Smush Parker "Struggling" in Miami--Who Knew?
Last season, I mentioned more than once (for instance,
here and
here, where I quoted
Sports Illustrated's Ian Thomsen, who called Parker "an undrafted D-League point guard") that a lot of the Lakers' problems stemmed from the fact that they had arguably the worst starting point guard in the NBA, Smush Parker. The reason I kept bringing up Parker is that, for some reason, some people thought that Kobe Bryant, who went on a scoring tear in the second half of the season that has not been seen since Wilt Chamberlain played, was holding the Lakers back. The reality is that anyone who watched even a few Lakers games could pretty quickly see that the Lakers were having more difficulties with their erratic point guard than their All-NBA shooting guard.
After Phil Jackson benched Parker in the playoffs I assumed that Parker's next destination would be the NBA Development League. I was very surprised when Parker was Miami's main offseason free agent acquisition. In my
Eastern Conference Preview, I wrote, "if Parker plays major minutes he will be worth five more losses in the standings." Honestly, I was truly astounded that a championship coach like Riley would want any part of a guy like Parker. Apparently, it only took Riley one regular season game
to see the light. Asked about why Parker has gotten two DNP-CDs (Did Not Play--Coach's Decision) since the season opener, Riley simply said that Parker has not played well enough. Parker met with Riley on Tuesday and he relayed to reporters what Riley told him: "He said he didn't like the way I was running the point, running the offense." Undrafted second year guard Chris Quinn has moved ahead of Parker in the rotation and the latest brainstorm in Miami is to shift Parker to shooting guard, where he is third on the depth chart behind Ricky Davis and rookie Daequan Cook; Parker is not likely to get too many minutes there, either, especially when Dwyane Wade comes back. Here is Parker's take on the position change: "I'm a point guard at heart, but he's playing me at (shooting guard). I just have to reboot my system."
posted by David Friedman @ 2:03 PM
Three-mendous: Peja's Long Range Bombing Destroys Lakers
Peja Stojakovic scored 36 points and Chris Paul had 19 points and a franchise-record 21 assists as the New Orleans Hornets improved to 4-0 with a 118-104 road win over the L.A. Lakers, who dropped to 2-2. Stojakovic set a franchise-record and a personal best by making 10 three pointers, two off of the NBA record that is shared by Kobe Bryant and Donyell Marshall. David West did solid work in the paint for the Hornets (22 points, eight rebounds) and even showed his range by stepping out to make a couple three pointers. Bryant finished with 28 points, seven assists, six rebounds and three blocked shots, shooting 11-20 from the field. Ronny Turiaf added 15 points and seven rebounds as the starting center, while Andrew Bynum came off of the bench to contribute eight points and a game-high 13 rebounds. The biggest problem for the Lakers in this game is that they repeatedly left Stojakovic open to double-team Paul when Paul drove into the lane. Lakers analyst Stu Lantz stated the obvious: you cannot give uncontested looks to a pure shooter like Stojakovic. The flip side of that is that Paul is not a great shooter (7-18 in this game), so his defender should be laying off of him and forcing him to shoot jump shots. As Lantz said after the game, the Lakers made a lot of mental errors during this game. Another thing that handicapped the Lakers is that Lamar Odom, Kwame Brown and Maurice Evans--three of their top eight rotation players--were on the inactive list.
Early in the game, Bryant drove to the hoop from the right wing, got to the rim but after shot blocker Tyson Chandler slid over Bryant attempted a wraparound pass to Chris Mihm that went out of bounds. "That's alright," said Lantz. "Obviously, you don't like any turnovers but if you're going to have them, have them be that kind where you're trying to help one of your teammates." Another reason that this was a "good" turnover is that the ball went out of bounds, so the Hornets had to inbound the ball and attack against a set defense. This is exactly the kind of thing I meant when I talked about how
statistical analysis of basketball only captures some of the "what" and none of the "how": you can chart a player's shooting percentage or turnover rate but those numbers don't tell you if the player creates his own shots or spots up, nor do they tell you if he is a careless ballhandler, a non-ballhandler who is simply sloppy with the ball on the few occasions that he gets it or a playmaker who handles the ball a lot and makes a lot of productive plays as a scorer and/or distributor.
Bryant did a lot of passing early in the game as the Hornets sprinted out to an 18-8 lead. Bryant did not attempt a field goal or free throw until there was 3:29 left in the first quarter, when his jumper pulled the Lakers to within 22-17. Just before that, Melvin Ely pushed Turiaf to get an offensive rebound but Bryant flew in out of nowhere to block his layup. If he has a chance, Bryant seems to be trying to block shots lefthanded due to his right wrist injury but this was a bang-bang play and Bryant had to use his right hand. Early in the season, Bryant is spending a lot of time in the paint, helping out on the boards and blocking shots; this is something that I anticipated during the preseason when I suggested that Bryant
may rue losing so much weight during the offseason because the team's depleted frontcourt sans Odom will need some help from him on the boards. Bryant finished the first quarter with four points on 2-3 shooting and the Lakers trailed 32-22. Jordan Farmar scored the Lakers' last three points by making a jumper and a free throw after Bobby Jackson fouled him right before time expired. Paul had six assists in the quarter, all of them in the first 5:44.
The Lakers' second unit made a good run early in the second period, cutting the Hornets' lead to 36-32 but New Orleans rebuilt the margin to 44-35. Bryant then returned to action after sitting out for the first part of the quarter. He made a hard baseline drive, missed a contested layup but got the offensive rebound and scored just before the 24 second clock expired. Then he made a jumper to cut the lead to 44-39. The teams traded baskets for the next few minutes. With 2:21 remaining, Bryant drove to the middle from the left wing and then whipped a gorgeous off the dribble pass to Turiaf, whose two handed dunk cut the New Orleans lead to 51-47. Later, a double-teamed Bryant lobbed a crosscourt pass to Walton, who buried a three pointer to make the score 55-52 New Orleans. With nine seconds left in the half, Bryant suckered Paul into fouling him behind the three point line and then he drained all three free throws, trimming the Hornets' lead to 57-55 at the half. Bryant had 11 points (4-7 field goal shooting, 3-3 free throw shooting), five rebounds, three assists and three blocked shots, while Paul had eight points and seven assists for the Hornets.
The Lakers went up 68-63 by the 7:55 mark in the third quarter and still led 72-68 with 5:19 remaining; Bryant contributed four points and four assists in the first 6:41 of the period. Then the Hornets used a 10-3 run to take a 78-75 lead. Bryant converted a three point play to tie the score at 78, but the Hornets used an 11-2 burst to go up 89-80 heading into the fourth quarter. Stojakovic scored 17 points in the period, shooting 5-7 from three point range as the Lakers inexplicably left him wide open several times.
The Lakers' bench cut the Hornets' lead to 91-87 early in the fourth quarter. Bryant returned to the game at the 6:59 mark with the Lakers trailing 96-89. He hit a three pointer to get the Lakers to within 100-94 but they never got closer than that the rest of the way as the Hornets drained three three pointers in the final 3:06. The Lakers executed their offense poorly down the stretch and also had numerous defensive breakdowns.
***Notes***
Hornets Coach Byron Scott was Bryant's teammate when Bryant first came into the league and Scott knew right from the beginning that Bryant was cut from a different kind of cloth than most NBA players: "Kobe was the one who was in the back of the bus reading Time Magazine. He wasn't reading the sports pages. So you could tell from a mental standpoint that he was a little bit farther ahead than an 18-year-old, and he already had goals and knew what he wanted to do. He point-blank told be one day when I asked him 'How do you want to be perceived in this league?' he said, 'I want to be the best player in this league.' I think he's been able to accomplish that goal."
This is not the first time that Scott has expressed such sentiments about Bryant.
Last season, Scott offered this recollection of Bryant's early years in the league: "He and I would sit down and talk about the '80s teams, the championship teams we had. [Bryant] wanted to know how good we were, what did it take for us to win, why were we so successful. All the questions that are normally asked by guys that are 20-something, not 18. I would expect an 18-year-old to ask where do we party, how are the girls in L.A. He didn't care about that. He just wasn't a regular 18-year-old kid. I knew that. He was very mature, already had in his mind pretty much what he wanted to accomplish. I remember we did an interview together in his rookie year. I called Kobe over and told the guys doing the show, 'You see this kid? He's going to be the best player in the league.' Three or four years later, I thought he was. To this day I still do...He has the competitive edge just like Magic [Johnson]. Whatever it was going to take to win, he was going to get it done."
posted by David Friedman @ 3:29 AM
ESPN's Chad Ford Takes Aim At Kobe Bryant's Trade Value
It has been public knowledge for several months that Kobe Bryant would like to be traded and Lakers owner Jerry Buss has publicly acknowledged that he is willing to deal the two-time defending NBA scoring champion. So why is Bryant still a Laker? ESPN's Chad Ford
asserts "Bryant's trade value isn't nearly as high as he or the Lakers would like to think." Ford lists four reasons that this is the case. Let's take a closer look at each one:
1) "Does Kobe have too much mileage?"
Ford's case: Bryant is only 29 but, because he came to the NBA straight out of high school and has been involved in many extended postseason runs, Bryant has played a total of 33,462 regular season and playoff minutes. Ford also mentions that Bryant has had a couple arthroscopic knee surgeries and he points out that Bryant is nearing the age when Michael Jordan retired for the first time, adding that when Jordan came back (nearly two years later) he was not quite the high flyer that he had been.
