Category: NBA


Calling Out The Sports Guy

Filed Under: '10 - '11 Season, Comparing Players / Teams, Evolution of the Game, GM Consultant, NBA by Tweener — Comments Off
03/09/2011

I meant to do this sooner, but, well I’ve been busy with, um… all that wild and crazy stuff I spend my time doing.  Like, really wild.  And really crazy.  Way too insane for me to put in writing, even while writing under a pseudonym.

The Sports Guy, whom I generally like and often agree with, posted his list of the top 50 NBA players ranked by trade value.  (In other words, not just the pure top 50 at the moment, but the top 50 when accounting for salary and age.)  I’m well aware that putting together such a list would be difficult, and I’m not going to nitpick.

There is, however, one glaring problem with the list.  Specifically, the Sports Guy ranked Tyreke Evans #39.

I couldn’t disagree more strongly.  In fact, I think Tyreke Evans might be the least valuable player in the entire league.  Literally, the least valuable.  The absolute very last guy in the league I would want on my team if I was a GM and we were drafting all of the players in the league.

To be clear, I have nothing against Evans.  I’m sure he’s a fine fellow.  I am not saying that there are not a  variety of different careers that he’d be good at — in fact I’m not commenting on his other career possibilities at all.  It just so happens, though, that he decided to pursue a career as a basketball player, and, well, I’m a basketball blogger who spends his free time commenting on basketball players.  Thus, me commenting on Tyreke’s chosen career path is entirely appropriate.

To understand my issue with Tyreke Evans, it’s important first to establish what, in my opinion, makes a basketball player valuable to a given team.  As I’ve blogged elsewhere (here and here, if you’re interested), there are generally two components of good teams:

1. They have players who perform specific basketball roles (passing, shooting, penetrating, rebounding, defending).  Usually, the teams with five guys who play the five positions as they have traditionally been played are well on their way to ensuring that they have guys performing each of the necessary roles.

2.  They have players who are in the “right spot” on the roster to win.  This means that the team’s best player is good enough to be the best player on a good team, that its second best player is suited to be the second best player on a good team, etc.  Taking, say, the guy who was the best player on a decent team, and plugging him into a roster where he’s, say, the third-best player, does not necessarily lead to success.  (See, e.g., Bosh, Christopher.)

Any team that puts Tyreke Evans on its roster is essentially saying that they think they can ignore these hoopservations.  Well, ignore my hoopservations at your own peril, NBA GM’s.  Keep ignoring me, and you might wind up like the Kings.

To elaborate a bit:  Tyreke Evans does not fit into any of the five traditional roles on a basketball team.  They call him a “point guard,” but a PG’s primary job is to get his team a good shot (whether it’s him or someone else who shoots it).  Evans jacks up a bunch of bad shots.  To be sure, Derrick Rose is not a traditional PG, either, and his shooting percentage is not particularly high, yet the Bulls are doing just fine.  That’s true, but it doesn’t validate Evans.  It merely leads to the second point…

Evans dominates the ball.  He’s not going to be the third guy on a good team — it’s just not his nature.  If he’s on your team, he’s one of the top dogs.  That’s true of Rose, too. The difference is that Rose is good enough to handle the load.  Evans just isn’t as good as Rose.  Once you step outside of the paradigm of the traditional positions, you have to be extra good to make it work.

At bottom, a team that has Evans is trapped.  It can’t add other stars, because his game just isn’t designed to complement other star players.  Yet, it won’t ever be good because, well, he’s just not good enough to be a lead player on a good team.  Thus, while he is “talented” in terms of being fast, strong, and agile, and also “skilled” in terms of being able to dribble and potentially do some other things, there is no reason to put him on your roster.  He’s kind of like Jerry Stackhouse, who scored lots of points and had lots of skills, but, when all was said and done, played in the league for 14 years and only once was an important player on a team that went deep into the playoffs (the ’05-’06 Mavs).

Is he literally the least valuable player in the league?  I dunno.  What I know is that, if I were running an NBA team, I wouldn’t want him in my starting lineup.  And when the time came to fill out my bench, I certainly wouldn’t look for a guy like him.  In any event, even if it made sense from a basketball standpoint, he’s going to command enough money that it doesn’t make sense from a financial standpoint to have him on your bench.  My advice to all of the NBA GM’s reading this (ahem) is let someone else pay him that money.

The Sports Guy should know better.

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And So It Ends.

Filed Under: '10 - '11 Season, NBA by Tweener — 2 Comments
02/24/2011

The Timofey Mozgov Era in New York is officially over. What to make of it now that it’s done? Well, as they say… you can’t spell Timofey without OFEY.

I’ve been discussing the ‘Melo trade with a bunch of folks. People generally seem to agree with me, that it was a good move. To the extent that they don’t, there are a few points that continue to get raised that I don’t agree with.

