Marathon Pacers 2013 Post-Mortem

The season started with the P needing George Hill heroics to eke out a win over the lowly Raptors.  The season ended with a sadly familiar disappearing act in Miami.  In between, a lot of stuff happened.  It was either a disappointment, a pretty good season, or a great season, depending on your perspective.  The general consensus is that it was pretty good, and I'm down with that.  Just don't expect David West to get all gushy over it.

If, at the start of the season, you told me the Pacers would go to the playoffs, dispatch the Hawks and Knicks with reasonable efficiency, then take the Heat to seven games in the conference final, I would have been very happy with that result.  A conference final, and playing the Heat close to even in the finals, would have been considered the next step the Pacers had to take in the rebuilding process . . . and they got it done.

On the other hand, they should have won the series against Miami.  When they were playing "Pacer ball", they controlled the series. Unfortunately, they pulled their infamous disappearing act, an act that was as likely to show up against the Milwaukee Bucks (split 2-2 in the season series) as it was Miami (split 5-5, including the playoffs).  They controlled vast stretches of most of the Miami playoff games, and they were able to dictate their own game most of the time: only in games 3 and 7 were the Heat totally in control.  They had a golden opportunity to go to the finals, and no matter how bright the future looks for this team, there are no guarantees that fate won't up and slap you back down (in the form of injuries, losses on the free agent market, etc.).  These opportunities are fleeting, and the Pacers blew a golden opportunity.  From that perspective, the season was a disappointment . . . and hopefully, that's how they see it.  One look at David West, and you know he's feeling it.  At the end of the day, the Pacers have evolved into a good team, though probably not as good as Miami made them look.  The Heat are still (at this point) a better team than the Pacers by a fairly wide margin, even if the Pacers will always play them close.  They are still not quite at the "contender" level.*

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Don't get me wrong, the news is plenty good for this Pacers team.  They took the first definitive step to the finals by establishing a rock-solid identity: they are going to be a brutal, defense-first team** able to dictate the terms of any game they are in.  With the exception of David West and Danny Granger, they are ridiculously young and ridiculously athletic.  Unlike the last Pacer team to emerge as a contender (O'Neal, Artest World Peace, Jackson, Tinsley, Miller), they are emotionally stable and mature (with the possible exception of Lance Stephenson, who nonetheless works really hard at stability and dependability, and has plenty of emotional ballast from his team mates to count on). For the first time since Reggie Miller's retirement, it looks like they have a legitimate future*** superstar in Paul George.  They have an anchor in the middle in Roy Hibbert.  They have top-notch veteran leadership with David West.  They have a whole lot of very good pieces.  And, since they're in the East, they get a steady diet of cupcakes to help keep their record well into the black for playoff seeding.  In short, this team has pretty much everything they need to be in the mix for an NBA championship for the first time since the meltdown at Auburn Hills.

Their weaknesses?  Yes, they have a few.  The bench is pretty bad: they actually took a step up in the playoffs from "abominable" to "weak".  Besides that special kind of psychosis that Tyler Hansbrough brings into the game, there isn't much there.  D. J. Augustine provided some good minutes in the playoffs, including some really big-time shooting that helped the P steal game 1 in the New York series; but he isn't that far removed from the days when he was replaced as the back-up point by Ben Hansbrough.  Ben Hansbrough.  Love Ben's game, but he's got European/Turkish/Israeli/Chinese league written all over him. Let Ben travel, for the love of god!  But, back to D. J., you can't be comfortable with a guy who can't even keep Ben Hansbrough off the court.  And then we have Gerald Green, one of the top five dunkers in the league, a 2 guard who can bang his sternum on the rim . . . but who can't, apparently, play basketball.  Sam Young has a great defensive attitude, and he seems to be a keeper, but still tends to break down at very inopportune times: for all the talk about Vogel's benching of Hibbert at the end of game 1 in Miami, for all of the Vogel apologists who blame Paul George for over-playing James on defense, almost nobody pointed to Sam Young's slow defensive rotation as part of the problem (Young should have been there at least soon enough to foul LeBron and make him earn his points at the free throw line).  Ian Mahinmi looked lost most of the time, but he demonstrates enough athleticism to convince me that he will someday become a reasonable time-killer for Hibbert, at least on the defensive end.  Other than that . . .

So, going forward, how do you fix the bench?  Well, the team did well this year without Danny Granger, who up until this season was generally considered to be their best player.  That makes the answer obvious to most of the talking heads: move Granger, his repaired knee, and his big contract for some help off the bench.  Maybe you could find a good player, just starting to head into the downside of his career.  If you are lucky, you can find a guy who was an all-star, maybe a guy who led his team in scoring, and if you are really lucky, a guy who was a demon on the defensive end as well.  And while the sky is the limit, maybe that guy was a leader in the locker room and an asset in the community.  Maybe what you need is a guy like . . . wait for it . . . DANNY GRANGER!!!  Yes, trading Granger for help off the bench is a little like trading David West to get more size under the basket.  I think Granger has a small enough ego to accept the "first guy off the bench" role, especially if he takes the same "instant offense" role that James Harden had with OKC.  The unfortunate ball-stopping tendencies that Danny was showing on the offensive end in 2011-2012 aren't a problem if he's coming off the bench, because who's he going to bother passing the ball to?  Sam Young?  Ian Mahinmi?  Please.  He can hog the ball as much as he wants, because he's the only one who can score.  And bonus points for allowing Tyler Hansbrough to concentrate solely on offensive rebounding and drawing fouls, since that's really the only offense that Psycho T can generate consistently.

Seriously, though, there are some really good reasons to keep Granger: one, he completes a second five (Augustine, Young, Granger, Hansbrough, and Mahinmi) that would actually be pretty respectable defensively (remember, team identity!), even if Augustine is a liability, and Hansbrough is often overmatched in the post.  And speaking of defense, how cool would it be to have a George/Granger/Stephenson/Young defensive rotation to guard those high-scoring wings?  It would be brutal, I tell you: four good-to-great wing defenders, 24 fouls to give. But, the main reason to keep Granger is actually very simple: there is no way, given his contract and the uncertainty following his knee surgery, that you will get value back for him.  While it may be useful to get his contract off the books, the team will be better with him on the court.  He was once an all-star player, and had the look of a good second option on a top-level team.  He was always a great team mate and a great person.  He could be an indispensable piece of a championship team . . . and that's what we're talking about here, right?

The other big problem for the Pacers is the aforementioned tendency to disappear.  It happened way too often during the season, and it happened against bad teams as much as good teams.  The reasons?  1.) TURNOVERS.  2.)  The inability to properly trigger the offense.  A small part of that has to do with the callow youth that characterizes this Pacers team.  Another small part of it has to do with the fact that, with the possible exception of Augustine, nobody on the Pacers has a very good handle.  But primarily, as Reggie Miller pointed out while killing television time during the game 7 blowout, the Pacers are working without a true starting point guard.  George Hill guards the point as well as just about anybody, but he's only average as a point at the offensive end.  His handle is only so-so, and he doesn't do a particularly good job at triggering the offense.  He does much better offensively as a 2, where he can take the ball after the offense is already in motion, where his lack of a handle or explosive quickness doesn't really hurt him.  George Hill has the potential to be a scoring machine as a two guard, given his usually reliable jumper paired with his ability to finish at the rim in traffic, but the problem is that the Pacers are stacked at the two guard, and have no points.  Hill manages to be a middle of the pack point guard, even if the two is his natural position.  So, by default, he is the Pacers point guard.

