Jordan Pushed Off

Jeremy Lin Is Amazing and Banal

2012-02-15T10:36:00.006-05:00

I blogged before at this site about Jeremy Lin, over three years ago in January 2009. Since then, Lin finished college in June of 2010, joined the Golden State Warriors for the following season, hopped aboard Houston's roster for a few days in December of 2011, and finally found his way to New York. As the undrafted, twice-cut Lin has risen to crazy prominence with his excellent play for the Knicks this month, it is time to revisit this nascent star with some new thoughts.

Via my personal (not my blog-based) email account earlier this week, I was approached by, separately, a New York-based talent agent and a New York-based journalist from one of the major television networks. Both of these individuals wanted to get in touch with Jeremy Lin: one to represent him in his putative Hollywood career and one to speak with him for a career-making interview. My connection with Lin is merely tenuous -- while I have never met him and I am 8 years older than him, I do know a couple of his friends and my name happens to appear on a certain webpage near his. But I was struck that the frenzy over Lin had suddenly made me important -- not for anything I did, but for my apparent indirect value in getting to Lin. (I was not able to help the entreators, as I have no clue how to contact the young Knick.) If I am getting these requests, then I wonder who else is, and what of the people who actually know Lin? Fame must be hard, and knowing a famous person must be hard, as all sorts of strangers suddenly want a piece of you, to help feed the public's thirst for heroes and demigods.

I have not seen any other writer note that with Lin, Christianity has returned to the Knicks, evoking thoughts of the regular Bible study circles that Charlie Ward, Allan Houston, and Kurt Thomas held 10 or 12 years ago during the Knicks' last era of quality ball. The much-lampooned "Nerd Handshake" between Lin and Landry Fields (a Stanford graduate) ends with a finger pointed upwards to the glory of God. And Tyson Chandler, New York's steady center, has a crucifix tattooed on his right arm. I am not aware of any other religiously observant players on the current Knicks roster; Amare Stoudemire may or may not be a converted Jew, but aside from donning the occasional yarmulke, I am not aware that he follows the Jewish rituals. At any rate, overt religious faith seems somewhat uncommon in NBA circles (in contradistinction to the NFL, where many players besides just Tim Tebow credit their maker for touchdowns), and Lin is changing things in New York.

I enjoyed J.A. Adande's article published today on ESPN.com, describing how Lin thrives in New York (but not in Oakland or Houston) because his strengths fit Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni's offensive scheme. Adande does not delve enough into the details of the "system", but D'Antoni gives his point guards freedom to dribble the ball all over the court, often moving off ball screens, waiting for something good to happen. To profit from this liberty, a PG needs skilled handle, great vision and passing ability, the ability to finish at the rim when the paint gets crowded, and deadly shooting ability for the moments when defenders hang back to deny any penetration. Steve Nash had plenty of this. Even Ray Felton had a bit last season. Chauncey Billups (at the end of 2010-11) and Toney Douglas (at the start of 2011-12) did not. Lin's herky-jerky driving mechanics are suited well to D'Antoni's plan.

This article from the New York Times published today suggests that every Taiwanese person has paid careful attention in real time to Knick games during the past 10 days, despite the 13-hour time difference between New York City and Taiwan. Other reports indicate that millions of Chinese mainlanders are following Lin daily like a cat eyeing a laser toy. These stories simply struck me that the American self-conception as the world's "indispensible nation" may still have some currency (and that the traditional Chinese casting as the "Middle Kingdom", 中国, may have less than total salience), despite recent economic strides in other large countries. Can you imagine the same type of hysteria in the States over, say, a skinny American midfielder scoring multiple goals for Chelsea or Liverpool? It wouldn't happen, though we know the world's finest soccer is played in Europe. To the Chinese, at least, athletic success on American terms is where it's at. (China's national athletic authority has cultivated young athletes to succeed at gymnastics and hurdles, rather than traditional tug-of-war or cuju.)

Can Lin keep up his great play from the past six games? Of course, a few players in the past have tossed aside a shroud and flashed into the spotlight with sudden bursts of greatness. Consider Ronald "Flip" Murray's play in the first month of the 2003-04 season, when he averaged 22 points per game while starting at off-guard for Seattle in relief of the injured Ray Allen. Murray never again reclaimed the same levels of performance in his career after that torrid stretch. Or, going back several more years, recall what rookie Negele Knight did for Phoenix towards the end of the end of the 1990-91 season, averaging 24 points and 11 assists in a five-game stretch while incumbent point guard Kevin Johnson recovered from an injury. And, well, who remembers Negele Knight? On the other hand, Lin could, in the event, grow into a career like that of Tom Brady, a sixth-round draft pick who became a Hall Of Fame-level talent after an injury to Drew Bledsoe cleared room for the youngster. (The undrafted Ben Wallace or the Arena Football League veteran Kurt Warner are also hopeful templates for Lin.) Who knows? Only time, the adjustments of opposing coaches, and the dedication of Lin will decide if he can sustain this play. At the least, he needs to cut down his turnovers.

Finally, I hope that the media fuss over Lin abates if he continues to play at a high level. Russell Westbrook delivered 22 and 8 in game after game last season, but his reliable play is not deemed "magical" or "Russdiculous", even though he never manned point guard before entering the Association. That is just what Westbrook does. Similarly, we may soon need to adjust our perceptions of Lin if he sustains his big numbers and his penchant for winning. Just as Darko Milicic should not be blamed for being drafted at a position above his ability level, Jeremy Lin should not be patronized as a hard-luck, low-odds, small-school miracle merely because the best college basketball program that recruited him was Harvard. Lin, the Northern California Division II player of the year in 2006, deserved to go to a major hoops university and it didn't happen. He tore up legitimate teams like Boston College or the University of Connecticut during Harvard's non-conference games. He is still of the same caliber as other 2010 draft picks like Evan Turner or Wesley Johnson.

Commitment-phobes Rule the League

2012-01-24T12:07:00.009-05:00

In a normal offseason, contract extensions for 2008 draftees would have been completed by October 31st, 2011 and no later. However, thanks to the now-pummelled lockout, no transactions could be completed last summer, and the contract extension deadline has been moved to January 25th, i.e., tomorrow. Strangely, we have not heard much news of contract extensions lately: compare this to October of 2010, when Kevin Durant and Al Horford and Mike Conley, Jr. and Joakim Noah all extended their deals, or the fall of '09, when Rondo, Roy, Bargnani, Aldridge, and Rudy Gay all re-upped with their teams. Thus far, from among the 2008 draftees, only Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook have signed contract extensions, both committing through the 2016-17 season. What of the un-extended players?

Let us consider every first-round draft pick from 2008 (different contract rules apply to second-rounders), ignoring Rose and Westbrook. I will ignore players who have not succeeded as regular rotation members: this set includes Joe Alexander, Anthony Randolph, Marreese Speights, Alexis Ajinca, Kosta Koufos, and J.R. Giddens. (Of late, Speights has earned some starting time in Memphis, but that is due to injuries to the Grizzlies' two other power forwards, Darrell Arthur and Zach Randolph. Speights earned no floor time in Philadelphia, a young team with no backup big men.)

Michael Beasley: This is an easy one. Beasley has proved personally and athletically mercurial. The Timberwolves have a power forward from the 2008 draft in Kevin Love (discussed below), a small forward from the 2010 draft in Wesley Johnson, and a "tweener" forward from the 2011 draft in Derrick Williams. With this array of talent, the Wolves need not keep Beasley beyond this season (recall that they obtained him in 2010 for merely a second-round draft pick, so they have little psychological investment in him). Perhaps they could try to trade him during this season, or next July in a sign-and-trade when he becomes a restricted free agent.

O.J. Mayo: Despite frequent trade rumors during the past 12 months, Mayo contributed to Memphis's surprising playoff run last spring and is sniping the ball with rare accuracy this season. The Grizzlies reportedly will not extend his contract this week, but they still hope he will stay around for a few more years. This is likely a wise move; Mayo will expect money worthy of the third pick in the draft, but with Tony Allen expertly manning the shooting guard position with "grit and grind" for Memphis, paying him that salary would be daft. Mayo will likely command more in the restricted-free-agent market than Grizzlies management wishes to pay him.

Kevin Love: Well, of course. If the insane scoring and rebounding are not persuasive, how about the unusually skilled passing and shooting for a big man? The Timberwolves reportedly will offer Kevin Love a four-year extension through 2015-16. SI.com's Zach Lowe assesses this potential deal and finds it fair. If the Wolves' refusal to include a fifth year deters Love from signing, general manager David Kahn should be fired. At any rate, NBA.com's Steve Aschburner has a good discussion, published here today, of the negotiating dynamics between Love and the team.

Danilo Gallinari: After the trade of Carmelo Anthony, Gallo has emerged as Denver's best player. He scored 37 points in a double-OT win over Anthony and the Knicks last Saturday -- "out-Meloing Melo", as the Denver Post termed it. Denver has a strong young core with Ty Lawson, Nene Hilario, Corey Brewer, and Arron Afflalo already under contract (and Wilson Chandler likely returning soon). Extend Gallinari and continue developing a roster of swift young colts.

Eric Gordon: Gordon has been injured with a bad knee for most of this young season, and he missed 20 games in 2009-2010 and 26 games in 2010-11. His fragility can't help his case. Still, in his third season with the Clippers, he averaged 22 points and over 4 assists, dueling with James Harden for the honor of best young shooting guard in the league. He is the Hornets' best player, though he was unhappy about being pushed out of Los Angeles and reportedly felt in December like leaving New Orleans as soon as possible. More recently, with big money about to slip through his fingers and wash over the deadline cliff, Gordon has expressed interest in signing an extension. With the Hornets co-owned by the other 29 owners, however, and the joint owners trying to minimize long-term financial obligations for the next owner, team GM Demps has a difficult time negotiating and executing big transactions like this one, as we saw in the Chris Paul trade talks. If I were Demps and I had any kind of authority, I would ink Gordon to a contract extension. The injuries are worrisome, but it has been a different body part in each season (groin, wrist, knee) and he can really go when healthy.

D.J. Augustin: Augustin has played decently this season (check his numbers) but the Bobcats' drafting of NCAA champion Kemba Walker does not evince much confidence in Augustin at the point guard position. The Bobcats hardly know if their team can win more than ten games this season or next. Extending Augustin would be a mistake.

Brook Lopez: This one perplexes me. Why hasn't NJ signed Lopez to a speedy re-up? New Jersey wants to trade Lopez for Dwight Howard. But Lopez is of little value to Orlando if not signed beyond 2011-12. If Lopez wanted to leave Orlando, then under the CBA rules, Lopez could accept Orlando's qualifying offer for 2012-13, then sign anywhere as an unrestricted free agent in July of '13. Sure, Lopez would be leaving some money on the table in 2012-13 and risking that injury during the 2012-13 campaign might ruin his long-term value. But under league rules, a determined player can leave his team fairly readily. So again, why would Orlando trade for a player whose contract will soon end? New Jersey should extend Lopez's contract if it is at all serious about building a winning squad. He is the best player on the team save Deron Williams, and Williams looks set to leave later this summer as an unrestricted free agent if the team cannot land Howard. So if the Nets can trade for Howard, an extended Lopez is valuable; and if the Nets cannot trade for Howard, an extended Lopez is still valuable. Do this deal. Lopez's broken foot is worrisome, but this injury should not dog him beyond this season.

Jerryd Bayless: No. Amazing to think that Bayless and Westbrook were considered interchangeable options leading up to the '08 draft.

Jason Thompson: Thompson has drifted in and out of the Kings' starting lineup during the past four years. Sacramento now fields two power forwards from the 2008 draft, in Thompson and J.J. Hickson (mentioned below). They surely cannot extend both-- but could they extend one and not the other? That sounds disastrous for team chemistry, and probably not justified on basketball grounds, as neither player has consistently excelled. Put it this way: Could Thompson or Hickson be a starter on a championship-level team? Well, Hickson actually did start for a title contender in Cleveland in 2010, so I suppose anything is possible, but neither man has impressed much in Sacramento. I would wait to see how Thompson and Hickson perform with DeMarcus Cousins in new coach Keith Smart's system before making long-term decisions on their contracts.

Brandon Rush: Rush, the 13th pick in the 2008 draft, is a middling bench player for Golden State, having been recently traded from Indiana for "energy guy" Louis Amundson, who brings little more than defensive disruption. Rush is performing well this year, shooting the ball at 50% from the field and over 50% from 3-point range, but he looks at Monta Ellis manning his position during player introductions every night. Nor is Rush a handy sixth starter like Jason Terry or James Harden: Rush hardly rebounds or assists, and he failed to impress while starting for Indiana last season. So long as the Warriors remain committed to Ellis, extending Rush would be a mistake.

Roy Hibbert: The local paper in Indy reports that the Pacers will not offer Hibbert an extension. Odd decision, as the Georgetown product is killing it this season, most recently helping his team edge out the Lakers by 2 points on Sunday in Staples Center. Hibbert averages 14 points, 10 rebounds, 1.5 blocks, and a number of defensive intimidations every night. The Pacers have a solid young roster with Darren Collison, Tyler Hansbrough, George Hill, Paul George, and Hibbert. (Other starters Danny Granger and David West are still solidly in their prime, but could not be reasonably deemed "young".) I can't understand why the Pacers would not want to lock up Hibbert, unless they are seeking to retain salary-cap room for a significant free-agent signing (Eric Gordon? Heck, Dwight Howard?) later this summer.

Robin Lopez: With Marcin Gortat excelling as their starting center, Lopez is not a vital cog to the Suns. And team president Lon Babby told a reporter yesterday that he does not intend to extend Lopez.

JaVale McGee: McGee is the Wizards' only young big man with promise (I exclude Andray Blatche from that category). Though his defense positioning is sometimes wanting, he averages 11 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 blocks in this young season, making him statistically an apparent top-10 center. (For the curious, the others would include Dwight Howard, Andrew Bynum, DeAndre Jordan, Marc Gasol, Andrew Bogut, Samuel Dalembert, Marcin Gortat, Al Jefferson, and Roy Hibbert, with Tyson Chandler just excluded.) The Wizards fired their coach, Flip Saunders, earlier today after a 2-15 start. With a new helmsman taking over in DC today, perhaps McGee will further develop his offensive game. However, I don't believe McGee should be rewarded at this time for contributing to such a wretched squad. The Wizards can likely retain McGee by matching any offer sheet he signs as a restricted free agent this July.

J.J. Hickson: See Thompson discussion above.

Ryan Anderson: Another writer has already considered the question of Anderson's extension: Oh hell, yes. With Dwight Howard, Anderson is a terror on the perimeter and a solid rebounder. Extending him could help persuade Howard to stay past this season. Without Dwight Howard, Anderson's role could shrink, as he has not yet developed much of a post-up or face-up game. Anderson is a good man to have on your roster with Dwight Howard in the middle, but I cannot determine his value in the counterfactual world without Howard. (As a Net rookie in 2008-09, his numbers were poor in 20 MPG, but [A] he was a rookie, and [B] it was the Nets.) Strangely, I have not read any reports of a looming contract extension for him. The case is close, but given the uncertainty over Howard's tenure, I would not extend Anderson. Likely, the team can match a RFA offer for him next summer.

Courtney Lee: Lee started on Orlando's 2009 Finals team (and nearly won Game 2 against the Lakers with a spectacular inbound oop-to-layup play that tragically failed) before he was deemed expendable the following summer, traded for Vince Carter. Since then, Lee was a reliable starter for the 2009-10 Nets, but got traded again in the fall of 2010 as part of the four-team, five-man Hornets-Pacers-Nets-Rockets trade. In Houston, Lee has struggled to find playing time behind wing players such as Kevin Martin, Shane Battier, Chase Budinger, and now Chandler Parsons. If you can't beat out a Chase and a Chandler, you may not be that good. And Lee, who played four years in college, is already 26 and may not have much more improvement in him. Needless to say, an extension would be foolish. Here, though, is perhaps the highlight of Lee's career:

Serge Ibaka: On a team with two offensive powerhouses, Ibaka plays his role very well: he cleans up missed shots and defends opposing forwards when the slender Kevin Durant cannot. He also produces about 2 blocks per game. Ibaka likely will develop his offensive game further in coming seasons (he is still only 22) but the Thunder seem to win quite well with him right now. Ibaka's contract should be extended... but actually, he will not be eligible for a contract extension until the 2012 offseason, because he did not actually debut in the NBA until November of 2009. Basketball common sense says that the Thunder should certainly extend both Ibaka and Harden later this year, but a P&L statement (with limited revenue in a relatively small market, the Thunder owners simply may not want to add so much salary and luxury tax to their payroll) may decide the team's move.

Nicolas Batum: A January 13th report in The Oregonian mentioned negotiations on Batum's extension, but nothing has been concluded yet (a report yesterday indicated that talks continue). Still just 23, Batum has been a sometime starter during his career; this season, Gerald Wallace has supplanted him as the Blazers' starting small forward, though the limited availability of Marcus Camby and the non-availability of Greg Oden has created starter-level minutes for Batum. (It helps that LaMarcus Aldridge can shift to center and Wallace to PF when needed.) While not a dominant scorer like other small forwards (see Gallinari, above), Batum is deadly from 3-point land and shoots free throws at a very high percentage. His long arms also make him a plus defender. With the Portland future of Camby and Oden highly questionable, Aldridge's future may be as a center-- and thus Batum should be pencilled in as the Blazers' small forward of the present and future. With Ray Felton's contract expiring this June, Portland has salary-cap flexibility. Extend quick Nic!

George Hill: Reports indicate that the Pacers are discussing the sketches of an extension with Hill's agent. While Hill, who shoots a stellar percentage for a guard, has outperformed Brandon Rush (whom Hill basically replaced as the first guard off the bench in Indiana), I would not extend Hill at this time; budding star Paul George already plays his position. With George's height, he appears bound for a SF role, which would mean the expulsion of Danny Granger-- perhaps for a true shooting guard. At any rate, the Pacers have been very financially careful in recent years since breaking up the Artest-Tinsley-Jackson-O'Neal team, and George Hill, while a very good player, is not worth the obligation it would cost them. They can probably lock up Hill at a reasonable price as a restricted free agent next July, after carefully considering what to do with their current roster.

Darrell Arthur: Arthur was a very good first big man off the bench last season for Memphis. However, he unfortunately tore his Achilles tendon last month and will miss the whole season. Were he healthy and still producing, I might advocate an extension, but his injury makes this decision clear.

Donte Greene: Greene has shown little excellence in any skill during his four years in Sacramento; he could not beat out Omri Casspi or Travis Outlaw as the team's small forward, and he consistently shoots over two 3-pointers nightly despite a 30% (or less) success rate. Not a chance.

D.J. White: White, formerly a benchwarmer in Oklahoma City, has received stepped-up exposure this season for the woeful Bobcats. White can ball (10 points and 5 rebounds in 25 MPG) but with Tyrus Thomas also on the roster, an extension for White seems ill-advised at this time, especially with only a dozen games to judge him on.

So to review, I am recommending extensions for six players in addition to Rose and Westbrook: Love, Gallinari, Gordon, Brook Lopez, Hibbert, & Batum. While eight extensions is more than previous draft classes enjoyed, the '08 draft was unusually deep. Why not?

Miami Pulls A Santorum, Upsets Atlanta

2012-01-06T00:06:00.007-05:00

Miami, missing its top two stars, edged a mostly healthy (except for Kirk Hinrich) Atlanta squad in triple overtime last night, an extremely long game that pre-empted the entire first half of TNT's Lakers-Blazers match.

(My headline metaphor doesn't quite pass, because Rick Santorum did not quite defeat Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses, but please work with me.) Atlanta had seemingly all the advantages last night: a home crowd, a wounded enemy with James and Wade out, and the confidence from beating the Heat on the latter's home floor earlier this week. They also had three separate overtime periods to tire out and over-score the poorly staffed Heat, but they failed in each opportunity. The performance was embarrassing, as the TNT announce crew repeatedly noted. Still, it is just one game. A few observations on this night:

Atlanta's starters shot 21-for-66 in the 63 minutes of game action. Miami's best remaining defenders, Joel Anthony and Shane Battier, did a good job of deflecting or intimidating shots; Battier proved manly in man coverage against the quicker Joe Johnson.

Atlanta big men Josh Smith and Al Horford had no answer for Chris Bosh, who was frequently able to bull his way to the hoop for layups.

As sharp an ax as Bosh wielded as he sliced through the Hawk defense, he presented an equally lipidinous barrier when Atlanta challenged him on the other end. 6'8" journeyman Ivan Johnson (click the link, a good profile) repeatedly barreled to the rim with dribble-drives as Bosh and Joel Anthony could not stop him.

The TNT broadcast crew pointed out that Atlanta's roster is the second-oldest in the league, at an average 29.2 years of age. However, this statistic is misleading: Josh Smith is 26 years and 1 month, Marvin Williams 25 years and 7 months, Al Horford 25 years and 7, Joe Johnson 30 and 6, and Jeff Teague 23 & 7. The average age of Atlanta's starting lineup is thus a bit over 26, hardly an ancient team. (Compare to the Mavs of Kidd-Carter-Haywood-Nowitzki-Marion, or the Spurs of Parker-Ginobili-Duncan-Jefferson-Blair, the Celtics of Rondo-Allen-O'Neal-Pierce-Garnett, or the Lakers of Fisher-Bryant-Bynum-Gasol-Barnes.) Atlanta's advanced dotage owes to older bench players like Tracy McGrady, Kirk Hinrich, Jason Collins, and -- especially -- 37-year-old Jerry Stackhouse, who appeared to be retired last season as a studio pundit on NBATV after getting cut by Miami. [I did a double-take when I noticed his name on Atlanta's roster for 2011-12.] Thanks to Atlanta's trade of 2010 draftee Jordan Crawford and a 2011 first-round pick for Hinrich last February, the Hawks are short on low-grade youth. Still, weighted by average minutes played, the average age of a Hawks player is likely no worse than average, although I have not done the calculations.

Related to a post I wrote in 2010, Miami has almost as much roster continuity as Atlanta's core of Johnson/Horford/Smith/Williams, who are in their fifth season together (the seventh season if we don't count Horford). Dwyane Wade, James Jones, Udonis Haslem, Joel Anthony, Mario Chalmers, and coach Erik Spoelstra have all been with Miami since the start of the 2008-09 season, making this their fourth rumba together. (Other experienced units include the same old squads I mentioned above: the aforementioned Lakers core sans Barnes, together since 2007-08, the Celtics core minus O'Neal, also together since 2007-08, Dallas's Kidd-Terry-Nowitzki core, also together that long, and the Spurs' Big Three, who are in their tenth season together.)

Turner Sports's Charles Barkley, usually assigned to halftime studio work, was instead staffed as a courtside color commentator on this night with Reggie Miller and Kevin Harlan. Why? I doubt this was pre-planned; TNT likely reacted to the injury absence of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade by redirecting Barkley from Turner Studios in Atlanta to the Heat game, which was conveniently at the Phillips Arena 2 miles away. The ratings gambit worked, at least for actor Jeremy Piven, who confessed on Twitter that he remained tuned in just for Barkley.

New Year's Hangover

2012-01-02T12:47:00.001-05:00

For several normally steady playmakers, the leather sphere felt like a tennis ball on Sunday. Waking up from New Year's Eve, these fellows couldn't play either offense or defense.

Kobe Bryant: 6 for 28, -17 plus-minus (the worst on his team)

DJ Augustin: 1 for 11, -21 plus-minus

Rudy Gay: 2 for 12, -36 plus-minus

Marco Bellinelli: 3 for 12, -13 plus-minus

Jason Richardson: 1 for 8, -22 plus-minus (by far the worst on his team; his backup, J.J. Redick, logged a +26)

The Week In Prose

2011-12-31T09:17:00.000-05:00

With the onset of NBA games, months of rank speculation in NBA media -- about labor negotiations, trade rumors, obscure tweets, and a lot of stuff untethered to the game -- has turned to actual analysis of on-court hoops in the past week. Here are the best articles we have found. We promise not to make this a regular feature, but the return of good sportswriting has been refreshing.

Sports Illustrated's Britt Robson on the debut of Ricky Rubio (and you should click the Youtube link embedded in the article).

Sports Illustrated's Lee Jenkins on coping with the aftermath of a failed trade.

Sports Illustrated's Sam Amick on Derrick Rose's personal habits.

Sports Illustrated's Zach Lowe on how the Heat handled a zone defense in their victory over Boston on Tuesday night.

ESPN.com's Ethan Sherwood Strauss on Dwight Howard's suitability to the current age of NBA game rules.

Blogger Devin Kharpertian showing why Andray Blatche is a low-quality defender.

Blogger Rob Mahoney breaks down a potential traveling violation on Dwyane Wade's game-winning shot against Charlotte from Wednesday night.

Howard Beck of the New York Times profiles the newly renamed Metta World Peace.

Stephen and Dell Not the Only Curry?

2011-12-30T15:32:00.006-05:00

In a blog post last year, we alerted readers to Satnam Singh Bhamara, a teenaged giant from Punjab in India who is turning heads in national and international competitions. Following that AOL Fanhouse article discussed therein, ESPN The Magazine profiled Bhamara in a lengthy piece published today:

THIRTY OR SO YEARS AGO, in the Indian state of Punjab, in a tiny village surrounded by rice paddies, miles from the nearest home with air conditioning or even with glass and screens on all its windows, there lived a teenage boy named Balbir Singh Bhamara who did what had once seemed impossible; he grew to be taller than his mother.

Balbir's father was a wheat farmer and miller with a string of glistening black water buffalo that gave milk as sweet as honey. His mother was 6'9", and young Balbir grew to be a little over seven feet tall -- the tallest person in the village. Everywhere the giant boy went, people told him he ought to play basketball, a game many of them had heard about but never seen.

[...]

And then one day another giant emerged: Balbir's middle child, a sweet and joyful boy named Satnam. When Satnam was 9 years old and already taller than most adults in the village, Balbir took the boy to a scruffy local court to play basketball, a game Balbir still barely understood. Satnam walked onto the court, utterly bewildered. He had misunderstood and thought his father was taking him to play volleyball. Predictably, the boy struggled. Balbir watched, feeling untroubled, undeterred -- happy, even.

Not long after they got back home, Balbir crossed the lumpy dirt courtyard that separated his small stable and mill from his even smaller house and mounted a hoop to the weathered brick wall. Balbir summoned his son to the courtyard and handed Satnam a new rubber basketball.

The family room was right inside. At the end of the workday, while others in the family strained to hear the little TV over the big kid's incessant banging of the ball against the wall, Balbir -- a man destined to become the second-tallest person in his village -- would just sit back, sip his tea with buffalo milk, stroke his long, graying beard and grin.

The exoticized, indeterminate, hazy, fablesque tone of the story (which other ballers grew up around mooing buffalo?) is odd but not surprising. Only the sensational gets clicked on that particular website. As we reminded readers last year, Bhamara is just a kid-- one of many playing hoops at a high level in India. His story may already be nothing more than typical. In any case, here is a UK-produced video about him:

Bhamara is not the only 7-footer of South Asian background to fall into the ken of serious scouts this year. The 80-inch-plus Bhullar brothers of Toronto, whose parents are from Punjab, both play for a prep school near Pittsburgh. Sim, the elder boy of the pair, is now in 12th grade and has committed to attend New Mexico State next fall (although, for unclear reasons, he will be academically ineligible to play ball in 2012-13).

Behold the Bhullars:

On Player Introductions

2011-12-24T17:49:00.002-05:00

The featured NBA personality of the past month has been Chris Paul, who was traded to the Lakers, then returned to the Hornets, then finally traded to the Clippers. Paired with Blake Griffin, Paul promises to mount an MVP-caliber season if he and Griffin keep their repaired knees healthy. One thing you can count on when the Clippers introduce Paul at their home opener will be his billing by the public address announcer: We will learn not that Paul was born and raised in the Winston-Salem, North Carolina area, nor that he played four pro seasons in New Orleans (and two in Oklahoma City), but that he attended Wake Forest University for two years. Throughout the league, university attendance, no matter the duration or the proximity to the player's hometown (in Paul's case, he attended college close to home, but many ballers do not), is made part of a player's brand. Of course, not every NBA player attended university -- at least those who entered the league before the 2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement. But team marketing staffs have thought of a simple solution for this problem: wherever LeBron James, for example, has played pro ball, he is billed at "6 foot 8, from St. Vincent - St. Mary's..." owing to his early entry to the NBA direct from high school. (Forward to 0:52 mark of video:)

Why, though, is a player's educational affiliation his most salient identifier? I tend not to introduce myself at parties by describing where I studied ten years ago; I might refer to my hometown, or what neighborhood I live in now. Minutiae like my high school or college are hardly relevant to my life today. Employers hardly care about my university affiliation, either: an adequate one is useful to get one's foot in the door, but for promotions and movement to different companies, it is recommendations and recent accomplishments that make the difference.

With my examples of Paul and James above, at least their schooling was only a few miles from their hometown, but top college basketball programs usually draw recruits from all around the country, or from other nations. Kevin Love, for example, spent his whole life in Oregon before passing through southern California for one college season after he finished high school in 2007. And following the '08 draft, he has lived in Minneapolis for over 3 years. Yet the Timberwolves announcer always reminds us that Love is from UCLA. Kevin Durant is a son of Maryland, yet his introduction pairs him with the University of Texas, where he spent approximately 7 months of his life, in the fall and winter of 2006-2007. Similarly, lifelong Torontonian Tristan Thompson, now of the Cavs, spent two prep years in New Jersey, one further high school season in Nevada, and a few collegiate months in Austin, Texas, before he entered the NBA draft last spring. Before each home game, Cavs fans will be reminded of the news that this Canadian is "from" Texas.

NBA fans with a moderately long memory will remember announcer Ray Clay's iconic introductory locution for Michael Jordan (backed by an addictive synthesizer hook from the Alan Parsons Project) before every game in Chicago: "From NORTH... Carolina... at guard, 6'6"... Michael... JORDAN!" At least in Jordan's case, the "North Carolina" appellation identified both his college and his homeland. But calling Tristan Thompson, of Brampton Ontario, a Texan is a bit of a stretch.

It is true that college is a singular moment in the lives of many young people: away from home for the first time, thrown together with young people with different backgrounds, staking their future on their ability to sit for exams and nail the answers, college students form very intense bonds with their new friends and with the institution. Years later, former students look first to their college ties for social connection and professional support; even Rudy Gay, who spent just one year at the U. of Connecticut, or Kyrie Irving, who played 10 games for Duke, look to their alma mater for a place to scrimmage in summertime.