For starters, I’ve heard a few people say that they don’t mind giving up Chandler, Gallo, and Mozgov, but including the Felton for Billups swap really eats at them. I’m sorry, but when did Raymond Felton become better than Chauncey Billups? I must have fallen asleep for that part of the show or something. No disrespect to Felton, whom I like and enjoyed watching, but Billups has started at PG for an NBA champion, has an NBA Finals MVP Award, and has been an All-Star five times. (Here’s his wikipedia bio.)  He’s 34, I know, but it’s not like he’s breaking down — he was an All-Star just last year.  And spare me this chatter about him not being “designed for D’Antoni’s system.”  As of the moment the deal got made, the Nuggets were leading the NBA in scoring; Chauncey was their PG and second-best offensive player.  There are things that Felton does better, but this guy is ready to lead a high-octane offense.

I also keep hearing that the Knicks are going to be terrible at defense.  Well, that might be true, I’m not going to address it here.  I will, though, hoopserve that, if they happen to somehow figure out a way to ever get their opponent to miss, the Knicks are quite likely to get the rebound; they now have three of the NBA’s top-29 rebounders (Amar’e, Carmelo, and Landry Fields).  That doesn’t include Turiaf, who should pull down some boards once his minutes go up.

The last point I’ll make about the Knicks at the moment is that they wound up with three guys who have contributed to championship teams at a high level: Chauncey was a critical part of the Pistons’ championship team, Carmelo was the main man when Syracuse won, and Corey Brewer was a starter on the Florida Gators’ repeat championship teams.  I’m not saying this team is winning the championship, but that’s worth something.

Of course, the ‘Melo deal wasn’t the only big deal to go down.  Nobody is interested in reading my detailed breakdown of each deal, so I won’t go there.  For now, I’ll only hoopserve that some teams that were kind of on the border between contenders and pretenders made aggressive moves to get better: Atlanta got Hinrich, Oklahoma City got a legit big man (Perkins), the Blazers added Gerald Wallace, and the Grizzlies got Battier.  Each conference has more than four legitimate teams — it wouldn’t be shocking to see an upset or two.

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The ‘Melo Drama Nears Resolution

Filed Under: '10 - '11 Season, Evolution of the Game, NBA by Tweener — Comments Off
02/20/2011

I’m trying to find something coherent to read on the internet about the Carmelo Anthony situation, but I can’t.  So, I figured I’d set out to write the only coherent posting on the internet about it.

The only problem is that I have nothing coherent to say about it.  Admittedly, that’s kind of a big problem.

Oh, well.  Instead of trying to say something coherent, I’ll just add to all of the incoherent material that’s already out there.  I’ve got a bunch of thoughts about the whole thing.  If you’re interested in reading yet another incoherent posting about it, well, read on!

Thought 1:  This is all LeBron’s fault.  Seriously.  Now, superstars can’t compete for a title if they aren’t on a team with other superstars.  Yet, at the same time, they don’t want to look like jerks the way LeBron did, so they don’t want to totally crush the franchise they are leaving behind.  If someone wanted to write a manual about how superstar players are supposed to handle the situation, I have no idea what the manual would say.

Thought 2:  We can debate whether or not Carmelo deserves to be thought of as a “superstar,” but, at least in terms of evaluating whether he’s acting like a jerk, it’s a moot point, because he thinks of himself as one and the free agent market is going to treat him like one if he ever winds up as a free agent.  So he’s got to act according to the new rules of how superstars act if they want to win a championship, and that’s what he is doing — bailing on his current team for a team with at least one other star.  Without, of course, looking like he forced that to happen.

Thought 3: I keep reading that part of the trade is that the Knicks trade Anthony Randolph and wind up with a first-round pick that they then send to Denver.  (Like here, for example.)  Anthony Randolph?  For a FIRST ROUND PICK?  Seriously?  I mean, if an NBA GM was willing to accept Anthony Randolph onto his roster, and, in exchange, was willing to give up his first round pick in his 2013 FANTASY BASEBALL DRAFT, that would make sense to me.  But giving up a first round pick in the NBA draft?  The one where real-life basketball prospects are drafted?  For Anthony Randolph?  That guy is averaging 2 points and 2 rebounds per game.  What am I missing?

Thought 4:  Denver’s management did not handle this the right way.  I recognize that they’re in a difficult spot; they can’t afford to get nothing back for Carmelo, but they can’t just pull the trigger on the first offer that passes the smell test because they also have to make sure that they get the best offer they can.  I get it.