So, how do you solve this problem?  Well, given the log jam at the two guard, maybe you move one of them for a point.  Or you move Danny Granger for a point.  Problem is, I don't see any scenario that gives the Pacers an upgrade at the point position for what they are willing to move.  Granger doesn't buy you an upgrade over Hill.  Neither does Stephenson. If Hill's contract were more attractive (i.e., if he were undervalued, which he is not, since he just signed an extension last summer), you might be able to trade him straight up for a point, but that won't happen.  And there's no way in hell they're trading George.  The fact of the matter is that an upgrade over Hill would have to be Mike Conley level or better, and there's no way the Pacers can make that move without disrupting the team they have built.  At the end of the day, even though Hill is playing out of position, he's not a terrible point guard.  The price of the upgrade would be too high.  The best option, though it goes against every fiber of the NBA GM DNA, is to just hold tight and hope that Hill learns to be a better point guard.

Besides, Hill is an Indianapolis native with a map of the state of Indiana tattooed on his freaking torso.  You can't trade the guy for that reason alone.

And therein lies the theme of the Pacers' offseason:  keep calm, stand pat, don't panic.  For the first time in a long time, it seems like growth is the best option for the Pacers' roster.  The 2013 Pacers demonstrated a rare chemistry, and front office mucking around is more likely to do harm than good.  Obviously, tweaking the bench is a good idea, but moving any big parts to do so (including Granger) is a bad idea.  Find a way to resign David West without breaking the bank, and you go into next year with a very good lineup.

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So, what has to happen next year for the Pacers to be a top contender for a title?  We here at TDOE would need to see most (or maybe all) of these things happen to put them on the level with the Heat, the Spurs, and the Thunder:

1. A full season's worth of the 2013 playoffs version of  Roy Hibbert.  Hibbert is not the best player on the Pacers, but he has the rarest set of skills, so he may be the most important.  Roy took the biggest step in his development during the season: he learned to maintain his presence as the best rim protector in the league**** without always getting into foul trouble.  In the playoffs, he stepped up his game offensively as well . . . and for all the (justified) comments about his taking advantage of the Heat's weakness in the middle, it needs to be pointed out that Roy also dominated Tyson Chandler, the player that most people pick as the second best true center in the league.  If Roy becomes a 17/10 guy next year, then the Pacers will be a very good team.  Likelihood: Hibbert will remain a force on the defensive end, but is prone to lose his confidence on offense.  Ultimately, this will be one of Frank Vogel's primary coaching challenges: keeping his mercurial big man near the top of his game.
2. Re-sign David West.  West's size and tenacity can be replaced.  Everything else he gives to the team can not.  He is the leader of these young Pacers, and needs to be here for a couple more years as the youngsters mature.  Without him, the rebuilding is set back a couple seasons.  Likelihood:  Both parties want to get this done, so it seems like it will get done.
3. George Hill get better at running the offense.  There are ways to cover Hill's weaknesses . . . I especially like it when Paul George and Lance Stephenson take turns triggering the offense just so defenses trying to stop the ball at the point can't focus too much on Hill . . . but, as pointed out above, the team's inability to get cleanly into its offense is one of the biggest problems they have.  Unlike George and Stephenson, I think Hill is pretty close to his ceiling as a player, so any improvements will likely be incremental, which is okay: a little improvement will go a long way.  Likelihood: Hill is not going to wake up one morning with an extra step, or with a God Shamgod handle, so most of the improvement will be mental (recognition, improved reaction time, etc.).  Hill is a serious, conscientious player, so you know he'll put in the time.  Problem is that sometimes a player gets it, sometimes he doesn't.  Fingers crossed on this one.
4. The continued emergence of Paul George.  George has all the tools to be a very special player.  He has frequently played at a level that makes him not just an All-Star, but a potential All-Pro.  Next season, he needs to make the step from good player to franchise player.  To do that, he needs to be able to take over games AT WILL (as opposed to just whenever he happens to get into the flow, which is what happens now).  For years, the question has always been "Can the small-market Pacers ever attract a big star?"  Well, now they just may have one without having to go shopping.  Likelihood: Again, George has all the tools, but the final step to dominance is the most difficult; and for every Bryant, James, Wade, and Durant, there's an Artest World Peace, Boozer, Joe Johnson (and yes, Danny Granger) who can't quite take the step to the next level.  George is close, very very close, but there are no guarantees that he will ever become the guy who can take over any game whenever he wants to.
5. The return of Danny Granger, and setting a shooting guard/small forward rotation that will work without hurting team chemistry.  As noted above, the return of a fully healthy Danny Granger goes a long way to fixing the bench (even if he starts and Stephenson comes off the bench), but it also has potentially troubling issues for team chemistry.  If the average observer were to list the primary strengths of this team, it would probably start with size, youth, and athleticism.  Chemistry, however, needs to be at the top of that list: it is the unique chemistry of this team that allows them to be as resilient as they've been all season, it is chemistry that allows them to get into each other's faces without hurting each other's feelings.  It is chemistry which keeps everyone focused, and helps minimize the damage that mood swings (primarily from Hibbert and Stephenson) do to the team.  The problem is this: between Granger and Stephenson, who starts?  Stephenson started all year, and has shown himself to be an important piece of the team, so he's not going to be happy about sitting.  Add to that the fact that, as much as he's matured, he's still emotional and has a hair trigger.  Granger, for his part, doesn't have a big ego, but it will be hard to finish one season as your team's best player, miss a season due to injury, and then be asked to come off the bench.  I prefer Granger off the bench for the reasons above, but anyway it pans out, Vogel has a hard job selling everybody on the plan.  Likelihood: For one year at least, I think Vogel can keep everyone on board.  At that point it will be clear that either Stephenson or Granger deserves to start.  If both are starting caliber players, then one obviously will have to go . . . with Stephenson being the most likely in that case, since he is more likely to bring back full value than Granger.

There are a few other things, like the continued improvement of Lance Stephenson and the development of a couple bench players, that would help, but this is the main agenda.

There are, of course, a lot of factors which change the landscape of the NBA (like, I'm still waiting for Minnesota to blow up).  Among other things, it is very possible to buy a title in this league (see: Heat, Miami, and Celtics, Boston), and with at least one game-changer available in the form of Chris Paul*****, the one thing that you can guarantee is change.  For the Pacers, though, it's time to hold: the future looks very bright for this team as constituted.  

So yes, it was a good season.  A very, very good season.

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*  Though they are a hell of a lot closer than such media darling "contenders" as the Knicks and the Clippers.

**  Frank Vogel has made a few comments about tinkering with a zone defense over the summer break.  This should be startling news to the rest of the league: it means he believes that the Pacers, who almost never resort to zones outside of inbounds plays, can get even better on defense, even though they are already the best defensive team (as well as the best man-to-man defenders) in the NBA.  Or, is he preparing to add an offensive-positive defense-negative piece to the lineup, and making advance plans to cover for him on the defensive end?  Either way, I can't wait to see this new wrinkle.

***  Per the discussions that attended his performance in the playoffs: I think it's clear he has all the tools, and he's made giant strides this year in confidence and basketball intelligence.  He's not quite there yet, however.  He occasionally takes over games, but he doesn't seem to be able to do it at will like true superstars can.  Right now, he's about equal to Granger at his peak, but he's got the potential to go much higher.

