FAQs

Big Bells Bellamy

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Like other NBA fans who never saw them play live, I’ve always had a fascination with some of the older players from the 1950s and 1960s.  Often, the footage that is available tends to underwhelm me.  We also know that the stats of the early 1960s are particularly inflated by a run-and-gun style.  Still, even knowing all these facts, the numbers make an impact.  One player in particular who has always fascinated me was Walt Bellamy.  Bellamy put up raw numbers his first two seasons that look Shaq-like, combine those states with a few black-and-white photos of Bellamy dunking on much smaller players that are etched in my mind, and he seems almost like an unknown monster of the pre-historic NBA days.  I hadn’t really thought much about Bellamy lately until I was reading through Bill Simmons’ new book on the NBA, “The Book of Basketball”, which re-articulated the common refrain, that Bellamy was a decent stat guy but not a winner.  According to Simmons’ editor (who is quoted copiously in footnotes for the book): “Walt Bellamy had the smallest head of any seven-footer ever.  He was built like the Washington Monument.  And played that way.” 

Despite this sentiment, there is remarkably little written about Bellamy just an unspoken understanding of his worth by the basketball powers that be.  Even “Tall Tales”, the seminal book on the 1960s basketball, only mentions Bellamy in passing.  I thought we could run through Bellamy a little better and see if we could learn something new about Bellamy the player, how this common knowledge developed, and whether it is actually accurate.

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Decade Review

We Take ESPN’s 2000s Poll

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A few months ago, we took a look at the All-2000s team and some of the other notable issues of the decade.  Now ESPN.com is turning to the end of the decade and has its own poll of its burning questions of the 2000s.  Just for fun, let’s run through our choices, as limited by ESPN’s ballot: 

1)  Which is the franchise of the decade?

-Lakers

-Spurs 

We addressed this question in the summer and previously chose the Lakers, even though they weren’t as consistently good (the Spurs average 58 wins per season and the Lakers averaged 53).  The tie breaker was that Spurs never could beat the Lakers when L.A. was at full strength.  The Lakers destroyed the Spurs in the playoffs in 2000-01 and 2001-02, when both teams were at full strength.  The Lakers also upset the Spurs in 2003-04 (on the crazy Derek Fisher shot), as well as in 2007-08, when the Lakers were clearly better. Still, there is some merit to the fact that the Spurs had no lulls like the Lakers did mid-decade.  This is really a coin-flip but the fact that the Lakers were better at their peak makes me choose L.A..

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Quick Thoughts

Quick Thoughts

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1.    Taking Stock in Boston:    As the standings start to sort themselves out in the NBA, it is clear that Boston is, once again, a serious title contender.  With their current winning streak, the Celts are 20-4 and have the best record in the NBA and the best SRS rating, though Atlanta and the Lakers are very close.  (Surprisingly, the Magic and Cavs are far behind these three in SRS).  Boston has been winning, as they usually do, with suffocating defense.  The Celts have the top defense in the NBA (99.4 efficiency) and are within shouting distance of their historic 2007-08 pace (98.9 defensive rating).  An interesting question is whether the Celts can keep this defensive pace up.  Last year, Boston started out quite hot (22-2) but tapered off to merely a very good defensive team, partly because of Kevin Garnett’s knee injury and partly because they could not possibly sustain such a hot start. 

With an older team, there is a tendency to believe something similar could happen this year too.  KG, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Rasheed Wallace are all approaching 35.  Let’s take a look at how hard Doc Rivers have been monitoring these four this season so far versus the past two years: 

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Transactions

Transactions: 11/18-12/8

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Golden State Warriors 

11/20    Signed center Chris Hunter 

Hunter is an NBDL call up for the Warriors.  He was a decent role player in college at Michigan but has scored quite well in the NBDL (19 ppg last year).  It’s not clear how good he will be but an active and cheap big man in his mid-20s is always worth as look.  The Don Nelson Warriors are not the ideal place for a big man to break in but it is definitely better than playing in Fort Wayne. 

