20 Second Timeout

Paul and West Lead Hornets to 116-105 Win Over Lakers

David West scored a career-high tying 40 points--including 15 in the fourth quarter--and grabbed 11 rebounds as the New Orleans Hornets defeated the L.A. Lakers in L.A., 116-105. West shot 14-23 from the field and 12-13 from the free throw line. This victory snapped the Lakers' 15 game home winning streak and is the Hornets' first win this season versus the Lakers after suffering two home losses to the defending Western Conference champions. Chris Paul scored 32 points and was credited with 15 assists; he also had three steals, three rebounds and no turnovers while playing a game-high 44 minutes. Paul shot 11-24 from the field and 9-9 from the free throw line. Kobe Bryant almost single-handedly willed the Lakers to victory, scoring 39 points--including 20 in the third quarter as the Lakers came from behind to take the lead--on 14-22 field goal shooting. Bryant shot 6-7 from three point range and 5-6 from the free throw line. He also had a team-high seven assists. However, the Lakers were outrebounded 44-39 and outshot from the field .506 to .419; the Lakers other than Bryant combined to shoot just 22-64 (.344). Derek Fisher scored 19 points but shot just 6-18 from the field, while big men Pau Gasol (10 points on 3-8 shooting) and Andrew Bynum (seven points on 2-7 shooting) were invisible for most of the game. The Lakers entered the game without the services of injured reserves Jordan Farmar and Luke Walton and their depth was further eroded when Lamar Odom hyperextended his knee after scoring 12 points in just 12:39 of action. He is scheduled to receive an MRI on the knee and will miss the Lakers' game tonight versus Golden State.

This game really highlighted the skill sets of West, Paul and Bryant. One of the reasons that West is still underrated is that many people incorrectly believe that he is very dependent on Paul's passing. Obviously, every Hornet benefits from playing alongside the best point guard in the NBA but West would be a 20 ppg scorer for any team in the NBA and could in fact post an even higher scoring average if he played for a team that provided him more field goal attempts (he averages just 15.6 FGA/game). He can score with his back to the basket, he is a good driver and his jump shot is deadly. He is also an .831 free throw shooter for his career, including .891 this season.

Paul is a wondrous ballhandler and passer. It is very difficult to keep him out of the lane and almost impossible to contain him once he gets there; when Paul gets into the paint, he usually scores, draws a foul or feeds a teammate for a wide open shot. He has improved his field goal percentage each season of his career, has become a reliable three point shooter and is an outstanding free throw shooter. His passes are creative, accurate and easy to handle. Unlike Steve Nash, he is not a defensive liability. In fact, Paul is very disruptive defensively because of his quick hands and toughness. Early in his career, some of the more muscular point guards could overpower him but that is not really the case anymore. He plays with an edge, often looks like he is ticked off about something and is absolutely fearless. Detroit Coach Chuck Daly once said of his Hall of Fame point guard Isiah Thomas that if Thomas were 6-6 he'd be the best player in the NBA. Of course, Thomas was listed at 6-1 and may barely have been 6-0, much like Paul is listed at 6-0 but may be shorter than that. Paul is the best point guard in the game today and one of the top players in the league but, just like Thomas was never quite as dominant as Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan, Paul's size prevents him from being quite as dominant as Kobe Bryant or LeBron James.

Bryant was the best player in the NBA in 2006 and 2007 but the media members who vote for MVP were reluctant to acknowledge this fact. Last year, Bryant led the Lakers to the best record in the toughest Western Conference regular season race ever and the media finally awarded him his first MVP. This season, LeBron James has certainly been an MVP caliber player (as he was last season, even though he was not quite as good as Bryant) but it just seems like a lot of people are looking for excuses to not vote for Bryant. The reality is that in many ways Bryant is actually performing even better this season than he did last season and his Lakers are currently tied with James' Cavs for the best record in the NBA (27-6). Bryant is shooting a career-high .484 from the field, is shooting just .002 below his career-high free throw percentage and, after a slow start behind the arc, his three point shooting percentage (.366) is his best since 2002-03 (.383). James' field goal percentage will likely always be a bit higher than Bryant's because James is an inside player but James still cannot match Bryant's midrange, free throw or long range accuracy; James' career-high .779 free throw percentage this season would be a career low for Bryant and James' three point shooting percentage has declined for the fourth straight year. James' midrange jumper is still erratic, deadly on occasion but frequently off the mark. Bryant's scoring average is down slightly from last season but he is actually scoring more points per minute. Early in the season, Bryant gave his teammates plenty of opportunities to shoulder more of the scoring load but it has become increasingly clear that the Lakers still need a lot of scoring punch from Bryant to close out games; he leads the league with 30 games of at least 20 points and he has scored at least 25 points in 12 straight games.

