-Does this injury end the Lakers’ season?

Well the Lakers are in the driver seat to make the eight seed still if they win their remaining games two games.  Kobe’s presence would’ve given the Lakers a puncher’s shot of upsetting the Spurs or Thunder but that’s about it.  Even with Kobe, the Lakers are a poor defensive team (20^th in the NBA) and they have no one to match up with either Russell Westbrook or Tony Parker.   The Lakers are 0-2 against the Spurs (with one more game to play) and 1-3 against the Thunder.  So, the injury is disappointing on many levels but probably changes nothing for this season.

-Did heavy minutes cause this injury?

There really is no way we can answer this question but we do know that Kobe had averaged a ton of minutes the last few weeks.  In the past seven games, Kobe did not play fewer than 41 minutes in any game and hit 47 minutes four times (and would’ve hit that number in the Warrior game if he hadn’t gotten hurt).  For the season, Kobe has averaged 38.6 minutes per game, which was basically the same number as last season and fewer than in 2009-10.  That sounds like heavy time but Michael Jordan played even more minutes at age 34 than Kobe did (38.8 mpg).

As for Achilles tears, I’m no doctor but WebMD indicates they can be caused by both a single isolated rauma or overuse.  So, we can’t preclude the possibility that Kobe’s injury might have have been caused by being  run too hard the last few weeks.  We will never know the answer unless the Lakers let someone review the MRI of the tear to tell whether they are consistent with a sudden injury or wear and tear.  Given all this, I’m agnostic on this question but do come away wondering whether Bryant should’ve been monitored a bit more carefully.

-Can Kobe still be Kobe next year?

Again, I’m no doctor but news reports believe it’ll take 9-12 months to recover and that he could lose a little lift afterwards.  The only other big time players I can remember suffering this injury had mixed results.

Dominique Wilkins tore his Achilles on a similar play at age 32 in 1991-92.  He returned the following year with no problems at all and even had a better PER.  Here are the stats for comparison (on a per-36 minute basis):

-(pre-tear) 1991-92: 9.5 fgs, 20.6 fgas, .464 FG%, .289 3FG%, 7.9 ftas, 6.6 rebs, 3.6 asts, 1.2 stls, 0.5 blks 2.7 tos, 26.5 pts. 22.2 PER

-(post-tear) 1992-93: 10.1 fgs, 21.5 fgas, .468 FG%, .380 3FG%, 8.5 ftas, 6.6 rebs, 3.1 asts, 1.0 stls, 0.4 blks, 2.5 tos, 28.8 pts, 24.3 PER

As can be seen, Wilkins was basically the same player after the tear.  His numbers looked better because his three point shooting drastically improved (this was a fluke) but he was still able to get to the line and do all the other athletic things he was able to do before the injury.

The other recent(ish) case of a star player tearing an Achilles was Patrick Ewing during the 1998-99 playoffs (right before the Knicks famously went on a tear to the NBA Finals without him).  At the time, Ewing was 36 and really slowing down as a player.  He returned for the 1999-00 season and was not quite the same but close (his PER dropped from 19.4 to 16.9 the next season).  Of course, Ewing was older and already declining rapidly, so it is hard to say how much of the decline at that age can be attributed to the injury.  In any event, the Wilkins and Ewing cases give us optimism for Kobe.  If an older and slower Ewing could still play post tear, there is no reason to think Kobe won’t likely have a few good seasons left.  The rub, though, is that even if Kobe does come back close to his 2012-13 ability, he won’t be back until January (unless he tries to return insanely early) and there is a shot that the thin Lakers will be so mediocre without him (even assuming that Dwight Howard returns) that they will too far behind in the seedings to make a playoff run.

2.  Louisville and the NBA: Louisville recently ran through the NBA tournament with relative ease.  Despite this, they don’t have too much NBA talent (Gorgui Deng is the only projected first round right now).  Of course, you don’t need an NBA star to win in college if you are as deep as Louisville is.  The question I wondered is where each of the NCAA champs ranks in terms of NBA talent.  Let’s take a look at all the titlists since the NCAA went to the 64-team tournament back in 1984-85 and assess which title teams had the best NBA talent:

Group I:  Nothing but role players

-1984-85, Villanova (3 NBAers): Had one solid pro in Ed Pinckney, a decent pro in Harold Pressley, and fringer Dwayne McClain.

-1986-87 Indiana (3 NBAers): Well, barely three NBA players.  Steve Alford played a few seasons off the bench and Keith Smart had only two NBA games.  The best NBA players was Dean Garrett, who didn’t make it in the NBA until age-30 in 1996-97.

-1992-93 North Carolina (4 NBAers): No stars in this group.  George Lynch had the best NBA career as a good bench guy and Eric Montross took up space for a while.  Derrick Phelps and Matt Wenstrom played a combined 14 NBA games.

-1993-94 Arkansas (3 NBAers): Similar to 2012-13 Louisville…lots of college talent but not too many NBA impact players.  Croliss Williamson was the best player and had a good NBA career while Corey Beck played on the fringe and Clint McDaniel had even less NBA time.

-1994-95 UCLA (6 NBAers): Despite so many pros, none made much impact at all.  Ed O’Bannon was the only high draft choice but his knees prevented him from playing as a small forward.  George Zidek, Tyus Edney, and J.R. Henderson, and Toby Bailey all hung around briefly.  Of this entire group, only Edney played much at all and he was out of the NBA by age 28.

-2001-02 Maryland (4 NBAers): Maryland never turned out a star.  Chris Wilcox has been decent and Steve Blake is a role player.  Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter played a bit but have been gone from the NBA for some time now.

-2004-05 North Carolina (6 NBAers): Volume is here but quality is weak.  Raymond Felton is pretty good and Marvin Williams solid.  Sean May and Rashad McCants were busts and David Noel and Jawad Williams were fringers.

-2007-08 Kansas (6 NBAers): Another high volume/low quality NBA group.  Darrell Arthur looks promising and Mario Chalmers is a bona fide NBA starter.  Brandon rush looks solid (though he missed most of the year with a knee injury). Cole Aldrich is struggling to make it in the NBA.  Sherron Collins and Darnell Jackson are fringers for now.

-2009-10 Duke (4 NBAers): It is too soon to tell but the group looks okay but unspectacular so far (Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith, Miles Plumlee, and Lance Thomas).

-2010-11 Connecticut (2 NBAers): Kemba Walker looks solid but it is not clear how Jeremy Lamb will be.

Group II: Some solid pros

-1985-86, Louisville (4 NBAers): The Cardinals had four NBA players but no stars.  Pervis Ellison (who was a freshman star), stayed four years and was drafted first overall in 1989 but injuries prevented him from being too good.  Billy Thompson was pretty good for a few years and Milt Wagner was a fringe player.  Kenny Payne was a 19-year old freshman who barely played that season but worked his way to be drafted later (though he didn’t really stick in the NBA either).

-1987-88 Kansas (2 NBAers): We mentioned that you don’t necessarily need an NBA star to win an NCAA title.  The Jayhawks showed that a star can’t hurt.  This team was mostly Danny Manning (another top pick in the NBA draft) plus future GM Kevin Pritchard, who played 94 NBA games over a five-year career.

-1989-90 UNLV (3 NBAers): It felt like this team was an NBA roster but only three players made it (Larry Johnson, Greg Anthony, and Stacey Augmon) and they all stuck pretty well.

-1998-99 Connecticut (3 NBAers): Rip Hamilton was the star of the team and is still playing.  Khalid El-Amin played a bit for a terrible Bulls team and Jake Voskuhl took up space for a eight years.

-1999-00 Michigan State (4 NBAers): Jason Richardson and Morris Peterson had nice NBA careers (Richardson’s is still kind of going now).  Mateen Cleaves had a few seasons and Charlie Bell worked hard and got some overly generous contracts as a result.

-2002-03 Syracuse (2 NBAers): Not much quantity here but Carmelo Anthony is nice quality.  Hakim Warrick has been a decent player too.

