One of those rare deals that works out for everyone involved. The Nuggets solidify their rotation with a reliable point guard, and the Pistons get a ton of cap room. Billups will be a much better fit for a George Karl team, and a much better influence on a locker room that doesn't understand how to play defense or win. They've significantly downgraded their talent level, but we'll see how little that matters when they win more games and make more noise in the postseason ... um, assuming Nene stays healthy and fills in Camby's role adequately. As for the Pistons, they need to get younger, and it was obvious that they've been wanting to make room for Stuckey. They also need to grab a superstar to build the next generation of their team around, and this cap space will let them grab, if not LeBron (who has bigger markets in mind), then Wade, or Bosh, or Stoudamire, or any one of the other stars who'll be part of that impressive free agent class. Joe Dumars is a very smart man.
Oh, and Allen Iverson was part of the deal too.
Yep, Allen Iverson is an after-thought. He's an expiring contract. Dumars has no intention of re-signing him, I promise you. Will he help the team? Maybe. He *might* shake up the offense and make them more dangerous. But will they be a bigger threat to win a championship? I really doubt it. Their defense is worse, their shooting percentage is worse, their leadership is worse, and they're older. They've become a worse team. For one year.
WE WANT STEPH
We need to post social workers in Madison Square Garden. They'll wait until people start chanting for Steph, hunt them down, ask them whether or not they understand what 'irony' is, and if they say 'no', the social workers will guide them by the arm out of the stadium and into a short bus, and drive to a home for educationally challenged adults.
Holy f-ing God of all that is good and holy. Does anyone actually understand what's going on with this guy? His teammates *do not* want him on that team. He's a *terrible* fit for D'antoni's offense. He's never won a thing in his life. He's old. He's dumb. And he takes advantage of interns. He should not be on this team for one more second.
I'm not terribly surprised that there are people this dumb who're still giving the Knicks their patronage. But it's *shocking* that Donnie Walsh refuses to cut him loose. Does this make any sense? Doesn't this have to be James Dolan pulling the strings? D'Antoni is a really smart guy. Let him have his way.
Monta Ellis
A lot of threats flying around in a situation that is far more complicated than I first thought. According to this story:
So I won't cast judgment on Monta's discipline, or his reaction. But I will say this: just waive him!
Come on, Warriors, get on the bandwagon! The NBA is catching up to the fact that undersized ball-hogs are poisonous! You don't want this guy! You paid him too much, and you now have a chance to jump ship. Don't hitch your future to this dope.
After the 2000 class, this list looks like a veritable Hall-of-Fame, despite the fact that #1 is Kwame Brown.
(This was a much harder draft to analyze, and I end up compensating for that fact by using too many words, feel free to skip to the bottom, that's the important stuff)
1. Wizards - Kwame Brown -- What can I say? Hind-sight is 20-20, so I'm not gonna lambast the Wizards for a terrible move, because we don't really *know* if it was a terrible move. Some guys just don't translate well. I never saw Brown play before he got drafted, and I never had an opinion on him. I saw LBJ in high school and *knew* he was going to be a beast, but Kwame? Maybe he could've been great ... but the transition from dominating smaller guys to then getting yelled at by Michael Jordan was too much for him to handle and he broke down. But the Wiz got Caron Butler for him, so who's complaining ...
2. Bulls - Tyson Chandler -- Okay, I don't think people appreciate this guy's career arc. This is an excerpt from nbadraft.net's original analysis: "Initially, at just 225 pounds and an underdeveloped body, he will be forced to play away from the basket". Chandler was a stick, the kind of guy I hate, but after everyone realized that he had no offensive game (which is completely typical of these thin athletic prodigies), he decided to buckle down and, perhaps with the help of some excellent coaches, developed into a great defensive center. I don't remember what I thought about Chandler, but I was probably wrong. He's an example of what thin dudes *need* to do with their careers (actually, this applies to all prospects): don't listen to the hype, and learn how to defend like a mad-man, because if your offensive game doesn't develop you'll need something to fall back on, and you'll need to fall back on that something *quick* if you don't want to find yourself in the NBDL.
