20 Second Timeout

Post Lockout NBA Basketball...It's Not Fantastic

2012-01-29T02:10:00.002-05:00

Numbers often lie--particularly when they are taken out of context--but more than one fourth of the way through the truncated yet overstuffed 2011-12 NBA schedule the numbers confirm what the "eyeball test" says: post lockout NBA basketball is not fantastic.

The following chart shows selected statistics for this season compared to the previous five seasons plus those same statistics for the 50 game 1999 post lockout season and the two seasons sandwiched around that miniature campaign. The pattern is very clear: both in 1999 and in this season scoring and shooting efficiency dropped across the board. Turnovers are up significantly this season as well, though that was not the case in 1999 vis a vis the preceding and following seasons:

2011-12: 94.4 ppg, .442 FG%, .340 3FG%, .746 FT%, 15.2 TO/g
(Teams have played an average of 19 out of 66 scheduled games thus far; all other seasonal statistics are for standard 82 game seasons, except for the 50 game 1999 campaign)

2010-11: 99.6 ppg, .459 FG%, .358 3FG%, .763 FT%, 14.3 TO/g
2009-10: 100.4 ppg, .461 FG%, .355 3FG%, .759 FT%, 14.2 TO/g
2008-09: 100.0 ppg, .459 FG%, .367 3FG% .771 FT%, 14.0 TO/g
2007-08: 99.9 ppg, .457 FG%, .362 3FG%, .755 FT%, 14.1 TO/g
2006-07: 98.7 ppg, .458 FG%, .358 3FG%, .752 FT%, 15.1 TO/g

1999-00: 97.5 ppg, .449 FG%, .353 3FG%, .750 FT%, 15.5 TO/g
1999: 91.6 ppg, .437 FG%, .339 3FG%, .728 FT%, 15.3 TO/g
1997-98: 95.6 ppg, .450 FG%, .346 3FG%, .737 FT%, 15.5 TO/g

These numbers only tell part of the story, though. The lack of a proper training camp and preseason combined with the hectic regular season schedule have resulted not just in bad basketball but also high variance basketball: players and teams may look great one night but then have nothing in the tank the next night. Dirk Nowitzki outperformed Miami's trio of All-Stars a few months ago in the 2011 NBA Finals but he got off to a horrible start this season and now is sitting out a few games just to get his body (and perhaps his mind) in sufficient shape to perform at an elite level. Many other stars--young and old--are battling through injuries and/or inconsistency.

Instead of trying to squeeze every last ticket dollar and every last bit of television revenue out of this season, the NBA should have had a real training camp and preseason followed by a shorter but more meaningful regular season (the NBA could have scheduled 50 games just like in 1999, but spread those games out at a normal rate since the 2011 lockout ended earlier than the 1999 lockout did). Phil Jackson once quipped that the San Antonio Spurs' 1999 championship should be marked by an asterisk and that sentiment will likely be even more applicable to the team that emerges victorious in the 2012 NBA Finals; the playoffs figure to be characterized by wacky seeds, funky matchups and, perhaps, key injuries dictating the ultimate outcome in a way rarely if ever seen before. The 2012 NBA champion will be fully worthy, as the 1999 Spurs and all other champions are, but from a historical standpoint it will be difficult to properly place the 1999 and 2012 champions into the larger context of NBA championship teams that triumphed after playing a conventional regular season.

Who Are the Five Best Power Forwards in the NBA?

2012-01-24T02:49:00.004-05:00

ESPN's Friday NBA Countdown show went completely off the rails when Jon Barry failed miserably to do something that should not be that complicated: list the five best power forwards in the NBA. There is certainly plenty of room for debate on this subject--but there is no debating that Barry's list is ridiculous. Before I even share Barry's list with you here is Magic Johnson's immediate on air response: "Didn't you play in the NBA? That list is like you never played in the league." That is a thought that I frequently have when I listen to Barry opine about the NBA and it is refreshing that Johnson did not hesitate to call out Barry.

Here is Barry's list:

1) Kevin Love
2) Blake Griffin
3) LaMarcus Aldridge
4) Paul Millsap
5) Ryan Anderson

Magic Johnson countered with his selections:

1) Dirk Nowitzki
2) Blake Griffin
3) Kevin Love
4) Pau Gasol
5) LaMarcus Aldridge

Johnson then added a very interesting comment, calling Chris Bosh the "best all around" power forward because "He can pass, he can score and he's super smart at the game." It is not clear why Johnson did not include Bosh in his top five nor did anyone on the NBA Countdown set think to ask Johnson to elaborate about this (ESPN made a good decision to ax Stuart Scott as the host of their NBA studio show but the idea of having a studio show without any host is, to put it charitably, still a work in progress). I agree completely with Johnson's assessment of Bosh's game. As I recently wrote regarding Pau Gasol and Chris Bosh, "It has almost become a reflexively uttered cliche to call Gasol the 'most skilled big man in the game' but if you actually watch Gasol and Bosh objectively it is difficult to understand why Gasol would be considered any more skilled than Bosh."

After Johnson, Chris Broussard and Mike Wilbon took turns clowning Barry for ranking Paul Millsap and Ryan Anderson--two good players but not two of the top five power forwards in the NBA--so highly, Barry attempted to backtrack somewhat by saying that he was just talking about "right now." If that really is what Barry was doing then what is the point? Anyone can look at the small sample size of statistics from the early going of this post-lockout season and see that some good players are putting up great numbers while some great players have started slowly starts but saying that Ryan Anderson is a top five power forward based on a handful of games is just as silly as elevating Gilbert Arenas to MVP status in 2007 based on a handful of games. Arenas has some devoted fans--including at least one "stat guru" who loves Arenas so much he cannot even begin to think rationally about Arenas' true value--but intelligent conversation about player rankings/evaluations should not be driven by biased fans or people who think like biased fans; as Johnson correctly chided, Barry is a former player who should have known better than to compile the list that he did.

In my response to Chris Palmer's player ratings last summer, I listed my top five NBA power forwards:

1) Dirk Nowitzki
2) LaMarcus Aldridge
3) Kevin Love
4) Blake Griffin
5) Zach Randolph

I gave honorable mentions to Chris Bosh and Pau Gasol; Bosh suffered from playing alongside two superstars who do not play well without the ball, while Gasol has declined after playing very well as the Lakers won two NBA titles and three straight conference crowns. Dirk Nowitzki is obviously not playing like the NBA's best power forward right now but just a few months ago he outshined Miami's three stars in the clutch while leading Dallas to the championship. Nowitzki is not completely healthy and will sit out a few games to get his body back together; does it really make sense to drop Nowitzki from the top five based on the first few weeks of this post-lockout season?

The real issue is that ESPN does not have enough truly engaging and interesting material to fill all of the air time that it has allotted to various sports. During Monday Night Football's pregame and postgame shows I would much rather hear more from Steve Young about the craft of quarterbacking and less from Stuart Scott about whatever he thinks he is talking about and during ESPN's NBA coverage I would rather hear more from Hubie Brown and Jeff Van Gundy--two guys who have been in the trenches and know what they are talking about--and less from Mike Wilbon and Jon Barry (Magic Johnson and Chris Broussard are solid commentators).

If Barry really would take Anderson and Millsap over Nowitzki then he is delusional--but if all he is saying is that Anderson and Millsap have played well in a small sample of games while Nowitzki has not played particularly well so far then Barry is simply stating the obvious.

Kobe Bryant Versus LeBron James: The Non-Rivalry Rivalry

2012-01-20T06:03:00.006-05:00

The Kobe Bryant-LeBron James head to head rivalry is unlikely to be remembered as one of the great battles in NBA history; the only thing that could turn this around is if they face each other at least once in the NBA Finals but after James blew two opportunities to advance to the NBA Finals when his Cleveland Cavaliers had the best record in the NBA (and would have faced Bryant's L.A. Lakers) in 2009 and 2010 it does not seem likely that such a matchup will ever take place. Wilt Chamberlain-Bill Russell was a great head to head rivalry because they faced each other in 142 games (regular season and playoffs combined) and their teams clashed in the playoffs in eight of the 10 seasons that they were both in the league. Magic Johnson-Larry Bird was not much of a regular season rivalry but their teams squared off in three memorable NBA Finals (Johnson secured a 2-1 head to head advantage in those series when his Lakers defeated Bird's Boston Celtics in the 1987 NBA Finals) while battling for overall supremacy during the 1980s (Johnson also won that battle, claiming five championships to Bird's three). Julius Erving-Larry Bird was an an extremely underrated rivalry; they squared off in 44 regular season games and four playoff series from 1980-87 and either Erving's Philadelphia 76ers or Bird's Celtics won the Eastern Conference championship in each of those seasons.

Bryant and James have not battled each other for championships directly or indirectly; Bryant has won five titles--including two during James' career--while James has only made it to the NBA Finals twice, winning a grand total of two games. They only face each other twice per season and, except for hype and bragging rights, there never has really been much at stake during those games (in terms of playoff positioning). James' teams have dominated Bryant's teams 11-5 and James has posted better individual statistics than Bryant in those games but that is a small sample size (Bird and Erving faced each other nearly three times as often in the regular season and also squared off four times in the Eastern Conference Finals) that is skewed by two factors that generally are not mentioned when mainstream media outlets discuss the head to head encounters between Bryant and James:

1) Bryant's Lakers have advanced to the NBA Finals four times and won two championships since James entered the league in 2003-04 so one might assume that Bryant generally had the better team around him but because Bryant and James have only squared off in the regular season it is important to distinguish between the regular season and the playoffs; Bryant has enjoyed much more individual and collective postseason success than James but from 2004-2011 James' teams had better regular season records than Bryant's teams six out of eight times. James' teams have usually been better in the regular season than Bryant's teams, so in that sense it should not be surprising that they have also beaten Bryant's teams in the regular season.

2) Bryant's individual numbers versus James' teams are distorted because injuries limited him to 17 minutes in one game and just six minutes in another. How much do two games matter? Since we are talking about a sample of just 16 games, two games actually matter a lot; if we assume that a healthy Bryant would have played at least 65 more minutes in those games and scored 40 points in those extra minutes (two reasonable estimates based on his normal playing time and productivity) then Bryant's scoring average in those 16 games would be 2.5 ppg higher.

There is no denying that in head to head regular season encounters James has outplayed Bryant and James' teams have gotten the better of Bryant's teams--but in the larger scheme of things those two facts really do not mean much. The Bryant-James rivalry--which, unless the players face each other in the NBA Finals, will be fought not so much on the court but rather in the history books--ultimately will be evaluated based on which player forges a greater legacy in terms of overall accomplishments. The one similarity between Bryant-James and the great historical rivalries mentioned above is that James is several years younger than Bryant, much like Bird is several years younger than Erving; Erving won one regular season MVP early in Bird's career but eventually Bird picked up three straight MVPs, much like Bryant won an MVP early in James' career but James has recently proven to be the more consistent regular season performer, picking up two MVPs (and James should have received his third MVP last season).

The 16th encounter between Bryant and James--played on Thursday night in Miami--went according to form: James posted the better individual statistics (31 points, eight rebounds, eight assists, four steals and three blocked shots compared to 24 points, five rebounds, seven assists, three steals and no blocked shots for Bryant) and James' Miami Heat defeated Bryant's L.A. Lakers 98-87. James started off shooting very well but cooled off to finish 12-27 from the field (.444), while Bryant got of to a terrible start but hit some fourth quarter shots and finished with an 8-21 mark from the field (.381). Here are some observations about the game and about both teams in general:

1) The Heat improved to 5-0 without Dwyane Wade this season and 9-1 in their last 10 games sans Wade dating back to last season. The Lakers dropped to 1-5 on the road. Again, much will be made of the Bryant-James angle but the result of this game was very predictable based on how both teams have performed so far.

2) Despite a much celebrated bout with the flu, James performed with great energy--and that is why it is so mystifying and bizarre that he has developed a track record for listlessly drifting through some of the most important games of his career (2011 NBA Finals, 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals).

3) The 2011-12 L.A. Lakers bear a stunning resemblance to the 2006 and 2007 Lakers' squads. Bryant topped the 40 point barrier 27 times in the 2006 season and the Lakers went 18-9 in those games en route to a 45-37 record; he topped the 40 point barrier 18 times in the 2007 season and the Lakers went 13-5 in those games en route to a 42-40 record. Thus, Bryant scored at least 40 points in 31 of the Lakers' 87 wins during those seasons: those teams depended on Bryant to produce big numbers on a nightly basis just to be competitive. This season is young, so the sample size is small, but right now the Lakers are 5-1 when Bryant scores 37 or more points (including 3-1 in his 40 point games) and 5-5 when Bryant scores 30 points or less. I said last summer that unless the Lakers upgraded their roster they would need for Bryant to revert to his 2006 and 2007 style just to have a chance to make the playoffs. There are still 50 games left in the season so a lot could happen but it certainly seems like the Lakers are who I thought they were: a mediocre team that is very dependent on heavy production from a 33 year old guard who has over 48,000 regular season and playoff minutes on his odometer. Bryant set some age related records with his recent streak of four straight 40 point games but he shot just 15-43 from the field in the next two games, a narrow escape versus Dallas (the Lakers won after Bryant drew two defenders and then passed to Derek Fisher for the wide open game-winning three pointer) and Thursday's loss to Miami. Unless Bryant summons the energy to pour in 30-plus points it does not seem likely that the Lakers will win in Orlando on Friday night. The Elias Sports Bureau notes that, even with his recent two game slump, Bryant still has the second most points in the first 16 games of the season in the last 25 years by a player who is at least 33 years old (486; Michael Jordan had 511 in 1996-97). Jordan teamed up with Hall of Famers Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman to lead the Bulls to a title in 1996-97; if the Lakers are hoping to achieve a similar result this season then they better figure out how to pair Bryant with another Hall of Famer (i.e., Dwight Howard).

4) Pau Gasol put up good numbers versus Miami (26 points on 11-19 field goal shooting, eight rebounds) but, as TNT's Steve Kerr noted during the telecast, Gasol has not had much impact overall this season even though Gasol's statistics are solid. Gasol seems determined to redefine himself as a jump shooter (four of his 19 shots came from behind the three point arc and many others were launched from outside the paint). His Miami counterpart Chris Bosh tallied 15 points on 6-11 shooting and also grabbed eight rebounds. It has almost become a reflexively uttered cliche to call Gasol the "most skilled big man in the game" but if you actually watch Gasol and Bosh objectively it is difficult to understand why Gasol would be considered any more skilled than Bosh; they are both finesse-oriented big men who can post up but prefer to face the basket, they are both capable rebounders and they are both good passers. Gasol is a bit taller but Bosh is more athletic. The big difference between the two players is that Gasol's field goal percentage and offensive rebounding--two statistics that do not generally improve with age--markedly increased after he teamed up with Bryant several years ago, while Bosh's numbers sagged after joining the Heat last year.

5) The "stat gurus" were ready to put Andrew Bynum in the Basketball Hall of Fame after Bynum authored the first 20-20 game of his career but so far this season he has topped the 20 point mark just three times in 12 games. Contrary to popular belief, this is not because he is not getting opportunities; he has shot .462 or worse from the field in five of those 12 games--a terrible shooting percentage for a big man who rarely takes shots outside of the paint--and he has done a poor job in several crucial aspects of post play: establishing position early enough in the shot clock, protecting the ball and reading double teams. Bynum is a good, solid big man when he is healthy but he lacks explosiveness and sometimes loses his balance (which is perhaps a residual effect of all of the leg injuries he has suffered). A telling encounter took place during the Miami game; Bynum had the ball right under the hoop with only James in front of him, both players jumped at the same time and James cleanly snuffed out Bynum's field goal attempt. A small forward--even one as athletically gifted as James--should not be able to block a seven foot center in a straight up duel.

6) Gasol's reluctance to go into the paint and Bynum's sporadic effectiveness make the Lakers an easy team to defend: the simple recipe is to double team Bryant, single cover Gasol and Bynum to deny them easy catches and dare anyone else on the team to make an open shot. Shane Battier did a credible job of staying in front of Bryant--but that was not a hard task considering that Battier always had at least one other partner in crime shadowing Bryant's every move.

Some Interesting Nuggets from the Annual NBA GM Survey

2012-01-19T05:04:00.001-05:00

Much like the 2011-12 NBA season, the annual survey of NBA General Managers arrived late--but the results have now been posted at NBA.com and it is interesting to see how the league's 30 top executives answered some of the 57 questions posed to them (the NBA.com report mentioned that not every GM answered every question, so the percentages listed below are based on the responses received).

The Miami Heat are the landslide choice (74.1%) to win the 2012 championship--but the L.A. Lakers (who finished a distant third at 7.4%) were the landslide choice last season (63.0%) and got swept in the second round. The Oklahoma City Thunder received 14.8% of the vote to win the 2012 championship but are the overwhelming pick (67.9%) to win the West, followed by the Lakers (17.9%).

Kevin Durant is once again the preseason choice to win the regular season MVP (55.6% this time, a decline from the 66.7% of the vote he received last year), with LeBron James garnering the rest of the votes.

The GMs split on who they would choose to start a franchise today, with Durant and James each receiving 37.0% of the votes. However, Dwight Howard finished first (29.6%) as the player who forces opposing coaches to make the most adjustments, topping Durant, James, Dirk Nowitzki and Derrick Rose. Kobe Bryant dropped from first (35.7%) in this category to "also receiving votes," an indication of how much Bryant's injuries last season lowered his perceived value (if that poll had been taken after Bryant's recent string of four straight 40-point games I suspect Bryant would easily make the top five again).

Bryant still tops the GM vote for best shooting guard in the NBA (55.6%), outdistancing Dwyane Wade (40.7%) and Ray Allen (3.7%). Bryant retained the title as the player who is best at creating his own shot but his vote total dropped from 70.4% to 35.7%; Durant finished second (21.4%), while James and Wade tied for third (14.3% each). Bryant unseated Ron Artest (now known as Metta World Peace) as the GMs' choice for toughest player in the league (32.1%), beating out Rajon Rondo (10.7%).

The vote that is sure to provoke the most grumbling from "stat gurus" is the one that once again selected Bryant as the best player to take a shot with the game on the line; Bryant received 48.1% of the vote, down from 78.6% last year, but still enough to easily outdistance Durant (30.8%). Ray Allen, Carmelo Anthony, Manu Ginobili, Dirk Nowitzki, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade fell into the "also receiving votes" category. In a much publicized recent GQ magazine interview, Chris Bosh unhesitatingly selected Wade over James in this category. I have made my position about this entire discussion very clear: Being a Clutch Player is More Significant than Just Making Clutch Shots. "Clutch shots" can be defined by a variety of different parameters but regardless of the criteria used the discussion boils down to a small sample size of plays that lump together shots hit in transition when the defense is not set, tip ins, half court heaves and open jump shots for role players created after a great player forced a double team (like the three pointer that Derek Fisher hit to beat Dallas the other night after Kobe Bryant drew two defenders). There is not much analytical value in comparing a transition jumper in a three on two fast break, a wide open Derek Fisher jump shot, a tip in and a desperation heave launched just before the final buzzer goes off. The best thing for a team to do is to play well enough down the stretch that a last second shot is not necessary; failing that, the logical thing to do is to put the ball in the hands of the team's best player and hope for the best while understanding that even great players are not going to have a great success rate in a compressed time frame while facing a set defense.

The GMs tapped Derrick Rose (59.3%) as the top point guard over Chris Paul (37.0%) and Russell Westbrook (3.7%). Strangely, even though Durant received the most MVP consideration the GMs selected James (77.8%) as the best small forward ahead of Durant (18.5%) and Carmelo Anthony (3.7%). This is a classic example of the kind of flawed reasoning described by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow; it does not make much sense for the same group of voters to tap Durant as the MVP but choose James as the best small forward--unless the GMs are saying that they expect the media to choose Durant as the MVP even though they (the GMs) still think that James is the better player.

Dirk Nowitzki (41.1%) topped the power forward voting, ahead of Blake Griffin (17.9%), Kevin Love (14.3%), LaMarcus Aldridge (10.7%) and, oddly, small forward Durant (7.1%). Last year, Pau Gasol and Nowitzki tied for first (28.6%) but this year Gasol dropped into the "also receiving votes category."

Dwight Howard received 96.3% of the votes for best center, while 3.7% chose Pau Gasol; frankly, Marc Gasol would be a better choice at center than Pau Gasol, who seems to have developed an allergy to the paint dating back to last season. Howard also easily won the vote for best defender in the NBA.

Tony Allen received the nod as the best perimeter defender (26.9%), outdistancing a crowded field that included second place finisher Rajon Rondo (15.4%) and a tie for third (11.5%) among Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Russell Westbrook. Bryant won this category with 35.7% of the vote last year.

The GMs selected Gregg Popovich (42.3%) as the best coach, ahead of Doc Rivers (23.1%), Rick Carlisle (11.5%) and Mike Brown (7.7%). Phil Jackson, now retired, won this category last year (39.3%).

Does Any Sensible Person Still Think That Miami is "Dwyane Wade's Team"?

2012-01-18T03:49:00.003-05:00

When LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined forces with Dwyane Wade to form a power trio in Miami some commentators reflexively said that the Heat were "Dwyane Wade's team" and criticized James for supposedly being so eager to give up alpha dog status to be Robin to Wade's Batman. Some fans heckled James by calling him "LePippen," a jeer that simply makes no sense on any level. I explained last season that James has yet to match Pippen's most significant accomplishments: "LeBron James is a more explosive scorer than Scottie Pippen but he still has a long way to go to match Pippen as a champion, a leader and a player who will do whatever it takes--including play an NBA Finals game with two ruptured disks in his back--to help his team win an NBA title." Beyond the fact that it is disrespectful to Hall of Famer Pippen to supposedly denigrate James by using Pippen's name, there is no logical reason to assert that Miami is "Wade's team." It does not matter that Wade was in Miami first or even that he is the only member of Miami's power trio who has won a championship; the reality is that there is no skill set area in which Wade is better than James and James is significantly bigger and stronger than Wade. Last season, James led the Heat in scoring, assists and steals. James topped Wade in every meaningful statistical category except for blocked shots and turnovers. In the playoffs the Heat eliminated number one seed Chicago--despite a subpar performance from Wade--because James dominated at both ends of the court but the Heat faltered in the NBA Finals precisely when James mysteriously disappeared.

James' level of play is the number one factor determining Miami's success and that has become even more strikingly obvious this season; James is once again leading the Heat in scoring, assists and steals and, if anything, the Heat look even better without Wade than they do with him. I am skeptical of small sample sizes of data that can be skewed for a variety of reasons but the Heat are not just 4-0 this season sans Wade--they are 8-1 in their last nine games without Wade dating back to the early portion of last season (James has missed just four games during that period and the Heat went 2-2 in those contests). This goes beyond the win-loss record, though; both James and Bosh individually perform much better without Wade and not just in terms of raw numbers at the expense of efficiency.

Last season I criticized what I called Miami's "clown car" offense: their half court offense is so disorganized at times that it is reminiscent of clowns piling out of a car at a circus. A major problem for the Heat is that their two best players--James and Wade--do not have complementary skill sets: neither player is particularly good without the ball in a half court offense, so when one guy "takes his turn" the other guy ends up standing around doing nothing. Meanwhile, regardless of whether James or Wade is at the helm, the "clown car" offense transforms--or, to be precise, demotes--Bosh from one of the top 15 players in the NBA to a glorified Horace Grant (no disrespect intended toward Grant, who was a fine player in his own right, but Bosh is a perennial All-Star who should not be relegated primarily to shooting jumpers on the weak side while James or Wade drain the shot clock with aimless dribbling).

I recently offered a satirical take regarding what might happen if Henry Abbott ever became as biased against LeBron James as he is against Kobe Bryant but the grain of truth in that satire is that the way the Heat plays negatively impacts Bosh's game. This is particularly evident when both James and Wade are on the court. When one or the other is out of the game, Bosh performs much better.

After Tuesday's NBA TV Fan Night game--Miami beat San Antonio 120-98 with James scoring 33 points and Bosh scoring 30 points while Wade sat out because of an ankle injury--Greg Anthony said that even though this might sound crazy to some people he thinks that Miami would benefit from getting the ball to Bosh more frequently. Anthony is not Henry Abbott; Anthony is not proposing that Bosh is Miami's best player (which would be as silly as Abbott or the "stat gurus" making a similar claim regarding Pau Gasol or Andrew Bynum as long as Kobe Bryant is doing his thing) or that Bosh should get the most shot attempts but Anthony is correct that something is wrong with the way that the Heat run their half court offense.

The Heat are so talented that they may very well win a championship--either this season or within the next few years--in spite of their deficiencies but it is also possible that LeBron James will never surpass in Miami what he accomplished in Cleveland (posting the best record in the NBA in back to back seasons while reaching the Conference Finals twice and the NBA Finals once). The Cavaliers' much-maligned coaching staff and roster were more complementary of James' skill set than this current Miami Heat team is.

My all-time favorite player Julius Erving accomplished far more during his career than what LeBron James has accomplished thus far and, unlike James, Erving raised his level of play when the stakes were highest, consistently acing the Finals test (scoring at least 20 points in 21 of his 22 ABA and NBA Finals games en route to winning three titles); in the 1976 ABA Finals Erving authored one of the greatest single series performances in pro basketball history. However, the arc of Erving's career provides some interesting parallels to James' situation vis a vis Wade. When Erving joined the Philadelphia 76ers prior to the 1976-77 season one could have argued that the 76ers were George McGinnis' team; McGinnis was a championship-winning player (albeit with the Indiana Pacers, not the 76ers) and McGinnis clearly had been the 76ers' best player the previous season when they returned to the playoffs for the first time since 1970-71--but Erving (who, like McGinnis, was already a two-time ABA champion) was simply a better player than McGinnis and Erving emerged as the 76ers' leading scorer. Erving and McGinnis--helped by Doug Collins, a third All-Star--carried the 76ers to the 1977 NBA Finals but the 76ers blew a 2-0 lead and lost to Portland in six games. The 76ers were considered to be the most talented team in the NBA but within two seasons the coach had been fired and McGinnis had been traded for Bobby Jones, a very good player who was not as talented or dominant as McGinnis but whose skill set better complemented Erving's. It will be very interesting to see if the Heat ever make it back to the NBA Finals with this nucleus or if they will be as bold as the 76ers were and trade their second best player in the interest of forming a more complementary talent blend.

Erving's 76ers made it back to the Finals in 1980 and 1982 but did not win the championship until 1983. The arrival of Moses Malone put the 76ers over the top. Malone won the 1979 and 1982 MVPs prior to joining the 76ers, while Erving captured the 1981 MVP (becoming the first non-center to receive the NBA MVP since Oscar Robertson in 1964). Publicly, Malone said that the 76ers were Erving's team and that he (Malone) just wanted to help Erving to get an NBA championship ring--but the on court reality proved that Malone was the team's best player. Erving (who finished fifth in the 1983 MVP voting and earned his fourth straight All-NBA First Team selection) was hardly a slouch--and the 76ers clearly could not have won the 1983 championship without his significant contributions--but Malone won the regular season MVP in a landslide and he won the Finals MVP as the 76ers swept the Lakers in the NBA Finals.

What does this history lesson mean? The 76ers were not McGinnis' team just because he had been there first nor were they Erving's team after Malone arrived. Basketball is a team sport, so perhaps it does not even make sense to say that a given team "belongs" to one player but if we are going to employ this common trope then it must be used logically: the 1977-82 76ers were "Julius Erving's team" because he was the best player on the team during that time but the arrival of a younger, more physically dominant Moses Malone changed that dynamic. The Heat were "Dwyane Wade's team" for several years but the arrival of a younger, more physically dominant LeBron James changed that dynamic.

Erving came close to leading the 76ers to a championship--and it cannot be reasonably said that it was his fault that they fell just short several times--but during that era it was essential to have a dominant big man to go all the way and--except for the 1979 San Antonio Spurs--every team that defeated Erving's 76ers in the playoffs from 1977-82 had a Hall of Fame center (Bill Walton, Wes Unseld/Elvin Hayes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Robert Parish) who was in his prime and/or performing at a very high level. Can LeBron James be the centerpiece of a championship team a la Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan (and Erving and McGinnis in their ABA primes)? Or will James only win a title later in his career after being paired with a dominant big man, as was the case with several Hall of Fame perimeter players, including Erving, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson and Clyde Drexler?

I don't know what will happen but I will make a few predictions:

1) The Heat will not win a championship with a "clown car" half court offense.
2) The Heat as presently constituted will not win a championship if LeBron James fails to be the best player on the court in the Conference Finals and NBA Finals.
3) Even though Wade is one of the five or six best players in the NBA he is not necessarily the best complement to James; James would be better served to be paired with either a dominant big man or an All-Star who can consistently connect from midrange and long distance. James and Wade can use their athletic talent to overwhelm most teams in the regular season but in playoff competition there will likely always be at least one or two teams that are able to seal off the paint and force James and Wade to consistently do the two things that they both are not very good at doing: making jump shots and playing without the ball in a half court set.

I am not saying that the Heat should or even could trade Wade the way that the 76ers swapped George McGinnis for Bobby Jones--the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement likely would make it difficult for the Heat to trade Wade for a player who better complements James--but I am saying that complementary skill sets are more important than raw talent when building a championship roster ("stat gurus" around the world are cringing in unison because they think that productivity--as determined solely by "advanced basketball statistics"--is by far the most important factor in building a roster and that is why the "stat gurus" predicted a Miami Heat dominance that has yet to fully materialize outside of their spreadsheets). The Heat are clearly the most talented team in the league--no other squad has three All-Stars who are each in their primes--and it could be argued that they have more raw talent than several teams that have won championships but it is far from clear that they will actually win a title.

Kobe Bryant Tops 40 Points for the Third Straight Game

2012-01-14T05:22:00.007-05:00

On Friday night, Kobe Bryant led the L.A. Lakers to a 97-92 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers by scoring 42 points on 15-31 field goal shooting. In the seven games since Bryant had his worst shooting game in nearly two years--and thus renewed the endless fascination many members of the media have with his shot selection--Bryant has averaged 37.2 ppg while shooting 98-196 (.500) from the field. The Lakers won six of those seven games and they have won five games in a row, with Bryant topping the 40 point barrier in each of the past three games. Bryant's 48 point game versus Phoenix on January 10 is not only the highest scoring game by any player in the young 2012 season but it is also the highest scoring output ever for a player who has participated in at least 16 NBA seasons.

Bryant has played at least 36 minutes in each of the past seven games and he played more than 40 minutes in three of those games. As I recently noted, Bryant's per minute productivity was very high in 2010-11 but Coach Phil Jackson limited Bryant's minutes to preserve Bryant's legs and try to keep Bryant healthy for the playoffs (a good plan that nevertheless went awry after Bryant sprained his ankle in the first round, an ailment that reduced him from an All-NBA First Team caliber performer to "merely" an All-Star level player as the Lakers were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round). Bryant's wheels are spinning better than they have in years but Bryant's heavy minutes and sensational scoring totals underscore the fact that the Lakers simply are not a very good team; the Lakers need this kind of durability and productivity from Bryant just to beat the likes of Cleveland, Utah and Phoenix, none of which are currently seeded higher than seventh in their respective conferences.

Bryant has averaged 34.8 ppg so far in January 2012, with eight games completed and nine more left to go. This is not even close to being the highest scoring month of his career; Bryant averaged 43.4 ppg in January 2006 (including his 81 point outburst against Toronto), he averaged 41.6 ppg in April 2006 (that month consisted of just eight games at the end of the season; Bryant's other 40 ppg months each included at least 13 games and my understanding is that for these kinds of records the Elias Sports Bureau counts any month that includes at least five games), he averaged 40.6 ppg in February 2003 and he averaged 40.4 ppg in March 2007; Wilt Chamberlain is the only other player in NBA history to average more than 40 ppg in a month on multiple occasions (Chamberlain accomplished this astounding feat 11 times).

This is the seventh time that Bryant has had a streak of at least three games of 40-plus points but the first time he has done so since March 2007. His best such streak lasted nine games (February 2003, when Bryant singlehandedly kept the Lakers afloat while Shaquille O'Neal slowly got back into shape after delaying his toe surgery) and four of his streaks took place in the infamous Kwame Brown-Smush Parker era when the Lakers needed Bryant to score 30-40 points just to have a chance to win.

The current version of the Lakers is not as talent-depleted as the Brown-Parker Lakers but the Lakers are who I thought they were when I declared that they would need for Kobe Bryant to play like he did back in 2006 and 2007 in order to make the playoffs--but perhaps I was wrong when I wrote, "the Kobe Bryant who worked miracles in 2006-07 and who carried a good team to great heights in 2008-10 will only be appearing at the Staples Center in highlights played on the video screen above the court." Is it really possible that a 33 year old, 16 year veteran with 48,000-plus regular season and playoff minutes on his legs (and a torn ligament in the wrist of his shooting hand) will lead the league in scoring and pile up enough 40 point games to carry the Lakers into the playoffs? The fact that Bryant can still play at such a high level is all the more reason for Mitch Kupchak to do whatever he can to acquire Dwight Howard; a Bryant-Howard tandem would be an improved version of the Hakeem Olajuwon-Clyde Drexler tandem that won a championship in 1995, even if the Lakers have to give up Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol: the Rockets won it all without a true power forward and the Lakers could do likewise with Bryant dominating the perimeter, Howard locking down the paint and Coach Mike Brown's defensive schemes covering up some of the weaknesses at other positions.

**********

Kobe Bryant's 40 Point Game Streaks

9: February 2003 (7-2 record)
5: March 2007 (5-0 record)
5: December 2005-January 2006 (3-2 record)
4: March-April 2006 (2-2 record)
4: March 2006 (3-1 record)
3: January 2012 (3-0; streak is still active)
3: December 2004-January 2005 (2-1 record)

Total: 25-8 record

Kobe Bryant's Tank is not on "E"

2012-01-11T05:55:00.010-05:00

Prior to an important game, Coach Bill Parcells once placed a gas can by the locker of one of his older players, thus asking a wordless but not so subtle question: "Do you have anything left in the tank?"

Before this season began it was only logical to speculate about how much Kobe Bryant had left in his tank. In 2010-11, Bryant was very productive and efficient when he was healthy--his per minute averages and his shooting percentages were comparable to the numbers he posted during his 2007-08 MVP campaign--but knee and ankle woes limited his effectiveness during the 2011 playoffs; Bryant is an "old" 33 because he is a 16 year veteran who has logged over 48,000 combined minutes (regular season and postseason), roughly the same number that Michael Jordan had tallied by the time he had transformed from "Air Jordan" to "Floor Jordan" as a 40 year old Washington Wizard. After the Dallas Mavericks swept Bryant's L.A. Lakers, I looked back at what Bryant accomplished from 2008-2010 when he led the Lakers to three straight Finals appearances and concluded that for the declining Lakers to be successful in 2011-12 they would need for Bryant to once again become a scoring machine, something that I considered to be unlikely not because Bryant's skills have declined but because his body seemed to be failing him.

The truncated and compacted 2012 season has only just begun, so there is still reason to question whether Bryant can sustain his current pace but the numbers--not "advanced stats" and not selected numbers taken out of context but simply the meaningful box score numbers--show that he is playing as well as he has played at any time in the past several years. Bryant ranks second in the league in scoring behind only LeBron James and Bryant's points per minute average is the highest it has been since he claimed back to back scoring titles in 2006 and 2007. The torn ligament in his right wrist has wreaked havoc on his three point shot but his overall field goal percentage is slightly above his career norm and his free throw percentage is only slightly below his career norm. Bryant just won the Western Conference Player of the Week award for games played between January 2 and January 8 and he has authored the two best individual scoring performances of the season: 39 points versus Golden State on January 6 and 48 points versus Phoenix on January 10. The Lakers won both of those games and they also beat Houston on January 3 when Bryant racked up 37 points, his third highest scoring total so far (and tied for the fourth highest scoring game in the NBA's young season). Meanwhile, Andrew Bynum's efficiency has plummeted after his much celebrated first ever 20-20 game and Bynum has shot just 12-31 from the field in the past three games while amassing two assists and coughing up 10 turnovers. We can safely discard any notions of the Lakers building their offense around Bynum any time soon.