-2003-04 Connecticut (6 NBAers): The core of this team has been very good in the NBA (Ben Gordon and Emeka Okafor).  Charlie Villanueva is serviceable enough (despite complaints about non-scoring portions of his game).  Marcus Williams, Josh Boone, and Hilton Armstrong were all first round picks but only a few years.

-2005-06 Florida (5 NBAers): Al Horford and Joakim Noah look like very good pros and Corey Brewer is a decent bench player.  Chris Richard and Taurean Green were fringers.

-2006-07 Florida (6 NBAers): Florida amazingly returned the same group the next season but added Marresse Speights.

-2008-09 North Carolina (6 NBAers): The book is still open on this team.  For now, Ty Lawson is a potential star.  Ed Davis, Danny Green, Tyler Hansbrough, and Wayne Ellington look like potential role players and might be starters in the right situation.  Tyler Zeller might be a solid backup big man.

-2011-12 Kentucky (6 NBAers): Anthony Davis a potential star and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist could run the gamut as a pro.  Who knows what exactly Doron Lamb, Terence Jones, Marquis Teague, and Darius Miller will be?  Could move up with time.

Group III:  Could almost field an NBA team

-1988-89 Michigan (5 NBAers): This was the first huge NBA class.  Glen Rice was the best player but Loy Vaught and Terry Mills had nice careers.  Rumeal Robinson and Sean Higgins hung around for a few years and Demetrius Calip was a fringers.

-1990-91 Duke (5 NBAers): Grant Hill was the big star on this team and Christian Laettner had a very nice pro career.  Bobby Hurley was drafted high but struggled and had a big injury that knocked him out of the NBA early.  Antonio Lang and Brian Davis made NBA cameos.

-1991-92 Duke (6 NBAers): In addition to the five players from the previous year, freshman Cherokee Parks would go on to be a decent pro for a few years.

-1995-96 Kentucky (9 NBAers): Pitino’s best recruiting came in the mid-1990s when the Wildcats were dripping with NBA quality.  Antoine Walker was the star of the team but even the role players stuck (Walter McCarty, Tony Delk, Mark Pope, Nazr Mohammed).  Derek Anderson was a nice pro and Ron Mercer was anticipated (though he was a bust).  Finally, Wayne Turner and Jeff Sheppard made cameos.  What a loaded team.

-1996-97 Arizona (5 NBAers): If you wondered how Kentucky ever lost in the mid-1990s you need only look at the backcourt for this team (Jason Terry, Mike Bibby, and Michael Dickerson).  Two of these played at or near All-Star levels and Dickerson would’ve been a starter for a decade but for injuries.  Miles Simon and A.J. Bramlett had cameos.

-1997-98 Kentucky (5 NBAers): Not quite as loaded as they were two years before but Mohammed, Sheppard, and Turner were still around.  Throw in Jamaal Magloire and Scott Padgett, both of whom had nice NBA careers.

-2000-01 Duke (4 NBAers): Many a title team can squeeze out for NBAers but all of these Duke players were quality in the NBA (Shane Battier, Carlos Boozer, and Mike Dunleavy) or would have been but for a  motorcycle accident (Jay Williams).

1. Heckuva of a Job Brownie!: The big news of this week has come out of Los Angeles where the Lakers have canned Mike Brown and spurned an apparently willing and able Phil Jackson in favor of Mike D’Antoni.  There is so much going on here, so let’s break it down piece-by-piece:

-Should Brown have been fired?

Certainly, the early returns were not good but it’s pretty hard to envision a scenario where a team could possibly conclude that a coach is lost after a five-game stretch to open a season.   Brown had done some strange offensive things like trying to impose the Princeton offense on a team that would seem to thrive either running with Steve Nash or in isolation for Kobe Bryant.   Despite this strange idea, the Lakers’ problem with Brown was not the offense (which was reasonably efficient) but the defense that couldn’t stop anyone.  On top of that, Dwight Howard looks a little rusty on defense, so there is every reason to believe the defense would improve under a coach like Brown, who was always more defense focused, once Howard got his sea legs.   In addition, a quick firing like this is pretty unprecedented (no coach has been let go so soon after the start the season since Dolph Schayes in 1971), which creates a tumult and sense of directionless that the players will have to deal with.

The Lakers also cut the cord on Brown before some winnable games without a new coach ready to come in his place.  In the absence of any identifiably abysmal coaching moves, it seems that Brown must’ve ticked off the wrong guy: either ownership or Kobe, the only parties with the power and the temperament to fire Brown so quickly.  Objectively, the firing was clearly too early.  Brown is a competent enough coach and the team thought pretty highly of him last year when he was hired.  He deserved at least some leash before being fired.  This isn’t a supreme injustice (Brown will be paid a lot not to coach) but this seems unfair and such capriciousness is not a good way to run an organization.

-Did the Lakers hire the right guy?

D’Antoni is a pretty good coach but I’m not sure he is the perfect fit either.  Remember the problem here was defense and not offense.  In his Nash Years and later with the Knicks, D’Antoni teams were almost always much better offensively than defensively except for last year’s Knicks (when D’Antoni was let go in the middle of the year).  At least D’Antoni can be expected to establish a smoother offense than Brown had and should figure out how to use Nash with Kobe a little better.  We can expect offensive improvement going forward either way but the defense may still be an issue.

Jackson, the best coach of the last 20 years or so, would have been much better here.  He has blended stars well in the past and his teams always play a nice defensive system.  Of course, the decision is not just who is the better coach in the abstract but also includes what the coaches were demanding in salary and benefits.  The word was that Jackson thought he had maximum leverage and put out some huge demands (part ownership, taking off some road games).  I don’t know if this is true but you can’t kill the Lakers for wanting to have less onerous contract of D’Antoni, particularly on the ownership demand.  If Jackson were the defense between a title and no title, the Lakers should’ve paid him but I don’t see the Lakers winning a title as currently constituted with either coach (they seem a little long in the tooth to beat OKC).

-Did the Lakers treat Phil Jackson poorly in the process?

Jackson and his agent have very publicly let the Lakers know that they feel screwed.  Jackson thought he had another day to mull it over and then had the offer pulled off the table.  I agree the Lakers seemed to go out of their way to irk Jackson but I can’t say I’m crying for him.  Jackson has never been particularly sensitive to the feelings of his own management or other coaches in the past (remember Phil’s quasi-campaign for the Knicks job in 1999 while Jeff Van Gundy was still coaching the team?).   The more interesting question is whether Jackson might come back to another team in the future.  I don’t see a team built for him now but this could change by the end of the season.  Stay tuned…

2. To Foul or Not to Foul: In watching the end of last night’s Nets-Celtics game, I came away questioning Avery Johnson’s tactics on one particular issue.  The Nets were up by four with 19 seconds left the Celtics had the ball.  Johnson then instructed his team to intentionally foul the Celts to avoid a three-pointer.  First, the Nets fouled Paul Pierce near midcourt and he promptly hit two free throws to cut the lead to two.  After that, the Nets made two free throws and, with eleven seconds left, the Nets did the same thing to Jason Terry, who promptly missed two free throws and the Nets scored two more free throws to ice the game.

Was this really the best way to end the game?  In theory, the strategy worked because Terry missed his shots and the Nets won but this struck me as a really bad path to a win.  Pierce is a career 81% from the line and Terry is 85%.  From three, Pierce is 37% and Terry is 38%.  Aren’t the odds much better that Pierce and/or Terry will miss the threes than the free throws?  If Pierce and Terry hit, the Nets must match the free throws (and avoid a potential stupid turnover) or the Celts will get the ball back with a chance to tie or win.  I understand the fear of the three when up four but the Nets would still have the ball and the lead.  Instead, the Nets stopped the clock and gave the Celts higher percentage shots.  Sure, the Nets had a chance to match the free throws but the odds were much better just playing out the game and daring the Celts to hit a three.  The intentional foul to take away the three makes much more sense when the clock ticks down closer two five seconds left in the game, thereby eliminating the chance of a tie and giving the Celtics no time left to bring the ball up and shoot a three after the Nets are intentionally fouled and shoot foul shots.  Again, Terry missed the free throws here but that is focusing on results and not the process, which seemed quite flawed.