Why Ford's case is not built Ford tough: The arthroscopic surgery issue is a red herring. Nowadays, unless a more problematic condition is discovered during the procedure, this amounts to little more than a car getting a tuneup. Last year's surgery had such a bad effect on Bryant that he put up
the highest post-All-Star Game scoring average in the past 43 years. If I were building a team from scratch
then I agree with the NBA GMs who would take LeBron James over anyone. However, a team that trades for Bryant now is not planning on building from scratch; the Chicago Bulls or Dallas Mavericks--two teams that have been mentioned in the Bryant sweepstakes, though both currently deny that they are actively pursuing a deal--are trying to win right now. Bryant figures to remain the NBA's best player long enough to help either team to pursue that goal.
I have a rule of thumb: I distrust general conclusions made by people who cannot get their facts straight. Yes, anyone can make a mistake but if you have basic information wrong then I tend to suspect that you are either very sloppy or you have such an agenda that you won't allow facts to get in the way. Ford asserts that Bryant has played more regular season and playoff minutes than Allen Iverson; in fact, coming into this season Iverson has played 34,248 combined minutes, nearly 1000 more than Bryant. The Bryant-Iverson comparison is flawed for another, more fundamental reason: Bryant is much bigger physically than Iverson and therefore better able to withstand pounding. Most of the NBA players who have had the longest careers (other than freak of nature John Stockton) are big guys. Michael Jordan, who is roughly the same size as Bryant, proved that he could play at an MVP level in his mid-thirties and at a better than average level even in his forties. Bryant, like Jordan, is a conditioning fanatic, so there is every reason to believe that he has at least three to four high level seasons left and another few decent seasons after that if he is willing to continue to play during his declining years.
2) "Is Kobe really the best player in the NBA?"
Ford's case: Ford relies largely on John Hollinger's PER and Roland Beech's adjusted plus/minus to make the argument that Bryant is not really the best player in the NBA.
Why Ford's case is not built Ford tough: Ford notes at the start of his piece that he talked to several "NBA sources" about Bryant and later in the article he acknowledges that Bryant is widely considered to be the best player in the NBA--then he completely disregards expert opinion in favor of relying exclusively on the verdict of some statistical systems. It should be noted that those same systems ranked two-time MVP Steve Nash lower than Bryant last season. (NOTE: in an earlier version of this post I suggested that Beech did not intend for adjusted plus/minus to be used to compare players who played for different teams but the reality is that he made that statement about his on court/off court data, not adjusted plus/minus, proving that I should have reread my article titled
"Defining the Value of a Superstar," which correctly cites the Beech quote).
Obviously, calling one player the best player in the NBA is a subjective judgment; a good case could be made for perhaps a half dozen players. Nevertheless, there are very good reasons that NBA players, coaches and GMs generally say that Bryant is the best player in the NBA. Many of these reasons were on very public display when Bryant led Team USA to the gold medal in the FIBA Americas tournament.
3) "Is Kobe a winner?"
Ford's case: Ford acknowledges that Bryant has won three championships but then descends into practicing psychoanalysis without a psychiatry degree, writing "The best-selling book
Leadership and Self-Deception explains that leaders try to develop people who are even more capable and creative than they are. They are constantly in the process of creating future leaders. They are more interested in results than credit. Certainly Bryant wants to win. But he wants to win his way, according to many who have followed his career. And when you break it down, that translates to this attitude: I would rather lose my way than win your way. Bryant wants to win, but he also wants the most shots. He wants to be a great hero, not a great teammate or leader. He wants the credit." Ford concludes by saying that if LeBron James were available for a trade that it would not take months to get a deal done like it has for Bryant; to Ford, this proves that James is considered more of a winner than Bryant.
Why Ford's case is not built Ford tough: This is by far Ford's weakest argument. A careful reader will note that it consists entirely of speculation that is not supported by any facts, so let's supply the facts that Ford chose to ignore: Bryant was the leading playmaker on three championship teams, making the All-NBA and All-Defensive teams. One of those years he was in the top five in MVP voting. How can anyone watch the impact that Bryant had on Team USA--when he was clearly not trying to be a "great hero" or lead the team in scoring--and still believe that Bryant is not a winner?
As for the Bryant-James comparison, there are more questions about James' killer instinct than Bryant's. James is not yet a lockdown defender and at times he seems too passive on offense. One reason that James may be a more desirable acquisition now--if that is in fact the case; Ford did not prove that--is the age factor.
4) "Is Kobe worth it?"
Ford's case: Ford finally gets around to noting how difficult it is logistically to make a trade for Bryant due to Bryant's unique contract. A team would have to give up so much to get Bryant that there might not be enough left to make a title run. Ford concludes, "Most GMs prefer to stick with the status quo. Taking risks invites scrutiny from the media and fans, and tends to hasten a GM's dismissal, many feel. Doing nothing is simply safer."
Why Ford's case is not built Ford tough: Actually, this is the one valid point that Ford makes. The real reason that it is difficult to trade for Bryant is the unique contract he has, which Ford finally mentions at the end of his article--this should have been the first point. Bryant has a no-trade clause and a trade kicker; not only can he reject any deal but a team would have to give up so much (in personnel and contracts) to get him that there might not be enough left to make his new team any better than the Lakers are now. That, and not Ford's psychobabble, is the real reason that Bryant has not yet been traded. The reality is that Bryant is worth trading for if his new team can arrange to deal away primarily young players while keeping enough of a core intact for Bryant to lead the team on a title run.
Clarification: In my
recent post comparing Gilbert Arenas to Chad Johnson, I quoted a passage from Arenas' NBA.com blog, appending the comment "yes, I left the typos uncorrected." I was not being sarcastic; I just wanted to make it clear that I was quoting the text exactly as it appeared. Dave McMenamin, who is Arenas' ghostwriter, emailed me to say that the word "droff" is not a typo but rather a shorthand term that Arenas uses to mean "drop off."
posted by David Friedman @ 6:51 PM
Watching Games Versus Crunching Numbers
In many sports, including basketball, there is an ongoing debate between those who believe that players and teams are best evaluated by trained individuals watching the games versus those who believe that players and teams are best evaluated purely by crunching numbers. There are extremists on both sides--people who claim that the observation process is worthless because it is too subjective are pitted against those who have no interest in looking at statistics. The most reasonable approach is to combine observations--either one's own or those provided by qualified people (such as scouts)--with pertinent statistics. That still leaves two questions: what are the most important things to observe when watching a game and which are the most important statistics to consider? Many of my articles have dealt with the subject of how to watch/evaluate players, including my two part "Scout's Eye View of the Game" series (click
here for Part I and
here for Part II), so this post will focus on how to most effectively incorporate statistics into the overall evaluation process.
During a recent telecast, ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy explained which statistics he looked at first after a game when he was coaching: 1) true shooting percentage (which takes into account a player's field goal, three point and free throw shooting); 2) rebound percentage; 3) turnovers; 4) free throws made. On the other hand, Van Gundy said that fast break points and points in the paint are two statistics that he considers to be overrated; he noted that he does not like the way that fast break points are compiled but did not give a reason for rejecting the value of the points in the paint statistic. It is important to keep in mind that Van Gundy's list has more to do with evaluating his team's performance as a whole than ranking players individually. That said, his approach is solid. Even most people who are not in the "numbers" camp should be able to understand that raw field goal percentage is not a very meaningful statistic because it does not take into account the extra point from each three pointer nor does it give a player credit for drawing fouls and making free throws. Rebound percentage is more precise than total rebounds, which can be affected by pace considerations and how many shots are missed in a given game. Most coaches try to limit their team's turnovers to less than 15 per game, while free throws made can be a good indicator of a team's aggressiveness.
By considering the four factors that he listed, Van Gundy can quickly determine how well both teams shot the ball, how effectively they rebounded missed shots, how well they protected the ball and how aggressively they played. This is a good quick and dirty method for examining his team's performances in several vital areas. I am a little surprised that Van Gundy did not mention defensive field goal percentage, although perhaps he includes that in true shooting percentage (by looking at the true shooting percentage of the opposing team). Gregg Popovich and coaches on his "coaching tree" (like Cleveland's Mike Brown, who has ex-Popovich assistant Hank Egan on his staff) are among the many coaches who place a lot of emphasis on defensive field goal percentage.
While Van Gundy's system is a good way to look at a team's performance, I am not sure how useful it is to evaluate the performances of individual players for two reasons.
First, a team's overall true shooting percentage is important but individual true shooting percentages are not created equally because players have different roles; some players are called upon to create shots for themselves and their teammates, other players are spot up shooters and other players hardly shoot at all. If a player hardly shoots at all because he is primarily a rebounder, defender and/or screener, then his shooting percentage is not of primary importance (which is not to say that a coach does not want him to shoot well). Spot up shooters should have excellent true shooting percentages because they are spoon-fed the ball when they are wide open; on the other hand, just because a spot up shooter like Jason Kapono shoots better than a creator like Kobe Bryant we should not conclude that Kapono is more "efficient" than Bryant. Kapono is not asked to score 30 ppg and it is not likely that he could do so for an extended period of time; if all Bryant did was spot up and shoot wide open shots then his shooting percentage would go up but his value as a player would decrease because he would not be as productive as his skills enable him to be. Therefore, players should be compared to players who have similar roles (not necessarily even guys who are listed as playing the same position)
Second, while it is important that a team commit less than 15 turnovers per game, not all individual turnovers are equally bad--yes, they all are part of the team's total, but just like different players have different shooting responsibilities it is also true that different players have different ballhandling responsibilities. Most teams have one or two players who do the lion's share of the ballhandling and it is inevitable that they will commit some turnovers just because of how often the ball is in their hands. That is why some of the greatest players of all-time--like Magic Johnson--appear prominently in the record books in the turnover category. Of course it would be preferable if a player committed no turnovers or at least had very few such miscues but that is not realistic, so a great player's turnovers have to be considered in the context of his overall production. That does not mean that I am a big fan of looking at assist/turnover ratio, which I consider to be an artificial statistic because not all good passes become assists and not all turnovers are the result of bad passes. If a player is a very productive scorer and/or playmaker then he most likely will commit three to four turnovers a game; sure, if he could be productive with fewer turnovers that would be great but I would not cut Magic Johnson because he turned the ball over a lot. What should raise a red flag is if a player who does not handle the ball that frequently commits a lot of turnovers. If a team is fortunate enough to have a Magic Johnson, then most of its other players should not be committing many turnovers because he will do most of the ballhandling while the other players will benefit from receiving the ball in their best scoring areas. In other words, if a player like Magic Johnson commits three, four or even five turnovers that is not a big deal but if players who do not handle the ball that frequently are also committing that many turnovers then the team's total turnovers will be well above 15 and that will be a problem.