Moreover, until twenty years ago, it was unusual for top young players to spend any fewer than two (and usually three) seasons in college ball; future MVPs Lew Alcindor, Bill Walton, Larry Bird, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Tim Duncan all spent four years on campus. Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O'Neal spent three. When Chris Webber left college after his sophomore season in 1993, he began to stress the three-season norm for college ballers that had mirrored the NFL's explicit no-sophomores rule, and afterwards entry by high school seniors (beginning with Kevin Garnett in '95) or college freshmen became more typical. Perhaps there was once a feeling in NBA circles that college truly was the most formative place for a young lad to learn the game, but things change.

Today, of course, high school and college student-athletes spend most of their non-official time attending summer academies sponsored by apparel companies, AAU tournaments, and tours through China. It is risible to argue that a few months in Lexington, Kentucky was the most defining period of John Wall's pre-pro life, after he grew up in rural North Carolina in a challenged family. Yet...

My co-blogger H.O.S.S. suggests that teams ask players how they would like to be introduced. Barring that, the smartest approach I have seen is the Chicago Bulls' introduction of Derrick Rose, who spent his whole life before college (including a celebrated high school basketall career) in the city of Chicago. Rose passed through John Calipari's point guard factory at the University of Memphis for one season before joining the NBA in 2008 -- returning to his hometown in Cook County. The Bulls do not pretend that his college half-year was the most salient time in his life, instead pleasing the home crowd by simply calling him "From Chicago" (forward to 4:52 mark of video):

(Of late, Rose has spent more of his free offseason time in Los Angeles than in Chicago, but why let facts get in the way of a good story?)

Robber Barons Up In The Frozen Tundra

2011-12-09T11:07:00.004-05:00

Last year I expressed dismay that Mike Ilitch, owner of the Detroit Red Wings and Detroit Tigers, was seeking to get his hands on the Pistons as well. In the event, a different buyer bought the Pistons from Karen Davidson and I was pleased.

Today comes news that Rogers Communications and Bell Canada are buying Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment from the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. Rogers and Bell will each have a 37.5% stake. Though MLSE, Rogers now is the effective co-controlling owner of the Raptors, Maple Leafs, Air Canada Centre, and (not mentioned in the Reuters article) Toronto FC of Major League Soccer. And Rogers already owns a controlling share of the Blue Jays and Skydome (er, excuse me, "Rogers Centre"). The only independently owned pro club in Toronto is now the Argonauts.

This cannot be good news for Toronto sports fans or cable TV subscribers. Rogers and Bell each own a cable TV channel (Sportsnet and TSN) and collectively they hope to corner the market on Leafs and Raptors broadcasts. Ticket prices and sports apparel will likely spike as well. Canada's Competition Bureau must stop this purchase.

More Changes In The Association This Season

2011-12-08T17:56:00.007-05:00

Today the NBA announced two important sets of changes for the 2011-12 season: one impacting on-court play, and one impacting off-court business matters. Both developments are positive, in my view.

The CBA
The new Collective Bargaining Agreement contains tweaks to numerous league protocols. Notably, the new CBA allows a player to renegotiate an existing contract for lower annual money but more years, if the annual salary reduction is no more than 40%. This provision would allow, say, Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony to take a bit less money in 2012-13 and beyond in order to create more salary-cap room for the Knicks to sign Chris Paul or another top free agent. [Reports Thursday indicate that the Knicks intend to sign Tyson Chandler to a large long-term contract that would cover 2012-13 and beyond. The contracts of those three guys would eat up most of the $58 MM salary cap. Theoretically, all three of Chandler, Stoudemire, and Anthony could agree to reduce their salaries sufficiently to make room for Paul at a large number; perhaps each of them could earn $13 MM annually, say.]

The new deal also sets the minimum team salary at (after a couple years of transition) 90 percent of the salary cap, rather than 75 percent. This provision will help further the goal of competitive balance; cheap owners such as Donald Sterling or Glen Taylor will be forced to hire at least a few middling (as opposed to terrible or very young) players to fill out their roster.

The contentious minimum age for draftees was not changed, but apparently punted to be decided by a future union-league committee. I have previously advocated in this space for the age limit to be raised to two years post-college.

GAME RULE CHANGES
The previously over-generous shooting fouls granted in "rip-through" or "and-one" situations, wherein the shooter was clearly not in a shooting motion before the foul, will be curtailed. Travelling rules will be enforced more strictly (LeBron James's "crab dribble", which we reviewed in this post in 2009, will no longer be legal) and timeouts will be made to conform to the billed 20-second or 60-second lengths. Here at JPO, we have long criticized inconsistent rule enforcement, and this news begets great happification in our hearts.

Should Dirk Nowitzki win Sportsman of the Year?

2011-12-04T16:43:00.001-05:00

Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year award will be announced tomorrow. To me, the three strongest candidates are Aaron Rodgers, Dirk Nowitzki, and Novak Djokovic. Here is a review of their credentials.

RODGERS
Rodgers has played superlatively in 2011, from his Super Bowl run in January-February to his undefeated regular season this autumn. Moreover, an American face on the cover would be likelier to sell magazines. On the merits, Rodgers's excellence in his sport was not worse than the success of Nowitzki or young Djok: all won championships (there is no defined championship in tennis, but Djokovic won 3 of 4 "major" tournaments) and looked dominant in doing so. In the current regular season, Rodgers has 37 touchdown throws against only 5 interceptions; he has completed 70% of his passes and is on pace to break the record for passing yards in one season. However, Sports Illustrated also picked NFL quarterbacks for the award in 2005, 2007, and 2010; four in seven years would be too much. Let us scratch Rodgers, then.

NOWITZKI
Between the two Europeans, Nowitzki is likely better known to Americans, as he spent all his time this year playing in the main US pro basketball league. After a previous loss in the Finals, an individual MVP, a broken engagement to a questionable woman, and an impressive record of skill improvement over his 13-year career, it was heartening to see Nowitzki finally win the championship this year, leading his team to a surprising win over the more talented Miami Heat. Nowitzki played solidly against Portland before exploding against Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, and Miami in a two-month run that cemented his place in the NBA Hall of Fame. Against the Thunder and Heat, Nowitzki keyed improbable 15-point, fourth-quarter comebacks that sapped the spirits of his opponents and made his teammates believe that Dallas could really do it. Yet it was the relative brevity of this display -- just two months -- that puts Nowitzki just behind the rightful winner in my estimation. Nowitzki's vernal outburst excited American fans as they emerged from the long winter's freeze. He was very good. However, Djokovic did his thing all year long.

DJOKOVIC
Unlike Nowitzki, Djokovic's success lasted from the Australian Open in January to the U.S. Open in September, across a span of eight months, four continents, and four playing surfaces. Besides his three major wins in Melbourne, Paris, and New York, he won tournaments in Montreal, Rome, Madrid, Belgrade, Miami, Indian Wells, and Dubai. That's right-- Djokovic won ten tournaments in a single calendar year! [Notably, Djokovic has failed to win the three late-season tournaments he entered this year after leaving Queens-- losing to lesser-ranked players in Basel, Paris, and London.] Djokovic amassed a staggering 70-6 record in 2011, taking 3 of 4 matches from Roger Federer and 6 of 6 from Rafael Nadal. While Nowitzki's story is the most endearing, I would hand the award to Djokovic, who clearly established himself as the best in his sport. To understand Djokovic's season, consider his forehand to save match point against Federer in New York:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
UPDATE December 5th:
Well, instead of the three guys listed above, Sports Illustrated gave the prize to two long-serving US college basketball coaches who did not win anything in 2011: Mike Krzyzewski and Pat Summitt. They are certainly deserving of something, with 12 NCAA championships and 3 Olympic gold medals between them, but the timing was strange. Perhaps Sports Illustrated / Time Warner wanted to do something "nice" in light of Summitt's recent diagnosis of neurologic illness. On the merits, though, it is difficult to defend.

Worry Not, Flyover Fans

2011-12-02T15:03:00.007-05:00

I was on a long trip abroad and somewhat physically infirm for the past couple weeks, but a lot happened in NBA circles. The remnants of the players' union finally agreed with the owners on the framework of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, and the lockout is more-or-less now over. Immediately thereafter, rumors began flying about potential trade destinations for Chris Paul and Dwight Howard, who will be free agents next summer and don't seem inclined to re-sign with their respective current teams.

Fans of teams in smaller burgs tend to lament the inevitable loss of star players. But, first, the loss is not inevitable: Tim Duncan stayed in San Antonio, Kevin Durant seems bound to remain in OKC, and Isiah Thomas spent a whole career in Detroit. And consider that Kevin Garnett stayed in Minnesota for 12 years; save for one year when Sam Cassell played like an All-Star, the team could not assemble quality talent around him. 12 seasons was more than Garnett owed to the team.

Secondly, if your team loses a star, another will come soon enough. Orlando lost Shaq and Penny; Hill and McGrady soon replaced them. When they proved too brittle for the job, Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis rolled into town. Minnesota lost Garnett and now has Love. The Kings of Sacramento once had a robust Webber; now they have a rambunctious Cousins. The annual draft that assigns the best talent to the worst teams tends to do that. Toronto lost Vince Carter but found themselves nurturing a college-aged Bosh. Bosh left, but now Jonas Valanciunas seems poised to shine in T.O. [Toronto is hardly a small market, but its relative unattractiveness for American players makes it comparable to Detroit or Orlando.]

Consider the recent plight of the Grizzlies, a 1995 expansion team. Originally based in Vancouver, the team held Top-6 draft positions every year from 1995 through 2003*, drafting Bryant Reeves, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Antonio Daniels, Mike Bibby, and Stromile Swift along the way. Steve Francis, drafted at #2 in 1999, actually refused to play for the team, exhibiting the same Canuckophobia discussed above. Despite the repeated lottery picks, Vancouver could not build a winning team, mostly due to a poor overall talent level in the draft in those years. (None of Vancouver's draft picks could be derided as obviously terrible. They missed Kevin Garnett by just one draft position; nobody thought Kobe Bryant would be a superstar in '96; the '97 draft pool was terrible; and Mike Bibby had won a college championship while Paul Pierce had not. The 2000 draft was possibly the worst ever.) Owner Michael Heisley could not make the economics of pro hoops work in Vancouver, so he moved the team to another relatively small market, Memphis.

*Memphis's 2003 first-round pick, which obtained as #2 in the lottery, was traded to Detroit.

Heisley and his management were determined to start freshly in their new home. The '01 draft night served up a bounty for the Grizzlies, as they acquired rookie Shane Battier with their lottery pick and rookie Pau Gasol via a trade of Abdur-Rahim. Later that summer, they swapped Bibby for Sacramento's flashy disher, Jason Williams. Gasol won Rookie of the Year that season, and this core of players (plus the aforementioned Swift) was able to reach the playoffs in three consecutive springs from 2004 through '06. Unfortunately, the Grizzlies got swept each time, out-talented by Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, and Dirk Nowitzki. After three straight playoff failures, Gasol wanted out; the team had no apparent intention of improving the roster, and Gasol wanted to win. Memphis sought his exit, also: he was clearly not good enough to captain a championship team, and Memphis had no obvious means of acquiring a better superstar with Gasol on the roster.

Thus, starting in '06, the Grizzlies jettisoned their playoff roster and began rebuilding the team. They traded Battier for a draft pick that became one-and-done college prospect Rudy Gay; they acquired Mike Conley in the '07 draft; they traded Paul Gasol for the draft rights of his brother, Marc Gasol; they drafted O.J. Mayo and Darrell Arthur in the talent-laden 2008 draft; and they later drafted Sam Young, Greivis Vazquez, and Xavier Henry. Those are eight players who began their careers with Memphis and are still part of the team. Combined with veteran Zach Randolph, acquired in a 2009 trade, and defensive ace Tony Allen, signed as a free agent last year, the Grizzlies now have a deadly core that can contend for championships for the next few years. Taken seriously by no one, they rolled over the 4-time champion Spurs and nearly made the Western finals last spring.

Twice now, the Grizzlies have restocked their roster with new stars. Fans in Memphis were despondent one year ago, fearing their team might be contracted, but now they have reason for glee. Even fans in Vancouver need not mope; their city might one day get a new or existing NBA team, notwithstanding the earlier divorce.

The lesson here is that smart roster management can sustain a great team in a small market. Dumb roster management, such as the Timberwolves under Kevin McHale, will lead to naught.

Breaking Down The NBA's Final Offer

2011-11-14T11:15:00.006-05:00

A relatively detailed summary of the NBA's November 10th proposal (allegedly its last and best offer) is found here in PDF form. Some thoughts:

The ban on "extend-and-trades" in Paragraph 13 is clearly intended to avoid a repetition of the Carmelo Anthony drama that dogged the Nuggets for most of 2010-11. If a top player in his final contract year (such as Chris Paul in the putative 2011-12) is keen to leave his team, he can wait until the following summer to sign with a new team as a free agent; pushing for a trade to his desired team (the Knicks, say) would not immediately yield him a long-term contract extension. Few or no teams would trade for a Paul just a few months before his contract expiration, if they are not allowed to immediately gain his long-term contractual commitment. Of course, it could be that the only way for Paul to get to the Knicks, if they have no good salary-cap room, is via a mid-season trade rather than a summer signing, and then he could re-sign with the Knicks as a "Bird"-type free agent (see Paragraphs 5 and 6). Maybe the Knicks or other similarly-situated teams would do the deal anyway. But the elimination of extend-and-trade transactions will certainly quiet, somewhat, the in-season rumor mill.

Per Paragraphs 4 and 5, the maximum contract length for a free agent joining a new team is 4 years and the annual salary increases are limited to 3.5%; the maximum length for a contract signed with a free-agent's existing team is 5 years, with 6.5% annual increases. For a maximum-salary caliber player (assume the initial max salary is $20 MM), a free-agent contract with his existing team would yield 35% more dollars (compared to a free-agent contract with a new team) over the life of the contract, i.e. approximately $113 MM instead of $84 MM.

Per Paragraph 11, if a free agent signs with his existing team immediately prior to a trade to a new team (the "sign-and-trade" maneuver), then his contractual terms are exactly the same as if he had signed as an outright free agent with the new team: a maximum 4-year deal with 3.5% salary increases. Thus, a free agent has no incentive to push his desired destination team for a sign-and-trade; this change in the rules might actually hurt small-market clubs. It was better for Cleveland and Toronto to receive draft picks when they lost James and Bosh, rather than receiving nothing at all. (Similarly, it was better for Detroit to receive Ben Wallace when they lost Grant Hill, rather than receiving nothing!) And this provision will make it easier for a potential new employer that lacks salary-cap room to compete for a FA's services against teams sufficiently under the salary cap. The employer over the salary cap can acquire the free agent only via a sign-and-trade with the FA's existing team, but the terms of such contract -- four years, 3.5% annual increases -- are exactly the same as if the FA signs a regular contract with the suitor team that is under the salary cap. In other words, creating salary-cap room to lure free agents becomes relatively less attractive under the proposed new CBA. On the other hand, after 2012-13, taxpaying teams will not be allowed to do sign-and-trades. It should be noted, though, that the tax line exceeds the salary cap and many rich teams may savvily figure out a way to stay just under the tax line.

According to some reports, some players are unhappy with the provision in Paragraph 3 saying that players will never receive a higher share than their agreed-upon 50% of Basketball-Related Income. If the dollar value of BRI turns out to be less than projected and the total nominal dollar amount of player salaries exceeds 50% of BRI (even after owners withhold and then keep part of contracted player salaries via the escrow mechanism) then, although owners have no practical means to claw back the cash from players' bank accounts, they will withhold the overpaid money from future seasons' salaries, it seems. I don't see a problem with this; it simply ensures that owners get their 50%.

Per Paragraph 7, maximum player salaries will be unchanged from the 2005 CBA, as I assumed in my post last week modeling team salaries under the new system. Also consistent with my post last week, rookie salaries (see Paragraph 10) and veteran minimum player salaries (see Paragraph 6) will be reduced by 12% -- the same percentage reduction as the player BRI share will undergo (from 57 percentage points of BRI to 50 percentage points). Again, intra-team inequality will worsen under this new system.

A Tidy Model of Team Salaries

2011-11-11T14:55:00.005-05:00

I attempted to illustrate the problem of salary inequality in my September 26th post, but my explanation was a bit clumsy; let me try again in clearer language this time. The percentage of Basketball-Related Income that players in aggregate receive (currently pegged at 50% in the latest negotiations, and formerly 57% in the 2005 labor agreement) determines total salaries, but does not determine the inter-player distribution of salaries. Let us take a simple example. Say total BRI is projected at $100. Say there are only two teams in the league, each with six players-- five starters and a sixth man. Let us use the 57% number from the '05 deal. Under such terms, all players combined will receive $57. The top two stars (LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, say) might receive $16 each. (Assume player salaries are capped at $16.) If the "mid-level exception" is capped at $5.33 per year, then some team will likely sign a secondary free-agent player (Jamal Crawford, David West) at $5.33. [Why wouldn't a team sign free agents for less? Is Jamal Crawford really 1/3 as good as James or Bryant? In a competitive bidding scenario, with limited quality free agents, teams are forced to overbid up to the individual cap, lest they wind up with nothing, which would guarantee that their roster will remain stagnant.] Each team then pays a total of ~$7.2 (averaging $1.79 per player) to its remaining four players, so each team's payroll is $28.5 and aggregate league spending is $57. So to recap, here are the salaries:

Team King
LeBron James - $16
Jamal Crawford - $5.33
King Scrub 1 - $1.79
King Scrub 2 - $1.79
King Scrub 3 - $1.79
King Scrub 4 - $1.79

Team Mamba
Kobe Bryant - $16
David West - $5.33
Mamba Scrub A - $1.79
Mamba Scrub B - $1.79
Mamba Scrub C - $1.79
Mamba Scrub D - $1.79

Now imagine the season's Basketball-Related Income is tallied up and it is not actually $100, but really $90, which is 10% under $100. Every salary thus will be rolled back by 10% to maintain the 57% of BRI ratio. The new salaries will be:

Team King
LeBron James - $14.4
Jamal Crawford - $4.8
King Scrub 1 - $1.61
King Scrub 2 - $1.61
King Scrub 3 - $1.61
King Scrub 4 - $1.61

Team Mamba
Kobe Bryant - $14.4
David West - $4.8
Mamba Scrub A - $1.61
Mamba Scrub B - $1.61
Mamba Scrub C - $1.61
Mamba Scrub D - $1.61

Now total salaries are $51.3 (57% of $90). However, notice that regardless of how the total dollar amount of BRI comes out, if we fix aggregate salaries at 57% of BRI and assume certain other individual salary caps, then the best player on the team will always earn three times what the second-best player makes, and about 9x the salary of each role player.

Now, let us assume again that total BRI is $100, but, after some bitter labor negotiations, let us tweak two features of the system: first, player share of BRI falls to 50% (so each team has a payroll of $25), and the mid-level exception salary for free agents falls to $3. Assume the maximum salary remains at $16. What now?

Team King
LeBron James - $16
Jamal Crawford - $3
King Scrub 1 - $1.5
King Scrub 2 - $1.5
King Scrub 3 - $1.5
King Scrub 4 - $1.5

Team Mamba
Kobe Bryant - $16
David West - $3
Mamba Scrub A - $1.5
Mamba Scrub B - $1.5
Mamba Scrub C - $1.5
Mamba Scrub D - $1.5

Notice, now, that James and Bryant make more than five times the salary of their respective running mates, and nearly 11x the salary of their scrubs. [Now imagine again that BRI falls to $90 instead of $100. The numbers immediately above will all be reduced by 10%, but the ratios of salaries between different players will remain the same. I will omit that presentation so as not to bore you too much.]

Who suffers here? Obviously, mid-level-exception-caliber players suffer a lot, seeing their salary reduced by 44%, from $5.33 to $3. Scrub players also see their salary reduced by 16%, which is more than the percentage reduction, 12%, in the players' aggregate BRI share. Mid-level players are asked to bear much of the player suffering, and scrubs get hurt as well, disproportionately to the union's overall hit. Superstars like James and Bryant don't suffer one bit, at least in my example (and, I believe, in the owners' actual proposal).

Of course, if I scaled up the dollar value of BRI sufficiently (more and more eyeballs are watching the Association in China), I could construct a set of numbers where Crawford, West, and the scrubs are making an equal or better salary in dollars under the new regime, compared to the old regime. Say BRI blows up to $180 (so the players' share is $90 and each team has a payroll of $45), and the individual max salary, and the mid-level exception salary, are both increased by 80%.

Team King
LeBron James - $28.8
Jamal Crawford - $5.4
King Scrub 1 - $2.7
King Scrub 2 - $2.7
King Scrub 3 - $2.7
King Scrub 4 - $2.7

Team Mamba
Kobe Bryant - $28.8
David West - $5.4
Mamba Scrub A - $2.7
Mamba Scrub B - $2.7
Mamba Scrub C - $2.7
Mamba Scrub D - $2.7

This scenario is entirely possible with the projected growth in league revenues during the coming decade. The scrub salary (which is also the median player salary) is higher under such assumptions. And perhaps the inability of teams with one superstar to sign another very good player (due to the paltry mid-level-exception salary for tax-paying teams) will encourage parity among teams, thus juicing fan interest. Posit for a moment that the new system could actually contribute, by itself, to BRI growth, and my imagined 80% growth of revenues would not happen with the 2005-2011 rules. So why wouldn't players be happy with this deal? Well, note that now, as I mentioned above, the superstar makes over 5 times the salary of his best teammate, and over 10 times the salary of his worst teammates. Under the 2005-2011 regime, those values were 3 and 9.

So inter-player inequality is worse under the new system, even if the average player is earning more money. Is that enough to make the deal objectionable? Note that most of the NBPA could be charitably called "scrubs": only about 3 players on each real team are vital for amassing wins, and the rest are interchangeable. The composition of the NBPA's executive committee suggests this: 8 of the 9 guys are far from All-Stars. It is the scrubs whom union President Fisher and Executive Director Hunter toil for. How much do players mind inequality of income between them and their best teammate? Perhaps the knowledge of 11-fold inequality could lead to locker-room resentment, even if James, Bryant, Wade, Howard, Durant, and the like really do drive ticket and jersey sales to that degree. Looking beyond pro hoops at the broader political-economic system in our society, a majority of Americans don't seem to like the extent of income and wealth inequality that has developed during the past 30 years.

I am not sure whether the players are really resentful over the prospect of intra-union salary inequality, or whether they are just mad at losing their 57% and not inclined to give the owners a "win" just yet. However, judging from the rhetoric of some player representatives, there is a good argument that the players might rather be poorer and more equal, rather than richer and further apart.

Two Bicyclists Headed For A Collision

2011-11-07T15:49:00.001-05:00

Last Saturday, NBA owners, fronted by Commissioner Stern, offered players an improved deal that could potentially give players up to 51% of Basketball-Related Income, though the percentage would more likely settle around 50%. Stern threatened to withdraw the deal and replace it with a much worse set of terms if not accepted by Wednesday afternoon, November 9th. A fuller description of Stern's offer is contained in this excellent article by the NYT's Howard Beck, who has consistently been the best reporter on the recent negotiations. Meanwhile, today's reports indicate that several players are ready to take the currently-offered deal.

I cannot predict what will happen in this test of wills. It is notable that players have slowly relaxed all of their previous commitments: 53% of income is no longer a must-have; a punitive luxury tax now seems palatable; and contracts will be shorter than before. A deal could be had with a bit more budging by both parties, but perhaps they both feel they have budged enough and will not slide their respective positions more just to make a deal. They have both attempted to signal their willingness to lose the season — Deron Williams accepted work in Turkey and half the Denver Nuggets took contracts in China, while the owners have already cancelled all of November's games — but actually walking away from play would be insane. From the examples of the 1994 Major League Baseball strike and the 2004-05 NHL lockout, fans would not cheerfully return 12 months later. Unfortunately, neither side seems very inclined to swerve in this game of chicken.

UPDATE, November 8th: The NBPA announced today that they are unwilling to take the league's latest offer. These articles from Sports Illustrated's website provide excellent updates on the terms of negotiation.

It's About Time

2011-11-03T22:45:00.003-04:00

What took so long for NBA players to make a serious push at decertification of their union? Pre-emptively taking your best negotiating threat off the table was a poor idea.

Is Marriage For Suckers?

2011-11-01T12:55:00.003-04:00

A great article appeared today by Sports Illustrated's Ian Thomsen about Brian Shaw's unsuccessful hunt for the L.A. Lakers' head coaching position. While Shaw is a very strong candidate, Mike Brown is as well and I don't view the Lakers' decision as clearly unreasonable. I did notice, however, the recurring suggestion that Jim Buss, son of team owner Jerry Buss, wanted to expunge any trace of Phil Jackson's leadership from his organization.

After 11 championship-laden seasons with Jackson, there seems little reason to change the organization's direction, particularly when the core players from the recent title teams are ready for at least one more run. Perhaps the Busses are eager to prove that they, and not the coaching staff, are the ultimate drivers of success in the organization. The Buss family will likely lead the Lakers franchise as long as the NBA exists (until the next global nuclear war, perhaps); it may behoove them to show the rest of the league that their permanence will long dominate passing staff. But the Lakers, like most successful teams, have maintained ties to their great alumni: Abdul-Jabbar was an assistant coach, Johnson a part-owner, West the general manager. Why send Jackson's entire squad of assistant coaches out of SoCal?

The real story may be the part left silent in Thomson's SI article. Jackson has, almost since he showed up in Los Angeles in 1999, been the steady boyfriend (by now and at their age, a husband, really, though he apparently does not prefer the ratification of law) of Jeannie Buss, who is Jim's brother and also a Vice-President in the Laker organization. So Jim does not like his quasi-brother-in-law, or at least prefers not to do business with the tall one. Joining a "company family" is not easy; I would rather keep my professional life out of my home, and vice-versa. I wonder what Thanksgiving dinner around the Buss table might be like later this month.

UPDATE: This writer had the same thoughts as I did after reading the SI.com piece.

If Mainstream News Covered Politics Like They Cover the NBA

2011-10-16T13:54:00.003-04:00

Sean Hannity would tell us OMB's latest estimates for the growth rate of TANF block grants in FY12.

Wolf Blitzer would tweet about the alignment of GOP representatives with either Cantor or Boehner on the Airport And Airway Extension Act.

Your local News At Eleven would lead with the number of weekly cafeteria duty periods agreed to in the latest teachers' labor contract.

TMZ would publish a leaked draft of the latest Status of Forces Agreement between the USA and Bulgaria.

Jay Leno would bring on his favorite economist to opine on the wage elasticity of labor supply.

C-SPAN would play in local watering holes.

A Suggestion For NBA Owners

2011-10-06T20:15:00.002-04:00

Would you rather not give away half of your revenue to your performers? Why settle for the NBPA's latest offer when you can improve your economics a hundredfold?

NBA Labor Talks Go Nowhere

2011-10-04T20:36:00.002-04:00

Pro basketball labor negotiations concluded today without an agreement and with grim portents for the coming months: The entire October slate of pre-season games has been cancelled, and regular-season games will be cancelled next Monday if there is no agreement by that time.

Reading the quotes in this article, it seems that the NBA owners formally offered a revenue split of 47% to the players, but Commissioner Stern later strongly hinted that they are willing to come up to 50%. The players' union, however, remains unwilling to budge from its latest offer of 53%. (Whether the owners are sincere in suggesting that a 50-50 split would sate them is unclear, but it would be difficult to walk back from such a public statement.)

It seems, then, that the owners are more ready to compromise to reach a deal today and begin playing ball. I do not attach any moral opprobrium or admiration for a willingness to cave on one's initial position, or for a stubborn insistence on not losing face. I merely note that the players appear less willing to agree to the psychologically salient half-half division of revenues. (They may soften their resolve after a couple months of lost paychecks, of course. An entire missed season of salary is a greater loss, given the average player's 5-year career, than the aggregated annual differences between 50% and 53% of total revenues.)

Of course, a negotiating party can try to appear reasonable by throwing out an extreme initial bid and then "compromising" to something less provocative. And the owners have already won a dimension of these talks by carving out certain revenue streams from the definition of "Basketball-Related Income" that is subject to division. I am mindful that Stern and the NBA owners are trying to spin external observers and commenters. In these talks, the owners began with a proposal of 46% to the players, while the players would have been chuffed to continue the 57% dictated by the 2005 labor agreement. Perhaps the players feel that they should not have to move so much. But the old contract is now null and void; the players' new bargaining position is determined solely by economic factors and the wiles of their negotiating team.

Girding For Collective Action

2011-09-26T17:21:00.006-04:00

I often wonder what sort of internal democratic systems the NBPA has for arriving at its negotiating positions. The NBA owners number only 30 men, while the players' union counts well over 400 members. After the September 14th negotiation in New York City, for example, the owners could surely hop on a conference call to discuss the results, while the union promised to update its players auditorium-style the following day in Las Vegas, where several dozen have been playing in an informal league. How can so many players agree? And to take one step back, who is the "union" anyway?

Besides its full-time Executive Director, headed by Billy Hunter, a former pro football player and U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, the National Basketball Players' Association has a dispersed leadership structure. The union has an Executive Committee headed by Derek Fisher as president, and a suite of 30 players acting as team representatives. The union also employs five lawyers and two paralegals to crack difficult legal questions.

Still, when the union walks into a negotiation with the owners' labor committee, Fisher and union director Billy Hunter cannot pull out their cell phone and call up LeBron to get advice. In a letter dated September 26th, Fisher told union members that he needs their vote to firmly agree to anything, but such a plebiscite would likely be a formality; Fisher would not give his tentative assent to the owners and Commissioner Stern for a deal that he knew players would hate. Claiming lack of authority to make tough concessions is a classic negotiating ploy, but after six years since the last labor agreement and three months since this lockout began, it would be hardly be credible. Indeed, news reports indicate that Fisher has been the main or sole player negotiator alongside Hunter during the past few months. Presumably, whatever the union's internal deliberative processes may be, the union members trust Fisher with their livelihoods.

