Love's Double Double Streak is Impressive but the NBA's Orwellian Memory Hole is Disturbing
In George Orwell's brilliant dystopian novel
1984, a totalitarian regime controls the future by rewriting the past, sending unfavorable historical facts down the "memory hole." Kevin Love's active points/rebounds double-double streak--which currently stands at 52 games--is most impressive, surpassing a 51 game streak that three-time NBA MVP Moses Malone compiled in 1978-79; any time a player does something that had not been done for over 30 years--particularly when the last player to do it was a Hall of Famer--he should receive much praise and I disagree with anyone who tries to diminish Love's feat by pointing to his team's lousy record; that criticism makes about as much sense as knocking
Kobe Bryant's 81 point game because it came against the Toronto Raptors: if it were easy to score 81 points then someone else would have done it--Michael Jordan certainly would have hit that mark if he could have--and if it were easy to put up consecutive double-doubles for more than half of a season then many players would have done it in the past three decades.
However, contrary to the NBA's Orwellian hype machine, Love's accomplishment is not an NBA record--and it is disingenuous to speak of "modern" NBA records, as if everything that happened prior to the 1976-77 ABA-NBA merger took place in the Dark Ages before statistics could be tracked. It has been confirmed by the Associated Press and other sources that Wilt Chamberlain had a double-double streak of at least 220 games during his career; keep in mind that Chamberlain averaged 30.1 ppg and 22.9 rpg during his career--including a mindboggling 1962 season in which he averaged 50.4 ppg and 25.7 rpg and six other seasons in which he averaged at least 33.5 ppg and at least 22.9 rpg--so two words best describe a game in which Chamberlain merely managed a double-double: "off night." Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor, Walt Bellamy, Elvin Hayes, Jerry Lucas and Bill Russell each had at least one streak of at least 50 games with a double-double.
It is senseless and disrespectful for the NBA to in any way diminish the accomplishments of the legends who built the game. Commissioner David Stern has repeatedly said that the Legends Brunch is his favorite event of All-Star Weekend; I would be more impressed if instead of talking a good game about the Legends Brunch he would act forcefully to make sure that the official record book--and the information that is fed to the NBA's media partners--completely and accurately reflects the true history of the sport. Commissioner Stern rightly takes swift action when coaches, players or other league employees act or talk in ways that place the league in an unfavorable light, so he should act equally forcefully to make sure that the history of the game is preserved and celebrated.
It must be added that this history simply has to include the ABA, just like NFL history includes the records and stories of the AFL. One of my earliest pro basketball articles dealt with the pro basketball subject that I feel most passionately about:
ABA Numbers Should Also Count (and even though I disagreed with some of Brett Ballantini's subsequent editorial decisions at
Basketball Digest, I have to give him credit for providing me the platform to state my case on this very important issue, an issue that Ballantini also feels very strongly about). I don't have complete game log data for the ABA but that information is probably available if one would track down all of the various ABA team media guides. Consider what we do know about two ABA legends who should have been inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame a long time ago:
1)
Artis Gilmore, the 1972 ABA regular season MVP and 1975 ABA Playoff MVP, averaged at least 18.7 ppg and at least 15.3 rpg in each of his five ABA campaigns; he played all 84 games in each of those years, in four of those five seasons he averaged at least 20.8 ppg and in three of those five seasons he averaged at least 17.6 rpg. Gilmore almost certainly had a double-double streak of at least 50 games and he probably had some impressive 20-20 streaks as well.
2) Two-time ABA regular season MVP Mel Daniels--
whose Hall of Fame worthiness has been praised by the great Julius Erving--averaged at least 18.5 ppg/15.4 rpg in each of his first six professional seasons and in three of those seasons he averaged at least 21 ppg and at least 15.6 rpg. Daniels probably had at least one double-double streak of 50 or more games.
