Dancing With Noah

Just messing around, getting triple doubles

Tag Archives: NBA

Let’s Progress…Together – Oklahoma City Thunder

Leave a comment Posted by on December 4, 2011

The Thunder used to be in Seattle and I live in Seattle, so it seems like a good place to start previewing teams. And if you read my posts during the playoffs last season, you know I had a mostly-healthy fascination with the Thunder and the inexplicable decision making of their sparkplug point guard, Russell Westbrook.

Six months later and I still see Russell as the lynchpin of this organization’s development. They’re one of the few (possibly only) teams that return their entire roster from last year—a team that won its division and made it to the Western Conference finals. Oh, and four of the top seven in their rotation are under 24-years-old. If you’re an Oklahoma City fan, you have every reason to be frothing at the mouth when you think about the potential of this team.

But it goes back to Westbrook. I watched OKC play throughout last season and have heard/read their fans saying that no one should be surprised with Russell’s playoff performance; that’s just Russell being Russell. And to an extent, I agree. His decision making, or lack thereof, has driven Americans batshit crazy since he entered the league in 2008 (he’s started 229 of 246 games in his young career). It’s easy to dismiss his mistakes as a consequence of being a developing youngster learning through failure (the old Jordan way) and all we can do is hope that’s the case. On the surface, Russell may have been as Iverson-esque as he’s been for the duration of his career, but he just did it less efficiently while increasing his volume:

Westbrook Stats Regular season Playoffs Change
Field-goal   attempts/game 16.95 20.18 +19%
3pt Field   Goal attempts/game 1.26 2.82 +125%
Usage Rate 31.6% 34% +2.4%
Field-goal   Percentage 44.2% 39.4% -4.8%
PER   (performance efficiency rating) 23.6 19.6 -4
eFG%   (effective field goal %) 45.4% 41.4% -4%
TS% (true   shooting %) 53.8% 49.9% -3.9%
Turnovers/game 3.9 4.6 +17.6%

The regular season-to-playoff drop-offs are disturbing and indisputable. Russell’s shot/pass selection was always suspect, but it got worse when it mattered the most. With creative geniuses, we accept the mistakes alongside the eye popping, text-message inspiring tip dunks, but for the 2011 playoffs, we saw both from Russell, just far too many of the turnover/missed shot variety.

This year will be a telling one in the Thunder’s evolving catalog. While the rest of the league’s stars spin off to form super-friend mini all-star clusters, Oklahoma City’s faced with the opposite conundrum: Too many youngsters desperate for individual acceptance; aka too many cooks in the kitchen. In the 80s, this group would’ve stayed together for a decade and won a couple titles at the least. And if Westbrook and Durant were on separate teams, they might be banging down doors to play alongside each other. As it stands though, these guys seem like a break-up waiting to happen. Kevin Durant plus Russell Westbrook plus Serge Ibaka plus James Harden… it’s great to watch, but based on math alone, it doesn’t feel sustainable. Whether our imagined Westbrook versus Durant rivalry come to fruition or Harden’s beard decides to take him to more fertile hardwoods or the salary cap decides Sam Presti just can’t afford Ibaka; something’s got to give. Even The Beatles broke up once.

On their darkest days, they remain one of the three best teams in the west. Give them a healthy Kendrick Perkins and 66 games to gel and anything less than a conference finals appearance is a letdown. But a little growth and a little “get by with a little help from my friends”, and they’re a contender. Given their youth and what the average 24-year-old is doing at this age, the awesome expectations for this team could be their demise or the sentiment that drives them to unified success.

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This is not the burial, it’s the resurrection

Leave a comment Posted by on December 3, 2011

Hey kids, gather round. We’re 22 days away from tipping off the 2011-12 NBA regular season. From the outside looking in, the acrimony between the owners and players seems like it happened years ago. It might be winter, but we’re in the midst of a great thawing. Everyone’s already resuming their natural roles (front offices and agents negotiating, players working out at team facilities, players angling for trades via the media—just like riding a bike) and sticking to the script. Despite the oncoming maelstrom of transactions, it all feels serene and peaceful now that the lockout is mostly over.

As we move into year one of this six-year truce, I intend to write a brief prologue of each of the league’s 30 teams. Since we have roughly three weeks until the season starts and I work a full-time job, it’s altogether possible that I’m undertaking too much and will suffocate under the weight like a small man under a large garbage pile. It’s also worth acknowledging that the league might move too fast for me. If I write that the Nets have a gaping hole at power forward and then they sign David West; there’s nothing to be done—except a quick edit which probably won’t happen (I owe you honesty if nothing else).

So without wasting any more of your time or my time, let’s look to the future and hope for the sunny days.

*Art provided by Ben Goodspeed … check him out at http://bengoodspeed.com

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Leave the Mess, they should see this

Leave a comment Posted by on December 2, 2011

If my head and all the gooey contents inside it happen to spontaneously explode and splatter across the white walls of my apartment or the dual monitors of my cubicle, I ask my friends, family and colleagues to please leave the remnants as a reminder/tribute/warning sign to an accelerated NBA free agency period.