Other than Chris Paul, all the player members of the Executive Committee are role players, guys who spell a star for 10 quality minutes per night, or perhaps take an athletically laconic ball-handling and three-nailing role (Fisher) on the court but little else. The list of team representatives includes some stars with leadership ambition like Durant, Stoudemire, Pierce, and Griffin; but the median player on that list is more like Zaza Pachulia and Matt Carroll. Our instinct is to look to the league's best players for leadership against the rapacious owners, but (i) it is not clear that the ability to lead a basketball team is equivalent to business negotiation skill (just ask Timberwolves fans from the 1995-2009 era), and (ii) a famous, ultra-rich, ultra-good player like Dwyane Wade is hardly representative of his diverse and more quotidian constituency. The past three NBPA presidents were not All-Star caliber: Derek Fisher, Antonio Davis, and Michael Curry. Prior to Curry, however, most union presidents really were All-NBA talents: Patrick Ewing, Buck Williams, Isiah Thomas, Alex English. What changed? That is difficult to say; the following is purely my speculation, but perhaps the Gold's Club scandal soured players on Ewing and helped them see the merit of less flamboyant men. (Curry replaced Ewing as union president in July 2001, smack in the middle of the Gold's Club trial in Atlanta.)

The interests of superstars and role players diverge on several dimensions in these labor negotiations. Consider, for example, the proposed "hard salary cap" whereby a team's aggregate salary roll could not go above a fixed number, say, $60 million. If a team offers maximum contracts of, say, $15 million annually to two players, that leaves $30 million to be split among the remaining 13 players on the roster, meaning that the two stars each earn about seven times the average salary of the other guys. And even if every player's salary is increased pro rata at the end of the season when league-wide income comes in higher than expected, the intra-team inequality would be preserved. With a hard salary cap, it is unlikely that owners would skimp on superstar salaries in order to be nice to the little guys; the marginal revenue of fielding a showman like Durant or Griffin is, if anything, higher than the stipulated maximum salaries of around $15 or $16 million, and those bargains should be quickly seized lest some other team grab the talent. Now contrast that scenario to the present setup whereby owners can, via loopholes like the "mid-level exception" or "Bird rights", offer $5 million yearly salaries to average players like Hedo Turkoglu, even if that means exceeding the nominal salary cap. In today's system, Dwight Howard makes only three times Turkoglu's salary, rather than seven. Needless to say, most players are of middling quality and would find themselves relatively pauperized under the "hard cap" proposal. It is for them, mostly, that Fisher works.

One common trait of all NBPA presidents is their interest in running a team's floor game in future: Thomas, Williams, Ewing, and Curry, have all been NBA head coaches or assistant coaches, while Fisher has often been tabbed as a future coach. Before Thomas, 3 of the 4 prior union presidents (Alex English, Bob Lanier, and Paul Silas) later worked as an NBA head coach or assistant. The fourth in that string, Junior Bridgeman, now owns 160 Wendy's franchises. Thomas has been a solid coach (though a poor general manager) and Ewing has helped Dwight Howard to become the league's best center. Williams, quietly, has helped LaMarcus Aldridge to become perhaps the second-best. (Andrew Bogut, Andrew Bynum, Tim Duncan, Joakim Noah, and both Gasols would surely quarrel with that assessment, of course.) Both types of leadership -- NBA head coachships and NBPA presidencies -- involve the power to make dictatorial decisions while building an illusion of a consensus-based process.

So, the union seems to generally pick good leaders. With guaranteed contracts and 57% of basketball-related revenue, the union has done a heckuva a job in prior negotiations. After a lot of stalling during the summer, the next three months of negotiations will show us whether Fisher can steer his lieges through contention and temptation, or whether the owners can break Fisher's empire like Darth Vader tossing Palpatine down the reactor core.

NBA Is Rick Perry's Worst Nightmare

2011-08-26T15:29:00.010-04:00

Economist Tyler Cowen warned us recently that labor productivity in the US has stagnated in the past few years, presaging an inevitable slowdown in our standards of living. When we can produce the same amount of stuff with fewer resources, we grow wealthier, and everyone can afford more stuff. When the productivity of a typical worker stays flat, we don't grow.

The NBA is fond of boasting its year-on-year growth, but this is growth in nominal revenues: the league is pulling in more dollars every year. For the most part, the league is not expanding its product: arenas are no larger, the number of teams is no greater, and games are no more frequent.

The NBA produces exactly the same product, in amount and character, every year. Since the league expanded to 30 teams in 1995, it produces 1,230 regular season games every year, plus four rounds of best-of-seven playoffs. (The change in 2003 from a best-of-five format to a best-of-seven format for the playoffs' first round has added, perhaps, three or four extra games to the playoff slate per spring. First-round series rarely go beyond five games.) Serious fans would likely object to a lengthening of the season, arguing that it makes historical comparisons, and the existence of "career records" by players, inapposite.

What would it mean, anyway, for productivity in the NBA to grow? How could one player give us more basketball goodness? Perhaps it might mean switching to 4-on-4 or 3-on-3 basketball, permitting more games with the existing stock of players. But then, of course, the game would not be the same: with more cavernous space on the floor, we would see less passing, less help defense, and more Allen Iversons. Another possibility for increased productivity in the NBA might be to carry fewer men on the roster: perhaps each team could employ only 10 players, say. Injuries could quickly sap a team's depth, though, reducing the quality of play, so again, the product would not be the same. It is true that defensive schemes and training methods have grown more sophisticated with time, so perhaps the quality of play is better than 20 or 30 years ago. But most casual fans are unable to appreciate the difference between a man zone versus a box-and-one.

Arguably, the increased popularity of the league in China and other developing countries could be seen as growth: with a nonrivalrous product, bringing televised images of the NBA to more eyeballs is easy and also better for global happiness. Slowly, the NBA's money and co-promotional efforts have begun to stimulate high-level professional basketball leagues in China and other countries. But the NBA's core business is the same as it always was.

Under the 2005-2011 collective bargaining agreement [see Article VII, Section 5(c)], contracted player salaries may grow by up to 10.5% per year. And the NBA's salary cap and average player salaries keep on growing. Corporate sponsorships, TV rights fees, ticket prices, jersey prices, and every other dollar amount associated with the NBA keep going up. Yet, again, there are no more teams and no more games. Productivity per worker is unchanged.

What we have in the NBA, and in other major sports leagues, is pure inflation, rivaling the ruinous inflation seen recently in residential real estate, health care, or university education in the US. Some universities have expanded their distance learning or evening programs, but for the most part, universities are not educating more students; they are actually hiring more faculty to reduce student-teacher ratios. Productivity has dropped and the price of a degree has spiked.

Contrast this to the performance of, say, Chipotle Mexican Grill, a favorite of this blogger. Chipotle is wrapping more burritos today than in 2010, or 2005, but has barely touched its per-burrito prices. Chipotle's physical expansion has, in some cases, taken over the retail footprint of other stores that failed or didn't want to pay the rent anymore.

NBA inflation is the fault of every fan who agrees to pay ticket prices that escalate with each new season. With inflation in the real world hovering around 2% annually, the real price of attendance has jumped greatly over the past ten years. However, fans seem to be wising up in this terrible economy, as ticket prices dropped 2.5% for the 2010-11 season after falling 2.8% in 2009-10.

Under the previous CBA regime of 2005-2011, the maximum annual salary raise, as discussed above, was 10.5%. If superstars make 10.5% annual raises and scrubs earn a constant nominal salary each year, then, if the aggregate league-wide salary sum comes in over the targeted percentage of "basketball-related income" due to falling ticket prices, every player will see his salary adjusted down by an equal proportion-- which could mean that the scrub receives a nominal drop in pay. Middle-class players should be thinking very carefully about how much maximum annual salary increase they want to build in to the next labor agreement.

Meanwhile, the league, and particularly the players, must look for ways to legitimately expand the NBA's product to justify its relentless push for salaries growing faster than CPI inflation. Whether summer streetball tournaments, a robust minor league, youth training academies, lecture series by Ray Allen, or perhaps Italian lessons from Kobe Bryant, NBA players must look for ways to grow their productivity.

NBA Owners Take First (Legal) Blood in Labor Negotiations

2011-08-02T17:40:00.008-04:00

The NBA filed suit against the players' union today in the Southern District of New York federal courthouse, as well as filing a proceeding with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the union's threat to decertify and sue the league for antitrust violation is a bad-faith negotiating tactic, in violation of federal labor law.

To my mind, the most compelling arguments in the SDNY complaint come at Paragraphs 40 and 41, wherein the NBA lawyers argue that recent decertifications by the NFL players' union were eventually revealed to be wholly without credibility, as the NFLPA immediately re-formed after the execution of a new collective bargaining agreement. (No court has found the NFLPA's decertification tactic to be against any law, however.) The league also argues at Paragraph 47, and 72-77, that decertification of the NBA players' union would render all existing player contracts void and unenforceable. This latter point goes beyond the NLRB's decision from the 1998 lockout, which held that player contracts are unenforceable while a collective bargaining agreement is not in force. The NBA's argument today seems to suggest that if a hypothetical union decertification were found to be legitimate, then the player contracts would be permanently annulled, even if some sort of labor agreement were later finalized. (Yet such legal interpretation was not the case – at least, no judge found it to be so – when the NFL Players Association decertified earlier this year.)

The NBA is clearly worried that the NBPA could successfully use a union decertification and subsequent antitrust suit under the Sherman Act as leverage against the owners, as the pro football players did a couple weeks ago. In its complaint, the league asks for several declaratory judgments (Paragraphs 52, 61, 65) that their lockout is hunky-dory with regard to US antitrust law. (The pendency of the NLRB proceeding may help to insulate the owners' lockout from antitrust scrutiny, as hinted in Paragraph 58 of the complaint.) This request for declaratory judgment is something of a gamble by the owners: On one hand, they have removed a key weapon from the union's bag. The NBPA can no longer threaten to bring an antitrust suit into court, because the owners have already asked a court to adjudicate the very same issues that a putative players' lawsuit would raise. So the union has been neutered somewhat. On the other hand, there is now a real risk that the SDNY court could actually rule against the owners, finding (upon the decertification of the union) that the owners' lockout is violating the Sherman and Clayton Acts. Thus, the union still has a strong threat point with its possible decertification; perhaps the owners, worried about suffering treble damages if the SDNY court rules against them, could still be inclined to tidily wrap up negotiations. The assignment of a conservative or liberal judge to the SDNY case would certainly affect the owners' calculus. We should also note that under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure #57, declaratory judgment suits can be fast-tracked with a "speedy hearing".

In essence, the owners have cut off their own arm to stop the union from cutting it off first. Tickling oneself generally does not induce laughs, but cutting off an arm can be downright painful.

Should Short Guys Rule Coaching?

2011-07-14T12:27:00.011-04:00

It seems that the Detroit Pistons are planning to hire either Mike Woodson or Lawrence Frank as their new head coach.

Detroit's management interviewed Bill Laimbeer and Patrick Ewing, former All-Star centers who are currently NBA assistant coaches, but neither one seems likely to receive an offer. Meanwhile, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has been a "special assistant" for the Lakers in recent years, but never received an offer to be a head coach anywhere. Laimbeer won three championships as head coach of the WNBA's Detroit Shock; Ewing and Abdul-Jabbar have helped to develop Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum into the league's best centers. But assistants they will remain.

NBA coaches tend to be former point guards: Maurice Cheeks, Scott Skiles, Scott Brooks, Avery Johnson, Jeff Van Gundy, Erik Spoelstra, Flip Saunders, Larry Brown, Doc Rivers, Mark Jackson, Nate McMillan, and the like. Occasionally shooting guards like Byron Scott or Rick Carlisle (or Woodson) do well as coaches, but we don't see many small forwards manning the sidelines (though Larry Bird did a good job in the last three years of the last millennium). And big men turned into coaches are rare: Phil Jackson and Bill Cartwright are the only two I can think of (there are surely more, which reveals my relative youth and the attendant limits of my hoops knowledge).

As active players, point guards tend to be the guys who direct an offense, orchestrating screens, cuts, dives, curls, and nifty passes. They also are primarily tasked with the intangible mission of convincing teammates to play together. These surely sound like skills that make a good coach. But consider the following points: First, the average NBA player is about 6'7"; a 6-foot-nothing point guard, as a coach, will have a difficult time relating to most of his roster. Second, while point guards know their O, defensive anchors are rarely guards, Kobe Bryant excepted. A team's defensive positioning tends to be directed by its most agile big man: Tyson Chandler, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, Andrew Bogut, or in an earlier era, Olajuwon, McHale, Rodman, Oakley, Robinson. Why shouldn't one of these guys get to coach a whole team?

It's telling that a former power forward / center, Phil Jackson, won 11 of the available 20 championships from 1991 through 2010. To be fair, he was coaching Hall of Fame talents, but his success is at least not inconsistent with the idea that a big man can be a great coach. Why, then, cannot more tall ex-players get offers to coach? Perhaps the historic lack of interest by tall guys in basketball coaching contributes to a stigma when a Laimbeer or Ewing try to get into the game. Or perhaps there is substance behind the stereotype: Small guys who succeed as players in the NBA are likely there because they have been selected, in part, for their smarts and their leadership (Jameer Nelson hardly would be picked first in a streetball game); the pool of tall cagers is, perhaps, more randomly distributed in brainy attributes. Bigs can get by on sheer mass alone. But Laimbeer, Ewing, and Abdul-Jabbar are known as smart guys: Laimbeer ran a packaging company, Ewing led the players' union, and Abdul-Jabbar has written several books. So why not give them a chance? Those guys have 13 championships among them as players and coaches, and Ewing came close to nabbing two more.

Let the tall men reign!

When Immature Billionaires Try Their Hand At Lawyering

2011-06-22T18:07:00.006-04:00

Ross Perot Jr., former owner of the Dallas Mavericks (and still a 5% owner), sued Mark Cuban's investment entity in 2010, alleging that Cuban was financially mismanaging the team. Following the Mavericks' recent title win, Cuban's legal team filed the following motion for summary judgment today in Dallas County court (via Dallas Observer):

Funny stuff, but the 3-page legal filing is borderline legal malpractice by Cuban's lawyers. It may be worth a chuckle to show Nowitzki with the trophy, but one picture alone doesn't address the plaintiff's arguments. Is Cuban doing a good job of maximizing the entity's profits? As I noted in my most recent post, the billionaire Cuban is known for paying starters's money to backups like Brendan Haywood and Shawn Marion (who was supposed to be the team's backup SF/PF this season before Caron Butler's injury), and before them, guys like Antoine Walker, Antawn Jamison, Nick Van Exel, Juwan Howard, and several others. Cuban also fired head coach Avery Johnson in spring 2008 with three years and $12 MM of obligation remaining on his contract. Cuban may not mind losing money (or failing to maximize profits) on the Mavs, but Perot Jr. might. A lone championship does not necessarily imply fat operating profits. The championship itself will likely raise the franchise's financial value somewhat, but the defense attorneys still must address Cuban's 11 prior years of financial stewardship.

To Cuban's credit, the Mavs ranked first in the league in 2010-11 in home attendance as a percent of arena capacity. However, the summary judgment motion did not mention this, only listing, again, that photo of Nowitzki with the LOB.

Hail to the Mavs, Hardly A Team of Lovable Losers

2011-06-14T11:55:00.007-04:00

So the Dallas Mavericks closed out Miami Sunday night to claim their first NBA championship. I was touched by a few sights: Dirk Nowitzki walking off the court before the final buzzer, unable to contain his emotions; Chris Bosh bitterly covering his face as he walked to the locker room, feeling the mirror of what Nowitzki felt; and Mark Cuban bringing in Donald Carter to receive the Larry O'Brien trophy. Many have long thought that Nowitzki and Jason Kidd, at the least (not to mention several of Dallas's other veterans) deserved a championship to cap their careers. However, team prizes are not given to individuals for lifetime achievement; the LOB must be earned by playing the best basketball of any team in the league. This year, that was Dallas, which outpointed the two-time defending champs, the anointed team of the future, and the league's most talented team on its way to the 2011 title.

It is interesting how this year's two Finalists represented a fairly clean break from the playoff behemoths of the last several seasons. After the memorable NBA Finals series of 2006 that matched these two teams, Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki struggled for the next few seasons while the Spurs, Suns, Lakers, Cavs, Pistons, Magic, and Celtics cleaned up in the playoffs. Wade's team lost three first-round series in the subsequent four years (including an embarrassing sweep by the young Bulls in 2007) and missed the playoffs in 2008. Nowitzki's Mavs lost three first-round series in the next four campaigns and lost in the second round in '09. In the press conference before Game 6, Nowitzki described the annual "hammering" that superstars receive from fans and pundits when they fail to end their season with a win.

Yet as Scoop Jackson points out here, those same observers tend to forget the years of futility once a team finally does win the sweetest prize. Jackson does not delve into the psychology of those analysts, but perhaps it is a case of the "fundamental attribution error" recognized by formal psychology: observers want to place Nowitzki, say, into one of a small number of personality types. They want to say he is soft, or tough, or killer, or clutch, or weak, or overconfident, or smart, or selfish, or stupid. They want to consider him as possessing such attribute innately and forever, rather than considering that he may possess many of these types, and his types might change over time. They also fail to note that contingent, situational factors outside the superstar's grasp like injuries, playoff upsets to other contenders, lucky roster moves, and the like can spell the difference between a championship or none, regardless of how well the star plays. Coupled with the natural psychological tendency to consider recent data and positive data (compared to old and negative data) more keenly, this makes it easy for observers to now consider Dirk a "winner", instead of updating their view of his career in a more nuanced fashion. Nowitzki actually seems canny, from this perspective, to a win a title later in his career rather than earlier; Wade, who won his lone title (the same number as Nowitzki) in his third year, now has to answer more questions about his winning capacity than Mr. Swish41 does.

Dallas is hardly a cuddly underdog: their aggregate player salary of about $84 MM for the 2010-11 season ranks third in the league. The internet mania of the late 1990s gave Mark Cuban a lot of money; he is one billionaire who seems to value winning over turning an economic profit on his team, to the extent that those two objectives clash, as I discussed a couple years ago. Dallas lost two-time All-Star Caron Butler to injury in January, and was able to fill his SF slot in the starting lineup with... four-time All-Star Shawn Marion! To plug Marion's spot as backup small forward, Dallas signed... three-time All-Star Peja Stojakovic. When Stojakovic's defense against Miami's star wings proved terrible in the Finals, Dallas was able to spell him with their fourth-string small forward, Brian Cardinal, a former $40 MM backup for Memphis. Dallas also boasts FOUR starting-caliber point guards, two starting-caliber centers, and a former Final Four MVP in Corey Brewer, who barely played in the playoffs. Due to arcane NBA rules dealing with player movement, Cuban even paid over $2 MM this season to three players (Buckner, Novak, Thomas) With a owner like Cuban, Dallas should always be in the upper layer of teams. Even when Nowitzki slows and retires, top players should be keen to play for a big-spending owner who funds sleek locker rooms.

Many commenters are fussing that Miami's roster is fatally flawed and the Bosh-Wade-James troika should be broken up. But by most teams' standards, the Heat had a wildly successful season, finishing with the third-best record in the league and blitzing 12-3 through the Eastern playoffs. In the Finals, their lack of a good center hurt them, as Tyson Chandler was able to discourage any offensive forays down low by the three Heat stars, without worrying about Joel Anthony doing much left unattended. A summer of shooting practice by the two wing stars, plus the addition of a good two-way 7-footer younger than 35, plus a full training camp (recall that Wade was injured throughout last October) will help Miami improve, and they should rightly be considered next year's title favorites. There will be many free-agent centers in July [or after the completion of a labor agreement] including Sam Dalembert, Marc Gasol, Greg Oden, Yao Ming, Spencer Hawes, Nene Hilario, and the aforementioned Chandler. However, any center with his eyes on Miami will need to accept relatively low pay: Miami can offer only the mid-level exception [i.e. league average] salary, or if that option is killed in the new labor agreement, then perhaps just the veteran's minimum, to free agents.

Congratulations to Dallas!

Notes on Game 5

2011-06-10T07:00:00.001-04:00

The Mavericks won Game 5 of the Finals last night, giving them a chance to take the championship with just one win in Miami. Of course, Detroit in 1988, New York in 1994, and Boston in 2010 were in similar situations, up 3-2, but could not break the serve of their opponent in the road arena. Dallas will need to work even harder than they did tonight (the Mavs' effort was exemplified by Brian Cardinal, who repeatedly put himself in a good-faith position to receive charging calls against driving Miami players) to win a fourth game in this series. If they relent just slightly, Miami will quickly win two games and celebrate next Tuesday.

During the past two games, Dallas has missed Brendan Haywood (hip). DeShawn Stevenson had his knee drained after Game 4. Since January, they have been without erstwhile starting SF Caron Butler (knee). Dirk Nowitzki has a busted finger and is recovering from a sinus infection. Their three-guard rotation has an average height of 6'1". Yet they still took two of three games from the Heat in Miami. Dallas's coach Rick Carlisle has expertly managed his players' minutes while still ending each game with his best lineup of Kidd, Terry, Chandler, Marion, and Nowitzki. Marion's once-receding hairline and his unorthodox low-post game seem to have returned to their formerly robust condition circa 2003. What technological assistance Marion received for these two miracles, I do not know.

Dallas was out-assisted tonight, 25-23, and out-rebounded 36-26. Dallas only snared 26 boards, worse than the average of the worst regular-season team! FG attempts and FT attempts were roughly equal; the difference in the game, if we are to focus only on math, was the Mavs' 13-19 performance on three-pointers, against Miami's 8-of-20 night from beyond the line.

ABC's Jeff Van Gundy criticized young Ian Mahinmi for giving up a couple easy baskets to Chris Bosh. Weak defensive play is not surprising for an inexperienced player appearing for only the fifth time ever in the NBA playoffs (including one game with the Spurs last spring). However, Mahinmi grabbed a couple fierce rebounds and loose balls and generally did not embarrass himself while on the floor.

Dallas closed the game on a 17-4 run starting at the 4:22 mark, after Miami found several holes in Dallas's defense midway through the fourth quarter, punctuated by a James-to-Haslem dish and dunk. Down 96-95, Rick Carlisle called a timeout. Following the break, Dallas showed great ball movement on their next few offensive sets, as Jason Terry delivered the ball to Dirk Nowitzki for a dunk and to Jason Kidd for a game-clinching three-pointer. On defense, Dallas used the strength of Jason Kidd (who, as I noted on this blog earlier, was able to defend Kevin Durant in the previous series) to slow Lebron James from slipping loose for too much havoc.

Throughout the game, J.J. Barea took several ill-advised three-point shots while decently guarded, but still managed to sink 4 of 5 from that distance, matching the contribution of his counterpart Mario Chalmers. Chalmers, who made his reputation as a big shooter back in college and has done nothing to sully it in these Finals, made a mildly ridiculous shot at the end of the first quarter, throwing in a one-hander on the run from half-court while falling sideways. With Mike Bibby averaging 3.8 points and 1.0 assist in five Finals games, it is unclear why coach Erik Spoelstra continues to put him on the court to start games.

I predict Miami will win two very tight games down in Florida. Dallas has played great so far, but the Heat are very hard to beat at home. Without a 15-point Mavs comeback in Game 2, the Heat would be undefeated at home for the playoffs. (And add a couple more lucky breaks in Game 4, and the Heat could have swept the series.) Much credit is due to Dallas for finding a way to grab three wins. But I do not believe they will win another.

Game 2 Notes

2011-06-03T12:35:00.008-04:00

As the late Ralph Wiley once put it, the NBA Finals is the highest level of hoop. Sure, talented individuals like Rose, Durant, Bryant, Howard, Paul, Griffin, Love are not represented here, but this is a team game and stats alone don't yield wins. If stats gave wins, Mitch Richmond would have more than one ring.

We must keep this in mind when contemplating Dallas's two-point victory in Game 2 last night, 95-93. How could a 38-year-old point guard, a 6'2" shooting guard, a center that a center-less team refused to take, a 7'0" shooting guard, and a guy on his fourth team in four seasons beat the most talented and athletic group of guys in the league?

Excellent coaching strategy helps, but the confidence of veterans is yet more important. As I noted in April, teams with no prior playoff series wins never win the NBA title in any given year. It is also hard to expect a Chris Bosh to suddenly thrive in the NBA Finals, after never winning one playoff series in Toronto from 2003-04 through '09-10. Jason Kidd has never been known for fancy dribbling, but his pedestrian handle almost never loses control of the game.

Again and again last night, I watched Miami's defense force turnovers from Dallas's suite of small guards. Barea and Terry (and even Kidd, a bit) had their ball poked loose, or saw their shot blocked or altered, too many times to keep coach Carlisle tranquil. In all, Miami notched 15 steals and 8 blocks for the night; seven of Miami's eight players logged at least one steal. These numbers don't do enough to convey the swarming intensity of Miami's defense (for the first 42 minutes of the game, that is); Dallas repeatedly had trouble initiating basic offensive sets or using ball movement to create space. Meanwhile, Miami used these turnovers and possession changes to launch quick strikes to the other side of the court, slamming through numerous crowd-charging dunks. But late in the game, when Dallas learned to flummox the defense with better-executed screens (or double screens), the Mavs were able to begin the offensive show they displayed against Los Angeles and OKC.

With 3:11 left, Jason Terry to hit a jumper to cut the deficit to 4 points, and Miami knew they were troubled. Immediately after a Miami timeout, Chris Bosh dribbled the ball out of bounds for no reason, leading to a quick Nowitzki jumper that made things a single-basket game. After a few missed baskets, Shawn Marion led a fast break down the court and wisely flipped the ball to Nowitzki to evade a defender. Nowitzki laid in the ball, tying the game. After another Miami timeout, Dirk Nowitzki hit a three-pointer. Finally [after a tying bucket by Mario Chalmers], Nowitzki drove the ball one-on-one against Chris Bosh and hit the winning layup with his left hand at 0:04. LeBron James, guarding Jason Terry in the corner, couldn't decide whether to help against the Nowitzki parry or to stay with his man. James simply stood as a spectator and watched Nowitzki easily streak to the basket. Bosh also failed to commit his team's "foul to give" when Nowitzki began to dash free. [In the postgame press conference, Bosh admitted to poor defense on the final play against Nowitzki, but I did not hear James cop to anything similar.]

Bosh and James didn't know what to do, or were not able to make the right decisions in the required time frame. Nowitzki, Kidd, Marion, and Terry barely needed to think.

At this point I sincerely cannot say who will the series. Miami is slightly better, but Dallas has 3 of the 5 remaining home games. I recall a couple recent playoff Game 2s where a last-second game-winning shot gave an undeserved win to an apparently inferior team that had lost Game 1. Recall Kobe Bryant tying up the Pistons (sending the game to OT, to be eventually won by LA) with a three-pointer in 2004's Game 2, or LeBron James defeating Orlando the same way in 2009's Game 2. Folks thought that "momentum" in the series had turned. But the better team usually wins out; Bryant and James both lost their respective series, in the event. An inferior team can eke out an upset once, but four times? Can't happen.

[My comparison may strike some as inapt because prior to those series, folks thought that the Lakers and Cavaliers were the better teams. But the eyeball test eventually revealed the opposite. No one argues that the Lakers-with-injured-Malone or the Cavs were the better team compared to the Pistons and Orlando in those series.]

So, Miami could still win this one. Heck, they could have won Game 2 with just one or two luckier breaks: a miss by Nowitzki, perhaps a swish by Dwyane Wade on his last-second prayer. But right now Dallas looks like the hungrier AND smarter team.

Game 1 Notes

2011-06-02T10:10:00.003-04:00

A few thoughts after Tuesday night's 92-84 Miami victory in Game 1 of the NBA Finals:

Peja Stojakovic looked lost on defense every time he took the floor. Against Los Angeles or Oklahoma City, Stojakovic could be assigned to guard Ron Artest, Matt Barnes, Lamar Odom, Nick Collison, or Thabo Sefolosha: relatively slow men who are not primary ball-handlers. Against Miami, which plays Lebron James and Dwyane Wade together for nearly 48 minutes straight, Stojakovic is forced to cover an All-NBA wing every trip down the floor. He shot 0 of 3 last night; if he keeps up that desultory record, coach Carlisle may be forced to yank him for Corey Brewer, who at least plays adequate defense. I wonder, too, whether the half-healed Caron Butler might be useful in 5-minute bursts.

Dallas missed a lot of open shots: J.J. Barea missed several of the Nash-like layups he usually writhes into the hoop, and Jason Terry missed a few open 3s. Including Stojakovic and Brendan Haywood, the Mavs' bench combined to shoot for 4 for 22. They will surely improve that rate next time and will score more points. Miami's whole roster shot only 39%, but their three stars still delivered 65 points; it is not obvious that Miami can find more scoring.

Miami has four seven-foot centers bound to the bench: Dexter Pittman, Jamaal Magloire, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, and Erick Dampier. Coach Spoelstra chose to employ 6'8" Udonis Haslem (30 minutes) as his backup center behind 6'9" Joel Anthony (18 minutes). Spoelstra further used 6'10" Juwan Howard for 8 minutes to spell Chris Bosh at power forward. Dallas is the only playoff team with two starting-caliber centers (non-playoff Sacramento could make the same boast; Boston could say the same if Shaquille O'Neal were healthy, as could Portland with a healthy Greg Oden), but Spoelstra chose to combat them with long-limbed agile men. Like the Atlanta Hawks (except better), Miami's typical five-man squad is not a "big lineup", as they play no 7-footers, but not a "small lineup" either, as Lebron James and Mike Miller are oversized for their respective positions. If Miami insists on eschewing its tallest guys, Dallas must find a way to exploit the Heat's short stature. I saw Dallas using a Stevenson-Barea-Terry alignment in the fourth quarter last night; if going small does not work, why not go big? Try bringing in 6'11" F-C Ian Mahinmi, who played 56 games in the regular season, to play with Dirk Nowitzki and Tyson Chandler when Lebron James leaves the game.

My suggestions to play Butler, Brewer, or Mahinmi could be easily ridiculed as desperation. Perhaps Dallas should not mess with the nine-player rotation that destroyed the Lakers and Thunder. But Miami is very, very good.

Film Marketing in the NBA Finals

2011-06-01T17:06:00.011-04:00

Since 2009, ABC/ESPN has made a habit each year of selling heavy advertising promotion during the NBA Finals to one comedy film of questionable quality. The trouble with these advertising segments is not merely that the movies are bad, but that ABC constructs the features as "advertorials" that blur the line between the network's basketball coverage, on the one hand, and its revenue-generating function on the other.

