20 Second Timeout

The Jimmy Butler Saga, and Why Kobe Was Greater than Shaq

I don't plan to say much about the Jimmy Butler saga until it is resolved; I have never trafficked in rumors and speculation, and I am not going to start doing that now. The basic facts are known to anyone who follows the NBA: Butler is dissatisfied with the Heat because he wants a contract extension that the team declined to offer, Butler has broken various team rules while making his dissatisfaction clear, and the Heat have suspended him on two separate occasions for a total of nine games. Butler is a six-time All-Star, but he made his last All-Star appearance in 2023 and it is clear that the 35 year old is past his prime, though still an effective player when he deigns to show up and play hard. 

The Heat will pay Butler $48.8 million this season (minus the $3.1 million that he lost due to being suspended), and he has a player option for $52.4 million for next season. During his long tenure in Miami, team President Pat Riley has not shied away from confronting Shaquille O'Neal, Dwyane Wade, and LeBron James, so he is not going to have the slightest hesitation about confronting Butler; after last season, Riley publicly rebuked Butler--who missed the playoffs due to injury--for speaking about how well the Heat could have done with him in the playoffs, and Riley has made it clear that he--not Butler or any other player--runs the franchise.

One might think that it is reasonable for the Heat to expect Butler to show up on time and play hard in exchange for receiving over $100 million this season and next season, but Butler declared that he has lost his "joy" and will not be able to find it again until he is with a different team; when the lost "joy" escalated to missed flights and other violations of team rules, the Heat reasonably decided to not pay an employee who has declined to do the job he is being paid to do. 

Butler is following in the shameful footsteps of--among others--James Harden and Damian Lillard, players who decided to say and do whatever is necessary to enable them to not only breach their contracts but also be traded to their destinations of choice. This is business as usual in the modern NBA, which is why I had not yet written about Butler--but listening to TNT's Shaquille O'Neal insist that it is acceptable and understandable for Butler to not "go all out" because the Heat have not given a contract extension to Butler provided an excellent reminder of why Kobe Bryant was greater than Shaquille O'Neal: Bryant consistently practiced hard and played hard while focusing his efforts on doing everything possible to win championships, but winning championships was not always O'Neal's top priority.

O'Neal said that he understands how Butler feels--"You don't want me, so I don't want you"--because he went through that experience more than once during his career. O'Neal has cultivated such a likable image during his post-playing career that it is easy to forget the contentious dealings he had with multiple teams during his playing career, including the Orlando Magic, the L.A. Lakers, and the Miami Heat. Lakers fans remember O'Neal declaring that if the big dog is not fed (the ball) then he won't guard the house (play defense in the paint), and they also remember O'Neal asserting that because he got injured on "company time" he is entitled to have surgery "on company time." That decision to delay his toe surgery not only probably cost the Lakers the 2003 championship (which would have been a "four-peat" not seen since Bill Russell led the Boston Celtics to eight straight titles from 1959-66), but it probably influenced Jerry Buss' decision to choose to build the Lakers around Bryant and not O'Neal; that turned out to be a wise choice that resulted in the Lakers winning championships in 2009 and 2010 while O'Neal settled for one post-Lakers' title as the Miami Heat's second option behind Dwyane Wade.

After O'Neal announced his retirement, I titled my tribute to his career Shaq Achieved So Much--and Could Have Achieved So Much More, and this is how I summarized his legacy:

O'Neal has an infectious joy for life, he has generously donated to many charities and he ranks among the top 15 players (and top five centers) of all-time. Yet, despite everything that O'Neal accomplished--and even considering that he rightfully should have received at least two more regular season MVPs (2001, 2005)--there is still an inescapable sense that he should have accomplished even more than he did. Phil Jackson recently said of O'Neal, "This is a guy who could and should have been the MVP player for 10 consecutive seasons." If O'Neal had approached training, practicing and conditioning with the mindset of Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant then O'Neal could have established a body of work that would have credibly put him in contention for the mythical title of greatest player of all-time (as I explained in my Pantheon series it is very difficult to pick one player as the greatest of all-time, though it is possible to select several worthy candidates for that honor); O'Neal had a great career but no knowledgeable basketball analyst would rank him as the greatest player of all-time.

Thus, considering O'Neal's history it is not surprising that he is siding with Butler. O'Neal has never believed that a player should be expected to give maximum effort at all times if the player is dissatisfied for any reason. O'Neal's TNT co-hosts Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley pushed back, arguing that Butler has a responsibility to fulfill the terms of his contract. Johnson framed this as a matter of personal pride/integrity, while Barkley emphasized that Butler should not let his teammates down. Smith agreed with those points, and he noted that Butler may be trying to get more money but all that he has done so far is cost himself more than $3 million that he may never recoup.

Labels: Jimmy Butler, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Miami Heat, Pat Riley, Shaquille O'Neal

posted by David Friedman @ 2:25 AM

9 comments

Embiid and Harden Disappear as Heat Rout 76ers

There has been a lot of talk about the 76ers gaining momentum after winning two home playoff games, and about Joel Embiid being fired up because it has been reported that Nikola Jokic will soon be named the 2022 NBA regular season MVP. NBA playoff games are not won by talk but by action, and in game five the actions of the Miami Heat and Philadelphia 76ers spoke volumes: the Heat won 120-85 to take a 3-2 lead and push the 76ers to the brink of elimination. Jimmy Butler led the way with 23 points, nine rebounds and six assists, but he had a lot of help: all four of Miami's starters scored at least 10 points each, and two Miami reserves also scored in double figures. The Heat shot .536 from the field, and they outrebounded the 76ers, 46-36. The Heat set the tone at the start--leading 31-19 at the end of the first quarter--and they ended the game emphatically, outscoring the 76ers 39-19 in the fourth quarter.

The Heat deserve credit for taking care of business and for showing that they are quite worthy of being the number one seed in the East. There will be more opportunities to talk about the Heat in depth, but this game revealed a lot about the 76ers. Actions speak louder than words. When Hakeem Olajuwon was upset about David Robinson winning the 1995 regular season MVP, Olajuwon obliterated Robinson during their head to head playoff matchup. Miami center Bam Adebayo is a very good player but he is no Robinson. If Embiid is who he says he is and who he wants MVP voters to believe him to be, then this series is his opportunity to prove it by dominating Adebayo and leading Philadelphia to victory.

Embiid finished game five with 17 points on 7-12 field goal shooting, five rebounds, and no blocked shots. He was passive at both ends of the court, in marked contrast to how he played in the previous two games. There is no question that Embiid is one of the most talented big men in the NBA--and we know that he is playing hurt, but he is not the first and will not be the last star player playing hurt in the playoffs: Giannis Antetokoumpo came back from a knee injury to produce 50 points, 14 rebounds, and five blocked shots in game six of the 2021 NBA Finals to carry his Milwaukee Bucks to a championship.

Compare 50-14-5 in game six of the NBA Finals to 17-5-0 in game five of the second round. There is no comparison, and the gap between those two sets of numbers represents the difference between talking about being great and doing what it takes to be great.

The 76ers' second leading scorer in game five was James Harden, who resumed his "concert tour" with a May 13 date (i.e., he shot 5-13 from the field). Harden had 14 points, six rebounds, four assists, and four turnovers. In game four, Harden proved that there is nothing wrong with him physically, and that he can still get his shot off at will, so we understand that his game five disappearing act is related to his mentality, not his physical abilities. With the season on the line for all practical purposes, and the 76ers within striking distance at halftime, the player who Daryl Morey compared favorably to Michael Jordan as a scorer shot 1-5 from the field in the second half. However, Harden proved that he is a two-way player--in the worst way--by disappearing at the other end of the court as well: if being the last player back on defense were an "advanced basketball statistic," Harden's game five performance would be one for the record books--and when the soon-to-be $200 million man is indifferent about getting back on defense, that losing attitude permeates the team. Whether or not you approve of or like their methods, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant pushed their teammates to achieve greatness. Harden has a track record of encouraging his teammates to cultivate losing habits. It is not a coincidence that serious-minded, dedicated players like Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook could not stand playing with Harden.

Before the game, TNT's Chris Haynes stated that Embiid had been quiet all day, that Embiid was upset about being not being named MVP, and that Embiid is acting like someone who wants to prove something. Let's just say that Haynes does not have a future as a fortune teller or as someone who is proficient at interpreting body language. During the game, after it became clear that Embiid and his 76ers were going to lose meekly without offering much resistance, Haynes tried to backpedal from his original take, and suggest that Embiid's pregame mood may have been a sign that he was disengaged. Haynes stated that he even asked 76ers' staffers if Embiid was ill, but they made it clear that Embiid is not ill. 

When will media members understand that this is who Embiid is? He missed the first two full seasons of his career due to injury, and in the subsequent six seasons he has proven that he is (1) still injury prone and (2) unable to lead his team past the second round of the playoffs.

Throughout the game, Philadelphia Coach Doc Rivers could be heard pleading with his team to play harder. As TNT's Charles Barkley said, it is not good when a coach has to beg his team to play hard in game five of a 2-2 series. None of this should surprise anyone. The 76ers are a team that did not "tank to the top," but rather a team that was built by developing losing habits, and thus a team that never cultivated a winning culture, let alone a championship culture--and the recently acquired Harden fits right in, because he quits and pouts when he does not get his way, which is why he is playing for his third team in the past two seasons.

