Photo by Nrbelex on Flickr

When the lineup for this year’s Slam Dunk Contest was announced, there was nothing but crickets coming from casual basketball fans. No Blake Griffin? No LeBron James? More dedicated followers of the NBA were maybe less surprised. Defending your dunk title has become a bit passé. And rumors about James’ participation fly every year, but he has little to gain by entering and winning and much more by losing. Getting into the dunk contest and falling to anyone might be a bigger misstep than The Decision.

But even the most enthusiastic basketball fans groaned at the field. Derrick Williams? He’s caught some nice alley-oops from Ricky Rubio, but he strikes me as a game dunker, not a showcase dunker. Paul George had that one great breakaway reverse where he pulled it down between his legs, but that’s about it. Chase Budinger’s dunks would best be described as workmanlike. And lastly, Iman Shumpert (who misses nearly as many dunks as he makes) bowed out to be replaced by the wildly better Jeremy Evans. But Evans is 6’9” and bigger guys get less credit for jumping high. It just doesn’t look as cool. His best dunk so far was called an offensive foul.

So why is there any reason for positivity? For one, the new single round format might actually work. Call me crazy, but the multi-round format of previous years has ruined what could have been some great dunk contests. Take Andre Iguodala’s performance in the 2006 Slam Dunk Contest. His alley-oop from Allen Iverson caught off the back of the backboard was probably the best dunk from that year’s event, but it came in the penultimate round and Iguodala ultimately lost to the diminutive Nate Robinson in a dunk off. Robinson’s dunk over Spud Webb signaled the turn of the contest towards a weirdly meta, prop-based approach to the dunk contest. Plus it took him 14 attempts to put it in. Iguodala was, in short, robbed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6z9-l4hnMM

Two years later, Dwight Howard took the crown with the most prop-driven performance up until that point, but Gerald Green’s opening round dunk got lost in the shuffle. It’s a shame, because it was slick and creative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1pXEumOGOU

But in subsequent rounds, Green showed he couldn’t come up with anything to top himself, much less any of the other contestants. The best dunk contest participants, from Michael Jordan to Vince Carter, have shown a sense of showmanship that extends beyond the individual dunks to the arc created over the whole contest. It’s kind of cognitively dissonant with the spirit of dunking in the game, which relies more on chance, timing, and opportunity than advance planning.

So there’s a chance that this single round format will level the field a bit more, resulting in good early dunks carrying more weight. But on the other hand, the NBA ditching the judges and awarding the trophy based solely on fan vote is thoroughly wrongheaded. The judge system has had its own problems (as when Howard’s truly impressive sticker dunk was misunderstood by them in the moment), but it’s impossible to see how a fan vote doesn’t lead to something that values flash or name recognition over an honest appraisal of dunks. On the bright side, no one knows who these contestants are. Seriously, this field’s about as open as the field of Republican presidential candidates last November.

But mixed feelings over the Slam Dunk Contest are nothing new. The truly revelatory performances are almost always surprises, which is perhaps in the dunk’s very nature. Like humor, a good dunk thrives on being unexpected, whether that means breaking out of the flow and rhythm of a regular game or coming up with something that’s never been seen before in the contest. The real key to a great dunk contest performance, though, is not only doing something startlingly new, but rather finding a balance between athleticism, showmanship, and, strangely, comprehensibility. Green’s cupcake dunk, Howard’s sticker dunk, and Javale McGee’s cradle under-the-backboard dunk all suffered for not being as immediately graspable as Dr. J’s free throw line dunk or Vince Carter’s through-the-legs alley-oop. Given the tremendous athleticism of players in the NBA now and the switch to fan-voting, it’s likely that the winning dunk won’t be the most impressive, but rather, the one that communicates the best.

Photo from monteiths via Flickr

Part of the reason why we like sports is that we don’t actually know why we like sports. We don’t actually know anything.

For something as clear-cut as basketball – every season we have one team that wins a championship, one team that loses in the Finals, and a very long list of shot attempts, each one of which is either 100% a make or 100% a miss – there sure is quite a bit of room for subjectivity. Some people watch Kobe Bryant and see the world’s greatest winner, others see a competitive spirit that is too good to fail but too stubborn to succeed as much as it should. Some people watch LeBron James and see a nightly stream of spine-shattering greatness, others see someone who’s just spineless, a confused young man who is constantly thrown off track by an unfortunate combination of fear and obliviousness. Some people even watch the Bobcats, may God have mercy on their souls.

When I watch Brandon Jennings, I hate everything that I’m seeing. I hate the 20 foot pull-ups that sometimes go in and sometimes don’t. I hate the sneaky forays towards the rim. I hate the flash, the flair, the swag. Even before an atrocious February in which he more or less stopped making good basketball plays, stopped winning games, and decided to tell ESPN’s Chris Broussard that he’s “doing his homework on bigger markets” despite an NBA landscape that is growing increasingly weary of players jumping ship from non-coastal cities so they can force their way towards bright lights.

Even when Brandon Jennings finished doing this to the Miami Heat, setting of a Twitter chain reaction, posting career numbers across the board, leading the Bogut-less Bucks to a since-relinquished playoff position, and was in my opinion a must-pick for the depleted Eastern All-Star roster, I couldn’t stand watching him. Every shot, ill-advised or perfectly reasonable, that went in was met by my contempt. Every night, I would hope the Bucks – a team I am incredibly fond of, if don’t root for per se – won their nightly outing, only to be incredibly disappointed to find out that it took a 30 point night from the southpaw. Somehow, I turned on a seemingly enjoyable basketball player having the best season of his young NBA life, even though I loved him dearly through the struggles of his first two seasons, even though I quite recently declared that “Brandon Jennings is what makes this game beautiful“.

Somehow, I not only stopped liking Jennings, I started actively disliking him. How could that happen?

The answer to that question takes us back to Jennings’ rookie campaign, as all sappy Bucks-related retrospectives should. Something about that magical squad, with the Fearing of Deers, the gridlock defense and the usual helping of the recently deceased John Salmons’ Post-Trade Tour Of Magical Wonders resonated with me on a personal level. Every year sees one or two teams that shock the world en route to an unexpected playoff berth, sometimes leveraging that postseason appearance to give a better team a first round scare, or even steal a series. And we always love them. The 10-11 Grizzlies, the 08-09 Bulls, the 06-07 Warriors – you have to root for them, not just because Goliath is a meanie, but because David is just that easy to relate to.