**** He is one of the few players who really change things in the lane.

***** I will not grant Dwight Howard game-changer status.  He has not earned that.

TDOE's NCAA Power Rankings, Sweet 16 Edition

AKA the Ben Howland/Tubby Smith memorial edition:

1. Louisville  The tournament is looking more and more like theirs to lose.  Colorado State had the feel of the kind of team that would give the Cards trouble, but they didn't.  Not one bit.
2. Michigan State  This high because Tom Izzo, duh, but also because they have the look of Spartan champions of the past.
3. Duke  This high because Mike Krzyzewski, duh, but . . . well, do you really need another reason?
4. Ohio State  Aaron Craft defends the point, Deshaun Thomas scores at will.  If those two get help, any help at all, the Buckeyes win 99 times out of 100.
5. Miami  Took a solid shot from a decent Illinois team and is still standing.  They do a lot right, and little wrong.
6. Indiana   On the other hand, Indiana seems to do a whole lot wrong, and still get away with it by and large.  After spending the early part of March screaming "POUND THE BALL IN TO ZELLER!" incessantly at my television, the Hoosiers did just that against Temple with mixed results.  Tom Crean chose to see the glass half full and celebrate his team's grind-it-out victory against a good Temple team, but there are times when the ennui of this ridiculously talented group is palpable.
7. Florida  How good are they, really?  Better than Gonzaga, worse than Louisville, as hard to pin down as the exact location of an electron . . .
8. Kansas  Very good at times, especially defensively; but the question still seems when, not if, the Jayhawks will implode again.
9. Michigan  If it's a shoot out, Michigan wins, period.  This is why some have inflated the Wolverines' worth a bit after two impressive victories.  The problem is that the blueprint to stopping them is too well known: force Trey Burke to give up the ball early.  There are at least four teams left who can do just that.  Their offensive firepower may carry them past one or two of those teams, but it's not enough to win it all.
10. Oregon  Can we all go back to disrespecting the Pac-12 again?
11. Syracuse  Very good at times, very bad at times, much like every team from the Big East.  Unlike Louisville, however, the Orange's highs aren't quite high enough to compensate for the lows.  Don't be surprised if they still make a little noise, especially if Indiana doesn't eat its Wheaties on game day.
12. Arizona  Seriously, the Pac-12?
13. Marquette  If you beat Marquette, you know you've won a game, because they're always the best prepared team around, and because they never, ever beat themselves.
14. Florida Gulf Coast  Ah, the darlings of the tournament!  There is a small chance that their magic ways can continue against a Florida team that is still a bit of a mystery; but if they do, don't expect them to survive a Kansas team that can go up and contest all those pretty alley-oops, or a Michigan team that will win any scoring contest that comes its way.
15. Wichita State  Have to play almost perfect ball to keep advancing.  Have done just that, so far.
16. La Salle  I will go on record as saying that the Wichita State/La Salle game will be must-see TV for the basketball freaks among us.  Both of these teams are good . . . better than FGCU under normal circumstances . . . and have earned the right to be just where they are. 

Well, there you have it.  Leave all your unrestrained bile in the comments below.  Go Hoosiers!

Hey Jim!  Look up at the scoreboard!  Is that the
number of timeouts you have left, or the number
of players you are graduating?  "Double bonus"?
That's what a Syracuse letter of intent gets you,
right?

Why I Want The Cards to Lose

I've seen a handful of excellent ball games this year.  The Big Ten has been historically good, and Indiana has not only been good, they've been great to watch.  There is ridiculous parity in the game; and while that usually means a lot of mediocre teams, that's not the case right now.  There are a whole lot of good teams, and there have been a lot of good games.  In particular, I think of the Indiana/Wisconsin/Michigan/Michigan State/Ohio State series was phenomenal, and those games rank up with all the classics I grew up on.  But, the one game that really sticks out for me was the first Louisville/Notre Dame game.  It was the most dramatic game I have seen in years, even if it wasn't close to being the best.

For those of you who were tuned in to the game, you were probably reaching for the remote at just about the same time Louisville started to slack off their legendary attack.  They were walking the ball down the court, they were looking up at the clock, they were careful not to foul.  Fans in the arena were digging out their car keys, putting on their coats, looking down the aisle to see if they had to step over people or if everyone else was leaving too.  Those of us who follow such things (I follow both Louisville and Notre Dame) had more or less taken the outcome for granted when Jack "Luke Harangody Jr." Cooley got tagged for foul number five on a horrible call with about seven minutes left.  All in all, it was a customary denouement for a hard-fought game that was all but over.

When the ridiculously improbable comeback started, no one noticed.  With 45 seconds left and Notre Dame down eight, Jerian Grant hurried down the court, hoisted an uncontested three, and canned it for his first field goal of the night.  No big deal, right?  Too little, too late.  Happens all the time in these situations: team way down, hoisting threes, you're going to see a couple go in.  Then after some laxity on the Card's behalf, Grant flies down the court again, cans another three . . . this one contested, but just barely.  A few seconds later, again he's flying down the court; but after two treys in a row, Louisville has started to pay attention.  He's wrapped up (by Siva? I can't remember), runs off an impromptu pick (less a pick and more an obstacle provided by a teammate who wasn't moving at the same speed as Grant), and deposits a third three.

Now, it was a game.

On the next trip up the floor, down three, the Irish put Louisville's Gorgui Deng on the line.  He missed both foul shots, and ND had the ball back with 16 seconds left.

Everyone knew that Jerian Grant was taking the last shot.  Everyone knew it had to be a three.  All Louisville had to do was guard the three-point line, and make sure Russ Smith was all over Grant with one of the bigs running at him when he came off the inevitable pick.  No way anyone drops FOUR STRAIGHT threes in less than a minute, right?

What happened next were two of the most inexplicable mental mistakes I have seen in a long time out of two top-20 college teams: first, down THREE POINTS with almost no time left, Grant knifes down the right side of the lane for a TWO POINT field goal.  Second, instead of employing the "matador defense" and allowing Grant to get the two unscathed, Louisville chose to closely defend him on the drive, and ended up fouling him!  And not a good hard foul, which would have negated the shot and put him on the line for two free throws (thereby still leaving ND one point short with time for only one very brief possession left on the clock), but a contact-in-the-process-of-defending foul, allowing Grant to get up (AND HIT!) the shot, as well as putting him on the line to attempt THE GAME TYING FREE THROW!  Which, of course, he hit.  After that, there was the inevitable Russ Smith brain fart, and the game went into overtime.

From there, the hilarity continued.  At the start of each overtime, Louisville opened a little breathing space, only to be reeled back in by Notre Dame.  Louisville was able to shift back into Full Chaos Mode, but full chaos mode means the maximization of the random, and the random means some breaks go your way, some breaks go the other way . . . and the breaks were going Notre Dame's way.  In the ridiculous scrums that pass for rebounding in U of L games, the ball started to get batted back toward the ND goal.  Louisville would execute their hellish defense for the majority of the shot clock, only to see a desperation lob get tossed across court to an ND player with a wide open shot (wide open mainly because he got totally lost in the chaos, stood still, and watched the defense run away from him).  And, on Louisville's offensive end, there was Russ Smith.

To understand Louisville, all you need to do is watch Russ Smith.  He's fast, he's chaotic, he has a motor like no one else you will ever see.  He is the ultimate disrupter.  On the defensive end, he's always up in your face, on you so hard you can't shake him.  He's fast enough to play the lanes and knock down passes when he's off the ball, and still recover right up in your face when the ball swings back over.  Offensively, he flies around just as much, hurtling at the basket with or without the ball, without a plan, just always flying around.  His outside shots are like Tourette's, more inexplicable mental tic than rational offensive strategy.  He is a Tasmanian Devil, a perpetual motion machine: and usually, at the end of a game, his psychosis has left his opponent on the floor in a heap, with the scoreboard announcing a triumph precipitated by the sheer havoc he has wreaked.

Rick Pitino loves Russ Smith.  He has a whole team comprised mostly of Russ Smith variations: the same hyper-athletic quickness, the same perpetual motion, the same indomitable motor.  The same dedication to Full Chaos.

A descendant of Nolan Richardson's "40 Minutes of Hell", Full Chaos has little to do with the fundamentals: Full Chaos means Louisville's rebounding proficiency has less to do with blocking out, and more to do with everyone charging the basket every time a shot goes up.  Louisville's defensive proficiency has less to do with rotation and position and more to do with overwhelming pressure (Louisville never runs a full court press just to make the guards work harder; they always press to steal the ball).  Louisville's offense has nothing to do with spacing, position, or shooting: it's simply about the sheer number of times they heave the ball at the basket because they are moving so much faster than the other team, and therefore get more opportunities.  Ultimately, like 40 Minutes of Hell, the Full Chaos mode is about making the other team play your way.

And therein lies my problem with the University of Louisville Cardinals, as currently constituted: "playing their way" means totally disrupting the game of basketball as I love it.  Pitino and The Cardinals are successful to the degree that they can turn the game into shit.