New Jersey Nets 

11/29    Fired Lawrence Frank and name Kiki Vandeweghe head coach 

I was a bigger Frank fan than most.  There were legitimate questions as to whether Frank was creative offensively but his teams almost usually played hard and were prepared.  He also got about as much out of the talent as one would reasonably expect each season and survived crises pretty well.  Frank did a nice job getting the team to compete during the whole Jason Kidd injury and Alonzo Mourning rebellion in 2004-05, the team-wide malaise in 2006-07, Kidd’s rebellion in 2007-08, and keeping the team in playoff contention with a very little in 2008-09.  The only truly disappointing moment of significance was the Nets’ inability to hang with the Heat in the 2005-06 playoffs, when they were considered pretty equal in talent (the Heat lost Game 1 at home and blew away the Nets in the next four games).  In retrospect, that wasn’t necessarily fair criticism but this was the only year the Frank Nets’ slightly underperformed (they probably should’ve taken the Heat six or seven games before losing). 

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Uncategorized

The NBA and the Spirits

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I thought today we could review the best deal in NBA history and a deal that might never end.  We’re not talking about any sort of player transaction but the famed settlement agreement between the St. Louis Spirits and the NBA.  Most basketball fans knows generally about this deal, namely that the owners of the Spirits were able to obtain a portion of NBA television revenue in perpetuity in exchange for Spirits’ agreement to fold as a team.  This agreement has enabled the Spirits to collect large amounts of cash, as league revenues have continued to grow the last 30 years.  Though a settlement agreement exists, the dispute between the parties is not actually totally settled.  In fact, the Spirits are litigating with the NBA this very day, 33 years after settlement.  Let’s review the 1977 deal from to give fans a little more perspective on how this deal has worked and why it has continued to be an issue now, over 30 years later. 

In 1976, the NBA and various members of the ABA (New Jersey Nets, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and San Antonio Spurs) were talking about a limited merger that would exclude the other ABA teams (Kentucky Colonels and the St. Louis Spirits).  St. Louis ended up threatening to sue the ABA teams and the NBA based on various theories.  The lawsuit was a double threat: it had some merit on its own terms and its presence complicated the NBA’s relationship with the players’ union, which had its own antitrust suit pending against the NBA.  It would have been impossible to resolve the union’s lawsuit without also resolving St. Louis’ suit.  In 1977, the settlements were finally reached of all disputes.  The union received free agency, Kentucky received a one-time $3.3 million buyout, and the Spirits negotiated a slightly different deal, $3 million up front plus a portion of the merging ABA teams television revenues.  

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Uncategorized

Surprise Squads So Far

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It’s hard to say that the 2009-10 season has been full of surprises so far.  We knew New Jersey would be bad and that the Cavs would be good, though we didn’t expect the Nets to be quite so bad or the Cavs to be not as good but, like most of the NBA, these teams are playing somewhat in line with expectations.  We do have a few outliers, teams that are playing much better than most expected: Atlanta, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, and Dallas (we can also throw in Miami but they are only 9-6 with a mediocre expected won-loss record).  It’s too early to really know if these teams can continue playing this well.  Let’s take a look at the teams, how they seem to be winning, and whether we should expect this to continue: 

–Oklahoma City Thunder (8-7):    Coming into the season, we all believed that the Thunder were on the right track but that playoff contention was at least a year away.  Well so far the Thunder have looked pretty formidable.  Kevin Durant has improved a bit this year (27.1 ppg, 23.5 PER), which has surely helped the team but the serious improvement has been defensively.  Last season, the Thunder were a terrible offensive team (29th in offensive efficiency) and a slightly below average defense team (20th in defensive efficiency).  This year, the offensive has improved a little (23rd), which is due mostly to Durant but the defense has shot up to 6th in the NBA.  This can also be seen when watching OKC, as they’ve really made great players like Kobe Bryant work for points. 

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