The NBA from the Cheap Seats

Yet Another LeBron Opinion

2010-12-15T18:32:00.000-08:00

But this is a good one. Usually I read the comments on the Ball Don't Lie blog to laugh at how mean-spirited and racist Yahoo! commenters are. But a Cavs fan named Holden K actually had a poignant thought about LeBron's departure:

The truth is, and most Cavs fans won't admit it, they miss Lebron. Sure he's arrogant, selfish, delusional, and immature, but who cares when you win 66 games?!? People lie and say it's the manner in which he left that pisses them off, which I'm sure is true to some extent, but eventually Cavs fans will have to admit that they would have been mad even if he left with class and tact, because who wants to lose the best player in the NBA and end up with a team full of scrubs? And this is coming from a guy that absolutely hates everything about Lebron's egomaniacal personality.

I agree 100%. Many Clevelanders love going back to "The Decision" and saying they don't mind that LeBron left as much as they do the way he announced it. I've got to call bullshit on that one. We all got our shots in about "The Decision." That's been done to death. The only reason Clevelanders still keep focusing on it is because LeBron is still gone and he truly had every right and good sense to leave.

LeBron James is the best basketball player of this generation, and Clevelanders thought everybody in their downtrodden city had an intimate connection by proximity with this person who seemed so divine. The jilted lover analogy is still the best. If you're a giant loser who lucked into dating the hottest girl in school for years, in the long run you're going to be traumatized by her dumping you no matter how nicely or cruelly she did it.

Cleveland Signs for LeBron James

2010-12-03T12:49:00.000-08:00

Love this: "11-8?? LOOKS LIKE YOU LEFT YOUR TALENTS IN CLEVELAND"

This is MEAN: "Like Father, Like Son."

On Tim Duncan

2010-11-25T10:57:00.000-08:00

Amusing blurb from SI.com's Chris Mannix:

As age and injury have robbed him of some of his skills, [Tim] Duncan has quietly channeled [David] Robinson. He has ceded the spotlight in San Antonio to Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili without the slightest trace of complaint and embraced the role of mentor to up-and-comers like DeJuan Blair and Tiago Splitter. Think that's easy? Ask Allen Iverson.

Read the full article here.

0, 1, 2, 3

2010-11-19T07:29:00.000-08:00

The top four 22-and-under point guards in the NBA.

About that Old Trailblazers Prediction . . .

2010-11-17T20:53:00.000-08:00

Re: The Portland Trailblazers: Your 2011-12 NBA Champions

Uh ... nevermind.

Before You Go Nuts and Draft DeMarcus Cousins for Your Fantasy Basketball Team

2010-10-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

The Bipolar DeMarcus Cousins (NBAE/Getty Images)

Let's take a magnifying glass to DeMarcus Cousins's 2010 summer league numbers:

DATE	MIN	FG%	FT%	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF
7/12	26:02	.455	.667	14	10	1	0	0	5	4
7/13	31:23	.400	1.000	19	12	3	2	2	5	6
7/14	34:37	.529	.571	22	12	5	4	1	5	2
7/16	28:18	.278	.857	16	12	2	1	1	6	10
7/17	30:57	.200	1.000	10	7	0	1	2	3	5
7/18	27:08	.083	.571	6	6	0	1	1	5	2
AVG	29:44	.333	.735	14.5	9.8	1.8	1.5	1.2	4.8	4.8

Of course, you never put too much faith into summer league numbers, but it's the way Cousins produced these numbers that should make your finger hesitate over that big "DRAFT" button.

He started off strong, peaked in game three, then started to struggle. How did he handle adversity? He pouted like he always does, chucked up more shots, refused to adjust, and closed out the second half of the Vegas summer league with nine shots made on 45 attempts for a .200 FG%.

Maybe Cousins figures it out like my personal hero and Slim-Fast spokesman Kevin Durant did in his rookie season, but I don't see that same sense of discipline and humility in him.

DeMarcus Cousins is talented for sure, but if he walks like a bust and talks like a bust...

What Went Right for Team USA, and Who Should Go to London in 2012?

2010-09-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

Kevin Durant, FIBA World Champion. (AFP PHOTO/BEHROUZ MEHRI)

While the majority of America likely was focused on the first spate of NFL games today and kicking themselves over not drafting Arian Foster in their fantasy leagues (I know that latter part isn't just me), 5000 miles away, the USA men's national basketball team overwhelmed home-team Turkey 81-64 and took home America's first FIBA World Championship gold medal since 1994.

Although it's easy (and gratifying) to mock those critics who called this year's USA team the "B" team now that the J.V. squad has accomplished what the star-studded varsity couldn't in 2006, it's important to note that the situation is completely different.

In 2006, the USA national basketball program, as it exists today led by head coach Mike Krzyzewski and godfather Jerry Colangelo, had only been in existence for two years. The players may have changed, but the leadership and system has been around for six years now. This plays out much like a blue chip college program, which further validates Coach K as the perfect leader on the bench.

Second, and just as important, this year the rest of the world was also missing some of the crucial players that led their teams back in 2006. Just like with Team USA, some players chose not to play, and others couldn't due to injuries (notably Jose Calderon, Andres Nocioni, and Nene).

On the other hand, Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose, Chauncey Billups, Andre Iguodala, and Lamar Odom just led a much younger team with one All-NBA player and four All-Stars to gold while LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, and Dwight Howard could only get a bronze out of a much more experienced team with four All-NBA players and five All-Stars. That's a fact, if not a truth.

What went right?

1. Playing to their strengths: athleticism and versatility

Could this team have been as successful with a traditional starting line-up of Chauncey Billups at PG, Andre Iguodala at SG, Kevin Durant at SF, Lamar Odom at PF, and Tyson Chandler at C?

No, especially not with defensively-challenged Kevin Love as not just your first but also your only big off the bench. There's a reason Love barely saw the court despite being the best rebounder on the team. He played that last Leandro Barbosa lay-up in the Brazil game as well as he could play it, but that shot would've been erased from existence had Dwight Howard been down there.

Also, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, and Eric Gordon were clearly among USA's best players, and all of them would've been pushed further down the rotation with Stephen Curry if players like Andre Iguodala, Rudy Gay, and Durant couldn't shift up to the 4-spot in a pinch.

Instead, USA opponents often saw multiple ballhandlers on the court at the same time. Meanwhile Iguodala played like a less offensive-minded Josh Smith as starting power forward. The second chances he created through his offensive rebounds and other hustle plays were invaluable.

This is how a real man plays defense. (AFP PHOTO/BEHROUZ MEHRI)

2. Playing to their strengths, Part II: Kevin Durant

Earlier in the competition, Krzyzewski stated that he hoped to keep Durant's playing time down.

Oops.

After the 121-66 rout of Angola, Durant played 37, 38, and 39 out of 40 possible minutes respectively in the last three games of the elimination round. Oklahoma City brass may not be too happy about that kind of workload in the off-season, but Durant was spectacular in all three games, which were all USA wins.

3. Pressure defense

The luxury of having Russell Westbrook coming off the bench behind Derrick Rose is that there was almost no drop-off in talent or athleticism, which allowed USA to keep the ball pressure on opposing point guards at all times.

More surprising was the defensive tenacity displayed by Eric Gordon, which made him valuable even when his shot wasn't falling (e.g. his 0-for-5 stinker against Turkey). We can only wonder how much stronger the team would have been in this department had they kept Rajon Rondo instead of underwhelming Steph Curry.

Overall, USA forced the its opponents to 38 more turnovers than it committed over nine games, but it also held opponents to 49 fewer field goals attempted and 90 fewer field goals made while being outmatched in size in every game except against Angola.

4. Assist rate

Though USA brought so many point guards to Turkey, the big knock was that they were all score-first guards, with the exception of Chauncey Billups. American basketball critics drooled over what seemed like a luscious opportunity to dig up the old "Americans play selfish, one-on-one basketball" rants.

Yet the Americans managed to keep those detractors' mouths shut with an assist ratio of 17.0% to their opponents' 11.3%. Furthermore, 53.4% of Team USA's baskets were assisted, while 46.5% of their opponents' baskets were.

Of course, USA's opponents also included inept offenses like Angola, Tunisia, and Iran that got clobbered. How did USA's assist rate compare to the other top six teams that all played on the final day?

Team	Assist Ratio	% of FGM Assisted
Spain	18.3%	61.2%
Serbia	17.5%	57.8%
Turkey	17.1%	52.7%
USA	17.0%	53.4%
Argentina	16.0%	53.1%
Lithuania	14.5%	48.7%

Not exactly Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson. Team USA's assist rates sit comfortably among the other elite teams of the tournament. As George Costanza would say, right in the meaty part of the curve: not showing off, not falling behind.

5. Injuries

It's vastly unfair to say injuries went USA's way, considering they lost Amar'e Stoudemire, David Lee, and both Lopez brothers before they played a single meaningful game, robbing them of virtually all frontcourt size.

Yet, at the very least, we should admit that the injury bug went both ways. When Tiago Splitter was on the court, the American bigs couldn't contain him. Nene never played a game, but Anderson Varejao chose to sit out that game to continue resting his ankle before coming back against Slovenia. His presence (and five fouls) could've significantly altered that two-point Brazilian loss.

Brazil's healthy frontcourt duo of Varejao and Splitter. (REUTERS/Mark Blinch)

Also, in the championship game, Hedo Turkoglu rallied the Turks to a 17-15 lead before leaving with a leg injury. When he finally returned, nearly two full quarters later, his team was down 20 and the game was pretty much in the bag.

This not to say that USA wouldn't be coming home with gold right now had they lost to Brazil or had Hedo been healthy, but a few lucky breaks (ew, a pun) did go their way.

What went wrong?

1. Post defense

USA had no answer for Brazil's Tiago Splitter or Russia's Timofey Mozgov, but luckily they were two young and mistake-prone players who couldn't avoid foul trouble.

USA got lucky and completely avoided these effective veteran bigs:

Greece's Sofoklis Schortsanitis (who decimated the 2006 team)
Argentina's Luis Scola (Mr. Video Game God Mode)
Spain's rotation of Marc Gasol, Felipe Reyes, and Fran Vasquez
A healthy Anderson Varejao alongside Splitter

Had USA battled any of them, the underwhelming frontcourt of Lamar Odom (undersized), Tyson Chandler (couldn't stay out of foul trouble either), and Kevin Love (a giant bean bag on defense) would have been exposed.

2. Scoring depth

This is my segue to asking what the hell happened to Danny Granger? Aside from Durant, Granger was the only player on this team who is the undisputed leader and best player on his NBA team, and yet he averaged seven-and-a-half minutes a game with two big fat DNP-CDs.

Granger was also the only player on this team who could put up a stat line anywhere close to Durant, averaging 24.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.5 steals, 0.8 blocks, and 2.6 3-pointers a game last year for Indiana. And that was an off-year in which he struggled with injuries compared to his MIP campaign the year before.

He really didn't stand out or play all that well through training camp or the exhibitions, but the belief must have been that he could provide the virtuoso offensive performances that would allow Durant longer breathers. Apparently his lack of focus on defense doomed that idea. I would go a step further and also add that he never seemed to find any role other than scorer (nor was he assigned one) within the flow of the game like Iguodala and Rudy Gay did.

No one on the team ended up with even half of Durant's 22.8 ppg average. Hidden behind all that defensive tenacity and Durant's miraculous shots was the truth that this team had lots of problems creating opportunities against strong teams when Durant wasn't around.

Danny Granger in a familiar spot with Team USA: on the bench. (Getty Images)

Who should go to London for the 2012 Olympics?

Based on the players currently in the Team USA program, what team would give the United States the best chance at a third consecutive gold medal, something that hasn't happened since the first three dream teams?

Ignoring players like John Wall and Blake Griffin who are too unproven to predict how they'll turn out by 2012, this would be the roster I'd bank on to win it all in London:

Starters

PG Chris Paul - Injuries dimmed his star last year, but still the best point guard in the world.
SG Kobe Bryant - Will be 34 by then, but can provide that Jason Kidd-like veteran leadership and Bruce Bowen-like defensive presence.
SF Kevin Durant - He just spent all summer proving why he belongs here. I'll go a step further and say any time Durant is on the court, he should be their #1 scoring option.
PF LeBron James - Lots of success playing the 4 last time in Beijing. No, I don't expect him to actually take a summer to learn post moves, but his size, strength, and athleticism allow him to guard any 3s and 4s on the planet.
C Dwight Howard - Best rebounder and post defender in the world.

Bench

6 Dwyane Wade - Same as last time.
7 Deron Williams - Best back-up PG since Stockton played behind Magic in 1992. Maybe better.
8 Chris Bosh - Likely will still be the best post scorer on the team.
9 Andre Iguodala - The versatility he demonstrated this summer means he should always be able to find a role.
10 Greg Oden - Of course I'm assuming his next two years are major injury-free, but he'll likely be the second-best defensive big man in the league by 2012. I'd put Andrew Bynum here, but he's never been in the Team USA program and hasn't been the picture of health either. If both are still what they are now, go ahead and bump Carmelo Anthony in.
11 Brook Lopez - Then again, maybe he'll be the best post scorer on the team.
12 Eric Gordon - Every team needs a zone-buster off the bench, but Gordon's defense sets him apart from past ones like Michael Redd and Mike Miller.

Notable Omissions

Carmelo Anthony - He was the best player on the 2006 team, but he proved to be expendable in 2008 and is a far less efficient scorer than Durant.
Amar'e Stoudemire - We need defense. Chris Bosh gets the nod over him on account of having zero knee surgeries to Stoudemire's five.
Kevin Love - Again, defense.
Russell Westbrook, Derrick Rose, Rajon Rondo - All great players, but Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade can both do what they do except better, although that certainly may not be the case by 2012. What none of them can do right now is consistently make three-pointers, which is why Gordon got the last spot.