The problem is that they’ve let this get too close to the deadline, presumably because they’re holding onto the hope that he’ll re-sign there.   They should have given Carmelo an internal deadline: sign the extension by ___, or we’re pulling the offer.  Once we pull the offer, we’re going to solicit offers from other teams, make it clear that we want to make a deal soon, and move on with our lives. And if anyone in the press asks why we traded you for 60 cents on the dollar, we’re going to tell them that you let our internal deadline pass and we couldn’t afford to get nothing for you.

Thought 5:  The Knicks’ management is not handling this the right way, either.  When I say that, I’m assuming that they want him on the team, and that they recognize it’s worth paying a high price for him.  I’ve already addressed this from a basketball perspective, and I’m not re-visiting that here.  (Go here and here if you’re interested.)  I’m just saying that, assuming they want him, they ran a big risk by letting this go on so long.  Whenever I discuss this with friends, the ones who disagree with me saying that the Knicks need to trade for him tell me that he’s going to come here as a free agent.  My response is that they don’t have a GUARANTEE that he’s going to come here as a free agent, because if they did it would be tampering. So if they want to be sure that they get him, they have to trade for him.

Thought 6: I get that superstars want to win titles.  And I get that they want to team up with other star players, to maximize their chances.  But I don’t get why they’re such bad recruiters.  I mean, why couldn’t LeBron ever convince a star to sign with the Cavs?  And why couldn’t ‘Melo ever convince a star to sign with the Nuggets?  If the answer is that they don’t want to play for small-market teams like the Cavs and Nuggets, then is there any realistic chance for teams like that to get good?

Thought 7: Putting aside the fact that I like Carmelo, like the Knicks, and want him to wind up here, this whole thing is depressing from the perspective of someone who simply wants what’s good for the game.  I have to hope that, in the future, teams and their star players heading into the last year of their contracts will realize that the time to strike a deal is before that last contract year begins.  Or that the next collective bargaining agreement addresses this productively.  The league will take a hit if this keeps happening.

Thought 8:  Ahh… who am I kidding?  Nobody wants to read 8 of my rambling thoughts in one sitting.  I’m just happy you got this far.  Agree or disagree with anything I said?  If so, I hope you’ll comment!

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Just Sayin’

Filed Under: '10 - '11 Season, NBA by Tweener — Comments Off
01/28/2011

Right now, 45 games into their season, the Miami Heat are 31-14.

Last year, when LeBron had a supporting cast that was theoretically not even close to being as good as the “supporting cast” he has now, the Cavs, after 45 games, were 34-11. (Is it fair to call LeBron’s current teammates a “supporting cast,” given that one of them is arguably better than he is?)

Why is this?  Well, it’s complicated.  We’ll explore some of the reasons over the next few weeks.

For now, I’m just pointing it out.

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More ‘Melo Musings

Filed Under: '10 - '11 Season, GM Consultant, NBA, Talking About Hoops by Tweener — Comments Off
01/26/2011

It’s been a few weeks since I blogged about the possibility of the Knicks getting ‘Melo (here, if you missed it or want to read it again).  Well, the guys on local sports radio are still talking about it (and so are the guys on the podcasts I listen to), so I might as well keep going.

Add him, Knicks.  Like, yesterday.

From the people who don’t think it makes sense for the Knicks to acquire him, I hear two general themes: (1) that he isn’t “efficient” on offense, and (2) that he isn’t very good on defense.  I’ll address them in turn.

He Isn’t “Efficient” On Offense: As the argument goes, Carmelo takes a bunch of bad shots, and is a “ball-stopper.”  The guys who make this argument back it up with some new-age statistics.  I’d respond with some statistics of my own, but, in my experience, people typically aren’t interested in reading nerds argue about basketball statistics and, well, I’m having enough trouble recruiting readers as it is.  So I’ll stay away from a heavy statistical argument.

Here’s the deal: the Nuggets were 17-65 the season before Carmelo arrived.  Now, they’re consistently one of the top-10 offensive teams in the league, as measured by total points scored.  (Last year – #3; 2008-09 – #6)  During each of those seasons, Carmelo was their leading scorer.

So… either Carmelo is “efficient” on offense, or Nene and the Birdman have been operating at a level of “efficiency” never seen before, in order to make up for his deficiencies.  I don’t need complicated statistics to tell me which of those two things has been going on in Denver.

He Isn’t Very Good On Defense: Some Knicks fans believe that Carmelo, on the defensive end, represents a significant dropoff from Wilson Chandler. To hear them talk about it, you’d think that Wilson Chandler plays D like Scottie Pippen, and Carmelo gets all of his points by cherry-picking.

Talking about defense is tricky, for at least two reasons: (1) it’s harder to measure statistically than offense, and (2) even when watching a game, it’s easier to identify good offense than good defense – the difference between “good defense” and “bad defense” on a given possession can be imperceptible to a casual observer, like, for example, a good defender getting his hand within 2 inches of a shot and a bad defender getting within 4 inches of a shot.