After the Celtics swept the 76ers in the 2020 playoffs, I wrote, "Tanking does not promote, cultivate, or develop a winning culture, so it is no surprise that a team built by tanking lacks mental toughness; the 76ers are frontrunners who rely on raw talent, but they do not maximize their talent, and they fold when they face adversity. This is a predictable outcome from tanking, and indeed I predicted this from the start, in contrast to the overheated praise many media members heaped on Sam Hinkie, the creator of 'The Process.'"

In contrast, under Pat Riley the Heat have built a winning culture. Stars come and go, but the expectations do not change, the attention to detail does not change, and the commitment to excellence (to borrow Al Davis' phrase) does not change. It is not a coincidence that LeBron James won two titles during his four Miami Heat seasons, and two titles during his other 15 seasons; his other teams catered to him and his whims, while the Heat insisted that James embrace the Heat way. After he won two championships with the Heat, James preferred to go elsewhere and resume doing things his way. When Riley referred to "No more smiling faces with hidden agendas," you did not need a decoder ring to know that he was talking about James. 

All you need to know about these two franchises and their divergent methods of team building/player evaluation is that in 2019 the 76ers traded Butler to the Heat in exchange for Josh Richardson. Butler did not fit in with the program that the 76ers were building; Butler led the Heat to the 2020 NBA Finals, while the 76ers are poised to lose in the second round or earlier for the fifth straight season.

Could the 76ers win at home to push this series to a seventh game? Anything is possible, but the 76ers not only have to overcome Butler and the Heat but also their own flawed psyches: a game six win at home means facing game seven in Miami, and if game five showed us anything it showed us that the 76ers have little interest in competing in Miami again this season.

Labels: James Harden, Jimmy Butler, Joel Embiid, LeBron James, Miami Heat, Pat Riley, Philadelphia 76ers

posted by David Friedman @ 11:53 PM

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NBA Selects 15 Greatest Coaches as Part of 75th Anniversary Celebration

The NBA's 75th Anniversary Team included all 50 players selected in 1996 to the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List, so it is surprising that the just-released list of 15 Greatest NBA coaches does not include all 10 of the coaches selected in 1996 to the NBA's 10 Greatest Coaches List. Here are the 10 coaches from the 1996 list (in alphabetical order):

Red Auerbach

Chuck Daly

Bill Fitch

Red Holzman

Phil Jackson

John Kundla

Don Nelson

Jack Ramsay

Pat Riley

Lenny Wilkens

A 43 member panel of current and former NBA coaches selected the just-released list of 15 Greatest Coaches. Here is that list (in alphabetical order):

Red Auerbach

Larry Brown 

Chuck Daly 

Red Holzman

Phil Jackson 

K.C. Jones

Steve Kerr 

Don Nelson

Gregg Popovich

Jack Ramsay

Pat Riley

Doc Rivers

Jerry Sloan

Erik Spoelstra

Lenny Wilkens

Thus, Larry Brown,  K.C. Jones, Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich, Doc Rivers, Jerry Sloan, and Erik Spoelstra are new members of the list, while Bill Fitch and John Kundla missed the cut this time after appearing on the 1996 list. 

If the NBA is taking the position that players should not be removed from All-Time Greatest Lists, then why remove coaches? Not only is this inconsistent in a general sense, but the exclusion of Kundla and Fitch is bizarre. Kundla led the Lakers to five championships, tied with Popovich and Riley for third in the all-time rankings behind only Jackson's 11 and Auerbach's nine. Taking out Kundla is a slap in the face not only to his great teams and great players, but to that entire era. Regarding Fitch, he ranks 11th all-time in regular season wins, he led the Celtics to the 1981 title, he coached the Rockets to the 1986 Finals, and he improved each team that he coached, from the expansion Cavaliers to the Celtics to the Rockets to the Nets to the Clippers. Fitch was legitimately ranked as a top 10 coach in 1996, and it is difficult to understand how he is not a top 15 coach now.

Larry Brown is considered one of the greatest basketball tacticians and teachers ever. He had not won an NBA title or reached the NBA Finals in 1996, but since that time he led his teams to three NBA Finals and he guided the Pistons to the 2004 championship. He clearly belongs on the list, and I have no problem with him being given one of the five new slots.

K.C. Jones may be one of the most underrated coaches of all-time. He won two titles (1984, 1986), and he ranks sixth all-time in regular season winning percentage. It makes sense to give him one of the five new slots.

Steve Kerr ranks sixth all-time with three titles (2015, 2017-18). He owns the best playoff winning percentage of all-time (.733), and he ranks third in regular season winning percentage (.694). He belongs on the list.

Gregg Popovich ranks third on the career regular season wins list, but he is just six wins away from passing Nelson and taking the number one spot. Popovich's regular season winning percentage has dropped to .659 (12th all-time) and will continue to drop because his current team is lousy, but--as mentioned above--he is tied for third all-time with five championships won (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2014). He belongs on the list.

Doc Rivers ranks 10th in career wins but 37th in career winning percentage. Like Fitch, Rivers proved that he could take over bad teams and help them improve, a skill set that is valuable but also damages one's career winning percentage. Rivers led the Celtics to the 2008 title and the 2010 Finals. Rivers is an exceptional coach, and I have stood up for him many times when he received unjust criticism, including a lot of nonsense that Bill Simmons wrote about Rivers (part of a broader trend of arrogant media members assuming that they know a lot more about NBA coaching than they do). Rivers' 1993 book Those Who Love The Game is packed with insights and is a great read for anyone who wants to understand more about the NBA from the perspective of a savvy player (Rivers was still an active player when he co-wrote the book). However, Rivers also holds the coaching record for blowing 3-1 playoff series leads (three). Again, he is a very good coach and he has received unjust criticism in the past, but I would not rank him as one of the NBA's 15 greatest coaches. For sure, he is not a better coach than Kundla or Fitch. 

Jerry Sloan and Nelson are the only coaches on either list who did not win a championship as a coach. Sloan led the Utah Jazz to two NBA Finals appearances (1997, 1998). Sloan ranks fourth in career regular season wins and 23rd in career regular season winning percentage. Sloan was a very good coach, but how can he be ranked ahead of five-time champion Kundla or one-time champion Fitch? 

Erik Spoelstra ranks 24th in career regular season wins and 31st in career regular season winning percentage. He has led the Heat to two championships (2012-13) and five NBA Finals appearances (2011-14, 2020). Spoelstra has already established himself without question as a Hall of Fame coach, but is he really one of the 15 greatest NBA coaches of all-time? 

There are several coaches who did not make either list who I would take over Rivers, Sloan, and Spoelstra. Alex Hannum won two NBA titles (1958, 1967) plus one ABA title (1969). He coached the only two teams to beat Bill Russell's Celtics in a playoff series. Bill Sharman's Lakers broke the regular season wins record set by Hannum's 76ers, and then they won the 1972 title. Tommy Heinsohn won two championships (1974, 1976) in a nine year coaching career, including a seven game triumph in 1974 against peak Kareem Abdul-Jabbar when Abdul-Jabbar was playing alongside Hall of Famers Oscar Robertson and Bobby Dandridge with the Milwaukee Bucks. Billy Cunningham led the 76ers to the 1983 championship with the greatest playoff record in NBA history up to that time (12-1; the 2001 Lakers went 15-1 in an expanded playoff format, and the 2017 Warriors went 16-1 after the playoff format was expanded again). Cunningham's 76ers had the best regular season record in the NBA for a six year span, and he ranks second in career regular season winning percentage (.698, just behind Jackson's .704). Cunningham ranks ninth in career playoff winning percentage.

Think of it this way: Who do you have to mention if you tell the story of the NBA decade by decade through the lens of coaching? John Kundla was the dominant coach in NBA history prior to Red Auerbach. Then Auerbach's Celtics dominated the late 1950s/early 1960s. Those Bill Russell-led Celtics--coached first by Auerbach and then by player-coach Russell--only lost two playoff series, both times to teams coached by Alex Hannum. Bill Sharman led the Lakers to their first title since moving to L.A. from Minneapolis. Red Holzman and Tommy Heinsohn were the only NBA coaches to win two titles in the 1970s. Lenny Wilkens led the Sonics to two Finals and one championship en route to setting the career regular season wins record (since broken, but he still ranks second).

Pat Riley, K.C. Jones, Chuck Daly, Bill Fitch, and Billy Cunningham were the championship coaches in the 1980s, which might have been the greatest decade in NBA history, featuring the Lakers, Celtics, 76ers, Pistons, and the amazing talents of the young Michael Jordan. Phil Jackson was obviously the coach of the 1990s and the 2000s, leading dynasties in Chicago and then L.A. Popovich won five titles in a 15 year period. Larry Brown sustained excellence for decades, and won a title versus a Phil Jackson-coached team. Steve Kerr helmed the NBA's most recent dynasty, winning three titles in a four year span.