Recently, it has become an annual tradition to suggest that Bryant's athleticism is beginning to decline; considering his age and the number of games that he has played that is probably true but this has yet to affect his productivity, nor has it prevented him from still making spectacular plays at both ends of the court. Near the end of this game, Rasual Butler seemed to have an uncontested fast break layup but Bryant ran him down, cleanly pinned his shot to the backboard with two hands, swept down the rebound and then dribbled down court before feeding Fisher for a three pointer. Bryant's block looked just like Michael Jordan's two handed rejection of Ron Mercer in the waning days of Jordan's career; a glimpse of that play can be seen near the end of what I have called the greatest NBA commercial of all-time.

Is Bryant as freakishly athletic, explosive and strong as James? No, but Bryant is still very, very athletic and the combination of that kind of athleticism with a basketball skill set devoid of weaknesses still makes him the game's best player.

While this game showcased the skill sets of three outstanding players, it also provided an opportunity for me to continue my research into how assists are counted by NBA scorekeepers. Last season, I noticed that Chris Paul often receives credit for assists on plays that according to the rule book should not be scored as assists (see the postscript to this post if you are not sure how assists are formally defined). I had charted Paul's assists in four games prior to this game. Charting Assists for Chris Paul and Tony Parker in New Orleans' 90-83 Victory Over San Antonio is my most recent post on this subject and it contains links to each of my previous efforts to monitor Paul's actual assists compared to the number listed in the official box scores. In those four games, there were a total of 46 plays that I charted in which Paul was credited with assists but by the correct interpretation of scorekeeping guidelines he should only have been credited with 34 assists. That is obviously a very small sample size but it is disconcerting that the league leader in this category may be getting credit for 25% more assists than he actually delivered. All four of those games were played in New Orleans, so it is reasonable to wonder if Paul benefits from a generous home town scorekeeper. To be honest, though, I don't really think that this will prove to be the case; my theory is that the general application of the correct standard for assists has been loosened and that this particularly favors players who do virtually all of the ballhandling for their teams, guys like Paul, Steve Nash and Deron Williams.

There is some statistical evidence to support the assertion that assists are awarded more generously now: as I noted in one of my earlier posts, assists were awarded on 52.2% of made field goals in the 1961-62 season but in the 2007-08 season assists were awarded on 58.4% of field goals. Why does this matter? One, it distorts the record book and results in faulty comparisons between today's playmakers and the playmakers of yesteryear. Two, these errors--combined with the subjectivity and/or inaccuracies involved in tracking other statistical categories such as rebounds, steals, blocked shots and turnovers--skew the basic data used by basketball statistical analysts and thus introduces an even higher margin of error into their player and team rankings than would otherwise exist.

I charted assists for both Paul and Bryant in this game; Paul leads the NBA in assists with an 11.6 apg average, while Bryant tops the Lakers with a 4.2 apg average. My methodology was simple and straightforward; every time Paul or Bryant made a pass that should be credited as an assist, I noted the time/situation. After the game was over, I compared my notes to the official play by play sheet. Here are the results:

Chris Paul's 15 Assists

1: Peja Stojakovic three pointer, 9:11 1st q: Correct; this was a straightforward catch and shoot play.
2: Tyson Chandler dunk, 6:20 1st q: Correct; alley-oop play.
3: David West jumper, 5:38 1st q: Incorrect; West caught the ball, dribbled twice and then made a contested jumper. He did the bulk of the work in creating the shot and thus no assist should have been awarded. It is important to remember that the last pass prior to a shot being made is not automatically worthy of being classified as an assist. Essentially, Paul gave the ball to West and West used his one on one skills to create his own shot.
4: David West turnaround fadeaway jumper, 5:12 1st q: Incorrect; just the play by play description of the shot is a good indicator that an assist should not have been awarded. West caught the ball, dribbled twice and then made a tough turnaround, fadeaway jumper. If an assist is going to be awarded on this kind of play then the statistic loses any meaning or relevance because that would mean that an assist could be awarded on virtually every made field goal.
5: Rasual Butler three pointer, 6:15 2nd q: Correct; catch and shoot.
6: David West jump shot, 5:42 2nd q: Correct; catch and shoot.
7: Devin Brown layup, :58.8 2nd q: Incorrect; Chris Paul threw a full court inbounds pass to Devin Brown, who caught the ball, took two dribbles and then scored a layup while being contested by Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher. Paul's pass was so gorgeous that I can understand the temptation to want to reward him in some way but the fact that Brown had to defeat two defenders with his individual skill set makes this assist dubious at best. There would be no question that Paul deserved an assist--regardless of the number of dribbles Brown took--if no defenders had obstructed Brown's path but once a scorer has to evade obstacles on his own then an assist really should not be awarded.
8: David West jump shot; 9:29 3rd q: Correct; catch and shoot (oddly, the play by play sheet records this shot as a layup but it actually was an elbow jumper; in any case, Paul did deserve an assist in this case).
9: Tyson Chandler layup, 9:08 3rd q: Correct; Paul's pass created the shot so well that there was minimal defensive resistance.
10: Rasual Butler fast break dunk, 8:18 3rd q: Correct; Paul's slick feed created the scoring opportunity.
11: David West jump shot, 7:45 3rd q: Correct; catch and shoot.
12: Peja Stojakovic three pointer, 4:42 3rd q: Correct; catch and shoot.
13: David West dunk, :48 3rd q: Correct; Paul's feed created the shot opportunity.
14: Rasual Butler three pointer, 7:41 4th q: Correct; catch and shoot.
15: James Posey three pointer, 5:34 4th q: Correct; catch and shoot.

Kobe Bryant's Seven Assists

1: Trevor Ariza three pointer, :23 2nd q: Correct; catch and shoot.
2: Derek Fisher three pointer, 10:16 3rd q: Correct; catch and shoot.
3: Derek Fisher three pointer, 3:18 3rd q: Correct; catch and shoot. Bryant made his first seven field goal attempts of the third quarter, so the Hornets began running a second defender at him no matter where he was on the court. In this case, Bryant was behind the three point line, but Paul just left Fisher wide open in order to trap Bryant and try to prevent him from shooting.
4: Pau Gasol slam dunk, 1:33 3rd q: Correct; Bryant elevated as if he was going to shoot a three pointer and then fired a pass to Gasol for an easy, uncontested dunk.
5: Trevor Ariza three pointer, 8:31 4th q: Correct; catch and shoot.
6: Derek Fisher three pointer, 4:36 4th q: Correct; catch and shoot.
7: Derek Fisher three pointer, :36 4th q: Correct; catch and shoot.

Paul was credited with 15 assists but he really had 12, while Bryant earned each of the seven assists for which he received credit. That means that I have now charted 61 official Paul assists, only 46 of which (75.4%) fit the rulebook definition. What difference does this make? Paul has averaged 18.5 ppg and 9.7 apg in 253 career games, so he is one of just four players (Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas are the others) to average at least 18 ppg and 9 apg in their careers--but if Paul's assist totals have really been inflated by 25% then he has actually produced 7.3 apg, not 9.7 apg. In all of the games for which I have tracked assists, I have yet to find a single instance in which Paul should have received credit for an assist but did not; the errors always fall on the side of giving too much credit.