Frankly, I haven’t sat down with hours of video comparing Carmelo and Wilson Chandler reacting on defense in similar situations.  So, maybe I’m just missing something.  But I’ve seen enough of Wilson Chandler to know that he’s no Scottie Pippen, and I’ve seen enough of Carmelo to know that, whatever his defensive shortcomings may be, he’s spent his entire NBA career as the best player on a playoff team.  (And he won the national championship during his only year at Syracuse.)  If he’s not playing any defense, opposing coaches are doing a pretty lousy job taking advantage of that.

And the statistics, for what they’re worth, undermine the argument that Chandler is a significantly better defender than Carmelo.  Chandler, for his career, averages .7 steals per game, .9 blocks per game, and 5.3 rebounds per game.  (As my coach always said, rebounding is a part of defense, because getting a rebound takes an opportunity away from the other team to score.)  Carmelo, for his career, averages 1.1 steals per game, .5 blocks per game, and 6.3 rebounds per game. Consider that Carmelo plays more minutes per game, and it’s about a statistical wash.

Yes, I understand that the Knicks would be giving up more than just Wilson Chandler, but Chandler, from what I’m hearing, would be the main piece.  Landry Fields is good, and draft picks are nice to have, but those things shouldn’t hold up a trade for Carmelo Anthony.

At bottom, there are two fundamental reasons to get Carmelo: the first is that he’s one of only a handful of players in the league – there are, what, 10 of them? – with a track record of consistently being the primary scorer on a high-scoring offense.  Wilson Chandler… not so much.  The second is that, when your team has Mike D’Antoni as its coach and Amar’e Stoudamire as its big man, nobody’s going to confuse you for the Bad Boy Pistons on the defensive end.  Your formula is to score a whole bunch o’ points, and play just enough defense to hold your opponents to about 105 points per game.  Carmelo fits — he improves the team on offense, and, even if he does nothing else on D, his offensive prowess provides the Knicks with the luxury of plugging defensive-minded players like Turiaf into the lineup for more minutes.

Make the trade, Knicks.

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The End of “Upside”?

Filed Under: '10 - '11 Season, GM Consultant, NBA by Tweener — Comments Off
01/18/2011

As the speculation about a trade involving Carmelo Anthony continues to swirl (in case you happen to have missed it, click here or here for recent examples), one of the things that amazes me is the continued mention of Derrick Favors as a centerpiece of the deal.  Yes, he of the 6.5 ppg and 5 rpg.  I guess the theory is that he has tremendous “upside.”

Well, yeah… if by “upside” you mean the amount of miraculous improvement we’d have to see for the guy to become an impact player.

For years, I’ve been unable to understand how so many NBA GM’s get intrigued by false “upside” so regularly.  To be clear, when I’m talking about players who were highly valued because of their “upside,” I’m talking about guys who went to college and didn’t perform at a star’s level.  Sorry for being all lawyerly, but, when I say “perform at a star’s level” I mean that the guy either started on a Final Four team, or was named to at least one of (i) his all-conference team or (ii) the All-American team.  That’s a relatively simple way to separate the guys who distinguished themselves in college from the guys who didn’t; only the first group contains guys with real achievements.

For all the talk of “upside” that we hear around the NBA Draft and the trade deadline, I can’t think of a single star who represents an example of someone with no track record of success but lots of “upside” who turned that “upside” into consistent performance.  Literally, not one.

Think of the top 15 players in the league today.  We could argue about who’s in that group, but it’s generally safe to say that it looks something like this (in no particular order)

1. Kobe

2. LeBron

3. Wade

4. CP3

5. Deron Williams

6. Amar’e

7. Howard

8. Dirk

9. Derrick Rose

10. Carmelo

11.  Durant

12. Pierce

13. Ginobili

14. Westbrook

15. Pao Gasol

When testing my statement that nobody who went to college and failed to distinguish himself wound up becoming a star, the guys who never went to college do not weigh on the analysis.  (I guess some might say that it’s a copout for me to make an argument about how young players get analyzed without addressing the stars who didn’t play in college.  But I’m not arguing that untested young guys never amount to anything — I’m arguing that the guys who played in college but didn’t do much don’t deserve to be treated like valuable assets.)

Working from that list of 15, let’s see what the data tells us:

1. Kobe – No college.

2. LeBron – No college.

3. Wade – Carried Marquette to the Final Four

4. CP3 – First Team All-American as a sophomore at Wake Forest

5. Deron Williams – Led Illinois to the Finals

6. Amar’e – No college.

7. Howard – No college.

8. Dirk – No college.

9. Derrick Rose – Led Memphis to the Finals

10. Carmelo – Led Syracuse to a championship

11.  Durant – AP player of the year as a freshman at Texas

12. Pierce – First Team All-American as a junior at Kansas

13. Ginobili – No college.

14. Westbrook – Played on a UCLA team that went to the Final Four

15. Pao Gasol – No college.

In sum, each of the guys on this list who went to college did some BALLIN’ when he was there.  There isn’t a single guy on the list who went to college and failed to assert himself.

