P.J. Carlesimo and Jon Barry Agree with Frank Vogel's Roy Hibbert Decision
Indiana Coach Frank Vogel has received widespread condemnation for his decision to twice bench 7-2 shot blocker Roy Hibbert and go with a small lineup against Miami in late game situations. On both occasions, LeBron James scored by driving straight to the hoop, including the game-winning layup as time expired in overtime; after trailing by one point with just 2.2 seconds left, Miami escaped with a 103-102 victory in game one of the Eastern Conference Finals. Vogel justified benching Hibbert by saying that if Hibbert had been on the court then Miami could have run a play for Chris Bosh, who is more mobile than Hibbert. Vogel opted to use a small lineup so that his players could switch on all screens without creating any favorable mismatches for Miami. There is some validity to what Vogel said but in order to be successful in the long run a coach must develop a system that enables him to maximize the talents of his best players; Hibbert is one of the best rim protectors in the league, so Indiana's defense should take advantage of his size and length--and if that size and length forces opposing teams to run plays for their centers to shoot jumpers instead of attacking the hoop then that is an advantage for Indiana. If Vogel's regular plan in late game situations is to go small then he should stick with that plan--but Vogel has generally tried to force teams to match up with his squad and not the other way around, so benching Hibbert is not just a questionable move strategically but also psychologically because it could result in the Indiana players feeling that Vogel does not trust his system and/or trust them.
The larger, mostly unmentioned issue is that there was no reason for Paul George to overplay James to such an extent on the final play that he gave James a wide open driving lane; regardless of who was on the court for Indiana, the team defensive strategy when up by a point with 2.2 seconds left has to be (1) defend without fouling and (2) make the opponent shoot a contested jump shot to beat us. Whether or not benching Hibbert was the best choice, the Pacers still could have won if they had forced James--or another Miami player--to shoot a contested jump shot. Did Vogel not remind George to give James a cushion or did George simply forget his assignment under pressure?
The worst possible shot for Indiana to give up was a layup or dunk by James; putting Hibbert in the game and planting him in front of the rim would have made it much less likely that James would have scored on a dunk or layup, so it is difficult to agree with Vogel's decision. Being able to switch all screens is nice and if that is how Vogel's team played throughout the season and throughout most of this game then it would be understandable for him to ride or die with that plan but Hibbert is the anchor for Indiana's stingy defense and Vogel should have stuck with what got Indiana to the Eastern Conference Finals in the first place: size, toughness and the ability to protect the paint.
It is not a good sign for Vogel that two of the people who agreed with his Hibbert decision are P.J. Carlesimo, who
has hardly distinguished himself as a top NBA strategist, and Jon Barry, who
has a history of saying things that do not make sense. When P.J. Carelismo and Jon Barry are praising your strategic acumen, it is time to rethink your late game defensive plan. It will be very interesting to see what Vogel does if this particular scenario presents itself again; I suspect that Vogel will keep Hibbert in the game and that Vogel will emphasize the importance of forcing a Miami player to shoot a contested jump shot.
Labels: Chris Bosh, Frank Vogel, Indiana Pacers, Jon Barry, LeBron James, Miami Heat, P.J. Carlesimo, Roy Hibbert
posted by David Friedman @ 10:31 PM
Commentators Lose the Thread When Analyzing the Memphis-Oklahoma City Series
Bill Simmons thinks that the Memphis-Oklahoma City series validates the
Rudy Gay trade and Jon Barry thinks that P.J. Carlesimo deserves credit for Kevin Durant's ballhanding skills because Carlesimo played Durant at shooting guard during Durant's rookie season. Paraphrasing Casey Stengel, "Can't anybody here analyze this game?"