3. What Happened to Dolph?: Finally, the Mike Brown Affair does raise the question of how the heck did Dolph Schayes leave his team after one game back in 1971?  Fortunately, the Sports Illustrated Vault is available to give us the answer.  Schayes, who was a great player for the Syracuse Nats in the 1950s, first coached the Philadelphia 76ers in 1963-64 and lasted three seasons.  The Sixers picked up Wilt Chamberlain under Schayes’ watch and went 55-25 in 1965-66 but lost to Boston 4-1 in the playoffs.  Schayes didn’t get along with Wilt and, after the playoff loss, Schayes was bounced for Alex Hannum (who ultimately won a title with Wilt).

Schayes next job was with the 1970-71 Buffalo Braves, an expansion team (that later became the Clippers).  Buffalo had no talent and, not surprisingly, went 22-60 during that first season.  According to Sports Illustrated, there were player complaints about Schayes’ leadership but he was retained for a second season.  In the 1971-72 pre-season, the Braves looked bad and then lost its opening game to Seattle (another expansion team) by 33, after which Schayes was abruptly fired.  According to owner Paul Snyder, the terrible showing merited firing: “I wasn’t a little disappointed by last year, I was a lot disappointed.  I’m used to running a business and I felt it was the right decision to let Dolph go. So I did it. After the way we played in the first game I felt I would rather sell the franchise than watch another performance like that.”

How did this firing turn out?  Schayes was replaced with scout Johnny McCarthy, who promptly led the team to another 22-win season.  Neither Schayes nor McCarthy were ever NBA head coaches again after that season.

In order to actually evaluate the trade, though, we should at least set out the facts and see if we can figure out where OKC was coming from here.  Now, some might not agree with all these findings but we should at least try to find all the common ground first:

-OKC’s two best players are Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant: Well, KD is obviously the team’s best player.  Westbrook and Harden were pretty close in value last year on a per/minute basis.  Westbrook had a PER of 22.9 and Harden had 21.1, which is quite close.  Westbrook has the added value that he’s been playing at or near this level for a few years, while this was a new plateau for Harden.   Westbrook also played more minutes at a more premium position.  So, it’s fair to say Westbrook is better than Harden going forward, even though a strong argument can be made that their value is fairly equal.

-OKC thought Ibaka + Kevin Martin > Harden and no Ibaka: OKC seemed to feel that Harden wasn’t worth the $80 million max he grabbed from Houston but value is relative.  Clearly, Houston had the cap room to pay Harden that much, while Harden as a second/third banana in OKC was more replaceable in their lineup and the Thunder lacked the cap room.  This raises the interesting question of whether OKC wrongly chose to pay Serge Ibaka instead of Harden.  In theory, the Thunder could’ve paid Harden a good salary and kept Ibaka but they would have had to amnesty Kendrick Perkins and his $25 million over the next three seasons.  This seems like the easiest path (Perkins can’t score at all anymore and another cheaper big could probably be found most easily) but I guess either OKC decided they wanted to keep his bulk or Harden wouldn’t discount himself at all.  Assuming that the Perkins amnesty option was not available (which seems very possible), OKC had to choose between Ibaka and Harden. This is no easy choice…either a 23-year old shot blocker who is playing like a young Marcus Camby or a valuable two guard with ability in all facets of the game like a young Eddie Jones or Manu Ginobili.

I’m sure if OKC’s choice was only between Ibaka and Harden, they probably would’ve taken Harden.  Ibaka is a great player but, as a thinner shot blocker, isn’t even always on the floor to end games against the likes of Dwight Howard or Tim Duncan.  The Thunder must’ve thought they could get a enough value from Kevin Martin, a young prospect in Jeremy Lamb, and two first-round picks (plus some other trinkets) and the bonus of keeping Ibaka was worth more than retaining Harden and hoping to find another Ibaka-type player.  In the short-term, the Thunder shouldn’t feel much drop off (Martin is a very good scorer, but can’t guard/pass like Harden).  In the long-term, Martin is a free agent and will probably command less then Harden did but will still be expensive.  It’ll be interesting to see if Martin is let go after the season and the Thunder try to go with Lamb.  This element of uncertainty at play makes this a hard deal to assess.  Assuming Harden/Ibaka was an either or proposition, though, the return here is nice.  Martin will help now and Lamb could be a good two guard going forward.

-Houston scored its star, kind of: After years of trying to obtain a few stars to build its team with, Houston finally found one in Harden.  Harden projects as a great player but this is not the same as getting Dwight Howard, Yao Ming, or Chris Bosh.  Yes, the Rockets had to lock up a young All-Star and a Harden/Jeremy Lin combo is a nice start to a team but there is reason two guards are not usually valued like star big men.  Unless Harden turns into a Clyde Drexler-level player or better, the Rockets are not instantly a great team.  Harden could turn into that type of player and the Rockets had to grab such a potential player but his presence does not guarantee the playoffs for Houston.  While the Rockets still have plenty of cap room to get another star, they are still a work in progress.

-Overall?: Overall, this is a trade that helps both sides but is not totally ideal for either.  OKC hedged well enough in recovering some good two guards for Harden (plus picks) but there is a possibility that they will regret letting Harden go (albeit not quite as likely as some would have you believe).   For Houston, a nice interim move and nothing more and they may kick themselves if they gave up a ton of assets if a star big man becomes available in trade.

2.   Lakers…It’s Over?: It’s way too early to make any conclusions about this season but the Lakers’ bad start (0-2 and outscored by 18 points in two games) has created all sorts of questions about this potential super team.   But why worry?  Had the Lakers made any free throws, they probably would’ve won at home against Dallas and they always have had problems in Portland in even the best of times.  Still, the defense has looked weak (even though Dwight Howard looked good offensively) and Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant do not look like a great mix.  If the Lakers wanted a 38-year old spot up shooter who can’t defend, they could’ve kept Derek Fisher.  Nash should start blending well here but traditional point guards have never meshed well with Kobe in the past and the Lakers won’t get maximum value from Nash that a team without such a high usage shooting guard might.

3.  Quickie Predictions: We’ve already provided an excellent and comprehensive NBA preview the last few weeks but I wanted to give predictions my on the record.  I am fully aware that no one (including myself) will remember or care about my picks a week from now but how can I not participate?  Anyway, here were go…

Eastern Conference

Atlantic Division

1. Boston Celtics: Getting older and scoring is becoming an issue but still the best in the division.
2. New Jersey Nets: Improved from the limbo years in Newark but this is still just another decent team with no Dwight Howard.
3. New York Knicks: As with anything Knicks-Dolan, this team will eventually get ugly but should be in the playoffs again this year.
4. Philadelphia 76ers: Took a step back in order to try to get Bynum and then made some weird personnel decision in free agency.
5. Toronto Raptors: Some talent has been assembled but no depth.  Goal will/should be to develop Jonas Valanciunas not to get to playoffs.

Central Division

1. Indiana Pacers: The Bulls’ loss (Rose, Derrick) is the Pacers’ gain.  Have a pretty clean shot at the Conference Finals.
2. Chicago Bulls: They aren’t a real threat without Rose but they have as much talent as most of the teams in the East (this is not a compliment to the East).
3. Cleveland Cavaliers: Not a ton of good players but Kyrie Irving is enough to be near the playoffs.
4. Milwaukee Bucks: Improved the offense last year at the expense of the defense.  Won’t be quite as painful to watch as the prior teams but watching Monta Ellis and Brandon Jennings chuck isn’t riveting or a successful strategy.
5. Detroit Pistons: Greg Monroe is effective but too many other weak draft picks and signings mean this team is still near its nadir.  Joe Dumars may be in trouble with new ownership.