See you in 2012. Or not. (AFP PHOTO/ARIS MESSINIS)

Being World Champions, the next time Team USA ever needs to play another FIBA game will be for the Olympics. Until then, no more international basketball articles! See you during the NBA season!

The Basketball World Championships Are Not More Important than Olympic Basketball

2010-08-28T15:59:00.000-07:00

The 2008 USA players aren't the only missing stars in the FIBA World Championships
(Richard Giles)

Over and over again, ESPN loves touting the line that the FIBA World Championships means more to the world than Olympic basketball does. That the world consider the World Championships to have the same importance for basketball that the World Cup does for soccer/futbol. That only we ignorant, isolated, backwater Americans still consider Olympic basketball to be the most important international basketball event.

Please cut the crap.

Take a look at the list of prominent basketball players who aren't joining their teams in Turkey. These are all uninjured players who have played for their national teams in the past but personally chose not to play this time.

Manu Ginobili (Argentina)
Jamaal Magloire (Canada)
Samuel Dalembert (Canada)
Steve Nash (Canada)
Joakim Noah (France)
Mickael Pietrus (France)
Tony Parker (France)
Chris Kaman (Germany)
Dirk Nowitzki (Germany)
Theo Papaloukas (Greece)
Darius Songaila (Lithuania)
Sarunas Jasikevicius (Lithuania)
Zydrunas Ilgauskas (Lithuania)
Andrei Kirilenko (Russia)
Viktor Khryapa (Russia)
Darko Milicic (Serbia)
Peja Stojakovic (Serbia)
Sasha Pavlovic (Serbia)
Vladimir Radmanovic (Serbia)
Beno Udrih (Slovenia)
Sasha Vujacic (Slovenia)
Pau Gasol (Spain)
Entire 2008 USA Olympic Basketball Team (USA)

All of the listed countries are missing a top-three player. Some of the countries (e.g. Argentina, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, USA) are without their best player (unless you think Kevin Durant is the best basketball player in America).

You could easily add Yao Ming to this list, too. He's participating in basketball drills now but staying out of the tournament to rest his recovering foot. If the World Championship had the significance of the World Cup, would he still be in Houston right now instead of Turkey? Did injuries keep Wayne Rooney and Jozy Altidore from playing in South Africa?

If China cared about the World Championships, particularly after all the embarrassing stories of their absence at the World Cup, wouldn't they have pushed Yao to speed up his rehab and play like they did to him at the 2008 Beijing Olympics?

But they didn't. Why? Because they don't give a damn about the FIBA World Championships. Are TV ratings for the World Championships higher than for Olympic basketball? Are national basketball organizations spending more money for the World Championships than the Olympics? What makes ESPN so sure anyone cares more about it?

One can understand why basketball purists love the FIBA World Championships. Many more teams participate, and it runs longer and deeper than the Olympics. But even diehard fans would need to be delusional to think the grander format equals greater international significance.

All I can say for sure is that some of the best basketball players in the world have chosen not to participate in the World Championships, and even the most hardcore national programs (i.e. China, USA) are giving them a pass. Ginobili even came out on his blog and specifically said, "I am just prioritizing London 2012 to Turkey 2010."

Sure, he and his wife had twins three months ago, and he wants to be there for them. Yet you can't deny the title of that post. Later, he even goes on to say, "[M]y two previous experiences on the Olympics were the best thing that ever happened to me as an athlete, including the NBA rings, European championships and everything I lived on my almost 15 years of career, and I have no doubts in my head that I would like to live that again."

The Olympics. Not the World Championships. Can't get much clearer than that.

The Best Player in Europe: How Good Is He in the NBA?

2010-08-27T21:58:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Darko Milicic and Nikoloz Tskitishvili. Because of guys like you two and your combined 8.5 career NBA points-per-game average, the NBA trend of drafting young, unproven European league players in the hopes of finding the next Dirk Nowitzki or Pau Gasol is nearly extinct.

Lately NBA teams have either drafted talent that they know will stay and develop for a few years in Europe or directly signed European vets who already have accomplished resumes.

This year, the Spurs eagerly anticipate the arrival of 2009 Liga ACB MVP Tiago Splitter. Rudy Fernandez, the 2007 Euroleague Rising Star and 2008 Eurocup Finals MVP, is commanding serious trade interest from Chicago, New York, and Boston as the most affordable young star on the trading block. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Timberwolves are still wringing their hands over when, if ever, 2007 ACB Rising Star and 2010 Euroleague Rising Star Ricky Rubio will come play for their maligned franchise.

Many of these players have been billed by the press with such unofficial, unauthoritative titles as The Best Player in Europe, The Best Young Prospect in Europe, or The Best Point Guard/Big Man/Etc. in Europe. Yet how do Europe's best translate when they come across the pond to play in Liga Americana?

To answer that, we examine the major award winners over the last decade from Liga ACB, considered by many to be the most talented basketball league outside the NBA, and the Euroleague tournament. These are players that arrived in the NBA at or approaching the top of their games. We're not talking about the Tony Parkers and Nicolas Batums of the world; we're looking at the players with real credentials on their European resumes only.

Manu Ginobili

Ginobiliiiiiiii!!!! (Photo Credit Unknown)

European Awards: 2001 Euroleague Final Four MVP

NBA Career, 2002-Present: Now this is some value. The San Antonio Spurs drafted him with the second to last spot in the second round of the 1999 draft. He received a lot of buzz before joining the Spurs in 2002, leading the Argentina team that beat Team USA on its way to a silver medal in that summer's FIBA world championships.

Ginobili did not disappoint in San Antonio, playing a crucial part in winning three NBA championships. He's been an All-Star, a Sixth Man of the Year, All-NBA Third Team, and Charles Barkley's favorite international player. ESPN's John Hollinger has even (crazily) argued Ginobili's output is comparable to Kobe Bryant's.

Also, if Tony Parker deserved to be Finals MVP of the 2007 Finals (he didn't), then Manu Ginobili should've been Finals MVP in 2005. And Ginobili was being guarded by Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince, not Boobie Gibson and 34-year old Eric Snow.

Overshadowed By: Nobody. Alongside Tony Parker and Tim Duncan, Ginobili was part of the most successful Big Three of the 2000s.

Post-NBA Career: He will likely retire a Spur after his current contract, but he hasn't forgotten FIBA rules, leading Argentina to gold in Athens during the 2004 Olympics.

Andres Nocioni

The Red Bull (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

European Awards: 2004 ACB MVP

NBA Careers, 2004-Present: Fresh off winning the gold with Manu in 2004, Nocioni signed with the Chicago Bulls, where his aggressive, physical style of play earned him the nickname "Red Bull." He completely outshone the more hyped Luol Deng in the 2006 playoffs, averaging 22.8 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 1.6 assists in six games against Miami.

But the next year Deng came back with a vengeance and helped Chicago steamroll Miami before losing in six to Detroit. That, by the way, was the highest point the Chicago Bulls would ever reach in the decade. Meanwhile, various injuries derailed Nocioni's career as he bounced from Chicago to Sacramento to Philadelphia.

Overshadowed By: Luol Deng.

Post-NBA Career: Still in the league now, but these days he's showing a level of disgruntlement that usually precedes a contract paid out in euros.

Anthony Parker

The Other Tony Parker (Photo Credit Unknown)

European Awards: 2004 Euroleague Final Four MVP, 2005 & 2006 All-Euroleague MVP

NBA Career, 2007-Present: Signed by the Raptors in 2007, Parker had a decent run in Toronto before being stranded with other mediocre wings Jamario Moon, Danny Green, Joey Graham, and Jawad Williams on the post-LeBron Cavaliers. Still, he's been a consistent starting shooting guard, solid perimeter defender, and three-point specialist, averaging over 112 threes a season in his four NBA years after Europe.

Overshadowed By: Candace Parker, his much more famous little sister. She's the LeBron James of the WNBA, except she makes a hell of a lot less money, no one cares about her games, and she married a mangalore.

Candace Parker with husband Shelden Williams (Photo Credit Unknown)

Post-NBA Career: Still in the league now, but will probably be making Gatorade runs for his sister in a few years.

The Point Guards

Juan Carlos Navarro and his very unambiguous Euroleague trophies (Euroleague.net)

European Awards: 2005 ACB Rising Star (Rodriguez), 2005 Euroleague Final Four MVP (Jasikevicius), 2006 ACB MVP (Navarro)

NBA Careers, 2006-10: Several European point guards have come over billed as The Best Point Guard or Point Guard Prospect in Europe (Re: Ricky Rubio). When the Portland Trailblazers bought his draft rights from the cheapskate Sarver Suns in 2006, Sergio Rodriguez was a highly touted prospect with a cool if unoriginal nickname (Spanish Chocolate!). Portland waited for him to bloom and take over the point guard position for three years before bouncing him to Sacramento and New York. And he lasted the longest.

In 2005, Cleveland's Zydrunas Ilgauskas pushed hard to get his Lithuanian countryman Sarunas Jasikevicius to join the Cavs, but Jasikevicius felt the Indiana Pacers were closer to a title and signed with them. They certainly were deeper at point guard, as he struggled to get regular minutes before being traded to the Warriors the next year and perfectly playing the role of towel-waving 12th man during their historic 2007 playoff run.

Juan Carlos Navarro signed with the Memphis Grizzlies in 2007 to join his best friend Pau Gasol. That same season, Gasol was traded to the Lakers and joined Kobe to start their string of three straight Finals appearances. Meanwhile his best bud stayed in Memphis and hit 156 three-pointers. Woohoo!

Overshadowed By: Other point guards on their team. Despite their hype, none of them could ever seize the starting spot. Rodriguez was the third man in point guard battles between Juan Dixon and Jarrett Jack and then Jarret Jack and Steve Blake before Jerryd Bayless took over the point guard of the future mantle in Portland.

Similarly, Jasikevicius couldn't get regular minutes behind Jamaal Tinsley and Anthony Johnson in Indiana, and Navarro played in a three-headed rotation with Mike Conley and Kyle Lowry.

Post-NBA Career: After two NBA years, Jasikevicius signed with Panathinaikos, which immediately rode him and Vassilis Spanoulis (another Euro with a failed NBA career) to the Euroleague championship.

Navarro peaced out after just one year in Memphis, signed with FC Barcelona, won All-Euroleague MVP in 2009, and won Euroleague Final Four MVP in 2010 while taking Barcelona to the Euroleague championship.

Rodriguez signed a three-year deal with Real Madrid this summer, and, if history is any guide, they'll probably win Euroleague either this year or next.

The Big Men

The gritty Luis Scola (Photo Credit Unknown)

European Awards: 2006 Euroleague Rising Star (Bargnani), 2005 & 2007 ACB MVP (Scola), 2008 ACB MVP (Gasol)

NBA Career, 2006-Present: Good news for Tiago Splitter: unlike their point guard counterparts, the European big men have seen quite a bit more NBA success.

While Andrea Bargnani is cut from the same Darko/Skita mold of finesse big men, the former number one overall pick has shown an offensive aggressiveness the past two years that those two never possessed. His defense is still a work nonexistent, but so was Dirk's at this point in his career. Although, to be fair, Dirk was averaging 23/10 for a 57-win Mavericks team in his fourth year, not 17/6 for a Raptors team that couldn't make the playoffs after Chris Bosh quit on them.

The two ACB MVPs, on the other hand, are definitely bruisers. After five years waiting for Luis Scola to come to the NBA, the Spurs traded him to the Houston Rockets and watched him become a crucial power forward for that team, making the All-Rookie first team and signing a five-year $47 million contract after averaging 16.2 points and 8.6 rebounds last year.

Marc Gasol has made the Grizzlies actually look slightly less egregious in trading older brother Pau to the Lakers for his rights and Kwame Brown's remains, nearly averaging a double-double last year while teaming up with Zach Randolph to form a beefy and surprisingly effective low post tandem.

Overshadowed By: If the Raptors drafted LaMarcus Aldridge instead of Bargnani, they still could've gotten a jump-shooting, barely-rebounding big man, but also with the ability to play low post and a Texas connection that might've convinced Chris Bosh to stay.

While moving Carl Landry last year unfortunately put an end to the Carluis Scolandry era in Houston, it helped solidify Scola's position on the team.

Unless you count big brother Pau in L.A., the only shadow cast over Marc Gasol these days is Zach Randolph's when Gasol gets in his way to the buffet line.

Post-NBA Career: All still in the league and looking like they'll be staying for a while.

Rudy Fernandez

Rudy Fernandez in his glory days, pre-NBA (The Oregonian)

European Awards: 2007 Euroleague Rising Star, 2008 Eurocup Finals MVP

NBA Career, 2008-Present: After seeing him tear through the Team USA defense in the 2008 Olympics, USA assistant coach and Portland head coach Nate McMillan salivated at the thought of Fernandez playing alongside Brandon Roy on the wing in Portland.

Didn't quite work out the way he thought it would. Fernandez, known as an elite athlete and all-around player in Europe, somehow fell into the familiar European transplant role of three-point specialist. His rookie season was highlighted by setting the NBA rookie record for three-pointers (159) and embarrassing himself after getting voted into the dunk contest while Joe Alexander sat at home with nothing to do.

He actively joined this summer of player discontent by refusing to answer Portland's phone calls and threatening to sit out the remaining two years of his contract. Hopefully now McMillan realizes the only Spanish prospects worth drooling over are more like 5'10" and a C-cup.

Overshadowed By: Himself, 2008 version.