Another thing that is important to understand is that some kinds of turnovers are more damaging than others. For instance, if a player loses the ball because he dribbled into traffic or if he throws a bad pass that is stolen then the opposing team will have an excellent opportunity to score a fast break basket. However, an offensive foul or a ball that is dribbled or thrown out of bounds is like a made basket (without the two or three points of course) in the sense that the other team has to inbound the ball and try to score against a team's set defense (the offensive foul could be a problem of a different kind if it results in someone fouling out but right now we are looking specifically at the turnover issue). Last season, the players who committed the most turnovers were Dwight Howard, Eddy Curry, Steve Nash, Allen Iverson, Andre Iguodala, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Ben Gordon, Deron Williams and Gilbert Arenas. Iverson is often criticized for his turnovers but he scores a lot and distributes a lot of assists; the same is true of everyone else on that list except for three players: Howard and Curry commit far too many turnovers for players who have few ballhandling responsibilities, while Gordon is a jump shooter who does not have playmaking responsibilities and is not as productive overall as the other perimeter players on the list. Again, the issue is not assist/turnover ratio but rather the ratio of overall production to turnovers. Let's look at two of the NBA's best players, Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash. In 2006-07, Bryant committed 255 turnovers and Nash committed 287 turnovers but they committed their turnovers in very different ways. Bryant is a scorer who frequently slashes to the hoop, so--according to 82Games.com--he had 26 offensive fouls, 109 bad passes, 119 ballhandling turnovers and one miscellaneous turnover, while Nash had 11 offensive fouls, 223 bad passes, 53 ballhandling turnovers and one miscellaneous turnover. Both players committed turnovers at an acceptable rate considering their overall production and both players committed the kinds of turnovers that one would expect them to commit based on their roles.
This discussion of the limitations inherent in trying to evaluate individual players based on their shooting percentages and turnover rates illustrates the two main drawbacks with evaluating players primarily by statistics: numbers can only tell you some of the "what" and none of the "how"; numbers are useful for finding out who shoots the ball with the most accuracy or who had the most turnovers but only by observation can one provide the necessary context to understand what those numbers really mean. Another limitation of statistics is that they cannot capture in a meaningful, consistent way intangibles such as Bruce Bowen's man to man defense. Bowen does not get many steals or blocked shots yet he is universally recognized as the best perimeter defender in the NBA and, despite pedestrian statistics in most categories, is a starter for the NBA Champion Spurs. Yes, plus/minus data can give you a glimpse into Bowen's worth in a general way but no number or set of numbers really gives a clear description of exactly why he is so valuable.
I don't consider one statistic or one statistical system to be a "Holy Grail" in terms of individual player evaluation. I firmly believe that you have to look at a player's total profile: how he actually looks in games (in person if possible, otherwise on video) is one part of the picture, to be supplemented by his total statistical production. Some players are very dominant in one category but not so exceptional in most others (super rebounder Dennis Rodman is the classic example of this), while other players are productive across the board (Kobe Bryant, LeBron James are two examples of this). Watching a player perform is the only way to completely know what he does and how he does it; then you can look at his numbers compared to the numbers put up by other players who play the same position.
None of this means that I am against using statistics or even that I am against people trying to create a "Holy Grail" composite number that truly provides an accurate way to rate players--but until such a method is developed the best way to evaluate players will remain the tried and true approach of combining first hand observation with the judicious use of all available statistics. One excellent thing that has happened in recent years is the development of new ways of looking at players' statistical contributions, such as plus/minus (how well a player's team did while he was on the court) and adjusted plus/minus (the adjustment involves factoring in the contributions of the other nine players on the court to determine if the player in question really had a major impact or if he was basically an innocent bystander while others did the lion's share of the work).
posted by David Friedman @ 3:05 AM
Kobe Bryant and the Lakers are not having Commitment Issues
When I first saw the
Phil Jackson quote questioning Kobe Bryant's commitment to the team I thought that it was one of the silliest things that I had read in quite some time--but in case anyone actually took that nonsense seriously, Bryant is making sure that his actions completely refute it.
First he scored 45 points in a close loss to a strong Houston team in the season opener. Then he
had a double-double and a game-high +27 plus/minus rating as the Lakers routed last year's Pacific Division champion Phoenix Suns. On Sunday night, Bryant scored a game-high 33 points on 13-19 shooting as the Lakers beat the Utah Jazz 119-109. Bryant's plus/minus rating of +13 was second only to Andrew Bynum's +14 rating (Bynum shot 6-7 from the field and had 15 points and nine rebounds in just 19 minutes). Bryant also had five rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocked shots; the latter of those two rejections was a highlight reel play: Andrei Kirilenko stole the ball from Luke Walton and made a beeline for the hoop to throw down a two handed dunk only to have Bryant deliver an emphatic left handed rejection to maintain a 98-91 Lakers lead with 6:05 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Bryant takes a lot of pride in making that kind of defensive play: "I really, really enjoy that challenge, because it's a mano-a-mano type of thing where somebody challenges you to meet you at the rim. When you have that type of situation, they see that you're not going to take a charge because you're just lining them up. So they know they have to either go over the top of you or go through you. I saw him coming down on the wing, and I just tried to time it and get up there and see if I could catch him. I timed it pretty well."
Bryant helped to seal the win by scoring six points in the last 4:30 of the game. Keep in mind that Bryant is doing all of these things despite dealing with a balky right wrist. New/old Laker Derek Fisher struggled from the field (3-11) versus Utah but shot 13-14 from the free throw line, finishing with 19 points and five assists. Fisher is far from being an All-Star but his toughness and savvy make him a huge upgrade over the departed Smush Parker (who got his second consecutive Did Not Play-Coach's Decision on Sunday as his Heat fell to 0-3). Keep in mind that the Lakers are enjoying this early success without their second best player, the injured Lamar Odom. What these wins over Phoenix and Utah show is that Bryant does not need tons of help to lead a team to victory; he needs productive, focused efforts from the other starters plus some energy from the bench. Bynum and Jordan Farmar (12 points in 17 minutes) provided the latter against Utah. Bryant's commitment is not the issue in Lakerland and Fisher will give you everything he's got every night. If guys like Bynum and Farmar--plus Luke Walton, Ronny Turiaf and Odom when he returns--can provide some kind of consistent production then the Lakers can be a dangerous team. We saw that at the start of last season when the Lakers were a top four team in the West before Bynum hit the proverbial wall and several other frontcourt players went down with various injuries.
It should be obvious what the next "big" mainstream media story about the Lakers will be: how Phil Jackson cleverly motivated Bryant by publicly questioning his commitment. If you expect any "expert" or "analyst"--other than Hubie Brown, who steadfastly refused to buy into any nonsense about Bryant not playing hard--to say that Jackson's statement was inaccurate and that Jackson should not have said it then you don't understand how the media works. Simple facts like Bryant's statistics and wins by the Lakers can never, ever be allowed to get in the way of the "larger story," which in this case is that Bryant will (allegedly) pout until he is traded, thereby becoming a distraction to the team. If the Lakers win 15 games in a row, that story still cannot be abandoned; the wrinkle of Jackson as the master motivator who nipped Bryant's pouting in the bud will simply be grafted on to the main narrative. If you watch and listen closely enough, you will notice that many members of the media employ this technique in stories about matters more significant than NBA games but that is a story for another day.
posted by David Friedman @ 5:59 AM
The Score, the Key Stat, the Bottom Line: Saturday's NBA Games
The 2007-08 season is just five days old, so it is far too early to draw any sweeping conclusions, but even now it is becoming apparent that some teams are better than expected (most notably Indiana), some teams are worse than expected (Chicago jumps out here) and many teams are who we thought they were, for better or worse (San Antonio, Houston, Toronto on the good side, Sacramento, Memphis, Portland, Seattle, Miami, Washington on the not so good side).
It is worth mentioning again that Dallas started out 0-4 last year and finished with a 67-15 record. On the other hand, if your favorite team starts out 0-4 and does not have the reigning MVP, another All-Star and a deep bench then it is much more likely headed to the Draft Lottery than to the playoffs. Speaking of the Draft Lottery, at least one of last year's Eastern Conference playoff teams will make an unwanted trip to Secaucus assuming that Boston is a playoff team this year--and that provides a perfect segue to our first recap: say hello to the 0-3 Washington Wizards.
The Score:
Orlando 94, Washington 82The Key Stat: Gilbert Arenas scored just 10 points on 5-15 shooting, including 0-4 from three point range. He had six assists, three rebounds and two steals but did not attempt a free throw, committed six turnovers and had a -11 plus/minus rating (the other four Wizards starters actually had even worse ratings).
The Bottom Line: In recent years, the Wizards played lackluster defense and were soft inside. Now they have also turned into the gang that can't shoot straight. After setting an NBA record by missing all 16 of their three point shots on Friday, they went 6-23 from downtown versus Orlando. Perhaps Washington fans can take solace in watching last year's video of Arenas beating DeShawn Stevenson in a shooting contest--OK, maybe not. Of course, the more significant long term story here is the 2-1 Magic, who have Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu making enough perimeter shots to open up the middle for Dwight Howard. In a stunning development--well, not really--J.J. Redick has yet to start a game and did not even play versus the Wizards. The player who
David Thorpe assured us "could become a starter for a playoff team" has shot 0-3 from the field so far in 13 minutes of action.