Bryant's 48 point outburst versus the Suns was not only a vintage performance but, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, it is the highest scoring game by an NBA player who has played at least 16 seasons, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 46 point game in 1985-86. Bryant's 324 points through the first 11 games of the season are the third most since 1985 by any player who is at least 33 years old but the two players ahead of him on the list--Bernard King in 1990 and Michael Jordan in 1996--both had logged fewer seasons and fewer minutes than Bryant (though, to be fair, King was the first player to come back from reconstructive ACL surgery to make the All-Star team, so his 1990 productivity is remarkable in its own right considering the full context).

Bryant's impeccable footwork and deadly midrange game force opposing teams to swarm him and this creates easy opportunities for Bynum, Pau Gasol and other Lakers. Unfortunately for the Lakers, Bryant's teammates are not taking full advantage of those opportunities to the extent that they did from 2008-2010, so this season's Lakers look a lot like the 2006 and 2007 squads that needed superhuman efforts from Bryant just to win games (the Lakers are 74-34 in the regular season when Bryant scores at least 40 points, including an 18-9 mark during the 2005-06 season when the Lakers went just 45-37 overall).

The long offseason (and perhaps the well publicized treatment that Bryant received in Germany) seems to have rejuvenated Bryant's legs and enabled him to regain some explosiveness: he once again can drive around defenders and finish with authority at the rim and he also has excellent elevation on his jump shot. It really would be interesting to see what Bryant could do on a nightly basis in this condition if he had a fully healthy wrist. As long as Bryant's wrist does not get worse and Bryant's legs stay healthy he can score enough and create enough open shots for his teammates to get the Lakers into the playoffs but if the Lakers are serious about winning at least one more championship during Bryant's career then they need to pull the trigger on a Bynum for Dwight Howard deal; Howard would be the perfect anchor for Coach Mike Brown's defense and Howard's already impressive field goal percentage and offensive rebounding rate would improve from playing alongside Bryant, much like Gasol's numbers in those categories went up after he joined the Lakers. Bynum is too injury-prone and too raw to be counted on as a championship team's defensive anchor and second offensive option; he ranked just sixth on the Lakers in playoff minutes for both the 2009 and 2010 championship teams, so it is wishful thinking to assume that he can maintain his health and be productive if the Lakers expect him to suddenly not only log heavy minutes but to do so as a key factor at both ends of the court.

The 31 year old Gasol may never completely emerge from the funk that he entered during last season's playoffs; Gasol was a good second option on the 2009 and 2010 championship teams but he seems content to be a third option now and that is not good enough if Bynum is then expected to be the second option. If the Lakers can keep Gasol around as a third option behind Bryant and Howard that would work well but if the Lakers have to ship Gasol out with Bynum to obtain Howard it would be worth it: Howard is a perfect second option for the current Lakers and then the Lakers can build around Howard after Bryant retires.

What if ESPN's Main Basketball Blogger Wrote About the Chicago Bulls the Way that He Writes About the L.A. Lakers?

2012-01-08T03:29:00.008-05:00

The following article is satirical but all of the cited box score statistics are true (they are deliberately taken out of context but the raw numbers are accurate). Some names have been changed to protect the guilty. Hopefully, most readers understand the nature of satire but in case you don't and/or are new to this site, here is a serious, detailed analysis of how Derrick Rose and other elite NBA players perform: Selecting NBA Award Winners: The Battle of Stats Versus Storylines Versus Logical Analysis.

Derrick Rose Refuses to Trust his Teammates

by Aenry Habbott

Before I started the False Bucket website I had a variety of different jobs and I met people from all different walks of life. One time on my lunch break I went to Starbucks and I was standing in line behind an elderly, somewhat shabbily dressed gentleman. He looked like he had not had anything to eat or drink for days. He ordered a coffee and a sandwich but then realized that he was a dollar short. I gave him a dollar and he smiled at me. I felt good all day and I will never forget how good it felt to help someone.

What does this have to do with basketball?

Basketball is part of the tapestry of life. On the court five people must work together in harmony, just like we all should work together in harmony to make the world a better place. Sharing is good on the basketball court and in life. Being selfish is bad.

Using all of your dollars only for yourself is selfish. Most of us understand that this is bad.

But a basketball player who shoots too much is just like a person who spends all of his money on himself.

Shooting is not sharing!

Derrick Rose is a very gifted basketball player. It is exciting to watch him cross over hapless defenders. It is cool to see him dunk over much bigger opponents. I get that. Derrick Rose is fun to watch!

But is Derrick Rose really an effective, efficient player? Before the advent of advanced basketball statistics we would have just had to rely on how we felt watching Derrick Rose play. And like I said, Derrick Rose is fun to watch. No one can deny that.

Derrick Rose is a point guard. Point guards are supposed to be the ultimate basketball sharers. They are supposed to give out dollars--i.e., shots--to all of their friends. I am sure that Derrick Rose is a good person. But advanced basketball statistics show that he is not a sharer.

Bave Derri is an economist at Southwest Northeast Central Eastern College in Looneyville, Texas, an institution that is to economic research what the Institute of Advanced Study was to physics back when Albert Einstein worked there. Derri does not deny that it is fun to watch Rose play but he recently sent me an email explaining exactly how the numbers show that Rose does not share as much as he should.

In the 2010-11 season, Rose attempted exactly 31 shots in a game once--and the Chicago Bulls lost. They also lost three of the five games in which Rose attempted exactly 27 shots. The Chicago Bulls were pretty good last year. They had the best record in the NBA (62-20). But four of their losses came when Rose attempted either 27 or 31 shots.

I get that Chicago fans want Rose to be the next Michael Jordan but Rose only ranked sixth on the Bulls in true shooting percentage. That means that when Rose shot the ball it was less likely to go in the hoop than it was when Rasual Butler, Joakim Noah, Kyle Korver, Keith Bogans or Omer Asik shot the ball. Luol Deng's true shooting percentage was barely less than Rose's (.549 for Deng compared to .550 for Rose) but Rose attempted 1597 shots while Deng only attempted 1155 shots.

Sharing is caring, whether you are helping a homeless person in Starbucks or a Sudanese friend on the basketball court.

I know that advanced basketball statistics make some of you feel cranky but true shooting percentage is not only an advanced basketball statistic but it contains the word "true." If you are against using true shooting percentage to rank basketball players then you really are a primitive person who has not learned to value truth.

The sad story of Rose hoarding shot attempts carried over from the 2010-11 regular season into the playoffs. When Rose attempted 29 or more shots the Bulls went 0-2 but in the three games in which he attempted 18 or fewer shots the Bulls went 3-0. If Rose had attempted 18 or fewer shots in every playoff game the Bulls would have had a perfect playoff record! They would have been the greatest championship team ever!

What about poor Carlos Boozer? He went to Duke for three years so he probably is smart enough to understand the value of advanced basketball statistics. When he played for Utah, a team with a point guard who shared the ball, Boozer had two straight seasons in which he averaged at least 20 ppg and at least 10 rpg. That all changed when Boozer became a Bull and started playing alongside Rose. Boozer's scoring average plummeted to 17.5 ppg last season and in the playoffs it dropped to 12.6 ppg.

Rose tried to win those playoff games all by himself. He did not trust his teammates. He did not share the ball with them. If Carlos Boozer had been a homeless person in Starbucks, Rose would not have given him a dollar.

Derri came up with a new advanced metric to quantify the importance of sharing. He calls it Derri's Ultimate Methodology (DUM). This DUM formula is so advanced that only an economist could understand it so I will not even attempt to describe it here but Derri informs me that Rose has a -206.5 DUM number. Derri says that the only two guards he can find in NBA history who were more selfish than Rose are Isiah Thomas and Allen Iverson. Derri estimates that Thomas and Iverson have combined to ruin 10 NBA franchises. Derri is still investigating what impact Iverson's brief stint in Turkey had on Derri's beloved Detroit Pistons but preliminary indications are that Iverson is the reason that the Pistons are still struggling.

But, wait a minute. Didn't Isiah Thomas win two championships? Didn't Allen Iverson carry a thin Philly roster to the NBA Finals in 2001? Derri has all of the answers to your simple questions. Thomas' Detroit teams were successful because of Dennis Rodman. Derri notes that Rodman was a greater player than even Michael Jordan. Rodman had a DUM number of 666! Rodman's DUM number was more than three times larger than Einstein's IQ. That means Rodman was a basketball genius! Similarly, Iverson's Philadelphia teammate Dikembe Mutombo had a DUM number of 319. Mutombo was not quite the basketball Einstein that Rodman was but Mutombo was at least at the Kurt Godel level.

I spent half a day on the phone with various NBA executives talking about Derrick Rose and the DUM numbers but after I said my piece each of them just replied "Dumb----" and hung up the phone. I am mystified why NBA executives would not want to use every means available to improve their teams.

Joakim Noah, Omer Asik and Carlos Boozer are not basketball Einsteins or even basketball Godels but Derri's DUM numbers show that they at least are equivalent to some of the lesser known figures at the Institute for Advanced Study. It would be smart for Rose to pass the ball to them more often.

After all, a hero is nothing but a sandwich and a player with a low DUM number like Rose would not even buy a sandwich for a starving man.

Kevin Ding Provides Excellent Lakers Coverage

2012-01-06T16:02:00.007-05:00

A large percentage of what is reported about the NBA in general--and the Lakers in particular--consists of various kinds of nonsense: biased commentary, statistics that are either irrelevant and/or based on insignificant sample sizes, gossip, etc. One shining light amidst this darkness is Kevin Ding, the beat writer for the Orange County Register. His most recent article contains solid reporting with excellent insight. Here is Ding's coverage of how Kobe Bryant is dealing with the torn ligament in his right wrist:

Bryant has been taking a numbing injection to that wrist before every game in hopes of performing normally. Yes, it's that bad.

He does not want to publicize all the details of his wrist, which is usable only because the bones were not moved permanently out of alignment without the ligament to hold them in place. But it's now clear just how problematic the wrist is, and it's fair to wonder where all this will take Bryant.

Bryant walked out of Staples Center on Tuesday night with something that looked like an oven mitten over his right hand and wrist. He wears an immobilizing brace over the wrist when off the court, meaning take-for-granted parts of life such as texting on his phone or zipping his fly become rather challenging.

It was much the same aggravation in 2009-10, when Bryant played through the avulsion fracture in his right index finger--another rather useful body part for everyday activities apart from handling a basketball, too...

In 2009-10 Bryant paid a price for overextending himself, with the fracture in the top knuckle of that finger eventually healing, but the main middle knuckle so beaten down by the abuse that it wound up with arthritis.

That finger today remains, well, quite deformed. Actually, the most accurate way to describe the finger? Lumpy.

The L.A. Times, ESPN and other media outlets will try to convince you that Mike Brown is not a very good coach and that Kobe Bryant does not respect him. Ding has a much different take:

Days before Brown and Bryant reviewed video side-by-side on the flight home from Denver after Bryant's brutal 6-for-28 game Sunday night, Bryant shared with me the depth of his respect for Brown.

"I really want to win for him in the worst way, because I see how much he works and I see how much he wants it," Bryant said. "I hear the criticism he takes, and I believe it to be unwarranted. It makes me want to work even harder than I already am."

Brown and Bryant came out of their video study together with a mandate: Rededicate themselves to getting Bryant the ball in his favorite spots right off the free-throw line or in the short post.

"I think Kobe learned something when we sat down and watched tape," said Brown, staying typically humble by adding: "I know I learned something, too."

Brown also mentioned to Bryant the need to follow through properly with his wrist on jump shots. Well, when Bryant does that, the wrist howls in pain. It wasn't fatigue from six games in eight days that left so many of Bryant's shots in Denver on the front rim as much as the wrist failing.

Ding concludes:

Bryant is always the same but is never the same. Whether he's missing 22 shots or making 14, he's analyzing every one. He will travel to the ends of the earth for any possible edge, yet his nose will never leave the grindstone.

What he doesn't understand is why everyone doesn't get it by now:

This is what he does. This is who he is.

Bryant pounded away with that busted finger for six months of the 2009-10 season.

He got up only after he had what he calls the most satisfying of his five NBA championships.

For several years I have emphasized that Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum benefit immensely from the extra defensive attention that Kobe Bryant attracts. People who say that Bryant should have a smaller offensive role for the Lakers because Gasol and Bynum's shooting percentages are better than Bryant's shooting percentage do not understand the cause-effect relationship between how Bryant plays and the opportunities that Gasol and Bynum get--but, unlike many media members, Ding knows the difference between putting up numbers and being an elite player:

We said Andrew Bynum was going to be a beast this season.

Now that everyone has seen the 22.3 points, 15.8 rebounds and 2.3 blocks, let's be clear about something else:

Bynum is not an elite offensive player in this league yet. Not even close.

He has an awful lot to learn before he gets there, and the second half of the Lakers' loss in Portland on Thursday night was an early pop quiz he flunked.

No doubt Bynum has plenty of moves, via both power and footwork, but what he lacks is the ability to handle double teams. He struggled when presented with that challenge late last season, and he will struggle again with it much of this season--probably more so than even Lakers coach Mike Brown suspects.

Some commenters at this site have disputed my contention that Bryant, not Gasol or Bynum, is the main Laker who draws double teams. Ding provides a quote from Coach Brown about Bynum that supports my case:

That's new for him. Not only new for him, but if you think about it, it's kind of new for our team in terms of having a post-up guy who gets doubled. That's something we have to work on, so it was great for Andrew to have to go through that and our team to have to go through it.

Now we just have to work on it, because we know Andrew can score on the front side of plays and in a one-on-one environment. Now he has to understand that when they come to double, it's OK--but we've got to make 'em pay, whether it's on the backside or it's with the re-post.

Before deciding to run the offense through a particular player, that player must prove that he can deal with trapping defenses. Bryant has proven that he is highly proficient in that regard. As Coach Brown noted, it is "new" for the Lakers to put a post player in position to be regularly doubled and it remains to be seen how Bynum will react to this role. If Bynum is capable of performing well in this role then this will make the Lakers a better team and possibly extend Kobe Bryant's career--but it is premature to just automatically say that Bynum should be the focal point of the offense. The Lakers should definitely still be willing to trade the injury-prone Bynum to the Orlando Magic for Dwight Howard if possible; Howard is a better rebounder and defender than Bynum, Howard is more durable than Bynum and, even though his post footwork is a bit less polished than Bynum's, Howard is a more explosive athlete. Howard has improved his post game recently and if he played alongside Bryant then Howard's effectiveness and field goal percentage would improve much like Gasol's did after joining the Lakers.

What if ESPN's Main Basketball Blogger Wrote About the Miami Heat the Way that He Writes About the L.A. Lakers?

2012-01-06T05:55:00.007-05:00

The following article is satirical but all of the cited box score statistics are true (they are deliberately taken out of context but the raw numbers are accurate). Some names have been changed to protect the guilty.

The Stat-Centered Selfishness of LeBron James is Destroying the Miami Heat

by Aenry Habbott

LeBron James sprained his ankle during the Miami Heat's blowout victory over the Indiana Pacers but he stayed in the game simply to try to amass a triple double (he failed, falling two rebounds short)--but, despite being healthy enough to chase individual stats on Wednesday, he sat out Thursday's game against the Atlanta Hawks, the only team that has beaten the Heat this season. This might have been the most important game of the season for the Heat but James did not care that Dwayne Wade also was sitting out due to injury, thus leaving the Heat very shorthanded; James came on to the court before Thursday's game, hit some shots and showed no physical limitations but he did not want to risk damaging his gaudy individual numbers.

Superficially, it is easy to see why so many people think that LeBron James is great: he scores, rebounds, defends and passes. But basketball greatness consists of so much more than what the naked eye can discern; basketball truth has only been revealed to statistical mavens like Bave Derri, an economist at Southwest Northeast Central Eastern College in Looneyville, Texas. Derri examined certain selected statistics and came to a startling, unconventional conclusion: James is actually a selfish player whose selfishness is destroying Chris Bosh's career and could doom the Heat to never win a title.

James attempted more shots than any Miami Heat player in 2010-11. The Heat went 0-1 when James attempted 30 shots. They went 0-2 when he attempted 24 shots. That winning percentage is even worse than the mark posted by the 9-73 Philadelphia 76ers in 1972-73--and that was the worst team in NBA history! When James shoots the ball either 30 or 24 times the Heat are worse than the worst team in NBA history.

But that is only part of the story told by advanced basketball statistics.

Did you know that the Miami Heat went 4-0 in 2010-11 when Chris Bosh attempted between 19 and 22 field goal attempts? That is a perfect record! You cannot beat 100%; NBA executives may not understand this kind of math but Derri confirmed to me that no one--not Bill Russell, not Magic Johnson, not even Michael Jordan--has ever led a team to a perfect winning percentage. These advanced statistics show that Chris Bosh is actually the best player in the NBA--but James is so selfish that he won't pass the ball to Bosh. When Bosh attempted just nine shots versus Sacramento on March 4, 2011 the Heat lost. The Heat also lost four of the seven games during the 2010-11 season in which Bosh attempted 13 shots. During the 2011 playoffs the Heat went 4-1 when Bosh attempted at least 18 shots--and Derri informs me that his complicated algorithm explains that the one game the Heat lost when Bosh attempted at least 18 shots was actually Isiah Thomas' fault but the reasoning behind this is so advanced that only an economist could understand it so I will not even attempt to describe it here.

The final proof came on Thursday. With James using a minor injury as an excuse to sit out to protect his individual statistics, Bosh proved that he is in fact the most valuable player on the Heat. Without James around to stifle him, Bosh attempted 27 shots and led both teams with 33 points and 14 rebounds as the Heat defeated the Hawks 116-109 in triple overtime. One of the times that Bosh made a shot James did not stand up and cheer, proving that James does not really support his teammates when they are performing well. Derri notes that if James had stood and cheered then the Heat probably would have only needed two overtimes to win the game instead of three; Derri's new Based on Standing formula (also known as the BS formula) multiplies a team's efficiency differential by how many times its leading scorer cheers when one of his teammates scores but subtracts 10 points for every time he does not stand and subtracts 20 points if he scowls. Derri says that according to this new, exciting metric LeBron James is the most selfish player in the NBA. I asked five NBA coaches about this but never got a response because they each laughed at me. Derri told me to not be upset, though, because coaches actually have no impact on who wins NBA games anyway. Derri is an economist and he bases his conclusions strictly on advanced basketball statistics so if you disagree with him then your thinking is outmoded and the rest of the basketball world will soon just sneer at you because you are an uninformed Luddite who rejects all notions of progress.

On March 30, 2010, Chris Bosh--then a Toronto Raptor--attempted 27 shots as the Raptors defeated the New Jersey Nets 100-90. That means that Bosh's teams are 2-0 since 2010 when he attempts exactly 27 shots in a regular season game. The advanced basketball statistics prove beyond any doubt that when Bosh attempts 27 shots his teams are undefeated and, according to Derri, unbeatable.

As convincing as that data is, I saved the best stat for last. Chris Bosh's career true shooting percentage is .571, while LeBron James' career true shooting percentage is just .567. Those are not only advanced basketball statistics but they contain the word "true." I just don't understand why so many NBA executives and coaches ignore the truth--and the truth is that since Bosh has a higher true shooting percentage than James the Miami Heat's optimal strategy is for Bosh to shoot 27 times a game.

Postscript:

Professor Derri has combed through the data and uncovered something that may overturn the conclusions mentioned above: Mickell Gladness has a true shooting percentage of 1.000 this season and the Heat won both games that he played in. That suggests that the optimal strategy for the Heat actually may be to play Gladness more frequently so that he can get more touches and more shot attempts. I asked six NBA executives about this and they each hung up the phone after laughing non-stop for 10 minutes apiece, which just confirms that NBA executives are too stupid to understand advanced basketball statistics. Perhaps if I do dozens of more posts revealing that James is a selfish player I will someday convince them that I am right.

Kobe Bryant's Shot Selection Endlessly Fascinates Self-Proclaimed Experts

2012-01-04T07:52:00.003-05:00

On January 1, Kobe Bryant had his worst shooting game (.214 field goal percentage) in nearly two years. Considering all of the obvious extenuating factors--Bryant is a 33 year old, 16 year veteran playing in his third game in four nights while trying to figure out how to deal with a torn ligament in his right (shooting) wrist--the natural response to Bryant's performance would be to note that it is an aberration and to assume that, unless the wrist injury worsens, Bryant will continue to perform at a high level (he has made the All-NBA First Team and finished in the top five in MVP voting in each of the past six seasons, the longest such active dual streak). Instead, we witnessed a media response that brought to mind what I wrote in an article titled Kobe Bryant's Missed Shots and the Torrent of "Psycho-Basketball Analysis" That They Unleashed:

"Kobe Bryant's shot selection is subject to a play by play microscopic evaluation that I have never seen applied to any other player of his status; literally every time he shoots--or doesn't shoot--someone questions his judgment and motivations, alternately suggesting that he is either forcing the issue or else playing too passively in order to allegedly make some kind of point. All great scorers are expected to shoot the ball 20-plus times a game and shots that would rightly be termed 'forced' if someone else took them are not forces if they are shots that the great player has a reasonable chance of making or if the shot clock is winding down and there are no other good options left."

In his first game after the much discussed January 1 debacle, Bryant scored 37 points on 14-29 field goal shooting (.483) while also contributing eight rebounds and six assists as his L.A. Lakers defeated the Houston Rockets 108-99--yes, the same Houston Rockets who purportedly use "advanced basketball statistics" to create a competitive advantage defensively against Bryant, a laughable claim that has been debunked on many occasions, most spectacularly in the 2009 regular season when the Lakers swept the Rockets 4-0 as Bryant averaged 28.3 ppg while shooting .533 from the field.

It generally is considered a logical basketball strategy for the best player on the team to take the most shots but many media members apparently struggle either to grasp this concept or to figure out who in fact is the best player on the Lakers. Mike Wilbon and Jon Barry have some kind of mental fetish that compels them to repeatedly insist that the Lakers are better off when Bryant shoots less frequently, a contention that I refuted thusly:

"Rather than focusing on how many field goals Bryant attempts to try to determine his optimal role for the Lakers, it makes more sense to look at the end result of his field goal attempts (and free throw attempts): Bryant has scored 40 or more points in 96 regular season games, third on the all-time career list behind Wilt Chamberlain (271) and Michael Jordan (173). The Lakers posted a 65-31 record in those games, a .677 winning percentage that is better than their overall winning percentage (.656) during Bryant's career. Bryant had 27 of those 40 point games in 2005-06, when he led the NBA in scoring with a 35.4 ppg average that ranks eighth on the single season scoring list; the Lakers went 45-37 overall that year (.549) but they went 18-9 (.667) in his 40 point games. Bryant 'only' had four 40 point games in the 2008-09 season and the Lakers went 2-2 in those contests; obviously, that is a small sample size, but Bryant had 27 games this season in which he scored at least 30 points and the Lakers went 21-6 (.778) in those games, which is virtually identical with their overall winning percentage (.793) this season."

I wrote that passage in 2009; the updated numbers--as of January 4, 2012--show that the Lakers are 73-34 (.682) in the regular season when Bryant scores at least 40 points, which is equivalent to 56 wins in an 82 game season.

Instead of listening to Wilbon provide unsolicited advice to a player who has won five championships, educated basketball fans are still waiting for him to ask LeBron James about James' phantom elbow injury during the 2010 playoffs (that topic never came up during ESPN's one hour "Decision" debacle, an oversight that Scott Raab rightly pilloried). It is also worth remembering that, as I emphasized in a December 2009 article, "Bryant does not miss games due to non-serious--or even some serious--injuries" but in the 2007-08 season "LeBron James missed five games because of a left index finger sprain (I am not questioning James' toughness at all, but merely pointing out that Bryant's toughness/pain threshold/will to win are off the charts even in comparison to other tough minded, elite athletes)." Bryant has mentioned that he plays through injuries even though this may hurt his personal statistics because he believes that he can always help his team win games; only James knows if he sat out because of his pain threshold or because he thought that he could not help the team or because he thought that playing with that finger sprain would have impacted his personal statistics. The difference between the way that Bryant handles injuries and the way that James handles injuries provides yet another perspective on the "great debate" regarding who is the better all-around player; while there is no question that James' youth and athleticism have enabled him to surpass Bryant in terms of regular season productivity since late in the 2009 season, Bryant's determination to fight through injuries and his ability to dissect elite defenses in the postseason have enabled Bryant to make three straight Finals appearances and win two championships since James entered the league (in addition to the three championships Bryant won in four Finals appearances between 2000 and 2004), while James has won just two out of 10 games in his two trips to the NBA Finals.

It should be obvious that Bryant's statistics have been negatively impacted because he played with--at various times and in various combinations--a broken index finger on his shooting hand, an avulsion fracture in his right pinkie finger, a gimpy right knee and a chronically injured left ankle. However, Bryant's overall productivity and his championship pedigree should give him a little leeway to have one awful shooting night every two years while playing his third game in four nights with an injury that would likely send most players in the league to the bench for weeks.

Bryant simply will not receive such leeway from the media; instead, we will hear that the smart thing for the Lakers to do is build their entire offense around an injury-prone big man (Andrew Bynum) who still is not in good enough shape to run up and down the court without losing his breath and who--in the victory against Houston--authored the first 20-20 game of his professional career (Dwight Howard, who entered the NBA one year before Bynum, has posted 33 such games, while DeJuan Blair and Chris Wilcox each have posted two such games). Before the Lakers phase out Bryant and restructure their entire offense around Bynum wouldn't it make some sense to see (1) if Bynum can actually get into (and stay in) shape, (2) if Bynum can avoid getting hurt (in the past four seasons he has played in just 204 out of a possible 328 games) and (3) if Bynum can consistently perform like an All-Star caliber player? Bynum has shown flashes of scoring and rebounding prowess but those flashes have always been followed by him either getting injured or simply not maintaining a high level of performance. The interesting thing about the Houston game is that at times Bynum's body language indicated that he wanted to receive the ball more often than he did yet he did not run hard down the court nor did he consistently fight to establish deep post position (last season, ESPN/ABC commentator Jeff Van Gundy repeatedly blasted Bynum and Pau Gasol for "trotting" instead of "running"); Bynum often wandered around the top of the key in the half court offense and one time when he got an offensive rebound instead of going up strong he passed the ball out to Troy Murphy, who was so surprised at Bynum's passivity that the ball actually bounced off of Murphy's face before Murphy caught it. Meanwhile, Pau Gasol seems intent (or content) to reinvent himself as a midrange jump shooter--he has been allergic to the paint on offense dating back to last season, something that became glaringly apparent during his disastrous 2011 playoff disappearing act. The funny thing is that the one Laker who most consistently and aggressively fights to establish low post position is the team's 33 year old shooting guard, the guy who so many "experts" think should be shooting less and deferring more.

Lakers' Coach Mike Brown has responded very sensibly to the media-created controversy regarding Bryant's shot attempts (which of course means that the media will soon be revisiting the tired nonsense about Brown not being a good coach): "He's got five championship rings. Bynum and Gasol have maybe one or two. So I'm going to go with the man who has five...He's been there and done that so I'm going to give him some freedom. Am I concerned about it at this point? No. Two months from now, if he's shooting 34% from the field, OK, I'm going to have a lot of concerns."

Scott Raab's Hate Letter to LeBron James

2012-01-03T04:27:00.003-05:00

No one hates LeBron James as much as Scott Raab does--or at least that is what Raab wants you to believe after you read The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James, Raab's blunt, profanity-laden and highly personal account of the pain that he has endured as a long suffering fan of Cleveland sports teams, culminating in James' infamous "Decision" to "take my talents to South Beach." Ironically, for all of Raab's professed loyalty to his Ohio roots--the book's brief About the Author notes emphasize that he was "born and bred in Cleveland"--Raab lives in New Jersey and on page 11 he offers this description of his departure: "I had left Cleveland in 1984--I was not some schmuck doomed to failure and disgrace--no f------ way."

James' flaws are clearly evident and well documented, from his tone deaf handling of the "Decision" to his disappearing act in clutch situations versus elite teams, but--despite Raab's strident tone--one cannot help but wonder how much of the rage Raab expresses is genuine and how much of it is simply posturing to pander to the presumably large audience of James haters. Is Raab venting to soothe his troubled soul, is he authentically ruminating about the addictive way that sports--specifically, rooting for certain teams and/or players--can readily consume so much of our lives or is he merely being sensationalistic in the hope that his book will sell a lot of copies?

Raab boldly declares, "My mission is to bear witness," though much of what he says he has witnessed during his writing career relates to the drug-related and/or sex-related escapades of celebrities ranging from Robert Downey, Jr. to Tupac Shakur; Raab's self-declared witnessing mission does not quite measure up in grandeur or substance to the reporters who risked their lives to document the Civil Right Movement or to the researchers, Nazi hunters and prosecutors who dedicated themselves to bearing witness to the horrors of the Holocaust. It must be noted that Raab has an odd--which is to say curiously sympathetic--take on John Demjanjuk, the SS death camp guard who apparently also murdered a Holocaust survivor in cold blood after World War II ended.

Raab asserts that bearing witness to James is different than any of Raab's previous missions because James brought hope to Cleveland and then James "betrayed" Cleveland. Raab believes that he is uniquely qualified to limn the full depth of James' story. The boldly defamatory title of the book introduces a metaphor that Raab graphically employs right from the start: "For seven years, LeBron did the same thing as any trollop worth her taxi fare..." Raab goes on--and on and on--but you get the point.

Raab is surprised--or perhaps just bemused--that the NBA and the Miami Heat decided not to issue him any more credentials for Heat games or practices after Raab posted an obscenity-laced tweet in which the nicest thing he called James was "loser" (prefaced by another word). Raab's prose is often over the top, even when he offers an otherwise on target description--in the form of a monologue directed at James--of why Cleveland fans were so infuriated by the "Decision":

"They burned their jerseys right after your hour-long ESPN smarm fest, when the whole world saw you for the stunted, soul-dead bumpkin you are. Those Cleveland fans knew for the first time what utter fools they had been to believe that LeBron James ever gave a damn about anything but LeBron James.

And because they were born and grew up and will die Cleveland fans, those fans also instantly grasped your legacy as a Cavalier: You will forever be the player who choked and quit against the Celtics in the 2009-2010 playoffs. You surrendered. You gave up. You and your team--while the clock still ran, with the coach urging you on--quit trying, laid down and died.

For that disgrace alone, those fans were right to burn the stinking jerseys they themselves had paid for. Add the disdain and the disrespect you showed for Cleveland as Jim Gray and Michael Wilbon fellated you on national TV--not a single question about your playoff tank job or the phantom elbow injury that floated in the same ether as the rumors of your mother's sexual dalliance with one of your teammates--hell, those fans should have torched those jerseys with you and your sycophantic posse wearing them."

Raab is right that James quit versus the Celtics--I will never forget watching that meltdown in person and we all just saw James do the same thing in the 2011 NBA Finals versus the Dallas Mavericks--and Raab is right that the only thing worse than James' conduct during the "Decision" was the total abandonment of any pretense of journalistic integrity by Wilbon and Gray (and others). However, burning jerseys in the street is sophomoric and speaking of burning said jerseys while James and his "sycophantic posse" are wearing them may accurately express the raw rage felt by a great many people but it is also excessive; I agree wholeheartedly that James' playoff performance was disgraceful and that the whole "Decision" fiasco--from the preamble of various teams sending representatives to Cleveland to court James as if he really were "King James" to the ridiculous TV special to the stage show in Miami during which James bragged that he would win "Not one, not two, not three..." championships--reflected poorly on James' maturity and sense of perspective but he does not deserve to be burned to death in his jersey. Even if Raab meant this as a stress-relieving metaphor, there are so many nuts who probably would really like to do this to James that a responsible writer should not even go there. If karma exists, then the karmic result of James' quitting and his ego-fueled "Decision" will be that he never wins a championship and thus never completes what once seemed to be his inevitable ascent into the Pantheon.

While some of Raab's observations about James and the Cavs ring true, in general what passes for basketball analysis by Raab is not particularly in depth and at times it is contradictory; first Raab suggests that if the Cavs had hired Byron Scott a year or two earlier then Scott's championship pedigree and strong personality might have influenced James to stay in Cleveland but later Raab snidely refers to Scott being paid $4 million a year to stand on the sideline "with your arms crossed and your mustaches twisting with disdain. Aren't you supposed to be motivating these guys somehow? Or does that cost extra?"

The Whore of Akron is sloppily edited: a sentence on page 36 begins "I was married when I met her to a potty-mouthed Cleveland girl..." and a sentence on page 57 contains a similarly faulty transposition of words ("I was Demjanjuk's son-in-law following Ed Nishnic up the stairs..."). The book also includes far more information about Raab's sex life than you would ever want or need to know, details that a good editor could have (and should have) removed from the book; this is not to suggest that great writing cannot contain profanity or sexual references: literature can (and does) contain those things but in the case of this book they are unnecessary and gratuitous. Removing those elements from the text would not at all compromise Raab's style or voice; Raab clearly possesses fine writing chops and it is a shame that he did not exercise them more fully. His take on ESPN is accurate, brilliant and concise:

"Now ESPN is throwing money and bandwidth at a new brainchild: the 'Heat Index,' a full-court phalanx of reporters and columnists paying daily homage to the primacy of a single NBA team even as the vast bulk of news coverage of the entire league is dominated and driven by ESPN, which pays the NBA a billion dollars a year for broadcast rights and in turn derives huge profits from the ad time it sells to Nike and all the other companies who are themselves paying hundreds of millions of dollars in endorsement fees to the athletes ESPN's newshounds are paid to cover. Which obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with ESPN pulling a story about LeBron James acting the fool at a Vegas nightclub. Obviously.

Whatever John Walsh might choose to call it, this isn't credible journalism. It's a daisy chain.

No one with any sense will ever again consider ESPN an honest source of NBA coverage--but if anyone in charge at ESPN or the NBA cared about that, The Decision would never have aired. One ESPN executive said after July 8 that the network expected to have a one-on-one with LeBron as the season approached. The World Wide Leader got what everyone in Cleveland got the past seven years: bupkes."

That passage contained no profanity and no references to Raab's sex life, weight problems or battles with substance abuse. If he had written the whole book in that vain he could have produced a book of enduring significance--but I am not sure how many copies such a book would have sold and, more importantly, I am sure that Raab and his publisher are not sure how many copies such a book would have sold. Instead of sticking with substance, Raab wrote a long hate letter to LeBron James, a missive filled not just with hatred of James but also with self-hatred and hatred of his own family. Raab fully realizes that he has fallen short but he does not care or at least he does not care enough to change his ways: "I was past forty when I began to make real money as a writer, but real money couldn't make a good writer out of me, much less a good man...I am not the man I want to be. Being that man isn't possible--and it doesn't matter." What matters, Raab concludes, "is the effort."

Despite the truths that Raab tells about LeBron James and ESPN, Raab's book is in many ways cut of the same flawed cloth: James is a great player who could be transcendent but--so far--has repeatedly failed on his sport's biggest stage, ESPN has the resources to be a powerful source of important journalism but instead settles for superficiality and mediocrity and Raab is a gifted writer who wastes his talent spewing profanity and providing way too much detailed information about sordid aspects of his personal life.

A great book could be written about the tempest of talent, ego and insecurity that is LeBron James but Raab only provides tantalizing glimpses of the insights that book would contain.