I don't blame The Rick for this approach.  His job is to WIN GAMES, period.  Well, that and graduate the minimum number of players necessary to keep the NCAA off his ass.  And keep his players out of jail . . . all of which he has managed to do.  On top of that, he generally has guys that are committed to him and to each other, and try their best to be reasonable representatives of the University.  Anyway, the true beauty of the Full Chaos approach is that he doesn't really need to have top-notch basketball players, he just has to have top notch athletes, which are much more common these days.  He doesn't have to worry about developing his two's mid-range game, he just needs to get him in better shape than the players he will be facing.  He doesn't have to worry about his five's back-to-the-basket game, he just has to make sure he can be more of a dervish than any other five in the nation.  He doesn't really have to teach them too much of anything: most of the core work for the current iteration of The Cards is done by running stairs.  Of course he always has to stockpile a shooter or two to give his offense a little bit of a wrinkle, and having a decent point guard makes his life a whole lot easier.  But, make no mistake: given the choice between a top-notch point that can't play at his speed (say, Trey Burke) over a warp speed point good for one seriously knuckleheaded play every five times down the court (say, Peyton Siva), warp speed wins ten times out of ten.  Again, I don't blame Pitino for taking this approach . . . I mean, look at the guy's record.  It speaks for itself.

I don't root against The Cards because they are lazy or undeserving; on the contrary, they're one of the hardest working teams in the nation.  I don't root against them because of some sort of negative social code that they subliminally radiate: again, all the guys on the team seem like decent enough folk (although The Rick himself is a bit of a skeez), and rewarding hard work is something that we can all get behind.  I don't even root against all Rick Pitino/U of L teams: the 2005 Cards with Francisco Garcia and Taquan Dean was one of my favorites.  No, it's just this current style of Louisville team: I root against them because they destroy all that is beautiful about the game.


And it's not that I don't like defense: I am a Big Ten/Big East fan, after all.  I was raised on Bobby Knight and Gene Keady.  One of my favorite teams to watch is Wisconsin: Bo Ryan's defensive schemes have a brutal efficiency and logic, and are often as beautiful as they are brutal.  I tend to like free flowing games better, but "free flowing" doesn't mean the same as "no defense".


It just so happens that I love the game of basketball.  I love its motion, I love its flow, I love its strategy.  It is a cliche at this point to compare basketball to jazz, but there you have it: there's improvisation, there's discipline, there's melody, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, syncopation.  Like jazz, there's a lot of ways to do it, and a lot of ways to do it wrong.  As cavalier as I may be in my attitudes toward music, I am a basketball purist: show me complexity, show me motion, show me shapes and designs that I can get inside and marvel at.  But whatever you do, don't turn my game to shit.

Chris Paul is a beautiful player: he moves into zones, sees the shapes of the court before they even materialize, and gets the ball just where it needs to go.  Steve Nash does the same, with an even more eccentric language than Paul.  Larry Bird and Magic Johnson moved in dimensions that others didn't even see.  But Derrick Rose, good as he may be, is nothing more than a human missile as far as I'm concerned.  Alan Iverson was a cannonball.  Kevin Durant?  Breathtaking.  LeBron James?  A dull bully.  I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I don't care whether my team wins or loses, but I will tell you that one of the five best college basketball games I have ever seen is a game that my team lost.

It is entirely likely that Pitino will someday stumble on just the right point guard, a guy that can play at Full Chaos tempo but actually make plays instead of chaos (I think Indiana's Yogi Ferrell could have been that point guard).  If he does, he'll pick up a few other parts, and maybe build a team that is as beautiful as it is fast.  When that day comes, I'll don the red and black and cheer my lungs out.  Until then, I will smile and raise a glass to toast the Cards victories, but I certainly won't get excited about that team.

*          *          *          *          *

Louisville, of course, ended up losing the epic 5 OT war against Notre Dame.  There were several opportunities to win it, but Louisville never put the Irish away.  Or, rather, Russ Smith never put the Irish away.  I have never seen more appalling guard play by a good team in a crucial situation.  Smith was mind-bogglingly bad at the worst time.  Time freezes when the game is on the line, and that's precisely when just running around doesn't work.  You have to make a play.

Louisville has not lost since that game.  For good measure, they beat Notre Dame twice, both by double digits.  They stormed back against a flawed Syracuse team to win the final Big East tournament, and rolled into the NCAAs as the number one overall seed, a ranking that they deserved as much as two of the other three no. 1's, Kansas and Indiana.  They are the most popular pick to win it all, and it's hard to argue that: at this point, it really looks like they could turn any game they play into a steaming pile of shit.  Just don't expect me to like it.

Aesthetics, Politics, and Hoop (2012 Finals Edition)

As I write this, the Heat are running the Thunder out of the gym late in the third quarter of game 5.  Doesn't look like the infamous & bizarre season of 2012 will be lasting much longer.  So, before I move on to the 2012 NBA postmortem, there is this:

The Heat got who they wanted for this series.  Going into the finals, it lined up like:  the Heat wanted the Thunder, because their big three was just a little bit badder than the Thunder's big three, and the Heat have been there before (experience at each level really does mean something in the NBA, whereas "playoff experience" in other sports is totally overrated).  The Heat didn't want the Spurs, because you know Popovich would have solved the Heat somehow (yeah, I know, he didn't solve the Thunder, but the match ups between the Heat and the Spurs would be much better for the Spurs . . . you'll have to take my word on that, else this post runs totally out of control).  Along the same lines, the Celtics would have preferred the Spurs over the Thunder, because those old tired bones couldn't keep up with the Heat, and the Thunder would have made it even worse.  After the semis, I plotted it pretty much like this: Celtics v. Spurs = Celtics (actually, that would be a pick 'em); Heat v. Spurs = Spurs; Celtics v. Thunder = Thunder; Heat v. Thunder = Heat (actually, I would have had that as a pick 'em as well, but obviously, I was wrong).  Point being: matchups really matter in the NBA.

But anyway, pretty much everyone I know wanted the Thunder to win this thing.  There's still a lot of ill will focused on the Heat for "The Decision", and rightfully so: it was a totally bullshit manufactured media event, and most of the participants deserve much of the ill will they have reaped . . . except, WHY HAS NOBODY EXCORIATED ESPN FOR THEIR ROLE IN AGITATING THAT WHOLE FIASCO?  EVERYONE WAS HATING THE HEAT FOR THIS MANUFACTURED MEDIA EVENT, BUT WHY IS NOBODY HATING ON THE MEDIA?  But anyway, here we are, LeBron and the Heat are a bunch of spoiled, privileged children, expecting a title ("not five, not six, not seven") practically as a right, and it just feels appropriate to hate on them.  And yeah, I feel that . . . I don't like the Heat.  No one really likes the elite kids when they get their way.  The Thunder, on the other hand, are a bunch of "good kids" who "do things the right way" and wear cute nerdy clothes and remain relatively (relatively!) humble in interviews . . . they are the good guys.


Is it really that simple?  Here comes the cognitive dissonance . . . 


In this era of the 1% v. the 99%, the Heat are (believe it or not) closer to the 99%.  It was the PLAYERS (a.k.a. the WORKERS) who dictated that team, not the owners (a.k.a. the FAT CATS).  Everyone bitches about LeBron and D (the typo) Wade and Bosh colluding to assemble this team; but when the workers get together and collude, it's called UNIONIZING.  Of course, the stakes are much different on the assembly lines and in the machine shops; but, at the core, it really is the same thing.  From the start, there was a part of me that said "I should be celebrating this . . . the workers are taking over."


On the other hand, everyone who follows the NBA is aware of the drama of Seattle.  For the uninitiated, there was once a team called the Seattle Supersonics, and, after holding the city of Seattle hostage (in the way many sports franchises do), the various big boys who owned the team moved it out of Seattle to Oklahoma City.  So, the Oklahoma City Thunder are the team of the callous 1% who don't give a shit what the riff raff (in this case, you, city of Seattle sports fan) think.