Labels: Artis Gilmore, Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor, Elvin Hayes, Jerry Lucas, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Love, Mel Daniels, Moses Malone, Walt Bellamy, Wilt Chamberlain
posted by David Friedman @ 5:43 PM
MLB "Stat Guru" Phil Birnbaum Explains Why "Advanced Basketball Statistics" Don't Work
I have written several articles detailing the flawed methodologies of "advanced basketball statistics," including
Economics is Not a Science, Nor is Basketball Statistical Analysis and
Economics is Not a Science, Nor is Basketball Statistical Analysis, Part II. Phil Birnbaum is a "stat guru" who primarily focuses on baseball, a sport whose discrete, one on one encounters between pitchers and batters lends itself much more readily to accurate statistical analysis than a free flowing five on five sport like basketball. Birnbaum has
taken a look at "advanced basketball statistics" and he is not impressed by what he found:
You know all those player evaluation statistics in basketball, like "Wins Produced," "Player Evaluation Rating," and so forth? I don't think they work. I've been thinking about it, and I don't think I trust any of them enough put much faith in their results. That's the opposite of how I feel about baseball. For baseball, if the sportswriter consensus is that player A is an excellent offensive player, but it turns out his OPS is a mediocre .700, I'm going to trust OPS. But, for basketball, if the sportswriters say a guy's good, but his "Wins Produced" is just average, I might be inclined to trust the sportswriters.I don't think the stats work well enough to be useful.Please click on the above link and read Birnbaum's article in its entirety, because he does an excellent job of explaining exactly how difficult it is to correctly assign individual credit for team success in basketball--and Birnbaum does not even address an issue that I have brought up several times: the raw box score numbers themselves are very subjective (
I have mainly focused on assists but the same could be said for blocked shots, steals and, to some degree, even rebounds, depending on how the official scorekeepers define tips, etc.).
Birnbaum cites a
study by David Lewin and Dan T. Rosenbaum that shows that minutes played by players in a preceding season is at least as good of a predictor of team performance in the subsequent season as the so-called "advanced basketball statistics" are. Birnbaum notes that minutes played "is probably the closest representation you can get to what the coach thinks of a player's skill," so this is an indication that--contrary to the constant bleating by "stat gurus" like Dave Berri and their media sycophants like Henry Abbott--NBA coaches actually do have some idea about what they are doing.
Birnbaum expresses some hope that plus/minus statistics could be useful if the sample sizes are large enough but, as I
previously reported, "stat guru" Ken Pomeroy has studied plus/minus stats and is very skeptical of their usefulness. Birnbaum concludes, "But, just picking up a box score or looking up standard player stats online, and trying [to figure out] from that which players are how much better than others (the approach that 'Wins Produced' and other stats take)...well, I don't think you're ever going to be able to make that work."
Labels: "advanced basketball statistics", Dave Berri, Henry Abbott, Ken Pomeroy, Phil Birnbaum
posted by David Friedman @ 5:24 PM
Bryant Leads the Way as Lakers Pummel Spurs
I have been diligently working on an article about how underrated the San Antonio Spurs are and how history shows that most teams that win at their current rate at least advance to the NBA Finals but now does not seem like the ideal moment to publish that piece of analysis; I have followed the NBA for far too long to believe that one regular season game outweighs a body of work consisting of dozens of games played over several months but when the two-time defending NBA champion L.A. Lakers roar into San Antonio and pillage the Spurs 99-83 it only seems fair to analyze that carnage before praising the Spurs.
"What is wrong with the Lakers?" has been a very popular question this season and I have even gotten in on the act a couple times (
most recently about a month ago), if for no other reason than to refute some of the nonsense that other people have written about this subject. The Lakers won their first six games after
Kobe Bryant's scintillating All-Star MVP performance but those victories were just warmup acts for Sunday's showdown in San Antonio; the Spurs have all but clinched the top seed in the West, meaning that the Lakers will likely have to win at least one playoff game in San Antonio in order to advance to the NBA Finals for the fourth straight year. The Spurs defeated the Lakers in both prior meetings this season but yesterday, to borrow Mark Jackson's witty line, it looked like the Miami Heat's big brother showed up to avenge the way that the Spurs pounded the Heat on Friday: the Lakers raced to a 34-13 lead by the end of the first quarter and were never seriously threatened the rest of the way.