But being the surprise team of the 09-10 season was a unique distinction. For it was October 27^th 2009, opening night, in which I was sitting on a bus and trying to suppress a stream of tears. I was on my way to a friend’s house, where we would play pick-up and watch the Cavs and the Celtics tip off yet another year of festivities, fresh off the discovery that my younger brother, then 14 years of age, had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his stomach. I have little to no recollection of how the evening went – the pick up game didn’t even happen as far as my brain can tell, and while I remember that the Cavs lost, I have no idea if their starting center was the newly acquired Shaquille O’Neal or the newly acquired Neuroblastoma. The feeling of those tears on that bus, however, I will carry with me until I can remember no more.

The following months were a peculiar mixture of cancer and basketball. No adjective can do justice with the initial bursts of fear for my family; and yet, facing a newly minted League Pass subscription, ample free time, and a lifelong obsession with round orange things, I was like a kid in a candy store. And when a kid walks down an aisle and is given a choice between LeBron James dominating the universe for a second straight year (pre-playoffs), the Boston Celtics sprinting towards Christmas before fading into the forsaken land of creaky knees and unmotivated nutjobs, the first ever player from his country to play in the NBA, the Durant-Westbrook Thunder’s meteoric rise, and solemnly wallowing in a cancer-laden swamp of self pity, living one’s life vicariously through gigantic men with nimble feet was the only logical choice.

The decision to stare adversity right in the eye, respectfully acknowledge its existence, and provocatively go on with my everyday life, came from my family as much as it did from me. With the exception of my own decision to sleep during the days and watch basketball during the nights, my parents insisted on a family-wide everyday routine. My brother, on the other hand, gleefully boasted that he got cancer to excuse himself from schoolwork, and that nobody ever tells him to close the TV anymore.

And in the other room, on a smaller screen, were the Bucks. Seemingly yet another team on a stationary bicycle pedaling towards stagnant mediocrity, Milwaukee burst onto the League Pass scene behind what is still the defining game of Brandon Jennings’ career, and never looked back. The incredible thing, though, was that their staying power was a product not of the explosiveness and volatility of their rookie point guard, but the exact opposite. The Bucks played a dangerous game of smarts and feebleness, of strength and a lack of skill. Their strategy was a designed mucking of whoever dared step in their path. Never actually great, but good in such a great way, that the difference barely even mattered.

And Jennings? It would be wrong to say he was the mastermind behind the juggernaut – not next to the all-around brilliance of an emerging Andrew Bogut and the frowning perfectionism of Scott Skiles as he paced the sidelines. But even if Jennings didn’t stand above it all, his presence was always felt, filling the gray seams with colorful explosions of light, their rarity overshadowed by their power. The Bucks were a pyrotechnic display impressive not for the sheer absurdity that it entailed, but for its rigidity and its structure, each follicle placed just where it should be, with Jennings the only variable of freedom allowed. And he managed that freedom in a way that was somehow both other-worldly and remarkably human, a state of quantum duality between an inferior version of Allen Iverson and a likeable version of Chris Duhon.

The Bucks made a point never to exhibit weakness, because they truly believed they had none. And yet, they were probably in worse shape than they let themselves realize. Just like my brother, my parents, and myself. But the never-ending fight, and the shocking results that followed, were present in both cases. As Andrew Bogut craftily directed Carlos Delfino towards yet another half-court traps before, head on a swivel, he threw himself in front of a driving guard, somehow managing to either block the shot or draw the charge every single time. Meanwhile, my brother, who I can only assume was feeling miserable somewhere behind my headphones, refused to show signs of such struggles, instead juggling remote controls, limited yet satisfying portions of junk food, and a smile resistant to the outer world.

Several fourth quarters were cut short in favor of driving to the hospital; several timeouts grew longer in the name of pouring a glass of water, or heating up a chosen batch of leftovers before my brother’s usually sickly appetite disappeared for days on ends. But the Bucks were always there, a symbol of the power that is mental fortitude. To this day, I know not what a person watching me watch them would see – a passion enhanced by unfortunate circumstances, or pure, unadulterated escapism – but whatever it was, it kept me going. Even the Bogut injury, which should have brought an end to the fascinating experiment, couldn’t stop the Bucks. It took 7 games against a superior team, and even then, in one of the most disgusting playoff series in recent memory, I was attached to the monitor by the hip.

My brother has now been 100% cancer free for 18 months, back in school with his friends and meaningless everyday problems, his unearthly smile and will proving far more infectious than a terrestrial disease. At the same time, several magnitudes of priorities below, the Bucks as I knew them left with a whimper and a Drew Gooden signing. But if Jennings was but a supporting factor in their rise, their fall had absolutely nothing to do with him. His injured struggles didn’t help, but they were minor issues next to a roster decimated by the failures of limbs and veteran intestines voluptuous with recently ingested contracts. It wasn’t his fault. It just happened next to him.

And yet, this new-ish version of his team is too incomplete in too many places for a complete overhaul of strategy. The things that made 09-10 so special can’t possibly do the same in 11-12, but the Bucks should know damn well that a similar showing represents their best shot. Which is why it has been such an angering disappointment to watch Jennings forcefully, even if rightfully, take over top-billing status en route to attempted re-ascension, while sporting the exact same flaws. Flaws that were easy to overlook when he was just another misfit fighting for legitimacy, but that become much less excusable when you are a supposed franchise player who has now been in the league long enough to learn right from wrong.

Don’t get me wrong – it was unreasonable to expect Jennings to remain just another act in a show so desperate for a ringleader, not with the undeniable talent that runs in his veins. And as mentioned above, his play has been extraordinary, even if you’re not willing to excuse a recent slump. But what was once brilliance has become a tedious affair in stubborn boneheadedness.

The incessant over-confident, step-backing, inherently arrogant jumpers that should have been either perfected (and yes, it’s been much better, but still – 6.4 threes a night at 33%? Really, Brandon?) or abandoned long ago; the seemingly conscious decision to look for one’s self instead of one’s teammates, regardless of the situation; the ridiculous notion that listening to Stephen Jackson is a smart decision; the far, far too premature glance towards the grass-is-greener big-market scenario, regardless of whether those are actually his feelings or just an unfortunate misinterpretation.

Which is how I came to hate Brandon Jennings. Not because he is a bad player, or because he’s no longer fun to watch. But because in his distorted vision of his future, he has stomped over what was a crucial point in my past. Because of his insistence not to be as good as he can be, but to be so in a way that is neither possible nor amicable. Because with every passing game, whether he registers a passive-aggressive 4 field goal attempts or an overtly audacious 26, it is clear that he refuses to accept his obvious limitations, even though the world would openly accept them if he so much as stopped pretending they aren’t there.

Most of all, I hate him because when I needed to turn my head away from the horrendous sight that is a skeleton-thin, bald 14 year old who with whom I’ve shared my home and my blood for my entire life, I turned to the 09-10 Bucks. And yet, when Jennings needs to turn away from something as manageable as an imperfection to his basketball game, he looks at that same Bucks team, and makes sure they will never come back.

