“Commitment in the face of conflict produces character.”

Blatantly ripped off from EDSBS.

The self-propelling legend of Kevin Durant got a hell of a nudge yesterday, as the league’s favorite son was officially recognized as an all-encompassing basketball entity rather than merely a superstar small forward. Throughout the preseason, the Thunder have been utilizing Durant’s talents in various positional capacities, as noted by Darnell Mayberry of the Oklahoman:

Against Miami on Friday, Durant played all five positions. He started at his customary small forward spot, ran point guard late in the first quarter and slid to power forward midway through the second quarter.

“Kevin’s game is evolving,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks. “He, like a lot of our guys, is not a finished product. He’s going to keep getting better. And there’s ways that I’m going to challenge him to get better… He has the ability to do a lot of things for us and do them well.”

It was the minutes Durant played at point guard and power forward that stood out most. At 6-10, Durant is by far the league’s tallest provisional point guard. His size allows him to see over the defense and read and react to whatever is thrown his way. And by initiating the offense, Durant nearly becomes unstoppable because of his shooting ability and improving playmaking skills. He had only one assist against the Heat, but Durant beat LeBron James off the dribble on several possessions, working his way into the lane where he created the option to either finish himself or dump off passes to cutting teammates.

The Thunder are a dream model for the positional revolution, and Durant is obviously a big part of that. However, just plugging KD into different conventional roles is like trying to reach uncharted lands by paved road. It’s certainly noteworthy that Brooks and the Thunder are planning the trip in the first place, but the methodology is flawed to say the least.

Durant is far too talented to be used as a tunnel-visioned scorer, and in Mayberry’s piece, KD goes on to mention how he’s been working on his ball-handling skills and playmaking. Awesome. Really. But those skills are better used as a way to accommodate the rest of OKC’s roster, not run an experiment with KD at point guard for the hell of it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s hardly the way to achieve real progress. The ultimate goal isn’t to have teams run more wonky experiments, but to find ways to let them maximize the talent at their disposal. Allowing Durant positional fluidity is one way to tap into various aspects of his game, but that kind of change can be very superficial. It may demonstrate the Durantula’s ability to defend all types of players, but he’s just as capable of fulfilling the same roles (scoring, playmaking, whatever) regardless of his positional designation. Putting him at point guard doesn’t just transform him into a better passer, an aspect of his game that’s very much a work in progress. Putting him at center also doesn’t transform him into a stereotypical big, and may actually be harmful to his game if he’s pigeon-holed into the responsibilities of a typical 5 as a result.

Is Brooks’ decision to open up the game for his more versatile players a sound one? Of course. But news like this shines as fool’s gold. Evolution is a beautiful thing for Durant, but taking KD out of his most effective spots and roles on the floor for the sake of fluid positionality (or is it desperation?) isn’t likely to be the way toward roster maximization. Not with his handle. Not with his frame. Durant is capable of being a positional wonder, and could very well use his versatile game and do-no-wrong image to turn into one of the revolution’s patron saints. In the meantime though, his ability to create for himself in isolation has been mistaken for a similar proficiency in doing so for his teammates, and his combination of leadership and selflessness mistaken for the credentials of a part-time floor general. In a tough spot, Durant can take care of some of the responsibilities normally attributed to a point guard, but the fact that he’s being pushed into that role (or the center position, or power forward, or whichever) with his current skill set isn’t much more progressive than the status quo.

“I was at home watchin’ my Arkansas Razorbacks,” Blazers center Steven Hill told me today through some laughter. “I was in Arkansas watchin’ my Razorbacks playing Texas A&M and beat them. My agent calls and says, ‘Do you want to go to Portland?’ I said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

via The Triumphant Return Of Steven Hill – Blazersedge.

YOU GUYS, HE EVEN TALKS LIKE A DUDE FROM THE OZARKS! Seriously, give him a dip, some cammo, and have him put me in a headlock and he could have been one of my classmates. Some stuff you should be aware of, since this time, he’s going to stick. Seriously. The Blazers have no centers. I’m expecting Marcus Camby to get bit by the monkey from Outbreak at this point. He’s sticking. The fans love him. And hey, he’s from Branson Missouri, went to school in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He’s good folk, as we say down yonder.

Anyway, some stuff you should be aware of.

He’s going to be good at either Go-Kart racing or mini-golf. It’s conceptually possible he’s adept at the virtual reality game that was around for like two summers. Do NOT cross the man at skee-ball.

He’s likely a connoisseur at wax figures, particularly ones that do not look anything like their intended subject.

