The Sad Saga of The Ringer's Gleeful Takedown of Bryan Colangelo
The website The Ringer is not merely content to bury Bryan Colangelo's career (or at least the Philadelphia portion of it) but is also pouring dirt on the grave.
A few weeks ago, The Ringer broke the story that several anonymous Twitter accounts that could be linked to Colangelo had posted information critical of Sam Hinkie and of various 76er players. The 76ers hired an independent law firm to conduct an investigation and that investigation determined that Colangelo's wife had made the offensive posts. Although Colangelo denied any knowledge of his wife's activity and declared that he did not agree with what she had posted, the two-time NBA Executive of the Year who had rebuilt the 76ers into a contender in the wake of
Hinkie's infamous and disastrous tanking "Process" resigned under pressure.
Now The Ringer has posted a second article that essentially states that everything good that happened for the 76ers last season was a result of Hinkie's brilliance, while any questionable decisions came from Colangelo. Specifically, The Ringer accused Colangelo of failing to resolve the "logjam" of big men on the roster and of choosing Markelle Fultz with the first pick in the 2017 draft over the alleged objections of various unnamed 76ers' staffers. The Ringer conveniently failed to note that the 76ers were a losing team every season under Hinkie and only became a contender after Colangelo remade the culture and the roster in the wake of Hinkie's departure. The Ringer also left out that Hinkie whiffed on the opportunity to draft Kristaps Porzingis, Myles Turner or Devin Booker in 2015 (Hinkie selected Jahlil Okafor) and that Hinkie chose Nerlens Noel in 2013 instead of Giannis Antetokounmpo or C.J. McCollum.
Thus, The Ringer left out the "minor" detail that the aforementioned "logjam" of Okafor and Noel was created by Hinkie's poor drafting and unwillingness to get rid of either big man. Colangelo inherited a mess and rapidly turned it into a playoff team, yet The Ringer proposes that Hinkie should get the credit.
Not only is that a bizarre take, but it is an odd thing to post right after Colangelo resigned.
Sirius XM NBA Radio's Frank Isola made some excellent points regarding Colangelo's situation. First, Isola noted that the burner Twitter accounts in question hardly had any subscribers and he joked that Colangelo's wife could have reached a larger audience by opening up a window and shouting than by posting to a feed that few people follow. Second, Isola pointed out that it is commonplace for NBA executives and other insiders to feed information to media members, who then disseminate that information to a large audience. Third, Isola stated that it is ironic that Colangelo was forced out because his wife leaked team information and now The Ringer is posting an anti-Colangelo story filled with information that could only have been leaked to The Ringer by team sources. "Where is the investigation of that?" Isola asked.
Isola's broadcast partner Brian Scalabrine added this observation: the Boston Celtics require each member of the personnel department to write out their preferences before each draft, so no one can later claim 20/20 hindsight regarding the team's selections. If people within the 76ers organization want to throw Colangelo under the bus, let them step up publicly and prove with written time-stamped notes that they did not support the Fultz selection.
Isola joked that apparently Hinkie is responsible for every good decision that the 76ers have made--even the ones that took place after his departure--and Isola said that The Ringer's piling on with Colangelo is starting to seem personal. Isola could not fathom what The Ringer's motive is but I have an idea. The Ringer is Bill Simmons' brainchild. Simmons (1) loves "stat gurus" like Hinkie and (2) is on the record stating that he could do a better job than most NBA executives. Taking down a respected executive like Colangelo while simultaneously rewriting Hinkie's career in a favorable fashion is right up Simmons' alley.
There is little doubt that Colangelo could have and should have handled the Twitter account situation better, but The Ringer's coverage of Colangelo reeks of personal animus, a hidden agenda and double standards (Isola called the hand-wringing about the tweets while ignoring the more widespread leaking of information "fake outrage"). Isola is right to call out The Ringer for its biased coverage of Colangelo and Hinkie.
