I kind of want to write something about Rodney Stuckey, but then I'm like, "why?". This is the perfect microcosm of Rodney Stuckey.

December 16, 2011 1:48 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@noamschiller

Noam Schiller

The Detroit Pistons and restricted free agent Rodney Stuckey are struggling to come to terms on a long-term contract, sources said.

Stuckey, the Pistons’ top free agent this offseason, is balking at what the team is prepared to pay him. The Pistons have discussed a deal that would pay Stuckey between $40 million and $45 million over five years, according to sources.

via Rodney Stuckey, Detroit Pistons at bargaining impasse, sources say – ESPN.

When I first saw this piece of offseason news, I was confused. “Stuckey said no to what now?! Is he insane? He’s never getting more than that!”.

But then I thought Stuckey and his representatives actually had a point. This is Mike Conley and Marcus Thornton money. Rodney Stuckey is better than Mike Conley and Marcus Thornton, isn’t he?

Then I left the computer, grabbed a bit to eat, and forgot about it, only to go through the exact same thought process the next time I saw a Stuckey reference.

Rodney Stuckey is a confusing player. On the one hand, he’s got great size for a point guard, which allows him to bully defenders into submission, barreling into the paint for the hoop plus the harm. How about this little nugget from John Hollinger’s routinely fantastic season previews: Stuckey led all perimeter players with the percentage of his plays that ended in And 1s. Stuckey gets his team to the free throw line and his opponents to their bench, an underrated skill if there ever was one.

That’s pretty much the only thing Stuckey is definitively great at – the rest ranges somewhere from solidly above mediocre to downright awful. He’s a good ball-handler and doesn’t turn the ball over too much, but he’s not an elite distributor either, handing out a perfectly meh 6.6 assists per 40 minutes. Synergy ranks him as above average at virtually everything – he ranks somewhere between 110^th and 195^th among all players at all offensive categories except isolations (44^th) and hand offs (29^th). Except, he only had 26 hand-off plays all season, and when isolating he shoots a fairly horrible 39.3%, his efficiency overall undoubtedly achieved almost exclusively by the frequent free throw line forays. He’s a horrendous shooter. He’s a good rebounder as a point guard, but average for a 6’5” one.

Defensively, he’s slightly subpar. He’s big but not quick, strong but not smart. He’s athletic enough overall to be good in a system that isn’t predicated on revolting against a lame duck coach (hey there, Lawrence Frank) – or at least, we think so. We’ve never really seen any proof.

The easy answer is to call him a tweener. But it runs deeper with Stuckey. He’s not a shooting guard in a point guard’s body, because his body screams 2. He’s not a point guard in a shooting guard’s body, because he’s not a point guard. He’s just very, very confusing.

The problem with Stuckey isn’t a matter of position – a sort of classification that should be on its way out of basketball jargon anyhow – it’s a matter of role. Stuckey has been asked to create for others as well as himself ever since Chauncey Billups was shipped out of town, but Stuckey was never anything more than passable at finding his brethren. He’s a scorer, first and foremost. The problem is, since he’s so bad at catch-and-shoot situations (or, lets be honest , anything-and-shoot situations), that scoring has to come off the dribble. Preferably, against a smaller defender, AKA the point guard.

It’s what makes Stuckey so different from other ball dominant shooting guards. Take Jason Terry, for instance. Terry’s tweenerhood is entirely defensive: if he can guard point guards but play as a shooting guard offensively, as the Mavericks have so wisely enabled him over time, he’s set. This can’t be done with Stuckey. The easy solution of moving him off the ball, letting somebody else create for everybody and let Stuckey create for Stuckey doesn’t work, because the point guard matchup and the ball in his hands is what enables him to create in the first place.

Ideally, Stuckey would get the ball in his hands as part of the second unit, a larger Jamal Crawford or J.J. Barea. But Stuckey is just too good for a second unit role. Among the 46 players with a PER above 18 last season and enough minutes to qualify, the only full-time bench players were Ramon Sessions, Philly’s dynamic bench duo of Lou Williams and Thaddeus Young, and de-facto starter Lamar Odom. While ranking Stuckey among those five is an interesting argument in the sense that comparing apples and oranges can lead to fascinating discussions, the fact remains that players as good as Stuckey tend to play large minutes more often than not, because when they are on the bench, their team is very likely to be worse off. You can’t spell Stuckey without “key”, but you also can’t spell it without “stuck”.

That’s the major difference between Stuckey and guys like Conley or Thornton. Is Stuckey better than them? Yes, probably. His entire package of skills exceeds Thornton’s score-first-ask-questions-later routine (and I’m one of the biggest Thornton fans out there) or even Conley’s  work as a suddenly above-average floor general. The difference, though, is Stuckey’s skills are an awkward fit virtually every way you choose to use them. Giving fair value to a player whose value is always less than his value is both a confusing sentence and a hard task.

