Shaq Wants to Retroactively Adjust Some Hardware

Shaquille O'Neal has become remarkably outspoken, even by his standards, since retiring from active play last June. Unfortunately, his outbursts are too often colored by personal spite rather than sober analysis. For example, last month he labelled Andrew Bynum the league's best big man, forsaking Dwight Howard, whom every other observer considers the strongest 5. Shaq's pique likely stems from Howard's appropriation of the "Superman" nickname, which we discussed at length in this 2009 post. O'Neal has a "Superman" tattoo on his arm and considers himself the original owner of said moniker (I don't know if any actual intellectual property is involved, as was the case in Jeremy Lin's situation that we discussed yesterday).

Today an interview emerged in which O'Neal suggests that Steve Nash did not deserve the MVP awards he won in 2005 and 2006. O'Neal is likely still miffed that he did not win the 2004-05 prize (indeed, contemporaneous scribes back then hinted that racism might be responsible) after he arrived from the Lakers and turned Miami into a championship contender. But let us turn to the numbers.

2003-04
Phoenix: 29 wins
Miami: 42 wins

2004-05
Phoenix: 62 wins
Miami: 59 wins

Evidently, Nash's arrival in Phoenix (holding constant the previous core of Marion, Johnson, and Stoudemire) resulted in 33 more victories, while O'Neal's introduction to Miami (joining a holdover group of Wade, E. Jones, and Haslem) led to 17 more Ws. Let us recall that Phoenix was putrid the previous year (to be fair, they traded Stephon Marbury early that season and had no point guard for most of the campaign) while Miami without Shaq (and with Caron Butler + Lamar Odom) was a solid team that reached the '04 playoffs' second round.

We could probe the change in fortunes of the Lakers (O'Neal's former team) and the Mavericks (Nash's former team) but too many factors there changed from 2003-04 to 2004-05: the Lakers lost Karl Malone, Rick Fox, Derek Fisher, and Gary Payton, in addition to the big LSU alum. The Mavericks traded away Antawn Jamison and Antoine Walker for Jerry Stackhouse and Jason Terry, respectively. Examining those teams' transitions would not tell us much about the causal force of O'Neal or Nash.

In 2006, O'Neal was not an MVP candidate, as his performance slipped while Dwyane Wade became a superstar, and his team's performance dropped to 52 wins despite a revamping of the roster with several accomplished veterans. Meanwhile, Nash steered his team to 54 wins with Amare Stoudemire injured the whole season and Boris Diaw manning the center position. To be fair, several other players including Nowitzki, James, Bryant, Wade, Brand, Duncan, and Billups did just as much that season to push their respective teams to a high level of play. But Shaquille O'Neal had no claim on the award that year.

It appears that Nash was incredibly valuable on Phoenix (and the regular-season success proved to be no chimera, as the Suns easily made the conference finals twice) while O'Neal's boost to Miami was not as robust. O'Neal did help to deliver a championship to South Florida, but most valuable player of the league? Didn't happen.

Twenty-Four Months Of Perspective On Trades

Back in February 2008, three big trades altered the balance of power in the Western Conference:

(1) The L.A. Lakers traded Kwame Brown, 2007 first-round draft pick Javaris Crittenton, 2007 second-round draft pick Marc Gasol, a 2008 first-round draft pick, and a 2010 first-round pick to Memphis for Pau Gasol and a 2010 second-round pick.

(2) Phoenix traded Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks to Miami for Shaquille O'Neal.

(3) Dallas traded Devin Harris, Desagana Diop, Trenton Hassell, Maurice Ager, a 2008 first-round draft pick, and a 2010 first-round pick to New Jersey for Jason Kidd, Malik Allen, and Antoine Wright.

Each of these transactions was roundly slammed at the time for its one-sidedness: Folks thought that the Lakers, Heat, and Nets fleeced their respective counterparties. However, assets in the NBA (i) are relationship-specific, i.e. their value changes depending which team gets them, and (ii) have dynamic values that can change significantly over time. Ultimately, each of these trades turned out to be far fairer than once thought.

LAKERS-GRIZZLIES (Gasol, Gasol)
We know that Pau Gasol helped propel the Lakers to two NBA finals and one championship (after successive first-round exits in 2006 and 2007), so the trade was a home run for Los Angeles. Yet the deal now looks better for Memphis than once thought. Marc Gasol, hardly mentioned in initial accounts of the trade, now performs rather equinely every night, regularly turning in double-doubles and serving as a scary defensive presence. He was mentioned by several pundits as worthy of a 2010 All-Star spot. Moreover, the 2008 first-round pick in that trade became Darrell Arthur, who is now Memphis's only decent forward off the bench. Memphis, at 30-29 and unexpectedly striving for a playoff spot, is one of the most surprising squads of 2009-10. It is actually hard to imagine now that Memphis could have done significantly better in the trade, given the teams bidding to acquire Pau at the time. Chicago allegedly offered Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas, but neither of those guys has Marc Gasol's dominant offensive instincts.