Photo by Anthony Mattox on Flickr

(Steve McPherson joins Hardwood Paroxysm today. You can find him on Twitter @steventurous. He likes long walks on the beach and the company of close metrics. Please annihilate his articles in the comments as you would mine. Enjoy. -Ed.)

Whatever your feeling about advanced stats—about player efficiency ratings and win shares per 48—basketball is undeniably a game of numbers. At the end of the day, somebody wins and somebody loses, and not because of how aesthetically pleasing their team’s play was. The ultimate stat is wins and losses because with out those two columns, none of the others need exist. It’s easy to joke about how analysts and commentators talk about the game: “The team that wins tonight if going to be the one that scores more points.” It’s so obviously true, but amazingly, who wins and loses can come down to the firing of a few neurons here or there. It’s pretty well demonstrated by the Timberwolves last two games: a loss to Denver in overtime on Monday and a win against the Jazz last night, both decided in the last few seconds.

But since we’re talking about numbers, let’s simplify the equation a bit. First of all, every team in the NBA looks like they’ve stumbled out of The Walking Dead right now. This compressed schedule is crushing teams physically and several games this week leading up to the All-Star break have had the feel of class on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Kevin Love, in particular, looked flat-out tapped last night. Secondly, the game against Denver was on the road, so Denver’s altitude certainly didn’t help, and the game was close through the fourth quarter and overtime, whereas the Wolves started the fourth quarter down 13 against the Jazz and rallied to win 100-98.

That second point is important, though, because while the Denver game felt like a war of attrition (neither team scored for the first 3:08 of OT), the game against the Jazz featured a much greater swing emotionally for both teams. Here’s a play from early in the fourth quarter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoh3jff2vVw

With Utah up 12, Earl Watson’s shot misses badly. As the ball heads out of bounds, Nikola Pekovic just watches it go while Watson dives out of bounds and heaves it back to Derrick Favors, who dunks it for an easy 2. The play exemplifies how things were going for the Jazz at that point: they were outworking the Wolves and getting the bounces while the Timberwolves were flat-footed.

But with about seven minutes left, the dynamic of the game started to shift. On back-to-back trips, J.J. Barea and Luke Ridnour both drove the lane and got fouled, making their free throws. Between these possessions, the Jazz had a quick, empty trip on their own end. This sequence felt something like when a football team keeps its offense on the field. The Jazz had the equivalent of a three-and-out while the Wolves ground their way slowly up the field.

That sequence led to this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Xo522phiE

Having cut the lead to 7, the Wolves defend Josh Howard’s cut into the paint well and get the rebound off the tough shot. Love misses the wide open 3 at the other end but tiny J.J. Barea (who’s already playing out of his mind at this point) grabs the rebound. You can see him consider forcing the action into the paint, but instead he pulls it back to reset. His iso creates a lane for Derrick Williams, who dishes to an open Ridnour, who drives and kicks to a wide-open Barea for the 3. The basket cuts it to four. It’s a beautiful sequence of basketball, with every player making fundamentally good choices.

And now, as Monty Python would say, for something completely different:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOVafPBmHWU

There’s not much to say about this play by Martell Webster that hasn’t already been said here. Bottom line: a great defensive play turns into a woeful offensive play and the Timberwolves get 2 when they needed 3 and ultimately fall 103-101.

In the wake of each of these games, narratives emerged. The Denver game is evidence that the Timberwolves still make dumb mistakes, that they haven’t learned to play together, that Adelman still doesn’t understand how this team works best. The Utah game is evidence that the team is scrappy, that they can win without a great game from either Rubio or Love, that Adelman is a coach who knows how to ride the hot hand (Barea’s, in this case).

But maybe what each of these games points out best is just what a coach has control over. In the Denver game, no one on the Wolves was playing all that well. Nikola Pekovic had gone down early when he rolled his ankle. Ridnour and Michael Beasley were the only players who’d shot close to consistently (hitting 50% and 44% respectively), and they were both on the court to finish the game. In the Jazz game, the Wolves made their run with Rubio on the bench. Once it was close, Adelman put him back in, but only long enough for him to get to the foul line and miss 1 of 2, bringing him to 1-6 from the stripe. At that point, taking him out is a no-brainer. A close game is likely to come down to free throws, so don’t leave a player having an off night from the line in the game. The unit on the floor to end the game was the unit that got them there: Barea, Ridnour, Webster, Williams, and Love. The Jazz game shows Adelman going with what’s been working, whereas in the Denver game, nothing had really been working. It was a toss-up.

And so looking at the torpor and stagnation of the Denver game, Webster’s ill-timed dunk is just more evidence of a lackluster performance. Ridnour’s floater to win the game against the Jazz looks, likewise, like proof of the team’s scrappiness and Adelman’s coaching acumen. But if Ridnour misses that floater like he missed a late layup against the Nuggets, the game goes to overtime, where the Wolves might have fallen apart. Had Webster pulled up for the 3 and made it, they would have given themselves a chance to win.

But that’s the trick with narratives, with the stories we tell to make sense of what’s happened: they only work in reverse. In the moment, the game exists in the slimmest of margins, in the decision to pull up for the shot or drive, to go for the runner or dish it out. A neuron here or a neuron there is all that separates the two most important columns on the stat sheet: wins and losses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEtfgsd0haA

Photo from @Doug88888 via Flickr

Isaiah must have played well lately because I didn't get nearly as many hate messages about Jimmer not playing.

February 21, 2012 6:14 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@mr_jasonjones

Jason Jones

60^th picks in the draft aren’t supposed to be good. In fact, they’re hardly supposed to be at all. A swift look at the players taken with the draft’s last pick since the league moved to 30 teams shows such basketball luminaries as Rashard Wright, Will Blalock, Robert Dozier and Dwayne Collins. In fact, the best of the lot is probably Semih Erden. Think about that. Semih Erden has been the best at something.

Guys taken 10^th in the draft, on the other hand, should be good. They mostly are. Paul George, Brandon Jennings, Brook Lopez, Mouhamed Saer Sene – all men of spectacular abilities in the realms of basketball and/or being Mouhamed Saer Sene.

So it should come as a major shock to everyone involved that Isaiah Thomas has been promoted to the Sacramento Kings’ starting lineup, looking like a very good NBA player in the process, as Jimmer Freddete sits idly on the bench. It’s important not to get carried away – we’ve seen our fair share of both lottery picks struggling out of the gate only to take the league by storm in due time, as well as and second rounders contributing immediately before fizzling into the dust. Freddete still has quite a long period of time to realize his NBA potential, be it what it may, and Thomas is still a 5’8” converted shooting guard working in a league that has long been unkind to those of normal human stature.