Hardwood Paroxysm does not condone owner on owner violence or poorly executed photoshops

You tend to forget, with Mark Cuban.

When the high-profile owner of the Dallas Mavericks finally raised his hands in triumph last June, it was easy to immerse one’s self in the picture flickering before one’s eyes. Somehow, we naturally felt joy for a person with whom empathizing is the very definition of unnatural. Unless you too are a limelight-seeking billionaire who has transferred countless matter from your pockets and your soul into a professional sports team, you shouldn’t be able to “get” what Mark Cuban was feeling.

But we got it. Because we’re fans, and Mark Cuban is a fan. He just happens to be richer than you and I. And because Cuban’s ultimate victory was so swift and so powerful, you tend to forget just what happened before the never-ending drive and the never-closing mouth manifested in overpriced-ring form.

Business vs. Basketball

You tend to forget, with Marc Cuban, but things were not always like this. Cuban entered the league with troves of business savvy, make no mistake, but they were lost in rash move after rash move, the sort of actions that are usually reserved for compulsive gamblers, not brilliant tacticians. Cuban the businessman never had a place in the world of owning a pro-basketball team – Cuban the sports fan made sure of that, placing the ultimate basketball prize several orders of magnitude ahead of further expanding his financial reach. Say what you will of the NBA’s shady lockout-induced behavior, but paying the luxury tax year after year is hardly a sound monetary model. For Cuban, having another center to give 6 fouls against Shaq or Duncan was always much more important than another green checkmark in his portfolio.

However, even in those early years, Cuban was hardly just throwing random objects towards a wall while hoping they stick. This wasn’t the New York Knicks model of stockpiling overlapping talent without caring about fit; it was about stockpiling talent so unique that an overlap was virtually impossible. Cuban’s Mavs and Isiah’s Knicks were virtually identical as far as their lavish spending and how they were guaranteed to make the trade deadline hilarious; but while Isiah’s go-to move was assured to involve a low-efficiency scorer with a large contract, Cuban made a habit out of acquiring players who play somewhere between 2 and 5 different positions and yet were too inherently flawed in doing so to succeed elsewhere. He would then plump those pieces in front of a Don Nelson that still used eccentricity to gain a competitive advantage and not just for eccentricity’s sake, sit back, and watch what happened.

It was brilliant and boorish, reckless and revolutionary. It was a fine line, and Cuban walked it in his own virtually unprecedented way.

Prodigy vs. Prodigy

In many ways, Cuban’s early years were eerily similar to those of the man his employees vanquished last June. As Cuban rode the wave of his financial strength/unconsciousness, complementing it with a mind and eye unbounded by the constraints of logic, so did LeBron James’s first NBA seasons feature a foundation heavily predicated on other-worldly athleticism dabbled with once-in-a-generation court vision.

Furthermore, just as LeBron James developed his actual basketball skills in a manner that was somehow both gradual and rapid, so did Mark Cuban learn actual basketball savvy while insisting on acting against it on every turn. LeBron’s rapid ascension in the 2007 Pistons series was Cuban’s somewhat premature, 60 win, Western Finals loss in 2003; LeBron’s 2009 Magic, a bad matchup destroying his all-capable juggernaut, were Cuban’s 2007 Warriors; LeBron’s 2010 Celtics, an underdog bullying him out of his comfort zone and into the jaws of a full-blown mental meltdown were Cuban’s 2006 Heat; and the unloyal blemish that was Mark Cuban’s “Decision” was, take your pick, frolicking in the arms of Erick Dampier as Steve Nash walked away or amnestying Michael Finley, sans the PR catastrophe. No, this does not fit chronologically, but the concepts are the same.

Creativity vs. Creativity

As LeBron evolved as a player, so did Cuban evolve as an owner. Creativity is a virtue, but it can go both ways; driving a unicycle of a cliff while wearing a Popeye Jones jersey and juggling 17 swordfish is just as creative as pulling off a 5 team trade for Dwight Howard, but only one of them keeps you alive – and it is by far the least entertaining of the two.

Using the same logic, I will always believe the most fascinating Mavs season of all time was 2003-2004. With a Nash-Finley-Dirk engulfed in Nellieness going far but not quite far enough, the Mavs somehow brought in both Antoine Walker and Antawn Jamison. It was Cuban at his finest: lord knows Walker had his warts as a player, most of them lying between his two ears, but at his best he was one of the NBA’s most versatile players, an inside-outside sort of specimen that was derailed only by his utter refusal to strike an intelligent balance between those two components. Conversely, Jamison built an entire career from the seemingly contradictory balance of rugged determination accompanied by ballet-like skill, twistedly flip-shotting the ball towards the rim with soft palms while muscling his way towards rebounds despite facing up against larger specimens.