That adds up to 16 coaches. I am not sure how the league settled on 15 coaches for the 75th Anniversary Team, but if the NBA can have 76 players on its 75th Anniversary Team then it can have 16 coaches. With all due respect to the coaches who I left off--each of whom I greatly respect--I feel good about that list of 16; some teams and some eras are more defined by coaches than others, and the coaches I listed are the seminal coaches in NBA history. Perhaps the most difficult cut for me is Spoelstra, but we have seen LeBron James win four titles with three different coaches, so I am more comfortable picturing the Heat winning with a different coach than I am picturing some of these other teams winning with a different coach; I am pretty sure that Riley could have left the front office and coached those teams to titles had that been necessary. I think that Spoelstra is a great, Hall of Fame coach, and he is possibly even a top 20 coach, but he falls just outside of my top 16.

Earlier I said that I am puzzled by the NBA removing coaches from the 1996 list, but if we are keeping the new list to 15 (or 16) and removing coaches then Nelson and Ramsay--not Kundla and Fitch--have to go. Nelson was an innovator and he is the all-time regular season wins leader (until Popovich passes him soon) but he ranks 54th in career regular season winning percentage and he never reached the NBA Finals despite coaching a lot of very talented teams. Ramsay won one title in a 21 year coaching career, never reached another Finals, and had a losing playoff record; he was a great TV/radio commentator and a respected tactician, but in my estimation he is not one of the top 15 or 16 NBA coaches of all-time.

Labels: All-Time NBA Team, Gregg Popovich, John Kundla, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Red Auerbach, Steve Kerr

posted by David Friedman @ 1:15 AM

10 comments

Basketball: A Love Story

ESPN's multi-part, 20 hour documentary "Basketball: A Love Story" is a compelling oral history of the sport. Dan Klores, who directed the film, previously received a Peabody Award for "Black Magic." Klores, along with Jackie MacMullan and Rafe Bartholomew, co-authored the film's companion book. The series aired on ESPN during the latter part of 2018 and is also available on the ESPN app, where you can watch dozens of individually cut segments in any order you want.

I watched the entire series on the app, so I decided which segments to view first, and I also decided to watch a few segments more than once. There is too much material to summarize the entire series in any kind of coherent fashion but after watching every segment there are certain people, statements, images and concepts that stood out, presented here in no particular order:

1) Ben Jobe, who passed away on March 10, 2017, won over 500 games as a collegiate head coach and he also served for a brief time as an assistant coach with the NBA's Denver Nuggets. Jobe was quoted in many different segments, and he always offered pithy pearls of wisdom but the segment that stood out the most for me is the one that discussed David Thompson's descent from elite player to drug addict. Jobe described trying to counsel Thompson to get help, only to be chided by management for interfering with Thompson's performance. Jobe's description of that meeting and his thoughts are poignant and chilling: as the Denver executive gave Jobe his marching orders, Jobe took out a piece of paper and started writing; the executive thought that Jobe was taking notes but Jobe was writing his resignation, which he delivered on the spot. Jobe looked into the camera and told the interviewer that the decision was simple for him, because if Thompson had suffered a broken leg or any other physical injury the team would get him treatment and Jobe felt that the team was obligated to get Thompson treatment because he was sick in his brain.

2) The L.A. Lakers defeated the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1982 Finals in part because of their stingy 1-3-1 pressing defense, which Coach Pat Riley learned from Adolph Rupp during Riley's time playing for Rupp at the University of Kentucky. I remember watching that series and hearing Philadelphia Coach Billy Cunningham repeatedly screaming at the officials to call an illegal defense. The press itself was not illegal but under the rules at that time the Lakers' zone defense--which involved sagging into the paint to prevent Julius Erving from driving while daring anyone else to beat the Lakers from the outside--was often illegal. Many teams played a form of illegal defense for a few possessions here and there but the problem for the 76ers was that the Lakers not only did this a lot but they were also a lot better at it than other teams!

3) The segment titled "Joy or Relief" explored whether players and coaches feel more joy or more relief after winning a championship. Riley broke down in tears as he described leading the Lakers to a championship over the Boston Celtics in 1985. He said that he knew his job was on the line if the Lakers did not win and that after the Lakers clinched the title the main person he looked for was his wife. That championship was about relief not just for Riley but also for his family and all the people close to him.

4) The segment about the Portland team that beat Philadelphia in the 1977 Finals made a big deal about the contrast between Portland's team-centric approach and Philadelphia's star-driven approach but a more apropos comparison would be between Gene Shue and Pat Riley. Shue, who coached Philadelphia in 1977, held back his team's best player--Julius Erving--in order to make sure that the team's other two All-Stars, George McGinnis and Doug Collins, got a similar amount of touches. Erving compared his role to being a race horse who has a bit in his mouth and is being held back. In contrast, a few years later when Riley coached the Lakers he had a "greyhound" philosophy that when your team has talent you don't hold it back but you let that talent run up and down the court in full expression.

Although the segment did not discuss what happened after the 76ers fired Shue six games into the 1977-78 season, it is worth noting that Shue's replacement Billy Cunningham declared that the 76ers "had too many chiefs and not enough Indians." Cunningham made it clear that the offense would run through Erving, who led the 76ers to three Eastern Conference Finals and two NBA Finals during the next four seasons. I remember Cunningham explaining years later that during Erving's ABA years the New York Nets made Erving the focus of their attack "and all they did was win championships." The acquisition of Moses Malone prior to the 1982-83 season filled the gap at center that had plagued the 76ers for years and they romped to the title that year, setting an NBA postseason record by going 12-1 (the 2001 Lakers later went 15-1 in the playoffs to break that record during an era when the NBA added an extra playoff round).

Although Phil Jackson used the Triangle Offense to create structure and make sure that the entire team was involved with the offense, he also gave his top stars--first Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen with the Chicago Bulls, later Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant with the L.A. Lakers--a lot of space to utilize their individual talents. It would have been interesting to see Erving spend a larger portion of his NBA career playing under that kind of philosophy, though perhaps Erving did not have quite the thirst to score that Jordan, O'Neal and Bryant did. By the time that Cunningham had the roster that he wanted and was able to really implement his approach, Erving was already a nine year veteran past the age of 30 who now had to battle younger stars like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird for NBA supremacy (not to mention the ageless Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was on the same team with Magic).

5) Bobby Knight received a lot of coverage, which is understandable because he is a compelling, successful and deeply flawed person. Knight coached for decades, won three NCAA titles and there was never a whiff of scandal around him in terms of recruiting violations, academics or issues of that sort--but Knight was a bully and that led to his downfall. That is the tragic paradox; he preached doing things the right way but he often did not live up to his own standard and he never developed the self-awareness to either realize that or seek help.

Billy Packer told a great story about when Knight coached the 1984 U.S. Olympic team. After Knight first saw Jordan, he told Packer that Jordan worked hard but he did not see how he could keep a shooting guard who could not shoot. Then, after a few practices, Knight reconsidered and concluded that Jordan was so competitive and so effective in other areas that it did not matter that Jordan could not shoot. Not long after that, Knight watched Jordan dominate experienced NBA veterans in exhibition games and he told Packer that Jordan was the greatest player he had ever coached!

Knight was not good at self-reflection but he had a flexible and keen mentality about basketball.
9) The segment about LeBron James' tone-deaf handling of the "Decision" includes an interesting interview with David Stern, who states that he begged several people at ESPN to not turn James' announcement into a TV show. Stern could not conceal his complete and utter disdain for the entire process that culminated in what what observer described as a broadcast that looked like a hostage crisis being filmed on the set of Howdy Doody (referring to how uncomfortable James looked and the fact that he was surrounded by a captive audience of children who had to sit there as ESPN dragged the show on and on before getting to the point).

James, asked when he realized that the idea was a mistake, claims that he did not realize the impact until the season started and he was treated like a villain in every road arena. If James really did not understand how badly that fiasco went until months later then he is even more tone deaf about the whole situation than I had thought.

Labels: Basketball: A Love Story, Ben Jobe, Bobby Knight, Hakeem Olajuwon, Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Pat Riley

posted by David Friedman @ 1:45 AM

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LeBron James Abandons Cleveland, Creates Power Trio in Miami

The 2010 NBA free agency circus--headlined by LeBron James' narcissistic power plays and publicity stunts--climaxed on Thursday night when James commandeered ESPN's airwaves for one hour to stab a sharp, rusty stake right through the hearts of Cleveland sports fans by proudly declaring that he will sign with the Miami Heat. For seven years, the Cleveland Cavaliers' organization bent over backwards to cater to James' every whim, the Cleveland media showered him with unending praise and the team's fans cheered his every move while also literally begging him to return their unwavering affection by re-signing with the team. James responded by leaving without even saying goodbye, fleeing Northeast Ohio at night for the comforts of a Connecticut TV studio and not even having the common courtesy to bother to make a phone call to Cavs' owner Dan Gilbert.

It is already quite obvious that the coverage of this over the top drama will be very parochial in nature: for instance, in Cleveland this will be framed as a story about betrayal while in Miami this will be depicted as a story about LeBron James joining forces with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. The larger story that is seemingly getting lost in the hype is that Pat Riley outsmarted everybody else so completely that he looks like Bobby Fischer playing chess against a bunch of little children. While so many league executives, media members and fans speculated about what LeBron James really wants, Riley not only figured it out but delivered it on a silver platter: Riley realized that anywhere James goes he will get paid big bucks and he will be able to be a "global icon" (even if that nebulous term has never been precisely defined) but the one opportunity that James could not readily obtain was the chance to play with other All-Stars who are also in their primes.

