Tyreke Evans Earns MVP Honors as Rookies End Sophomores' Seven Game Rookie Challenge Winning Streak
For many years the Rookie Challenge provided compelling evidence regarding the value of experience: the Sophomores beat the Rookies eight of the 10 times that the Challenge used the current format, including the last seven games in a row--but top notch performances by several first year guards plus a 20-20 effort by DeJuan Blair powered the Rookies to a 140-128 win on Friday night. Fans voted Tyreke Evans as the MVP; he certainly put up great numbers--a team-high 26 points on 11-15 field goal shooting, plus six rebounds and five assists--but he received a lot of support from backcourt mates Brandon Jennings (22 points, eight assists, six rebounds) and James Harden (22 points, five assists, four rebounds). Blair amassed 22 points, 23 rebounds and four assists, topping all other rebounders by at least 16 boards! All five rookie starters scored in double figures: Evans, Jennings, Blair, Stephen Curry (14 points) and Omri Casspi (13 points). Russell Westbrook made a strong MVP bid even though his team lost: 40 points on 18-29 field goal shooting plus five rebounds and four assists. Westbrook shot just 2-8 from three point range but he is at his best when he plays like a "power guard," bullying his way into the paint against defenders who cannot match his strength, reminiscent a bit of
James "Captain Late" Silas. Michael Beasley added 26 points and seven rebounds for the Sophomores.
Sophomore Coach Patrick Ewing was less than thrilled with his team's performance: "We got our butts kicked on every aspect of the game. They had 52 rebounds. They had 140 points. I know it's the All‑Star Game, but you know, we didn't play with enough pride in my eyes. They outplayed us. They outhustled us. They outscrapped us."
Except for a few spurts, defense was just a rumor throughout the evening, though fortunately matters did not reach the farcical level that they have in some of the previous years when the game degenerated into an informal slam dunk contest. In a sense, this kind of game gives a casual fan a glimpse into just how intense NBA defense usually is in the regular season (let alone the playoffs)--because when players with NBA talent get on the court and only defend sporadically you end up with a 140-128 score in a 40 minute game!
Instead of a conventional halftime show, the NBA staged its first ever "All-Star Dunk-In" as Demar DeRozan and Eric Gordon squared off for the right to be the fourth contestant in Saturday night's Slam Dunk Contest. Each player had two minutes to make two dunks, with misses not counting. Then fans determined the winner by either voting via text message or by logging on to NBA.com to make their selection. Gordon's made dunks were probably more impressive than DeRozan's but the problem is that Gordon prefaced those successful dunks with several misses that drained a lot of energy from his performance. In the end, DeRozan received 61% of the vote, a rout by Presidential election standards. DeRozan claimed that he held something back to use on Saturday, which suggests that he was very confident about his dunking skills vis a vis Gordon--or perhaps he is just trying to plant some doubts in the minds of Nate Robinson, Shannon Brown and Gerald Wallace; we'll find out in less than 24 hours.
Labels: Brandon Jennings, DeJuan Blair, DeMar DeRozan, James Harden, James Silas, Michael Beasley, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry, Tyreke Evans
posted by David Friedman @ 3:37 AM
Smooth All-Around Performance by Paul Lifts Hornets Over Heat
Chris Paul had 21 points, 13 assists, seven rebounds and four steals as the New Orleans Hornets beat the Miami Heat 100-89, ending a two game losing streak. David West added 21 points and nine rebounds and Tyson Chandler contributed 13 points and a game-high 10 rebounds as New Orleans outrebounded Miami 45-37. Dwyane Wade scored a game-high 30 points in addition to posting 10 assists and six rebounds.
Paul has opened the season with six straight games with at least 20 points and 10 assists, breaking the previous record of five set by Oscar Robertson in 1968. Frankly, I'm not sure what to make of this record. Robertson averaged an aggregate triple double for the first five years of his career, including 30.8 ppg, 12.5 rpg and 11.4 apg in 1961-62, the only time an NBA player has averaged a triple double for a whole season. So, Robertson did not just put up 20-10--he put up 30-10, plus 10-plus rpg, for five years. It is hard to believe that Robertson never started a season with more than five straight 20-10 games but if he had something like 35-9 plus 12 rebounds that means more than just having an arbitrarily defined 20-10 streak.