Bring the two together, throw them into the insane mix that was already, and you get early-Cuban incarnate: a team that is as impossible to coach as it is to defend, because somehow, all parts are capable of doing everything and accomplishing nothing. We ultimately saw more of the latter, with a Kings squad that was desperately trying to cling to greatness bouncing the Mavs out of the playoffs, followed by both Toine/Tawns being traded for yet another classic Cubanism: a combo-guard extraordinaire of Jason Terry in his prime and a rookie Devin Harris. (Also, Jerry Stackhouse and Alan Henderson, but that’s not what we’re trying to convey here).

Unique vs. Ordinary

As time went by, the sharp edges of Cuban’s basketball moves were smoothed out. Not from erosion, but from refinement: trading Harris for an aging Jason Kidd was the very definition of traditional NBA risk-making, a win-now move in a win-now world; Nelson’s systemless system of insanity was replaced by Avery Johnson and, later, Rick Carlisle, far steadier hands than the NBA’s winningest head honcho; and the yearly irrational contract for a limited center is the NBA, as DeAndre Jordan will be happy to tell you. Cuban was still creative, but he was creative in a manner that owners and GMs past have already approved.

And while the Mavs squad that eventually brought Cuban to victory was lauded for it’s unconventionality, it was probably the most normal Cuban squad ever. Tyson Chandler is a defensive center who sets picks and dunks on offense, a classic center if there is one – no more Raef LaFrentz shooting threes or dudes name DeSagana. Kidd is the distributive point guard of an older generation, and Terry’s offensive game is, at this point, 100% shooting guard. The two of them switching match-ups on defense may feel different,  but I’d place that on the viewer’s perception more than an actually different mind-set. Barea is your classic change-of-pace guard. Shawn Marion is, at this point, a small-forward, and so that’s how he was used. Brian Cardinal is such a typical end-of-rotation motivation/hustle/awkward-balding-white-guy that might as well be part of a cliché sports film that nobody actually likes but somehow makes it big in the box office. Even Cuban himself decided to play the typical behind-the-scenes owner role instead of the hyperactive, juiced up version of years past.

In an era of the positional revolution, Dallas may have been presented as a study case, but it was unique only as far as its superstar. Dirk was as much as an oddity as ever, and it altered one’s perception of the rest of the team. Rob Mahoney called the Mavs title team a singular occurrence, and yet John Hollinger said they looked like a typical contender, and you know what? Both of them are right. Those Mavs did look like every other contender, because they were built around a supporting cast tailored to the strengths of their superstar, but that superstar was the kind of superstar that comes along once in a universe’s existence.

Realization vs. Realization

Of course, going half-conventional is one half more conventional than the typical Cuban. It seems as if, at some point, the ultimate goal of winning a title became much more important for Cuban than winning a title his own different way, a choice that none of us can or should criticize. However, it shouldn’t surprise us that once conventionality did indeed bring Cuban his long-awaited ring, it was chucked out the window.

Lamar Odom, who was brought in from Los Angeles in a baffling manner, will replace Chandler, in a move that might as well be taken straight from that legendary 2003 offseason. Odom is so similar to the Walker/Jamison moves that we might as well give him the honorary, awkwardly spelled name of Antuon. Standing at 6’10″, he handles the ball, makes threes, rebounds, is a fantastic defender, and has played everywhere from point forward to center on two NBA title teams and one World Champion US squad. It’s a move so Nellie that, when it was announced, somewhere in Hawaii, another Johnnie Walker blue was ordered by a guy who swears Monta Ellis still isn’t playing enough minutes.

Throw in Delonte West, a 1-2 hybrid who was arguably the second best player on a conference finalist, signing a perhaps-washed-up-perhaps-sporadically-capable-perhaps-even-still-good Vince Carter, trading for Rudy Fernandez only to trade him away again, and the return of Roddy Beaubois, also known as “crazy young Jason Terry on steroids without the airplane bit”. Suddenly, this is once again a team that can throw any 5 player combination and make sense, as long as it includes Nowitzki.

It’s very possible that Cuban is just trying to be as smart as possible, and that this has nothing to do with a return to his wacky roots. After all, these moves fit in perfectly with the ideal of preserving 2012 cap space and general flexibility (only Nowitzki, Marion and Brendan Haywood are under contract past this season, with the latter a prime candidate for amnestying should it be needed), Carter and West could be easily defended as savvy signings without the pre-existing context, and none of us in our right minds would refuse an Odom-for-nothing trade, especially if it dramatically weakens an archrival.

That said, there is nothing less typical than the complete dismantling of a reigning NBA champion, whether it comes in the name of flexibility or in the name of idiotism. The post-title Mavs are riding a wave of prudent insanity, a mixture of the knowledge obtained by the new, experienced Mark Cuban, and the passion and drive of the old, naïve version.