Riley handled this entire process masterfully; after Wade refused to sign a long term contract extension in 2006 but later griped that he did not have enough help Riley essentially said "If you are not going to commit to this franchise long term then just shut up and play and I'll build the team how I see fit." Riley made it clear that until Wade committed to the Heat that the Heat would keep their options open, including going after max level free agents if Wade decided to bolt; so, Wade kept his mouth shut, led the Heat to the playoffs and then decided to help Riley recruit top players to come to Miami.

I don't think that anyone anticipated that Riley would be able to clear up so much salary cap space that he could not only re-sign Wade but also bring in two other max level players. It seems unlikely that a team can win a championship with three stars and nine minimum salary players but even if the Heat do not win a title this year Riley has assembled an impressive troika to build around for upcoming seasons--and if Riley and his super trio can entice a few aging but still capable veterans to come to Miami on the cheap in order to try to get rings then the Heat will be a viable championship contender very quickly. It must be added that if James, Wade and Bosh truly teamed up with winning--and not making max money--as their top goal then they could greatly accelerate the process of creating a powerful team by agreeing to sign for $10 million or $12 million per year instead of $16 million per year; the millions of dollars that the Heat save would enable them to sign some players for more than the league minimum--and I suspect that James, Wade and Bosh could figure out some way to get by on "just" $10 million per year.

Most observers considered James, Wade and Bosh to be the three most desirable free agents--and Riley swooped up all of them!

Meanwhile, many of the remaining top players quietly re-signed with their original teams, leaving relative table scraps for teams like the Knicks and Nets, franchises that tanked--I mean, strategically positioned themselves--in order to theoretically woo one or more of the top tier free agents to the New York metropolitan area.

I never for one moment believed that James would go to New York. The Knicks are the clowns of the free agency circus: for several years they have been ripping off their fans by selling an inferior product packaged with the promise that LeBron James' dream is to play in the "Mecca" of pro basketball. Two seasons ago, I pointed out that the Knicks had not improved during the early part of the Mike D'Antoni era and that there was little reason to expect that they would get better any time soon; my "reward" for speaking the truth was to get trashed by Knick fans and an associate economics professor from the middle of nowhere who moonlights as a "stat guru"--but everything that I have been saying about the Knicks has been proven to be correct: they were even worse in 2010 than they were in 2009 and all the Knicks have to show for their "efforts" is Amare Stoudemire, who they will now overpay to replace David Lee, a more versatile and productive player who is also healthier and younger. New York fans--and especially the season ticket holders--have a right to be puzzled, if not outraged, at the rudderless mess their franchise has become.

Chicago Bulls' supporters seem baffled that James apparently does not consider their squad to be a dynasty in the making but I have to concur with James on that count; the Bulls have a rookie head coach, they do not have a defined style of play and I think that their roster looks better on paper than it will perform on the court. Why would James leave the Cavs to make, at best, a lateral move?

The entire city of Cleveland feels betrayed by James and this collective civic pain is only exceeded--at least in the context of sports--by Art Modell's shameful abandonment of the loyal, long suffering Cleveland Browns' fans.

James' handling of the free agency process was clumsy and tone deaf, betraying an alarming amount of hubris plus a total disregard for the feelings of anyone who is not a member of his "team"--and it is critically important to note that whenever James uses that word he means his buddies/cronies/hangers-on, not the actual team that employs him to play basketball (and not quit in playoff games).

Gilbert promptly responded to James' announcement with a scathing letter blasting James for "a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his 'decision' unlike anything ever 'witnessed' in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment." Gilbert termed James' action a "cowardly betrayal." In an interview with the Associated Press, Gilbert added, "He quit (versus Boston in the 2010 playoffs). Not just in Game 5, but in Games 2, 4 and 6. Watch the tape. The Boston series was unlike anything in the history of sports for a superstar." Gilbert also alleged that James quit in game six versus Orlando in the 2009 playoffs. Gilbert's comments are blunt and harsh but they are also true: you don't have to be a basketball expert to realize how disinterested James seemed versus Boston--particularly in game two and game five--and James' performance versus Orlando in game six of the 2009 playoffs was, at the very least, curiously passive. While Gilbert's accusations have much merit, I wonder if he ever confronted James regarding James' subpar playoff efforts and I also wonder why Gilbert fired Coach Mike Brown if Gilbert had such a clear understanding of just how much blame James must shoulder for the Cavs' disappointing 2009 and 2010 playoff runs. In retrospect, Gilbert should have dealt with James the way that Riley dealt with Wade, insisting that if James did not fully commit to the Cavs then the Cavs would not make short term moves to appease James at the possible expense of long term salary cap flexibility--but it is not really fair to blame Gilbert for rolling the dice and trying to win immediately, especially when one of the main reasons that the Cavs did not win is that James quit during the 2010 playoffs.

Gilbert's letter concluded by boldly stating that the Cavs would win a championship before James does; that may sound like wishful thinking but keep in mind that even though the Cavs' teams that Gilbert assembled lacked the star power that the Heat currently have they still managed to make it to the NBA Finals in 2007 and to post 60-plus wins in both 2009 and 2010. If the Heat experience injuries and/or chemistry problems it is not at all out of the realm of possibility that James will never again have as much team success as he enjoyed with the Cavs from 2007-2010; NBA Finals appearances and 60-win seasons are very hard to come by and it would not surprise me if a decade from now we look back at the 2010 season as James' great missed opportunity to win a championship.

It is quite predictable that True Hoop's Henry Abbott finds Gilbert's heartfelt letter more offensive than James' conduct; Abbott is a shill for ESPN--which sold out whatever remained of their journalistic integrity by caving in to every whim of James and his "team" regarding the one hour TV special about "The Decision"--and Abbott is much less interested in truth than he is in superficial appearances: Gilbert spoke the truth about how James quit during the playoffs and about James' deplorable recent conduct but James donated ESPN's ad money from the one hour LeBron infomercial to children, so in Abbott's eyes James must be the better guy. I think that it is great that James facilitated a process to help underprivileged children but that charitable act--done with other people's money, by the way--in no way mitigates or excuses how James handled the free agency process, jerking whole cities around as if they are mere playthings that exist for his amusement.

Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, James had every right to explore his options; the mere act of leaving Cleveland is not a betrayal--and the decision to go to Miami to team up with Wade and Bosh is logical, though James could also have contended for championships by staying in Cleveland--but the way that James maximized Cleveland's humiliation was cruel and unnecessary. It is actually quite remarkable how James has managed to essentially alienate virtually every NBA city other than Miami. If James had cut out all of the hoopla and just issued a simple press release a week ago thanking Cleveland for seven great years but saying that the prospect of playing with Wade and Bosh is too good to pass up I doubt that James would be experiencing a fraction of the backlash that he is getting now and will continue to receive for the foreseeable future.

Not long ago, James was almost universally popular and his easygoing demeanor was compared favorably with Kobe Bryant's dour facial expressions and hard driving manner. James' conduct does not change my opinion of him as a player--he is the most athletic and productive regular season performer in the NBA, while Bryant is more skilled and has a more finely tuned sense of how to be effective against elite teams--but it is amusing to watch and listen as the talking heads in Cleveland who used to laud James as being far superior to Bryant now openly mock James and say that he will never match Bryant's accomplishments; just as it was wrong to rank James ahead of Bryant purely out of home town bias it is also wrong to now downgrade James' skills just because he lacks a certain class and grace in terms of how he has handled himself: depending on Bryant's health/durability, James will still be either the best or second best player in the NBA next season, though there is good reason to suspect that Bryant will once again be the more effective playoff performer.

Labels: Chicago Bulls, Chris Bosh, Cleveland Cavaliers, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Miami Heat, New Jersey Nets, New York Knicks, Pat Riley

posted by David Friedman @ 8:48 AM

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Hall of Fame Pictures, Part II

Courtesy of Michelle Royce Williams, here are two more images from Saturday's Hall of Fame Induction Celebration, hosted by the Mohegan Sun. The first picture shows a contemplative Pat Riley, while in the second picture six of the seven members of the 2008 Basketball Hall of Fame class show off their new rings (William Davidson is not pictured); left to right are John Doleva (president of the Basketball Hall of Fame), Adrian Dantley, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Dick Vitale, Cathy Rush and Pat Riley.

Labels: Adrian Dantley, Basketball Hall of Fame, Cathy Rush, Dick Vitale, Hakeem Olajuwon, Pat Riley, Patrick Ewing, William Davidson

posted by David Friedman @ 5:04 AM

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Hall of Fame Words of Wisdom, Part II

How do you summarize a lifetime of work, struggle and sacrifice in just a few short minutes? Each of the 2008 Basketball Hall of Fame inductees faced that challenge on Friday night. Here are some words of wisdom by--and about--people who reached the pinnacle of success (Part I can be found here.)

