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.

Shut Up and Show Me the Ring(s)

In amongst all the LeBron mania, it's easy to look past what the Lakers have been doing this summer. They tried hard to get Raja Bell, but ultimately failed. They re-signed Derek Fisher, who, in spite of his limitations, is money in the playoffs. They signed Steve Blake, a good half-court quarterback, to back up Derek Fisher. And now, they've added Matt Barnes.

Sure, not as sexy as Bron-Bron and Wade and Bosh (or even Mike Miller), but I like the method to this madness. Think about it: when the Lakers titled in 2009, they knew that they couldn't stand still, so what did they do? They added Ron Artest who, even at his worst, is going to cause problems for the opponent's 2 or 3, and sometimes even the 1 and 4. Turns out that the mercurial Artest was just enough to push the Lakers over the top for 2010.

Unlike LeBron, who decided he was going to use his influence to put together a fun-time he-man's club with all his friends, Kobe decided to go after the players that pissed him off the most (on the court, at least) - last year Artest, this year Bell and Barnes. Kobe figures that if a player is annoying (and good) enough to get under his skin, then he can do the job against anybody. LeBron, Wade, and Bosh are big kids, Kobe is an assassin.

When you're champions, you don't rebuild, you tune up. What the Lakers have done is to make the NBA's best team even better. Right now, they can go with lineup of Fisher, Bryant, Artest, Gasol, and Bynum, and then sit them all down and run out a lineup of Blake, Vujacic, Odom, Barnes, and Theo Ratliff. Now, that second platoon in and of itself isn't going to scare anybody, but mix it up a bit, get a scorer on the court (maybe leave Gasol out on the court as a pivot with the second unit, put Odom out with the first unit and use Bynum in the middle), and with the exception of Bryant, there's not a hell of a lot of drop off.

The other thing that bothers me about the whole LeBron thing is that, in basketball, a team is never the sum of its parts. Both LeBron and Wade need the ball to be effective, and last time I checked, there's only one ball on the court when the whistle blows. Now, I take all of the Miami Three at their word when they say they will check their egos at the door, but that's not the same as meshing together as a team. Bosh won't be a problem, since he can get a fair amount of action cleaning up underneath. If I'm the point distributing the ball at crunch time, I'm looking for Wade first, LeBron second. As a matter of fact, force of nature though LeBron may be, Wade is easily the better offensive player. The question is this: will LeBron step aside to become the second option on the offensive end? Can he be a role player? More to the point, willing or not, does he even know how to be a role player? It's not like he's ever had to before.

From the beginning, I thought James and Bosh made sense. Or Wade and Bosh. Or James and Stoudemire. Or Wade and Stoudemire . . . well, you're starting to get the idea. Think of a modular basketball team: players have roles defined to varying degrees, but if two players with similar tendencies trying to do the same things are on the floor at the same time, then they're going to get into each other's way. And, as referred to earlier, scorers (as opposed to pure shooters) need the ball to score, and there's only one ball on the court. Both James and Wade make their living the same way: ball in their hands on the wing, creating, moving in to the rack and finishing, or dumping off to the big (Bosh, in this case), or kicking it back to an open shooter on the wing. Who's going to be the creator? Neither Wade or James is going to be the shooter on the wing. James could be one of the orbiting bigs, but Bosh has to be the main offensive focus underneath. There is no clearly defined role on offense for James. It would seem to me to be best if he became an offensive opportunist, maybe a pick and roll guy a la Karl Malone (with Bosh as the low post back-to-the-basket guy).

Whatever . . . they may be able to make this work, but it won't be easy, and at least one player is going to have to move far out of his comfort zone, and ego or no, that will be difficult. It is much easier with clearly defined modular roles, like maybe a slasher and an inside scorer . . . like Bryant and Gasol. The Lakers have a clear blueprint with two top notch scorers, and it is demonstrably hard to kick them off the track. There's not only one solution to the problem, or even a best solution, but the Lakers' solution is clearly effective.

As US National coach Mike Kryzewski has pointed out, one place where Miami will be immediately dominant is on defense. This will give them time to figure out the offense, and ultimately be the key that opens the door to a championship for them. Ironically, if Miami does win it all this year, it will most likely be in an ugly, Detroit Pistons-style championship team, not the super flashy Dream Team-style team. If you remember, the most recent superstar trio (the Celtics' Pierce, Allen, and Garnett), was also a defensive grind-it-out unit in spite of the offensive talents of all three.

But until the confetti falls, don't talk, show me the rings. Kobe has them, LeBron doesn't. Right now, if forced to bet, my money's still on the Lakers.

* * * * *

Don't take this to mean I'm down on LeBron for his free agent soap opera. While the whole TV special was appalling, and while I value a certain hometown fidelity, I am glad to see a player in control instead of the owners for a change.

But I've never been a Miami fan, and now I want them to loose every game. And I'm pissed at them for turning me into a Lakers fan again, no matter how marginally.