Post-NBA Career: If his demands are met, this could happen pretty soon. But we've seen this before with Andrei Kirilenko. He's not going to give up two years of his professional basketball career and paycheck just to be a prick.

Danillo Gallinari

Rooster (Photo Credit Unknown)

European Awards: 2008 Euroleague Rising Star

NBA Career, 2008-Present: The Rooster's rookie season was a wash, as back problems kept him out of basically the entire season. But Rooster came back strong the next season, becoming--what else?--a three-point specialist for the Knicks, hitting 186 three pointers at a 38.1% clip.

That apparently was good enough for the Knicks to include Rooster along with Wilson Chandler and Toney Douglas as part of their core team to pitch to LeBron this summer, which is like trying to pick up a supermodel while rolling in a Mazda Miata.

Neverthless, Rooster is the still best nickname in the league, in case you couldn't already tell how I felt about it. Rooster.

Overshadowed By: If the Knicks picked Brook Lopez instead of Gallinari in 2008, they still could've been in position to get Ty Lawson if not Brandon Jennings in 2009.

Knowing how effective Lawson was last year in his few games filling in for Chauncey Billups and how fantastic Brook Lopez is period, could the Knicks then have snagged LeBron? Who knows. They're certainly not Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, but are they that far off from Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah? It would have at least given some sort of basketball legitimacy to the Knicks's pitch.

Post-NBA Career: He's signed through 2012, so unless he pulls a Rudy Fernandez, he'll be in the league for at least a couple more years.

The Best in Europe?

Despite the hype surrounding established European players entering the NBA, none of them have had the same type of success as their colleagues who came over younger and learned the American game earlier. The lone exception is Manu Ginobili. Otherwise, the results seem to be either a lot of grit or a lot of three pointers.

Does playing a different style of basketball ingrain these European players with instincts that are too difficult to shake? Is the option of returning to Europe where they know they can succeed preventing them from trying their hardest to adapt to the NBA game? Or is the sample size just too small, and we're bound to see another Manu Ginobili or better soon?

In Defense of Scottie Pippen

2010-08-13T18:48:00.000-07:00

Scottie Pippen was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame this week, but his credentials extend far beyond being Michael Jordan’s sidekick.

Scottie Pippen. (Steve Lipofsky/Basketballphoto.com)

Three years ago, I was in Shanghai Pudong airport with some friends when two gorgeous flight attendants walked toward us. When I finally looked passed them to see who was important enough to merit such an escort, I saw a 6’7” man wearing a black leather jacket and dark sunglasses. Like any idiot caught off guard by a celebrity sighting, I blurted out the first words that came to my head: his name.

“Scottie Pippen!”

“Excuse me,” he said in his low rumble, right before splitting the defense between my friend E-Y and his mom, and then bolting down the escalator to the VIP lounges. I dropped my suitcase and unzipped it, frantically looking for my camera. I couldn’t find it, but I pulled out something else that I thought might be relevant: my gray Nike Air Pippens.

“Hey Scottie!” I shouted down the escalator. “I bought your shoes!” Dude ran like I was 1989 Dennis Rodman coming up behind him on the fast break.

Nike Air Pippens. Still got'em! (The NBA from the Cheap Seats)

A Stronger Argument for Scottie Pippen

So I may not be the most unbiased source of Scottie Pippen information. More than any other basketball player, I admire Pippen’s skill set. A six-foot-seven small forward who had court vision and handled the ball like a point guard but still had the length and quickness to guard four positions and the power and athleticism to unleash thunderous dunks on the league’s best big men. People say LeBron James has no historical comparison? Pippen was clearly the template for LeBron (insert Dwyane Wade’s sidekick joke here). LeBron is just Pippen on steroids (“on steroids” just an expression, that needs to be clarified these days).

Yet some critics still find ways to detract from his accomplishments. Critics like ESPN’s Skip Bayless, whom I am absolutely positive does not believe half the garbage he says and deliberately chooses the most inane angles on sports arguments just to sound ridiculous. Fine, that’s his schtick. I get it. What aggravates me is that ESPN puts him up against a creampuff like Jemele Hill who rambles off a bunch of subjective statements (“There are a lot of players who would’ve been too intimidated to shine the way he did [next to Jordan].” Yeah, put that on Pippen’s HOF plaque.) and can’t connect even against these softballs Bayless lobs at her.

Not a clue on either side of this table. (ESPN)

Since Hill won’t give Pippen a proper defense, I will. Let’s tackle Bayless’s jokes in reverse order:

Joke #1 — In his five years with Houston and Portland, Scottie Pippen averaged 14.5, 12.5, 11.3, 10.6, and 10.8 ppg.

How weak is your position when you resort to points-per-game to argue a man’s Hall of Fame credentials? Pippen joined a Houston team with Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, and no real point guard. He joined a Trailblazers team with Rasheed Wallace, Steve Smith, Damon Stoudamire, Arvydas
Sabonis, Bonzi Wells, and Detlef Schrempf. On neither of those teams was he asked to carry the scoring load. He fit in because his talents are so multi-faceted that he could play other roles—like facilitator and defensive stopper—that those teams needed.

Here are the yearly career PPG averages of another Hall-of-Famer: 14.7, 16.6, 16.7, 18.7, 18.2, 16.9, 18.9, 16.8, 15.0, 14.1, 12.9, 13.3, 12.5, 9.9. This bum couldn’t even crack 20 ppg in any single year. How the hell could he possibly make it into the HOF? Perhaps on account on his 11 championship titles, considering we’re talking about Bill Russell. Not every player makes his impact through scoring. Duh.

Joke #2 — At age 34, Michael Jordan averaged 29-6-4, led the NBA in scoring, was first-team All-NBA, and won his sixth Finals MVP while leading the Bulls to their sixth title. At 34, Pippen was a role player on the Trailblazers.

The only reason Bayless picked 34 was because that was the age at which Jordan won his last title. Let’s play along and assume there is some type of magical significance associated with that number. Yes, even at 34, Michael Jordan was sublime, but what if we hold other top HOF swingmen to his standard at that age?

Elgin Baylor 25-10-5. First-team All-NBA, All-Star. His Lakers lost in seven in the Finals to the Boston Celtics. Jordanesque, though Jerry West was clearly the leader on that team, and they also got a 20-20 year out of Wilt Chamberlain.
Jerry West 23-4-9. Trailed only Gail Goodrich on his team for points but led it in assists. First-team All-NBA, All-Star. His Lakers lost in the Finals to the New York Knicks. So far so good!
Oscar Robertson 16-5-8. Fourth highest scorer on his team, though he did lead it in assists. His Milwaukee Bucks lost in the playoff semifinals to the Golden State Warriors. Bit of a drop-off now.
John Havlicek 19-6-5. Played all 82 games. Second-team All-NBA, first-team All-Defense, All-Star. Helped the Dave Cowens Celtics to the Conference Finals, where they lost to the Bullets.
Earl Monroe 12-3-1. Came off the bench, and played only the eighth most minutes. His Knicks didn’t make the playoffs.
Rick Barry 14-6-4. Acted as facilitator for the Moses Malone/Calvin Murphy/Rudy Tomjanovich Houston Rockets that got swept by the Hawks in the first round.
Julius Erving 20-5-3. All-Star. Helped a stacked Philadelphia 76ers team with Moses Malone and Andrew Toney in their primes plus rookie Charles Barkley to the Conference Finals, where they lost to the Celtics.
Adrian Dantley 6-1-1. Played only 10 games for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Larry Bird 19-9-7. Led his team in minutes and points and was second in rebounds and assists, but missed 22 games. All Star. His Boston Celtics lost to the Pistons in the Semifinals.
Dominique Wilkins 24-6-2 for the Hawks before trade. 29-7-2 for the Clippers after. Still a scoring machine if no longer a highlight reel. Third-team All-NBA, All-Star. His Clippers did not make the playoffs.
Clyde Drexler 18-6-6. Third wheel for those Hakeem/Barkley Rockets, but he missed 20 games. All-Star. His Rockets lost in the Conference Finals that year to Utah.
Joe Dumars 13-4-1. His Pistons didn’t make the playoffs.
Reggie Miller 18-3-2. Missed just one game. All-Star. Led Indiana Pacers team that lost in the Finals to the Lakers, though Jalen Rose carried an equal share of those Pacers. Reggie isn’t HOF yet, but he played in the same era and just happened not to retire until later.
James Worthy, George Gervin, and Pete Maravich were no longer playing in the NBA at 34.

Now for Pippen:

The defensive-minded Pippen. (NBA)

Scottie Pippen 13-6-5. Played all 82 games. On that stacked Blazers team, he was second in minutes, second in assists, third in rebounds, and third in points. Second-team All-Defense. This is the Blazers team that had the infamous collapse in Game 7 of the Conference Finals against the Lakers and let a 17-point lead slip away in the fourth quarter.

Few approached Michael Jordan’s standard. None reached it. Obviously. He's Michael Goddamn Jordan.

While Pippen may be in the bottom half when comparing his age-34 production against the best Hall of Fame shooting guards and small forwards of all time, he is still firmly in the conversation.

Joke #3 — Michael Jordan made Scottie Pippen.

This argument can be deconstructed in two ways. First, look at Michael Jordan’s career without Scottie Pippen. Number of MVP awards won: five. Number of MVP awards without Pippen: zero. Number of Championships won: six. Number of championships without Pippen: zero. Number of first-team All-NBA’s: 10. Number of first-team All-NBA’s without Pippen: one.

You can look at Jordan’s first-team All-NBA in 1987 without Pippen and say he was already on his way even if Pippen never came along, and you’d be right. But how far was he going to get without Pippen? Couldn’t you also say Pippen would have been on his way even if Jordan never came along? No logic can extract how much of those Bulls teams’ success belonged to Jordan, how much to Pippen, and how much to Phil Jackson. All those elements affected each other, and no one with a functional brain can say one of them completely manufactured another (unless you’re Skip Bayless and blowing smoke up everybody’s asses for kicks, of course).

It's Pippen's time!
(Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images)

Second, look at Pippen’s career without Jordan. Since we already discussed his roles on the Rockets and Blazers, we’ll focus on the two years Pippen played in his prime when Jordan was playing baseball. In 1993-1994, Scottie Pippen averaged a monstrous 22.0 points, 8.7 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 2.9 steals, 0.8 blocks, and 2.7 three-pointers. He led the Bulls in points, assists, steals, and 3s along with field goals made and attempted and free throws made and attempted. He finished second to Horace Grant in rebounds and blocks.

Finally out of Jordan’s shadow, he received his first first-team All-NBA selection, remained first-team All-Defense, and finished third in MVP voting. He even won the All-Star game MVP. He led that Bulls team to 55 wins, but ultimately lost in seven to the New York Knicks. This was the series that featured his infamous refusal to come back into a game after Phil Jackson drew up a last shot play for Toni Kukoc, an admittedly selfish decision that sadly has been given far too much weight in determining Pippen’s legacy.

Unfortunately, I don’t know Pippen’s splits in 1994-1995 before and after Michael Jordan came back. I do know Jordan returned late in the season and averaged an astounding 27-7-5 over 17 games with virtually no time to prep for the season, which showed in his paltry 41.1% field goal percentage.

Still, this Bulls season belonged to Pippen, who went 21-8-5 over 79 game, received his second first-team All-NBA selection, and continued to remain first-team All-Defense. Over the entire season, Pippen led the team in total points, rebounds, assists, steals (league-leader), blocks, minutes, field goals made and attempted, and free throws made and attempted.

You’ve Got to Do a Better Job Arguing for Pippen than That

Do I expect Jemele Hill to know all of these points when arguing for Pippen? You’re goddamn right I do! You get time to prepare for these debates, and you know Bayless is going to come at you with the dumbest possible angles.

Even without preparation, anyone familiar with Pippen should be able to throw out the 55-win season, Pippen’s two All-NBA first-team selections (mostly) sans Jordan, the versatile roles Pippen was asked to play on those Rockets (point forward) and Blazers (defensive stopper) teams, the fact that saying Jordan made Pippen is just as illogical as saying Pippen made Jordan, and the fact that judging a player’s value based on PPG is makes about as much sense as using height and weight.

This is all before mentioning that Jordan himself acknowledged Pippen, an eight-time All-Defense first-team selection, may have been an even better defender than he was, as noted in David Halberstram’s seminal book on Jordan, Playing for Keeps. If Michael Jordan is giving the speech to induct Scottie Pippen into the Basketball Hall of Fame, if His Airness himself says Pippen is HOF-worthy, who is Skip Bayless to say he isn’t?

That’s right. Bayless is nobody. Congratulations, Scottie Pippen.

(Andy Hayt/NBAE/Getty Images)

Breaking Down the Four-Team Trade that Put Darren Collison in Indiana and Trevor Ariza in New Orleans

2010-08-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

How far will Darren Collison and Trevor Ariza take their new teams?

Four teams traded five players today as the Indiana Pacers got their latest and perhaps most promising point guard experiment and the New Orleans Hornets tried to demonstrate their seriousness to Chris Paul by filling the gap at small forward with a talented player entering his prime.

When all was complete, Trevor Ariza went to the New Orleans Hornets, Darren Collison and James Posey went to the Indiana Pacers, Troy Murphy went to the New Jersey Nets, and Courtney Lee went to the Houston Rockets.

Read up on the full breakdown of the moves on Suite 101.

The Case for Isiah

2010-08-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

Isiah Thomas returns from NBA exile to the Knicks.

The prodigal son has returned to New York. Last Friday, the New York Knicks announced that former coach and president of basketball operations Isiah Thomas would return to the organization as a part-time consultant. Thomas touted this role as an opportunity for the Knicks to take “full advantage of [his] skill set as an evaluator of basketball talent.”

