NBA Suspends Draymond Green Indefinitely for his "Repeated History of Unsportsmanlike Acts"
Less than a month after suspending Draymond Green for five games for "unsportsmanlike and dangerous" conduct, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has suspended Draymond Green indefinitely because of his "repeated history of unsportsmanlike acts," the latest of which was slugging Jusuf Nurkic in the face. The NBA's public statement added that Green "will be required to meet certain league and team conditions before he returns to play."
An indefinite suspension could last for just one game--although that seem unlikely here--or it could turn into a permanent ban (which also seems unlikely, though perhaps not impossible given Green's violent and volatile behavior). The last NBA player who received an indefinite suspension is Gilbert Arenas, who now just recklessly shoots off his mouth on his podcast instead of threatening to shoot people with guns. Arenas earned his indefinite suspension in 2010--and came close to being a Darwin Award winner--by bringing four guns into the locker room and challenging then-teammate Javaris Crittenton to choose one for a gun duel. After his NBA career ended, Crittenton served 10 years in prison for manslaughter; Arenas may have thought his locker room gun play was all (foolish) fun and games, but he was messing with someone who had no compunction about pulling a trigger and taking another person's life: Crittenton shot and killed a 22 year old mother of four in a drive-by shooting--and the victim's family is understandably outraged that he only served 10 years of his 23 year sentence (but that is a topic for a different article). Commissioner David Stern succinctly explained why he suspended Arenas by stating that Arenas "is not currently fit to take the court in an NBA game." Stern also suspended Crittenton for the rest of the season, and Crittenton never played in the NBA again.
Arenas' suspension lasted 50 games. He then returned to the Washington Wizards, and resumed jacking up wild shots for a losing team before the Wizards dealt him to the Orlando Magic. Arenas averaged 8.0 ppg on .344 field goal shooting in 49 games for the Magic in 2010-11 before concluding his career by scoring 4.2 ppg on .406 field goal shooting in 17 games for the Memphis Grizzlies in 2011-12. Now, Arenas--who won a grand total of one playoff series during his entire career--dispenses his peculiar perspective on basketball on a podcast featuring hot takes that are as off the mark as his erratic .421 career field goal shooting. Arenas' post-suspension NBA career lasted 87 games.
Stern's description of Arenas' lack of fitness to appear in an NBA game is applicable to Green as well. Hopefully,
Green will seek help and make sincere efforts to change his mindset and
behavior as opposed to just paying lip service long enough to get back
on the court. Right now, Green is an overrated and emotionally erratic player for a sub.-500 team; he is not indispensable for the Warriors, and the Warriors are far from being a marquee team, so Green is on a trajectory taking him out of the league if he does not get his act together. The bottom line is that the Warriors don't need him--they can be sub-.500 without his extra baggage--and the NBA is fed up with him.
Labels: Adam Silver, David Stern, Draymond Green, Gilbert Arenas, Golden State Warriors
posted by David Friedman @ 1:16 AM
Memphis Grizzlies Announce That Ja Morant Will Miss at Least the Next Two Games
Let's hope that Ja Morant does not end up like Gilbert Arenas or--even worse--Tupac Shakur. Athletes and entertainers who wave around guns or otherwise portray themselves as being "about that life" have a long, sad history, a history that those who are close to Morant and care about him should make sure that Morant familiarizes himself with during his upcoming time off of work.
Today, the Memphis Grizzlies issued a brief statement: "Ja Morant will be away from the team for at least the next two games." The Grizzlies did not call this action a suspension, did not indicate if Morant will be paid during his absence, and did not explain why Morant will miss at least two games. Of course, anyone who follows the news even casually knows exactly what happened. Last night, Morant posted a video of himself on Instagram holding a gun, apparently in a nightclub. Recently, Morant was sued as a result of an incident during which he allegedly beat up a 17 year old and brandished a gun during that attack; Morant denied that accusation, and the authorities declined to press charges. Earlier this season, associates of Morant's were banned by the Indiana Pacers after the Pacers' traveling party alleged that a red laser dot--like one used to aim a gun--had been pointed at them. The NBA investigated that incident but found no evidence that a gun had been pointed. Last summer, Morant and associates allegedly had a confrontation with a head of mall security; no charges were filed as a result of that incident.
I am a firm believer in the bedrock legal principle of innocent until proven guilty. Morant has not been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one.
That being said, a person who keeps putting himself in the wrong place at the wrong time runs the risk of having wrong outcomes. During tonight's ESPN "NBA Countdown," Jalen Rose--who candidly admitted that he used to be Ja Morant, a young basketball star figuring out how to adjust to fame and fortune while resisting the lure of the streets and the temptation to act like a tough guy--said that he has learned that people enter your life for one of four reasons: addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division. Rose declared that Morant is a leader now whether he wants to be or not, and that he is responsible for who he associates with and for his actions. Rose is encouraged by the statement that Morant issued, and Rose is optimistic that Morant will grow as a person as a result of this situation.
Here is Morant's statement: "I'm sorry to my
family, teammates, coaches, fans, partners, the city of Memphis and the
entire Grizzlies organization for letting you down. I'm going to take
some time away to get help and work on learning better methods of
dealing with stress and my overall well-being."
That statement is the right message, but talk is cheap. Morant's subsequent actions will demonstrate the sincerity of his statement.
Part of Morant's self-cultivated image while emerging as an NBA star is that he "wants all the smoke," meaning that he does not back down from anyone or anything. There is nothing wrong with swagger. Some of my favorite athletes of all-time--from Muhammad Ali to Reggie Jackson to Deion Sanders--bragged about how great they were. There are two key things to remember about Ali, Jackson, and Sanders: (1) They backed up their braggadocio with championship-winning performances, and (2) they understood the difference between competitive swagger and reckless personal behavior. Morant has fallen short in both regards, and the latter failing could have fatal consequences for himself and others.
I am not accusing Morant of anything--other than foolishly posting the gun video on Instagram, which Morant has not denied doing--but I hope that Rose is right that Morant will make better decisions moving forward.
It will be interesting to see how the NBA handles this. Commissioner Adam Silver often appears to fancy himself as a friend to the players, in contrast to his predecessor David Stern, who understood that his job was not to befriend the players but to act in the league's best interests (which is also benefits the players). I recall an interview in which Carmelo Anthony described a one on one meeting that he had with Commissioner Stern, who told Anthony that he knows where Anthony goes, what Anthony does, and with whom Anthony associates. Stern told Anthony point blank that he can embrace street life or he can participate in the NBA's multi-billion dollar business, but he cannot do both. That is the kind of tough love that saves lives. I hope that Commissioner Silver delivers a similar message to Morant. It would be great if Morant's father--who seems to love the limelight--delivers that message to Morant as well.
Labels: Gilbert Arenas, Ja Morant, Memphis Grizzlies, Tupac Shakur
posted by David Friedman @ 10:14 PM
How High Will the Rockets Fly Without Harden?
The championship aspirations of James Harden's new team, the Brooklyn Nets, are much discussed, but it is interesting to observe Harden's former team as well. The Houston Rockets did not win a title with Harden, and they are not likely to win a title any time soon without him, but historically speaking an MVP-level player is typically worth at least 15-20 wins. Examples of this abound, including NBA-ready rookies Larry Bird and David Robinson, whose teams improved 32 wins and 35 wins respectively upon their arrival. Bird and Robinson were not entirely responsible for those win increases, but in both situations they were primarily responsible for turning around their franchises.
Harden received the 2018 regular season MVP, and he has finished second in the MVP voting three times (2015, 2017, 2019). If he is worthy of being considered a perennial MVP candidate then he should also be worth at least 15-20 wins.
After defeating the Portland Trail Blazers 104-101 tonight, the new-look Rockets are 5-3 since trading away Harden, a significant improvement from their 3-6 start to the season with Harden (Harden missed one game, a Rockets win versus Sacramento). After his final game with the Rockets--during which he scored 16 points on 5-16 field goal shooting as Houston lost by 17 to the L.A. Lakers--Harden publicly expressed his view that the Rockets were just not good enough. It is obvious that Harden quit on the team, and that the Rockets were not as bad as they looked with Harden, but it is also obvious that replacing Harden with Victor Oladipo is not a huge talent drop off, regardless of what the NBA's MVP voters may think.
This is obviously a small sample size of games in an unusual season dominated by the specter of COVID-19 and the associated health and safety protocols enacted by the NBA to attempt to complete an abbreviated 72 game schedule. However, the notion that the Rockets could be a good team without Harden should not be shocking to anyone who has followed Harden's career.
Harden has been putting up video-game level individual numbers for many years, but those numbers did not translate into consistent postseason success for the Rockets. Harden's Houston teams lost in the first round three times in eight seasons while making just two trips to the Western Conference Finals, and failing to reach the NBA Finals. As discussed in my analysis of Daryl Morey's Houston legacy, that is not elite level playoff performance.
Harden reminds me of Gilbert Arenas and Stephon Marbury, two players who put up gaudy individual numbers but who had very little positive impact on winning. After Arenas suffered an injury that caused him to miss extensive playing time and the Washington Wizards were not much worse without him, I asked Is Gilbert Arenas the Most Overrated All-Star in the NBA? Arenas' fans did not like that article, but they also could not refute the reality that even with Arenas the Wizards struggled to stay above .500. The record shows that Arenas did not have much impact on winning when he played, and the Wizards did not completely fall apart when he did not play.
There are players who score 30 points in a way that compromises opposing defenses and leads to team success, and there are players who score 30 points in a way that has little impact on team success. If you take Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant off of a team then that team is going to struggle unless/until that team acquires a legit MVP-level player (the 1993-94 Chicago Bulls did not collapse without Jordan primarily because the Bulls still had Scottie Pippen, arguably the best all-around player in the league at that time other than Jordan). If you take Arenas or Harden off of a team, that team can survive by either adding an All-Star level player, or possibly even by pooling the collective efforts of several good but not great players.
Marbury did not score as prolifically as Arenas or Harden, but he averaged at least 20 ppg and at least 8 apg in six different seasons, a feat exceeded only by Oscar Robertson, who had 10 such seasons. Robertson was a master of the all-around game, a basketball genius; Marbury was the antithesis of Robertson in every meaningful way. Marbury made the playoffs just five times during his 13 season career, and his final playoff appearance was as a little-used reserve for the 2009 Boston Celtics; as a starter he never advanced past the first round. Marbury had all of the physical tools--he was strong, fast, and durable--but he did not know (or care) how to play winning basketball.