One thing that I have found very interesting while charting Paul's assists is that Paul gets credit for assists on certain kinds of plays for which other players who make similar passes do not get credit for assists. For example, at the 11:30 mark of the third quarter, Rasual Butler passed to David West, who took three dribbles before making a jumper; when Paul has made the pass on that kind of play in the games that I have charted he almost always gets an assist but in this instance Butler did not. During the telecast, a graphic showed that Paul gets more assists on passes to West than any other playmaker in the league gets passing to any one player; second on the list is the Rajon Rondo to Kevin Garnett combination and I'm pretty sure that most of those connections are alley-oop dunks that are correctly scored as assists. I think that it would be very interesting to do a video review of each of the Paul-West plays on which assists were tallied to see how many of those assists fit the rulebook definition.

After Bryant's third assist, Lakers color commentator Stu Lantz said, "Kobe is really making it easy for other players now because they (the Hornets) are sending everybody at him." Bryant is regularly double-teamed anyway but after his 20 point third quarter explosion the Hornets changed their defensive strategy and went with a plan that was very reminiscent of what the Celtics did in last year's Finals: send waves of players at Bryant from all angles and dare any other Laker to make an open shot. The fact that this strategy can work against the Lakers even on a night when Bryant had 39 points and seven assists while shooting .636 from the field belies the description of how talented this team is supposed to be; at times--particularly in the fourth quarter--the Lakers looked like a primary school team that has one really, really good player and four other guys who are unwilling or unable to make a play. There were at least a half dozen times that Bryant drew two defenders and kicked the ball to a wide open shooter who missed; no one makes every shot that he takes but an NBA player should make a very high percentage on wide open, uncontested shots. Lantz said point blank that other than Bryant the Lakers do not have anyone who can create a shot for himself or his teammates. Granted, the injured Odom may have been able to help somewhat in that regard but, frankly, I don't trust him in clutch situations and you only have to look at last year's Finals to understand why.

Bryant usually rests at the end of the third quarter and/or the early portion of the fourth quarter but after Bryant's third quarter effort rallied the Lakers from a 77-69 deficit to a 92-85 lead Coach Phil Jackson was not about to take Bryant out of the game. The Hornets closed the margin to 92-89 by the end of the third quarter. Bryant played the first 3:29 of the fourth quarter before heading to the bench with the Lakers leading 99-94; he was only out of the game for 1:21 before Jackson had to put him back in after the Hornets went on a 7-0 run. This is where plus/minus numbers can be deceptive. Bryant had a -8 plus/minus number for the game, which is less than the margin of defeat but still obviously a negative number; what that number does not convey is the nature of momentum in an NBA game. Bryant is not a robot, nor are the other nine players on the court; once momentum shifts, it is not so easy to regain it. In his great book "Those Who Love the Game," Doc Rivers wrote about how frustrated he would get as a player when he played good defense and shut an opponent down only to see that player get hot when someone subbed in for Rivers; Rivers lamented about how difficult it was to cool that player down again. What happened to the Lakers in the fourth quarter versus the Hornets is analogous to the situation that Rivers described; the Hornets got rolling as soon as Bryant left the game and then once Bryant returned he was unable to stem the tide. One other consideration that must be mentioned--and that surely factored into Coach Jackson's thinking--is that if he played Bryant straight through with no rest at all then Bryant may have become fatigued and lost some effectiveness. Still, after the game, NBA TV commentator Gary Payton immediately singled out the brief time that Bryant sat out as the turning point in the contest.

Postscript:

I have quoted this material before, but in case you do not know how the NBA officially defines an assist, this paragraph was posted at NBA.com in 2002:

An assist is a pass that directly leads to a basket. This can be a pass to the low post that leads to a direct score, a long pass for a layup, a fast break pass to a teammate for a layup, and/or a pass that results in an open perimeter shot for a teammate. In basketball, an assist is awarded only if, in the judgement of the statistician, the last player's pass contributed directly to a made basket. An assist can be awarded for a basket scored after the ball has been dribbled if the player's pass led to the field goal being made.

Labels: Andrew Bynum, Chris Paul, David West, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Lamar Odom, New Orleans Hornets, Pau Gasol

posted by David Friedman @ 7:46 AM

25 comments

Catching Up With...Greg "Special K" Kelser

This article originally was originally published in the May 2007 issue of Basketball Times

The 1979 NCAA Championship Game will forever be remembered as Magic versus Bird but a glance at the boxscore quickly reveals that another player had a very significant impact on the outcome: Greg “Special K” Kelser contributed 19 points, nine assists and eight rebounds in Michigan State’s 75-64 win over Larry Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores, who entered the game 33-0. Magic Johnson’s 24 points, seven rebounds and five assists grabbed the headlines but Michigan State probably would not have won without Kelser’s near triple double.