As a Junky, it’s in my genes to shoot up free agent gossip with a great big syringe. The machine’s already been kicked into gear by people who move in the shadows and go by names like “unnamed sources” and apparently Chris Broussard knows a lot of these people. It’s impossible to tell if this will be a good or bad experience for NBA teams. I see two possibilities (although other outcomes are likely):

  1. Good for the teams! Hooray! Instead of signing players in July, general managers get five full months to plan on white boards and balance sheets! How could this be bad? NBA teams typically start negotiating with players on July 1st and following a week-long moratorium, are able to sign players on or around July 8th. From there, the market shakes out LeBron James signing first and the rest of the league following suit. Of course, players and teams have likely been flirting behind the scenes (moving in shadows and shit) so it’s not like July is speed dating for players and teams. That being said, the first ten days of July are when the action goes down. One could infer that teams having an extra few months to consider the vast combinations of players and contracts would be more than a good thing; it’d be a great thing. A big part of the new CBA was helping the owners and management help themselves. The amnesty clause is the poster child of the league, owners and players acknowledging the need for the occasional do over. Of course, not all (likely) amnesty casualties are the result of owners and management making bad decisions, but it provides teams a one-time out and is GMs admitting, “Hey man, sometimes we fuck up too.” While the negotiations haven’t been allowed until now, front offices and coaching staffs had to have been discussing potential free agents …. right?
  2. The second possibility? Well, if front offices have consistently made shitty decisions when they haven’t been under the gun or navigating through a brand new set of contracts and rules, then how well do you expect them to perform under duress? Sure, they may have had a few more months to try and put the puzzle together, but without contact with agents or players, how well could it possibly have gone; especially when you consider no one knew what kind of salary cap structure to expect. I don’t believe that NBA GMs have an easy job. It’s not easy to assess how human beings are going to perform in new surroundings in a new system with new co-workers and a new boss. Shit can and does go wrong; that’s life in my office, your office and theirs. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a huge, stinking bagful of excruciatingly shitty decisions to be made over the next three weeks.

Where does that leave us? It leaves us with question marks. We’ve got to rely on guys like Broussard and Danny Ainge to provide us with information we can trust, but we can’t trust them so we’ve got to speculate and that leads to rumors and bad information. We’re already struggling beneath the weight of Dwight Howard and Chris Paul rumors—and they’re not even free agents; but I guess that’s what happens when the top free agents are Nene, David West and Tyson Chandler.

No, my head probably won’t explode, but with a new CBA set to change the way teams do business (supposedly), an amped up free agency period and a shortened season, we’re slap dab in the middle of an NBA transformation and only God (if he’s watching) and Henry Abbott really know what’s going to happen.

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Lost between Truth & Madness

2 Comments Posted by on November 29, 2011

Oh, happy day

“In the final analysis, the truth always evolves from the state of total madness.” – C.R. Stecyk III

The quote above wasn’t written with the NBA labor negotiations in mind and I don’t even know if it’s applicable, but I read it the other day and started thinking about any truths that have emerged from the madness of the NBA lockout. We’ve got a lot of facts, but I’m not sure we’ll ever be privy to the truth. The truth I’m most interested in is the non-factual variety like what Stern the man/attorney honestly thought was a fair deal.

We (tentatively) have an NBA season awaiting us and I can’t lie; I was excited when I woke up at 6:30am on Saturday to text messages informing me of the good news. I was excited, despite my ongoing disgust with David Stern’s smugness and the hardline owners’ insistence on publically giving players the shaft.

In 2011 we’re blessed with insights that 1999’s lockout couldn’t deliver: Real-time updates via Twitter or NBA TV. I was able to watch post-negotiation press conferences with sleepy eyed Sterns and Billy Hunters spinning responses to questions from drowsy reporters who I’d been following on Twitter for the previous two hours. So the truth and madness I mention above fall somewhere in these marathon negotiations and the updates and interpretations that accompanied them. With unprecedented access, we heard from unidentified “veteran players” and “owner sources” in real time and because we’re a refresh culture, we consumed it and waited for the next update. Truth was somewhere in there, but with all the unnamed sources and agendas on the table, it was impossible to determine truth from maybe-kinda-true.