To a lesser extent, Steve Nash falls into the category of overrated player, but with some important caveats. At his peak, Nash was legitimately an MVP-level player, and he had a Hall of Fame-caliber career--but there is no way he should have been a two-time regular season MVP while his far more impactful contemporaries Shaquillle O'Neal and Kobe Bryant each won one regular season MVP. MVP voters assigned a value to Nash's performance that is not fully supported by what happened on the court. Of course, Nash was a better teammate than Arenas, Marbury, and Harden, and Nash had a much better understanding of what it takes to win--Nash just did not have the physical capability to dominate a game all over the court to the extent that players like Jordan, O'Neal, and Bryant could while leading teams to multiple titles.
During Nash's final season with the Dallas Mavericks (2003-04), Dallas went 52-30 in the regular season, and lost in the first round of the playoffs. Next season, the Mavericks replaced Nash with Jason Terry--a good player, but hardly an all-time great--and lost in the second round of the playoffs after posting a 58-24 regular season record. The Mavericks advanced to the NBA Finals in 2005-06 after going 60-22 in the regular season, and they eventually won an NBA title in 2011; Jason Terry was the sixth man for that team, but still ranked third on the squad in minutes played per game.
Meanwhile, Nash's Phoenix teams--which were stacked with All-Stars and All-Star caliber players, including Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion, and Joe Johnson--advanced to the Western Conference Finals three times in eight years but never made it to the NBA Finals.
If your former team can replace you with a solid player and have better results, and if you cannot lead a stacked team to at least one NBA Finals, then you are not the best player in the NBA. Most NBA MVPs won at least one title. The exceptions are Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The first three players on the list each led at least one team to the NBA Finals. Westbrook was the second best player on one Finalist, and Harden was the sixth man for that 2012 Oklahoma City squad. Rose's career trajectory was altered by injury, but he also won his MVP at least in part due to the negative narrative surrounding LeBron James after he quit in the playoffs before fleeing Cleveland for Miami.
Antetokounmpo is the only player from this group who is still in his prime, so he gets a pass for now--Michael Jordan and LeBron James each won multiple regular season MVPs before they won their first NBA titles, so it remains to be seen what path Antetokounmpo's career will take.
When the Rockets shipped out Harden, they did not get rid of a player who is worth 15-20 wins. If Oladipo and John Wall--who was initially acquired to play alongside Harden--can both stay healthy then the Rockets can continue to be what they were during the Harden era: a good team, but not quite good enough to win a title.
Labels: Gilbert Arenas, Houston Rockets, James Harden, John Wall, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal, Stephon Marbury, Steve Nash, Victor Oladipo
posted by David Friedman @ 11:27 PM
A Revealing Glimpse at the Houston Rockets Sans James Harden
Many people who pump up James Harden as the NBA MVP claim that Harden has little help and that his Houston Rockets would be a poor team without him. Harden plays heavy minutes and, until Sunday night, had not missed a game this season, so there have not been many opportunities to observe this team sans Harden.
On Sunday night, though, we saw the Rockets not only without Harden but also without starters Trevor Ariza and Ryan Anderson. If the Rockets are truly a team that lacks talent and depth, then the loss of three starters should be a fatal blow even against a poor team like the Phoenix Suns--but Houston handled Phoenix rather easily, jumping out to a 25-10 lead en route to a 123-116 victory. Eric Gordon moved into the starting lineup in Harden's place and produced 22 points, six rebounds and five assists. Meanwhile, Patrick Beverley shifted to point guard and inherited Harden's role, leading Houston with 26 points and nine assists while adding eight rebounds--a more than passable replication of Harden's regular season averages. Beverley was actually more efficient than Harden, shooting 11-19 from the field while committing just two turnovers. He also had a game high +14 plus/minus number.
This does not mean that Houston is better without Harden or that Beverley is as good as Harden--but it does suggest that (1) point guard is a stat-padding position in Coach Mike D'Antoni's offense and (2) the Rockets are not some sad sack group that is being carried by Harden; any point guard who plays for D'Antoni is going to have elevated statistics and the Rockets would be quite good in this system with this roster even without Harden.
What is interesting about this is that when Harden played in a completely different system under a different coach and with a different roster Houston also showed the ability to thrive without him: the Rockets trailed the L.A. Clippers 3-1 in the 2015 Western Conference semifinals before the Rockets rallied to win three straight games, including a pivotal
game six road victory during which Harden shot 5-20 from the field and sat out all but a few seconds of the fourth quarter as his teammates desperately fought to stave off elimination. I cannot think of another occasion when a supposedly MVP caliber player who was healthy and not in foul trouble spent so much time on the bench in the most critical moments of his team's playoff run. Houston Coach Kevin McHale sent a clear message that he believed his team had a better chance to win with Harden on the bench than with Harden on the court--a decision that won the series but ultimately cost McHale his job, as Harden came back the next season out of shape, unmotivated and clearly disinterested in listening to anything that McHale said.
Also, it is important to remember that
the Rockets barely improved after Harden's arrival; the Rockets' winning percentage during Harden's first season with the team inched up from .515 to .549, which is roughly equivalent to three wins in an 82 game season. The jump to a .659 winning percentage the following season (2013-14) coincided with the acquisition of Dwight Howard; the Rockets enjoyed homecourt advantage in the first round versus Portland but lost in six games. Then came the fluky 2015 run to the Western Conference Finals, followed by the horrible 2016 season that culminated in the firing of two coaches and the overhaul of the roster; the Rockets now have a great regular season coach, Mike D'Antoni, who employs a system that works well against bad teams and against teams that do not have the opportunity to prepare but works much less well against good teams that have time to prepare during a playoff series.
We have seen the Harden-type script fool media members before: Gilbert Arenas was a high-scoring guard who supposedly was an MVP caliber player who was indispensable for the Washington Wizards--until he missed almost an entire season due to injury and
the Wizards essentially posted the same winning percentage without him that they posted with him.
Also consider Carmelo Anthony and the Denver Nuggets. Anthony was supposedly the driving force behind the Nuggets making the playoffs year after year--at least until the Nuggets traded him for several role players and then posted the best regular season winning percentage in the franchise's NBA history (the franchise's subsequent collapse can be directly linked to the departure of a great General Manager--Masai Ujiri, who promptly turned the Toronto Raptors into a contender--and a very good coach, George Karl).
Again, the sample sizes for the Wizards sans Arenas and the Nuggets sans Anthony were large, while the sample size for the Rockets without Harden is small--but it has been my contention for four years that Harden's impact on team success is overrated and the evidence that we have supports that thesis.
Anthony, Arenas and Harden are elite scorers; in a given season, each of them could properly be considered an All-Star or even an All-NBA Team level performer--but their defensive ineptitude and their ineffectiveness as leaders renders their impact on team success to be much less than is often assumed by casual fans or by media members who frequently do not possess the capability to accurately analyze the sport.
Labels: Carmelo Anthony, Denver Nuggets, Gilbert Arenas, Houston Rockets, James Harden, Patrick Beverley, Phoenix Suns, Washington Wizards
posted by David Friedman @ 10:08 PM
Examining the Collapse of the "Leastern" Conference
The Eastern Conference has a proud tradition of producing great teams led by great players; in the 1980s and 1990s alone, Julius Erving/Moses Malone (Philadelphia), Larry Bird/Kevin McHale/Robert Parish (Boston), Isiah Thomas/Joe Dumars (Detroit) and Michael Jordan/Scottie Pippen (Chicago) played the game at the highest possible level--but now the Eastern Conference resembles the remains of some long lost civilization that has been devastated by a massive disaster: the eighth place team (Chicago) is barely on pace to win 32 games.
David Aldridge recently offered his take on the Eastern Conference's implosion (
Why is the East so bad now? Ten factors stand out the most). Here are his top 10 reasons for the East's collapse, along with my comments/observations (Aldridge's analysis is summarized in italics):
1)"Howard's End":
Aldridge notes that if Dwight Howard had stayed in Orlando then the Magic would be a perennial championship contender instead of being headed for yet another appearance in the Draft Lottery. Championship teams are almost always led by at least one superstar (a term which should not be used generically but instead should refer to someone who consistently plays at an All-NBA First Team level) and Howard is one of several superstars who have shifted the balance of power due to trades, injuries or free agency.
2) "The Devil in Mr. Rose":
Speaking of departing superstars, Derrick Rose missed all of last season due to a knee injury and he figures to miss all of this season due to another knee injury. Aldridge points out that with Rose the Chicago Bulls could have contended for the title but without him they may elect to rebuild and assemble a different nucleus. A fully healthy Chicago team could have posed a major challenge to the Miami Heat's current championship run; the Bulls are tough, defensive-minded, physical and they are not afraid of the Heat--even when Rose is out of the lineup. However, without Rose the Bulls simply do not have enough star power and scoring punch to take out the Heat in a seven game series.
3) "A Series of Unfortunate Events":
Aldridge mentions that for several years the Detroit Pistons were the "gold standard" but that the team "had to be rebuilt" and that the Pistons "came up snake eyes after rolling sevens year after year." While Aldridge correctly traces the Pistons' decline back to the firing of Coach Larry Brown, he neglects to mention
Joe Dumars' Peculiar Fascination with Rodney Stuckey. I will never understand why Dumars put so much faith in a journeyman player and why he discarded two perennial All-Stars (first Chauncey Billups, then Allen Iverson) in order to install Stuckey as one of Detroit's starting guards.
4) "The Man With Two Brains":
Aldridge traces the Wizards' recent somnolence to the fall of Gilbert Arenas. With all due respect to Aldridge and Arenas, Arenas was never an elite player and the Wizards were never a great team even when Arenas was at the peak of his powers; in fact, the Wizards
did better without Arenas in the 2007-08 season than they did with him in the 2006-07 season (they posted a .536 winning percentage sans Arenas in 2007-08, compared to a .534 winning percentage in the 2006-07 season prior to Arenas and Caron Butler suffering season-ending injuries). The Wizards never won more than 45 regular season games during Arenas' tenure with the team, nor did they ever advance past the second round of the playoffs, so it does not make sense to suggest that Arenas' decline has much to do with the decline of the Eastern Conference as a whole.
5) "A River(s) Runs Through It":
The departure of Coach Doc Rivers plus the entire Big Three spelled doom for the Boston Celtics. This is obvious and true, though the Celtics would not have been a legitimate championship contender this season even if Rivers, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen were still Celtics. Pierce and Garnett are running on fumes, while Allen has settled comfortably into being a heady, reliable role player.
6) "Swimming With Sharks":
If Chris Paul had not ended up with the Clippers then Rivers might have chosen to coach the Nets instead of heading out to L.A. This is pure speculation by Aldridge; he might be right, he might be wrong but either way this could have been included in his analysis of reason five.
