Hoops Analyst

1.    More Isiah: Last week the jury spoke, finding the Knicks, James Dolan, and Isiah Thomas guilty of harassment and retaliatory termination and giving Anucha Browne Sanders $11.6 in punitive damages.  Isiah was not found to be guilty in the firing portion of the claim but he and the Garden took a rather big hit.  Browne Sanders is also due compensatory damages (lost earnings, etc.) to be determined by the court.

In the aftermath of the trial, a few questions have been bandied about:

-Why doesn’t the NBA step in and punish the Knicks?

Well there are a lot of reasons.  First off, despite what so many people are saying, the Knicks weren’t found “guilty.”  This was a civil action and though punishment may be appropriate in some instances, the NBA refuses to act on civil verdicts.  There are certainly good reasons to treat such a proceeding very differently than a criminal proceeding.  There are differing burdens of proof (preponderance of the evidence in civil case versus beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases) and civil complaints are not always “illegal” in the penal code sense.

On another level, I’m sure David Stern and company are not happy about the trial and the behavior of Garden employees.  He may be privately peeved but Stern won’t help the Knicks by piling on publicly, particularly where the Knicks have contested the verdict and plan an appeal.  In addition, Stern surely doesn’t want to take actions against the Garden that might invite more sexual harassment suits against the Knicks.  Indeed, a few more suits have already popped up shortly after the Browne Sanders verdict.

Obviously there are a lot conflicting interests here.  In an ideal world, Stern would condemn the Knicks and vow to clean up the Garden but the world is not ideal.  The NBA is a big business and the Knicks are a key asset to the league.  To invite further exposure in lawsuits against the Knicks and more bad publicity just isn’t good business (As a quick note, I recognize that, arguably, a reprimand by the NBA might not be admissible evidence in a later harassment suit but it’s still a pretty risky public statement to make).  Dr. Martha Burk, a leading advocate for women, gave an interesting interview for True Hoop, where she expressed dismay at the NBA’s refusal to publicly treat this case as a moral issue.

But Stern has made some comments on the issue, albeit while he was out in Turkey, which may have made the comments fall under the radar a little bit.  Stern condemned harassment generally, without weighing in on his beliefs of the merits of Browne Sander’s suit: “It’s very troubling, personally.  I’ve known Anucha Browne Sanders going back to her days working with I.B.M., and I’ve known Isiah and his family since his days as a player.”  Stern also noted that the burden of proof is much higher in criminal cases, which makes the findings of fact more definitive.  Moral issues notwithstanding, Stern’s comments are probably as much as one could expect from the commissioner under the circumstances.

Will Isiah be fired?

The verdict is only tangentially related to Isiah’s fate with the Knicks.  There are tons of athletes and persons of importance who have been accused harassment or even convicted of physical abuse against women and most of these accusations/convictions have been forgotten if the accused person was subsequently successful in his job.  If Isiah wins as a coach, most fans just won’t care.  If he loses (which seems quite possible based upon his tenure so far) he should be gone–and that is an assessment one could reasonably make based upon performance, regardless of his office behavior.

Does Anucha have a date with the taxman?

This has little to do with basketball but you do have to wonder if the IRS was paying attention to the case.  It came out in the case that Browne Sanders’ business deductions on several tax returns were apparently without any basis, based upon her own sworn testimony that she had no business of her own during that time yet took at least $200,000 in such deductions in a four-year period (the number was initially $320,000 before she amended her returns recently).  Unless she reached a preemptive settlement with the IRS, it would seem that more meetings are inevitable, just another thing to watch for in the story that never ends.

2.    NBA Europe: Interesting happenings in Europe, where several NBA teams have been touring the continent and playing local squads.  Granted these are early October exhibition games but the Euro squads have been playing NBA teams pretty tough.  Minnesota nipped Efes Pilson and Toronto had a close win over Lootomatica Roma.  Last night, Memphis lost to Unicaja Malaga 102-99.  Unicaja had a pretty balanced attack behind a couple of former NBAers in Daniel Santiago (14 pts, 10 rebs) and Marcus Haislip (18 pts, 11 rebs).