You tend to forget, with Mark Cuban, just how fun that older version was. Now that he has realized the goal that brought him into the game, he is free to realize the means that represent his philosophy. It promises to be just as entertaining.

Photo by black_z from Flickr

So Chris Paul is a Clipper, and while the rest of you are busy celebrating CP3 to Blake Griffin lobs, I’m stuck here being that guy. You know, the one who does whatever he can to make a great thing seem bad. As if he finds some sort of perverse pleasure in killing everyone’s joy. Well I am (for today at least) that guy.

The Clippers have given up the farm. Don’t get me wrong Chris Paul “The Point God” is worth the farm; I’m just not so sure that Chris Paul still exists. Last year coming off a major knee injury, all of Paul’s numbers were down. Granted, coming down slightly from transcendent still means your phenomenal, however more than Paul’s numbers his mobility, quickness, and speed all seemed to be hampered by his knee. Yes, we saw the “he might be the greatest point guard of all time” Paul against the Lakers, but that was only a small glimmer of brilliance when pitted against the sobering reality of a depressing season long campaign. Paul was still the best point guard in the league and yet everyone seemed to agree he wasn’t nearly the same player; there was a gear missing.

Maybe Paul just needs to time to fully recover, maybe last year was an aberration, then again maybe it was the beginning of a downward trend. Maybe we won’t see the full fledged furry of The Point God ever again. Maybe it will still come in glimpses, the power and glory present for a fleeting moment. I hope to God that’s not the case; it would seem all to cruel. But this is The Clippers, and fate has never shown them too kind a time.

Rip city!!!

December 15, 2011 7:01 am via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@JCrossover

Jamal Crawford

One of the last remaining big-name free agents of this truncated offseason period has signed a two-year, $10 million contract with the Portland Trail Blazers. Jamal Crawford has been linked to Portland for months, with LaMarcus Aldridge initiating a full-on recruitment mission for the Atlanta guard before the lockout even ended. In recent days, he turned down a two-year offer from the Indiana Pacers and narrowed his possible destinations down to three: Portland, Sacramento, and New York (who didn’t stay in the running for long, for financial reasons). If the NBA Twitter community can serve as an accurate barometer, the pursuit of the 2010 Sixth Man of the Year played out like something of a reverse The Decision, with Blazers and Kings fans alike hoping against hope he picked the other one.

Why?

Let’s break this down:

• The Kings’ pursuit of Crawford made no sense. He’s primarily known as a volume shooter, something Sacramento has no shortage of on their roster: not just Tyreke Evans, but John Salmons (acquired in a draft-day trade), Marcus Thornton (signed to a four-year, $33 million contract a week ago), and rookie sensation Jimmer Fredette. Adding Crawford would have brought Geoff Petrie dangerously close to being the David Kahn of undersized scoring guards.
• It seemed that the primary impetus for the Blazers’ interest in Crawford was Aldridge’s lobbying. And one need only look at the LeBron-era Cavaliers and present-day Magic as cautionary tales of what happens when you let your star player make too many of your personnel decisions.
• With Marcus Camby not getting any younger, Greg Oden still in rehab limbo, and Aldridge set to take on a huge workload in a compressed season, Portland’s limited free-agent dollars should be going towards signing more frontcourt depth, not more streaky, one-dimensional wings. Especially not streaky, one-dimensional wings over 30.
• Wesley Matthews’ playing time was already in flux last year with Brandon Roy’s injuries and Portland’s midseason trade for Gerald Wallace. Signing another two-guard who will command significant minutes doesn’t bode well for anyone hoping Matthews would have a more defined role this season.
• Crawford doesn’t play defense. That’s a big one.

But now that he’s a Blazer, I’m actually okay with it.

Consider:

• Crawford’s two-year deal has a player option, and multiple reports are that he wants to test the market next summer, when there will be more money to go around. He’s a one-year stopgap for Portland, not a permanent solution, and nobody has any delusions otherwise.
• Crawford is from Seattle, has a good relationship with Nate McMillan, and is close friends with Roy, whom Portland had to use its amnesty clause on to sign him.
• Crawford has said he’s okay with coming off the bench. In fact, he thrived in that role in Atlanta. This likely won’t interfere with Matthews’ development as a starter too much.
• Look at the rest of the Blazers’ second unit: either Armon Johnson or Nolan Smith at point guard, Nicolas Batum at small forward, Kurt Thomas at power forward, and Chris Johnson at center. Who out of that group can be counted on to score points consistently? I’m still as high on Batum’s potential as anybody on the planet, but his confidence comes and goes and he has yet to prove himself as a steady offensive force. Crawford fills a glaring need in this lineup, to say the least.