7) "Speaking of the Devil...":
Nobody expected the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets to be this bad. That is a reasonable assertion; I
predicted that the Nets would finish fourth in the East and that the Knicks would finish fifth in the East (they are currently 10th and 14th respectively) but I also wrote of the Nets "it is questionable how good this aging team will be defensively" (the Nets currently rank 22nd out of 30 teams in points allowed and 17th in defensive field goal percentage). I have
consistently criticized New York's rebuilding plan and while I did not expect them to be this bad I also never viewed the Knicks as a team that would get past the second round of the playoffs.
8) "South Beach":
The Decision set back the Cleveland Cavaliers for several years and they still have not fully recovered. True and true. However, I disagree with Aldridge's assertion, "...they couldn't put a team around him (James) that was good enough to win it all."
James led the Cavs to the 2007 NBA Finals and he also led them to the best regular season record in the league two years in a row (2009, 2010). James' refusal to commit to Cleveland and/or recruit players to come to Cleveland made it difficult for team management to surround him with the best talent but James had enough help around him to win a title if only he had not
quit against Boston during the 2010 playoffs. If James had stayed in Cleveland, if he had recruited players to join him there the way that he recruited players after signing with Miami and if he matured as a person/player the way that he did in Miami then he very likely would have led the Cavs to at least one championship.
9) "The Other Guys":
Orlando and Cleveland lost their superstars and the Knicks, Nets and Pistons engaged in rebuilding plans that have yet to build much of significance--but Western teams like Oklahoma City, Golden State, Memphis and Houston methodically improved their rosters. Aldridge is right for the most part, though Memphis has made a series of moves (including trading Rudy Gay and getting rid of Coach Lionel Hollins) that significantly set the franchise back and Houston floundered a la the Knicks for several years before becoming a marginal playoff team last year. It remains to be seen if Houston's highly touted free agent signings of Dwight Howard and James Harden will result in much postseason success.
10) "Tank":
Some teams may be more interested in jockeying for draft position than in winning right now. This is sad but true. It would be interesting to research the fates of franchises that genuinely tanked and/or could reasonably be accused of genuinely tanking. Has tanking ever led to a championship? The great Boston, Philadelphia and L.A. teams never tanked, nor did the more recent three-peat dynasties in Chicago and L.A. If there are any teams that are tanking now I hope that they keep losing for many years to come.
Labels: Boston Celtics, David Aldridge, Derrick Rose, Detroit Pistons, Doc Rivers, Dwight Howard, Eastern Conference, Gilbert Arenas, LeBron James, NBA, Rodney Stuckey
posted by David Friedman @ 4:17 PM
The Value of Skepticism
Einstein's Theory of Relativity has led to countless scientific breakthroughs and greatly increased our understanding of the universe, yet physicists are still constantly running experiments to test it and make sure that it provides the most valid description of how gravitational fields work. This is because real science is based on skepticism, doubt and questioning--not credulity, certainty and censorship of opposing ideas.
I used to be an active contributor at APBRMetrics, the website for the "stat guru" wing of the Association of Professional Basketball Research, but I stopped going there after several discussions degenerated into name-calling and after it became apparent that many "stat gurus" have no understanding of (or interest in) the methods of genuine scientific inquiry.
Recently, I stumbled on an article that argued that Gilbert Arenas had once been an elite player. Since I strongly disagree with that idea, I posted a respectful comment and then I
wrote a brief article here that linked to the ongoing discussion. The original author of the Arenas piece never really directed addressed my points--let alone attempt to refute them--but some other people offered their opinions and I have been responding to those comments over the past few days. The Basketball Reference.com blog used to contain a link to 20 Second Timeout but, oddly, after I posted my most recent comment there I noticed that the sidebar link to 20 Second Timeout had been removed. Perhaps Neil Paine and his Basketball Reference cohorts don't want to have too many people visiting here and possibly getting the idea that "advanced basketball statistics" have not completely solved all questions regarding individual and team evaluations. That's too bad, because the truth is that if the "stat gurus" refuse to listen to valid criticisms regarding their methodologies and conclusions then it is unlikely that they will ever achieve their goal of better understanding basketball (if, in fact, that is really their goal).
Labels: "advanced basketball statistics", Gilbert Arenas
posted by David Friedman @ 4:22 PM
Evaluating Gilbert Arenas' Value During his Prime
Neil Paine wrote an interesting article asserting that Gilbert Arenas was an MVP level player back in 2007 and an elite level player for several seasons. I disagree with Paine's premise, his evidence and his conclusion, so I wrote a comment responding to his article. This initiated a very interesting exchange of ideas that provides an instructive look at the difference between the way that I think and write about basketball and the way that other people (particularly "stat gurus") think and write about basketball.
Here is the first comment that I posted in response to his article:
The 2005-2009 time frame is a very interesting choice. The 2009 Wizards were not only without Arenas' services but Caron Butler missed 15 games, Brendan Haywood essentially missed the entire season and Antonio Daniels--who filled in very capably for Arenas in previous seasons--was on his last legs before being traded to the Hornets.
The period when Arenas was allegedly an elite player had already ended by 2009, so let's just look at 2004-05 through 2007-08; during those four seasons Arenas made his only three All-Star appearances and earned his only All-NBA selections (Third Team in 2005 and 2006, Second Team in 2007). The Wizards won 45, 42, 41 and 43 games during those seasons. Keep in mind that in each of those seasons Arenas had at least one other All-Star or All-Star caliber player by his side. Here are the Wizards' records with and without Arenas in each of those seasons:
2005: 44-36 with, 1-1 without
2006: 40-40 with, 2-0 without
2007: 39-35 with, 2-6 without
2008: 6-7 with, 37-32 without
The Wizards were 129-118 with Arenas during his prime (.522) and 42-39 without Arenas during his prime (.519).
It would also be very interesting if you shared with your readers the Wizards' record in games that both Arenas and Butler missed as opposed to the games that only Arenas missed. I am surprised that someone who is trying to look at things analytically would not want to factor in the impact of another All-Star being out of the lineup at the same time that Arenas was out.
The reality is that even when Arenas was at his best he was on the fringe of being elite (I consider elite to be top five to top 10, but some people throw that term around so loosely it seems like there are supposedly 20 or 30 "elite" players at any given time) and his team only performed slightly better with him than it did without him. The Wizards were slightly above .500 during Arenas' prime when he played and they were slightly above .500 during Arenas' prime when he did not play.
Paine responded simply, "Arenas still had the benefit of the doubt through 2009. It wasn't until 2010 that he definitively proved he was no longer his old self."
Obviously, that hardly addresses the points that I made, so I answered with this comment:
You do not find it statistically significant that throughout the period when Arenas was an All-Star/All-NBA player (1) his team was barely above .500 when he played and (2) his team essentially posted the same winning percentage whether or not he played? How many "elite" players barely led their teams to .500 records during their primes over a period of four years? How many teams performed essentially the same without an "elite" player even when that "elite" player missed a substantial number of games?
It is instructive to compare Arenas' impact on the Wizards to Tracy McGrady's impact on the Rockets during a similar time period, a subject that I discussed in March 2008 when the Rockets posted the second best regular season winning streak in NBA history:
"There is a stark and dramatic contrast between the Rockets’ record when McGrady plays (162-83, a .661 winning percentage) versus their record when he is not in the lineup (19-46, a .292 winning percentage). Prorated over 82 games, the Rockets have essentially performed like a 54 win team with McGrady and a 24 win team without him. This year, the numbers read 36-13 (.735) with McGrady and 8-7 (.533) without him, which prorates to 60 wins and 44 wins respectively."
From 2005-08, McGrady made the All-Star team three times and made the All-NBA team three times (Third Team twice, Second Team once) but he had a much greater impact on his team's won-loss record than Arenas did during that same time frame. Overall, McGrady made the All-NBA First Team twice and the All-NBA Second Team three times and he was clearly an elite player (when healthy) for an extended period of time, whether one looks at his skill set, his individual numbers or the striking impact that he had on his team's won-loss record--when he played the Rockets were a contending team (projecting to 54 regular season wins) but when he did not play the Rockets performed like a lottery team.
The burden of proof is squarely in the corner of anyone who suggests that Arenas ever was an "elite" player, because the evidence strongly suggests that this is not true--unless you define "elite" to be top 20 or top 30; I am defining "elite" to mean someone is one of the top five to 10 players in the NBA, which usually corresponds to making the All-NBA First or Second Teams. Granted, sometimes there can be mistakes in the voting and a player could theoretically be "elite" without making those teams if there is a glut of talent at his position (voting is done by position, so in theory a non-elite player could make the All-NBA team at, say, center, while an elite level guard fails to make the team).
Since you elected not to share the Butler splits with your readers, permit me to quote from some research that I did two years ago:
"In 2007-08, the Wizards essentially replaced Arenas with career journeyman Antonio Daniels--a solid pro who has played with five teams in his 11 year NBA career--and not only did not miss a beat, they actually performed better. It is important to remember that Butler missed 24 games last season; the Wizards went 33-25 (.569) with Butler and 10-14 (.417) without him--and five of the losses with Butler also came with Arenas in the starting lineup. Washington's best starting lineup last season (by winning percentage, with a minimum of 10 games) was Butler, Daniels, Antawn Jamison, Brendan Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson. That group went 23-16 (.590) for nearly half a season without Arenas, which projects to a 48-34 record, a mark that would exceed the Wizards' best season since acquiring Arenas."
Labels: "advanced basketball statistics", Gilbert Arenas, Houston Rockets, Tracy McGrady, Washington Wizards
posted by David Friedman @ 12:31 AM
Magic Roll the Dice, Go for Broke
In two separate transactions with the Phoenix Suns and Washington Wizards, the Orlando Magic shipped out Vince Carter, Rashard Lewis, Mickael Pietrus and Marcin Gortat in exchange for Jason Richardson, Gilbert Arenas, Hedo Turkoglu and Earl Clark. The Magic advanced to the NBA Finals in 2009 but after essentially swapping Turkoglu for Carter they lost to the Boston Celtics in the 2010 Eastern Conference Finals and they currently have just the fourth best record in the Eastern Conference; it is not surprising that the Magic decided to dramatically alter the roster surrounding MVP level performer Dwight Howard but it is far from clear that the Magic have improved their chances to win a championship .