Kobe Bryant missed his first three shots but still paced the Lakers with eight points and three assists in the opening stanza. Bryant led the Lakers with a game-high 27 points but he also ranked second on the Lakers with seven rebounds, a performance reminiscent of his
39 point outburst versus the Spurs in the Lakers' series clinching game five victory in the 2008 Western Conference Finals. Bryant has tormented the Spurs for years and, after two subpar games versus them this season, he undoubtedly wanted to reassert his dominance before the 2011 playoffs begin.
The Spurs' three All-Star caliber players did not distinguish themselves: Tony Parker had a solid though slightly subpar outing (14 points, six assists) but Tim Duncan finished with two points and seven rebounds and Manu Ginobili posted a nearly invisible six points and three assists. Backup point guard Gary Neal led the Spurs in scoring with 15 points.
The Spurs look awfully small next to the Lakers--not just on the scoreboard during this one particular game, but physically: it is not just that the Lakers' bigs are, well, bigger than the Spurs' bigs but the Lakers' key wing players--most notably Bryant and Ron Artest--are bigger than their San Antonio counterparts. If the Lakers did not have Bryant then the Spurs could try to counteract the Lakers' size upfront with speed and trapping but leaving Bryant single covered is simply not a viable option.
Although the Lakers used their size advantage upfront to good effect--most notably via Pau Gasol's scoring (21 points) and Andrew Bynum's rebounding (a game-high 17)--it is still puzzling to hear people like ESPN's Chris Mullin talk about how the Lakers can overwhelm teams by putting Gasol, Bynum and Lamar Odom (who was solid with 15 points, six assists and four rebounds) on the court at the same time; the reality is quite different,
as I correctly predicted back in 2008: "Odom is not an ideal small forward, so a frontline of Bynum-Gasol-Odom is not feasible, despite what some people may try to convince you; the only way that those three players can effectively coexist is if one of them comes off of the bench. Gasol is the second best player on the team, so he is not going to be a reserve. Bynum is the best postup player, so it does not make sense to sit him either."
Not only did many "experts" incorrectly predict that Coach Phil Jackson would play Bynum, Gasol and Odom together as starters but many "experts" still act like that is a lineup that Jackson often uses when the truth is that those three players have only been on the court at the same time for very brief stretches (and not just because of Bynum's injuries, but because that lineup is not feasible for the very reasons that I described three years ago).
Coach Jackson wisely uses Gasol, Bynum and Odom in a three man rotation, with Bynum or Gasol playing center and Gasol or Odom playing power forward. A major reason that the Lakers' bigs are so effective is that opposing teams must focus on containing Bryant; the Lakers do not seem nearly as big or imposing when he is not on the court and that became evident in the fourth quarter when the Spurs cut into the Lakers' lead. Coach Jackson inserted Bryant back into the game, a decision that Coach Jackson surely did not make lightly considering the limitations he has placed on Bryant's minutes to preserve Bryant's balky right knee. After the game, Coach Jackson curtly explained, "I didn't like the way the bench was playing. They were settling for outside shots." The reality is that Bryant had helped the Lakers to build such a big lead that strictly speaking they probably did not need for him to return in the final quarter just to preserve the win but it was quite evident that Coach Jackson did not want to let a blowout be reduced to a single digit final margin. Players and coaches will generally not publicly admit to "sending messages" but this game had "Western Union" written all over it; the point was not just to win but to win convincingly and to provide nothing positive for the Spurs to look at on film.
