(photo by www.joelkimmel.com)
We are already 1/5th of the way into the season and there are so many things to talk about and think about. Here are 21 NBA thoughts that have occupied my brain recently.
1 – It seems like the number 1 unwritten rule of every NBA team is to immediately rush over to your teammate when they’ve fallen to the floor and help them back up. This makes every bit of sense as you want to show support for your teammate who has just sacrificed his body to take a charge, but you see young players follow this rule as if their life depended on it. In fact I was thinking about this during a recent game, and was trying to think of the last time a player fell down on the floor and actually got up by himself. Well, funnily enough, I saw it at least twice that game with the Los Angeles Lakers…but then again they aren’t exactly the model team in terms of camaraderie.
2 – Watching the Golden State Warriors destroy the Suns in the run ‘n gun game was a pleasure to watch. 47 points in the first quarter! I think the Knicks could use a dose of whatever they smoking in Oakland. D’Antoni even became desperate enough to try to go‘big’ with Skinner and Amare at one point which proved, in my book, that The Don is the true king of chaos basketball.
3 – The Don also managed to ridicule Yao Ming and Rockets coach Rick Adelman several nights later. At one point in the game, Yao was starting to dominate the paint, and even the Warriors’ big man Bierdins couldn’t do anything about it. Nelson’s response? Take out his center Bierdins and replace him with guard/forward Matt Barnes who is one full feet smaller than Yao. It worked out great as Yao had no shot of keeping up with any of the Warriors players which led to open three pointers. Moments later Yao was taken out. Nelson’s response? Put Bierdins back in. Nelson 100000, Adelman 0.
4 – The Orlando Magic will most likely have the 2nd best record in the East going into All-Star weekend, which begs the questions who will be the 2nd All-Star chosen from the team…if any? You certainly can’t choose Orlando’s summer signing Rashard Lewis despite his max contract since Hidayet Turkoglu has been outplaying him in every aspect. We shall see how objective the coaches can stay when selecting All-Star reserves, and whether they will give the pass to a better known and certainly better paid player rather than the more deserving one.
5 – Say what you want about how great LeBron is playing despite his lack of support, but I still think he might be on one of the most underrated teams in NBA history. His team, perhaps lacking in flair and household names, is in fact the perfect team for a superstar. You have Ilgauskus which is a legit top 5 center who will not only do everything you want on the defensive end but can also hit open mid range jumpshots. Drew Gooden is a hard working power forward who’s also effective from mid-range, and can also chase offensive rebounds as effectively as Rodman chases…skirts. Hughes, Pavlovic, and Gibson can hold their own defensively while being able to make the most out of the opportunities that come with having a superstar (open looks, taking advantage of ball rotation when LeBron is double teamed etc). The Lakers, on the other hand, look very fragile on the defensive end at times, and they aren’t as efficient in taking advantage of having a constant double team demanding superstar (they seem to watch Kobe do his thing often rather than make cuts or move without the ball). I’d trade Lamar Odom for Drew Gooden in a heartbeat or three.
6 – The New York Knicks continue to entertain anyone not remotely associated with them. Most entertaining this week for me was seeing the last few seconds of the Milwaukee game. New York were up 1, and Michael Redd missed a shot in the final seconds to take the lead. Fred Jones got the rebound sprinted to the other side of the floor and found himself all alone near the Milwaukee basket with a couple of seconds left. All he had to do was just stand there and the game would be theirs. Instead, he went full speed and emphatically dunked the ball as if to reminisce his days as a slam dunk champion. Isiah Thomas was celebrating like a coach would when they win the championship, and completely oblivious to the fact that what his player did was incredibly stupid. The Bucks had 0.4 seconds to send the game into overtime, but let’s just say the Knicks should be happy Milwaukee didn’t have a Derek Fisher that night, because that low IQ move by Fred Jones could have easily cost them. It might be a little thing, but its those sort of small details that show who’s a good coach, who’s a smart player, and which teams will win if two teams are equally skilled.
7 – Speaking of low IQ. Go back a couple days to the Boston vs Charlotte game. Charlotte up 2, ball in hand, 4 seconds left, at home, about to defeat the hottest team in the NBA…and they throw the ball away and Jesus Shuttlesworth makes them pay with an off balance triple at the buzzer. The Bobcats did their part-owner and VP of Basketball Operations Michael Jordan real proud. If you look up Michael Jordan in the antonym section of a thesaurus, you’d get a YouTube video of those exact 4 seconds.