Current Knicks president Donnie Walsh isn’t impressed, with reports surfacing that he nearly resigned when he learned Knicks owner and Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan went over Walsh’s head to hire Thomas. Many believe this is a sign that Thomas is angling to claim the GM position and usurp control over the Knicks operations back from Walsh.

As expected, the always zealous New York media is rampantly battering this decision, although New York fans don’t appear to be as unilaterally against Thomas’s return or his intentions. However, assuming David Stern doesn’t quash the entire idea due to the potential conflict of interest with Thomas’s current job at Florida International University, are there merits to having Thomas as a Knicks consultant?

Isiah Thomas: Skilled Evaluator of Talent?

Thomas with David Lee, not a bad draft pick.

One reputation Isiah Thomas has picked up is that he’s a master at the draft. When he actually keeps the draft picks to use, as opposed to trading them so he can throw bloated contracts at mediocre talents like Eddy Curry and Stephon Marbury, Thomas has often found success. His credits:

1995 Toronto Raptors – #7 Damon Stoudamire, #35 Jimmy King. The first ever pick in Toronto Raptors history was heavily booed, as Raptors fans wanted UCLA hero Ed O’Bannon. Yet, in a rookie class featuring Antonio McDyess, Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace, and Kevin Garnett (all of whom were picked before #7), Stoudamire ended up winning Rookie of the Year. Clearly, he was the right choice, as knee injuries ended O’Bannon’s career after only two years. Jimmy King was the last member of the Fab Five and accomplished little professionally.
1996 Toronto Raptors – #2 Marcus Camby. After Allen Iverson was selected #1, Naismith College Player of the Year Marcus Camby was a no-brainer. Although injuries muddled the middle of his career, Camby has Defensive Player of the Year, four All-Defensive Teams, and All-Rookie First Team awards on his mantle and continues to be a force in the middle for the Portland Trailblazers.
1997 Toronto Raptors – #9 Tracy McGrady. Thomas’s pick in 1996 would look even brighter had that draft not been arguably the deepest ever. Of course he missed out on Kobe Bryant at #13, but no one–NO ONE–predicted the career Kobe would have. Thomas would not miss the high school phenom of the 1997 class, however, selecting McGrady after such luminaries as Keith Van Horn, Antonio Daniels, Tony Battie, Ron Mercer, Tim Thomas, and Adonal Foyle were off the board. Seven-time All-Star McGrady was the last pick of any value in this draft until Stephen Jackson at #43.

Following an unsuccessful bid to buy the Raptors in 1998, Thomas resigned, tried broadcasting, ruined the CBA, did a stint as coach of the Pacers, and didn’t re-surface in another front office until Crazy Jimmy Dolan hired him late in 2003.

2004 New York Knicks – #43 Trevor Ariza. With only one pick, Thomas still managed to find value with the athletic swingman from UCLA. Ariza was a critical component to the Lakers 2008 title run and a highly sought-after free agent the following summer. Nobody drafted after Ariza is still in the league, and only two others from the second round (Anderson Varejao and Chris Duhon) also still collect NBA paychecks.
2005 New York Knicks – #8 Channing Frye, #21 Nate Robinson (via Phoenix), #30 David Lee. People forget that Channing Frye was the consensus second-best center in that draft (after Andrew Bogut) and actually showed quite a bit of promise his rookie year (All-Rookie First Team) before losing steam and then finding his role as a floor-spacing big man for the Suns. David Lee has been a revelation, as his new six-year $80 million contract demonstrates. The Knicks bought Nate Robinson from notorious Phoenix cheapskate Robert Sarver, and, after some turbulent seasons in New York, Robinson became a playoff hero in Boston last year and proved to be better than your average 21^st pick.
2006 New York Knicks – #20 Renaldo Balkman, #29 Mardy Collins. Here’s where it gets dicey. Renaldo Balkman wasn’t a bad player, but Thomas drafted him right before Rajon Rondo and several picks before Kyle Lowry, Shannon Brown, and Jordan Farmar. The Knicks did have both Steve Francis and Stephon Marbury at the time, but Balkman apologists can’t play the “We didn’t need a point guard!” card because Thomas drafted PG Mardy Collins at #29. Worse, Balkman was a total unknown, which led to an entire summer of awful “Did he think he was getting Rolando Blackman?” jokes. Collins, meanwhile, is still best known for getting slapped by Carmelo Anthony.
2007 New York Knicks – #23 Wilson Chandler. Another relative unknown. The big knock here is that he was drafted one spot ahead of Rudy Fernandez, but Chandler actually outplayed Fernandez last year. No, Chandler hasn’t been as good as Carl Landry or Marc Gasol nor as beneficial to his team as Glen Davis (all picked in the second round), so this will go down as a solid pick for its position rather than another home-run.

Good evaluation of talent? Evidence supports it. The ESPN D.R.A.F.T. Initiative agrees, calling Thomas the second-best drafting GM of the past 20 years. On the other hand, first was Bryan Colangelo, who has been widely panned for the sorry state of the current Raptors, and third was Jim Paxson, who was chased out of Cleveland with sticks and burning copies of DeSagana Diop’s contract.

Clearly there is more to being a good GM than simply drafting.

Isiah Thomas: Credibility with Current Players?

Despite what Crazy Jimmy Dolan wants you to believe,
this image had nothing to do with Isiah Thomas.

When Mike D’Antoni and Donnie Walsh pitched LeBron James in Cleveland this summer, they presented him with a Tony Soprano shout-out and spent hours talking X’s and O’s to convince him that the Knicks franchise and team were right for him. All seemed to go well, but word after the meeting was that Team LeBron now considered the Knicks out of the running.

Who did Crazy Jimmy Dolan send back to make the final plea? The same man responsible for the embarrassing quagmire that Walsh had to untangle even to have a chance at LeBron – Isiah Thomas. Thomas did get a meeting with one of LeBron’s representatives, which was good enough for Crazy Jimmy to decide Thomas had credibility with players that both Walsh and D’Antoni lacked. Like most decisions made during Crazy Jimmy Dolan’s reign of incompetence, a shred of logic led to a narrow-sighted leap off a cliff.

Yet there is that shred of logic. As much as the media and NBA offices lambast Isiah Thomas for his executive career, many NBA players still remember him as the greatest small point guard of all time and a member of the NBA’s 50 Best Players.

Forget the rumors that Thomas recruited Stoudemire, which appears questionable at best. Even without that, there is no question that Isiah has the charisma to charm even his biggest detractors in person, as well as the two championship rings to back up his words.

Is Isiah a Good Rehire?

Not better than the guy on the left.

The ultimate question. Yes, if he is coming onboard as a consultant. The ramifications this will create for the FIU basketball program and NCAA recruiting in general will be a bigger trainwreck than the one Thomas left in New York, but this can be good for the Knicks.

Yet if the rumors about Thomas’s ambitions are true, and Crazy Jimmy Dolan plans to replace Walsh, the man who fixed the worst salary cap situation in the league, with Thomas, a man who may not even know what the salary cap is, then this hire marks the first step back to insignificance for the New York Knicks franchise.

Examining Atlanta Hawks GM Rick Sund, or The Man Who'd Rather Keep Playing Checkers when Everyone Else Is Playing Chess

2010-08-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

Mr. Five Years Behind Everyone Else

One of the oddest asterisks in the NBA’s summer of 2010 free agent bonanza is that the biggest contract handed out did not go to any of the Big Three of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, or Chris Bosh. It didn’t even go to Amar’e Stoudemire or Carlos Boozer, despite big men always commanding a premium.

No, the biggest contract of this summer, for $120 million over six years, went to Joe Johnson.

Joe Johnson who quietly threw down a 21-5-5 last year for the 53-29 Atlanta Hawks. Joe Johnson, who then averaged below 13-5-4 on 30.3% shooting when the Hawks were swept by a historic 25.3-point margin of victory by the Orlando Magic. Joe Johnson, who was last seen criticizing the people of Atlanta for not showing up and supporting the Hawks (which, to be honest, they didn’t). Joe Johnson, who is 29—three months older than Dwyane Wade, the oldest member of Miami’s new trio—and will be paid $24.1 million at age 35.

Joe Johnson, who needs to send a giant “Thank You” card with a blinged-out Jacob & Co. watch to his general manager Rick Sund, who made the biggest reach in a summer of reaches and will force poor Hawks fans to continue living with the smelly mess he grabbed.

Full details in the Suite 101 article.

King James Copies Big Z but Can't Duplicate Warm Fuzzy Feelings

2010-08-03T13:30:00.003-07:00

Last Sunday, Zydrunas Ilgauskas placed a full-page ad in the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer thanking Cavaliers fans for 14 years of supporting him. Today, LeBron James placed a similar full-page ad in the Akron Beacon-Journal stating that Akron has always been his home and central focus.

Ohioans have been very understanding and supportive of Ilgauskas's decision to leave and pursue a championship, even in Miami.

LeBron? Hahahaha! Full details in the Suite 101 article.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas's ad in the Plain Dealer
(Credit: The Plain Dealer)

LeBron James's ad in the Akron Beacon-Journal
(Credit: Akron Beacon-Journal)

Not sure what happened to all the capital "F"s in LeBron's ad. They might have left to join all the "uck You"s in the comments section.

Also, is it just me, or do all the kids look like they just wanted to get a bike and go home, not be part of the damn show?

What Would Be Yao Ming's Legacy if He Retired from Basketball Right Now?

2010-08-02T03:55:00.000-07:00

Yao Ming is considering retirement after
this upcoming season.

Professional athletes have been known for some brazen arrogance. This can be particularly true when returning from a major injury. Witness Tracy McGrady’s assertion that he has rehabilitated himself to the point of being a starter again as exhibit #1.

The obvious reasoning is that teams are not likely to sign a player who’s going to fall apart before the ink dries on his contract. Beyond that, though, professional athletes require a phenomenal amount of confidence to play at the highest level of their sport. It’s the rung between talent and discipline on the giant ladder that separates them from pedestrians like us. Any chip to that confidence is like denting the armor that a warrior wears into battle.

Then again, Yao Ming has never been a typical professional athlete. After missing all of last season due to foot surgery (his third in the NBA, fifth overall), Houston Rockets fans have been hyped to see what last year’s scrappy team could do with their 7-foot-6 seven-time All-Star center returning to the court. If any fans harbored championship aspirations, however, Yao quickly put those thoughts to rest.

Yao has been the (strained) face of
Chinese basketball for nearly a decade.

“Talk about recovering my form is nothing but nonsense and will only be realized if I can get through the next season smoothly,” he told China Daily two weeks ago. “Then you will see results after that season.”

That statement was not nearly as shocking as the one he released last week to Chinese state media. “If the foot injury does not heal next season, I might choose to call it quits.”

Yao Ming retire? Can it be possible? The face of Chinese basketball for the last eight years added a poignant remark for his 1.6 billion fans in China and the legions of Chinese diaspora around the world to consider, “I'm 30. As an athlete, I am not the future of China basketball anymore.”

Yao Ming Becomes an All-Star, Later Actually Deserves It

It could have been very ugly. Following unprecedented hype from being selected first overall in the 2002 NBA draft (quickly eclipsed by the 2003 hype around some other #1 pick named LeBron James), Yao Ming struggled early in his rookie season. This prompted the infamous promise by TNT analyst Charles Barkley that he would kiss colleague Kenny Smith’s ass if Yao ever scored more than 19 points in a game during his rookie season.

Of course, Barkley kissed that ass (ultimately a donkey Kenny rented to save himself the embarrassment) when Yao scored 20 on a perfect 9 for 9 from the field and 2 for 2 from the line on November 17, 2002 against the Shaq-less Lakers. What people generally don’t remember is that Yao followed that up four nights later with a whopping 30 points and 16 rebounds against Dallas, then averaged 17 and 10 in December to claim his first Western Conference Rookie of the Month award. That made it official: Yao Ming was not Mengke Bateer or Wang Zhizhi, his Chinese predecessors in the NBA. Yao Ming could play ball.

No one considers Yao anything but a legitimate
All-Star these days.

Yet the controversy continued. With hundreds of millions of fervent Chinese supporters, Yao Ming has been voted a starter in the NBA All-Star game every year that he’s played in the league. It was a ridiculous affront to Shaquille O’Neal during Yao’s first two seasons, back when Shaq could still keep a few fingers around his self-assigned “Most Dominant Ever” title.

As Shaq declined and Yao improved, however, the criticisms about Yao’s All-Star selections faded (Shaq moving to the Eastern Conference helped of course). Yao had his first 20/10 season, averaging 22.3 points and 10.2 rebounds, and picked up his second All-NBA third-team selection in 2005-06. Then, in 2006-07, Yao asserted himself as the most dominant center in the league, putting up a line of 25.0 points, 9.4 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and 2.0 blocks on 51.6% shooting from the field and 86.2% from the line.

Yao’s Achilles Heel … And Toe, And Foot, And Knee

Anyone who reads Yao Ming’s resume will notice two All-NBA second-team and three third-team selections, but no first-team honors. How could someone be the best center in 2006-07 but not make first-team All-NBA? It wasn’t due to his often-maligned defense, as the even more defensively criticized Amar’e Stoudemire was first-team that season. No, Yao missed his opportunity that season by missing 34 games due to injury, while Amar’e returned from microfracture knee surgery and played all 82.

Of all the criticisms on Yao’s legacy, injuries would be the most unfortunate. After playing an ironman 244 of 246 regular-season games in his first three seasons, Yao has only managed 237 of 410 in his most recent five. When a man stands 7-foot-6, weighs 310 lb, and plays basketball year-round for the NBA and the Chinese national team, his legs and feet will inevitably collapse and crumble.

