Tag Archives: Blake Griffin

Let the Madness Begin

And here we are, ladies and gentlemen.  March Madness.

I have a bunch of hoopservations about the college game, none of which is worthy of more than four or five sentences.  Thus, here is a potpourri of mini hoopservations:

1a.  For starters, this is not the site to come to for upset picks based on super-duper-insider info and fantastic scouting reports.  If you want that kind of analysis, keep surfing the ‘net and you’ll find it without too much trouble.  I’ve never seen St. Peter’s play.  Or Indiana State.  Or Belmont.  In fact, I thought Belmont was a horse race, not a college.

1b.  Great, I just offended all of my readers from Belmont.  When you only have eight loyal readers, you can’t afford to offend anyone, but I just did.  No wonder I’m having so much trouble attracting new readers.

2.  BYU, at one point this season, looked like a legit contender.  Then it suspended one of its best players for having sex with his girlfriend.  I have plenty of opinions about this, but they’d certainly offend some people and, well, I just can’t afford to offend anyone at this point.

3.  Is it too early to declare the expansion to 68 teams a failure?  If not, what additional information do we need before we are able to determine that the expansion was a bad idea?

4.  Jeff Capel got fired this week.  Not the biggest story out there, I know, but I think it’s interesting because of what it says about the way we perceive college coaches.  When Capel made VCU competitive, he was a hot young candidate for a job at a bigger program.   He took the job at Oklahoma, and did quite well, when he had Blake Griffin.  Since losing Griffin, he hasn’t done so well.  Funny how that works.  Take a step back and look at this: when he makes a team like VCU competitive, people think he’s a coaching prodigy.  When he recruits Blake Griffin, people think the praise was worthwhile.  Then when he loses Griffin and stops winning, people think he doesn’t even deserve to keep his job.  How about some perspective, folks?

5.  Last year, I hoopserved that tournament upsets, contrary to popular belief, generally did not involve a team with five underrated upperclassmen beating a team with five overrated underclassmen.  Rather, they generally involved a lower-seeded team having a star who carried it to a win.  (Here, if you’re interested.) In light of that, I looked at the list of this year’s leading scorers, and note that teams to keep an eye on are Penn St. (Talor Battle averages 20.1 ppg), Wofford (Noah Dalman averages 20 ppg),and BU (John Holland averages 19.2 ppg).  If you’re kind of into this angle, but you’re more interested in rebounds than points, I note that the list of leading rebounders includes Nikola Vucevic from USC (10.2 rpg) and Keith Benson from Oakland (10.1 rpg).

6.  It’s interesting that people can see what they want in this tournament.  Those who are down on the game will see that the top eight seeds are about as weak as the top eight seeds have been in a while.  Florida?  Notre Dame?  They’ll also see that the tournament is wide open, essentially because there is a lot of mediocrity, and very few teams that have potential for greatness.  Those who are not down on the game will see a lot to like about this tournament.  For starters, the defending national champion returns multiple critical starters, and heads into the tournament as a #1 seed.  And, they will see a bunch of potentially great matchups.  UCLA-Michigan State in Round 1?!? Seriously?  Plus, a potential matchup of St. John’s, the revitalized school from NYC, and BYU, the school that kicked a player off of its team for violating the school’s Honor Code — an Honor Code that, as I understand things, does not allow students to drink caffeine.  Like I said, I’m not going to comment on BYU’s decision, but you don’t need my commentary to see that St. John’s / BYU would be an interesting clash.  Looking down the road, a potential Ohio State / Syracuse matchup would be awesome.  Another run from Butler would be thrilling.  And, don’t forget, Kemba Walker might just grab the whole bracket by the throat and not let go.

I don’t know about you, but I’m psyched.

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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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