The main reason I like Vince Carter is probably cause yall hate him so much.
So it makes me very happy to see dude stick an 86-footer while sitting down. (via Talk Hoops)
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Superman
We all know that Dwight Howard is a walking comedy act. He’s usually slightly too wholesome and includes a little too much singing and/or dancing in his antics to really make me LOL (laugh out loud), but he’s one of the four or five most personable dudes in the League.
And here he is doing a fantastic impression of Charles Barkley.
Maybe SNL should have called up Supes to host instead of airing that turrrible, turrrible episode they had with the Chuckster a few weeks ago. It wasn’t so much Charles being bad as just poorly written skits, but still. How they didn’t have a skit where Kenan Thompson played Barkley (which he does rather well) while Charles played … I dunno … anyone else — Mahatma Gandhi, maybe? — I will never figure out. I was watching that almost-mediocre “Reel Quotes” one near the beginning and thinking “not too, too bad … guess they’re getting the bad ones out of the way early” unbeknownst that that would be the best thing in the entire show.
At least they did a good job stimulating the wigmaker sector of the economy though. Charles must have donned 12 different unkempt hairdos. Gotta give em propers for that. (video via The Baseline via Ball Don’t Lie)
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Yet another NBA season is complete and the Los Angeles Lakers proved kings of the mountain. Congratulations and coronations are certainly in order for the team and its King of Kings Kobe Bryant, but, to me, the best part of the 2008-09 season was watching how immense the actual mountain itself has become. The depth of talent across the League and the new generation’s approach to the game is as refreshing as it is impressive, and a new Golden Age of the NBA now seems imminent.
Depending on your individual outlook, the Association’s renaissance began anywhere from two to six years ago, but after yet another great season, there is no denying the fact that the NBA is in a better place now than it has been at any time since MJ stuck that iconic pull-back jumper over Bryon Russell in 1998. Kobe is unquestionably among the all-time elite. LeBron is Haley’s Comet. Chris Paul is the best point guard since Magic. Dwyane is a combination of relentless and universally appealing that we haven’t seen since Jordan. Dwight is an athlete rivaled only by cartoon characters. Duncan is a sage old man. KG is a warrior hoping for one last battle. And dozens of other All-Star caliber players are putting on spectacular shows across the League every night of the season.
Much larger than any individual’s effect on the NBA, however, is that the fact that, not only do these future legends play the game the right way, but the concept that the only style of basketball that can win is team basketball is again paramount. The Jordan Era mythos that great individual players can will their teams to victory has evaporated. Whether that revelation came before LeBron’s highly favored Cavs lost in the Eastern Conference Finals a few weeks ago or back when Kobe’s 35 ppg average earned him little more than awe and a first-round Playoff exit is irrelevant; all that matters now is that every competent GM and, more importantly, every competent fan now knows that no team can contend for a title without a solid four- or five-player nucleus that knows how to play together — and is willing to do so. The days of getting excited when a franchise pairs a few mercurial mercenaries and just rolls the ball out on the court hoping for the best are over. If your team is serious about competing for a title you need a core of talented players who complement each other like Kobe, Pau, Lamar and Ariza just did for the past two months. You need KG, Pierce and Ray Allen. You need Dwight, Hedo and Rashard. You need Carmelo, Chauncey, Nene and KMart. And you need them all on the same page with a focused agenda on winning.
The successful teams in 2009 were built around depth, defense and details. There are very few players remaining on the elite teams in the League who ever seem to put their personal play above the team’s mission. The players who now matter in the League — almost to a man — have learned from the Ghosts of Failure’s past like Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis and Antoine Walker. The other teams and other players in the NBA have gotten too good to beat any of them by going two on five. An indifferent, lethargic tandem of Baron Davis and Zach Randolph can’t even get you 20 wins in this League anymore. And after a decade of watching half the teams in the NBA flounder directly after making high-profile acquisitions — as the 2009 Clippers just did — we now have a League where the Los Angeles junior varsity club is the exception as opposed to the rule.
In many ways, the current Clipper incarnation is like Frito Lay’s failed attempt at putting together a party mix. (Bear with me; I’m not even high.)
I still remember the first time I saw a bag of Frito’s new product “Munchies” when it first came out a few years back. Four of the company’s flagship chips were together in a single bag: Doritos, Cheetos, Rold Gold pretzels and Sun Chips. As a college student who adored three of the four (does anyone really like Cheetos?), this seemed like the best idea in culinary history. (Yes, I considered this cuisine.) Why hadn’t they thought of this sooner?
