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Thursday, January 20, 2022

L.A. Lakers Drama

Before we delve into the most recent chapter in the "Days of Our Lives--L.A. Lakers Edition," consider how you would answer this question: If you were an NBA coach, would you bench a former NBA MVP who is shooting .370 from the field over his last eight games while dishing for 53 assists and committing 24 turnovers? This player has been a starter all season for a team that has championship aspirations but is 5-3 over their last eight games. This player's poor shooting and shaky ball handling are not just a small sample size slump; he shot .404 from the field in 12 games during December 2021 while passing for 56 assists and committing 45 turnovers.

Many media members could barely contain their ecstasy after L.A. Lakers' Coach Frank Vogel sat Russell Westbrook for the final 3:52 of last night's Lakers-Pacers game. These media members breathlessly stated that this decision was way overdue, that Westbrook's play this season casts doubt on his Hall of Fame candidacy, and that the Lakers' front office fully supports benching Westbrook. "Insiders" claimed that Westbrook was benched because of his defense against Caris LeVert. These same "insiders" also have been reporting for a while that Vogel's job status is being reviewed game to game, and that he is one bad game away from being fired. 

Notably absent from this torrent of verbiage is any fact-based account of what happened during the game, particularly in the final 3:52. The Pacers led 101-94 when Vogel took Westbrook out of the game. The Lakers gained no ground with Westbrook on the bench, losing 111-104. LeVert scored seven of the Pacers' final 10 points, and he assisted on the other three points (a Domantas Sabonis three pointer). We cannot say for sure whether or not Westbrook was the Lakers' main problem during the first 44 minutes, but we know for a fact that taking him out of the game did not help during the final four minutes. Westbrook has been criticized for his turnovers, but he had just one turnover in 27 minutes versus the Pacers. His -18 plus/minus number is not great--but LeBron James' plus/minus number was a team-worst -20. 

It is fascinating to watch James avoid even a figurative scratch as the Lakers' season collapses into a million pieces. Here are some facts that we know:

1) James handpicked this roster. If the pieces don't fit, that is on him as the de facto GM, the best player, and the (presumptive) leader: he either picked the wrong players, or he is doing a lousy job leading the players he picked.

2) James is padding his offensive statistics like there is no tomorrow as he chases Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's all-time career scoring record. James can be seen sitting on the bench looking at the box score during the game, and I somehow doubt that he is looking at team defensive efficiency numbers.

3) Speaking of defense, James has been a conscientious objector at that end of the court for most of this season. His effort level makes James Harden look like the second coming of Michael Cooper. We understand that James' athletic ability and scoring prowess at this age and this stage of his career are remarkable, but James has become one of Kenny Smith's "looters in a riot"--a player putting up numbers that have nothing to do with winning.

4) When the team's best player is disinterested in defense, the other players will generally follow suit (Harden's career provides many examples of this).

5) Vogel is coaching with his neck in a proverbial guillotine, and James acts like this is none of his business. If James spoke up privately or publicly on Vogel's behalf, Vogel's job would be secure. James either does not care whether or not Vogel is fired, or James does not want to be blamed for a firing that James has figured out to be inevitable (though it would not be inevitable if James spoke up).

None of this will materially affect James' legacy. He is in bonus time now; he led three different franchises to at least one championship each, he has four titles overall, and by the time he retires he may have more individual records than anyone other than Wilt Chamberlain. James can add to his legacy by winning another ring, but no one--least of all his adoring media fans--will fault him if he does not win another title.

Back to Westbrook. Did he play well versus the Pacers? No. Is he the first future Hall of Famer to have a subpar game? No. Why do media members treat one regular season game versus the Pacers as if it were game seven of the NBA Finals? Will they keep that same energy when James Harden does his annual playoff flameout? In Harden's last playoff game last season, he shot 5-17 from the field while amassing four turnovers; in his last 20 playoff games (not counting his 43 second cameo versus Milwaukee in game one last season), he has had six games in which he shot .400 or worse from the field, including 4-15 and 5-17 in the two seventh games that he participated in during that span. He shot .300 or worse from three point range in nine of those games. 

Pay close attention the next time Harden plays in a nationally televised game. Hold your breath until any of the above numbers are mentioned. No, don't do that--I don't want any of my readers to suffocate to death.

The media coverage of the NBA is driven by an agenda that canonizes some players and demonizes other players; some players are permanently protected, while other players are permanent targets.

I give TNT's Charles Barkley credit for blasting this nonsense during the pregame show tonight, though it would have been even better if he had called out at least some of the offenders by name. Stephen A. Smith is the loudest and most foolish voice on just about every NBA topic, including the Lakers. With the notable exception of the outstanding Kevin Ding, for quite some time many of the media members covering the Lakers (and the NBA in general) seem much more interested in currying favor with LeBron James and/or the front office than actually doing any real reporting, let alone providing accurate analysis (this dates back to the Kobe Bryant era, when many media members curried favor with Shaquille O'Neal while often unfairly criticizing Bryant). I can't find any Ding articles online that are more recent than December 2020, so perhaps he either has paid the price for being honest or he simply decided to pursue better opportunities than being one of the few serious journalists on tour in a clown car stuffed with self-important buffoons.

So, would you bench the player mentioned in the first paragraph of this article? If you said yes, then you just benched Stephen Curry, who we have been told for months is one of the leading MVP candidates this season. It is worth asking why the media members who are so happy that Westbrook was benched would never dream of suggesting that Curry should be benched.