Also, there is no doubt that assists are awarded more liberally today than they previously were: in 1961-62, assists were awarded on 52.2% of made field goals, while last year assists were awarded on 58.4% of made field goals. Some people try to diminish the value of Robertson's triple doubles by saying that his numbers were inflated by the faster pace of his era but in 1962 he led the NBA with 11.4 apg while the next player (Guy Rodgers) only averaged 8.0 apg--and this was in a league in which the average team scored 118.8 ppg! If "pace" affects assist totals so much then how come only Robertson apparently benefited? Last season, the average NBA team scored 99.9 ppg but four players averaged more than 10 apg, topped by Paul's 11.6 apg. It is naive to think that assists are being scored the same way now that they were in Robertson's era and for that reason it is a bit hard to take seriously the ppg-apg "records" that Paul supposedly broke in last year's playoffs or at the start of this season. Don't get me wrong: Paul is a terrific passer and a marvelous point guard--definitely the top point guard in the NBA right now, in my opinion. His passing against the Heat was superb: Paul's third quarter alley-oop lob pass to Chandler from beyond the three point line was amazing and Paul's best feed of the game may have been a fourth quarter bounce pass that was not an assist but resulted in a free throw opportunity for Chandler.
You may recall that
I tracked the scorekeeping of Paul's assists in two playoff games last season: in game one versus the Spurs, three of his seven official assists to West were clearly incorrect (Paul did not even pass to West at all on one of the plays!) and another assist was marginal at best, while in game seven Paul officially had 14 assists but he should have only been credited with nine. The Heat game was the first complete Hornets' contest that I watched this season, so I decided to once again chart Paul's assists. I used a slightly different method this time; in the playoffs I waited to see the official play by play sheet and then I went back to a tape of the game to review each officially credited assist but for the Heat game I scored Paul's assists live and then compared my results with the official play by play sheet afterwards. This way, I could evaluate not only the passes that were officially called assists but I could also see if Paul made some passes that should have been called assists but were not. By my reckoning, Paul should have been credited with 11 assists versus Miami, not 13.
I agreed completely with the official scorekeeper on Paul's first six assists but assist number seven--on a West shot at the 3:36 mark of the second quarter--strikes me as dubious at best. West and Paul tossed the ball back and forth as the Heat doubled West in the post and then West received the ball deep enough in the paint to make his move: he dribbled, spun, did an up and under, made the shot and was fouled. An assist is supposed to be awarded if the recipient makes an immediate move to score after catching the pass AND if the pass contributed significantly to scoring the goal. West did go straight into a scoring motion after the last pass from Paul but West executed several different moves before sinking the shot, so it is pretty generous to award an assist on such a play; if that is an assist, then why wouldn't an assist be awarded every time someone passes the ball to a player who eventually scores? More to the point, if that is an assist, then how valuable or meaningful of a statistic is this? It does not take much skill to stand still behind the three point line, pass to David West and watch him put on a Kevin McHale low post clinic, so in my opinion it cheapens the value of the assist statistic to equate such a pass with the high degree of difficulty passes that Paul threw that deservedly were recorded as assists.
Paul's eighth official assist is even more questionable: at the 1:42 mark of the second quarter, he passed to Morris Peterson, who then dribbled twice, possibly took an extra step and then scored a tough layup over Wade. It is technically true that an assist can be awarded on a play in which the recipient dribbles more than once but, again, an assist is supposed to indicate that a pass made a significant contribution to the score: simply being the last person to pass the ball before someone else took a shot is not sufficient. If Paul had gotten a defensive rebound and passed ahead to Peterson, who took three dribbles and scored an uncontested fast break layup that would absolutely be an assist--the number of dribbles taken is not as important as the amount of defensive resistance the shooter encounters; simply passing to a player in a half court set and watching that player create his own shot should not be awarded with an assist.