Wilt Chamberlain: The Numbers Don't Lie

2011-12-27T22:19:00.005-05:00

Many of the things asserted by basketball "stat gurus" offend my ears (and mind) more than the sound of long fingernails scraping a chalkboard but one piece of nonsense that particularly bothers me is when a "stat guru" attempts to "normalize" one player's numbers to supposedly determine how that player would have performed in a different era. For instance, a popular "stat guru" declaration is that Michael Jordan's 37.1 ppg average in the 1986-87 season--when "adjusted" for pace--is actually superior to Wilt Chamberlain's record-shattering 50.4 ppg average in the 1961-62 season. There are many problems with this deceptively simple comparison:

1) There is no way to accurately "adjust" for the relative competition that Chamberlain and Jordan faced; Chamberlain played in a smaller league with less players per team, so it could be argued that he played against tougher competition, the very best of the best--but Jordan played in an era with superior knowledge about nutrition and training and he faced players from a greater number of countries thanks to basketball's global expansion so perhaps Jordan played against tougher competition. A good case could be made for either side of this argument but the point is that no one knows for sure what the correct answer is. Another related issue is the question of whether the very best athletes in the world were more likely to play pro basketball (as opposed to another sport or as opposed to seeking out another occupation entirely) in the 1960s or in the 1980s; there is plenty of room for intriguing speculation about this but no way to draw definitive conclusions.

2) Regardless of whether or not 37.1 ppg scored at a slower pace is mathematically equivalent to 50.4 ppg scored at a faster pace, human beings are not machines; making extra field goals and extra free throws over the course of an 80 or 82 game season requires a tremendous expenditure of energy and increases the likelihood of fatigue and/or injury. In other words, the fact that Jordan scored 37.1 ppg at a slower pace tells us nothing about his capability to score 50.4 ppg at a faster pace, even without factoring in possible differences in competition level and definite differences in diet, nutrition, scheduling and travel arrangements.

3) The NBA has been around for six decades and during that time pace has gone up and down but no one has even come close to doing what Wilt Chamberlain did statistically--not just in scoring but also in rebounding and even in terms of passing from the center position (Chamberlain is the only center to lead the league in assists). If pace were the only factor affecting individual scoring averages then one would assume that in higher pace eras someone else would have at least come close to matching Chamberlain but, while Chamberlain exceeded 40 ppg in four different seasons, no other player has even come close to averaging 40 ppg in one season.

There is a big difference between saying that Jordan's 37.1 ppg is proportionally greater than Chamberlain's 50.4 ppg based on pace and definitively asserting that Jordan's 1986-87 scoring feat was greater than Chamberlain's--but basketball "stat gurus" have no qualms about making extraordinary claims without providing extraordinary proof, which is the very opposite of the approach that authentic scientists and researchers take; that is why physicists are still running experiments to test Einstein's Theory of Relativity--arguably the most successful and influential theory in history--while many "stat gurus" refuse to even acknowledge that basic box score data is flawed and that therefore the so-called "advanced basketball statistics" are skewed even if the "advanced" formulas are sound (which is far from a proven proposition).

In my pro basketball Pantheon I did not attempt to rank players from different eras but simply selected the 10 players who excelled when compared to the players from their own eras; how much a player dominates his own time is a significant indication of true greatness. Fran Blinebury's recent Wilt Chamberlain tribute notes that Chamberlain dominated his peers in breathtaking fashion (in reference to the first point in the passage quoted below from Blinebury's article, it is worth noting that Blinebury's larger point is correct even though he failed to mention that Elgin Baylor averaged 38.3 ppg in 48 games in 1961-62):

• Consider that after Wilt's 50.4 mark for the 1961-62 season, the second-highest scoring averaged in NBA history by a player not named Chamberlain was Michael Jordan's 37.1 in 1986-87. That makes Wilt's number 36 percent higher than Jordan.

• The highest batting average for a season in Major League Baseball over the past 70 years was George Brett's .390 in 1980. To exceed Brett by 36 percent, a batter would have to hit .530.

• The all-time single season rushing record in the NFL is 2,105 yards by Eric Dickerson in 1984. To exceed Dickerson by 36 percent a runner would have to gain 2,863 yards.

• The NHL single-season record for goals is 92 by Wayne Gretzky in 1981-82. To exceed Gretzky by Chamberlain's pace, a skater would have to pump in 125 goals.

The truth is, in American sports, only Babe Ruth transcended and transformed his sport like Chamberlain.

Pace alone is not an adequate explanation for how far Chamberlain's records are ahead of not just what any other pro basketball players have accomplished but also how much more dominant his performances are than the record-setting performances of all-time greats in other sports.

Oscar Robertson recently penned an eloquent plea urging that the NBA's great history--including the incredible 1961-62 season in which Chamberlain averaged 50.4 ppg and Robertson averaged a triple double--should be remembered and celebrated. I wholeheartedly echo Robertson's complaints and laments and I am proud of the opportunities I have had to interview Robertson and other greats of the game. Robertson is right that it is important not just that NBA history be told but that it be told by competent people; my contribution to that effort is displayed in the right hand sidebar of this website and I truly hope that someday my hard work and dedication to preserving and telling these stories will reach the widest possible audience, supplanting the gossip and nonsense that poses as journalism today at far too many magazines and websites.

Comments and Notes About the Christmas Day Quintupleheader

2011-12-26T07:20:00.006-05:00

I watched every minute of every game of the NBA's season-opening Christmas Day quintupleheader and thus in a span of roughly 13 hours I saw one third of the league's teams perform. Most of what I observed confirmed what I already thought about these 10 teams but the most important thing to understand about those five games--and about the analysis in this article--is that this was just opening day: no one won the championship on Sunday and no one got eliminated from the playoffs.

Rather than writing five exhaustive game recaps in my typical style--which could easily have pushed this article past the 10,000 word mark--I decided to restrict myself to making several bullet point comments/notes about each contest, focusing on themes that I expect to be relevant for the entire season and not just one day.

Game One: New York Knicks 106, Boston Celtics 104

1) During TNT's pre-game show, Charles Barkley dismissed the Knicks as a team that is "soft as tissue paper" even with the addition of Tyson Chandler.

2) After the Knicks pushed the Celtics around and built a 17 point first half lead, Boston Coach Doc Rivers chastised his players during a timeout by saying that they were all playing too "soft" and that they could never win a basketball game by playing this way but then he encouraged them by predicting that if they played with more force they had enough time to get right back in the game.

3) True to Rivers' prediction, the Celtics tied the game midway through the third quarter and eventually built a 10 point lead.

4) TNT commentator Steve Kerr made a very perceptive comment about new Boston forward Chris Wilcox, noting that players who have always been on losing teams must learn winning habits, including how to practice correctly (Wilcox had mentioned that he was exhausted after his first Boston practice, the implication being that his previous teams did not practice with the same intensity). Casual sports fans--and even many so-called "experts"--do not understand to what extent games are actually won during practice; practice is where correct habits are formed and where players learn how to execute various scenarios so that they are prepared for whatever may happen during a game. One classic NFL example of this is the contrast between a well-coached team like the New England Patriots--the masters of situational football--and a bungling team like the Cleveland Browns, a squad that consistently fails to properly execute in even the most basic situations; New England Coach Bill Belichick trains his players to be ready for any possible situation but I shudder to think what Cleveland's various coaches have been doing in practice since 1999 (the Patriots routinely drive the length of the field in a two minute drill and score touchdowns, while the Browns cannot figure out how to score from their opponent's five yard line with almost a minute left on the clock).

5) The Celtics look--and act--like a much less physically imposing team without Kendrick Perkins and Shaquille O'Neal.

6) Kerr observed that with newly acquired Tyson Chandler playing center on offense the Knicks have shifted Amare Stoudemire to power forward, which means that Stoudemire now has to deal with a cluttered lane as opposed to having a free run through the paint as a mobile center diving to the hoop after a screen/roll action. Kerr is not convinced that the skill sets of New York's starting frontcourt players are completely complementary--Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony both have a tendency to be ball-stoppers--though he believes that if the players are willing to adapt and to sacrifice individual statistics then they can make things work.

7) After the Celtics made their big run to build a 10 point third quarter lead, Anthony took over in the fourth quarter by scoring 17 of New York's 27 points.

8) Future Hall of Famer Paul Pierce did not play because of a foot injury and the Celtics particularly felt his absence down the stretch; Ray Allen is primarily a catch and shoot player at this stage of his career, while Kevin Garnett has never been a great back to the basket player and often seems hesitant to take late game shots in close contests. Garnett ultimately missed a potentially tying jumper at the buzzer.

9) When Philadelphia Coach Doug Collins was a commentator he often said that it is significant to see how a team reacts to winning a game; he does not believe that a team should get too excited about a regular season win and if he had been commentating about this game I am sure that he would have noted with interest that New York's players celebrated like they had won the championship even though all they did was win one home game against a shorthanded team.

Game Two: Miami Heat 105, Dallas Mavericks 94

1) Many of the statistics from this game are meaningless or at least very deceptive; the Heat completely dominated the vast majority of the game even though the final margin was a "respectable" 11 and thus a lot of players from both squads padded their individual numbers in what amounted to--in Marv Albert's patented phrase--"extensive garbage time."

2) The Mavericks did not bring back six players from their 2011 championship team--including key playoff contributors Tyson Chandler and J.J. Barea--and it is very evident that after an abbreviated preseason the team lacks continuity.

3) Clip and save this for future reference: ESPN/ABA commentator Jeff Van Gundy--who last season predicted that the Heat would win 75 games--declared that not only is Miami the "clear favorite" to win the 2012 championship but that if he were betting he would take Miami over the field (for some perspective, that kind of wager would have been a losing proposition in golf even back when Tiger Woods was clearly the most dominant player in the sport).

4) The Heat treated this like it was game seven of the NBA Finals, while the Mavericks treated this like it was game three of an eight game preseason. To cite just one example, the Heat outscored the Mavericks 18-0 in points in the paint in the first quarter.

5) If you want to know why it is fully justifiable to say that LeBron James quit during key moments of the 2011 NBA Finals just like he quit versus Boston in game five of the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals then all you need to do is contrast the tremendous energy and effort of James' performance versus Dallas on Sunday with the lackadaisical, disinterested and lethargic way that he played in the aforementioned playoff games. On Sunday, James literally flew all over the court on offense and defense, involving himself in every aspect of the game as a postup scorer, a driver, a pullup jump shooter, a passer, a rebounder and an active defender: that is what an engaged, attentive James looks like--that is what James looks like when he is trying really hard to dominate a game. James finished with 37 points (a Miami franchise record for a season opener), 10 rebounds and six assists. No one in his right mind can say that this version of James even vaguely resembled the James who disappeared against Dallas in 2011 and against Boston in 2010. I don't know why James' effort level waxes and wanes to such an extraordinary degree--I have never observed this characteristic in such a talented player--but it is inarguable and indisputable that he simply did not put forth anything close to maximum effort in some of the most important games of his career: in short, he quit.

6) When you trade a good player to a major rival you either A) don't think that this player is particularly valuable (or at least no longer worth his contract), B) have another deal in the works or C) are stupid. The L.A. Lakers traded Lamar Odom, their third best player, to the defending champion Dallas Mavericks and only received a draft pick and a trade exception in return. Odom won the 2011 Sixth Man of the Year Award but he disappeared in the playoffs and then pouted after the Lakers tried to trade him in the infamously voided Chris Paul deal. After Odom indicated that he did not want to stay with the Lakers anymore, the team all but jumped at the chance to get rid of his nearly $9 million/year contract. The Lakers are apparently willing to get by with Josh McRoberts and Troy Murphy filling Odom's slot unless/until the Lakers find a way to acquire Dwight Howard. Meanwhile, Odom hardly had a huge impact in his Dallas debut: Odom shot 1-6 from the field in 13 minutes before being ejected after receiving two technical fouls. Odom thrived in L.A. as the third option diving to the hoop with the defense focused on Kobe Bryant and (to a lesser extent) Pau Gasol and Odom has always been a good rebounder but I suspect that his minutes, his per minute production (except possibly his rebounding) and his field goal percentage will all decline this season.

Game Three: Chicago Bulls 88, L.A. Lakers 87

1) I have made it clear in several articles over the past few months that I don't think it is realistic for the Lakers or their fans to expect Kobe Bryant to just carry his team with individual scoring pyrotechnics the way that he did a few years ago but it is important to understand that the reason for this is not that Bryant's skill set and/or productivity have declined but rather that his body has accumulated too much mileage to accommodate that kind of workload over an entire season. Last season, Coach Phil Jackson limited Bryant to 33.9 mpg (his lowest average since 1997-98, his second NBA season) and permitted him to skip most practices just to preserve Bryant's chronically sore right knee--but when Bryant was on the court he was extremely productive and efficient: Bryant's .451 field goal percentage was just a tick below his career norm, he averaged his most points per minute since 2006-07 (the year that he won his second consecutive scoring title while averaging 40.8 mpg) while also averaging more rebounds per minute and more assists per minute than he had since he won the 2007-08 regular season MVP. The problem is not (yet) that Bryant cannot get the job done at an MVP level but rather that to keep his body from falling apart he can only perform at an elite level under controlled circumstances (i.e., limited game minutes combined with limited practice time) and this puts the Lakers under duress (to borrow one of Jackson's pet phrases): the "extra" time that Bryant is not on the court requires Pau Gasol to serve as a number one option, while the practice time that Bryant misses results in less intense practices and less overall team continuity.

2) Bryant led the Lakers with a game-high 28 points and a game-high six assists while contributing seven rebounds and shooting a very solid 11-23 (.478) from the field in 35 minutes. Chicago's prize offseason acquisition Richard Hamilton got into foul trouble trying to guard Bryant and only scored six points in 23 minutes. The main negative about Bryant's performance is that he was charged with a game-high eight turnovers; some of those miscues may be attributable to the torn ligament in his right (dominant) hand but, whatever the reason, it is very unusual for Bryant to have that many turnovers (even though he has battled various finger ailments for the past several seasons): Bryant only had one game (out of 82) with at least eight turnovers in the 2010-11 season and just three such games (out of 73) in the 2009-10 season; in 2008-09 he played all 82 games with a single game high of six turnovers (twice).

3) The Bulls built an early lead but the Lakers clamped down defensively in the third quarter and seemed to have the game in control after Bryant's layup put them up 82-71 with less than four minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. The Bulls then went on a quick 6-0 run but Bryant drew a double team and assisted on a Steve Blake three pointer to push the margin to 85-77 with just a little over two minutes remaining. As Hubie Brown noted during the telecast, Bryant consistently made good decisions when the Bulls trapped him and this resulted in good scoring opportunities for the Lakers. While some "stat gurus" periodically suggest that Bryant is not the Lakers' most valuable player, Bulls' Coach Tom Thibodeau apparently disagrees because he repeatedly sent multiple defenders at Bryant while single covering Gasol. After Luol Deng made a pair of free throws, Bryant drew a trap and passed to a cutting Josh McRoberts (who essentially took over Lamar Odom's minutes and produced six points and eight rebounds), who then fed Gasol under the hoop. Ronnie Brewer fouled Gasol and Gasol missed both free throws, thus failing to give the Lakers a three possession lead. The Bulls then cut the lead to four before another good Bryant pass out of a trap led to a scoring opportunity for McRoberts--but McRoberts also missed two free throws. The Lakers retained possession after the second miss and Bryant's turnaround baseline jumper over a double team put them up 87-81 with less than a minute remaining. That should have been the dagger but Gasol helped the Bulls slice that lead in half by fouling Deng, resulting in a three point play. After Bryant missed a jumper he was called for a questionable loose ball foul against Deng (it looked like Deng just slipped) and Deng canned both free throws. All the Lakers had to do with 20 seconds left was successfully inbound the ball, make two free throws and get one defensive stop. Bryant received the inbounds pass but instead of immediately fouling the Bulls trapped him to try to get a steal; Bryant attempted to evade the trap by passing the ball to Gasol but Gasol let Deng slip in front of him and steal the ball. Derrick Rose then isolated against Derek Fisher, drove into the lane and made a gorgeous runner over Gasol's outstretched arms. After a final timeout, Bryant received the inbounds pass with just under five seconds left, drove to the hoop and lofted a short runner that Deng blocked as time expired.

4) In hindsight, it is easy to say that Bryant should have just held on to the ball and waited to be fouled but there is some logic to passing the ball in that situation: this runs more time off of the clock and should lessen the possibility of a steal or a tie-up. Unfortunately for the Lakers, Gasol did not very aggressively go after the ball, which hit him in both hands before Deng wrestled it away. After the game, Bryant simply said that he and Gasol had miscommunicated, while Lakers Coach Mike Brown said that he was not sure why Bryant had passed the ball but that he had assumed that Bryant would hold on to the ball, get fouled and make both free throws.

5) Hubie Brown said that Pau Gasol should play from the foul line down and stop shooting so many outside shots, particularly while he is playing center with Andrew Bynum out of the lineup (Bynum has been suspended by the NBA for five games--reduced to four because of the shortened season--as a result of the cheap shot that he delivered to J.J. Barea during last season's playoffs). Gasol finished with 14 points and eight rebounds in 38 minutes while shooting 6-14 from the field; those numbers are not terrible but they are also not quite good enough considering his role on the team: the Lakers need for Gasol to be a 20-10 performer while shooting better than .500 from the field.

5) After the game, ESPN/ABC commentator Jon Barry wondered why the Lakers assigned Derek Fisher to guard Rose on the fateful final possession. If Barry had actually watched the game with understanding then he would have realized that Fisher was inserted in the game because the Lakers had possession with a one point lead and Fisher is a good free throw shooter; since the Bulls did not call timeout after Deng's steal the Lakers did not have a chance to substitute for Fisher and simply had to scramble to match up. I am not surprised when Bill Simmons or Mike Wilbon say nonsensical things about the NBA but Barry played in the league and his father Rick is a Hall of Famer so it is mind-boggling how frequently he is completely off target with his comments.

6) Although most of the postgame focus will undoubtedly be on the Lakers' shaky execution in the final few minutes, the larger story is how much Coach Brown has improved the Lakers' defense in a very short period of time. Despite replacing Bynum and Odom in the frontcourt rotation with new arrivals McRoberts and Troy Murphy, the Lakers not only outrebounded the Bulls but they also limited them to .404 field goal shooting overall and held them to 32 second half points. Keep in mind that the Bulls had the best record in the NBA in 2010-11, while the last time we saw the Lakers in a meaningful game their defense looked horrendous as the Dallas Mavericks dethroned the two-time defending champions with a humiliating sweep. If Coach Brown can help the Lakers to maintain this kind of defensive intensity for the whole season--and if Kobe Bryant does not sustain any more injuries--then the Lakers have a chance to be better than I expected them to be. I fully expected Coach Brown to improve the Lakers' defense but I did not expect the improvement to show up this soon or to be evident with both Bynum (temporarily) and Odom (permanently) out of the lineup; only time will tell if the Lakers can continue to play defense at a high level during this compressed season.

Game Four: Oklahoma City Thunder 97, Orlando Magic 89

1) The addition of Kendrick Perkins enables the Thunder to use a lot of single coverage on Dwight Howard and thus shut down the Magic's perimeter players (much like the Celtics used to do when Perkins played for them). Howard finished with just 11 points on 4-12 field goal shooting (though he did have a game-high 15 rebounds) and the Magic shot just 8-28 (.286) from three point range.

2) Other than three-time Defensive Player of the Year Howard, the Magic lack good defenders.

3) The likelihood that Howard will choose to re-sign with this ragtag Orlando team is extremely low (despite Howard's conflicting public statements that are most likely an attempt on his part to avoid the vilification that LeBron James received for the "Decision") so the Magic better take the best available deal for Howard as soon as possible. I am baffled by commentator Doris Burke's assertion that if the Magic wait then they will receive better offers; Howard can leave as a free agent next summer, so the Magic's leverage decreases the closer we get to the trade deadline (Howard can essentially scuttle any trade by making it clear that he won't re-sign with his new team, so the Magic can only trade him if they send him to a team that he wants to stay with long term).

4) Kevin Durant led the Thunder with a game-high 30 points on 11-19 field goal shooting. He has come a long way from his rookie season when P.J. Carlesimo foolishly played Durant out of position at shooting guard. Regardless of what some uninformed people say, positional designations matter.

Game Five: L.A. Clippers 105, Golden State Warriors 86

1) The Clippers are trying to become a legit contender and I think that the Warriors have a chance to fight for a playoff berth but both teams must prove that they can execute in the half court offensively and defensively. "Lob City" will only take the Clippers so far, while Golden State's "random" offense (as new Coach Mark Jackson calls it) will not consistently get the job done against plus-.500 teams.

2) Both teams looked ragged in the first half. Neither of the Warriors' high scoring guards (Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry) could get going, while the Clippers' Chris Paul shot just 1-6 from the field and Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan combined for one defensive rebound, a statistic that is incomprehensible for two big guys who can jump through the roof.

3) Paul finally took over in the fourth quarter by dribbling the shot clock down for three straight possessions before nailing long jumpers. That looks good when it works--Paul's ability to handle the ball combined with his passing skills and shooting touch are reminiscent of Isiah Thomas--but there are not many championship contenders who rely primarily on a six foot guard dribbling for 20 seconds before shooting perimeter shots; Thomas certainly hit his share of clutch jumpers but his primary modus operandi was to get to the hoop.

4) The Clipppers seem to have a glut of guards who are too small to log heavy minutes at the shooting guard slot but they do not have anyone who is really qualified to be a full-time starting shooting guard; I don't believe that Chauncey Billups can last a whole season playing 38 minutes as the starting shooting guard, while Mo Williams and Randy Foye are talented players who will not see much action as long as Paul and Billups are starting. It seems obvious that someone--most likely Williams--should be traded for a shooting guard to ease the point guard glut and enable Billups to just play spot minutes at shooting guard. Also, while too much should not be read into one game, the Clippers' shot distribution was odd: Billups took a game-high 19 attempts--including 10 from three point range--while Blake Griffin took 18 shots and Paul took 12 shots. Billups needs to shoot less often and more accurately (he shot three of 10 from three point range and three of nine inside the arc).

5) Although the Clippers still have some kinks to work out, the addition of Paul is obviously a major upgrade as long as he can stay healthy. Jeff Van Gundy made an excellent observation about Paul: "If your best player defends and passes your whole team will follow suit."

Scottie Pippen is not Bankrupt--and he is Suing the Morally Bankrupt Writers Who Libeled Him

2011-12-24T23:20:00.004-05:00

You may have seen various unsourced reports suggesting that Scottie Pippen is bankrupt and/or that he lost about $120 million. While it is true that Pippen made some bad investments--one of which he at least partially recouped by winning a lawsuit earlier this year--it is assuredly not true that Pippen has ever filed for bankruptcy, a fact that is fairly easy to establish. Pippen is rightfully outraged that sloppy reporting has made him a sort of poster child for athletes squandering massive amounts of wealth and he is striking back with a $10 million lawsuit against 10 media outlets, including CBS. In the formal complaint, Pippen--through his lawyers--asserts that his net worth never dipped below "approximately $40 million in the last 10 years."

I don't know if Pippen and his lawyers can meet the legal standard of proof that he has been libeled but it is ridiculous and outrageous for any media outlet--let alone one with the resources of CBS--to report that someone is bankrupt if that is not true. I have long been frustrated by the proliferation of writing by people who lack the most basic writing skills and who are well compensated for hack work, so if the only way to clean up the journalism business is via lawsuits then I hope that Pippen's legal action will prove to be as trendsetting and successful as his versatile play from the point forward position was for six Chicago championship teams

2011-12 Western Conference Preview

2011-12-23T05:43:00.002-05:00

Last season, 15 wins separated the top regular season team in the West--the 61-21 San Antonio Spurs--from the eighth seeded 46-36 Memphis Grizzlies, a marked contrast from recent seasons in which most of the West's playoff contenders were closely bunched together; just seven wins separated the eight playoff teams in both 2008 and 2010, while in 2009 only six wins separated the seven playoff teams other than the dominant 2009 Lakers. It is likely that the final Western Conference standings in the compressed 66 game 2011-12 season will once again be very tightly packed, meaning that playoff seedings and homecourt advantage could be determined by how well teams perform in the third game of a back to back to back set--a scenario that does not bode well for teams that lack depth and/or heavily rely on older players.

This preview has the same format as the Eastern Conference preview that I posted yesterday; the following eight teams are ranked based on their likelihood of making it to the NBA Finals and not necessarily in the order that the teams will be seeded during the playoffs (which is affected by which teams win division championships).

1) Oklahoma City Thunder: Reasons for hope: The Thunder, led by All-NBA players Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, advanced to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 1996, when the franchise was based in Seattle. The Thunder won 55 games--the franchise's best total since Seattle won 61 in 1998--and captured a division title for the first time since 2005. Late season addition Kendrick Perkins, who should be healthier this season after battling a knee problem last year, provides strength and toughness in the paint, while James Harden, Serge Ibaka and Thabo Sefolosha are a young and talented supporting cast.

Reasons to mope: This current nucleus made its first playoff appearance in 2010 on the basis of strong defensive play, ranking third in defensive three point field goal percentage, seventh in overall defensive field goal percentage and 11th in points allowed; the Thunder slipped to 18th, 15th and 18th respectively in those categories in 2011, so in order to secure the top seed in the West they must recapture their defensive focus and intensity. Durant has shot just .423 from the field and .326 from three point range in 23 career playoff games so he must prove that he can score efficiently against elite defenses in postseason play. Much has been made of a supposed power struggle between Durant and Westbrook and, while this does bear watching, I suspect that this storyline is overblown.

Bottom line: The Thunder have all the necessary ingredients to be a championship team: two star players, a good and versatile supporting cast and the ability to defend all areas of the court; the final challenge for this young team is to put everything together when the stakes are highest and consistently execute at both ends of the court against elite teams in postseason play.

2) Dallas Mavericks: Reasons for hope: Dirk Nowitzki showed the world what knowledgeable basketball observers already knew: he is one of the few legit franchise players in the NBA, which is a lot different than being the flavor of the week favorite of fans and/or "stat gurus"; many players are described as "elite" or "great" but at any given point in time there are only a handful of truly great players in the NBA, players who are unguardable even at the highest levels of playoff competition and who can carry an appropriately constructed roster to a championship. Nowitzki has been a model of consistency throughout his career but Dallas' collapse in the 2006 NBA Finals followed by the Mavericks' upset loss in the first round of the 2007 playoffs left an unfair and unwarranted stain on Nowitzki's reputation.

Reasons to mope: Tyson Chandler's departure will likely hurt the Mavericks more than it will help the New York Knicks; Chandler will be one defender adrift in a sea of defensive ineptitude with the Knicks but the more disciplined Mavericks are actually trying to play defense and will struggle to replace Chandler's paint presence. The Mavericks will also miss J.J. Barea's grit, quickness and clutch shooting. Barea has never averaged 10 ppg in the regular season and he averaged just 8.9 ppg on .419 field goal shooting during the 2011 playoffs but those numbers just show how deceptive statistics can be when taken out of context; his dribble penetration completely broke down the Lakers during the playoffs and so frustrated Andrew Bynum that Bynum delivered a cheap shot resulting in a five game suspension: Barea hit the Lakers so hard that they will still feel it this season!

Bottom line: The Mavericks replaced Chandler, Barea and Caron Butler (who did not participate in the Mavericks' playoff run due to injury and then signed with the L.A. Clippers after the lockout ended) with Lamar Odom, Vince Carter and Delonte West. Odom is often praised for his versatility but the one skill set area in which he is truly outstanding is rebounding; the Lakers deployed him at power forward alongside either Pau Gasol or Andrew Bynum but the Mavericks can only use Odom at power forward if Nowitzki is on the bench or playing center--and the Mavericks are not at their best in either of those situations. Look for Odom's minutes and production to decline. Carter used to be one of the most dynamic slashers in the game but now he is mostly a spot up shooter. West is a versatile, tough player who is not great in any one area but also has no real skill set weaknesses; if his mind is right and his body is healthy he can be a real asset for the Mavericks because he can play either guard spot.

The Mavericks had some good fortune during last season's title run--the top seeded Spurs were knocked out in the first round, while the two-time defending champion Lakers had an injured Kobe Bryant and a seemingly lost in a fog Pau Gasol--but they also demonstrated tremendous toughness, determination and unselfishness. As an aging, one-star team they do not look like a dynasty in the making but they will still be one of the better teams in the West and they have a puncher's chance to repeat as champions; they cannot honestly be considered the favorite by any objective observer--it is obvious that owner Mark Cuban is more focused on clearing cap space for 2012 than he is on putting the absolute best possible unit on the court this season--but if they are healthy they will be tough to deal with in a seven game series.

3) San Antonio Spurs: Reasons for hope: The Spurs have three All-Star caliber players plus a great coach and they posted the best record in the West last season, just one game behind Chicago for the best record overall. If they had been fully healthy during the playoffs it is doubtful that they would have lost in the first round.

Reasons to mope: Tim Duncan, while still a very good player, is no longer the dominant force that he was during his prime either as a scorer or as a mobile defender who could both guard the other team's best big man one on one and also play excellent help defense against perimeter players who penetrated into the lane. During the Spurs' championship seasons Duncan always had at least one legit big man playing alongside him but that has not been the case in recent seasons. The Spurs cannot seem to quite decide whether to break up their veteran nucleus or make one last run at a title so they ended up doing neither: they kept their big three intact but did not add any significant supporting parts.

Bottom line: The Spurs will be well coached and well disciplined; they will be better equipped than most teams mentally and psychologically to deal with the compressed season. The Spurs will likely earn a top four seed and if they are healthy they should be able to make a decent playoff run but getting past both Oklahoma City and Dallas is asking a bit much.

4) Memphis Grizzlies: Reasons for hope: The Grizzlies won six out of seven games late in the season to hold on to the eighth and final playoff spot and then pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NBA history by knocking off the number one seeded San Antonio Spurs. The Grizzlies then pushed the Oklahoma City Thunder to seven games and they accomplished all of this despite the absence of Rudy Gay, their injured small forward who has averaged at least 18.9 ppg in each of the past four seasons. Zach Randolph provided All-Star caliber play on the block and teamed up well with young center Marc Gasol.

Reasons to mope: Young teams that suddenly enjoy a lot of success can either use this as a stepping stone to build upon or a stumbling block to trip over. The Grizzlies will not sneak up on anyone this season and we have seen some upstart teams have one great season only to fall right back into the Draft Lottery (the 2007 Golden State Warriors immediately come to mind). Only time will tell if the Grizzlies caught San Antonio at just the right time or if that first round series really marked a changing of the guard in the West.

Bottom line: I am not completely sold on the Grizzlies as a legit championship contender but I think that they have a lot more substance than a team like the 2007 Warriors. The Grizzlies need to stick with the hard-nosed play that helped them to be successful while also finding a way to integrate Gay's skills into the Randolph-focused offensive attack. It must be mentioned that the foundation for Memphis' success last season was based largely on the much criticized deal that sent Pau Gasol to the L.A. Lakers; that trade not only brought Marc Gasol to Memphis but also cleared the salary cap space to sign Randolph. A few years earlier, the Lakers traded Shaquille O'Neal to Miami, a deal that helped Miami to win one championship but also enabled the Lakers to reshape their roster and win two championships (plus make a third trip to the Finals). Sometimes a trade can help one team in the short run while helping the other team in the long run; it is way too early to suggest that the current Memphis nucleus will win a championship but the Grizzlies clearly understood that a Pau Gasol-led team would never win a championship and thus they made the right decision to trade him and rebuild their roster around younger, tougher big men. Just three years after that so-called lopsided deal the Grizzlies are already better than the Lakers, something that I doubt any of the so-called "experts" expected when they made jokes about Jerry West supposedly "giving" Pau Gasol to his former team.

5) L.A. Clippers: Reasons for hope: Blake Griffin is not just a highlight machine; he can also rebound, pass and handle the ball. He still needs to develop a reliable jump shot and improve his defense but he already looks poised to become a perennial member of the All-NBA team. Chris Paul is a feisty floor general who can pass, shoot and play tough defense despite his diminutive stature. Chauncey Billups is a clutch shooter who apparently will start at shooting guard but he will likely also get some playing time at point guard, his natural position. If Caron Butler stays healthy he will add toughness and scoring punch. DeAndre Jordan will once again rank among the league leaders in both dunks and blocked shots.

Reasons to mope: It is understandable why people are so excited about the Clippers but this is not a championship caliber team. The Clippers have too many point guards and not enough shooting guards; it is asking a bit much to have the aging, 6-3 Billups chase around starting shooting guards for 30-plus mpg. The Clippers also need to develop some frontcourt depth. While Billups has won a championship and Paul has been to the playoffs, collectively this group has no playoff experience together.

Bottom line: The Clippers missed the playoffs by 14 games last season, which is a significant margin, but Griffin's likely improvement alone would probably have been worth at least 10 games and the addition of Paul and Billups should enable the Clippers to potentially contend for a top four seed.

6) L.A. Lakers: Reasons for hope: It is still possible that the Lakers will pull off a trade for Dwight Howard--and if they are able to get a third team involved in the deal perhaps the Lakers can obtain Howard for Andrew Bynum and other considerations while retaining Pau Gasol's services. A trio of Kobe Bryant-Dwight Howard-Pau Gasol--even surrounded by journeymen--would be more formidable than the Miami Heat's celebrated trio because the Lakers' triumvirate would be bigger and would have complementary skill sets. The only other reason for hope is that the lockout-lengthened offseason provided enough rest for Kobe Bryant's weary body to rejuvenate itself but that hope was at least somewhat dashed in the first half of the first preseason game when Bryant tore a ligament in his right wrist. Bryant will no doubt at least attempt to play through the injury even though from a medical standpoint he should sit out two to three weeks to let it heal properly (by the time Bryant is 50, his mangled fingers and hands will likely rival those of ex-NFL players Anthony Munoz and Chuck Bednarik in terms of disfigurement). Whether or not the Lakers acquire Howard, the Lakers will have no depth and will thus rely more on Bryant's scoring and playmaking than at any time since Kwame Brown and Smush Parker were key rotation players.

Reasons to mope: Although the mainstream media apparently did not realize it, the Lakers lacked depth even before they shipped off Lamar Odom in a salary dump; Andrew Bynum's injury problems made Odom a de facto starter for most of the past three seasons (Odom averaged more than 30 mpg and started 105 games during that period) and the next best Lakers' bench player (Shannon Brown) played fewer than 1000 total minutes in his first three seasons before arriving in L.A. and instantly becoming a key member of the rotation.

The Lakers won back to back championships and made it to three straight NBA Finals primarily because of Kobe Bryant's greatness; Pau Gasol proved to be a reliable second option, Lamar Odom found a comfort zone as the third option and Andrew Bynum's size was valuable in those rare moments when he was healthy but Bryant's scoring prowess, playmaking ability (he drew the double teams that opened up shots for his teammates even on plays for which Bryant did not deliver the assist pass), defense and leadership spearheaded the Lakers' dominance from 2008-2010. During the Dallas Mavericks' four game sweep of the two-time defending champion Lakers we saw what happens to the Lakers when Bryant is unable to take over games at will (i.e., we received a glimpse at what the Lakers will look like--barring a roster upgrade--as Bryant ages and his skills inevitably decline); an ankle injury that many players would not have even played through relegated Bryant from All-NBA First Team caliber to "just" solid All-Star caliber (Bryant averaged 23.3 ppg on .458 field goal shooting versus the Mavericks but his limited mobility slashed his rebounding to 3.0 rpg and his assists to 3.3 apg, both figures well below his regular season averages). Meanwhile, Pau Gasol played some of the worst basketball of his NBA career and Lamar Odom hardly picked up the slack, authoring a very pedestrian postseason after producing one of the better regular seasons of his career.

For many years, so-called "experts" have insisted that the Lakers are very talented and very deep, with some "stat gurus" even proclaiming that Gasol and/or Odom are more valuable than Bryant; in contrast, I have demonstrated that the 2009 Lakers were neither as talented nor as deep as most championship teams of the past two decades, explained that Bryant's impact on his team cannot be fully quantified statistically and pointed out that playing alongside Bryant transformed Gasol from a one-time All-Star into a perennial All-Star by shifting Gasol into a more comfortable role as his team's second offensive option. I have never believed that Gasol is the Lakers' best player or that he is capable of being the best player on a legitimate championship contender and I have consistently stated that the day Gasol truly is the Lakers' best player is the day that the Lakers are no longer true contenders.