I eagerly opened the bag and dug in, pulling out a Dorito. Since it was a Dorito — the best chip in the history of chip-makingkind — it was excellent. Next, I grabbed a handful that included a few of the others. Even though each one is a little too big to allow you to shovel multiple pieces into your mouth at once, it’s hard to be disappointed when you can follow up a Sun Chip with a Rold Gold pretzel. It wasn’t long before the whole bag was gone. A handful here and then a handful there gets you through an 8-ounce bag pretty quickly.
But the more I ate, the less impressed I became. Ultimately, these chips didn’t go together. It was just two really cheesy chips and two really bland chips. So between everything having the same tongue-numbing, fake cheese flavor and the fact that they’re all too big to pop three or four pieces into your mouth at once anyway, it was just like eating four different things in an arbitrary order. It wasn’t a party “mix,” but merely a collection of pretty good chips.
If we’re going to compare players to chips (and don’t worry, folks, we are about to) Baron Davis is the Dorito. Both are universally beloved and both have inimitable flavor, but, deep down, you know neither is good for you. Marcus Camby is the pretzel: simple, reliable and underrated. Zach Randolph is the Cheeto; like the chip’s cheese, Zebo’s 20/10 is clearly artificial. Still, like the fond memories we all have of the Chester Cheetah cartoon, Zach’s steady post moves create a ruse that makes you think he’s a throwback low-post scorer who will exceed your initial aversion. Al Thornton is the Sun Chip: solid, yet ultimately nondescript and bland.
Just like Frito’s failed attempt at a party mix (I hope the irony of the name “Munchies” isn’t lost on anyone), these guys do not fit together. They’re just a mismatched group of guys with individual strengths.
The 2009 Magic and the 2004 Pistons, on the other hand, were built like Chex Mix.
Neither team had a flashy superstar whose job it is to “take over” a game. Individually, none of Rasheed, Chauncey, Rip, Tayshaun or Ben Wallace stand out as superstars. The fact that they could not only upset the 2004 Lakers but get to another Finals and make it to six straight Eastern Conference Finals without an alpha-dog seemed preposterous when compared with any other NBA champion since the 1979 Supersonics. Who did these guys think they were? You needed at least one Hall of Famer to run the show or, better still, a dynamic duo.
Much like surprising, enduring appeal of Chex Mix, it turns out that putting together five or six reliable, if unspectacular, players who complement each other’s contributions perfectly might be all you need to do to create a winning combination.
Everyone has always liked Chex, just as they always liked Rasheed Wallace, but no one really thought you could make a great snack out of it — just like no one thought you could win a championship if Sheed was your best player. Rip is as solid as a mini-bread stick, but no one is really getting too excited about either one. And as with a rye chip, no one even knew they liked Chauncey Billups or Ben Wallace — but it turns out all three were great. Throw in a few well-considered spices (Larry Brown, Tay, Memo Okur) and you have the making of one of the more underrated yet universally appealing and highly successful combinations that the world has ever seen.
For years, most teams spent all their energy looking for Doritos. Like Michael and Scottie, it was presumed that any team could contend for a title if it just added some Rold Golds to a bag of Doritos and tossed in whatever other filler it could find. But that paradigm has shifted. No longer does anyone expect a single world-class contributor and one complementary piece to seamlessly mesh together into a winning mix.
The Post-Jordan Era, during which the landscape was dominated by temperamental “stars” whose varying commitment to playing basketball properly left even supposedly good teams running rudderless, is over. With a team focused on two highly paid players, all it took was one sensitive ego or one guy with a limited understanding of how to execute consistently and the whole thing became mediocre at best — or a five-year train wreck at worst. Of course, similar situations still arose this season (see the “Munchies” Clippers) and this will always go on to some degree, but, for the most part, even struggling teams like the Knicks, Wolves and Kings were derailed more so by their talent deficiencies than anything else. And a team like Miami showed that banding together behind an unselfish leader and sticking to a unified concept can allow even a very flawed team to overachieve.