SUNS-HEAT (O'Neal, Marion)
Early in the 2007-08 season, following a first-round sweep by Chicago the previous spring, Heat watchers declared Shaquille O'Neal "done". O'Neal, though, recovered from early-season doldrums following his trade to Phoenix and improved his rebounding from 7.8 per game to 10.6. Phoenix lost in the first round of the playoffs that season to San Antonio, which eventually beat the Hornets in the second round and lost to the Lakers in the conference finals. Whether Phoenix could have surpassed the West's best that season is uncertain. The Suns could not get past San Antonio with a full complement of Nash, Stoudemire, and Marion in the 2007 playoffs, so it is uncertain whether they could have reversed their luck in '08.
In 2008-09, O'Neal was selected to the Western Conference All-Star team and was voted to the All-NBA third team in June. That Phoenix struggled in the 2008-09 season and missed the playoffs was largely the fault of their new coach, Terry Porter, who failed to run a system suited to the run-and-gun, pick-and-roll strengths of the team's biggest stars, Nash and Stoudemire. O'Neal turned in a very good year, featuring his best scoring rate since 2005-06 and his best free throw percentage since 2002-03.
Meanwhile, Marion, once called the most athletic player in the NBA, is no longer thought of as a top 10, top 15, or even top 30 superstar. After the big trade in February 2008 he seemed to sulk, playing under his supposed potential on Miami and later Toronto. Now a starting small forward for Dallas, he is merely a top-notch role player who once was great.

MAVERICKS-NETS (Harris, Kidd)
Is there any controversy here? The Nets are 6-52 and Dallas is 38-21. The 2008 draft pick that the Nets picked up became Ryan Anderson (who was eventually flipped, with Vince Carter, for Courtney Lee), who is a decent ninth man. Save for Hassell, all the other role players in the 2008 draft — Diop, Ager, Allen, Wright — now play elsewhere. Jason Kidd turned in a 19-17-16 game on Friday night at nearly age 37. Following the 2008 trade, he helped the US Olympic team to a gold medal in Beijing, followed by a second-round playoff showing in 2009, knocking off the hated Spurs. This year he averages 10 points, 9 assists, nearly 2 steals, and 42 percent from long range. Looking beyond statistics, he is the unquestioned general of his team and often appears spryer than men nearly half his age. Harris had a nice 2008-09, finishing a very close 2nd in the Most Improved Player voting, but this year he is shooting under 40% from the field -- as a point guard -- while, again, leading his team to a 6-52 record.

Best Basketball Movies of All Time

When I was 14 or 15 years old, I was introduced to a musical genius who would come to define my youth: R. Kelly.

Kelly sang the theme song to Space Jam, "I believe I can fly." Mixing animation and real footage, Space Jam was forgettable, but the song prompts me to ask a question: What have been the best basketball movies of all time?

The conventional answer, the easy answer, is Hoosiers.

I like one better: Blue Chips.

Blue Chips captured some of the flavor of college basketball in the early 1990s. Outrageous recruiting efforts and the tension between going college and going pro are both all well characterized in the film. Nolte's anger and the moral high-ground he assumes make for outsanding drama.

Thanks to HBO--I've seen the film at least a half dozen times...and it's still enjoyable.

Some other good ones: "Final Shot: The Hank Gathers Story," "Coach Carter," "White Men Can't Jump." Not sure I can think of many others. Dikembe Mutumbo had one produced by Disney...that had memorable commercials...but never really made much of an impact.

What are your thoughts, fellow bloggers and readers?

Gog and Magog

The potential clinching game of the NBA Finals is tonight. Yet why is this the headline on ESPN's NBA homepage? Weren't these guys finished weeks or months ago? Note that to find content about the Magic and Lakers, one needs to click the link just below "The Taking of Pelham 123". Funny enough, that movie was originally released in 1974, shortly after Shaquille O'Neal's birth.

Epic Fail

How is it possible to blow such an easy win? Last night, a Phoenix team at nearly full strength (minus Barbosa), featuring 4 former first-team all-NBA players, lost to a Jazz team featuring CJ Miles, Jarron Collins, Ronnie Price, and Ronnie Brewer in the starting lineup. After a good first quarter, Phoenix got outscored the rest of the way by 21. PHX clearly underestimated the fight in their opponents. All the other West contenders including Utah must be pleased upon seeing Phoenix's lackadaisacal attitude. To be fair, it's not always easy to put forth your best effort every night when you have 82 games plus several more in the playoffs to look forward to. One might hope that huge salaries would provide sufficient reason to stiffen a player's work ethic and give the fans their money's worth, but the impulse to slack is fairly universal. Why was the CEO of Bear Stearns golfing, playing bridge, and smoking pot back in the summer of ’07 while his company was going to hell?


Perhaps it helps that Utah has a guy of Greek descent on their team. One of the greatest upsets in basketball history was surely the 2006 semifinal match at the FIBA World Championship, in which a US team full of superstars could barely stop some big dude with the dimensions of Oliver Miller. Famously, the US coach was so poorly prepared that he didn't know the Greek players’ names. (He can hardly use the excuse that their names were too hard to pronounce, when his own name is a phonetic Rubik's Cube!) So another reason to underperform against an inferior opponent is not just laziness, but perhaps hubris, or even contempt for your adversary. Contempt might make you want to destroy your opponent on one side of the court, but you are less likely to get back on D if you don't take their ability and resolve seriously.

Fans of the NFL love the phrase "Any Given Sunday", suggesting that random shizz can lead to unexpected results. The Patriots were not supposed to win in the 2002 Super Bowl, and they were not supposed to lose in the 2008 Super Bowl. That's just as true in the NBA, but we tend to notice anomalous outcomes less when there's 81 other games in the season, compared to 16 total games in the NFL. It's much more likely in hoops that the best teams will end up with the best records. In future posts I will further explore these issues of sample size. Yet sometimes the conventional wisdom is wrong. If Tyson fought Douglas 9 more times, would Tyson take all 9 bouts? Well, if Douglas figured out how to avoid Tyson's knockout blows, probably not. Maybe Tyson was simply overhyped. During his first reign, he never fought Holyfield, after all.

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UPDATE: John Hollinger suggests that Phoenix lost not due to the above, but because Shaq was tired.