And yet, watching what these kids can and can’t do at this point, this makes so much sense.

Thomas may have the sort of build that makes absolutely no sense for an NBA player, but his game perfectly fits the bill for a new-age NBA guard. Built completely around speed and penetration, he’s a post-handcheck nightmare, too small for helpless defenders to get a hold of, too smart to falter from his own doing.  The result is a constant stream of pressure brought to the defense. Thomas gets into the paint, at which point he either gets open enough to create a decent shot even for a man his size, or causes the defense to collapse, thus freeing up a teammate.

Against Cleveland, facing a ROY shoo-in in Kyrie Irving in his second career start, Thomas broke out with a 23 point, 8 rebound, 11 assist performance. Aside from the random statistical flukes that tend to come during a lockout season in mid-February, everything that Thomas is good at was on display. He found DeMarcus Cousins (those two have looked fantastic together, by the way) on a gorgeous weakside cut. He controlled the transition game perfectly, sending Donté Greene on a single man expedition towards dunkhood. He prodded and probed his way into open pull-ups and drives. Every single time the ball was in his hands, something good happened, even though he plays on a horizontal plane in a vertical league.

I won’t even mention the 20 point quarter against Miami, because even though people named Isiah Thomas have risen to fame on the back of 20 point quarters, it’s very unlikely that he hits 5 threes in 12 minutes ever again. But his control of the offense? That might not be a fluke. MySynergySports ranking Thomas a ridiculous third in the NBA as far as pick and roll ball handlers go, with 1.07 points per possession on 61 plays, won’t sustain, but calm and collection every single time he dribbles around that screener could. 43.2% from behind the arc will drop closer to his collegiate averages of 32.4%, but the constant activity and volatility when fighting behemoths for rebounds and lose balls will remain.

Meanwhile, the concerns about Jimmer’s NBA skill-set have so far taken the upper hand in the battle against his explosive college past. He’s just not fast enough to get his own shot with regularity, and unlike BYU, the Kings have better options than letting him pound the ball the entire shot clock in order to get the attempt that he likes. He’s actually been a fantastic spot-up shooter – he’s 26 for 56 from the field in those situations, and of those 26 makes, 17 have been threes, giving him a robust 1.2 PPP (again, mySynergySports with the assist) – and that’s where his NBA future probably lies. But sadly, on a Kings team where less than 50% of makes are assisted (only the Wizards and, surprisingly, the Thunder are worst), it’s hard to be an off-ball player.

Thomas may not be a better player than Jimmer in 2-3 years. He might not even be better now. By all accounts, Jimmer has been working hard to fit in to a league where he is no longer regarded as a demi-god, and Isaiah’s recent stretch could eventually end at the hands of sample size and reality.

But the thing we should learn from this is that sometimes, we just don’t know how things work out. Sometimes a 60^th pick can put up a PER of 17.05 in his first 31 games, become a starter, and play even better.

The lesson, as always – the draft is a crapshoot, and basketball is beautiful. Also, never underestimate a tweener guard from Seattle. Something in the water.

(Paroxysm at Gametime features our writers with original reporting by attending live games. It’s just like the stuff we did when we started, only completely the opposite in every way. In this edition, Amin Vafa covers his first game and balances the nervosa of being out of your comfort zone with being out of your comfort zone by playing as a Washington Wizard. Enjoy. – Ed.)

“Remember: You are not going to feel like you belong there. You belong there.”

The usual protocol when a bear standing at a podium gives you advice is to take it. Easier said than done.

I covered my first game tonight. My first professional sports game. I’d been in the locker room before. I’d been to meet and greets with players. I’d seen players shopping at Target or walking their dogs. I’d seen coaches walking down the street. Hell, I even saw Oliver Platt at the train station this week. But it’s different when you’re there for a game. You’re part of a machine. You need to go through the motions just like everyone else. You’re told beforehand where to be, where to go, who to see, who to cover, who’s who, who’ll be there to help out. But beforehand is different than during. Practice it all you want. During a game, all of that changes. Things are happening. You’re moving on the fly. You can’t just do it all by yourself. You have to communicate with other people. “Excuse me person who works here, where am I supposed to be? It’s my first game.”

Chris Singleton’s is back near halfcourt during shootaround. He’s with an assistant coach and the other rookies Jan Vesely and Shelvin Mack. They’re practicing basic ball movement skills: dribbling low to the ground, moving the ball fluidly around their torsos, bouncing the ball against their fingertips above their heads. Once they work together for a few minutes, they join the layup/post-move line. The same assistant coach tosses them the ball under the basket. They do a quick pivot under the basket, and lay it in. Andray Blatche is around for this part of shootaround, but after a few missed dunks it looks like his calf is still bothering him. But to his credit, he’s working up a sweat and looks like he wants to be out there and is having fun.

The line breaks up. Half of the players start going back inside to the locker room. A couple of them stay on the court. Vesely’s practicing his foul shots. Probably a good call. Jordan Crawford is practicing long jumpers at the top of the arc. Singleton’s on the right side of the arc, shooting threes. Singleton put up a respectable 3P% in college (about 33%). He’s shooting about the same percent this season, but he has taken far fewer shots.

“I knew I could shoot. It’s just if they knew I could shoot. That’s what I was working on, this whole lockout.”

Singleton nailed his warmup and shootaround 3s. I didn’t think he was going to hit them, though, because his footing was really odd. He sets up his shots pigeon-footed. Then I realized another player has that same, ugly footing for this 3s: Antawn Jamison. Weird that the two haven’t played with each other, yet both played for the Wizards and share this awkward habit.

The Wizards were  up 68-60 at the half. A halftime score, we remind ourselves, higher than the final output of their game against Chicago at the United Center last month. After playing a surprisingly strong half of offensive basketball (they still gave up 60 points at the half), they lay a dud offensively and defensively against Sacramento (largely without Tyreke and Demarcus).

“Until they are commited to playing winning basketball… we’re going to be like this team was tonight. There wasn’t anything in that second half that was done to win the game… Guards from Sacramento crashed boards and put it in 6 times in fourth quarter.”

-Randy Wittman, not trying to hide his frustration and disappointment after a complacent second half.

Coach Wittman alternated between the usage of “they” and “we” when referring to the team, his professionalism battling his dismay at  his team that won’t listen. He called out three specific plays (thus singling out the perpetrators) where “winning basketball” mentality and plays weren’t implemented. The first was Nick Young’s botched 360 layup in the first quarter. The second was blaming a guard for standing out by the three point line while his man got his own putback (this happened a few times, it seemed, so it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly to whom he was referring). The third was JaVale McGee’s monster goaltend during the 3rd quarter, but to be fair, someone brought that up. However, Wittman was more infuriated by McGee’s lack of playing the Pick and Roll correctly than his goaltend.