Neither the Suns nor the Wizards will be factors in the championship chase this season, so let's focus on what these moves mean for the Magic. Carter and Lewis started for the Magic at shooting guard and power forward respectively, while Gortat is arguably the best backup center in the NBA and Pietrus is an excellent wing defender who also shoots very well from three point range, connecting at a career-high (and team-high) .391 rate from long distance this season. Neither Carter nor Lewis have been as effective or efficient this season as the Magic had hoped they would be but Arenas and Turkoglu are hardly setting the world on fire: Arenas is gunning away (17.3 ppg on .394 field goal shooting) for a losing team, while Turkoglu (9.5 ppg, his lowest output since 2003-04) has looked apathetic (and pathetic) since scoring a big free agent contract. Richardson is easily the most productive player from this group (team-high 19.3 ppg for the Suns this season, shooting .470 from the field and .419 from three point range) but the big picture problem is that Orlando will either have to play small ball (Howard is the only legitimate power player currently on the Magic roster)--not likely a winning plan versus Boston's army of bigs or against Miami's All-Star trio--or else package Richardson in a deal to add some bigs to play alongside and/or back up Howard.
The popular myth about Orlando's 2009 Finals run is that Turkoglu was the key player (other than Howard) because he made plays for others and took over in the fourth quarter but Turkoglu's importance has been exaggerated; if you either looked at the numbers and/or actually watched the games then you know that it was Rashard Lewis, not Turkoglu, who proved to be a matchup nightmare for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals. Even if you believe that Turkoglu was vitally important back then, there is every reason to think that Turkoglu has peaked--his age, the arc of his career and the way that his performance dropped after he got paid all indicate that his best days are behind him.
Arenas is vastly overrated as a clutch performer; even when Arenas was in his prime a few years ago I
did not consider him to be an elite player and I confidently predicted that he would never lead a team past the second round of the playoffs. Arenas had some good games in Washington's first round loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2006 playoffs--which was four years and several injuries ago--but he also had some very inefficient games during that series: in three of those six games he shot .417 or worse from the field (not to mention his Karl Malone-esque choke job at the free throw line to close out game six of that series) and his career playoff field goal percentage is just .411. The theory/idea that he is going to create shots for himself and/or his teammates against elite teams during the crucible of playoff competition is unproven to say the least--he certainly will create shots for himself but it is doubtful that most of those shots will be
good shots. Arenas' shot selection and matador defense will provide much fodder for Coach Stan Van Gundy's "Wired" segments during national TV telecasts!
Arenas is not a pure point guard nor is he a better player than Richardson at this stage of their careers so it will be very interesting to see how Coach Van Gundy constructs his starting lineup and overall rotation. In theory, Howard, Turkoglu, Quentin Richardson, Jason Richardson and Jameer Nelson should start with Arenas providing scoring punch off of the bench but that starting lineup is not only small up front but it is defensively challenged at multiple positions. It is also far from certain that Arenas will accept and/or be productive in a reserve role (he has started 453 of his 486 career regular season games).
It looks like the best case scenario is that the Magic turn into Phoenix Suns East--bombing away from three point range in the regular season only to get pushed aside by the Celtics or out "run and gunned" by the Heat in the playoffs--while the worst case scenario is that Turkoglu's complacency, Arenas' questionable attitude and the team's general lack of defensive focus results in the Magic fading completely from championship contention. A third scenario would be for the Magic to package Jason Richardson in a deal to obtain some bigs, enabling Coach Van Gundy to use a more orthodox starting lineup with a traditional power forward; if the Magic pull that off and if Arenas turns out to be a reasonably productive starting shooting guard then the Magic could potentially have enough size and scoring punch to deal with the Heat in the playoffs but they still would not match up well with the Celtics.
I don't blame Orlando's Otis Smith for proverbially "pushing his chips to the center of the table" and trying to win it all while Dwight Howard is in his prime (and before Howard potentially becomes a free agent) but I am very skeptical that these moves improved the Magic's championship chances.
Labels: Gilbert Arenas, Hedo Turkoglu, Jason Richardson, Marcin Gortat, Orlando Magic, Rashard Lewis, Vince Carter
posted by David Friedman @ 7:17 PM
David Stern Swiftly and Decisively Responds to Gilbert Arenas' Foolishness
If you think that NBA Commissioner David Stern's indefinite suspension of Gilbert Arenas is premature or too harsh then I suggest that you roll up to your workplace with four firearms, openly display them in front of other employees and then make jokes while your employer and various government agencies investigate your conduct; if you really believe that you could act that way and keep your job please stop reading right now: I want this to be an idiot-free zone.
I do not believe in engaging in speculation or jumping to conclusions, so let's just recap the publicly known facts about the Gilbert Arenas situation: Arenas has admitted to removing four guns from his residence, bringing those guns to his workplace and displaying them in the locker room in front of his teammates. What happened after that may have simply been some joking around that was not very funny or it may have been a very serious confrontation that could have ended tragically; the police, the federal authorities, the NBA and the Washington Wizards will sort all of that out soon enough--but just on the basis of what Arenas has confirmed about this matter it is clear that Arenas earned himself at the very least a multi-game suspension and a heavy fine in addition to whatever punishment the legal system may proscribe. Not content to dig himself--and his team--that big of a hole, Arenas displayed stupidity, immaturity and foolishness by continuing to make light of his misconduct, telling jokes long after anyone--except perhaps for a few of his misguided teammates--stopped laughing.
Initially, Stern pledged to withhold judgment until the legal process ran its course but then Arenas pretended to turn his fingers into six shooters prior to Washington's 104-97 win over Philadelphia on Tuesday; after that game, Arenas told the assembled reporters that he feared Stern more than the police because Stern "is mean" but Arenas refused to apologize for his actions, declaring "If I really did something wrong, I would feel remorse." This is known as waving a red flag in front of a bull or, pardon the pun, shooting yourself in the foot with both barrels blazing. Stern chose the perfect phrase to explain the reasoning behind reversing course and suspending Arenas immediately, declaring that Arenas "is not currently fit to take the court in an NBA game."
Arenas plays--or, rather, played--for a team whose recently deceased owner Abe Pollin abhorred gun violence so much that he changed the franchise's name from "Bullets" to "Wizards." Arenas plays--or, rather, played--in a league run by a Commissioner who boldly stated in the wake of the "Malice at the Palace" that the vote to suspend Ron Artest for nearly an entire season was "unanimous, one to nothing"; Stern is not an ineffectual dupe prone to shutting his eyes while illegal performance-enhancing drugs destroy the credibility of his sport's treasured historical records or to impotently shrugging his shoulders while fans boo as an All-Star Game ends in a tie: Stern is known to act swiftly and decisively, so it is not at all surprising that Arenas' clueless lack of repentance and perspective earned him an indefinite suspension accompanied by Stern's ominous warning that this discipline is just a preliminary response by the NBA prior to its final ruling about this matter, which will be "a substantial suspension, perhaps worse." In other words, "Keep running your mouth and cracking jokes, Gilbert, and you can not only kiss this season goodbye but you will also lose the remaining $80 million on your contract--and perhaps the opportunity to ever play in the league again."
Even Arenas stopped laughing after Stern's verdict, belatedly trying to get on Stern's good side by issuing the kind of statement that he should have made when this fiasco began. Paraphrasing what Scottie Pippen said after Dennis Rodman sent him an apology letter for slamming him into a basket stanchion, it would be easier to take Arenas' post-suspension statement seriously if we believed that he actually wrote it; it seems unlikely that the terminally clueless Arenas suddenly found just the right words to say but much more likely that someone in his inner circle of agents/advisers is belatedly trying to salvage what remains of Arenas' career/contract.
The sad denouement of Arenas' career is predictable--not the specifics or the timing but rather the inevitable realization that he does not have the leadership qualities/skill set to lead a team into championship contention. While many members of the media--and many mindless fan bloggers--have been pumping up Arenas for years, I have consistently maintained that he is
vastly overrated, an All-Star level player who never should have been considered to be a truly elite player. I have never understood the
double standard that has made hard-working, future Hall of Famer Terrell Owens--a player who has established himself as one of the most productive receivers in NFL history while never getting in trouble off of the field--a figure who the media mocks and reviles while simultaneously transforming Arenas into a cult hero.
That deification of Arenas no doubt is why so many self-proclaimed experts expected the Wizards to be a serious Eastern Conference contender this year;
someone at the Sporting News smoked some crack last summer and actually predicted that the Wizards would be the third best team in the NBA! As I noted in my
Eastern Conference Preview, Arenas has never led the Wizards to more than 45 wins, so even with the Wizards' much ballyhooed offseason additions and the return to health of several players (including Arenas) it did not seem likely that the Wizards would exceed that total or finish better than sixth in the Eastern Conference. Thus far, the Wizards have fallen far short of even my measured expectations, currently ranking 11th in the Eastern Conference with an 11-22 record. The Wizards have certainly underachieved so far and thus it would not at all be surprising if they make a run at the eighth seed even without Arenas; the team would actually be better off following the lead of Antawn Jamison, whose maturity and professionalism are a marked contrast to Arenas' modus operandi: Arenas is such a loud, commanding presence that it seems like the team gravitates more to him even when he leads them down the wrong path--not even so much off the court but rather in terms of poor shot selection and lack of defensive intensity, because much like Kobe Bryant's focus, drive and work ethic transformed the Lakers in a positive way Arenas' negative traits have had an obvious negative effect on how the Wizards prepare and thus on how they perform during games.
Prior to Arenas' gun fiasco, sympathetic media members tried to excuse his play this season by saying that he is not 100% physically but--whether or not that is true--the reality is that
his statistics this season largely mirror his career numbers; Arenas has always been in the Stephon Marbury mold, a guy who can put up 20-plus points and a half dozen or more assists while not having a significant positive impact on the outcome of the game.
It would be nice if all of those fools who disagreed with me years ago about Arenas admitted that they were wrong--but remember, this is an idiot-free zone, so they stopped reading this post after the first paragraph, and they are currently browsing SlamOnline (or maybe even writing for SlamOnline) while dreaming of the day that Stern reinstates Arenas so that Arenas can lead the Wizards to the NBA Finals.