The Score:
Indiana 121, Memphis 111The Key Stat: Jim O'Brien loves the three point shot but his Pacers made just four of 18 attempts; the other thing that he stresses is playing good defense and Indiana came through in that regard, forcing 27 turnovers and converting them into 36 points.
The Bottom Line: The Pacers could be the surprise team in the East this year. Memphis has serious point guard issues and is very soft defensively.
The Score:
Houston 89, Portland 80The Key Stat: Call rookie power forward Luis Scola "Mr. Intangible": he had eight points and eight rebounds in 19 minutes but posted a team best +15 plus/minus rating. He is a smart, tough player and will do even better after he gets fully acclimated to the NBA game.
The Bottom Line: Yao Ming (21 points, 12 rebounds) and Tracy McGrady (20 points, six assists) still fuel Houston but the two main Rockets now have some reliable boosters. Portland looked strong on opening night versus San Antonio but,
as I cautioned in my recap of that game, "it remains to be seen if the Trail Blazers will play at this level on a consistent basis." What we've seen since then are two more losses that give us a good indication that the young Blazers will be a very up and down team this year.
The Score:
Utah 133, Golden State 110The Key Stat: Golden State is sixth in the NBA in scoring (106.7 ppg) and 30th (i.e., dead last) in points allowed (123.3 ppg).
The Bottom Line: During last year's playoffs, I provided
the recipe to beat Golden State: "While it makes sense to slow the game down against Phoenix and pound the Suns to death in the paint--a strategy that almost worked even for the woefully undermanned Lakers in the 2006 playoffs--Golden State plays much more tenacious and scrappy halfcourt defense; the way to beat the Warriors is to run with them, wear them out and rely on the fact that your team cannot possibly have worse shot selection or shoot a lower percentage than the Warriors do. If the Mavericks would have run with the Warriors for the whole series then Dirk Nowitzki could have averaged about 30 ppg and Dallas would have won the series. If you don't believe that, just go back and look at the scores of the games that Golden State won and lost in this year's playoffs. Utah's Game Five win is, by far, the lowest scoring game that Golden State lost and the Jazz won more by attrition than anything else; the Warriors did not make a field goal in the last 3:39 of the game, exhausted after five games of running up and down the court with the Jazz and battling them in the paint. Golden State does not play good transition defense and uses a short rotation, so it makes no sense to slow the game down and fight against their octopus-like halfcourt defense." I also made this observation in reference to game five of the Utah-Golden State series: "Midway through the game, I realized exactly who the Warriors resemble: a team composed of five Gilbert Arenas clones--not in physical appearance, of course, but in style of play. Arenas shoots from anywhere at any time and when he is hot everything is beautiful. Of course, sooner or later bad shot selection catches up with you."
The Score:
Milwaukee 78, Chicago 72The Key Stat: Ben Wallace is averaging 4.3 ppg and 3.7 rpg. If he's done then the Bulls may be, too. His scoring average is not important but if he cannot provide rebounding and defense then youngsters Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah will have to step up quickly or the Bulls will just be living and dying--mostly dying--with their jump-shooting offense.
The Bottom Line: Chicago's identity is based on playing hard and playing smart. So far, the Bulls are doing neither. Have all the Kobe Bryant trade rumors and the unsettled contract situations of key players worn this team down? At this point, one must say that those things have been a factor. There is enough good, young talent on the roster to turn things around, so I'm not writing the Bulls off just yet. Rookie Yi Jianian had 16 points and eight rebounds in by far the best performance of his young career. This was Milwaukee's first win in three games and the Bulls look worse than the Bears right now, so I'm not ready to jump on the Bucks' bandwagon, if one in fact exists. Michael Redd is averaging 24.3 ppg but shooting just .407 from the field and .231 from three point range. The Bucks have more talent than they did last year but so do several other teams in the East, so that might not translate into an improved record for Milwaukee.
posted by David Friedman @ 2:38 AM
Surprise, Surprise: Lakers Totally Eclipse Suns
Kobe Bryant is a distraction--not to the Lakers but to the Chicago Bulls, whose fans chanted his name as their team fell to 0-2 with a 96-85 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. Meanwhile, Bryant had 16 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and three steals as the Lakers delivered the stunner of the first few days of the 2007-08 season, routing Phoenix 119-98 in the Suns' home opener. Bryant (+27), Jordan Farmar (+26) and Derek Fisher (+19) had the three best plus/minus ratings in this contest. In more conventional terms, Fisher scored 14 points on 7-9 shooting, while Farmar had eight points and three assists off the bench. Vladimir Radmanovic led the Lakers with 19 points and Andrew Bynum added 14 points and 13 rebounds as the Lakers annihilated the Suns 54-34 on the boards; Shawn Marion had 10 rebounds, Brian Skinner grabbed eight, Boris Diaw had five and no other Sun had more than three. Leandro Barbosa led Phoenix with 23 points. Steve Nash scored 19 points on 7-15 shooting but had just three assists, one steal and no rebounds while committing five turnovers. Stoudemire shot 2-10 from the field and finished with seven points and one rebound.
Early in the game, ESPN color commentator Hubie Brown agreed with Houston's Shane Battier, who said of Bryant that he never takes off even one possession in a 48 minute game. However, right after that, ESPN sideline reporter Ric Bucher described Bryant warming up by himself before the game and concluded his report by solemly intoning, "Whether he is showing it on the court or not, there is clearly a separation between he and the rest of the Lakers." Play by play announcer Dan Shulman then asked Brown if a team can be successful despite such a separation (never mind that how a player warmed up before one game hardly proves that there is such a separation). Brown replied sensibly, "Listen, that happens on a lot of great teams, depending upon how good that player is. Kobe Bryant is the number one player in this league. He is going to come out here and show everybody. Until management takes either a no trade (stance) or Kobe himself decides that he does not want to be traded, this is going to be fodder for the media. The big thing is, night in and night out, he is going to come out and show you that he is the number one player in the league."
Phoenix took an early 8-2 lead but the Lakers then went on a 17-4 run, with Fisher scoring eight points and Bryant scoring seven points; apparently, it does make a difference to have a legitimate point guard who not only puts defensive pressure on Nash but who also forces Nash to have to guard him--call it the anti-Smush Parker effect (Parker was a defensive sieve while shooting 2-13 from the field in the Lakers' five game loss to the Suns in last year's playoffs). By the end of the first quarter, the Lakers led 33-20. The Suns briefly cut the margin to nine in the second quarter but the Lakers eventually went up by as much as 17 before settling for a 63-50 halftime lead. The Lakers blew the game wide open in the third quarter, taking a 90-61 lead after Bryant fed Ronny Turiaf for a dunk. Bryant sat out the last 13:42 of the game.
It's such a shame for the know-it-all pundits that Kobe Bryant can go out and attempt 27 free throws in the first game of the season to refute questions about his commitment and that he can lead his team to a blowout road win against one of the top teams in the West despite his injured wrist and without the services of Lamar Odom, the Lakers' second best player. So many media members constructed their anti-Bryant stories with such care, only to have the cold, hard results of the basketball games--nationally televised for everyone to see--refute their "analysis."
It is fascinating to watch tremendous talent honed to a razor's edge sharpness by hard work. As much as people try to hate Bryant, he is so exceptional that at the end of the day he inevitably earns people's respect. In the Lakers' home opener, fans booed him at the start of the game but chanted his name at the end as he almost delivered victory from the jaws of defeat. On Friday, Phoenix' fans predictably booed Bryant at the start of the game but by the end they were booing their own team, a reversal of fortune perhaps even more shocking than the stark and completely unexpected verdict displayed on the scoreboard.
posted by David Friedman @ 7:37 AM
Gilbert Arenas is the NBA's "Ocho Cinco"
It is one thing for fans to like a player based on some combination of his skill, charisma and production but I just don't get the media's love affairs with Chad "Ocho Cinco" Johnson and Gilbert "Agent Zero" Arenas, two players who are such legends in their own minds that they nicknamed themselves (which is not quite the same as earning a nickname like "Dr. J," "the Pearl" or "the Glide"). I guess their popularity shows the value and power of being accessible to and friendly with members of the press. Arenas is everywhere now--he blogs at NBA.com (or, more accurately, he dictates some things to an actual writer who organizes these thoughts in a blog format) and he contributed to not one but two national magazines' NBA previews.
I talk
here about how Johnson's act is wearing thin with the 2-5 Cincinnati Bengals, so let's look at Arenas' resume. He displayed such a bad attitude during Team USA practices in 2006 that it is unlikely that he will ever be invited back. Meanwhile, Kobe Bryant--the man everyone seemingly loves to hate, the "bad" teammate, the "selfish" scorer--revitalized Team USA (along with Jason Kidd) in 2007 with his work ethic, unselfishness and defensive intensity. Arenas responded to being let go by Team USA not by trying to figure out how to get back in the good graces of the coaching staff but by lamenting that he has no college eligibility left to torch Mike Krzyzewski's Duke squad with 50 or 60 points and vowing to drop 50 on both Phoenix and Portland (whose coaches are Team USA assistants). While Arenas did score 54 points in an overtime victory against Phoenix,
he delivered just nine points in a 94-73 loss to Portland--and that was not for lack of trying, as he shot 3-15 from the field and had just two assists. Undaunted by either his failure or by how his misguided goal negatively affected his team's performance,
Arenas told me during All-Star Weekend that he was just "playing possum. I just tried to win the game. I want to hit 50 in their building; I didn’t want to hit 50 in my building...At the end of the day, I still have one more game against them. So if I score 50, hey, everything that I said was true." Arenas came up a mere 31 points shy of 50 in the rematch with Portland, shooting 4-16 from the field in a 100-98 loss. Prior to that game, he dictated this to his blog's ghostwriter: "I know coach is going to get mad for me saying this, but if I don’t score 50, damn it, there’s going to be a lot of shots to get to 50. You know, last time I shot 15 shots. At the end of the day, I want to win. It’s harder in this situation now because it’s winning time. Early in the season I can do that, I can go out there and just play reckless. But it’s more of a team thing now that we get these wins and we don’t droff – we don’t drop off. If I’m on fire, I’m on fire. If I’m not, just like last time, I’m not going to force anything" (yes, I left the typos uncorrected). Wizards Coach Eddie Jordan was less than thrilled by Arenas' shenanigans but the unsinkable Agent Zero, asked if he regretted his actions, replied, "No. I was a marked man in Phoenix and they couldn't do anything about it. Sometimes you shoot the bull's-eye and sometimes you don't."
