess #1, because I wasn't really paying attention to that when they played together, but I can state confidently that Bargnani is a effective defender in the post, a decent isolation defender, and actually very good at getting out to contest when his man takes a jumpshot. What's more, while Bosh is the far superior help defender, Bargnani's individual post defense and the totality of his overall individual defense is above that of Bosh, meaning that if I had the two of them on a team, I'd probably give Bargnani the harder assignment as well.

Of course, as I just pointed out -- his help defense is notably awful, enough so that it's hard to notice the things he does right on the defensive end. Not to mention his rebounding, which is the primary reason his defense is immensely disappointing -- even though Bargnani is an effective individual defender, if the opposing team gets 2 or 3 extra possessions a game from his lazy rebounding, fault has to fall on Bargnani's shoulders for ceding possessions that any other non-Lopez center could've gotten. This goes double when playing on a team as defensively hopeless as most of his pre-Casey Raptor teams -- you basically need to win the possession battle when you aren't a good defensive team, and when Bargnani is playing center, you're virtually assured not to. The rebounding problems have remained, but the help defense issues are starting to clear up -- as Dwane Casey has pointed out, he's gotten better. He fell off badly after his injury, so in the second half of the season, Bargnani had his problems. But at the start of the season Bargnani was communicating, and under Casey's scheme, he was doing a very good job of it. After years of wanting Bargnani out the door, most Raptors fans I know started to visualize a future with him on the team. It was cool.

What do the Raptors need to do, going forward, to bring out the best in Bargnani? Well, first off, they need to never ever hire Jay Triano again. Triano may very well be the worst coach the NBA's had in the last 10-20 years. He was abominable in Toronto, both at developing players and building schemes that fully utilized the team's talent. Casey is a great step forward in this regard -- he's already shown to be an excellent defensive coach and all accounts seem to indicate he's gotten a lot of buy-in from his players. The second thing? Stop pretending Bargnani is a center and allow him to slide over to the big forward position. Yes, he's 7'0" -- height alone doesn't make a center, and his rebounding and lacking instincts make playing him as the primary paint-stuffer is a terrible idea. In an ideal world, Bargnani would play the Dirk to some big man's Tyson Chandler -- the sweet shooting huge power forward who spreads the floor and uses his defensive talents on one man and one man alone. Jonas Valanciunas should be good for this -- not necessarily because of his talent, but simply because his size and game are prototypical for the five-spot. If he can chip in something like a per-36 10-10 in 20-30 MPG, the Raptors will be greatly improved for it. If the Raptors had picked up Steve Nash, I might've actually picked them to win their division -- it would've been a great situation for him, as he could've played 25 minutes a night and mentored their young players beautifully. Can't really complain, though -- in picking up Lowry instead the Raptors have a much better set-up going into the future, though the upside play for this individual season isn't quite as high. In any event, this team is a likely playoff contender this year, and if Bargnani plays a bigger-than-expected role in it -- chipping in some defensive chops to go with his to-be-expected 20 points a night -- don't be too surprised.

• • •

Follow Hakim Warrick on Twitter at @hdubb21.__

To say that Hakim Warrick hasn't been lighting the world on fire lately is to understate matters entirely. Warrick has been flat-out awful ever since he came to Phoenix, and as he moves on to flaunt his wares in New Orleans, the question is less about whether he'll recoup and more about whether the Hornets are even going to give him minutes in a crowded rotation. His game is that of the prototypical tweener -- offensive decisionmaking of a large wing, moderately enviable per-minute stats, and disgustingly poor defense. Really. His defensive instincts are worse than those of Amare Stoudemire, and while I held out some hope when Phoenix acquired him in 2010 that he'd thrive with Steve Nash, in practice he hasn't improved at all. He's been the same Hakim Warrick he's always been -- cuts, dunks, godawful defense, a somewhat ineffective midrange jumpshot, and foul-drawing up the wazoo. And some extremely questionable decisions in his shot selection -- as I said, he plays like a large wing despite not really having the body or the skillset to do it. Seriously, Warrick took almost one three pointer per 36 minutes last season, despite only making 10% of them. Bad news.

