Via Flickr - Irargerich

It was a truncated lockout season in the NBA. A lockout season where an upstart was trying to knock off a favorite.  A favorite with a platoon of prominent players that had not yet graced digits with that most coveted of rewards, a championship ring. I speak of course of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat. Or do I?

There are parallels to be drawn. The 1999 lockout season featured a pair of teams crossing the compressed finish line tied for the best record in the NBA, and as we speak the Heat and Thunder each stand atop their respective conferences, tied for tops in the league at 25-7. But the favorites I refer to are the ’99 Utah Jazz and upstart-at-the-time San Antonio Spurs who had recently lucked out against all odds and landed a future all-timer in Tim Duncan whom they could throw at current best-power-forward-of-all-time Karl Malone.

At that time the Spurs and Jazz were unfortunately not only in the same conference, but also in the now defunct-due-to-realignment Midwest Division. Utah had run headlong into his magnificent Airness, Michael Jordan, the pair of previous Finals, but MJ had now retired (again), leaving an open lane for the John Stockton and Karl Malone-led Jazz to roll right to the Larry O’Brien hoop trophy unabated.

Despite attempting to replicate the recipe of the last NBA champs not named the Chicago Bulls to a degree, the Houston Rockets, the Spurs’ “power centers” Tim Duncan and 1994-95 MVP David Robinson had been unable to supplant the Jazz’s mighty trio of Malone, Stockton, and Jeff Hornacek, getting blasted out of the West playoffs the year before 4-1 by Utah. The Jazz were heavily favored to go all the way this time after reaching the conference finals five of the last seven years and the Finals for two straight, losing one of the late-spring series to MJ and Co. by a total point differential of only four points.

But it was not to be.

As it happens, these two powerhouses wouldn’t even get the chance to clash on the court in the accelerated ’99 playoffs as the Jazz would plow through most of the regular season only to run out of gas near end.

The Jazz finished a [tied-for] league-best 37-13 in 1999 but limped to a 5-5 finish over the last 10 games before struggling, by their mighty standards, in the playoffs. A middling Sacramento team took Utah the distance in the first round, and the Blazers eliminated the Jazz in six games in the second round.

 -Zach Lowe, The Point Forward

I remember that Portland series vividly, even though it happened more than a decade ago. The Jazz won game 1 at home by 10. But then lost game 2, by 3 points. Arvydas Sabonis was a huge man who devoured the paint. Isaiah Rider scored 27 points in that game, and Rasheed Wallace had three blocks and three steals. Worst of all Brian Grant went to the line more than Karl Malone did – and even finished the game with the same number of points…the Blazers broke the Jazz’ serve, and then were beat in Game 3 by 10 points. The Blazers went to the line endlessly in that game – 50 times. Utah also turned the ball over 16 times, and shot (as a team) only 38.9 fg%.

-AllThatJazzBasketball, SLCDunk

The Jazz weren’t just aging; they were ancient, and considering what happened to them after 1999 (and what happened to the Kings, too), perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised they struggled against Sacramento and Portland — a team went 35-15, by the way. Utah’s three best players (Karl Malone, Jeff Horancek and John Stockton) were 36, 36 and 37, respectively, by the end of July 1999, and the roster did not feature a single young player worthy of starting in the NBA.

-Zach Lowe, The Point Forward

Just how “ancient” were those Jazz that were so burnt out and beat down by the time they reached the postseason that they made abundant uncharacteristic mistakes and missed shots? Through the 1999 NBA season, the Big 3 of Malone, Stockton, and Hornacek had played a combined 108,786 NBA minutes (minutes being a more accurate measure of wear and tear than actual age). And the former were legendarily durable and conditioned in a mythical way only less than a handful of players in the league’s annals can lay claim to even approaching.

These present Spurs can boast no such thing, and taking into account a kind estimate of Manu Ginobili’s seven years of professional service prior the Spurs at 1,500 minutes per-season, San Antonio’s Big 3 will have played something very near to 95,497 minutes by season’s end.

In other words, they’re ripe for the picking and supplanting by, oh, I don’t know, the OKC Thunder.

Who may just turn around and run into this era’s version of the ’90s Bulls, the Miami Heat.

Potentially over and over again.