3. Grizzlies - Pau Gasol -- Here was the main difference between Gasol and Chandler at the time: Chandler had the athleticism to compensate for his lack of refinement. Tyson became a great defender, Gasol didn't ... but his offensive game adapted to the NBA very quickly, so he didn't have to become a great defender, and now he's found himself on a great team that can compensate for his defensive shortcomings (though I think that's one of the reasons that the Lakers won't win it all, but that's another subject). Could be qualified as an excellent pick, but Gasol was *never* going to be the best player on a Championship team, that became clear after he lost his 238th straight playoff game. We are seeing right now that his only chance is as a 2nd option. I'd rather have Chandler.
4. Bulls - Eddy Curry -- A big, giant, talented center, exactly the kind of guy you want to draft in the hopes that he develops into a Title-Chomping-Carrying-Team-On-Shoulder-Beast. He didn't. Those fears about his laziness (which always existed) turned out to be correct. But I have no problem with the Bulls taking the risk. We give credit to guys (like Ainge this past offseason) for taking risks *when they work*. Sometimes they don't, that's what gambling's all about.
5. Warriors - Jason Richardson -- Anyone think that Jason Richardson is a superstar? Anyone? Hello? I know there are fans out there who love this guy, but he just doesn't have "it". He's been surrounded by talent, at times, but I've seen no evidence whatsoever that he can provide his team with wins. On his best team (last year's Warriors), he was statistically prevalent, but he was *so quiet*. Did you even notice him in those playoff games? Davis, Barnes, Jackson ... those guys had presence, you just knew that *they* were the reason that team beat the Mavericks. Richardson is just ... a guy ... who's good at tabulating statistics. He's a role-player, but because of his numbers we convince ourselves that he's more important than he actually is. All that said, he was a big, talented 2, and there's nothing wrong with the pick.
6. Grizzlies - Shane Battier -- Alright. I have one clear memory of this draft: my unwavering man-love for Shane Battier. I hated Duke, but I loved Battier, and I wanted the Sonics to trade up to get him. Was I being dumb? Yes. But I still love Battier. He's a terrific defender and teammate, and an ideal role-player to fill out a roster. He got drafted this high because of all the media saturation around Duke at the time, he should've gone in the middle of the 1st round, where he would've been exactly what people thought he was going to be, and some team would've been very happy.
7. Nets - Eddie Griffin -- Uh ... can I say anything about him? I already feel dirty about it, even though he was a lazy creep ... oh well. He's this draft's best example of what's wrong with NBA talent evaluation. In college he was an athletic blocking machine ... then, in the NBA, like so many 6'9" post players, he became ... some guy with an undeveloped body, no offensive game, a terrible attitude, and coaches who couldn't develop him properly because their bosses wanted him to be a jersey-selling All-Star.
8. Cavaliers - DeSagana Diop -- A poor man's Tyson Chandler. I've got no problem with this pick, and I'm happy that Diop has resigned himself to his modest career.
9. Pistons - Rodney White -- Wow. Remember when the Pistons didn't know how to run a basketball team?
10. Celtics - Joe Johnson -- I think he's pretty much the same guy as Jason Richardson. I know that most of you disagree vehemently with both of those diagnoses; but the Hawks have a lot of talent, and the East stinks ... if you stuck Kobe Bryant on that team, wouldn't they be much better than a 1st-round sacrificial lamb? Joe Johnson never fit one of my bust-profiles; he's just one of those guys who knows how to accrue numbers, not win. But even if the Celtics *knew* that going in, this still wouldn't've been a terrible pick.