This isn't to say it's all bad -- the Warrick that showed up last season was awful, but in his career, he's traditionally been a talented offensive player. In one way, at least -- he's very good at dunks. Not layups, not post-ups, not jumpshots. Dunking the ball, especially off the pick and roll. Beyond that? He's great at putting other big men into foul trouble, because he's crafty and good at getting calls like a wing. And to be honest, earlier in his career he was a decent midrange shooter -- that's evaporated entirely in Phoenix, but perhaps it could come back. It still isn't going to mean much. Even at his peak, with an above-average PER and highly efficient scoring numbers, it was hard to see Warrick as a truly worthy backup -- his defense is utterly awful, combining the tentative qualities on man-to-man defense that help "big" men like Brian Cardinal avoid foul trouble with the lazy qualities that make big men like Bargnani awful help defenders.

Unfortunately for his career, I don't see any chance of Warrick getting significant playing time in New Orleans -- Anthony Davis and Ryan Anderson will dominate the majority of New Orleans' minutes, with Jason Smith and Robin Lopez filling the role of primary backups. Add to that Lance Thomas' ability to slide over to the four and retain Monty's defensive system, and you don't have significant minutes that Warrick could reasonably expect to carve out. If he could play some small forward it would be a remote possibility, but as his three point shot and busted long two would indicate, that's a heck of a long shot. If it'd happen under anyone, it'd happen under Monty. But it's unlikely. More likely, Warrick plays out the year with abysmal games played / minutes totals and moves on after the Hornets refuse to pick up his 2014 option, closing his career on a string of mildly productive runs as an instant-offense spigot off the bench for a few long-in-the-tooth contenders. (I wouldn't be shocked if he was a Celtic in 2014.)

• • •

At the end of each post, I'll be scribing riddles for the next group. Whoever gets the most right will get a shout out at the end of the next post. Tweet me your answers at @docrostov, or post them in the comments. We had several perfect scores on last week's last capsules, including Krishnan and Corn. Good work, fellas.

• Player #94 was one of the biggest surprises of last season -- out of nowhere, his offensive numbers from the center position compared well with Dwight Howard.
• Strangely enough, Player #95 appeared in ESPN's playoff lists for both the most disappointing performers and the most surprising. That basically sums up his confusing game.
• This is probably residual ACC bad blood, but I hate Player #96 and his annoying smile. Hate him. Can't deny that he's a decent backup guard, though.

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

• • •

Follow Chase Budinger on Twitter at @CBudinger.

I actually really like this incoming situation for Budinger. He's not an incredible player, but he's serviceable, and he starts day #1 of training camp as the best wing in the Timberwolves wheelhouse. In Houston, he's found himself often slotted behind emerging prospects and fell out of favor with Kevin McHale after Adelman's departure. In Minnesota, he'll be playing a ton of minutes beside Rubio's incredible passing talent, and at no point will he really be asked to be anything more than what he is -- a sharpshooting, athletic, non-defensive swingman that has a penchant for threes and experience with the reigning head coach. He's not great defensively, but he's not bad either -- he's athletic with a long reach, and he tends to lay off his man and let his length do his job for him. It doesn't always work, mind you, but does it ever? In any event, the reality isn't nearly as bad as his reputation on defense, which can only be a good thing coming to a team that desperately needs to upgrade its defensive talent.