Let me reiterate that I am by no means picking on Paul; I consider him to be the best point guard in the NBA. My issue is with how assists are being recorded and my question is whether Paul is benefiting from home cooking in this regard (all three games that I have tracked were home games for Paul), whether top playmakers get the benefit of the doubt in general or if the standards for assists have simply been lowered across the board. Over the course of this season, I plan to do similar tracking of Paul's assists in a road game and I also plan to do some charting of the scorekeeping of the assists of other top playmakers.
As for Miami, the Heat are obviously immensely better than they were last year. Wade has regained his explosiveness and he once again drives relentlessly to the basket. Miami's primary offensive option is Wade dribbling around until he decides to either shoot or pass; in one late game sequence, Wade was the last Heat player to cross midcourt on offense and the other four Heat players simply stood around like little kids waiting for permission to cross the street: they did not even consider the possibility of trying to run an offensive set or create an open shot by dribble penetration. Rookie point guard Mario Chalmers has played actively on defense and he is averaging more than five apg but Wade is clearly running the show.
Rookie first round draft choice Michael Beasley is clearly the second scoring option, although he had an off game versus the Hornets (10 points on 4-13 shooting, four rebounds). Beasley is a versatile player who can shoot, rebound and pass but he needs a road map, a compass and GPS to figure out where to go and what to do defensively; at that end of the court he looks like he graduated from the Carmelo Anthony school of being out of position. Also, in a previous telecast, ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy made the excellent observation that Beasley plays defense with his hands down instead of having his hands up in the passing lanes. Only time will tell if Beasley will develop greater interest and competence defensively; he clearly has the physical tools to at least be an adequate defender if he decides to do so.
Everyone else on the Heat roster is an afterthought on offense, picking up the scraps that are left over; that is certainly a strange role for four-time All-Star Shawn Marion and, considering that Marion felt unappreciated in Phoenix when he was scoring 17-20 ppg, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for him to express displeasure with how the Heat are using him, particularly since this is a contract year for him. For long stretches Marion (10 points, eight rebounds) was completely invisible and he is far too talented of a player to simply be floating around on the court without having a noticeable impact. Perhaps Marion is still adjusting to wearing the modified Phantom of the Opera mask to protect his recent facial injury but it just seems like he is a third wheel on this team: Wade monopolizes the ball and when Wade is not dribbling or shooting then either Beasley is going one on one or someone else is catching the ball and shooting from the perimeter.
Regardless of what Marion's role will turn out to be, the positives for Miami are that Wade looks like an elite player again, Beasley is a legit 18-20 ppg scorer, Chalmers is a tenacious defender and the Heat in general are playing with a lot of energy. They should certainly be able to contend for one of the last two playoff spots in the East.
Labels: Chris Paul, David West, Dwyane Wade, Michael Beasley, Shawn Marion
posted by David Friedman @ 4:29 AM
First Impressions of the 2008 NBA Draft
I am not a big "draftnik"--I much prefer to watch and analyze the players who are already in the NBA--but this year I filled out a
mock draft at Yardbarker. Frankly, for someone who does not obsess over the draft I think that I did pretty well, particularly in comparison to some people who spend so much more time researching this subject than I do. I got six of the first eight picks exactly correct and I transposed picks four and seven; I correctly identified nine of the 10 players who would be top 10 selections. In comparison,
USA TODAY's Chris Colston only got four of the first eight picks exactly correct,
ESPN's Chad Ford got six of the first eight picks exactly correct and
Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress got the first eight picks exactly correct. Colston, Ford and Givony each matched my feat of correctly identifying nine of the top ten players. I missed out on ninth pick D.J. Augustin, as did Ford and Givony, while Colston left out sixth pick Danilo Gallinari.
I can't speak for the other guys, but I made my choices based on what I expected the teams to do, not necessarily who I think the ten best players are. I only saw Mayo a few times, so maybe I caught him on bad nights or maybe he will improve a lot but I think that he is overrated; he has the requisite skill set to have a solid NBA career, but I don't get what all of the fuss is about and I certainly cannot comprehend why he was ever compared to LeBron James, who is several inches taller, at least 40 pounds heavier and just a much better player. Minnesota took Mayo with the third overall selection but will apparently ship him to Memphis along with several veterans (i.e., dead weight contracts) in exchange for several players, most notably Kevin Love and Mike Miller. Kevin McHale has been much criticized--and for good reason--but turning Mayo and some bad contracts into a solid big man and an excellent three point shooter looks like a good deal.