Almost definitely has eaten at Cracker Barrel more than you.

May have developed “IMAX” eyes.

Is currently the most knowledgeable NBA player on the following subjects: chainsaw art, fake glass angels, racoon infestations, and Silver Dollar city.

Seriously, this guy needs to make it. LET HIM STAY, MCMILLAN. MY PEOPLE NEED THIS.

Note: None of the above are probably true.

The biggest difference between this Heat locker room and what we saw in Cleveland, though, may be in attitude. The Cavs were consistently discussed as being very loose, very easy going, always joking. The bench famously danced to their opponents’ misfortune . Many found it disrespectful, some found it unprofessional. It’s possible that the Heat could turn into the same happy go-lucky bunch when they get to know one another better, when there aren’t kids scrapping for a final roster spot on a team that could net them a championship their first year in. But there was a very clear sense of the tone of the Heat both in the locker room and on the floor, best summed up by Udonis Haslem before the game.

“From Day 1,” Haslem said, “when everyone started to make sacrifices to be a part of this, we understood what it’s all about. It’s all about business, and everyone coming together for a common goal, to try and win a championship.”

via Heat are all business as team develops – CBSSports.com.

From a piece of mine at CBS after witnessing the Heat first hand. It’s a weird combination of people, with a weird vibe. It’s also going to be an incredibly good team. Do not be fooled. Don’t bite on the “it’s only preseason” talk. This team is going to be good. But for the Celtics fans who are outraged that another Eastern team dare receive some morsel of attention that should be rightfully theirs as reigning power, this should also be noted. The Celtics are perfectly positioned to beat this team, and make it look impressive, just as they did with the Cavs.

For starters, I think you’re going to see a lot more perimeter pick and roll with Wade as the screen-man instead of James. I now that sound bezerk considering the size differential but I watched Mike Miller running Wade’s sets and based on where most of the motion of the offense has been through two games, I don’t think it’s nuts to think that carries over. The Heat obviously are focused on the idea of space. Using James to peel over the weak side defender, which forces the low defender to rise up to close out on Bosh who is inevitably open for a mid-range J which he’ll knock down almost every time. Using the perimeter pick and roll with Wade as the off-ball man forces both defenders to pursue James in order to stop the drive, which means on the kickout, Wade has more space to either drive or shoot. Now, if his three point shooting doesn’t improve, this approach becomes flawed. That’s something to track.

But it’s this drive to create space that’s likely to pay into the Celtics’ hands. For example, off the screen and roll it won’t be Wade’s man shading toward James’ near-side, it’ll be a low-defender, forcing James to spit low to Joel Anthony, a result the Celtics will live with every time. It won’t be a problem closing out on Bosh because it will be Kevin Garnett slightly edging over instead of wildly committing. And should James get to the basket, the Celtics are likely okay with that to a degree, in that they’ll simply hit him on the elbow as hard as possible. And while James hasn’t iced the elbow this preseason and seems to be fine? I’m telling you, unless what my eyes see is completely fabricated, it’s not.

I told a colleague that James in the post is almost an impossible option because due to his size and ability differential, the defense HAS to commit a double, at which point his efficiency plummets. The colleague responded by saying “Yeah, but think about how many fouls he probably draws down there.” I decided to look it up on Synergy, and low and behold, James draws free throws 25% of the time he’s in the block. Among qualifying centers who spent at least 50 possessions down there last year? James was second behind Howard. That’s pretty incredible.  And that’s really the only way the Heat would be able to beat the Celtics. It would take grinding, to a degree none of the Triad have really done outside of Wade in the 06 Finals, when he simply went to the rim every single time, and was fouled every single time (and he was fouled, Mavs fans).

The article talks about the business approach of the Heat and how it could affect them this season. It could also be too much for them. If this team gets on a losing streak, it could wind up like spring, then pop, with an unfortunate role player being the collateral damage. And God forbid if Bosh starts missing mid-range J’s. In the interim, be prepared for a highlight factory, because this team in transition is simply stupendous. As James sprinted down court with Bosh edging to the baseline and Miller flashing to the perimeter, I realized that even without Wade, this is the best team James has been on. Forget Antawn Jamison, Anderson Varejao, Mo Williams. This team has more talent with more understated players that know and obsess over their role than anyone.

It’s frightening to see what kind of thing we’re dealing with, even in the preseason, before it’s even really unleashed.

