Category Archives: NBA

Who On The Jazz Is Overrated?

Filed Under: Comparing Players / Teams, NBA, Talking About Hoops by KraverWP — Leave a comment
01/28/2010

No, I’m not asking whether anyone on the Jazz is overrated. I’m asking who on the Jazz is overrated. Specifically, I want to know this: between Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Jerry Sloan, who is overrated? And don’t tell me that none of them is overrated.

I’ll get into the discussion in a bit, but first a bit of a digression… I hate the Jazz. They’re my least favorite team in the league. Frankly, I’m not even sure why that is. I think it has a lot to do with their name: Utah Jazz is one of the stupidest names I can imagine for a team. There ain’t no Jazz in Utah. There was Jazz in New Orleans, where the team used to play. The name made sense for a team from New Orleans. It’s a stupid name for a team from Utah. It’s like calling a team the Bronx Cornhuskers. Or the Miami Polar Bears. It’s just dumb, and, worse, because the name comes from New Orleans, hearing the words “Utah Jazz” reminds me that sports teams should have a connection to their hometown, and reminds of how much I dislike it when a team picks up and moves without acknowledging that it loses some of its character in the process.

But, to be fair, that can’t be the entire reason I hate the Jazz. I mean, “Lakers” made sense for a team from Minneapolis, but, when the team moved to Los Angeles, keeping the name “Lakers” hardly made sense. That’s the same thing I just complained about the Jazz doing, and, yet, I don’t hate the Lakers.

So, there must be some other reason. I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m just jealous that most Jazz fans get to practice polygamy and I don’t. I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I don’t like the Jazz. Or their fans. At all.

Ok, digression over…

The Jazz have been on my mind recently, more than they usually are. I think it’s because I listen to the NBA Today podcast, and, within the last 10 days:
– Rick Bucher came on with a list of his top 10 players in the league, and included Deron Williams, and
– A segment was devoted to talking about where Carlos Boozer will end up next year, as if he’s some kind of star and it really matters for the league what team he winds up in.

Another reason the Jazz are on my mind is that they have been winning recently. They are, at the moment, the #4 seed in the West. Not bad. But, they’re only 2 games ahead of the #9 seed, so they aren’t exactly setting the league on fire, either. Yet, if Williams, Boozer, and Sloan were all living up to their reputations, this would be a top 2 or 3 team in the whole league.

Think about it: Williams and Boozer were both on the 2008 Olympic team. Thus, important people in important places think they’re very good players. The Jazz are the only team in the NBA with two guys from that Olympic team on it. I look at it this way: if those guys were really worthy of being Olympians, then you’d have to think that the Jazz would be a top 2 or 3 NBA team unless they had either (i) a monkey for a coach, or (ii) a roster filled with crippled dudes.

Not only is Jerry Sloan not a monkey, but he’s a HALL OF FAMER. Yup. His reputation is so sterling that he got elected to the Hall of Fame. Watch a Jazz game and listen to the commentators; they’ll go on and on about what an amazing coach he is. It’s like he broke into Brett Favre’s suitcase, and stole some of the Broadcaster Pixie Dust.

I’m not saying the guy can’t coach, but the Hall of Fame? Seriously? A Hall of Fame coach leading a team with 2 guys from the Olympic team, and they’re only 2 games ahead of the #9 seed? I’m sorry. One of those 3 dudes is overrated. Maybe 2. Or all 3.

As I said, maybe we could make sense of this if they were surrounded by a roster of crippled dudes. But they aren’t. There are 4 other guys on the roster who average double-figure points-per-game. There are 3 other guys on the roster who average more than 4 boards per game (including 2 who average more than 6). Kirilenko is consistently one of the league leaders in both steals and rebounds.

To be sure, this supporting cast is no All-Star team. But the supporting cast shouldn’t have to be a bunch of All-Stars for the Jazz to be successful, BECAUSE THE GUYS THAT THE SUPPORTING CAST ARE SUPPORTING INCLUDE TWO OLYMPIANS AND A HALL OF FAME COACH.

Yet, they’re only 2 games ahead of the #9 seed. So at least one of those 3 dudes must be overrated. Which one is it?

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Will A Champion Be Built Via Free Agency?

Filed Under: GM Consultant, NBA by KraverWP — Leave a comment
01/01/2010

Much is made of the potential of the free agent class of 2010. Some teams have designed their rosters to maximize their cap space this off-season, and some stars are expecting to cash in.

If you look only at the talent that will be on the market (LeBron, Wade, Bosh, Dirk, etc.), the hoopla is justified. (Get it? HOOPla.) But, if history is any guide, teams expecting to turn their fortunes around via free agency are setting themselves up for disappointment.

Championship teams are almost never built around a player who was acquired via free agency. Look at the champions of the past 20 years. The Bulls were led by Jordan and Pippen, the Spurs by Duncan and Robinson, the Bad Boy Pistons by Thomas and Dumars, and the Rockets by Olajuwon and Drexler. Each of those teams drafted or traded for each of those players.

The 05-06 Heat acquired Wade via draft and Shaq via trade (that’s why Odom is on the Lakers). The 07-08 Celtics acquired Garnett and Allen via trade (that’s why Al Jefferson is on the Wolves and Jeff Green is on the Thunder), and Pierce via draft. Last year’s Lakers were led by Kobe and Bynum, whom they drafted, and Gasol, whom they traded for. The 03-04 Pistons are kind of an anomoly, because they won without a superstar. Two of their main players – Billups and Wallace – blossomed into stars as Pistons after mediocre careers elsewhere. That team is not really a model that other teams can expect to replicate. (When the Pistons acquired Billups via free agency, he had never averaged more than 14 ppg or 6 apg at the time.)

That leaves only the three-peat Lakers of ’00, ’01, and ’02. They acquired Shaq via free agency.

So, if history is any guide, then, unless you’re signing someone as dominant as Shaq via free agency, and you already have a young Kobe Bryant on your roster, you ain’t transforming your team from mediocre to champion via free agency.

Why is this? I don’t know. Two initial thoughts come to mind: First, if your team has enough money to spend on a superstar free agent, then it’s probably a pretty lousy team, and one superstar free agent won’t be able to turn it around.

Second, the team that signs a particular free agent probably offered him more money than all of the other teams. Thus, there’s a good chance that the team that signs him has overrated him. Think about it; 1 team decides to offer the guy, say, $10 million per year. The 29 other teams in the league fall into one of two categories: either they don’t think the guy is worth more than $10 million (if they did they would have offered him more than that), or their present payroll prevents them from offering him that much. (These teams were probably already better than the team that wound up getting him, as noted in the paragraph above).

If the team that signed him is going to get significantly better, then the player has to prove himself worthy of such a high salary. There’s a chance that he does, but, remember, a bunch of teams did not think he was worth $10 million, so there’s a good chance that he doesn’t. Even if he turns out to be a star, he has to be so good that he makes the lousy team he signed with better than the teams that already had a bunch of guys making a bunch of money.

When we think of someone as talented as LeBron signing with a lousy team, it’s easy to start thinking of that team becoming an instant contender. I’m not saying it isn’t possible, I’m just saying that it’s not how teams historically improve themselves. When you hear talk about a team getting much better via free agency, be skeptical.

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