Around the same time Isaiah Thomas officially rid himself of the “Mr. Irrelevant” moniker, the two teams headed into the locker rooms.

“We have some bad habits, and we’re trying to break them. When you have bad habits, sometimes you go back to them. When we played like a team and shared the ball and played team defense, we played well. When we didn’t, we struggled.”

-Roger Mason Junior, on the team’s regression to a non-fluid offense in the second half.

“We didn’t play defense, didn’t box out… We gotta get better mentally and physically… We gotta regroup. Enjoy these couple days off and get back to business.”

-Jordan Crawford, on the team’s lapses and looking forward.

“I thought this was a game we could win, and we thought we were gonna win… [We played] lots of one-on-one ball…[Sacramento] beat us up on the glass… [This game is] something we gotta learn from…we gotta play for 48 minutes.”

-Rashard Lewis, on expectations and consistency

“Singleton will be easy to talk to, Amin. He probably won’t have big crowds in front of him like the stars of the team, but he’ll have some good stuff to say. Ask him a few questions. Start with some softballs, and then ask him a few other questions.”

-Matt’s sound pregame advice to me.

Singleton. Singleton. Singleton? What on Earth could I ask this kid? Well, there’s all the regular stuff about him being drafted because his defensive prowess. “You were ACC Defensive Player of the year two years in a row. You led the ACC in steals and steals per game your sophomore year. You defend multiple positions. You’ve defended Deron Williams, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and Kevin Durant this season. Who’s your toughest cover?” Well, his Defensive Win Share isonly 0.5, and he gives up an above average PER at both forward spots when he’s defending. So maybe everyone is a tough cover. Because he’s a rookie. And he’s being thrown at lions. VETERAN lions.

I could ask him about the college-to-pro transition, and how the team atmospheres differ. Yeah, maybe I’ll ask him that. OK, I’ll start with some easy questions about his personal life, then I’ll ask him about his transition after the game. He’s got half a season under his belt. It’ll be perfect.

Chris Singleton: 13 minutes, 0 points, 0-1 FG, 0-1 3P, 1 Reb, 1 Ast, 1 Stl, 1 Blk, 1 PF, -1 +/-

OK, so a rough half for Singl… oh, that was for the whole game? And he wasn’t around for questions after the game? Ruh-roh.

OK, it’s fine. Think. Think, McFly, think. Wait, what’s Rashard Lewis doing out there when there are 3 guards and a center on the floor? He’s playing power forward, like he used to in Orlando, but more in the post than out by the 3-point line. And he’s doing a halfway decent job. Good on him. A +5 on the night.

“You’ve got to move without the ball, because it’s not very many plays called for the three-man in this offense. A lot of stuff is with the point guard and the big, as well as the two guard.”

Well, Rashard, you look like you’re playing well as a big. You’re still moving without the ball a lot, but your aggressiveness is noted. Maybe you should stay at the 4.

This team is very young. There’s a veteran presence on the team (Blatche, Evans, Mason, Turiaf, and Lewis). There are even some championship-tested players on the team (Mason, Lewis, and Turiaf). But by and large, this team is young. It’s full of rookies and sophomores, guys who played for successful teams in high school and college, but who don’t have a “winning mentality” in the NBA yet, to use Coach Wittman’s phrase. Of the five veterans on the team, they’ve either all been injured at some point, or have had their minutes limited by ineffective play.

The young guys on the team, no matter how many times they practice their fundamentals during shootaround, need a veteran to hold their hand for a while. Not a long while, just long enough to point them in the right direction. And not literal hand-holding, just a good and consistent example. But there comes a time in every young player’s career when having no stable veteran presence is no longer an excuse. Self-motivation is a big key for this team. They don’t have many vets on whom they can rely to show them the ropes. But it’s clear from the energy in the locker room and the energy on the bench that these players care about each other, even if they beat themselves up after a loss. A wise man once said, “If we can’t live together, we’re going to die alone.” And based on the consensus post-game comments (“We played selfish. We didn’t pass the ball. We fell on bad habits. We didn’t play team defense.”), these guys know that they need to play together to finish out games.

Thirty-three games down. Thirty-three games to go. You can choose to be wandering the corridors of the arena by yourself, or you can motivate yourself to ask some questions to make sure you’re headed in the right direction and do your job. You belong there.

I didn’t love King of the Hill when I was a kid.

King of the Hill was boring. It was the worst kind of bait-and-switch for a kid. Animated television was about creating memorable moments detached from reality silly enough to capture the minds of young ones. Watching King of the Hill when I was 5 was like eating an apple only to find out way too late that a worm had already buried itself deep into the fibers and defiled the core. It looked the part of a kid-friendly cartoon, but the story, the pace and the morals weren’t meant for us youngsters. The Simpsons, as warm and charming and socially aware as it was, was the perfect caricature for little kids to giggle and grow into. King of the Hill offered little accommodation, which is why, for more years of my life than not, I paid no attention.

As much as I hate myself today for ignoring the show for as long as I did, some things just don’t make sense until you’re older.

—

I didn’t love the San Antonio Spurs as a kid. I didn’t love them in high school. Hell, part of me still feels guilty for loving them now. I’m a detached fan of the NBA with no true allegiance, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it all came back to the Spurs crushing every team I’ve ever dared to love.

My first real memories as a fan came in 1999 when the Knicks fought their way through the Eastern bracket and improbably landed in the NBA Finals. There was balladry to their run as they toppled key and iconic rivals to get to the highest stage. There was real emotional weight to Allan Houston’s last second runner, full-court dash and subsequent fist pump in Game 5 of the first round matchup against the Miami Heat – one of the indelible basketball images in my mind.

The Spurs crushed them in a cruel gentleman’s sweep, pitying the Knicks enough to give them one victory. I hated them for that. Duncan went about his dominance with that same dispassionate off-centered gaze. It’s a gaze I’ve never been able to escape.

The same gentleman’s sweep befell the 2004-05 Suns, the team that made me realize what basketball meant to me. I still assert that things would have been different had Joe Johnson not fractured his orbital bone in the Dallas series, but it didn’t matter. The Spurs found a way to crush me once more. I may never love another team the way I loved those Suns. And I’ll never truly be able to embrace the Spurs with open arms. I know what they’re capable of. And no one wants ever wants their heart broken.

But I’m a bit older now, and it’s hard not to accept, respect, and admire the Spurs and their ability to adapt while planting themselves firmly in a time-tested system.