Labels: Bill Simmons, Bryan Colangelo, Philadelphia 76ers, Sam Hinkie, The Ringer
posted by David Friedman @ 7:11 AM
Spurs Sweep Offensively Challenged Grizzlies
The San Antonio Spurs will be well rested when they face the Miami Heat or the Indiana Pacers in the 2013 NBA Finals; the Spurs earned a nine day vacation with their 4-0 sweep of the Memphis Grizzlies in the Western Conference Finals. Tony Parker had a magnificent series, averaging 24.5 ppg on .532 field goal shooting while also leading both teams in assists (9.5 apg). Tim Duncan played outstanding defense (3.0 bpg) while also ranking second on the Spurs in scoring (15.5 ppg); he dominated the overtime period in game two and he dominated the overtime period in game three, playing his best basketball in perhaps the two most important five minute stretches of the series.
San Antonio's third option, Manu Ginobili, averaged just 10.0 ppg while shooting a wretched .407 from the field; Ginobili only ranked fourth on the team in scoring behind Parker, Duncan and Kawhi Leonard (11.3 ppg) but he hit some timely shots and his dribble penetration opened up opportunities for San Antonio's three point shooters. Ginobili ranked second on the Spurs in assists (4.5 apg).
As I
predicted,
the Grizzlies struggled to score 90 points versus the Spurs; the
Grizzlies averaged 87.8 ppg, with their two highest scoring efforts
coming in the two overtime games (89 points in game two, 93 points in
game three). The Grizzlies are a well-coached team that plays excellent
defense; if they had not
traded Rudy Gay for spare parts (Tayshaun Prince, Austin Daye and Ed Davis) then they might have had enough offensive firepower to defeat the Spurs. Prince averaged 5.8 ppg versus the Spurs while shooting .360 from the field; although Memphis Coach Lionel Hollins kept Prince in the starting lineup, Hollins slashed Prince's minutes because of Prince's ineffectiveness. Daye and Davis rarely played during the regular season and, not surprisingly, they rarely played in the Western Conference Finals, logging a combined 25 minutes. Gay's absence--and the uselessness of the players brought in to replace him--meant that the Spurs could pack the paint, making it difficult for Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph to even catch the ball, let alone score. Gasol averaged 14.3 ppg on .397 field goal shooting and Randolph averaged 11.0 ppg on .302 field goal shooting. Call this the anti-Kobe Bryant effect.
Kobe Bryant's presence and impact boosted Pau Gasol's field goal percentage after Gasol joined the Lakers even though Bryant's field goal percentage is not extraordinarily high; the absence of Gay had a correspondingly negative effect on the field goal percentages of Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph in the Western Conference Finals. This is something that "stat gurus" do not understand: a player who can create shots for himself and others distorts the opposing defense and thus his value cannot be measured just by looking at his individual field goal percentage (or by looking at his "advanced basketball statistics"). Gay is not nearly as good as Bryant but Gay performed a similarly key function for Memphis--and that role inevitably becomes more important as a team advances deeper in the playoffs, because the game slows down and defenses focus on a team's top offensive options. The Grizzlies advanced to the Western Conference Finals despite the Gay trade, not because of it; the Grizzlies survived their first round matchup because the L.A. Clippers are not a championship caliber team and the Grizzlies eliminated the Oklahoma City Thunder mainly because of
Russell Westbrook's season-ending injury.
ESPN's halftime shows during the Western Conference Finals provided great comic relief as baffled "stat guru" apologist Bill Simmons struggled to explain what was happening; it was hilarious to hear Simmons criticizing Hollins for not benching Prince earlier in the series; not too long ago, Simmons predicted a Memphis win, he did a symbolic victory lap because he had praised the Gay trade for improving the Grizzlies and he said that Prince was a better fit for Memphis than Gay.
It will be very interesting to see if the Grizzlies retain the services of Hollins, an excellent coach who publicly criticized the money-saving but strategically unsound Gay trade by saying, "When you have champagne taste, you can't be on a beer budget." Hollins has played a major role in Memphis' steady rise in the standings but his playoff rotation demonstrated that he has no use for the players who the Memphis "stat gurus" acquired in the Gay deal so his vision of how to compete for a championship may be incompatible with the front office's plans.