In '09 we saw constant promos for the Jack Black stinker Year One, which hit theaters on June 19th that year. NBA fans hoping to learn how Orlando rookie SG Courtney Lee would oppose Kobe Bryant's offensive assault, or how the Lakers could deal with Hedo Turkoglu on the P&R, were instead subjected to this inane banter of Black and Michael Cera talkin' hoops:

On June 3, 2010, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, and David Spade oddly showed up at courtside in Staples Center for Game 1 between the Lakers and Celtics. Getty Images published a pic, purportedly just another paparazzi snap, of the four actors enjoying themselves. But by more than wacky coincidence, these guys were ready to promote a new movie, Grown-Ups, set to debut on June 27th of that year. Finals viewers soon realized that they were booked for seven games worth of Sandler and his buds cracking jokes in ABC-branded promos during NBA airtime.

Last night, during Game 1 of Dallas-Miami, viewers saw (more than once) an ABC-branded promo for Kevin James's new film, Zookeeper, ready for release on July 8th. I am partial to cute animals, so I am not yet ready to call the movie stupid, but the previews have not looked compelling. If you couldn't get enough of James on a Segway in Mall Cop, James promises to bring even worse obloquy to the profession of wildlife caretaker. ESPN/ABC apparently thought that the NBA's talking-basketball promos from this season's playoffs were clever and iconic enough that a meta-ad featuring James, sitting next to a talking gorilla character from his movie, watching the talking-basketball ad on a television would be snappy. [The original talking basketball bits this spring were fairly amusing, but nothing like the "There Can Only Be One" campaign from 2008, also delivered by ad agency Goodby, Silverstein.]

Surprisingly, none of these movies were produced or owned by the Walt Disney Company (owner of ABC/ESPN); distribution rights for all three belonged to Sony/Columbia. Apparently Sony has a good deal with Disney and the former plans to milk the latter's NBA platform every June for summer movies with shaky pedigrees. Of course, film economics are hard to predict. Year One cost about $60 MM to produce, but earned only $43 MM at US theaters. The Sandler movie, missing any special effects that would drive up costs (though perhaps featuring too many high-salaried actors), earned over $160 MM domestically. Sony's marketing strategy may be an example of the sunk-cost fallacy: having spent a lot of money on a lemon of a project, the sponsor figures he needs to spend even more to gin up some revenue out of it. Sometimes this calculus works, but sometimes it doesn't. "Zookeeper" looks more like a "Year One" redux than a "Grown-Ups"-like hit. Meanwhile, NBA fans must gird for a couple weeks of Kevin James.

Live From the UC: Heat Close Out Bulls in Game 5

2011-05-27T12:01:00.004-04:00

Last night, one-third of the JPO team, plus a non-JPOer who is well acquainted with all three bloggers, had the chance to attend Game 5 of the Bulls-Heat conference finals series live on West Madison St. at the United Center.

By now, all hoop fans know what happened: the Bulls were up by 10 points late in the game, but just as the Mavericks did to the Thunder, Miami used a furious offensive assault (including a rare 4-point play by Dwyane Wade), and firm defensive stands at the other end, to erase the gap, take the lead, and win the game by 3. Miami is now the Eastern Conference champion and will face Dallas next week as the NBA Finals begin.

The live crowd at the United Center was completely deflated by the end. Tom Thibodeau's squad had maintained a lead throughout the game. Expecting their Bulls to close out the win and go down to Miami for Game 6, the arena fans were caught off-guard when James and Wade began drilling shots, and utterly stunned when the final buzzer sounded and the ritual post-series handshakes began. However, this suggests the fallacy of casual observation in a basketball game. If a team builds an early ten-point lead and then maintains that lead for, say, 30 more minutes, it is not correct to think that the leading team "dominated" the game heretofore, as many commentators would say. Actually, in my imagined example, the leading team dominated an early stretch in building that margin, but the subsequent 30 minutes (most of the game) were played evenly, and the trailing team likely has the potential to pull off a quick ten-point run at any moment. This is roughly what happened in last night's game, as Chicago took a lead 9 minutes into the first quarter and did not relinquish that lead until 1 minute remained in the game.

In any case, I want to highlight through video (taken on my very non-professional camera) some key moments from this game.

On this play, Derrick Rose jumps upon Dwyane Wade's up-fake, and Wade draws two foul shots. Wade is not known as a great perimeter shooter; with more experience, Rose would have the patience to not "bite" on that fake.

On this play, the Heat catch both of Chicago's big men, Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer, out of position. With much empty space between himself and the rim, Chris Bosh capitalizes for an easy drive and lay-in.

Despite his lazy defense on that above play, I believe Boozer has been criticized too much during these playoffs. On this below play, watch as the Alaskan uses his wide body to set two sturdy screens. The first knocks Mike Bibby to the ground, and the second momentarily detours LeBron James, giving Luol Deng enough space to launch a good jumper, which he unfortunately missed.

Additionally, when Boozer gets the ball, the Heat certainly respect his offense in the painted area. On this play, watch Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh (covering for Boozer’s assigned guarder, Joel Anthony, who got somewhat lost on the play when he shaded over to double-team Rose) converge on Boozer the moment the latter receives the ball at the free-throw line. Boozer correctly passes out of the double-team. Thanks to Mike Bibby’s completely forgetting about Derrick Rose, Rose is eventually able to swish an open three-pointer on this play.

In this fourth-quarter play, Luol Deng sneaks free after Dwyane Wade tires of trying to guard the much taller small forward. I include this one to illustrate that Miami’s swarming defensive philosophy often leads to wide-open looks. Deng is not even visible as the play starts, as he camps out in the lower right corner. Deng is easily able to shake loose of Wade’s sentry, and Wade then decides his service would be better rendered by banging in the post with Taj Gibson for a rebound. Deng is suddenly wide-open. LeBron James, ostensibly guarding Derrick Rose by this late moment in the game, does not bother to impede Deng as he streaks toward the hoop, receives a nice bounce pass from Kurt Thomas, and draws a foul.

Dallas Achieves The Near-Impossible

2011-05-24T09:15:00.010-04:00

Last night Dallas came back from a 15-point deficit with 5 minutes left, riding some stupendous baskets by Dirk Nowitzki and a stern defensive effort to force overtime and eventually defeat the Thunder. Dallas now leads the series 3-1 and will likely advance to the NBA Finals.

A few points come to mind.
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Who would have thought that Kevin Durant could be solidly defended by a 6'4" man old enough to be his father?
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In the last 32 seasons, the Western Conference has been won by the following teams (assuming Dallas does close out the series):

L.A. Lakers (16 times)

San Antonio Spurs (4 times)

Houston Rockets (4 times)

Utah Jazz (2 times)

Dallas Mavericks (2 times)

Portland Trail Blazers (2 times)

Phoenix Suns (1 time)

Seattle Supersonics (1 time)

And in the last 12 seasons, only the Lakers, Spurs and Mavs have taken Western gold.

Following Sacramento, New Orleans, Denver, Memphis, Minnesota, Golden State, and the Clippers cannot be much fun. Heck, there has only been one year during the past 30, 2004, in which Minnesota advanced past the first round. The same goes for the Clippers (2006) and the Grizzlies (2011)). Without a superstar, there is no glory, and only a handful of all-timers exist at any given moment.
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As spectacular as Dallas played down the stretch last night, they were still less than perfect. The Mavs nearly won last night's game in regulation; a missed free throw by Shawn Marion and a botched fast-break layup by Jason Terry in the final minute could have augmented the 17-2 run. Credit Thabo Sefolosha for excellent defense on a barreling Terry.
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As I wrote a few days ago, the Thunder cannot win this series by single-covering Dirk Nowitzki. The Thunder have a surfeit of big men including Nazr Mohammed and Cole Aldrich, last year's first-round draft pick. Put those guys in the game and tell them to foul Dirk like crazy! Particularly when Brendan Haywood plays, Oklahoma likely realizes positive value from leaving Haywood to double-team Nowitzki.
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In every late fourth-quarter situation in the NBA, every trailing team hopes to complete a comeback like this. It usually doesn't happen, but the salience of crazy recoveries (Reggie Miller's 8 points in 9 seconds, Tracy McGrady's 13 points in 35 seconds, Miami over Dallas in Game 3 in 2006, Derrick Rose over the Pacers in Game 1 this year) allows all similarly-positioned teams to wonder whether they might be so fortunate. Blame Dirk Nowitzki's heroics last night for all the future fourth quarters that last 45 minutes in a mess of fouls and feckless timeouts.

Joakim Noah's Foul Mouth

2011-05-24T08:58:00.004-04:00

In Game 3 of the Bulls-Heat series on Sunday night, Joakim Noah, ticked at a fan who was insulting his mother, called the fan a "faggot". Noah is now repentant, saying that uttering anti-gay slurs is "not who I am." Apparently double European parentage makes one congenitally disinclined to homophobia or other biases, at least compared to laddish American men. But it is easy to judge what Noah "is" from his reflexive behavior a couple nights ago. Without thinking too hard, he resorted to "faggot" as a reflexive smack. That makes him a jock: one who has learned to prove himself better with the force of his body. This culture would tend to denigrate anything that deviates from the typical model of the acquisitive, dominant male. It's not surprising, really, as Noah has spent most of his post-pubescent life around American sports, not around the European Human Rights Commission. The "thoughtful jock" like Grant Hill or Jared Dudley who tells us to curb our worst impulses is a rare cat.

Dallas Is Not Fast, Still Furious

2011-05-18T16:05:00.006-04:00

Dallas defeated Oklahoma City by 9 points on Tuesday night, showing that this series will pit speed against savvy. Dallas fields seven guys over 30 in their nine-man rotation; nearly all of Oklahoma's rotation players are 26 or younger. Note, now, that it is generally true that teams advancing far into the playoffs feature veterans. A stud prospect like Kyrie Irving or Derrick Williams is unlikely to lead a playoff contender until his fifth or sixth year, at least; ideally, he will continue to lead teams well into his 30s. Players who star in the playoffs in just their third season, such as Dwyane Wade in '06 or Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook this year, are the exception. If Oklahoma City can defeat the Mavs, I will be surprised.

Observe the video below. Dallas has no answers defensively when the young Thunder players turn on the jets. Witness, for example, Russell Westbrook's mad dash at 0:52 of this video or Durant's one-man fast break to close the first quarter (1:02 of the video).

But Dallas gets its points with expert ball movement rather than raw quicks. Watch the play starting at 1:05 of the video. How does 6'2" shooting guard Jason Terry do so well? First, he often plays against second-string guards, who are either too weak or too inexperienced to adequately check him. (Second, when he plays with Jason Kidd, Kidd matches up against the opponent's taller guard, freeing Terry to excel at both ends.) In this play, Eric Maynor completely forgets about Terry, leaving Terry wide-open for about five seconds before JET receives the ball and launches an easy three-pointer.

At 1:16, watch little J.J. Barea (really) successfully setting a screen against Dirk Nowitzki's defender Nick Collison, freeing Nowitzki to easily receive an inbounds pass and hit a layup. Collison has about 12 inches and 100 pounds on Barea, but he still couldn't get past the smaller guard. Additionally, backup center Nazr Mohammed appears to be wearing army boots, as he is standing directly under the basket yet does nothing to impede Nowitzki's easy bucket.

Kevin Durant shot 18 of 19 from the free-throw line and Dirk Nowitzki shot, improbably, 24 of 24. As described here, the Thunder chose not to double-team Nowitzki, allowing him to repeatedly bust free for big points. OKC will likely lose the series if they continue this approach.

Lefties Living Large

2011-05-06T16:53:00.012-04:00

With U.S. President Barack Obama basking in his administration's killing of Usama bin Laden and a favorable jobs report for April 2011, left-handers are on top of the world right now. In the NBA playoffs, most of the top teams feature at least one left-hander who successfully discombobulates opponents by dwelling in a confusing mirror-land. My significant other is also an inveterate southpaw, so I am partial to the reverse racket. Here is a review of the top lefties of the NBA playoffs:

Chris Bosh: Bosh has thus far played adequate defense on Philly's Elton Brand and Boston's Kevin Garnett, limiting each guy to about 15 points per game. For his part, Bosh has averaged nearly 18 points and 10 rebounds in the playoffs, consistently giving Miami the big presence they need to keep defenses from double- or triple-teaming his mates James and Wade. Miami is 6-1 in the playoffs thus far and is the clear favorite to win the East, given injuries to the Celtics' and Bulls' best players. If the Heat defeat Boston, the velociraptor lookalike will need to raise the fury of his offensive game as the Heat move on to face stalwart defenders like Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Andrew Bynum, Kendrick Perkins, or Tyson Chandler.

Zach Randolph: Randolph has been a monster in the playoffs thus far, averaging 22 points and over 7 FT attempts (making the latter at an 87% pace), giving his team ridiculous offensive efficiency. Randolph has carved up Tim Duncan, Antonio McDyess, DeJuan Blair, Serge Ibaka, and any other defender who cares to challenge the big Hoosier. At the end of Game 6 of the Spurs series, San Antonio pulled ahead 80-79 with about five minutes left. The young Memphis team could have crumbled, but Randolph then scored 13 points down the stretch, throwing in a variety of awkward-yet-graceful parries at the basket to lead his team to a comfortable 8-point win, closing the series.

Lamar Odom: Odom has not played to his potential in these playoffs. Defending Carl Landry of the outmatched Hornets, Odom allowed the backup power forward to rumble for 16 points per night. On offense, Odom has produced only about 11 points and 7 rebounds, and only 4 total three-pointers in six games. With Ron Artest sentenced to one game out of action, Odom will enter the starting lineup tonight and will take direct responsibility for stopping Shawn Marion and/or Dirk Nowitzki.

James Harden: Harden's beard and mohawk are intimidating, but he has been a bit inconsistent in the playoffs, putting up point totals of 5, 18, 10, 7, 12, 5, and 21. His most recent output, Game 2 against Memphis, was his best, including 5 assists, 3 steals, and 11 free-throw attempts (with a perfect completion rate). However, Harden needs to stroke outside shots more consistently (he averages only one three-pointer per game) to discourage Memphis defenders from converging all their might on Durant and Westbrook. Oklahoma City's other rotation players — Perkins, Sefolosha, Ibaka, Mohammed, and Collison — are not known as major offensive threats. Only Eric Maynor's surprising long-distance result in Game 2 kept the Grizzly defense at bay, and Maynor may not repeat that.

Josh Smith: Smith is, as ever, inconsistent; he is surely the most talented player to never make the All-Star Game (edging Odom, discussed above, and Monta Ellis and LaMarcus Aldridge for that designation). Here is Charley Rosen's evaluation of Smith following the Bulls-Hawks second game a couple nights ago: "Smith had only himself to blame for his abysmal 4-of-14, four-turnover performance. That’s because he forced a total of eight shots/passes/drives, with most of his turnovers being of the unforced variety." In the first-round series with Orlando, Smith did a good job of limiting Brandon Bass to only 7 PPG and 4 RPG, well below Bass's regular-season averages. But on offense Smith has been just dead weight, averaging 39% from the field, 56% from the free-throw line, and 17% from three-point range (on his 2.4 attempts per game). Smith could average 5 or 6 assists per game with his height, vision, and agility, but he peaked at 4.2 in 2009-10, and dropped to just over 3 assists this season, and just under 2.6 assists these playoffs.

Derek Fisher: Fisher has spent these playoffs allowing Chris Paul and J.J. Barea to repeatedly abuse him. Should the Lakers somehow advance to face Memphis or (particularly) Oklahoma City, Fisher's defensive weakness will become still more patent. At 6'1", Fisher was never the hulkiest of defenders against opposing PGs, and now he is nearly 37 years old. Fisher is not giving his team in credits nearly what he takes away in debits, averaging only 8.5 points and 4 assists in this postseason. But he still shoots a pretty jumper.

Mike Conley, Jr.: In his first NBA playoffs, Zach Randolph's teammate has done well against good-to-excellent point guards like Ty Lawson, Ray Felton, and Russell Westbrook. Conley has raised his scoring average slightly, from 13.7 in the regular season to 15.6 in the playoffs. Additionally, Conley has done a good job (6.5 assists against Denver and Oklahoma City) delivering the ball to his big menaces Marc Gasol and Randolph, who know how to score it. Conley reached the NCAA tournament final four years ago in his only college season, so he is not unaccustomed to serious pressure.

Manu Ginobili: This 6'6" guard is the only man on my list not still playing in May. Ginobili is a great player, but he was limited in the Memphis series by an elbow injury that he suffered when, oddly, his coach had him playing in the season's final game, which was meaningless to San Antonio's relative standings. Ginobili hit a very lucky shot to help force overtime at the end of Game 5 and averaged 20 points per game in the series, but he was unable to stop marginal offensive talents like Tony Allen and Sam Young from carving up the Spurs in the paint, and now his year is done.

Other left-handers like Tayshaun Prince, David Lee, Michael Redd, and Mike Beasley all play for 2011 lottery teams. Prince, who has seen plenty of prior playoff success, might make his way to a winning team as a free agent this summer.

First Round of the Playoffs

2011-05-01T11:55:00.000-04:00

With the first round over, here are some quick observations:

Lakers v. Hornets

New Orleans had great success with the pick-and-roll against Los Angeles; on several occasions in Game 4, I saw Andrew Bynum forced to defend Chris Paul one-on-one after switches. The big man gamely saw in a defensive crouch to defend Paul, but the latter torched Bynum for swished jumpers time after time.

Mavs v. Blazers

LaMarcus Aldridge has become very, very good in the low post. Nicolas Batum is a nice two-way player. Greg Oden, if healthy, can form an outstanding defensive line with Aldridge. Gerald Wallace is a great sixth man. All Portland misses is an All-NBA caliber guard. Unfortunately, Brandon Roy's knees are not what they were in 2009. Committed to Roy through 2015, Portland has little hope of crafting a championship contender.

Spurs v. Grizzlies

I was surprised that San Antonio repeatedly had no answer for Memphis's slow, arboreal attack. Unfortunately, Antonio McDyess is too old, Matt Bonner too slow, and DeJuan Blair too short to deal with Randolph or Gasol. On the other end, one would think that Parker and Ginobili could repeatedly hit outside jumpers against the inexperienced defense of Sam Young, Mike Conley Jr., and O.J. Mayo. Unfortunately, Memphis's perimeter players (including the excellent Tony Allen) are relatively tall, and Parker is not; also, Ginobili was slowed by an elbow injury.

Thunder v. Nuggets

Denver had a full company of troops to do good combat with Oklahoma City, but they were outplayed late in their losses. Excepting the blowout Game 2, here are the fourth-quarter scores and the final scores. Game 1: Tie in 4th quarter, OKC wins by 4. Game 3: OKC by 5 in 4th quarter, by 3 overall. Game 5: OKC by 7 in 4th quarter, by 3 overall. The Thunder have Kevin Durant to get results in crunch time; Denver's best scorer is Danilo Gallinari.

Celtics v. Knicks

The Celtics may have swept New York, but we should not infer too much from this outcome. Boston could barely defeat NY in two games at home, enjoying some lucky bounces and mental miscues by the Knicks in the fourth quarter. When the series moved to Manhattan, had little trouble dealing with a team missing Chauncey Billups and a healthy Amare Stoudemire.

Magic v. Hawks

Similar to Dallas's problem, Orlando fields a 5'11" point guard as its second-best player and alleged team leader. Its shooting guard going forward, J.J. Redick, is 6'4". How on earth can these guys hope to defend Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade, or Ray Allen? They certainly couldn't do it against Joe Johnson and Jamal Crawford, who averaged 18 and 20 points, respectively, in six games of their first-round series. Worse, Orlando's contractual commitments to Hedo Turkoglu (through 2013) and Gilbert Arenas (through 2014) preclude the team from making any good trades or adding good free agents. Dwight Howard would be crazy to re-sign here.

Bulls v. Pacers

The Pacers surprisingly kept the first three games close and won the fourth, thanks to superstar play by Danny Granger and necessary buckets from their big players, Hansbrough and Hibbert. Chicago had a difficult time pulling away from Indiana in the first four games, in part because Carlos Boozer only scored 12 PPG in those contests. Without Boozer throwing in a regular 20 points per, the Bulls generally lack scoring punch. Their first priority for improving the roster must be finding a two-way SG who can throw the ball through the rim and stop the opposing counterpart.

Heat v. 76ers

Like the Pacers, Philadelphia played Miami tight in four of the five games: three of Philly's losses came by 8 points or fewer. With young players like Holiday, Young, Turner, Williams, and Iguodala, the Sixers are one of the few teams in the league that can play at Miami'a fast pace; Iguodala in particular helps the 76ers run up and down while staying with Miami's stallions defensively. Only an ultra-quick or ultra-strong team can probably defeat Miami in four games out of seven. The Boston Celtics, unfortunately, reduced their strength significantly when they traded Kendrick Perkins.

Playoff Predictions

2011-04-14T13:01:00.009-04:00

The 2011 playoffs begin this weekend, so here are our quick thoughts:

Other than the Trail Blazers of 1977, no team has ever won the championship if its core players had not even won a single playoff series in prior years. (One could point to the 1980 champion Los Angeles Lakers featuring rookie Magic Johnson, but its other top players including Jamaal Wilkes, Michael Cooper, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had won a first-round series against Denver in '79. One could also look at the Celtics of 2008, who turned the previous season's 24 wins into a championship. But Pierce, Garnett, and Allen had all made it to the conference finals with different prior teams.) This is not a random correlation; beating the same opponent over and over, even as the opponent comes to know your strengths and weaknesses, is a learned skill. For that reason, I have a hard time seeing the Chicago Bulls or Oklahoma City Thunder winning the 2011 title. (The Bulls boast Boozer and the Thunder play Perkins, both of whom have seen playoff success before, but each of those guys is not among the respective team's top three players.) That is not to say that Chicago and Oklahoma cannot make the NBA Finals, but they will likely not win the big prize.

That leaves San Antonio, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, Boston, and Orlando as possible champs. Keep that in mind in reading the following predictions:

FIRST ROUND

San Antonio over Memphis in six. The Grizzlies play difficult defense, but have no one big and strong enough to stop Tim Duncan. Look for Duncan to explode offensively, despite his relatively quiet season.

Los Angeles over New Orleans in five. Derek Fisher has a very difficult time defending speedy point guards like Russell Westbrook or Derrick Rose, but the Hornets' Chris Paul would be better termed "crafty" or "agile" rather than speedy. Paul's effectiveness depends on his ability to deliver the ball to finishers in the right place. The Lakers' set of big men should dominate the Hornets.

Dallas over Portland in five. Brandon Roy is a non-factor and Marcus Camby is perpetually injured. Even without Caron Butler, Dallas is far deeper than the Blazers.

Oklahoma City over Denver in five. Note that the Thunder are fully healthy, while Denver players Gallinari, Lawson, Afflalo, and Andersen are all recovering from injuries. Ty Lawson is too small and Danilo Gallinari too slow to deal with Westbrook and Durant.

Chicago over Indiana in four. The Pacers' starting unit features a rookie, Paul George, and two second-year players — Collison and Hansbrough. They will be smacked.

Miami over Philadelphia in four. Andre Iguodala might be able to adequately defend Dwyane Wade or LeBron James, but not both. And who will defend Chris Bosh? Not Elton Brand or Spencer Hawes. Philadelphia does not have the personnel to exploit Miami's weaknesses.

Boston over New York in five. If Shaquille O'Neal is healthy, he can play 20 minutes of dominant offensive basketball each game; no one on New York has the heft to defend him. Meanwhile, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Rajon Rondo should have the agility and know-how to defend the Knicks' three stars of Anthony, Stoudemire, Billups.

Orlando over Atlanta in six. The Magic's bench is weak: J.J. Redick is recovering from a groin injury, Gilbert Arenas is significantly slower than his old self, and their backup center is Earl Clark. Luckily for the Magic, Atlanta's bench is no better, even at full strength. If the Hawks play their centers (Jason Collins and Zaza Pachulia), they may have a chance against Orlando; if they play a guard-heavy (or Marvin-heavy) lineup with Al Horford at center, Dwight Howard should crush them.

SECOND ROUND

Oklahoma City over San Antonio in six. Oklahoma's big men — Ibaka, Perkins, Collison, and Mohammed — are credible threats at either end against Duncan, McDyess, Bonner, Splitter, Blair. The Thunder have a wing stopper (Sefolosha) and two wing scorers (Durant, Harden) to throw at Jefferson and Ginobili. Meanwhile, Russell Westbrook should control his matchup with Tony Parker and George Hill. The Thunder could grab Game 1 in the SBC Center and then quickly seize a 3-1 series lead.

Los Angeles over Dallas in six. Dallas simply cannot contain the Lakers' stars defensively. Corey Brewer is too lithe and Jason Kidd too old to defend Kobe Bryant. Dirk Nowitzki is too weak and Tyson Chandler too slim to defend the Odom/Gasol/Bynum trio. I expect low-scoring games, mostly won by the gold team.

Orlando over Chicago in six. Joakim Noah is a very good player, but Dwight Howard is bigger and better. Ryan Anderson scored 28 points in an April 10th game against Chicago; he and Brandon Bass should put up numbers against Carlos Boozer. Without evidence, I believe Gilbert Arenas will explode in this series, exposing Derrick Rose's defensive limitations. Chicago has dominated in the United Center all year, so Orlando's best hope is probably to steal Game 5, then close things in a sixth game down south.

Miami over Boston in five. See my analysis of the Boston-NYK series above? Stopping James, Wade, and Bosh is a mite tougher than stopping Anthony, Billups, Stoudemire. Further, Erick Dampier and Joel Anthony should be able to quell the burbling fury of Shaquille O'Neal.

CONFERENCE FINALS

Oklahoma City over Los Angeles in seven. I did say that no team without a prior season's playoff series win can attain the championship, but the Thunder certainly can make the Finals. Oklahoma's superior depth (their eleventh man is Nate Robinson, while the Lakers' eleventh man is Devin Ebanks) should carry them through a difficult and long series, even without home-court advantage.

Miami over Orlando in six. Howard would dominate offensively, but Miami should be able to stifle the rest of Orlando's team on the offensive side, and when Miami gets the ball, no Magic perimeter defender can really stop them. In fact, the Magic don't have a perimeter defender.

NBA FINALS

Miami over Oklahoma City in six. Miami would have home-court advantage in this putative matchup. Dwyane Wade could pick up Russell Westbrook's dashing forays to the hoop, and LeBron James could stay with Kevin Durant's quick releases around the perimeter. Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka might neutralize Chris Bosh's offensive efforts, but Sefolosha is a bit too slight to do anything real against James and Wade when the latter guys get the ball. If Russell Westbrook is forced to help defensively against Dwyane Wade, then Bibby, Miller, or Chalmers could rain in three-pointers. This would be an awesome series, but I like the Heat to win the first of what could be many championships.

Citizen Enforcement of the Rules

2011-04-08T11:19:00.003-04:00

In American law, private citizens' suits to enforce public rules are allowed (particularly in the environmental context) where the issues are particularly local and regulators are likely to be too far removed from the situation to reliably act. (This could be said about a variety of regulatory contexts, including finance, labor, agriculture, and so forth. One wonders, actually, why the US Congress has authorized citizen suits in environmental settings but not much elsewhere.)

In Wednesday night's Charlotte-Orlando game, Bobcats guard Gerald Henderson Jr. decided that Dwight Howard's lollygagging at the free-throw line deserved sanction. Henderson used his fingers to conspicuously count seconds while Howard stood at the line: 1... 2... 3... up to 10. When Henderson hit 10, the referees whistled Howard for a violation of the NBA rule, thus nullifying his FT attempt. (Angered, Howard tossed a ball and earned a technical foul.)

Orlando and its fans may loathe Henderson for being a jerk, but someone needed to prod the referees into action. As long noted, we at JPO want rules to be applied consistently, without regard for the identity or reputation of the players involved. If referees will not whistle Howard for his slow free-throw form, it is efficient for a guard like Henderson, who stands behind the line otherwise doing nothing while watching the FT, to incontrovertibly highlight the violation.

The NBA has a long-standing practice of fining players or coaches who publicly criticize referees. It is fair to say that the NBA does not see a need for citizen patrolling of its regulators; rather, the NBA feels that the referees are sufficiently close to the action that they should be able to see all rule violations. (This is actually a plausible story; an NBA referee can catch a slow FT attempt or a "Jordan pushed off" moment more easily than a regulator in DC or Chicago can find contaminated effluent in rural Iowa. However, a fourth referee on the court would help matters.) Will Henderson now receive a fine for his implicit critique of the Wednesday officials? Seems that the league might lose credibility if Henderson is not fined.

Not Yet Ultimate, They Are Still Warriors

2011-04-07T22:53:00.005-04:00

Fighting hard for playoff positioning, the Lakers exploded after the All-Star game, winning 17 of 18. Starting Sunday, though, Los Angeles dropped three straight games to teams of decreasing caliber: first Denver, then Utah, then Golden State.

In last night's game against the Warriors, Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol shot a combined 17-for-31, putting 43 points on the scoreboard. L.A. earned 27 free-throw attempts and rebounded the ball 47 times. Meanwhile, Golden State shot 39% from the field.... and the Warriors somehow won the game by 8 points. How did they do this? Golden State rebounded the ball 50 times, including 18 offensive caroms, enabling them to launch 93 shots. (Lakers' opponents generally average 12 offensive boards per game.)

Golden State is so offensively prolific that an average defensive effort, plus a decent mess of ORB, can help them win a lot of games. (One night earlier, the Warriors thumped playoff-bound Portland by 21 points.) If rookie PF/C Ekpe Udoh becomes a reliable man in the painted area, Golden State can at least make the playoffs with its current roster. A defensively aware head coach could do very good things with the Warriors squad.

To enter the draft, or not?

2011-04-05T14:54:00.011-04:00

Butler coach Brad Stevens recently observed:

Stevens wondered if the unclear situation might cause a reverse pendulum effect. If more players do not enter the draft because of the uncertainty, it could present an opportunity for others to leave early and benefit from a watered-down draft pool.

“Does that make this draft weaker? Might,” Stevens said. “So you might be able to get drafted higher. Does it make it so that nobody wants to go out because they don’t want to sit out their whole senior year and not play basketball until February?”