The workers v. the bosses.  A no brainer, in my house.  Or, maybe not: the wife screams profanities every time Bron is on the tube.  Score on for public relations: Bosses 1, Workers 0.


Then there's the idea that the Thunder "share" the ball more than the Heat; but seriously, I don't know where that came from . . . if Russell Westbrook wore saggy jeans, he would be vilified from coast to coast.  But, since he wears print shirts and nerd glasses . . .

. . . while I'm here, I should note that LeBron and D Wade did the nerd look before Durant and Westbrook, but it only became cute when the Thunder did it . . . but, I gotta say I don't have a problem with that, because the "gifted" kids only piss me off when they do nerd wear (terratorializing mother______s!), so we'll move on . . .

. . . anyway, there's this idea that the Thunder share the ball more than the Heat, are more into team ball, but that's not quite true.  The Thunder do share the ball more than the Heat, but that's only because they have more people to share with, since the Heat's payroll only has room for the BIG THREE, Juwan Howard, and the janitor from last year.  Seriously though, the Thunder don't share the ball any more than the Heat do: people just like who touches the ball for OKC better than they do the players who touch the ball for the Heat.  Mario Chalmers v. Thabo Sefolosha?  That's easy!

Back to the point (and yes, there was one), if you are a (left-leaning) political animal, then the Heat should appeal to you more than the Thunder, since it's essentially a series of the collective of the workers v. the nastiest owners in recent memory (and yes, I know that Miami's owners are nasty too; but really, what is the identity of the club?).  So, screw the haters, it should be POPULIST LOVE for the Heat over the Thunder, right?

Not so fast.  There is also an aesthetic level to the game, and it's here that my love for the Thunder really takes shape: Kevin Durant is simply on of the most beautiful players in the game.  He moves with fluid quickness and grace, and every shot displays not only his athleticism but also his creativity: this skinny guy isn't going to force his will on anyone . . . no, he has to CREATE for his shot.  Westbrook too is breathtaking in his quickness and unpredictability, if not as creative as his teammate.  LeBron James, on the other hand, has a tendency to hurl himself at the basket like a missile, all arms and torso and brute strength.  D Wade is missile-like as well.  For Wade and James, there is a certain brutal inevitability when they score; for Westbrook and (especially) Durant, scoring is a thing of beauty.  As impressive as raw displays of power tend to be, the beauty of the Thunder's scorers (including James Harden) can be breathtaking.


The Western Conference, on average, is a much more beautiful conference than the East.  Steve Nash is one of the most beautiful players of all time.  Ricky Rubio will be the one that steals the title from Nash, and he's feeding a pretty sweet player as well (Kevin Love).  For all the brutality of Z-bo and the younger Gasol underneath, there's a lot that's pretty about Memphis.  NO's Eric Gordon can be breathtaking in a kamakazie way.  Chris Paul can find a crack in any defense. Tony Parker as just another missile, but the Spurs's aesthetics revolve around the classicism of Tim Duncan and the avant garde of Manu Ginobili. And, of course, we have the ultimate puzzle master, Kobe Bryant.

And the East?  Well, Rajon Rondo is perhaps the most creative genius in basketball right now, but beyond that . . . the Bulls?  Ugly.  The Pacers?  Ugly.  The Sixers?  Super ugly.  Atlanta?  Who the hell knows, day to day?  The Bucks?  Scott Skiles coaches them, 'nuff said.  The Heat?  Only ever-so-slightly-less-ugly.


And here we are at the crux of the issue: the beautiful v. the just.  Who wins?  Pretty good contest, if you ask me.  At the end of the day, my choices are going to be a combination of that, along with other things: I have to be committed to a team, aesthetically or intellectually.  For the NBA and its fans, a little dissonance is a good thing.

World Peace

Grantland has a great post by Jonathan Abrams about The Malice at the Palace … essentially a collection of thoughts by several of those who were there and (more or less) directly involved with the fracas.

One of the big takeaways is that the Malice was a fairly common NBA scenario that ran totally out of control because of the unusual volatility of one of the main participants (Ron Artest, a.k.a Metta World Peace) as well as the abdication of responsibility by those who are charged with keeping the order in such situations (first and foremost the game officials, who had let the game get totally out of hand even before Artest decided to deliver his “message” to Ben Wallace).  The fact is that crowd violence is never too far out of the equation in these situations - I remember that whenever I went to watch away basketball games in high school I always had my tire iron handy under the front seat of my car - and if even one level of security broke down, then you were right on the edge of something nasty.  Something nasty, like the Malice at the Palace.

At the end of the day, if the officials had started calling technicals and kicking people out as soon as the hard fouls started, none of this would have happened.  If Mike Brown would have gotten World Peace off the court right away, none of this would have happened.  If the Palace had a sufficiently large and competent security force, none of this would have happened.  And if the Pacers would have just headed into the locker room instead of responding to the taunts of the Pistons and the fans, none of this would have happened.  At the very root of the problem is the violence on the court which, if not contained, can ignite a flame that’s not so easy to extinguish.

So here we are, 7+ years later.  Ron Artest has won a championship, publicly apologized for imploding what was clearly a championship-caliber team, gone through years of therapy, become a poster boy for facing emotional issues, and changed his name to Metta World Peace.  Jermaine O’Neal, the leader of the Pacers at the time, not only had to see his most realistic shot at a ring disappear, but had to leave a team and a city that he genuinely loved.  And the Pacers have only this season struggled back to relevance behind a team that Larry Bird had to rebuild not only to win on the court, but to regain respect off court.

It is World Peace specifically that has undergone the biggest transformation: he has gone to being as impulsive and moody as an angry 13-year-old to a man who tries his best to be a good citizen in the world (hence the name change).  Along the way, it’s clear that he lost a lot of the edge that made him perhaps the best defender of his generation, and now his refusal to march to the same drumbeats as everybody has the narrative painting him as a laughable eccentric, whereas before he was a dangerous loose cannon.  But even if he has lost his edge on the court*, it’s not too hard to see that Metta World Peace has a better life off the court.

We continually praise athletes for their ruthlessness and single-minded purpose between the lines, and then criticize them for the very same characteristics off court.  Witness Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame acceptance speech: why was anybody surprised that he is a petty and vindictive little man?  These are exactly the kind of things we praised him for as an athlete.  Why are we surprised that so many athletes, from Kobe to Brett Favre to Ben Roethlisberger and on and on and on, don’t think the rules apply to them when we continually tell them that, indeed, the rules don’t apply?  And here we have Ron Artest, a man clearly on his way to self-destruction: his demons made him a very good, albeit dangerous, basketball player.  So he plays, day in and day out, with the fuse lit on his powder keg, and we expect people like Mike Brown, Larry Bird, Rick Carlisle, Chuck Person, etc., to tamp it out after the whistle blows.  We expect him to be a demon on the court, and with the flip of a switch, be completely normal off it.  When he did blow, we excoriate him, turn him into a pariah, say that he’s exactly what’s wrong with the game. 

So our devil, our scapegoat, begins to take his life seriously.  He wants to change, he wants to be a better person.  And, he is successful, to a very large degree: he becomes less violent on court, less malevolent off court.  He raffles off his hard won championship ring for the benefit of mental health issues.  He becomes a poster boy for dealing with mental health issues.  He changes his name to Metta World Peace.  He becomes a better person.

So how do we celebrate the transformed personhood of Metta World Peace?  By making him a laughingstock.  By pointing to him as an eccentric has-been.  By making him a joke.  Don’t get me wrong: there’s a lot that’s funny about Mr. World Peace.  My wife and I continually post our favorite Ron Artest/Metta World Peace quotes on each other’s facebook walls.  But I laugh because I find him a genuinely funny and interesting guy, not because I consider him a joke**. 