Labels: Bill Simmons, Manu Ginobili, Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies, Rudy Gay, San Antonio Spurs, Tayshaun Prince, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Zach Randolph
posted by David Friedman @ 4:56 PM
Commentators Lose the Thread When Analyzing the Memphis-Oklahoma City Series
Bill Simmons thinks that the Memphis-Oklahoma City series validates the
Rudy Gay trade and Jon Barry thinks that P.J. Carlesimo deserves credit for Kevin Durant's ballhanding skills because Carlesimo played Durant at shooting guard during Durant's rookie season. Paraphrasing Casey Stengel, "Can't anybody here analyze this game?"
The Memphis Grizzlies finished fifth in the Western Conference, defeated an overrated/flawed L.A. Clippers team in the first round and currently hold a 2-1 lead over the number one seeded Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference semifinals--but the Grizzlies are poised to advance to the Western Conference Finals not because they traded their leading scorer for spare parts but because one of the top five players in the NBA suffered a season-ending knee injury. The most valuable player for the Grizzlies so far has been Houston's Patrick Beverley, the rookie guard who clipped Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook and shredded Westbrook's knee. Westbrook played in all 82 games and ranked sixth in the league in scoring, seventh in the league in assists and ninth in the league in steals as the Thunder went 60-22 in the regular season. Oklahoma City ranked third in the NBA in scoring (105.7 ppg) and second in the NBA in defensive field goal percentage (.425). The Thunder routed Houston 120-91 in the first game of the playoffs and they beat Houston 105-102 in the second game, with a hobbled Westbrook playing in the second half despite suffering the knee injury that would end his season. Since Westbrook exited the lineup, the Thunder have posted a 3-4 record, splitting four games with the eighth seeded Rockets before falling behind 2-1 to the Grizzlies; the Thunder averaged 96.7 ppg in those seven games. The Thunder miss Westbrook's scoring, playmaking, defense and energy. Kevin Durant is putting up monster numbers sans Westbrook but the team is playing worse overall--and Durant is showing signs of wearing down: in Oklahoma City's 87-81 loss on Sunday, Durant shot just 3-11 from the field in the second half, he only scored two fourth quarter points and he missed two free throws when the Thunder trailed 85-81 with :39 remaining. Perhaps next season we will hear less about Westbrook supposedly shooting too often; it should be obvious that the Thunder need Westbrook to create scoring opportunities for himself and for his teammates. Meanwhile, as Durant runs himself ragged just to keep the games close, Memphis point guard Mike Conley is wearing out Oklahoma City's point guards--something that would not have happened if Conley had to check Westbrook at one end of the court and then deal with Westbrook checking him at the other end of the court.
Westbrook's injury is the number one story of this series. Secondary stories include whatever astronomical numbers Durant ends up with in defeat and the effectiveness of Memphis' Marc Gasol/Zach Randolph duo. What about the Gay trade? Fortunately for Memphis, the absence of Westbrook is so important that it negates the fact that the Grizzlies are getting almost no production in this series from the players who they acquired in that deal: starting small forward Tayshaun Prince (who has taken Gay's spot in the rotation) is averaging 5.0 ppg on .292 field goal shooting and he is getting torched by Durant, Austin Daye has scored three points in 4:52 and Ed Davis has scored two points in 3:08--but, despite these facts, Bill Simmons tells a national television audience that he has to restrain himself from taking a "victory lap" around the ESPN set for supposedly being vindicated about the Gay trade. Simmons apparently thinks that ESPN viewers are stupid enough to believe that trading a 26 year old 18.2 ppg scorer who can create his own shot for a 33 year old player averaging 5.0 ppg and two young guys who are not even in the rotation qualifies as some kind of brilliant move. I hope and expect that the readers of this article are not that dumb. Maybe the Grizzlies will find good use for the money that they saved by getting rid of Gay's contract, maybe Davis and/or Daye will develop into rotation players--but does anyone in his right mind believe that if Memphis Coach Lionel Hollins were given a lie detector test he would say that this trade improved Memphis' chances to win a championship this season? Simmons loves the "stat gurus" and the "stat gurus" hate Gay's game but trying to pretend that the Grizzlies are beating the Thunder because of this bad trade hardly lends credence to the "stat guru" point of view; it just shows that "stat gurus" can be every bit as biased/tendentious as anyone else who is blindly loyal to a particular point of view regardless of contradictory facts.