It’s not clear how much, if any, weight these games should be given.  Still, it’s interesting to see how the data is forming as we get more and more NBA/Euro games.  It’ll take some time to absorb this data but on a larger level it’s clear that the NBA is pushing more and more of such games.  From 1999-2002, the NBA and FIBA had no official games against each other.  That has since changed.  Here’s how often the NBA/FIBA have played since 2003:

-2003: NBA went 2-0, winning one game in Barcelona and one in North America.

-2004: NBA went 1-0, as the Toronto beat Panathinaikos in Toronto.

-2005: NBA went 1-1, Maccabi Tel Aviv toured the North America and beat Toronto and lost in Orlando.

-2006: The number of games jumped to 12.  NBA teams went 6-2 in Europe (FC Barcelona took out the Sixers and CSKA crushed the Clippers by 19) and were 4-0 against the Euros in the U.S./Canada.

-2007: So far the U.S. is 2-1 in Europe but nine more games are scheduled, mostly in Europe.  Notably, Maccabi comes to the Garden to play the Knicks tomorrow.

The one fact we can take from this is that the NBA-FIBA relationship is growing and European expansion, in some form, is inevitable.  Frankly, this is a pretty exciting development.  In the meantime, let’s watch these games and see what we can learn from more and more Euro match ups.

1.    Mad Marion: As we wait for training camp to begin, the latest story is that Shawn Marion has demanded a trade.  The origin of the trade seems to be twofold, recognition and money:

–Marion was put off by being shopped. The Suns had dangled both Marion and Amare Stoudemire in possible trades this summer.  This in and of itself shouldn’t be too big a deal in the big business NBA but Marion seems to have a sensitive constitution.  This side to Marion was extensively, if gently, detailed by Jack McCallum in his great “:07 Seconds or Less” which detailed the 2005-06 Suns season (McCallum has also thoughtfully chimed in on the recent controversy).  Indeed, the tension was palpable even back in 2005:

“During the season, Marion was angry that his likeness didn’t appear among the huge bobblehead dolls in the Suns’ team store in the arena–the featured ones, of course, were of Nash and Stoudemire.  No Marion.  He noticed.  It sounds trivial to be complaining about that kind of stuff, particularly when you’re compensated as a maximum player, but Marion had a point.  There is Stoudemire, not even active, clowning around on the bench, and there is Marion trying to defend Lamar Odom, and yet Stoudermire gets all the love from the drum line.”

But Marion is not totally a glory hound with a strong agenda.  His feelings seem to genuinely stem from his true personality.  McCallum lays it out thusly:

“There is also a charming naiveté about Marion.  He chows down on Hamburger Helper and doesn’t care who knows about it.  He’s an avid cartoon watcher.  He’s a little, well, thrifty….One day last year, one of the trainers was thumbing through a luxury car magazine and musing about making a six-figure auto purchase.  ‘Why don’t you just buy it?’ asked Marion.  ‘Shawn, how much money you think I make?’  ‘I don’t know,’ said Marion.  ‘Two, three hundred thousand?'”

–Marion wants a big contract extension.  He has a player option for 2008-09 at $17.2 million and wants a three-year extension for $60 million, the same extension that Paul Pierce snagged from the Celts a few years back.  It seems pretty clear that the Suns don’t want to go over the luxury tax based upon their maneuverings the last two seasons (dumping three draft picks and Kurt Thomas to knock off salary).  Marion is still at the top of his game but it would take a real leap of faith to commit to ages 30-33 at max money, two years before the team has to.

Usually, teams will call a player’s bluff and making him gut through it.  The Nets made Vince Carter play through his contract year and it worked out fine but the Raptors felt that they had to trade VC when he was unhappy.  Bulls ignored Scottie Pippen’s trade demands years ago but he was such a disruption that the Rockets quickly acceded to his trade demand.  Does Marion fall into “grin and deal with it” crowd?  Not according to McCallum:

“Feeling dissed is a common malady in the NBA; the issue is, how does a player react to it?  Marion, when feeling undervalued, sometimes gets inspired and sometimes goes into a funk….”