This signing doesn’t make the Blazers a title contender, and it doesn’t give them any clarity on a long-term direction. But for one year, as the team and their fans come to terms with the end of the Brandon Roy era, things could be a lot worse.

Suffice it to say, it has not been a good 18 months for Mo Williams. In May 2010, he was thrown under the bus as one of LeBron’s many (yet unnamed) Cavaliers teammates who “die[d] down in the moment” in the playoffs. Later that July, he (along with the entire city of Cleveland, its many expatriates, and hopeless romantics around the world) was flabbergasted by the final resting location of LeBron’s talents.

After July, Mo spent the rest of the summer battling depression. He contemplated retiring from basketball, but eventually suited up for the 2010-2011 season in Cleveland. After winning an uplifting home opener against the Celtics, it was pretty much all downhill for Mo and the rest of the Cavs after that.  He was manning the helm of new coach Byron Scott’s “offense” as the the Cavs achieved a level of unparalleled futility by setting the record for longest losing streak in NBA history at 26 games. They also managed to lose to the Lakers by 55 points, the largest margin since well before nearly all of us HP writers were born. Mo was sidelined with a hip pointer for a few weeks during the winter, but even sitting on the bench only made him more of a witness to the madness of the Cavs’ losing streak. When the Cavs eventually avenged their loss to LA, he played only 3 minutes as he was fresh off a return from his injury. And when the team mended the broken hearts of Cleveland against the Heat, he was already miles away in LA playing for a new team.

At the trade deadline last season, Mo was sent to the Clippers along with Jamario Moon for Baron Davis and a draft pick that eventually turned into #1 selection (and PG) Kyrie Irving. Mo was the best point guard the Cavs had seen since Andre Miller, but with that trade, he quickly dropped himself down on the list of “Best Cavalier PGs.” He was openly grateful for the time he spent in Cleveland and the loyalty of the fanbase, but he was also clearly excited at an opportunity to distance himself from heartbreak and salve his wounds with an exciting talent like Blake Griffin. The Clips didn’t make the playoffs, but for the first time in years, they had a stable front office and a relatively youthful and talented roster devoid of bloated contracts. Things were on the up and up, and Mo was the starting PG for a team with potential.

Mo watched and waited along with the rest of us through the lockout, and I’m sure he was eager to get back to work. As the lockout came to a close, trade rumors for Chris Paul started floating around. First to the Knicks. Then to the Lakers. Then to the Clippers. No trade became yes trade, and Chris Paul officially landed (or will land, rather) in LA. While most people would assume that playing on the same team as a once-in-a-lifetime-talent like Paul would be great, I think we can all agree that this philosophy may not apply when you have just come from a franchise devastated by a similarly-described player (who happens to be one of CP3′s BFFs and shares his PR firm), you play the same position as said prodigy, and you are older than he is. To top it all off, the Clippers also signed veteran PG and NBA Champion/Finals MVP Chauncey Billups to play PG as well. Perhaps personnel will slide Mo over to SG on the depth chart. Eric Gordon was a 6’3″ SG, and Mo is 6’2″, so that’s not so different, right? Maybe, but even so, I don’t think Blake and fellow dunker DeAndre were as excited to play with Mo as they will be with CP3.

Blake Griffin upon hearing @CP3 news: "It's going to be Lob City."

December 14, 2011 6:04 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@ESPNChrisPalmer

chris palmer

Perhaps the anxiety caused by being demoted at his job caused him to look the other way at password security this past week. Or maybe it was a cry for attention. Who knows?

im never leaving

December 13, 2011 12:08 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@mogotti25

Mo Williams

I sincerely hope Mo finds a good place this season. Both career-wise and emotion-wise. Have a good cry, Mo.

(H/T: my wife, via Perez)

I listened to Adele’s “Someone Like You” for a good two hours or so yesterday. It’s a pretty great song, and deserving of all of its commercial success. It’s sad, though; and (especially) after two hours of it, cripplingly so. I had no real sorrow to align the song to, but it was an invigorating experience nonetheless. You start allowing emotion to flow out of the limbic cortex, and soon it emerges like second skin. Moments of clarity follow, or at least that’s the plan.

It’s not that I would recommend this emotional exercise to New Orleans right at this instant, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep a burned copy of the song nearby.

Chris Paul is leaving, has left, is gone, and isn’t coming back. Very soon, the Hornets will start on their road to recovery that will involve the unenviable task of being terrible for 66 games. It’s not the best deal for the fans watching live, but it’s the speediest method of recuperation. The Hornets will find a face for this franchise soon enough, if they haven’t already found it in Eric Gordon. Their two Top-10 lottery picks for 2012 — one of the deepest and most talented drafts in the last decade — will help with that. It’ll be a rough season, though that isn’t exclusive to just the Hornets. Watching a team plummet after giving the then-defending champion Lakers a rough first round series will be difficult. No one on their roster will be able to come close the magic Paul seemed to carry in droves. Someone of that caliber will require some waiting. And the city will have to be patient. But for the prideful community of New Orleans, rallying around their newfound youth shouldn’t be difficult. They’ll find solace there for now.