Labels: David Stern, Gilbert Arenas, Washington Wizards
posted by David Friedman @ 12:57 AM
Gilbert Arenas Sought Charley Rosen's Advice--but Did not Follow It
Charley Rosen recently wrote an
interesting account of how Gilbert Arenas responded to some of Rosen's critiques of Arenas' game:A couple of years back, one of the Wizards public relations staff called in response to my pointing out that Gilbert Arenas tended to turn his head on defense and was burned by two or three backdoor plays every game. Arenas wanted to know, the PR guy said, what he could do to prevent this, and what other pieces of his game I thought could be improved.Although this was the provenance of his coaches, the PR guy diligently took notes as I discussed how to avoid being back-doored. Actually, it's just by adhering to a fundamental defensive principle--open up until you can see both the ball and your man. If the specific angles prohibit this, then watch the ball while keeping some physical connection--a hand on the nearest hip will do--with your man.Anything else?I talked about Arenas' shot selection, and his frequent domination of the ball.Anything else?Yes. I wasn't particularly fond of the way Arenas spun the basketball prior to releasing his free throws. Remembering how Arenas had botched a pair of last-second free throws that cost the Wiz a playoff game against the Cavs back in 2006, the PR person was eager to relay my advice to Arenas.The problem with spinning the ball the way Arenas does is that he doesn't end up with the same grip as he prepares to shoot. Sometimes his fingers are aligned with the seams and sometimes not. And shooting free throws is all about duplicating the same pre-shot posture and preparation, the same grip, the same rhythm, and the same stroke on every shot. Even the slightest variation requires a slight adjustment that destroys the groove the shooter seeks to maintain.As good a natural shooter as he is, Arenas should also be at least five percentage points higher than his lifetime free-throw accuracy of 80.9 percent--77.3 percent in the playoffs. Paying more attention to being consistent rather than flashy was the answer.OK! Arenas would be thrilled to hear all of this. Thanks.Glad to be of help.The next time the Wizards played, I zeroed in on Arenas' defense.Nope, he still lost visual and physical contact with his man in order to follow the bouncing ball.Nope, he still massaged the ball too much and took bad shots.Ah, but on his first trip to the stripe, he avoided circling the ball around his waist and made sure that his hands were in optimum position on the ball before releasing his shot--which hit the rim softly, made two complete circles, and then dropped off.On his second free throw, Arenas was back to his great-circle routine. The shot was good.The experiment was over forever.So far this season, he's shooting 72.9 percent from the stripe.The
Sporting News--and others--declared that Arenas' healthy return would transform the Washington Wizards into serious Eastern Conference contenders; I
predicted that the Wizards would merely go back to being what they have always been when Arenas was healthy: a lower level playoff team. So far, the Wizards have not even met my expectations, compiling a 3-7 record that places them six games behind the Southeast Division-leading Atlanta Hawks in the Southeast Division and just a half game ahead of the cellar dwelling Charlotte Bobcats (who have performed worse than I expected and have already significantly changed their roster by acquiring the volatile Stephen Jackson). There is apparently a mainstream media rule against criticizing the popular Arenas, so his defenders are quick to assert that Arenas is not really himself yet and that he has not fully recovered from the knee injuries/surgeries that cost him the better part of the past two seasons. I agree that the "eyeball test" shows that Arenas does not have quite the same explosiveness that he did a couple years ago--but the numbers show that he is essentially the same player that he has always been. Here are his averages this season after 10 games, with his career averages listed in parentheses:
36.8 mpg (37.3), 22.9 ppg (22.8), 7.6 FGM/g (7.3), 19.3 FGA/g (17.2), .394 FG% (.426), 2.1 3FGM/g (2.1), 5.3 3FGA/g (5.8), .396 3FG% (.359), 5.6 FTM/g (6.0), 7.6 FTA/g (7.4), .737 FT% (.807), 3.8 rpg (4.2), 6.5 apg (5.5 apg), 1.2 spg (1.7), 4.2 TO/g (3.3).
The main difference in Arenas' game so far is that his reaction to his lower field goal percentage is to jack up a couple more shots per game. He has always been an erratic, inefficient player; that has not changed and it is not likely to change. Arenas is not entirely to blame for Washington's disappointing start; the Wizards missed the contributions of Antawn Jamison, who just scored 31 points in his season debut--a victory over Cleveland--after sitting out the first nine games because of a shoulder injury. Assuming that Jamison stays healthy, the Wizards will likely rally to finish above .500, some fools will say that Arenas deserves All-NBA (or even MVP) consideration and then the Wizards will get blasted in the first round and we will not have to hear about them until next fall.
Labels: Charley Rosen, Gilbert Arenas, Washington Wizards
posted by David Friedman @ 4:01 PM
NBA Potpourri: Phoenix' Big Trade, Melo's Big Night, Big Ben's Impact, Agent Zero's Lament, New York's Addition by Subtraction
Here are some quick takes on several notable NBA topics:
1) Suns' President Steve Kerr is certainly not risk-averse; since taking over the reins last year, he has acquired Shaquille O'Neal, let successful coach Mike D'Antoni walk and now he has traded two of the key rotation players who contributed significantly to Phoenix being one of the West's best teams the past several years. Kerr shipped out 2006 Most Improved Player Boris Diaw and two-time All-Defensive Team member Raja Bell, plus rookie point guard Sean Singletary, in exchange for Charlotte's Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley.
Bell and two-time MVP Steve Nash are best friends but Bell clearly was not happy with Coach Terry Porter's new program in the Valley of the Sun. As for giving up the versatile--but recently underachieving--Diaw, Kerr said, "Boris' contract just didn't fit into our salary structure. I feel much better paying Jason Richardson to play 35-40 minutes a night as a starter than to pay Boris to come off the bench and play a limited role."
There are several ways to look at trades. Nowadays, salary structure is a major consideration but in this case the Suns only obtained moderate salary cap relief. Another thing to consider is which team received the best player overall. Clearly, Richardson--a career 18.8 ppg scorer who has averaged more than 20 ppg three times and is shooting .458 from three point range this season--is the best player in this transaction. The Suns' have acquired an athletic wing scorer who will fit in perfectly when they want to run and who can make three point shots in the half court set when they slow the game down and give the ball to Shaquille O'Neal in the post. Charlotte was not going anywhere this season, so going to a Western Conference playoff team is like a get out of jail free card for Richardson.
Diaw has never been the same player since he got a big contract, while Bell's best days are probably behind him. Charlotte Coach Larry Brown gave Bell his first shot in the NBA in 2000-01 in Philadelphia and Brown is surely hoping that adding two veterans from a winning program will set a good example for the young players on his team. That said, it is hard to discern any semblance of a coherent building plan when looking at the roster moves and draft selections that the Bobcats have made in the past few years. Michael Jordan seems to be treating being a team executive as a part-time hobby as opposed to a full-time job; he never would have achieved the success he did as a player with the kind of attitude he has displayed while running the Charlotte franchise.
The acquisition of O'Neal last year cured the Suns' size problems in the paint and gave them at least the theoretical possibility of beating the Spurs in a playoff series. I don't really expect the Suns to win the West but if their players stop whining and start playing defense then they could be a tough out come playoff time. They certainly have enough talent on their roster to make some noise but Amare Stoudemire needs to stop talking about being the man and start grabbing more rebounds and playing defense, while Steve Nash needs to stop talking wistfully about the good old days with Mike D'Antoni (when the Suns never once made it to the NBA Finals) and he needs to show that he really can, in fact, make players better by finding ways to bring out the best in Stoudemire, O'Neal, Grant Hill, Leandro Barbosa and Jason Richardson. Do you think that Kobe Bryant or LeBron James would complain if they had that nucleus? I'm not saying that the Suns have more talent than the Lakers or Cavs--and they certainly don't have as much overall depth--but the Suns have more than enough talent in their seven-eight man rotation to get the job done.
2) Carmelo Anthony tied the NBA record for points in a quarter by dropping 33 on Minnesota en route to 45 total points in a 116-105 Denver victory. Some people tried to diminish Kobe Bryant's 81 point game because it happened versus Toronto but that is nonsense; Bryant's outburst played a crucial role in the Lakers winning that game and the same is true of Anthony's performance, which helped the Nuggets overcome a 12 point deficit. Anthony now shares the record with George Gervin, who scored his 33 points in a 63 point performance on the last day of the 1978 season to clinch the scoring title; Gervin's Spurs lost that game and they were clearly going out of their way to force feed him right from the start so, if anything, Bryant and Anthony's efforts are more meaningful. Anthony shot 12-15 from the field, including 4-5 from three point range, in the third quarter and he shot 16-29 overall while also grabbing 11 rebounds, dishing off for three assists and getting four steals.
3) Cleveland improved to 19-3 with a 101-93 victory at Philadelphia. The Cavs have now won 10 games in a row. Their starting power forward is Ben Wallace, who was the starting center for the Detroit Pistons when they won the 2004 NBA championship and lost in seven games in the 2005 NBA Finals. When the Pistons let him go to Chicago I said that they would have a hard time replacing his paint presence and would not likely make it back to the Finals, a prediction that has been correct so far. Wallace, a four-time Defensive Player of the Year, is not the same player that he was when he played for the Pistons but it is interesting to look at the kind of production that he is giving Cleveland in just over 23 mpg (he played 34-39 mpg in his six years as a Piston): Wallace is averaging more offensive rebounds per minute for Cleveland than he ever did in Detroit and his overall rebounds per minute average is only about 10% lower than it was during Detroit's championship season. He, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Anderson Varejao are almost evenly dividing the center/power forward minutes for Cleveland and that frontcourt trio is a major reason that the Cavs rank first in the NBA in rebounding differential, first in scoring differential and first in defensive field goal percentage. This season, Detroit ranks 17th in rebounding differential, 16th in scoring differential and 21st in defensive field goal percentage. Allen Iverson is a favorite whipping boy for a lot of "stats gurus" and media members alike but if you want to look for transactions that hurt the Pistons, start with losing Coach Larry Brown and then look at the departure of Ben Wallace. Wallace may not be a 34-39 mpg bellwether performer now but three years after he left Detroit he is still good enough to be the starting power forward on a team that is on pace to win 70 games.
4) The Washington Wizards have the worst record in the East but are only five games out of the eighth playoff spot with three fourths of the season remaining. Considering that they have two All-Star forwards and are supposed to get All-Star guard Gilbert Arenas back for the second half of the season, one would think that a team that only a few months ago talked smack about beating Cleveland in the playoffs would be confident about earning a playoff berth and then making some noise. Instead, Arenas said that it would not be a bad thing if Washington misses the playoffs altogether--and he made that remark not long after the season started, when the Wizards had more than 70 games remaining on their schedule!
Quoting Agent Zero, "That's what happened to
San Antonio and that's how they got Tim Duncan. If that happens with us, it's for the better." Tim Duncan is obviously a franchise player, arguably the most significant and accomplished player of the post-Michael Jordan era--but the Wizards just signed Arenas to a six year, $111 million dollar contract, meaning that he is supposed to be their franchise player. Arenas already has two All-Star sidekicks but by acknowledging that even with their help he still needs a true franchise player to lead Washington anywhere he is basically admitting that what I have said all along about him is true: the Wizards (or any other team) will never go past the second round of the playoffs with Arenas as the featured player.
5) Even with a roster in flux and having to make the adjustment to a new coach, the New York Knicks are just a half game out of the last playoff spot in the East. The best move that they have made is the one that I have been advocating for years: banishing Stephon Marbury. Just by removing his presence from the court and from the locker room they have become a more cohesive and less selfish team.
Labels: Ben Wallace, Carmelo Anthony, Gilbert Arenas, Jason Richardson, Phoenix Suns
posted by David Friedman @ 7:30 AM
What Impact Will Gilbert Arenas' Latest Surgery Have on the Wizards?