Against that backdrop, let’s return to Derrick Favors.  A “power forward,” he was only the second-leading rebounder on his Georgia Tech team during his only year there.  (And it’s not like he was part of a dominating front-court tag-team with the next Moses Malone — the guy had fewer rebounds than someone named Gani Lawal.  Then again, maybe it’s possible that Lawal has tremendous “upside,” too, and that this was actually the most talented big-man tandem in the history of college hoops.  Ahem.)  That Georgia Tech team, a #10 seed, lost in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Some guys look at that track record and, because of something about Favors (his height?  his jumping ability? his carefully trimmed goatee?) see reason to get excited about his “upside.”  I look at Favors, and see a guy who hasn’t done much to get excited about.  (Though I must admit that his goatee is well-maintained.)

The Nets were wrong to draft him at #3.  The Nuggets would be wrong to accept him as the main piece in a trade involving Carmelo Anthony.  All he’s got is “upside,” and history suggests that “upside” is nothing more than a wish that a guy who hasn’t accomplished much will miraculously get much better.

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There’s Something Happening Here, What It Is Ain’t Exactly Clear

Filed Under: '10 - '11 Season, Evolution of the Game, GM Consultant, NBA by Tweener — 2 Comments
01/04/2011

I wrote in the beginning of the season that one of the main storylines to keep an eye on is the evolution of the center position. (Here, in case you missed it the first time.)

Well, we’re almost halfway through the season, and, crunching the data regarding the center position specifically, the first conclusion to draw is that, well… um… there really isn’t much to base a conclusion on. That’s because so many of the centers have been hurt for significant chunks of time. If you play center in the NBA, chances are high that you’re having trouble walking these days. Apparently, having a “C” next to your name on an NBA roster means that you’re likely to be Crippled, or even that you might be Cursed.

Check it out: Yao is out for the season, and might be done forever. Oden, too. Bynum can never seem to give the Lakers a long stretch of healthy productivity. Kaman can’t get back on the court for the Clippers. Okur has hardly been available for the Jazz. The Suns might be a playoff team if Robin Lopez could return to the form he was in for parts of last year’s playoffs. And the Bulls could potentially be lethal — if they could keep their center, Joakim Noah, healthy.

Looking at all these injuries, I postulate that human bodies approaching or exceeding 7 feet in length are just not meant to run up and down a basketball court at the speed of today’s game. Actually, strike that. I don’t “postulate” anything — I’m trying to build up my street cred, and people with street cred don’t “postulate” things. Please let me try again… Looking at all these injuries, I hoopserve that human bodies approaching or exceeding 7 feet in length are just not meant to run up and down a basketball court at the speed of today’s game.

Nice. Now I got my street cred intact.

With my street cred intact, I’m ready for a few other hoopservations about the current state of the center position:
1a. If a team has a 7 foot body it can roll out onto the court, who can both walk straight and catch a basketball, that team is in good shape. Bonus points if the guy was born in the 1970′s, and was a force 5 or more years ago. He doesn’t have to be able to move fast or jump high. So long as he’s 7 feet tall and in one piece, you can fake your way through having a real center. Just roll him out there and hope nobody notices. It’s basically like Weekend at Bernie’s, if Bernie was 7 feet tall and used to be a good basketball player. Evidence in support of my point: Big Z in Miami. Duncan in San Antonio. And, of course, Shaq.
1b. If a team has a center who can stay relatively healthy, and produces about 12 points, 9 rebounds, and 2 blocks, it has a distinct advantage over other teams. In fact, if a team has such a guy, that team is almost certainly a playoff team. Evidence in support of my point: Roy Hibbert (13.5 ppg, 8 rpg, 1.8 bpg), Andrew Bogut (13.5 ppg, 11.4 rpg, 2.8 bpg), and Emeka Okafor (10.9 ppg, 9.8 rpg, 1.8 bpg).

2. It’s possible to win the battle of the paint armed only with a capable power forward. The numbers that some power forwards are putting up are just silly. They’re like video game numbers. I’m talking about Amar’e (26.4 ppg, 9 rpg, 2.3 bpg), Blake Griffin (21.7 ppg and 12.5 rpg), and Kevin Love (20.6 ppg and 15.6 rpg).

Where does this leave us? I think it’s wrong to say that a good power forward without a capable center alongside him is good enough to win with — in fact, it’s interesting that Blake and Love, with numbers like those, aren’t leading their teams to more victories. One possible explanation is that those guys don’t block shots (not the most meaningful stat in the world, but a good indicator of defensive presence in the paint) nearly as often as real centers do.  In contrast, Amar’e is blocking more than 2 shots per game.