Hakeem Olajuwon

"Known as 'The Dream,' Hakeem Olajuwon redefined the pivot with supple moves and an iron will," Mike Breen said. "His signature was the 'Dream Shake' and during the '94 and '95 Rocket title runs it was a nightmare for opponents." When you watched Olajuwon annihilate David Robinson in the 1995 playoffs you just knew that this footage would be in Olajuwon's Hall of Fame video and, sure enough, there was Olajuwon putting Robinson into the torture chamber once again. "That's just innate talent," Robinson marveled. "I mean when you can just shake and go to the hook or the fadeaway jump shot...He was playing out of his mind. I felt really bad until the next series when they went and swept the Orlando Magic."

Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, who played with and against Olajuwon, simply called him, "A really unbelievable package of pure talent."

With all due respect to Robinson and Barkley, while it is undeniable that Olajuwon had superb athletic gifts, what really set him apart was the tremendous effort he devoted to honing those gifts. Former Rockets Coach Rudy Tomjanovich said, "He worked very hard to become a great player. He had legendary matchups with Moses Malone in a recreational center called Fonde." Tomjanovich declared of Olajuwon, "I think he's the best all-around center to have ever played the game."

Olajuwon said that growing up in Nigeria he did not know much about basketball but that sports are very big in his native country and that by playing table tennis, team handball and soccer--the most popular sport in Nigeria--he unwittingly laid a foundation for his later basketball career by developing hand-eye coordination and other fundamentals.

Olajuwon noted that the first day that he played basketball was "unbelievable" and that his first coach in Nigeria pulled him aside, provided him with individual attention and while assistant coaches worked with the rest of the team he gave Olajuwon the "job description" for a center: "Stand in the middle of the paint and block everything that comes in. Then, if they miss the shot, grab every rebound. He gave me this concept of the paint--this paint is your area and you should rule it. So, I was imagining this domination of what a center can do in basketball."

Olajuwon explained that his focus was not to be an All-Star or a Hall of Famer but simply to win: "My role for my team was to hold the middle. If you can control the middle and help your team win, the credit will come later."

He relived the experience of battling against Malone at Fonde: "Moses was the best big man in the pros at the time. Playing against Moses in the summer gave me a huge advantage in confidence as a freshman: How can any big guy in college be as physical or better than Moses Malone? So I got that introduction in the summer. That is not something that is common; if you look at my career, a lot of things that have happened are like a dream."

Like William Davidson, Olajuwon praised David Stern for his "global vision" and the way that he has helped the NBA to grow so tremendously. He called his college coach Guy Lewis his "mentor" and said that Lewis "set a high standard for me to keep striving to be the best I can be." Olajuwon said that Bill Fitch, his first NBA coach, made him forget about "the pressure from the outside because (of) the pressure from the coach. He demanded the best, so he really gave me the platform to come into the league and compete at that level."

Olajuwon praised Tomjanovich for "giving me the freedom and the confidence that he believes in my decisions. He gave me the green light that I could freelance in the structure of the team. For a coach to have that kind of confidence in his player was a huge responsibility for him not to be disappointed in my decisions, so that made me much more conscious of my decisions--not to take a bad shot, to make good decisions." That is a really fascinating point, because so many coaches go in the opposite direction: they try to turn their players into programmed robots instead of intelligent, capable people who can read and react to situations on the fly. That type of coaching can make players hesitant and it also removes responsibilty from their shoulders, because if the team loses they can just blame the coach's rigid game plan that they followed to the letter. Think about how many championship winning coaches stressed discipline and preparation in practice, yet took a step back during games to let their players' talent and understanding take over: Red Auerbach, John Wooden and Phil Jackson definitely fit that mold and it is no coincidence that they are three of the greatest coaches ever.

Olajuwon made another great observation when he said, "I did not have this great dream. It was just step by step, the next game. When I was in college, I wasn't thinking about the pros. I was just having fun." While it is important to have dreams and goals, thinking big alone does not get it done: day by day, step by step, you have to put in the work and you have to be focused on the task at hand. Remember Yoda's admonition to Luke Skywalker that Skywalker thought too much about adventure and the future instead of thinking about where he was and what he was doing? Put it another way: you can't make it to the Hall of Fame without first mastering your post moves, your footwork and other fundamentals.

Dick Vitale

Vitale is not being inducted as a coach or a player but rather as a "contributor" and there is no doubt that he has made a tremendous contribution to promoting the game of basketball by broadcasting games with, as Breen put it, "boundless enthusiasm and an endless array of catch phrases." Can you imagine the past 29 years of college basketball without Vitale? He is part of the very fabric of our experience of the sport.

Hall of Fame Coach Bobby Knight declared, "I don't think that there is any single person that has been more important in the development of the popularity of college basketball than Dick Vitale."

Not surprisingly, Vitale gave the longest and most free wheeling speech, starting with his humorous recollections of trying to recruit Magic Johnson for the University of Detroit. Vitale's passion for the game and his genuine reverence for its great players shines through. You just have to smile when you listen to him talk. When he called out the names of Hall of Fame players and coaches and said, "This room is so special to me," you know that this is a sincere sentiment.

Most people can probably identify with Vitale's early, struggling years as a coach, when his wife asked him, "When are you going to get a job and make some money like my girlfriends' husbands? All you are doing is chasing these guys playing basketball and making no cash." At that time, he was making $12,000 a year and when he got the chance to be an assistant coach at Rutgers he was so excited to take the job he did not even ask what the salary was. When his wife suggested he find out, Vitale called the head coach, who asked him what he was making now. Vitale told him and the coach said, "That's fantastic. You are only going to take a $1000 cut, baby!" Vitale said that he got down on his knees and implored his wife, "Pride! Patience! Patience!" Vitale went from being a sixth grade teacher in 1970 to an NBA coach in 1978 when Davidson hired him to helm the Pistons. Of course, Vitale "got the Ziggy"--Davidson fired him. Vitale said of Davidson, "You can't find a better human being for the way he treats people and what you've done for people...I told you I'm so sorry, because if there is one emptiness on my resume it is the fact that I let you down, I let the people of Detroit down. I never did what I wanted to do in my heart and what I really planned to do when I was named the coach of the Detroit Pistons."

After Davidson fired him, Vitale found out the difference between, as his wife put it, "friends" and "associates." What Vitale did not realize is that years earlier, while giving a speech to his University of Detroit team, he made an impression on a television producer who wrote down his name. Just as the door to NBA coaching closed, a door to the world of broadcasting opened. Vitale was reluctant at first, because he wanted to go back to coaching college basketball but he took the plunge on TV and the rest, as they say, is history. Vitale followed the advice of his mother, who told him, "Don't ever, ever believe in 'can't.' Chase your dreams."

Patrick Ewing

Breen spoke of Ewing's evolution from being known for "intimidating defense" to being "one of the best shooting centers this game has ever seen."

Ewing's family emigrated to the United States from Jamaica when Ewing was 12. Ewing's gym teacher decided to find an activity for Ewing to participate in so that he could make friends: basketball. Mike Jarvis, who coached Ewing in high school, said that at that first Ewing was "tall and skinny and awkward and clumsy."

Ewing's game developed quickly. Hall of Fame Coach John Thompson first saw Ewing at a high school game at the Boston Garden. Thompson was scouting a different player but he turned to one of his assistant coaches and said, "You get me him (Ewing), I'll win the national championship." Of course, Ewing and Thompson's Georgetown Hoyas did just that in 1984, beating a Houston team led by Olajuwon.

The first part of Ewing's speech was very straightforward and heartfelt, as he thanked all of the coaches, teammates and others who helped him along the way. Then he mentioned his "brothers in arms," fellow Georgetown centers Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo. During the Ewing tribute video, Mutombo mentioned how much Ewing had helped him but Ewing quipped, "From the first day that I met this man I could not understand a word that he was saying." Ewing thanked every one of his New York Knick coaches by name, except for Don Nelson: Hubie Brown, Bob Hill, Rick Pitino, Stu Jackson, John MacLeod, Pat Riley, Jeff Van Gundy.

Ewing admitted that when he was playing if someone would have asked him about becoming a coach he would have said, "Hell no." However, after Michael Jordan gave Ewing an opportunity to be an assistant with the Wizards, Ewing discovered that he enjoys coaching. Currently he is an assistant to Stan Van Gundy in Orlando. As Ewing said, "The Van Gundys must love me" (he was previously an assistant for Jeff Van Gundy in Houston).

Pat Riley

Breen said, "Throughout his long career on the sidelines, Pat Riley was seen as one of the most glamorous head coaches but he always proved that there was plenty of substance to go along with that style." Riley is the third winningest coach in NBA history. His "Showtime" Lakers won four championships in the 1980s and he capped off his career by guiding the Miami Heat to the 2006 title.

Hall of Famer Magic Johnson explained the cold, hard logic behind the glitz of Riley's "Showtime" teams: "His whole thing was to wear the other team down. It doesn't matter what happens in the first quarter. It doesn't matter what happen in the second quarter. But by the third quarter that team is going to be getting tired because we are going to be running and running and running."

When Riley went to New York he proved that he could be successful coaching a team that had a lot more plowhorses than gazelles, turning the Knicks into perennial contenders who fell just short of winning a title.