Southeast Division

1. Miami Heat: Still the class of the East and the NBA.  LeBron and company look at least as good as last year.
2. Atlanta Hawks: Even without JJ the talent is there to be a second round playoff team but still not a true threat.
3. Washington Wizards: I agree with the consensus that Wiz’s off-season moves were bad for the long-term but are better than most of the riff raff for now.
4. Orlando Magic: Handled the Dwight Howard affair terribly and are back into rebuild mode.
5. Charlotte Bobcats: Cats should be better than the worst team ever this year but not by too much.

Western Conference

Northwest Division

1. Oklahoma City Thunder: The division has no cupcakes but KD and Russell Westbrook is enough to get a top seed.
2. Denver Nuggets: A trendy pick to be really good.  I see them as merely good, which is no insult.
3. Utah Jazz: Few teams have amassed so many very good forwards.  They’ll have to flip one (Al Jefferson?) for another guard.
4. Portland Trail Blazers: They could be in the playoffs or could flame out.  Success will come down to rookie point Damian Lillard.
5. Minnesota Timberwolves: As good as most of the division but the Kevin Love injury will set them back.

Pacific Division

1. Los Angeles Lakers: Having trouble working out the kinks but they are too good not to win this division.
2. Los Angeles Clippers: Clipps are deep and talented.  Fun to watch but will need someone to fill the holes at the two guard and small forward to really win big.
3. Golden State Warriors: Are trying hard to be taken seriously as a defensive team when the talent is focused with finesse guards Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. 
4. Phoenix Suns: Starting over with Goran Dragic and Marcin Gortat.
5. Sacramento Kings: There is some talent here but not as much as management thinks.  Should reassess where they are headed.

Southwest Division

1. San Antonio Spurs: This will end sometime soon but not quite yet.
2. Memphis Grizzlies: A nice solid playoff team.
3. Dallas Mavericks: If Dirk comes back quickly and healthfully, they are a playoff team again.
4. Houston Rockets: Lin/Harden will be fun and should be around the playoff race.
5. New Orleans Hornets: West is too deep for them to win too much but have great building blocks

Playoffs Results

Eastern Conference

1. Miami Heat
2. Indiana Pacers
3. Boston Celtics
4. Atlanta Hawks
5. New Jersey Nets
6. Chicago Bulls
7. New York Knicks
8. Cleveland Cavaliers

Western Conference

1. Oklahoma City Thunder
2. San Antonio Spurs
3. Los Angeles Lakers
4. Los Angeles Clippers
5. Denver Nuggets
6. Memphis Grizzlies
7. Dallas Mavericks
8. Utah Jazz

Conference Finals

Heat over Pacers, 4-2

Thunder over Lakers, 4-3

NBA Finals

Heat over Thunder, 4-3

Awards

MVP:  LeBron James

Rookie of the Year:  Anthony Davis

Coach of the Year:  Frank Vogel

1. Tanking: The theme of the final month of the NBA season has been tanking.  Namely, that the bad teams have quit trying in an attempt to amass ping pong balls for the NBA Lottery.   But is this true?  Well, the anecdotal evidence overwhelmingly supports this assertion.  Of the 16 teams currently in the NBA playoffs, all are at least 5-5 in their last ten games, except Orlando (which is 4-6 and has been reeling with the injury to Dwight Howard).  Of the 14 teams now outside of the playoff picture, only four teams are 5-5 in the past ten games and two of those teams (Phoenix and Milwaukee) are still actively competing for the playoffs.  Ten of those 14 teams are 3-7 or worse in their past ten.  Of course, one would expect the poor teams to play poor in any random sampling of ten games but the ineptitude is palpable and most of these bad teams have shut down key players already.

Of course, there is little incentive for bad teams to really try to win once they obviously won’t make the playoffs.  Indeed, teams get a better chance to win the Lottery with more losses.   There is some value to finishing strong, as winning will give the bad team some positive feelings with fans for the next season.  But good feelings aren’t going to be too strong enough merely because a team the goes from loser to competitive non-playoff team.  Throw in that competing requires risk to your best players for the next season, and the slim benefits of finishing strong are clearly dwarfed by the benefits of losing.  So, unless you are on the perimeter of the playoff race, the only real incentive to compete after a team has established itself as bad is where the coach or GM who is at a risk of job loss and hopes to show intra-season improvement sufficient to avoid being fired.

Henry Abbott over at ESPN argued that tanking is deleterious to the NBA and rewards bad decision making and should, therefore, be eliminated.  Tanking is not really good for the NBA but it is difficult to think of a system that incentivizes competition over tanking.  The concept of the NBA Lottery was invented to limit tanking (particularly after the Rockets were accused of tanking to get the pick that became Hakeem Olajuwon in 1984).  The Lottery initially gave all non-playoff teams an equal shot of winning the Lottery and thus a team on the verge of the playoffs had as much of a shot of getting the top pick as the worst teams.  The NBA figured that the system wasn’t fair to the really bad teams and could even encourage border line playoff teams to junk a run at a low playoff seed for the shot at the top pick.  So, the weighted Lottery system was adopted and being bad became the best way to possibly get a better pick, even if you weren’t sure to have a top three pick.

Is this current system a problem?  Well, it isn’t good that bad teams look like even bigger pushovers come April but fixing this only creates more problems.  The best idea put forward came from Bill Simmons, who has talked about a tournament between the non-playoff teams, with the winner getting the best pick.  This would encourage teams to play harder for better seeding in a theoretical tournament but the incentive still isn’t that great.  Playing hard won’t help because the seeding isn’t really that important since none of the really bad teams are usually so good that getting a top seed in a loser’s bracket would be that big a deal.  For example, if we were to fictionally create a loser’s tourney right now for 2011-12, the Suns would be the top seed and would have a bye but the third seeded Bucks would draw the Bobcats, not exactly a huge disadvantage for Houston.  Also, the moderately bad teams, like the Nets or Raptors probably wouldn’t care which top seed they draw and winning a round in the bad tourney wouldn’t exactly excite the fans. A loser’s tourney has the distinct stench of the NIT, much ado about nothing to the fans.   At the end of the day, the Lottery is the best way to balance between making sure the decent teams shoot for the playoffs teams and the bad teams are given a better chance but not a guaranteed shot at the highest picks and no artificial system is really going to fix this.  For now, we just have to accept that the bad teams will be worse by the end of the season.

2. Bobcats Are Quite Bad: It may be a shortened season but Charlotte is threatening to have the lowest winning percentage in modern history.  At 7-56, the Bobcats are worst offensive and defensive team in the NBA and their expected won-loss doesn’t short change them either, as the point differential projects to the same 7-56 record.  It is clear that Charlotte has been managed horribly from day one and it is important for the team to get another win just to avoid another humiliation for the continually alienated local fans.  At the end of the day, though, the Bobcats already bottomed out with some terrible drafts and the trading of Tyson Chandler for nothing but financial savings.  It seems, though, that the Bobcats have figured this all out and Michael Jordan has finally hired a competent GM in Rich Cho.  If Charlotte gets Anthony Davis, Thomas Robinson, or Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, they will have a nice building block.  The fans may never feel for the Bobcats like they did for the Hornets but better the Bobcats are doing the right thing in dumping their mediocre vets and starting over.  Now they just have to not screw up the coming draft choices.

3. Metta World Elbow: I caught much of the fun Lakers/Thunder game on Sunday.  A great game was lost to the side story of Metta World Peace’s hard elbow to the head of James Harden.  World Peace was rightfully tossed from the game and has earned a suspension of five games or so.  World Peace claimed after the game that the elbow was unintentional and part of his celebration of a made basket.  In reviewing the tape, World Peace seemed very much aware of Harden’s presence and meant to shove him off, though he probably didn’t  mean to hit him so squarely in the head.  The elbow looked very similar to one that World Peace threw at Chris Paul earlier in the season.

While World Peace definitely deserves his punishment, this incident should not be looked at as a back slide to his reckless behavior from many years ago, when he started a brawl in Detroit.  The elbow on Harden was vicious but is a part of the game.  Being guilty of serial elbow is not a character defect, as Bill Cartwright, Dikembe Mutombo, and Karl Malone can attest.