8 – There seems to be a trend where if things aren’t working out for a team, the remedy is to send one or more of your star players to the bench. Barbosa and Ginobili have been used as such for years now and this year the cases are increasingly exponentially. We have seen Terry relegated to the bench in Dallas, and recently Miami has used Ricky Davis and Jason Williams to bring some energy off the bench. It all seems to be working which leads to the question – has the age old undeniable fact that ‘the starting 5 should be your best players’, come to an end?
9 – Phil Jackson seems to have another philosophy whereby he has two complete teams that he uses. This was a big nono a couple of years back as anyone involved in coaching would tell you that you can’t just have 5 fresh players come in at the same time. However, PJ’s method seems to be working as the Lakers bench has improved tremendously compared to earlier years. I guess without the Black Mamba, they feel more sense of responsibility and even act like a team of their own.
10 – Rumor had it that the East would get stronger this year, and would be on the way to closing the gap it had with the Western Conference. 16 games in, it seems like the opposite has happened. There is no Eastern Conference team that anyone in the West fears outside of Boston, Orlando, and Detroit. The East in fact has 4 teams above .500, while out in the West the Houston Rockets would fail to make the playoffs if the season ended today (they stand at .500). We’ve all heard about the NBA’s ambitions to expand outside of the US..but before global expansion, shouldn’t there be order at home?
11 – Wow, did anyone else see Emeka Okafor block The Big Aristotle back a couple of millennium?
12 – I’ve always said Dwayne Wade was hugely overrated. Yes, he somehow carried his team to a championship so whatever he does will forever overshadow what he wont be able to do. However, let me just say that I think the league has seen all that Wade can do and has adjusted accordingly. Simply put all Wade does is use his first step to blow by defenders and tries to draw contact or finish with some circus shot. His midrange shot is ‘average’ at best, and his three point shot is ‘bad’ at best. He isn’t the best passer so he can’t really run the point, and when his shot is not falling in response to the defense backing up, he’s completely ineffective. In the international stage, we’ve already seen how useless he is and he should definitely not be heading to Beijing this summer unless its for an early holiday post regular season.
13 – I’ve had the opportunity to see Steve Francis play recently and somehow he always seems to end up on the floor in pain after what looks to be a failure of his muscles to obey his brain. Gone is the flashy, always a pleasure to watch, and the silky smooth game we have grown accustomed to seeing and ‘in’ is this scrappy streetball player who seems to just be back to playing sports after a 5 year absence. Rafer and Steve would do all of us a favour if they played at the Rucker rather than spend their talent post-feeding Chairman Yao.
14 – I had Phoenix to win it all this year, but now I’m not sure. It seems they are lacking…dare I say…outside shooting! In the past they had Quentin Richardson, Joe Johnson, Eddie House, Tim Thomas, James Jones, but now Raja is the only one in the starting 5 that Steve “Turnover” Nash will be happy to pass to beyond the 3 point line. I’ve seen Eric Piatowski exclusively on the bench, and have yet to find out whether he’s a hired shooting coach or an actual player.
15 – AK 47 was straight killer on the boxscore the other day when he posted a triple double and came cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercise to his second 5×5 and a never before seen quintuple (?) double with a line of: 20 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists, 6 steals, 4 blocks, 0 turnovers. Ironically it was, in Boston coach Doc Rivers’ words, ‘the best defender in the league today’ (KB24) that was guarding him when this all happened. Similar to a snooker player getting a 147 break, or a bowling player bowling a perfect 300, I think any player to record a quintuple double should be awarded by the NBA a large sum of money, lets say a 100,000 dollars.. The NBA has fined players and coaches for that sort of amount in the past so why not do the opposite as well?
16 – If Yi Jianlin makes the All-Star starters this year, the NBA needs to seriously reconsider its democratic voting system. The People’s Republic of China is Communist for a reason, it can’t possibly let its people decide important decisions yet! So if China doesn’t let its own citizens decide why should the NBA? One idea is to set voting ‘multipliers’ for each country, and hence the number of votes is adjusted for China’s large population. Another idea is to go Commie on our asses and limit the options of who you can vote for and just have a ballot with those that actually deserve to be an All-Star.