By the time Riley came to the podium, the ceremony had already lasted more than two hours and 40 minutes. "You all have had enough, haven't you?" he said with a twinkle in his eye. "Well, you'll have to wait." Riley said that he received the Hall of Fame call the day after Chris Paul threw nine lobs to Tyson Chandler for dunks as New Orleans handed Riley's Heat one of their many losses last season. Riley's first thoughts were of his father, who passed away 38 years ago. Riley thanked Jerry West for believing in him and giving him the opportunity to coach the Lakers at a time when Riley was not sure that he was the right man for the job.

Riley called Magic Johnson, "The greatest leader I've ever coached. He's a kindred spirit to me--we're fused at the hip and have been ever since we met." He also expressed special, heartfelt sentiments for Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning, his franchise players in New York and Miami respectively.

Perhaps the most interesting name that did not receive heavy mention in Riley's speech is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the 1985 Finals MVP who was the starting center on four of Riley's five championship teams.

Labels: Dick Vitale, Hakeem Olajuwon, Pat Riley, Patrick Ewing

posted by David Friedman @ 9:51 AM

6 comments

Durant's Sonics Earn First Win Versus Listless Heat

Miami Heat Coach Pat Riley did not mince words about his team's effort on Wednesday after the Seattle SuperSonics earned their first win of the season with a 104-95 victory over his squad: "I don't see a team that really feels like they have anything at stake here. They come out and play, they get beat, they go home. They go into the night...People who don't think they should ever be benched might have to be benched to turn this thing around." Who exactly might Riley be talking about? Starting shooting guard Ricky Davis did much shooting but little guarding or making (19 points on 5-18 shooting); starting point guard Jason Williams had one assist while scoring 14 points on 5-13 shooting; swingman Penny Hardaway knows how to play but his body will no longer permit him to do so (two points on 1-6 shooting, four assists); Shaquille O'Neal is in perpetual foul trouble (four fouls in 16 minutes) and is too old, too out of shape, too hurt or too "all of the above" to be dominant (10 points on 4-4 shooting, three rebounds). Has there ever been a championship team that retained its two star players and had a quicker, steeper fall from grace?

While Miami is crashing toward an inevitable rebuilding project, Seattle expects to soon be a team on the rise, powered by first round draft picks Kevin Durant and Jeff Green. The Sonics led the Heat by 20 at halftime in Miami, which should have been deeply embarrassing to the Heat but, as Riley indicated, the players no longer seem to have any pride (or feel any shame, to be more precise) about their performances. Durant scored 18 points but shot just 6-16 from the field and had as many turnovers as rebounds (five each). In 33 minutes he had just one assist. Yes, Durant has some obvious physical skills, skills which apparently cause non-stop drooling among television announcers and other members of the media, but it is not clear why it is seemingly forbidden to mention a couple very obvious facts about Durant: he is shooting a very poor percentage and his well-advertised all-around game has yet to show up in the NBA. Durant's rookie season is more than 10% over and he has yet to have a significant impact in the won/loss column or in any individual statistical category other than field goal attempts; he has jacked up 173 shots in nine games, the fifth most in the league--and he ranks second in field goal attempts per minute. That, combined with his .382 shooting from the field, makes his 20 ppg average less impressive than it may seem to be at first glance.

All of the observations and predictions that I made about Durant's game during the summer league have been validated so far: I pointed out that he seems to be below average in every area other than free throw percentage and that even that will be of limited value right now because he is not going to draw a lot of fouls in regular season play; I concluded that Durant would need to attempt a lot of shots to average 20 ppg as a rookie, that he would not attempt a lot of free throws, that his floor game would not be great and that he would commit a lot of turnovers due to his high dribble. Sure enough, Durant is averaging 4.9 rpg, 1.8 apg, 1.3 spg and .8 bpg--very pedestrian numbers for such a highly touted player. He has only attempted 41 free throws; his free throw percentage (.780) is good but hardly exceptional and his three point percentage (.302) is not great. Durant is also 10th in the league in turnovers per game (3.44), which is a high number for a shooting guard who is essentially a catch and shoot player; his low apg and free throws attempted numbers show that he is not producing a lot for his team off of the dribble to compensate for how much he loses the ball.

Durant appeared on TNT's halftime show during the first game of Thursday's doubleheader and made a couple interesting comments. One, he admitted that everything about playing in the NBA is harder than he expected, including getting open to shoot and trying to get rebounds. Two, he said that the NBA game is much faster than he expected based on watching games on TV. The latter is something that casual fans--and even great college players like Durant--don't understand about the NBA unless they see some games in person: NBA players are much faster (and bigger and stronger and more skilled) than they may appear to be on TV. Without seeing the players in person it is difficult to gauge their size and speed because they are all so big and so fast that on TV these traits tend to be obscured; in person you realize just how big these guys are and just how fast they are moving.

Durant may very well blossom into a great player at some point--but he clearly is not one now. The Sonics have done him a disservice by placing so much on his shoulders so soon (by getting rid of All-Stars Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis) and the media has compounded the problem by continuing to call him a "sensation" when in reality he is a talented college player who is struggling to adjust to the NBA game. It is true that it takes a certain amount of talent to even get off 20 shots in an NBA game but that level of talent should be a given for the second overall pick in the draft. Instead of making assumptions about how great Durant is going to become, why can't we just let his development take its natural course?

It is far too early to say what kind of career Durant will have, so I won't make the same mistake that the breathless commentators have. All that I have predicted regarding Durant is what kind of game he would display during his rookie year and so far my prediction has been closer to the truth than any others that I have heard or seen.

Labels: Kevin Durant, Miami Heat, Pat Riley, Seattle Supersonics, Shaquille O'Neal

posted by David Friedman @ 3:59 AM

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Patrick Ewing: From "Hoya Destroya" to Yao's Mentor

Patrick Ewing won an NCAA title, two Olympic gold medals and led the New York Knicks to 13 playoff appearances, including two trips to the NBA Finals. He was selected to the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List and ranks 14th in NBA history in regular season points (24,815; 21.0 ppg) and sixth in blocked shots (2894; 2.4 bpg). My HoopsHype article examines his playing career and looks at the next stage of his basketball life: serving as a mentor for Yao Ming, who is emerging as the NBA's most dominant center. You can find the article here (9/30/15 edit: the link to HoopsHype.com no longer works, so I have posted the original article below):

Patrick Ewing earned the nickname "Hoya Destroya" while leading Georgetown to three NCAA championship games in four years--taking the 1984 title with an 84-75 victory over the Houston Cougars. Ewing was selected as the 1984 NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player. Ewing averaged 16.4 ppg, 10.0 rpg and shot .658 from the field that season for the 34-3 Hoyas, winning the Naismith Award and AP National Player of the Year honors. The Hoyas had a 15-3 NCAA Tournament record during Ewing's career, including close losses in the 1982 and 1985 championship games.

Ewing has fond memories of his experiences in the newly formed Big East Conference. "Georgetown ran the Big East--even before me," Ewing says. "They fell off a little bit after I left, but right now they are on a rebuilding track. Those were some great years. We had a lot of rivalries, a lot of great players and a lot of memories--some good times. It was great. Every school had two or three NBA players on their team. Pitt, Georgetown, St. John's, Syracuse. The conference was great. A lot of those players stayed at home, staying close to the East Coast; most of those guys were East Coast ball players. We were known and revered all over the country."

Bill Wennington faced Ewing both during Wennington's college days at St. John's and in the NBA, most memorably during a couple playoff series when Wennington was a backup center for the Chicago Bulls (1994-99). "Patrick was a guy who improved every time you played against him; he was always getting better," Wennington recalls. "I remember playing against him when we were both freshmen. Going in to play against him, obviously he was the big name and it was always a big game. You could see his game developing as he got older....When I was at St. John's, I always looked to those games during the season as benchmarks in terms of how my game was doing compared to him. In college, I just tried to keep my body in front of his and between him and the basket. In the pros, we tried to double down on him a little bit more, make him pass the ball out of the post."

Concerned that teams might tank games to obtain the first pick in the draft, the NBA instituted a lottery system involving all non-playoff teams. The team with the worst record would no longer automatically receive the first pick.

Ewing was the big prize in the NBA's first draft lottery, selected by the New York Knicks with the No. 1 overall pick in the 1985 draft. New York lost in the playoffs to the eventual NBA champions in 1983 (Philadelphia 76ers) and 1984 (Boston Celtics) but injuries to star forward Bernard King and other key players caused the team's record to plummet to 24-58 in 1984-85. The Madison Square Garden faithful hoped that Ewing's arrival would immediately vault the Knicks back into playoff contention.

Hall of Famer Hubie Brown--Ewing's first pro coach--recalls his initial impressions of his star rookie center: "The thing that we immediately saw as a coaching staff was that he could score. He was a better scorer than he was a rebounder and shot blocker. He came out of college as a rebounder and shot blocker. Well, for NBA standards he was below average in both of those categories but he was a prime-time scorer." Ewing averaged 20.0 ppg and 9.0 rpg and won the Rookie of the Year award despite a knee injury that limited him to 50 games. He averaged just over two blocked shots per game.

"The blocked shots never came when he was playing his man," Brown says. "The blocked shots would only come in the back of the zone traps when he was moving from one side of the lane to the other. So, that was kind of interesting. What had to happen was that the weight programs designed by the training staff had to build up his lower body strength and his upper body strength for the rebounding and the shot blocking on his man, not in the rotating of the defense--that had to improve. If you go back and check his stats, you will see that. You will see how the stats progressively got better. That came with (A) knowing the league and (B) building his body and changing his physique. He was a scorer from the first day of practice."