Remember, this is the guy who many "experts" were trying to push as the MVP of the NBA last year.
Fast forward to this season. Arenas' newest brainstorm, conveyed via his ghostwritten blog on September 28, involved getting revenge on Jim O'Brien and the Boston Celtics: "Now, if anybody remembers back when I got drafted, I got a report back that the reason I dropped so far in the draft was that Jim O'Brien of the Celtics said that I was too immature and that I wasn't ready for the NBA. What really happened was that I had an Achilles injury and I went back to L.A. to go get it healed when I was supposed to have a two-day workout in Boston with O'Brien. He didn't like that. So word came back to me that he was trashing me and it put this knife through my chest about the Boston Celtics. Back in the day when I would day dream I thought that if I could score 100 points against any team it would be the Boston Celtics. Now, I knew it would never happen, but if I could do one thing in the NBA it would be to score 100 against Boston. So anyway, since everybody is back on the Boston bandwagon it brought back old memories. So listen here. On November 2nd, we're going to go into that building, we're opening up Boston. Right now I'm telling the Boston fans: You guys are going to lose. It's not going to be a victory for Boston. You might as well just cheer for me, because Boston isn't winning in Boston for the season opener. I'm sorry. "
Conveniently, Arenas' Wizards opened the season against O'Brien's Pacers before helping the Celtics kick off the Kevin Garnett-Paul Pierce-Ray Allen era in Boston on Friday night. Arenas scored 34 points on 10-25 shooting as Indiana beat Washington 119-110 in overtime on Wednesday. Arenas had a -10 plus/minus rating in that contest. After not accomplishing that mission, Agent Zero came up with an even worse performance against the Celtics, finishing with 21 points, five rebounds and just three assists, while shooting 5-20 from the field, including 0-5 from three point range--thus making a sizable contribution to Washington's record-setting 0-16 three point shooting; no other NBA team has ever attempted that many treys without hitting at least one. Boston routed Washington 103-83.
Arenas' guarantees are no more fun loving or harmless than Johnson's antics in Cincinnati; each player is distracting himself and his team. It is simply amazing how much nonsense we hear about Kobe Bryant being a potential distraction to the Lakers or Owens and Moss being possible time bombs on their teams but Arenas and Johnson are looked upon as harmless court jesters. Talk about a double standard--and the media's reaction to these players bothers me far more than anything that the players have done. What's more, while both Arenas and Johnson are All-Star level performers, neither one is dominant enough within the context of his sport to consistently deliver on his bold words. In the vernacular, their mouths write checks that their bodies cannot cash. All-time greats like Muhammad Ali, Joe Namath, Reggie Jackson and Michael Jordan talked trash and backed it up. Arenas and Johnson are not at that level and they should really consider ratcheting down their rhetoric a few notches and taking a look around their own sports at players who are better than they are. Terrell Owens, the wide receiver everyone loves to hate, says "Get your popcorn ready" but he does not hang a laminated sheet on his locker a la Chad Johnson asserting that no defensive back can cover him, nor does he wear a jacket trumpeting his eventual Hall of Fame induction. Randy Moss has acted a fool in a lot of ways in years past but this season he has been a model of decorum as he sets his sights on numerous receiving records. Does LeBron James call out teams and brag that he is going to drop 50 on them? Does Kobe Bryant do that? If anybody in the NBA has the skills to say such things and back it up it would be those two players.
James did trash talk Arenas once, but in a very subtle way and not for public consumption (though, ironically, Arenas himself later revealed what happened and James confirmed it); James walked up to Arenas prior to two last second free throws in game six of the 2006 playoffs and calmly told Arenas that if he missed then the Wizards would lose. Deep at the heart of all of Arenas' bragging there is most likely a lot of insecurity (unlike Jordan, who would invent grievances and then use them as motivation to annihilate his opponents) and James' cold blooded remark hit pay dirt. Arenas, normally an excellent free throw shooter, missed both shots and the Cavaliers won the game and the series. Arenas does not have to worry about that happening this year, because he and Ocho Cinco have one other thing in common: they will both be sitting at home come playoff time.
posted by David Friedman @ 5:12 AM
Rush, Rush: Pacers Rally From Seven Point Deficit to Freeze the Heat
The Indiana Pacers trailed the Miami Heat 82-75 with just 3:17 remaining but scored 12 straight points to escape with an 87-85 victory, Indiana's 11th straight win over Miami at Conseco Fieldhouse. Kareem Rush, who shot 0-2 from the field in the first three quarters, nailed back to back three pointers in a 36 second span to tie the game and then give Indiana an 85-82 lead. Rush is an aptly named player for a Jim O'Brien-coached team that wants to play an uptempo game and he also brings to the table a skill set that O'Brien loves: the ability to make three pointers. O'Brien told reporters before the game that he will never bench a player who has missed five shots in a row "as long as he is willing to take the sixth" but that he will sit down a player in a heartbeat if he fails to attempt an open shot. Rush has obviously completely bought in to that philosophy, saying after the game, "The gun is always loaded. If I'm open I'm going to take the shot. I knew we needed threes when I came in, so I came in firing. That's what they've got me here for."
Danny Granger led Indiana with 25 points and nine rebounds. He is thriving so far under O'Brien, averaging 22.5 ppg in two wins while shooting 17-30 from the field (.567). Ike Diogu had a strong performance off the bench (16 points, six rebounds) and Mike Dunleavy added 15 points. Jermaine O'Neal, who missed the first game of the season due to a knee injury, fouled out in only 24 minutes and showed his rust on offense (10 points on 2-9 shooting) but he contributed in many other ways, including nine rebounds, a career-high tying seven assists, three blocked shots and two steals. The Pacers blocked 13 shots, tying the team's Conseco Fieldhouse record and setting a single-game high in the young NBA season. Rookie guard Daequan Cook, making his first appearance in a regular season NBA game, led Miami with 17 points, shooting 7-12 from the field (including 3-4 from three point range) while also having five rebounds and three assists. Ricky Davis scored 13 points on 5-13 shooting but at least he chased after his misses, grabbing a career-high 14 rebounds. Shaquille O'Neal had his second consecutive double-single (eight points, seven rebounds) before fouling out with 5:26 remaining. The Heat led 76-74 at that point and, although Heat Coach Pat Riley said after the game that the team missed O'Neal's presence down the stretch, Miami went on a 6-1 run to take their biggest lead of the game right after he departed. O'Neal shot 4-13 from the field and committed six turnovers.
Indiana took a 12-4 lead to open the game but Miami rallied to tie the score at 22 before Diogu's layup gave the Pacers a 24-22 advantage at the end of the first quarter. Cook put his stamp on the game in the second quarter, scoring nine points on 4-5 shooting as Miami went up by as many as seven points. Indiana closed the quarter with a 12-4 run, capped off by two Granger three pointers, including one at the buzzer that gave Indiana a 48-47 halftime lead.
Miami took a quick 54-50 lead early in the third quarter but Indiana tied the score on Granger's three pointer at the 6:53 mark. Granger then hit another three pointer and Indiana stayed in front for the rest of the quarter. Neither team led by more than three points in the fourth quarter until the Heat made their mini-run right after O'Neal fouled out and then Rush responded with his dagger three pointers. Granger hit a jumper to put Indiana up 87-82 with just under 41 seconds left. Davis closed out the scoring with a three pointer from halfcourt just before the final buzzer sounded.
O'Brien was understandably happy with his team's effort, saying in his postgame standup, "People who don't believe this group is never going to give up should have been here. The harder you work, the more difficult it is to surrender. Larry (Bird) did a great job getting us some quality depth...he improved the team greatly."
Riley summed up the loss simply: "When it gets real, real, real competitive in two or three minute spurts, we won a number of them tonight and then at the end when it got real competitive they won the last one--a 10-0 run."
Cook was pleased, but not surprised, by his performance: "I felt great and I took advantage of my opportunity, like I've been saying for a while now...I've been working hard and coach told me, 'Always be ready and just bring energy.' That's what I did tonight. I was ready just like I was ready last night, whether I played or not."
After
Miami's loss to Detroit in the season opener, O'Neal complained that he did not get the ball enough in the post. I asked O'Neal if he was satisfied with the number of touches he got versus the Pacers and he replied, "It was OK--13 shots and I missed nine of them, so I was satisfied with the touches I got tonight. I just have to continue to take high percentage shots and just hit them."
While O'Neal had no complaints, point guard Jason Williams provided a strong indication that Miami's team chemistry is less than optimal. Asked to describe how the team adjusted after O'Neal fouled out, Williams instead offered this general comment about the game: "We played selfish as a team tonight. We played selfish. It's pretty self explanatory." Someone asked if he thought that the Heat gave the game away. Williams answered, "I don't think we give away anything. They might have took it more than we gave it away." Williams also said that he is not worried about the team's long losing streak (which includes the entire preseason plus being swept 4-0 by the Bulls in last year's playoffs) but rather is focused on the Heat's next game. His body language communicated how negatively he feels about the team's situation but before anyone could ask further questions a Miami Heat p.r. person thanked the media, which essentially means, "interview over."