The Spurs are a very good team and they are having a tremendous season that I will analyze at length in an upcoming article. Even though this game indicated that the Spurs have some matchup problems versus a fully healthy, fully engaged Lakers team I still expect that these two squads will engage in a competitive and entertaining Western Conference Finals showdown this season.
Labels: Andrew Bynum, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Manu Ginobili, Pau Gasol, San Antonio Spurs, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker
posted by David Friedman @ 6:40 AM
Stumbling Heat Once Again Falter in the Clutch
The Miami Heat built a 12 point lead versus the Chicago Bulls but once again collapsed down the stretch, losing 87-86 after both LeBron James and Dwyane Wade missed last second shots. Derrick Rose poured in a game-high 27 points, added a team-high five assists and scored eight fourth quarter points in a performance that may have clinched the regular season MVP (voters seem to be unduly swayed by what happens in hyped up, late season nationally televised games, which is not to diminish the fact that Rose is a legitimate contender for MVP honors). The Heat fell to 0-3 this season versus the Bulls and they have now lost five of their last six games overall, including four in a row. Three fourths of the way through the regular season, the Heat most assuredly are not who the "stat gurus" thought that they would be: not only have the Heat failed to win even one game against the league's top four teams (by current won-loss records), they have a losing record versus plus-.500 teams and they have performed atrociously in close games.
It is foolish to overreact to one game or even to a stretch of games during the regular season; we have seen teams struggle for long periods of time only to perform brilliantly during the playoffs (the Boston Celtics pulled that off just last season). The only good thing about hearing Mike Wilbon repeatedly say that the Chicago game was a "must win" for Miami is that this gave Wilbon less time to harp on his
bizarre belief that the Lakers would be better off if their best player shot the ball less frequently. Miami's loss to Chicago hurt the Heat in terms of playoff positioning but it did not eliminate them from the championship chase and therefore was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a "must win."
However, in the course of 63 regular season games the Heat have certainly shown us enough to draw some preliminary conclusions about their team and about their three stars. Let's start where I left off near the end of my early season article about the Heat titled
Lukewarm Heat on Pace for 47 Wins:
I have made this point many times but it simply cannot be overstated (particularly since the mainstream media largely refuses to acknowledge it): Pau Gasol was not considered an elite player prior to joining the Lakers but teaming up with Kobe Bryant has transformed him into a likely future Hall of Famer. Gasol's skill set has not changed much (he added some strength after the 2008 NBA Finals so that he could better hold his ground in the post) and his statistics are essentially the same except for increases in field goal percentage and offensive rebounding (thanks primarily to Bryant drawing double teams and creating easy opportunities for Gasol) but Gasol is perceived differently now because he is more comfortable playing one on one as the second option as opposed to carrying the burden of attacking double teams as Memphis' top option. If you believed the narrative that the "stat gurus" have constructed about James and Wade then you had to think that James and Wade would have an even more dramatically positive effect on Bosh, whose pre-Miami career was more effective and much more decorated (five All-Star selections, one All-NBA selection, seventh in 2007 MVP voting) than Gasol's pre-L.A. career (one All-Star selection, no All-NBA selections, not a single MVP vote)--but this has not been the case at all. Gasol arrived in L.A. in a midseason trade and instantly bonded with Bryant but James, Wade and Bosh play like strangers despite having a complete offseason to figure out their roles; even with Wade missing the preseason it still should not be that difficult for the supposedly two best players in the NBA to figure out how to effectively utilize a player as talented and versatile as Bosh. Gasol is a better passer than Bosh but otherwise their skill set strengths and weaknesses are quite similar: they are both lithe, lanky, agile big men who like to face the basket on offense, who gather rebounds based on their length/mobility more so than their strength/size and who can be pushed around by physical defenders.