The Memphis Grizzlies finished fifth in the Western Conference, defeated an overrated/flawed L.A. Clippers team in the first round and currently hold a 2-1 lead over the number one seeded Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference semifinals--but the Grizzlies are poised to advance to the Western Conference Finals not because they traded their leading scorer for spare parts but because one of the top five players in the NBA suffered a season-ending knee injury. The most valuable player for the Grizzlies so far has been Houston's Patrick Beverley, the rookie guard who clipped Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook and shredded Westbrook's knee. Westbrook played in all 82 games and ranked sixth in the league in scoring, seventh in the league in assists and ninth in the league in steals as the Thunder went 60-22 in the regular season. Oklahoma City ranked third in the NBA in scoring (105.7 ppg) and second in the NBA in defensive field goal percentage (.425). The Thunder routed Houston 120-91 in the first game of the playoffs and they beat Houston 105-102 in the second game, with a hobbled Westbrook playing in the second half despite suffering the knee injury that would end his season. Since Westbrook exited the lineup, the Thunder have posted a 3-4 record, splitting four games with the eighth seeded Rockets before falling behind 2-1 to the Grizzlies; the Thunder averaged 96.7 ppg in those seven games. The Thunder miss Westbrook's scoring, playmaking, defense and energy. Kevin Durant is putting up monster numbers sans Westbrook but the team is playing worse overall--and Durant is showing signs of wearing down: in Oklahoma City's 87-81 loss on Sunday, Durant shot just 3-11 from the field in the second half, he only scored two fourth quarter points and he missed two free throws when the Thunder trailed 85-81 with :39 remaining. Perhaps next season we will hear less about Westbrook supposedly shooting too often; it should be obvious that the Thunder need Westbrook to create scoring opportunities for himself and for his teammates. Meanwhile, as Durant runs himself ragged just to keep the games close, Memphis point guard Mike Conley is wearing out Oklahoma City's point guards--something that would not have happened if Conley had to check Westbrook at one end of the court and then deal with Westbrook checking him at the other end of the court.
Westbrook's injury is the number one story of this series. Secondary stories include whatever astronomical numbers Durant ends up with in defeat and the effectiveness of Memphis' Marc Gasol/Zach Randolph duo. What about the Gay trade? Fortunately for Memphis, the absence of Westbrook is so important that it negates the fact that the Grizzlies are getting almost no production in this series from the players who they acquired in that deal: starting small forward Tayshaun Prince (who has taken Gay's spot in the rotation) is averaging 5.0 ppg on .292 field goal shooting and he is getting torched by Durant, Austin Daye has scored three points in 4:52 and Ed Davis has scored two points in 3:08--but, despite these facts, Bill Simmons tells a national television audience that he has to restrain himself from taking a "victory lap" around the ESPN set for supposedly being vindicated about the Gay trade. Simmons apparently thinks that ESPN viewers are stupid enough to believe that trading a 26 year old 18.2 ppg scorer who can create his own shot for a 33 year old player averaging 5.0 ppg and two young guys who are not even in the rotation qualifies as some kind of brilliant move. I hope and expect that the readers of this article are not that dumb. Maybe the Grizzlies will find good use for the money that they saved by getting rid of Gay's contract, maybe Davis and/or Daye will develop into rotation players--but does anyone in his right mind believe that if Memphis Coach Lionel Hollins were given a lie detector test he would say that this trade improved Memphis' chances to win a championship this season? Simmons loves the "stat gurus" and the "stat gurus" hate Gay's game but trying to pretend that the Grizzlies are beating the Thunder because of this bad trade hardly lends credence to the "stat guru" point of view; it just shows that "stat gurus" can be every bit as biased/tendentious as anyone else who is blindly loyal to a particular point of view regardless of contradictory facts.
The Gay trade did not make basketball sense and even if the Westbrook injury lets the Grizzlies off the hook in this round--which it probably will--the Grizzlies will miss Gay in the next round. The Grizziles ranked 27th in the league in scoring (93.4 ppg) and 21st in field goal percentage (.444)--and they are struggling to match those numbers against the Thunder but the Thunder are so offensively challenged sans Westbrook that the Grizzlies are able to keep the upper hand.