“I fully believe that if I don’t get in foul trouble then we win that game by 25 points,” Kelser says. “We were certainly on our way to doing that, as we did in the other four games that we won. We were winning those games by more than 20 points, on average. When I got in foul trouble that gave them an opportunity to cut a 16 point lead down to six points. When I got my fourth foul we were rolling and we were just about to really bust it open. They had no answers. We were doing pretty much what we wanted to do, we were executing, we were shooting a very high percentage, we were not turning the ball over. That fourth foul was very damaging in that sense but, you know what, when I look back at it maybe it was a good thing. If that had been a 30 point game then it probably wouldn’t still be talked about, they wouldn’t be doing stories and documentaries on it, calling it ‘The game that changed the game.’ That game needed to be competitive and I think that when I picked up that fourth foul and had to go sit out the game then became competitive.”

Kelser, a senior, did not resent being overshadowed by Johnson, a sophomore. “He was a great winner, great enthusiasm for the game, tremendous teammate, I loved him without question,” Kelser explains. “Wherever he went the spotlight went. I understood what my role was and I understood how important I was to the team and I also knew that if I played well that I could be a difference maker in that game. But that game really was not any different than any other game we played during the year; if I played well along with Earvin then we usually won. And that was certainly the case that night. I needed to play well in order for us to win. When I look back on it, if you just briefly mention the game it’s always going to be ‘Earvin Magic Johnson versus Larry Bird’ but if you get into discussion about the game then my name has to come up because I think that I played that significant of a factor in the outcome.”

Michigan State laid the foundation for the 1979 championship run with a trip to South America in the summer of 1978. Johnson, Kelser and the Spartans represented the United States in a tournament that included seasoned teams from Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Brazil was led by Oscar Schmidt, the legendary star who was still active 14 years later and gave the Dream Team fits in the Barcelona Olympics. “I had never heard of him but, obviously, after watching him play one time you knew that he was a guy that you certainly had to defensively game plan for,” Kelser says of Schmidt. “He was phenomenal. He had tremendous range on his shots. You felt like every shot that he took was going to go in. That Brazil team was very experienced and they had guys who were older than any of our players. I was the oldest player on our team; I turned 21 during the trip to Brazil. They had plenty of guys who were older than that. It was a great opportunity for us to see exactly how we stacked up against a team that was certainly as good as any college team that we were going to face.” Michigan State won the gold medal game against Brazil in double overtime. Kelser scored 27 points and Johnson had 25. Later, Michigan State defeated the powerful Soviet national team 76-60 in an exhibition game. Kelser had 24 points, 10 rebounds, six steals and three blocked shots, while Johnson had 13 points, 13 assists, seven rebounds and five steals. Those victories against experienced international teams showed that Michigan State would truly be a force to reckon with in the 1978-79 season.

Kelser was just 6-6 ½ and 185 pounds at the start of his collegiate career but he often played center and was able to grab rebounds against opponents who were much taller and heavier. Throughout basketball history, great rebounders have come in all shapes and sizes, from 6-3 Fat Lever to 6-6 Dennis Rodman to 6-11 Bill Laimbeer. “Anticipating, positioning and then of course if you have jumping ability that is even better but I think that a lot of it is just instinct,” Kelser says when asked to describe the traits that great rebounders must have. “I don’t know that it is something you can teach. Some guys just have it and it is such a valuable part of the game. I always enjoyed rebounding. My very first game as a freshman in the Big 10—I think that it was the tenth game of my freshman year but it was the first Big 10 conference game that I had ever played in—I got 27 rebounds. At the time I didn’t think anything of the number because I had done that in high school a few times and I thought that was what I was supposed to do. That is a very tough thing to do, as I found out later because I never did it again—not that number.”

