Is Marriage For Suckers?

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.

Not Yet Ultimate, They Are Still Warriors

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.

Kupchak Delivered These Titles

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.

Lakers in 5

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.

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.

Straight, No Chaser

Towards the end of overtime in last night's Game 2 of the NBA Finals, the Lakers took the ball with about 27 seconds left and a 3-point lead. ABC's Jeff Van Gundy (or was it Mark Jackson?) argued that Orlando should foul immediately. I thought this was bad advice. If you foul an 80% free-throw shooter, then there's a 64% chance that he'll make both shots and you'll be down by 5 points, and a 32% chance that he'll make only 1 shot and you'll be down by 4 points. There's only a 4% chance that he'll miss both shots and you'll have a chance to tie the game! My advice would be to try for a defensive stop and get the ball back. Granted, as Van Gundy observed, if the Lakers simply held the ball for 24 seconds, they would leave Orlando with only 3 seconds remaining to put a shot together. But they probably would not do that; rather, they would try for a score to augment their lead. This gives Orlando opportunity to either get a steal or a stop well before 24 seconds elapsed. It might not work, but the probability of success would probably be over 4 percent.

In the event, Orlando adopted perhaps a compromise strategy between my advice and Van Gundy's: they trapped the Lakers on the inbound pass (which was in the backcourt) and tried to effect either a steal or an 8-second violation. When this failed and the Lakers successfully advanced the ball across the half-court line, Orlando immediately fouled with 22 seconds left. They smartly chose to foul Lamar Odom, who is only a 62.3% free throw shooter (thus, a 14% chance that he would miss both, but an 86% chance that he would make at least one shot and make it a two-possession game). In the event, Odom made two free throws, Redick and Lewis missed three-pointers, and the ballgame ended as Jack Nicholson rose to congratulate the Magic's stars. A Coach Bhel would have handled things differently.

Kobe's Shameless Self-Promotion

This was Kobe's comment after yesterday's Lakers win:

"I rank this right up there with some of the biggest road wins we've had since I've been a Laker. Because in the past, we always had guys that had a lot of experience. Robert Horry, Rick Fox, Ron Harper, they've all been through this before. For our guys, this is brand new."

To me, this comment reveals that Kobe is very much aware that he is badly losing "the best baller in the world" debate to LeBron James. Part of the rationale for the emerging consensus on Lebron's supriority is that LeBron's and Kobe's teams have similar records but Kobe is doing it with another superstar (Pau Gasol), a borderline all-star (Lamar Odom), a future all-star (Andrew Bynum) and a strong bench, whereas LeBron is doing it with guys who have no business being on a championship contender.

By contrasting his current team with the Lakers' past teams, Kobe is trying to make his current roster look weaker than it is. If one accepts Kobe's premise that his supporting cast isn't that great because they have less experience than some of his past teams, then the inexorable conclusion is that Kobe must be doing something pretty special to have them winning so many playoff games. But alas, Kobe, we see right through you: Your supporting cast is the envy of the entire NBA, so please don't undervalue their skills.

Into The Woods

Well, one of the Western Conference semifinal matchups is set, as both Houston and Los Angeles have finished off their foes. I lament Houston's lack of full strength. Los Angeles is hideously talented and athletic with Bynum, Odom, Ariza, Bryant, Gasol, and even quiet sojourners like Shannon Brown. Houston is very good, but consider that they have a four-time Defensive Player of the Year and a two-time NBA scoring champion sitting injured on their bench. Who will make key scores in crunch time for Houston? Who will contain the Lakers' tree trunks in the paint? Yao Ming is too stiff to effectively play Gasol and Bynum one-on-one without fouling his way to early departure. A contest between the strong and true Rockets and the extant Lakers would be awesome. As things stand, I predict the Lakers in five.