Chris Paul wasn’t the Hornets’ first love. He won’t be their last. In the whirlwind of trade rumors and conflicting reports in the past week, it’s easy to lose perspective. Maybe all it takes is a little cry from a little song that wraps the conflicting feelings all together. Adele starts the chorus unconvincingly. Her nevermind – a half-hearted attempt to rescind lingering feelings – is hardly given time to register. But the song (and Dell Demps’ work in getting the trade together) isn’t about erasing the past. Chris Paul, for the past six years, has done everything he could for the team and the city. Now, it’s about accepting the situation, and hoping for the best. The road to recovery begins with acceptance, with moments of clarity. Chris Paul no longer plays for the Hornets. That, we know for sure. New Orleans will have 66 games to let all it sink in.

Photo via CNN.tv.

The Los Angeles Clippers have agreed to a deal in principle with the league-ownedNew Orleans Hornets to acquire guard Chris Paul, according to sources close to the process.

The Clippers, sources said, will send guard Eric Gordon, center Chris Kaman, forward Al-Farouq Aminu and Minnesota’s unprotected 2012 first-round pick to the Hornets for Paul.

via Sources: Clippers, Hornets agree | ESPN.com

And that’s it. The saga only took one week to resolve itself, but it packed enough drama to rival the months-long Carmelo Anthony sweepstakes. In the end, the Hornets got a vastly superior haul for CP3 than they would have in the original Lakers trade: a semi-elite two-guard in Gordon, another young player with significant promise in Aminu, a sizeable expiring contract in Kaman, and Minnesota’s sure-to-be-high-in-the-lottery pick in next year’s stacked draft. It’s as good a starting point for a full rebuild as they could have hoped for, and it makes David Stern’s ridiculous “basketball reasons” explanation for vetoing the Lakers trade seem sort of defensible, even though it isn’t.

On the other side, well, the best teammate Chris Paul has had to date is David West. And now he gets Blake Griffin. And DeAndre Jordan. And his pick of either one of them to throw lobs to every time down the floor if he feels like it. And we get to watch it on League Pass every night if we’re so inclined. And now the Clippers can likely avoid the uncertainty of whether they’ll be able to hang onto Griffin in a year when he’s elegible for an extension. And, assuming they don’t get Dwight Howard, the Lakers may soon become the second-most relevant NBA team in the city of Los Angeles.

All in all, this is a huge win for both teams involved. The Clippers get the best point guard on the planet to team with the most ideal pick-and-roll partner he could ask for, and the Hornets spare themselves a year of drama and get a head start on rebuilding. But most of all, this trade marks a great day for basketball fans everywhere because WE GET TO WATCH CHRIS PAUL AND BLAKE GRIFFIN TOGETHER. EVERY NIGHT.

Listen I need that pic quick. Contact number so I can call u

December 13, 2011 11:45 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@mogotti25

Mo Williams

LSU TIGERS RULE LOL LOL LOL

December 13, 2011 11:55 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@mogotti25

Mo Williams

follow my fam at @LSUTIGERS

December 13, 2011 11:57 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@mogotti25

Mo Williams

NBA players claim their Twitter accounts are hacked all the time, usually after accidentally tweeting DMs to groupies or text messages saying “Looking like a season. How u.” This afternoon, it seemed as though Clippers guard (for now) Mo Williams would be the latest player to fall victim to this sort of Twitter malfunction. If the first several tweets on his timeline today were the only thing we had, nobody would believe it for a second. But here’s the thing: Mo played college ball at Alabama. So these LSU tweets? Definitely not accidental DMs. NBA players, let this be a lesson to you: if you want us to believe your “I got hacked!” excuses in the future, throw a few tweets about a rival college into the mix once you realize you’ve screwed up.

Via Flickr from the U.S. National Archives by David Falconer

Love, electricity, shockwave central
Pummel on the motherboard, yes
Push up, overload, legendary heavy glow
Sunshine, thunder roll, keep it all together
Yes the lantern burn, burn it easy
And broadcast, so raw and neatly
Thunder roll, sunshine, work it out

Overload, overload, overload
Comin’ up to the
Overload, overload, overload

-Gorillaz, Stylo feat. Bobby Womack and the artist formerly known as Mos Def

Only a fool would dispute that Kobe Bryant has been one of the most focused, determined, and prepared players the NBA has ever seen. The man will do anything to win, including reportedly sporting basketball’s first successful bionic knee obtained in the offseason in Germany. But how much has he really got left in the tank? Count me among the skeptics that adding Dwight Howard to the Lakers would result in an all-new mini-dynasty by Bryant’s side.