Bottom line: Welcome to L.A., Mike Brown; the fans and oddsmakers consider your team to be among the favorites to win the championship and you will be heavily criticized if the Lakers do not prove to be serious contenders but your best player already has a damaged shooting hand that will likely be a problem for the entire season (because Bryant will refuse to rest his wrist it will not completely heal until the summer), your second best player seems to be unwilling or unable to pick up the slack and your third best player was just shipped to the defending champions. Brown is a very good coach and at this point in his career his youthful energy and his focus on defense may make him better suited to guide the Lakers than Phil Jackson, whose hands off approach backfired last season (Jackson is arguably the greatest coach in NBA history but last season was hardly one of the shining moments of his otherwise glittering career)--but Brown has been placed in a very difficult situation in which the expectations are much greater than they should be considering the team's current roster.

If the Lakers acquire Dwight Howard and if Kobe Bryant stays reasonably healthy (i.e., his right wrist does not fall off and his right knee survives the compressed schedule) then the Lakers can make a run at the 2012 title while also positioning themselves to build around Howard in the future as Bryant's role gradually diminishes; if the Lakers stand pat and/or Bryant suffers injuries that cause him to miss significant playing time then the Lakers will not be serious contenders and could even miss the playoffs, a possibility that I mentioned back in May when I bluntly outlined the Lakers' likely future:

If you understand how the Lakers achieved the success that they did from 2008-2010 and you understand what went wrong in 2011 then you can only draw one conclusion: the Lakers as presently constituted are not likely to qualify for the playoffs in 2011-12. If you think that statement sounds crazy then consider the reality that since 2008 the eighth seeded team in the West has won 50, 48, 50 and 46 games; four of the Lakers' five starters started all 82 games in 2010-11, with Odom filling in for Bynum when Bynum was hurt, and the Lakers ended up with 57 wins. If the Lakers keep the current roster intact it is highly likely that they will not enjoy similar health at the top of their rotation and it is also highly likely that Bryant's minutes will have to be further reduced as a concession to all of the mileage that he has accumulated; every minute that Bryant is not on the court is a minute that must be filled by one of the Lakers' ineffective bench players.

The Lakers clearly cannot expect Gasol to eventually become the team's number one option nor is it a good idea to hand that role to Bynum, a player who has yet to make it through an entire season while playing starter's minutes. Artest provides almost nothing on offense and his focus on defense wavers at times; without Jackson on the bench Artest may revert back to being completely uncoachable.

I probably should not have even ranked the Lakers as high as sixth but, despite my misgivings about this roster, I still think that Bryant and Brown will find some way to get this team into the playoffs (I also think that it is possible that the Lakers could acquire Howard after the All-Star break and overcome a slow start to make the playoffs as a low but dangerous seed).

7) Portland Trail Blazers: Reasons for hope: Nate McMillan is an outstanding, defensive-minded coach who has guided this team to the playoffs for three straight seasons despite injuries that have taken out several key players. LaMarcus Aldridge emerged as an All-Star caliber performer.

Reasons to mope: A degenerative knee condition forced Brandon Roy--a three-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA selection--to retire. Greg Oden, who the Blazers selected ahead of Kevin Durant in the 2007 Draft, has suffered his annual injury setback and it is not clear when he will be back in action. The only major addition to the roster is Jamal Crawford, a good player but hardly a replacement for what a healthy Roy could have provided.

Bottom line: McMillan will somehow drag this crew into the playoffs, but they will lose in the first round for the fourth straight year.

8) Denver Nuggets: Reasons for hope: Under Coach George Karl's deft leadership, the Nuggets survived last season's "Melo-drama" and then actually played even better after trading Carmelo Anthony to New York than they did before Anthony's departure, going 17-7 down the stretch to move up to the fifth seed in the West.

Reasons to mope: Although Anthony is somewhat overrated--as indicated not only by Denver's record without him but also by New York's record with him (14-13)--the Nuggets do not have a legit star player and it is one thing to get by for a couple dozen games with no star and another thing to do so for an entire season. Seemingly half of Denver's roster went to China during the lockout (actually, it was just Kenyon Martin, J.R. Smith and Wilson Chandler) and while the subtraction of Martin and Smith reduces the intangible but relevant knucklehead factor it also removes two key players from Karl's rotation (Chandler did not receive much playing time); the China guys will be permitted to return to action in March and it will be interesting to see what Denver's record is by that time and how exactly the Nuggets go about adding players to their rotation in the middle of a crazy season with a compressed schedule and little practice time.

Bottom line: I was tempted to leave the Nuggets out of the playoff mix entirely but they did win 50 games last season and they at least gave some signs that there is life after Melo so I cannot completely write them off--but it will probably take 35-37 wins to make the playoffs in the West and there certainly are some other teams that can work their way up to that level and pass the Nuggets.

The Golden State Warriors intrigue me: their young roster could give many teams fits by playing at a fast tempo in this truncated season and they have a new coach (Mark Jackson) who is pledging that the Warriors will be much improved defensively. It would not shock me if they make the playoffs. The Utah Jazz have acquired a lot of potentially valuable young assets but they fell apart during the second half of the season in the wake of Coach Jerry Sloan's resignation and the Deron Williams trade so even though their future may be bright they do not look like a 2012 playoff qualifier.

Much praise has been heaped on Houston General Manager Daryl Morey for his supposedly deft number crunching but the bottom line number is that his Rockets have won just one playoff series since he took the reins in 2007; yes, the Rockets suffered injuries to All-Stars Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady but there is little evidence to date that the Rockets have much of a plan in place to lift themselves out of mediocrity and other GMs/coaches with better records than Morey have not received as much time on the job as he has. The main thing that Morey has accomplished so far is to convince some members of the media that he has access to special knowledge about the sport, even if at times the results on the court ultimately do not match his predictions or observations. I actually think that Morey uses statistics more sensibly than most "stat gurus" but sports is a bottom line business and the bottom line is that Morey's teams have not been very successful in the postseason (a fault that is also true of Billy Beane's Oakland A's). Morey just replaced a respected and proven winner (Coach Rick Adelman) with Kevin McHale, a great player who has yet to prove that he is a great coach. I know that the "stat gurus" giddily anticipate the magic that Morey is supposedly about to pull off with all of the cap space he has saved but the Knicks spent years saving cap space only to end up with Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and a .500 team that lost in the first round of the playoffs. The Rockets' starless roster will likely make a run at the last playoff spot but fall just short, whereupon the "stat gurus" will come out of the woodwork to explain how brilliant Morey is even though his teams have not, in fact, actually accomplished anything tangible.

The New Orleans Hornets--with the help of their principal owner, Commissioner David Stern--managed to obtain some decent assets in the Chris Paul deal (most notably, Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman and salary cap space) that will be useful in the near future but will not likely enable the Hornets to qualify for the 2012 playoffs. The Minnesota Timberwolves upgraded at coach (replacing Kurt Rambis with Rick Adelman) and Kevin Love had a breakout campaign but it is doubtful that in one season they will vault from last in the conference to one of the top eight spots.

If anyone knows what Phoenix' plan is please enlighten me.

The Sacramento Kings have been stockpiling young talent for years but have not won 30 games in a season since 2007-08--but if a "stat guru" were running the team I am sure that his media buddies would be regaling us with tales about how brilliant he is; apparently there are two kinds of successful NBA executives: those who win championships (the dominant teams of the past decade or so--the Lakers and the Spurs--do not seem to rely much on "advanced basketball statistics") and those who convince media mouthpieces of their brilliance despite the fact that they have never won anything.

**********

Note:

I correctly picked five of the eight 2011 Western Conference playoff teams. Here are my statistics for previous seasons:

2010 7/8
2009: 7/8
2008: 7/8
2007: 6/8
2006: 6/8

2006-2011 Total: 38/48 (.792)

2011-12 Eastern Conference Preview

2011-12-22T17:43:00.009-05:00

The 2011-12 NBA season will be abbreviated, condensed and probably very sloppy, much like the even more abbreviated and condensed 50 game sprint that followed the 1998 NBA lockout. Rosters have been thrown together hastily and players cannot possibly be in game condition; all of this randomness and chaos means that it is even more difficult than usual to make accurate predictions.

The "stat gurus" breathlessly told us prior to last season that the Miami Heat were about to win 90 out of 82 games before cruising to the first of many championships; I predicted that the Heat would have a strong regular season--but fall short of the win totals posted by LeBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers in the previous two seasons--before losing to an elite defensive team in the playoffs. James' superlative play in the Eastern Conference playoffs--and injuries to key opposing players--enabled the Heat to get by Boston and Chicago but in the NBA Finals the one-star Dallas Mavericks outshined the three-star Heat.

As long as the Heat's "Big Three" are healthy and in their primes Miami has to be considered a legitimate championship contender but--after James failed to win a championship with the deepest team in the league (the 2009 and 2010 Cleveland Cavaliers, squads that each boasted at least 10 players who had recently started for playoff teams) and then failed to win a championship despite being part of the league's most talented trio--it is fair to ask what it will take for the league's most productive regular season player to capture his first title.

Derrick Rose does not have a single top 25 player next to him in Chicago but rather than searching for supposedly greener pastures he just signed a contract extension and he seems poised to keep the Bulls at or near the top of the Eastern Conference for the next several seasons. Despite Boston's hopes and New York's fantasies, the Eastern Conference will likely be a two horse race this season and--contrary to what many other commentators may believe--the Bulls have more room to grow than the Heat.

Listed below are the eight teams that I expect to qualify for the Eastern Conference playoffs; as usual, I have ranked the teams based on the likelihood that they will make it to the NBA Finals (as opposed to how they will be seeded in the playoffs, which is affected by which teams win division titles).

1) Chicago Bulls: Reasons for hope: Derrick Rose became the second youngest MVP in ABA/NBA history (22 years old; Spencer Haywood was just 20 when he won the 1970 ABA MVP) and first year Coach Tom Thibodeau transformed a very good defense into a suffocating defense. The team's one problem last season--other than injuries to key frontcourt players--was a lack of offensive production from the shooting guard spot but newly acquired sharpshooter Richard Hamilton should provide a solid complement to Rose's slashing forays to the hoop.

Reasons to mope: The Bulls, like the 2011 champion Dallas Mavericks, only have one true star, so it is important that their key rotation players remain committed to defense and rebounding and that they stay reasonably healthy; injuries and/or lack of effort from other players could place too big of a burden on Rose.

Bottom line: I did not expect the Bulls to be as good as they were last season but after watching them play I don't think that their success was a fluke: Rose moved his game up a notch and Coach Thibodeau worked wonders with an already solid defense. The Bulls should be fighting for at least the Eastern Conference title for the next several years; while the Heat's best players have likely peaked in terms of their individual skill sets, Rose and several of his young teammates still can improve both individually and collectively.

2) Miami Heat: Reasons for hope: LeBron James has been the most productive regular season player in the NBA for the past three years, Dwyane Wade is one of the NBA's top five or six players and Chris Bosh is one of the NBA's top 15-20 players: no other NBA team has three top 15 players and no NBA team has had two top five players since the Shaquille O'Neal-Kobe Bryant Lakers won three straight championships from 2000-02 and made another NBA Finals appearance in 2004. It has become fashionable to make excuses for the Heat based on the composition of the rest of their roster but in a watered-down 30 team NBA no other squad has the luxury of trotting out three great players who are each in the primes of their careers. Dirk Nowitzki just won a championship without playing alongside a single current All-Star and Kobe Bryant won back to back titles with a sidekick who had previously made just one All-Star team in seven years, so if the Heat fail to win a title the fault lies with their stars and not with their underlings.

Reasons to mope: In the last two postseasons, LeBron James has literally stood passively in the corner while his team lost to squads that had worse regular season records and did not have a single player who could match up with him one on one physically or in terms of regular season productivity; James' supporters whined that he could not win a championship with his supporting cast in Cleveland but James' star-studded Heat just lost in the Finals to a one-star Dallas team so it is legitimate to ask just how much help James needs to win his first NBA title.

The Heat's championship contending window is probably not as large as many people think; each year that the Heat fail to win a title there will be increasing pressure to break up the Big Three and, although their stars are in their primes, it is unlikely that any of them will get appreciably better: we have probably already seen the best individual seasons from James, Wade and Bosh, though Heat fans of course hope that we have yet to see the best collective output from that group.

Wade is the oldest member of the Heat's power trio and he is also the most injury-prone, so he will likely be the first one to decline; that should not happen this season (Wade will turn 30 next month) but his health is hardly a sure thing in a 66 game sprint.

Bottom line: Some people insist--despite all visible contradictory evidence--that the Heat are Dwyane Wade's team, so it is worth noting that James led the Heat in minutes played, scoring, assists and steals while placing second in rebounding. James shot better than Wade from the field, from three point range and even from the free throw line (barely). When James was dominant the Heat looked unbeatable, even when Wade performed poorly (i.e., in the Chicago series); when James hid in the corner (i.e., in the Finals), Wade could not save the day and the Heat lost. The Heat have three stars but there is no question who is the biggest star.

The above critiques of James are not meant to suggest that he is incapable of winning a championship--that would be a foolish contention to make about such a talented player and I am not a fool. James is the best regular season player in the NBA and he has had some great playoff moments but in order to get over the championship hump he must address the few remaining--but glaring--weaknesses in his game: he still struggles to score outside of the paint against elite defenses and when he is challenged mentally and physically by elite teams in a playoff series he has shown a stunning tendency to quit and to place the burden on his teammates, which is exactly the opposite of what we have seen from Pantheon-level players. James does not necessarily have to win a championship to join the Pantheon--Elgin Baylor is an all-time great despite being ringless--but if James is fortunate enough to make it back to the Finals he must play a lot more effectively and a lot more aggressively than he did in his first two appearances on the NBA's biggest stage.

3) Boston Celtics: Reasons for hope: While the Heat easily have the league's best trio, the Celtics probably sport the league's best quartet: aging future Hall of Famers Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen plus young All-Star point guard Rajon Rondo. The defensive-minded former champions probably are capable of making one more deep playoff run if they can stay reasonably healthy.

Reasons to mope: Due to various moves plus Jeff Green's recently discovered heart ailment, in the past year or so the Celtics have essentially lost Kendrick Perkins, Glen Davis, Nenad Krstic and Delonte West in exchange for Brandon Bass, Keyon Dooling and two rookies who likely will not contribute very much this season. There will be a lot of pressure on Rondo plus the Geriatric Three to log heavy minutes night after night.

Bottom line: If the Celtics somehow stay healthy while Chicago and Miami each suffer a key injury then the Celtics could steal the Eastern Conference crown. Danny Ainge's avid pursuit of Chris Paul--even at the expense of Rondo, a younger and healthier All-Star point guard--indicates that the Celtics do not consider the above scenario to be highly likely to happen.

4) Philadelphia 76ers: Reasons for hope: The 76ers recovered from a 3-13 start to qualify for the playoffs and even win a playoff game against the eventual Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat. Coach Doug Collins got the most out of his young, starless roster and several of his players figure to be even better this season.

Reasons to mope: Championship teams generally must have at least one All-NBA caliber player; such a player is either not on this roster or has not emerged so far. The pattern during Collins' coaching career is that he is excellent at turning a team around quickly but not necessarily capable of taking a team all the way to the top.

Bottom line: After the top three spots, the rest of the Eastern Conference is up for grabs and I think that Collins' coaching will lift the 76ers slightly above some of the more highly touted squads who will be battling for home court advantage in the first round.

5) Indiana Pacers: Reasons for hope: David West and George Hill are excellent additions to a team that made the playoffs for the first time since 2006 and that already has a solid nucleus of young players.

Reasons to mope: Like the 76ers, the Pacers do not have an All-NBA caliber performer, although West was on the fringe of that status a couple years ago. The Pacers are the "anti-Heat": the Heat have three All-NBA caliber players but are trying to add depth, while the Pacers have a deep rotation of good players but no true star power (West and Danny Granger each would be best suited to being the second or third best player on a championship contending team).

Bottom line: The Knicks have more star power than the Pacers and the Magic have the best center in the league but the Knicks are weak defensively while the Magic will likely be Denver/Utah East this season because of the Dwight Howard drama; in a 66 game sprint, the Pacers' depth and stability should move them past the Knicks and the Magic in the Eastern Conference standings.

6) New York Knicks: Reasons for hope: The Knicks may have cornered the market on high powered offensive players who cannot/will not play defense: Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and Baron Davis (if healthy) will make sure that both sides of the scoreboard read triple digits on a nearly nightly basis. Tyson Chandler, who just served as the defensive anchor for the 2011 NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, will have to deal with the small forwards, power forwards and point guards who blow by New York's shoot first (and second and third) headliners.

Reasons to mope: Most of the Knicks think "defense" is what surrounds their mansions. Anthony and Stoudemire have enough PR savvy to realize that they have to talk about focusing on defense but they each have been in the league a long time--and won many individual honors and accolades--without playing much defense. Baron "my back only hurt while I was in Cleveland" Davis can be very productive when he is healthy and motivated but he has bad wheels and intermittent motivation.

How many perennial All-Stars who are defensively challenged transform themselves into good defenders? Knicks' fans can fantasize by making comparisons of Anthony and Stoudemire to Boston's Paul Pierce and Ray Allen but (1) there is no Kevin Garnett on New York's roster, (2) there is no Doc Rivers on New York's bench (Mike D'Antoni is a good coach but not a defensive-minded coach) and (3) Pierce and Allen were never as bad defensively as Anthony and Stoudemire are.

Bottom line: Are we past the point of blaming Isiah Thomas for everything that goes wrong in New York? For better or worse, most of the players Thomas acquired are no longer on the roster but--despite all of the breathless hype and despite two seasons of clearing cap space in a futile attempt to lure LeBron James to the Big Apple--the 2011 Knicks won exactly nine more games than the 2007 Knicks did during Thomas' first season as their coach. As much as some people rave about the Knicks you would never guess that three full seasons after Thomas' departure--and despite the additions of Anthony and Stoudemire--the Knicks improved less in four years than the starless 76ers did in one year. Much to the chagrin of some Knicks fans/"stat gurus," nearly three years ago I expressed serious skepticism about the Knicks' rebuilding plan and I remain far from convinced that the Anthony-Stoudemire duo will ever accomplish much more than provide ESPN's talking heads a lot of fodder for unfounded predictions of greatness that never quite become reality.

Yes, Chandler's defense helped a squad not previously known for playing good defense to win a title but the Mavericks have a defensive-minded coach and several other defensive-minded players (including Jason Kidd and Shawn Marion). That foundation simply does not exist in New York, so the Knicks will have trouble doing much damage in the playoffs, though I predict that for the next several years the "experts" will annually dub them the "team no one wants to face."

7) Orlando Magic: Reasons for hope: Dwight Howard is the best center in the league and, as he showed last season, he can carry a strangely constructed, defensively challenged roster to 50-plus wins.

Reasons to mope: Dwight Howard has made it clear that he intends to leave Orlando when he becomes a free agent next summer, which means that Orlando's 2012 season will be much like Denver's 2011 season--a distraction-filled slog during which a team tries to get something for their best player instead of losing him for nothing.

Bottom line: It is impossible to predict how Orlando will do this season; if Howard ultimately commits to Orlando and stays for the whole season then the Magic could realistically contend for the fourth seed but if the Magic trade Howard fairly early in the season then they could miss the playoffs entirely. I suspect that Howard plays in the All-Star Game in Orlando as a member of the Magic and is traded shortly thereafter. The Magic will probably be hanging around the fifth seed prior to Howard's departure and then they will limp into the playoffs before being swept in the first round.

8) Atlanta Hawks: Reasons for hope: Joe Johnson, Al Horford and Josh Smith form a solid trio that has led the Hawks to the playoffs for four straight seasons, including three consecutive trips to the second round.

Reasons to mope: Johnson has been an All-Star for each of the past five seasons but he is miscast as a franchise player; he is perfectly suited to being the second best player on a championship-contending squad. Horford has been an All-Star for each of the past two seasons but he is undersized for a center and would be better suited to playing power forward. Josh Smith is one of the most athletically gifted players in the NBA but he lacks the inner drive to transform himself into a truly great player. Thus, the Hawks' three best players are each, to some degree, not well suited for their roles--and the rest of the roster is hardly championship quality.

Bottom line: The Hawks are stuck in NBA purgatory--not good enough to truly contend for a title yet not bad enough to get enough top draft picks to significantly improve their talent base.

The Hawks figure to finish around the .500 mark and the Magic will likely not be too far above that level (assuming that Howard is traded), so if the Milwaukee Bucks stay reasonably healthy and find a way to manufacture some offense then they could sneak into the playoffs. The Charlotte Bobcats only missed the playoffs by three games last season so they have a chance in the weak East but I think that they will fall short again. The Detroit Pistons hired a defensive-minded coach (Lawrence Frank) and added some youth but Joe Dumars' peculiar fascination with Rodney Stuckey will likely result in a third straight trip to the Draft Lottery. Deron Williams talked his way out of Utah but he could barely lead the New Jersey Nets out of the Atlantic Division basement; the Nets will only make the playoffs if they pull off a trade for Dwight Howard. The Cleveland Cavaliers should not have been as bad as they were last season and an infusion of young talent plus a return to health for Anderson Varejao will lead to much better results but will not be quite enough to reach the .500 mark. The young, athletic Washington Wizards will be exciting to watch as they fight the Toronto Raptors for last place in the East.

**********

Note:

I correctly picked five of the eight 2010-11 Eastern Conference playoff teams . Here are my statistics for previous seasons:

2010 6/8
2009: 6/8
2008: 5/8
2007: 7/8
2006: 6/8

2006-2011 Total: 35/48 (.729)

Vintage Photo of Julius Erving as a Virginia Squire

2011-12-17T02:33:00.005-05:00

Greg from DrJStuff.com recently found a cool vintage photo of Julius Erving as a Virginia Squire:

Based on the information in the caption, this photo is from Virginia's 122-115 win over the Kentucky Colonels on November 17, 1972, the second of 13 games in which Erving scored at least 40 points during the 1972-73 season en route to earning his first ABA scoring title with a 31.9 ppg average. Erving's 45 point outburst tied his regular season career-high at that time--early in the second of his 16 professional seasons--but later that season he erupted for 58 points, the first of four times that he scored at least 50 points in a regular season game. As far as I know, the only complete list of Erving's ABA/NBA 40 point games is the one I posted on November 24, 2009.

A Different Hollywood Ending: Chris Paul Joins the Clippers, Not the Lakers

2011-12-15T05:15:00.004-05:00

The L.A. Clippers made a major bid for citywide supremacy--if not more--by obtaining Chris Paul from the New Orleans Hornets. Unless the Lakers counter with some deals of their own the 2009/2010 NBA champions may become the second best team that calls Staples Center home. Blake Griffin seems poised to become one of the NBA's 10 best players and if Paul--the runner-up in 2008 MVP voting--returns to form then the Clippers will have a deadly inside-outside duo. Meanwhile, the Hornets sidestepped the nightmare scenario of losing Paul for nothing after this season and acquired young, relatively inexpensive talent that can either form the foundation for a rebuilding process or else be packaged to acquire other assets.

However, while the potential upside for the Clippers is very obvious, few people seem to appreciate that there is some risk involved. Eric Gordon, the soon to be 23 year old third year guard who the Clippers shipped to the Hornets in this transaction, arguably was just as good a player as Paul was last season (Gordon averaged roughly six more ppg than Paul, while Paul averaged roughly five more apg than Gordon--though apg numbers in general and Paul's numbers in particular must be taken with a grain of salt) and it is far from clear how much Paul's balky right knee will affect the rest of his career: for most of last season it did not seem like Paul had his former explosiveness and there is some question about how much cartilage is left in his surgically repaired knee. I am not convinced that a handful of good playoff games against the ancient, nearly immobile Derek Fisher prove that Paul completely returned to elite status (and, even against Fisher, Paul faded by the end of the series). Penny Hardaway looked poised to be a perennial All-NBA player until knee woes derailed his career and a knee problem just ended Brandon Roy's career at age 27. Paul is much smaller than both of those guys and thus quickness is an essential part of his game; not only must he be quick to be effective but he must put a lot of stress on his knees on a nightly basis just to play his normal game, while bigger guards like Hardaway and Roy could at least spend some time on the block and/or find other ways to get by at times without having to simply blow by people.

It is certainly possible that the Griffin-Paul tandem will turn the Clippers into perennial contenders for the next several years--but it is also possible that Gordon will emerge as an All-Star while Paul sits on the bench in street clothes and Griffin throws down monster dunks for a .500 team. We all understand why the Clippers made the trade and it is good for the league that Donald Sterling is trying to win as opposed to just being satisfied with making money but if we learned anything from last season it should be that there is no such thing as a sure thing no matter what a team looks like on paper or on a spreadsheet.

Lakers' fans will undoubtedly be furious at this turn of events, because on the surface it looks like Commissioner David Stern--by vetoing the deal that would have shipped Paul to the Lakers and then approving the deal that sent Paul to the Clippers--intentionally damaged their team. The Lakers now not only do not have Paul but, seemingly as a direct result of the fallout from that failed trade, they also lost the services of Lamar Odom after the Lakers subsequently shipped the now-disgruntled sixth man to the Dallas Mavericks. It is clear that as long as the league owns the Hornets there will be an appearance of a conflict of interest and thus the NBA should find a new owner for the team as soon as possible. That said, Lakers' fans should realistically look at their team: the Mavericks did not just beat the Lakers in last year's playoffs, they humiliated the Lakers and thus vividly demonstrated that the Lakers are now at a crossroads. Kobe Bryant is still a great player but it is doubtful that he can just score 40 ppg for a month to carry his team the way he did in his prime; in order to contend for at least one more ring during Bryant's career while also preparing for his inevitable decline and retirement, the Lakers must get younger and more athletic. Frankly, I don't think that acquiring Paul for Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom would have made the Lakers any better and I also think that the loss of Odom can be overcome if the Lakers ultimately use their remaining assets to bring in Dwight Howard. The Lakers' championship window with the previous roster closed last season with Phil Jackson's retirement/Pau Gasol's playoff disappearing act, so the Lakers' only realistic hope to win the 2012 title hinges on pairing Bryant with Dwight Howard. Otherwise, the Lakers have to get younger in a hurry and hope for the best. The Lakers open the season with back to back to back games and without the services of Andrew Bynum, who will miss the first five games of the season as a result of his cheap shot against J.J.Barea in game four versus Dallas; I think that the Lakers should seriously consider sitting out Bryant for the second game to preserve his knee for the stretch run, though I doubt that Coach Mike Brown will try this or that Bryant would accept this if Brown mentioned it.

It may superficially seem like the lockout was pointless because as soon as it ended Dwight Howard and Chris Paul tried to maneuver their way out of small markets to seek their fortunes in big markets but that is a shortsighted view; the owners locked out the players to fix the NBA's broken business model and that meant making two major adjustments: changing the BRI split and creating a system that strongly encouraged elite players to remain with the teams that originally drafted them. We all know that the owners won the battle over BRI but the owners also made major system changes, many of which seem to be not fully appreciated yet by the general public. The so-called Derrick Rose rule will make it very expensive for future young stars to spurn their original teams, while the escalating luxury tax will make it very expensive for teams to stockpile max contract players. If the NBA owners had sought to put in provisions to specifically restrict Howard and Paul then (1) the lockout could have lasted for years and (2) the players would have had very good grounds to sue (and win); Howard and Paul are entitled to become free agents under the terms of their contracts and thus they have the leverage to force their way out of Orlando and New Orleans respectively--but they will likely be the last elite players able to do so (at least without sacrificing tens of millions of dollars while also costing their new teams hefty luxury tax assessments).

Despite 2011 Finals Collapse, Oddsmakers Like Miami Heat

2011-12-14T00:30:00.004-05:00

The "stat gurus" insisted that pairing LeBron James with Dwyane Wade would create a juggernaut but the reality (as I correctly predicted before the season) is that the Heat turned out to be a very good team--a legitimate contender--but hardly a team that should be compared with the 1996 Chicago Bulls or any other truly dominant squad. During the 2011 regular season, the Heat blew out inferior teams but struggled mightily against elite teams; they managed to get past Boston and Chicago in the playoffs but when the Mavericks challenged the Heat in the NBA Finals James quit while Dirk Nowitzki took over down the stretch.

Any squad with two All-NBA First Team caliber performers (James and Wade) plus one of the NBA's top 15-20 players (Chris Bosh is a six-time All-Star) should be in contention regardless of the composition of the supporting cast but it is fascinating that oddsmakers consistently view the Heat as the favorites to win the 2012 NBA championship. While it is important to understand that odds are set to balance the wagering and not to predict the outcomes of sporting events, it is still striking that in online betting (more info here) the Heat are considered even money favorites to win the championship, significantly better odds than are offered for the L.A. Lakers or the reigning champion Dallas Mavericks. Every source that I have seen lists the Heat as favorites, usually by a large margin. It is also striking that the Lakers are generally listed as one of the top five teams, because I think that they could possibly even struggle to make the playoffs in the West if they do not upgrade their roster (in a short season the Lakers are one Kobe Bryant injury away from being a .500 team in a conference in which playoff qualifiers generally have to post records of .550 or better). The Lakers dealt the disgruntled Lamar Odom--who had a good regular season but did not distinguish himself in the playoffs--to Dallas for a draft pick and a trade exception, a sign that the Lakers' front office understands that the team must get younger and more athletic in order to be a championship contender; the Odom deal clearly weakens the Lakers in the short term but was presumably just the first step in the process of transforming the roster in order to best take advantage of Bryant's final elite level years while also positioning the team for life after Bryant.

I am waiting until the last minute to post my Eastern and Western Conference previews because the roster changes during the compressed free agency period--plus the possibility of one or two blockbuster trades--will have a major impact on my predictions but my overall impression of the Heat has not changed since last season: they will be a legitimate contender for the next several years but--unless they increase their collective mental toughness and unless James and Wade find a way for their similar skill sets to be more complementary, particularly when facing the top teams--in any given season there will likely always be at least one elite team that has an excellent chance to defeat the Heat in a seven game series. Last season, I expected Boston to be that team but the ill-advised Kendrick Perkins trade took away much of Boston's inside advantage versus the Heat while also seeming to drain some of the spirit from Boston's team. The Heat briefly fooled me when they beat a defensive-minded Chicago team in last year's Eastern Conference Finals but after their collapse against Dallas I find it very difficult to believe that the Heat will win the 2012 championship.

Commisioner Stern Should Not Have Voided the Chris Paul Trade

2011-12-09T05:41:00.003-05:00

Remember the old Saturday Night Live skit about "Bad Idea Jeans"? The NBA created a real-life version a year ago when it assumed ownership of the troubled New Orleans Hornets franchise. What could possibly go wrong when the league office--which is supposed to impartially run the NBA's affairs without showing favor to any team or player--is in charge of a specific team? Phil Jackson, then the L.A. Lakers' Coach, immediately mentioned one possibly unsavory scenario: "When Chris (Paul) says he has to be traded, how's that going to go?...Someone's going to have to make a very nonjudgmental decision on that part that's not going to irritate anyone else in the league." If this were an SNL routine, one character would say, "Nah, that could never happen" and then the "Bad Idea" logo would fill the screen.

In theory, the NBA is running the Hornets essentially like a blind trust, assuming formal ownership until a suitor can be found who will hopefully keep the team in New Orleans: the league technically owns the team but the team's front office executives are supposed to be free to make whatever decisions they think are in the team's best interests without interference from league headquarters. That theory went up in smoke in stunning fashion on Thursday when Hornets General Manager Dell Demps completed a three team deal that would have shipped Chris Paul to the L.A. Lakers in exchange for Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Goran Dragic and a first round pick while sending Pau Gasol to the Houston Rockets. The NBA cliche is that the team that receives the best player "wins" a trade; technically this would be considered a "win" for the Lakers but it was hardly a lopsided transaction: the Lakers received an elite point guard but gave up two quality big men, the Hornets gave up an elite point guard but received four potential starters and the Rockets gave up a lot of depth but received an All-Star big man to replace Yao Ming in the middle. Obviously, the Hornets would be disinclined to trade Paul if they thought that they had a realistic chance to re-sign him after this season but the so-called Derrick Rose rule in the new CBA will unfortunately not be of much use to New Orleans or Orlando (in the future, young superstars who have made the All-NBA Team and/or won an MVP will receive much more lucrative contracts by re-signing with their original teams than they would by seeking their fortunes elsewhere but this stipulation does not apply to Paul or to Orlando's Dwight Howard).

After word of the proposed deal had already leaked out, NBA Commissioner David Stern announced that the league had voided the entire transaction, supposedly for "basketball reasons." There is much speculation about who may have pressured Stern to take this action: perhaps "small market" owners do not want to see the Lakers profit at the expense of the Hornets or perhaps "large market" owners do not want to see Paul go to the Lakers because they had their own designs to woo Paul either now or after this season. Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert reportedly sent an email to Stern complaining that if such deals are permitted it will only be a matter of time before the NBA consists of five superteams and 25 other teams that should each be known as the Washington Generals. This is indeed a valid theoretical concern in the sense that, if the NBA operated as a totally free market with no salary cap or other restrictions, all of the top players would probably end up in New York, L.A. and Miami. Henry Abbott and others keep banging the same drum saying that it is wrong for the league to in any way restrict how much money stars can make and/or prevent stars from deciding where they want to play but a league run by Abbott's rules would not last very long; a successful professional sports league needs a common draft that gives weaker teams first crack at young talent and it needs a business model that provides for ample compensation to the best players while also making sure that all of the best players do not end up on one or two teams. If you take Abbott's way of thinking to its (ill)logical conclusion, then the NBA should not have a draft, a salary cap or any free agency rules: the New York Knicks should be able to offer $150 million to Chris Paul and $100 million to Jared Sullinger (or whichever college star they like next summer), while Dan Gilbert fills out his roster with players from Cleveland State University--but once you accept/understand why a league should have a draft, a salary cap and rules regarding free agency then the next step is to figure out specifically how to construct a business model containing those elements; such issues can only be solved through collective bargaining and that is why the NBA just had the second longest work stoppage in its history: the business model needed to be fixed. Abbott and his favorite economist may have determined that LeBron James and other stars are supposedly underpaid relative to their alleged true market value but if the NBA paid James what Abbott thinks James is worth then the whole enterprise would collapse and James would ultimately receive nothing. If James or other players dislike the terms of the league's CBA then they are certainly free to sell their services to the highest bidder in other leagues--but until Abbott and Costello (Dave Berri) find someone with very deep pockets to put their economic "theories" to a real world test (by creating a rival league based on "advanced basketball statistics") the fact is that James' true "market value" is what the NBA can afford to pay him without destroying its entire business model.

The Dream Team was fun to watch in 1992 in the Olympics but if the NBA's rules permitted a handful of wealthy owners to buy up all of the elite players then the NBA would indeed become nothing more than the Harlem Globetrotters versus the Washington Generals. Abbott and others say that competitive balance has never existed in NBA history but that depends on how you define competitive balance with regard to pro basketball. Competitive balance does not mean that every team has a 100% equal chance to win a title in a given year or even in the next 10 years; obviously, history has shown that to win an NBA title you almost always must have an elite player on your roster and there are only a handful of elite players in the NBA at any given time (plus another 20-25 All-Star caliber players). Competitive balance means two things in the context of the NBA: (1) No one team can simply spend $1 billion and buy up the All-NBA First Team; (2) any team that drafts well and makes sound free agency decisions has the opportunity to put together a solid playoff team and that the handful of teams that acquire/nurture an All-NBA First Team caliber performer have a reasonable opportunity to contend for a title and to retain the services of that All-NBA First Team player when his initial contract expires.