Not only is Simmons wrong about the Gay trade--something that will become even more clear next round and in the years to come--but he was also wrong about the deal that actually turned the Grizzlies into a contender; when the Grizzlies wisely traded Pau Gasol to the L.A. Lakers for Marc Gasol, Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie and two first round draft picks, Simmons scoffed, "How was the Gasol trade legal? If I kill my mailman and no one ever
finds out, does that make it legal? Jerry West's old team (Memphis)
gift-wrapped its best player for the team that once employed West for 40
years, taking back a pupu platter (Kwame Brown, a third-string guard
and two crappy picks)." Even if all the Grizzlies had received was Marc Gasol, the deal still would have been good--Marc Gasol is an All-Star and he won the 2013 Defensive Player of the Year award--but one of those first round picks became Greivis Vasquez, who the Grizzlies traded for Quincy Pondexter; Pondexter is averaging 9.0 ppg versus the Thunder while leading Memphis in three point field goals made, which means that he literally is almost twice as productive as anyone who the Grizzlies received in the Gay trade! The larger point is that the Grizzlies figured out that a Pau Gasol-led team would never win a championship, so they started over and put together a deep, flexible roster; shedding Pau Gasol's contract provided the necessary financial flexibility to acquire Zach Randolph and make other moves as well. I was one of the few commentators who did not blast Memphis for trading Pau Gasol; I
wrote, "Obviously, the Grizzlies have hit the reset button and are rebuilding
from the ground up. To do that in the NBA, you need draft picks, salary
cap room and young players. This deal provides all of those things to
the Grizzlies. That does not mean that it will work, though; there are
too many uncertainties: to name just a few, (1) has Brown peaked or can
he still improve, (2) how good will Crittenton become, (3) how good will
Marc Gasol be when he comes to the NBA, (4) who will Memphis choose
with the newly acquired draft picks? All that can be said at the moment
is that this is the right kind of move for Memphis to make, because
there was no future for the team the way it was composed prior to this
deal. In an odd way, there is a slight similarity between what Memphis
is doing now and what the Lakers did with Shaq several years ago; the
Grizzlies are getting rid of their best player and taking a short term
step backwards with the hope of being better off long term, while the
Lakers are shedding some youth in order to make a championship run now." I did not know if Memphis' plan would work--no one has that kind of crystal ball--but I knew that Memphis had made the best possible choice after realizing that Pau Gasol is not a franchise player. The critical difference between the Gasol trade and the Gay trade is that the former broke up a non-contending team with the long term plan of building a contender while the latter weakened the roster of a team that could realistically contend for the Western Conference crown right now.
"Stat gurus" love Pau Gasol's game and they hate Rudy Gay's game, so Simmons will mock the Pau Gasol trade until the end of time and he will tout the brilliance of the Gay trade even when Memphis is struggling to score 80-85 points next round versus San Antonio (I realize that I worked a few assumptions into that sentence but if the Grizzlies eliminate the Thunder then they will struggle to score against whoever they face in the Western Conference Finals). Real science is based on stating a testable hypothesis and then experimentally testing that hypothesis. We have seen Pau Gasol-led Memphis teams go 0-12 in the playoffs. We have seen Pau Gasol be a solid second option on two Laker championship teams. We have seen Marc Gasol become a better, more physical player than his younger brother. We have seen Memphis become a better team than the Lakers in no small part because of the Gasol-Gasol trade. We have seen Memphis get virtually no production from the small forward position since the Gay trade and yet survive so far in the playoffs due to favorable matchups (overrated Clippers in the first round, injury-depleted Thunder in the second round). Any scientifically-inclined "stat guru" or "stat guru" acolyte should concede that Pau Gasol is not as valuable as the "stat gurus" thought he was in 2008 and that--at the very least--it is too soon to say that Memphis benefited from trading Gay; only if the Grizzlies can win a playoff series against a full strength championship contender can it be said that the Gay trade worked (and if that happens--without extenuating circumstances such as injuries or suspensions--then I will revise my hypothesis, because I actually adhere to scientific reasoning, unlike the "stat gurus" who are blindly married to their personal biases).