Coming into this season Kobe already has higher mileage than a Phil Jackson Montana-grocery-go-getter, some 40,145, good for 24th on the all-time list, and trailing only Ray Allen among active wing players in the NBA. For obvious reason, the Zen Master limited Bryant’s playing time last season as much as he dared, resulting in him playing the least total amount of minutes in a season in six years, and the least minutes per-game since his sophomore campaign, 33.9. By comparison, Ray Allen played 36.1.

Taking into account various factors, such as style of play, scheme necessities, teammates, etc. it makes sense that a Ray Allen would be putting highway miles on that lease as opposed to a Bryant-focused intensity that would equate more to a gutted washboard dirt road on the court. Number 24 always draws the stiffest wing opposition that can be mustered as well, as opposed to an Allen that’s mostly free to roam for open looks thanks in large part to another high-mileage wing, Paul Pierce, the next-in-line among actives on the elbow with 35,710 miles, the usual mile marker for deterioration in statistical regards for NBA miles.

Common sense would say that fuel gauge needle has been in the red for some time now, and with Kobe Mike Brown now in charge in greater LA one would hardly expect him to let up off the pedal any, especially as it’s well known that Bryant has an intense desire to be known in the annals as the greatest Laker ever. Including this season, Kobe has three years left on his contract. Even though he hasn’t played as few as 2,676 minutes in a season since 2003-04, that would be his career average, and as such, the number we’ll be using to determine where he’ll ultimately end up on the all-time list. It’s unlikely he’ll play much less than that anyway, barring injury, if you know Kobe, and I know you do. If there’s a game, he’s on the floor.

• By the end of the 2011-12 season Kobe is projected surpass Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in career minutes, vaulting from 24th to 15th on the all-time minutes played list

• By the end of the 2012-13 season he should surpass Oscar Robertson, going from 15th to 11th on the list

• By the end of his current contract in 2014, Kobe should surpass John Havlicek and the all-time NBA leader in minutes among wings, Reggie Miller, going from 11th to 4th with about 48, 173 career NBA minutes

That’s a remarkable achievement in itself, but what does it mean to his production? Surely he can’t remain at the elite level that long, can he? Let’s explore a side-road to see what we can find, shall we. We’ll be using his contemporaries as a marker to try and find out when his game falls off the cliff. While I’ve posted only PPG and usage rates here, in the interests of brevity, I’ve also linked each player to the venerable BasketballReference so you can compare overall statistical highs and lows for each player. FTAs are also a pretty good marker for a falloff in athleticism.

“Statistical peak” does not indicate the statistical pinnacle of a player, for the purposes of this study, but rather the last really productive year of a player’s career before the noticeable drop-off.

Paul Pierce

• Career minutes 35,710

• Statistical peak (before falling off) 2005-05, career minutes 22,876

• Career PPG 22.2, last attained 2005-06

• Career usage rate 27.8%, last attained 2006-07, career minutes 24,616

• Threshold (Read: when seasonal averages fell below career averages), 2007-08 (Although in Pierce’s case it’s fairly clear this was due to a lessened load by the formation of the Big 3. However, Pierce has reached that notable mileage marker, so watch to see if his production drops from here on out through the remainder of his three-year contract and potentially beyond. It should.)

Ray Allen

• Career minutes 40,808

• Statistical peak 2006-07, career minutes 29,682

• Career PPG 20.2, last attained 2006-07

• Career usage rate 24.5, last attained 2006-07

• Threshold, (See: Big 3, although Allen posted a career low for free throw attempts in the 2010-11 season. Is it time?) 2007-08

Michael Jordan

• Career minutes 41,010

• Statistical peak 1997-98, career minutes 35,887

• Career PPG 30.1, last attained 1995-96, career minutes 29,600

• Career usage rate 33.3, last attained 1997-98

• Threshold, 2001-02 (DNP three seasons from 98-99 to 00-01), retired 2003

Scottie Pippen

• Career minutes 41,069

• Statistical peak 1997-98, career minutes 29,857

• Career PPG 16.1, last attained 1997-98

• Career usage rate 22.5, last attained 1997-98

• Threshold, 1998-99 (Pippen fell steadily off from this year on until the end), retired 2004

Oscar Robertson

• Career minutes 43,886

• Statistical peak 1969-70, career minutes 33,088

• Career PPG 25.7, last attained 1967-68, career minutes 26,762

• Career usage rate N/A (But it was likely similar to LeBron James’ career 31.8 average)

• Threshold, 1970-71 (Although Big O didn’t attain his career average after ’68, he was right there until this year, posting 25.3 PPG in his statistical peak year noted above), retired 1974