Okay, this draft turned up a few more themes than I expected. Diop and Chandler are both part-and-parcel. Did either deserve their lofty position in this draft? Probably not, but wouldn't you rather have them on your team than some wing who has no discernible ability to carry a team? That brings me to Johnson and Richardson, and perhaps Gasol to a lesser extent. I've made some of my thoughts clear on these two, but I think I need to crystallize this point (I've written about this before, but never with such an excellent empirical lead-in):
Statistics are not only overrated, they can be poisonous to personnel management. In Johnson and Richardson we have two guys who have shown zero predilection to be leaders of winning teams, but they're *excellent* at accumulating impressive statistics, so we reflexively believe that they're All-Stars, or even potential Superstars who are *right on the cusp* of breaking through. But they aren't. They're just 'guys'. They score points, yes, but those points could be scored by *that white sniper on the bench*, or by *that all-purpose 3 who starts because he's got a high basketball IQ*. But because ~20 of a team's points happen to be scored by a single man, we decide that he's better than everyone, and he's a leader, and he deserves ungodly amounts of money, and we just need to 'put the right pieces around him' to build a contender.
Am I attacking the Warriors and the Celtics for these picks in the 2001 Draft? No. I'm speaking about a greater problem. When a team places undue responsibility on the shoulders of a player who is not as good as his statistics indicate, they are destroying their team's chances of competing. We have to change our paradigm. We have to be able to realize that a 20+PPG scorer can be *just a role-player*.
You want a good recent example? Kevin Durant. He's going to score 25 PPG for the rest of his career, every team he's on will believe that he's their best player, and he'll never win a darn thing. Don't believe me? Let's talk in 15 years.
The Pistons are done. I recently composed a list which had the Pistons on par with the Mavericks in terms of championship contention in 2007. Forget that! The Bulls have instantaneously leap-frogged them. The Pistons are now about on par with the Clippers ... or maybe the Pacers would be a more accurate comparison, since I have no idea what either of them will be like next year. By the way, if Tyson Chandler can get his act together, that's one HELL of an interior defense. If they did something like packaging Ben Gordon and Luol Deng for Ron Artest (not saying it's even possible, just throwing some spaghetti at the wall), shoring up their perimeter defense, the Bulls would be terrifying.
The All-Star Game
If I cared about baseball, I'd be incredibly pissed off about the All-Star rosters. I hate the fans. I'm almost legitimately surprised that Grant Hill didn't get voted in. Though, they didn't vote in Bonds, that's the only thing I really care about.
I Love These Guys Running the Tour de France ...
They banned the top four dudes just because they were under su####ion for doping? AWESOME! I am, like, SO totally jealous! Can these guys pull off a hostile takeover of the MLB? There's got to be more evidence condemning Bonds than those four bikers combined, right? Get your #### in gear, Selig! Those frogs are showing you up!
The Mavericks were the better team. They're more athletic, deeper, better-coached, they play harder, better defensively, they have a better owner, and MUCH better chemistry. But they lost, because, as I've stated before, the NBA is about superstars. The Heat had Wade and Shaq. The Mavericks only have Nowitzki (who I'll get to in a minute), who isn't as good as Wade or as impactful as Shaq.
I won't Gloat about my Pick
I actually picked the Heat to win this title two years ago, and again after the conference finals. But I won't take credit for it, because I already admitted that I thought I was wrong about the pick after game 3, and because of the officiating controversy (which I don't have an opinion about, I'm just leaving the possibility open...).
We can now agree about Nowitzki
After his 50-point game, everyone and their illegitimate child proclaimed with glee that 'THIS IS THE BEST PLAYER IN THE GAME'! Except for me, I was wrinkling my nose while sheepishly asking: 'Really? One good game on a great team makes a jump-shooter the best player in the game?' Well, time has passed, Dirk has come back down to Earth, and everyone has backed down from their ridiculous assertions. In two weeks Dirk has returned to his proper place: a very good all-star who isn't capable of carrying a team on his back to a title. Wade put Dirk in his place with a worse team behind him, that's all you need to know.
Anyone else feel terribly for Stan Van Gundy?