It is funny to watch Pau Gasol be "promoted" to mythical best big man in the NBA status while Bosh is "demoted" to some minor figure, because neither statistics nor the "eyeball test" support either of those contentions. Last season, Chris Bosh averaged career-highs in scoring (24.0 ppg), rebounding (10.8 rpg) and field goal percentage (.518). Bosh joined the Heat as a perennial All-Star entering his prime; Gasol joined the Lakers as a one-time All-Star who had yet to win a single playoff game. James and Wade are generally considered the top two players in the league by "stat gurus," while Kobe Bryant barely cracks the top five--yet after Gasol teamed up with Bryant in the middle of the 2008 season the two players immediately jelled and the Lakers made the first of three straight trips to the NBA Finals. In contrast, James and Wade have had almost an entire season with Bosh but are still trying to, in their words, "figure out" how to play well together; James and Wade are putting up numbers that are comparable to their career averages, while Bosh is playing exactly the same minutes per game that he did last season but his scoring and rebounding numbers have plummeted to their lowest levels since his second and first seasons respectively. This is not just a matter of fewer touches, because Bosh's field goal percentage has dropped from .518 last season to .485 this season. It is very interesting that Wilbon and other media members repeatedly say that Bryant does not feed Gasol the ball enough but I have yet to hear anyone seriously suggest that perhaps James and Wade are not properly utilizing their perennial All-Star big man. If James and Wade are pass-first players who are much more efficient and unselfish than Bryant--the story that has been repeatedly told for years--then why has Bosh languished in Miami while Gasol has flourished in L.A.? Something just does not add up. It seems like James' media darling status at ESPN grants him a pass from meaningful criticism on most of their platforms, while Wade's lone championship earns him similar status across the board; Bosh and Coach Erik Spoelstra better hope that things turn around quickly for the Heat, because otherwise they are positioned to be the two primary scapegoats if the team falls short of expectations.
*****
Prior to this season, a lot of people foolishly compared the 2011 Heat to the great Chicago Bulls teams of the 1990s but the reality has been a lot different. Playing with James and Wade has transformed Bosh from a rising star into a glorified Horace Grant: the Heat station Bosh on the weak side and ask him to defend, rebound and make open jumpers when James or Wade deign to pass him the ball. The Chicago-Miami analogy that many people employed cast Wade as Michael Jordan and James as Scottie Pippen, but I never accepted the notion that Miami would be "Wade's team" because Wade had been there first and/or because Wade has already won a championship; I refuted that idea in
It is Wrong to Call LeBron James "LePippen":
The fact that Wade was in Miami first does not make James a "sidekick" any more than Moses Malone was Julius Erving's sidekick for the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers; Erving won the 1981 MVP as a 76er, Malone won the 1982 MVP as a Rocket and Malone won the 1983 MVP (while joining Erving on the All-NBA First Team) as the Sixers rolled to the championship.
It not only is silly to call James a "sidekick"--at least until we actually see what roles James and Wade fill for the Heat--but it makes no sense to supposedly denigrate James by comparing him to Pippen. Scottie Pippen did not elect to leave a team in his prime years to join a team with an established star who was his own age (the "crime" that the "LePippen" chanters are charging James with committing); in fact, as mentioned above, Pippen embraced the challenge of being the lead guy after Jordan retired. Teammates and opponents alike laud Pippen's versatility and unselfishness. Regardless of how many awards James wins and how much money he accrues he should hope and pray that when his career ends he will be as well respected by his peers as Scottie Pippen is.
James is leading the Heat in minutes, scoring and assists and he ranks second on the team in rebounding; James, not Wade, is the player who invariably handles the ball when the team goes into a set play at the end of a quarter or down the stretch when the game is close. In fact, what happens at the end of close games is not that Wade becomes Jordan and James becomes Pippen; what actually happens is that James tries to be Jordan but fails, while Wade waits behind the three point line doing a John Paxson/Steve Kerr imitation.
