(Photo by Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images)
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LaMarcus
I was rather impressed by Portland on Friday night. They looked really, really good.
Brandon Roy is just an absolute surgeon. We already knew this, but it bears repeating over and over and over again. Moreover, if you combined LaMarcus Aldridge and Greg Oden’s skill sets together into a single player, that guy might be First Team All-NBA. Ok, that’s probably an exaggeration, but Oden’s defense is already that for real and, actually, even his post moves/jump hooks looked pretty impressive the other night. (I wrote a little more about that while giving Oden a Lion Face over at Hardwood Paroxysm yesterday. I’m biased, but I’m a big fan of both that Lion Face/Lemon Face series as well as Trey Kerby’s Morning Bells over at HP. Good place to check out every morning — after stopping by BTPH, obviously.)
Yet, more so than having an amazing “Big 3″ or whatever other shallow distinction people want to dub the star-studded rosters of teams like the Celtics and Lakers, the Blazers just have a whole corral full of thoroughbreds. I’m not positive that the numbers bear this out, but, qualitatively, there seems to be almost no drop off when they go to the bench. They remain just as potent offensively and, in some ways, get better. It’s like a hockey team that just keeps running out quality guys. After Brandon, Greg and LaMarcus, it doesn’t really matter whether the other guys are Miller, Pryzbilla, Outlaw, Blake, Rudy, Martell or Bayless (and, remember, Nic Batum isn’t even playing until after the All-Star break). They lose very little, if anything.
And because all their wings are fairly similar stylistically, and because Oden and Pryzbilla are fairly interchangeable, the only real difference is that they lose a post threat when LaMarcus is out, and they lose a PG who can hit threes when Miller replaces Blake. Obviously, having different looks to throw at other teams is a good thing though, so the advantages gained by going with a lineup of something like Miller/Rudy/Roy/Outlaw/Aldridge is a great thing to have, too.
Ultimately, Portland just has a whole roster full of ballers. I really enjoy watching them. And they’re gonna be a problem in the West all year, perhaps even giving the recently-terrible-playing Nuggets a run for the Northwest Division title.
On the other hand, I was also really impressed with the Jazz on Thursday — and they’re the same team that then lost to the Sacramento Kings (without Kevin Martin, no less) at home on Saturday night.
So, perhaps, the Spurs just aren’t that good right now? I’m not yet ready to say anything is really wrong at their core, obviously, and I will always maintain that the only thing more pointless than preseason results are November results. But they certainly aren’t playing well. And seeing Tony Parker hurt his ankle on Friday — fresh off his ankle issues last season — starts to make me think “Oh, no. So it’s not just Manu and Duncan’s health we have to worry about this season but Frenchie, too?”
They have way too much talent to not be a factor out West, of course, but when looking at their front court in particular, it’s hard to believe they have the size to bang in the Playoffs with the likes of Pau/Bynum or Nene/Kenyon — and, perhaps, even Oden/Aldridge. In the last five years, Timmy has usually had a Rasho Nesterovic or Nazr Mohammed-type guy alongside him to help absorb the sizable defensive burdens of playing high-level post defense. Sure, no one is ever going to single out Rasho or Nazr as major difference-makers on those Spurs teams, but they were both high-level defenders for Coach Popovich, and there is no one on the current roster, with the possible exception of an in-my-eyes-completely-washed-up Theo Ratliff, that can even fill that “secondary big body banger” role beside an increasingly aged-looking Tim Duncan. I really think they need that guy and, no, Matt Bonner is not that guy. And as much as I like the Antonio McDyess pick up, he is not that guy anymore either, if he ever was.
It doesn’t need to be anyone high-profile. Just someone to bang with Nene for 15 minutes a night and battle with Bynum on the block. Timmy can’t be expected to do that for 30 minutes per night anymore — at least not if you still expect him to have the energy to hit his patented, back-breaking bank shots in the final three minutes of close Playoff games. I’ll always remember a great quote from Charles Barkley after Nazr Mohammed, who was having a pretty damn good year at the time in New York, was traded from the Knicks to the Spurs: “Isiah is building a championship team — too bad it’s in San Antonio.” I think they need to make a similar, under-the-radar, spackling-up-the-holes-in-the-roster move this year.
(We’ll explore that “spackle” concept more down the road. A lot of teams are too slow to identify that one little thing they need to fix their weakness. Often, it’s just a small thing, but, more often, teams make some big, unnecessarily radical move that fixes some things but creates new issues. Look for that spackle, GMs.)
Anyway, I’ll be watching the Spurs closely to see how this plays out, and all this is something I had the pleasure of discussing with my 8th Seed brethren Jeff Garcia and Michael De Leon on Friday night after the Spurs loss to Portland. Check the video below from their live post-game SpursCast where I joined them to offer my two cents.
I come on at the 23:30 mark. Some minor technical difficulties pop up right as I’m coming on, but we fight through it and chat for 20 minutes or so.
* Alright. I’ve had just about enough of this. Brandon Roy needs a nickname. Neither his first nor last name work on their own and I’m done writing out the whole thing. I’ve waited and waited, internets, but you’ve given me nothing to work with here. You’ve offered no good options. So he’s now “Daggers.” Me and Capital_T were unsuccessfully looking for a guy to call this anyway, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seem many bigger daggers than that one he hit against the Rockets last year. I mean, the purity with which that ball went through the net was just like someone getting stabbed. It’s official. Done and done. Put it on the board.
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Did you hear there’s a Draft tonight? I know, I almost missed it too. No one has been talking about it but, apparently, executives from thirty teams are going to sit around making phone calls all night in Madison Square Garden and decide the future of their franchises while a bunch of young men in funny-looking suits put on ugly hats that transform them into instant millionaires. It’s supposed to be wild.