This presents a complicated situation of belief formation. The lockout news might persuade me to stay in college. But if I believe everyone else is staying in college due to the lockout, then perhaps I have extra incentive on the margin to enter the draft. But I know that everybody else is probably thinking the same way, so perhaps they all actually will enter the draft, and my original assumption about everyone staying in college is wrong. But wait!... if everyone is entering the draft after all, then perhaps I should stay in school. But if everyone else is thinking the same way, then doesn't that mean that everyone else is staying in college?

Und so weiter.

Of course, my paragraph above is a caricature: it is unrealistic to think that either every NBA-quality talent stays in college, or else every NBA-quality talent declares for the draft. A more realistic picture might also imply an equilibrium to this situation, i.e. an outcome where people are forming correct beliefs about their counterparts, and everyone is making good decisions based on those beliefs. The realism comes from considering heterogeneity among the would-be draftees. Maybe different players have different inclinations to enter the draft, based on their talent level, their college team's prospects, and their family's financial situation. Thus, the external shock of the lockout, though it touches all players, will affect different players differently: For some players, it might tip the difference from going pro to remaining a student. For other players who had previously decided that either staying in school or joining the draft was optimal for them, the lockout news might not shift their calculus. There is also heterogeneity in the players' reasoning ability; some will correctly think about how all the other potential draftees are thinking, and some will not. Some will correctly recognize such heterogeneity of thinking ability, and some will not. The secondary consideration of "How does this lockout news affect other players?" will thus have only secondary effects, and it is possible that, after a few players adjust their decisions, an equilibrium could be reached.

College and law school graduates unlucky enough to leave school in 2008, 2009, or 2010 found themselves facing the worst job market since at least the 1970s, and without a good starting position, their long-term career prospects may be commensurately curtailed. Similarly, 2011 potential draftees have it bad, as a lockout will kill their first paychecks and, if the 2011-12 season is completely cancelled, force them to compete, as unproven talent, with 2012 draftees for 2012-13 roster spots. (The 2012 draftees have a similar problem, though they will likely get a full season's worth of paychecks.) Unlike "normal" graduates, though, NBA prospects have the option to stay in school at university expense for a couple more years until the storm abates. And even a couple months of a minimum-salaried NBA paycheck could more than pay the bills for most American families. As a specialized monopoly industry, the NBA is hardly a good facsimile of the rest of the US economy.

NCAA Basketball, Where Talent and Flash are Losing Horses

2011-03-26T17:20:00.009-04:00

When I watch college basketball games, I notice that the defenders seem to exert more energy and they are more effective. Even in last night's Ohio State vs. Kentucky game, featuring at least a handful of future NBAers, I saw players frequently pick up their dribble, flummoxed, when double-teamed or challenged by a feisty face-up man. Offensive sets feature (i) a lot of perimeter passing, (ii) a complicated "weave" look, or else (iii) a total breakdown ending in an errant pass or a slapped-free ball. In the NBA, your typical player (who formerly was the very best of the best in the college circuit) has the speed, agility, and handle to dribble around a good defender; your average college man cannot. Is this because of the apparently tougher effort given by college defenders? Not exactly; the usual college player has less athletic ability than even an NBA schlub; the undergraduate needs to exert himself harder to cover a given ground in a given time.

So to recap, dribble-driving is relatively poor in the university game, and so is defense. But in the NCAA ranks, decent defense can usually trump a dribbler; in the NBA, the reverse prevails. Even future studs of pro ball-handling are usually not at their highest powers while still in college.

Consider the following talent-laden NCAA showdowns. In the NBA, this just wouldn't happen, even in one game. Yes, "anything can happen" on one night, but with the championship on the line, the best players generally raise their level of play commensurately.

In 2008, Kansas, featuring Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur, beat future all-world point guard Derrick Rose in the championship game.

Duke featured five future NBA players on its championship 2001 squad, but none of them had the explosiveness off the dribble possessed by Gilbert Arenas. No matter; Arenas was stymied by the defense of Shane Battier and Chris Duhon, and Duke beat Arizona. (Arizona avenged this loss ten years later, in its March 24th, 2011 victory over the Blue Devils.)

How did North Carolina State bottle up a point-maker like Clyde Drexler?

Utah vs. Chicago '98

2011-03-18T12:47:00.003-04:00

Last night NBATV, perhaps trying to counter the lure of live March Madness (although NBATV is run by Turner, which is broadcasting NCAA tournament games, so perhaps my conjecture is wrong), showed the original "Jordan Pushed Off" game, Chicago vs. Utah in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals.

I noticed a few things in this game that had slipped from my memory:

Dennis Rodman was an unbelievable rebounder, bounding multiple body lengths to grab caroms.

Scottie Pippen could barely walk in this game, yet delivered a number of clutch shots.

Michael Jordan started the fourth quarter shooting 2 for 8. He kept shooting, though, and hit two mid-range buckets in the final minute of the game to hand his team the win.

Utah won 62 games and made the Finals with a motley collection of role players including Antoine Carr, Howard Eisley, and Shandon Anderson, all of whom played crunch-time minutes. That is all from coaching.

Isiah Thomas was a credible TV commentator. Bob Costas, though, should stick to hosting the Olympics.

Please, No More Pro Hoops Around The Equinox

2011-03-14T13:33:00.005-04:00

The last month of the NBA season is no fun for anyone. The worst teams are actively tanking. The best teams are resting their starters, as the marginal change in expected wins from playing the starters 40 MPG instead of 30 MPG is unlikely to affect playoff seeding. It is only the mediocre teams churning around the 7th and 8th playoff spots (this season, the Indiana Pacers, Charlotte Bobcats, Milwaukee Bucks, Memphis Grizzlies, Houston Rockets) that actually give a darn.

The revenue boost from at least two home playoff games can be substantial for an owner. If you can fill a 20,000 seat arena at an average price of $30 per ticket, that is $600,000 per game and over $1 million if, at worst, your team gets quickly swept in four games by a real power. If your team gets lucky and defies expectations to win a playoff series (let us think of 2005's Jerome James-led Seattle Supersonics, or 2001's Raptors), that represents even more home games at higher per-seat prices. So there is good reason for the Bucks and Rockets to fight all the way to the end for the final playoff seed. [On the other hand, a better path to financial prudence would simply be not to sign the Jerome Jameses of the league to multi-million-dollar contracts.]

For the rest of us, the waning winter and "madness" of the college playoff are enough to distract us from the meaningless final weeks. I might propose that the final month of the NBA season simply be cancelled, giving playoff teams a break between mid-March and mid-April. Nearly six months of regular-season games is just too much, especially for players. Posit, further, that ticket prices could be raised for the remaining ~65 regular season games so that team revenues come out even. Some might argue that with a five-month season, the fifth month, mid-February through mid-March, would then become the doggy days wherein nobody tries. But, if you'll permit me some math for a moment, the standard deviation of the sample mean (in other words, if the team's win-loss record after playing N games is a measure of how truly good it is, how prone is the measure to error?) is inversely proportional to the square root of N. The first derivative of that function is negative, but inversely proportional to N^(3/2). Back in plain English, the "marginal reliability" effect of playing more games decreases the more games you play. The 66th through 82nd games are less meaningful than the 49th through 65th, say, games would be. As we have seen during the past few weeks, as the Bulls, Celtics, and Heat jockeyed for playoff seeding, we still don't yet know who the "best" regular season team is. But by April 1st we surely will.

Owning A Team Ain't All That

2011-03-11T12:09:00.006-05:00

It appears today that the National Football League and its Players Association will be unable to conclude a new collective bargaining agreement, and an extended lockout will ensue. With the looming expiration of the NBA's collective bargaining agreement on July 1st, many pundits are predicting a similar work stoppage in pro hoops, and a possible cancellation or curtailment of the 2011-12 season, as happened in '98-99.

Without the players, what does assets a pro team owner "own"? Likely, you have an exclusive long-term lease with the best arena or stadium in town. You own all the intellectual property relating to your team's name, logo, colors, and so forth. You are party to various marketing deals with corporate sponsors. Finally, you are party to television and radio broadcast agreements. But without any players to populate your team and play games, all that will not get you much more than a cup of coffee. I suppose the team can still take revenue from jersey sales during a lockout/strike, but if a lockout were to drag on and the long-term viability of the league appeared questionable, merchandise sales would slow considerably, aside from sales of older vintage jerseys (aka "throwbacks", in the argot) to hipsters or serious fans.

What is to stop the NBA players from setting up their own league? Let us assume that star players like LeBron James and Dwight Howard were sufficiently charismatic that they could persuade at least a couple hundred NBA-caliber players to join them, and to find rich investors who could back the venture, and unbooked arenas that would associate with their venture. In other words, why shouldn't they form another ABA? Why shouldn't they own their own venture and draw all the residual profits?

[There are, of course, many minor-league professional hoops leagues in the United States right now, including one called the American Basketball Association with an unwieldy 60 teams. None of them has the world's best players, though; one organization has a monopoly on those guys.]

Basketball, with its flesh-baring uniforms and lack of helmets, naturally emphasizes individuals more than other team sports like baseball, hockey, or American football. Sure, soccer sets up the individual athlete for glory, particularly with the rarity of goals, but the television camera tends to take a bird's-eye view of the pitch, making each player's grimaces and bellows hard to discern. A basketball court, at 94' by 50', comprises about 7% of the surface area of a FIFA soccer field, the latter being about 100 meters by 64 meters. A roving cameraman can easily capture the blood, sweat, and tattoos of a hoopster, whereas soccer players just look small on television. Additionally, trends in cheap shoe manufacturing, easy communications technology, and favorable free-agent rules have helped to push individual basketball players into prominence relative to their team, much more so than baseball or gridiron players. So again, why shouldn't locked-out NBA players form their own league?

This recent SI.com article by law professor Michael McCann suggests, at Paragraph 10, suggests that locked-out NFL players could join other sports leagues, although he does not raise the possibility of the players starting their own league. In the NBA setting, it is important to note that under Section 9 of the NBA's Uniform Player Contract, each team effectively has the protection of a "non-compete clause": during the term of a player's contract, the team has the right to go to court and get an injunction prohibiting the player from playing "for any other person, firm, entity, or organization." However, it is unclear whether an NBA player contract would still be considered valid during a lockout. If the contracts are not in good standing during a lockout, then it seems that Section 9 would have no force. We should also note that many NBA players will become free agents on July 1st, though they are mostly middling players like Tyson Chandler and Nene Hilario. Those players certainly can escape the non-compete clause of Section 9, though, due to happenstance, the 2011 free-agent class would not be spectacular enough to support a financially sustainable new league.

It is unclear whether the non-compete clauses would be enforceable in court against Wade, James, Howard, Bryant, Paul, and the rest of the NBA's greatest stars, who would normally, without a lockout, be bound by valid contracts in 2011-12. [I welcome more advice from labor/employment law experts.] But why shouldn't they try? Should they fail, and should a new NBA labor agreement be concluded, it is unlikely that NBA owners would not welcome them back. The threat of a breakaway league is certainly a powerful negotiating position.

There would be other obstacles, too: Perhaps the existing TV networks with NBA coverage would refuse to do business with this new league, hoping to remain in good standing with the owners of the old "NBA" should the status quo ante return. But there are enough cable, satellite, and internet television channels these days that surely the new league could get distribution somewhere. The same arguments apply to the league's other business partners: corporate sponsors, apparel manufacturers, arenas. Surely some competitors might arise to fill the hollow if the old vendors and customers boycott the new league. The apparel manufacturers derive more oomph from their association with individual players, anyway.

Finally, would FIBA recognize the new league? This is not extremely important, as the new league could easily do business within the United States and Canada without dealing internationally. To orderly work with European (and, increasingly, Chinese) clubs for cross-oceanic movement of players, though, membership in FIBA would be vital. Likely, if the new league could prove viable for a couple seasons, FIBA would treat the old NBA as dead and buried.

Some will argue that the stars' competitiveness, sense of their place in history, and "respect for the game" would discourage them from such a yawning step. But what would cement their stature in time better than putting the mighty NBA owners out of business? Basketball with the world's greatest players is the same game, regardless of who runs the show.

Assessing McGrady's Historic Position

2011-03-07T14:22:00.004-05:00

Yahoo! featured a great article yesterday about Tracy McGrady's career, focusing on his failure to develop his natural talents to excel as contemporaries like Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett have. Halfway through the piece, author Dan Devine notes in passing that it could be "argue[d]" that McGrady has compiled a "Hall of Fame-caliber" career. I would like to advance the negative side of this proposition.

As Devine noted, McGrady won two scoring titles with Orlando. For the greater part of the decade just completed, McGrady was a true superstar, making seven All-NBA teams (variously first team, second team, or third team) and putting together spectacular highlights (notably, his thirteen points in 35 seconds to beat San Antonio in late 2004). However, his career as a top player basically ended after the 2007-08 season. He was injured throughout 2008-09, then had microfracture knee surgery around February '09, against the wishes of Houston management. When he returned in the middle of 2009-10, the Rockets traded him for strategic reasons (to acquire some draft picks from New York), and he played sparingly for the Knicks to close the season. After signing with Detroit last summer as a free agent, McGrady showed a couple months of nice point guard play for the Pistons, but since the "player boycott" a couple weeks ago, the coach has benched him.

Let's not forget that this guy never won a playoff series. In a 2003 first-round series, Orlando went up 3-1 on Detroit, but lost the series. In 2005, Houston won the first two games on the road of a first-round series against Dallas. But somehow the Mavericks won the series in seven. In 2007, the Rockets won the first two games of a first-round series against Utah, but lost Game 7 of that series. [Utah then inherited overmatched Golden State as a second-round opponent and skated into the Western finals, winning the Warriors series in five.] With Yao Ming and Dikembe Mutombo, the Rockets could have matched up well with the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals, and would have been favored in a potential NBA Finals matchup with the Cleveland Cavaliers of LeBron James and Larry Hughes. But in the event, none of that happened.

McGrady's Rockets lost again to Utah in 2008. Houston finally won a playoff series in 2009, without McGrady.

For all his talent, McGrady could never deliver in April (let alone May or June). The Hall of Fame tends to favor winners of questionable individual greatness (James Worthy, who was good but never an MVP candidate) over lovable losers (Chris Mullin, who has been unsuccessfully nominated for the Hall in every year since 2007). Even putting aside that rubric, I do not find McGrady's individual merit to be enough for the Hall of Fame. Eight seasons (2000-01 through 2007-08) of high-level play is not enough.

Finally, Revenge on Hollywood for "Juwanna Mann"

2011-03-01T13:14:00.008-05:00

Did anyone else find it weird that ESPN featured two NBA games on Sunday night (Knicks vs. Heat and Blazers vs. Hawks), starting at 8:00 PM EST? ESPN is not normally in the habit of showing Sunday night games, and ESPN's corporate affiliate, ABC, was broadcasting the Academy Awards starting at 8:00. Why cannibalize your sister network's ratings?

To be fair, the overlap of fandom for NBA action and Hollywood glamour is probably not extensive, and basketball fans would be angered if the Knicks-Heat game, featuring four of the top five scorers in the league, were not nationally televised. Still, the decision was risky from the perspective of Disney's overall content strategy. And today came news that the TV audience for the Oscar show was down 10% from 2010's viewership (though, to be fair, still greater than 2008 and 2009 numbers). Ratings information for Sunday night's Knicks-Heat battle is not yet available, though I will post it once I can find it. ... UPDATE: The Knicks-Heat game drew 4.2 million viewers, the most popular show on cable television that night. Had those 4 million viewers been added to the 37 million Oscar viewers, the 2011 Oscars would have bested the roughly 41 million viewers of the 2010 Academy Awards.

The Dunk Contest

2011-02-20T12:45:00.006-05:00

We have long been irked by unequal application of discretionary rules for stars who can potentially sell jerseys and drive TV ratings. After seeing last night's All-Star slam dunk contest, there should be little question that from the outset, the league planned to vault Griffin into the final round. It certainly was handy that Griffin had a gospel choir and the corporate sponsor's car ready to deploy for his final-round dunk, eh?

Clearly, the judging, at least the first-round scoring, was not quite objective. Here is how I would have judged the first round of the contest (assume I am judging each dunk on a 50-point scale; a 50 should represent an all-time iconic dunk):

Derozan: 40 for his first between-the-legs, off-the-backboard-side dunk (the "East Bay Rim Shaker"), which failed to innovate on dunks from previous years. 45 for his "Show Stopper", a consciously spare performance that entailed a one-handed catch, scoop, and jam. [Actual grades: 44, 50]

Ibaka: 46 for his initial free-throw-line dunk, requiring but one attempt. 42 for his teddy-bear dunk involving the mohawked thespianito. Biting the bear off the hoop was in fact a feat. [Actual grades: 45, 45]

McGee: 46 for his double-rim, double-armed dunk (a couple points deducted for his multiple attempts and his relative lack of power on the dunks). 46 for his three-ball dunk (same reasoning). [Actual grades: 50, 49]

Griffin: 46 for his 360 dunk. 38 for his pedestrian windmill dunk off the backboard pass from Baron Davis. [Actual grades: 49, 46]

Based on these grades, I would have advanced McGee and Ibaka to the finals, rather than McGee and Griffin. But neither of those former guys plays in Los Angeles or performs a featured offensive role for his team.

I also wish to note that Turner Sports / NBATV (which is really the same entity) employees were over-exposed last night. The veterans in the Shooting Stars competition were all Turner personalities: Kenny Smith, Steve Smith, Rick Fox, and Steve Kerr. Chris Webber and K.Smith served as dunk contest coaches, while Brent Barry served as a judge for the dunk contest. Particularly in hard economic times, it is easier to use a talent already on your payroll rather than signing someone to a one-night appearance contract, but on a weekend of all the stars, I would have rather seen Cedric Ceballos, Dee Brown, and Harold Miner coaching, rather than Chris Webber, the master of elbow jump shots.

Sloan and Mubarak: Two Despots In Transition

2011-02-10T16:54:00.013-05:00

This morning brought galloping rumors of two imminent resignations by aging statesmen: Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Coach Jerry Sloan of the Utah Jazz.

In the event, Sloan followed through with his intention de partir; Mubarak did not. Mubarak announced that he is transferring powers temporarily to his vice-president while nominally remaining in office. Sloan announced that his lead assistant, Tyrone Corbin, will succeed him.

Sloan has held the Salt Lake job since the fall of 1988; Mubarak held the Cairo job since the fall of '81. Sloan, once a tough defender when he played for the Bulls 40 years ago, was known for a crusty demeanor and a martinet's touch as an NBA coach. Mubarak, who became a man while in Egypt's air force, is known for physical punishment of his perceived enemies. Sloan trods in the same rut, though his floggings are less torturous (mostly verbal) and more widely publicized. Mubarak's tenure has been characterized by a grudging peace with the country's most martial neighbor, Israel; Sloan's teams, by contrast, have always thrived on bullying tactics against the opposition. How else did Matt Harpring earn seven years of paychecks from the Jazz?

Sloan's resignation and Mubarak's slowly creeping exit have both been incited by unrest from below. Years of chronic unemployment, excessive economic restrictions, high food prices, and abuse of his own people have inspired brave protesters to hold strong in Tahrir Square over the past two weeks. Allegedly, Jerry Sloan's refusal to loosen his offensive control of offensive flow angered star PG Deron Williams to the point that recent arguments made Sloan pick retirement over continued tension. Utah also has struggled a bit this season; its remarkable set of comebacks in 2010-11 would not be necessary if the team could start games with more power. Continously poor preparation is surely the coach's fault.

When Sloan ascended to Utah's top job in 1988, an astute bettor would have picked Mubarak to outlast him. NBA coaches have a median tenure of 1.3 seasons before they are dismissed or otherwise leave the job. Meanwhile, a typical head of state in the Middle East or North Africa typically stays for a couple decades, at least. By around 2005, though, the smart money probably had shifted to Sloan. Mubarak, by that year, was 77, his dyed-black hair a fictive cover on his failure to appreciate the youthful vigor of his people. Sloan, 13 years younger, had already taken his small-market team to the NBA Finals twice, and by that year had been gifted with new stars like Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Andrei Kirilenko to replace the Stockton-Malone duo. The Jazz made the Western finals in Williams's second season, 2006-07. Why would Sloan quit? Why would Mubarak stay?

But Utah has shown little subsequent potential to slam past that barrier, losing in the first or second round each year after 2007. After trading away Eric Maynor and Ronnie Brewer for minor draft picks during the 2009-10 season, Utah's 2010 offseason saw the loss of Carlos Boozer, Kyle Korver, and Wes Matthews Jr., replaced by 20-year-old Gordon Hayward, 34-year-old Raja Bell, and creaky Al Jefferson, none of whom fit well in Sloan's motion offense. Egypt, meanwhile, has experienced annual GDP growth near 5% in most years of the past decade: not the pace of China or India, but better than other MENA countries and enough to convince a leader that a joyous legacy might be had with just a year or two of waiting. So by early 2011, the conventional wisdom of 1988 was back: Mubarak could hardly be imagined to leave, while Sloan's days seemed short. Indeed, we now have that result.

Perhaps Sloan, though a minor tyrant, does care about being liked. Mubarak apparently does not. Sloan also likely wants what is best for his team. Mubarak, though possibly misguided, likely wants the best for Egypt's people as well. Sloan could appreciate that his team no longer responded to him; Mubarak will not see.
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UPDATE Feb. 11th: Well, Mubarak apparently changed his mind (or someone changed it for him) after his Thursday night slumber. Mubarak has now officially resigned as President. He still outlasted Sloan, though.

Streaks of Great Seasons Are Bigger In Texas

2011-01-14T17:11:00.004-05:00

A few quick points in response to John Hollinger's latest column on ESPN about the remarkable decade-long success of the Mavericks and Spurs.

1. It is not likely that Dallas regrets the effective swap of Steve Nash for Erick Dampier back in the summer of 2004. The Mavs got to the NBA Finals in 2006 and then amassed the best record in '07 without Nash. Nash is a fine point guard who excels in the open system of Mike D'Antoni and Alvin Gentry system, but he suffers on the defensive side of the court and surely would not have thrived under Avery Johnson.

2. Hollinger ponders why there is no training academy for new NBA owners. Existing owners have no incentive to educate new owners on good management practices. In the McDonald's regime, every franchisee wants to keep the quality of the McD brand high; incidents of scalding coffee or French fries cooked with pig lard are not good for business. And each McDonald's store is not competing with another; each outlet tends to be at least one mile away from the nearest saffron arch. In the NBA, however, the league's reputation is not harmed much if Minnesota fields a crummy team; a few instances of abysmality are expected by nation-wide fans. Additionally, teams are competing against each other, at least in basketball terms.

3. Finally, Hollinger says that the probability of a randomly selected team winning 50 games, then doing it again the following year has historically been about 70%. Thus, the chance of ten consecutive 50-win repeats is some tiny fraction. That is a fine approach to elementary statistics. However, we are not considering the case of a randomly selected team of unknown identity. We're talking about the MAVS and the SPURS. These teams have not merely strung together a crazy, fluky, hot streak with tons of lucky breaks. Based on what we know about the quality of their organizations, we should update our estimate of their probability of attaining repeat 50-win seasons. In other words, by now we should not be surprised.

Knowing When To Fold 'Em

2011-01-07T11:27:00.007-05:00

ESPN.com's Henry Abbott today posits that NBA teams are, in recent years, quicker to give up on high draft picks compared to the good old days. Is this really so? Abbott declines to give one bit of evidence for his position.

Looking at the top 11 picks in the seven drafts from 2003-2007, I find the following players who were traded, or non-renewed, by their original teams within three years after the draft. (I am not counting any player who was traded on draft day or very shortly thereafter by the team that drafted him. I am defining "original team" to mean the team that the player suited up with in his first training camp.)

2003: Darko Milicic, TJ Ford, Michael Sweetney
2004: Luke Jackson, Rafael Araujo
2005: Ike Diogu
2006: Adam Morrison, Randy Foye, Shelden Williams, Patrick O'Bryant, Mouhamed Sene
2007: Yi Jianlian, Spencer Hawes, Acie Law
2008: Michael Beasley, Joe Alexander, Jerryd Bayless
2009: Terrence Williams

That is 18 guys out of 77, or 23%.

What of the seven drafts from 1996-2002?
1996: Marcus Camby, Stephon Marbury, Lorenzen Wright, Samaki Walker, Todd Fuller
1997: Chauncey Billups, Antonio Daniels, Tony Battie, Ron Mercer, Tim Thomas, Danny Fortson, Tariq Abdul-Wahad
1998: Mike Bibby, Robert Traylor, Jason Williams, Larry Hughes
1999: Elton Brand, Rip Hamilton, Andre Miller, Trajan Langdon
2000: Darius Miles, Mike Miller, DerMarr Johnson, Jérôme Moïso
2001: Eddie Griffin, Rodney White, Joe Johnson, Kedrick Brown
2002: Drew Gooden, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Dajuan Wagner, Caron Butler

That is 32 guys out of 77, or 42%.

It appears that, contra Abbott, team management have actually become LESS willing to part with lottery picks early in their career. Perhaps part of this dynamic can be explained by the more talent-rich drafts of recent years, compared to fin-de-siecle times. I cannot explain why the Jimmy Carter administration produced so few basketball-bound babies of star caliber, whereas the Reagan years of natality have been replete with talent. However, the trend is undeniable. 1996 was unquestionably a good draft year (three future MVPs in Iverson, Bryant, Nash, just to start) but most of the top picks in the immediate years after that were stiffs: Olowokandi, Marcus Fizer, Kwame Brown... But starting with 2003's cohort of James, Wade, Bosh, and Anthony, several Hall of Fame-caliber players have entered the league. Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose, and Blake Griffin all could be HOF-bound if they maintain their current pace for another decade. Why give up on players like that?

Whether the influx of talent masks a secular change in GM philosophy regarding young "busts" is hard to say.

Foreign-Owned League

2010-12-31T13:59:00.011-05:00

Watching a typical NBA television broadcast, one realizes that almost all of the league's corporate sponsors are based outside the United States:

T-Mobile, which is one of the top four mobile phone service providers in the United States, is owned by Deutsche Telekom of Germany. T-Mobile's ads featuring Charles Barkley and Dwyane Wade are ubiquitous during nearly every national NBA broadcast.

Kia - This Korean car company became an NBA sponsor in 2008 and bought the title of "official NBA auto sponsor" in 2009, supplanting Japan's Toyota in that role. Kia then extended the relationship in 2010. Kia attaches its name to ESPN's NBA pregame show, various individual awards, and various elements of the All-Star weekend.

Hyundai is another Korean automaker, known in hoops circles for attaching its name to TNT's "Inside the NBA".

Haier is a Chinese home appliances manufacturer that has become a "global strategic partner" of the NBA, whatever that means. Their television advertisements use the homophony between their company name and the English word "higher", much like ads for Chivas Regal scotch play on the resemblance to the word "chivalry". This is semantics for eleven-year-olds.

BBVA, one of Spain's largest banks, last fall signed an agreement to be the "Official Bank of the NBA". During and after the 2008 financial crisis, BBVA managed to buy up several troubled American banks and now owns over 700 retail bank branches in the US, all under the "BBVA Compass" brand name.

All of these foreign-based firms sell products to US consumers, of course, which makes the NBA, a touchstone of youth culture, an attractive marketing vehicle. While other American pro sports have signed up American companies as sponsors (a typical NFL broadcast features Brett Favre shilling for Sears, overgrown men wolfing Campbell's Chunky Soup ladled by Donovan McNabb's mother, and a few Bud Light ads), the NBA has become beholden to international patrons. This certainly fits with Commissioner David Stern's long-marching goal of bringing the league to hundreds of millions in Europe and Asia.

Things were not always thus. Reading David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game, I recently learned that brands like Ford and Chevrolet were inveterate sponsors of the Association back in the 1970s. Perhaps large American consumer-focused companies no longer see NBA fans as an attractive market; are hoops-heads too poor, too pigmented, or possibly too young? (I thought a maxim of marketing is to sign up young customers while they are still forming their habits and loyalties.) Alternatively, foreign-based corporations, perhaps applying different marketing strategies due to their previous nonexistence in this country, may simply value those fans more. It could even be that these international entities can juice their reputation in their home countries by associating with the NBA.

These days, it seems that all the action in the US economy is in the digital space. By building a cool website like a Netflix, Twitter, or Groupon, an entrepreneur can scale his customer base very quickly, build a following in the zeitgeist, and attract billions in capital. Lions of the American "old economy" no longer have a need for the NBA. When will we see the Google Halftime Show or the Pandora HORSE Challenge?

What's The Matter With Kansas (Alums)?

2010-12-21T18:58:00.008-05:00

Well, if we were confused about whether star calls persist in the NBA, last Saturday's Wizards-Heat game was sobering. The Heat completed a stout fourth-quarter comeback when Dwyane Wade dashed into the lane, received a foul call resulting from Andray Blatche's fairly incidental contact (of course!) and hit a go-ahead free throw with about seven seconds left. Kirk Hinrich then dribbled the length of the court, drove to the hoop, attempted a layup, and was whacked by both Chris Bosh and LeBron James. No foul call, though. The buzzer sounded and Miami walked off the court with a 1-point victory.

Fast-forward the video to about the 3:40 mark:

The Point Guard Controversy

2010-12-18T12:35:00.004-05:00

On a busy Friday night, the Heat vs. Knicks garnered most of the headlines. Few people probably had their eye on Jazz vs. Hornets. HOSS did. That match-up pitted Deron Williams against Chris Paul, two of the best point guards (if not the best) that they NBA has to offer.

I cannot remember a time when there was such a glut of elite point guards in the NBA. At the beginning of the season, this was my list of the top NBA PGs, but given how well they are all playing, this ranking seems to fluctuate on a daily basis:

1. Chris Paul

2. Steve Nash

3. Deron Williams

4. Rajon Rondo

5. Derrick Rose

6. Tony Parker

7. Russell Westbrook

Why does this make HOSS giddy? Two reasons. First: the sheer aesthetic beauty of watching an elite PG in action. Watching a slasher like Amare, D-Wade, or LeBron slice up defenders and throw down is like watching a skilled boxer deliver a devastating left hook. In contrast, watching a PG set the table on offense is like watching a master artist adorning a canvass -- you may not understand why each stroke was so brilliant until you see the final product (the pinpoint pass for the easy lay-up).

Second: an elite point guard is the surest way to turn a team into a contender. The proof of the pudding is in the taste: Consider all of the teams that appear to be overachieving this season, and virtually all of them have one of the elite PGs leading their offense:

San Antonio (22-3) (Parker)

Boston (21-4) (Rondo)

Oklahoma City (19-8) (Westbrook)

Utah (18-9) (Williams)

Chicago (16-8) (Rose)

New Orleans (16-10) (Paul)

Ginobili, the new MJ?