Why does James end up with the ball in those late game situations? The answer is simple: James is the best player on the team. The coaching staff knows it, James knows it and the other players know it. The problem is that James still does not have a complete skill set, nor does he have the ability and/or willingness to actually run an efficient half court offense in such situations. Skill set differences really matter; the detailed analyses that I have provided for years explaining why Kobe Bryant is the most complete player in the NBA explain more about the differences between the Heat and the Lakers than the nonsense spewed by "stat gurus" or the biased shrieking of various commentators who have obvious axes that they repeatedly grind. James has been a more productive regular season player than Bryant for the past couple seasons as an aging Bryant has reduced his minutes and dealt with some nagging injuries but the weaknesses in James' skill set--lack of a consistent jumper not just from three point range but also from the midrange area and the lack of a consistent post up game--crop up when James is faced with crucial late game situations and/or when James has to play against an elite defense during a playoff series (those two situations are actually quite similar, because in both instances teams load up to protect the paint, something that elite teams can do for an entire series but that even lesser teams can do for a few late game possessions).
Remember when the "experts" kept criticizing Cleveland Coach Mike Brown for his supposed lack of offensive creativity and blamed him for often just having James go one on five? A whole lot of nonsense was written about John Kuester being the Cavs' offensive guru when the team's offensive productivity improved--yes, the same John Kuester who is running such an innovative offense as Detroit's head coach. The reality is twofold: one, Coach Brown is a
defensive-minded coach who nevertheless presided over a steadily improving Cleveland offense; two, it is becoming increasingly evident that when the Cavs deviated from their successful five man offense this was not Coach Brown's choice but rather James' choice, because this season when the Heat enter crunch time James demands the ball and then dribbles around until he decides to shoot or pass. When James did that in Cleveland, Coach Brown received the blame but now that the same thing is happening in Miami we either have to conclude that Coach Spoelstra is running Brown's "offense" or that James simply does whatever he wants to do in those situations. After one of Miami's many late game debacles, TNT's Charles Barkley joked that Coach Spoelstra should be fired for drawing up such a bad play; it was clear that the Heat had in fact freelanced and not done whatever the Coach had asked them to do.
The Heat's problem is not that James has the ball in these situations; the best player should get the ball, either immediately or after running some action (depending on how much time remains on the shot and/or game clock). The problem is that the Heat do not run any off of the ball action to force the defense to do something other than load up in the paint. Neither James nor Wade are great outside shooters, yet the Heat's "go to play" is for James to get the ball at the top of the key while Wade and the other three players spot up; Wade is not a catch and shoot threat and James is not a major jump shooting threat, so the defense's task is easy: don't let James dunk the ball. If James or Wade could either post up or make a shot coming off of a screen then both players would be viable threats no matter who has the ball. That is why anyone who is clamoring for Wade to have the ball instead of James is missing the point; it makes no more sense for Wade to dribble around aimlessly while James spots up then it does to have James dribble around aimlessly while Wade spots up.
Shooting percentages on last second shots can be a misleading statistic because this invariably involves a small sample size--and a sample that is likely contaminated by last second heaves that do not provide much evidence of a player's true clutch prowess. What really matters
is the ability to control a game down the stretch. If the Heat had just lost a few games after James, Wade or someone else missed some 35 foot heaves at the buzzer then there would not really be a problem to discuss, because last second heaves are low percentage shots; the Heat are losing close games because their half court offense down the stretch is not very effective: the Heat's biggest failure--for which James must receive a significant amount of the blame, because he is the team's best player and the ball is usually in his hands--is their inability to execute effectively on offense in the last few minutes of close games, not just that James and others have shot poorly in a small sample size of last second shots.