Looking ahead, I’m psyched to see what the Bulls do when Noah and Boozer get to play together for a while, what the Lakers do when Bynum and Gasol develop a rhythm, whether the Mavs are able to get over the hump now that they have Chandler playing next to Nowitzki, and what the Hornets are able to do with West and Okafor. (And, as I’ve stated repeatedly, what the Clippers will do once Kaman and Griffin are playing together.)

In closing, let’s revisit the discussion about the Knicks trading for Carmelo, in light of this information. If they keep Felton and Stoudemire, then, with Carmelo and any mediocre perimeter shooter (Gallinari, Chandler, Fields, and Toney Douglas all fit the bill), they would be good enough on offense to play 4-on-5. That would enable them to play Turiaf (an offensive liability who is a presence on D) at center alongside Amar’e, giving them a distinct advantage over most teams in the league.

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Lessons From The Knicks’ Lost Decade

Filed Under: '10 - '11 Season, GM Consultant, NBA by Tweener — 2 Comments
12/28/2010

Continuing with the theme of talking ’bout the Knicks, because all 4 of my readers seem to like talking ’bout the Knicks…

It looks like the Knicks are good for the first time in a while, and, now that they’re good, it’s a good time to look back on the lost decade and see what we can learn about basketball from the debacle that just occurred in MSG for more than 10 years.  (Some may say that 31 games into a season is too early to declare a team a success — especially when that team is currently the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference.  To those people, I say that each of the top 7 guys on the Knicks has proven that he has two legs and a pulse, and that alone is a vast improvement over the recent Knicks teams. Whatever else one thinks about the Knicks, there’s clearly some kind of improvement taking place here.)

To me, there are three main lessons:

1.  Don’t sign lousy players to expensive, long-term contracts. I know that sounds kind of obvious, but the lesson is often overlooked, and not only by the Knicks.  To all of the NBA GM’s reading this blog right now (ahem), let me make this simple for you… the only guys worth big money for multiple years are proven stars who are at or near their peak.  Not guys who strung together a few good games in a row (e.g. Jerome James).  Not role players (e.g. Jared Jefferies).  Not players on the wrong side of the peak of their career (e.g. Allan Houston).  Not guys who might be good if they lose 30 pounds (e.g. Eddie Curry).  Hell.  I might be good if I lose 30 pounds.

Look, people.  If you’re going to have a bad team, you want to be young, and cheap.  That way, the guys you have will get better, and you’ll have room to bring in other guys.  If you’re going to have an expensive team, you want to be good immediately.  If you’re bad, and you have guys with big contracts, and you don’t have young players with talent, well, then you’re just stuck.  And then you might be bad for a looonnng time. You simply can’t afford to tie up big money on guys who haven’t proven themselves capable of being a top player on a good team.

2.  Coaching, at the NBA level, is overrated.  The Knicks had a few accomplished coaches during their decade of disaster.  For starters, they had Larry Brown, whose resume is 14 pages long has a bunch of impressive accomplishments on it. And they had Isiah, who coached the Pacers to some success, and Mike D’Antoni, who has won Coach of the Year before. None of these guys was able to turn things around. Things only started to get turned around when Felton started dishing, Gallo started swishing, and Amar’e started dunking on defenders’ faces.

To be clear, good coaching might be what separates the great teams from the good ones, or the good ones from the average ones. But a good coach can’t make a bad team a contender, so, if you’re bad, it makes much more sense to spend money on new players than it does to spend money on an expensive coach.

3. When in doubt, draft the guy who played four years in college. One of the few things the Knicks got right during the lost decade was drafting David Lee. They got him at #30. Then, this year, they got Landry Fields at #39. Both of them were four-year college players. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

Am I missing anything, Knicks fans? Getting anything wrong? If so, I hope you’ll add your thoughts in the comments section.

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Add The ‘Melo Fellow

Filed Under: '10 - '11 Season, GM Consultant, NBA by Tweener — 1 Comment
12/23/2010

During the few minutes per day that I’m in my car, I turn on local sports radio. Recently, there has been lots of discussion over whether the Knicks should trade for Carmelo Anthony.

I’m sorry, but I don’t even see how this is a close call. As I’ve already said, I’m a big Syracuse fan (here, if you’re interested), and I acknowledge that there’s a chance I’m seeing Carmelo through Orange-colored glasses. But I don’t think so.

To me, this is quite simple: if the Knicks are serious about becoming a contender, they should absolutely trade for him. Give up anyone on the roster not named Amar’e or Raymond. Give up Wilson. Give up Landry. Give up Wilson and Landry. And Danilo, if Denver wants him, too. Give up draft picks. And cash. Hell, throw in the scoreboard above the court or the banners hanging in the rafters if that’s what Denver wants.