___

A couple of fun nuggets uncovered in the course of researching this piece:

• The current Spurs are through 32 games and on an eleven-game win streak. Beginning at game 30 of the 1999 lockout-shortened season the Utah Jazz ripped off a win streak too — of eleven games

• Through 32 games of the ’99 season the Jazz were 26-6. Through 32 games of the current season the best record is held by the Miami Heat and OKC Thunder at 25-7

• In ’99, a younger Spurs started the season somewhat slower through 32 games, but still a very warm 22-10. However, they would finish the regular season 13-1 beating the now-stumbling Jazz twice, holding them to a mere 78 and 69 points, and demolish everything they ran into in the playoffs sweeping both the Los Angeles Lakers and aforementioned Portland Trail Blazers en route to a 15-2 postseason record for a combined 28-3 finish to their initial title run that culminated in a steamrolling of the unlikely upstart New York Knicks

Jeremy Lin anyone?

Funny how history can be so cyclical.

___

“Failure can prepare you for success.”

-Avery Johnson

If you’ve noticed any other parallels let me know, I’d love to hear about ‘em.

Photo by solfrost via Flickr

With Jeremy Lin, thus far, proving that he’s not just a fad with his on-court heroics for the New York Knicks, the NBA All-Star could be getting more than just multiple in-game player upgrades for NBA 2K12. Jeremy Lin is one of the frontrunners to be on the cover of an NBA videogame for next season. Let the Linsanity go virtual.

via Could Linsanity Lead to Jeremy Lin NBA 2K13 Cover Deal? – Forbes.

In simpler times, science-fiction writers turned out to be prophets. From getting to the moon to robots and their eventual subjugation of humanity (trust me, we’ll get there eventually, and JaVale McGee will probably be the reason why), Jules Verne, Robert Heinlein and countless others painted a picture of the future they foresaw, and the progression of history proved them right.

Nowadays, we have twitter and photoshop, which apparently have the same prognostication powers en masse as a few brilliant writers. A week ago, when the craze for Jeremy Lin was reaching a fever pitch, this photoshop made the rounds.

It seemed like a joke that perfectly summed up Lin’s 15 minutes; the hysteria was so widespread that some were already making predictions for what it meant for next season (and the next round of annual video games). With that article in Forbes, though, that image becomes kind of jarring. Sure, Lin and the Knicks have been a great story. They’re a much improved basketball team, and they showed enough last night to make it seem like they’ll be even better going forward as the offense adapts to new circumstances.

But Lin on the cover of one of the upcoming NBA games? That’s a little much, isn’t it? The logic is sound, I suppose:

“I would bet both Take-Two Interactive and Electronic Arts go after Lin,” said Michael Pachter, videogame analyst, Wedbush Morgan Securities. “Take-Two is in New York, so they are living through the hype. He’s a great story, and will boost sales of either game, so I expect that there will be a bidding war for him.  As the de facto market leader, Take-Two has more to lose, and as the new entrant, EA has more to gain. It will be interesting.”

Lin might not make the NBA2K13 cover, then, but the re-entrance of EA into the market gives the possibility a fallback. Even if there’s no bidding war between the two companies, one could readily envision Lin on one of the covers. NBA2K13 could choose to put LeBron James on the cover (he’s never been the face of the franchise) with the monster season that he’s having, for instance, and EA might gladly snatch up Lin to generate some additional buzz after being out of the basketball business for a few years.

There’s still a long way to go, though, before we get to that point. A million different things could happen between now and then to affect who’s most marketable and who gets the coveted cover. Dwight Howard in a Brooklyn jersey would certainly be a striking visual that’d sell video games. Derrick Rose might win his first championship and stake his claim. Hell, Nikola Pekovic may take the Take-Two studios by siege and insist that all copies of 2K13 include a cigarette-smuggling mode.

Regardless of what other players do this year, Jeremy Lin is the perfect storm of location, story and – so far – performance. There might be others who are more deserving* to be on the cover of NBA2K13 or the next NBA Elite, but Lin is going to be in the conversation.

*Whatever that means.

Does it make sense? I don’t know what makes sense anymore. So, sure. Why not?

Gotta love that @HPBasketball has employed an entire staff of #Lakers hating writers. #JournalisticIntegrity

February 21, 2012 6:14 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@StuporJosh

Josh

@JADubin5 @HPBasketball @ejmaroun what if i actually do hate the lakers? not out of anything but jealousy and storied tradition, but still.