The Showtime Lakers were not built because top players decided to leave small market teams; while the Lakers acquired Kareem Abdul-Jabbar via a trade with a small market team, they did not become a dynasty until they surrounded him with shrewd draft picks (including Norm Nixon, Magic Johnson and James Worthy). The 1980s Boston Celtics drafted Larry Bird and his Hall of Fame frontcourt partner Kevin McHale. LeBron James had every right under the old CBA to form a power trio in Miami but it is historically incorrect to suggest that this is how dynasties have previously been built in the NBA--and it is foolish to think that what James, Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams did last year set a healthy precedent for the NBA. How many casual fans really missed the NBA during the lockout? There was a very real backlash against the NBA, a "pox on their houses" mentality that can be largely traced back to the resentment that fans outside of New York/New Jersey and Miami feel about what James, Anthony and Williams did.

So, I understand Gilbert's concerns and I can even understand why Stern felt that he had to stop the Paul trade--but I think that Stern has made a horrible mistake and that, ultimately, this trade (or one like it) is inevitable. The new CBA does not prevent Paul and Howard from following in the footsteps of James, Anthony and Williams so there is no way that the NBA can stop them from forcing their way out of New Orleans and Orlando respectively; moreover, it is a horrible conflict of interest for the NBA to reject a deal unless that deal is clearly lopsided--particularly when the NBA technically owns one of the teams involved in the deal. Stern has potentially disrupted the functioning of not only the Hornets (who now have a very disgruntled Paul on their roster) but also the Lakers and Rockets, who now have to welcome back players they just tried to ship out.

The extremely ironic sidebar to this situation is that, while I agree with Gilbert's theoretical objection about big market teams trying to corner the market on elite players, I disagree with Gilbert's apparent belief that the specific deal in question is lopsided in favor of the Lakers. While the Lakers certainly need to upgrade the point guard position (something that I have been saying for years, much to the chagrin of Lakers' fans/Derek Fisher lovers), two quality big men is a steep price to pay for a small point guard who has been somewhat brittle in recent years. Gilbert seems to think that this deal would have paved the way for the Lakers to also acquire Dwight Howard; if that were true, then the Lakers would indeed be in great shape with a Bryant-Howard-Paul trio but with Gasol and Odom out of the picture it is unlikely that the Lakers could have persuaded Orlando to part with Howard. An aging Bryant paired with a brittle Paul and an even more brittle Andrew Bynum hardly looks like a sure-fire championship nucleus; Bryant and Paul could perhaps have carried a team to a title three years ago or perhaps could do so now if they (and Bynum) stayed healthy but what the Lakers really need to do to make a last run at a Bryant-led title while also laying the groundwork to contend as Bryant declines is to acquire Howard in exchange for Bynum and Gasol or (preferably) Bynum and Odom.

However, the actual skill set evaluation of the proposed Chris Paul trade is going to be largely ignored because of the serious implications of how the trade was cancelled. I wonder how many casual NBA fans even realized that the NBA has owned the Hornets for the past year, let alone thought about all of the potential ramifications of this: not only is it a bad idea for a league to own a team but the fact that for more than a year the NBA has searched in vain for a suitable owner tends to reinforce the contention that the league did in fact have a broken business model under the terms of the old CBA. Sure, it might be easy to find someone who wants to buy an NBA team in Philadelphia (or to move a team to Brooklyn) but who wants to buy one in New Orleans? New Orleans is home to a championship team under the NFL's business model but under the NBA's old business model it hardly attracted much interest among prospective NBA owners. It cannot be emphasized enough that the San Antonio Spurs--considered a small market team in NBA parlance even though San Antonio is hardly a small city--lost money in recent seasons even though they have won four titles in the past dozen years and are considered to be a model franchise. The NBA has some deep seated problems with its business model that the new CBA tentatively addresses but the Chris Paul trade/non-trade fiasco could potentially not only overshadow those issues but perhaps even scuttle the tenuous peace agreement between the owners and the players.

The NBA may be back but it is hardly in good shape: the compressed 66 game season is going to be tough to watch--featuring a lot of out of shape and/or fatigued players--and whatever happens on the court is likely to attract less attention than the off court dramas surrounding Howard and Paul.

Joe Tait: A Cleveland Treasure Recalls a Lifetime Spent Behind the Microphone

2011-12-04T03:19:00.003-05:00

The Cleveland Cavaliers have never won an NBA title and have only made one trip to the NBA Finals during their 41 season existence, so Joe Tait--who handled both the radio play by play and color jobs for most of that four decade march of futility--is not as nationally known to casual fans as Chick Hearn and Johnny Most, the long-time voices of the L.A. Lakers and Boston Celtics respectively. However, Tait is more than just a beloved Northeast Ohio broadcaster; his skills have been repeatedly recognized by his peers: he has received numerous regional and national media honors, including the prestigious Curt Gowdy Media Award presented by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Even fans who know about Tait's long, distinguished career as a Cavs broadcaster may not realize how many other sports Tait has covered, including Major League Baseball, minor league hockey, college football and indoor soccer. Joe Tait: It's been a real ball not only describes Tait's life and career but also provides a brief, entertaining history of the Cleveland sports scene circa 1970-2011. Tait initially resisted the idea of writing a book and when he finally agreed to participate in the project he refused to turn it into "one of those tell-all things where you pick up the rocks and look for toads." Tait also did not want the book to be in the first person voice, so he selected Terry Pluto to be his co-author. Pluto is one of America's most decorated sportswriters; he has written 27 books, including Loose Balls--a highly regarded oral history of the ABA--and LeBron James: The Making of an MVP, a concise but informative history of James' career prior to the infamous "Decision." Pluto skillfully weaves together a multilayered narrative that includes comments not just from Tait but also from fans, co-workers and former players.

Tait's story begins not in Ohio--he was born and raised in Illinois--and not with sports or broadcasting but with trains; he has been fascinated by trains since his childhood, perhaps because several relatives worked in the railroad business. Young Joe loved to ride the trains and he loved to sit by the tracks watching the trains; to this day he still collects information about--and, when possible, tries to see in person--old trains and old railroad tracks. He shared this interest with his father, though Joe also has some less than pleasant memories of a man who he calls "a real disciplinarian."

As a child, Marv Albert made up statistics and imaginary leagues long before fantasy sports became a huge business--and Tait did the same kind of thing as a youngster. In fact, Tait spent so much time alone in his room focused on "broadcasting" pretend sporting events that his father actually sent him to be evaluated by a psychologist, who concluded that Tait had "a vivid imagination" but no mental problems.

That "vivid imagination" compensated for the harsh reality that Tait--despite his best efforts and despite being a tall, big kid--was not particularly good at any sport. He tried his hand at football, basketball and baseball without much success and candidly admits, "Sports broadcasting gave me the outlet that I never would have had as a player." Tait grew up in the 1950s and did not even see a television set until he was 12; his first goal was not to be a broadcaster but rather to be a sportswriter, which makes sense considering that he spent his formative years in an era when print was king, television was in its infancy and the internet had yet to be created.

Tait's broadcasting career began at Monmouth College. He did a 15 minute sports show that did not even have a name and he also tape recorded play by play accounts of the basketball team's games to be replayed over the loudspeakers at the student center. Tait found or created jobs for himself wherever he could, even if those jobs did not pay anything, and those opportunities gave him valuable experience while also helping him to make contacts in the business. One of those contacts was Bill Fitch, a basketball coach at Coe College who also did some scouting for their football team. Tait made quite an impression on Fitch, who marveled at the enthusiastic way that Tait described Monmouth's lackluster football team while doing play by play. After graduating from Monmouth, Tait served three years in the U.S. Army before returning to Illinois and resuming his broadcasting career. Tait was ambitious--he wanted to work in a big city--but he got off to a shaky start and he was fired twice within the first two years after leaving the Army.

Joe Tait: It's been a real ball provides a detailed account of Tait's steady rise through the broadcasting ranks. Tait kept a scrapbook containing rejection letters, news clippings and other artifacts that supplement his remarkable memory. By 1970 Tait was working for WBOW in Terre Haute, Indiana; he was 33 years old and wondering if he ever would get the opportunity to work in a big market. Tait found out that Fitch had been hired to be the general manager and coach of the new expansion NBA team in Cleveland, so Tait sent Fitch a brief letter of congratulations and offered his services as a play by play man. He had not seen Fitch in a decade and was not even sure if Fitch would remember who he was.

Bob Brown, the Cavs' public relations director, handled the play by play duties for the team's first seven games but he quickly realized that he could not simultaneously work in the front office and be a radio broadcaster. Fitch recommended Tait to Brown and team owner Nick Mileti, so Tait drove to Cleveland to interview for the job. Tait was making $10,000 a year in Terre Haute and the Cavs only offered him $7400 a year ($100 a game for the remaining 74 games of the 82 game season) but Mileti pledged to make it up to Tait in the future so Tait took the plunge, finally arriving in a major market (albeit with a substantial pay cut). Mileti proved to be true to his word, providing Tait broadcasting opportunities with the Cleveland Indians and other teams that Mileti eventually added to his ownership portfolio (though, Pluto hastens to point out, Mileti in fact only owned a small percentage of "his" teams and was heavily dependent on outside financing).

Even by expansion standards the Cavs got off to a rough start, losing their first 15 games before defeating a fellow expansion team, the Portland Trail Blazers. The Cavs won just one of their first 28 contests en route to a 15-67 record (the Trail Blazers were a much more respectable 29-53, while the league's third expansion team that season--the Buffalo Braves, now known as the L.A. Clippers--finished 22-60). Scouting was not as sophisticated during that era--and this was especially true of the Cavs, who literally assembled their roster based on player statistics found on the backs of basketball cards. Humor can often be found in the midst of such serial losing and probably is necessary to preserve one's sanity. Fitch delivered many quips during the 1970-71 season, including, "War is bad but expansion is worse." One time on the road Fitch forgot his credential and the security guard would not let him in to the arena. Fitch asked the guard if he knew the Cavs' record and then said why would anyone be trying to impersonate the team's coach, whereupon the guard relented and granted Fitch access. After the Cavs narrowly defeated Portland to get their first win, Fitch described the sloppy proceedings succinctly: "It looked like the gamblers got to both teams."

In the 1971 NBA draft the Cavs chose Austin Carr with the number one overall selection. Fitch thought that Carr, who still holds numerous NCAA Tournament scoring records and whose 34.6 ppg career scoring average ranks second in NCAA history, could have an enormous impact on the team but injuries limited Carr to just 43 games as a rookie. Carr then had two healthy seasons before a knee injury permanently robbed him of his explosiveness and balance; he turned out to be a very good pro but not a franchise player. Younger fans likely do not know many details about Carr's career but are primarily familiar with him as one of the team's TV commentators, a role he has filled since 1997.

The Cavs did not post a winning record until 1975-76, when they went 49-33 and upset the Washington Bullets--the 1975 Eastern Conference champion--in seven games, a series that became known as the "Miracle of Richfield" (the Cavs had moved from downtown Cleveland to Richfield Coliseum). If starting center Jim Chones had not gotten injured during practice prior to the next series, the Cavs may very well have toppled Boston in the Eastern Conference Finals and gone on to win the NBA title. Although LeBron James led the Cavs to the NBA Finals in 2007, the way he departed Cleveland took the bloom off of the rose of that campaign and thus the 1976 season is probably the one most fondly remembered/thought about by diehard Cavs fans.

The Cavs were not able to build or sustain any momentum from the great 1976 season; they lost in the first round of the playoffs in 1977 and 1978 and then did not qualify again for postseason play until 1984-85. During most of those wilderness years the Cavs were owned by Ted Stepien, who infamously traded away so many first round draft picks that the NBA had to step in and forbid him from further destroying the franchise's future; Stepien's lasting legacy is an NBA rule named after him that prohibits any team from trading away first round draft picks from consecutive seasons. The reason that Tait was the voice of the Cavs for most but not all of their first 41 seasons is that Stepien fired Tait and sold the team's broadcast rights to a different radio station; Stepien was jealous of Tait's popularity in town, while Tait (and many others) thought that Stepien was not doing a very good job of running the team, a sentiment that Tait was not shy about expressing during his broadcasts. Tait spent one year with the New Jersey Nets and another year with the Chicago Bulls before the NBA forced Stepien to sell the Cavs to an ownership group led by Gordon Gund, who immediately rehired Tait.

Under Gund's leadership, the Cavs enjoyed some of the best seasons in franchise history. During the late 1980s/early 1990s the Cavs were one of the best teams in the league but they just could not get past the Michael Jordan/Scottie Pippen-led Chicago Bulls. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Tait's book is that very little coverage is given to that era; Cavs fans who are too young to remember the "Miracle of Richfield" and too disgusted with LeBron James to think fondly of the Cavs' success circa 2006-2010 consider the Brad Daugherty/Mark Price era the franchise's golden age.

LeBron James is clearly the most talented player, by far, in Cavs history (Tait's choice for the second most talented player in franchise history is Larry Nance, whose achievements are sometimes overlooked because he played alongside Daugherty and Price). Tait does not mince words when discussing his perspective regarding James' sense of entitlement, lack of leadership skills and tone-deafness regarding the "Decision." Tait insists that he feels no personal animosity toward James but rather dislikes the way that the league and the media build up players from such a young age.

It is almost a cliche to call someone an "an American original," but it is exceedingly unlikely that anyone else will follow a career path similar to Tait's, rising from small town obscurity to being the voice of the same NBA team for four decades. Joe Tait: It's been a real ball is an easy, fun book to read and will surely bring back good memories for Cleveland sports fans who listened to Tait's trademark calls since 1970.

Tentative Agreement Reached to End NBA Lockout

2011-11-26T09:08:00.009-05:00

After a marathon round of negotiations on Friday, the NBA owners and the NBA players tentatively reached an agreement for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that would enable the league to stage an abbreviated 66 game 2011-2012 NBA season and ensure labor peace for at least the next six years. The deal still must be formally approved by both the NBA's Board of Governors and the NBA Players Association (once the brief NBA nuclear winter is formally ended with the players ending their shell game/legal shenanigans by reconstituting the briefly disbanded Players Association).

Until the agreement is formally ratified we will not know the specific structure of the season, including important details such as how many intraconference and interconference games each team will play and whether or not there will be a 2012 All-Star Game. It also is not yet possible to make definitive statements about the meaning/long-term implications of the new CBA but based on what has happened so far during the lockout and the published details about the proposed settlement it seems reasonable to conclude that the lockout largely followed the course that I predicted it would back in February: it was long (the second longest work stoppage so far in NBA history) and it did not end until the players finally accepted the reality that the NBA's broken business model had to be fundamentally changed. It also appears that the temporary disbanding of the Players Association--which cost the players six more game checks and will result in a compressed season that may not include an All-Star Game--did not lead to any tangible gains for the players: barring the release of new information, it looks like the players essentially just agreed to the deal that the league offered them approximately two weeks ago; former NBA Players Association Executive Director Charles Grantham expressed some not so veiled criticism of Hunter/Players Association President Derek Fisher last week: "Quite frankly, I've always taken a position that I thought the job of the union was to keep the players working, and that the amount of loss that would be represented here would be astronomical for those that play and the people who work in the system. I think at a certain point, it became emotional and it kind of got off the track, while they were close to a deal. They should've made one." The NBA players came dangerously close to losing a full season's worth of paychecks, which would have been catastrophic for them considering that an average career lasts less than five seasons; NHL owners sacrificed a full season to fix their league's economic model and the NBA players finally realized--perhaps at the last possible moment--that they were leading the NBA down that same path. Grantham declared, "Don't confuse resolve with good judgment. Hockey players had good resolve. No one can say how strong the kids were for standing up for what they believed in, but they made the wrong judgment. You've got to make the right judgment here. And once the fight is over, you get back to work and you live another day."

It has become fashionable to suggest that NBA Commissioner David Stern has lost his touch and should resign (a point of view expressed by, among others, Bill Simmons and Mike Lupica) but Commssioner Stern performed a delicate balancing act during the lockout, mediating between/among big market owners, small market owners and the various factions from the players' side (including star players, agents, lawyers, etc.). When Stern became the NBA's Commissioner the NBA Finals were shown on tape delay, far from being the global phenomenon that they currently are; the league had drug problems and image problems but under his leadership its popularity and revenue soared--and, contrary to the ignorant bleatings heard from various quarters during the lockout, the NBA has consistently led the way in terms of providing ownership opportunities, management jobs and coaching positions for minorities. Commissioner Stern's tenure has not been perfect or blemish-free but overall he has served the game well.

Here are some NBA questions/issues to monitor:

1) What is the specific nature of the revenue split (there has been talk of a 49-51 percent "band" based on total revenues) and will this new deal enable most NBA teams to make a profit?

2) How will the new CBA affect player movement both in the upcoming, abbreviated offseason free agency period and in the next few seasons?

3) Will the new CBA stabilize the league's rosters and allow for greater competitive balance while also giving players some opportunity to choose their own destinations--or will Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and possibly other stars flee small market teams in an attempt to emulate what LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams did last year? It will not be very good for the league's overall health if small market teams ultimately have no realistic chance to retain the services of their superstars.

4) How will a compressed season with a shorter training camp and fewer days off between games affect the various teams that realistically have a chance to contend for the championship?

5) Which players will "compete" to become the Shawn Kemp Goodyear Blimp poster child of the 2011 lockout by showing up out of shape and registering on the Richter Scale as they waddle up and down the court lugging extra baggage?

6) The 50 game season that followed the 1998-99 lockout featured some very sluggish, almost unwatchable basketball and culminated with a San Antonio Spurs championship that Phil Jackson later quipped should be marked by an asterisk. It is reasonable to assume that the 2012 NBA season will have a higher injury rate and lower shooting percentages than normal due to the long layoff, short training camp and compressed schedule.

Bill Tosheff: Champion for the "Pre-1965ers"

2011-11-25T01:28:00.004-05:00

William Tosheff, generally known as Bill or "Tosh," earned recognition as the 1952 NBA co-Rookie of the Year, rubbed shoulders with Fidel Castro and Earnest Hemingway during a seven year minor league baseball career and served his country as a member of a B-17 bomber crew during World War II--but his enduring legacy is his tireless fight for the "Pre-1965ers," the early NBA players who built the league and then were shamefully cast aside by both the next generations of players and the league itself; Tosheff battled for decades until he won a multimillion dollar settlement that provided some aid and comfort to several dozen "Pre-1965ers." Tosheff passed away in October 2011; neither his life nor his death received an appropriate amount of coverage and I think that it is critically important that Tosheff is remembered both for what he accomplished individually and also for what he accomplished on behalf of so many retired NBA players.

In 2009, I interviewed Tosheff and I am proud to reprint that two part series here:

Bill Tosheff: NBA Co-Rookie of the Year and Tireless Advocate for the "Pre-1965ers" (Part I)

Bill Tosheff: NBA Co-Rookie of the Year and Tireless Advocate for the "Pre-1965ers" (Part II)

Until his last days, Tosheff still worked tirelessly to correct NBA injustices; he felt that the NBA should provide retroactive payments to the "Pre-1965ers" who were covered by the 2005 agreement but had not received pensions from 1988-2005 and he insisted that the NBA should formally recognize the 1948-52 Rookies of the Year who were listed in the 1995 NBA Guide but then mysteriously erased from history the next year (Paul Hoffman in 1948, Howie Shannon in 1949, Alex Groza in 1950, Paul Arizin in 1951 and Bill Tosheff/Mel Hutchins in 1952). It would be a most fitting tribute to Tosheff's legacy if, after the NBA owners and players finish squabbling over how to divide roughly $4 billion amongst themselves, they agree to set aside a tiny portion of that cash to ease the final days of the remaining "Pre-1965ers"; it also would be fitting if the league and its media partners corrected a nearly two decades old injustice and restored the 1948-52 Rookies of the Year to the "official" listings of NBA award winners.

**********

Further Reading About Bill Tosheff

Legends of Basketball Tribute/Obituary for Bill Tosheff

Association for Professional Basketball Research (APBR) Documentation of the Plight of the Pre-Pension Players

Bill Tosheff's Minor League Baseball Statistics

Erving Auction Nets Record $3.5 Million

2011-11-22T13:39:00.001-05:00

SCP Auctions just sold more than 100 items from Julius Erving's personal collection for a record $3.5 million. The most expensive single item was Erving's 1974 ABA championship ring, signifying the first of three titles Erving's teams won during his 16 year professional career; that ring sold for $460,741, reportedly the most money ever paid for a championship ring. SCP President David Kohler noted that championship rings generally sell for less than $25,000 and that he did not expect that Erving's rings would sell for more than $50,000 each (Erving's 1976 ABA championship ring sold for $195,396 and his 1983 NBA championship ring sold for $244,240, making it the second most expensive item in the auction).

The Associated Press reported that the Philadelphia 76ers bought 10 lots containing a total of 18 items and that the team plans to publicly display the Erving memorabilia. New 76ers CEO Adam Aron added that he would like for Erving to rejoin the franchise in some as yet undetermined capacity. Erving played 11 seasons for the 76ers, making the All-Star team every year, earning seven All-NBA First or Second Team selections and playing a major role for the 1983 championship team that set a record by going 12-1 in the playoffs (the 2001 Lakers broke that mark by going 15-1).

You can see a complete list of the items and their final prices here.

When the Garden was Eden: A Nostalgic Trip Through the Golden Age of New York Hoops

2011-11-21T19:55:00.004-05:00

New York professional sports experienced a golden age from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, with the Jets, Mets, Nets and Knicks each winning at least one league title. Joe Namath's Jets and Tom Seaver's Mets are fondly remembered to this day even though they were each basically one year wonders. Julius Erving's Nets won ABA championships in 1974 and 1976 but they never quite captured the imagination of New York, let alone the rest of the country; Erving eventually became recognized as an all-time great but his years in New York are still shrouded in obscurity because the Nets specifically and their league in general did not receive much national media coverage.

The Knicks were the crown jewel of that brief golden age of New York sports. The Knicks not only won the 1970 and 1973 NBA championships but they reached the Division (later Conference) Finals six straight years while having a memorable rivalry with the Baltimore Bullets that produced many classic individual battles, including Dave DeBusschere versus Gus Johnson and Walt Frazier versus Earl Monroe (the Knicks later acquired Monroe, pairing him with Frazier to form the "Rolls Royce" backcourt). The early 1970s Knicks featured five of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players (Dave DeBusschere, Walt Frazier, Jerry Lucas, Earl Monroe and Willis Reed).

The Knicks have not won an NBA championship since 1973 and--even if the lockout "nuclear winter" ends soon--it is exceedingly unlikely that the Knicks will win the NBA championship in the near future. Memories, nostalgia and hope are all that sustain Knicks' fans today; whether or not the hope is well founded is a subject for another day but plenty of wonderful memories and nostalgic glimpses back to the golden age can be found in Harvey Araton's When the Garden was Eden: Clyde, the Captain, Dollar Bill, and the Glory Days of the New York Knicks. Araton rooted for the Knicks as a teenager and he has covered the New York sports scene for more than three decades, starting just after the golden age ended.

Araton begins his story with a brief prologue that poignantly contrasts the beautiful, teamwork-oriented game played by the 1970s Knicks with the disjointed and lifeless efforts of the 2010 Knicks, a patchwork group of players assembled not to win but to serve as placeholders until the franchise made its ultimately fruitless run at wooing LeBron James, who later infamously decided to take his talents to South Beach--a narcissistic and solipsistic phrase that represents the antithesis of how the golden age Knicks thought about and played basketball: when Monroe joined the Knicks he did not take his talents to Madison Square Garden in a self-aggrandizing manner but rather sacrificed individual glory to achieve team success. Monroe made a choice that would be almost unthinkable for a modern superstar: he willingly sacrificed his numbers (and even, for a time, his starting role) for a chance to win a title. Monroe took it as a challenge to prove that he could fit in with the Knicks' team concept, while far too many modern superstars would only view such a situation as a disrespectful challenge to their egos (and their paychecks). Frazier--now a Knicks' broadcaster--confided to Araton that, although he tries to keep his feelings in check as he provides commentary about the bumbling Knicks, "Man, sometimes it's like watching a different sport."

Araton does not limit himself to describing the details of the Knicks' glory days but instead takes a leisurely stroll through the nooks and crannies of Knicks' history, exploring diverse topics ranging from Willis Reed's Louisiana roots to the reason that Madison Square Garden is known as the "Mecca" of basketball (Araton reports that the "Mecca" designation for a New York sports venue originated with the Shriners' Mecca Temple, an old boxing arena). Much of this territory has been explored before both in first person accounts by the participants as well as recollections by various sports writers but Araton's account is neither a straight history of the team nor strictly a personal memoir; Araton writes in the first person and interjects himself--appropriately, not excessively--into the narrative, creating a text that is both intimate and informative.

Red Holzman played for the Rochester Royals' 1951 NBA championship team before serving the Knicks as a scout and a front office executive--but he made his biggest mark as a Hall of Fame coach, compiling a 696-604 record in 18 seasons on the bench while leading the Knicks to the franchise's only two championships. Holzman's daughter Gail granted Araton exclusive access to Holzman's old scouting reports, the only proviso being that Araton not directly mention any critical comments that Holzman made about various players; Araton explains that Gail, like her father, was "unwilling under any conditions to publicly share anything that might be construed as negative...Her father would not have approved." One gem from those files is Holzman's comment after seeing Cazzie Russell's Michigan Wolverines defeat Bill Bradley's Princeton Tigers on a last second jumper by Russell: "Guts to take the last shot." The willingness to take a clutch shot is not something that can be quantified but, as Araton puts it, Holzman knew that a championship team cannot be built around guys who are "conscientious objectors" when the game is on the line.

Holzman's teams achieved a rare harmonious balance: the roster was stacked with Hall of Fame talent but each great player kept his ego in check and the group worked together to achieve a collective goal without fussing over who would receive the credit and the glory. Sure, Frazier may have griped at times that he, not Reed, should have been awarded the 1970 Finals MVP, and Monroe no doubt wonders what his individual career numbers would have looked like had he finished his career as a Bullet; such thoughts are only natural but they never interfered with the team's performance on the court and they pale in comparison to the ego explosions that have undermined so many other squads that contained multiple superstars.

Not surprisingly, the book's longest chapter focuses on game seven of the 1970 NBA Finals--known to most casual basketball fans as the Willis Reed game but remembered by students of basketball history as the game in which Walt Frazier produced one of the greatest clutch performances ever (36 points, 19 assists, seven rebounds) as the Knicks defeated the L.A. Lakers 113-99. Araton deftly weaves together his personal impressions of that 1970 Knicks team with the thoughts and recollections of various players, broadcasters (most notably Marv Albert) and fans (including Spike Lee, who attended game seven at Madison Square Garden as a 13 year old).

Although the Knicks' victory is commonly viewed as the triumph of an underdog over the star-studded trio of Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West--an impression that Araton neither aggressively propagates nor definitively rejects--in the interest of historical accuracy I will briefly share the nuanced description of that series that I wrote a few years ago:

It is true that by the conclusion of the 1970 playoffs West (3708 points, 30.9 points per game) Baylor (3623 points, 27.0 points per game), and Chamberlain (2990 points, 25.8 points per game) were the three leading scorers in NBA playoff history. That is impressive and unprecedented, but it also reflects the fact that all three players were past their primes. Baylor's chronically bad knees would soon force him to retire and, as noted above, Chamberlain had not completely recovered from his early season knee injury. West still had plenty of great games left, but his body was also battered and bruised from so many years of battling deep into the playoffs. The Knicks were hardly an underdog team without a chance; there is a reason that they had homecourt advantage for game seven. None of these facts diminish Reed's courage, Frazier's clutch game seven performance and the overall greatness of the 1970 New York Knicks. Quite the opposite: the 1970 Knicks should be remembered as a great team, not as an underdog.

Placing that matchup in proper historical context does not diminish the unquestioned impact that the Knicks' victory had on the franchise, the city and pro sports history; the images of Willis Reed walking out of the tunnel prior to the game and then hitting his first two jumpers are an indelible part of American popular culture. Hall of Fame forward Bill Bradley, a Rhodes Scholar before becoming a Knick and a U.S. Senator after his Knicks' career ended, told Araton why the Knicks' 1970 championship resonated so deeply at that time and still has a special place in fans' hearts decades later:

In life, it's very difficult to get to the mountaintop, because one day leads to another day and leads to another day. There are small wins and losses in the process. You win an election or lose an election. You can close a deal or not close a deal. But in sports, what you can do as a team, and with your fans feeling part of it, is show what's possible for human beings to achieve if they work together, if they care about each other. Winning the title gave resolution to people who didn't have much resolution in their lives, at a time when resolution was something they really needed.

The Knicks lost to the Bullets in seven games in the 1971 Eastern Conference Finals and then fell in five games to the Lakers in the 1972 NBA Finals. By 1973, Reed was not just temporarily hobbled but rather permanently limited by an accumulation of ailments; he was two years removed from his final All-Star selection and a shadow of his former self, averaging just 11.0 ppg and 8.6 rpg. Frazier was at the top of his game and he was clearly the Knicks' best player. The Boston Celtics cruised to the NBA's best record (68-14) but after a shoulder injury restricted John Havlicek the Knicks took out the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals to earn their third NBA Finals appearance in four seasons, the final chapter in their trilogy of battles against the Lakers. The Knicks defeated the Lakers in five games but, as Reed mentioned to Araton, it sometimes seems like people do not even remember that the Knicks won a second title; the 1970 team has been elevated to legendary status, while the 1973 squad has receded somewhat into the mist.

The flipside of Bradley's poetic rendering of what the 1970s Knicks mean to their fans is that the camaraderie the players felt for one another did not necessarily extend to how the franchise treated them as their respective careers wound down: the Knicks banished Frazier to Cleveland, fired Reed after barely more than one season as Holzman's successor and informed Monroe of the end of his tenure with the team via a newspaper article written by none other than Araton himself. The Celtics and Lakers historically have taken care of their great players--bringing them back as coaches, scouts or front office members--but that is not always the case with other NBA teams (Julius Erving, who usually measures his public words quite carefully, noted during his Farewell Tour that this tribute was an exception for the Philadelphia 76ers and that many of his former teammates had just been unceremoniously cut or had drifted away without much fanfare or recognition from the team). Monroe told Araton, "The history of what's been here: that should be what every organization is about. If you don't honor your history, then how can you plot your future? If you history has been clouded, it sends a bad message. You haven't won the championship in almost 40 years; karma-wise, that may be the reason why. I mean, how long did it take to retire Dick Barnett's number?" Barnett, the third leading scorer on the 1970 championship team behind only Reed and Frazier, played the last nine seasons of his 14 year career with the Knicks and made the All-Star team as a Knick just prior to the beginning of the Knicks' golden age.

Ironically, a role player for those Knicks teams eventually won five of his record 11 championships coaching the Lakers; Phil Jackson sat out the 1970 season because of a back injury and he averaged just 8.1 ppg for the 1973 NBA champions but his later success in Chicago and L.A. can very much be traced back to his time in New York, specifically the mentoring he received from Holzman; Jackson's description of Holzman's demeanor indicates the genesis of Jackson's laid-back coaching style: "Kind words when they were needed, but mostly a matter-of-fact guy. It was the middle of the road--not too high, not too low." Jackson told Araton that Holzman offered Jackson some simple advice about coaching winning basketball: "It's not rocket science. It's see the ball on defense, hit the open man on offense." Araton commented, "Zen philosophy stripped away, Jackson was much like Holzman: he allowed his players to succeed through self-discovery."

When the Garden was Eden mostly hits the right notes, though the concluding passages comparing the character traits of various golden age Knicks to President Obama are a bit discordant; America is a country consisting of roughly 40% Democrats, 40% Republicans and 20% swing voters, so an extended love letter dedicated to one side of the political spectrum is sure to seem odd--if not completely misplaced--to at least nearly half of the readership of the book (it could also be safely argued that the Knicks' place in history is a lot more secure than President Obama's, as the reputations of politicians are apt to rise or fall very swiftly). Despite the odd ending, When the Garden was Eden makes a positive impression overall: it is an easy and enjoyable book to read, a heartfelt and personal portrait of the golden age Knicks.

NBA Lockout Enters "Nuclear Winter"

2011-11-14T23:26:00.004-05:00

The NBA lockout entered uncharted territory today when the Players Association rejected the league's Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) proposal. Players Association Executive Director Billy Hunter and Players Association President Derek Fisher did not submit the league's offer to a membership vote but instead, after consulting with various lawyers and agents, decided unilaterally to end the collective bargaining process and declared their intention to disclaim interest; decertification, the option the media focused on, is a lengthier process than disclaimer, which is effective immediately. Regardless of the terminology used, the end result is--as NBA Commissioner David Stern called it--a "sham" and a "charade." This shell game, similar to what the NFL Players Association tried before being rebuffed by the courts and ultimately reaching an agreement with the NFL, involves temporarily dissolving a union only to reassemble it once the crisis has passed. With no union in place, the players can file antitrust lawsuits and attempt to argue that the NBA is not negotiating in good faith; the NBA Players Association apparently believes that the court system will look with sympathy on the ludicrous contention that the players are being treated like slaves. The NBA anticipated this move months ago, filing a claim with the National Labor Relations Board asserting that the players never intended to sign a deal and always sought to find relief in the courts.

What this means for the fans is simple: it is very unlikely that there will be a 2011-2012 NBA season. This should not shock anyone who has followed this situation; the NBA lockout has proceeded much like I predicted it would months ago when I said that it would last "until the owners and players agree to fundamentally restructure the league's failing business model." Some people had hoped or assumed that perhaps after missing a few paychecks the players would come to their senses but Hunter and Fisher circumvented that possibility by preventing the rank and file members from voting on the NBA's most recent offer. It would be very interesting to hear what players who may lose a fifth of his career earnings think about the moves being made by Hunter, Fisher, a few star players and some power-hungry agents (the average NBA career lasts less than five years, so a one season lockout wipes out a fifth of an average player's potential earnings).

On November 13, Commissioner Stern sent a memo to the NBA players detailing the league's most recent (and final) offer to end the lockout. The NBA's proposed deal would have fixed the league's broken business model but, contrary to media spin, hardly would have turned the players into "slaves"--unless you consider an average annual salary of close to $8 million per year to be a form of slavery. Commissioner Stern issued a brief statement after Hunter and Fisher publicly announced their decision:

"At a bargaining session in February 2010, Jeffrey Kessler, counsel for the union, threatened that the players would abandon the collective bargaining process and start an antitrust lawsuit against our teams if they did not get a bargaining resolution that was acceptable to them.

In anticipation of this day, the NBA filed an unfair labor practice charge before the National Labor Relations Board asserting that, by virtue of its continued threats, the union was not bargaining in good faith. We also began a litigation in federal court in anticipation of this same bargaining tactic.

The NBA has negotiated in good faith throughout the collective bargaining process, but--because our revised bargaining proposal was not to its liking--the union has decided to make good on Mr. Kessler's threat.

There will ultimately be a new collective bargaining agreement, but the 2011-12 season is now in jeopardy."

The media, taking the players' lead, portrayed the league's current offer as an "ultimatum." Commissioner Stern responded to that charge by noting that the two parties have been negotiating for more than two years without making much progress, so the owners presented the best offer that they could make at this time; the reality of the situation--i.e., the cost of missing the regular season games that have already been cancelled--obviously necessitates that subsequent offers will be reduced accordingly. That is not an "ultimatum" but simply the nature of doing business. Perhaps Commissioner Stern should have issued a real ultimatum; the 1998-99 lockout ended when Commissioner Stern presented the players with a final offer accompanied by the statement that if the players did not accept that offer then the league would cancel the entire season and use replacement players starting in 1999-2000. Commissioner Stern has refrained from publicly making a similar threat this time around.