The temple of sports punditry, on the other hand, has different ideas.  Ron Artest was a dangerous, out-of-control thug.  Metta World Peace is a soft-hearted, soft-headed goofball.  Artest/World Peace is not what he is, he is what he is not.

Which brings me all the way around to the source of this post, today’s Asshole of the Day***:

That’s right, Skip Bayless.  I try hard to avoid him, but every so often I get sucked in.  And I always have to pay.

So today, Bayless is discussing the need for the Lakers to retaliate against the Heat for the hard foul that D. Wade hammered Kobe with in the All Star game.  He actually said “Metta World Peace needs to change back to Metta World War” (??!!).

Yes, I know.  He was only trying to be clever (he really needs to stop trying, he never will be anything close to clever).  But essentially, he was saying that World Peace needs to revert back to his old violent self to help teach the Heat a lesson.

Let me restate that.  When Ron Artest was violent on the court back in 2004, he was a despicable human being who should have been kicked out of basketball for life.  He was everything that was wrong with the game, and people were suggesting in all seriousness that Artest and his ilk were bad people destroying sports and, by extension, our culture.  But, just this once, Skip Bayless sees a need for evil to return.  Skip Bayless is asking the very person who started the Malice at the Palace to repeat the specific action that precipitated the brawl to begin with.  And he does so with the implicit backing of the sports media as a whole … or indeed, of sports culture as a whole, since we have made very little effort to repudiate the narratives of assholes like Bayless.

And here is the secret of the Malice at the Palace, among other things: we are the problem. Not Ron Artest, not the Pistons or the Pacers or the crowd at Auburn Hills, not the officials or security or the “thug” culture of the NBA, not even Skip Bayless and the narrative of the Sports Media Empire.  No, we are the problem.

We are the problem because we participate in regressive narratives like the mainstream narratives of sport.  We are an even greater problem, because we allow these regressive narratives to stand in for our larger cultural narratives (i.e., Metta World Peace is a failure in life because his personality change makes him a less effective basketball player than he used to be).  We are the problem because these narratives that we foster poison our culture as a whole (one look at American politics tells you that).  This problem is bigger than just sports; it is a cultural problem.  And we are that problem.

We can change; we have to change.  And we can start by not succumbing to ridiculous narratives, even on things as ostensibly superficial as sports or pop culture.  Just say no to the idiots.

Break the narrative.

____________________

*  Until this year, I would not have conceded that: Phil Jackson’s role for World Peace took away much of what made him such a good player.  However, I would have guessed that reuniting with Mike Brown this year would have seen him return to old form, and it hasn’t.  It is starting to become clear that the demonic intensity of the old Ron Artest isn’t part of the new World Peace, and he is only a decent role player without that intensity.

**  If asked which professional athlete I would like to spend a day with, I wouldn’t have to think for a second: Metta World Peace is my man.  Only Rasheed Wallace - a man, incidentally, that faces some of the same public approbation as MWP - and Steve Nash even come close. 

***  Then again, I haven’t heard any Republican presidential candidates speechifyin’ today, so there’s still a chance that any one of a number of lunatics could steal this title.

2011 NBA Post Mortem

I wasn't going to write anything more about this year's NBA season, but it was so swell, I couldn't help it.  Plus, there seems to be an overload of dumbass narrative associated with the season, so it can't hurt to add some perspective outside of the 24 hour yak machine in Bristol.  And yes, I know it's really late, but that's what happens when you try to keep three blogs, two musical projects, and a 45-hour-a-week day (and night and weekend) job.

• The Mavs didn't win the title, the Heat lost it.  Bullshit.  First of all, that's a silly cliche on the surface of it: the Mavs won the title, the Heat lost it.  BOTH THINGS HAPPENED.  But seriously, too many people are characterizing this as a series the Heat gave away, which is ridiculous.  In spite of the individual basketball awesomeness of LeBron, Wade, and Bosh, the ingredients weren't there for a good basketball team, at least not immediately, and not without some real work and sacrifice on everybody's part.  This is a point that has been heavily discussed (both here and elsewhere), and yet so many still seem to be missing the point.  The Heat may have had the better individuals, but the Mavs had the better team.  That doesn't mean that the Heat will never be a good team - as a matter of fact, they made some pretty serious strides in the playoffs - it just means that the best players don't always make the best team, at least not right out of the box.
• "Scoring the ball".  I just have an image of some guy in carpenter's overalls whipping out an old-school pocket knife and cutting the surface of the basketball.  Is there any way we could just lose this hideous phrase?  Didn't think so.
• LeBron isn't clutch; LeBron needs to become a killer, like Kobe Bryant.  Let's deal with that last one first, because I have said that myself before: when the game's on the line, who would you rather have the ball, Kobe or LeBron?  To the NBA fan, the answer would seem obvious, but it's not.  Of all the players who took part in this year's playoffs, who would you hand the ball to?  Kobe?  Not so fast - according to stats compiled by True Hoop's Henry Abbott, the first guy you would give the ball to is Carmelo Anthony.  No surprise there, the guy is probably the most lethal scorer in basketball, and that includes Kobe.  So, okay, Kobe's next, right?  Nope . . . how about Chris Paul, Shawn Marion (?!), Brandon Roy (no surprise there), Hedo Turkoglu (okay, leave him out after the brain farts he let out this year), and Mike Bibby (??!!)?  If you say to me "Dirk Nowitzki", I say "no duh" after what he did this year, but this list was compiled before his coming out party.  Then, how about Tim Duncan, Eddie Jones, and Raymond Felton?  And next we have . . . LeBron James?  Yup, the much-maligned King James is ahead of Kobe on this list, as is Ray Allen and Gilbert "Hibachi" Arenas.  As a matter of fact, Kobe is only about 1.5 points better than the league average at clutch time, and just over 15 points short of Carmelo . . . so, don't believe everything you think you know.  While LeBron did have a pretty serious drop off during the playoffs this year, I think it has to do with a lot more that "not being clutch", some of which we'll get into below.
• LeBron James needs to work with a sports psychologist to cure his crunch-time woes.  Jesus Christ.  LeBron doesn't need a sports psychologist, he needs a midrange and post up game.
• LeBron James needs to work with a sports psychologist to cure his crunch-time woes.  The writer and editor in me wants to leave the pithy response above by itself, but this was seriously suggested by more than a few talking sports heads (the emptiest of all heads), so a longer response seems warranted.  First of all, I think we really need to see that LeBron is not really that bad in the clutch, as noted above.  And if he does tend to disappear, which he does sometimes, I think it has less to do with him than with his coaches.  When he was with Cleveland, there was no question he was the man, and I think he did a much better job as a closer.  But this year with Miami, having to share the court with another "legendary closer" (D. Wade), his role is much less clearly defined.  I think it's this indecisiveness that showed this year, not some sort of mental block, or "yips".  Better coaching will lead to more clearly defined roles which will lead to more decisive action in crunch time.
• In spite of having a rough series, LeBron is still the best player in basketball.  This one's hotly debated. I think that LeBron is potentially the best player in basketball, but right now I don't see him in the top five.  Most of it, in my mind at least, has to do with the lack of a midrange and post-up game mentioned above.  Nobody in the world can shut down LBJ one-on-one, but basketball, being a team game, means you don't have to.  Right now, all you have to do is pack your defense down around the paint to keep Wade and James away from the basket, making sure most of all to always have someone in front of James, and you have a real chance at beating the Heat.  There are three-point shooters on the Heat (Miller, House, Jones, occasionally Chalmers), so that's not the problem . . . besides, you can steal a game or two with the three, but you won't win a series.  And James, for his part, is either driving in or tossing up a three; you stop him somewhere in the middle, and he's not scoring.  Look at Carmelo or Durant: is there anywhere on the floor where they don't score?  Or Dirk: not the most graceful or convincing drive in the league, but it doesn't have to be pretty to be effective; and right now, that fade-away jumper of his is among the most unstoppable scoring shots I've seen since Kareem's sky hook.  The thing about LeBron is this: you can tell he's never really had to work on his game that hard.  Unlike MJ, he wasn't cut by his freshman team.  Unlike Bird, he could get by on his lightning reflexes, so he doesn't have to anticipate, he doesn't have to play the game two steps ahead of everybody else.  Unlike any given little guy (say, Juan Jose Berea or, even better, Alan Iverson), he can count on his bulk and athleticism to get to the basket, so he didn't have to develop any kind of subterfuge to help him out.  LeBron, being almost superhuman, always had that to fall back on.  Problem is, once you get to the upper echelons of the game, there is always someone only slightly less superhuman than you ready to put out the extra effort to shut you down just when you need that basket the most.  This, to me, is James's problem, and also the reason why this year's playoffs could turn him into the best player in the game. I have no doubt about his willingness to work, and his humility shouldn't be a question after this year's comeuppance; but now he needs some guidance, and he needs to show that he can improve his game, both mentally and physically.
• LeBron is not living up to expectations.  First of all, he's still relatively young.  Secondly, I think that his ceiling is higher than any ceiling we've ever seen in the league, and indeed, he is already a very good player, but there seems to be a lot about the game that he has yet to understand.  We see him as a physical specimen, not a basketball player, and when the elite physical specimen is considered as a not-always-elite basketball player, we are disappointed.  At a certain point, we just have to admit that LeBron is not quite that good . . . yet.
• The Mavericks had a good run this year, but next year they still have to be considered longshots.  Really?  You're still going to bet against the Mavs?  I'll admit that, with the rise of the young teams in the West (the Thunder, and now the Grizzlies too), the whole playoff picture is getting murky.  And if someone can step in and fix the Heat's offense, they have to be considered favorites.  But, this win by the Mavs was not a fluke.  They will be back in the picture, and I would count on them as much as I counted on the Lakers last summer.  But of course, all bets are off until the new CBA gets inked, and that is turning into a very sticky problem.