The Gay trade did not make basketball sense and even if the Westbrook injury lets the Grizzlies off the hook in this round--which it probably will--the Grizzlies will miss Gay in the next round. The Grizziles ranked 27th in the league in scoring (93.4 ppg) and 21st in field goal percentage (.444)--and they are struggling to match those numbers against the Thunder but the Thunder are so offensively challenged sans Westbrook that the Grizzlies are able to keep the upper hand.
Not only is Simmons wrong about the Gay trade--something that will become even more clear next round and in the years to come--but he was also wrong about the deal that actually turned the Grizzlies into a contender; when the Grizzlies wisely traded Pau Gasol to the L.A. Lakers for Marc Gasol, Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie and two first round draft picks, Simmons scoffed, "How was the Gasol trade legal? If I kill my mailman and no one ever
finds out, does that make it legal? Jerry West's old team (Memphis)
gift-wrapped its best player for the team that once employed West for 40
years, taking back a pupu platter (Kwame Brown, a third-string guard
and two crappy picks)." Even if all the Grizzlies had received was Marc Gasol, the deal still would have been good--Marc Gasol is an All-Star and he won the 2013 Defensive Player of the Year award--but one of those first round picks became Greivis Vasquez, who the Grizzlies traded for Quincy Pondexter; Pondexter is averaging 9.0 ppg versus the Thunder while leading Memphis in three point field goals made, which means that he literally is almost twice as productive as anyone who the Grizzlies received in the Gay trade! The larger point is that the Grizzlies figured out that a Pau Gasol-led team would never win a championship, so they started over and put together a deep, flexible roster; shedding Pau Gasol's contract provided the necessary financial flexibility to acquire Zach Randolph and make other moves as well. I was one of the few commentators who did not blast Memphis for trading Pau Gasol; I
wrote, "Obviously, the Grizzlies have hit the reset button and are rebuilding
from the ground up. To do that in the NBA, you need draft picks, salary
cap room and young players. This deal provides all of those things to
the Grizzlies. That does not mean that it will work, though; there are
too many uncertainties: to name just a few, (1) has Brown peaked or can
he still improve, (2) how good will Crittenton become, (3) how good will
Marc Gasol be when he comes to the NBA, (4) who will Memphis choose
with the newly acquired draft picks? All that can be said at the moment
is that this is the right kind of move for Memphis to make, because
there was no future for the team the way it was composed prior to this
deal. In an odd way, there is a slight similarity between what Memphis
is doing now and what the Lakers did with Shaq several years ago; the
Grizzlies are getting rid of their best player and taking a short term
step backwards with the hope of being better off long term, while the
Lakers are shedding some youth in order to make a championship run now." I did not know if Memphis' plan would work--no one has that kind of crystal ball--but I knew that Memphis had made the best possible choice after realizing that Pau Gasol is not a franchise player. The critical difference between the Gasol trade and the Gay trade is that the former broke up a non-contending team with the long term plan of building a contender while the latter weakened the roster of a team that could realistically contend for the Western Conference crown right now.
"Stat gurus" love Pau Gasol's game and they hate Rudy Gay's game, so Simmons will mock the Pau Gasol trade until the end of time and he will tout the brilliance of the Gay trade even when Memphis is struggling to score 80-85 points next round versus San Antonio (I realize that I worked a few assumptions into that sentence but if the Grizzlies eliminate the Thunder then they will struggle to score against whoever they face in the Western Conference Finals). Real science is based on stating a testable hypothesis and then experimentally testing that hypothesis. We have seen Pau Gasol-led Memphis teams go 0-12 in the playoffs. We have seen Pau Gasol be a solid second option on two Laker championship teams. We have seen Marc Gasol become a better, more physical player than his younger brother. We have seen Memphis become a better team than the Lakers in no small part because of the Gasol-Gasol trade. We have seen Memphis get virtually no production from the small forward position since the Gay trade and yet survive so far in the playoffs due to favorable matchups (overrated Clippers in the first round, injury-depleted Thunder in the second round). Any scientifically-inclined "stat guru" or "stat guru" acolyte should concede that Pau Gasol is not as valuable as the "stat gurus" thought he was in 2008 and that--at the very least--it is too soon to say that Memphis benefited from trading Gay; only if the Grizzlies can win a playoff series against a full strength championship contender can it be said that the Gay trade worked (and if that happens--without extenuating circumstances such as injuries or suspensions--then I will revise my hypothesis, because I actually adhere to scientific reasoning, unlike the "stat gurus" who are blindly married to their personal biases).