—

Last night’s 40-point loss to the Blazers was maybe as good of an attempt at physical humor by the Spurs as the instant hack-a-Shaq in their 2008-09 season opener. There is something absurdly funny and charming about the Spurs’ (though more specifically, Gregg Popovich’s) devotion to their fundamental beliefs. What Popovich did was pragmatic. All-Star Weekend is coming up, and getting his best players the rest they need while getting his bench up to speed is a fantastic idea. One that no other coach would dare put into motion. But placing these fundamental set of ideals on the highest pedestal is what has created the immaculate machine of success that we call the Duncan-era Spurs. It’s what made King of the Hill such a great show. It’s also what keeps them both overlooked.

Despite the many different iterations of the Spurs team in the Duncan era, the way we frame our discourse hasn’t changed much. They’re still tedious and boring, which was largely due to their defensive reputation (though they are much better on offense than defense today). They operate in retrograde; “a betrayal of the league’s new era of supreme athleticism,” as Kevin Arnovitz put it.

But why do we continue to think that way? Why did we think that way? Today, we appreciate the Spurs a lot more, though partially due to a preemptive nostalgic guilt, as we’re mentally prepared to lose the league’s most resilient institution soon. We celebrate the way they’re still able to get it done with superior spacing and chemistry, knowing full well that a few years ago, we all hated them for it.

As effective as the system has been for the Spurs, it’s entirely at fault for the perceptions we have. How else could two of the most dynamic guards in recent memory go largely unnoticed for their careers? I hated Tony Parker without having much of a reason why. He’s as quick, as resourceful, as effective as most star point guards in the league. But somehow, he isn’t as fun. Manu Ginobili is the most creative wing in the game and easily one of the best two-way players. But the first thing that comes to mind is flopping. Parker and Ginobili provided quirkiness and improvisation to a set system, yet the image of the whole is more powerful than the individual. The Popovichean system drapes a grayish veil over the players, keeping them grounded as cogs in a larger work, but also keeps their dynamism largely imperceptible to the fan.

I’ve seen the King of the Hill series finale at least five times now, and it hasn’t gotten old yet. The show’s a lot more fun to watch when you can relate. In its 13 years, King of the Hill was often used as a stop-gap on Sundays to fill in for the absence of more showy, more excitable series. It carved out a niche for itself, staying grounded as only a show with Hank Hill as the protagonist can. The show sat in that 7:30 p.m. timeslot so comfortably, it was easy to forget it existed at all. But those who were keen enough to tune in found a show with warmth and heart. It didn’t harass you with laughter, but its stories made sure you were smirking throughout the ride.

“We get guys who want to do their job and go home and aren’t impressed with the hoopla,” says Popovich. “One of the keys is to bring in guys who have gotten over themselves. They either want to prove that they can play in this league—or they want to prove nothing. They fill their role and know the pecking order. We have three guys who are the best players, and everyone else fits around them.”

via The Tao of Pop | Sports Illustrated, L. Jon Wertheim (3/9/09)

There are only so many more years that the Spurs can stave off extinction. They can continue to reboot their supporting cast, but their main attraction is breaking down. Duncan carries the same dispassionate demeanor of his youth, but his body is wearing away. What are the Spurs without their ultimate embodiment, their protagonist? What happens when the Duncan leaves the game for good? King of the Hill’s finale provides us with clues, but no definitive answer. The torch was passed on at the end of the show as Hank and his son Bobby finally found common ground in their tumultuous relationship. But it’s a TV show. There was no doubt of that happening. Hank Hill was based on many men, and his relationship with his son was based on many family relationships. But in the NBA, there will only ever be one Tim Duncan.

Makes me wonder how we’ll remember these Spurs once they’re gone. They’ve killed a lot of beauty in their day. They’ve created a lot too.

 “I wonder if…a part of us is sort of sad that everything about our life now can basically be told before it happens. And every time we see these situations like Tebow or Lin, where it just makes no sense whatsoever, and everyone was wrong, it makes people happy.” – Chuck Klosterman, B.S. Report podcast 2/17/12

We live in a society that craves information. Whether it’s our daily lives of accessing news via Twitter or consuming advanced statistics for various sports that we never could have conceived a decade ago, the need to put facts and numerical values behind what we experience in everyday life has become a near necessity. Every once in a while, however, it’s time to put the numbers away and just accept things for how they are as they happen. Maybe, as Klosterman put it, this is why we’re enjoying the Jeremy Lin Experience so much. Sure, there are numbers associated with him (e.g. seven game winning streak, 38 points against the Lakers, 15 assists versus Dallas, etc.), but years from now, we’ll remember the feelings we had watching him more than any statistics.

On the flip side, for those of you that live in the present, don’t care about how we’ll remember the Lin Era, and crave information here and now, I’ve got you covered. More specifically, basketball-reference.com’s new Play Index Plus has you covered. If you haven’t checked it out, I highly encourage you to do so if you are into breaking down stats like never before. Using Play Index Plus, I pulled some numbers on Jeremy Lin’s performance thus far. Let’s take a look “Linside the Numbers” through this past Sunday’s games.

HOME AND AWAY SPLITS

Home is where the heart is, and it’s also where Lin feels most comfortable shooting the basketball as he shoots significantly higher from the floor in New York than on the road. Though this generally is the case with many players in the league, the fact that he’s doing it in Madison Square Garden has been one of the more stunning aspects of the story. To come in as an undrafted kid and light up the most famous arena in the world the way he has is a tremendous accomplishment. For the past two and a half weeks, he has turned MSG into a must see, Broadway-level show and single handedly re-energized a fan base that had all but given up hope on the season. They say that big time players step up in big time games; so far, Lin has stepped up on the biggest stage that we have in the NBA.

QUARTER BREAKDOWN

Lin has done an exceptional job starting and closing games; his first and fourth quarters are clearly where he excels. Unfortunately for the Knicks, his first quarter performance has not translated into total team success. Through Sunday, in the seven games that Lin started, the Knicks have led after the first quarter four times. Contrast that to the fourth quarter in which the Knicks have outscored their opposition in the fourth in seven of the eight games Lin has played in during the Linsanity stretch. Though there’s no way to conclusively prove why he has been such an effective closer, my assumption is that due to the 66 game schedule this year, other teams are already beginning to wear down from playing so many games in such a short period of time. Lin, on the other hand, has fresher legs than almost everyone after coming in mid-season which allows him to have just enough extra energy to blow by defenders late in games.