I have to concede defeat on finding truth in some things—like if a 36-year-old Michael Jordan would’ve called out the 2011 version of himself the same way he called out Abe Pollin—but now we can get back to rediscovering and reconstructing new truths out of the product the NBA players produce on the court. Before that though, there’s an element of resolution to the process. I’ve never been one to hold a grudge, but during the negotiations, when the owners threatened the “reset offer” of a 53-47 BRI split in their own favor, I was disgusted. I don’t have a background in negotiating for pro sports franchises, I’m not an attorney and I was just starting college when the last lockout was going down. I also don’t have the aforementioned access to the owners’ real motivations so I don’t how real the threat was, but I do know it was public and there were a band of rogue owners who potentially preferred to lose the entire season instead of stopping at gaining a 50-50 BRI (BRI was previously 57-43, players) split which results in three billion dollars in basketball-related income to shift from the player side to the owner side over the 10-year duration of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

The whole operation left more than a shitty taste in my mouth and I had to question whether or not I wanted to support a league with owners hell-bent on driving a bus full of other owners, players, coaches and fans off a cliff into a one-year chasm of basketball purgatory instead of accepting what was already a winning deal. For me, that would primarily mean no NBA League Pass since Clay Bennett and Stern already drove the Sonics out of town and left the city NBA-less until further notice.

But is my bitterness enough to keep me away? Are my pro-labor (I don’t care about the amount of money or perks the players get, they’re still the labor in this case) values strong enough to turn me away from the disgustingness of the past five months? I knew the answer was no all along.

Since the lockout kicked in, I’ve followed the digital circus from the comforts of my laptop: the optimistic press conferences, the crushing letdowns, the gossip, which NBA players are taking their talents overseas, the Jordan (de)evolution, and all the other tidbits that basketball writers and fans have had to search out to fill in for the hole left by the NBA. Because I never blamed Rashard Lewis for taking Orlando’s money, I never held a grudge against the players. Why would I? Because they had a nice deal in 1999? Because they make millions and want to protect some of it? Because owners and the front offices they hire continue to dole big contracts on small-time players? I don’t hold any of that against the players. Could they have negotiated more effectively? I’m guessing, yes. Could they have done more to resolve this earlier? Probably. The players gave and gave and gave and the owners still demanded more.

This isn’t to say the owners are all bad or even that they’re bad at all. It’s to say that fans tune in and turn on to watch the league’s roughly 450 players do what only a handful (relatively speaking) of people on the entire planet can do. I was bitter watching the owners do what they do because negotiations (particularly billion-dollar negotiations played out in the media) can and do get ugly. As a culture, we’re perfectly happy to watch petty spats and infighting, but not when there’s a cost attached to it and in this case the cost was nearly two months without the NBA. All things must pass (tentatively) and if everything goes accordingly, we won’t have to see or hear much from these owners for the next ten years.

Without digressing too much here, I want to acknowledge some of these my way or the no way owners embody traits I do respect. The willingness to stand up for what you believe is right in the face of all criticism is admirable. There are always going to be fine lines, but I believe some of these owners believe the only way they could be successful or break even was to have a 53-47 split in their favor. And if that’s what Stern was willing to voice to the public, then a handful of this bunch probably wanted to go even further. Fortunately, cooler heads must’ve owned the day.

As I mentioned above, like the great George Harrison album of the same name: All things must pass. We missed out on two months of NBA basketball and what will end up being 16 games. The season will be odd ballish and it’s likely we’ll see a higher rate of injuries; particularly among older players. Different isn’t always good, but with an 82-game season, monotony can and does creep in. Cramming 66 games will create an environment no one’s used to. It’ll be like basketball vagabonds barnstorming their regions for inter-conference battles on little sleep or rest. At times, it’ll be sloppy, but out of chaos flourishes creativity—from the coaching architects and the players on the floor. That might be happily blind or naïve, but we already know the abbreviated free agency period is going to pace like a speed addict. Just think if LeBron would’ve been a free agent this year instead of last…

There’s nothing to be sad about anymore. Now is the time for handshakes, hugs (or “black bro hugs” if you speak Shaq’s language) and toasts (to who? Billy Hunter and Stern? C’mon, we can do better than that, right? Right? Moving on … ). Let’s toast to rediscovering truth through our own eyes rather than second and third hand accounts and speculations about what went on behind the doors and across the tables of esteemed New York City meeting rooms where we’ll never cross the threshold and hear the likes of Jeffrey Kessler battle with Stern and Adam Silver (are these our great debates?). Let’s toast to JR Smith, the Mahoney of the NBA. He’s stuck in China and no matter how much of a brat he tries to be, it sounds like he’s stuck there until March. How about a raised glass to the rookies who (no matter what words their agents have forced into their mouths) had to be wondering, “What the fuck did I leave college for?” And a nod to what could be the last hurrah for this version of the Celtics and Spurs; a pair of veteran teams who wore the crown well.

With any luck, we’ll pick up where we left off with last year’s unpredictable playoffs. Yep, Dirk and Mark Cuban are defending champions. Kobe’s still motivated by something otherworldly (underworldly?). LeBron and Dwyane have probably fine-tuned their on-the-court symbiosis in all these all-star and charity games they played in this summer. And while we’re hoping; maybe Russell Westbrook’s had a summer of epiphanies after re-watching the game tape from May.