Barry's comment is ridiculous, too. Kevin Durant's game blossomed
right after the Thunder fired Carlesimo and replaced him with Scott Brooks; the first thing that Brooks did is move Durant back to his comfort zone at small forward. Yes, Durant is now a multifaceted veteran who can operate from all over the court but the last thing that Durant needed as a rookie and as a second year player was to learn a new position when he was just trying to become adjusted to playing in the NBA. Brooks, a former player, understood that even though Carlesimo did not; I had good reason to
predict prior to the 2013 playoffs that Carlesimo would be outcoached by Tom Thibodeau and that Carlesimo's Nets would lose most of the close games in their series versus the Bulls (the Bulls went 4-1 in games decided by eight points or less and the Nets fired Carlesimo after the injury-depleted Bulls won the seventh game in Brooklyn).
Most former players--including Jon's brother Brent--provide interesting insights based on their experiences in the league but this is not the first time that Jon has said something that made no sense: last year he
ranked Paul Millsap and Ryan Anderson as top five power forwards and a few years ago he teamed up with Mike Wilbon to
declare that the Lakers are better off when Kobe Bryant shoots less frequently. There are many refutations of that nonsensical assertion, including footage from
the Lakers' 4-0 loss to the Spurs in the first round of the 2013 playoffs. Bryant did not shoot at all during that series--
he suffered a season-ending Achilles injury after carrying the Lakers into the playoffs--and the Lakers endured their worst playoff defeat in franchise history.
One of the best things about the competitive chess world is that,
as former U.S. Champion Stuart Rachels put it, "...there is no issue about determining who the experts are. In chess,
the experts are the ones who win. In other artistic areas, experts are
harder to discern, and so claims about perception and beauty are harder
to verify." Sadly, this is not the case in the writing business or the television business; anyone who knows the "right" people can get hired and be presented to the world as an "expert," even if what he writes/says makes no sense. Dr. Emanuel Lasker, the World Chess Champion from 1894-1921,
stated this truth even more directly: "On the chess board lies and hypocrisy
do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption
of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts
the hypocrite."
Labels: Bill Simmons, Jon Barry, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies, Oklahoma City Thunder, Pau Gasol, Rudy Gay, Russell Westbrook
posted by David Friedman @ 4:16 AM
Who Are the Five Best Power Forwards in the NBA?
ESPN's Friday NBA Countdown show went completely off the rails when Jon Barry failed miserably to do something that should not be that complicated: list the five best power forwards in the NBA. There is certainly plenty of room for debate on this subject--but there is no debating that Barry's list is ridiculous. Before I even share Barry's list with you here is Magic Johnson's immediate on air response: "Didn't you play in the NBA? That list is like you never played in the league." That is a thought that I frequently have when I listen to Barry opine about the NBA and it is refreshing that Johnson did not hesitate to call out Barry.
Here is Barry's list:
1) Kevin Love
2) Blake Griffin
3) LaMarcus Aldridge
4) Paul Millsap
5) Ryan Anderson
Magic Johnson countered with his selections:
1) Dirk Nowitzki
2) Blake Griffin
3) Kevin Love
4) Pau Gasol
5) LaMarcus Aldridge
Johnson then added a very interesting comment, calling Chris Bosh the "best all around" power forward because "He can pass, he can score and he's super smart at the game." It is not clear why Johnson did not include Bosh in his top five nor did anyone on the NBA Countdown set think to ask Johnson to elaborate about this (ESPN made a good decision to ax Stuart Scott as the host of their NBA studio show but the idea of having a studio show without any host is, to put it charitably, still a work in progress). I agree completely with Johnson's assessment of Bosh's game. As I
recently wrote regarding Pau Gasol and Chris Bosh, "It has almost become a reflexively uttered cliche to call Gasol the 'most skilled big man in the game' but if you actually watch Gasol and Bosh objectively it is difficult to understand why Gasol would be considered any more skilled than Bosh."