Everyone, even the Heat's biggest critics, still have them winning a ring or three in the upcoming years, and I think that's about right, given the current state of the game.  We can't, however, count on the current state of the game.  Too many franchises are currently loosing money, and unless things are turned around, there will be a contraction in the league.  Plus, I don't really see the owners looking past the sort of free-agent team building exercises that the Heat indulged in this year . . . though, if they did, that would probably be the biggest threat to a Heat dynasty (if Chris Paul ends up in New York or LA, all bets are off).

Meanwhile, the small market teams are in danger.  Oklahoma City caught lightning in a bottle (or rather, Seattle did, then promptly lost the team), but they will only last as long as they can hold on to those young contracts.  Indiana, the one ABA franchise that made money, has been struggling since the Malice at the Palace, and even though they had a strong finish to this year and a bunch of money to spend next year, they still hold out little hope of getting the players that will make them a real threat for the title.  Even the Mavericks are losing money, though only as much as Mark Cuban is willing to lose.

The next CBA will determine the future of the sport.  Here's hoping that one of the best NBA seasons that I can remember will help get everybody on the same page and pulling in the same direction.  This isn't the same as football, where the players are on the short end of the stick and there is a ton of money to be spread around, if only nobody gets too greedy.  Basketball needs both the owners and the players to team up and decide how this game can be run without bankrupting many of the people who put their fortunes on the line for our entertainment, and yet still not holding down the people who actually make this money for the owners. It's going to be a tough fall.

LeBron James as Unwilling Darth Vader, and Other Tales Ending in June; plus, In Rotation

Welcome to June, where here at the homestead, we are wondering if the Tigers can stay close enough to the Indians to benefit from the inevitable Cleveland jinx, and if the ascendancy of the Royals and the Indians actually means a new day in the AL Central.  Well, okay, we don't really spend much time thinking of that at all.  We just hope the Tigers can stabilize their bullpen before August.

It's been a lovely NBA season, truly one of the most satisfying sports seasons in recent memory.  We'll get to that in a minute; but first, a playlist:

In Rotation

Tyler the Creator: Goblin
Death Grips: Exmilitary
Dimitry Shostakovich: Symphony 14
Flipper: Generic and Gone Fishin'
The Germs: GI
The Fall: Dragnet
The Rolling Stones: Between the Buttons
The Flesheaters:  Miss Muerta
Davie Allen and the Arrows: Bullseye
Glenn Gould: Brahms - Ballades, Rhapsodies, Intermezzi
Husker Du: Land Speed Record
Various: Hula Blues - Vintage Steel Guitar
Thurston Moore: Demolished Thoughts
Six Organs of Admittance: Asleep on the Floodplain
OWFGKTA: Radical
Big K.R.I.T.: Return of 4eva
Ornette Coleman: New York is Now
John Coltrane: A Love Supreme (Live)
Autechre: Confield

and from the Indiana Musical Family Tree Archives: Sick City 4, DeAndre Film Student, Dr. Ray, Bateu Futur, Mine., and a few more.

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This sure has been an all-round fun NBA season.  The story lines were all over: the final demise of the Phil Jackson Lakers, followed by the unlikely announcement of the next-generation Lakers under ex-Cavs coach (and perceived, though perhaps unfairly so, LeBron victim) Mike Brown.  The Sixers and my Pacers show plenty of guts in losing causes in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.  The Pacers, in particular, impressed everybody as a pretty well made car that's just missing an engine (Charles Barkely: "You know, you take LeBron off those Cavaliers teams he was on, and put him on this team, and I think you see a different result in the finals.").

We also saw the re-invention (on the fly, I might add) of the Spurs, put to an untimely end by the rise of the Memphis Grizzlies.  The Hornets, after giving the Lakers fits in their series, wonder if there is any way they are going to be able to hold on to Chris Paul . . . who, by the way, returned to his old form in a way that many of us didn't think was likely, or even possible.  The perennially snake-bit Trailblazers, while pondering their own future, managed to give the Mavericks their only really competitive series before the finals.  The Celtics look too old, the Thunder still too young, and we still wonder if the Grizzlies were a mirage, or if they are for real.  And the only team that truly looked like chumps were the New York Knicks . . . so much for the dangerous Amare/Carmelo combo.

Derrick Rose was able to win one series almost singlehandedly, but not another.  Kobe looked more and more human, though still dangerous.  Garnett looked lost. Chris Paul looked around and saw young "pass first" PGs like Rajon Rondo and Mike Conley stepping up & decided he'd better do the same or risk becoming irrelevant.   Carlos Boozer emerged as the most over-rated player, Marc Gasol as the most under-rated.

And then, the finals.  Miami, who effectively transformed themselves from a likable blue-collar grind-it-out team to villains over the summer, got it together during the playoffs to actually become the team they are on paper.  There is the suggestion that "The Decision", far from being the mistake that everybody including LeBron thought it was, was actually part of Pat Riley's master plan to raise the stakes and form a crucible that would forge the Heat into the great team Riles thinks they are.  Dallas, on the other hand, played steadily and confidently throughout the season only to completely blow up in the first three rounds of the playoffs . . . to the degree that people are mentioning Larry Bird and Dirk Novitzky in the same sentence, and even Bird doesn't have a problem with it.

LeBron's marriage to the Heat has been great for basketball, even if it has been rough on his public image.  The NBA needs bad guys and, unlike the Knicks of the 90's, it needs bad guys with rings.  

So now here we are, with a real good guys v. bad guys final on our hands.  Great end to a great season.

And then, the lockout starts.

Playoffs?!

Well, it's been an ugly season . . . how ugly, you ask?

Just about that ugly.  But then, no one said that basketball is a pretty sport.  Well, actually someone did, maybe even a lot of people, but they weren't talking about Tyler Hansbrough.  That's okay though, because sometimes ugly gets the job done.  And this year, in spite of all the ugly, the Pacers are in the playoffs.  And, really, that's all we wanted, right?