Honestly, until all the trading went down, I wasn’t even all that excited for the NBA Draft for probably the first time in my entire life. I mean, it’s always a great event and watching it is one of my favorite things to do each year so I was looking forward to it in the same sense that it’s always cool when Christmas comes along, but I just really don’t have an informed enough opinion on most of the guys people are talking about as lottery picks to have gotten all that fired up.
To be completely truthful, I could barely pick any of Tyreke Evans, James Johnson and JRue Holiday (who might have the best draft-day name since D’Brickashaw Ferguson) out of a lineup. And if I haven’t actually watched you play in a basketball game five or six times, I really can’t pretend to know what the hell I’m talking about when I discuss your pro potential.
Eagerly trying to read up on all these guys can help, but it often just make things worse by bringing faux-knowledge into the equation. I try to check out as much info as possible and subsequently end up trying to sound intelligent when out drinking by saying things like “I like Johnny Flynn a lot but I think his size might mean he’s a bench player at best” or “I’m pretty concerned about Dejuan Blair’s MRI,” but all the scuttlebutt, innuendo and flat-out misinformed descriptions that are out there about how these kids actually play the game means that even doing your homework isn’t going to propel you into some new stratosphere of insight if you didn’t actually watch the games. (Wait, someone is seriously trying to get me to believe that Gerald Henderson is going to be the next Latrell Sprewell? Hmmm. Considering that I have actually watched Gerald play at Duke for three years and I have also seen this, you, sir, are either peddling misinformation or just lying to me.)
Essentially what I’m saying is that I have no clue which of the players in this year’s Draft will be any good. Partly, it’s because I really don’t watch much NCAA basketball anymore. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that every time I go into an evening thinking “Nice, UNC/Duke is on tonight,” I later find out that the Jazz are playing Denver or the Heat are playing the Suns, and I end up watching that instead. The quality of play is just so much higher and Dwyane Wade literally does something in every game he plays that would be the ACC highlight of the year if he did it while playing for Clemson. Still, if college hoops were played during the NBA offseason, I would watch every game. But rarely does my desire to watch even a great match up like UConn vs. Syracuse supersede the feeling that I would be missing too much if I chose to watch that over Deron vs. Melo.
On top of my lack of first-hand knowledge about this year’s draft crop, I also know that I have been waaaay off about a lot of players even back when I did watch a ton of NCAA hoops. I thought Boozer would be mediocre at best, for example. I absolutely adored Ron Mercer. I thought John Wallace would be a beast. I saw Rashad McCants making a few All-Star teams. I was a huge Maurice Ager fan. I even sort of liked Hilton Armstrong quite a bit for some reason. (On the other hand, I have actually gotten a few things right: I couldn’t believe Vince Carter didn’t go #1, I’m still baffled as to why Josh Howard fell to #30, I loved Shane Battier and I was one of the few people who had any inkling that Dwyane Wade would be a superstar — although I admittedly had absolutely zero idea he would be this good).
Despite all this, there is one definite opinion I have about the 2009 Draft, however: I would take Ricky Rubio over Blake Griffin.
It’s impossible to dismiss Blake’s incredible numbers or look past how easily he dominated the college ranks last season. His ability to rebound will definitely translate to the pro level. He might even be an NBA All-Star some day. That is all true. I know all that.
I just think Rubio has the potential to be legendary.
Like everyone else, I haven’t seen him play all that much, of course. But who would you want if I told you that you could either have (a) a guy whose upside is a pre-alcoholic Vin Baker, or (b) a potentially beloved 6’4″ teenager with floppy hair who has the chance to be the next great white point guard?
From a purely on-the-court basketball standpoint, I can see why Griffin is so appealing — he’s a can’t-miss talent who has zero potential to not be very good. And generally, my belief on how a GM should approach a draft is to be risk-averse. The upside argument for taking guys like Tyrus Thomas who can’t necessarily do anything great on a basketball court over guys like LaMarcus Aldridge who have proven skills that apply to any level of basketball has always puzzled me. I would take LaMarcus over Tyrus thirteen times out of ten.
But if this Spanish kid can figure out how to pass the ball with as much flair, presence and effectiveness as he has done internationally, the Rubio phenomenon — both on the court and off the court — could reach giant heights. We’re talking about a taller, goofier-looking Steve Nash-type of fan-love. Something like that not only makes your team instantly relevant Leaguewide and featured nightly to casual Sportscenter viewers, but it gives you the franchise foundation point guard that it is becoming increasingly clear that the best teams in this League now all need. (Yes, I know that Orlando and Los Angeles both made the Finals without marquee PGs, but the Lakers are a special case because of the triangle and Orlando had a lot of other things working in its favor this post-season. The Cavs are obviously another team without a great PG, but (a) look what happened to them, and (b) any team with LeBron is always going to be an anomaly.)
Ultimately, the NBA is an increasingly perimeter-based League, so I’m taking the potentially transcendent PG over the certainly sound big guy.
Take Rubio over Griffin. I’m certain that this is how it should be. Write it down. Take a picture. Book it. Ricky Rubio will have a better career than Blake Griffin. It’s a certainty.
Just remember that this is merely the opinion of a guy who would have taken John Wallace over Ray Allen in 1996 — and remember that all the other “expert analysis” out there is coming from people whose perspectives have been equally flawed in the past.
They just won’t tell you about it.
John Wallace: Future NBA All-Star
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Here’s video of the last 30 seconds of last night’s Blazers/Rockets OT. Un-be-goddamn-lievable. What a finish. What a beast. The rest of the League should be embarrassed that it let Portland get both Roy and LaMarcus in the same draft.
Good to see Yao coming through after his recent struggles here and here as well.
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