While he had good all around skills, Kelser took special pride in his abilities as a rebounder. “It speaks to one’s commitment to doing whatever is necessary to get your hands on the ball. I think it’s just the desire to want to get to the basketball. I always had that,” Kelser says. “It was one of my strongest assets from the very beginning, even when I first got on the varsity team at Henry Ford High School. They certainly weren’t looking for me to score but they certainly needed me to rebound. That was just something that carried over. Rebounding is something that I’ve always taken a lot of pride in. Guys who do rebound are people who are driven. It doesn’t just happen. You have to be willing to go in there and take some bumps and some bruises and you have to be willing to go in there again and again and again and be consistent with it. I felt so strongly about my rebounding throughout my career that I am almost 50 years old but I could probably go into a game right now and get 10 rebounds. I might not be able to score, I would probably be winded after a few trips up and down the court but I could get you 10 rebounds.”

Kelser averaged 17.5 ppg and 9.5 rpg during his Michigan State career. His scoring went down after Magic Johnson arrived at Lansing--from 21.7 ppg as a sophomore to 17.7 ppg as a junior and 18.8 ppg as a senior—but his field goal percentage soared from .492 to .610 and .545. Kelser made the AP All-American Third Team as a senior.

The Detroit Pistons selected Kelser with the fourth overall pick in the 1979 draft. He showed a lot of promise in his rookie season—averaging 14.2 ppg and 5.5 rpg, with a high game of 34 points, but knee injuries limited him to just 50 games and hampered him throughout his professional career, which lasted just six seasons and 305 games. “I really don’t have too many regrets,” Kelser says. “I truly enjoy that which I am doing, which is broadcasting. I love it. It is what I saw myself doing after my playing career was over. It is what I prepared myself for while I was still playing.”

L.A. Lakers Coach Phil Jackson recently suggested that the length of the NBA season causes excessive wear and tear and leads to injuries. However, Kelser, who was a very durable player during his college career, does not believe that the 82 game NBA season had anything to do with shortening his career. “I think that the biggest thing with me is that I played very, very hard and I played through injuries, probably to my detriment, when I probably should have been taking a step or two back and letting things heal. I sought not to do that,” Kelser says. “I don’t think that the length of the NBA season had a whole lot to do with it. I incurred some knee injuries, some knee problems, that sustained over a period of time but even with that I was still able to get four more years in after I had the surgery. Though I was not able to play at the 100% capacity that I had grown accustomed to in college and prior to college, I was still a pretty solid pro and for that I think that I can take a lot of pride. I would have loved to have been able to enjoy a 12-15 year career but that wasn’t meant to be. I think I got more out of it than I was ever owed and probably more out of it than I had anticipated.”

Taking the frustrations of his injuries out of the equation, Kelser preferred NBA-style basketball to the slower paced NCAA game. “It (the NBA game) is much more wide open or it was back then, anyway,” Kelser explains. “I think that the game has slowed down now, unless you are Dallas or Phoenix or a few other teams in the NBA that really get up and down and free flow. The NBA game allows you to be more expressive out there on the basketball court, if you’re truly athletic and innovative. The college game is a bit more contained, it’s a shorter game and it’s a game in which you can be defended in a certain way so that you can be pretty much eliminated from the game or at least have your major strengths taken away. I like the pro game a whole lot better, as far as playing it. I enjoyed playing at the pro level, that style, but please don’t take that to mean that I favor it over the college game. I love them both. I really, really do. I find that the enthusiasm that the college game possesses and how every possession seemingly is a critical one and the rabid nature of the home town fans in the college arenas—you cannot match that. But for the sheer greatness of the players overall from player 1-12 on every roster, the NBA is where it’s at.”

A big change in the basketball landscape since Kelser’s playing days is the parade of players who have gone straight to the NBA out of high school or after just one collegiate season. “I think that the overall talent of the (NCAA) game has declined because you don’t have a fifth year Larry Bird or a fourth year Ralph Sampson or a fourth year Patrick Ewing,” Kelser says. “If those guys were playing now you would have never seen them in college and those are some of the greatest college players ever. So that’s what the game is lacking now. The game is still a great game and the players are still good players but the greatest of the great—LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady—it would have been pretty nice to see them in college competition. That is what you miss now.”