-The greatest player of All-Time has had some All-Star clunkers.  MJ was amazing in most of his All-Star appearances in the 1980s (except the famous “Freeze Out” game his rookie season).  In the 1990s, Jordan had some weak shooting games: 10-25 in 1991, 10-25 in 1993, and 5-14 in 1997.  Jordan also probably had the worst high volume shooting All-Star game since 1980 in his final All-Star game, going 9-27 from the field and notching an ugly 20 points in 2003.  Jordan also did not really shot many threes in All-Star play (3-11 in 13 All-Star games).

-James Worthy played in seven All-Star games and was pretty good in his first two but had a really poor two-year stretch in 1990 and 1991, where he shot 4-22.

-The general feeling seems to be that all players shoot as much as possible when they get in the games but some big guys have other roles ingrained in them  James Donaldson and Mark Eaton each made exactly one All-Star game (both were rebounders and decidedly not scorers).  Neither player took a shot from the field, though Donaldson did hit two free throws.  Chris Gatling, on the other hand, took eight shots in 12 minutes in his only All-Star game (though he missed seven of them).

-The most uninspiring under the radar All-Star performance goes to Joe Johnson in 2009.  He shot 0-4 in 21 minutes and had five turnovers and did not rack up any others stats.  You would think an assist or steal would happen by accident when you play 20 minutes with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.  Go figure.

-Because everyone is shooting so much, the amount of turnovers is pretty low for most All-Star players.  In fact, most players (even point guards) stay under five turnovers in an All-Star game.  The player who had the most high turnover games was Magic Johnson.  Magic was almost always under four turnovers a game in his regular season but he took some serious chances in the All-Star games, having four games with at least seven turnovers (including his final comeback All-Star game in 1992, when he won MVP).

-Terry Cummings was a surprisingly high volume shooter in the 1985 All-Star game, taking 17 shots in 16 minutes and leading all All-Stars in shots on a team with Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, Julius Erving, Michael Jordan, and Bernard King.  Cummings shot 7-17 and had 17 points and seven boards that day.

-Speaking of shots, a few other surprising shot leaders: Robert Parish in 1981, Gus Williams in 1982, Eddie Jones in 1998, and Jamaal Magloire in 2004.

-I’m not sure who is less enthused about the All-Star game than Rasheed Wallace.  He appeared in four games and shot 6-24 overall and 3-18 in the final three games, where he mostly just chucked threes poorly (1-10 from three in those three games).

2.    A Quick Comment on Lin-Sanity: We would be remiss if we didn’t say a word about Jeremy Lin’s surprising emergence as an All-Star point guard this month.  Our site has had a fair amount of attention and traffic lately because our own Ed Weiland predicted good things for Lin two years ago.  Obviously, no one saw Lin scoring 25 ppg and he probably isn’t quite that good but he looks like a legit above-average NBA point guard.  Lin’s emergence is due to a confluence of factors including playing in Mike D’Antoni’s point guard favorable system (second in the NBA in pace) with no other scorers available (while Anthony and Stoudemire were out) and, of course, his own talent.  Lin, though, should not be stereotyped as a marginal athlete getting by on his Harvard smarts.  Lin is a serious athlete and his style of play has much more in common with Russell Westbrook than with Mark Price or John Stockton.

Going forward, Lin’s scoring will come down a bit but the Knicks have a bona fide player to pair with Carmelo Anthony and New York can move up the playoff ladder Philly or Atlanta falter.  Oddly, the Knicks have registered as a very good defensive team (fifth) and a poor offensive team (23rd) so far this year.  If Lin and J.R. Smith help the previously terrible backcourt score, while also keeping near this defensive efficiency, the Knicks could look interesting going forward.  The weak offense also shows that there are more than enough shots to go around for Lin and Anthony and any implications by the press to the contrary really have no substance to them.  Finally, great work by Ed, again, predicting the biggest story of the decade a few years before it happened.

3.    The Shrinking Offense of J-Kidd: It has often been commented that players retreat to their core talents over time.  For example, Dennis Rodman, as a younger player, defended, rebounded, and even scored a little bit. Over time, as he lost some athleticism, Rodman’s secondary abilities faded away and he lost the ability to score at all and pretty much could only rebound by the end.  It happens to most players after enough time.

Currently, Jason Kidd seems to have lost quite a few of his other abilities.  At one time, Kidd could get to the rim, averaging almost five free throws per-36 minutes in his prime with the Nets.  Kidd can still board and pass (if not as well) but the ability to get to the rim on offense has virtually disappeared.  Kidd’s only offense consists of the three-point shot.  He is averaging 6.7 shots per 36 minutes and 5.7 of those are three point shots.  Kidd also getting only 0.5 free throws per-36 minutes.  So, all Kidd can do now is shoot threes on offense.  More problematic is that Kidd no longer can hit the shot (.299% from three this year and a disgusting .326 from the field overall).  He can likely still shoot the three-point shot pretty well but the scouting report probably is to not leave Kidd or give him any room to drive (because he hasn’t done so far this year).  If it is any solace to Mavs fans, Kidd shot mostly threes last year too and was better but still not that great (.361% from the field and .340% from three) and he took off in the playoffs, hitting 43-115 (.374%) from three in 21 playoff games.  Hopefully, Kidd can get a little more balance to his offensive game but if he can’t, it is probably time to use him as a back up and look for a new point in Dallas.

-Philly Phlying: The Philadelphia 76ers are arguably the best team in the NBA on paper right now.  After dismantling the Kings last night, Philly is 7-2 and outscoring foes by a ridiculous +16.0 points per game (Miami is second at +11.8 per game).  Also defying the odds, the Sixers are scoring quite well (101.6 points per game) and allowing only 85.6 points per game (the lowest in NBA).  The Sixers offensive has been efficient but the real key is that they have held opponents to a superb .391% from the field and .269% from three-point land going into the Kings game.  Doug Collins usually has his teams playing strong defense but those numbers are so tough you have to think they aren’t really sustainable.  Indeed, the schedule has been relatively easy so far and they are 1-2 against winning teams.  It is also highly unlikely that Spencer Hawes can continue to shoot over 60%.  Even so, this is a tough and well prepared team and blowing out even bad teams consistently is a good indicator for future success.  Perhaps the lockout has positioned Philly to make a run by being disciplined and moderately talented.  The Sixers aren’t better than the Bulls or the Heat but they have staked a strong claim for the Atlantic Division and the third seed pretty.

-Westphal Rightfully Falls: The firing of Paul Westphal was wholly deserved.  I’m sure DeMarcus Cousins is a pain in the ass but devaluing an asset publicly is not a good idea, particularly where management isn’t on board.  I understand the perspective that a coach wants to teach a young player how to behave properly and to stop the constant complaining.  Maybe Phil Jackson or Pat Riley can pull something like this but Westphal didn’t have the leverage to unilaterally bench Cousins and make him look bad the way he did.  I wonder why Westphal got tough, since he was so famously a players coach in both Phoenix and Seattle.  I remember Westhpal not laying down the law when whacky stuff happened in his previous stops.  You’ll recall the famous Vernon Maxwell-Gary Payton melee at practice in 2000 in Seattle that got so rowdy that the spillover injured teammates Horace Grant and Chuck Person.  Neither Maxwell nor Payton were suspended, when they clearly should have.  Rather, Westphal fined them and made the following public statement: “We’ve taken a lot steps to prove we’re a good team, and this is not the time to take steps backward.  This is the time to band together.”  Maybe, he should’ve told Cousins something similar this season.

-Early PER Numbers: LeBron James is off to another awesome start leading the NBA with a 36.9 PER (!).  A bigger surprise is that Kyle Lowry is currently number two in PER in the NBA of anyone playing more than 30 minutes per game.  It probably won’t last but the Houston has built an offense around him, which is helping his numbers, but maybe taking a toll defensively (Houston was last in defensive efficiency before the Kings were destroyed).