Sure, expansion has led to a more watered-down NBA than the one that existed in the 1980s. We may never see powerhouse teams with as potent starting lineups as the Celtics had with DJ, Danny Ainge, Bird, McHale and Parish or the Lakers rolled out with Magic, Byron Scott, Big Game James, AC Green and Kareem. But teams today, even the middling ones, are mostly back to at least trying to build their foundations around the right combination of players playing good basketball again. The Pacers and the Nets aren’t setting any worlds on fire, but they also haven’t been hijacked by players who take the court just trying to look good first and win second. And Portland, through some astute talent recognition and acquisition, has set itself up to follow the Orlando and Detroit model.
Ultimately, it is unlikely that any of Brandon Roy, Danny Granger or Devin Harris will win an NBA MVP. None of them are Doritos. But their GMs and coaches seem to be fine with that. They seem content to build around these guys and bring in other complementary contributors, who while maybe unable to generate a ton of excitement on paper, will come together well enough to get the job done.
Can it work as well for these middling teams of today as it did for the 2004 Pistons and the 2009 Magic? Who knows. It’s difficult to see any team that doesn’t have LeBron, Kobe, Dwyane, Dwight, KG, Duncan or Melo winning a title in the next several years; ultimately, Doritos will always be the best chip.
But last season, we saw Brandon Roy drop 50 in a game and hit a miraculous walk-off three. We saw Danny Granger make nearly as many game-winning shots as his former teammate who donned number #31. We saw Devin Harris become unstoppable with a full head of steam and learn to pump ice through his veins in the clutch.
Sure, it seems unlikely that teams built around guys like this could make a run at the title. Then again, it will certainly be more enjoyable to see teams try a new strategy. And, who knows, I never thought an unmemorable cereal could be the foundation of one of the best snack foods of all time either.
(Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
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The other day, someone asked me “Has any team ever improved as much during one Playoffs as this Magic squad?” I don’t know the answer to that silly question (even though it is undoubtedly “yes”), but thinking about Orlando’s run thus far did prompt me to realize that I can’t recall another squad of the 2000s that has more endeared itself to me during a postseason.
In many ways, I’ve enjoyed watching the Magic all season. But, honestly, it’s been more like that Stuff White People Like post about “The Idea of Soccer.” The gist of the concept is that people who aren’t actually soccer fans yet want to project themselves as worldly and cultured will always say they really like soccer even though they can’t name any players aside from David Beckham or tell you the current Premier League standings.
That’s how I was all season with Orlando; I liked the idea of the Magic.
I liked their potent offensive scheme of surrounding the most athletic physical specimen from Krypton with two of the most dead-eyed jumpshooters on Earth. I liked Dwight’s vacuum-cleaner work on the boards. I liked the fact that Jameer shocked me by turning into a helluva pointguard somehow. I liked Stan Van Gundy more than any other coach not named Popovich or Jerry Sloan. And I of course loved everything about Marcin Gortat.
But I just thought they were impostors — even as I was consistently impressed while watching them blow out other teams in the regular season. I think a lot of people had similar thoughts but for me personally it probably even went a little deeper.
Growing up, I patterned my game around Reggie Miller. In high school, I was one of the better three point shooters in our league and, like Rashard, about half the shots I took were treys. I had a lot of big games and made a lot of huge shots but, in hindsight, and after I got older and the other parts of my game caught up to my shooting ability, I sort of started to resent being so one-dimensional. I should have done more to control the game in other ways. So nowadays I tend to look down on players — and teams — who put all their proverbial eggs in the same jumpshooting basket.
Sure, Orlando’s offense was potent in the regular season, but what happens when Hedo and Shard both have an off-night from the perimeter? (We all know this team isn’t making the Finals on the strength of its defense.) Sure, Hedo is an able ball-handler and can run a decent pick-and-roll given his height, but are other teams really going to allow Turkoglu to burn them with clutch shots? Sure Rashard is a great shooter, but if he isn’t hitting his jumpers, is he really adding much to an offense.** (His reluctance to destroy Big Baby/Scalabrine in the post during the first few games of the Celtics series provided some nice confirmation bias to that theory.) Sure, Dwight is a monster on both ends, but is he serious with those things he calls “post moves”?
But as the Magic have advanced through the postseason, each and every one of those “fatal flaws” have been discredited…further proving my theory that I’m not very smart.
Rashard Lewis is not only sticking fourth quarter daggers, he’s going by people with pump fakes and finishing at the rim. He’s spreading the floor as a decoy. He’s hitting bank shots around the block. He’s making the right pass. He’s efficient. He’s savvy. He’s a constant factor.