Barry's comment is ridiculous, too. Kevin Durant's game blossomed
right after the Thunder fired Carlesimo and replaced him with Scott Brooks; the first thing that Brooks did is move Durant back to his comfort zone at small forward. Yes, Durant is now a multifaceted veteran who can operate from all over the court but the last thing that Durant needed as a rookie and as a second year player was to learn a new position when he was just trying to become adjusted to playing in the NBA. Brooks, a former player, understood that even though Carlesimo did not; I had good reason to
predict prior to the 2013 playoffs that Carlesimo would be outcoached by Tom Thibodeau and that Carlesimo's Nets would lose most of the close games in their series versus the Bulls (the Bulls went 4-1 in games decided by eight points or less and the Nets fired Carlesimo after the injury-depleted Bulls won the seventh game in Brooklyn).
Most former players--including Jon's brother Brent--provide interesting insights based on their experiences in the league but this is not the first time that Jon has said something that made no sense: last year he
ranked Paul Millsap and Ryan Anderson as top five power forwards and a few years ago he teamed up with Mike Wilbon to
declare that the Lakers are better off when Kobe Bryant shoots less frequently. There are many refutations of that nonsensical assertion, including footage from
the Lakers' 4-0 loss to the Spurs in the first round of the 2013 playoffs. Bryant did not shoot at all during that series--
he suffered a season-ending Achilles injury after carrying the Lakers into the playoffs--and the Lakers endured their worst playoff defeat in franchise history.
One of the best things about the competitive chess world is that,
as former U.S. Champion Stuart Rachels put it, "...there is no issue about determining who the experts are. In chess,
the experts are the ones who win. In other artistic areas, experts are
harder to discern, and so claims about perception and beauty are harder
to verify." Sadly, this is not the case in the writing business or the television business; anyone who knows the "right" people can get hired and be presented to the world as an "expert," even if what he writes/says makes no sense. Dr. Emanuel Lasker, the World Chess Champion from 1894-1921,
stated this truth even more directly: "On the chess board lies and hypocrisy
do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption
of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts
the hypocrite."
Labels: Bill Simmons, Jon Barry, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City Thunder, Pau Gasol, Rudy Gay, Russell Westbrook
posted by David Friedman @ 4:16 AM
Real Talk About Media Coverage of NBA Coaching
I correctly predicted the winner of seven of the eight first round series, including both upsets in the #4 versus #5 matchups; my only mistake was favoring Denver over Golden State: the Nuggets took game one on Andre Miller's buzzer-beating layup and then lost four of the next five games. I should have known better than to pick a George Karl-coached team in the playoffs: Karl has a .599 regular season winning percentage but just a .432 playoff winning percentage; compare that to the winning percentages of championship-winning coaches Phil Jackson (.704/.688), Gregg Popovich (.681/.613), Erik Spoelstra (.660/.633), Pat Riley (.636/.606), Rick Carlisle (.587/.515), Larry Brown (.568/.511) and Doc Rivers (.554/.529) and it is clear that neither Karl's playoff winning percentage nor the gaping differential between his regular season/playoff winning percentages suggest that Karl is an elite level coach.