The NBA has opened its books to show its calculations as to why it needs to change the system and shown losses of $360 million.  The players have taken the position that the losses of roughly $360 million are overstated and based upon creative accounting.  Specifically, the NBPA has argued that the losses are unfairly enhanced by about 150% based upon accounting tricks.  The NBPA says the losses are actually closer to $90 million because the NBA has counted amortization and depreciation of costs when teams are sold to create paper losses that don’t reflect the actual financial status of the teams.  Indeed, this week Nate Silver of the New York Times wrote an article that concluded, based upon number provided by Forbes, the NBA is, in fact, quite profitable. The NBA quickly responded stating that the Forbes data was totally wrong and that the losses projected were not related to any accounting tricks (Silver responded to the NBA noting that Forbes’ projections were relatively close to those seen in leaked financials of the New Orleans Hornets but conceding that without the actual data his projections did rest on assumptions that cannot be verified. 

So where does that leave us?  The NBA and NBPA both seem to agree that league is losing money on some level, though the level of losses is in dispute.  In addition, the NBPA’s argument that amortization is improper doesn’t hold much water.  Basically, amortization is the process of spread cost/liabilities over several years to balance a team’s budget.  This is a perfectly legitimate accounting practice in the abstract.  In addition, the players are conferred an actual benefit in the practice because if a team is forced to charge the cost of purchase all up front the team will appear illiquid and will not be able to invest in the team, namely player salaries.  Now it is true that some amortization tactics can be tricky (by charging too much or depreciating over too many years).  But the practice cannot be rejected as improper absent a showing that the numbers used for these specific balance sheets are unreasonable.

Sports labor disputes usually, though, have a way of working themselves out thusly:  if the league is earnest and honest in its belief of financial peril, it will not open up again until it obtains terms that are acceptable.  Conversely, when leagues treated players like serfs (as all sport leagues did for decades) the players have little incentive to play.  Given that the NBPA is getting more basketball revenue than the NBA, it cannot be said the NBA players fall into that serf category anymore. So, if the NBA can really save money by shutting it down, the players have little recourse but to hunker down until they need cash to survive (this is basically what happened in the 1998-99 lockout season).

I have no idea whether the NBA has trumped up its losses at this time but their claims that the system has problems seems much more credible than that of the NFL (which has refused to open up its books to the NFLPA).  Ultimately, this will all have to be resolved in negotiations.  The obvious answers here seem to be that the NBPA is going to have give back on the revenue split.  As for contracts, the NBA implied that it wanted to give each franchise a better opportunity to keep stars, which means that even with a harder cap than the current one, there will be some mechanism for a team to overbid to keep its own players from leaving in free agency.  It also seems likely that the mid-level exception will be eliminated too, as most of the egregious contracts have come from overpaying decent players through this cap loophole.  Apart from that, anything goes under a new agreement.

Are you wondering who to root for in this fight?  The answer is no one.  Neither side appears to be acting unreasonable at this juncture (though that might change).  This is just a negotiation between two sophisticated parties.  We have to just hope that the deal gets done earlier rather than later so we can have some hoops to watch.  One more thing…the NBA obtained nearly full capitulation against the NBPA in the 1999 agreement and the NBPA still ending up doing quite well.  So, hopefully, the NBPA realizes that its downside is limited unless the NBA really rolls back the rules to reserve clause days or imposes a super low/super hard cap.

2.    Yao Retires?: The other story in the news is that Yao Ming is likely retiring as a result of his nagging foot/ankle injuries.  It is a little early to look back at Yao’s career but certainly he made his impact as a very good center and as the first star from the Far East in the NBA.  Yao’s short career doesn’t have quite enough meat to merit the FAQ treatment we usually give retiring stars but let’s quickly look at some of it for fun anyway:

-Yao, The Prospect

Yao first burst into international prominence as the star of China in the early 2000s, which was punctuated by a cover story in the ESPN, The Magazine predicting him to be “the next big thing” or something to that effect.  The buzz on Yao as an actual player was interesting.  Some predicted he would be too soft to play effectively in the NBA, while others noted his short arms might prevent him from being a defensive presence.  I also vividly remember many comparing him to Rik Smits (ie a nice scorer but not a boarder or shot blocker) and Danny Ainge marveling that his arms were “too short” when he saw a video of Yao posting up chairs during workouts.  Ming ended up being a no-brain number one pick despite any concerns because of the international buzz and his legit prospect status as a mobile big man.

-Yao, The Rookie

The plan for the Rockets was to bring Ming along slowly as a rookie, since he was young (22) and he had never really competed at the NBA level.  Yap played no more than 24 minutes his first two weeks in the NBA but began to show serious flashes of ability.  His third game of the season against Toronto, Ming had 8 points and 4 boards in 24 minutes and 10 points in 14 minutes against the Suns a week later.  The watershed game, and my most memorable Ming Moment, was a 23-minutes, 20-point (on 9-9 shooting), 6-board game against the Lakers two days after the Suns game.  Sure, Shaq was injured and didn’t play but Yao looked like a serious player and his time grew from there as it was clear that his ability matched the hype.

-Not Quite Rookie of the Year

At the end of the season Yao had 13.5 ppg, .498 FG%, 8.2 rpg, and 1.8 bpg in 29.0 mpg and a 20.6 PER.  But ROY went to Amare Stoudemire of the Suns, who didn’t have quite as good numbers (13.5 ppg, 8.8 rpg, 1.1 bpg in 31.3 mpg and a 16.2 PER).  At the time, I remember being a bit rankled because Yao seemed to be the better player and the better prospect going forward.  Amare, of course, ended up being the more valuable player  overall, as he matched Yao offensively and played many more games.  Still, Yao has the higher career PER at the moment (23.0 to 22.6) and the player I would prefer to have had he remained healthy.

-No Playoff Wins?

Yao wasn’t dogged with one of those silly “he isn’t a winner” raps that some stars have had but Yao actually won only one playoff series in his NBA career.  As for playoff memories there aren’t too many:  Yao’s 2004-05 Rockets played six tough games against the Mavs in the first round before getting eviscerated by about 40 in Game 7 (Yao had a great 29.0 PER in that series).  In 2006-07, the Rockets lost to the Jazz in the First Round in seven games.  The teams were very evenly matched but the loss stung because the top seed Mavs were upset in the First Round and the Jazz used that absence to easily make it to the Conference Finals–something Houston surely could’ve done too if they had eked out the series.  This was also the Yao team with the best SRS and the last Rocket team that had Tracy McGrady playing at a star level.  In 2007-08, the Rockets won 55 games (the most since Hakeem Olajuwon years) and had an incredible 22-game win streak but still lost in the First Round to their old nemesis Utah.  Finally in 2008-09, the Rockets beat the the Blazers in the First Round in six games between two evenly matched 50-something win teams. Houston then took the eventual champ Lakers seven games in Round Two (little Aaron Brooks gave L.A. fits).   Though we didn’t know it at the time, Yao’s career ostensibly ended after that lost seriesto L.A.

-Durability

Yao played at least 80 games his first three seasons in the NBA.  The next three years he missed close to 30 games per year, before returning to play 77 games in 2008-09.  He has played five games since then.  Some have wondered, legitimately, whether Yao being forced to play for the Chinese National Team every summer wore him down and ended his career early.  Yao never complained about this (or even implied that this bothered him) but his playing with China was a condition of allowing him to come to the NBA.

-Yao and the Hall of Fame

Some are reflexively touting Yao for the Hall of Fame.  Yao has had a very nice career but the numbers don’t really merit the Hall.  Yao has played only 486 games in his career, nearly 100 less than even Brad Daugherty.  To make the Hall based upon such an abbreviated career, it would have to be a ridiculously good career.  Yao was very good (he never had a PER lower than 20.6 in a full season and maxed out at 26.5 in 2006-07) but I don’t see it.  That being said, Yao will almost certainly make the Hall of Fame, given that he is the first great player from the Far East and his arrival marks the opening of that region to the NBA (the Hall of Fame loves honoring such players).  I  don’t have a real problem with this judgment but the resume is not quite there on the court.