SHOT CHART

You’ll notice the shaded red area on the left side of the court. Take a good look at it; your eyes are not deceiving you. Yes, everything you have heard thus far about how much Lin loves to go right is true, and few things make it more clear than this. I’m not sure how best to put this in perspective. That Lin has made six more shots from the left side of the key than you or I have? That he’s made one shot  from the left side for every letter in KNICKS? If you want to dig further, you’ll find that three of the six makes, all of them deep in the corner, came against the Lakers meaning that in the 18 other games he has appeared in this year, he’s made three shots from the left side. In theory, the game plan is to simply force him right. In practice, he is quick enough to split the defense and penetrate the paint to avoid going left.

Luckily for Lin, the entire floor is open to him, and he has been able to take advantage of it. Lin does a fantastic job of getting to the hoop as he has 60 FGA at the rim thus far. Going by the percentages, Lin is most comfortable shooting the mid-range jumper; he is knocking down those shots (10 feet-3 point line) at a .605 clip thus far.  From beyond the arc though, Lin struggles by converting only 32% of his attempts. Of course, he did make the big one when it counted…

COMPARISON TO OTHER TOP POINT GUARDS

At the end of the day, most people want to know if Lin is merely a product of hype as a result of a combination of playing in America’s largest media market and his underdog background story or if he really can compete with some of the best point guards in the league.  The following charts compare him to two point guards also playing their first full NBA season (Kyrie Irving and Ricky Rubio), two all-around point guards (Steve Nash and Chris Paul), and a true scoring point guard (Derrick Rose).  I took a look at Assist Percentage, Turnover Percentage, Offensive Rating, Defensive Rating, and Player Efficiency Rating.

ASSIST PERCENTAGE AND TURNOVER PERCENTAGE

As someone who has been painted as a primarily scoring point guard, you might expect Lin’s Assist Percentage to be lower than the star PGs in the league, but he actually holds up well. Paul is in a class of his own when it comes to doling out assists, but you hear much more about Rubio’s assists than Lin when they are, in fact, very similar. Irving has the lowest Assist Percentage out of this group primarily due to being forced to be a scoring point guard and, based on watching Cavs games this year, his teammates failing to convert open opportunities set up by him. Rose has one of the most talented teams in the league surrounding him, but he too is looked at as a scoring first guard.

The Turnover Percentage stats are more interesting. People are quick to point out that the biggest flaw in Lin’s game is how much he turns the ball over, but since he was forced to shoulder so much of the load on a New York team without Amar’e and Carmelo, his Turnover Percentage wasn’t as bad as you’d think. While it’s the second highest out of this group examined, it is comparable to Steve Nash this year. The real surprise is that Lin’s TO% of 20.2 is nearly identical to Nash’s TO% in the 2004-05 season (20.3); you may recall this is the year that Nash won the NBA MVP. Not that I’m in any way advocating Lin for MVP, just pointing out that given the number of times Lin had to handle the ball, his turnover problem may be slightly overblown for the time being.

OFFENSIVE RATING AND DEFENSIVE RATING

At least Lin is consistent with where he ranks with this group: second to last amount of points created, second best points allowed.  Yes, this is yet another statistic in which Chris Paul cements his status as best true point guard in the league. Lin’s overall contribution of +3 (ORtg-DRtg) is on par with Irving, Nash, and Rubio thus far in the season. Everyone has been so enamored with his offensive explosion that Lin’s defense has largely been both underrated and under reported on during this stretch. Of these point guards, Lin leads in blocks per 36 minutes (0.6, tied with Irving), Block Percentage (1.3%, tied with Irving), steals per 36 minutes (3.0), and Steal Percentage (4.2%). Is he Gary Payton? Absolutely not. He is able to competently defend opposing point guards which, combined with Tyson Chandler handling the paint, has shifted the paradigm from previous years’ “The Knicks can’t play defense!” narrative to them being a top ten defense in the league.

PLAYER EFFICIENCY RATING

Lastly, we’ll look at how Lin compares with his Player Efficiency Rating, the best one-number metric we currently have to measure a player’s performance. How does Lin check out?  Let’s see…comparable to Nash, slightly ahead of Rose, significantly ahead of Rubio, slightly behind (odds on favorite Rookie of the Year) Kyrie Irving, and well behind (best pure PG in the NBA) Chris Paul. Not too bad, Mr. Lin. The real test will come throughout the rest of the season as Lin learns to work with Carmelo Anthony. As the burden of handling the ball as much is reduced, I would expect to see Lin’s scoring and assist numbers decrease which will most likely have a negative effect on  PER.

What can we say overall? Yes, the hype for Lin is multiplied exponentially due to the fact that he plays for New York; however, Linsanity is more than just a feel good story. He has put up solid numbers thus far and would be a good point guard no matter where he played.  The fun part will come when he regresses to the mean like so many others who have had hot starts in their career; what we don’t know is exactly what his mean looks like. Regardless, he will be sure to hold our Linterest as the season progresses.

Photo by barryhorneotf on Flickr

Well, this was fun.

Tuesday afternoon, Marc Juliar and I sat down and talked ball. We call this Pod Shammpod.

We’ll be doing this on a regular basis and inviting guests to join us. On our first episode, we chatted to Beckley Mason of ESPN.com and HoopSpeak about bad haircuts, player development, and hero coaching.

Photo by Lea Lea from Flickr

So as you’ve probably heard by now Greg Oden is having another surgery on his leg. This isn’t so much news as it is a perpetuation of some twisted, mutilated version of the circle of life. At this point we’ve all come to expect it. We know the story; we’ve grieved over the tragedy, examined, analyzed and expounded upon the loss and heartbreak. We tried to contextualize and comprehend the visceral sadness that accompanied Greg Oden; we found ourselves looking for some meaning or cruel truth about fate in one man’s very unfortunate draw. We defended Greg Oden, remained adamant that he was the correct pick. We hoped that he could get healthy. We held on tightly to the small samples of his performances; we pointed to his extremely high PER and phenomenal rebounding numbers. We salivated and yearned at the possibility. We knew that if he did he’d prove to people he was a once in a generation center, the next in line behind Russell, Kareem, Hakeem, and Shaq. We dreamed of a Roy-Aldridge-Oden tandem hoisting the O’Brien trophy, bringing this city the triumph it so earnestly and desperately covets. We made jokes to cope, curbing the pang of loss with the fleeting relief of a one liner. We waited, delaying what we all seemed to know was inevitable. We were sure that if we just gave it time that eventually he’d be healthy. We were dejected. We were beaten down, defeated. But this is different.

When the Oden news broke it wasn’t accompanied with the usual depression and dejection. I didn’t feel the inescapable sadness or feel the need to come to grips with yet another devastating injury. There was no bargaining, no hoping, no “just give him time to get healthy.” To be honest, there was nothing. I felt totally absent. The anger, the despair, the inherent defensiveness that had become inextricably linked to these seemingly annual surgery reports was replaced by an emptiness. For whatever reason I couldn’t feel. I was detached, numb.