It is interesting that many mainstream media commentators have completely taken the players' side. I understand the argument that the players create a lot of value with their unique talents and thus deserve to be highly compensated and I also understand that some people are skeptical of the NBA's accounting (or of accounting methods in general) but it is mystifying that some people apparently believe that the NBA owners should operate under a business model which results in them losing money or that the owners should be obligated to pay out well over 50% of their revenues when they are not making a profit. There is so much talk about supposedly incompetent owners demanding guaranteed profitability but I have yet to hear anyone talk about the other side of the equation; guaranteed contracts ensure profitability for every NBA player, regardless of whether or not that player is even marginally productive and regardless of that player's off court transgressions: Gilbert Arenas shoots blanks on the court and brings guns into the locker room but until the lockout he was guaranteed to receive more than $60 million over the next three seasons. In just about any other profession, Arenas would be out of work due to the combination of low performance and erratic personal behavior but as an NBA player he probably would have had to commit (and be convicted of) murder to lose his guaranteed money.

The players and their media sycophants keep saying that the players cannot be expected to "give back" any more money to help the owners. Not only does this assertion indicate a failure to understand the collective bargaining process--the players are not "giving back" anything but rather negotiating a new CBA in the wake of the expiration of the previous CBA--but it fails to acknowledge the reality of the economic situation. Arenas was slated to be the fifth highest paid NBA player in 2011-12, with a guaranteed salary of $19,269,308, and he clearly is not performing even close to that level; last season he averaged a career-low 10.8 ppg while shooting a career-low .366 from the field but under the recently expired CBA Arenas and other underperforming players have "guaranteed profitability." If Fisher, Hunter and the Players Association truly find the idea of "guaranteed profitability" to be abhorrent then they should be willing to accept a tiered payment system for all NBA players: All-NBA First Team players are paid on the top tier, All-NBA Second Team players are paid on the next tier and so on down the line (the tiers could also be determined by playing time, games started, per game averages or some combination of those metrics). Players would sign contracts based on the tier they occupied in the previous season but after each season their pay would be adjusted based on the current tier they occupy--and players who get cut would not get paid anything.

If the players are not willing to sacrifice their "guaranteed profitability" then they are in no position to criticize the owners--each of whom has invested substantial capital--for wanting to correct a business model that resulted in two thirds of the teams not being profitable. Another unreasonable expectation that the players have is that in addition to their "guaranteed profitability" they also want to have tremendous freedom to go to any other team. While it is true that a regular person can give two weeks notice and quit working at ABC Manufacturing to take a job at XYZ Manufacturing the NBA business model is (or should be) different; the league's franchises are competing with each other on the court but must work together to grow the league overall and therefore the league's best interests are not served if teams like Cleveland, Utah, Orlando, New Orleans and others have little or no chance to retain the services of their superstars. The NBA has generously given the players lucrative guaranteed contracts but in return there has to be a system in place that allows for some player movement while also preventing a handful of big market teams from simply acquiring the majority of the elite players. If the players want total, unrestricted free agency then they should give up the guaranteed contracts: thus, the next Gilbert Arenas can sign with whoever he wants whenever he wants to but once he starts shooting less than .400 from the field his new team can cut his salary or just cut him outright.

I fully realize that the NBA will never adopt the tiered system mentioned above but the point is that what the players are asking for is completely out of touch with reality. They don't seem to understand that millions of Americans are struggling to just get by and that it is unseemly to force the NBA to cancel the season because NBA players can't feed their children on $8 million per year. They also don't seem to understand that it is not written anywhere that they are entitled to 57% of Basketball Related Income (BRI) in perpetuity; that was the deal in the previous CBA when the economy was doing better but things are different now, so accepting 50% of BRI or even 47% of BRI is not a "give back" but rather a way to reach a workable CBA that could have preserved a 72 game 2011-12 season.

Taking the players' side in this dispute means believing the following things:

1) The NBA has a healthy business model even though the San Antonio Spurs--arguably the best managed team in the league, if not all of professional sports--are losing money (according to Forbes the Spurs lost $4.7 million in 2009-10, the last season for which complete data is available).

2) An agreement that would result in an average annual salary of $8 million per year is tantamount to enslaving the NBA's players.

Sporting News Selects All-Time NBA Team

2011-11-09T02:58:00.003-05:00

Sporting News' 125th anniversary issue contains several all-time teams for various sports, including this 15 player NBA squad:

First Team

PG Magic Johnson
SG Michael Jordan
SF Larry Bird
PF Bob Pettit
C Bill Russell

Second Team

PG Oscar Robertson
SG Jerry West
SF Julius Erving
PF Elgin Baylor
C Wilt Chamberlain

Third Team

PG John Stockton
SG Kobe Bryant
F Karl Malone
F Tim Duncan
C Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

The greatness of each of those 15 players is indisputable. My Pantheon--which totals 10 retired players not picked by position--contains nine of SN's top 10 selections. It is nice to see Bob Pettit receive some much deserved recognition; I did not include Pettit in my Pantheon (he barely missed the cut) but he is on my list of the greatest power forwards of all-time.

SN used some strange, inconsistent positional designations, presumably so that they could select this specific group of 15 players--but it would have made more sense to simply list the 15 greatest players of all-time than to supposedly choose players by position when in fact some of the players in question did not play the positions assigned to them by SN. Elgin Baylor certainly rebounded like a power forward (or even a center) but at 6-5, 225 pounds he was not a big forward even in his era and he generally filled the small forward role while playing alongside various power forwards, including Rudy LaRusso and Happy Hairston. Baylor may be the fourth greatest forward of all-time--as SN's list suggests--but he was not a power forward. The strange thing is that SN's Third Team includes two power forwards who are simply listed as "F" (as opposed to SF or PF). Perhaps SN ran out of SFs after choosing Bird and Erving (and moving Baylor to PF) but if SN wanted to select a squad strictly based on positional designations then Rick Barry should have been the Third Team SF--and Karl Malone should have missed the cut entirely: Malone's field goal percentage dropped from .516 in the regular season to .463 in the playoffs, a stunning decline in efficiency indicating that Scottie Pippen was not kidding when he said during Game One of the 1997 Finals, "The Mailman doesn't deliver on Sunday." Malone's durability and productivity certainly earned him a spot among the top power forwards of all-time but it is a stretch to put him ahead of Tim Duncan or to rank him among the 15 best players of all-time. It is also odd to see Stockton on such a list; Stockton racked up assists and steals while shooting a very good percentage from the field but he just could not take over a game--let alone a playoff series--like Isiah Thomas. Stockton made the All-NBA First Team just twice in his 19 year career and never finished higher than seventh in MVP voting, while Thomas made the All-NBA First Team three times in 13 seasons, finished as high as fifth in MVP voting and led his team to back to back championships, capturing the 1990 NBA Finals MVP. I would also take Bob Cousy, Walt Frazier and Jason Kidd ahead of Stockton--and I would not rank any of those players among the top 15 all-time unless I restricted myself by using positional designations, a restriction that SN artificially imposed and then selectively employed.

Putting Kobe Bryant on the Third Team seems like some kind of compromise choice; I excluded active players from my Pantheon precisely because it is difficult to fully appreciate someone's historical significance when that person is still making history but since SN decided to include active players strong consideration should have been given to at least putting Bryant on the Second Team. Bryant has excelled as a scorer, passer and defender and after serving as an All-NBA level partner to Shaquille O'Neal on three championship teams he was clearly the best player on the Lakers' 2009 and 2010 championship teams, squads that did not contain another certifiably great player (if Pau Gasol eventually makes the Hall of Fame it will be because of a combination of his FIBA success with Spain and the afterglow of winning rings alongside Bryant, as opposed to his individual dominance/greatness--remember that Gasol made just one All-Star team and did not make the All-NBA Team prior to becoming Bryant's sidekick). In contrast, Robertson and West each won one championship apiece and neither player was the Finals MVP during that championship season (West won the 1969 Finals MVP even though his Lakers lost to the Celtics in seven games); West and Robertson each needed to hook up with an all-time pivot great (Chamberlain and Abdul-Jabbar respectively) in order to capture a title, while Bryant won two rings alongside Gasol, a big man who was never considered to be elite until he started benefiting from all of the defensive attention Bryant draws.

Some fans no doubt think that LeBron James merits consideration for SN's list at the small forward position but the ebbs and flows of James' career are precisely the reason that I did not include active players in my Pantheon; prior to the 2010 playoffs, James certainly seemed to be on course to rank among the 15 or even 10 greatest players of all-time but after two straight seasons in which he quit during the playoffs it is clear that James--regardless of his impressive individual statistics--simply cannot yet be listed among the greatest of the great. James has the talent to earn his way into that group but he has not done so just yet; think about how Julius Erving almost singlehandedly carried the New York Nets to the last ABA championship over the more talented Denver Nuggets (leading both teams in scoring, rebounding, assists, steals and blocked shots) and how Rick "Superman" Barry similarly led the underdog Golden State Warriors to the 1975 NBA title--and then contrast that kind of effort and statistical dominance with the stunning image of LeBron James literally just standing around in the corner while other players decided the outcomes of the 2010 Boston-Cleveland series and the 2011 Dallas-Miami series. James is the most productive regular season player in the NBA today but he has not earned Pantheon status.

West by West Paints an Intimate Self Portrait of a Driven and Complex Man

2011-11-03T23:20:00.022-04:00

"I played with an angry, emotional chip on my shoulder and a hole in my heart."--Jerry West

West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life is a unique contribution to sports literature: it is not an autobiography or even an "as told to" story; West writes (p. XII), "the approach that I have taken, in collaboration with Jonathan Coleman, is one that is built on deep reportage...nothing less than a full-scale attempt to bring forth the truth, to rely not just on my recollection of things, but to do something more ambitious: investigate myself, speak with others, and come to grips with what I find." West adds that his intention is not to "glorify my accomplishments, as many books of this kind do" but instead to "focus on the things that explore and illuminate the mind-set--give, I hope, the reader a deeper understanding--of someone who, many feel, has been aloof and inscrutable and unpredictable." West explains that he is "too rebellious and defiant" to do anything in the conventional way, including offering a straight narrative of his life; West believes that a Joan Didion quote--"We tell ourselves stories in order to live"--summarizes the defense mechanisms he employed for many years but now his goal with West by West is to "unravel the mystery of that person with the deceptively simple name, to explain myself, to share my story and my improbable journey with those who have perhaps had similar thoughts and who have struggled to overcome the many challenges and obstacles that life has put squarely in their paths."

West by West is neither comprehensive nor chronological and it does not contain an index, so after reading the book it can be difficult to go back and find West's take on specific situations--but West's candor and introspection make up for this. His account of his upbringing is matter of fact, blunt and shocking: "I never learned what love was, and am still not entirely sure I know today. What I do know is that I harbored murderous thoughts, and they, along with anger, sadness and a weird sort of emptiness, are, in part, what drove and fueled and carried me a long way, traveling a path to the future that, even with the depth of my crazy imagination, I never had the self-confidence to allow myself to envision, not really" (p. 6). West's childhood--indeed, his whole personality--was shaped by two negative experiences, one chronic and the other acute but both leaving permanent psychic scars. The chronic experience was continual mental and physical abuse by his father. "When you had a father who beat you, as mine did, for reasons I am still trying to fathom, it is hard to think of yourself as very special, as deserving of acclaim," West writes (p. 12). West never forgave his father and did not even want his father to attend his games. The acute experience was the death of his beloved brother David in the Korean War when Jerry was just 13 years old; Jerry, the fifth of six children, adored David, the third West sibling. Although Jerry did not understand it fully at the time, his mother had a breakdown after David's death and she was never the same again. Neither was Jerry; David was a religious person who planned to be a minister after finishing his military service but Jerry was deeply affected by the randomness and cruelty of the loss of his brother and thus describes his "belief in God" as "a complicated matter" (p. 27).

West's traumatic upbringing and his perfectionistic tendencies enabled him to become one of the greatest basketball players ever--he is literally the embodiment of the NBA, the "Logo" symbolizing the league. His personality is a complicated jumble of contradictions that he struggles to understand and painstakingly tries to explain. He says that "defiant" is his favorite way to describe himself, yet notes that in many ways he is also "fragile." West is bemused by the idea that a basketball player--even a player as transcendently great as he was--can leave a historically significant legacy: "Forget legacies. The legacies that true geniuses leave in this world are the things that can be put on canvas, written on a piece of paper, in a song, or in a speech--creations that will stay there for years" (p. 8); yet, West compares assembling a championship roster to an act of creation much like casting a Broadway play. West wistfully notes that he tried to build a family-like atmosphere around his teams to compensate for what was lacking in his upbringing.

It is interesting to consider a perspective on greatness from someone who achieved greatness in his own field. Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Louis and Jim Brown are West's three athletic heroes and West reveals that he chose the number 44 because Brown wore 44 at Syracuse. West shares Brown's distaste for Jesse Jackson and West was chagrined when Jackson played the race card after Dan Gilbert blasted LeBron James' now-infamous Decision. West calls Michael Jordan "the greatest, most competitive player to ever play the game" (p. 53).

Although West offers much praise to the athletes who inspired him and many of the players he competed with and against, he stays true to his pledge to not "glorify my accomplishments"; he barely describes the first several years of his career, a period when he averaged at least 27.1 ppg for six straight seasons while becoming a fixture on the All-NBA First Team and finishing in the top five in MVP voting five times, including second place in 1966 behind Wilt Chamberlain. All West says about those years is that the L.A. Lakers' six Finals losses to the Boston Celtics "scarred" him, "scars that remain embedded in my psyche to this day" (p. 84). West freely acknowledges that many people may have no sympathy for such complaints coming from someone who has accomplished so much and who has lived such a successful life but West concludes, "I am saying all this because it is true and it haunts me still." The last of those six losses happened in 1969 as Bill Russell concluded his career by leading the Celtics to their 11th title in 13 seasons. West had 42 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists in the game seven loss and he received the first annual NBA Finals MVP award; he is still the only player from the losing squad to win that honor but West bitterly says that at the time he felt like sticking a piece of dynamite in the Dodge Charger he won and then just walking away from the game for good. West became obsessed with the idea that he would always be remembered as a loser and he confesses that he became "out of control" in his personal life: "I would lose myself in women, a lot of women, and I was married. I was bad--I did things I consider derelict and predatory, things I am not particularly proud of. If (Joseph) Campbell is right, that the hero at some point sees the dark side of his true, hidden self, the side he's always denied for most of his life, then this was that juncture for me" (p. 86). West is ashamed at how he disrespected his first wife, Jane, and their three sons, David, Michael and Mark; West began seeing Karen Bua--the woman who would become his second wife--while he was still married to Jane and while Bua was a Pepperdine University cheerleader.

West does not like to brag or boast but he admits, "It would be disingenuous of me to say anything other than that my jump shot was sweet and it was quick and it was effective" (p. 65). West developed that unique, deadly weapon from hours of practicing alone on an uneven, rocky outdoor court. He stacked up many honors, awards and accomplishments but says that the Olympic Gold Medal he won in 1960 is his "most cherished possession" (p. 22). West also mentions the biggest "individual" disappointment of his NBA career (as opposed to the collective disappointment from all of those NBA Finals losses): he finished a close second to Willis Reed in the 1970 regular season MVP voting despite leading the league in scoring and ranking fourth in assists. West bluntly declares that he not only thought that he should have won the 1970 MVP but that Walt Frazier--who finished a distant fourth in the voting--was the New York Knicks' best player that year, not Reed. West finished second in regular season MVP balloting four times, never winning the award; Oscar Robertson, West's rival for backcourt supremacy during the 1960s and early 1970s, is the only non-center to win an NBA regular season MVP between 1957 (when Bob Cousy captured the honor) and 1981 (when Julius Erving earned his lone NBA MVP after capturing three ABA MVPs).

Robertson and West will forever be linked together: 1960 Olympic teammates, the first two picks in the 1960 NBA draft and the consensus choices as the NBA's all-time backcourt at least until the emergence of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan in the 1980s. West says that the 6-5, broad-shouldered Robertson was bigger and much more "advanced," though West claims that he is slightly taller than 6-4 (as opposed to the 6-3 or even 6-2 that most sources give as West's official height). West believes that Robertson was far superior to West early in their careers but suggests that at some point he drew even with Robertson and--he tentatively asserts, while admitting that ultimately it is up to others to judge--perhaps even surpassed him eventually. Noting that Tex Winter identified six "alpha males" in NBA history--Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Kobe Bryant--West says that he does not like that phrase and thinks that those six players are not the only ones who have "something innate...that propels you onward and keeps you fighting, no matter what, until the bitter end" but he agrees that he and Winter's other five choices definitely share that rare quality.

The greatest irony of West's career is that after more than a decade of playing at the highest level individually but failing to win a championship he finally obtained the elusive championship ring at a point when his skills had diminished. West was still a potent player in 1971-72--finishing second in MVP balloting--but, much like Kobe Bryant is still an All-NBA First Team performer but no longer quite as dominant as he was circa 2006-2008, the 1972 version of West did not match up with the mid-1960s versions of West, when West says he felt like he was at his peak. Winning the 1972 championship was a relief for West but also disturbing both because of his reduced skills and because injuries had forced his longtime superstar partner Elgin Baylor to retire just nine games into the season; West feels a deep, if often unexpressed, bond with Baylor and he is sorry that he never told Baylor how much he enjoyed playing with him.

Wilt Chamberlain won the 1972 Finals MVP, producing 24 points, 29 rebounds and four assists in the decisive fifth game despite a hairline fracture in his right hand and a sprained left hand. Chamberlain's death in 1999 deeply shook West, who could not believe that such a great athlete died so relatively young (63 at that time and just two years older than West). West says that Chamberlain was even more sensitive than he was, calls Chamberlain one of the loneliest people he ever knew and seriously doubts Chamberlain's infamous claim about 20,000 liaisons.

West writes with great candor about his three year tour as the Lakers' coach, apologizes for being so hard on his players (he mentions Brad Davis and Norm Nixon by name) and admits that, despite his own prowess offensively, he did not know how to coach players at that end of the court or even how to diagram plays; West focused on defense and he leaned heavily on the sound advice of two veteran assistant coaches (Stan Albeck helped West with offense, while Jack McCloskey helped with defense). West's defiance surfaces even amidst his apology, though, and he says that he resents criticism of his coaching based on the belief that West was expecting his players to be like him; West insists that he did not hold his players to an impossibly high standard but that he was merely trying to bring the best out of each one of them so that the team could win as many games as possible.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won the MVP and led the Lakers to the best record in the NBA (53-29) during West's rookie season as head coach (1976-77) but while he was coaching West criticized Abdul-Jabbar for not playing hard enough, something that West regrets now; West says that he just did not understand how easily the game came to Abdul-Jabbar, that he did not fully appreciate how the Lakers' roster did not complement Abdul-Jabbar's skills and that Abdul-Jabbar is not just a student of the game but "a Rhodes scholar." Basketball intelligence is the quality West values most in a player and he says that Abdul-Jabbar has that in abundance.

The 1977 season could have been even better for the Lakers if owner Jack Kent Cooke had followed West's advice to acquire Julius Erving, the three-time ABA MVP who the New York Nets had to sell in order to fulfill their financial obligations in the wake of the NBA-ABA merger. "With Dr. J complementing Kareem, maybe we could have won a championship. Or even more," West laments (p. 159). Abdul-Jabbar and Erving faced each other in the NBA Finals three times in the next six seasons, so to say that they could have formed a powerful duo is an understatement.

The Lakers qualified for the playoffs in each of the next two seasons but both times they lost in the first round of the playoffs and West became increasingly frustrated with the requirements of being a head coach. As he admits, he did not have a good rapport with several of the players and the team's roster was not well balanced to fully maximize Abdul-Jabbar's talents.

After winning just one NBA championship in 14 seasons as a player followed by three seasons as a head coach, West moved to the front office and helped to build two of the signature sports dynasties of the past 30 years: the Showtime Lakers of the 1980s and the Shaq-Kobe Lakers of the early 2000s, teams that combined to win eight championships and make 13 trips to the NBA Finals. West was not the General Manager during all of those seasons (he did not officially receive that title until 1984 and he resigned in 2000 after the first championship of the Shaq-Kobe era) but he played a major role in acquiring much of the talent that won those titles, including Bob McAdoo, James Worthy, Byron Scott, A.C. Green, Mychal Thompson and, of course, both Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.

Few people are more qualified to discuss the inner workings of competition than West and he offers priceless insights about what it is like to thrive at the highest level of the sport; noting that it is simply not possible to always play your best no matter what kind of condition you are in, West writes, "I don't think fans understand that. They expect you to perform at your norm, and if you are really prideful, you want to do it against the best competition. And if you don't, that's when you feel the most disappointed, when you feel you have let everyone down. Every player sets a standard for himself, seeks his own level of play. If Kobe Bryant hits nine of twenty-seven shots, he's criticized for having a terrible night, but the reality is that there may not be another player on the team who is good enough to take twenty-seven shots, or courageous enough to take them even though he is having a bad shooting night" (p. 82). That "supreme confidence," West concludes, is what separates Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson from other players. Of course, West--despite his inner turmoil--had that kind of confidence as well and he proudly notes that his career playoff scoring average was two points higher than his career regular season scoring average, a rare accomplishment among elite scorers.

West made the decision to draft Bryant straight out of high school, a no-brainer in retrospect but hardly an obvious or conventional choice back in 1996 when the track record for players making the preps to pros jump was short and spotty (Moses Malone became an all-time great, Darryl Dawkins became a celebrated dunker but an underachieving player, Bill Willoughby had eight undistinguished NBA seasons and Kevin Garnett was coming off of a rookie season in which he averaged 10.4 ppg and 6.3 rpg). West watched Bryant go one on one against Michael Cooper, a former NBA Defensive Player of the Year who had retired but was still in good shape, and was very impressed: "Never in my life have I seen a workout like that. When I said I had seen enough, I meant it. I knew who he was, and just from looking at his eyes, I knew what he wanted. Even though he was only seventeen years old, Kobe was a once-in-a-lifetime player who could cast his shadow on the franchise for years to come" (p. 172). Many people may not remember that West actually acquired Bryant even before he traded for Shaquille O'Neal; West dealt Vlade Divac, a quality starting center who later became an All-Star, for the rights to the 13th pick in the draft and the opportunity to pick a high school player who West felt may already be better than anyone on the Lakers' roster at the time.

The process of finalizing the O'Neal deal was a nerve-wracking, arduous process for West and things did not get easier once O'Neal joined the team; Bryant was serious-minded but raw, while O'Neal was playful and, at that time, a more polished player. O'Neal and Bryant had good times together--eventually teaming up to lead the Lakers to three straight championships in 2000-02--but they never really meshed personally, much to West's chagrin. West clearly feels affection for both players, saying that he viewed Bryant like a son and would have enjoyed being teammates with the gregarious O'Neal; West was puzzled and disappointed that Bryant declined to be interviewed for West by West.

The Lakers failed to reach the NBA Finals in each of the first three years that O'Neal and Bryant played together and they were swept out of the playoffs in both 1998 and 1999. Neither Del Harris nor Kurt Rambis--two coaches who West greatly respects--had been able to maximize the Lakers' talents, so West sought out the recently retired Phil Jackson. West remembers that Jerry Krause, the Chicago General Manager who famously clashed with Jackson, explicitly told West that Jackson was trouble and that the Lakers should not hire him but West felt like he could deal with Jackson's ego and his penchant for mind games. West tried to make the Lakers like a family--perhaps to replace the family life he never had as a child--but he and Jackson never clicked. West resented that Jackson never stopped by West's office to talk with West and he bluntly says that Jackson "had absolutely no respect for me--of that, I have no doubt" (p. 180). Jackson infamously kicked West out of the locker room after a game, something that Jackson lamely tried to justify by saying that he did not realize it was West he had screamed at (Jackson kept the locker room closed for a short time after each game so that he could speak with the players alone). West says that Jackson yelled at him by name and that Tex Winter, Mitch Kupchak and Bill Bertka each corroborate West's recollection. West claims that he never set foot in the locker room again. Jackson coached the Lakers to the 2000 championship and West left the organization after that season. West says that there was not one single factor precipitating his departure but that he left because he no longer enjoyed the job and was worried about his mental and physical health. West also had a falling out with owner Jerry Buss because West resented that Buss felt that West took too much credit for building the Lakers; the idea that West would try to diminish the roles played by Bill Sharman (his former coach--his favorite coach--and his predecessor as GM), Pat Riley or anyone else deeply offended the sensitive West. Neither Buss nor West appeared at the press conference announcing West's resignation.

West does not take sides in the infamous O'Neal-Bryant feud and West is one of the few people--if not the only person--who is on good terms with both of them, so his remarks about both players must be taken very seriously due to West's objectivity combined with West's personal access to both men during that time period. Both West and his successor Mitch Kupchak acknowledge that West, an all-time great player, could relate to O'Neal and Bryant in a way that Kupchak, a solid role player on two championship teams during a nine year NBA career, could not. West believes that if he had stayed with the Lakers he would have been able to counsel O'Neal against publicly antagonizing Buss regarding a contract extension; O'Neal's brazen public comments toward Buss--combined with O'Neal's less than stellar work ethic (best exemplified by O'Neal's recovery "on company time" from a surgical procedure that should have taken place in the offseason)--resulted in Buss trading O'Neal to the Miami Heat. As for Bryant's Colorado entanglement, West says simply, "I am not naive about things like this, but to this day I feel he was set up" (p. 198), a logical conclusion considering that many legal experts outside of the state wondered why charges were even brought against Bryant in light of how flimsy the prosecution's case was.

West says that his advice to both players when they were sniping at each other in the press would have been, "Hey, this does not make either of you look good" and that they should both focus on how this controversy could affect their futures. West comments, "Players of that magnitude have to be praised, and they cannot be pitted against each other. They have to be financially rewarded. That has to be in place. The owner, the coach, and the GM all have to be in full agreement about how the press is going to be dealt with. As much as possible, this kind of thing has to be handled behind closed doors" (p. 198). West notes that Jackson would talk publicly about the Lakers being O'Neal's team but then join Bryant in criticizing O'Neal for being out of shape. "Phil likes to needle people...but with two strong personalities like Kobe and Shaquille, I am not sure that was the best approach" (p. 199). West concludes that Bryant is a lot more forgiving than he would be regarding Jackson and that West would never play for a coach who blasted him the way that Jackson blasted Bryant in The Last Season (Jackson later said that this book was a diary of the season and that his remarks reflected his frustration at particular moments but not his overall feelings about Bryant, an explanation that Bryant apparently accepted since they went on to win two more titles together).

Chapter 12, "Dream Game," is a lyrical description of the ultimate basketball game featuring the greatest players of all-time in their prime. West sets the stage and makes the rules, including "an assist will be credited only as a result of a pass that leads directly to a basket," a change that I have consistently advocated. You'll have to buy the book to learn the outcome but West's "Dream Game" scenario is quite detailed and wide-ranging, with Monet and Picasso stationed courtside making sketches of the action, which West describes as "Basketball as a perfectly choreographed ballet," an analogy that I employed in a short story many years ago.

Near the end of West by West, a four page chapter titled "What My Body Says" chronicles the staggering number of injuries that West endured from 1964 (his fourth NBA season) until he retired from the NBA in 1974; West does not have complete medical records from prior to 1964 and he states that his major injuries before that time consisted of a severe hamstring pull during the 1962-63 season and "many, many sprained ankles." West broke his nose twice during his collegiate career and seven more times as an NBA player. West believes that improvements in playing surfaces and training methods have made hamstring pulls much less common than they were during his era. West's catalog of woe consists of 64 separate entries, starting with "1/27/64 Fracture of right thumb, splinted." and concluding with "11/13/73 Left groin strain (rectus abdominis muscle), treated with several injections, different anti-inflammatory medications. Missed about 6 wks. of playing during this period." and "2/6/74 Left groin aggravation again."

The darkest and most disturbing parts of the book relate to the inner demons and torments that West has struggled with his whole life. West fights against depression, against feeling "hopeless" and "lost," knowing all the while that "the real enemy is myself." West mentions Ernest Hemingway's suicide and comments, "People say it's the coward's way out. I say just the opposite" (p. 210). Deep down, West feels that in some way he hates himself and that no amount of success has been able to cure this self-loathing. West tried therapy but he concluded that the therapists did not understand him and "in some respects they were sicker than I was." West recalls that once he even met with UCLA's legendary Coach John Wooden to see if Wooden could give him any advice to get over or get past the losses to the Celtics that still haunt West; Wooden told West that West did not take all of the credit for the Lakers' wins and thus he also should not feel obligated to accept all of the blame for their losses. West knows that Wooden is right but at some level he cannot fully accept or be comforted by what Wooden told him.

West says that his frequent descents into darkness are "an intriguing battle." William Styron's Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness made a deep impression on West; he read it while writing West by West and he quotes from it several times, including this poignant passage: "The pain [of depression] is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come--not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow."

Basketball took a mental and physical toll on West but, as he is the first to admit, it also saved him and provided a great life for him, a life that would have been almost unimaginable to a skinny boy growing up in a small West Virginia town in the 1940s and 1950s. West by West provides a gripping look inside the mind and soul of one of the greatest and most compelling athletes in American history.

**********

Further Reading About Jerry West

The Pantheon: An Examination of Basketball Greatness, Part III (profiles of Jerry West, Julius Erving and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)

Roland Lazenby Describes Jerry West's Triumphs and Torments, Part I

Roland Lazenby Describes Jerry West's Triumphs and Torments, Part II

Gary Smith on Jerry West and Prometheus

Wooden: Basketball & Beyond Documents a Life Well Lived

2011-11-01T14:37:00.001-04:00

Today is the official release date for WOODEN: Basketball & Beyond: The Official UCLA Retrospective, a 212 page book containing hundreds of photographs plus plays diagrammed in Wooden's own hand. The production of books about Wooden has become a cottage industry in recent years but WOODEN stands out from the pack because it contains previously unpublished material culled from the Wooden family archives; the project was originally intended to create a special 100th birthday gift for the legendary coach who won a record 10 NCAA basketball championships but Wooden passed away in June 2010--just months before reaching the century mark--and the book instead became a unique tribute to Wooden's legacy.

Basketball fans who are younger than 45 probably do not remember Wooden's coaching career--Wooden coached his final game (a 92-85 victory over Kentucky in the NCAA Championship) in 1975--but even fans who are collecting Social Security checks would not remember (and may not realize) that before Wooden became a sideline icon he was a great player; Wooden earned All-America honors three times at Purdue in the 1930s, leading the Boilermakers to the 1932 National Championship. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inducted Wooden as a player in 1961, 12 years before the Hall inducted him as a coach; Lenny Wilkens and Bill Sharman are the only other Hall members who were honored as both players and coaches.

One of Wooden's trademarks as a player was his superb conditioning and as a coach he emphasized the importance of making sure his teams were more fit than the opposition. "The fast break is my system," the 37 year old Wooden explained after being hired as UCLA's coach, "and we'll win 50 percent of our games by outrunning the other team in the last five minutes." It may sound simple and obvious to say that, all other things being equal or at least close to equal, the better conditioned team will generally prevail but think about how many players and teams fall apart in the clutch due to mental and/or physical fatigue.

The classic chicken/egg argument regarding championship-winning coaches revolves around the talent on those squads. "Anyone could win multiple championships with (fill in the blank--Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, etc.)," the critics squawk. It is obvious that a certain talent baseline is essential to win a championship--no one would deny that, least of all any coach who has won a title--but it is foolish to discount the value of leadership. Consider the great loyalty and even affection expressed by those who played for coaching icons like Paul Brown, Vince Lombardi, Red Auerbach and John Wooden; the day to day working relationships with those coaches may not have always been easy or pleasant but almost without exception anyone who played for the Browns, Packers, Celtics or Bruins says that those coaches not only built dynasties but shaped their players' lives away from the field/court.

Great coaches set themselves apart with thorough preparation, dedication to core principles and adaptability. Wooden demonstrated all three traits. It is well known that Wooden taught each of his players how to put on socks so that blisters would not form; this may seem like a trifling detail but anyone who has played basketball knows that a player will not be very effective if his feet hurt. Wooden's Pyramid of Success has become the quintessential example of dedication to core princinples. Before Wooden won titles with teams focused around dominant centers Lew Alcindor (later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton he led UCLA to the top in 1964 with a team that did not have a starter taller than 6-5--and then, despite losing three starters and still not having a dominant big man, Wooden's Bruins claimed the 1965 title, becoming just the sixth team (at that time) to win back to back NCAA Division I basketball championships.

Wooden received just two technical fouls during his coaching career (and he insisted that one of them was undeserved). The enduring image of Wooden at work is of the great coach sitting placidly on the bench with a rolled up program in his hands. He did not call many timeouts nor did he make a spectacle of himself to attract attention from TV cameras; most of the coaches who prowl the sidelines ranting and raving are full of sound and fury signifying nothing--Wooden, like Phil Jackson and Bill Belichick after him, understood that games are won in practice with meticulous preparation: once the game begins the coach has done most of his work and now the outcome is largely in the hands of the players, a fact that all the screaming in the world will not change.

WOODEN, a beautiful and detailed depiction of a life well lived, is written by Richard Hoffer, with a Foreword by Denny Crum, an Introduction by Dick Enberg and original first person "Reflections" from many key figures in Wooden's life--including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Gail Goodrich, Marques Johnson, Walt Hazzard, Sidney Wicks and Jamaal Wilkes.

NBA Lockout: Three Ds

2011-10-29T13:52:00.010-04:00

I have already explained The Real Deal About the NBA Lockout: my February prediction that there would be a long NBA lockout has proven to be prescient and I am confident that my other February prediction--that the lockout will not end until the players accept the reality that the NBA's broken business model must be fundamentally changed--will also prove to be prescient.

It is funny to do an internet search pertaining to the lockout and see how many so-called experts have wrongly predicted over the past few months that the lockout was about to end--but it is a bit disturbing to read/hear some of the nonsense that has been spewed about the causes, effects and ultimate resolution of the lockout; the media spin about the lockout could make even the most levelheaded, balanced person dizzier than Charlie Sheen on a bender. NBAPA President Derek Fisher boldly said that the NBA owners are lying and Dwyane Wade allegedly told Commissioner David Stern not to point at him: the players sound like whiny kindergartners ("liar, liar pants on fire"; "stop pointing at me") and yet the media full court press--blithely ignoring how broken the NBA's business model is--is mainly focused on attacking the owners, culminating in Bryant Gumbel's ludicrous, poorly thought-out (and antisemitic) rant against Stern: comparing Stern to a "plantation overseer" is offensive, a falsehood that simultaneously diminishes the true suffering of Black slaves in the American South while also slurring a Commissioner whose league has consistently been at the forefront in terms of hiring Black executives and coaches. Gumbel's attack against Stern comes straight out of the Louis Farrakhan playbook--portraying Jews as exploiters of Blacks--and Gumbel's consistent track record of expressing such bigoted attitudes would have terminated his career a long time ago if his chosen target were any group other than Jews (just imagine a White commentator speaking similarly about a Black person or anyone saying anything remotely derogatory regarding homosexuals).

Commissioner Stern just announced the cancellation of another two week block of games, meaning that the lockout has now wiped out not only the entire preseason but also the first month of the regular season. The only question now is how long it will take for the players to accept the reality that there will be no NBA games until they cooperate with the owners to fix the league's broken business model.

While we all wait for the players to come to their senses, the current situation can be summarized by looking at three Ds: a dream, a delusion and a diversion.