Intelligence is a burden. That’s the coin flip of ignorance being bliss. Knowledge can be ignored, overlooked, miscomprehended, and wisdom can be ignored. But intelligence? That’s a pain in the ass. Because the function of understanding means that you will inevitably be drawn to the hardest truths to face. Ego will compensate, for sure, for a time, but eventually, that machine up top will return back to the fundamental problem, no matter what it is. And the brain at the top of the Houston Rockets knows that same truth that causes human beings such dissonance in their lives.

They’re mortal.

The Rockets have this incredibly deep, versatile, talented, promising roster. They’re comprised of a series of value contracts, with almost no financial fat on their bones. They have maneuverability, dynamic rotations, situational versatility both within and outside the context of the individual games, and a stirring melting pot of both athleticism and skill. They have all of that, and still, Daryl Morey is aware they do not have the pieces for a championship. The public is largely split into two camps on the matter, those who are invested in the debate about the Rockets. Morey’s skeptics feel that is fame is overrated, that in fact, his teams have not accomplished anything, that Shane Battier’s defense is widely overrated because it did not, in fact, stop Kobe Bryant, and that too often the internet clamors to shower Morey with praise for moves which are in and of themselves suspect. Acquiring injury-prone, high-volume scorer Kevin Martin, for example. Signing Brad Miller to a large contract, for another. Really, what has Daryl Morey done that was so special? Found a few bargain bin deals and made the second round, pushing a lazy Lakers team a few years ago? You’ll also find among these critics many critics of advanced metrics, putting Morey up as the symbol of empirical abuse of common sense, which is akin to blaming Donald Trump for the economy because he’s in big business and well-known.

The other side reacts too far the other direction. They, and by they, I mean me here, want to shower him with blessings, stand in awe of his ability to acquire efficient player after efficient player for almost nothing, how he broke down Carl Landry in contract negotiations, getting him for almost nothing when he called Landry’s bluff, how he manages to seemingly come out ahead in nearly every transaction. The Rockets last season were an absolute samurai contingent, fighting for every loose ball, defending with fury if not talent, and working so hard you wanted them to make the playoffs as some sort of justification for the value of hard work. As if Morey’s numerical tinkerings had everything to do with the Rockets playing hard and not Rick Adelman’s ability to get them to play hard. To his proponents, Daryl Morey runs the game, and a championship is simply a matter of him finding the right combination and not having horrific things happen to him like in 2009.

The answer, naturally, lies somewhere in the middle. The funny part is that Morey himself is always polite in media discussions, but has said on several occasions, “We need a superstar” without saying those words. It’s what’s missing. Otherwise the Rockets are an incredibly fun team, a smart team, a well-constructed team that cannot win the championship. It is mortal, wearing its own vulnerability like a hair-shirt into a torch fight. So they continue to stock pile and wait. Getting older and watching the clock tick by on a core of talented , hard-working, versatile role players while lacking the star. It’s funny, because the Rockets are the anti-KGs and anti-CP3s of this world. A team without role players, desperately searching for a star to bring them home. And that’s pretty much what Rocket fans think too. From a terrific discussion on the Dream Shake:

They’ve got one foot in and one foot out. Handicapped from truly contending, but cautiously protective of the future, whatever it may bring. Perhaps they’re trying to do what the Boston Celtics did when they traded their young assets and sacrificed the future for a chance to win a few titles. We know that Daryl Morey has been trying to acquire a star player, but he hasn’t been able to do so just yet. Perhaps he’s worried about the timing.

No doubt, he has got a right to be concerned. The available “star” players aren’t exactly the most convincing bunch. As talented as he may be, there’s no telling how Carmelo Anthony would fit in with the Rockets, especially if they kept Kevin Martin onboard. Were a deal to be made, the Rockets would have quite the awkward frontcourt bunch paired with a depleted bench. The reward just isn’t convincing enough to take the risk. Almost, but not quite.This is the dilemma that the Rockets face. The agenda appears to be clear: they want to go get a star player and win a championship. But they haven’t found the right one. Perhaps if they keep building their youth and their assets up, they’ll find the right guy in two years. Or three.

via Rockets Planning Ahead For Now – The Dream Shake.

The fans are both hopeful and moribund. If Yao stays healthy, and if the chemistry comes together, and if Scola can space the floor with Yao in and out, and if Budinger keeps developing and if Kevin Martin can get on track, and if they can then take some set of assets and piece them together, a superstar is to be had. But who? Melo? It makes sense on the periphery because he is a star, and he is available. But for every concern of Melo not wanting the industrial stacks of Houston as his backyard, there’s a doubt that Melo actually fits the bill. After all, what good is building a smart efficient team if you spearhead it with an inefficient one?