I was going to just call this a 'coup', but then I thought, why not make an analogy? Yippee! (I apologize if this is too literary, I'm in the mood to reference the Iliad, though this analogy doesn't stick to that storyline)
Agamemnon goes to war against Troy with an army led by a cadre of badasses in Achilles, Diomedes, Odysseus, etc. They're on the cusp of victory, but then Zeus, in his obtuse machinations, flings lightning bolts at the kneecaps of all of Agamemnon's heroes, crippling all of them! The Trojans, led by Hector (the Michael Jordan of the actual literary war) beats Agamemnon's crew back to their boats, nearly annihilating them. But then, just as Achilles and the boys recover from their injuries, Menelaos stabs Agamemnon in the back and takes over! Achilles, with divine help, kills Hector, and they run rampant over the Trojans and win the war. Menelaos re-bags his wife Helen and is hailed as a hero. Paris even joins the two in bed for a twisted bigamist orgy.
Alright, that was awful. But everyone knows what happened, Stan was robbed.
The Future
Who wins next year? It's very interesting. I don't think that the Heat can do it again, Shaq's declining too quickly, and that chemistry isn't going to be improving anytime soon (if it did, Wade *could* lead a team that talented to a championship without Shaq, but I doubt this will happen). So who's in the running? My pick has to be the Spurs, but here's a breakdown of the levels of probability:
1 - The Spurs. Only team with a dominant post-player in his prime.
1a - Wait for it .... the .... MAGIC. Yes, Orlando. Only because of Dwight Howard. But this hinges on a number of variables. What kind of offseason will they have? Will Dwight Howard continue to push this notion of being a clone of Kevin Garnett (which would be a disaster)? It's uncertain, but Howard is looking like the only current player who could potentially join the pantheon of Shaq/Duncan/Olajuwon/Jordan/etc.<br>And the Heat, they're still a possibility. A touch more probable than the following two...
2 - The Mavericks and the Pistons. Two very good teams who are dependent on others to win a title. 'Dependent' in that they need a little bad luck to happen to their superstar-led opponents.
If none of the first three teams win it, I'll be surprised. If none of these *five* teams win, I might spontaneously combust.
People have been responding to my Pistons-related posts as if I've been calling them a terrible team. There's a HUGE difference between bad, and overrated. I simply think the Pistons have been overrated during their poor-man's-dynasty (actually, I'd rather call it 'fool's-gold-dynasty').
The Pistons are a very good team. In fact, they're a great team. When Larry Brown was coaching them, they may have been the BEST team in the NBA. But I stress the word 'team'. Every one of those starters, and their few helpful backups, plays hard and plays well together. It's admirable.
But there's a difference between being a good team and winning. There's a difference between winning and winning titles. And in the NBA, there's a HUGE difference between being a good team and winning a title. That difference is superstarpower, typically in the post. The Pistons don't have it.
The Suns are an excellent team, arguably better than the Pistons this year. Their chemistry during these playoffs has been unconscionable (since when does Tim Thomas play like that?). Does anyone give them a chance to win the title? Of course not.
If the Pistons hadn't lucked into facing that combustible Lakers team which was right out of the Bob Whitsitt school of personnel acquisition, no one would be giving them much of a chance either. That team was the first since the '79 Sonics to win a title without a superstar. That's not a coincidence.
Another Thought
Am I the only one who's completely unimpressed by Dirk Nowitzki? Am I crazy? I don't have any reasonable rationale for this, I guess I just have a dislike for 7'0" jumpshooters (maybe owing to my bitterness at Rashard Lewis). The Mavericks were fine without Steve Nash by the way, why are we all-of-a-sudden talking about Dirk as though he's the unquestioned MVP of the league? It's not possible that's he's just another cog in the Maverick-system?
Though I just wrote a blog about the unraveling of the Pistons (before it became fashionable, by the way), that's not what I'm going to gloat about. I'm going to gloat about my defense of the Heat after their series last year, after which everyone treated Detroit like the second best team in the NBA even though they barely beat a team whose two stars were hobbled (if playing at all).
This is mainly in response to the pervasive opinion that Detroit is a fantastically worse team than last year ... uh, if Shaq and Wade had been healthy last year, would the outcomes of the two series (assuming that the Heat pull it out in 6, as I officially predict them to do) have been any diffferent?
It's all about perception. Three points:
They had an excellent regular season. As a former Mariners fan I can tell you that regular seasons don't matter very much (*cough* 116 wins).
Detroit wasn't that good in the first place, for reasons I've mentioned several times before.