Finally, if sadness has to exist just to provide balance in the greater cosmos, then let’s hang our heads in silence for the honorary three-second count reserved for the NBA big men who said goodbye to us this past summer: Shaquille O’Neal and Yao Ming. We haven’t been this devoid of quality back-to-the-basket bigs (not sure we can even put Yao in that group) since I’ve been alive and probably not before that either.

It’s been a long two months, but we made it. We’re (almost) here:

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JC of the Day

Leave a comment Posted by on July 28, 2011

Aside from the petty, but intriguing Marcin Gortat/Robin Lopez flap, it’s a slow day in the world of hoop. Fortunately, Youtube is a repository for Jamal Crawford clips that will dazzle all summer long, beginning with this gem (stay tuned for a feature-length post on the big JC):

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I’d Never Leave in Summer

Leave a comment Posted by on July 26, 2011

Unlike the NBA, I’m back. Finally. After weeks of traversing the middle west of America, then returning home only to host the lost and wandering spirits of my friends and family, I’ve come back to this neglected blog with warmth and caring. I don’t want to care, but I can’t even help it at this point.

What the fuck’s happened in the past month? We lost Yao Ming (did the Chinese government take any responsibility for this prolonged assassination or was his destiny to be that of many young, bright, shining stars? To leave us too soon? If he had retired at 27, conspiracy theorists would’ve had a heyday.), we found out that Zbo extended his checks and is essentially lockout proof (there’s clearly a lot we don’t know about Zach Randolph or NBA salary options for that matter), Kobe, D. Rose and Durant made $400k each for a pair of exhibition games in the Phillipines (Sam Amick @ SI), NBA TV foolishly spoils every single game in its “Greatest Games” series not only by telling us who won in the cable description of each game (who writes these descriptions?), but even going as far as rubbing the outcome in our basketball-starved faces (see the picture); it doesn’t matter that we probably know the outcome already. It matters that the slightest bit of suspense, the little shred of unknowing is obliterated and I can’t help but imagine David Stern somehow takes pleasure in this. He doesn’t, but he’s in a bad position and an easy target at the moment. Who thought Stern would put himself in a position to be the guy with the bag in his hand?

A lot is happening, but we have no results. Each story or blog that pulls the curtain back and shows us a little bit more of the NBA’s behind the scenes revenues (great post by Ken Berger) reveals a league that feels like it’s trying to deceive. Each blurb or rumor about players mulling over international options to become lords of Chinese provinces, basketball playing Czars of Russia or creating the Turkish version of the Super Friends at Besiktas is a tiny win in a global battle. Yes, I’d love to see the owners collapse under of mountain of paper cuts.

I’m with the players on this one and it’s not even up for debate. The NBA made its bed by paying guys like Rashard Lewis nearly $20MM/year (karma for having to sit in the green room so long on draft night?) and giving Joe Johnson Floyd Mayweather money when he’s more like an aging Shane Mosley without the gentlemanly qualities. But it’s not Joe’s fault or Rashard’s fault (somehow it could be Mayweather’s fault). It’s not their agents’ faults. Even these two guys, symbols of obese salaries, of players taking payrolls hostage; even these salaries aren’t the real problem if you believe the numbers that keep pouring out of the sky like July rain in Seattle. For every report and fact we hear about how much money the league has made, the NBA and NBPA will have a different slant and spin. The truth is likely residing somewhere in the middle covered under a pile of steaming bullshit that Stern and Adam Silver (with a little help from Billy Hunter) shoveled there. I don’t know the truth and can’t even claim to because the amount of psychological warfare playing out in the media has me confused into believing Sepp Blatter is preventing Kobe from signing with Besiktas and David Stern has actually buried bodies somewhere (under some futuristic, revenue-generating arena no doubt). As of today, it’s the NBA and its owners that feel inflexible and deceptive. The owners and GMs sign the contracts just like the players and anyone who knows anything knows that Rashard Lewis was never worth the kind of money Orlando splashed on him. I can only imagine Shard and his agent booked the fuck out of the Orlando front office before the ink even dried. “Don’t look back, just go!”

I don’t want to care about this in the middle of summer. I want to eat hotdogs, watch Sounders games and sleep in the sun at Volunteer Park while people ride by on unicycles. Instead, I watch old games I already know the outcome of on NBA TV and see the NFL doing it right on ESPN. I prefer the cold comforts of apathy, but I’ve invested too much time into a league that gives me and owes me very little.

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Our Time

3 Comments Posted by on June 27, 2011

I guess there’s a lot to take away from the draft and at some point during the dog days of summer’s labor discussions, perhaps I’ll try to organize my thoughts on it. But today’s just about a trade that occurred during the draft that for some reason rankled me.

The Nuggets gave up Raymond Felton for Andre Miller and the 26th pick, Jordan Hamilton. Head-to-head, it’s a fair trade for both teams as Felton’s still priming while Miller’s getting older and grouchier. Denver’s getting a few younger pieces almost for free. They’re cool with the deal because Miller’s willing to do what Felton wasn’t (and shouldn’t have been): Back-up and mentor the young Ty Lawson. It’s likely the Nuggets were never going to keep Felton. Lawson’s their guy and has been steady proving he can take the car out for a spin without papa (Chauncey Billups) or big bro (Felton) sitting shot gun.