2010-12-17T12:42:00.008-05:00

I have long lamented the endemically inconsistent or unfair foul calls in the NBA. Though I write often of other b-ball matters, the titular inspiration for our blog was, of course, a non-call that burnished a great man's legend while telling Utah's fan base that their team is simply less worthy of rule-based protection. A two-game sequence this week led us to re-evaluate the state of "star calls" in the NBA.

In Wednesday night's game against Milwaukee, the Spurs' Manu Ginobili hit a game-winning shot over Luc Mbah a Moute to break a tie at the buzzer. MG's play was fearless and without flaw. The problem with Saint Anthony's miracle, though, is that Ginobili took a step and a hop (even more egregious than LeBron James's "crab dribble") prior to his shot, and the referees bizarrely did not call a travel. In postgame remarks, Bucks coach Skiles correctly identified Ginobili's infraction after the game, but unfortunately, the refs done him wrong. Behold the video:

Perhaps this might simply mean that the referees froze under pressure. It happens sometimes, and there is no recourse if the referee fails to blow his whistle in the moment. Once the buzzer has sounded and the ball is through, you cannot go back in time and claw back a player's ill-gotten gains, even if you feel instant regret for your failure to toot. However, I was further surprised during Thursday night's TNT nightcap game. Against Denver, Ginobili hit yet another clutch shot to put the Spurs up by 1 point with about four seconds left in the fourth quarter. The man impresses, On the ensuing possession, Carmelo Anthony took the ball at the top of the key, seized a step on Richard Jefferson, drove to the hoop, and released a floater that sank through the net before time expired. Unfortunately, in the course of so doing, Anthony crashed into Ginobili, who had smartly positioned himself in a vertical stance just outside the charge circle. The referees whistled Anthony for an offensive foul, negating Anthony's basket and ending the game. The Spurs escaped with their 22nd win of the season, against only three defeats. Here is the [virtual] tape:

The Thursday foul was a good call, and I applaud the referees' willingness to whack Anthony on a late-game drive like that. As the archetypal "Jordan pushing off" moment (and LBJ's crab dribble) shows, referees are too often chary to interrupt a superstar's world-historical performance for a measly thing like rule-breaking. Jordan may have pushed off with impunity, but Anthony charged through and suffered just consequences. That is heartening. On the other hand, this incident came after Ginobili received a significant official favor the night before. Although these are only two data points, perhaps one can infer that star favoritism endures, but it is Ginobili and his 22-3 Spurs who now are the most brilliantly shining orb. We cannot fault (indeed, we must laud) Ginobili for donning that garb; success must be had wherever one can find it.

Have A Holly, McConnelly Christmas

2010-12-13T17:07:00.006-05:00

Today Henry Abbott of ESPN/Truehoop attempts to analyze the effect of this week's federal tax deal upon the NBA. To quickly review the proposed tax deal, the lower income tax rates (compared to Clinton-era rates from the 1990s) passed in 2001 will be extended for 2011 and 2012. Prior to this proposed deal between President Obama and Republicans, U.S. income tax rates were scheduled to rise to Clinton rates effective January 1st, 2011. Additionally, under this proposed deal, long-term capital gains tax rates will be extended.

In a couple posts and yesterday, Abbott suggests, citing some extremely crude analyses, that the tax savings for owners and players associated with this week's federal tax deal could amount to $160 million, one-fifth of the supposed $800 million aggregate deficit suffered by owners in 2009-10. (Some of that savings consists of reduced tax liability on player salaries, but presumably the equilibrium wage paid to players could thereby be lowered, because they could then take home more of their gross wage, and thus owners could realize those savings.)

However, the flaw in Abbott's analysis is that the $800 million deficit was incurred under the 2010 tax regime — which will also be the 2011 tax regime, under President Obama's proposals. The supposed $160 MM savings are not really "an infusion of cash from a third party", as Abbott frames it, but rather the avoidance of what would've been a withdrawal of cash from the NBA pot, had Bush tax rates been allowed to rise to Clinton tax rates in 2011. If economic conditions in 2009-10 are held constant for 2010-11, then the owners should still be running an $800 million deficit, because the federal tax liability will be the same.

The bottom line is that the Obama tax deal will be nice for owners, but only because it avoids a hit. It does not improve their economic position compared to the 2010 situation, and thus it does not bring the owners any closer to the NBPA in ongoing labor negotiations. And if you believe in Ricardian equivalence, the "savings" from the avoided tax hit is all funny money anyway.

Joakim Noah, Un Grand Nonpareil

2010-12-05T15:57:00.002-05:00

Back in the spring of 2006, many observers thought Joakim Noah could be the first pick in the NBA draft if he were to make himself pro-eligible. With the onset of the no-high-school-students rule from the 2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement, the draft pool was unusually weak that year, and Noah's fiery effort in the NCAA tournament made him the most lustrous of gems.

In the event, Noah returned to the University of Florida and waited until the 2007 draft (after collecting his second college championship) to go pro. Noah was selected ninth, after two of his teammates, among others.

Noah is somewhat thin for a center at a listed weight of 232 lbs, but he may be the hardest-working 5 man in the league. After some early struggles, Noah now anchors the Bulls' defense and ranks second in the league in rebounding. Looking back at the 2006 draft, Noah's first opportunity to join the big leagues, is there any player you would rather have than Noah? The top pick, Andrea Bargnani, excels only at one end of the floor, as we demonstrated in a video post last year. The roundly-considered best player from that draft, Brandon Roy, has permanently arthritic knees that are now slowing him and might soon end his career. LaMarcus Aldridge and Rudy Gay are nice scorers, but have not yet made an All-Star team. Rajon Rondo is one of the top five point guards in the league and a starter in two NBA Finals, but Noah's enduring hustle probably makes him more valuable than Rondo. Perhaps the early predictions of a #1 selection were right on. Even looking at the 2007 draft, when Noah was actually chosen, outside of Kevin Durant there is no one whom I would prefer to Noah.

We recently had the chance to attend the Bulls-Warriors game in Chicago on November 11th. The Bulls jumped out to an early 30-point lead before the halftime buzzer, rendering our final two quarters a time of seat-hopping and T-shirt chasing. Still, from our high-altitude section, we were able to capture some video showing what makes Noah so great.

I. Noah The Dishman
With time, Noah has become one of the best passing big men in the league. In this clip, Noah gets the ball from Derrick Rose, who cuts to the corner. Golden State's Stephen Curry, defending Rose, loses track of the latter. Noah exchanges a glance with Rose; Rose cuts to the hoop and Noah delivers a perfect bounce pass that Rose collects to slam (two-handedly!) through the hoop.

Observe here as Noah calls for the ball, recognizing that Luol Deng has a mismatch against the same Curry. Noah seems to recognize Deng's opportunity even before Deng sees it. Upon Noah's receipt of the ball, Deng cuts hard to the hoop, receives a sharp pass, dribbles once, and scores.

Generosity is often rewarded. Later in the game, Deng returns the favor with an easy assist pass to Noah:

II. Noah the Hustler

Another of Noah's winning attributes is his willingness to put his body in jeopardy to help the team. Watch the first six seconds of this video as Noah scraps hard with Andris Biedrins for post position:

Here, Noah, all 83 inches of him, hits the floor hard at the 0:06 mark to chase a loose ball:

Finally, consider this video, in which Noah's fleet hands force a steal from Monta Ellis, keying a fast break and an easy basket by Deng:

------------------------
** Regarding our blog title, we're not sure if "grand" can be used colloquially as a noun in French the same way hoopheads use "big" as a noun in our language, but we'll hope for the best.

Fattening Up The Pig In Hogtown

2010-12-01T12:59:00.003-05:00

Remember when I said that Mike Illitch's possibly gaining control of the Detroit Pistons (in addition to the Tigers and Red Wings) would be a terrible idea?

Well, that goes double for the possible acquisition rumored today by Rogers Communications of the Leafs, Raptors, and Air Canada Centre (in addition to the Blue Jays and Skydome). Econ 101, my friends. If Raptors fans thought their ticket prices were bad enough...

High Casualty Rate in Boston

2010-11-28T00:24:00.006-05:00

The Celtics are playing well so far (save for an odd one-point loss to Toronto), but soon they will fiercely feel the tension of thermodynamics' Second Law. The team is going to suffer with their older roster and their early crush of injuries. It is hard to roll over top-quality basketball players when your squad has the following infirmities:

Rajon Rondo is battling plantar fasciitis and a hamstring problem.

Jermaine O'Neal has chronic knee tendinitis.

Kendrick Perkins is recovering from major surgery to his knee ligaments.

Delonte West just broke his wrist.

Semih Erden has a nagging shoulder problem that could eventually end his season.

Avery Bradley is recovering from a serious ankle injury.

Besides their five starters, and the aforementioned injured guys, they have Glen Davis, Marquis Daniels, Nate Robinson, Von Wafer, and Luke Harangody. These lads may be spry enough to power the Celtics through wintry challenges that may come, but when the air turns vernal, they will need the bulk of their bigs and the defensive agility of West and Bradley. The Celtics were wise to sign fifteen players for their roster, the maximum allowed under NBA rules. Rather than prizing cost savings, Celtics ownership is showing that the real lucre is its desired catch.

Why Dallas Cannot Win The Championship

2010-11-20T17:27:00.006-05:00

Last night the Mavericks fielded three seven-footers — Haywood, Chandler, Nowitzki — playing 87 combined minutes. The Bulls played only one big man: Joakim Noah, for 41 minutes. If you want to deem Taj Gibson a big man or "power" player, note that he is 6'9" and 225 pounds. Most NBA players of his body type are small forwards. (Gibson's teammate at the 3-spot, Luol Deng, is the same height as Gibson and only five pounds thinner. The Mavericks' small forward, Caron Butler, is a couple pounds heavier than Gibson.) All of the Bulls' bench players were skinny guards.

Additionally, Dallas boasts at least two players who are billed as unusually good rebounders for their positions, in Jason Kidd and Shawn Marion.

The Bulls still outrebounded Dallas 59-34 and won the game by five points.

John Wall's Impact

2010-11-18T08:35:00.001-05:00

The Wizards had 23 fast-break points on November 12th, John Wall's last full game before he injured his ankle.

Last night, November 17th, without John Wall, the Wizards had 2 fast-break points.

Trials and Tribulations of the Super Friends

2010-11-14T20:00:00.002-05:00

For the zillionth time, it is way too early to begin drafting epitaphs for the Miami Heat Super Friends. LeBron, D-Wade and CB4 may still end up hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy this summer or next. That said, their early troubles reinforce the conventional wisdom about basketball.

We at JPO are fond of saying that basketball is a team game. The NBA ain’t no fantasy league, son. Just because LeBron and D-Wade averaged near 30 ppg last year, that doesn’t mean they’ll net 60 together.

Here is one big problem with the Heat’s roster. It’s often said that the two most important positions on any team – and toughest to fill – are point guard and center. A skilled PG (particularly a skilled, pass-first PG) is a rare commodity. So is a skilled, traditional big man (i.e., a back-to-the basket post-up presence à la Tim Duncan; not a face-up Euro Big Man like Dirk Nowitzki or Andrea Bargnani).

The Super Friends are the Super Swingmen. None of them plays point guard or is a back-to-the-basket big man. Sure, both D-Wade and LeBron are skilled enough to play PG, but that’s not the position at which they are most skilled. Moreover, although Chris Bosh formally plays a big-man position, he is a finesse player – closer to Nowitzki than to Duncan. On a team like the Raptors, where Bosh was the main scoring threat, that’s fine. But on a team with LeBron and D-Wade, you don’t need another finesse scorer. You need a bruiser, a banger – someone to knock the ink off the other teams’ tattoos and get rebounds and cheap buckets down low. If the Super Friends are going to be more than a travelling rodeo show, they will need to either (a) trade Bosh for a premier post-up presence, or (b) go way over the salary cap to bring in an Erick Dampier-type player to spell Bosh during the 4^th quarters of real games.

Both Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony have mused about playing for the Knicks. A team with ‘Melo, CP3 and Amare Stoudemire would be better than the Super Friends. I’m not talking early-season better; I mean playoff-time better. The division of labor on that team would be clear: CP3, the ball-handler; ‘Melo, the swingman; Amare, the big man.

I’m sure that Pat Riley recognizes this. What I’m not sure is whether Riles has the balls to fix it and to make this trade: Chris Bosh for Paul Millsap or Chris Bosh for Carlos Boozer. Nobody is saying that either Millsap or Boozer is more skilled than Bosh. They aren’t. But either one of them will transform the Heat from Pretender into Contender.

Stay Chilled, Ye Who Would Scorch the Scorchers

2010-11-12T11:44:00.007-05:00

The Miami Heat have struggled against good teams thus far this season. Their interior defense, in particular, needs some work. Perhaps they need to sign Erick Dampier. However, let us not forget that the season is only NINE GAMES OLD. The Heat have until 2014, and perhaps until 2016 if all three of their stars exercise their contract options, to prove the haters wrong. Their talent is too great to continue losing at this pace; I would be extremely surprised if they do not win 50 games. Let us refrain from too much cackling until at least next spring.

The Punjabis Are Here

2010-11-11T11:19:00.003-05:00

Well, my nearly two-year-old predictions of a Great Punjabi Hope for basketball have finally come true:

Satnam Singh Bhamara did not grow up dreaming about playing in the NBA -- because he never saw the game. He didn't even know what basketball was.

He just grew.

And his dreams were mostly what he read in books, limited to his life in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, a faraway outpost in the state of Punjab, India, close to the Pakistan border, where his father farmed, and he too, expected to farm one day.

[...]

In a country of 1.3 billion people, 7-foot, 250-pound Satnam Singh Bhamar has become a beacon for basketball hope.

At age 14.

"Satnam could one day do the same thing for India that Yao Ming did in China -- put the spotlight on basketball through an entire country,'' said Troy Justice, the NBA Director of Basketball Operations in India who has watched him play many times. "It really could be something.''

[...]

Satnam came to the United States for the first time six weeks ago, one of 29 student athletes (both male and female in three different sports) from India who will train at the renowned IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla, as part of a new scholarship program to promote, develop and manage sports and entertainment in that country.

Although the program was designed to last three months before this group leaves and another arrives, Satnam and his burgeoning skills won't be going home anytime soon. It's like gold has been discovered in the hills, and this diamond in the rough will be carefully polished.

It is somewhat ironic that the AOL Fanhouse article glowingly compares the 7-foot Bhamara's body type to that of Greg Oden or Andrew Bynum. Of course, we know that both of the latter guys have congenital problems that make high-level, high-impact basketball difficult: Oden has one leg longer than the other, and Bynum has unusually loose knee ligaments. Both of those players have missed roughly half the possible games in their pro careers due to multiple injuries. Additionally, Oden played only one year of college ball and Bynum skipped college; both missed their chance to allow their growing bodies time to slowly adjust to a game played among world-class athletes.

What will happen if young Satnam Singh Bhamara turns out to be similarly cursed? Many other young athletes around the world have been identified as potential national champions, isolated from their families and peers, and brought to sports incubators (sometimes in the United States) to train. If a tennis prospect flames out, the disappointment foisted on him or her is probably relatively low because tennis-sized athletes are not hard to find. But there are few seven-foot-plussers. If my hypothesis proves correct and the Punjab produces more basketball big men, then perhaps Bhamara can comfortably fail without feeling that he is failing a whole country, as Yao Ming surely has thought at times. We wish Bhamara the best of luck in his journey, but caution observers to reject the "Satnam could one day do the same thing for India that Yao Ming did in China -- put the spotlight on basketball through an entire country" rubric that makes the young man even more freakish than he already is.

The Last Jewel Tarnished In Detroit

2010-11-04T13:08:00.006-04:00

I have long openly proclaimed my love for the Detroit Pistons, the team that tickled my solipsistic need for local grandeur as a young boy. Detroit won championships in 1989 and 1990, and then did it again in 2004 after I had grown to adulthood. During the recent fat days, I forgot how Detroit fell into a long period of mediocrity after Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer retired in 1994 (and even in the last three years of their careers). Rookie Grant Hill's entry into the Pistons' starting lineup in November 1994 seemed to augur well for their recovery, but Terry Mills and Theo Ratliff were not sufficiently stout big men in the mid-to-late 1990s to help Detroit get past better Eastern teams like Orlando and Atlanta (to say nothing of Jordan's Chicago, Mourning's Heat, and Ewing's Knicks).

After six straight Eastern Conference Finals appearances in the decade just completed, the Pistons are now a team in terminal decline. They still field three-fifths of the starting lineup that won them a championship seven seasons ago (and lost in Game 7 of the Finals six seasons ago), but those men have lost their erstwhile vigor and hops. The team is now 0-5 after losing to Atlanta last night.

About 24 months ago, when the Piston's recent run of success ended with the trade of Chauncey Billups, I wrongly called team president Joe Dumars a genius. At the time, I thought the trade would allow Detroit's good fortune to endure for a few more seasons, but the team rapidly crashed, falling to the worst Eastern playoff seed in 2009 and missing the playoffs entirely in '10. Unfortunately, Rodney Stuckey just is not as good as Billups performed in his finest days. And the Pistons' recent draft picks have not soared: Jason Maxiell and Austin Daye are either too short or too thin, and Jonas Jerebko just tore his Achilles' tendon. Georgetown center Greg Monroe is yet unproven.

Somehow I feel a Dylan Thomas interlude would be appropriate here:

Managing an NBA roster long-term is difficult, for the assets have a unique inverted-U-shaped life cycle. Players tend to peak in about their sixth year, maintain that high for perhaps four years, then begin to slowly decline. At any given time, a roster is probably made up of heterogeneous players at different stages of their careers. If only a couple of your guys are declining, that is fine. If necessary, they can be traded as "expiring contracts" for better, younger players. But the Pistons' top six players during their six-year run of excellence (counting Antonio McDyess, who signed on prior to the 2004-05 season) were all drafted between 1995 and 1999, save for Tayshaun Prince, drafted in 2002. Prince was a four-year college player, so he is about as old as a college freshman drafted in 1999, like Lamar Odom. Thus, the team collectively aged very rapidly. Billups was dumped in 2008, and McDyess and Rasheed Wallace were shown the door in 2009. The remaining guys — Prince, Richard Hamilton, and Ben Wallace — can't do what they used to. I would eat my hat if Prince could replicate his famous block of Reggie Miller today.

I cannot say with great specificity how Dumars should have managed his team differently. He probably should have traded Prince and Hamilton one or two seasons ago, when they still were good. Dumars also has proven to be a poor judge of young talent, to say the least. Had he drafted Aaron Brooks over Rodney Stuckey in 2007, or Holiday/Lawson/Teague/Maynor/Collison/Douglas over Austin Daye in 2009, the team would have a legitimate point guard now. The team also had no meaningful draft pick in 2006 or 2008, which helped to preserve the roster's age distribution. Perhaps the team needs a 65-loss season to sink lower than their pride would previously allow them to venture, so that they can pick up a real stud through the draft.

Mad Men Is An Apt Descriptor

2010-11-02T16:31:00.006-04:00

Mad may not be the right word, but perhaps daft, silly, or full of hubris might better describe the advertising gurus who thought of the two ads shown below.

Below is LeBron James's follow-up to his romantic-comedy act from July wherein he entertained various suitors for seven days (after keeping them guessing for the previous two years) and then obnoxiously announced his Decision via a television special. In this new video, James seems to acknowledge that he angered his fans, and provocatively climbs aboard a literal bulldozer to represent what he did to their feelings last summer. So after James inappropriately and narcissistically drew attention to himself four months ago, he... does exactly the same thing, without even apologizing for the earlier behavior!

Then there is the new set of Adidas ads featuring actor Ken Jeong wearing a gold costume and calling himself "Slim Chin". We are led to believe, in some ironic sleight, that Slim's apparent riches are derived from his unusual fast-ness. Meanwhile, Derrick Rose reveals himself to be far faster than Slim, showing that shoes, in this ironic universe, can top natural talent.

This is fine as far as it goes, and defenders of the ad might say that everything is tongue-in-cheek, and Jeong's Hollywood reputation is sufficiently established that we can laugh with him, rather than at him. Still, Jeong's ken (pun intended) seems to extend only to roles in which he acts silly and mincing while emphasizing his exotically Asian bloodline. Recall his naked turn in The Hangover. I doubt that enough viewers of this new Adidas ad "get it" to render his minstrelsy innocuous.

Knicks Need To Get Real

2010-11-01T16:05:00.004-04:00

Tony Parker signed a contract extension with San Antonio yesterday, removing one of the New York Knicks' top targets for next summer's free-agency cycle. Having promised their fans a quick return to glory redolent of Richard Nixon's first term, the Knicks need to get cracking. Unfortunately, posing a serious challenge to the Miami Heat over the next half-decade will require that the Knicks assemble a crew of all-NBA stars of comparable ability to James/Bosh/Wade, and few of those are available. The Knicks could have drafted Brandon Jennings, probably the best young point guard in the league, back in 2009, but instead chose Jordan Hill, who was later dumped in a trade and now rides the bench for Houston. The Knicks have several players with enough raw talent to make All-Star teams, including Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, and Anthony Randolph, but none have yet blossomed to that extent.

Many reports indicate that Carmelo Anthony is Manhattan bound, either through a trade this season or as a free agent next summer. Unfortunately, a team featuring Amar'e Stoudemire and Anthony will be offensively potent, but will not have anything close to the defensive ability required to seriously oppose Miami and Orlando. As this article makes clear, James and Wade are wholly dedicated to dominating any team on their defensive end, and are two of the four best offensive players in the league.

The Knicks probably hope they can somehow acquire Anthony and Chris Paul, who will be a free agent in 2012. But if Paul shows an inclination to sign a contract extension with the Hornets or join some other team, the Knicks might be wiser to look further west: Several 2007 draftees will be available as restricted free agents next July, including, inter alia, Greg Oden, the best two-way young center in the league, when he is healthy. (I am removing 24-year-old Dwight Howard from the "young" category, as he is now in his seventh pro season.) Oden's team chose not to extend his rookie contract, and he will surely be eager to prove himself during the coming season. The Knicks could make a splash by conveying to Oden an offer that Portland cannot fail to refuse.

Out With The Old, In With the Old in Miami

2010-10-11T17:58:00.009-04:00

An October 10th article from the Orlando Sentinel claims that the Magic are "way ahead" of the Miami Heat in roster continuity. However, despite their high-profile free-agent signings, the Heat, surprisingly, may have more roster continuity from 2009-10 to 2010-11 than nearly any other NBA team.

Consider the following 2009-10 players who are under contract for the new season:
Dwyane Wade
Udonis Haslem
Mario Chalmers
Carlos Arroyo
Shavlik Randolph
Jamaal Magloire
Joel Anthony
Kenny Hasbrouck
James Jones

New players feature (i) two second-round draft picks, Dexter Pittman and Da'Sean Butler; (ii)several value free-agent signings — Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Eddie House, Juwan Howard, and Mike Miller; and (iii) oh yeah, LeBron James and Chris Bosh.

In addition, Coach Erik Spoelstra and team President Pat Riley remain in their posts.

To be fair, Hasbrouck and Randolph have non-guaranteed contracts, as do Pittman and Butler; two of those players will be cut in this month's training camp. However, if Hasbrouck and Randolph were to both make the team, a roster featuring 60% returning players is pretty good. No other top contender returns more than 10 players:

Lakers: Bryant, Fisher, Gasol, Bynum, Artest, Brown, Vujacic, Walton, Odom

Celtics: Rondo, Allen, Perkins, Pierce, Garnett, Robinson, Davis, Daniels

Magic: Nelson, Carter, Howard, Lewis, Pietrus, Bass, Anderson, Gortat, Williams, Redick

Spurs: Duncan, Ginobili, Parker, Jefferson, Blair, McDyess, Bonner, Hill

When Tennis Stars Never Die

2010-09-10T19:02:00.001-04:00

Watching the US Open tennis championship during the past few days on various TV channels, I've noticed that most of the announcers are past greats of the tennis circuit: John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Martina Navratilova, Pam Shriver, Tracy Austin, Lindsay Davenport, and so forth. I am reminded of the contrast with televised pro hoops, where color commentators like Mark Jackson, Tom Tolbert, Jon Barry, Tim Legler, Steve "Snapper" Jones, and so forth were generally not perennial All-Stars. Of late, TNT has made a point to employ former studs (viz. Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Chris Webber, Reggie Miller) as studio or game announcers, but this an unusual innovation in the short history of television coverage of basketball. Past MVPs like Michael Jordan, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Karl Malone, and David Robinson aren't in the TV game; they are running pro teams, running charter schools, or supporting Republican politics. Why, then, do a relatively larger fraction of great tennis players turn to TV shilling?

First, it may be that the tennis vets simply love the game more than the basketball greats do.

Second, tennis purses during the 1980s and 1990s were nowhere near the rich wages afford to NBA stars. Perhaps Martina and her ilk need the money.

Third, in an individual sport, there are fewer management roles available to retired stars. Michael Jordan can buy a team and Joe Dumars can build a roster, but what can Connors do? He could coach a player, as he did with Andy Roddick, but coaching in tennis is fairly low-profile (coaches are not even allowed to signal the player during a match!) and perhaps is a less fulfilling job than management in the NBA. Also, there is only one Davis Cup coach, and Patrick McEnroe held that job for the past ten years.

A contrarian take might say that basketball players are better trained to move on with the next phase of their lives, whether that be in business or philanthropy, while tennis players, having never attended college, don't know what to do with themselves other than remaining involved in the game. Here is another argument for my prior thesis that we need an NBA draft age limit.

Assessing the Pizza Man

2010-08-09T12:10:00.005-04:00

Reports indicate that Mike Ilitch, owner of the Detroit Red Wings and Detroit Tigers (and founder of the Little Caesar's empire), may be interested in buying the Detroit Pistons from the Davidson family. As an ex-Detroiter, I am not sure how to take this. On one hand, Ilitch has a reputation as a "good" sports owner, one who treats his players and fans well and invests in the team. As we discussed last year, many owners take profits as the only input to their objective function, but Ilitch recognizes the role that major sports teams play in a community.

On the other hand, will it be healthy if Ilitch controls nearly all live entertainment in Detroit? Ilitch already owns two sports teams, MotorCity Casino, Cobo Arena, City Theatre, and the Fox Theater. Ilitch also operates the Joe Louis Arena and Comerica Park. If Ilitch grabs the Davidson holdings as well, he will control the Detroit Pistons, Palace of Auburn Hills, DTE Energy Music Theater, and Meadow Brook Music Festival (where my high school held its annual graduations). As all these entities and venues are potentially in mutual competition for entertainment seekers, the unification thereof under one umbrella cannot be good for consumers. It's bad enough that Live Nation and Ticketmaster want to merge.

Attaq of a Whaq Moniqer

2010-08-06T19:26:00.003-04:00

Shaquille O'Neal announced yesterday that he is signing with the Boston Celtics for 2010-11. A fine decision for both parties; few other teams wanted O'Neal, and the Celtics can use his burly services with Kendrick Perkins injured until January. I was intrigued yesterday by another thought: where did Shaquille's name come from?

I have always uncuriously assumed that "Shaquille" is a bad, or francified, transliteration of a putative Arabic name "Shaqiil / Shaqeel" (ثقيل). However, my unscientific research suggests that there is no such Arabic male name; "Shakiil / Shakeel" (شكيل) appears on a list of baby names, but Shaqiil / Shaqeel is nowhere to be found. Furthermore, a google search for Shakiil, Shakeel, or Shakil yields nearly 5,000,000 combined hits, while a google search for Shaqiil, Shaqeel, or Shaqil (excluding "Shaquille" to avoid references to the Big Aristotle himself) yields only about 160,000 combined hits.

It seems that Shaquille O'Neal's parents, devout Muslims by most accounts, were being too clever by half in their efforts to give their son an Arabic name. Had they done a bit more investigating, they would have learned that "q" and "k" are two distinct sounds in Arabic, and the former cannot be thrown into a word or name to spice it up.

Of course, I am not a native Arabic speaker, so who am I to question their authenticity? Like any parent, they can select any collection of phonemes that they desire to name their child. (Does "LeBron" have any objective referent?) Still, it was interesting to recognize that Shaquille O'Neal's name is based on an orthographic flourish.

The Max is Too Much

2010-07-09T15:36:00.000-04:00

Top free agents want to get the full amount they are entitled to. Based on a formula in Article II, Section 7(a) of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, eighth-year players are entitled to a maximum salary of a bit over $17 million per year. To the extent that more than one team can create cap room to sign such a player, and the marginal revenue boost from signing a superstar is well in excess of his salary, a semi-competitive market will inevitably result in these contracts being signed.

Meanwhile, the NBA salary cap is about $58 MM for 2010-11, up very slightly from 2009-10. A team with no players under contract could afford to sign, at most, three maximum-salary players in one free-agency period. As it turned out, only Miami could do this in July 2010. A couple teams (New York, New Jersey, Chicago) had enough room, or close to it, for two maximum-salary players. But given the ceiling (which becomes an effective floor) on superstar salaries, most teams in the league had no shot at signing a Wade or James, or even a Boozer. Your typical star wants to play where other stars are playing, so two simultaneous signings seems to be required if you want just one.

There is an obvious coordination problem here: top players would behoove themselves to accept lower than the maximum allowed salary, in order to leave more salary-cap room (or if that is impossible, simply to be kind to the owner's wallet so he will be generous with Bird-exception-type or MLE-type signings) to sign good supporting teammates. But though some (like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh in today's free agent machinations, or Kobe Bryant in 2004) speak of accepting less money for the good of the team, it rarely happens. James, Wade, and Bosh will, by accounts, get close to the max salary; why else would Miami trade a very good young player, Michael Beasley, for virtually nothing? Theory holds that wealth has diminishing marginal utility past a certain level of luxury, but athletes don't hesitate to demand their full allotment.

Obviously this system encourages building young talent through the draft, and retaining said talent, rather than cobbling together a monster through free-agent acquisitions. There are no Yankees in the NBA. But I favor either increasing the salary cap somewhat or reducing the maximum salary, to make it easier for more teams to get access to the "open" market for good players. Following a team is no fun if, like the Knicks, they are locked out of the free-agency market for years and, when finally they are allowed to deal in such market, they are structurally disadvantaged because some other team has more "max" slots.