Three teams in the Western Conference will miss the playoffs with better records than the Pacers.  Of those three, two of them (Houston and Phoenix) would have to be considered favorites in a series against the Pacers.  The third (Utah) essentially imploded halfway through the year when they lost HoF coach Jerry Sloan and traded away perhaps the best young point guard in the league (Deron Williams).  The Pacers could probably handle them right now, but it is worth noting that the Jazz stole one from the Lakers the other night.

They rally to play well against the good teams, occasionally even stealing a win or two, then turn around and play the dregs of the league like just another lottery hound.  They started out the year as a legitimate defensive team, then clinch the playoffs by scoring 136 points while shooting almost 60% from the floor . . . all while giving up 112 to the lowly Wizards (at home, even!).  So much for defense.

New coach Frank Vogel stands at 19 - 16, which is good enough for a solid handshake and a pat on the back, but probably not enough to keep him in the seat next year.  I'm sure the front office will do what they can to keep him around, but not so sure that what they will do includes naming him head coach.

As for the rest of the team, everyone is valuable (in their own way), but everyone is expendable.  They are a team of good role players without a leader.  Someday, Danny Granger will be the best third scoring option in the league.  Right now, he's a shaky first option.  Roy Hibbert is a potential force in the pivot just looking for the confidence that will smooth out and reinforce his game.  Hansbrough's coming on while McRoberts is fading . . . except on the nights where Hansbrough's fading and McRoberts is rising.  And Collison looks for all the world like a young point still learning the game, which he is.  The big question is if he ever will learn it, and that answer is not clear.

But, forget all that.  The team plays hard, even when they are at their most confused.  They give us some amazing stretches of basketball, even if they almost never put together a whole game.  They are a bunch of good kids who are really easy to root for.

Forget the record - they're in the playoffs.  Screw all the whining about lowered expectations: steal a game or two from the Bulls and we'll call this season a big success.

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I wish Gordon Hayward would have stayed in college and helped Butler last night instead of kicking our butt. -- Phil Jackson, after the Lakers lost to the Jazz 86 - 84 behind Hayward's 22 points.

Oh, my Bulldogs sure missed young Mr. Hayward Monday night.  And after a rough rookie season (though expectedly so), he broke out with a series of double figure scoring games to close out the year, capped by this game, where, matched up against Kobe for most of the evening, he managed to outscore him by a bucket.

Which led to another splendid example of Kobespeak.  From J. A. Adande's True Hoop column:

Bryant said he was “very, very fond” of Hayward. 
“He’s a very skilled, all-around player," Bryant said. "I think he’s going to have a very bright future in this league. He reminds me of a more talented Jeff Hornacek. Jeff couldn’t put the ball on the floor as well as he can.” 

Which we shall now translate with our patented Kobespeak Translator:

Nice game, rook.  You remind me of another guy who had a cup of coffee in the league . . . now what was his name?  If you're still around when the Jazz play us again . . . which, I'd like to point out, won't be in the playoffs, 'cause you jagoffs didn't even make it . . . then I'm a gonna rip your throat out.  If I even remember to be pissed at you.  Wait, who am I kidding?  I'll rip your throat out even if I don't remember to be pissed.  'Cause that's who I am.  Kobe fucking Bryant.  And, just who are you again?  By the way: you're white.

I Would Like to Humbly Point Out . . .

. . . that later today, the Butler Bulldogs will be playing for the national championship.  I came up with something I called the "Butler Theorem" a couple years ago, and I caught a little bit of flack for it back then.  Please allow me to gloat.

Second championship game in two years?  Maybe even a national championship?  Can I get a witness?

A Pacers Update . . . and It's Not Good

It been fun "reading" Kobe Bryant lately - he has become such a master of saying things without saying things.  For instance, when Jerry West called his Lakers "old" and critiqued their defense, implying that it wasn't getting any better, Kobe's measured response described how the Lakers had a complex team defense in which each player depended on the other, but not before he quietly declaimed "We're ranked like, what, third in the league in defense?".  Translated: "Shut the fuck up, old man, and just do your job.  We're doing ours."

Similarly, when asked if the Pacers were a playoff team after they came into the Staples Center and punched the champs in the mouth back on November 28, Bryant replied "Definitely."  Translated: "Okay, now you have my attention.  I will not overlook you again.  Enjoy your moment in the sun, and look forward to the life of bitter pain you will be living for the foreseeable future."  Indeed, a mere two-and-a-half weeks later, the Lakers came to Conseco and returned the favor 109-94.

And now, we are staring at a 5-15 record over the last twenty games.  Not good.

Back in November, not long after my first Pacers post, the Pacers had beaten the Lakers and the Heat and had given OKC all they could handle.  Only the Jazz (during their hot streak) kicked the Pacers to the curb like the old days.  There was speculation that Indy had turned a corner anchored by the surprising rise of Roy Hibbert.  Now, all that is gone.  Hibbert has disappeared, the team is once again in disarray.  Is this the same old Pacers, too crappy to make the playoffs, not quite crappy enough to climb up to the top of the draft lottery?

The main problem, as alluded to above, is that other teams started to take notice of Hibbert and the Pacers, and both shriveled in the heat of the spotlight.  The Pacers-as-spunky-underdogs could hang with teams who were taking it easy (the Pacers representing the next best thing to a break in their schedule) and maybe steal one at the end.  If they didn't, "well, at least they played them close".  But when they took out the Lakers and the Heat early on, and generally started to look like a team that was on the verge of getting it together, teams stopped taking the night off.  And, lo and behold, the Pacers can't step up and trade punches with good teams that are now paying attention . . . so, back to the bottom of the pack the P drift.

And then, there's Jim O'Brien's odd rotation (discussed with insight and detail, as always, at 8 Points 9 Seconds): with the exception of Danny Granger and Darren Collison, no one knows what his role on the team is supposed to be.  It gets tough to prepare, mentally and otherwise, if you have no idea what you are preparing for.

O'Brien's excuse for the inconsistent rotation is simple: if the guy gets it, he plays.  If he doesn't, he sits.  There is a certain Darwinian logic to that, I suppose, but on a young team short on talent it's not the kind of atmosphere that breeds confidence . . . in fact, I think it's becoming clear that, as much as no longer being taken lightly by opponents, the P's recent issues stem from a crisis of confidence.

So, what do you do?  O'Brien's methods are obviously counterproductive over the short run, and if things don't stabilize soon, then the Pacers can kiss the playoffs goodbye yet again.  The logical course would be to just pick a rotation and ride it as far as it can take you - which, we all know, won't be any further than the first round of the playoffs at the absolute maximum - or just trash one more year auditioning players for next year's big money makeover.  The problem is, trashing yet another year is not an option; it seems that O'Brien best have his rotation set within the next couple weeks at the latest.  Will that actually happen?  I'm afraid it doesn't look likely.

The Pacers are a small-market team horribly devoid of talent.  The reason they are in this place is that they gambled and lost back in the early aughts, and it is only in this off-season that they will finally be out from under the onus of that gamble.  I still harbor a small hope that there are enough spare parts to build a top notch team around one big-time free agent acquisition, but that in itself becomes a problem: what elite player can you get that, all other things being equal (money, championship opportunity, etc.), would actually choose to live in Indianapolis as opposed to, say, Chicago, South Beach, New York, LA, Boston, or even Denver, Portland, New Orleans, or Charlotte?  The Pacers need one really big-time baller on the level of the LBJ's and D Wades and Kobes of the world.  A Howard, D Will, Stoudemire, Durant, Anthony, Griffin or someone of that ilk is what is needed . . . and yes, the Heat aside, I think that one big-time player is all that is needed, because Granger could be back at his all-star level if he is no longer the number one option for the team (as I said before: great as Robin, not so hot as Batman).

But, until then, the Pacers need to improve enough to at least see the path to a championship, even if the free agent market ultimately doesn't pay off for them.  At this point, the Pacers remain so far down they can't see up.  The blue sky has just clouded over.

That'll teach me to write about basketball before Christmas.