So what’s wrong with a teacher, especially a willing teacher? Absolutely nothing. Maybe my gripe here has to do with a few things: The teacher is being paid $7.8 million this year. The teacher/back-up is going to eat into young Lawson’s minutes which on a per 36-minute basis produced 16pts, 6.5 assists and 1.4 steals while shooting over 50%. Even if Lawson/Miller share the backcourt for stretches of games, it’s going to take away from Lawson’s leadership and point guard opportunities.

From Denver’s perspective, the benefits are easy to identify: Andre Miller’s been around the block (in Denver once already and four other NBA cities) and has a clear understanding of his role on any team. This is part of the reason George Karl went after the former Nugget (Karl coached him during his last season in Denver). So far, everything’s peachy in Denver with Miller reportedly amenable to coming off the bench. He can continue the tutelage that Billups started and further Lawson along in his NBA PG studies while providing starter-quality production off the bench. This fits in with the depth the Nuggets have been cultivating—other than Melo, no Nugget played more than 33 minutes/game last year. Nine players saw at least 20 minutes/night and it’s hard to argue with Denver’s post-Melo success. Additionally, it relieves Lawson of carrying all the duties that come with being the court general. Over 82 games, that weight can burden any man.

The numbers also support the move. In 31 games Lawson started in 2010-11, the Nuggets won 22 and lost 9—winning 70% of their games. In 27 games where Lawson played more than 30 minutes, Denver was 16-11 (59%). In 10 games he played 35 minutes or more, Denver was 6-4. For the season, the Nuggets were 50-32 (~61%), so the biggest place the Lawson lift was visible was in games where he started. Everything out of Denver is pointing to him being the Nuggets starter in 2011-12—the same role he took over after the Melo/Billups trade. He started the final 25 games with the new faces from New York so it’s not fair to credit him with the team’s late season turnaround, but his availability and improvement made it that much easier for Karl to fill in the hole that Billups left.

So why is my gut reaction to less Lawson opportunities automatically anti-Andre, anti-time share? Philosophically, I’m open to anything that stands apart from convention. Don Nelson never reached the Promised Land with his small-ball, run and gun style, but I was on board anyway. Doug Moe and Mike D’Antoni had partial success, but were both thwarted by convention. Teams have tried small ball, big ball, gimmicks, wacky and wild game plans and I love and respect them for it. I’ve defended the Suns version of D’Antoni for years and for what? Because I love the break from NBA norms—which is exactly what George Karl’s doing in Denver. Unless you count the delicate Danillo Gallinari, Denver has no go-to guy—huge NBA no no. Instead of a standard 7-8 man rotation, they roll deep with anywhere from nine to eleven players getting heavy minutes. And lastly, most egregiously, instead of giving Ty Lawson the freedom to run around for 35-40 minutes, they’re stifling him with the presence of old, crotchety Andre Miller and it clearly upsets me or else I wouldn’t be writing over 700 words about it.

Karl’s going against the NBA grain here and I’m staying stuck in a world where a good, young starting point guard should get 35-40 minutes a night. My motivations for being anti-timeshare come from the same place that NFL running back-by-committees grind my gears. In most timeshares, one of the players is better and gets a few more reps; whether it’s a change of pace thing or just getting guys an extra breather. For running backs and Ty Lawsons, the split is the ultimate in team sacrifice. The individual gives up opportunities for the immediate benefit of the team and potentially for the longer-term development of the individual. The fans get more Miller and less Lawson.

As I was always aware, my beef with Denver’s approach to the point guard position was associated with my own inability to open my mind to the possibilities unlocked from sharing. I’m still not sure what Karl’s ultimate motivations are, but I’m willing to go into this open-minded and not pass judgment until we’ve arrived with both feet (or all four feet?) firmly rooted on solid ground.

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Reflection Eternal

2 Comments Posted by on June 17, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where to begin on this summer night in June? The NBA’s gone on its annual break and we don’t know if or when it will return. I’ve spent a decent part of the last few days reading through a mix of spiteful venom and corny fourth quarter jokes directed at LeBron James. I spent some more time seeing pictures of Dallas’s post-game celebration in the South Beach Miami clubs. This is our league now: The joys are documented on cell phone cameras and DeShawn Stevenson t-shirts while the lows go underground and are speculated against and attacked.

As I texted my buddy Hamilton earlier, we have the summer (and maybe beyond) for endless speculation and reflection. So I’ll start reflecting now before my memories fade into the abyss of an online archive.