*****************************
Notes From Courtside:
In his pregame standup, O'Brien was asked what has been the most pleasant surprise for him since taking the Indiana job. He answered, "Overall, I've been really happy with the work ethic that our guys have had from day one...We put them through a lot of pain preparing for the kind of tempo that we play and our attitude has been just fantastic. I have a group of guys who work hard together and really enjoy being around one another...I think that this team, if we can string some wins together, will maybe start believing that we are a little bit better than people think we are."
The only thing that he did not like about the team's season opening win against the Wizards was the number of first quarter turnovers: "The rest of the game, we did a good job of taking care of the basketball. When we run, that is no excuse for being lazy with your passes and throwing the basketball all over the place. We need to keep our turnovers down." There are a couple other areas that he also monitors to guard against slippage: "We need to start keeping our opponents off the foul line...and I always look for consistent (fast) tempo. Only in the (preseason) game against Memphis did we run for four quarters."
O'Brien also explained his philosophy for guarding Shaquille O'Neal: "We don't want him to get deep catches. If he gets deep, the ideal--and this is easier said than done--would be to get around and front him. That's hard to do. We will play him mostly one on one tonight. If he gets the ball out of the paint and starts to back his way in then we will come after him." Indiana stuck with this plan, validating
my observation that O'Neal's skills have declined to the point that teams can get away with not double-teaming him in certain situations. He is still a huge, physical force but he is no longer an explosive jumper, nor does he move well laterally, so his force is confined to a narrow area. Teams can guard him one on one unless he is so close to the basket that he can just turn and dunk the ball. Otherwise, it takes him so long to maneuver into the paint now that he is very prone to turning the ball over or committing an offensive foul; that extra time he spends backing down also leaves him vulnerable to guards swiping down and stealing the ball. He used to be so quick that if he was not doubled immediately on the catch that he could score at will.
O'Brien has a simple and direct way to convince his players to not be afraid to shoot open shots: "You tell each individual during practice one time after he passes up a shot that if ever he does it again you'll yank him. They immediately know that we want them to take open shots. We don't want any surprises. If you get open and you're a shooter, shoot the basketball. If you pass up an open shot early in the shot clock then all of a sudden you're up against the end of the shot clock struggling to get a good shot. From my standpoint, you have to take the first open look that you can get but you have to make sure that it's an open look; you don't want to take a bad shot early in the shot clock."
***
Cook played his high school basketball for Dayton (Ohio) Dunbar but he has received some bizarre coverage from the local newspaper, the
Dayton Daily News, which ran an article before the NBA draft
asserting that scouts "question everything about him, including his ability to understand the game." The truth is that scouts raved about his athletic ability and his shooting skills. That same piece suggested that the term "stat-stuffer" has negative connotations, when in fact it refers to a player who can fill up several box score categories. Just before the season, the
DDN suggested that Cook may be headed to the NBA Development League, so I can hardly wait to see their story about this game. As the saying goes, don't believe everything you read in the newspaper.
***
I asked an NBA scout to offer an off the record opinion about Miami's acquisition of Ricky Davis and Smush Parker. "They are desperate to bring in athletic talent," he explained. Davis can score but he also takes a lot of bad shots--some of which he makes. He added that, like Davis, Parker is a good athlete. "He needs to settle down and use his head" during games: "All he has to do is listen to Riley and use his athletic ability to do whatever Riley tells him to do." I countered that this sounds fine in theory but that Parker did not heed Phil Jackson's counsel so why would anyone think that he's going to listen to Riley? It's not like Parker was disobeying a fledgling coach who no one respects. My source conceded that since Parker did not respect Jackson's nine rings he may also not respect Riley's five rings. Riley found a good solution for the Parker problem, at least for one night: Parker received the dreaded DNP-CD (Did Not Play--Coach's Decision).
posted by David Friedman @ 2:57 AM
You Can Bank(s) on It: Three Marcus Banks Three Pointers Help Suns Rally to Beat the Sonics
The Seattle SuperSonics led at halftime and at the end of three quarters of their game with the Phoenix Suns but--as TNT's Doug Collins suspected--they did not possess the veteran savvy or toughness necessary to seal the deal. Marcus Banks made three three pointers in 55 seconds at the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth quarter to erase an 82-73 Seattle lead. Phoenix never trailed again en route to a 106-99 win; Banks finished with 12 points in 14 minutes and posted a +7 plus/minus rating. Amare Stoudemire led the Suns with 23 points and 11 rebounds, while Steve Nash overcame a slow start to finish with 18 points, 12 assists and seven rebounds. It was not a vintage performance for the two-time MVP, though, as he shot 6-13 from the field and committed seven turnovers. Shawn Marion had a double double (14 points, 11 rebounds), while Grant Hill contributed 13 points, six rebounds and five assists in his debut as a Sun. Kevin Durant had a game-high 27 points in the first home game of his NBA career. He shot 11-23 from the field but still does not display much of a floor game, recording just five rebounds, one assist, one blocked shot, no steals and six turnovers. Chris Wilcox had 23 points and 11 rebounds, helping Seattle to enjoy a 50-44 advantage on the glass and showing once again that teams can punish Phoenix' soft interior defense.
The game was close during the entire the first half, with Seattle claiming a 58-55 halftime lead after Damien Wilkins' buzzer beating three pointer from halfcourt. Durant had 18 points on 7-14 shooting. He connected on pullup jumpers, stepback jumpers and some fast break layups/dunks. Take a look at the score, though; Phoenix likes to seduce its opponents into a run and gun style, figuring that their superior athletes will prevail in the long run in that type of contest. In other words, Durant was not battling in the trenches against physical defenders.
Seattle began to pull away in the waning minutes of the third quarter as Durant took a breather. Wally Szczerbiak scored six points in 27 seconds as the SuperSonics took an 82-73 lead. As Collins said several times during the telecast, Nash and the Suns looked out of sorts. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Banks, a .326 career three point shooter who had just subbed in for Nash, started hitting three pointers like his name is Jason Kapono. The young Sonics never recovered from that barrage, though they did manage to keep the game close. Durant shot 2-7 from the field in the second half before hitting back to back jumpers, one of them a three pointer that pulled Seattle to within 96-93 with 3:44 remaining. He followed that up with two costly turnovers, though--a bad pass and an offensive foul. Nash and Stoudemire scored Phoenix' last 10 points.
The early returns after two games--Seattle lost to Denver 120-103 on Wednesday night--suggest that Seattle is going to play hard and maybe even be competitive for stretches against good teams before ultimately losing due to mental errors and lack of concentration. The fact that Seattle has looked good at times against two playoff teams should not confuse people into believing that the SuperSonics are going to be a playoff team themselves. The season has just begun and the young Seattle players are full of energy and enthusiasm; let's check back in a few months after Durant hits the rookie wall and some of the initial team spirit has been dulled by fairly constant losing. Even Collins, who offered nothing but praise for Durant during the telecast, conceded that Durant is too young to be expected to grab a game by the throat in the fourth quarter and lead his team to victory.
We no longer have to speculate about what Durant's summer league and preseason performances mean, so let's examine what he has done so far in his first two real NBA games. Everyone is so sure that Durant will be great that there is a real need for some objective evaluation. Charles Barkley lent some needed perspective after Ernie Johnson mentioned that the Phoenix-Seattle game would feature rookie "sensation" Kevin Durant; Barkley asked how someone can be a sensation after only one game. Johnson replied that he was referring to Durant's college achievements. They were just engaging in light hearted bantering but Barkley is right: just because someone did well--or even great--in college it is not guaranteed that he will be an NBA star. That said, Barkley believes that Durant will be very good once he puts on some weight; that will enable him to withstand body contact and finish plays in the paint. Kenny Smith noted that Durant already performs well in situations that require finesse but is much less effective when players have a chance to muscle him.
My two critiques of Durant during the summer league and the preseason were that he shot a very low percentage and that he did little to fill out any categories in the boxscore other than points and field goal attempts. Those things held true on Wednesday as Durant shot 7-22 from the field, scoring 18 points. He also had five rebounds, one assist, three steals and one blocked shot. NBA boxscores contain two additional statistics this season: plus/minus, which I discussed in
my previous post, and blocks against, which records how many times a player has his shot blocked. Durant had four of those in the Denver game, two more than anybody else on either team and a rather high number for a tall, athletic shooting guard. Obviously, Durant experienced some rookie jitters but despite that it is interesting that his plus/minus of -8 was actually significantly better than any of the other Seattle starters did. The fact that he can get off 22 shot attempts against NBA competition--and is confident enough to keep firing despite all of the misses and blocks--should not be taken lightly.
Durant looked much better against Phoenix. His shooting percentage was good and none of his attempts were blocked. However, there is still the issue that at this point in his career he does not do much other than shoot the ball. He does not rebound in traffic and has little to offer defensively beyond being long armed enough to deflect some balls to get steals. Durant made a nifty bounce pass early in the game that Nick Collison converted into a layup but that turned out to be Durant's only assist. Durant's length and athleticism already make him a difficult player to guard but he nullifies some of those advantages by playing a bit out of control at times, resulting in turnovers and rushed shots. The minutes and the shot attempts are obviously going to be there for him, so Durant will put up numbers but he is not truly an impact player yet at this stage. He is supposed to be a quick study but the advantages he gains by better understanding the NBA game will probably be minimized somewhat as the season progresses and his frail body wears down. Durant's biggest obstacle may very well be some of the ludicrous comparisons that are made in reference to him. Why on Earth did the AP writer who filed the Phoenix-Seattle game story feel it necessary to include the little nugget that Michael Jordan scored 16 and 21 points in his first two NBA games? Jordan averaged 28.2 ppg that year on .515 field goal shooting; he also led his team in rebounding, assists and steals. Durant is not going to approach Jordan's numbers in any of those categories.