I mean no disrespect to Wilson, Landry, or Danilo. Each of those guys could be a “piece” on a championship team.

The thing is, though, that, to build a champion, you have to start at the top of the roster and work down. The main question is whether your top three guys are good enough to be the top three guys on a championship team. If they are, it’s time to surround them with complimentary players. If they aren’t, it’s time to come up with a plan for improving your top three.

Right now, the Knicks’ top three is Amar’e, Felton, and… um… I don’t know. They have a bunch of other good players, but, put any of those those with Amar’e and Felton, compare them to other teams’ “top threes,” and you’ll see that the Knicks come up short. For starters, they aren’t better than:
(1) Rondo, Pierce, KG (or Allen),
(2) Kobe, Gasol, Odom (or Bynum),
(3) Manu, Tony, and Tim,
(4) Wade, James, and Bosh,
(5) Johnson, Horford, and Smith,
(6) Rose, Noah, and Boozer,
(7) Paul, West, and Okafor,
(8) Dirk, Kidd, and Butler, or
(9) Westbrook, Durant, and whoever-the-third-best-guy-on-the-Thunder-is.

So, no championship, no matter how good the complimentary players are. Bring in Carmelo, though, and the whole picture changes.

I recognize that there are arguments as to why the Knicks shouldn’t trade for Carmelo, but none of them withstands scrutiny (a lawyer term, sorry). To address two of the main ones quickly:

Carmelo’s Not a Winner. I’m sorry, but this is absurd. The Nuggets were 17-65 the year before they drafted him, and they’ve been in the playoffs every year since. Sounds like a winner to me. And, he carried Syracuse to a national championship in college. I know lots of people overlook accomplishments in college when talking about how good a particular player is, but it makes no sense to do that. When you say that someone “isn’t a winner,” you’re saying that they don’t have what it takes to step up in moments of adversity towards the end of a game. The fact that the person carried a team to an NCAA championship should dispel that.

Essentially, the people who are against trading for Carmelo because he’s “not a winner” are saying that the only stars whom the Knicks should trade for are the ones on the Lakers, Spurs, and Celtics, and Dwyane Wade. No other star in the league has been a major contributor to a championship team, so none “is a winner.”

That’s crazy talk.

Carmelo Will Disrupt Team Chemistry. I know it’s en vogue to talk about “chemistry” and sound knowledgeable, but, in my opinion, the abstract notion of “team chemistry” that people talk about — as if it comes from a magical formula that can’t be tinkered with once it’s perfected — is vastly overrated. In basketball, “team chemistry” is largely determined by what the guys do on the court. If their skills compliment each other (one guy handles the ball and creates shots for others, one is deadly when left open, one slashes to the rim, and at least one operates mostly down low), then the team almost always has “chemistry.” If their skills don’t compliment each other, you might have a “team with chemistry,” but you almost certainly won’t have “a team with a championship.”

To be sure, in some instances, egos can ruin chemistry even when basketball skills compliment each other. The clearest recent example was the T’Wolves teams with a young Marbury, young Garnett, and Wally World. From a pure basketball perspective, their skills were perfectly complimentary, and it looked like Minnesota could build a real competitor around them. But Marbury and KG couldn’t coexist, and the team fell apart (dragging Wally’s career down with it).

Regarding the Knicks, Amar’e and Raymond are just fine together, and there’s no reason to think that Carmelo would disrupt anything. So, yes, the Knicks would be breaking up a team that seems to be fitting together well, but I say go for it. The ceiling for this team as currently constructed is getting out of the first round of the playoffs. If they’re serious about contending, they should bring in the ‘Melo Fellow.

Thoughts, Knicks fans? I hope you’ll share ‘em.

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You Can Go Home Again

Filed Under: '10 - '11 Season, NBA by Tweener — 4 Comments
12/19/2010

As a kid, I was a passionate Knick fan. Unfortunately for me, I started to have a clue about what was going on a little bit after Bernard King injured himself, and a little bit before Patrick Ewing arrived. For those of you who can remember back that far, I’m talking about the era of Pat Cummings, Eddie Lee Wilkins, and Ken “The Animal” Bannister. For those of you who can’t remember back that far, take my word for it… you didn’t miss much.

As bad as they were, though, those were my Knicks. I would watch. And cheer. And hope. And cry. (Hey, I was 8.)

In fact, one of my earliest memories involves me crying about the Knicks. See, my parents used to put me to sleep, and then go downstairs. The only TV upstairs was in their room. So, I used to sneak out of my room and into theirs, to watch the Knicks on mute. One night, the Knicks got pounded, by some mediocre team which had better players than Pat Cummings, Eddie Lee Wilkins, and Ken “The Animal” Bannister. I just couldn’t take it. I had reached my breaking point.