I never, ever thought this Dallas team would win the title. Way, way back in April when we found out the playoff matchups, I saw Dallas vs. Portland and immediately circled it as an upset win for the Blazers. I didn’t do it just because I thought the Mavs were pussy soft—which I did think. I did it because as late as April 6th, the Mavs had gotten caught up in a four-game losing streak; two of those losses coming to the far-from-physical Golden State Warriors and their future first round opponent, Portland. A four-game losing streak is no microcosm of an 82-game season, but that losing streak at that time of year when Dallas was battling for a number-two seed was just one last bit of 2011 confirmation that this team didn’t play defense and couldn’t win when it mattered. The stats told a different story about their defense, but I’ll get to that shortly.

On top of the bad timing and my poorly constructed idea of this Dallas team’s identity, was their opponent: Portland. Despite the bad karma from the Darius Miles situation, these guys came together when Brandon Roy went down. On the increasingly large shoulders of LaMarcus Aldridge, the spiteful wiliness of Andre Miller, the stretchability of Marcus Camby and the late season sneak job addition of Gerald Wallace, the Blazers looked and felt like a team cresting into April. The way the Blazers consistently challenge the Lakers, there was a genuine sense of relief amongst Laker fans when Dallas won the series.

But goddamn, I was wrong and so were any Lakers fans who embraced a Mavs matchup in the second round. Dallas introduced us all to a cold steel resolution, that mettle you can’t buy at the store or even pray for (it wasn’t your time, right, LeBron?). Beneath the flesh of that Portland series, Dallas revealed what turned out to be their leader’s calling card: All-out assault. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it blitzkrieg in a 7-seconds or Less, Phoenix Suns style, but this team was unprejudiced Terminator-style attack. Portland, Los Angeles, OKC and Miami got it the same. After Portland though, it all came together—or maybe it was there all along and I missed it; overlooked, because I had already written it off because it looked like the same group Dallas trotted out every year—Dirk, Terry and Kidd. Dismissed it because if anything, the NBA is predictable and we don’t get late-career titles unless there’s a drastic shakeup. Look at the last thirty years of NBA champs and you won’t see anything that resembles Dirk or Dallas. Veteran teams that won titles did so with a major addition or by becoming new teams (Celtics becoming the Big 3, Lakers adding Gasol, Hakeem needing MJ to retire, the Admiral needing Duncan, the introduction of Magic and Bird, the unification of Shaq and Wade) or they went the wait-my-turn route (MJ, Isiah). (Side note—the only other non-traditional title team was the 2004 Detroit Pistons.) In the playoffs, the Mavs completed a pilgrimage they started way back in 2008 when they hired Rick Carlisle.

I’m not trying to say we should’ve expected this out of Dallas. In three of the last five years, this Mavs team lost in the first round (two times were to lower-seeded teams). When I was in Vegas a couple weeks ago, watching Miami plow through a shell-shocked Bulls team and seeing the Mavs fortifying themselves against a trial and error OKC squad, I kept insisting that you can’t change your identity over the course of a few series’. To some extent, we all are who we are and I was confident that Dallas would show that baby soft face soon enough. All previous evidence of this team and the league as a whole indicated they weren’t a championship team. I don’t think my primary point was wrong: the Mavs playoff team played exactly to their identity. I was wrong about that identity though—drastically wrong. Looking back at the stats over the course of the past season, it starts to make more sense that Dallas had been coming together. They finished 8th in the league in defensive rating (points allowed/hundred possessions) and 9th in opponent’s effective FG%. The improving defense (this was their best defensive rating since the 67-win team of 2006-07 and their best defense under Rick Carlisle) no doubt helped them rip off the following streaks during the regular season: 12 games, 10 games and 8 games. More than half of their wins were part of a streak. This team had stretches of 18-1 and 16-2—with no overlap. Aside from those two streaks where the Mavs combined to go 34-3, their record was 23-22.

They caught another streak in April and went 16-5 in the playoffs. Counting the four-game win streak to end the regular season, they finished 20-5. I was wrongfully defiant all the way to the end, expecting Miami’s cream to rise to the top, but in all ways Dallas was the dictator and forced the game on their terms whether it was in Miami or Dallas.

I mentioned above that Dallas looked the same—Jet, Dirk and Kidd. While their counterparts were given names pre-ordained for the lights—Bron, Wade and Bosh—they weren’t given the pieces Mark Cuban gave the Mavs. It took the whole crew, from Brian Cardinal’s pasty American impression of the Euro-flop to Tyson Chandler’s infectious positive enthusiasm to JJ Barea’s inconceivable drives to DeShawn’s Dirk-bolstered swag. Beyond the “it takes a village” vibe of the Mavs, the main components understood the utilization process. Trust, camaraderie, accountability, morale—all that awkward junko speak that corporations try to force—were embodied by this Dallas team and the result was the attainment of eternity.