The players are acting up, which makes the situation visibly dysfunctional. They're acting up because they, like everyone else, had unrealistically trumped up expectations for themselves, and they're placing the blame on their new coach (couldn't POSSIBLY be them! They're World Champions!).
Everyone shut up! In any year, with any coach, Detroit is supposed to lose to the Heat. Miami has two superstars, Detroit has zero. The NBA is about stars, all Detroit has is five very good starters. That's good enough to work through the terrible East and get lucky against a weird West team (the Lakers), but nothing more.
Everyone shut up about Riley and Van Gundy, too. Van Gundy did the same damn thing Riley's doing. But, again I have to mention the injuries they suffered last year.
Two years in a row I've predicted that either the Spurs or the Heat would win the title, looks like I'm going to be right two years in a row.
Maybe there are legitimate reasons for the official awards of professional sports to be awarded solely for regular season achievements. But we're laymen. We all know that the playoffs are a better indicator of 'value'. (By the way, I stress the 'Valuable' part of MVP, I don't think it's just about the best player)
Let's get the obvious out of the way. Can we all just admit that it was INSANE to include Chauncey Billups in this discussion? He's choking in the playoffs, is only marginally better than anyone else in the starting 5, and in my opinion isn't even close to being the most valuable player on his own team. Ben Wallace is their identity, Hamilton is their clutch shooter, Prince is their clutch defender, and Rasheed is the guy who got them over-the-top when he was acquired midseason three years ago.
Quick hits:
- No one who tanks the second half o####ame 7 to send a message to his team deserves ANY award.
- The Mavericks would be fine without Nowitzki.
- Duncan deserved more credence despite a down-year ... still shouldn't have won.
- Thank God no Nets were given serious consideration.
- Wade isn't taking over like he should.
To me it comes down to Nash and LBJ. Sure, Nash doesn't play defense and he's not coming up big in the playoffs, but what kind of shape would that team be in without him? Would Boris Diaw, Shawn Marion and ... Jason Williams be leading a team into the Western Conference Finals? They wouldn't have made the playoffs. I go with LBJ.
I know that to most people it's between the King and Kobe. It's true that LBJ doesn't play defense at the same level and he has a better (though less active) supporting cast. But the coup de grace comes two-fold:
- LBJ is about to beat the supposed best team in the NBA while Kobe is fake-laughing with the TNT crew.
- Switch Mike Brown with Phil Jackson. What happens?
First, they get the honor of facing a chemically imploding Lakers team. Then the next year they face off against a Heat team with one hobbled superstar, and another superstar who missed the final two games of the series. And now they're going up against the Cavs, whose second-best player had to leave the team because his brother died., with the prospect of facing the Heat again, who bear an eery resemblance to the '04 Lakers.
Huh? They're LOSING? I'm watching game 5 right now, and they're down by nine to a team they were supposed to sweep.
Why? Because one of their starters actually got injured ... not seriously, of course, we don't want Karma to bite *too* hard. Oh, and Flip Saunders ineffectual coaching might have something to do with it also.
Look, here's the bottom line: teams don't win championships in the NBA unless they fulfill one of three requirements:
- They have a superstar in the post (Shaq, Kareem, Hakeem, Russell, etc.)
- They have Michael Jordan (though LBJ might join this exclusive club soon)
- They're really damn lucky
Detroit is lucky. That's why they won it two years ago, that's why they almost won it last year, and that's why they'll win it this year. *IF* they win it, which I now don't think they will. Their infallible bodies are no longer, the players' honeymoon with Flip has ended, and they weren't that good in the first place (I don't care what their record was).
I still think they'll beat Cleveland (down by 2 at the moment, beginning of the 4th) ... but it would be awesome if they didn't.
... For a short while, I am going to forget that there are local sports in the Seattle area. I really don't have much choice in the matter.
The only decent team I have is the Huskies basketball team ... and they're currently handing their future to a 5'8" ballhog ... my hatred of these players has been well-chronicl ed. I hate Isaiah Thomas and I don't want to root for a team with him on it.