Gilbert Arenas will miss the start of the 2008-09 season after having his left knee operated on to clean out what Arenas called "floating debris." This is the third time he has had left knee surgery since April 2007.
In typical Arenas fashion, Arenas disclosed the story on his own before the team could issue a press release and he said that he will not return until at least December, while the team prudently declined to set a specific timetable. It is terrible to see anyone hurt and not able to fully perform up to his capabilities and I'm sure that everyone who follows the NBA wishes Arenas a full and speedy recovery.
From a basketball analysis standpoint, how much will the Wizards really miss Arenas? Let's start by looking at Arenas at his best and work from there. Arenas' 60 point game versus the Lakers on December 19, 2006
was historically significant; only 20 NBA players have surpassed the 60 point mark a total of 59 times, with Wilt Chamberlain claiming the lion's share of that total (32), followed by Michael Jordan (four), Kobe Bryant (four) and Elgin Baylor (three), the only "non-Wilt" players to have multiple 60 point games in the regular season. However, the second part of the story of Arenas' performance does not get told often enough. After the game, Bryant said, "You tip your hat and say, 'See you next time.' First of all, he shot 27 free throws. We as a team shot 30. Think about that. But him individually, it's funny. He doesn't seem to have much of a conscience. I really don't think he does. Some of the shots he took tonight, you miss those, and they're just terrible shots. Awful. You make them and they're unbelievable shots. I don't get a chance to play him much, so I haven't gotten used to that mentality of just chucking it up there. He made some big ones, but I'll be ready next time." In the rematch on February 3, 2007,
Bryant outplayed Arenas as the Lakers won, 118-102; as I wrote at that time, "Some 20 Second Timeout readers asserted that since Arenas shoots a good three point percentage that his low overall field goal percentage and high number of three point attempts should be excused but I responded that if Arenas shoots 6-9 from three point range in one playoff game and 1-9 in the next that the Wizards will go 1-1 at best in those games despite the fact that his three point percentage would be .389. Having your point guard jacking up 8 or 9 three pointers a game--particularly on a team that is not good defensively anyway and has poor court balance--is not a formula for postseason success. Look again at the numbers: some of the categories are close, but Bryant outdid Arenas in every single area and his team won by 16 points in regulation. So, in the two Lakers-Wizards games this season, the Wizards won once in overtime when Arenas hit a much higher percentage of his shots than normal (and shot a very high number of free throws) and then got routed at home when Arenas shot 3-15 from three point range."
Arenas is an erratic
gunner who has a me-first agenda that gets in the way of team success, which is why the Wizards do not suffer noticeably in his absence even though he is easily the most publicized player on the team. As I
pointed out near the end of last season, during the past two seasons, the Wizards have done better with Caron Butler in the lineup sans Arenas than with Arenas in the lineup sans Butler. Last season, the Wizards started out 3-5 with Arenas before Arenas was sidelined by a knee injury. They went 35-31 without Arenas before he returned to play five late season games; the Wizards went 3-2 in those games and 2-1 in three late season games that he sat out. Overall, the Wizards were 37-32 without Arenas last year and 6-7 with him. Obviously, Arenas was not at full strength last season and 13 games is a small sample size--but 69 games is not a small sample size and the Wizards' winning percentage without Arenas in 2007-08 (.536) is virtually identical to the 39-34 mark (.534) that the Wizards posted in 2006-07 before Arenas and Butler were felled by season-ending injuries. In 2007-08, the Wizards essentially replaced Arenas with career journeyman Antonio Daniels--a solid pro who has played with five teams in his 11 year NBA career--and not only did not miss a beat, they actually performed better. It is important to remember that Butler missed 24 games last season; the Wizards went 33-25 (.569) with Butler and 10-14 (.417) without him--and five of the losses with Butler also came with Arenas in the starting lineup. Washington's best starting lineup last season (by winning percentage, with a minimum of 10 games) was Butler, Daniels, Antawn Jamison, Brendan Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson. That group went 23-16 (.590) for nearly half a season without Arenas, which projects to a 48-34 record, a mark that would exceed the Wizards' best season since acquiring Arenas.
You may recall that during the 2006-07 season Arenas was touted in some quarters as an MVP candidate. Time--and the winning percentages listed above--clearly demonstrate what any objective person looking at Arenas' skill set and attitude has understood all along: Arenas is an All-Star level player, not an MVP level player or a franchise player worthy of the sixth largest contract since the signing of the 1999 Collective Bargaining Agreement (the five larger deals were signed by Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Jermaine O'Neal, Chris Webber and Rashard Lewis).
I am not saying this now merely because Arenas is hurt yet again; when the Wizards initially signed Arenas to a six year, $111 million deal this summer I
said that Washington had "vastly overpaid"--and that evaluation was based purely on the skill set and attitude of a healthy Arenas, not even factoring in his recent injury history. Obviously, the questionable health of his left knee should have made the Wizards even more cautious about guaranteeing so much money to Arenas.
The bottom line is that barring an injury to Butler or a slew of injuries that wipe out the team's depth, the Wizards have a good shot of being above .500 whenever Arenas returns.
After the 2008 playoffs, I did a post titled
The 2008 Playoffs: Where the Revival of the NBA's Two Flagship Franchises Happened, offering some thoughts about each of the 16 playoff participants. I stand by what I said about Arenas and the Wizards at that time:
The Washington Wizards will never make it further than the second round of the playoffs as long as Gilbert Arenas is their primary offensive option. Period. I don't care how certain people crunch various numbers to "prove" his value and I don't care that the Wizards were once in first place in the East for a minute and a half almost two years ago when Arenas had some high scoring games. Arenas is a player who is primarily focused on scoring points and on settling old scores (being a second round pick, being left off of Team USA, etc.). It seems highly unlikely that he will ever change his mindset and that makes him ill equipped to lead a legit contender.All I can add to that now is that I sincerely hope that Arenas one day is healthy enough to prove me right--or wrong.
Labels: Gilbert Arenas, Washington Wizards
posted by David Friedman @ 12:41 AM
Where Do Gilbert Arenas and Baron Davis Rank Among Elite NBA Point Guards?
Baron Davis led the Golden State Warriors to one playoff appearance in three seasons and he has been injury-prone for most of his career, so the Warriors understandably declined to offer him a long term contract extension--but they inexplicably are reportedly willing to pay more than $100 million to pry Gilbert Arenas away from the Washington Wizards. Fortunately for Golden State fans, the Warriors apparently will not have a chance to overpay Arenas because the Wizards and Arenas have reached a verbal agreement for $111 million over six years (contracts cannot be signed until July 9 when the precise amount of next season's salary cap is calculated). If that deal goes through it will be the sixth largest NBA contract signed since the implementation of the 1999 Collective Bargaining Agreement. While the L.A. Lakers--who signed Kobe Bryant for $136.4 million in 2004--and the San Antonio Spurs--who signed Tim Duncan for $122 million in 2003--are undoubtedly pleased with the return they have received on their sizable investments, the Indiana Pacers (Jermaine O'Neal, $126.6 million in 2003) and Sacramento Kings (Chris Webber, $122.7 million in 2001) surely have experienced serious buyers' remorse. It remains to be seen what the Orlando Magic will think of the $126 million investment they made in Rashard Lewis in 2007 but that seems to be an awfully steep price for a player who has made one All-Star appearance in 10 NBA seasons.
Arenas missed 69 games due to injury last season, was a shell of his former self during the playoffs and missed the entire 2007 postseason due to injury. He has led the Wizards past the first round of the playoffs once in five seasons. The word "elite" is poorly defined in reference to NBA players and it is thrown around far too casually. Bottom line: if you are not on one of the three All-NBA Teams--or a player who deserved to be there but clearly got snubbed--then you are not an elite player. An All-Star is not an elite player; every year there are 24 All-Stars plus another 5-10 players who could just as easily have made the cut. An elite player must be no worse than one of the top five players at his position and one of the top 15 players in the NBA. Even when fully healthy, Davis and Arenas operate at the fringes of elite territory: Arenas made the All-NBA Second Team in 2007 and the All-NBA Third Team in 2005 and 2006, while Davis made the All-NBA Third Team in 2004. Of course, the most relevant issue is the likelihood that they will be elite players in the future. Let's compare Arenas and Davis to the truly elite NBA point guards.
1) Chris Paul is the gold standard for current NBA point guards. He scores, passes, rebounds and defends. His main weakness is that because he is only 6-0, 175 he can be posted up by bigger point guards and in certain situations he can be taken advantage of defensively when switching pick and roll plays. His shooting touch was a bit suspect prior to this season but Paul largely put those concerns to rest by putting up career high numbers in field goal percentage (.488), three point field goal percentage (.369) and free throw percentage (.851); however, in the playoffs he shot poorly from three point range (.238).
Key 2007-08 numbers: 21.1 ppg, 11.6 apg (first in the NBA), 4.0 rpg, 2.7 spg (first in the NBA), .488 FG%, .369 3FG%, .851 FT% in the regular season; 24.1 ppg, 11.3 apg, 4.9 rpg, 2.3 spg, .502 FG%, .238 3FG%, .785 FT% in the playoffs while leading Hornets to the second round.
Finished second in MVP voting, made the All-NBA First Team.
2) Steve Nash won the 2005 and 2006 MVPs. It should be obvious that he was not in fact the best all-around player in the NBA during those seasons but it is equally obvious that he was the best point guard in the league during that time and that is all that is relevant in this discussion. Nash finished second to Dirk Nowitzki in the 2007 MVP voting but was still the best point guard in the NBA. Last season, Paul ended Nash's three year reign as the assist champion and Paul also took the crown as the best point guard. Nash is the best pure shooter among NBA point guards and he is a tremendous passer, particularly in pick and roll situations. Nash is a poor one on one defender and his weakness in that area has really hurt Phoenix during the playoffs.
Key 2007-08 numbers: 16.9 ppg, 11.1 apg (second in the NBA), 3.5 rpg, .7 spg, .504 FG%, .470 3FG% (second in the NBA), .906 FT% (fifth in the NBA) in the regular season; 16.2 ppg, 7.8 apg, 2.8 rpg, .4 spg, .457 FG%, .300 3FG%, .917 FT% in the playoffs during a 4-1 first round loss.
Finished ninth in MVP voting, made the All-NBA Second Team.
3) Deron Williams will likely be battling with Paul for many years to earn recognition as the NBA's best point guard. The 6-3, 210 Williams is significantly bigger and more physically powerful than Paul but he is not as explosively quick and is a surprisingly poor rebounder considering his size and strength. I'd give Nash a slight edge over Williams in 2008 based on Nash's shooting prowess and his greater amount of experience but I expect Williams to be the superior player starting next season.