One may wonder how Yao Ming’s career could have unfolded had his life paralleled that of his Houston Rockets predecessor Hakeem Olajuwon, joining the NBA at a time when professional basketball players couldn’t compete in international competition and hailing from a country that had no Olympic aspirations in basketball anyway. If Yao had spent every summer healing his injuries and improving his skills, rather than being forced to tax his body in more games for a cannibalistic national program, where would he be? What could he have accomplished? How would we view him?

Futile questions. He didn’t get to walk that path, so he had to forge a different type of legacy.

Thank God Yi Jianlian Wasn’t the First

As unfair as it is, NBA fans will naturally compare the first Chinese basketball player of any significance to the second Chinese basketball player of any significance. The problem is that the second Chinese basketball player of any significance happens to be not that good so far in his career. Blame Charles Barkley, who pulled an audible on Chinese athletes during Yi’s rookie-sophomore game and called him out as being a future star (while conspicuously not giving the same confidence to Kevin Durant). Barkley once again proved he’s infallibly entertaining and infallibly wrong. After three seasons, Yi Jianlian holds a 9.6 career scoring average, has been traded twice, and is, by one account, the softest power forward in the league.

By the way, the second time Yi was traded, it was for Quinton Ross. And New Jersey had to throw in an additional $3 million for Washington to take him. Ouch.

Why is Yao so much better than I am??

Three years into his career, Yi Jianlian is still best known for his holdout in the 2007 draft. This serves as a prime example of how, as Sean Deveney of the Sporting News put it, Yi is not Yao. After Yi was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks, Yi’s handlers, a brain trust including executives from the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and agent Dan Fegan, stalled and pressured Milwaukee to trade Yi to a bigger market. They were unsuccessful in extricating Yi, but they did succeed in creating several weeks of strained NBA-CBA relations and sportswriter fodder.

This is not to say that farce never could have happened with Yao, but Yao has demonstrated much more backbone in managing his own career. Before he was drafted, Yao’s CBA team, the Shanghai Sharks (which he now owns), also tried to pick Fegan as his agent, but Yao insisted on finding his own representation and did so. In 2003, when the CBA sold Yao’s image to Coca-Cola for an ad, Yao, then a Pepsi spokesman, fought the Chinese state-run regime and won. And despite China’s authoritarian sports association’s rambling criticisms of him, Yao remains one of China’s most popular figures and still has the cajones to shoot back his own critiques of their national basketball program.

Finally, Yao clearly wins when it comes to swagger on the court.

What is Yao Ming’s legacy?

Yao and Shaq will always be a chapter in each other's careers.

Yao Ming only turns 30 this year, and it would be a tragedy if he were retired by 31. Yet if the worst case scenario does happen and Yao hobbles his way through his last NBA season this year, how would we remember him?

He was the first international player ever drafted first overall in the NBA draft.
He was the key to David Stern’s aggressive NBA marketing campaign in China that created 300 million basketball fans.
He made Charles Barkley kiss Kenny Smith’s ass.
He is great friends with Shaquille O’Neal and was quite possibly the least-offended Asian in this country by Shaq’s purported racist comments toward him.
He was the best offensive center in the NBA from 2005 to 2009. His career free throw percentageof 83.2% is unheard of at that center position.
His defining game is Game 7 of the 2007 Western Conference First Round against the Utah Jazz. In this series-deciding game, Yao rumbled for 29 points, including 15 in the fourth quarter. On the other hand, he also had no clue how to stop Carlos Boozer, who eviscerated him for 35 points and 14 rebounds in a four-point Jazz victory.
He rebounded far less than one would expect from someone 7’6”. In that crucial game against Utah, he only managed six, and he averages 9.3 over 32 min for his career.
He has made tireless efforts for charity in China. Buying the crappy Shanghai Sharks franchise that used to employ him must be included as part of that.
And around the time he became really, really good was the same time he could never seem to stay healthy.

The strangest picture of Yao Ming ever.

If Hall-of-Fame applications were built on class and character alone, Yao Ming would be a shoo-in. But does his career to this point merit a spot in Springfield? Certainly six to eight more years in the league with a championship ring or two would solidify that honor. Yet even with the fatalistic prediction that we may have seen all there is of Yao Ming, the resume he has put together on and off the court screams for his induction.

NBA Players I'm Rooting for in 2009-10

2009-11-03T19:44:00.005-08:00

With links to better articles than this one.

Carmelo Anthony, for bulling his way passed Kevin Durant, Dwight Howard, and Brandon Roy into the conversation with LeBron, Kobe, and Dwyane Wade.
Brandon Jennings, for telling the NBA, "Fuck your bullshit age limit. Look how dominant a pro I became without your NCAA slave labor system." Somewhere Jeremy Tyler is buying a #3 Milwaukee Bucks jersey.
Paul Pierce, for sending out the memo to everyone that the Celtics are still the team to beat.
Every Houston Rocket, for telling Yao and T-Mac, "You know what, just stay on the IL this year. We got this."
Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, Russell Westbrook, and Thabo Sefolosha, for informing the league that the Oklahoma City Thunder are here.
Ron Artest, because I just love Ron Artest.

NBA All-Star Voting Travesties ... and How to Fix the Process

2009-01-14T16:56:00.024-08:00

THE PROBLEM

The fourth and final returns for the 2009 NBA All-Star teams voting, before the final tally on January 19, came in last week. In every year since the NBA began allowing the fans to vote for the starters, there have been many qualms with the fans’ decisions, and this year is no different. However, critical outrage of the voting process took new heights upon the arrival of Yao Ming in the 2002-03 season. As fan voting is open to the entire world, an enormous contingent of Chinese voters voted in Yao Ming as the starting center of the West squad over a clearly superior Shaquille O’Neal in 2003. Luckily, Yao has advanced his game to the point where he truly is the best center in the Western Conference. Still, self-aggrandizing fans (yes, like myself) continue to decry China as the main culprit in the degeneration of All-Star rosters and the posterchild of why fan voting doesn’t work.

I am neither an All-Star nor particularly good at picking out suits.

Yet to focus on China is to ignore the all-encompassing idiocy that permeates All-Star voting. In 2005, fans voted Vince Carter a starter despite his averaging at the time a career-low 15.9 PPG in a ploy to get traded out of Toronto. In 2006, Amare Stoudemire (pre-putting-the-apostrophe-in-his-first-name days), received over 270,000 votes despite not having played a single game the entire year and being months away from a healthy return. Neither of these mockeries had anything to do with Chinese voters. China isn’t ruining All-Star voting; it’s the very concept of fan voting itself that is flawed.

However, to say China is in the clear would also be a lie. There are several travesties in the latest voting results, and at least a couple can be attributed to Chinese voting. Here is a list of the five worst travesties in fan voting this year by order of most awful.

Travesty: Tracy McGrady (1,216,224 votes) is a starter in the West.
Culprit: China

The biggest problem with Chinese voting is not with Yao. Ever since McGrady was traded to the Houston Rockets in 2004, the then-exciting swingman has become one of the most popular NBA players in China with jersey sales there consistently outselling Yao himself. Yet while Yao has developed into one of the most dominant centers in the league, the Artist Formerly Known as T-Mac has deteriorated into a jump-shooting, injury-riddled shell of a star. T-Pain is averaging a nine-year low 15.4 PPG while shooting a career-low and just plain god-awful 38.8% from the field. Unfortunately, no one in China seems to have noticed. Hopefully, T-Pain will still be out on his injury/conditioning sabbatical during the All-Star game, and Chris Paul will take his rightful place alongside Kobe Bryant, opening up T-Pain's roster spot for a far more worthy candidate.

Travesty: Yi Jianlian (1,216,348) is only 159,466 votes away from taking a starting spot away from Kevin Garnett.
Culprit: China

Here is a guy who has absolutely no business being in the All-Star game. Yet, as the only other Chinese basketball player of any merit in the NBA, Chinese voters have made a formidable effort to push this ten-point six-rebound guy shooting 40.3% from the field with a broken pinkie into the realm of All-Stars. His vote count is 464,421 ahead of Chris Bosh (23.4/9.8/2.5 in anchoring the Raptors), 729,692 ahead of Paul Pierce (19.5/5.7/3.7 for the 32-9 Celtics), and a whopping 1,017,148 ahead of Danny Granger (more on him later). Although I doubt Yi will catch up to Garnett, and the world will be safe for one more year, who knows where this trend will lead in the future.

Travesty: Gilbert Arenas (403,577) has any votes at all.
Culprit: General Idiocy

This is even worse than Amar’e getting 270,000+ votes in 2006. At least Amar’e had a phenomenal 2004-05 season. Notwithstanding the brief and ineffective 13-game regular season and four-loss playoff series in which he appeared last year, Gilbert Arenas has basically been on vacation from basketball for a year and a half. Is he getting over 400,000 votes based solely on his blogging? He has 166,584 votes over Joe Johnson (who is dropping 22.0/4.5/6.1 while leading a resurgent 22-15 Hawks team) based on reputation alone.
Travesty: Danny Granger (199,200), where’s the love for this guy?
Culprit: Being on a small market team

There are many players suffering from preposterously low vote counts despite having excellent seasons like Jason Terry (323,279), Brandon Roy (267,053), Marcus Camby (74,638), Kevin Durant (not in top 11 at position), and Chauncey Billups (not in top 11 at position). To add to the insult, Rafer Alston (372,130) has more votes than any of these players (once again, thank Chinese Rockets fans). One of the most egregious examples, if not the most, must be Danny Granger, who is posting a mind-boggling per-game line of 26.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.0 steals, and 1.4 blocks while hitting 2.7 threes and shooting 46.0% from the field and 86.5% from the line. If those aren’t All-Star credentials, then David Stern isn’t a short, Jewish man. Though Granger’s Pacers are only 13-25, they have distinguished themselves by being the only team so far this season to beat both the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. Of course, playing in Indiana never helps anyone’s cause. With a grand total of zero nationally televised Indiana Pacers games this season, it’s easy to miss out on the genius that is Granger.

Travesty: Samuel Dalembert (257,527) is the second-highest vote-getter for center in the East.
Culprit: Huge number of Haitian Internet users?

I wanted to attribute this to general idiocy, but I can’t find even any faulty logic by which fans could be voting for Dalembert. His best season was last year when he averaged 10.5/10.4 for the wildly disregarded Philadelphia 76ers, and this year he’s taking a 5.6/8.0 dump. Fortunately, he has no chance of catching up to Dwight Howard, and the coaches should vote the dominant Cavs’s Zydrunas Ilgauskas into the game as Howard’s back-up.

It's okay; I know you didn't vote for me...you Nazi.

THE SOLUTION

That’s only the tip of the iceberg. With so many complaints every year, one would think that All-Star fan voting should end altogether. Certainly many of those self-aggrandizing fans and critics I mentioned before would love to see that. Yet the All-Star game is for the fans, and the fans deserve to have a say in whom they get to see in the game. However, there is no doubt that players getting voted in by reputation or national heritage both reduces the quality of the game and absolutely kills diehard NBA fans. Thus, I propose a solution based on two principles: parity and expertise.

Parity … by Region

The first part of the solution addresses the China problem. An estimated 300 million Chinese are basketball fans, equal to the entire population of the United States. That’s not to say all 300 million are pouring in their All-Star votes or even watching the NBA, but – with the inanely high tallies for Chinese or Rockets-affiliated players like Yi, T-Pain, and Rafer – an inordinately high number seem to be.

This part of the solution limits the influence of the foreign vote. Instead of saying a vote is a vote is a vote, we’ll split the United States into five regions and make the rest of the world into a sixth region.

Region A: Pacific
Composed of: 7 states, 4 territories (in the Pacific)
Population (as of July 1, 2008): 58,594,529
NBA Teams Represented: Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, Sacramento Kings, Golden State Warriors, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trailblazers, ~~Seattle Supersonics~~

Region B: Central
Composed of: 14 states
Population: 65,171,914
NBA Teams Represented: Minnesota Timberwolves, Milwaukee Bucks, Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, Detroit Pistons, Cleveland Cavaliers

Region C: Southwest
Composed of: 10 states, 1 territory (Puerto Rico)
Population: 59,346,965
NBA Teams Represented: Denver Nuggets, Utah Jazz, Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks, San Antonio Spurs, New Orleans Hornets

Region D: Northeast
Composed of: 11 states, 1 district (of Columbia)
Population: 62,023,301
NBA Teams Represented: Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets, Washington Wizards

Region E: Southeast
Composed of: 8 states
Population: 63,300,793
NBA Teams Represented: Memphis Grizzlies, Charlotte Bobcats, Atlanta Hawks, Orlando Magic, Miami Heat

Region F: International
Composed of: Foreigners, especially them Chinese and Canadians
Population: ~5.9 billion
NBA Teams Represented: Toronto Raptors, Houston Rockets, Yi Jianlian

Each region then has one ballot with a vote for each of the ten positions from both Conferences (East G, G, F, F, C and West G, G, F, F, C). Each ballot would count toward only 1/6 of the results, regardless of how many actual votes were tallied.

So let’s take an example: Guards in the Western Conference. Two are voted in as starters. Assume Regional Parity is in place this year.

There is only one happy ending possible here.

Region A has severe fan bias toward Kobe Bryant, so he gets 1 vote. Even though Baron Davis, Steve Nash, and Brandon Roy also are in this region, none of them seem very popular in the voting this year, so let’s assume the majority of voters are smart and pick Chris Paul for the other guard slot. So we’re at:

Kobe – 1, CP3 – 1

Region B has the Timberwolves, but they don’t have any guards on the Western Conference ballot and the rest of their region is in the East. So let’s also assume they pick Kobe and Paul. Region E contains Memphis and a bunch of East teams. O.J. Mayo and Mike Conley are on the ballot, but you’re going to have a hard time convincing me that either of them would win this region. With no other favorite sons, let’s assume they also go with Kobe and Paul. Same with Region D, which is entirely in the East. Now we’re at:

Kobe – 4, CP3 – 4

Your franchise has officially been chopped and screeewwwed.