Coaching matters in the NBA, even though some "stat gurus" dispute this. When I picked Chicago to beat Brooklyn I
wrote, "This series features a huge coaching mismatch. TNT's Kenny Smith says
that if a team loses by more than five points then blame the players but
if it loses by less than five points blame the coach; the games in this
series figure to be low scoring and close and I trust Chicago's Tom
Thibodeau much more than I trust Brooklyn's P. J. Carlesimo; this is not
just about in-game adjustments but also about elements of preparation
that give one team an edge over another." Only two of the seven games in the Chicago-Brooklyn series were decided by five points or less--with each team winning one of those games--but five of the games were decided by eight points or less (including the triple overtime contest that Chicago won by eight points) and the Bulls went 4-1 in those games. Brooklyn's other two victories were both blowouts; there is no doubt that the Nets have a more talented team on paper than the injury-ravaged Bulls but the Bulls proved to be a more disciplined and focused squad: the Bulls did all of the "little things" that actually are quite important, such as setting solid screens, executing plays crisply and taking advantage of opportunities to score easy baskets on inbounds plays while also denying Brooklyn similar opportunities.
Bum Phillips once said that Don Shula "can take his'n and beat your'n or he can take your'n and beat
his'n." The Chicago-Brooklyn series very much had that feel; in game seven, the Bulls were without the services of 2011 MVP Derrick Rose (who missed the entire 2012-13 season), All-Star Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich while the Nets had all hands on deck yet the Bulls took a huge first half lead and never trailed en route to a 99-93 road win: if everything else were kept the same but the head coaches switched sides, I'd be willing to bet that the Nets would have won the series.
Coach bashing is a favorite media pastime but most media members do not have a clue how to determine if a team is well coached or poorly coached. I respect all NBA coaches tremendously and I fully realize that even a bad NBA head coach knows more about basketball than the vast majority of coaches at any other level of the sport; Karl is a very good NBA coach but he seems to be better suited for rebuilding teams/coaching underdogs than he is at extracting the maximum out of 50-plus win teams. Carlesimo was an excellent collegiate coach and he served as an assistant on Gregg Popovich's San Antonio staff so Carlesimo obviously has a very good basketball mind--but as an NBA head coach he has not measured up well in comparison with the best of the best, a category in which Thibodeau clearly belongs.
When I critique coaches like Carlesimo and Karl I am not trying to suggest that I know more about basketball than they do or that I would be a better NBA head coach; in other words, I am not acting like Bill Simmons. I am just doing my job as an NBA analyst by pointing out that, as much as Karl and Carlesimo know about basketball, there are other coaches who are demonstrably performing at a higher level.
Media members do not like to admit being wrong and it is interesting to see the lengths some of them will go to in order to avoid such admissions. Simmons used to regularly bash Doc Rivers' coaching acumen but now Rivers is widely recognized as a great coach so Simmons had to stop degrading Rivers--but did Simmons admit that he was wrong? Of course not! Simmons' story is that Rivers has evolved into being a great coach. Rivers won the 2000 Coach of the Year award in his first season as an NBA head coach after leading the "heart and hustle" Orlando Magic to a 41-41 record with Darrell Armstrong, John Amaechi and Chucky Atkins as the top three players in the rotation. Has Rivers become a better coach in the intervening 13 years? I am sure that he has; I hope that anyone who does something for more than a decade becomes better at it--but the idea that Rivers was a terrible coach who then became a great coach is absurd. Simmons was dead wrong about Rivers and he should just admit it.
Simmons' arrogance is not unique; Cleveland media members still give the Simmons treatment to Bill Belichick, who took over a 3-13 Browns team in 1991 and transformed them into an 11-5 playoff team by 1994. During Belichick's entire tenure in Cleveland the media relentlessly mocked his coaching strategies and his public speaking style. The Browns have not won a playoff game since the 1994 team went 1-1 in the postseason, while Belichick has won three Super Bowls in New England. Belichick is now widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest coaches in NFL history--but do the Cleveland media members admit that they were wrong? Of course not! They insist that Belichick learned from his supposed mistakes in Cleveland and became a much better coach in New England. Sure, that makes sense: he was a dunce in Cleveland but he became a genius in New England--well, if ignorance is contagious then perhaps one could theorize that he caught it from those Cleveland media members! Smart people are much more apt to learn from their mistakes than stupid people, so there is no doubt that Belichick learned from some mistakes that he made in Cleveland but the record before, during and after his time there shows that he did a great job as the Browns' coach. A lot of those very same media members
gave Mike Brown the Belichick treatment during Brown's first term as the Cavaliers' coach and they are no doubt gearing up to do so again as Brown takes over for the fired Byron Scott. We will be told that Brown should hire John Kuester as some kind of "offensive coordinator"--so that the Cavs can hope to replicate the awesome scoring attack that Kuester built during his tenure as Detroit's head coach when the Pistons ranked 29th and 22nd in points scored. Brown will be mocked for talking about his players letting him coach them, even though Hall of Fame Coach Chuck Daly
said exactly the same thing; that statement has nothing to do with being a soft person or a bad leader and everything to do with understanding the nature of the culture in an NBA locker room: if a coach cannot elicit "voluntary cooperation" (Pat Riley's way of referring to the concept mentioned by Daly and Brown) then he cannot function effectively.