Meanwhile, the question is if they are a “relevant” team. There’s no way of forecasting this team, because the variables are simply too wide. Outside of the Heat, the Rockets have to have the greatest margin of error for predictions available. They could get the 2 seed, they could miss the playoffs, or anything in between. And they could have everything go their way and still not be good enough for a championship. How bizarre is that? You get the sense from reading Rockets blogs that honestly? Morey may have built this team too well.

“The Houston Rockets are at a crossroads, a phrase used in reference to this team for far too many years.  They escaped a plunge into the abyss of irrelevance just last season through the deadline deal – a trade that gave them life and breath for future hope, in concert with their on-court overachievement.  Can they now take that next step towards greater relevance?

The team finds itself standing at a precipice, perhaps a mere trade away from glory, yet a botched recovery removed from eternal mediocrity.  They could finish second or send guard Aaron Brooks back to New York for the draft lottery.

Wins are not a determinative measure of success.  In assessing the Houston Rockets’ progress through the 2010-2011 season, the objective observer must inwardly inquire, “did this team position itself for contention in the proximate future?”

via 2010-2011 Houston Rockets Season Preview: On the Precipice of Contention or Irrelevance.

That’s the fear. That Morey could build a fun, interesting, dynamic team that still simply isn’t very good. Rockets fans have dealt with irrelevance for too long, and staring at that long hallway back to the basement is alarming. So then the question has to be not who can they acquire (because we don’t know who will wind up on the block in four months), but who are they willing to part with?

Martin has so much to prove this summer, which is stunning considering the level to which Aaron Brooks is considered the man on the wire. Martin has to illustrate a solid 2-3 showing or he’s going to find himself back on the winds of change, headed out of town. Luis Scola has been the best player for the Rockets the past two years, but even he is expendable based solely on the ridiculously sensible package he signed this season. And the list goes on, all the way to Jordan Hill and anyone who isn’t Yao Ming. Which may be the most ominous thing of all.

The only player not likely to be discussed is the one player sho’s inconsistency and injuries to have chopped the Rockets’ abilities off at the knees. Yao is back, healthy this year. But it’s his last year on this contract, and yet he’s unlikely to be moved in an expiring, despite the amount of good he would do.

The Rockets are a complex series of mechanisms this year, and depending on how many combust correctly together, they can wind up causing severe damage to those in front of them. But without a major acquisition, they’ll still be second level. Yet acquiring that player may be the thing that breaks up the set of assets they have. There’s an answer to the riddle, it just may not come with the kind of answers we want. Those answers are most often referred to as the glum side of reality, and the inescapable part of being intelligent. Knowing your time is short is a vexing model for a child.

(Ripped off with permission from EDSBS)

You’ll notice a new world. Look around. Enjoy. The season is upon us, friends of friends.

The summer-long swell has brought us to this point. With the preseason rolling, another year of basketball is almost ready to crest. None of it really counts until the regular season tips, but the anticipation is absurdly thick. New teams, new players, new stories, new outcomes. It’s uncharted territory out there, and while I, too, have long been drawn in by the coming season’s wonderment, its eve brings me an unbelievable sense of dread.

There’s so very much to look forward to, and I’m as excited to see the Miami Heat, or DeMarcus Cousins’ inauguration, or D’Antoni’s Knicks (he’s been the head coach there for a bit now, but this is the first time the team’s ever been indisputably his) as anyone. Still, I can’t help but feel that 2010-’11 will be inescapable in its tragedy, as the path of one of the most impressive players I’ve ever seen play the game could be forever damned.

Not ‘damned’ in some hyper-moralistic sense, as I won’t be decreeing anything of the sort from the safety of an ivory tower. Instead, I fear that one of the season’s more promising and sincere threads will be doomed from the start, a verdict unbefitting our equally promising and sincere protagonist on a tale that needs no redemption, but only opportunity.

Sam Amick of NBA FanHouse may have already claimed a monopoly on preseason Yao Ming sympathies, but consider this my humble addendum on the subject.

Yao is back. A box score will tell you as much. But there are no assurances that everything will be okay, as even the most encouraging quotes and news regarding Yao’s health treat basketball fans as the pitied children of a deserting parent. We’re big boys and girls. We can handle it. We know that Yao’s return isn’t business as usual, and that as much as Yao would like to, he’ll probably never return to form, reclaim his former glory, or do something that sounds equally trite. That part of all of our lives — yours, mine, Yao’s, the league’s — is over.