After Johnson, Chris Broussard and Mike Wilbon took turns clowning Barry for ranking Paul Millsap and Ryan Anderson--two good players but not two of the top five power forwards in the NBA--so highly, Barry attempted to backtrack somewhat by saying that he was just talking about "right now." If that really is what Barry was doing then what is the point? Anyone can look at the small sample size of statistics from the early going of this post-lockout season and see that some good players are putting up great numbers while some great players have started slowly starts but saying that Ryan Anderson is a top five power forward based on a handful of games is just as silly as
elevating Gilbert Arenas to MVP status in 2007 based on a handful of games. Arenas has some devoted fans--
including at least one "stat guru" who loves Arenas so much he cannot even begin to think rationally about Arenas' true value--but intelligent conversation about player rankings/evaluations should not be driven by biased fans or people who think like biased fans; as Johnson correctly chided, Barry is a former player who should have known better than to compile the list that he did.
In my
response to Chris Palmer's player ratings last summer, I listed my top five NBA power forwards:
1) Dirk Nowitzki
2) LaMarcus Aldridge
3) Kevin Love
4) Blake Griffin
5) Zach Randolph
I gave honorable mentions to Chris Bosh and Pau Gasol; Bosh suffered from playing alongside two superstars who do not play well without the ball, while Gasol has declined after playing very well as the Lakers won two NBA titles and three straight conference crowns. Dirk Nowitzki is obviously not playing like the NBA's best power forward right now but just a few months ago
he outshined Miami's three stars in the clutch while leading Dallas to the championship. Nowitzki is not completely healthy and will sit out a few games to get his body back together; does it really make sense to drop Nowitzki from the top five based on the first few weeks of this post-lockout season?
The real issue is that ESPN does not have enough truly engaging and interesting material to fill all of the air time that it has allotted to various sports. During Monday Night Football's pregame and postgame shows I would much rather hear more from Steve Young about the craft of quarterbacking and less from Stuart Scott about whatever he thinks he is talking about and during ESPN's NBA coverage I would rather hear more from Hubie Brown and Jeff Van Gundy--two guys who have been in the trenches and know what they are talking about--and less from Mike Wilbon and Jon Barry (Magic Johnson and Chris Broussard are solid commentators).
If Barry really would take Anderson and Millsap over Nowitzki then he is delusional--but if all he is saying is that Anderson and Millsap have played well in a small sample of games while Nowitzki has not played particularly well so far then Barry is simply stating the obvious.
Labels: Blake Griffin, Chris Bosh, Dirk Nowitzki, Jon Barry, Kevin Love, LaMarcus Aldridge, Magic Johnson, Pau Gasol
posted by David Friedman @ 2:49 AM
Are the Lakers Really Better Off When Kobe Bryant Shoots Less Frequently?
If you watch the ESPN/ABC NBA pregame shows with any regularity then you know that Mike Wilbon and Jon Barry have repeatedly cited statistics that they say prove that the Lakers are better off when Kobe Bryant shoots less frequently. Recently, the
Wall Street Journal ran a brief item headlined
The Lakers Fare Better When Bryant Shoots Less; that piece included a chart titled "Don't Shoot, Kobe" that listed Bryant's field goal attempts averages for the past six seasons during wins and losses. Somehow I doubt that "Don't shoot, Kobe," is a mantra that Lakers Coach Phil Jackson utters too often, particularly in the fourth quarters of close games.