Key 2007-08 numbers: 18.8 ppg, 10.5 apg (third in the NBA), 3.0 rpg, 1.1 spg, .507 FG%, .395 3FG%, .803 FT% in the regular season; 21.6 ppg, 10.0 apg, 3.6 rpg, .6 spg, .492 FG%, .500 3FG%, .773 FT% in the playoffs while leading the Jazz to the second round.
Finished 12th in the MVP voting, made the All-NBA Second Team.
4) Tony Parker has yet to make the All-NBA Team even once but he is worthy of being considered an elite point guard in light of his 2007 Finals MVP performance and the fact that he has been a vital contributor to three championship teams as the starting point guard. Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili divide the scoring load pretty evenly and Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich limits their regular season minutes to preserve them for the playoffs, which means that none of the Spurs' "Big Three" put up huge regular season statistics. Parker is not as good of a pure shooter as Paul, Nash or Williams, nor is Parker quite as adept as those guys in terms of playmaking, but Parker's blazing quickness and ability to finish strongly at the rim make him very difficult to contain. Parker has wisely slashed his three point attempts from a career-high 243 in 2002-03 (his second season) to 36, 38 and 66 the past three seasons. Nash had better regular season numbers than Parker but Parker completely outplayed Nash in the Spurs' win over the Suns in the first round.
Key 2007-08 numbers: 18.8 ppg, 6.0 apg, 3.2 rpg, .8 spg, .494 FG%, .258 3FG%, .715 FT% in the regular season; 22.4 ppg, 6.1 apg, 3.7 rpg, .9 spg, .497 FG%, .350 3FG%, .753 FT% while leading the Spurs to a 4-1 loss to the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.
Paul, Nash and Williams were the only point guards on this year's three All-NBA Teams. The other guards (Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady and Manu Ginobili) are shooting guards, as is Denver's Allen Iverson, who received the most points (116) in the voting of any player who did not make the team. Chauncey Billups and Baron Davis received slight consideration, amassing 38 and 32 points respectively; Ginobili, the last guard on the All-NBA Third Team, received 123 points, while Williams--who had the lowest total of the three point guards who made the cut--had 228 points.
Billups could perhaps be granted "elite emeritus" status based on his 2004 Finals MVP, his fifth place finish in the 2006 MVP voting and a pair of selections to the All-NBA Team (Second Team in 2006, Third Team in 2007), but he is a level below Paul, Nash, Williams and Parker now. In the 2007-08 regular season, Billups put up these numbers: 17.0 ppg, 6.8 apg, 2.7 rpg, 1.3 spg, .448 FG%, .401 3FG%, .918 FT%. His performance declined across the board in the playoffs.
Davis had an excellent season, perhaps the best all-around campaign of his career when you consider both production and durability, but I would not take him over Paul, Nash, Williams or Parker. Davis averaged 21.8 ppg, 7.6 apg (sixth in the NBA), 4.7 rpg, 2.3 spg (third in the NBA), .426 FG%, .330 3FG% and .750 FT% in 2007-08. Davis settles for jumpers and three pointers far too frequently, a flaw that he shares with Arenas, who played in just 13 regular season games and four playoff games in 2007-08.
At his best, Davis is an explosive talent who can physically dominate bigger players but his shot selection, subpar shooting ability and inconsistent defense render him a less reliable player than the truly elite point guards. Similarly, Arenas is a streak shooting talent who can be dazzling when he is hitting his shots but his shot selection is poor, his defense is worse than Davis' and he often seems to be more concerned about being the center of attention than winning games.
Davis and Arenas are not better than Paul, Nash, Williams or Parker and thus it is very difficult to objectively justify awarding a maximum contract to either of them. I say "objectively" because there are many other considerations that come into play: marketing, ticket sales, the reaction of the fan base of their respective teams, etc. However, purely on the basis of their individual skill sets and their ability to lead a championship contending team, neither Arenas nor Davis are worthy of receiving maximum contracts. Arenas is being lauded now for "giving back" $16 million instead of insisting on receiving the absolute maximum deal from the Wizards--I put "giving back" in quotation marks because you cannot really give something back that you never had in the first place; Arenas said, "You see players take max deals and they financially bind their teams. I don't wanna be one of those players and three years down the road your team is strapped and can't do anything about it." That is a laudable sentiment but even at this supposedly "discounted" rate Arenas is still vastly overpaid and it is questionable how much the Wizards will be able to do with that $16 million, an amount that could do a lot of good in the real world but does not necessarily give the team that much ability to significantly upgrade the roster. I commend Arenas for making that gesture but I still maintain that with him as the featured--and highest paid--player the Wizards will not get past the second round of the playoffs.
Labels: Baron Davis, Chauncey Billups, Chris Paul, Deron Willliams, Gilbert Arenas, Steve Nash
posted by David Friedman @ 3:14 AM
Once Talkative Wizards Go Down Silently in Game Six
For such a talkative, confident and brash group, the Washington Wizards sure went down meekly in game six of their series with the Cleveland Cavaliers; the Wizards played smart, competitive basketball for about a quarter and a half and then fell apart, causing their initially boisterous home fans to gradually become silent and then begin slowly filtering out of the arena as the inevitability of the outcome became clear. LeBron James quieted the crowd's "overrated" and "crybaby" chants with another magnificent performance, notching his third career playoff triple double (27 points, 13 rebounds and a playoff career-high 13 assists) as the Cavaliers never trailed in the second half en route to a 105-88 victory. James achieved his triple double by the end of the third quarter. Wally Szczerbiak made the Wizards pay whenever they trapped James, scoring a playoff career-high 26 points while shooting 6-13 from three point range. Daniel Gibson (22 points, 4-6 shooting from three point range) also repeatedly punished the Wizards for leaving him open. Antawn Jamison led the Wizards with 23 points and a game-high 15 rebounds but he did not receive much help.
The Cavaliers double teamed game five hero Caron Butler, who was largely invisible for most of game six before padding his stats after the game was out of reach to finish with respectable totals (18 points, nine rebounds). Before recapping what happened in the game, it is worth revisiting the difference between being an MVP-level player and being an All-Star. There are rarely if ever more than five legitimate MVP candidates in a given season, yet media members and fans continually anoint numerous All-Star players as "superstars" and "MVP candidates." They did that with Gilbert Arenas early in the 2006-07 season and I even heard some talk about Butler being an MVP candidate when the Wizards played well without Arenas this season. I guess I just have a much higher standard for such things; unless you have an established history of being an MVP-level player, even having a great month does not make you an MVP candidate in my book. That is why I
did not buy the idea that Brandon Roy was an MVP candidate just because Portland had a 13 game winning streak early in the season; you should have to play at least one full season at an MVP level before your name is mentioned in MVP discussions: that is why I ranked Chris Paul seventh (i.e., out of the top five and therefore not a serious candidate)
in the first edition of the Blogger MVP/RoY rankings only to steadily move him up the charts after Paul demonstrated that he was in fact putting together an MVP caliber season as opposed to being an All-Star level player who had an early season hot streak.
Butler was phenomenal in game five, producing 32 points, nine rebounds and five assists and making the game-winning layup with 3.9 seconds left. However, it is worth noting that the 32 points were a playoff career-high for Butler and that he was not able to even come close to matching that performance despite playing at home in an elimination game. That is the difference between being an MVP candidate and being an All-Star: James puts up 32, nine and five on a regular basis, regardless of what defensive coverage he faces, but Butler is not able to do that. I don't think that Butler "choked," I just think that he is not the kind of player who is going to play at an MVP level night after night; over the course of a series, he will put up All-Star numbers and he may have a game in which he plays like an MVP. Butler averaged 18.7 ppg, 5.7 rpg and 3.8 apg in the series.
Szczerbiak hit his first two three pointers as Cleveland took a quick 12-6 lead but the Wizards played with energy, crashed the offensive glass and responded with a 25-11 run to go up 31-23, which would turn out to be their biggest lead of the game. Cleveland cut that margin in half in just 26 seconds after an Anderson Varejao layup and a coast to coast drive by Gibson that just beat the buzzer. James scored just two points but he had four assists.
The Wizards maintained their lead until midway through the second quarter when the Cavs went on a 21-3 run that effectively decided the outcome of the game; that put the Cavs up 56-43 and even though the Wizards answered with five points to end the period they never really seriously threatened again. There was a little bit of drama right before halftime when Gibson seemed to be fouled on a buzzer beating three point attempt but no foul was called. James said something to the notoriously short-fused Steve Javie, who instantly rang James up with a technical foul and then belligerently gestured to James to leave the court. James, who was waiting around to do a halftime on-air interview with Ric Bucher, wisely did not say anything further to Javie. Bucher asked James what he said to Javie prior to getting the technical and James insisted that he did not say anything disrespectful. James had 10 points, seven assists and six rebounds at the intermission, while Jamison led the Wizards with 16 points and seven rebounds and Butler had just five points on 2-6 field goal shooting.
Prior to the start of the third quarter, Butler--a .901 free throw shooter during the regular season--missed the free throw resulting from James' technical foul. After a James jumper and a Szczerbiak three pointer, Cleveland led 61-48. The Wizards' offense, which looked energetic and crisp in its execution in the first quarter, devolved into various players settling for long jump shots. The Wizards stayed in contact for a few minutes but then the Cavs started to pull away and Cleveland's 79-64 lead at the end of the period felt like a bigger margin because the Wizards' players were already hanging their heads and presenting the body language of a team that knew it could not come back.
Sure enough, the Wizards made no run in the final stanza as the teams simply traded baskets down the stretch. Both teams emptied their benches around the two minute mark. As far as I could tell, the Cavs engaged in no trash talking and no excessive celebrating; they did not rub their victory in the faces of the Washington players or their fans. I wonder if the same would have held true if the outcome had been reversed?
For the first five games of the Cleveland-Washington series, the Wizards had a lot to say, even if much of it was not worth hearing. DeShawn Stevenson, who scored 10 points on 2-9 field goal shooting and had an up close and personal view as James dominated game six, kicked things off a month ago by barking that James is "overrated." Wizards' supporters like to emphasize how long ago Stevenson said that--but Stevenson never backed off from that ludicrous statement. When he was not limping around like Fred Sanford or jacking up shots like the Agent Zero of old, Gilbert Arenas told his ghostwriter to announce to the world (via his blog) that "We want Cleveland," adding that he did not think that the Cavs were playing well and that they could not beat the Wizards in the playoffs three straight years. Then the Wizards upped the ante by becoming wanna be tough guys, not only giving James hard fouls on several occasions but being dumb enough to announce to the world that this was their game plan, thus bringing further negative attention on to their team. If they thought that this would rattle James and cause him to stop driving to the hoop and/or lose his cool then they were sadly mistaken.