Hedo is not only playing point-forward, he’s finishing in the paint. He’s finding Dwight for lobs. He’s drilling step-back jumpers. He’s getting out of the way when need be. He’s drawing double teams. He’s kicking it out to open shooters. He’s a rock.
Dwight is not only dunking on people, he’s crushing their spirit. He doesn’t need post moves to control the whole game. He just bangs in your grill. He just owns the boards. He just makes every penetrator aside of LeBron scared to enter the lane. He just turns your well-conceived pick-and-roll defense into nonsense. He’s just a cyborg. He’s just built for this.
And then there’s Rafer, whose performance last night perfectly illustrates why Orlando never has to worry about an off night from either Hedo or Rashard.
The other day, Stan Van Gundy said in a press conference that a coach really can’t control how many shots his players take. The other team’s coach decides that. If the other team wants to take the ball out of Hedo’s hands, they can do that through various defensive schemes and Hedo will have to either become a facilitator or start forcing bad shots. If the other teams wants to double Dwight and turn him into a passer (something Mike Brown may want to look into, by the way), they can do that and Dwight will have to become an offensive rebounder.
Last night, Mike Brown — like Doc Rivers before him and Tony Dileo before him — dared Rafer to be Orlando’s shot-maker in a big game. So Rafer went out and made shots. Just like he did in Game 7 against Boston. Just like he did in Game 6 against Philly.
In doing so, he made it look like that was Orlando’s game plan the whole time.
When Mike Piet (he sounds like a better player if you call him that) got hot in the fourth quarter, it looked like Orlando’s offense was built with him in mind. When Courtney Lee caught the ball on the perimeter and blew by the slower defender guarding him, it looked like just another play drawn up by Stan Van Gundy. When Marcin Gortat slipped a screen, caught a pass in space and dunked on nobody, it looked like a well-orchestrated counter-attack to Cleveland’s pick-and-roll defense. And when all these extra options came after ten effective minutes of running the ball through Hedo, Dwight or Rashard, it looked like an unstoppable offense.
But, really, that’s just how basketball is supposed to be played.
That’s how you play in the park.
If a guy gets hot, you give him the ball. You don’t do rigorous analysis to figure out that Rafer Alston has shot 33% from the wing this year versus 44% from the top of the key and plan around that. You just go out there, throw the ball around and figure out what is working right now. Then you keep doing it until it stops working.
If Rashard is missing his jumpers you just swing the ball to Pietrus in the corner. If they aren’t letting Hedo drive off the pick-and-roll, you put him in the corner and let Courtney Lee break his man off the dribble. If Kendrick Perkins is pushing Dwight Howard off his preferred position on the block, you clear him to the weak side and let Rashard go to work on Glen Davis.
Basketball is a simple sport. People love to over-complicate it, but the game usually comes down to the fact that no good offensive player can be guarded one-on-one. Thus, the defensive team has to react to that fact with help defense. And when the defense does that, the offense now has an advantage somewhere else. If you’re a good offensive team, you exploit your primary advantage until the defense takes it away and exposes itself somewhere else. Then you attack there.
Rinse and repeat.
That’s all the Magic do. Over and over and over and over again. And they make it look so easy because all they do is take and make open shots. They find an advantage, exploit it until it ceases being an advantage and then find something else to do for a while.
Everyone who has ever played basketball loves playing pick up that way. One guy gets hot one game and hits four threes. Then another guy gets his post game going and you feed the beast until he misses. Then you catch a slow guy trying to guard a quick pointguard and you let him blow by his defender a few times. If you have good offensive players and they get into a groove where they switch up how they attack the defense, there should never be any stopping them
That has always been the most fun way to play basketball.
As I’m only now realizing for some reason, it is also the most entertaining way to watch other people play basketball in the Playoffs.
And as the Magic are proving more and more with each passing night, it might just be the most effective way to win the NBA Title, too.
** (In hindsight, it’s pretty funny to realize that Mo Williams is currently the walking embodiment of the useless corpse I feared Shard might become if he wasn’t hitting jumpers. If Mo’s not knocking down shots, not guarding anyone and not even setting up the offense better than LeBron can, what purpose does he actually serve? What would you say it is you do in this series, Mo Will?)
“They Can’t Guard Us All.”
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