February 21, 2012 6:21 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@azv321

Amin Vafa

Hate is a powerful emotion. As powerful (or oftentimes moreso) than love. Hate occupies your insides. Hate consumes you. Hate is what you feel gnawing inside your stomach when you suddenly remember something you wished you’d forgotten. Or maybe you didn’t wish to forget it. Maybe you wanted to hold onto it. Maybe you wanted it to fester inside you, creating a source of inspiration that simultaneously strengthens and destroys you.

Hate is also not the opposite of Love. That’s a role reserved for Apathy. Then why do Hate and Love go hand-in-hand with one another? Perhaps the spectrum of emotion that pits love and hate on opposite sides is really a circle, with Hate and Love side-by-side. Faraway, so close. People often bandy about the terms Love and Hate because they are a convenient way to describe the emotions we are feeling. With basketball, Love is watching your team win a title for the first time. Love is watching your team gut out a tough win at the buzzer. Love is having faith in your team’s closer that they can will your team to victory. Love is coming back to that team when your closer doesn’t come through. Love is the first time you watch a rookie put together a solid start-to-finish game. Love is a triple double. Love is a triple double WITH BLOCKS. Love is… you get the picture.

Then what’s Hate? Hate is anything that gets in the way of you appreciating this love. A loss. A fight. Tension in the front office. People making fun of your team on twitter when unflatting rumors are circulating about them. Your favorite player on your favorite team moving to a sunnier locale. A player that antagonizes smaller players. A referee that takes the fun out of the game by inserting unfairness. Hate sits right next to Love, waiting to pick on it when any doubt arises. But I think I speak for most basketball fans when I say that I didn’t get into watching the game for Hate. I got into it for Love. Now maybe you got into it for slightly different reasons: It’s the team you grew up watching. It’s the team your parents grew up watching. It’s the team that was on TV the most when you decided to start getting into sports. It’s the team that had the most books written about it in the Book Sale at your elementary school, and you weren’t allowed to buy any more car posters.

Speaking of pageviews, there’s a reason everyone loves Jeremy Lin other than the fact that he’s a rookie phenom minority and plays in New York. His talent and his desire to play basketball have gotten us all talking about basketball again. Not trade demands. Not market size. Not salary caps. Not revenue sharing. Not referee errors. Basketball, as we all know and Love it. Lin and his accompanying storyline are currently immune to Hate. Overexposure’s going to reduce how much everyone can stand, sure. But you can’t deny the fact that the conversation is finally–FINALLY–about loving the game again. He has helped make everything else in the league that’s not actually about basketball just background noise.

Now Hate, for sure, exists. It’s around. Sometimes it’s around in serious form, and other times it’s invoked in jokes. Sometimes the best examples of creative expression are byproducts of misery and hate. I can’t say for certain whether or not some NBA writers willingly spend their time transferring vitriol from their blood to ink. But I’m fairly comfortable saying that if you’re writing about this game, you Love it. And if Love didn’t get you into this business, then I think you can kindly see yourself out.

There’s lots of different ways to show your Love and Hate for this game. Show me some Love (or Hate) in the comments.

You have no idea how many times I started to write this piece. About an hour after the Knicks beat the Mavericks on Sunday, I sat in front of my computer determined to write something – anything – about Jeremy Lin. I stared at a blank screen for a while, and then the inspiration came. I wrote 3 paragraphs. They were the best 3 paragraphs I had ever written… until I read them. Those great paragraphs I wrote? They sucked. DELETE.

I took a quick break, then went right back to it. Blank screen. Inspiration. I wrote 4 paragraphs this time. They were the best 4 paragraphs of my life; I was sure of it. Then I read them. Terrible. DELETE.

I spent the next 5 hours repeating that process countless times. Each time, I was sure I had broken through; sure I had found the right words, the right angle. Each time, I failed. Miserably. So I gave up. I’m not writing about Jeremy Lin, I decided. I just can’t find anything to say. I told Matt Moore I wanted to write about Lou Williams instead. That went over really well.

@JADubin5 just so I understand this. You're going to write about Lou Williams and not Jeremy Lin. Why do you hate giving my site pageviews?

February 19, 2012 5:49 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@HPbasketball

Hardwood Paroxysm

Still, I set out to write about Lou Williams. Unfortunately, someone somewhere had other plans for me. My plan, as you may already know by now, was to write about how Lou Williams uses screens to get open looks. For some unknown reason, I couldn’t get those videos to work. I was frustrated. I went to sleep.