Region C represents a lot of West teams, so anything can happen here. Most likely, Paul will get an automatic bid here thanks to Hornets fans. Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker are also very popular here. Same with Deron Williams, Jason Kidd, and T-Pain. Let’s assume there are enough casual fans here who don’t pay any attention to actual NBA games and give T-Pain the upset over Kobe.

CP3 – 5, Kobe – 4, T-Pain – 1

Region F’s first choice goes to T-Pain thanks to China. Being as Kobe is one of the top two most popular players in the world, he’ll get the other vote. So the final tally is:

CP3 – 5, Kobe – 5, T-Pain – 2

Despite the fact that, overall, T-Pain may have gotten 200,000 more popular votes than Paul, most of these votes likely came from two regions. Factoring out regional bias in this senatorial manner gives a clear-cut and, really, more deserving winner. If, however, the final tally ended up like this:

Kobe – 6, CP3 – 3, T-Pain – 3

We could go straight to the popular vote, in which case T-Pain would win. But I’m going to add an extra wrinkle instead to try to make the voting even more balanced.

Expertise … by Players

The second part of the solution addresses the general idiocy problem, e.g. fans voting for Gilbert Arenas on name recognition alone, despite his not having played a single game this year. This basically gives players the same deal that coaches have: each of the 450 or so NBA players gets a single ballot, say one week before the end of voting. They can vote for any player not on their own current team, and they only get to vote once. Then their votes are tallied up, and as a collective, count for 1/3 of the total votes. Why 1/3 and not 1/2? Because the All-Star game is for the fans, so their opinion should matter more. Really, it doesn’t have to be 1/3. As long as the ratio is less than 1/2, it should be fine, but for this example, we’ll use 1/3.

So, let’s go back to our earlier scenario:

Kobe – 6, CP3 – 3, T-Pain – 3

Let’s assume all 450 players turned in their 900 votes for the two West guard positions, and the results ended up looking like this:

Kobe – 400 votes
CP3 – 200
Kidd – 100 (even NBA players fall for name recognition, just not as badly)
Ginobili – 50
D. Williams – 25
Others – less than 25 each

Kobe and Paul end up winning the two top spots, but the player votes count for 1/3 of the total, so each vote ends up being worth three points instead of one. Basically, the player vote counts as three additional regions on top of the existing six. Thus the final tally, including the player votes, is:

Kobe – 9, CP3 – 6, T-Pain – 3

Reason triumphs over homers again! Let’s assume, though, the players get a little nutty and start hating on Kobe and do something like vote for Paul and T-Pain or even two other completely different guards. Then the results could look something like this:

Kobe – 6, CP3 – 6, T-Pain – 6
or
Kobe – 6, CP3 – 3, T-Pain – 3, Kidd – 3, Nash – 3

In this case, the fan vote should always win out, and ties should be determined by the popular vote. In either case above, that would mean Kobe and T-Pain would win. Kobe, because he had the most regional fan votes. T-Pain, because he tied for the second most regional fan votes and had the most popular fan votes between the two players who tied.

MY BALLOT

Finally, my selections for All-Star 2009:

	East	West
G	Devin Harris	Chris Paul
G	Dwyane Wade	Kobe Bryant
F	Danny Granger	Dirk Nowitzki
F	LeBron James	Tim Duncan
C	Dwight Howard	Yao Ming
X	Rodney Stuckey

Sorry Shaq, you are having a renaissance in Phoenix, but you don’t make it onto my ballot when you're only playing every other game. You do take Amar’e off of it, though, by stealing his production. Also, I wanted to put Paul Millsap in as the write-in vote, but Stuckey is closer to the conversation with Harris and Wade than Millsap is with Nowitzki and Duncan. Also, I'm voting for Joe Alexander to be in the dunk contest, because he seems the most enthusiastic and the best leaper in the candidates' videos. Probably because he's the only one who never plays and doesn't have anything better to do.

It's a Two-Team Race for LeBron James in 2010

2008-11-25T11:26:00.050-08:00

The Franchise

When LeBron James signed only a three-year contract extension in the summer of 2006 instead of the maximum five-year like the ones his 2003 draftmates Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Carmelo Anthony had agreed to, this exact scenario playing out right now is what LeBron had in mind. That scenario being the Knicks, the Nets, the Pistons, and virtually half the league clawing each others' faces off to steal him away from the Cavaliers when he can become a free agent in 2010.

'Melo, come on! Everyone's doing it! Just extend three years!

First, though, I have to praise the financial merit of that decision. The tradition had been that a top-tier rookie would always sign for the maximum extension allowed for the longest time and the most money. That's what Anthony did. The 2003 rookie contracts expired in 2007, and he signed a five-year extension with Denver for the maximum salary that would pay him 25% of the salary cap until 2012. Bosh and Wade originally had agreed upon the same thing with their respective teams. LeBron held out though, because some brilliant mind must have gotten through to him and told him that was a conservative choice that left money on the table. In 2010, James, Wade, and Bosh will have completed their seventh years of NBA service, making them eligible for new max contracts worth up to 30% of the salary cap. With the salary cap projecting to be quite a bit over $60 million for the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons, that means James's new contract would be worth over $6 million more than Anthony's old one over those two years. Of course, putting two years on the line is risky in case the player gets injured or turns out not to be worth that kind of money, but this is LeBron James we're talking about here. His deal was so clever that Wade and Bosh immediately renegotiated their extensions to three years as well (Anthony, as usual, wasn't on the ball).

Of course, the big news to NBA teams that summer is that LeBron James will also have a player option in 2010 to become an unrestricted free agent. Joining him will be the other titans of the 2003 draft, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. This news is so seismic that it has completely overshadowed the fact that an army of other NBA All-Stars like Amare Stoudemire, Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Manu Ginobili, Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce, Yao Ming, Ray Allen, Tracy McGrady, and Michael Redd could also be on the market.

Yet the big fish in this ocean is definitely LeBron, making him the biggest free agent prize since Shaquille O'Neal ditched Orlando for L.A. twelve years ago. There are a ton of teams who could end up with enough cap space to sign LeBron in 2010 (Chinese marketing fans: imagine if Houston let T-Mac go and signed both LeBron and Yao), but four teams this year alone have already made big moves to get him. Two of them, however, have very little chance. The other two are guaranteed to have LeBron in one of their uniforms when his new contract kicks off.

-- FORGET ABOUT IT --

The New Jersey Nets

Cap Space-Clearing Moves: Traded Jason Kidd and change for Devin Harris and change. Traded Richard Jefferson for Yi Jianlian and Bobby Simmons.

Why They Could Get LeBron: Bruce Ratner, the majority stakeholder of the Nets, wants to move the team to Brooklyn, the hometown of Jay-Z, a minority stakeholder of the Nets and a close friend of LeBron's. Brooklyn gives LeBron access to New York City, the biggest media market in the NBA. He has even said his favorite city in the world is New York, but his favorite borough is Brooklyn, not Manhattan.

Get used to this, New Jersey. It's going to keep happening.

Why They Won't Get LeBron: Because everything in the preceding paragraph is a big, steaming pile of crap. The Atlantic Yards project is so mired in legal problems that it'll be lucky to begin construction in 2010. The eminent domain case against Atlantic Yards, filed by the residents of Brooklyn, won't reach a decision until March 2009, at which point the petitioners will of course appeal and drag out the process even more months. Moreover, Bruce Ratner is a real estate mogul, not a sports owner. He cares a lot more about making sure his $4 billion real estate project is completed than he does about putting LeBron in a Brooklyn Nets uniform. In fact, he has been trying to sell the Nets for the past year due to the mountain of financial losses the team takes every year.

Why do they lose so much money? Because the Nets suck. Devin Harris looks like a future All-Star, but Vince Carter is done, Yi Jianlian and Brook Lopez look like quality rotation guys at best, and the rest of the team is flat-out terrible. A lot of their future could depend on which guys General Manager Rod Thorn can bring in for Vince Carter, but, unlike the other three teams on this list, they only have enough cap space right now to sign just one max free agent in 2010.

Michael Redd: "Just don't ask me to play any defense."

And Jay-Z? How many times has he been at Madison Square Garden for the Knicks this year? He probably has season tickets. Now when was the last time you saw Jay-Z at the Izod Center watching the Nets? 2006? 2005? The New Jersey Nets are not moving to Brooklyn. If anywhere, they're much more likely to move into the Prudential Center with the Devils in Newark. Even if Ratner does keep them, they're not going to have an arena ready until 2012. If Jay-Z won't go into Jersey to watch his own team, why would LeBron waste two years in the swamp?

Here you go, New Jersey. This is Michael Redd's phone number. Good luck.

The Detroit Pistons

Cap-Space Clearing Move: Traded Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess for Allen Iverson.

Why They Could Get LeBron: With Allen Iverson and Rasheed Wallace both coming off the books after this year, Detroit will have enough salary cap space to sign two max free agents. Imagine LeBron with Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, or Amare Stoudemire. After playing together for Team USA the past few years, you know those guys are dying to play with each other in the NBA. Plus, Detroit already has a strong core in place with veterans Tayshaun Prince and Rip Hamilton and promising young guys like Rodney Stuckey, Jason Maxiell, and Amir Johnson.

Why They Won't Get LeBron: This is a completely lateral move. Detroit and Cleveland are both in mid-level, slumping markets. On paper, Detroit without A.I. and 'Sheed looks a lot better than Cleveland without LeBron, but the players in Cleveland have a synergy with LeBron now after playing with him for so many years, and they know they can be successful with an offense focused around him. Detroit hasn't had an offense focused around a single attack since Isiah Thomas left town and will struggle for a while getting all the pieces to fit together around a giant new piece.

Get used to this, Detroit. It's going to keep happening, too.

More importantly, GM Joe Dumars knows this. He's a smart guy. He knows it's not likely he'll get LeBron in 2010. Unlike the other teams, he's actually getting all his cap space next year. Is he just going to stand pat, lose Iverson and Wallace, and trudge through a potential 30-52 season for a long shot at getting LeBron? No, he'll probably make a big play in the 2009 free agent pool and maybe target a guy like Bosh or Stoudemire in 2010 if he still has any space left.

-- THE PLAYERS --

The Cleveland Cavaliers

Cap-Space Clearing Moves: Traded Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden, Cedric Simmons, and Shannon Brown for Ben Wallace and Joe Smith. Traded Donyell Marshall and Ira Newble for Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak.

Why They Could Keep LeBron: It's his hometown. Let's start with that. LeBron growing up in Akron, OH, about 30 minutes south of Cleveland, is a far stronger bond than he has with Jay-Z or the New York Yankees (Guess who else grew up in the 330? This guy!). New York embraces him hard now because it wants him, but Ohio is home no matter where he goes. If he leaves Cleveland, the community will still love him even if the fans don't. If he doesn't pick New York, you think they'll feel the same way? No, they'll turn on him faster than you can say, "Stephon Marbury."

It's not just a sentimental choice, though. In the past, the Cavs have always been much-maligned for not having the right pieces around LeBron. In particular, Mike Brown has been criticized as having the least original offensive playbook in the league. I saw it. It was a single sheet of paper, and all it said was "Isolation: LeBron James." Though their defense was always top notch, opposing teams could beat them by suffocating James and letting the peanut gallery try to figure out what to do.

Entire Cleveland Cavaliers Offensive Playbook: 2005-2007

Those days are over. 13 games into their season, the Cleveland Cavaliers lead the entire league in offensive efficiency at 110.6 while still staying in the top half of defensive teams with an 11th-place 101.2 defensive efficiency. Their margin of victory is 8.3 ppg, behind only the loaded L.A. Lakers at 13.5. But the Lakers have Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom holding down the front court with Kobe in the back. The Cavs just happen to finally have the right pieces around James.

First, signing Mo Williams over the summer has finally given the Cavs the second scoring option that they have never had in the past (let me repeat that, Larry Hughes: never). More than that though, their gigantic trade last season brought in Szczerbiak and West to join Boobie Gibson in spreading the floor with their shooting. It also brought Ben Wallace to compete with Anderson Varejao for the hustle and defense points down low. Meanwhile, Zydrunas Ilgauskas has always been a skilled, sweet-shooting center who worked very well with James. The ball is finally moving around now in Cleveland because they finally have guys who know what they're supposed to do with it (other than get it to LeBron). It's not a superstar crew like in L.A., but they're good enough that, when teamed with LeBron's standardly spectacular 30-8-8 gameplay, the Cavs are looking more likely to oust the Celtics as the team to meet the Lakers in the Finals. If LeBron wins a championship in Cleveland, the chance he leaves is almost nil.

The Cleveland Cavs are playing extremely well so far this year.

Then there is the cap space. Cleveland actually has enough players coming off the cap next year and in 2010 to give James the max and sign one more max player. We could be looking at a triumvirate of James-Bosh-Williams or James-Stoudemire-Williams. That's a Big 3 that can compete with anybody. But...

Why They Will Lose LeBron: The problem with the previous two paragraphs is that they are mutually exclusive reasons. Namely, the only way Cleveland gets the cap space it needs to sign another max player is by losing all those players that are making the team work so well right now. Even if they don't and keep the current line-up, Ben Wallace is 34, Szczerbiak is 33, and Big Z is 33. Who is Cleveland going to get to replace those guys while still trying to re-sign younger guys like Varejao and West?