The dream is the players' apparent belief that they will ever recoup the money that they have already lost as a result of the cancelled games; the cold water that will eventually strike their collective faces is the reality that the deal they will eventually sign will be proportionately worse than whatever the NBA's best offer was before any games were cancelled: the players, not the owners, will ultimately "pay" for the lockout. Also, most of the owners will be able to regain their losses eventually over a period of years after the league's business model is fixed but most of the players will not be in the league long enough to make up the wages they are currently losing; the average NBA career lasts less than five years, so instead of applauding Wade's alleged toughness, the league's rank and file players should be pointing their fingers at Wade for all of the money he has helped take out of their pockets. There is much talk about the rift between big market and small market owners but the untold lockout story is that this labor dispute--like the previous one in 1998-99--is in many ways being driven by a few star players (such as Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Kevin Garnett--guys who are insisting that the players not accept less than 52% of the league's basketball related income) and their high-powered agents. It is the stars, not the majority of players, who would benefit most if the league had no salary cap. The 1998 lockout was precipitated by the massive contract received by Kevin Garnett, a deal that was a tipping point for the league much like LeBron James' "Decision" (followed up by the Carmelo Anthony and and Deron Williams sagas) was a tipping point last season; during the 1998-99 negotiations, Michael Jordan--who felt that he was underpaid for most of his career--told then-Washington owner Abe Pollin that he should sell his team if he could not afford to keep up with the inflated salary structure being demanded by Jordan and his cohorts (it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the current negotiations to hear what Jordan, who is now a team owner in a small market, is saying).

The delusion is that the players can create and successfully run their own league. This pipe dream is being propagated by David Berri, a "stat guru" who has long stated that NBA owners are incompetent and that coaching does not matter; if owners are stupid and coaches are mere window dressing then why shouldn't players be able to run a league, coach themselves and play? Just reread that last sentence again to soak in the full depth of Berri's foolishness.

Reputable and responsible "stat gurus" realize that so-called "advanced basketball statistics" don't work--in no small part because, while baseball largely consists of a series of discrete and measurable actions, basketball largely consists of complex and simultaneous actions conducted by various players--and even those who put some stock in "advanced basketball statistics" have heavily criticized Berri's methods and conclusions. Berri further betrayed his ignorance with this quote in a recent ESPN the Magazine article: "Even in the ABA, which had Dr. J and George Gervin, most of the players were nobodies. But the best players could be in this new league." Knowledgeable basketball fans know that the first part of Berri's statement is false and the second part is asinine. In addition to Julius Erving and George Gervin, the ABA featured Hall of Fame players Rick Barry, Billy Cunningham, Artis Gilmore, Connie Hawkins, Dan Issel and Moses Malone, plus many other high caliber performers who deserve Hall of Fame consideration (including the vastly underrated Mel Daniels and Roger Brown). In 1976-77--the first year after the NBA-ABA merger--the 10 member All-NBA squad featured four former ABA players, seven of the 14 players who received MVP votes previously played in the ABA, 10 of the league's 24 All-Stars were ABA veterans and four of the 10 starters for the two NBA Finalists began their careers in the ABA. This was not a one season fluke, either; ABA players Erving and Malone claimed four of the next six regular season MVPs and ABA players continued to figure prominently on All-NBA, All-Star and championship team rosters well into the 1980s.

As for the second part of Berri's quote, the implosion of the so-called World All-Star Classic graphically demonstrates that the NBA's stars cannot even put together a series of exhibition games, much less organize an entire league from the ground up. Furthermore, the proposal touted in the ESPN the Magazine article--a league consisting of 100 of the top NBA players--simply proves that the real divide is not between big market/small market owners but rather between star players and the rank and file players. Even if the World All-Star Classic had been a success, what good would it have done for the several hundred NBA players who did not participate or make any money from it? Even if the top 100 NBA players could build a new league from scratch, where would that leave the other 300-plus NBA players? When Commissioner Stern said that the "agents" are preventing NBPA Executive Director Billy Hunter from agreeing to a deal he is referring to a handful of high powered people who represent the league's top players; those agents and their players are the ones who are forcing the lockout to continue, much like what happened in 1998-99 until Commissioner Stern threatened to not only cancel the whole season but start over again with new players: it is much more likely that we will see a "new" NBA with players who are willing to try to get by with the deal that the league is offering than that we will see Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and friends build a league of their own with Dave Berri as the Commissioner and Henry Abbott as P.R. director. Abbott claims to link to the best basketball writing regardless of its source but even a cursory examination of what he links to--and, just as significantly, what he doesn't--shows that claim to be false. It is puzzling and bizarre that ESPN's chief basketball blogger has been so consistently and stubbornly determined to elevate the status of Berri, an otherwise obscure associate economics professor/"stat guru."

The diversion consists of various puff pieces about which teams and/or players are most damaged by an extended lockout. Naturally, this is yet another way to continue the "great debate" regarding Kobe Bryant versus LeBron James (which actually is not much of a debate anymore: the younger, more athletic James is a more productive regular season player than Bryant at this point but James' postseason resume is a few lines--or perhaps a few paragraphs--less complete than Bryant's postseason resume). It should be obvious that the lockout is potentially much more damaging to James' legacy than to Bryant's: Bryant is a "made man" in NBA lore, a five-time champion whose place in history is quite secure--but James is a stat-sheet stuffer who has yet to win a championship. Bryant is past his prime and his Lakers are not likely to be championship favorites if/when the season begins but James is in the heart of his prime and his Heat have a limited window before either they decline and/or younger stars/teams rise to the forefront. Look at it this way: would a hypothetical 1990-91 NBA lockout have been potentially more damaging to five-time champion Magic Johnson or the then-ringless Michael Jordan?

Forget most of what you have read or heard about the NBA lockout; here is the bottom line: the lockout will last until the players agree to fundamentally restructure the NBA's failing business model, many basketball "stat gurus"--particularly David Berri--understand even less about the league's economic model than they do about evaluating players and it is baffling/infuriating that so many media outlets continue to employ writers/commentators who do not understand the basic issues that they arrogantly pontificate about. Henry Abbott cites Berri as if Berri is a basketball Yoda and Chris Sheridan is quoted/interviewed all over the place even though most of what Abbott and Sheridan have said/predicted about the lockout has consistently been proven false--and then Bryant Gumbel chimes in with a bigoted rant that should have ended his HBO career.

Phil Jackson Expects Basketball Hall of Fame to Eventually Honor Jerry Krause

2011-10-27T16:31:00.002-04:00

Jerry "Crumbs" Krause--who received his derogatory nickname from none other than Michael Jordan, the one key member of the Chicago Bulls dynasty who Krause did not acquire--may never live down his infamous declaration that "organizations win championships." Krause's simmering feuds with Coach Phil Jackson, Jordan and Scottie Pippen turned many Bulls fans against the team's general manager but Jackson--a Basketball Hall of Famer who presented both Dennis Rodman and Tex Winter at the 2011 induction ceremony--recently praised Krause for Krause's principled stand regarding Winter's Hall of Fame candidacy (Krause resigned from the Hall's Veterans Committee after one of the many times that Winter did not receive the nod). Jackson added that he expects that Krause will one day be voted into the Hall and Jackson noted that, even though the two men have had their differences, they shook hands prior to his year's Hall of Fame ceremony.

NBA betting is the place to look for odds on who will win the 2012 NBA title (assuming there is a 2012 NBA season).

Julius Erving Denies that Financial Problems Forced him to Sell Memorabilia

2011-10-27T12:10:00.006-04:00

Julius Erving says that he had a "sleepless night" after reading reports that financial difficulties forced him to sell 144 items from his personal memorabilia collection (a stash that includes three professional championship rings plus a 50 Greatest Players ring). A press release about the auction came out almost simultaneously with a report that an Atlanta bank is suing Erving for more than $200,000, so it was only natural to assume that a financial crunch forced Erving's hand regarding items that most people would consider to be priceless treasures.

When I looked through the auction catalog I noticed that Erving's Hall of Fame ring was not listed; it turns out that this is one of the few mementoes Erving decided to keep. One might think that championship rings and a 50 Greatest Players ring would be important to Erving--and also to his children--but Erving claims that he is not a "hoarder or collector" and that his memorabilia has been sitting in storage for decades. Erving explains, "My family is 100 percent behind it (the auction). We decided to do it a long time ago. To claim it's a firesale or to clear up some debt, I don't think so. You don't do an auction overnight. This has been long planned. We had 4,000 catalogs that have been mailed already to people who buy this kind of stuff. With me being involved in the process and the one that's putting it out, it's actually a better situation economically than if my children or grandchildren were to do it. We decided now's the time." Some of the proceeds from the auction will go to the Salvation Army, which has long been one of Erving's favorite charities (his basketball career began when he played for a Salvation Army youth league team).

I suppose that we have to take Erving at his word when he says that he is selling his memorabilia by choice and not necessity but the fact that the auction has been in the works for a while does not prove that there is no connection between it and Erving's financial situation; the bank lawsuit is just the latest in a series of financial problems hitting Erving, including the foreclosure of his Utah home and the loss of $5 million as a result of his investment in a failed golf course.

I hope that it is true that Erving is not broke or desperate but I must admit that I am puzzled by the notion that a great player would voluntarily sell off honors and awards that he worked so hard to obtain.

Auction of Erving Memorabilia Includes 144 Items

2011-10-25T12:47:00.003-04:00

The SCP Auction of Julius Erving's memorabilia will include 144 items from Dr. J's legendary career ranging from a Rucker League MVP trophy to various pieces from his UMass career to all three of his professional championship rings (1974 Nets, 1976 Nets, 1983 76ers) to his 50 Greatest Players ring. I don't know why Erving is selling all of these precious treasures and I realize that in this troubled economy many people will have little to no sympathy for a once wealthy person who has apparently fallen onto hard times but I find it indescribably sad that one of the greatest basketball players ever--indeed, one of the greatest athletes ever--is auctioning off such hard-earned awards and priceless mementoes.

I still hope that some of the many people who Erving helped and mentored over the years--including Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley--step up in Erving's time of need so that items Erving should be able to pass on to his children don't end up collecting dust in some wealthy person's trophy case. Failing that, I wonder if there is some way to organize a grassroots movement among Erving fans to pool our resources and buy back at least a few of the more significant items. For instance, the bidding on the Greatest Players ring starts at $5000 and the bidding on the 1983 championship ring starts at $25,000. I have no idea how high the bidding might go or how to coordinate some kind of "group bid" (if that is even possible) but if we could convince just 3000 people to commit $10 each then we could raise $30,000 to make minimum bids on both items. Obviously, if we could find more donors (and/or convince some or all of them to donate more than $10) then we could make a larger bid. I am not on Twitter and I don't have a huge Facebook following but if someone who has a big social media footprint spreads the word maybe we could do something nice for a player who meant so much to pro basketball history in general and contributed so much joy to our lives specifically.

Gary Smith on Jerry West and Prometheus

2011-10-22T02:47:00.012-04:00

Great writing is hard to find and should always be cherished. Gary Smith's October 24, 2011 Sports Illustrated article about Jerry West--titled "Basketball was the Easy Part"--is a must-read for anyone who is a fan of great writing. I cannot find a link to the article online and I can hardly blame SI for that--no doubt they want to use Smith's piece as a hook to entice readers to buy a hard copy of the magazine, which I strongly urge you to do. It is not fair to SI or Smith to quote large chunks from the article but I will whet your appetite by sharing Smith'e opening lines with you:

Here's the trouble with the gods: They don't come clean. Not even to fellow gods. So maybe it wouldn't work.

Maybe Jerry West couldn't do what he would love to do: gather them in a room--Michael and Kobe and Magic and Larry and Tiger and Ali--and begin digging to the bottom of what separated them from the mortals.

"But they don't talk about these things," he says. Maybe they don't know, or want to know, what's at the bottom. Maybe they're afraid knowing might diminish their power. Maybe they've not stared down there as many nights as he has, waiting for light to find its way to his window.

The opening sentence reminds literate readers of John Updike's famous declaration about Ted Williams--"Gods do not answer letters"--but then Smith takes the metaphor in a different direction, comparing West to Prometheus, the Greek god who stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to humankind; Zeus chained Prometheus to a boulder and sent an eagle to devour the helpless Prometheus' liver. In Smith's eyes, West is a basketball god, a Prometheus who consumed his own innards with a toxic combination of anger, doubt, anxiety and depression.

Smith recounts West's prodigious achievements--including a 27.0 ppg regular season scoring average that ranks fourth among retired players (topped by only Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor) and a 29.1 ppg playoff scoring average bested only by Jordan--and declares that West authored "perhaps the most statistically stunning game the NBA has ever seen: 44 points on 16-for-17 shooting from the field and 12 for 12 from the foul line, 12 rebounds, 12 assists and 10 unofficially counted blocked shots." West won an Olympic gold medal and an NBA title as a player before helping to build four more championship teams as a general manager. West could have basked in the glory of those accomplishments but, Smith writes, "Instead he anguished for more than three years co-writing a book with Jonathan Coleman--West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life--that's choking with the truth about the fire that made him a god."

West says that he fueled himself with anger: "Just hoping someone on the other team would say something, anything, even something small and stupid, to (tick) you off. You'd want to embarrass that person. You'd turn from a player who was competing to a person who was a monster. That anger was like having mental steroids. Driven to the point of being crazy. I'm not sure I loved the game. I loved the competition. I'd think, I've got to get it out, but how can I take this out on someone who's an equal, someone of equal size, so it's fair?"

When West first laid eyes on Kobe Bryant he recognized a kindred spirit--at least in terms of competitive mindset. In his book, West writes about watching Bryant work out against Michael Cooper, a former NBA Defensive Player of the Year: "Even though Kobe was only 17, it was clear that he was a once-in-a-lifetime player. His fierce competitive drive was innate. You need more than a little nastiness to play basketball at the highest level, and Kobe had that in abundance. You need the coldbloodedness of an assassin, and he possessed it."

Run, don't walk, to the nearest store that stocks SI and pick up a copy of the October 24, 2011 issue. Your won't regret it.

NBA 2K12 Brings to Life Both the Old School and the New School NBA

2011-10-17T23:33:00.002-04:00

As soon as I installed my review copy of NBA 2K12 on my PC--thank you, Clint Kaminska and 2K Sports--I immediately went to the Greatest Player mode and selected Julius Erving, my all-time favorite player; the Greatest Player mode enables the user to choose one of 15 all-time greats and then simulate a game between that player's team from a particular season and one of his team's top rivals. If the user wins the game then he "unlocks" at least one other team featuring that player. The game with Erving pits his 1984-85 Philadelphia 76ers versus the Milwaukee Bucks and the "telecast"--ably hosted by play by play man Kevin Harlan alongside color commentators Clark Kellogg and Steve Kerr--has the look, sound and feel of a mid-1980s NBA game (a really cool thing about NBA2K12 is that the Greatest Player modes for 1960s icons like Bill Russell and Jerry West look, sound and feel like 1960s TV telecasts, with black and white visuals and old school time/score graphics).

While calling the action, Kellogg and Kerr also provide historical context. Kellogg calls Erving a "stat sheet stuffer" whose all-around prowess is sometimes overlooked because of his high-flying acrobatics; Kellogg notes that Erving averaged 8.5 rpg and nearly two steals and two blocked shots per game (2.0 spg and 1.7 bpg to be precise) in his 16 year professional career--and I am thrilled that 2KSports did the right thing by counting ABA stats, thereby giving Erving full credit for his ABA championships, MVPs and statistical accomplishments. Kerr, emphasizing the defensive numbers that Kellogg mentioned, adds that Erving was "a fantastic defender." Far too many fans--and even some commentators who should know better--don't realize or have forgotten that Erving's Philadelphia teams were among the best defensive squads in the NBA in the late 1970s and early 1980s; the 76ers ranked second in defensive field goal percentage in 1978-79 and led the league in that category in both 1979-80 and 1980-81, with Erving playing a major role in that success (Erving ranked in the top ten in both steals and blocked shots in 1979-80--a rare accomplishment for most players but one that Erving pulled off a record six times during his ABA/NBA career--and, as Kellogg noted, Erving consistently put up excellent numbers in both categories).

Even though the 76ers-Bucks game emanates from Julius Erving's Greatest Player segment, Kellogg and Kerr also talk about other stars, including Moses Malone, Maurice Cheeks, Sidney Moncrief and Terry Cummings. Fans who only know Don Nelson for coaching gimmicky, undersized offensive machines in recent years might be astonished to hear Kerr say that the 1985 Bucks--coached by a younger, fish-tie wearing Nelson--were "arguably the best defensive team" in the NBA; indeed, the Bucks led the league in both points allowed and defensive field goal percentage that season.

The downside of including so many statistics and so many factual nuggets is that some inaccuracies will almost inevitably creep in if there is not a rigorous editing process; for instance, Kellogg and Kerr rightly praise Erving's tremendous college career--mentioning that Erving is one of just five Division I players who averaged more than 20 ppg and more than 20 rpg for an entire varsity career--but Kerr incorrectly says that Erving averaged 32 ppg for the University of Massachusetts; Erving averaged 26.3 ppg in his 52 game varsity career with UMass. I hate to nitpick when NBA2K12 evinces such an obvious appreciation for even some relatively obscure aspects of basketball history but, on the other hand, I have to be consistent with the message that I have always delivered here: there is no excuse for journalists and/or media companies to get the basic facts wrong. The folks at NBA2K12 clearly put in a lot of effort to make the game an authentic experience, so hopefully the few errors in the current edition will be corrected in subsequent versions of the product.

The 15 players available in the Greatest Player mode--listed in the order NBA2K12 provides their names in the downloadable User Manual--are Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Isiah Thomas, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Michael Jordan, Jerry West, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Scottie Pippen, John Stockton and Karl Malone. Those are not necessarily the 15 greatest players of all-time but they are certainly 15 of the greatest players; I don't have a major problem with who was selected or who was left out mainly because I think that NBA2K12's goal was to represent the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s as opposed to definitively ranking the 15 greatest retired players. However, I am somewhat puzzled by some of the teams/seasons chosen to represent these players. For instance, why is Erving represented by the 1977 76ers and the 1985 76ers? The 1977 team ultimately inspired the infamous marketing slogan "We Owe You One" after blowing a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals; the 1985 team was the last excellent Philadelphia team of the Erving era, reaching the Eastern Conference Finals for the fifth time in six years but proving to be no match for the defending champion Boston Celtics. It seems obvious that Erving should be represented by the 1983 76ers--a championship team that went 12-1 in the postseason--or even the 1976 New York Nets squad that won the last ABA championship.

The other strange thing about the inclusion of the 1985 76ers is that the NBA 2K12 roster for that team does not accurately reflect that squad's actual rotation; Andrew Toney started 65 games at shooting guard and ranked third on the team in scoring (17.8 ppg) but he does not appear at all in NBA2K12 (reserve Clint Richardson starts for the Sixers in NBA2K12). Bobby Jones only started eight games for the 1985 76ers but he is the starter in NBA2K12, replacing rookie Charles Barkley (Barkley started 60 games as a rookie but is not even on the NBA2K12 roster, a stunning omission considering not only Barkley's greatness as a player but the fact that he is still highly visible now due to his TNT duties). Perhaps the inclusion/exclusion of certain players has to do with licensing issues. The game is very enjoyable the way it is but for true students of the sport's history it would be even more enjoyable if it were completely accurate.

NBA 2K12 has an almost overwhelming number of options, features and modes. A user can create his own player and, if the user is skilled enough, develop that player into an NBA superstar by elevating his status with good results in the Rookie Showcase, effective interviews with team officials and strong performances in actual (simulated) NBA games. A user can also simulate games between current NBA teams, go to Training Camp to hone his NBA2K12 skills with tutorials from NBA legends and compete with other users online; the tutorials are not only useful for anyone who wants to become better at NBA2K12 but it is fun to watch a virtual Michael Jordan teach moves to a virtual Kobe Bryant--the simulations of both players are quite impressive.

Although NBA2K12 works just fine in the PC format with keyboard controls (the only way that I can play the game since I do not have a game console), I am sure that it is easier to play the game with a joystick instead of furiously hitting various keys. I am a novice gamer at best, so my skill set (or lack thereof) undoubtedly does not enable me to fully appreciate all of the various features and modes but I think that anyone who loves the game--past and present--has to appreciate NBA2K12's craftsmanship: the visuals are stunning, the music is cool (hearing Kurtis Blow's anthem "Basketball" took me back to my junior high school days) and, despite the few quibbles noted above, NBA2K12 is remarkably authentic both in terms of historical awareness and in terms of the way that the players perform, eerily capturing the trademark, distinctive mannerisms of a wide variety of players from the past five decades.

The Real Deal About the NBA Lockout

2011-10-11T04:30:00.010-04:00

In a February 27, 2011 article, I predicted that there would be "a lockout that continues until the owners and players agree to fundamentally restructure the league's failing business model." That is all you really need to know about the NBA lockout in general--the specific details will be filled in once the lockout is over, which will happen after the players eventually give in and accept the reality that the owners will do whatever it takes to fix the NBA's broken business model.

Much of the mainstream media coverage of the lockout has been pathetic and misinformed. Chris Sheridan gained some credibility for himself by leaving ESPN but then he immediately squandered it by trying to draw attention to his new website with the absurd assertion that the lockout would be settled quickly. Sheridan prides himself on being an NBA insider but if he really understood the inner workings of the league and/or had the well-placed contacts he brags about having then he would have never misled his readers into believing that the lockout would be settled quickly.

Some "stat gurus" and some fools like Henry Abbott assert that the NBA's real problem is that the supposedly incompetent owners keep overpaying players and that instead of asking the players to accept a smaller percentage of the league's revenues the owners should simply run their teams more intelligently. This way of thinking betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the NBA works specifically and of how business works in general. Microsoft and Apple would each like to drive the other out of business or at least grab the lion's share of the marketplaces over which they are competing--but the 30 NBA teams will only achieve maximum financial health if the league itself is financially healthy; if a few teams drive most of the teams out of business the league will not be more powerful or wealthier. It is easy to say that owners should not overpay players but the NBA's current financial system all but ensures that players will in fact be overpaid: long-term guaranteed contracts for depreciating assets--and players who are subject to age, injury and possibly decreasing motivation after becoming set for life are most certainly depreciating assets--are standard operating procedure in the NBA; in contrast, the signing bonus is the only guaranteed money in an NFL contract, meaning that NFL players must stay healthy and productive in order to get paid.

If NBA teams actually did what Abbott and some "stat gurus" suggest--namely, collectively stop offering huge contracts to so many players--then the Players Association would file a lawsuit alleging collusion, and, based on the current NBA business model, the players would undoubtedly win such a suit: the precedent has been set for contracts to steadily increase and if the owners unilaterally act to prevent that from happening without signing a new CBA with the players then the owners would in fact be guilty of collusion.

Contrary to what Abbott and some others have asserted, it is irrelevant how much money the NBA owners may make in other businesses, just like it is irrelevant how much money many NBA players make via endorsements; the NBA owners would be wrong to ask LeBron James to take a pay cut just because James also receives money from Nike and the players are wrong to suggest that because NBA owners have other revenue streams it is OK that several teams are losing money. Can you name another business in which the employees receive 57% of the revenues? That is a very unusual deal, particularly considering that several franchises are losing money.

Owning a team represents a significant investment and owners should have the opportunity to get a return on that investment. If the players think that the owners are so easily replaceable then the players should put their own capital at risk, build 30 arenas, negotiate television deals and establish their own league. I say that half in jest because any logical person realizes that this is an absurd proposition but if it is true that "stat guru" Dave Berri has seriously suggested this then perhaps he should be the first commissioner of this hypothetical league and thereby subject his unfounded theories to a real world test. It is certainly true that the NBA players are very talented and they deserve to be well compensated for their talents but without the infrastructure provided by the owners the players would be playing in the And One Mix Tape Tour (or whatever it is called now).

Several decades ago, the various sports leagues and team owners had too much power; men like Curt Flood and Spencer Haywood sacrificed a lot to enable players to have more control over their lives--but in recent years the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction: the NBA cannot survive a scenario in which star players collude to leave good, solid franchises in order to build a handful of super teams. Players should of course have the right to become free agents after a certain term of service but the NBA should be set up to reward stability and to give well-run franchises the opportunity to retain the star players that they developed. In other words, if someone wants to leave the Clippers he should be able to do so but it should not be quite so easy to leave professional organizations like the Cavaliers, the Nuggets or the Jazz; it would not be a bad thing for the NBA if someone bought the Clippers from Donald Sterling but if it turns out that it is impossible to keep a star in Cleveland, Denver, Utah (and possibly New Orleans and Orlando) then the NBA will rapidly shrink from a 30 team national league to a five team league that is only followed regionally.

High profile, high paying careers often require certain sacrifices. Doctors and lawyers work long hours with high levels of stress; other jobs necessitate frequent travel or backbreaking physical labor. NBA players earn a lot of money and they receive other perks but they should understand the sacrifices they must make to keep those jobs: in addition to the obvious and expected mental and physical demands resulting from training, from traveling and from playing a long season the players have to balance their individual desires against what is good for the league overall. In other words, total unrestricted free agency with no salary cap may seem like a dream scenario for players (and their agents) but it would kill the NBA by concentrating all of the sport's stars on a handful of teams (I know that the players are not asking for total unrestricted free agency but my point is that granting the players most or all of the individual "rights" that they think they are entitled to would actually destroy the sport and thus not serve their best interests at all). Yes, the average person can give two weeks notice and go to work for another employer but the average person also does not receive the guaranteed salary (and numerous perks) that come with being an NBA player. If any player thinks that the NBA's proposal for a new business model is simply too onerous then that player is free to choose another less glamorous profession or to play in another league whose business model better suits him--but until the players collectively understand that they must work with the owners to keep the NBA afloat the lockout will not end.

It is funny--and yet sad--that instead of discussing the substantive issues mentioned above we witnessed a parade of highly paid TV and print "journalists" breathlessly recounting the confrontation that allegedly happened recently between David Stern and Dwyane Wade. I have no idea if Stern wagged his finger at Wade or if Wade responded by yelling at Stern but the idea that Wade earned some kind of "street cred" in that encounter is as ludicrous as the idea that Wade is a better player than LeBron James (a myth pumped up by many of the same "journalists" who are now betraying their complete lack of understanding regarding the NBA lockout). Are we supposed to believe that Wade's next move will be pulling out a gun and forcing Stern to give the players what they want? Will the lockout be settled based on who has the most "street cred"? On the court, I'll take Wade over Stern every day of the week but in a boardroom the matchup is just as lopsided in the other direction, something that Wade will have plenty of time to ponder as Stern and the owners refrain from paying Wade and the other players for an extended period of time.

No matter what Henry Abbott, the "stat gurus" or Chris Sheridan say, the lockout will continue until the players consent to a fundamental restructuring of the NBA's business model--and the players have likely passed up the best offer they will receive; subsequent offers will be reduced by whatever amount of revenue the owners lose from cancelled games, starting with the first two weeks of the regular season that were officially wiped out just a few hours ago. Commissioner Stern stated all of this very clearly a while ago but apparently the players--and many media members--simply were not listening. Two other points are worth keeping in mind: (1) the previous lockout ended when Commissioner Stern stated that if the players did not immediately accept the offer on the table then he would not only cancel the rest of the 1998-99 season but that in the 1999-00 season the league would hire replacement players; (2) Commissioner Stern has stated that, unlike in 1998-99, he does not plan to repeatedly cancel games in small chunks but that at a certain (publicly unstated) date he will simply cancel the remainder of the season--meaning that players could rapidly go from losing one or two paychecks to losing an entire year's worth of paychecks (that amounts to roughly $15.5 million for Miami's "Mr. Street Cred," which is a lot of money to pay in exchange for the short-lived satisfaction derived from yelling at Commissioner Stern).

Who Holds the Record for Most Times as a Basketball Hall of Fame Presenter?

2011-10-03T02:28:00.002-04:00

When Artis Gilmore was finally inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame he chose Julius Erving as his presenter, the fifth time Erving has been so honored; Erving previously presented Cheryl Miller (1995), Moses Malone (2001), Clyde Drexler (2004) and Dominique Wilkins (2006; that year, Charles Barkley joked that Wilkins had beaten him to the punch--which implies that someone could only present one honoree per year--but Phil Jackson presented both Dennis Rodman and Tex Winter in 2011).

Erving is one of the most respected figures in basketball history and if the Basketball Hall of Fame corrects past injustices by inducting neglected ABA legends then he will probably get several more opportunities to be a presenter--but does Erving already hold the record for most times serving as a Basketball Hall of Fame presenter? My research did not uncover a complete list of presenters, so I contacted both the NBA and the Basketball Hall of Fame to find out the answer to that question; the NBA simply referred me to the Hall of Fame and a representative from the Hall of Fame informed me that their records in this regard only extend back to 2001: since 2001, Erving, Dr. Jack Ramsay and Lou Carnesecca each have served as presenters four times.

Do any basketball historians/enthusiasts have complete lists of the Basketball Hall of Fame presenters?

New NBA 2K12 Trailer Features Michael Jordan's Selections for Top Six All-Time Teams

2011-09-18T00:36:00.002-04:00

Michael Jordan is obviously not an entirely objective observer regarding the subject of the greatest NBA teams of all-time but many people would at least agree with his top choice:

Wayback Machine, Part I: The 1975 Complete Handbook of Pro Basketball

2011-09-15T17:03:00.002-04:00

Before ESPN, TNT and the internet existed, pro basketball fans had very limited options to follow the sport: CBS broadcast a game of the week, the Sporting News published an annual NBA Guide and various preview magazines provided capsule looks at each team plus some feature stories--but some of the most entertaining coverage came in The Complete Handbook of Pro Basketball, a paperback book edited by Zander Hollander that appeared annually from 1975-98. I remember going to the local bookstore every fall and asking when the newest edition was going to arrive. The CHPB contained a separate preview for each team and several feature articles but the real highlights were the individual player profiles that included staccato-style notes separated by ellipses ("The sun rises in the East and Adrian Dantley averages 30 ppg" is how one edition described Dantley's remarkable productivity and consistency).

The 1975 CHPB packed a lot of material into 288 pages, including feature articles on player ratings (not All-NBA style but rather "Angriest," "Most Intellectual" and other quirky categories), Rick Barry's initial foray into broadcasting (while still continuing his playing career) and high school phenom Moses Malone. The bulk of the book consisted of profiles of the 300-plus players competing for 18 NBA teams and 10 ABA teams, while the final pages contained lists of the 1973-74 statistical leaders from both leagues and an "NBA TV/Radio roundup" of the local broadcasting crews for each NBA team. Here are some interesting notes and quotes from the 1975 CHPB:

1) Alan Richman--yes, the same Alan Richman who became GQ's famous food correspondent--wrote "The Rating Game" and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar topped the "Highest Paid" list at $450,000/year, which is less than the 2010-11 NBA minimum salary. Richman noted that the average 1973-74 NBA salary was about $90,000/year. Richman ranked the NBA owners number one on his "Flakiest" list for being foolish enough to pay the players so much money (I wonder what Richman thinks of the NBA's current economic structure/pay scale). Most of Richman's rankings were highly subjective--if not downright flaky--but his list of the NBA's top five "Pure Shooters" was interesting: (1) Bob McAdoo, (2) Lou Hudson, (3) Jerry West, (4) Walt Frazier, (5) Geoff Petrie; Richman gave Abdul-Jabbar's sky hook an honorable mention and also singled out the diminutive Calvin Murphy for being able to get his shots off in the land of the giants.

2) The outspoken Rick Barry did not make many friends with his caustic on-air criticisms of fellow players but Barry was unapologetic: "If a fellow would take it personally, that I was trying to make him look bad, then I wouldn't have much respect for him. I'm sure he must feel he would be expected to do the same thing if he were in the same situation (as a TV color commentator). I was trying to be instructive more than anything else. I would point out why a fellow made a mistake, in order to educate the viewers. I tried to show what he might have done to eliminate the mistake. But if I was critical I also was complimentary. Whenever a fellow made a good play, I said it right away. I was just trying to do my job in the way it was meant to be done."

3) Newsday's Pete Alfano picked 1974 NBA Finalist Milwaukee to win the 1975 NBA Championship--but 1974 MVP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar missed 17 games and the Bucks slumped to 38-44, failing to even qualify for the playoffs. The Golden State Warriors--who Alfano picked to finish fourth in the five team Pacific Division--topped the Western Conference with a 48-34 record before stunning the 60-22 Washington Bullets in the NBA Finals.

4) New York Knicks' forward Phil Jackson's player profile included a colorful description of his awkward movements--"His arm waving, leg flailing style makes him look like a spider spinning a web on the court"--and concluded, "Son of a minister whose biggest problem can be his temper."

5) Abdul-Jabbar's player profile began, "Bill Russell says that this season Kareem will emerge as the best center there ever was...Already has...Great agility...Unstoppable, right-handed 'sky hook'...Has begun to hit turn around jumper too."

6) Rick Barry's profile included these notes: "A basketball gypsy...Bright, good-looking, charming, always ready to talk about himself...'Things come easily to me,' he says...Great scorer and passer...'I enjoy publicity; it's better than being obscure,' he says."

7) The Indianapolis Star's Dave Overpeck picked Kentucky to win the 1975 ABA Championship and he was right: Artis Gilmore led the Colonels to a 4-1 victory over the Indiana Pacers in the ABA Finals, adding yet another chapter to one of the league's greatest rivalries.

8) First year Kentucky Coach Hubie Brown's profile featured his candid acknowledgment that nothing short of winning a championship would be acceptable: "I know what I'm getting into...I'm getting into a pressure cooker. You've won a lot of games here but not the brass ring."

9) The New York Nets' "Scouting Report" contained a comment that may surprise those who believe the myth that Julius Erving did not develop a jump shot until late in his career: "Julius Erving is outstanding from any range." In 1973-74, Erving shot a then career-high .512 from the field (ninth in the league) en route to leading the ABA in scoring (27.4 ppg) and winning the first of three straight ABA MVPs (he shared 1975 honors with George McGinnis). Erving shot 17-43 from three point range in 1973-74 and his .395 percentage would have led the league but he fell just three 3 FGM short of qualifying for the crown; three pointers were not fired nearly as frequently back then as many people think: the 1973-74 ABA leader in three pointers made connected just 69 times and Erving's 17 3 FGM ranked 19th in the ABA that season.

10) That same "Scouting Report" noted that the Nets have three "fine playmaking guards" (Brian Taylor, Mike Gale and Bill Melchionni" but that "the club leader in assists is Erving. Dr. J can make things happen for other people as well as himself." Erving was also lauded for combining with Billy Paultz to "provide a formidable shot blocking force inside," quite a statement regarding a 6-7 small forward but befitting a player who ranked third in the ABA in blocked shots (2.4 bpg) in 1973-74.

11) Erving's player profile clearly showed how highly he was already regarded: "After just three years, experts are already calling him the best forward to play the game...That judgment still must stand the test of time but he is the best now...Became a more complete player, adding defense and playmaking to his shooting and rebounding, after coming to the Nets from the Squires last year." In his first year with the Nets, Erving led a very young squad (every main rotation player was 25 years old or younger, including rookies Larry Kenon and John Williamson--key contributors who ranked third and fourth on the team in scoring) to the 1974 ABA Championship.

SCP Auctions Set to Sell Huge Collection of Julius Erving's Awards and Memorabilia

2011-09-01T14:07:00.000-04:00

SCP Auctions' Fall and November auctions will include what they describe as "certainly the most important and comprehensive basketball player collection ever brought to market": Julius Erving's personal collection, including his 1976 ABA regular season MVP trophy, his 1981 NBA regular season MVP trophy and numerous other trophies, awards and uniforms. I have been a huge Julius Erving fan for more than 30 years--he will always be my all-time favorite basketball player and athlete--so it is heart wrenching to think that his recent financial woes have forced him to sell off such cherished and priceless mementos from his brilliant career. Erving won three ABA regular season MVPs (sharing the 1975 award with future teammate George McGinnis)--including the league's final MVP in 1976--and his 1981 NBA MVP was a historical landmark because he was the first non-center to receive that honor since Oscar Robertson in 1964; Erving paved the way for "midsize" players like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan to dominate MVP voting in the next decade and a half.