L'Ebron, C'est Moi

2010-07-08T23:37:00.000-04:00

Over the past several weeks since mid-May, this guy:

Refused to compete in several moments against the Celtics. Subsequently, told reporters that "I spoil people with my play."

Maneuvered to effect the firing of Coach Mike Brown, the most successful coach in Cavalier history.

Appeared in an hour-long interview on Larry King Live in the middle of the NBA Finals.

Refused to meet with Tom Izzo as the latter was considering the Cavs' offer to replace Brown as head coach.

Wore sweatpants (!) when he met with the various teams seeking to sign him.

Opened a Twitter account.

Reportedly, didn't return any calls or texts from Cavs owner Gilbert, who has been very good to him.

Engineered an hour-long television show for him to announce his free-agency decision. Therein, he repeatedly referred to himself in the third person, and talked about all the great things he's done for the city of Cleveland!

Be Careful What You Wish For

2010-06-24T16:49:00.007-04:00

Across the league, the new new thing in roster management is clearing salary obligations from the 2010-11 rolls in order to free up more capacity for signing superstar free agents. To wit:

The Chicago Bulls are reportedly set to trade Kirk Hinrich to Washington.

Meanwhile, Miami traded Daequan Cook yesterday, and today are trying to rid themselves of SF James Jones's contract.

We know how New York traded away Jared Jeffries and Jordan Hill in February.

New Jersey traded away Vince Carter last year and, just yesterday, Chris Douglas-Roberts.

All these teams are shedding guys who could be, or have been, productive contributors to a playoff team.

All these teams are hoping to land two or three of the top free agents in July: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Joe Johnson, Amare Stoudemire, Carlos Boozer, David Lee, Rudy Gay, Dirk Nowitzki, Ray Allen. (Steve Nash, Manu Ginobili, and Kobe Bryant already re-signed with their existing squads, removing some intrigue from the coming Julian dog days.)

Unfortunately, there is a good chance that at least one team will look back and found that it divested assets for nothing. What if James stays with Cleveland, Cleveland trades for Stoudemire, Boozer joins the Nets, Wade and Bosh sign with Miami, Lee and Johnson sign with the Knicks, and Gay/Nowitzki/Allen stay where they are. The Bulls would then be bereft of talent, with only Rose/Noah/Deng/Gibson/Johnson signed for next season. The second-tier selection of free agents is unlikely to net a big-time performer: Luis Scola or John Salmons (who was a Bull just four months ago) could help, but they will hardly help the team hang with the Lakers. Tracy McGrady was once great, but probably little more than a Vinnie Johnson now.

Alternatively, I could construct a scenario where the Knicks, or Heat, or Nets lose this derby. Fans will wonder: "Wait, all those years of suffering through mediocrity yielded absolutely nothing?"

Moreover, not only is it risky to part ways with a perfectly serviceable player based on a highly uncertain hope of upgrading, but hanging on to the player might be a higher-probability play if you hope to snare LeBron. Due to rules in Article IX of the NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement, a free agent can make more money annually, and gain an extra (sixth) guaranteed year of salary, by signing with his own team, rather than joining a new one. Thus, Chicago or Miami might have a better shot at acquiring Chris Bosh, say, by including Daequan Cook or Kirk Hinrich in a "sign-and-trade" where Bosh technically re-signs with Toronto to garner that extra booty. The Raptors might prefer such an outcome, too, as they would gain some value for their lost star. Having dumped Hinrich, the Bulls no longer have that strategic option.

So many teams have expressly committed to a strategy of readying for LeBron that the bold move might entail not doing so. I respect the Timberwolves and Thunder, which have good young players and salary space for a star, but have said virtually nothing about signing a top free agent. At least they evince a belief that their own budding stars are good enough. (Why should we think that Bosh, Johnson, Boozer, Stoudemire, Lee, or Gay are any better? None of them has led a team to the NBA Finals.)

A further irony is that the Bulls are casting off Hinrich, a tough point guard who has completed seven seasons in Chicago, to make way for Wade or Bosh or James. Let us recall that the ex-Jayhawk, like those celebrated others, is a member of the 2003 draft lottery class. And unlike the other free agents save Wade and Boozer, Hinrich made the Final Four!

The NBA Draft, A Locus of Radical Egalitarianism

2010-06-23T12:13:00.010-04:00

Tomorrow night brings the NBA Draft, an annual allocation of employees to employers that, unlike most spheres of American life, puts fairness above efficiency. Were the draft solely concerned with maximizing happiness produced, it would survey each player on his ranking of preferred teams, then survey each team on its ranking of preferred players, and allocate them so as to maximize total satisfaction of players and teams. The richest teams would pay the most and the best players would earn ghastly sums. But the draft emphasizes equity in two ways: First, the worst teams get the best young players, helping them to improve. Second, salaries of rookies are strictly regulated, so that the #1 pick makes only one order of magnitude more money than a second-rounder (in contrast to the real world, where some not-particularly-skilled 22-year-olds can make six figures but many these days are unemployed).

In any case, the draft reminds me of the exodus that my college classmates made away from our cloistered university life into the "real" world many years ago. Some struck an ironic pose, treating work disdainfully, and imagining themselves still hip bohemian students. Some dove delightedly (sometimes disturbingly so) into the new institutions they joined, concentrating on ingratiating themselves with the movers and shakers they met. Some picked entirely new directions to take their life, but some continued on a dogged track that they had chosen at age 12 or so.

In any case, back on graduation day, every one of us had potential. Armed with the same diploma and the freedom to exercise our gumption, each person had enormous opportunities. Some soared high, some motored sturdily, some coasted, and a small number, unfortunately, stalled out. Years later, the correspondence of actual achievement to then-felt-goals is a fairly tight correlation, but there are a few anomalies here and there. Stuff happens to divert aspirations or steal away resources; perhaps someone realizes that crazy hard work really isn't worth it. But on the day we donned the same flat-capped uniform and left school, we were like NBA draftees, hopeful and equally-positioned.

Of course, some NBA picks "pan out" but some become "busts". For example, many of the "next Jordans" who showed up on the scene in the mid-to-late '90s are now washed up, or out of the league, due to injuries. Consider:

Stephon Marbury (drafted 1996)

Penny Hardaway (drafted 1993)

Steve Francis (drafted 1999)

Tracy McGrady (drafted 1997)

Michael Finley (drafted 1995)

Jerry Stackhouse (drafted 1995)

Grant Hill (drafted 1994)

Of the Next MJs of 10-15 years ago, only Paul Pierce, Vince Carter, & (especially) Kobe Bryant continue to perform at All-Star level. Many of the above-bulleted guys succumbed to injuries not of their fault, or received poor medical treatment that made the injuries worse than necessary. But many are now sapped and aged because they failed to work on developing their bodies, and now have no "hops" or "quicks" left. Marbury is already playing in China, and Francis has intimated he may go there soon.

The annual draft is a wonderful time, for we have the creative agency to imagine these players blossoming or falling in so many sundry ways. And why not? Evan Turner might be a jerk. Greg Monroe might be the next Sabonis. James Anderson could be the finest jump-shooter in the league, while Patrick Patterson could tear something. Apres moi, I appreciate the draft because it takes me back to an innocent day when I was 22 and had not yet made the choices that would lead to more choices.

Kupchak Delivered These Titles

2010-06-18T21:35:00.006-04:00

So the Los Angeles Lakers have won the 2010 NBA championship with a narrow Game 7 victory over Boston.

Of everyone in the Lakers' organization, the most underrated contributor to their recent run of success must be General Manager Mitch Kupchak, who is very, very good at his job. At the least, he should be deemed the Executive of the Half-Decade.

Trading Shaquille O'Neal in 2004 was wise, as it jump-started the inevitably required rebuilding of the erstwhile three-time titlists. The Lakers could have squeezed maybe a couple more title-contending years out of the Kobe-Shaq duo in 2005 and 2006, but O'Neal was growing increasingly contentious and unmotivated in L.A., on top of his natural aging process.

In that same summer, Kupchak elected not to re-sign Derek Fisher, as his gritty services would not be needed on a re-building team. Kupchak also traded Gary Payton and Rick Fox (likewise not needed) for Chris Mihm, a center who could replace O'Neal's services in the short term. The same trade also netted Chucky Atkins and Marcus Banks, young 1s who could replace the point guarding offered by Payton and Fisher. Atkins started every game of the 2004-05 season for Los Angeles, delivering a steady 14 PPG.

Lamar Odom, obtained from Miami in the O’Neal trade, was a good piece for a future title contender. Certainly not the second-best player on a champion, but as we have actually seen, he is an extremely valuable contributor.

One year later, in summer 2005, Kupchak realized he needed to gamble on some young big men with high upside; thus, he drafted Andrew Bynum and traded Caron Butler for Kwame Brown. Helped by tutoring from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bynum developed into a championship-quality starting center (though he is injury-prone). Brown never improved much, though the Lakers were able to flip him (with a couple rookies and draft picks) for Pau Gasol halfway through the 2007-08 season.

Thus, the Lakers’ top 4 of Bryant, Gasol, Bynum, and Odom were set in February 2008. However, prior to that season, back in the summer of ’07, many pundits, and Kobe Bryant himself, questioned Kupchak’s long-term plan for returning the team to the top of the league, after three seasons without a playoff series win. “Ship his ass out!” Bryant pleaded ironically (referring to Bynum, in a putative trade for Jason Kidd) while kibitzing with two random dudes in a parking lot, as though Bryant himself were just a beer-bellied couch potato with opinions on everything hoopish.

In the 7 months following that incident, Kupchak refrained from the impulse to grant Bryant's trade request, then signed Derek Fisher, acquired Trevor Ariza by trade, then acquired Gasol in the 2008 trade that Gregg Popovich termed "beyond comprehension" for its one-sidedness.

Kupchak also proved a good drafter, taking Luke Walton in 2003, Sasha Vujacic in 2004, Bynum in 2005, and Jordan Farmar in 2006. All played meaningful minutes in the 2009 and 2010 Finals.

Finally, Kupchak has looked for only the highest caliber of coach. In 2004 he signed two-time championship coach Rudy Tomjanovich, and when he resigned in 2005 for personal reasons, Kupchak re-signed nine-time titlist Phil Jackson. Jackson may retire this summer, and if that happens, Kupchak would be wise to sign Byron Scott, former three-time champ as a player, two-time Finalist as a coach, and 2008 Coach of the Year.

Fisher and Farmar will be free agents come July and may not return; the Lakers may need to find a higher-caliber point guard. But with all the above-mentioned players, plus 2009 free agent acquisition Ron Artest, the Lakers seem poised to win at least one more title in the next three seasons, before the contracts and health of their top guys begin to expire. Kupchak has shown a golden touch since Shaquille O'Neal left. The challenge will be to find the next generation of Laker superstars when Bryant and Gasol eventually retire.

Should Floppers Get a Tech?

2010-06-14T18:59:00.008-04:00

Basketball fans watching the World Cup over the past couple days may have noted that FIFA gives yellow cards to a player who egregiously flops, acting as though his opponent knocked him down, in hopes of drawing a call against his counterpart for supposed unsportsmanlike conduct. Such diving is euphemistically called** "simulation" in the official FIFA argot. A yellow card in soccer is quite like a technical foul in the NBA; two yellow cards result in a red card, which means the player in question is ejected. The footballing penalty is actually more severe than two techs in a basketball game; in the former, the player's team is forced to play with ten men for the duration of the game, while in the latter, the player's team simply replaces the banished player. On the other hand, a technical foul in basketball results in one free throw for the opposing team, usually an easy point with a skilled shooter. All told, a yellow card is probably more serious than a technical foul. One point is highly unlikely to alter the tenor of a basketball game, while playing one man down in soccer probably means you will give up a goal.

Under current NBA rules, of course, there is no penalty to players who blatantly take a dive; Derek Fisher can flop all he wants and live to see another Rondo. And some pundits have argued that flopping has become a greater problem in the NBA in the last ten years as more European and South American players, influenced by soccer culture, have entered the league. Should the impunity around flopping be changed?

We might do well to consider the direct costs of flopping, aside from referee-imposed penalties. In basketball, a defensive flop can give your opponent an easy path to the basket for two quick points, if no foul is called. The enormous size of a soccer pitch, and the number of players on the field, means that a flop by one individual player is unlikely to result in a clear advantage for the other side. So perhaps the risk of an unsuccessful flop (i.e. a flop that fails to draw a foul) provides sufficient caution against would-be basketball floppers. Plus, crashing to the hardwood can hurt weary bones; a trip to the green lawn is far softer.

The biggest problem with penalizing flopping in basketball is the subjective discretion that this would invest in referees. If a player drops, was it a dive, or was he pushed? It would be difficult to definitively demarcate the difference in any written set of rules. Soccer referees indeed do have this discretion, but upper-body contact is less common in that sport and a flop is likely easier to identify as such.

All told, I do not support the penalizing of flopping in the NBA at this time. However, referees must become more chary about calling a foul to reward the player who flopped. If a non-American player (or Derek Fisher) dives unexpectedly, it was probably fake.

**[Warning, large PDF; see page 115]

KG Deserved Better

2010-06-11T20:32:00.010-04:00

Nearly three years after Kevin Garnett joined the Celtics, I still find it difficult to watch this short promotional spot and not feel a tear fighting its way through my ducts.

However, beyond the emotional wallop, what are we to make of this video? If, as seems apparent from the branding, the NBA and not the Celtics is the voice behind this advertisement — and thus, if NBA fans en masse, rather than Celtics fans, are the target audience — exactly what value proposition is the league trying to sell me on? Is the league telling me that, as a putative fan of any randomly-selected team, I have hope that a superstar may one day come to my team by trade? Well, that's not credible; in recent years, the big trades of MVP-caliber players have involved Jason Kidd to New Jersey, Shaq to Miami, McGrady to Houston, Garnett to Boston, and Pau Gasol to the Lakers. In other words, talented teams in big cities picked up more talent. A Memphis or Milwaukee fan sees little inspiration from this set of facts.

On the other hand, perhaps the message is "If you follow a highly talented player, rest assured that he will eventually find his way to a winning team." This has generally proved true over the years: Besides the examples above, Bob McAdoo joined the Lakers, Charles Barkley joined Phoenix, and Chris Bosh seems poised to join a contender next month. However, this argument collapses of its own weight. The NBA markets stars. Unlike the other major team sports in the United States, the NBA's players wear no headgear shrouding their features. Jersey sales, ticket prices, and TV ratings are generally driven by the appearance of great players in attractive situations. Dwyane Wade seems far more exciting when flanked by Shaquille O'Neal and Gary Payton than he did in the past couple seasons, when he led Joel Anthony and Mario Chalmers into opposing arenas. The Garnett ad above implicitly admits that the Association failed, for 11 of his 12 Timberwolf seasons (excluding the highly successful 2003-04 Minnesota campaign featuring Cassell, Sprewell, Szczerbiak, though even then the team's aggregate talent was middling), to put Garnett into a situation where he could thrive. Should we now applaud the league for giving us a product that includes Garnett as a winner? That is like thanking BP for cleaning up their oil spill.

And this brings me to the upcoming free-agent signing season. For months and possibly years, fans of mediocre teams such as Chicago, New York, Miami, Oklahoma City [though they have moved past "mediocre" now] Sacramento, Minnesota, Washington and the LA Clippers have anticipated July 2010 as a chance to upgrade their roster's core identity in a single swoop, like Dennis Quaid changing his face in Innerspace. But what if none of the top free agents move? It is conceivable that James, Wade, Nowitzki, Johnson, Stoudemire, Boozer, Lee, Gay, Allen, and McGrady could all remain with their current teams. Already, possible free agents Nash, Bryant, and Ginobili re-signed with their teams before their contracts expired. The only near-certainty seems to be Chris Bosh leaving Toronto. If this stagnancy happens, for many fans it would be a lump of coal at the bottom of a brightly adorned Christmas stocking hung on the chimney with care.

Finals Home-Road Format Is Close To Irrelevant

2010-06-04T15:08:00.009-04:00

In last night's Game 1 between Los Angeles and Boston, ESPN/ABC's Jeff Van Gundy proposed changing the NBA Finals format from 2-3-2 (two home games for Team A, three home games for Team B, two home games for Team A) to a 2-2-1-1-1 format, which is used in all preceding playoff series. There are good reasons for the existing scheme: The 2-3-2 format requires only two inter-city journeys rather than, potentially, four. When East meets West, inter-city travel is generally further than in the intra-conference playoffs, and there are also many more journalists covering the NBA Finals compared to earlier rounds, so the airfare costs and hassle of 2-2-1-1-1 could be enormous. So the NBA's logic is patent.

But what of Van Gundy's claim? He seemed to argue that it is difficult for the team with the middle three home games to win all three and thereby fully exercise its home-court entitlement. But under his scheme, Team B would get a home date for Game 3, Game 4, and Game 6. Why should we think that the probability of winning Games 3, 4, & 6 at home (after a Game 5 on the road) is higher than the probability of winning Games 3, 4, & 5 consecutively? To be sure, few Team Bs in the last couple decades — only Detroit in 2004 and Miami in 2006 — have won the middle three games at home. But the sample size is low: only 20 series in those two decades. How many teams, in tightly-contested series (thus, consider only the conference finals) have won games 3, 4, & 6 at home? I doubt much more than four in the last 40 conference final series.

What's more, from the perspective of Team B, the 2-3-2 format is more forgiving. Assume Team B has a 2/3 chance of winning any given home game, and assume each game result is independent of other games. Assume further that Team A is 99% dominant at home and already won both of Game 1 and 2 on Team A's floor. If you win two of your three middle home games (probability = 12/27, or 44%), or all three of your middle home games (probability = 8/27, or 30%) then you can extend the series to at least Game 6 and make a respectable showing. (Thus, your chance of getting to Game 6 is 74%.) In a 2-2-1-1-1 format, unless Team B wins both of Game 3 and Game 4 at home (probability = 4/9, or 44%) , then Team A can finish off the series in its arena in Game 5. Given this disparity in likelihood, why not take the comfort of the 2-3-2 format?

Now, the dominant Team A might not like this, but they're going to win the series anyway, and lengthening the series means more ad revenue for everyone, so what's the harm?

Lakers in 5

2010-06-03T12:29:00.009-04:00

My prediction could not be more clear. The Celtics are good, but several of their players (Rondo, Perkins, Garnett, T.Allen, Wallace, Daniels) are in various stages of recovery from injury, and Perkins risks suspension every time he tussles in the paint. Kobe Bryant is supposedly suffering from various ailments, but his performance in the Utah series and Phoenix series resembled Michael Jordan in a way I've never seen from any other player. Andrew Bynum can only give about 20 minutes per game due to a knee injury, but he does better when playing without Pau Gasol on the floor, anyway.

Who on the Celtics will score the ball? Perkins cannot score with his wrist injury; he has averaged 5.6 points in the postseason, down from 10.1 in the regular. Moreover, Bynum/Gasol can surely contain a reduced Garnett. Artest will do a much better job containing Paul Pierce than Vladimir Radmanovic or Lamar Odom could in 2008. Rajon Rondo has obviously improved greatly since two years ago, and he will likely carve up the Lakers' parade of inferior defenders: Fisher, Farmar, Vujacic, Brown. However, if Rondo is scoring, he is not distributing, and his teammates may grow frustrated. It may fall to the Celtics' reserves — Davis, Wallace, and Nate Rob — to spark Boston's offensive flow.

Boston can still play excellent D, but Los Angeles now has Bynum and Artest as additional offensive options compared to their '08 squad. It is hard to imagine Ray Allen containing Kobe Bryant's endless array of feints and parries, even if Bryant tires somewhat chasing Allen around curl patterns at the other end.

The Lakers have grown fat and happy since 2008, as Lamar Odom, Sasha Vujacic, and even Andrew Bynum have found some measure of womanly companionship. However, the stern bark of Kobe Bryant will keep them focused on the prize. Boston is very good, but the Lakers are better.

Why Two For One?

2010-06-02T17:38:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago we addressed the somewhat specious platitude that finishing a quarter strongly is particularly important. We neglected, though, to address another end-of-quarter oddity. When a team takes possession of the ball with, say, between 48 and 35 seconds remaining in a quarter (save the fourth), coaches sometimes advise their charges to quickly put up a shot so that the opposing team gets it with no less than, say, 30 seconds left. This way, the first team will get the ball back with no less than, say, 6 seconds left, and can try for one more shot. The strategy is called "Two For One". The idea is to get two possessions before the quarter ends.

There are a couple concerns here.

First, if the first team gives the second team the ball back with a bit more than 35 seconds left, then the second team can try its own Two-For-One strategy. Thus, the first team must manage its initial possession to make a shot quickly, but not too quickly.

Second, are two low-probability shots better than one high-probability possession? Assume a frenzied drive at the 0:40 mark, without first setting up holes in the defensive alignment, has a 30% chance of success, and then a desperate 3-point heave at the 0:03 mark has a 10% chance of success. By my calculation, the expected points scored there is 0.45. Meanwhile, your opponent gets a full shot clock to work a set play sandwiched between your two possessions; perhaps the opponent has a 45% chance of scoring, with expected points scored of 0.9. So your expected +/- for that Two-For-One sequence is -0.45. On the other hand, if you took possession at 0:40 and worked the shot clock to the fullest, you have a 0.45 chance of success, with expected points scored of 0.9. Your opponent takes possession at 0:16 and, with somewhat less time to work with, has only a 0.3 chance of scoring, with expected points scored of 0.6. Your expected +/- for that sequence is thus +0.3.

Obviously my mathematical assumptions can be tweaked to make the Two-For-One strategy seem a bit more favorable, but you get the idea.

Antoine Walker: Not A Bust, Now Bust

2010-05-28T18:38:00.007-04:00

Antoine Walker, a former Boston Celtic, Dallas Maverick, Atlanta Hawk, Miami Heater, and Memphis Grizzly, apparently filed for bankruptcy last week under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The linked article from the Wall Street Journal does a good job of outlining Walker's financial woes: $12 MM in personal debts but only $4 MM in assets. Yeah, this guy lived a bit too large. He generally lived up to his promise as the #6 pick in the 1996 NBA draft, scoring over 20 PPG for five years and helping the Miami Heat win the 2006 NBA title as their starting small forward. Although he took a lot of foolhardy three-pointers, his biggest disappointment was in his financial prudence.

Under 11 U.S.C. §523 and §727, a Chapter 7 case results, after liquidation of the debtor's estate, in discharge of all the debtor's debts that arose before the bankruptcy petition (with certain exceptions like tax obligations and domestic support obligations). Secured creditors get the value of their collateral, up to the amount of their secured claim, and unsecured creditors get whatever is left over from such collateral and the debtor's other assets. Walker is going to wind up with nothing going forward, other than his income-generating ability, whatever that may be.

What's more, it seems that Walker's biggest real estate liability is a $2.3 MM secured mortgage on a Chicago-area mansion. Illinois allows deficiency judgments (see 735 ILCS §15-1504(f)), which means that even if Walker's mortgage lender foreclosed on his house under ordinary non-bankruptcy procedure, they could still sue him for the difference if the market value of the mansion came in below $2.3 MM, which is likely given recent real estate trends. In Chapter 7, that potential deficiency claim by the bank will be discharged along with most of his other personal debts. This would not be the case in a Chapter 13 filing.

Under 11 U.S.C. §707(b), Walker's Chapter 7 filing might be deemed presumptively abusive and thus dismissed, or converted to Chapters 11/13, if his monthly net income (after deducting reasonable living expenses, mortgage payments, and domestic support obligations), multiplied by 60, exceeds $10,000. In other words, if his monthly net income exceeds $167, his case may be deemed abusive, unless he can show "special circumstances" such as military service obligation or a serious medical condition. It is hard to believe that Walker cannot bank a couple hundred bucks per month, but I suppose that is what you get when you live like Antoine Walker. In the WSJ article above, he claims to have zero income.

David Stern's John Hancock

2010-05-27T15:41:00.005-04:00

Why is the signature of NBA Commissioner "David J. Stern" emblazoned on every NBA game ball? This is like if the property manager of your mostly-rental apartment building decided to hang his portrait in every elevator.

Sure, Stern, like your building manager and the US President, has been hired to enforce rules and keep the house in good working order. But Stern is best thought of as a career bureaucrat, not a politician. He was not democratically elected by most of the stakeholders of the NBA, viz. players and fans. The owners hired him 26 years ago to enforce an arcane set of rules that they agreed upon. A loyal fonctionnaire, he is good at his job and doesn't feel like leaving. This could be contrasted with U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who was appointed by a democratically-elected President and confirmed by a democratically-elected Senate. When I see Tim G's signature on my money, I know that he's the guy whom my representatives approved to manage the common fisc.

For this reason, my analogy might fall apart if you changed the hypothetical apartment building to mostly owner-occupied. In such case, the building manager could be seen as a truly democratically supported agent of the residents. In that case, I might not mind seeing his smiling mug as I stepped into the lift.

But I'm sorry, David Stern is not the face of the league. (That role can be inferred by looking at the guys who appear in NBA Cares ads: Nash, James, Bryant, Yao.) He has no popular accountability to anyone, save the 30 owners who control revenues and intangible assets of the league. And really, who cares about them?

Matchups Matter; Celtics Defy Elementary Logic

2010-05-25T16:06:00.005-04:00

Consider the following facts:

1. The 2008 Atlanta Hawks played the 2008 Celtics to a near-draw, before falling in seven games.

2. The 2008 Celtics were superior to the 2010 Celtics, due to the ensuing two years of injury and aging for the team's Big Three. In the regular season, the former won 63 games and the latter won 50.

3. The 2008 Hawks were inferior to the 2010 Hawks, due to the ensuing two years of growth and development by the team's core young players: Williams, Smith, Horford, and Johnson. In the regular season, the former won 37 games and the latter won 53.

4. The 2010 Orlando Magic were vastly superior to the 2010 Atlanta Hawks, defeating the latter by an average of 23 points in a four-game sweep.

Thus, by inference, the 2010 Hawks should be better than the 2010 Celtics, and thus the 2010 Magic should be heaps better than the 2010 Celtics.

But the observed data shows that the Celtics have defeated Orlando twice on the latter's home floor, and now lead the series 3-1.

This oddity represents an example of the First Law of Playoff Basketball: Matchups matter. A fast team, Atlanta, can torment a relatively slow team, like the Celtics. The small, fast team may fall victim to a squad full of 7-foot redwood timber, such as Orlando, which can boast Gortat at center, Dwight Howard at PF, and Rashard Lewis at SF. Yet Orlando can succumb to Boston due to the latter's quick PG and stout defensive center.

In other words, superiority of teams is not transitive. A > B and B > C does not imply A > C. Over in the Western conference, the Lakers seem clearly superior to Phoenix, while the Suns broomed away San Antonio in four straight. Could the Lakers handle the Spurs so easily? The derring-do of Tony Parker and the offensive range of Tim Duncan and Antonio McDyess suggest otherwise.

This seems to upend our traditional interpretations of a single-elimination tournament, whether that be the NBA playoffs, the NCAA Division I men's basketball bracket, or Wimbledon. At any given stage of elimination, a still-extant team is ostensibly better than all losing teams in the sub-bracket whence it emerged. (In March Madness, a team that makes the Sweet 16 is (i) better than the team it beat in the first round, (ii) better than the team it beat in the second round, and (iii) by transitivity, better than the first-round-victim of the team it beat in the second round.) Following this logic to the end, the champion competitor is better than all losing teams in the tournament. But once transitivity fails, what are we left with? The champion just got lucky? The champion was just good at avoiding injuries, as we outlined here?

That winning requires, or is ordinarily correlated with, luck is somewhat disappointing; hallowed canards hold that the best teams will their way to a title. Recall Jordan's flu game or the Miami Heat refusing to lose against Dallas. Additionally, American society is premised on internecine competitions yielding one true great one. What is American Idol, if not a nod to the spelling bees that have challenged rural American children since the 19th century? Whereas spelling prowess and perhaps even singing ability can be measured and compared, team basketball success may be somewhat more ethereal.

I must credit my co-blogger H.O.S.S. for suggesting this idea.

Assessing The Playoffs Thus Far

2010-05-22T13:11:00.004-04:00

After two games of the Western and Eastern conference finals, here is how I see it:

Best things about the playoffs thus far
1. Phoenix beats the Spurs finally
2. Celtics re-naissance
3. Thunder give legit challenge to Lakers

Worst things about the playoffs thus far:
1. Hawks underperform
2. 3 of 4 East first-round series are massacres
3. Conference finals have feeling of being a foregone conclusion

Fallacy of Enduring Franchise Traits

2010-05-20T12:26:00.009-04:00

I'm tired of statistics showing the historical performance of teams in certain situations, spanning multiple decades. Take the following tidbit from an online Sports Illustrated article yesterday: "The Celtics ... are 32-0 in seven-game series in which they've taken a 2-0 lead."

That's simply not of interest to me. I might be interested in the historical performance of all teams in this situation (viz. teams that win the first two games of a series have a historical series win record of 217-14, 93%, and if we focus on teams that win the series's first two games on the road, they won 22 of 25 series, 88%), but why would the historical Celtics performance in this situation add any useful information? The Celtics as a Massachusetts corporate entity have some continuous legal life, and by convention, the current group of guys shares some virtual heritage with former teams called Celtics. Yet the 1959 Celtics of Russell and Cousy are no closer in composition to the 2010 Celtics compared to, say, the similitude of the 1979 Sonics to the current Celtics. There is little that has remained constant with the Celtics franchise over time, other than green uniforms and a stadium in downtown Boston. So why should we think that all-time Celtics statistics are informative for the current team's situation?

As Rick Pitino once put it, Larry Bird ain't walking through that door.

Celtics Fell Mighty Magic in Game 1

2010-05-17T12:37:00.004-04:00

I was visiting Boston and communing with a fellow member of the JPO team yesterday, but due to the quirks of my travel schedule, I actually was not able to view most of the Orlando-Boston game and could only see highlights. The box score reveals a couple interesting quirks to me, though.

* Boston out-assisted Orlando, 21 to 10. Orlando had averaged nearly 19 assists per game in their first two post-season series. Look for Stan Van Gundy to emphasize more pick-and-roll action in Game 2, freeing up Vince Carter and Rashard Lewis for more easy shots.