As for the threes? Budinger shot (no typo) 48% on corner threes last year -- and not on some paucity of attempts either, he shot 48 of 100 from there! Imagine that with Rubio to set him up. He's not incredible on catch-and-shoot threes, but if Pekovic and Love can work out some tough screens and disorient the defense, Budinger can get free and make life hell on the other team's perimeter defenders, which makes him the only Timberwolves wing with the ability to do that. Consider this: Budinger only shot 34% on above-the-break threes, which isn't phenomenal. But even that 34% number is better than any true wing player that was on the Timberwolves last season. Seriously. Even Budinger's worst three was better than the totality of any Timberwolves wing. It's a huge upgrade for the Timberwolves, and I think the pieces are in place for the Wolves to shock. As I was saying on Twitter last night, the Wolves are now in a gaggle of about five teams that could get the four seed if everything gels and they don't suffer injuries -- assuming OKC, SAS, and LAL have the top three seeds rather firmly held, that leaves the four seed totally up for grabs between MEM, LAC, DAL, DEN, and MIN -- all of which could be really good teams. Which also ignores Golden State and Utah, both solid young teams that could take leaps this year. Should be a really fun west.

Off the hardwood, Chase Budinger is a two-sport athlete. He actually grew up as a volleyball player, only switching to basketball full-time when he reached college and realized he'd make virtually no money if he followed his volleyball dreams. I learned this during the lockout, and immediately wondered if his second sport has impacted his NBA game -- to that end, I explicitly watched a few Rockets games watching nothing but Budinger's movements, both off-ball and on-ball, to try and answer that question. In short? It has. Budinger is a lot more comfortable on the court when he's moving around, following trajectories and gliding through defenders as he prepares to rise up and strike. He's more offensively effective when he's moving off screens than when he's simply standing around waiting for the ball, because his volleyball background has him so much more well-adapted to perpetual motion. It's actually pretty cool, when watching him as compared to other wings, to pay attention to how differently Budinger moves than other NBA players -- it's not jarring, and you have to be looking for it, but there's definitely a sense of volleyball fluidity in his motion that makes his off-ball stuff more engaging than the average bear.

• • •

__

__F__ollow Jared Jeffries on Twitter by searching his name and finding endlessly cruel jokes about him____._

I'll admit, I'm not the biggest Jared Jeffries fan. I'm generally a bigger fan of players with interesting defensive styles that bring a strange mix of skills to the table, but something about Jeffries has always rubbed me the wrong way. His help defense is consistent, but I think the reason I tend towards being a bit negative on Jeffries defensively is his man-to-man defense, which suffers from some element of Amare disease. (For the uninitiated: Amare disease refers to the frustrating tendency from modern big men to produce game-changing defensive brilliance every few possessions and then completely to either take every remaining possession off or make boneheaded mistakes wrought in too much effort -- it results in a below-average defender, but gives a fanbase enough room to imagine what the player would be like if they stopped messing around and started applying themselves. It's torturous to sit through.) His help defense is brilliant, and his defensive skillset is interesting and original. And he tries very, very hard -- on the D'Antoni Knicks teams, Jeffries tended to be the one guarding the opposing team's best player, no matter their size, simply because nobody else on the team cared to do it. But the Amare tendencies in terms of quality variance aren't fun to watch, and Jeffries does tend to make one or two big-picture mistakes on individual defense every night.

Neither is his offense, come to think of it. Last season, Jeffries shot 41% from the field -- this included shooting under 50% in the restricted area, not making a single shot in the paint outside the restricted area, and shooting a hilarious 36% from midrange and 21% from the corner three. Even for an offensive player generally regarded as so-so to poor, that's startlingly bad. He's OK at a few offensive tasks outside of shooting -- for instance, Novak and Jeffries had an excellent two-man game last season where Jeffries would set a (sometimes slightly dirty) screen to get Novak open and Novak would obligingly jump to the open shot and make the three. But his shooting and scoring is so downright bad that it often doesn't matter. Still, all this said? I can't abide Knicks fans like this particular lady, who create "I Hate Jared Jeffries" campaigns and scream to the heavens about how bad he is. At least Jeffries gives a damn, you know? He hustles, he works, and he doesn't complain about the concentrated monstrosity that is the New York media. I've not once heard Jeffries complain about the insane and unrealistic expectations Isiah's bad contract thrust upon him. I can't fully appreciate his defensive game, though it's decent. His offense is a horror show. But if Knicks fans like the ones in the comments here can learn to love him, why can't everyone learn to at least accept him?

