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.
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.
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 4th 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Michael Jordan shoves the backside of Utah defender Bryon Russell at the end of Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, before sinking the game-winning jump shot.