Still, Kelser is not 100% in favor of limiting a player’s opportunity to bypass college and go directly to the NBA. “I’m torn both ways on that,” Kelser says. “I remember when freshmen became eligible to play varsity basketball back in 1973 and I was ecstatic that they did that because I felt that if you are capable of playing as a freshman then you should be allowed to play and not have to sit out or spend a season on the freshman team or the JV team. I guess in that same vein if an 18 year old kid is coming out of high school and he has the ability to play in the NBA, let him play. The problem now is if you make that decision and it is a mistake then it can be a life altering mistake. So with that in mind I am almost of the opinion that it might not be a bad idea to have the kids go to school for a year and maybe even two years. I kind of waver on that. I go back and forth.”

As a college teammate of Magic Johnson’s and a longtime NBA broadcaster, few people are more qualified than Kelser to compare LeBron James to a young Magic. “There are similarities in that they are both 6-8, 6-9 and can handle the ball, can pass it, can score, can do a lot of things and can help their teammates but I don’t think that anybody quite rivals Earvin Magic Johnson when it comes to putting all of those things together on a night in, night out basis and just being an incredible winner. I know that Magic probably has the edge because early in his career and throughout his career he always had great players surrounding him. I think that Jud Heathcote probably put it best: his supporting cast got better at every level; he had a certain supporting cast in high school, it got better at Michigan State and it got better with the Lakers and it even got better when he went to the Olympics. You know, that was very fortunate on his part. A guy like LeBron, his supporting cast isn’t quite like that but he’s a great player and I would think that in time he will win his championships as well. In fact, I don’t doubt that he will win his championships.”

Magic seemed to have an impeccable sense of what his team needed for him to do at a given moment, more so perhaps than just about any other player. Kelser agrees with that sentiment and adds, “Magic had it in high school. See, the thing is, if going straight from high school to the NBA had been in vogue when Earvin came out then he would have done that, too. He would have skipped college and he certainly would have done well because his basketball acumen was extremely high. The thing that LeBron is going to need is time to get the proper supporting cast. You don’t win a championship by yourself. No question about it; you don’t win a championship by yourself at the NBA level. You need one or two more All-Star players with you to do it. LeBron doesn’t have that yet. When he gets that he will start winning championships. He is a great player, fun to watch, unbelievable talent.”

Kelser prepared for life after the NBA by learning about TV broadcasting. He had a friend who was a broadcaster who showed him the ropes. In 1986, Kelser made his first on air appearance, working for Black Entertainment Television. He soon worked steadily for BET and Pro-Am Sports Systems (PASS), a Detroit based regional cable network. Since then he has done Big 10 games for Raycom, worked briefly for the Pistons radio network and did Minnesota Timberwolves telecasts for four years. Kelser began his current job as a Pistons TV analyst in 1993.

Last year, Kelser and Steve Grinczel collaborated to write Gregory Kelser’s Tales From Michigan State Basketball, which not only discusses Kelser’s Michigan State memories but also his experiences as a young man who grew up in San Antonio, Texas, Panama City, Florida and Okinawa, Japan; Kelser’s father was a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, so the family moved frequently. “I was approached by Mike Pearson of Sports Publishing, out of Champaign, Illinois,” Kelser says of the genesis of the book project. “Mike is the former Sports Information Director at Michigan State and the University of Illinois. He contacted me and it’s something that I’d always wanted to do and the timing was perfect. He said, ‘Greg, I think it’s time and it’s a story that people will want to hear.’ So far the book has been well received. I love the response that I have been getting from most people who have read it and it’s been a success. That was a poignant period in my life and that time spent at Michigan State still shapes a lot of the things that I do today and it has certainly impacted the opportunities that I get today.”