Mike Brown does not need me to defend him; he is well paid for his services and he is well respected by people who actually understand the technical aspects of the sport--I just wish that media members covered the league more intelligently, but we are all getting the media coverage that we accept/tolerate; perhaps some day editors and consumers will hold writers/TV talking heads to higher standards but it does not seem like that kind of change will happen any time soon.
Labels: Bill Belichick, Bill Simmons, Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets, Chicago Bulls, Doc Rivers, Mike Brown, Orlando Magic, P.J. Carlesimo, Tom Thibodeau
posted by David Friedman @ 3:31 AM
James Harden Regresses to the Mean
After the first two games of the season, many members of the mainstream media seemed ready to award the scoring title, the MVP and possibly induction to the Basketball Hall of Fame to James Harden, who scored 37 points on 14-25 field goal shooting in his season debut with the Houston Rockets and then poured in a career-high 45 points on 14-19 field goal shooting in his second game--but in his next five games Harden has averaged 19.8 ppg while shooting 29-88 (.330) from the field. Neither sample size is large enough to form the basis for drawing definitive conclusions about Harden but the way that the mainstream media swooned about Harden's first two games while largely ignoring how poorly he has played in his next five games reveals a lot about the nature of mainstream media coverage not just of sports but in general: the mainstream media selects a narrative and then highlights anything that follows that narrative while ignoring anything that deviates from that narrative. This is true in politics, economics, sports and any other subject that receives extensive mainstream media coverage.
The preferred Harden narrative is that Harden is a superstar, that he is a better team player/playmaker than Russell Westbrook and that "stat guru" Daryl Morey used "advanced basketball statistics" to make a brilliant trade that substantially improved his Houston Rockets while weakening the Oklahoma City Thunder. I have a decidedly non-mainstream
perspective about the James Harden deal: I do not consider Harden to be a superstar, I do not think that he is a better player than Russell Westbrook and--even though Morey does, in some ways, seem to be more reasonable and objective than the typical "stat guru"--I am not impressed by Morey's tenure as Houston's General Manager, nor do I agree with his contention that Harden is a "foundational player."
A basic tenet believed by many "stat gurus" is that per minute production is much more meaningful than per game production, with the corollary that a player's per minute production in one setting is completely transferable to a different setting. In other words, if a player averages 25 points per 36 minutes as a reserve playing 18 minutes a game for Team A then he is perfectly capable of maintaining that production--without any loss of efficiency--while playing 36 minutes a game as the number one option for Team B. Harden earned the Sixth Man of the Year Award last season but he benefited from playing alongside Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; Harden also spent most of his time either playing against other reserves or else facing starters who were already fatigued from being on the court while Harden rested. Harden is a very good player--and he is young enough that he could possibly continue to improve--but it is more than a bit of a stretch to suggest that he is a "foundational player" or that he he is worth the five year max contract that Morey gave him. I do not project that Harden's career path will approximate the career paths of John Havlicek and Paul Westphal, reserve players for excellent teams who later became All-NBA players; Harden's skill set is much more similar to Manu Ginobili's and thus Harden is best suited to being the third option on a championship contender. The added demands of playing more minutes against starters coupled with facing more double teams will take a toll on Harden's productivity and efficiency over the long haul, even though Harden is--like any good player--capable of producing great games on occasion.