Everyone understood that Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley would be the top two picks; I think that all of the last minute stuff about Miami supposedly souring on Beasley was just a smokescreen from the Heat to see what kind of offers they might receive for the second pick. Rose looks like the right choice considering that Chicago needs a point guard and that the rules changes over the past few years have placed a premium on having players who can attack off of the dribble. I like Beasley's game and I think that he is much more NBA ready at this point than Kevin Durant was last year. Beasley may not average as many points as Durant did--he will have to share the ball with Dwyane Wade and Shawn Marion--but he will surely shoot a much better field goal percentage, grab more rebounds and have more of an impact on winning; Durant was just firing off shots left and right on a horrible team until the latter part of the season when his shot selection and field goal percentage improved.
ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy called Beasley a "Hall of Fame" talent. I respect Van Gundy a lot but I just can't go that far about a guy who has not played one minute yet in the NBA. Beasley is very talented but only the elite of the elite make it to the Hall of Fame, guys who deliver year after year. Jay Bilas said that Beasley has "great presence in traffic. This guy can operate in a crowd." I agree completely with that assessment and those two qualities are why I expect Beasley to be more efficient and effective than Durant has been so far.
Seattle's choice of Russell Westbrook with the number four pick surprised most people other than Givony; I had Westbrook going to the Clippers in the seventh spot and Seattle taking Gordon, flipping what actually transpired. I like Gordon's scoring ability, but going to the Clippers is like being sucked in by a black hole: we may never see Gordon again in this universe, let alone find out what he could have done with a different team. As for Seattle, Van Gundy said that the Sonics now face a "critical decision" regarding which positions Durant and Westbrook will play. Durant played shooting guard last year. Will Westbrook take over that spot, moving Durant to small forward, or will Westbrook play point guard? I'm not sure what Westbrook's best position is but I never agreed with putting Durant in the backcourt; he needs to bulk up a bit, toughen up on the boards and play small forward, because he does not belong on the outside chasing 6-5 shooting guards around screens.
Fran Fraschilla is ESPN's resident expert on international players. Most of his analysis sounded plausible, although it largely came from the same template: the foreign players who got drafted tend to be very young, under contract overseas and not quite ready to play in the NBA. Fraschilla offered a bit of unintentional comedy when he said that Alexis Ajinca was "unstoppable" in one on zero workouts. Hey, Fraschilla should check me out: I look like J.J. Redick at Duke in one on zero workouts, but there is a reason that Redick is riding the bench in Orlando and I am writing about other people being drafted instead of finishing out my last days as an NBA player, like my contemporaries Grant Hill and Shaquille O'Neal--in the NBA you have to be able to play one on one in the context of a five on five game, so "one on zero" skills have limited value.
The reason that I did not have Augustin in my top ten is that I expected teams to be wary of a guy who measured out at less than six feet tall. Yes, there have been some very nice players at that size but they are special guys, few and far between. Maybe Augustin will be one of them--the rules changing favoring perimeter players will help him of course--but I have my doubts. After Charlotte took Augustin with the ninth pick, the Nets chose Brook Lopez, prompting Bilas to declare, "New Jersey got an absolute steal. They ought to wear a mask for this one." I agree with Bilas; I had Charlotte taking Lopez as a nice complement to Emeka Okafor and unless Augustin turns out to be a very dynamic player I think that the Bobcats are going to really regret this.
Between the draft and some recent trades, the Nets added Lopez, Chris Douglas-Roberts (who claims to have never lost a one on one game in his life, a more useful--if harder to verify--trait than Ajinca's one on zero prowess), Ryan Anderson, Yi Jianlian and Bobby Simmons. Mark Jackson said that New Jersey has made a "tremendous upgrade." Van Gundy liked Milwaukee's moves, which include acquiring Richard Jefferson from New Jersey plus drafting Joe Alexander and Luc Mbah a Moute. Bilas praised the Heat, who added Beasley, Mario Chalmers and Darnell Jackson. Of course, the reality is that it is far too early to know who the real winners and losers are but I think that Jackson, Van Gundy and Bilas' choices are reasonable based on what we currently know about the players in question.