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posted by David Friedman @ 11:34 PM

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NBA's 75th Anniversary Provides an Opportunity to Celebrate Generations of Greatness

As the NBA celebrates its 75th anniversary season, we have a great opportunity to recognize the accomplishments and contributions of players whose efforts are too often minimized, if not forgotten. The Associated Press has published All-Decade Teams for the 1950s (Paul Arizin, Bob Cousy, George Mikan, Bob Pettit, Dolph Schayes), the 1960s (Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, Jerry West), the 1970s (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Rick Barry, Walt Frazier, John Havlicek, Elvin Hayes), and the 1980s (Larry Bird, Julius Erving, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Moses Malone). The AP has published one All-Decade Team per month since the season began. It will be interesting to see the 1990s team, because Michael Jordan would appear to be a lock to be the first player to be honored in more than one decade.

All of the players listed above helped to build the NBA and lift basketball's prominence. I cringe whenever I read or hear anyone who attempts to diminish the contributions made by great players from previous eras.

The 1970s and 1980s teams are closest to my heart, because that is the era when I first started following basketball as a child. In 2016, I selected my All-Decade Teams for the 1970s and 1980s. Overall, the AP's selections for the first four full decades of NBA history are solid, but the main drawback is that the AP--like the NBA itself--relegates the ABA to George Orwell's "memory hole." The NFL acknowledges AFL history and statistics, because the leagues ultimately merged and thus share not only a common present/future but also a common history. Similarly, you cannot accurately tell the story of pro basketball from the late 1960s through the late 1970s without recognizing the ABA's impact. 

The two best pro basketball players in the 1970s were Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julius Erving. In the 1970s, Abdul-Jabbar won five regular season MVPs, one Finals MVP, one championship, and two scoring titles, while Erving won three regular season MVPs, two Finals MVPs, two championships, and three scoring titles. In Erving's first NBA season after playing the first five seasons of his career in the ABA, he won the All-Star Game MVP, led the Philadelphia 76ers to the best record in the Eastern Conference, and averaged 30.3 ppg in the NBA Finals as the 76ers fell in six games to a dominant Portland team that started the next season with a 50-10 record before Bill Walton suffered a season-ending (and career-altering) injury. Erving was selected to the All-NBA Second Team in 1977, and he made the All-NBA First Team in 1978, in addition to the honors mentioned above. 

You cannot tell the history of pro basketball in the 1970s without discussing Julius Erving's impact, and there is no doubt that he belongs on the All-Decade Team for the 1970s.

At least the AP included Erving on the 1980s team. Erving won the 1981 regular season MVP and played a major role for Philadelphia's 1983 championship team, but revisionist history pretends that only Bird and Magic mattered during that decade. Erving's 76ers beat Bird's Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals in 1980 and 1982, and they beat Magic's Lakers in the 1983 NBA Finals. Erving was a perennial MVP candidate until he was 35 years old, by which time the decade was half over. 

That 1980s team would match up well with any of the other All-Decade Teams. Bird, Erving, Magic, and Jordan are each members of my pro basketball Pantheon, and Malone did not miss the cut by much; the only AP All-Decade team with five Pantheon members is the 1960s. 

The interesting thing is that even though the 1980s was a talent-rich decade four of the five selections are easy. The only question about the 1980s team was whether to take Malone or Abdul-Jabbar at center. Malone dominated Abdul-Jabbar in the 1983 Finals, and Malone won two regular season MVPs in the 1980s compared to Abdul-Jabbar's one, but Abdul-Jabbar won five championships in the 1980s, picking up a Finals MVP in 1985 at the age of 38. Abdul-Jabbar earned more All-NBA First Team selections (four) in the 1980s than any center even though he was well into his 30s when the decade began. I picked Abdul-Jabbar for my All-1980s Team, but I don't have a big problem with the AP choosing Malone. At his best, Malone could match up with any center in pro basketball history; he missed the cut for my Pantheon not based on peak value, but rather based on Chamberlain, Russell, Abdul-Jabbar, and Shaquille O'Neal sustaining an elite level for a longer period of time.

The AP has also published a host of interesting articles pertaining to the NBA's 75th anniversary. In Dr. J says players from many eras built league, Erving guest-authored a piece discussing the contributions that many players made to elevate the NBA to its current status. Erving mentioned the pivotal role that the Salvation Army played in his development not just as a basketball player but as a person: "Being a Salvation Army kid, that was always in my mind. It helped make me who I am. That's where I played basketball. That's where I learned to travel and be a good representative of the entity that I'm traveling with. And so, we'd get in the station wagon and we'd go all over Long Island, we'd go to New Jersey, we went to Pennsylvania. And to be on the traveling team, that was very important. When you went, you had to behave and you had to represent your family and you had to represent the Corps, and you had to represent where you were from. And so that helped you in terms of communicating with people and trusting people."

Those of us who have followed Erving's life and career know that he has always given credit to the Salvation Army. Erving has never been someone to shout about how great he is; he has always preferred to give praise to others, and to uplift as many people as he can. When Erving was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, he requested that a Salvation Army flag be draped behind him on the Hall of Fame stage, and his request was granted. 

When I was a kid, I was always excited to see Erving on a magazine cover or featured in a newspaper article, so it was wonderful to go to the AP's NBA 75th Anniversary site and see not only Erving featured on the 1980s team but also given a byline to discuss the NBA's evolution.

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posted by David Friedman @ 2:39 AM

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