17 – A lot of people were questioning whether Boston could be successful with just three players this year – not me. My belief has always been that NBA players can be separated into 4 different echelons: superstar, star, smart veterans/role players, and the rest. Boston had acquired the most difficult parts with 1 superstar, and 2 stars. Side Note: For me, superstar means that the player single handedly gives a team championship hope, so this means: Duncan, Kobe, KG, Nowitzki, LeBron, Nash, and Dwight Howard. Veterans are easier to acquire, especially if your team has a shot at a championship then you can contract them as easily as NBA players contract syphilis. So all Boston had to do was find 4th echelon players who I believe are numerous and widespread. You can find some in the NBDL, some in Europe and in other international leagues, and there’s always the catalogue of players who get shopped around season to season like shares of Microsoft. For example an Austin Croshere in Golden State, or a Brian Skinner in Phoenix, or a Francisco Elson in San Antonio – these are all decent players that can fill the last remaining spots on your team and still be useful. Therefore I don’t believe that gutting your team to get superstars and stars in the NBA is such a bad thing. That is why I still think someone out there should make a push for Kobe and why I was scoffing anyone who thought Boston wouldn’t be good this year.
18 – The number of great NBA point guards has reached an all time high. Commentators have already used every single adjective known in the English language to praise the likes of Steve Nash and Jason Kidd. Chris Paul and Deron Williams are having outstanding seasons as well and have captured all the headlines this season. Even Baron Davis is getting MVP talk in some areas of the country (probably mostly in California, but still..). Two point guards that the media seems to have forgotten about is the only two current point guards with NBA Finals MVP’s….Yea, Tony Parker and Chauncey Billups – they are still alive you know? Parker is averaging 20points 7assists 4 rebounds on 52% from the field leading his team to the best record in the West, while Chauncey is averaging 17points, 8 assists, 3 rebounds and is 3rd in the East behind impressive starts from Boston and Orlando. While I don’t deny Nash and Kidd’s abilities as team leaders, I have to say that Parker and Billups are the ones who got the job done. I see no reason why these players who have taken their team to the Finals multiple times don’t deserve AT LEAST as much credit as the likes of Nash and Kidd.
19 – New York, Chicago, and Miami have the three worst record in the abysmal Eastern Conference. Somewhere, David Stern is sending a memo to his referees highlighting discreetly the importance of big market teams to the NBA. Out West, Seattle and Portland are also in the bottom 3 of the conference. Somewhere, David Stern is sending a memo to the Seattle and Portland team owners that they can relocate if they wish.
20 – I’ve already mentioned my admiration of the run ‘n gun style of play, but I would actually like to see more styles of play being played by NBA teams. Especially those teams who are locked in for a lottery finish should definitely try to innovate. How about a team with a 6’7 backcourt and 7 footers in the front court. All the players should be able to hit threes, and as a result every time down the floor there will be a mismatch, followed by a double team, kick out to three point land for a wide open three. There will also be more offensive rebounds due the height of the players, and on defense they can play a zone that can be particularly effective in hindering opponents with their long reach and command of the defensive rebounds. You can even go all 7 footers if you wish as follows: Hedo Turkoglu at point, Rashard Lewis at the two, Al Harrington at the three, Jamison at the four, and Bargniani at the 5. This would be the opposite of small ball, but can be even more effective.
21 – My final thought is that this is the time for almost all the top players in basketball to define who they truly are. Kobe will have a chance to become a legend if he leads his Lakers far enough, a cry baby if doesnt. LeBron is in the process of defining what sort of legacy he will leave behind. Kevin Garnett has got a final chance to prove whether he’s top 5 or top 50 of all time. Tim Duncan can be the most dominating player ever with another title. Wade will either take back his place of best young player or hide into obscurity. Carmelo and AI have a chance together to finally take center stage after years of playing second or third fiddle. Steve Nash can either lead his team to the promise land or it might be the end of the running style of basketball. The Detroit and Dallas ‘Dynasties’ can end with a bang or bust. In short there are lots of basketball stories that are being decided as we speak, and this season especially will be full of revelations.