The best thing about ESPN's draft coverage this year is that Stephen A. Smith no longer sat at the main table spitting out overblown "analysis." ESPN relegated him to asking pro forma questions of players after they were drafted and the Worldwide Leader apparently put a strict clock on Smith's segments to make sure that he did not wander too far astray; at one point he said that he wanted to ask another question but that he was being directed to cut his interview short and toss it over to Doris Burke, who interviewed various players and their family members. If you watched the whole telecast then you noticed that Burke asked questions that specifically related to who she was speaking with, while for the most part Smith kept asking variations of "What can your new team expect you to contribute?" Granted, the players are young and nervous and Smith was hardly given a huge role, but he could have at least tried to ask something specific about each player rather than lobbing a generic, forgettable question that led automatically to a preprogrammed, generic and forgettable reply along the lines of "I will do whatever my new team asks me to do."
One of the most interesting things about this draft is that there is a decent chance that none of the most ballyhooed players will win Rookie of the Year; Greg Oden, last year's number one overall selection, could very well earn that honor if he puts up good rebounding and shot blocking numbers for a Portland team that should be able to contend for a playoff berth in the strong Western Conference.
Here is a capsule look at what I wrote about the three previous NBA Drafts:
First Impressions of the 2007 NBA Draft, Soon to be Renamed the "Paul Allen Buys Every Draft Pick Show"What I said in 2007: "Nothing lends itself more to overanalysis and wild hyperbole than the draft (any draft, not just the NBA's). None of the draft picks has played one second of basketball at the NBA level, let alone 82 regular season games over a period of many months, so the dramatic, overblown statements and projections that are offered up by "experts" are just that: dramatic and overblown."
What I think now: Those two sentences should be the preamble to every single article that is written right after any draft.
Thoughts on the NBA Draft (2006)
What I said in 2006: "There were so many trades going on throughout the draft that I kept waiting for Monty Hall to come out of the audience and take the microphone away from Dan Patrick. Greg Anthony was so befuddled at one point that he said, 'No comment,' as if he were being deposed under oath. Stephen A. Smith completely ripped the Portland Trail Blazers but I don't understand why he did not ask a direct question of Blazers President Steve Patterson when Patterson appeared on the telecast via satellite. Portland has clearly made some questionable moves in the past, but they got rid of undersized point guard Sebastian Telfair and obtained LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy, either of whom conceivably could turn out to be the best player in this year's draft. Portland also acquired Raef LaFrentz and Dan Dickau while shipping away Theo Ratliff and Victor Khryapa. It seems unfair and misguided for Smith to criticize these deals three seconds after they have transpired when there is a decent chance that these moves actually helped Portland. Ratliff is a quality shotblocker but Portland hardly gave up the house to get Aldridge and Roy. Smith's verbal broadsides against Portland came across as the proverbial 'shoot, ready, aim' style of analysis. Just because ESPN made a movie about Telfair does not mean that he will be a great NBA player."
What I think now: Portland fans are happy that Stephen A. Smith is not running their team; NBA fans are happy that Smith's role on ESPN's NBA Draft coverage was reduced from commentator to interviewer.
Thoughts on the NBA Draft (2005)
What I said in 2005: "Utah...acquired the third pick from Portland and selected Illinois' Deron Williams, a poor man's Jason Kidd who seems to be the perfect fit for Jerry Sloan's system. He won't make anyone forget John Stockton (who could?) but Utah expects him to man the point guard spot for the next 10 years or so."
What I think now: I was right to praise the Williams pick and to pan the Clippers' choice of Yaroslav Korolev with the 12th pick. On the other hand, I did not even mention Chris Paul and he has turned out to be the best player from that draft so far. Atlanta's choice of Marvin Williams over Paul and Deron Williams will only haunt the Hawks for the next decade or so.
Labels: 2008 NBA Draft, Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley, O.J. Mayo
posted by David Friedman @ 4:25 AM