Normally, with a meal ticket like LeBron on board, it shouldn't be too difficult to find the pieces to build around him. Yet, out of the four GMs running the teams on this list, Danny Ferry has been, by far, the most incompetent. His first moves on the job were to throw huge money at Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall, and Damon Jones, all of whom tanked and are no longer with the team. He lucked out in that the disparate pieces he put together to get cap space just happen to be gelling.

Danny Ferry: "Durrr..."

Yet he is not the person who made the critical mistake. That would go to former GM Jim Paxson. When you have a young phenom like LeBron, you build a dynasty around him through the draft. There was a very critical draft in 1987, when the Chicago Bulls had Michael Jordan but were still bad enough to get high draft picks. The Bulls owned the 8th pick and had their own 10th. With those two picks, they ended up with Scottie Pippen (via trade) and Horace Grant, both critical pieces to the start of the Bulls' title run. The Cavs had a draft like that, in 2004, and Paxson picked Luke Jackson. Well, Luke Jackson is no longer in the NBA. A few other people chosen after him, like Andris Biedrins, Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, and Kevin Martin, still are and seem to be doing pretty well. Of course, Jackson was just the latest in a long string of Paxson's bad high first-round picks that included Dajuan Wagner, DeSagana Diop, Chris Mihm, and Trajan Langdon (to his credit, Paxson did also pick Andre Miller and stole Carlos Boozer in the second round, though he did also get bamboozled by Boozer and lost him to Utah).

With James now the best player in the league, the Cavs are way too good to ever get a high draft pick again in his prime, unless James suffers some debilitating, season-ending injury or they're able to pry one away from another lowly team. With Danny Ferry in the front office, I just have zero confidence in this management. Which just leaves one last team.

The New York Knicks

Cap-Space Clearing Moves: Traded Jamal Crawford for Al Harrington. Traded Zach Randolph and Mardy Collins for Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley.

Why They Will Get LeBron: Anyone who says New York is the mecca of basketball is living in 1970. On all levels of basketball, from the playgrounds to high school to college to the NBA, New York has lost the title. But what New York is is the media capital of the world. Taking up residence nowhere else on this planet would gain LeBron more exposure than in Madison Square Garden.

LeBron is coming.

On the basketball side of the story, they actually have a pretty weak team. For all the hype surrounding Wilson Chandler and David Lee, I can only imagine two or three future All-Star appearances between them at most. In particular, Chandler and Nate Robinson seem only to be wrecking havoc being in Mike D'Antoni's all-out offensive system. But now we're getting closer to where the talent is: in the management. D'Antoni took a horribly overpaid and underperforming team and turned them (at least before they lost Crawford and Randolph) into a playoff contender. Better than that, people want to come play for D'Antoni, including one other free agent who could turn the tide in 2010.

Just like Cleveland and Detroit, New York cleared enough salary to be able to sign two max free agents in 2010. They could also get James + Bosh, James + Wade, James + Stoudemire, etc. But having D'Antoni on the bench must make New York the front-runner for getting at least one other free agent: Steve Nash. Nash had the pinnacle of his career in D'Antoni's system, and he'd relish the chance to play in that system again. Not only that, he makes his summer home in New York and could also use all that media exposure to promote all the philanthropic efforts in which he's involved. Putting Nash on the same team as LeBron would make LeBron, for the first time in his life outside USA basketball, not the best playmaker on the team and not the ideal starter for the offense. That would allow him to concentrate completely on what he is the best in basketball at: finishing. Add to that another player like Bosh or Wade, and it's like he's back in Beijing.

Yes, Nash will be 36 by then, but he has kept himself in amazing shape and should still be very effective. Also, with Knicks owner James Dolan, Nash won't have the same problem he did with Suns owner Robert Sarver, who drafted three point guards who could've been excellent understudies to Nash (including Robinson) but was way too big a cheapskate to hold onto any of them. Of course, it also helps that the Isiah Thomas regime has been replaced with Donnie Walsh, a legendarily genius GM. The Indiana Pacers were a mess when Walsh finally handed the keys over to Larry Bird, but people forget they were a big favorite to win it all in 2004-05 and were crushing the defending champion Pistons at home the night Ron Artest ran into the stands and destroyed the franchise.

D'Antoni and Walsh. Yes, you can bank your franchise on these guys.

Walsh is proving he's still got the touch in New York, deftly handling the absolute disaster that Thomas left behind and shedding enough previously thought-to-be unmanagable contracts in just a few months. New York has the opposite of what LeBron has in Cleveland. The Cavs are a team built to compete now but have incompetent management who can't plan for the future. Well the Knicks don't have the pieces to compete now, but they have some real pros in the front office who know exactly what they're doing. The Knicks have a future, and LeBron will be the crowning jewel of it.

Why They Wouldn't Get LeBron: Michael Jordan. Bill Russell. Tim Duncan. These are all franchise superstars who created dynasties for the teams that drafted them. There is no denying that there is an air of loyalty and dedication around those guys that isn't around someone like Shaq or Wilt Chamberlain, whose legacies are both tainted by a single word: "selfish" (also, "free-throw percentage"). LeBron knows that, even if he goes to New York and wins 10 titles, he'll be put on a different pedestal than Jordan, Russell, and Duncan.

But what LeBron needs to keep in mind is this: more important than Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, Duncan has R.C. Buford and Gregg Popovich. More important than Scottie Pippen, Jordan had Jerry Krause and Phil Jackson. More important than any of the multitudes of Hall-of-Famers he played with, Russell had Red Auerbach. LeBron, do you think your legacy is safe in the hands of Danny Ferry and Mike Brown? Or do Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni sound like better names to have at the head of your organization?

Get used to this, New York.

It's still almost two years away, but I'll see you in New York, LBJ.

Happy St. Patty's Day: Saint Mary's Patrick Mills

2008-11-11T10:02:00.015-08:00

Point Guard Derrick Rose was the number one draft pick this year and is making a strong case at Rookie of the Year by averaging 17/4/5 in a supposedly crowded Chicago backcourt. Behind him came point guards Russell Westbrook and Jerryd Bayless, who both dominated their respective summer leagues. Even D.J. Augustin has started to contribute while sharing the 1-spot with Raymond Felton. Yet next summer's draft could be the most stacked class of point guards since 2005, when Deron Williams, Chris Paul, and Felton went 3-4-5 and Monta Ellis and Louis Williams got snagged in the second round.

Ricky Rubio and Brandon Jennings

At the top of 2009's point guard mountain stand the Euroleaguers, Ricky Rubio and Brandon Jennings. The December 11 meeting of Rubio's DKV Joventut and Jenning's Virtus Roma should be epic, if only for the sheer number of NBA scouts who'll be present (what'll also be epic is the the dump I'll be taking into the paper bag I send my local Comcast office for not allowing me access to ESPN360 to watch the game). Yet Jennings is still struggling to make an impact in the nascent Italian League season, while Rubio hasn't played at all yet after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his wrist.

Meanwhile the NCAA season is tipping off here on the other side of the pond, and a whole new crop of point guards are setting out to make their cases for the NBA. One to keep an eye on is Patrick Mills, the lightning backfielder from Australia via Saint Mary's. He led Saint Mary's last year with 14.8 points and 3.5 assists, carrying the Gaels to the first round of the NCAA tournament. However, this summer in Beijing was when Mills really padded his resume, leading the Australian Olympic basketball team with 14.2 points in 23.5 minutes. Not only did he score efficiently (47% FG, 36% 3PT, 83% FT), he also took care of the ball, averaging only one turnover to two assists and two steals per game.

Mills cruising passed Chris Paul

Of course, when it comes to the Olympics, all NBA teams seem to see is how you do against Team USA, and this is where Patrick Mills shined. Ricky Rubio made defense his calling card this summer, but he was spanked over and over again by Deron Williams and Chris Paul. Well what those two did to Rubio, Mills did to them. In particular, Mills matched Paul, one of the NBA's quickest players, step for step. In the exhibition round, Mills scored 13 points while Paul, Williams, and Jason Kidd combined for only 5 total. The story wasn't much different in the medal round, as Mills scored 20 while USA's three point guards combined for 16. Granted, Mills was asked to carry his team's scoring load, while Kidd, Paul, and Williams were only asked to distribute the ball. Yet to score so efficiently against the top point guards in the NBA and not be outclassed defensively (ahem, Rubio) has to be impressive. If he can raise his game even higher this year and take Saint Mary's on another run in March, look for Patrick Mills's name to appear even more in June at the NBA draft.

Top Point Guards in the 2009 Draft from the Cheap Seats

1. Brandon Jennings, Virtus Roma - Explosive athlete with amazing court vision. I originally had my doubts about whether he was too showy to be effective, but if he buys into his role, playing second string QB in a team-first European environment, then he's the best on the table in my book.

2. Ricky Rubio, DKV Joventut - That wrist injury concerns me, but those Pistol Pete comparisons flat-out piss me off. Yes, he's a white guard who has that flop-mop haircut. Yes, he is a great ball-handler and genius passer. That's it. Pistol Pete was also phenomenal scorer. He was averaging 40 ppg in diapers. Rubio doesn't have that yet. He does have great size for his position at 6'4" and a reputation for being an aggressive defender, but only good-not-great athleticism. His skills and vision put him this high.

3. Patrick Mills, Saint Mary's - Lightning fast with an invisible first step, he also takes care of the ball, can stroke from distance, and keeps in front of his man on defense. However, unlike the two guys ahead of him, he lacks the court vision all great point guards have. He also needs to learn how to change gears like Jennings can and control the tempo of the game. Then again, Saint Mary's uptempo offense is built around him. I was also going to mention how Mills and Ty Lawson are only 5'11", but then Chris Paul gave me a dirty look and said, "So what?"

4. Jrue Holiday, UCLA - He's not a great ball-handler or passer, but he's athletic, versatile, and a good size for PG, so somebody's going to love him. He's also been spectacularly misspelling his first name for the past 18 years.

5. Ty Lawson, UNC - Super quick just like Mills, but with better court vision. Not as talented a scorer though, and, after three years in the national spotlight at UNC, teams have got to wonder how much upside is left.

6. Stephen Curry, Davidson - Apparently showed off some smooth point guard skills at the LeBron James Skills Academy, but if a team drafts Curry, it's going to be for his world-class shooting.

Boomer!

Kevin Durant: 2008-09 Most Improved Player

2008-10-30T09:58:00.028-07:00

Last night, the sorry Milwaukee Bucks beat the even sorrier Oklahoma City Thunder 98-87. Kevin Durant, last year's Rookie of the Year, finished with 12 points (on 35.7% shooting), 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and 4 turnovers in 33 and a half minutes. For much of the first half, Durant ran around with 0 points, 0 rebounds, 0 assists, 0 steals, 0 blocks, 3 turnovers, and 3 fouls. On his own team, he was outplayed by Chris Wilcox and even rookie Russell Westbrook, who managed 13 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, along with a block and only 2 turnovers in less than 22 minutes.

After all this, I'm still declaring that Kevin Durant wins Most Improved Player this year. He is taking his game to a completely new level this year.

To understand, we have to take a look at what he did last year in his rookie season. Coming into 2007-08, I was very wary of Durant. He was vastly overhyped in my mind. In fantasy basketball drafts, he was easily going 3-4 rounds too early. I took one look at that rail-thin body, checked out the sorry state his team was in, considered the inferior D-I competition he faced to put up his 25 and 11 in college, and bluntly spout out "41% shooting and 4 turnovers per game." He certainly had the length and unquestionably the skill, but he lacked world-class speed and was far below average in strength. Rookies who have excellent shooting fundamentals but lack the athleticism to get to the rim and strength to post up always end up doing the same thing: take too many jumpshots. Also, being forced to play shooting guard and still being much weaker than most of them, I knew Durant wasn't going to come close to double-digit rebounds.

At the beginning of the season, he wasn't doing any better than I had predicted. By the All-Star break, he was barely shooting 40% and averaging a paltry 4 rpg (pathetic for a 6'9" guy) and 2 apg (though he was never a great passer). He didn't turn the ball over anywhere close to 4 times a game (only 2.8), but his 2 spg and 2 bpg from college halved to 1 and 1 in the pros.

Then something interesting happened after the All-Star break. He got better. It was actually quite subtle. He averaged slightly higher points, rebounds, assists, and turnovers, but those could all be attributed to the extra four minutes he was playing in each game. However, his field goal percentage shot up from .402 to .476. Quite simply, Durant wasn't chucking up jump shots anymore. From behind the 3-point line, where he never adjusted to the NBA distance, he went from shooting 3 three-pointers per game to 1. His more aggressive approach to scoring also showed in his taking and making almost one more free-throw per game. Midway through his rookie season, instead of hitting a wall, he determined his primary weakness--shot selection--and corrected it. Adam Morrison, are you paying attention here?

Kevin Durant Pre-All-Star Break vs. Post-All Star Break

	G	MP	FG%	3P%	FT%	3P	3PA	PTS	TRB	AST
Pre-Break	50	33.1	0.402	0.282	0.865	1.0	3.4	19.4	4.1	2.2
Post-Break	30	37.1	0.476	0.314	0.885	0.4	1.2	21.9	4.8	2.7

Overall, Kevin Durant finished with a decent 20 ppg on 43% shooting in 34 mpg and won the Rookie of the Year award. They're not spectacular numbers, but he was only a 19-year old rookie. Put him next to two other 19-yr old rookie combo forwards who were given the green light to score from day one, and Durant compares favorably.