I woke up Monday morning and wrote that piece about Lou Williams. It ran, people read it. Maybe some liked it, maybe some didn’t. I was satisfied with it. I was writing again. I figured, I’m in a rhythm right now, I’ll try to write that Jeremy Lin thing again. But you know what they say about the best laid plans. It was just more of the same. I’d write a few paragraphs, read them and then delete them. So I gave up again.

This time, I didn’t even tell Matt what I was writing about instead. I just wrote it. I spent the time between my first class of the day and what I thought was my second class (it was canceled by the Professor in a horribly confusing email) writing an article about Shaun Livingston. Again it ran, again people read it. Maybe some liked it, maybe some didn’t. Again, I was satisfied with it. And again, I was writing. I wanted to try to write about Jeremy Lin again, but I had precious little time before class. And I didn’t have an angle anyway.

I started talking to Andrew Lynch on G-chat. I told him everything you just read. I tried and tried to write about Lin, but I can’t. I can’t find the right angle, the right words, nothing. I’ve hated everything I’ve put on paper.

“Write what you have to say. Even if it’s nothing,” he told me. I told him that the thing of it was, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to say. “Sometimes writing about nothing is liberating.” And then I got the real idea. “I’ll write about how I can’t write about Jeremy Lin..” “Exactly.” “He’s driven me to the point where I literally have nothing to say.” (If you want to listen to a podcast where I alternatively yell things that make little to no sense and struggle for words while trying to describe Jeremy Lin and his impact on me, New York, the Knicks, world peace, World Peace and the cast of Glee, click this link.)

What is there left to say about Lin that hasn’t already been said, and said well? Every time I tried and failed to write about Lin, it was mostly because I kept feeling like I was writing something that someone else had already written and written well. There’s been such an avalanche of fantastic writing about Lin and everything that’s gone on around him.

Every angle imaginable has been covered. His effect on the Asians and Asian Americans? For one, I’m not Asian, and I couldn’t do it intelligently. Besides, Danny Chau’s been done, done that, in incredible fashion. Statistical analysis? That’s what True Hoop is for. Could anyone have predicted this? Someone did. Visual and video breakdowns? Mike Prada and Sebastian Pruiti did those. How can he fit with Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire? Matt Moore had his own idea. What effect has he had on the Knicks? Done. On Mike D’Antoni specifically? Howard Beck did wrote on it. The Harvard thing. The turnovers. The puns.

Honestly, what more is there to say when after a decade of despair and depression, the guy who finally, mercifully turns around the fortunes of your favorite team isn’t Amar’e Stoudemire, isn’t Carmelo Anthony, isn’t Tyson Chandler but rather is an undrafted, unheralded, unknown, Asian-American point guard from Harvard who was cut by two teams before the season even started and was about to be cut again if not for Baron Davis having yet another setback in his rehab?

Should I write about how he was sleeping on his brother’s couch before all this craziness happened? What about how Melo may or may not have been the one who told D’Antoni to give the kid some playing time? His relationship with Yao Ming? Hid admiration for Jason Kidd, another Bay Area point guard?

What do you write about an international sensation who lights the sports world on fire over the span of two weeks? Should I really keep comparing his court vision to Steve Nash’s? His attack dog style to Derrick Rose? His flair to Magic Johnson? How many more times can people read about Lin-Chandler pick-and-rolls still being the primary action and how Carmelo lurking on the weak side for mid-range jumpers and isolations against rotating defenders can actually be a good thing? About how he saved Mike D’Antoni’s job? How he saved the Knicks’ season?

Can I really go on and on about the effect he’s had on Landry Fields and Iman Shumpert, who have been freed up to simply play defense, slash to the hoop and generally wreak havoc in the open court? How he’s made useful players out of guys like Jared Jeffries and Steve Novak? How Jeffries has become a confident and (gulp) competent player on offense while still staying a force on defense and Novak can’t stop, won’t stop raining threes?

What about how the Knicks are fun again, for the first time since the 1970s? How, for the first time in my life, the Knicks are appointment television not because they’re a laughingstock, but because they’re one of the most entertaining teams in basketball? (Seriously, if you think the 90′s Knicks, the guys I grew up on and will love til the day I die, were fun and entertaining… well, I just don’t know what to do with that. Ewing, Starks, Mason, Oakley, Harper, Davis, Ward, Houston, Sprewell, Camby, LJ, Riley (ugh), Van Gundy?… those guys were crazy fun to root for, not so much to watch.)