Certainly, the advertising market definitely was affected by Yao’s presence (remember how popular Tracy McGrady got in China because the Chinese happened to see him play during Yao games?) but no actual NBA talent has not really entered the NBA from China just yet (Sun Yue played 10 games with the Lakers in 2009 and Yi Jianlian was lottery pick but hasn’t panned out).  Nor have any of China’s neighbors brought much to the table (Ha Seung Jin from Korea and Yuta Tabuse of Japan each made cameos in the mid-2000s).  Yao may have sowed the seeds for something bigger in terms of bringing Asian talent to the NBA but, so far, the impact has been mostly financial.

This is not to downplay how well Allen has played and how well he has shot.  While Allen did get a slightly earlier start to his career than Miller, Allen has legitimately shot more effectively from three-point land than Miller.  Miller never averaged more than 6.5 threes per 36 minutes and Allen beat that mark six seasons in a row, maxing out at 8.4 threes per 36 minutes with the Sonics in 2005-06.  Both players, by the way, shoot roughly the same from downtown (.398 for Allen vs. .395 for Miller).  Another interesting note is that Allen is currently shooting a career high .456% from three this year, well above his previous career high of .434%.

Interestingly, a few years ago, Bill Simmons put forth in his Book of Baseball that Allen was close to surpassing Miller as a player.  I felt that this was a decidedly non-controversial thesis at the time.  Objectively, Allen was the better and more complete player in their primes.  Check their career per-36 minute stats:

-Reggie Miller: 19.1 pts, .471 FG%, .395 3FG%, 5.3 FTA, 3.2 rebs, 3.1 asts, 1.1 stls, 0.2 blks, 2.1 TOs, 18.4 PER

-Ray Allen: 19.8 pts, .452 FG%, .398 3FG%, 4.0 FTA, 4.2 rebs, 3.5 asts, 1.1 stls, 0.2 blks, 2.2 TOs, 19.3 PER

Allen isn’t a lot better and he might decline from ages 36-38 but the stats bare out Allen’s better overall game (with the exception of field goal percentage from two and free throws drawn).  In Miller’s defense, he spent the latter part of his career on slow-paced teams that kept his scoring numbers down.  Where do Allen and Miller currently rank on mythical list of two guards?  Limiting the list to players since the Magic-Bird Era, here’s how I see the Top Ten right now:

1.  Michael Jordan:  Safely ensconced ahead of Kobe

2.  Kobe Bryant:  Vaulted Drexler a while ago but needs a remarkable few years still to get to MJ

3.  Clyde Drexler:  Always underrated, a truly great player

4.  Dwyane Wade:  This might be a little high so far but he is in the picture for second two guard of All-Time

5.  Ray Allen:  Model of consistency

6.  Reggie Miller:  Ditto

7.  Manu Ginobili:  Manu is better than both Allen and Miller but had a later start to his NBA career and might not catch them

8.  Tracy McGrady:  I know he’s been done for awhile but the first half of his career counts too.  Was as good or better than Kobe until about 2004

9.  Vince Carter:  He earned some of the vilification in Toronto but was a legitimately great player

10. Allen Iverson:  AI was a scoring machine but overrated since he fit so poorly in most schemes and was a real pain to coach most of the time.

Speaking of the three-point shot, it would not shock you to know that the All-Time career leader changed quite often.  Just in case your wondering, here are the career leaders as of the the end of each NBA season since the shot was adopted in 1979-80, with some commentary along the way:

-through 1979-80, Brian Taylor (90): This ex-ABAer didn’t actually make too many in the ABA (career best was 32 in that league).  Taylor’s career was over two years later and he made only 67 more threes in that time.

-through 1980-81, Brian Taylor (134): After leading the NBA with 90 in 1979-80, Taylor only made 44 but he kept the All-Time lead since Mike Bratz led the NBA with only 57.

-through 1981-82, Joey Hassett (193): Not a great shooter but Hassett was willing to fling them (71-214 from three in 1981-82 for .332%).  Interestingly, Hassett played only six more NBA games and made only one more three-pointer after 1981-82.

-through 1982-83, Joey Hassett (194): The original three-point shooters (Taylor, Hassett, and Chris Ford) were all gone and not too many new ones emerged, so Hassett kept his crown despite his career ending (Mike Dunleavy led the league with 67 that season).

-through 1983-84, Joey Hassett (194): Same story but Hassett was on borrowed time since Darrell Griffith set the new NBA record for threes made that season (91).

-through 1984-85, Darrell Griffith (246): Griffith broke his own record of threes made by hitting 92 and took a commanding lead in the All-Time race.

-through 1985-86, Larry Bird (267): We all remember Bird as a great three-point shooter (and he was) but his slow ascension reflects the reluctance of 1980s teams to shoot from three.  In fact, Bird never averaged more than 1.3 threes made per game in his career.

-through 1986-87, Larry Bird (357): In case you are wondering, Hassett was still eighth on the All-Time list at this point.

-through 1987-88, Larry Bird (455): Bird had opened a 114-shot lead over the second place Griffith by this time.  Incidentally, Danny Ainge set the new mark for threes in a season with 148.

-through 1988-89, Dale Ellis (472): Bird’s heal injuries knocked him out for the season and Ellis exploded with 162 threes to take the crown.  Michael Adams broke Ainge’s record with 166 threes.

-through 1989-90, Dale Ellis (568)

-through 1990-91, Michael Adams (658): Adams was never particularly accurate from three but after four seasons of leading the NBA in attempts, he took the lead in makes too.  Vernon Maxwell, another chucker, broke Adams’ records for makes in a season with 172.

-through 1991-92, Michael Adams (783): Ellis came back from injuries to close Adams’ lead to only 20 threes.

-through 1992-93, Dale Ellis (882): As Adams slowed down, Ellis retook the corwn.

-through 1993-94, Dale Ellis (1,013): Dan Majerle sets the new record for makes in a seasons (192).  Bird has already fallen to ninth All-Time.

-through 1994-95, Dale Ellis (1,119): John Starks sets the new record for makes with 217.

-through 1995-96, Dale Ellis (1,269): Miller is only 66 threes from Ellis.  Dennis Scott breaks Starks’ record by hitting 267.

-through 1996-97, Dale Ellis (1,461): Miller closes the gap to 29.

-through 1997-98, Reggie Miller (1,596): Miller’s got the record but only by eight threes.

-through 1998-99, Reggie Miller (1,702): Ellis falls behind by 20 threes.  Glen Rice is a distant third at 1,269.

-through 1999-00, Reggie Miller (1,867): Miller now is building his lead to 148 over Ellis.  Gary Payton leads the league in threes with only 177, the fewest in a full season to lead the NBA since 1992-93.

-through 2000-01, Reggie Miller (2,037)

-through 2001-02, Reggie Miller (2,217): Tim Hardaway jumps Rice for third place with 1,531.

-through 2002-03, Reggie Miller (2,330): Rice and Hardaway continue the seesaw battle for third with Rice ahead by 12 threes.

-through 2003-04, Reggie Miller (2,464)

-through 2004-05, Reggie Miller (2,560): Ellis, Rice, and Hardaway are done but Ray Allen is now up to fifth All-Time (1,486).

-through 2005-06, Reggie Miller (2,560): Miller retires in the year that Allen breaks Scott’s three-point record by hitting 269 threes.  Allen vaults to second All-Time with 1,755 (Ellis finished with 1,719).

-through 2006-07, Reggie Miller (2,560): Allen is up to 1,920.

-through 2007-08, Reggie Miller (2,560): Allen is up to 2,100.

-through 2008-09, Reggie Miller (2,560): Allen is up to 2,299.  Peja Stojakovic is now fourth All-Time with 1,571.

-through 2009-10, Reggie Miller (2,560): Allen is up to 2,444.