Winning an NBA Championship (unless you do it in a strike-shortened season, Pop) is the only way to reach forever in the NBA. It might be some bullshit, but every black and white stat, every subjective award, every label, performance and reputation is up for debate and attack. Someone’s always trying to take a dump on Wilt scoring 100 points or averaging 50 points/game for an entire season. Someone else is disputing MVP awards (incredulously asking how Steve Nash has the same amount of MVPs as Shaq and Kobe) and there are even intelligent people claiming MJ wasn’t the greatest. It’s all fair game and there’s even a loophole to attacking players with rings. Jason Kidd’s ring with Dallas doesn’t carry the same luster as a title with the Nets would’ve carried. But for Dirk, oh the lovable, likable, indisputable grass roots feel-good story of the 2011 playoffs; for Dirk’s place in the history of the league, it’s the ultimate in accomplishments. It’s free from any asterisk, any qualifier, and any but. It’s free from dispute, completely pure and that’s rare in a sport and league where its followers are almost trained to argue and challenge every little thing with zest of religious scholars and interpreters.

Nothing else this season exists in the absolute world that Dirk Nowitzki’s and Dallas’s playoff performance does. They’re all alone as the eternal truth of the 2010-11 season.

 

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You’re Never Really Alone

Leave a comment Posted by on June 8, 2011

Game four on Tuesday was a glorious mess. I was stuck in a texting mood for the duration of the game and saw the themes and storylines that have taken time to develop rise up to the surface with faces grinning or grimacing (we see you, LeBron). If we weren’t sure who we were watching or what they stood for, we have an idea of it now. Of course, with a guaranteed two more games and potentially three more games, everyone—from Brian Cardinal to the great Dwyane Wade—can continue to work on their own personal definitions of who they are.

(Not to get all off topic here, but the Tyson Chandler/Eddy Curry connection is ignored far too often. These high school twin towers were going to paint the Chicago streets with Jordanesque parades. Instead, their careers, personalities and reputations rolled up on poetic fork in the road and without a glance in each other’s direction, they scampered on towards their destinies, amnesic to the other’s existence. I can’t help but wonder if either guy ever has daydreams or nightmares about what could’ve been.)  

Back to the present; above all else, Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade, the warriors returned to the same battleground five years later, have imprinted their individual brands on these finals. Dirk’s been doing it all playoffs and has a great hype man every couple nights in Mike Breen. Wade forced a bumpy ride through his old stomping grounds (haunted by the shadow of Mike?), but the rest of the crew was down for theirs. Now in the finals it’s Dwyane’s turn.  (If Wade and Dirk got together during the 2008 Olympics or the 2010 World Championships and agreed to meet in the finals in 2011 as a fifth-year anniversary of their first finals matchup, would the righteous scribes be as indignant as they were about the Wade/Bron/Bosh meetings? Wouldn’t it be a more interesting story if the big German and the native Chicagoan had some kind of hidden code of honor that was settled every five years on the court?)

Through the first four games of the finals, Dirk’s putting up over 26 points/game, pulling 10 rebounds/game and even blocking a shot a night. Against one of the best defenses in the league, this shit is not easy. Other than being white, he’s not like Bird. Other than having the flu in the NBA Finals, he’s not like MJ. He’s fucking unique in more ways than just being a dominant German in the NBA. His game is his own, but his relentlessness is his overlooked trademark. From the opening to the end of every game, he attacks, catching the ball at the top or in the mid-post, throwing shot fakes, hesitations and stutters, fading away into an arc of perfection, occasionally driving, but always attacking with one technique or another. But even heroes fail. In game three, it was Dirk’s turn to run out of classic-making magic. In the last minute of what ended up being a two-point loss, Dirk threw the ball away and then missed one of those jumpers that he does not miss.

His former executioner has been busy too: a hair under 30 points/game, 8 rebounds, over a block and 58% shooting from the field—for a two guard. If there was a symbol of vitality for the 2011 NBA Finals, it would be called Dwyane Wade and it would run faster, jump higher and try harder than other symbol you could find. Dwyane Wade wants to win more than anyone else. Some guys in jerseys in Dallas might disagree, but to the impartial observer, Wade’s lifted his effort to a new place and it’s lonely there because no one else in these finals is capable of joining him. For all the “In His Face!” moments Wade has produced in these finals, he failed and fumbled at the most inopportune times on Tuesday night. Where Dirk turned the ball over and missed a contested jumper, Wade missed a potential game-tying free throw and fumbled away a pass in the last thirty seconds of game four.

All along we thought Wade and Bron were brothers in arms, but night after night, it’s being revealed that Wade and Dirk are more closely related while Bron and Wade are maybe just friends (what up homie?). This isn’t part of the pile-on-LeBron sentiment that’s so prevalent on the internets. LeBron will have his opportunities (beginning on Thursday night), but as of game four two players have stolen the spotlight and are dueling for a right to history or honor or some shit. While the world continues to fume and flame and troll about the Decision and the audacity of superstars banding together, Dirk’s hitting up Wade on his burner and consoling him about the missed free throw and fumbled pass.