Ewing's situation shows how tough it is to be a great NBA post player. Despite being a dominant inside force in the college game, Ewing had to get stronger in order to have similar success at the professional level. Ewing worked diligently and his statistics improved correspondingly. After not producing more than 9.3 rpg in his first four seasons he had a streak of nine straight years of averaging 10-plus rpg. His blocked shots per-game average increased from 2.1 as a rookie to 2.3 to 3.0 to 3.5 to a career best 4.0 in his fifth season. Ewing had six seasons with 200-plus blocked shots and ranked in the top ten in blocked shots 13 times.

The Knicks failed to qualify for the playoffs in Ewing's first two seasons--in no small part because he missed 51 games due to injuries. But after that he led New York to 13 straight postseason appearances, including trips to the NBA Finals in 1994 and 1999.

"There are good memories and bad memories, but they are still memories," Ewing says. "It's hard right now because I'm working for the Rockets and the Rockets are the team that we lost to in '94. We came so close. The next one against the Spurs, unfortunately I wasn't able to play. That was the toughest one to swallow because I had to sit there and listen to all the noise that the fans were yelling and I wasn't able to get out there and try to shut them up. That was heartbreaking."

The Knicks went 8-3 with Ewing in the lineup during the 1999 playoffs, but Ewing was forced to the sidelines with a torn Achilles tendon after an 88-86 loss to Indiana in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Knicks eventually won that series but were only 4-5 in the playoffs that year without him.

Just the fact that Ewing was still playing in 1999 is a testament to his work ethic and tenacity, because he suffered a devastating, potentially career-ending injury in a December 20, 1997 game at Milwaukee. Andrew Lang pushed Ewing as he tried to catch a Charlie Ward pass and Ewing crashed to the ground, dislocating his right wrist and tearing ligaments. The injury was so severe that one of the bones almost poked through the skin. Ewing missed the remainder of that season. He never quite regained full range of motion in the wrist but his relentless, determined rehabilitation work enabled him to resume his career. "It definitely affected me," Ewing says of the injury. "My shot wasn't as pretty, wasn't as pure as it had been, but I still was able to shoot and I was still able to get it done."

Ewing helped the Knicks reach the Eastern Conference Finals in 2000 before concluding his career with brief stops in Seattle and Orlando. He only made the All-NBA 1st Team once but he earned six All-NBA 2nd Team selections and finished in the top five in MVP voting six times while playing in an era of great centers--including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, Robert Parish and David Robinson. Ewing was selected to the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List, won two Olympic gold medals (1984, 1992) and currently ranks 14th in NBA history in regular season points (24,815; 21.0 ppg) and sixth in blocked shots (2894; 2.4 bpg).

Ewing now works as an assistant coach with the Houston Rockets. He admits that he did not expect to become a coach. "When I retired I didn't want to just sit at home and not do anything," Ewing says. "Michael Jordan offered me a position in Washington and I started out as a coach. That was something he allowed me to try to see if I liked it. I liked it and I kept with it. The situation happened in Washington that he moved on and then Jeff Van Gundy, who I played for in New York, offered me a position in Houston and I took it. I'm still enjoying it, I'm still learning and hopefully one day I will get a head coaching job."

Ewing is very serious about eventually becoming a head coach, declaring, “Why do something if you are not striving to be the best at it?” Ewing can draw on the knowledge he gained while playing for two legendary coaches, John Thompson at Georgetown and Pat Riley with the Knicks. "They are two different people," Ewing observes. "Coach Thompson is a great person and a great coach. I felt that I came to Georgetown as a boy and left there as a man. He taught me a lot of things not only on the basketball court but also in life. He played the position so he could give me a lot of insights about the center position. Pat Riley is more flamboyant. He is a great 'Xs and O's' coach. He made his name in L.A. with 'Showtime' and then came to New York and helped put that franchise into the spotlight. They are two great coaches and I learned a lot from both of them and I admire them both."

Ewing appreciates the importance of preparation: "I think scouting is great. It gives you insight and makes you a better player. There is a saying, 'What puts you apart from the other players and what makes you a great player is if after the scouts see you and they know everything that you are capable of doing that you can still go out there and do it.' That is the mark of a great player. Some people can have good nights every now and then, but the great players have good nights 99 percent of the time."

One of his trademarks as a player was aggressiveness. Is it possible to transmit that trait to others as a coach? "That was just the way that I was," Ewing says. "That’s just in my nature. You can bring it out in a person, but I think that you have to be born with it."

So how does he try to "bring it out" of Yao Ming, who has been criticized for not being aggressive enough? "First of all, you have to be confident," Ewing explains. "You have to believe in yourself. That is one thing that I tell Yao: 'No matter what happens, believe in yourself and never doubt yourself.' I think that Yao is going to be a great player. He has great offensive skills and he just has to believe in himself and dominate."

Yao seems to be taking that advice to heart, particularly since the All-Star break. He is averaging career highs in points (22.5 ppg) and rebounds (10.2 rpg) and is the highest scoring center in the league. Ewing also averaged career highs in his fourth season (22.7 ppg, 9.3 rpg), setting the stage for the highest scoring season of his career the next year (28.6 ppg). It will be interesting to see if Yao can make similar progress in 2006-07. If Tracy McGrady gets healthy and Yao continues to develop, that dynamic duo may yet deliver Ewing the championship ring as a coach that he just missed getting as a player.

Labels: Bill Wennington, Georgetown, Houston Rockets, John Thompson, New York Knicks, Pat Riley, Patrick Ewing, St. John's, Yao Ming

posted by David Friedman @ 7:19 PM

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Bob McAdoo: The Numbers Don't Lie

Bob McAdoo won three scoring titles and one MVP in the mid 1970s. He became the youngest player to score 10,000 points, a record that stood for over 20 years until Kobe Bryant broke it during the 2002-03 season. By the end of McAdoo's sixth season he had the third highest regular season scoring average and second highest playoff scoring average in NBA history. McAdoo was a key contributor to the Showtime Lakers teams that made four straight Finals appearances and won two titles between 1982 and 1985; Coach Pat Riley has flatly stated that the Lakers would not have won those championships without McAdoo's clutch scoring, rebounding and shot blocking. McAdoo is a Hall of Famer but he was not included on the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List that was selected in 1996. He is the only MVP winner who did not make the cut. Check out my HoopsHype article for more information about McAdoo's tremendous career (9/22/15 edit: the link to HoopsHype.com no longer works, so I have posted the original article below):

When Rasheed Wallace disagrees with a referee’s call and the opponent misses the subsequent free throw, he loudly proclaims, "The ball don't lie!"

The NBA’s 50 Greatest Players List selected in 1996 included some marvelous players, but it is hard to understand the omission of Bob McAdoo, the only regular season MVP who did not make the cut. Paraphrasing Wallace's lament, the numbers don't lie: they show that McAdoo combined individual productivity with team success throughout his career.

McAdoo starred at Vincennes (Indiana) Junior College for two years, leading the Trailblazers to a national title as a freshman in 1970 by averaging 19.3 ppg and 10.0 rpg. Vincennes did not win a repeat championship in 1971 despite McAdoo's increased production as a sophomore (25.0 ppg and 11.0 rpg). McAdoo's next stop was North Carolina, where he made the All-America 1st Team as a junior in 1972 (19.5 ppg, 10.1 rpg).

Playing in Chapel Hill was particularly special for McAdoo because he was born and raised in North Carolina. "My parents really didn’t get a chance to see me play a lot during the first two successful years that I had at junior college," McAdoo says. "It was a pleasure to be back home and play for Dean Smith. Carolina came into the picture at the last minute. I actually thought that I was going to end up at UCLA but it didn't happen that way." McAdoo and the Tar Heels lost 79-75 to Florida State in the Final Four. He led both teams with 24 points and 15 rebounds despite playing only 28 minutes before fouling out. McAdoo had 30 points and 19 rebounds in a 105-91 win over Louisville in the game for the third place.

McAdoo turned pro after that season, but his one year playing for Coach Smith had a significant impact on him. "It was the hardest work that I had ever done prepping for the season," McAdoo recalls. "I was already a hard worker, but that really taught me how to work hard and concentrate. We had a lot more schemes--defensive schemes, offensive things to do--at North Carolina. Dean had a philosophy that if you didn't shoot 50 percent, he wasn't going to run any plays for you. You see guys now who have a lot of throwaway shots. I never threw away a shot. I concentrated and I didn't try to do something that was out of my realm or something that I couldn't do. I went to my strengths as much as I could to make sure that I was efficient on the offensive end and that really helped me--that's why I was able to score so many points and be a scoring champion in the NBA."

The Buffalo Braves selected McAdoo with the second overall pick in the 1972 draft and he won the 1972-73 NBA Rookie of the Year award with averages of 18.0 ppg and 9.1 rpg. That was just a prelude to a spectacular 1973-74 campaign in which McAdoo led the NBA in scoring (30.6 ppg) and field goal percentage (.547). The only other players who have led the league in both categories in the same season are Wilt Chamberlain (four times) and Shaquille O’Neal (once).