Allen does not appear to have much in the way of immediate challengers for the crown.   The other active leaders (Jason Kidd, Peja Stojakovic and Chauncey Billups) are actually older than Allen and well behind (Kidd is second but over 800 threes behind Allen).  Who is most likely to catch Allen?  I don’t see any likely candidates at this point.  The only players under 30 anywhere on the active leader board are J.R. Smith (age-25 and 840 threes), Ben Gordon (age-27 and 921 threes), Maurice Williams (age-28 and 661 threes), and Kevin Martin (age-27 and 607 threes).   By comparison, Allen had 1,277 threes by age-28.  Smith has an outside shot here but he must stay in a system like Denver that encourages three-pointers and he must have the longevity that a volatile player like him might not alway have.  Gordon also has a shot but he is bit too old to expect keeping pace with Allen when he enters his 30s.  The upshot is that Allen should keep his record for at least as long as Miller did.

Going forward, though, the historic losing streak should come to an end very soon, with nine straight home games coming up.  It’s not that Cleveland is that much better at home (5-17 versus 3-27 on the road) but the slight difference should come up once in a nine-game stretch.  When will the win actually come?  Let’s take a look at the possibilities:

-2/9 v. Detroit: The Pistons are a terrible 6-21 on the road.

-2/11 v. L.A. Clippers: The Clipps have played better but are still 3-17 on the road

-2/13 v. Washington: Of course, everyone, has this one circled on the calendar.  The Wiz are a remarkable 0-25 on the road.

-2/16 v. L.A. Lakers: Ummm…this is probably not a candidate for a win for the Cavs.

-2/23 v. Houston: Houston should win but they aren’t great on the road (11-18)

-2/25 v. New York: Respectable 12-14 on the road but they were the last team the Cavs beat so far this season.

-2/27 v. Philadelphia: A poor 7-19 on the road.

-3/2 v. San Antonio: The best road team in the NBA…should be fun.

The Cavs are legitimately awful team but not so bad that they shouldn’t snap the streak soon.  As much fun as the Wiz game could be if both teams come in with bad streaks, I think the chances are that Cleveland beats Detroit or the Clipps first.  In fact, the Cavs could end this home stand at 3-6 or 4-5.  Not great but I’m guessing Cleveland fans would take it.

Of course, all this is much ado about nothing.  Whether they are historically awful or merely regular awful, the Cavs are in rebuilding mode.  I’m sure Dan Gilbert feels like a schmuck for his boasts post-LeBron right now but the goal should be to put the team in the position to get good quickly.  The team is almost devoid of young talent and Gilbert should not be shy about dumping the players who worked with LeBron but not so well as primary players for picks/cap room.  Unfortunately, the best trade chip, Anderson Varejao, is out for the season and, therefore, unmovable.  In meantime, Cleveland should focus the rest of this year seeing if J.J. Hickson can develop into a good player and trading Jamison if possible.

2.    Best of the Worst: Bill James once observed that one of the problems with bad teams is that they tend to blame their best players for futility when, in fact, the ire should be focused on the bad players.  The tendency, is to wonder why the stars can’t transcend the scrubs when the question should be why the team can’t amass fewer scrubs.  With that in mind, I thought we could look at the worst teams, record wise, for the last 20 years to see how good their best players were and whether the “stars” ended up being a meaningful players for the future of the franchise.  We’ll pick best player as the regular player with the highest PER (I know PER is not the absolute answer in player assessment but works most of the time):

So, the vast majority of bottom dwellers dumped their best players rather quickly, with the notable exception of Ilgauskas.  This doesn’t mean it was always a great move.  Notably, Elton Brand could’ve really helped the young Bulls in the mid-2000s.  More recently, the Heat worked to keep D-Wade (though they didn’t exactly try to avoid losing that season) and the Nets have refused to trade Lopez too.  For the Cavs, there isn’t really much worth keeping and they are sure to purge most of this roster rather quickly.

All this makes some sense but still does not explain why he is so desperate to get to Jersey, other than the fact that he wants to get near New York and the Nets are the only team with the assets to get a deal done before the inevitable lockout of 2012.  As with the LeBron move last summer, there may be more here than meets the eye.  We’ll wait for the actual deal to happen before teasing out all the angles but, in the meantime, I thought we could look at other big trades of young stars who forced trades and how it turned out since 1990 and whether they regretted it.  While plenty of lottery draft picks were traded, I could only find two who were big stars who forced their team to deal them:

-Chris Webber, 1994: I won’t review the circumstances of this deal for the millionth time but most remember that Webber was able to force a trade from Golden State after his rookie year.  The team Webber preferred was the old Washington Bullets.  This made little sense from a talent stand point.  The Bullets were not a good team or well run by management, which had not been to the playoffs since the 1980s at that time.  What they did have was Webber’s old buddy from Michigan, Juwan Howard.  Webber obviously thought that the two young forwards would make a contending team.  There were a few problems with this:  Webber and Howard weren’t nearly enough to make a good team when the rest of the starting line up was Scott Skiles, Calbert Cheaney and Gheorghe Muresan.  The Bullets did add a little more talent but Webber couldn’t stay healthy and rest of the team just wasn’t that good.  It’s not clear that Webber would’ve been better off staying in Golden State, which had talent but was poorly run. The lesson here was if Webber wanted a trade, he should’ve chosen a better destination.

-Alonzo Mourning, 1995: Zo was the Hornets anchor and he wanted a huge money extension.  The Hornets balked at paying too much after Larry Johnson’s back injury left them on the hook for millions that were not well spent.  Mourning and his agent David Falk brokered a trade to the Heat.  In this case, the Heat weren’t a great team but offered a chic city, a Pat Riley-led team, and promise that they would spend money.  The Heat lived up to their bargain and Miami acquired Tim Hardaway, Dan Majerle, Jamal Mashburn, and PJ Brown and formed a serious contender.  They never won a title with Mourning in Miami (until Shaq and Wade came to town) but Mourning chose well.  (It should be noted that the Hornets were no slouches after Zo left town and he would’ve contended with him).

Without knowing the precise motivation/goals of Anthony, it’s hard to speculate why he wants the Nets but he should look at the Webber situation carefully.  CWebb wasted four years of his prime before moving on to Sacramento and contending.  Going to the Nets isn’t as bad as the old Bullets.  Jersey appears to have a real front office, some talent, and a sharper owner.  Indeed, there is some indication that another star may be on the way at some point but, for the moment, Anthony-to-the-Nets does not seem like an ideal solution for Carmelo at least.

2.    Return of Ason: When he first came up with the Mavs years ago, Jason Kidd was known as the best player without a jump shot in the game.  Kidd shot .385% as a rookie and .272% from three.  He improved his threes to .336% his second year but still struggled from the field.  Kidd’s three-point shot varied wildly in Phoenix (37% his first year and floundered around 31-32% in other seasons) but his two-point shooting began creeping up above 40%.  The net effect was to push Kidd’s true shooting percentage above 50% most years and make him one of the most valuable points in the NBA in Phoenix and later in Jersey.

When the Mavs re-acquired Kidd from the Nets in 2007-08, Kidd re-made his shooting strategy.  Kidd usage rating, which had peaked up at 26% with the Nets immediately fell down to 13.5% in 2008-09 with Dallas.  Kidd essentially turned into a spot up shooter.  His last two years in Jersey, Kidd shot took 11 shots per 36 minutes and 4.6 of them were threes.  In Dallas, he got off about eight shots per 36 minutes but but still took the same amount of threes.  Somehow, Kidd was able to hit 42% of his threes, which was a bit above his career average.

This year, the bottom has fallen out.  Kidd is shooting .343% from the field and .329% from three, despite the fact that he is still averaging about the same amount of shots per-minute.  Moreover, Kidd has stopped getting to the line, averaging only one free throw per 36 minutes, a career low.  The other parts of Kidd’s game (passing, boarding, and stealing) are intact but the question is whether this huge drop in shooting prowess is a random cold streak or a permanent drop.  Kidd has had cold three-point seasons before (2003-04, 2001-02, and 2000-01) but back then he could score other ways.  Moreover, the track record of point guards in their late 30s and shooting slumps are not good.  Virtually every single guard who started to lose his three-point shot (or his regular shooting stroke) after age-35 did not recover.  Kidd is cut from a different cloth than most players but it is more likely than not that he Kidd won’t see 40% shooting in his career.