• • •

Follow Tayshaun Prince on Twitter if he ever gets one.__

What is there to say about Tayshaun at this point of his career, honestly? He's finally falling off. His post scoring was never absolutely great, but it was passable -- last season he fell off a cliff and shot only 26% from 3-9 feet. His long jumper and his elbow midrange were still about the same as always (that is, not as good as he thinks despite the fact that he takes a million of them a night), and he made a few threes on slightly above league-average percentages. He also had a bit more trouble getting up than he used to. In 2011, Prince led the league in at-rim field goal percentage with a 77% mark -- that declined to 63% this year, which is still good, but certainly not league-leading. He's an effective ballhandler for such a strangely proportioned man, sporting the ninth lowest turnover percentage among rotation players in the entire league last season. But overall, I'd say he's a bit of a negative on the offensive end -- as I outlined in the Greg Monroe capsule, the Pistons seemed content to completely ignore Monroe's talents for virtually the entire season. Prince's ballhogging to take awful midrange shots he shouldn't be taking was one of the big reasons for that.

On defense, he's still somewhat effective. Prince has a ridiculous amount of length, with a wingspan essentially matching that of a quality center -- because of it, he can bother players from farther away and at lower risk of fouling. He averaged about one foul per game last year, which is pretty incredible given that he's generally guarding the best player on the opposing team. The problem with Prince is that as his back problems get worse and worse and his speed decreases with age, he's gotten less able to cover star wings. Putting Prince on LeBron used to at least distract LeBron, a bit -- now he doesn't do jack against him or any other truly elite offensive player. Prince ceded his place as the best perimeter stopper in the league years ago. He's basically an old, degraded cover band who had a top-10 single early in his career, a few decent albums, and finally has reached the stage of the career where he's touring for god-knows what reason and while it's still entertaining it's a bit embarrassing for those who remember how good he used to be.

I don't think Prince's current contract -- $28 million over 4 years -- is terrible in every context. It's terrible in the one Prince is in, though. Look, as talented as he once was, Prince is absolutely not worth $7 million dollars a year to be the 3rd or 4th best player on a lottery team. As the 3rd or 4th guy on a contending team with a lot of great bench pieces, playing the Shawn Marion role on some futuristic Dallas team? Sure -- THAT'S a situation where his contract would've make a ton of sense. But no contending team wanted the risk that came with Prince's back injury, and Joe Dumars apparently wanted to continue making himself look like a fool. So instead of pulling a Marion and riding out his waning years on a team that's got the talent to fit him in, he's spending his waning years chucking up bad shots at the expense of Greg Monroe and pretending to be one of the game's top stoppers on an abhorrent defensive team. At least he's got his ring, I suppose. Is there anyone else that's a little surprised that Shawn Marion has ended up to have more longevity than Prince, and has remained a core piece to a very good team as long as he has versus Prince becoming something of a liability? Kinda crazy.

• • •

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. Weagle bailed everyone out, because barely anyone got any of these guys right. (Which is fine with me, as honestly, I'm not huge fans of any player we've covered today, heh.) Anyway. He got 2/3. Wonder if anyone can get 3/3 on this set...

• Player #91 is on his last legs, and he's nowhere near where he once was. But that Phoenix training staff has been great for him.
• Even while Bosh was in Toronto, Player #92 was still the big man who Triano would assign to cover the best opposing big man.
• I can't believe I thought this was going to be a good signing for Phoenix back when it happened. Oh well. Player #93 is in New Orleans, now.

Mulling over whether to do evening capsules. May do it, may not. We'll see. If not, see you next week!

P.S. ... what the hell was that, Orlando?

P.P.S. ... no, seriously, what?!