Rookie Season Stats of Franchise Combo Forwards

	G	MP	FG%	3P%	FT%	PTS	TRB	AST	PER
LeBron James	79	39.5	0.417	0.290	0.754	20.9	5.5	5.9	18.3
Carmelo Anthony	82	36.5	0.426	0.322	0.777	21.0	6.1	2.8	17.6
Kevin Durant	80	34.6	0.430	0.288	0.873	20.3	4.4	2.4	15.8

If we focused on post-All-Star break splits, Durant looks even better. In fact, though almost all rookies hit the wall and get worse as the season progresses, LeBron James and Kevin Durant are two of the rare rookies who played all year and still actually got better in the second half. So no need to worry about that 12/3/2 in the opener. If his 95-lb body can hold up through this season, I'm guessing Durant will eventually have doubled that stat line and be averaging something closer to the 24/6/4 he did last April. Just as LeBron made the leap in Year 2, so will Kevin Durant.

C'mon Michael Redd, you can't defend me!

Can Argentina, Spain, or Lithuania Stop Team USA?

2008-08-21T13:27:00.004-07:00

Nope.

Worthy of Being Called the Dream Team?

2008-08-16T08:03:00.012-07:00

Thoughts on Team USA after their 119-82 destruction of Spain:

Threeeeeeee! That was the big story of the first half. After shooting so poorly through their first three games, the U.S. destroyed Spain's zone with a 7 for 11 performance behind the arc in that half. That cooled down to 3 for 11 in the second (before Tayshaun Prince hit two in garbage time), so hopefully it wasn't just a 20 minute fluke. Another interesting point: none of those threes came from Michael Redd. Don't know what to think about that just yet.
Our depth is phenomenal. The second team of Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh has been playing BETTER than Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard. Wade has been spectacular offensively, scoring 16 in 19 minutes, but what surprises me is how much Bosh stepped up when Howard was out in this game and the last one against Greece. On one play, the U.S. was playing a three-guard line-up of Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, and Bosh. With everyone else on the perimeter, Bosh still held down the paint by himself against two Spaniards with a block and a rebound. He didn't score well today, but he's made his presence felt on the boards and defense.
The reason Wade and Bosh got so much run, though, was because Bryant and Howard were in so much foul trouble. As effective as Bosh and Carlos Boozer have been in their minutes, Howard is just flat-out unstoppable when he's on the court. He needs to be there during close games in the Medal Round.
One of the reasons Howard needs to be there is to defend the giants like Pau Gasol, who manhandled Bosh when Bosh tried going man-to-man. Good thing Team USA's team defense has been so great. Did you see Wade flying out of nowhere to block Felipe Reye's shot? Their rotations look great. This is not the same team that couldn't figure out how to defend the pick-and-roll in 2006. Also, I could see the U.S. picking off a lot of balls and getting transition baskets, but I didn't realize their 28 forced turnovers was the second-highest ever for a U.S. Olympic team since the original 1992 Dream Team was taking the world's lunch money, bus ticket, and girlfriends, too.
On the flip side, Ricky Rubio's vaunted defense looked slightly over-hyped as Chris Paul and Deron Williams beat him like a pinata time and time again. Still, watching Rubio go up against Brandon Jennings next year should be awesome.
This win was promising, and with only Germany left, the U.S. is likely to sweep its pool. Yet being undefeated in Pool Play means nothing. Spain and Lithuania were the only 5-0 teams after Pool Play in Athens, and neither got a medal. In fact, Spain was knocked out by the 2004 U.S. team, a.k.a. the Dysfunctional Team.
Only thing that tainted this victory? A text message from my bro, Mark. I gave him the score after the first quarter and asked if he was watching. His reply: "no. im not watching the game. but im watching my girlfriend. she so pretty!" What man says that to another man? I hope he finds where he lost his manhood soon, because I can't talk to this sackless blob.

Great win, but everything gets harder in the Medal Round. Lithuania looks fantastic, and a veteran team like Argentina can't be counted out. The biggest disappointment there has got to be European champion Russia, who has completely collapsed here and likely won't make the Medal Round at all. Team USA, meanwhile, looks like it's regaining its previous Dream Team stature.

I think I know why Spain had trouble seeing this beating coming.

Hey, Where Do You Want Me to Put This Ron Artest?

2008-07-30T17:00:00.009-07:00

Ron Artest to Houston. No NBA summer is complete without the Rockets picking up yet another forward who is supposed to put them into title contention.

In the summer of 2005, the Houston Rockets picked up Stromile Swift from the Memphis Grizzlies, and, due to the immense amount of methamphetamine I must have been shooting into my eyeballs at the time, I thought that they finally had the athletic forward who can take the pressure off Yao Ming on the block and push them to the NBA Finals. Of course, that year Yao and Tracy McGrady combined to miss 3000 games total, and the Rockets missed the playoffs altogether. The next year, they brought in another forward, Shane Battier, for the lump Swift and future perennial-All-Star-on-a-bad-team Rudy Gay. It seemed like a lot to give up for a role player/character guy, but they seemed to adapt pretty well before yet another disappointing first round playoff knockout for Yao and T-Mac. Then last year, they brought in yet another forward, Luis Scola, strengthened the guard position, and looked like title contenders again before Yao ended his season for a Chinese government-mandated Your-Parents-Will-Mysteriously-Disappear-If-You-Miss-The-Olympics vacation.

That brings us to this year and Ron “Punchy” Artest. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ron Artest. I think he should be on the USA Olympic team, and not just because he would have the most potential since Mike Tyson to cause an international incident. Artest is renowned for his perimeter defense, but his powerful body also makes him sneakily good at posting up on offense. That’s great. He also likes to dribble the nubs off the basketball. And, despite his post skills, he loves chucking up jump shots. Unfortunately, Tracy McGrady already has that skill set covered for the Rockets, and that’s not even mentioning Steve Francis. Plus, unlike Battier and Scola, Artest's desire to hold and caress the ball means even fewer touches for Yao, the focal point through which all their plays should run.

On the defensive end, Shane Battier is the rare breed of player who is classy enough to come off the bench behind Artest when Battier would normally start for most teams in this league, which incredibly gives the Rockets an elite, veteran perimeter defender on both the first and second teams. However, according to John Hollinger's "spies" (probably the same guy who sent military secrets to China), the Rockets are planning to keep Battier at the 3 and play Artest at the 4. What the funk? Are they seriously expecting Ron Artest to be guarding guys like Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, and Chris Bosh? (No, Yao, put your hand down.) And where does that leave last year's breakouts, Luis Scola and Carl Landry, in the competition for minutes?

Then again, Rick Adelman earns his paycheck on getting players to move the ball around on offense, and Artest is supposedly an underrated playmaker (mysteriously skills always appear when sportswriters need to justify trades, i.e. Artest’s hidden play making skills or Kwame Brown’s hidden basketball playing skills). If they work as well together here as they did in Sacramento (Artest dished 1 apg above his career average during his tenure with Adelman; one whole assist!!), then they are contenders after all. Regardless, Artest's salary has always been a bargain with his level of talent countered by his level of crazy, and, with only one year left on contract, he's well worth the risk. Plus, Yao is definitely missing time after rushing back early from a foot injury to play in the Olympics, and T-Mac is definitely missing time because he just likes doing that kind of stuff. Let's face it, nobody plans their defense around Rafer Alston. When that happens, the Rockets will be thankful that other teams will still have to worry about Punchy Artest.

Score for Chinese Names

2008-06-26T16:09:00.006-07:00

Watching the NBA Draft on ESPN -- Both Ric Bucher and Stuart Scott just pronounced Yi Jianlian's name as, phonetically, "EE GIN LIN." That's how you really pronounce it!! I don't know at what point they stopped butchering it as "EE GEE-ON LEE-ON," but hopefully those days are over.

Oh yeah, and apparently he was traded to New Jersey with Bobby Simmons for Richard Jefferson. Whatever. Excuse me if I'm not terribly excited for the second legitimate Chinese NBA player to go to a team desperately positioning itself as a throne for LeBron James to park his ass in 2010.

And can someone please tell me why O.J. Mayo dressed like George Washington Carver?

The Portland Trailblazers: Your 2011-12 NBA Champions

2008-06-24T15:19:00.010-07:00

Stop crying L.A. fans, the Lakers have a better chance than any team to come back and win the title next year.

Sorry Kobe. Maybe next year.

Despite embarrassing themselves to the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals, life isn’t over for the Los Angeles Kobe Bryant and Friends. L.A. is a year early anyway. Was Pau Gasol the missing piece that made them title contenders? For sure, but that puzzle also had a giant piece named Andrew Bynum who happened to be missing for the entire end of the season. Gasol is a seasoned scorer and an incredible athlete in his own right, but he doesn’t bring the strength and mean streak that Bynum does (ask Shaq). Bynum is the cornerstone of that low-post defense, and Boston would have found the paint to be a far more unfriendly place if they ran into two long, athletic 7-footers there. When Bynum returns from surgery next year and joins Gasol on the frontline (assuming this roster stays together -- I'm looking at you, Kobe) and the Lakers move Lamar Odom for a player with a pair of rocks in his sack (rocks > talent), they will be competing for the championship for years.

But they will not be alone.

Another team also started making noise a year early. Last October, the Portland Trailblazers were expected to be one of if not the worst team in the league. They had just traded away Zach Randolph, their leading scorer and rebounder, and banked their entire future on #1 draft pick Greg Oden, the center of the future. Then they watched Oden shut down for the entire season following microfracture knee surgery. It didn’t leave them with much. Their players were, on average, the youngest team in the league by far at 24.06 years, 1.29 years younger than 29th youngest Seattle (0.55 years separates #29 from #22). The players also had the least amount of experience at 2.87 years, 0.60 years less than 29th least experienced Chicago (0.46 years separates #29 from #20). This was a team that didn't have a front court player who cracked double-digits in scoring the year before. Their one lone bright spot for the season was Brandon Roy, a promising but hardly explosive sophomore combo guard who missed 25 games his rookie season to injuries. Well, at least if they’re terrible, they’ll get another high draft pick, right?

BlazerNation: "Thanks for holding down the fort, guys."

A 13-game win streak, a run at the playoffs in the most competitive conference in NBA history, a 41-41 final record, and one All-Star later, the lesson to be learned is never doubt coach Nate McMillan. This is the same Nate McMillan who took the 2004-05 Seattle Supersonics, another team that was supposed to be one of if not the worst in the league that year, to 50-32 and pushed the eventual NBA champs San Antonio to more games than any other team in the Western Conference playoffs. If any coach has proven he can get much more out of a team than anyone expects, it's Nate McMillan (and if any coach has proven he can get much less, it’s Larry Brown -- good luck, Charlotte!).

This man can coach.

Yet it goes further than just the final record. McMillan achieved that while still giving his young players heavy minutes and developing their talents. Brandon Roy played his way into the All-Star game. LaMarcus Aldridge proved to be a force in the paint. Travis Outlaw started realizing his enormous athletic potential and became a game-changing sixth man. Martell Webster and James Jones found their roles and spread the floor. Even Channing Frye started re-discovering the potential he had in New York before Larry Brown stomped out his confidence, averaging 16 and 10 in the last five games of the season (admittedly against the JV players most teams trot out at that time of the year). The only real disappointment was that neither Jarrett Jack, Steve Blake, nor Sergio Rodriguez could play well enough to claim the starting point guard role. Yet looking outside the light of the rest of the team, one could argue that they're just developing at a normal pace. There's still a lot of potential there, particularly with the one they call "Spanish Chocolate" (… that's a dumb name).


	Greg Oden with a monster dunk.

Of course, the big addition this year is the addition they were hoping for last year: Greg Oden, the 7-foot center with hops like he's got springs in his legs. Like with Bynum, Oden's very presence will mean the post defense is locked down. Unlike Bynum, Oden has the athleticism of an Olympic high-jumper (also unlike babyface Bynum, Oden is 1000 years old). When Oden returns to join Aldridge in the front court, the Trailblazers will be adding a young Patrick Ewing to a young Pau Gasol.

Everyone already knows about the impact Oden will bring to the team, but another signing may also prove to be a critical piece of the puzzle. Earlier this month, Rudy Fernandez announced he would leave his Spanish ACB League team to join the Trailblazers (which acquired him by buying his draft rights from Phoenix for straight cash, much like how the championship Celtics bought the drafts rights to their starting PG Rajon Rondo from Phoenix -- good work, Phoenix!). The Spanish ACB League is widely considered to be the second best basketball league in the world (right behind the And1 Streetball Tour of course) and Rudy Fernandez is arguably the best player in the ACB league if not all of Europe itself. This league’s alumni include NBA pros such as Arvydas Sabonis, Pau Gasol, Andres Nocioni, and Luis Scola.

The talented and hairy Rudy Fernandez.

Last season, Fernandez led the ACB in points with 21.2 and steals with 2.2 while also dropping in 4.1 assists and 3.1 rebounds in 28 min a game for second-place DKV Joventut Badalona. Imagine a player of that caliber joining Portland. They can play a backcourt of Fernandez and Roy, two 6’6” combo guards who both can dribble, pass, and score. Or picture Spanish Chocolate running the break with the two of them on the wings. Or Fernandez coming off the bench behind Roy, and the Trailblazers not missing a beat on offense like they did last year when a reliable but one-dimensional shooter like Martell Webster or James Jones took over. Then consider that Rudy Fernandez doesn’t even break the Trailblazer’s league-low average age at 23 years old.

So Lakers fans, don’t worry. With all due respect to the Boston Celtics, the Utah Jazz, the New Orleans Hornets, and the San Antonio Geriatrics, the championship is yours to lose next year. And the year after that. And probably the year after that. But, at some point, that young team in the upper Northwest is going to grow up, and you’re going to be the one getting your lunch money taken away.