Well, that doesn’t really settle matters.  My sense is that Marion does not go into the funk, provided the team tries to “good cop” his trade demands while, at the same time, denying them.  Ultimately, Marion’s huge 2007-08 option year is too big to make any threats.  Trading Marion doesn’t make too much sense either because the Suns are looking to contend while Steve Nash is still in his prime (this should last the next two years or so).  There are three viable trade options for Marion right now: Andrei Kirilenko, Lamar Odom, and Jermaine O’Neal.  None of these matches are perfect…AK has a long-term deal that is cheaper but (two more years than Marion) and could probably fill that role pretty well, if not quite as well as Marion.  Odom is probably the weakest of the three players and is more of a power forward and has had knee issues.  But the Suns would have to take another player to match salaries for Marion.  O’Neal is probably the best option because he gives the Suns a defensive presence on big men but he makes a ton of cash (even more than Marion) of the next three seasons and he has not been healthy for a couple of years now.

In the end, I see Marion staying put short-term but clearly this is an issue the Suns will have to deal with, particularly if the Suns don’t play quite as well as expected.

2.    Bye Corliss: In other news, Corliss Williamson retired yesterday to become a college basketball assistant coach.  Williamson was only 34 and probably could’ve squeezed a few more years out of his career but stated that he wanted to get to the next stage of his life.  People tend forget this but Corliss was a huge college star, leading the Arkansas Razorbacks to a title in 1993-94 and to the another title game in 1994-95 (where they lost to UCLA).  Williamson was the dominant low post player for the team, despite the fact that he was not quite 6’7.  His college numbers weren’t huge (19 ppg and 7 rpg in college) and they wondered whether he could adjust to the pro game being so short.

In the end, Williamson was a mid-first round pick in the 1995 Draft for the Kings.  Sacramento scout Jerry Reynolds told Sports Illustrated back in 1995 that “[w]e asked ourselves: At the end of the day, how many players in college basketball have been more dominant than Corliss? And the answer was zero.  He’s been the best player on the best team for the last three years.”  As a pro, Williamson ranged from decent scorer (18 ppg  in 1997-98) to solid bench player.  After five years, the Kings traded him to Toronto in 2000 for Doug Christie.  Corliss spent half of 2000-01 in Toronto before being dealt to Detroit, where he was a very good bench player, winning Sixth Man of the Year in 2001-02.  He bounced back to Sacramento the last few years before his retirement yesterday.  Williamson is also a demonstration of the rising NBA salaries.  In fact, he made a very healthy $43 million in salary over his 12-year career.  In short, Williamson had a pretty respectable career in every respect.

As for his college days, for some reason, Williamson was the only Razorback to really make an impression as a pro.  Co-star Scotty Thurman and corpulent starting center Dwight Stewart never played a single pro game.  Corey Beck and Clint McDaniel had token NBA careers (88 career games for Beck and only 12 for McDaniel).  Here’s an update on where Corliss’ teammates are now:

-Scotty Thurman played all over Europe and Asia before retiring after the 2005-06 season.

-Corey Beck also went to Europe after he was cut from the NBA but stopped playing in the early 2000s.  Just last Wednesday, he was shot in an attempted carjacking in Memphis.  He is currently recovering in good condition.

-Dwight Stewart is still playing all over the globe.  Last year, he was with the Arkansas Rivercatz of the ABA.

-Clint McDaniel went the Europe route too, last playing in Hungary in 2003-04.

1. Oden Ouch: The Blazers have recently gotten the tough news that Greg Oden, their number one pick and the ballyhooed number one overall pick, will miss the entire season with micro facture knee surgery.  The immediate reaction was to talk about how the Blazers are in serious trouble and that Oden may carry the curse of previous high picked Blazer centers Bill Walton and Sam Bowie, whose careers were both seriously curtailed by chronic problems.  The injury to Oden, while certainly not ideal, doesn’t matter too much to the 2007-08 Blazers as they really weren’t a contender anyway.  Hell, a couple of teams have used the absence of potential stars to amass a couple of high picks.  Notably, the Spurs had to wait two years for David Robinson to fulfill his Navy duties and were able to accrue two pretty good players in Willie Anderson and Sean Elliott and were ready to do some damage when Robinson did show up.  The Blazers are in a similar situation and one more bad year could land an O.J. Mayo or a Derrick Rose, which would could really round out the bakcourt.