It's Deeper than Balboa & Creed

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Gigged on Em

2 Comments Posted by on June 3, 2011

I was planning on writing a post about the angry radicalism of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but Bug and Hamilton convinced me to put it on hold and give Shaquille O’Neal his due so here I sit trying not to regurgitate all the post-Shaq sentiments I’ve soaked in.

In so many ways, this has been a season of change in the NBA. Beyond the obviousness of Pat Riley’s coup d’état in the summer of 2010 or the league’s youngest MVP ever, the playoffs have been a showcase for that cold hearted bitch named Time. Tim Duncan’s Spurs were womped by Memphis. Kobe, Phil and the Lakers were pistol whipped, bound, gagged and robbed of their three-peat opportunity by Dallas. The original Big Three of the 2000s, KG, Pierce and Ray Ray at least showed some heart in their demise at the hands of the new Big Three from South Beach. The proverbial torch wasn’t passed, at least not willingly. It was snatched from desperate, weaker hands.

So it seems fitting that Shaquille O’Neal—who at 23 knocked MJ out of the playoffs, was sacrificed at the altar of big men by Hakeem, threw punches at Barkley, had a verb created in his name in acknowledgement of his backboard breaking prowess and so much more (got to think his auto-bio will be Presidentially heavy)—retired this season when the league’s undergoing tectonic changes.

Along with Jason Kidd, Shaq is the last of the early 90s leftovers. The difference is Kidd never defined or represented any period of time in the NBA; he was just subtly dope with his triple doubles and Simon Phoenix dye job. Shaq came into the league with a posse, he rapped with the Fu-Schnickens, and breathed charismatic existence into Neon Boudeaux. Even if it was partially because of his size (in the 2000s, “How much does Shaq really weigh?” was one of the biggest mysteries/rumors in the NBA—7’1”, 400lbs? no shit?), non-basketball fans recognized Shaq. He took the Jordan marketing blueprint and put a younger, more entrepreneurial mid-90s spin on it. And even if his shoes looked like plastic snow boots and his raps were corny on a good day, it still had promotional value and made the big man money—who the hell knows which motivated him more.

All these entertaining pit stops over the past 20 years and that doesn’t even touch on what he was doing between November and June. Where Hollywood Shaq ends and NBA Shaq begins is a blurry area definable in the early 90s when Shaq was filming Blue Chips. In his opening scene he’s playing in some kind of abandoned warehouse gym (that happens to have a backboard and breakaway rim) in the bayous of Louisiana. He’s more myth than man and that’s the point when everything is always beautiful, because man can rarely live up to the myth that precedes him (Obama?). But then we arrive in gym with Nick Nolte, serenaded by the deep blues and we see Shaq for the first time being the power center to tilt the NBA away from the finesse of Ewing and Olajuwon, the muscle to counter the speed and athleticism of the Admiral. For once the man exceeded the myth. Shaq was Neon was Shaq—in personality and basketball ability, onscreen and off.

When he joined the Magic in 1992, he didn’t fuck around with fear for a second. He dunked his way into the pulse of the sports world. If someone with Shaq’s size and ability would’ve shown up in the 24/7 Twitter/Facebook world we inhabit now, he would’ve eclipsed the Blake Griffin buzz the way Blake enveloped John Wall mania. Shaq dominated the center position in an era when the league was deep with quality at the position—Dream, Ewing, Admiral, Mutombo, Mourning. Any of those players would give Dwight Howard fits. In his second season, Shaq went ahead and put up 29 points and 13 rebounds a night. Before Shaq, Moses Malone was the last player who pulled off +29 and 13—that was back in 1982. No player has done it since; except Shaq for a second time in 2000.

For all the inexhaustible superlatives and monikers that have defined the man for the past 20 years, it feels divinely appropriate that he had a bright, shining, easily identifiable weakness in free throw shooting: The Hack-a-Shaq method. Can you believe this shit has its own Wikipedia page? Think about your biggest weakness at your job. Maybe it’s something you’re acutely aware of and while you have to confront it at times because someone’s paying you a salary; you’d prefer to avoid it. Maybe it’s running TPS reports or cleaning the handicap stall or handling customer complaints. Whatever it is, you’re not that good it. You’re actually below average. Now imagine that a competitor found out about your weakness and at the most critical time of year—annual review, boss observing you in action, in the middle of providing service to customers—your competitor attacks that weakness. Come playoff time or close games; that was Shaq’s reality. In retrospect, a man with that much of an advantage had to have an equally great weakness. For all the greatness, we’ll always remember his free throw line odyssies.

Now it’s all done. The most physically dominant player I’ve ever seen is retiring. In a league of giants, Shaq dwarfed them all. The men he battled with and against are gone or walking into the sunset—Iverson, Duncan, Sheed, Kobe, KG, Webber. For that, it’s appropriate that Shaq’s retirement symbolically closes the door on a generation he owned and helped define. Today, the league is a lesser place without him.

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