It is not entirely clear if Wilbon, Barry and the
WSJ mean to suggest that Bryant is being selfish when he shoots more than their arbitrarily determined optimal amount of field goal attempts for a game (20 is the number that Wilbon and Barry apparently prefer) or if they simply believe that his teammates should be more assertive and less deferential. In any case, even though it is obvious that the best teams involve many players on offense, it seems more than a little odd to suggest that the way for a team to be most successful is to limit the shot attempts taken by its best player and maximize the shot attempts taken by lesser players; likewise, it seems highly unlikely that the difference between winning and losing is primarily determined by whether a given player takes 19 shots or 21. After all, some field goal attempts are last second heaves as the shot clock winds down or as the game clock expires at the end of a quarter; also, a player's official field goal attempts may not reflect how many times he actually tried to shoot the ball if he drew a lot of fouls on shots that he missed: field goal attempts are a "noisy" statistic that does not tell the complete story about how much a player dominated the ball in a given game or what kind of impact he had offensively. For instance, the Lakers went 24-1 this season when Lamar Odom attempted between eight and 10 field goals in a game but they were only 12-8 when he attempted between five and seven field goals in a game and they posted a 12-4 record when he attempted between 11 and 13 field goals in a game. Does that mean that the Lakers should make sure that Odom always attempts between eight and 10 field goals, never permitting him to stray outside of that range? Or does it just mean that there are a lot of other factors that determine the result for the Lakers besides how frequently Odom shoots?
Kobe Bryant has led the Lakers in scoring and assists in each of the past three seasons and in six of the past seven seasons (Odom led the Lakers in assists in 2005-06); Bryant averaged between 24.0 and 35.4 ppg and 4.5 and 6.0 apg during those seven seasons. Bryant has the dual responsibility of carrying the lion's share of the scoring load while also creating quality shot opportunities for teammates who could not create good shots for themselves on their own. The number of shots that Bryant attempts in a given game is affected by how often the opponent double teams him, how many fouls Bryant draws and other factors.
Rather than focusing on how many field goals Bryant attempts to try to determine his optimal role for the Lakers, it makes more sense to look at the end result of his field goal attempts (and free throw attempts): Bryant has scored 40 or more points in 96 regular season games, third on the all-time career list behind Wilt Chamberlain (271) and Michael Jordan (173). The Lakers posted a 65-31 record in those games, a .677 winning percentage that is better than their overall winning percentage (.656) during Bryant's career. Bryant had 27 of those 40 point games in 2005-06, when he led the NBA in scoring with a 35.4 ppg average that ranks eighth on the single season scoring list; the Lakers went 45-37 overall that year (.549) but they went 18-9 (.667) in his 40 point games. Bryant "only" had four 40 point games in the 2008-09 season and the Lakers went 2-2 in those contests; obviously, that is a small sample size, but Bryant had 27 games this season in which he scored at least 30 points and the Lakers went 21-6 (.778) in those games, which is virtually identical with their overall winning percentage (.793) this season.
Bryant has scored at least 50 points in a game 23 times; he ranks third on that all-time career list as well, again trailing only Chamberlain (118) and Jordan (31). The Lakers went 16-7 in Bryant's 50 point games, which is an even better winning percentage (.696) than they posted in the games in which he scored 40-49 points. Bryant's only 50 point game this season happened when he
set a Madison Square Garden record with 61 points in a 126-117 victory.One could easily argue that the Lakers are better off when Bryant scores more than 40 points, so it is strange that Wilbon, Barry and the
WSJ pay so much attention to Bryant's field goal attempts to the exclusion of considering the results on those attempts. During the playoffs the past couple years, Hubie Brown and Jeff Van Gundy have pointed out on several occasions that Bryant does an excellent job of reading the defense and making the correct decision about whether to shoot, drive or pass. It is foolish to think that there is an ideal number of field goal attempts for Bryant that applies in all situations; if a team primarily single covers Bryant then he should probably attempt 25-30 shots but if a team traps him aggressively then the right play is to give the ball up. During this year's playoffs, Bryant has once again proven that he will make the right decisions and punish defenses no matter how they try to deal with him: the Lakers have gone 6-3 when Bryant had at least five assists but they also have gone 4-2 when Bryant had three or fewer assists.
It is worth noting that the Lakers are 3-0 in this year's playoffs when Bryant scored at least 40 points but just 1-2 in the three games when he scored fewer than 20 points--but those numbers do not fit the storyline that Wilbon and Barry apparently are determined to tell, so you can rest assured that you will never hear them talk about how well the Lakers do when Bryant tops the 40 point barrier.
Labels: Jon Barry, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Mike Wilbon
posted by David Friedman @ 4:37 AM