McAdoo remains the youngest scoring champion in NBA history (22; Spencer Haywood won the 1970 ABA scoring title as a 20-year old rookie). He also showcased his versatility by ranking third in rebounding (15.1 rpg) and blocked shots (3.32 bpg). McAdoo finished second in the MVP voting to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar despite placing ahead of him in scoring, rebounding and field goal percentage and just behind him in blocked shots. The 6-foot-9 forward led the four-year-old Braves franchise to its first ever postseason appearance and averaged 31.7 ppg in a six-game playoff loss to the eventual champion Boston Celtics.

In 1974-75, McAdoo won his second scoring title, increasing his average to 34.5 ppg, while again ranking among the leaders in rebounding, field goal percentage and blocked shots. This time his efforts were rewarded with the MVP award. McAdoo claimed a third scoring title in 1975-76 (31.1 ppg) while remaining in the top ten in rebounding and blocked shots. After that season, the cash-strapped Braves dealt McAdoo to the New York Knicks to avoid the possibility of losing him for nothing when he became a free agent. McAdoo averaged a franchise-record 26.7 ppg as a Knick and became the youngest player in NBA history to score 10,000 points (a record broken by Kobe Bryant in 2002-03).

After his first six seasons, McAdoo ranked third in career regular season scoring average (27.8 ppg) behind only Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and fourth in field goal percentage (.507) behind Jabbar, Chamberlain and Walt Bellamy. His career playoff scoring average at that time (30.3 ppg) trailed Jabbar by less than .1 ppg for the number one spot. Injuries slowed McAdoo during the next few seasons and his reputation took a hit as Boston, Detroit and New Jersey brought him in to be an immediate savior only to trade him when he was not able to single-handedly reverse their sagging fortunes.

In December 1981, the Los Angeles Lakers acquired McAdoo after high-priced free agent pickup Mitch Kupchak suffered a season-ending knee injury. The Lakers appeared in the next four NBA Finals, winning titles in 1982 and 1985. McAdoo will always remember blocking Julius Erving’s shot in the fourth quarter of Game 6 of the 1982 Finals versus the Philadelphia 76ers "I've even heard Pat (Riley) say in interviews that that play turned the game around," McAdoo says. "It was a very important play. Philadelphia was coming back. They came down on a fast break and Julius was going up. You had to be careful with Julius, because when he plants his foot and goes up he might throw a thunderous dunk down on you. I saw that we had one person in front of him and he tried to do a dipsy-doodle shot, so I came up from behind him and made the block. That stopped their run and got us back into it, which turned the game around, and that was the game that clinched the championship."

Pat Riley, the coach of those Showtime Lakers, has repeatedly said that the Lakers would not have won the 1982 and 1985 championships without McAdoo's clutch scoring, rebounding and shot blocking. McAdoo came off the bench for the Lakers, a big change for a player who was used to logging heavy minutes and being the number one option.

Ask him how he adjusted to the new role and his response makes it clear that it was not easy for him. "Who said I adjusted?" McAdoo asks. "I didn't adjust. I mean, I never complained or anything, but I never adjusted. It was very hard for me mentally to do that for four years--really, for five years, because even when I went to Philly, they wanted to do the same thing and bring me off of the bench. It was something that I had to accept because it is a team game; it's not like tennis or golf. I didn't complain, I just dealt with it. That’s the only thing I can say--I dealt with it. I didn't adjust to it."

He still believes that he should have been a starter: "Oh, no question. No question, but that's the way that the coaches wanted to do it and my thing was winning a championship because I had already done everything individually that a guy could do. I played my heart out to try to win a championship but there just wasn't enough talent around. When I saw that I had an opportunity with the talent around me, I wasn't going to make waves. I was just going to fit in and do what I could in the time that I had to try to help the team to be successful."

McAdoo now serves as one of Riley's assistant coaches with the Miami Heat and he understands how challenging it is for former All-Stars Gary Payton and Antoine Walker to come off the bench. "I have talked to Antoine about it," McAdoo says, "and I told him how I dealt with it--how I prepared myself. I understand what he's going through. It's a hard thing...I went through a lot of mental stress, but, like I said, I dealt with it without causing problems."

McAdoo realizes that he, Mark Aguirre and other players who accepted reduced minutes and lower scoring averages to win championships have carved out a special niche in NBA history. "Yeah, because I can now say that my career is complete. You can't say that your career is complete if you had all the individual awards but don't win a championship. I look at guys like John Stockton and Karl Malone and Charles Barkley--they had fantastic careers, but they know that their careers are not complete because they didn't win a championship. I mean, Malone went to L.A. and took a salary cut to try to get a championship. I felt for him and I hoped that he was going to get it."

McAdoo ended his NBA career with the 76ers in 1986 before enjoying several very productive seasons in the Italian League. He is a first-hand witness to basketball's evolution overseas and McAdoo believes that the American emphasis on style over substance is why other countries have started beating America in international competition. "American players play with their legs--the spectacular dunks. You can stop a dunk. You can zone—-even on Shaq, people play a zone and keep him from getting a dunk. You can't stop a jump shot. That's what the Europeans know. That's why they were so successful in the Olympics and they beat us--they learned how to shoot the ball and they've played against zone defenses.”

McAdoo adds: "Guys want to do a spectacular dunk or make a spectacular three. I get on some of our players and say that there is a lot of space between a point-blank dunk and the three-point line. That's where I made my living, from five feet out to 20 feet. Guys don't use the whole court. It's either feast or famine for them. A lot of times, they will do a circus shot. That's something that I never did. I never did that; if I got in trouble, I got the ball out of my hands or I was fortunate enough to have the athletic ability to pivot, jump over the guy and shoot the shot. I never tried to do any kind of circus acts to get on the highlights."

In addition to his duties with the Miami Heat, McAdoo is a member of the National Basketball Retired Players Association (NBRPA). "I get the newsletter and I talk to Mel Davis now and then to see what's going on," McAdoo says. "I can't go to all of the functions because a lot of them are happening in August and September when we are in training camp or during the season, but I stay in contact and am a full fledged member of the NBRPA."

McAdoo also maintains his connection with the Tar Heel program: "I go back every year because my sons go to the North Carolina camp. I see Dean Smith and Roy Williams and some of the ex-players who are there. My mother still lives in Greensboro and my sister is a schoolteacher in Durham, so I'm there in Chapel Hill every summer."

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

Here is some bonus McAdoo material that is not included in the article:

***
Asked which current player is most similar to him, McAdoo says, "When I see Nowitzki, he reminds me of me. He’s so tall that he can get off a shot any time he wants. His range is deeper than mine; I would go out to 20 feet. He just stands behind the three point line on a regular basis and his range is amazing for a guy that size. It just seems like he gets off a good shot any time he wants. Nobody can guard him."

***
Pacers CEO/President Donnie Walsh says of McAdoo, "He was toward the end of his career when I got into the league. He was a great scorer and he could block shots. He was probably the first combination of that--he could shoot the ball great and was a great jumper and rebounder and shot blocker. So, he was what you call a stat-filler--he filled up the whole stat sheet.”

Walsh disagrees with the Nowitzki comparison, citing McAdoo's superior all around game: “Nowitzki to me is more of a perimeter player." He actually sees some similarities between Pacers star Jermaine O'Neal and McAdoo: "I mean, he (O'Neal) can shoot the ball--he can do a lot of things--he can rebound and he's a shot blocker. But McAdoo was a better scorer." Walsh adds that McAdoo had greater range on his shot than O'Neal.

***
McAdoo played for two of the game's most prominent coaches, Dean Smith and Pat Riley. He notes, "They are similar in that they believe in working to get to where you want to go. They know that there is no perfection in basketball; there is no perfection in anything. You are going to see missed free throws and turnovers but you want to get to the point that you are the best that you can be so that you eliminate some of those things. The work gives you confidence a lot of times. That's the similarity that I see.”

I asked McAdoo, "Would you agree that a hallmark of great coaches is that the emphasis is on preparation, so that by the time you get to the court you already know what you need to do to win the game? People talk about coaching in game--and that might happen in special situations--but a lot of the coaching is the practice and the preparation and getting people ready to perform as opposed to trying to micromanage every little thing during the game." He replied, "Exactly. Exactly. You said it. You're right. It's about preparation and that's what those two guys are about. Once you get on the court, your players have to take over. You did so much detailed prep work with those two guys that if you got beat it was usually because the other team just had superior talent." McAdoo says that the main difference between the two legends is simple: "Riley yells more. He'll show his anger. I never really saw Dean Smith angry. He is really calm in all different types of situations.”

***
McAdoo replied quickly when I asked, "What player during your career was the most difficult or most challenging matchup for you individually?" McAdoo: "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Kareem was impossible to guard because he had the unstoppable skyhook. You knew that he was going to get 30 or 40 on you if you didn't get some help. He was so tall and agile that there was just no way you were going to stop him." When I said, "So that was another advantage of going to the Lakers, right? You only had to guard him in practice," McAdoo quickly retorted, "Well, he was lucky too because he didn't have to guard me" (laughs).

Labels: Bob McAdoo, Buffalo Braves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, L.A. Lakers, Miami Heat, Pat Riley

posted by David Friedman @ 9:15 PM

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