The Wizards actually have a very classy owner, Abe Pollin, a good coach in Eddie Jordan and two hardworking, professional and classy All-Stars in Butler and Jamison; unfortunately for Washington, it took until game five--when Arenas shut himself down for the season--for Butler and Jamison to reassert control over their team's locker room, essentially telling their squad to shut up, calm down and let their play do their talking. As Jamison put it, "We just said, 'It's time to stop all the talking.' A lot of guys were trying to defend themselves as far as this and that. But it wasn't working. We said, 'The ultimate change around is for us to just be quiet and find a way to come back from 3-1 and win the series. I think they finally got it." Anyone who knows anything about the NBA realizes that Butler and Jamison wanted nothing to do with the trash talking and the sideshow antics that Arenas, Stevenson and Brendan Haywood--who started the "crybaby" nonsense--introduced into this series but Butler and Jamison had to walk a delicate line between supporting their wayward teammates publicly yet trying to steer the team as a whole in a positive direction. Butler finally spoke up prior to game five, telling a TNT interviewer that anything that did not come out of his mouth or out of the mouth of co-captain Jamison did not reflect what the Wizards as a team stand for or believe. You may have noticed during game six that when James collided with Butler or Jamison that he made a point of extending an arm and helping them up; although Pat Riley would decry offering assistance to the "enemy," James showed that he recognizes that Butler and Jamison are true professionals who are worthy of his respect.
It is only fitting to give James the last word: "Cleveland has advanced and we won the series 4-2. That speaks much louder than anything I can say about the fans here, anything about DeShawn Stevenson. Cleveland has advanced. That's all that matters."
Labels: Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler, Cleveland Cavaliers, Gilbert Arenas, LeBron James, Washington Wizards
posted by David Friedman @ 4:37 AM
Overrate This! LeBron James Keeps His Cool, Carries Cavs to 3-1 Lead Over Wizards
LeBron James produced game-high totals in points (34), rebounds (12, tied with teammate Ben Wallace) and assists (seven), carrying his Cleveland Cavaliers to a 100-97 win in Washington and a 3-1 series lead. James inserted daggers into the mouthy Wizards throughout the game before delivering the death blow at the end, drawing a double-team and passing to Delonte West, who delivered the game-winning three pointer from the left baseline. West finished with 21 points and five assists, shooting 5-8 from three point range. West and Daniel Gibson (12 points, 4-7 three point shooting) repeatedly made the Wizards pay for trapping James. Wallace's contributions will probably go unnoticed by most people but in addition to his 12 rebounds he had the Cavs' only two blocked shots while compiling a game-high +14 plus/minus rating. Even though Wallace did not attempt a single shot from the field and did not score a point, he put the lie to the idea that he is an offensive liability by grabbing four offensive rebounds and serving as a good pressure release when James was trapped, receiving passes from James and then immediately swinging the ball to the other side of the court; Wallace finished with two assists but even on plays when Wallace did not get the assist he played an important role in breaking down Washington's defense by making them scramble to guard the recipients of his passes.
Cleveland's three part recipe for victory is defense, rebounding and the brilliance of LeBron James. Cleveland played reasonably well on defense, holding the Wizards to .457 field goal shooting, but the Cavs outrebounded Washington 51-31 and James--as Doug Collins would say--had his fingerprints all over the game. Wizards' guard DeShawn Stevenson called James "overrated" a month ago and during the two games in Washington the fans thought it was amusing or cute to chant "Overrated!" at James, apparently oblivious to how completely ridiculous they are making themselves look to the rest of the nation, though Mike Tirico wryly noted that the chants seemed to noticeably die down after the Cavs took a second half lead. Tirico said of James, "He's staying away from the garbage...and just playing basketball." The ironic--and hilarious--thing about Washington fans chanting "Overrated!" is that perhaps the most
overrated All-Star in the NBA--Gilbert Arenas-- plays for the Wizards. There is nothing wrong with fans booing the best player on the opposing team but when he is playing at a high level and simply killing your squad screaming "Overrated!" is not only childish but also ineffective. Great players "love being the enemy," to borrow the title of Reggie Miller's book, so antagonizing James in that fashion really did not do the Wizards any favors.
Antawn Jamison led Washington with 23 points and 11 rebounds. Caron Butler had a solid game (19 points, four assists). Gilbert Arenas got his second consecutive start, with decidedly mixed results in 32 minutes of action, the most time that he has played since returning from his knee injury: he scored four points in the final minute to help the Wizards tie the score before West made the game-winning shot but Arenas also had a game-high four turnovers and looked out of sync most of the time, scoring 10 points on 3-8 shooting from the field, adding two assists and two rebounds. Arenas had a -4 plus/minus rating, while Antonio Daniels--who started in Arenas' place for most of the season--had a +5 plus/minus rating in 17 minutes, contributing seven points and three assists while committing just one turnover.
The Wizards took an early 13-8 lead but they trailed 18-15 at the 3:39 mark of the first quarter when Daniels replaced Arenas, who had already committed four turnovers. The last of Arenas' miscues was stolen by James, who raced down court for a fast break dunk. Hubie Brown said simply that it was a "bad pass, bad decision" by Arenas, indicating that both the idea and the execution of the play were flawed. With Daniels running the show, Washington closed the quarter with a 13-6 run.
The Wizards played with much more defensive intensity and offensive efficiency in their
game three win than they did in the first two games of the series and they continued to play well in the first quarter and a half of game four, building a 39-31 lead. Then things started to go downhill for them. Arenas missed a forced jumper and James converted a dunk. The Wizards missed a couple more jumpers and James passed to Wally Szczerbiak for a layup. Butler missed another jumper and on the next Cavs' possession Cleveland got three offensive rebounds, Wallace snaring the final one and passing to West for a three pointer that cut Washington's lead to 39-38. The Wizards no longer displayed good ball movement on offense, their defensive intensity had dropped off and the Cavaliers owned the boards. Still, it seemed possible that on their home court they could regroup themselves and win--but then the loud mouth Stevenson decided to become a wanna be tough guy, bopping James upside the head when James drove to the hoop. James went tumbling to the ground in one direction and his headband went flying in another. James immediately stood up and moved toward Stevenson but James has already shown that he is way too smart to do anything that will get him suspended, though James noted after the game that if Stevenson had pulled such a punk move (my term, not James') in the park then the situation would have "escalated"; that is why I say that Stevenson is a "wanna be tough guy," because it is easy to hit somebody in an NBA game when there are a bunch of people who are going to step in and make sure that there will not be a fight. The Wizards have never been known as a tough or physical team and their flagrant fouls on James in this series will do nothing to alter their reputation; real tough guys on a basketball court get rebounds, play defense, stay focused enough to execute and make winning plays, none of which the Wizards do on a consistent basis.
Stevenson received a level one flagrant foul, though at halftime Jon Barry said that he thought Stevenson should have been ejected. TNT's Charles Barkley did not go that far but he emphasized how dangerous it is to foul a player by hitting him in the head with such force. James made one of the two resulting free throws. James missed a jumper on the next possession but West stole the ball and passed to James, who nailed a deep three pointer to put the Cavs up 42-39. Cleveland closed the half on a 16-5 run after Stevenson's flagrant foul, with James scoring 10 points. By halftime, Cleveland led 54-44 and would never trail again, though the Wizards did tie the score late in the game.
In the third quarter, Hubie Brown suggested that a big problem for the Wizards is that they had started playing too much "one on one." As he said that, Arenas drove to the hoop and scored his first two points of the game on a reverse layup. "There's another example of a one on one play, but they converted," Brown noted. It is funny how Wizards' fans will exult when Arenas scores but for some reason they cannot figure out that he takes too many bad, low percentage shots and that his misses take his team out of games at least as often as his makes shoot the Wizards into games. The other problem with having a player like Arenas as a point guard is the corrosive effect it has on the rest of the team. During TNT's pregame show later in the day, Chris Webber talked about how frustrating it would be to play for the Denver Nuggets because Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson monopolize the ball; the other players go so long without having the ball, Webber said, that when they get it they are out of rhythm and don't know what to do. Arenas has the exact same effect on his teammates and it is sheer foolishness to not be able to recognize this.
The Cavs pushed the lead to 67-52 in the third quarter but the Wizards made one last run to cut the margin to 97-93 with less than a minute left in the game. The Wizards look their best when Arenas is either not in the game or when he plays within the context of their motion offense instead of trying to go on solo scoring missions. Washington fans were no doubt thrilled when a stumbling Arenas was bailed out because a foul was called on West with :57 left in the game. West did make contact with Arenas but it seemed like Arenas was losing his balance--and the ball--before the contact happened. Still, it was the correct call and Arenas drained both free throws. After James missed a jumper, Arenas got the rebound, dribbled downcourt and again seemed to lose his balance before launching a fadeaway shot off of one foot. I imagine that Washington Coach Eddie Jordan was thinking, "No, no...yes!" as Arenas' fling hit the backboard and went in. I give Arenas credit for wanting the ball in that situation and making the shot but let's be honest: it was a bad, low percentage shot in a tie game with plenty of time left on the shot clock.
On the Cavs' final possession, Arenas left West alone in the corner to trap James. I would assume that is what Arenas was instructed to do, though Arenas did
cost the Wizards a game this season in Milwaukee when he left a shooter unattended in the left corner. After West made what turned out to be the game-winning shot, the Wizards called timeout to advance the ball to halfcourt. Arenas received the inbounds pass but his three point shot fell short. Barkley later suggested that the play should have been called for Butler or Jamison since Arenas is not yet completely healthy. This is the Catch-22 that Arenas presents: he wants to play even though his presence is not helping the team and whenever he plays sooner or later he feels the need to dominate the ball, even if he goes through pass-first stretches. The only thing that will change next season when he is 100% healthy--assuming he does become 100% healthy, which I think is not a sure thing at this point--is that he will revert to dominating the ball even more; when he plays a pass-oriented style now I get the sense that this is not because his nature has changed but because he is not physically able to go out and jack up 20 shots. As long as Arenas is considered to be the main guy on the squad the Wizards will never be a legitimate contender; they will always simply be the "Gilbert Arenas Show."
After Cleveland's
game one victory over Washington, LeBron James responded to a question about Washington's trash talking by saying, "93-86 (the final score) is the only words I need to say." In the same vein, "100-97" and "3 games to 1" are really all he needs to say now, although "34-12-7" also speak quite loudly.
Labels: Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler, Cleveland Cavaliers, Delonte West, Gilbert Arenas, LeBron James, Washington Wizards
posted by David Friedman @ 8:01 AM