The Heat have repeatedly blown double digit leads because their half court offensive execution is pitiful, particularly in the fourth quarter; the missed last second shots are just the final blow, not the primary problem. Henry Abbott's repeated attempts to "prove" that Kobe Bryant is not a great clutch player look even more ridiculous after nearly a full season of watching LeBron James and Dwyane Wade team up to look like clowns piling out of a car at the circus every time the Heat are in a close game; last season we saw Bryant repeatedly nail game-winning shots--shots that ultimately lifted the Lakers to the top seed in the West instead of potentially being the seventh or eighth seed in that competitive conference--but, more significantly, we have seen that
throughout his career he can take over games for extended stretches, including playoff games against elite defenses. We are still waiting to see James and/or Wade demonstrate a similar capability after assembling their South Beach Super Team and proclaiming that they are going to win not one, not two but multiple championships.
*****
The most obvious characteristic of the Heat--an even larger and more important issue than their well documented problems in close games--is that they are a frontrunning team: they beat up on the league's weak teams but fold when they face any real resistance. In that regard they take after their leader and best player, LeBron James: to cite just one example, recall what happened to Team USA in the semifinals of the 2006 FIBA World Championship (as I recounted in
Greece Shreds Team USA's Defense, Wins 101-95):
Team USA took its biggest lead, 33-21, after a Joe Johnson three pointer early in the second quarter and, according to an Associated Press report, LeBron James told his teammates on the bench, "They don't know what to do."
However, when Greece made their run and took over the game, James could not be found saying (or doing) anything. Contrast that with what happened in
the gold medal game of the 2008 Olympics: Team USA took a 58-44 first half lead over Spain but when Spain rallied to cut the margin to 93-89 in the fourth quarter, Coach Mike Krzyzewski knew who had to close the deal--and it wasn't LeBron James: Kobe Bryant made the key plays down the stretch.
I would be the first person to say that FIBA basketball and NBA basketball cannot be directly compared but my point is that James thrives when he can dominate lesser competition but when the opposition is not intimidated by his physical prowess he sometimes seems to lack a backup plan. James misjudged the Greeks; they were not intimidated by Team USA and they proved it. James and the Heat look unbeatable when weaker NBA teams turn the ball over and let James and Wade throw alley oop lobs to each other--but when the opposition looks the Heat dead in the eyes and punches them in the mouth (metaphorically speaking) the Heat panic (during the game) and look for excuses (after the game).
"Real talk" has become a popular catchphrase, so here is some "real talk" about the Heat:
1) The 2010 Cavs were a better, more complete team than the 2011 Heat; if we could put both teams in a time machine and have them meet in a seven game playoff series the Cavs would win. This is something that "stat gurus," biased commentators and many fans may never accept but even though the 2011 Heat have more top level talent they are a flawed team, while the 2010 Cavs had a deep, well balanced roster and they were an outstanding team defensively and on the glass (the 2009 Cavs were probably even better than the 2010 Cavs but that is another story).
2) When evaluating LeBron James' impact on team success the correct comparison is not between the 2011 Cavs and the 2010 Cavs--two teams that have vastly different rosters and different head coaches--but rather between the 2009/2010 Cavs and the 2011 Heat; the popular storyline is that James left Cleveland because his supporting cast was weak but anyone who believes that to be true must explain why the 2011 Heat are on course to win fewer games than those supposedly flawed Cleveland teams. It cannot simultaneously be true that James single-handedly led Cleveland to 61-plus wins two years in a row but yet is struggling to guide the Heat to 60 wins; if James can single-handedly lead a team to 60-plus wins then he surely would be doing so now--and the reason that he is not doing so is that team success in the NBA involves more than just throwing stars together.
3) Even though the Heat are a flawed team, the fact that several of their games versus top teams have been close indicates that it is possible that they can make some adjustments and perform better in the playoffs. Right now, the Heat look a bit worse than I expected them to look but I would not be surprised if they find their way to the Eastern Conference Finals before being eliminated by the Boston Celtics. The Heat should never, ever be compared with the 1996 Bulls or other truly great teams but--despite their problems--they cannot simply be dismissed as a playoff threat.
Labels: Chicago Bulls, Chris Bosh, Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, LeBron James, Miami Heat, Pau Gasol
posted by David Friedman @ 4:16 AM