Labels: Detroit Pistons, Greg Kelser, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michigan State

posted by David Friedman @ 2:00 AM

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The Potential Impact of Big Z's Injury

The Cleveland Cavaliers are off to their best start in franchise history and are right behind the defending champion Boston Celtics in the race for the league's best record this season. However, the Cavs will face some adversity in the next few weeks because starting center Zydrunas Ilgauskas has been sidelined by a fracture in his left ankle. The good news is that the injury is not related to and did not compromise the foot reconstruction surgeries that he had earlier in his career but Ilgauskas may miss up to a month, which probably adds up to 14 games--nine of which will be played on the road, including matchups with the Magic and the Lakers.

In my newest article for CavsNews, I examine how Ilgauskas' injury will affect the Cavaliers (6/17/15 edit: the link to CavsNews.com no longer works, so I have posted the original article below):

Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Zydrunas Ilgauskas

posted by David Friedman @ 2:07 PM

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Kobe Bryant: "A Straight-A Student Who Still Goes to all the Extra Study Sessions"

ESPN's Mark Jackson sometimes refers to "fake hustle," meaning that an athlete does something to make it look like he is trying hard but it's all for show. That is what I think of most of the time when I see coaches ranting, raving and screaming on the sidelines. Think about it: how often do you see truly great coaches do that? John Wooden used to sit placidly on the bench with a rolled up program in his hands. Phil Jackson sometimes seems to be looking at his fingernails more than the game. A cynic might say that those guys had/have the horses, so they don't need to say or do much--but someone who really understands the game knows that the most important coaching is done behind the scenes in practice while preparing the players for the games. Once the game begins, it is up to the players to utilize what the coach has taught them. If the players are not adequately prepared before the game, there is not too much that can be said to them during the game to make up for that.

The reality is that most games--not just basketball games but any kind of games--are won before they begin, at least when the opponents are fairly evenly matched from a talent standpoint; the players/teams that are better prepared and better focused are most likely going to win.

That is why this L.A. Times story about Kobe Bryant's disciplined preparation habits is so meaningful: Bryant's edge over other top players is not solely based on athleticism or flashy plays or hype; it is based on studying the strengths and weaknesses of opposing players and applying that knowledge to gain an advantage during games. You really should read the whole article but in case you don't, here are three quotes about how Kobe Bryant uses video study to prepare for games:

1) "Hands down, he's the biggest video fiend we've ever had," said Chris Bodaken, the Lakers' director of video services. "I didn't know if it was possible to be more competitive than Magic was, but I think he might be. It carries over into his preparation, and this is part of that."

2) "It's a blueprint," said Bryant, an eight-time member of the NBA all-defensive team. "So if something goes down, it's not something you haven't seen before. Everybody's got tendencies. If he scores 40 on Monday, he's going to try to do it on Tuesday. You've got to take him out of his spots. That's the key."

3) When the Lakers hired Phil Jackson in 1999, Bryant was tipped off that his new coach sometimes asked video coordinators to edit random on-screen words into video packages viewed by the entire team before practice. Jackson would then ask a particular player which word just flashed on the screen, the equivalent of a pop quiz for multi-millionaire athletes.

"I remember mentioning that to Kobe once and he just laughed," Bodaken said. "The concept of not watching something on film was so foreign to him."

So, the next time you see Bryant charge into the paint to grab a key offensive rebound versus a bigger opponent or jump into the passing lane to snare a key steal or position himself to prevent a top scorer from making his favorite move in crunch time, you will understand and appreciate that such plays are the product of dedicated study. In a league full of elite athletes, it is very difficult to gain an edge and the slightest advantage is very important, much like a tenth of a second difference is huge in an Olympic sprint; knowledge is power and the best athletes are very knowledgeable, at least regarding the intricacies of their craft. The lasting image that I will always have of Dennis Rodman is not his hairstyle or tattoos but the fact that when he joined the Bulls he studied the arc of each of his teammates' shots so that he would know how to position himself for offensive rebound opportunities. Rodman also studied a lot of tape of opposing players, though he reportedly would turn the VCR off if members of the media came into the locker room; he had his own reasons for developing and maintaining a certain kind of reputation/image but any of his coaches will tell you that his basketball IQ was off the charts. Rodman may have acted like the court jester but he was a veritable Einstein in high tops and he understood rebounding angles like Euclid knew geometry.

Labels: Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Phil Jackson

posted by David Friedman @ 4:54 AM

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