The real issue is whether Oden will be able to comeback healthy and have a nice career.  I honestly have no clue on that one.  After Chris Webber and Jason Kidd had the same surgery a few years ago, we took a look at the procedure and found that their wasn’t really enough data to figure out the results.  Of the four players we examined, the results weren’t great.  Karl Malone never played again (this seemed to be of his own accord) and Allan Houston’s career was essentially over too.  Chris Webber came back but was never the same player (though he wasn’t terrible).  Other players offer more hope.  Jason Kidd certainly didn’t miss a beat.  More recently, Zach Randolph and Amare Stoudemire (two younger players) have returned to form.  Every case is different but Oden’s youth has to give Portland fans some hope.

2.  Top Pick Games: It has been pretty much assured that Oden will miss the entire 2007-08.  That got me wondering how often the top overall pick missed most of his rookie season.  We went through the list to see how many top picks missed more than 20 games their rookie year.  I thought it’d be interesting to take a look at these top picks and to see (a) how they followed up that rookie and (b) how many career games they ultimately played.  Here’s the list:

Year	Pick	Rookie	Year 2	Career
1952	G. Melchiorre	0	0	0
1956	S. Green	13	0	504
1965	F. Hetzel	56	77	416
1971	A. Carr	43	82	682
1973	D. Collins	25	81	415
1974	B. Walton	35	51	468
1981	M. Aguirre	51	81	923
1985	P. Ewing	50	63	1,183
1988	D. Manning	26	71	883
1989	P. Ellison	34	76	474
2001	K. Brown	57	80	366

It’s a pretty short list but here are some the notes:

-Gene Melchiorre was a star guard out of Bradley who got caught up in the college gambling scandals, admitting taking money to to shave points.  He was kind of like the original Connie Hawkins, except Melchiorre never got the chance to ever play in the NBA.  I suggest you catch up on this great 2001 article about Melchiorre, who stayed in Illinois and made a pretty nice life for himself outside of the world of sports.

-Sihugo Green is somewhat well known for being drafted by the Hawks ahead of Bill Russell.  Green was a 6’3 leaper who played forward in college for Duquesne and led the team to the NIT title in 1955.  Green was so athletic that at 6’3 he even guarded seven-footers in college.  As a pro, Green missed most of his rookie season and all of his second season with knee problems.  He eventually went on to have a decent nine season career but was never a featured player.

-Austin Carr and Patrick Ewing both had knee surgery shorten their rookies but would be relatively healthy the rest of their long careers.

-We all remember Bill Walton’s foot problems that dogged him his whole career but Doug Collins also was plagued by injuries (knee issues).  Collins score 18 ppg for his career but was only truly healthy for three of his eight seasons and was out of the NBA by 1981.

-Mark Aguirre had a fluke broken foot his rookie year but came back strong.  Fred Hetzel also stayed healthy after his rookie season.

-It might be hard to remember now but Danny Manning came into the pros as the closest thing in hype and skill-set to Magic Johnson–a big point guard with the knack to win.  He blew his knee out shortly into his rookie season but came back as essentially the same player the next year.  He would have several other injuries through his career but Manning was still an All-Star when healthy, if not Magic Johnson.

-Pervis Ellison was also a well-known college player, leading Louisville to a title as a freshman in 1985-86.  He was not a consensus number one pick when the Kings took him in 1989 (Glen Rice and Danny Ferry were the hotter properties at the time).  It got even wackier when Ellison showed up to his first training camp with a previously undisclosed heel injury.  This brought out word that Sacramento’s GM Bill Russell never actually brought Ellison in for a workout prior to drafting him.  He missed most of that first season and wasn’t so good when played.  Ellison’s injuries concerned the team enough to trade him after one season for a relatively weak package of journeyman Bobby Hansen, Eric Leckner (fring big man), a later first-round pick (ended up being Anthony Bonner), and two second-rounders that never made the team.  Ellison was actually okay for a few years for Washington ( put up 19 ppg and 10 rpg from 1991 through 1993) but could never stay healthy and ended up as a bit player.

-Finally, Kwame Brown was probably the healthiest guy on the list.  His problem was that he was a raw rookie and was not loved by Michael Jordan and the coaching staff.  Brown sat a lot and felt so nervous that at one point was put on the injured list with stress-related acne.