John Havlicek

• Career minutes 46,471

• Statistical peak 1973-74, career minutes 35,031

• Career PPG 20.8, last attained 1973-74

• Career usage rate N/A (There is one year available, Hondo’s last, but it was likely closer to Scottie Pippen’s prime of about 24.4)

• Threshold, 1974-75 (While Hondo would peak at a ridiculous high nine years into his career, setting the bar so high there was no way to surpass it, the first really relevant drop-off came this year when his FTA’s fell from 5.5 the year previous to 4.0 this. He averaged 5.2 free throws per-game for his career), retired 1978

Reggie Miller

• Career minutes 47,619 (Current all-time leader among wings)

• Statistical peak 2000-01, career minutes 38,254

• Career PPG 18.2, last attained 2000-01

• Career usage rate 21.6, last attained 1998-99 (although in 2000-01 it was 21.5, so we’re nitpicking here)

• Threshold, 2001-02 (Like Pippen, Miller steadily declined the remainder of his career with the exception of one outlier, standout year right at the end. But he was never close to his prime again after 2001), retired 2005

Kobe Bryant

• Career minutes 40,145 (Projected to pass Miller all-time)

• Statistical peak Current

• Career PPG 25.3, last attained RIGHT NOW

• Career usage rate 31.5, last attained every year since 2003-04 (departure of Shaquille O’Neal). Bryant led the league in usage rate in 2010-11 at 35.1.

• Threshold, you’re likely lookin’ at it

Kobe has already gone beyond the physical limits of every one of his predecessors in terms of production late in a career, which is pretty remarkable — indeed, he’s one of only two players in the history of the NBA to put up over 25 points a game with over 40,000 career minutes, the other being Karl Malone who dropped 25.5 with 44,608 miles on his wheels — and you can bet he’ll come out gunning in the 2011-12 season. Should he manage to maintain his current level of elite-ness for even a single year it would be setting the bar to almost unreachable heights, making lore of legends and feats worthy of modern-day bards.

But based on the history of the greats, and barring any funny business, it’s highly unlikely.

I have not slept hardly at all. I’ve barely eaten. And I’ve pumped out stuffy professional blog after stuffy professional blog. So I’m going to be vomiting out my leftover thoughts on the abject midair collision that has been the last six days in the NBA.

*********************************************

As an unheralded Amar’e and D’Antoni apologist, the Knicks’ acquisition of Tyson Chandler brought a high level of yip to my day. It’s such a great compromise by D’Antoni to finally say “OK, we need one guy to hang back and do the work.” The Knicks signing Tyson Chandler goes against all the jokes, all the typical Knickishness you’d expect. And it works so well with Stoudemire.

Stoudemire has been forced into the five spot for half a decade now, and it’s a terrible spot for him to be in. Size, muscle, rebounding, protecting the rim? A Jedi does not these things, not when a Jedi can focus on killing people from the elbow. Chandler fits right in conjunction with Stoudemire, and it’s Stoudemire who will benefit most from Chandler, and vice versa. Interesting differential in years where the Spurs killed people and where they didn’t. In years they did, Duncan had what I call the “clean-up man.” It’s someone who just waits, grabs, and lays it in. Because the double-team on Duncan was so rough, that Duncan would miss long, rebound to the other side, and there’s Fabricio Oberto. Just waiting. And watching.

Chandler causes more problems because he’s better than those clean-up men. He’s a legitimate threat. He has the hands to catch and finish, can jam back the putback over a smaller defender, and has enough offense to crate a few buckets here and there. He’s like the deluxe version of the clean-up man. And that kind of role addition is a game-changer for teams.

Of course, the joke is that Chandler will have to make up for Stoudemire, Melo, Shumpert, and potentially Crawford defensively (note: Crawford’s considering an offer from Minnesota for the kind of money he wants and was also a pretty good defender last year — 61st percentile regular season, 71st percentile playoffs in points per possession allowed via Synergy Sports). And he will. But in the havoc of D’Antoni’s system, it means that his rate of capture will need to be much lower. It’s not like the Knicks need to make up a seven point differential.

They created 110.9 points per 100 possessions, gave up 110.1. Chandler affects two possessions a game, and you’re talking about a huge swing in efficiency differential, even if he gives nothing on the offensive end. It’s easy to get lost in how close the Knicks were in being really elite last season despite the terrible supporting cast, injuries, and showing in the playoffs. Bu the reality is there’s a reason everyone’s chasing the dual stars. It works. Really well.

Chandler’s going to try and change the mindset in New York, and it may work, it may not. It’s not known yet whether D’Antoni’s going to ditch 7SOL with this crew. It’s not a good fit with as much as Melo needs the ball. If D’Antoni slows it and lets Woodson do work, Chandler can help them become decent on defense. And with their offense, that’s all they need to make it into the next tier. The Knicks are not sitting idly by, and the result is a signing that may sacrifice their philosophic principles, but help their win total.