I don’t remember many of the specifics. I remember yelling at the TV, even though I knew I shouldn’t. If I yelled, my parents would hear me, and I would be in trouble for having snuck out of my room to watch. But I couldn’t stop. It was like the Knick-fan part of my brain had taken over the rational part of my brain. The next thing I remember was being in my bed, crying hysterically. My parents rushed upstairs to see what was wrong, and I just said something along the lines of “it’s not fair, that they are soooo bad!!!”

A few months later, the Knicks won the draft lottery and got Patrick Ewing. And everything changed. No, he never brought us a title. But he gave me a great ride as a Knicks fan from the day he arrived until the day that he was chased out of town, and I’m loyal to him because of it.

So loyal, in fact, that I stopped rooting for the Knicks when they chased him out of town. I wasn’t going to cheer for the goons who said they thought they’d be better off without Ewing “slowing them down.” (Is that what he was doing, Sprewell? Slowing you down? You, too, Houston?) And, even after those goons had left, I spent years not rooting for the Knicks. Basically, even though Ewing moved on with his life, I hadn’t.

But, as I blogged last year, the Knicks recently started to tug at my heartstrings again. First, I had the realization that I had done more than enough to show my loyalty to Patrick Ewing — after all, how many 33-year-old lawyers spend their free time singing Patrick Ewing’s praises on a blog?

Second, I noticed that a bunch of my friends who live in New York said they don’t watch the NBA anymore. I have to think this is partly because the hometown team has been terrible for approximately 10 years, and I think the game suffers if a market as important as New York is tuned out. So, for the sake of the game itself, I started to think that it would be good for the Knicks to become relevant again.

Nonetheless, I couldn’t get excited about the Knicks again because I found the whole courtship of LeBron to be so distasteful. (As I mentioned in this blog posting.) I mean, this is New York City, people — New York F’ing City. Are New Yorkers really groveling at the feet of a 25-year-old-who-never-won-anything- but-calls-himself-The-King-anyway? New Yorkers? I wanted no part of it.

Well, The King, of course, took his talents to South Beach. Shortly thereafter, I felt the tugging on the heartstrings begin again. The Knicks got Stoudemire and then Felton. The season started, and they showed some signs of life. There were guys on the team whom I liked: Stoudemire seems introspective and genuine, and is even starting to play some D. Gallo might have a stiff back and might go soft sometimes, but he can shoot the lights out of the arena and has a good feel for the game — basically, he’s what I would be if I grew 10 inches, and was slightly-less-unathletic. Raymond Felton was the starting PG on a national championship team in college — the kind of guy I like to root for. Landry Fields is a perimeter player who played 4 years at Stanford and led the Pac 10 in rebounding during his senior season, another guy I could root for. (Plus, he lives down the street from me — I’ve seen him at Buffalo Wild Wings.) All of a sudden, the Knicks had a bunch of guys whom I liked, and I was starting to pay attention to what they were doing.

And then Friday night came along. The Heat were in town for the first time this season, and I made a point of watching the Knicks for the first time in a very long time. When I saw LeBron get boo’ed during pregame introductions, and again each time he touched the ball, I knew that the people in the Garden crowd were my people. I’ll never see eye-to-eye with the ones who wanted to get rid of Patrick, or the ones who were kissing LeBron’s butt in hopes that he’d join the Knicks, about the way they handled those two situations. But those people boo’ing LeBron were my people, nonetheless.

Before I knew it, I was boo’ing at the tv screen whenever LeBron touched the ball. I’m a Knicks fan, and I wanted him to know that he ain’t welcome here.

And that’s when it hit me… I’m a Knicks fan. A KNICKS FAN!!

It has been a long and rocky relationship with lots of fits and starts, but the net result was that some young hotshot on the other team, with a tattoo on his back that says “Chosen One,” brought his immense talents to MSG, and, when the guys in white stood up to battle him, I was gonna cheer them on. In the 25 years since I found myself uncontrollably sobbing after sneaking into my parents’ room to watch the Knicks even though I knew it would get me in trouble, I had come full circle; I found myself uncontrollably shouting at my own tv even though I knew that I might wake up my 6-month-old daughter, and that my wife would think I was crazy.

What can I say? Lots has changed over those 25 years, but I’m still the same person who was willing to get in trouble just to vent about the Knicks. Yup – I’m a Knicks fan.

Of course, something else hasn’t changed since that evening 25 years ago… the Knicks got pounded on Friday night. Unlike the team of 25 years ago, though, this one has immediate reason to hope. They’re above .500, and they aren’t relying on Ken “The Animal” Bannister to give them significant production. Plus, they might get Carmelo, and then there will be legitimate reason to get excited. More on that shortly.

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