* Relatedly, Orlando shot only 5 for 22 from three-point range, an unusually low clip compared to their regular-season percentage of 37%. Had they made a couple more of those, they could have nipped Boston.

Prior to this series, I told my co-bloggers that I predict Orlando in 6 games. I still stand by that prediction, although obviously my prediction now seems significantly less likely, both in a simple arithmetical sense and also due to what we learned about the teams' relative strengths.

If He Brons It, Will They Come?

2010-05-14T14:29:00.005-04:00

Today's rumors center on LeBron James's next team, after Cleveland lost, surprisingly to some pundits, to the Boston Celtics in the second round. A cursory analysis suggests that, of the teams with room under the salary cap to sign a top free-agent player to a "max" contract, the Chicago Bulls are the most attractive, followed closely by the Nets and Clippers. This superiority arises from those teams' employment of talented young players under low-money rookie contracts — hence their low aggregate salary rolls. Chicago boasts several champions of the under-23 circuit, including Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, and Taj Gibson, while New Jersey fields Courtney Lee, Terrence Williams, and Brook Lopez, and the Clips include Blake Griffin and Eric Gordon. (Each of those teams also has good veteran players, such as Kirk Hinrich, Devin Harris, and Chris Kaman.) New Jersey also finished with the league's worst record in 2009-10 and is assured of a draft pick somewhere in slots #1 through #4. The New York Knicks, meanwhile, have been trading away talented players like Zach Randolph, Jamal Crawford, Jordan Hill, and Jared Jeffries since 2008 in order to clear salary in order to sign two top 2010 free agents.

It would be a cruel blow to fans of other historically weak teams, particularly the Knicks, if the Bulls manage to grab LBJ. The Bulls have long been the fourth act in a sports-crazy town. In Jerry Sloan's playing days, the Bulls were a curious oddity who only won their division once.
Michael Jordan spoiled the city with six championships, though his arrival coincided with the "Monsters of the Midway" Bears championship team and the Cubs captaincy of Ryne Sandberg. Since Jordan left in 1998, the Bulls have returned to their fourth-class status. Yes, they routinely sell out their arena and have led the league in attendance for the past decade, but it is difficult to find any young person sporting a Luol Deng jersey on Michigan or Kedzie Avenues. Tailgating at Bears games or bratwursting at Cubs tilts is far more common.

Just to illustrate this disparity, I scored tickets to attend last month's Bulls-Cavs first-round series at $47 each (including all taxes and other ancillary charges). Lately I have been exploring attending the pending Blackhawks-Sharks NHL series; the cheapest seat will cost me $183! Even hockey, another country's national sport, beats basketball here in the home of Kevin Garnett and Dwyane Wade.

Signs have burgeoned recently suggesting that LeBron James may join the Bulls as a free agent this summer, perhaps with another top FA like Chris Bosh. What's more, now President Barack Obama has an opinion about Mr. James's next team! I support our President, but I feel he should leave this one to the professionals.

While basketball-mad Knicks fans have patiently waited through nine years of futility (the Knicks' last winning season was 2000-01) for this coming summer, Bulls fans generally have had little expectations. As I noted in this earlier post, the Bulls have not shown a single clear direction in the twelve years since Jordan pushed off. The Bulls lucked into the top pick of the 2008 draft though they ranked only ninth-worst in the regular-season standings. They subsequently hired the wrong coach, as I charged here. Even in the past couple years, as it became apparent that Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose are championship-caliber pros, few took seriously the notion that the Bulls could sign a star, until GM John Paxson quietly traded away John Salmons to the rampaging Bucks last February, clearing sufficient room off the Bulls' 2010-11 salary roll.

If Chicago is able to dominate the Teens of the NBA with the panache it showed in the Nineties, it would represent a rather plutocratic concentration of basketball success for a city that hardly craves it. Knicks fans deserve a fantastic team, but it may be Bears and Blackhawks fans who get it.

Finishing Arbitrary Divisions Of Game Time

2010-05-10T12:35:00.008-04:00

TNT’s Doug Collins, whom we discussed yesterday, is fond of emphasizing the importance of finishing quarters strongly. To be sure, there may be a temptation to slacken effort when a break looms; that is not unusual in any professional setting. (Most government offices that I have seen feature "Friday afternoon happy hour" that starts around 2:00.) So sure, it is important to resist this temptation in the final two minutes of a game. On the other hand, a "finish strong" ethos common among athletes could result in increased, not reduced, effort towards the end of quarters. I am not sure which way the tendency cuts, overall. However, in any case, we should not regard developments in those segments of time as different from the rest of the game.

Score gains or score losses against your opponent in the first two minutes of a quarter count for just as much as gains/losses in the final two minutes of a quarter. The same can be said for the second two minutes, the third two minutes, the fourth two minutes, and the fifth two minutes. Towards the end of quarters, Collins often says things like: "The team now leading by 12 should be careful: if they don't play hard, that lead could be down to 4 by the end of the quarter." True, but the potential to allow a "run" of several baskets by your opponent exists at any time during the game. Is it worse if this happens at the end of a quarter? A basketball game consists of 48 minutes. Why is the point differential after the 12th, 24th, and 36th minute any more significant than the differential after the 5th, 19th, or 40th minute?

In one sense, the division of the game into four 12-minute blocks is arbitrary. Indeed, the rest time during TV breaks within quarters can be just as long as the rest time between quarters. Given that everyone psychologically regards quarters and halves as some heuristically convenient way to tote up partial performance, perhaps nebulous entities like motivation, confidence, strategic planning, and "momentum" are more affected by the score at the end of quarters compared to the score at any randomly selected moment within a quarter — hence Doug Collins's special concern. But surely a slam dunk "with no regard for human life!" or a dagger three-pointer to cap a run can energize a crowd and provoke some navel-gazing, even it occurs three minutes into the third.

It is a close call, but I do believe that Collins's concern with finishing quarters is overblown.

Doug Collins, Ace Reporter

2010-05-09T22:16:00.008-04:00

Doug Collins, longtime color commentator for TNT, must be the Bob Woodward of NBA journalists. Whenever he broadcasts a Phoenix Suns game (or, prior to the 2007-08 season, whenever he did an Orlando tilt) he brings viewers useful bits of knowledge from his "insider source" Grant Hill. Apparently Hill is in the habit of sidling up to Collins's broadcast table during the game to kibbitz.

There are two reasons for this unusually close relationship. First, Collins's son, Chris Collins, was a teammate of Hill on the Duke University team in the early 1990s. Together, they almost won a third national championship for Duke in the 1994 NCAA tournament, falling eventually to Arkansas in front of a delighted President Clinton. The younger Collins remained so close to that college program that he returned as an assistant coach for Coach Krzyzewski in 2000, where he has remained for 10 years.

Second, the elder Collins coached Grant Hill on the Detroit Pistons during his finest years, 1995-96 through 1997-98. In '96-'97, the Pistons went 54-28 and Hill turned in an MVP-caliber season with 21 points, 9 rebounds, and 7 assists. Sadly, that was the pinnacle of Hill's career, as he never again won so many games until he joined 55-win Phoenix for 2007-08. With his devastating ankle injury in 2000, he was never again the same dynamic player, either.

It is little wonder that Hill, who as we pointed out here is the son of an athlete, can feel some affinity with Doug Collins, the father of an athlete, as a paternal figure.

Don't Mean A Thing If You Ain't Got That Ring

2010-04-30T11:54:00.005-04:00

In the last 30 seasons, 1979-80 through 2008-09, only eight NBA teams have won championships. It is a stunning concentration of power, after eight different teams won championships in the 1970s. Perhaps star players are more durable today due to better training (and less drug abuse?)

Los Angeles (9)
Chicago (6)
San Antonio (4)
Boston (4)
Detroit (3)
Houston (2)
Philadelphia (1)
Miami (1)

If I had to bet, I would say that there will NOT be a new addition to this list after the 2010 NBA Finals.

From Draft Day to LOB Day

2010-04-30T11:03:00.011-04:00

While watching San Antonio win its playoff series against Dallas last night, I noted that the Spurs have a whopping five players in their rotation whom they originally drafted: Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, Hill, and Blair. Other than Duncan (1997 #1), all the others were late first-round picks or second-round picks. They surely must have the best scouting department in the league.

By contrast, the Thunder, the NBA's youngest team, also have several regulars whom they drafted, but almost all in the lottery: Westbrook, Harden, Collison, Durant, Green, Ibaka. (Collison, as we noted in this 2008 post, has been with the Sonics/Thunder franchise since 2003.)

Upon some tallying, as shown below, it seems that most playoff teams, even those perceived as "young" or "up and coming", have just 4 or 5 rotation players whom they drafted. The team with the greatest number of original draftees in its rotation turns out to be Portland, with 7.

Building a winning team mainly with draft picks is difficult, as it requires predicting on-court chemistry before players enter their prime, and really before they've even met each other. If you get your draft picks "right", as Oklahoma City and Portland have, then you can quickly win while paying cheap rookie salaries. If you screw up your picks, as Charlotte has (D.J. Augustin over Brook Lopez? Gerald Henderson over Ty Lawson?) then your re-building project will fail and you will be doomed to start over a few years hence. Aside from Portland and the Thunder, there are few playoff teams that have "grown up" together from draft day to huge postseason success. Most successful teams require a significant trade or free-agent signing (think Bill Cartwright to the Bulls, Dennis Rodman to the Bulls, Pau Gasol to the Lakers, Mark Aguirre to the Pistons, Rashard Lewis to the Magic) before they can fully ascend.

(For purposes of this list below, "drafted" includes trading for a player's rights shortly after some other team drafted him, as happened with Gortat, Hilario, Fesenko, Fernandez. This also includes the signing of undrafted free agents, such as Chris Andersen, J.J. Barea, Wesley Matthews, Udonis Haslem. This includes players presently injured but ordinarily part of the rotation such as Oden, Redd, Kirilenko. Finally, I am generously including players on their second stop with their original team, including PGs such as Kidd, Nash, Fisher.)

DRAFTED PLAYERS IN PLAYOFF ROTATIONS WITH THEIR ORIGINAL TEAM

Boston: Pierce, Rondo, Perkins, T.Allen, Davis

Orlando: Nelson, Howard, Redick, Gortat

Cleveland: James, Varejao, Ilgauskas, Hickson, occasionally Gibson

Atlanta: Williams, Horford, Smith, Teague

Miami: Wade, Wright, Haslem, Chalmers, Beasley, occasionally Cook

Milwaukee: Jennings, Bogut, Redd, Mbah a Moute, Ilyasova, Gadzuric

Charlotte: Wallace, Felton, Augustin

Chicago: Rose, Noah, Deng, Gibson, Hinrich (all NCAA standouts, as documented in our previous post here)

Los Angeles: Fisher, Bryant, Bynum, Walton, occasionally Vujaci

OKC: Westbrook, Harden, Collison, Durant, Green, Ibaka

San Antonio: Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, Blair, Hill

Phoenix: Nash, Stoudemire, Lopez, Dragic, Barbosa

Denver: Anthony, Hilario, Lawson, Andersen

Utah: Williams, Matthews, Fesenko, Kirilenko, Miles, Millsap

Dallas: Kidd, Nowitzki, Beaubois, Barea

Portland: Roy, Aldridge, Oden, Webster, Batum, Fernandez, Bayless

Assessing Executive Performances

2010-04-29T16:57:00.008-04:00

In a series of three posts last year, we evaluated executive performance in 2008-09, ultimately choosing Denver's Mark Warkentien as the greatest achiever that year. Warkentien went on to win the NBA's Executive of the Year award.

This year's Executive of the Year was Milwaukee's John Hammond, who received 12 of 30 votes. The runner-up was Oklahoma City's Sam Presti, who received 9 votes. This was odd, given that (as described below) Presti did virtually nothing in the past 12 months to improve his team, other than prudent omission. It is generally recognized that the Coach of the Year award is not a prize for cumulative past deeds, but rather a bauble for punctuated single-year success (hence Jerry Sloan's failure to ever win), so why should Presti get any votes?
The voting year is generally considered to start with the 2009 NBA draft and extend until the end of the 2009-10 regular season in mid-April, when roster moves cease.

Hammond certainly has done a great job, as he built a deep and resilient roster that was able to weather season-ending injuries to Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut yet still (as of this writing) take 3 of the first 5 playoff games from the favored Atlanta Hawks. Still, I am not sure that he was the best team executive in the past 12 months.

Here are the candidates, arranged into tiers of Great, Good, OK, and Poor:

GREAT

Cleveland's Danny Ferry (drafted Christian Eyenga and Danny Green; traded Sasha Pavlovic and Ben Wallace for Shaquille O'Neal; signed Leon Powe, Anthony Parker, and Jamario Moon; traded Zydrunas Ilgauskas and a draft pick for Antawn Jamison). The trades for Shaq and Jamison were brilliant, losing no usable talent (note that Ilgauskas returned to the team 30 days after the trade) for multi-time All-Stars who help the Cavs credibly threaten Orlando. The free-agent signings of ex-Raptors Parker and Moon were also sharp, as Delonte West and LeBron James alone were not sufficient as perimeter defenders in the playoffs last year.

San Antonio's R.C. Buford (drafted Dejuan Blair, Garrett Temple, and Cedric Jackson; traded Fabricio Oberto/Kurt Thomas/Bruce Bowen for Richard Jefferson; brought Ian Mahinmi aboard the main roster from France; signed Keith Bogans and Antonio McDyess). The Spurs kept only Parker, Ginobili, Duncan, Hill, and Bonner from last year's rotation. Out went the aging Finley, Bowen, Oberto, and Thomas; younger legs including Blair, Jefferson, and Bogans (plus the admittedly mature McDyess) supplanted them. As of this writing, they lead Dallas 3-2 in their first-round playoff series. Last year Dallas won the series in five games, so at the least the Spurs have improved.

Dallas's Donnie Nelson (drafted Rodrigue Beaubois; signed Drew Gooden and Tim Thomas; traded Jerry Stackhouse/Devean George/Antoine Wright for Shawn Marion/Kris Humphries/Greg Buckner; traded Humphries/Shawne Williams for Eduardo Najera; traded Josh Howard/Gooden/James Singleton/Quentin Ross for Caron Butler/Brendan Haywood/Deshawn Stevenson). Some of the Mavs' moves seem akin to a "Flip This House" strategy, as the above transaction list clearly includes the acquisition and then abrumpt dismissal of players including Gooden and Humphries. Still, it is hard to argue against the point that they have improved their roster. Caron Butler and Shawn Marion are former All-Stars, and Brendan Haywood is an above-average defensive center. Even ignoring all the trades, they came up with a brilliant late-first-round pick by nabbing Beaubois, who has shown enticing flashes of preternatural ability.

Milwaukee's John Hammond (drafted Brandon Jennings; signed Ersan Ilyasova; traded Richard Jefferson for Kurt Thomas/Bruce Bowen/Amir Johnson; traded Amir Johnson/Sonny Weems for Roko Ukic/Carlos Delfino; traded Joe Alexander/Hakim Warrick for John Salmons; signed Jerry Stackhouse). Jennings, Ilyasova, Delfino, Salmons, and Stackhouse are now all contributing to the Bucks' playoff success. Jefferson, who starred for many years in New Jersey, disappointed in his one year in Milwaukee and is not playing much better in San Antonio; meanwhile, Kurt Thomas has played 70 games for the Bucks and contributes 4 rebounds per game from a bench position. Bowen retired and represented saved money for Milwaukee.

Orlando's Otis Smith (traded Courtney Lee and Rafer Alston for Ryan Anderson and Vince Carter; signed Matt Barnes, Jason Williams, and Brandon Bass; re-signed Marcin Gortat). Orlando made the Finals last year, and now they're even better. They are clearly the deepest team in the league. If Jameer Nelson goes down, you've got El Chocolate Blanco or Anthony Johnson. In the "bigs" rotation, you have Dwight Howard, Bass, Anderson, Gortat, Rashard Lewis, and even Adonal Foyle. Perimeter players include Carter, Barnes, mainstay J.J. Redick, and Mickael Pietrus. Nearly every guy save Bass, Gortat, Foyle, and of course Howard can easily stroke 3-pointers. The new players are clearly an upgrade on the departed Lee, Alston, Tony Battie, and Hedo Turkoglu. None of the latter four players played as well in 2009-10 as they had with Orlando.

Houston's Daryl Morey (drafted Chase Budinger; signed Trevor Ariza; traded Carl Landry and Tracy McGrady for Jordan Hill, Jared Jeffries, Kevin Martin, and draft picks). Morey's team has not appreciably improved since they came within one game of the Western Conference Finals nearly 12 months ago. The continued deterioration of Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming's chronic foot problems means that the dominant inside-outside combination that team leaders happily imagined back in 2004 will never obtain. Houston missed the playoffs this season; however, with all of the new assets in Houston, the Rox may be ready to implement a trade that will bring a star like LeBron James or Chris Bosh to lower Texas.

New York's Donnie Walsh (drafted Jordan Hill and Toney Douglas; traded Quentin Richardson for Darko Milicic; re-signed David Lee for one year; signed Earl Barron and Jonathan Bender; traded Jordan Hill, Jared Jeffries, and draft picks for Tracy McGrady; traded Milicic for Brian Cardinal). The incoming talent in these deals has not been above average. The purpose of the McGrady trade was to remove Jared Jeffries from New York's 2010-11 salary roll in order to clear salary room for a big free agent. Of course, if Isiah Thomas had not signed Jeffries to such a long contract, such a movie would not have been necessary. For Thomas's folly, the Knicks lost two future draft picks. But at least Walsh has put the Knicks in a position to potentially lure in James and Bosh. As this article makes clear, Walsh has a pretty good plan for the free-agent signing period this summer.

Charlotte's Michael Jordan (drafted Gerald Henderson Jr.; traded Emeka Okafor to New Orleans for Tyson Chandler; signed Ronald "Flip" Murray; re-signed Raymond Felton to a one-year qualifying offer; traded Raja Bell and Vlad Radmanovic for Stephen Jackson and Acie Law; traded Law, Murray, and a draft pick for Tyrus Thomas; traded a future draft pick for Theo Ratliff). To me this one is simple. The Bobcats never made the playoffs before this season. Okafor was not defensively lithe enough to gain any purchase with Dwight Howard, say. Additionally, Okafor's contract extends to June 2014, too long for a team with parlous finances. With Jackson, Chandler, and Tyrus Thomas, the Bobcats escaped the lottery.

GOOD General Managers:

Sacramento's Geoff Petrie (drafted Tyreke Evans and Omri Casspi; traded draft rights to Jeff Pendergraph for Sergio Rodriguez and draft rights to Jon Brockman; signed Sean May and Ime Udoka; traded Kevin Martin and Sergio Rodriguez for Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey). Petrie's rookies turned out great, as Evans won the ROY award, Casspi earned starter minutes with his high energy and accurate shooting, and Brockman delivered several double-digit rebounding games. I think we do not yet know enough to evaluate the Landry trade. Martin and Evans probably could not co-exist together, as Evans is not a good enough distributor to deliver the ball to Martin in prime shooting positions. Landry has completed only three pro seasons and still has time to blossom as a top-caliber PF. With a plum lottery pick upcoming, Sacramento has positioned its roster to hotly succeed in the medium term.

Chicago's John Paxson (drafted Taj Gibson; decided to let Ben Gordon sign with Detroit; traded John Salmons for Warrick and Alexander; traded Tyrus Thomas for Acie Law and Flip Murray). Like New York's Donnie Walsh, the Bulls did not make a great deal of basketball progress, losing in the first round for the second consecutive year. Taj Gibson was a very good selection at the 26th position in the first-round. (One must consider that such draft pick was acquired in February 2009 via the Bulls' trading Thabo Sefolosha, who has blossomed into a very good defender with Oklahoma City. However, in this blog post we are evaluating only 2009-10 roster moves.) Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, the team's two best players, certainly improved to a near-All-Star level during '09-'10. The roster moves entailed the loss of some good players, with resulting 2010-11 salary room to sign even better players. We do not know whether the best of 2003's class will choose to join Chicago, but the team is positioned well.

Atlanta's Rick Sund (traded Acie Law and Speedy Claxton to Golden State for Jamal Crawford; drafted Jeff Teague; signed Joe Smith and Jason Collins). The Hawks did not fiddle much with the roster that was readily swept by Cleveland in the 2009 conference semis. Acquiring Crawford, named Sixth Man of the Year just a couple days prior, added a valuable offensive dimension to the team. However, in light of Atlanta's easy destruction in last year's playoffs, a more significant roster upgrade would have been nice. Smith and Collins have hardly played.

L.A. Clippers's Mike Dunleavy (drafted Blake Griffin; traded Zach Randolph to Memphis for Quentin Richardson; traded Q-Rich to Minnesota for Craig Smith and Sebastian Telfair; traded a draft pick to New Orleans for Rasual Butler; traded Marcus Camby for Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw; traded Telfair and Al Thornton for Drew Gooden in a four-team trade). Drafting Griffin was an obvious choice at #1, and Dunleavy did a good job jettisoning Randolph to make room for Griffin in the starting lineup. (Unfortunately, Griffin then suffered a season-ending injury in training camp. Trading Camby was wise, as the Clips have Chris Kaman and young DeAndre Jordan in the middle position. Though Camby will be a 2010 free agent, the Bird rights to Blake and Outlaw might be useful to the Clips.

Portland's Kevin Pritchard (traded Sergio Rodriguez to Sacramento for a draft pick; drafted Jeff Pendergraph, Dante Cunningham, Victor Claver, and Patrick Mills; signed Andre Miller; granted contract extensions to LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy; traded Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw to the Clippers, as noted above, for Marcus Camby; signed Marcus Camby to a two-year contract extension). With a winning and youthful core of Roy, Aldridge, Nicolas Batum, and Greg Oden, the acquisition of so many rookies was somewhat strange; at the time, more veterans like Miller would have been more useful. Then, when Oden was later injured, the Camby trade was a good way to salvage the season, preserving a nontrivial possibility of a serious playoff run. Signing Camby before the summer free-agent frenzy was a smart move.

Oklahoma City's Sam Presti (drafted James Harden and Byron Mullens; traded Chucky Atkins and Damien Wilkins for Etan Thomas and draft picks; traded rights to a European player for Eric Maynor and the injured Matt Harpring). These were good, safe movies, though Oklahoma could have done more to ready their team for a Bosh or Boozer. James Harden at #3 in the draft looks questionable now: why not a better shooter like Stephen Curry? Harden has a couple more inches, enabling him to better defend other SGs, but Curry shoots like a Swedish biathon champion.

Denver's Mark Warkentien (drafted Ty Lawson; re-signed Chris Andersen; signed Joey Graham; traded a draft pick to Detroit for Walter Sharpe and Arron Afflalo; traded Sharpe and Sonny Weems to Milwaukee for Malik Allen; traded Steven Hunter and a draft pick for Dominique Jones). Denver allowed free agents Dahntay Jones and Linas Kleiza to sign elsewhere (the latter, in Greece) Afflalo blossomed in this, his third season, filling the defensive role that Jones occupied in 2008-09. Additionally, Afflalo developed a fine three-point shooting touch and some playmaking ability. After the regular season started, the Nuggets played things chill and easy, not making any roster transactions until a couple minor signings in April to gird for the playoffs. (Unfortunately, Denver quickly lost to Utah, lost without Coach Karl.) Lawson and Afflalo are excellent building blocks for the future, and Warkentien, who won Executive of the Year in 2008-09, must get credit for that.

New Orleans's Jeff Bower (drafted Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton; traded Tyson Chandler to Charlotte for Emeka Okafor; traded Rasual Butler to the Clippers for a draft pick; traded Antonio Daniels to Minnesota for Darius Songaila and Bobby Brown; signed Ike Diogu; traded Hilton Armstrong for a draft pick; traded Devin Brown for Aaron Gray; traded Bobby Brown for a draft pick). A lot of bench-caliber players entered and exited this roster. (Free agents Jannero Pargo and Ryan Bowen also left in the summer of 2009.) Collison and Thornton were very good draft picks late in the selection process; with Chris Paul injured for most of the season, those two young guards showed that they could lead the team and/or score like a piano composer. Okafor, as noted above, has a much longer contract but lacks Chandler's injury profile, and appears an adequate replacement.

OK General Managers

Phoenix's Steve Kerr (traded Shaquille O'Neal for Sasha Pavlovic and Ben Wallace; signed Channing Frye; chose not to trade Amare Stoudemire). Phoenix did not shuffle the roster much, aside from divesting Shaq. The Suns subsequently bought out the contracts of Pavlovic and Wallace. Phoenix largely did not mess with its roster after the 2008-09 season ended; some discussion of trading Amare Stoudemire before the February '10 trade deadline led to nothing. Phoenix's bench of Lopez/Barbosa/Dudley/Amundsen/Dragic has almost uniformly improved since last season, and their stalwart starters of Nash/Stoudemire/Richardson/Hill have not lost much despite their age. Channing Frye, like many other offensive-oriented players, thrived next to Steve Nash. The Suns are back in the playoffs, showing that Kerr was effective in his restraint.

Memphis's Chris Wallace (traded Darko Milicic for Quentin Richardson; traded Richardson for Zach Randolph; drafted Hasheem Thabeet and Sam Young; traded a draft pick for Ronnie Brewer; signed Jamaal Tinsley). Drafting Hasheem Thabeet at #2 was a terrible idea, when he could have nabbed Harden, Evans, Rubio, Flynn, Curry, Jennings, or Lawson. Flipping Milicic for Zach Randolph worked well, and the acquisition of Brewer showed good foresight (though he quickly suffered a season-ending injury). With Randolph, Memphis came close to its first playoff season since 2006. Still, Hasheem Thabeet?

Boston's Danny Ainge (signed Rasheed Wallace, Shelden Williams, Marquis Daniels, and Michael Finley; re-signed Glen Davis; signed Rajon Rondo to a contract extension; traded Bill Walker and J.R. Giddens for Nate Robinson). Rondo's extension was wise, as too many teams had 2010-11 salary room and would likely throw lush money at Rondo were he to be a free agent in July '10. Most of Boston's new bench players -- Williams, Daniels, and Finley -- were injured all season and contributed little. Wallace was nominally healthy, though mostly out of shape. The Celtics have not yet returned to their championship form of 2008. If Ainge wants to prolong the Celtics' current stretch of excellence, he will need to work harder in the coming summer.

Meanwhile, the WORST GENERAL MANAGER list must surely include:

Detroit's Joe Dumars (drafted Jonas Jerebko; signed Ben Wallace, Chris Wilcox, Ben Gordon, and Charlie Villanueva). Jerebko is a nice player, but Gordon and Villanueva are badly overpaid. Surely Detroit could have done better by waiting until 2010 to commit to long-term contracts.

New Jersey's Rod Thorn (drafted Terrence Williams; traded Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson for Courtney Lee, Rafer Alston, and Tony Battie). Williams is known to be headstrong and difficult to deal with. Vince Carter is an All-NBA-caliber talent who is surely worth much more than a one-year pseudo-veteran like Courtney Lee.

Toronto's Bryan Colangelo (traded Kris Humphries and Shawn Marion for Hedo Turkoglu, Devean George, and Antoine Wright; drafted Demar DeRozan; signed Jarrett Jack; traded George to Golden State for Marco Belinelli; signed Rasho Nesterovic; traded Delfino and Ukic to Milwaukee for Johnson and Weems). Turkoglu played like dirt; meanwhile, Marion helped Dallas remain at the top of any list. DeRozan has no obviously outstanding basketball skill, while the player taken at #10 in the draft immediately after DeRozan, Brandon Jennings, challenged for Rookie of the Year. Most importantly, Colangelo did little to convince Chris Bosh that the team is headed toward championship contention anytime soon. Why should he stay?

Minnesota's David Kahn (drafted Ricky Rubio, Jonny Flynn, and Wayne Ellington; signed Ramon Sessions; traded Brian Cardinal to the Knicks for Darko Milicic). The signing of Sessions was strange when Flynn was already anointed as the new starting point guard and Rubio, also a 1, is expected to join the team in 2011. Why did Sessions deserve a four-year contract? And if Flynn is good enough to pilot the team to the playoffs, why spend a high draft pick on Rubio? The trade market is hardly liquid; Rubio may not be flippable for a player of equal talent. And why is Darko Milicic worth any sort of speculative investment?

Utah's Kevin O'Connor`(drafted Eric Maynor; signed Wesley Matthews as undrafted rookie; traded Maynor and Matt Harpring to the Thunder for a European player's draft rights; traded Ronnie Brewer to Memphis for a first-round draft pick). The Matthews signing was excellent, but as an undrafted player, and soon to be a free agent again, he is likely to attract salary offers beyond the ken of Jazz ownership. Trading away Maynor and Brewer for nothing was inexplicable. (Harpring's contract was already covered by an insurer, due to the player's career-ending injuries.)

No Time For MCAT

2010-04-28T15:35:00.009-04:00

Has any college program produced as many serious NBA rotation players in the past five years as UCLA has?

Consider:

Jordan Farmar (drafted 2006 by Los Angeles Lakers)

Arron Afflalo (drafted 2007 by Detroit)

Russell Westbrook (drafted 2008 by Oklahoma City)

Kevin Love (drafted 2008 by Memphis, traded to Minnesota)

Luc Richard Mbah a Moute (drafted 2008 by Milwaukee)

Jrue Holiday (drafted 2009 by Philadelphia)

Darren Collison (drafted 2009 by New Orleans)

Other prolific college programs include:

LSU (Brandon Bass '05, Tyrus Thomas '06, Glen Davis '07, Anthony Randolph '08, Marcus Thornton '09)

Florida (David Lee '05, Joakim Noah '07, Al Horford '07, Corey Brewer '07, Chris Richard '07, Marreese Speights '08)

Washington (Nate Robinson '05, Brandon Roy '06, Spencer Hawes '07)

USC (Nick Young '05, O.J. Mayo '08, DeMar DeRozan '09, Taj Gibson '09)

Arizona (Channing Frye '05, Jerryd Bayless '08, Chase Budinger '09, Jordan Hill '09)

North Carolina (Raymond Felton '05, Marvin Williams '05, Ty Lawson '09)

However, I believe UCLA is the king at star-making in recent times. Many of Coach Ben Howland's players listed above (notably Afflalo, Westbrook, Mbah a Moute, and Holiday) are noted for their excellent pro-level defensive abilities, reflecting the aggressive defensive culture in Westwood. Whatever Howland is doing should be bottled and spread across the ballin' land.