I’m still not totally sure what to make of my reaction. Maybe with Brandon Roy’s retirement the illusion was gone. Maybe in some ways I’d already resigned myself to this fate. Maybe it was to the point where Greg Oden felt more like an ethereal concept than a tangible person, that somehow talking about or knowing anything about Greg Oden was like trying to realize utopia.  Maybe I had moved on. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I couldn’t handle it anymore. Maybe I was protecting myself. Maybe in this case sports had gotten a little too real.

What I do know is that I have the luxury of displacement. These aren’t my knee injuries, this isn’t my life.  I can replace the unfulfilled promise of Oden dominance with Lamarcus Aldridge turnarounds and Nicolas Batum chase down blocks. I can renew my faith and continue my enjoyment of sports through different vessels. That’s the nature of fandom. We can feel the pain, we can empathize and wax poetic about the injustice but we don’t face the real  consequences.

For Greg Oden there is no escape, there’s no distance. The knee injuries aren’t simply news or another chapter in a franchises historically awful luck. For Greg this is life. His existence has come to be defined by horrible injuries and crippling disappointment.  There’s no way to totally comprehend how devastating this must be. There’s a lot of power in that absence; sometimes nothingness can speak volumes. I have no idea how Greg Oden must be feeling.  Maybe that’s why I’m so lost.

Via Flickr - Irargerich

It was a truncated lockout season in the NBA. A lockout season where an upstart was trying to knock off a favorite.  A favorite with a platoon of prominent players that had not yet graced digits with that most coveted of rewards, a championship ring. I speak of course of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat. Or do I?

There are parallels to be drawn. The 1999 lockout season featured a pair of teams crossing the compressed finish line tied for the best record in the NBA, and as we speak the Heat and Thunder each stand atop their respective conferences, tied for tops in the league at 25-7. But the favorites I refer to are the ’99 Utah Jazz and upstart-at-the-time San Antonio Spurs who had recently lucked out against all odds and landed a future all-timer in Tim Duncan whom they could throw at current best-power-forward-of-all-time Karl Malone.

At that time the Spurs and Jazz were unfortunately not only in the same conference, but also in the now defunct-due-to-realignment Midwest Division. Utah had run headlong into his magnificent Airness, Michael Jordan, the pair of previous Finals, but MJ had now retired (again), leaving an open lane for the John Stockton and Karl Malone-led Jazz to roll right to the Larry O’Brien hoop trophy unabated.

Despite attempting to replicate the recipe of the last NBA champs not named the Chicago Bulls to a degree, the Houston Rockets, the Spurs’ “power centers” Tim Duncan and 1994-95 MVP David Robinson had been unable to supplant the Jazz’s mighty trio of Malone, Stockton, and Jeff Hornacek, getting blasted out of the West playoffs the year before 4-1 by Utah. The Jazz were heavily favored to go all the way this time after reaching the conference finals five of the last seven years and the Finals for two straight, losing one of the late-spring series to MJ and Co. by a total point differential of only four points.

But it was not to be.

As it happens, these two powerhouses wouldn’t even get the chance to clash on the court in the accelerated ’99 playoffs as the Jazz would plow through most of the regular season only to run out of gas near end.

The Jazz finished a [tied-for] league-best 37-13 in 1999 but limped to a 5-5 finish over the last 10 games before struggling, by their mighty standards, in the playoffs. A middling Sacramento team took Utah the distance in the first round, and the Blazers eliminated the Jazz in six games in the second round.

 -Zach Lowe, The Point Forward

I remember that Portland series vividly, even though it happened more than a decade ago. The Jazz won game 1 at home by 10. But then lost game 2, by 3 points. Arvydas Sabonis was a huge man who devoured the paint. Isaiah Rider scored 27 points in that game, and Rasheed Wallace had three blocks and three steals. Worst of all Brian Grant went to the line more than Karl Malone did – and even finished the game with the same number of points…the Blazers broke the Jazz’ serve, and then were beat in Game 3 by 10 points. The Blazers went to the line endlessly in that game – 50 times. Utah also turned the ball over 16 times, and shot (as a team) only 38.9 fg%.

-AllThatJazzBasketball, SLCDunk

The Jazz weren’t just aging; they were ancient, and considering what happened to them after 1999 (and what happened to the Kings, too), perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised they struggled against Sacramento and Portland — a team went 35-15, by the way. Utah’s three best players (Karl Malone, Jeff Horancek and John Stockton) were 36, 36 and 37, respectively, by the end of July 1999, and the roster did not feature a single young player worthy of starting in the NBA.

-Zach Lowe, The Point Forward

Just how “ancient” were those Jazz that were so burnt out and beat down by the time they reached the postseason that they made abundant uncharacteristic mistakes and missed shots? Through the 1999 NBA season, the Big 3 of Malone, Stockton, and Hornacek had played a combined 108,786 NBA minutes (minutes being a more accurate measure of wear and tear than actual age). And the former were legendarily durable and conditioned in a mythical way only less than a handful of players in the league’s annals can lay claim to even approaching.

These present Spurs can boast no such thing, and taking into account a kind estimate of Manu Ginobili’s seven years of professional service prior the Spurs at 1,500 minutes per-season, San Antonio’s Big 3 will have played something very near to 95,497 minutes by season’s end.

In other words, they’re ripe for the picking and supplanting by, oh, I don’t know, the OKC Thunder.

Who may just turn around and run into this era’s version of the ’90s Bulls, the Miami Heat.

Potentially over and over again.

___

A couple of fun nuggets uncovered in the course of researching this piece:

• The current Spurs are through 32 games and on an eleven-game win streak. Beginning at game 30 of the 1999 lockout-shortened season the Utah Jazz ripped off a win streak too — of eleven games

• Through 32 games of the ’99 season the Jazz were 26-6. Through 32 games of the current season the best record is held by the Miami Heat and OKC Thunder at 25-7

• In ’99, a younger Spurs started the season somewhat slower through 32 games, but still a very warm 22-10. However, they would finish the regular season 13-1 beating the now-stumbling Jazz twice, holding them to a mere 78 and 69 points, and demolish everything they ran into in the playoffs sweeping both the Los Angeles Lakers and aforementioned Portland Trail Blazers en route to a 15-2 postseason record for a combined 28-3 finish to their initial title run that culminated in a steamrolling of the unlikely upstart New York Knicks

Jeremy Lin anyone?

Funny how history can be so cyclical.

___

“Failure can prepare you for success.”

-Avery Johnson

If you’ve noticed any other parallels let me know, I’d love to hear about ‘em.