LeBron James entered the NBA with a grown man's body; no veterans pushed him around because he was as big or bigger than they were. Jordan was on the slender side but he was wiry strong and much, much more polished than Durant is at this stage. In other words, Jordan and James were largely finished products by the time that they entered the league. They were All-Star level players right from the start--though James did not make the All-Star team as a rookie--and then they tweaked elements of their game in order to ascend to the All-NBA/MVP level. Durant is not a finished product like those guys, which is why I have not joined the herd that seems to take for granted that he will be an All-Star for years to come; Durant will have to both gain weight/strength and improve his floor game to reach All-Star level. Maybe he will do those things but that is not a given. Ralph Sampson entered the NBA as a lean finesse player. He tried very hard to gain weight but could never really keep it on due to the rigors of the long NBA season. He won Rookie of the Year and an All-Star MVP but then he got hurt and never reached the level that he had been expected to attain. Was his physique a factor with his injury problems? No one can really answer that definitively, just like no one can say for sure that Durant will put on--and maintain--the needed weight or that he will expand his game to include more than just shooting. However, I am encouraged by the progress that he has made since summer league and hopefully that is a sign of things to come.
posted by David Friedman @ 6:49 AM
King for a Day: Tayshaun Prince Leads Detroit to a Victory Over Miami
Tayshaun Prince set his career-high in scoring (34 points) and tied his career-high in rebounds (12) as the Detroit Pistons beat the Miami Heat, 91-80. Both teams played without their All-Star shooting guards: Miami's Dwyane Wade is still at least a couple weeks away from being cleared to play after his offseason surgeries, while Detroit's Richard Hamilton missed the game due to a family emergency. Hamilton's absence placed an added burden on Prince and he proved to be more than equal to the task. Chauncey Billups contributed 19 points and 11 assists but shot just 5-14 from the field. Rasheed Wallace (11 points on 4-13 shooting, eight rebounds) and Antonio McDyess (four points, four rebounds) did not contribute much, so Pistons fans should not treat this win as anything other than a victory over a team that is going to have to fight to get the eighth playoff spot; the jury is still out on how good Detroit really is this year and I suspect that those who place the Pistons among the three best teams in the East are overrating Detroit's playoff prospects. Ricky Davis led Miami with 23 points on 10-19 shooting; the athletic swingman is the main legitimate scoring option that the team has at the moment but his numbers are like cotton candy--nice on the surface but devoid of substance. Davis can easily average 18 ppg this season and thrill Heat fans by putting up 30 or 40 points in some games but he is a subpar performer in most other aspects of the game (three rebounds, no assists versus Detroit). It will be interesting to see how Davis reacts to having his minutes and shot attempts reduced when Wade returns. Shaquille O'Neal was the "Big Zero" in the first half, scoring no points on 0-1 shooting; he finished with nine points on 4-6 shooting, seven rebounds, two assists, no blocked shots and four turnovers. Udonis Haslem had 14 points and 10 rebounds and Jason Williams added 11 points and nine assists.
Miami took an early 10-4 lead, largely on the strength of Jason Williams breaking down Detroit's defense; he made a three pointer and had two assists during that stretch and he finished the quarter with six points and four assists. Detroit's defensive strategy regarding O'Neal quickly became apparent--double-team him and force other Miami players to make jump shots. O'Neal's first shot attempt was blocked by Wallace. O'Neal's post moves look labored and slow and he is not generating much lift or explosiveness. Double-teaming him is a good strategy as long as Miami continues to brick jumpers but if the Heat start connecting from outside it will be very interesting to see what O'Neal can still do against one-on-one coverage. It could very well be that he has slowed down to the extent that at least some teams can get away with not even bothering to double-team him, something that would have been unthinkable in previous years. By the end of the first quarter, Detroit led 26-22 and the Pistons would never trail again (Miami did manage to tie the score once).
O'Neal committed his third foul at the 6:30 mark of the second quarter, bowling over a hapless defender--something that, as TNT's Reggie Miller mentioned, used to be a trademark move for O'Neal and that used to be considered either a no-call or a blocking foul. Coach Pat Riley elected to sit O'Neal down for the remainder of the half. Miami trailed 35-29 at that point and the Heat did not lose any ground by halftime as Detroit enjoyed a 48-42 lead.
O'Neal's charging foul provides a good segue to an issue that has been discussed recently in the comments section to
this post at Best Ever Sports Talk: how important is a player's turnover rate in determining his overall value? Although an offensive foul is recorded as a turnover, the other team still has to score against a set defense. On the other hand, if a player throws the ball away or gets stripped then the other team may have an opportunity to score quickly in transition; for example, after O'Neal was stripped of the ball at the 7:33 mark in the third quarter the Pistons scored a fast break layup within five seconds. This is why team turnovers may be an important statistic but individual turnovers must be considered in the context of a player's role (his overall production and how much he handles the basketball) and also in the context of what kind of miscues he committed. For instance, even though Steve Nash has one of the highest turnover rates in the league he is not really hurting the Suns because the team's overall turnover rate is better than the league average; he has the ball in his hands the vast majority of the time--which by necessity limits his teammates' turnovers and leaves most of the ballhandling responsibilities in his capable hands--and when he gives it up then his teammates usually shoot without dribbling much. That means that they are less apt to turn the ball over; he keeps the ball, makes the decisions and therefore the seemingly large number of turnovers that he commits are more than acceptable in light of his total production.
Detroit briefly took an eight point lead in the third quarter but Smush Parker's layup at the 1:13 mark tied the score at 62. The Pistons then reeled off 12 straight points in the next six minutes to take control of the game. Parker made several poor plays during this stretch, forcing shots and turning the ball over when he committed an offensive foul after making an ill advised behind the back dribbling maneuver, leading TNT's Mike Fratello to say, "Pat Riley sees that they're not getting into anything (offensively). The ball is not getting into spots on the floor where they can attack and score. So he has to put Jason Williams back in." Riley did just that, but he left Parker in, electing to remove Davis, who he then put back in a minute later to replace Dorell Wright; Riley does not really have a wealth of options until Wade returns--Penny Hardaway was scoreless in eight minutes of action in his first regular season game in two years. Once Detroit built the double digit fourth quarter lead Miami never again got closer than nine points.
This year, the NBA is including plus/minus statistics in the box score for the first time. This measure, borrowed from hockey, simply shows a team's point differential during the minutes that each player was in the game. Plus/minus statistics can be "noisy" (imprecise) due to factors such as a small sample size of minutes, not accounting for which other players were on the court during the minutes in question (i.e., some players mainly compete against bench players, not starters) and not distinguishing between different phases of the game (such as meaningless garbage time production versus what a player does down the stretch in a close game). On the other hand, they can offer an interesting "quick and dirty" look at which players had the biggest impact--or at least which players were on the court during the biggest scoring runs. Miami's two big offseason acquisitions were Ricky Davis and Smush Parker. Although Davis led the Heat in scoring, they were outscored by 13 points when he was in the game. Parker's conventional numbers were terrible (seven points, 3-9 shooting, three rebounds, two assists, one steal in 26 minutes), and even a casual, uninformed fan watching the game could tell that he made several bad plays, so it is not surprising that he had the worst plus/minus total (-19) by far of any player on either team. This is actually pretty representative of how he played toward the end of his time with the Lakers, which is why
I wrote in my Eastern Conference Preview that if Parker plays significant minutes he will cost the Heat five wins. Let me stress again that one cannot get too carried away over unadjusted plus/minus data--let alone unadjusted plus/minus data from just one game--but if you combine that data with actually watching the game then you can begin to get some understanding. As TNT's broadcasting trio of Fratello, Miller and Marv Albert mentioned more than once, Davis seems to think that the entire Heat offense is simply built around him catching the ball and shooting it. O'Neal, for one, has already voiced his dissent: "We took a lot of jump shots, way too many jump shots. I'd like more than six shots if we're going to win, especially until Dwyane comes back."
Why do I expect Cleveland to bounce back from a horrible opening night performance but blithely dismiss Detroit's win and take such a negative view of Miami's prospects? The first thing that must be noted is that these were just the opening games of the season for all three squads, so it is too soon to make grand pronouncements about anything; I'm just relaying what I saw and trying to project what it most likely will mean down the line. Cleveland's nucleus is young (other than Ilgauskas) and displayed a commitment to defense throughout last season. Also, Cleveland's best player, LeBron James is young and healthy. Miami's commitment to defense is tenuous at best, their young superstar is not healthy and their other superstar is old and, realistically, is not a legitimate superstar at this stage of his career; the Heat should be a lot better once Wade makes a healthy return but there is a limit to what can reasonably be expected from this roster. Detroit's nucleus is aging and is not always on the same page with Coach Flip Saunders. The Pistons' performance level has gone done in recent postseasons, not up. Just based on talent and muscle memory alone the Pistons will easily post a solid regular season record but to call this a top three team in the East seems to be a bit of a stretch. Think about this logically: the "experts" keep saying that Cleveland is horrible and did not improve in the offseason--yet that horrible team beat Detroit in four straight playoff games last summer. Why should we believe right now that Detroit is a top three team in the East? Frankly, even if the Pistons post that kind of regular season record it would still be legitimate to wonder if Saunders can navigate them safely through the early rounds of the playoffs and all the way to the NBA Finals, something that he has yet to accomplish even once.