When Bjorn Borg put his five Wimbledon championship trophies up for sale, John McEnroe and Andre Agassi offered to buy them and give them back to Borg instead of having those trophies become a conversation piece for some millionaire; Borg insisted that he was not destitute and he ultimately bought back the trophies himself after he realized the way that the sale had impacted McEnroe, Agassi and the tennis community in general. I don't know exactly what Erving's financial situation is--though public records show that in the past two years he has suffered a house foreclosure in addition to losing $5 million he invested in an Atlanta golf course deal gone bad--but if he is selling his personal collection because he needs money (as opposed to donating the money to a worthy cause or creating a trust fund for his children) it would be really nice if some of the many people who Erving has mentored and guided over the years (including Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley, to name just two) stepped up for Erving the way that McEnroe and Agassi offered to help out Borg.

NBA 2K12 Features Many Legends, Including Julius Erving, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen

2011-08-23T18:11:00.004-04:00

The 2012 NBA season will almost certainly start late--if it starts at all--but the NBA 2K12 video game will be available in stores on October 4 and will include not only the NBA's brightest current stars but also many of pro basketball's greatest legends. Here is the NBA 2K12 trailer:

Here are screen shots of Julius Erving, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen:

The A-Train Makes an Overdue Arrival at the Basketball Hall of Fame

2011-08-13T00:34:00.003-04:00

Artis Gilmore's Basketball Hall of Fame induction was long overdue and hopefully is just the first step in a process that will result in the eventual induction of other worthy ABA stalwarts such as Roger Brown and Mel Daniels. It is fitting that Julius Erving--whose greatness came to symbolize the ABA before paving the way for the 1976 ABA/NBA merger that became the cornerstone of modern professional basketball--presented Gilmore during Friday's ceremony; Erving has always been proud of his ABA roots and he has remained loyal to his teammates and opponents from that bygone era.

It is baffling that it took the Hall so long to finally honor Gilmore but this is a time to celebrate all that Gilmore accomplished and to commend Jerry Colangelo for setting the Basketball Hall of Fame on the correct course.

For many years I have passionately insisted that the Basketball Hall of Fame must acknowledge the ABA's importance by honoring the league's great players and coaches, men who accomplished at least as much as their NBA contemporaries did. I strongly believe that writers and commentators who have been blessed with a bigger platform than I currently have did a great disservice to this profession and to basketball history/basketball justice by wasting many words and much bandwidth on nonsense when they should have used their influence to hasten the pace at which the Basketball Hall of Fame evolved--and then perhaps Artis Gilmore's mother would have been alive to witness her son receiving the sport's highest honor.

Here are links to and quotes from a few of the articles I wrote about the way that ABA history has been neglected and about Gilmore's Hall of Fame worthiness:

ABA Numbers Should Also Count (May 2001)

Julius "Dr. J" Erving. Rick Barry. George "the Iceman" Gervin. David Thompson. Artis Gilmore. That looks like a formidable starting five, but there is one way to contain them. Each of these players spent time in the ABA--and the NBA has put the ultimate defensive clamps on them by acting like those seasons do not exist.

Artis Gilmore: Still Waiting for Hall of Fame Call (July 5, 2005)

When Gilmore finally assumes his rightful place in the Hall of Fame, he will need quite a plaque to detail his accomplishments. Put "Artis Gilmore: Tough, Durable and Consistent" in bold letters at the top and follow it with these achievements:

- NCAA rebounding champion in 1970 and 1971

- All-time NCAA Division I career rebounding average leader (22.7 rpg)

- One of five NCAA Division I players with career averages of 20+ ppg and 20+ rpg

- 1972 ABA MVP and Rookie of the Year

- ABA regular season single game record 40 rebounds versus New York, 2/3/74

- Four-time ABA rebounding champion (1972-74, 76)

- Two-time ABA field goal percentage champion (1972-73)

- Two-time ABA shot blocking champion (1972-73)

- 1974 ABA All-Star Game MVP

- 1975 ABA Playoff MVP

- Five-time All-ABA 1st Team selection (1972-76)

- Four-time ABA All-Defensive Team selection (1973-76)

- Appeared in 670 consecutive ABA/NBA games

- 11 All-Star selections in 17 ABA/NBA seasons

- Ranked in the top ten in rebounding in 12 of 17 ABA/NBA seasons

- Ranked in the top ten in blocked shots in 13 of 17 ABA/NBA seasons

- Ranked in the top ten in field goal percentage in 15 of 17 ABA/NBA seasons

- Four-time NBA field goal percentage champion (1981-84)

- One of seven unanimous selections to the 1997 ABA All-Time Team

- Ranks first in career ABA/NBA regular season field goal percentage (.582); also holds the NBA (.599) and ABA (.558) career records

- Ranks third in career ABA/NBA regular season blocked shots (3178)

- Ranks fifth in career ABA/NBA regular season rebounds (16,330)

- Ranks 18th in career ABA/NBA regular season points (24,941)

Artis Gilmore: When Will the A-Train Arrive at the Hall of Fame? (December 9, 2005)

The NBA and four ABA teams merged prior to the 1976-77 season. The Kentucky and St. Louis owners received financial compensation instead of joining the combined league. ABA players whose teams folded were placed into a dispersal draft; Artis Gilmore was selected first overall by the Chicago Bulls.

Playing for a new team in a different league had little effect on Gilmore's statistics. The Bulls played at a slower tempo than the Colonels, so Gilmore’s scoring declined a bit, but he remained a top rebounder (13.0 rpg, fourth in the NBA), shot blocker (2.5 bpg, fourth in the league) and field goal shooter (.522, tenth in the league). The Bulls qualified for the playoffs, but had the misfortune of playing the eventual champion Portland Trailblazers in the first round. Portland won 2-1.

Gilmore played for the Bulls from 1976-1982 and he ranked in the top ten in rebounding, blocked shots and field goal percentage every year except 1979-80, when injuries kept him out of 34 games, snapping his streak of appearing in 670 straight ABA/NBA regular season games; even that year he still ranked third in field goal percentage.

It was a dream come true for me--and long overdue justice served--to finally hear Artis Gilmore give his acceptance speech as a Basketball Hall of Famer. Gilmore may not be as flashy or as glib as other players but his heartfelt words demonstrated his intelligence, sense of humor and gentle soul.

Chris Palmer's NBA Player Rankings by Position

2011-08-02T17:43:00.005-04:00

ESPN "Insider" Chris Palmer recently wrote a series of articles ranking the top five players in the NBA at each position. Here is his list, with a brief quote from Palmer's evaluation of each player:

Point Guards

1) Chris Paul: "If his commanding performance against the Los Angeles Lakers in the playoffs showed us anything, it's that Paul is the game's most complete point guard."

2) Derrick Rose: "The excitement quotient soars when Rose goes into attack mode."

3) Russell Westbrook: "Westbrook is arguably the best athlete in the NBA."

4) Deron Williams: "Tough to find a pure point guard with a better offensive game than D-Will."

5) Steve Nash: "Although his 37 year old legs make him a defensive liability, he still possesses the purest point guard skills in the league."

Shooting Guards

1) Kobe Bryant: "Thanks to an absolutely tireless work ethic, Bryant is the most skilled player in the league with virtually every weapon at his disposal."

2) Dwyane Wade: "Wade is smack in the middle of his prime and finished the season stronger than anyone at the position."

3) Monta Ellis: "Ellis' in-between game is what puts him in such elite company."

4) Manu Ginobili: "With great shot selection (only once has he shot below 43 percent) and feel for the game, he opens up the floor and fits in perfectly between Tim Duncan and Tony Parker."

5) Eric Gordon: "Gordon could be, pound for pound, the strongest player in the game under 6-foot-4."

Small Forwards

1) LeBron James: "James is simply the best player in the game and on his way to being considered the best small forward of all time."

2) Kevin Durant: "Durant is the purest scorer in the league and one of its most versatile shooters."

3) Carmelo Anthony: "Melo is right up there with Durant in his pure ability to score the basketball."

4) Paul Pierce: "'The Truth' is one of the most respected and cagiest veterans in the league."

5) Rudy Gay: "Is it possible to be this underrated if you've been in the league for five years?"

Power Forwards:

1) Blake Griffin: "Think it's too soon to anoint Griffin? His talent, skill and numbers say otherwise."

2) Dirk Nowitzki: "We're all still buzzing about the Mavericks' championship march, but after a thorough inspection of Nowitzki's skills, he simply doesn't have enough of an all-around game to pry the top spot from Griffin."

3) Amare Stoudemire: "Stoudemire can flat-out fill it up, and after nine seasons is still the most explosive scorer from the 4."

4) Kevin Love: "Love surprisingly has the highest player efficiency rating (24.39) on this list and improved his rebounding by a whopping four boards per game."

5) Pau Gasol: "I won't sit here and try to pretend that the dismal postseason during which Gasol was a virtual nonfactor--with averages of 13 points and 7.8 rebounds on 42 percent shooting--isn't affecting his place in these rankings."

Centers

1) Dwight Howard: "No player at any position can lay more claim to the top spot than Howard."

2) Joakim Noah: "For pure enthusiasm and energy, you can do no better than Noah who takes great pleasure in going all out to lock someone down or harass the daylights out of them."

3) Al Jefferson: "Jefferson toggles between power forward and center, but because of his brawn he often draws defensive center assignments so I'm plugging him in here."

4) Andrew Bynum: "The storyline of Bynum's career has been his shaky health."

5) Tyson Chandler: "Major bonus: Chandler led the league in true shooting percentage with a whopping .697, which is the third-best single season mark of all time."

***************

Palmer's rankings are not terrible but they are very subjective and his unpolished writing skills detract from the final product. The subjectivity in Palmer's rankings is not limited to the inherently subjective nature of making such lists but also encompasses the way that he continually shifts the value he places on various criteria and how the words he chooses lack consistent meanings. For instance, he calls Chris Paul "the league's most complete point guard," asserts that Deron Williams has a "better offensive game" than any "pure point guard" and says that Steve Nash "possesses the purest point guard skills in the league." What exactly do such bold but vague declarations mean? Such comments do not provide the reader a greater understanding of the sport or any particular insight about why Palmer ranks the point guards in the order that he did. Palmer never even attempts to define the sweeping generalizations that he repeatedly makes and thus his articles read like they come straight out of the pages of Slam.

Here is a breakdown of each of Palmer's articles, including an attempt to objectively rank the top five players at each position:

Point Guards

Contrary to Palmer's breathless hyperbole, Chris Paul's performance against the Lakers did not mean that Paul has proved he is the best point guard in the NBA; Paul proved (1) that Derek Fisher simply cannot stay in front of quick point guards anymore and (2) that even a hobbled Kobe Bryant can defend such players more effectively than Fisher can; if we accept Palmer's statement at face value then J.J. Barea must be the second best point guard in the NBA, because he torched the Lakers almost as badly as Paul did. No, it simply does not make sense to base a player's ranking on a small sample of playoff games against one team whose elderly point guard has little remaining lateral quickness and whose defensive stopper was playing on one leg. During the 2010-11 regular season, Paul had the lowest scoring average of his six year career and he had his worst performances since his second season in both field goal percentage and apg. Paul's best season was 2008-09 but then he missed nearly half of the 2009-10 campaign due to injury. Perhaps his performance against the Lakers showed that Paul is rounding back into form but it is premature to draw that conclusion based on a six game series, particularly considering that Paul was ineffective in the game six loss at home that ended New Orleans' season.

Even though Paul was briefly the best point guard in the NBA, size and durability are key factors to consider when evaluating players. Paul is generously listed at 6-0, 175 pounds and he has already missed at least 18 games in two of his six seasons. How many small point guards have been the best player on an NBA championship team in the past three decades? That list begins and ends with Isiah Thomas. Tony Parker won the 2007 Finals MVP but Tim Duncan was still the Spurs' best player, the hub around which both the team's offense and defense revolved. Chauncey Billups won the 2004 Finals MVP as "first among equals" (to borrow a phrase used to describe World Chess Champion Mikhail Botvinnik) for the talented Detroit Pistons but at 6-3 and 200-plus pounds he is hardly a small point guard. If Paul ever wins an NBA championship he likely will be the second best player on his team.

Derrick Rose should not have won the 2011 regular season MVP but he is the best point guard in the NBA. I don't evaluate players based on Palmer's "excitement quotient" (whatever that means) but Rose has the complete package: size, strength, explosiveness, work ethic and a level head. Rose is an excellent scorer and passer, a good rebounder and an improving defender. His main skill set weakness used to be shooting but he has improved from both the free throw line and from behind the three point arc; he still needs to work on his midrange shot but even with his inconsistent 15-18 foot shooting stroke he still presents more problems for opposing defenses than any other point guard.

Like Rose, the only thing that Russell Westbrook lacks is a consistent midrange shot. I don't know how to prove or disprove Palmer's contention that Westbrook is the "best athlete in the NBA" (Steve Nash may be the best athlete in the NBA) but Westbrook has size, speed, explosiveness and work ethic; some of his shot selection issues and emotional outbursts during the playoffs raise concerns about whether he is as level headed as Rose but Westbrook has shown enough to establish himself as the league's second best point guard.

Chris Paul ranks third on my list. Despite his size and durability issues, he is still a very tough cover because of his quickness combined with a feathery shooting touch. Paul is a scrappy, quick-handed defender but he can be overpowered by bigger guards and he can be worn down over the course of a game or a playoff series. Paul's toughness and clutch shooting are reminiscent of Isiah Thomas but it remains to be seen if Paul can follow in Thomas' footsteps and lead a team to a championship.

Deron Williams has all of the necessary tools to be the NBA's best point guard but he did not have a great 2010-11 season by his high standards; Williams played some role in Jerry Sloan's decision to abruptly retire and then Williams talked his way out of Utah, landing in New Jersey only to post mediocre numbers in 12 games with his new team. Williams is an excellent shooter and passer but he is just an average defender and he does not rebound as well as he should given his size.

In 2010-11, Tony Parker had one of the best seasons of an already distinguished career. Despite his thin frame and relatively short stature he is amazingly adept at scoring in the paint. Parker has a scorer's mentality but he has developed into a very good floor general and playmaker. He is not a great shooter but his shot selection is very good, resulting in a very high FG% (.519 in 2011).

Nash is sixth on my list. Palmer's comment about Nash's defense is funny, because Nash's defense was subpar long before Nash had 37 year old legs. Years ago, TNT's John Thompson once declared that it seemed odd that Dirk Nowitzki possessed enough athletic ability to score on anyone in the NBA yet struggled defensively (Nowitzki has since improved his performance at that end of the court) and the same issue should also be raised regarding Nash; Nash is certainly tough--he does not hesitate to take charges against bigger players--but his overall defense is so subpar that for many years the Suns have hidden him at that end of the court, relying on Grant Hill--a small forward with a rebuilt ankle--to check top level point guards. Nash is one of the greatest shooters in NBA history and he has wondrous passing skills but when objective historians examine this era they will be mystified that Nash won as many regular season MVPs as Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant combined.

Shooting Guards

Palmer is correct that Kobe Bryant should still be ranked ahead of Dwyane Wade because of Bryant's complete skill set. I have written about this many times and I get the impression that some people do not understand what it means to say that Bryant has no skill set weaknesses; it does not mean that Bryant is better than every player in the NBA in every single area and it does not even necessarily mean that Bryant is the best player in the NBA in any one particular area: it means that Bryant does not have any weakness that the opposing team can attack. Opposing teams can "shrink the paint" against Wade and try to take away his pullup jumper when he drives left but Bryant can strike from anywhere on the court: "shrink the paint" and he will kill you with jumpers but if you try to take away his jumper Bryant can still drive and finish (albeit not as explosively as he did when he was Wade's age). Age and some nagging injuries have limited Bryant's explosiveness and even seem to affect his stamina at times (Bryant used to take over games for longer stretches than he seems to be capable of doing now) but despite averaging his lowest mpg since his second season Bryant still scored 25.3 ppg on .451 field goal shooting while contributing 5.1 rpg and 4.7 apg; on a per minute basis, Bryant was a more productive scorer, rebounder and passer in 2010-11 than he was in 2009-10 and his per minute numbers in those categories were comparable to the numbers he posted during his 2007-08 MVP campaign. Bryant's minutes and health will have to be monitored carefully by the Lakers for the rest of his career but he is still the league's best, most productive and most complete shooting guard.

Dwyane Wade is more explosive than Bryant--which is not a new development--but his midrange game is still erratic, he gambles too much defensively and he plays with a reckless abandon that results in him being continually banged up/injured. Wade was great in the last four games of the 2006 NBA Finals but he also presided over one of the worst collapses ever experienced by a championship team (the Heat were swept in the first round of the 2007 playoffs and then had the worst record in the NBA in 2008). A relatively healthy Wade was certainly more productive in the 2011 playoffs than an injured Bryant but over the course of the entire season Bryant still had the edge over Wade due to the completeness of Bryant's skill set. Also, the "stat gurus" declared that Wade would be unstoppable once paired with LeBron James--and that either James or Wade could have easily filled Bryant's shoes alongside Pau Gasol with the Lakers--but what actually transpired on the court last season hardly supported such thinking.

After Bryant and Wade there is a bit of a drop-off; Bryant and Wade are the only legitimate franchise players at the shooting guard position (Tracy McGrady has declined significantly from the All-NBA level that he once maintained). Monta Ellis may be this generation's World B. Free, a high scoring player who can pass but is not thrilled to do so and whose defense is largely a rumor; Palmer ranks Ellis third but Ellis does not crack my top five. I rank Manu Ginobili third; Ginobili does not have any skill set weaknesses but he is not as explosive as Wade and he cannot match Bryant in any skill set areas other than long range shooting and free throw shooting. Like Wade, Ginobili throws his body all over the court and thus is always dealing with various nagging ailments; that is one reason that Spurs' Coach Gregg Popovich limits Ginobili's minutes and often uses him as a reserve player, enabling Ginobili to play against the opposing team's bench performers (though Ginobili also is usually on the court at the end of the game if the score is close). Eric Gordon is often injured and has yet to play in a playoff game during his three season career but Gordon is such a deadly scorer that Palmer is probably right to put him in the top five (Gordon is fourth on my list). The fifth spot could be capably filled by several players, including Ellis, Kevin Martin or Joe Johnson but I like Ray Allen: he is not as explosive athletically as he used to be and his role as one member of Boston's Big Three (or Big Four counting Rajon Rondo) means that he does not have the opportunity to post the gaudy scoring numbers that Ellis and the others do but Allen is still a deadly shooter from all three ranges (.491 FG%, .444 3FG%, .881 FT%) and under Doc Rivers' tutelage he has become a committed defender.

Small Forwards

LeBron James is clearly the best small forward--and best player--in the NBA. He is an exceptional scorer, rebounder, passer and defender. His three point shooting is acceptable but high variance; he is not a consistent long range shooter but rather a streak shooter who alternates from great to horrid. James' greatest skill set weakness is his midrange shooting. When he and Wade get into the open court they are an unstoppable duo but the Miami Heat look shockingly ordinary when opposing teams force the Heat to execute a half court offensive set; James and Wade cannot consistently punish teams by making midrange jumpers. James has performed well overall during his playoff career but he quit against the Boston Celtics during the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals and he quit against the Miami Heat in the 2011 NBA Finals; those two deplorable performances cast a lengthy shadow over James' reputation: he is still a great player but he is a great player who has twice lacked heart/tenacity/toughness precisely when his team most needed for him to display those qualities.

Palmer is incorrect that James is "revolutionizing the small forward position with his approach as a pure passer." In a December 2001 Basketball Digest article I listed several forwards who were great passers before James was even born. While it is true that some of those forwards did not play point forward--they did not bring the ball up the court like a point guard--Paul Pressey played point forward for Don Nelson's 1980s Milwaukee Bucks, a concept that Nelson likely borrowed from watching the way his teammate John Havlicek performed as a Boston small forward/shooting guard in the 1960s and 1970s. Then Scottie Pippen took the point forward position to the next level both offensively and defensively as a key performer for six Chicago championship teams in the 1990s. James is a great passer but I am not convinced that he is a better passer than Larry Bird, Rick Barry or Scottie Pippen; such distinctions should not just be based on assist totals (numbers that are very subjective) but also on a player's effectiveness in his particular role for his team.

Palmer's assertion that James is "on his way to being considered the best small forward of all time" is a bit premature. Elgin Baylor, Larry Bird and Julius Erving (listed alphabetically) are the three greatest small forwards in NBA history; Bird and Erving each won multiple championships, while Baylor helped lead the Lakers to multiple NBA Finals only to be thwarted by Bill Russell's Celtics (and once by a stacked New York team). James has twice played on the best regular season team in the NBA and his teams have reached the NBA Finals in two other seasons but he has yet to win a championship. While it is true that James is playing a team sport, not an individual sport like chess or tennis, if James fails to win a championship despite playing for several contending teams it will be difficult to rank him ahead of great small forwards who led their teams to multiple titles. The fact that it is impossible to fully appreciate a player's greatness--and limitations--until his career is over is why I did not include active players in my Pro Basketball Pantheon.

Kevin Durant is the obvious choice as the league's second best small forward. He is a better shooter than James but does not measure up to James in any other skill set area. Durant is a good rebounder, a fair passer and an adequate--though still improving--defender. Durant still has to prove that he can be an efficient scorer against elite competition during the playoffs. Palmer calls Durant "the purest scorer in the league" and then says that Carmelo Anthony is "right up there with Durant in his pure ability to score the basketball." That may sound great but what does it really mean? What is "pure" scoring? Is there such a thing as "impure" scoring? Durant is the two-time reigning scoring champion but he also ranked first and fourth in the NBA in field goal attempts during those seasons; Anthony has yet to lead the league in scoring but he usually ranks in the top six in field goal attempts. LeBron James could certainly contend for the scoring title every season if that were his goal, as could Kobe Bryant (at least until last season when Bryant voluntarily reduced his minutes to preserve his body). I don't know what "pure" scoring is but I suspect that--all things being equal--James and Bryant could match Durant and Anthony point for point, in addition to being better all-around players than Durant and Anthony. Durant and Anthony are not better scorers than James and Bryant; they are simply more one dimensional. The jury is still out about whether Durant can lead a team to the Finals but after years of watching Anthony's teams flame out in the first round I doubt that Anthony will ever be the best player on a championship team. Anthony may be a better "pure scorer" than Paul Pierce but Pierce is tougher than Anthony, he is a better all-around player and he is a proven winner, so I rank Pierce as the league's third best small forward. Anthony is fourth in my book.

The fifth spot is somewhat wide open, much like the fifth spot at shooting guard. I like Gerald Wallace because of his toughness and versatility. Luol Deng deserves consideration because of his defense and his midrange shooting. Palmer's choice of Rudy Gay seems odd; Gay has yet to make an All-Star team or an All-NBA team--meaning that coaches, fans and media agree that he is not one of the top 24 or so players in the NBA--and the Memphis Grizzlies hardly missed him after he got hurt last season. Danny Granger is a gritty, hard nosed player who probably would be effective for a winning team but may be what TNT's Kenny Smith calls a "looter in a riot" (Smith's colorful description of players who put up big numbers for losing teams, which is the way I perceive Monta Ellis).

Power Forwards

I like Blake Griffin's game a lot and he may soon become the best power forward in the NBA but Palmer lost his mind when he ranked Griffin ahead of Dirk Nowitzki, a proven playoff performer who led the Dallas Mavericks past the two-time defending champion Lakers and the Miami Heat's "Big Three" despite not playing alongside a single current All-Star. Nowitzki is just an average defender and he does not rebound as well as he did when he was younger but he can score from anywhere on the court and he is a good passer who is vastly underrated as a leader. Nowitzki is renowned for his outside shooting prowess, yet it has been five years since he made at least 100 three pointers in a season and he has only attempted 200 three pointers in a season once since 2005-06; Nowitzki is at least as good of a "pure scorer" as Durant or Anthony--and he is better than both of those players at both shooting from long distance and posting up. Nowitzki deserved to at least be mentioned alongside Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett even when those guys were in their primes but now that they are "merely" good players Nowitzki is without question the league's premier power forward.

LaMarcus Aldridge carried the Portland Trail Blazers after numerous injuries depleted their roster and by the end of the 2010-11 season he was the second best power forward in the NBA; I count Amare Stoudemire as a center but even if I follow Palmer's lead and put Stoudemire at power forward I would still take Aldridge's back to the basket scoring prowess, rebounding and defense over Stoudemire's explosiveness.

Perhaps Kevin Love is the ultimate "looter in a riot" but I don't think so; his three best skills are rebounding, three point shooting and passing and I think that he would be productive in all of those areas even if he played for a better team. Love is the league's third best power forward.

Griffin looks like he will be a 20-10 machine for years and just in the course of one season he improved as a passer and shooter. Griffin is clueless at times defensively, which is not surprising for a rookie (let alone a rookie playing for a franchise like the Clippers), but he will likely improve in that area as well; LeBron James was not a good defender as a rookie but he is now a perennial member of the All-Defensive First Team. Griffin has not yet surpassed Nowitzki but he is already the league's fourth best power forward. Love's game is a little more polished than Griffin's game right now but with one more season of work Griffin will likely surpass Love and possibly even move up to second behind Nowitzki.

My fifth power forward--based on current productivity, not reputation or lifetime achievement--is Zach Randolph, a scoring and rebounding machine who has improved his passing a little bit. Randolph is still not much of a defender but he must be double-teamed on the block, which makes him a tremendous asset.

It is funny how the reduction in Kobe Bryant's minutes--which thus forced Pau Gasol to assume a larger role and face more double teams--suddenly led to a more realistic assessment of Gasol's status. Gasol was never considered an elite player during his time in Memphis and it is laughable that anyone called him the league's best (or most complete) big man over Dwight Howard and Dirk Nowitzki (not to mention Duncan and Garnett) but last season provided a glimpse into the future for the Lakers and Gasol. I put Gasol on my All-NBA Third Team as a center simply because he spent a lot of time at that spot and because the league does not have many great (or even above average) centers but if I stick with Palmer's positional designations and place Gasol at power forward then he does not crack my top five based on last season. Pau Gasol had a good first month of the season but was ordinary--or worse--the rest of the way.

Chris Bosh is an interesting case; Palmer did not mention him at all, even though Bosh has made the All-Star team for six straight years and has twice received MVP consideration (including a 12th place finish in 2009-10 and a seventh place finish in 2006-07). Based purely on the numbers, Bosh is not currently a top five power forward; despite playing alongside arguably the two most highly lauded talents in the NBA--LeBron James and Dwyane Wade--Bosh was both less productive (i.e., lower scoring and rebounding totals) and less efficient (his field goal percentage declined). It would be natural to expect that playing alongside great players would increase one's efficiency even if it did not increase one's productivity; that is what happened when Boston's "Big Three" joined forces and that is also what happened for Pau Gasol when he teamed up with Kobe Bryant but playing with James and Wade clearly did not help out Bosh very much in 2010-11. If Bosh played for another team he likely would vault back into the top five at his position.

Duncan and Garnett deserve special mention; neither is an elite player any more but both of them are more effective than their numbers suggest and both of them play significant roles for elite teams.

Centers

For decades the NBA literally revolved around the pivot, home to most of the league's MVPs until Julius Erving, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson heralded the rise of the mid-size, all-around player. Now the pivot is the NBA's vast wasteland. Dwight Howard is the only current center who even deserves to be compared to the legends who once patrolled the paint; the league's other centers are all either limited role players or else power forwards masquerading as centers. Howard is a great rebounder and a great shotblocker who is developing a solid low post offensive repertoire to accompany his voluminous dunks/put backs. Howard is not a great passer or shooter and it remains to be seen if he has the right temperament to lead a team to a championship.

It is hard to criticize Palmer's center rankings too much simply because the pickings are so slim but my selections differ greatly from his in this category. Amare Stoudemire is currently my All-NBA Second Team center and, as mentioned above, I tapped Pau Gasol as my Third Team selection. Stoudemire is a great screen/roll player and a good faceup shooter but he has no postup game, he does not rebound as well as he should and his defense is atrocious (don't be fooled by his occasional highlight reel blocked shots). The Knicks brought Stoudemire in to be their franchise player, added Carmelo Anthony to the mix in the middle of the season--and "vaulted" all the way to the eighth seed in the weak Eastern Conference before quickly departing in the first round of the playoffs.

Gasol is equally adept at scoring in the post or shooting the faceup jumper and he is also an excellent screen/roll player (though former Lakers' Coach Phil Jackson preferred to run the Triangle Offense as opposed to using screen/roll sets). Gasol is a very good passer and he is capable of playing good defense but relentless, physical players wear him down--mentally and physically--at both ends of the court. Coach Jackson and Kobe Bryant consistently had to poke and prod Gasol to get him to play with maximum effort and intensity during the Lakers' run to there straight Western crowns/two NBA titles and last season Gasol stopped responding to Jackson and Bryant's exhortations, culminating in an embarrassing and shameful disappearing act during the playoffs.

Joakim Noah is very limited as a scorer but he is an excellent rebounder and defender and a very good passer. I rank him as the league's fourth best center, just ahead of Al Jefferson. The Utah Jazz brought in Jefferson to play power forward but he spent a lot of time at center because of Mehmet Okur's injury woes. Jefferson scores and rebounds but he is below average as a passer and defender. There is a "looter in a riot" quality to Jefferson's play.

Three other centers deserve mention but do not crack my top five. The hardworking--but undersized--Al Horford is a good scorer and rebounder who has turned into a two-time All-Star due to the lack of depth at the center position. Tyson Chandler is a role player would have come off of the bench in earlier eras. Chandler rebounds and defends superbly but has no offensive game other than dunking the ball; he fits in perfectly with the Dallas Mavericks because he provides exactly what they lacked in the paint defensively and is willing to accept a minimal role offensively. Palmer lauds Chandler's gaudy true shooting percentage but all that statistic means in this instance is that Chandler is smart enough to know his limitations: he rarely shoots the ball unless he is within three feet of the basket. Does anyone really believe that Chandler had the third best "true" shooting season in the history of the game? If that is the case, then Ray Allen, Larry Bird and many others must be "false" shooters. Andrew Bynum has shown flashes of ability but he is injury-prone and immature. He may cure the latter problem--though he has yet to do so after six years in the league--but it is highly unlikely that after missing at least 17 games in each of the previous four seasons he will suddenly become an iron man; keep in mind that as Kobe Bryant's minutes and role inevitably decline the Lakers will likely call upon Bynum to have a bigger role and that increased activity makes it even more likely that Bynum will continue to suffer injury problems: if Bynum cannot stay healthy as a 20 mpg role player then why should anyone assume that he will stay healthy if the Lakers need for him to play 30-plus mpg?

Dumars' Peculiar Fascination with Stuckey Stalled the Pistons

2011-07-26T04:20:00.002-04:00

The fall of the Detroit Pistons--who at their peak won the 2004 NBA title and advanced to the 2005 NBA Finals--began with the departures of Coach Larry Brown and defensive stalwart Ben Wallace but accelerated dramatically when team President Joe Dumars inexplicably convinced himself that Rodney Stuckey was some kind of star in the making. Stuckey did not show much in his 2007-08 rookie season other than an inconsistent shooting stroke combined with suspect passing skills; Stuckey seemed equally ill-suited to start at shooting guard or point guard but Dumars--utilizing the same type of hallucinatory/delusional vision that imagined that Darko Milicic would be better than Carmelo Anthony--apparently saw a future in which Stuckey would transform into some combination of Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton. Early in the 2008-09 season, Dumars traded 2004 Finals MVP Billups for perennial All-Star Allen Iverson with the idea of installing Stuckey as a starter and forcing either Iverson or Hamilton to come off of the bench, a role neither player had previously filled. Iverson became the convenient fall guy when the 2009 Pistons failed to advance past the first round of the playoffs but, as ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy later bluntly and correctly put it, "Last year, the Detroit situation with him (Iverson) was mishandled. You don't bring in a guy like that and then tell either Richard Hamilton or Allen Iverson they're coming off the bench. You start Iverson, you start Hamilton, you bring Stuckey off the bench--or you just buy Iverson out when you make the trade. But to ask either one of those guys to come of the bench, to me, doesn't make any sense."

One supposed advantage of trading Billups for Iverson was the possibility of letting Iverson go after one season and then using the resulting cap space to reload Detroit's roster with young talent. Dumars indeed parted ways with Iverson but he transformed the Billups/Iverson cap space into Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon, two streak shooters who think that defense is what surrounds "de yard." Michael Curry struggled in his only season as Detroit's head coach--not helped at all by Dumars' Stuckey obsession--but things took a turn for the worse in 2009-10 when Dumars replaced Curry with John Kuester, who many media members had proclaimed to be the de facto "offensive coordinator" of Mike Brown's Cleveland Cavaliers.

Most mainstream media sports commentators understand as much about professional sports coaching as they do about the intricacies of particle physics: nothing at all (three quick examples: during the 1990s many media members loudly and repeatedly asserted that Bill Belichick could not coach his way out of a paper bag, much the same way that media members later belittled Mike Brown's coaching acumen; purported basketball expert Bill Simmons shamelessly critiqued Doc Rivers--who has forgotten more about NBA strategy than Simmons will ever know--before Rivers brilliantly led Simmons' beloved Boston Celtics to the 2008 NBA championship; many NBA pundits declared that Flip Saunders' "liberation offense" would prove to be a breath of fresh air for the Pistons in the wake of Larry Brown's departure). Kuester was a solid NBA assistant coach but the idea that he was the mastermind behind Cleveland's success during Mike Brown's tenure never made sense and looks completely ridiculous in the wake of Kuester's disastrous run in Detroit; Curry's 2009 Pistons went 39-43 and lost in the first round of the playoffs but with Kuester at the helm the Pistons went 27-55 in 2010 and 30-52 in 2011. NBA coaches put in long hours and have a much more demanding job than most casual observers realize but as much as I respect NBA coaches in general and Kuester specifically it must be said that Kuester hardly authored many strategic masterpieces during his Detroit career. Kuester also seemed to be completely disconnected from the players he was supposed to be leading and motivating: he benched and then feuded with respected veteran Hamilton for no apparent reason, in the process alienating Hamilton and many of Hamilton's teammates.

The bottom line is that Dumars and the Pistons lost sight of the primary reasons that they had been successful--Larry Brown's coaching/Ben Wallace's toughness and defensive mindset--and that is why they have been experiencing diminishing returns ever since Brown and Wallace departed; it is a long, precipitous drop from Brown to Saunders to Curry to Kuester and it is an equally long, precipitous drop from Wallace to the various players who have attempted to fill the pivot for the Pistons the past few years. Brown rarely stays in one place for long, so maybe he would have left Detroit no matter what, but it certainly seems like Dumars should have made a greater effort to retain Brown's services. Perhaps in Wallace's case Dumars felt that he was following in Bill Walsh's footsteps--getting rid of a player one year too early instead of one year too late--but that philosophy only works if (1) you are correct about how much (or how little) a star player has left in the tank and (2) you find a way to adequately replace that star player.

Even if the losses of Brown and Wallace could not have been avoided or handled any better, Dumars' Stuckey obsession is just baffling. Stuckey has been a 30-plus mpg starter for three seasons now despite only excelling in one category: free throw shooting (he consistently shoots better than .800 and he shot a career-high .866 in 2010-11). Stuckey ranks in the middle of the pack--or worse--among starting point guards in rebounding, assists, steals, field goal percentage and three point field goal percentage (his rankings are not any better if he is instead classified as a shooting guard); he is a productive scorer for a point guard (15.5 ppg in 2010-11) but he is not an efficient or versatile scorer. Stuckey has displayed neither the ability to consistently run a team well from the point guard position nor the ability to be a top notch shooting guard; perhaps he could be a solid third or fourth guard for a playoff team but it seems doubtful that he will ever be a starter for a team that makes much noise in the postseason: he just does not have that kind of skill set, nor has he shown much improvement during his four year career (his per minute productivity in most key categories has not changed substantially since his rookie season, which means that what we have already seen from him is likely what we will see from him in the future).

Joe Dumars did a very good job transforming the Pistons into perennial contenders several years ago and he has already enjoyed more success than most NBA executives ever will but until he abandons his Captain Ahab-like obsession with chasing Stuckey's presumed future greatness the Pistons are most likely doomed to be a mediocre team at best.