If only fairness crept into the basketball gods’ decision (Or in this case, is it just some kind of medical god that resides over matters of individual health and the human body? Issues of jurisdiction with injury are always tricky.) when they decided to flick and poke at the most vulnerable points of Yao’s lower body. If only what he represents both as a basketball player and as a person was but a small part of that discussion. Instead, the manner which decided Yao’s future was as cold as the operating tables he’s frequented, as each surgery and treatment knows not of who he is or how much he matters.

I’m honestly not sure how many NBA players, past or present, are more important than Yao. That kind of determination would require a knowledge of the league’s history far more intimate than my own. I will say this, though: in a league that currently boasts so many fantastic players, a potential greatest-of-all-time candidate, and various future all-timers in just about every capacity, none is more impressive. As a player, a person, a center, an icon…Yao has no contemporary holistic equal.

He’s a monster in this industry, and from his approach to the game to his marketing power, Yao is impossibly powerful. He’s faced a magnifying glass that few players in this league have ever known, but the gaze of billions on the other side didn’t burn him. He thrived. In spite of injuries to himself and his teammates, in spite of cultural hurdles, in spite of physical limitations, in spite of a trunk full of obstacles and curbs of every kind, he thrived. I’m sure that other players have conquered more insurmountable odds, but it’s Yao’s combination of on-court dominance, off-court hegemony, and omnipresent grandeur that make him an incredibly unique specimen.

His tale, which has featured all kinds of challenges, isn’t one of perseverance. It’s one of resilience. It’s not that Yao has persisted. It’s that in spite of everything he’s faced, Yao stands tarnished, bruised, scarred, and ready to be bent once again but never broken.

That’s where Amick and I may disagree, or at least, where I’d want to disagree. In one of his piece’s more rhetorically powerful moments, Amick pens that Yao’s “indomitable spirit, in case anyone wondered, is fully healed too.” I’ve never seen Yao’s spiritual health as anything less than an endless resource, and to say that his spirit is “healed” is almost a disservice to the miraculous fuel that powers a giant.

Yet even that can be taken from Yao, and in a sense, taken from us. We can see parallels in Yao’s struggles to those of players before him, and Bill Walton provides the most obvious point of comparison. But Yao’s narrative has the potential to be even more tragic than Walton’s, an empty finale for a hero whose only tragic flaw is chalked to forces squarely outside of his control.

Typically, with issues of athletic mortality, we prefer to think of the body’s surrender in cases such as these as being independent from the “spirit,” or at least from the spirit’s limitations. When Yao is done playing — whether that day comes in a year or in 10 — there will be countless pieces written, possibly even one by yours truly, about how although Yao’s body had failed him, his will never did or even could. I can only hope that by that point, such praise of Yao’s fortitude still holds true. His resiliency has no hyperbolic load to bear, but Yao is very much human, even if his height or defensive acumen tell otherwise. My great fear, the one which casts a shadow over what should otherwise be a marvelous year of hoops, is that this season will be the one to break him.

Maybe it could be a complication in his recovery, or a new injury altogether. Maybe it could just be a grimace after a sweeping hook that leaves an unexpected pain, or the emotional grate of enduring an extended comeback only to be met with limitations on his playing time. I’m cloudy on the possibilities, and fear doesn’t usually deal in specifics. All I know is that Yao’s future is more vulnerable than ever, and while seeing him take the court again is its own remarkable reward, doing so also means that he’s thrown back into the same fight that has downed him time after time. Knowing that Yao was exercising his will from the weight room, the practice court, and the sideline somehow felt safer, as if Yao, the Symbol, could live forever in that vacuum. NBA basketball is the payoff that Yao has worked so hard to achieve, but it also represents Yao’s battleground, and the source of so many of his trials.

I just wish he didn’t have to face any more of them. I wish Yao could spend the rest of his natural basketball-playing days just being a delightfully unconventional conventional center, baseline jumper-ing and baby hooking his way into eternity. Otherwise, there’s too much of a reason to worry that once Yao does return (preseason games don’t really count, y’know), not only will it never be the same, but Yao himself will both know it and lament it. That it will eat at him, and ultimately, consume him. Yao has been truly indomitable to this point, but every man has his limits. It’s scary to think that under the fireworks and fanfare of the ’10-’11 campaign, we may finally see Yao’s.

Blatantly ripped off with permission from EDSBS.

Concept blatantly ripped off from EDSBS.