posted by David Friedman @ 4:25 AM
Not a Treat: Cleveland's Halloween Home Opener Delivers More Chills Than Thrills
The Cleveland Cavaliers made it to the 2007 NBA Finals on the strength of LeBron James' brilliant play plus great team defense and rebounding. Neither of the first two elements were up to par in Cleveland's home opener, a 92-74 loss to Dallas. The evening at Quicken Loans Arena began with the unveiling of the 2007 Eastern Conference Championship banner but by halftime the fans were serenading the Cavaliers with boos and shortly after the 9:00 minute mark of the fourth quarter many of the fans began heading for the exits in disgust. James finished with 10 points, five rebounds, four assists and five turnovers while shooting 2-11 from the field and 6-10 from the free throw line in what may very well rank as the worst performance of his young career; he actually played even more poorly than those meager numbers suggest, because he collected virtually all of his points, rebounds and assists in the second half when the outcome of the game was never seriously in doubt. Jason Terry led the Mavericks with 24 points, nailing six of his eight three point shots, including four of six in the second half; every time the Cavs even came close to threatening to possibly make a run it seemed like Terry hit a dagger from long range. Jerry Stackhouse added 17 points, Dirk Nowitzki had 15 points on 6-15 shooting from the field, eight rebounds and six assists and Devin Harris also reached double figures (13 points on 5-9 shooting). Ex-Cav Desagana Diop, now in shape and mobile, had eight points and 11 rebounds, doing most of that damage in the first quarter as Dallas took command of the game right from the jump. The only Cavalier who played well was Zydrunas Ilgauskas; he led the team in both scoring (17 points) and rebounding (18 rebounds). Drew Gooden had a decent game (12 points on 5-12 shooting, 10 rebounds) and guards Damon Jones and Daniel Gibson (eight points each) nailed some jumpers but did little else. Larry Hughes had an odd stat line: seven points on 2-13 shooting, three rebounds, two assists, seven steals and no turnovers in 36 minutes; his floor game was reasonable but not good enough to make up for that atrocious shooting.
Diop and Terry had eight points each in the first quarter as Dallas raced to a 29-15 lead by the end of the first 12 minutes. James put up a nearly invisible stat line: 0-3 shooting, no rebounds, one assist. Cleveland shot just 7-22 (.318) and provided no defensive resistance, allowing the Mavericks to connect on 12 of 22 attempts (.545). While fans will likely focus on James' bad game and the Cavaliers' poor shooting as a team, Coach Mike Brown offered a different perspective in his postgame standup: "The thing that we have to remember is that we're a defensive team first and that did not show tonight. In the first half we didn't defend at all. We've got to get back to the basics defensively. We need to shrink the floor. We've got to be in the right defensive position in order to help our teammates so they don't get layup after layup or dunk after dunk. It's paramount that we have to defend and then the rest of the game will come eventually." He noted that Cleveland has won 50 games each of the past two years by relying on playing good defense night in and night out, the theory being that even when the Cavaliers shoot poorly they can still be competitive by getting stops.
James picked up his second and third fouls within a 15 second stretch in the second quarter. The Cavaliers trailed 43-25 at that point and Coach Brown elected to sit James for the rest of the half. ESPN commentator Jeff Van Gundy disagreed with that decision, saying that he does not believe in reflexively benching a player just because he gets two fouls in the first quarter or three fouls in the second quarter. In this particular instance, Van Gundy said that without James the game could get so out of hand by halftime that his foul situation could be rendered irrelevant. Granting that leaving James in would incur some risk, Van Gundy concluded that the risk/reward ratio favored not benching James, particularly because he is an intelligent player who would likely know how to play effectively while in foul trouble. Of course, on this night James' game seemed off regardless of how many fouls he had. The Cavaliers pulled to within 43-30 with James sitting but by halftime they trailed 54-34. In just under 14 minutes of play in the first half, James shot 0-4, scored no points, grabbed no rebounds, had one assist and turned the ball over twice. Anybody can have an off shooting night but it is difficult to recall an instance of a player of his caliber having that little of an impact on a game without an injury being a mitigating factor. The sellout crowd of 20,562 voiced its displeasure very loudly as the teams headed to the locker rooms. As Larry Durstin said to me while we looked at the halftime stats, the fans were saying "Boo" and it had nothing to do with Halloween.
When ESPN's Steve Levy anchors SportsCenter, he will often quip during NBA highlights as a team mounts a comeback, "It's the NBA--everybody makes a run." Well, the Cavaliers never did, unless you count getting within 15 points. For a good portion of the third quarter, Dallas led by more than 20. Back to back three pointers by Damon Jones cut the margin to 67-50 and near the end of the period James made two free throws to trim the lead to 72-57 but then Terry answered with a three pointer and Harris hit a long three pointer at the buzzer to put Dallas up 78-59 going into the fourth quarter. Dallas slowly pulled away in the final period and after Terry's three pointer made the score 84-61 at the 8:47 mark it was like someone gave out an evacuation signal: seemingly all at once a sizable portion of the crowd stood up and left. The brightly lit Eastern Conference Championship banner suddenly looked very lonely.
Short of an injury to James it is hard to imagine a more deflating or discouraging beginning to the season for Cleveland. Anyone can have a bad shooting night but it was strange to see a player as talented as James not impose his will on the game in some fashion; for long stretches you didn't even really notice that he was on the court. Imagine if Kobe Bryant had played like that on Tuesday. However, just because most of the media goes overboard in reacting to and overanalyzing every move that Bryant makes and every shot that he takes or doesn't take (see below for Van Gundy's take on this), it is not fair to dissect James' performance in that fashion. The simple truth is that even great players sometimes just have an off night; if James strings together several games like this, then there will be something to analyze and talk about. Meanwhile, Charles Barkley and other critics of the Cavaliers certainly must feel very justified in their stance now, while my pick that Cleveland will successfully defend its Eastern crown does not look great at the moment. It is important to maintain some perspective here and not race to conclusions after one game. Dallas lost its first four games last year and still finished 67-15; speaking of that, it's not like the Cavaliers lost to the Sisters of the Poor. Dallas is a very good team--first round playoff exit notwithstanding--and I expect the Mavs to battle the Spurs tooth and nail in the Western Conference Finals to determine which team will beat the Eastern Conference representative in the NBA Finals. Also, the Cavaliers played without key rotation players Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic (though, to be fair, the Mavs were without suspended All-Star Josh Howard). Pavlovic just re-signed with the team and is expected to play on Friday. The bottom line is this: Dallas is very, very good and--unless you believe that James has suddenly and completely forgotten how to play and that the Cavaliers cannot regain their stride defensively--Cleveland is not nearly as bad as this performance suggests. Many people make a big fuss about the fact that several Eastern Conference teams upgraded their rosters while Cleveland basically stood pat--but this ignores the reality that Cleveland proved to be the best team in the Eastern Conference last year. For some reason, everyone acts like that was a fluke but the onus was on the other teams to try to better themselves to knock off Cleveland. It made no sense for Cleveland to make a deal just to make a deal if there was not a real opportunity to improve the team.
*****************************
Notes From Courtside:
During Coach Brown's pregame standup, I asked him the following question: "Despite making the Finals last year, there are a lot of people who are predicting that the Cavs might not even make the playoffs this year. In a strange way, does that actually provide a motivational tool for you to use with the team to fight against complacency, to kind of have an 'us against the world' philosophy?" He answered, "I've never been a bulletin board guy with newspapers or clippings from TV or magazine articles or anything like that. I guarantee if you go back to last year there were a lot of people who did not pick us to win 50 again or make it to the NBA Finals. A lot of people get paid money to write things and say things on TV. That's great because it is entertaining but I don't listen to it." I followed up by asking him if it is possible that people underrate the Cavs because they simply look at the roster on paper and do not take into account that the team hangs its hat game in and game out on playing good defense to provide a winning foundation. Brown smiled and said that this is certainly the foundation that he is trying to lay (little did we know some of the cracks that would appear in that foundation less than an hour later) and added, "I don't spend time
at all trying even to figure out what guys think and say (about the Cavs) or why they are saying it, so I don't know why people think that (the Cavs won't do well this year) and I don't even want to assume why people pick us where they pick us."
***
During the ESPN telecast, Van Gundy offered his take on the Kobe Bryant saga: "Stop already with the Kobe stuff! There should be a moratorium on that right now." Play by play man Mike Breen countered, "This is the number one story," to which Van Gundy replied, "The guy got 27 free throws in a game is the number one story. That guy was on the attack the other night. I'm just saying, can we let a situation (develop)? It's like constant bombardment; I mean, people are taking shots at this guy. He could have had 50 easily if he had not missed so many free throws, with a sore wrist I might add, and without practicing and he looked like he could have played 48 minutes. Sometimes we get so wrapped up--a player's greatest strength can also be his greatest weakness. He's passionate, he's competitive. Has he said some things that he would probably would like to take back? Maybe so, but everything is overanalyzed to the point where it is harmful." Breen responded that this media feeding frenzy creates a distraction for the Lakers but Van Gundy does not buy that: "They didn't lose the other night because they were distracted. They lost because they have a very weak starting unit. Think about who is starting around Kobe Bryant: Derek Fisher, Luke Walton, Ronny Turiaf and Kwame Brown. That is not good enough to be a really good team. They miss Lamar Odom badly."
***
The loudest cheers of the night, by far, came during the timeout between the third and fourth quarters when the Cavs' "Scream Team" dancers reenacted part of Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Their costumes and moves really captured the feel of that classic video but when your dance team is getting way more applause than your basketball team it is not a good night for the franchise.
***
During a couple timeouts, the huge video screen on the overhead scoreboard displayed some spoofs of Mark Cuban's famous stint on "Dancing With the Stars." After one of these satires, the camera panned to where Cuban was sitting in the stands. He offered a good natured smile and thumbs-up while mouthing, "Go Mavs."
posted by David Friedman @ 8:00 AM