It is amusing that "stat gurus" and their media sycophants simultaneously claim to be more objective than other talent evaluators yet do not seem to understand basic concepts like regression to the mean. Whether Harden scored 45 points in the first game of the season or in the 45th game of the season, that is clearly an aberrant performance--it will almost certainly be his season-high and it could even end up as his career-high. One great game does not justify the decision to build an entire franchise around Harden--and a closer look at Harden's overall production for Houston suggests that his per minute production is not translating very well from Oklahoma City to his new team. While Harden's per minute scoring has increased--mainly because his field goal attempts are up by more than 50%--his rebounding and assists are down slightly, his turnovers have skyrocketed and his shooting percentages have plummeted. Contrary to what "stat gurus" believe, there is a big difference between being the third option on a championship caliber team and being the first option on a mediocre team. Harden shot .491 from the field, .390 from three point range and .846 from the free throw line last season; this season--even including his aberrant first two games--he is shooting .432 from the field, .256 from three point range and .824 from the free throw line. He has shot better than .353 from the field once in the past five games and he has shot 5-29 (.172) from three point range in those five contests. Harden's much praised playmaking resulted in 14 assists and nine turnovers in the first two games--not a great ratio--and he has 32 turnovers against 32 assists overall.
Meanwhile, Kevin Martin--the key player who the Thunder received in exchange for Harden--is quietly having the most efficient season of his career (though the only reason this is "quiet" is that the mainstream media is ignoring Martin's production because it does not fit the preferred narrative). Remember all of the overheated rhetoric about how Martin could not replace Harden? Martin is averaging 17.1 ppg while posting career-high shooting percentages from the field (.481), the three point line (.500) and the free throw line (.938). Martin is not a great playmaker but he is averaging 2.0 apg, very solid for a backup shooting guard playing 29.4 mpg. Harden averaged 16.8 ppg and 3.7 apg in 31.4 mpg for the Thunder last season. It should be obvious that the shift from third option to first option has hurt Harden's efficiency while the shift from first option to third option has helped Martin's efficiency. Both trends will likely continue.
Some critics have decried a "system" that "prevents" teams like the Thunder from keeping their nucleus together but that is not an accurate description of what happened; the Thunder offered Harden a very generous contract--much like the Spurs offered market value, non-max deals to Manu Ginobili in the past--and Harden elected to turn down that deal with the full knowledge that this would result in him being traded. Harden chose money over a potential championship. He certainly has every right to do so, just as the Thunder have every right to not overpay their third best player. It is not possible to overstate how ironic it is that Morey has likely vastly overpaid Harden, because for years the "stat gurus" and their mainstream media sycophants have criticized traditional-minded GMs for overpaying players, something that "stat gurus" supposedly would not do when given the chance to run NBA franchises. If Harden averages 18-20 ppg while shooting .430 from the field this season for a Houston team that once again misses the playoffs will Henry Abbott, Bill Simmons and other "stat guru" media sycophants eagerly expound at length on this subject the way that they ludicrously dissect Kobe Bryant's facial expressions and shot selection? It is more likely that Harden will morph into LeBron James than that Abbott, Simmons and others of their ilk will objectively cover the
strengths and limitations of "advanced basketball statistics." If Harden continues to struggle and it is no longer feasible to write Harden for MVP articles then you can expect that Abbott, Simmons and other like-minded propagandists will once again become very intensely interested in "analyzing" a subset consisting of less than 100 of the more than 22,000 field goals that Bryant has attempted during his career (i.e., last second shots in one possession games); those shots are no more statistically significant than James Harden's first two games of this season but "stat gurus" much prefer sticking to the "Kobe Bryant is overrated" narrative than admitting that the narrative about the alleged value of "advanced basketball statistics" for talent evaluation in the NBA has more than a few holes in the plot.
Labels: Bill Simmons, Daryl Morey, Henry Abbott, Houston Rockets, James Harden, Kevin Martin, Oklahoma City Thunder, stat gurus
posted by David Friedman @ 3:49 PM