Should I write about his crunch time heroics? How he stared down the Raptors and drilled a three right between the eyes? How he lined up Dirk Nowitzki and dropped one in his face? How he did the same to Shawn Marion? How he managed to upstage Kobe Bryant in Madison Square Garden? How he outplayed Deron Williams, John Wall and Devin Harris in less than a week? How he set a new record for most points scored in the first “X” starts of a career seemingly every night?

How do you write about the guy who undeniably OWNS New York City right now not being the Super Bowl MVP – Eli Manning – or the captain of the best team in hockey – Ryan Callahan – but the guy who was the Knicks’ 4th string point guard no less than three weeks ago?

I can’t find anything new to say about Jeremy Lin. Except this: for the first time in my life, as anyone who knows me well can attest, I’m speechless. I have nothing more to say.

In 2012, Greg Oden’s very existence is a myth. It’s damn near impossible to speak about him in tangible, quantifiable basketball terms, because his time as a real-world professional basketball player was so fleeting that it feels like a dream. There was a seven-foot force of nature who played parts of two seasons for the Portland Trail Blazers in 2008 and 2009, but those 82 scattered games don’t seem real. Oden has been a hypothetical for so long that it’s hard to analyze or break down his on-court résumé in any meaningful way. And as of today, when his third microfracture surgery in five seasons was announced unexpectedly, it looks like it will stay that way. It’s hard to be surprised by the news, because it was something of a given that Oden wasn’t playing this season. But there’s a clear finality about this announcement, an unspoken acknowledgment by the Portland brass that this was how it would end. Bringing him back for this season was itself understood to be a trial run, especially after he willingly let his qualifying offer be negotiated down to $1.5 million from the original $8.9. Now it’s almost impossible to foresee him staying a Blazer, no matter how well his next round of rehab goes.

When I heard the news, I hammered out a post that was more or less what you’d expect. I hit on all the usual talking points: how much it sucks that this keeps happening; how hard Oden has worked to get back on the floor, only to be told “no” by the basketball gods time and time again; how the vast majority of teams in the NBA would have taken him over Kevin Durant with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 draft. I put together an extremely impassioned defense of a player who has played one season’s worth of games in five years and was drafted directly ahead of a consensus top-five all-NBA player. Teams make draft picks all the time that don’t pan out, and it’s usually easy to look back and admit. So why do I and so many other Blazers faithful make it our life’s mission to defend Oden? That’s what Matt asked me when he read what I had, and it may be the most valuable thing still to explore within the Oden experience.

There’s no karma involved here—Oden’s hard work and genuine desire to silence skeptics are rewarded time and time again with a kick in the teeth, or more accurately, the knees. He’s had enough bad luck in a pair of limbs to sustain another team’s decades-long curse. Nothing he does is good enough for the basketball gods, who have banished him to the worst kind of hell an NBA player can experience. He’s 24 years old, and his career has already been reduced to the giant what-if that is the Roy-Aldridge-Oden dynasty that never was.

This is the part where I remind you that the repeated injuries are mostly out of his control, in order to distinguish him from the type of draft bust who doesn’t want it enough. You have to remember that the Blazers spent the better part of the 2000s making a mockery of the city’s basketball history, on the court and especially off it. Things looked up starting in 2006, between Brandon Roy’s and LaMarcus Aldridge’s promising rookie campaigns; the improbable draft-lottery win in a draft class that featured two prospective once-in-a-generation talents; and, more importantly, the changing of the culture around the former Jail Blazers. The Roy-Aldridge-Oden nucleus was supposed to be a title contender for a decade or more, but they’re a few knee surgeries and forced medical retirements beyond the point of that being a possibility. Still, there’s a part of every Blazers fan that doesn’t want to admit the dream is over, and that voice wants to make sure nobody views Oden in the same light as, like, Qyntel Woods. We at least want people to give us that.

Oden’s story isn’t about Sam Bowie or Kevin Durant. The former is entirely unrelated, and their connection is played up only by the kind of people who genuinely believe the Cubs haven’t won a World Series in 104 years because of a goat.

I hate curses and have no patience for them or those who propagate them. It’s basically my #1 pet peeve as a sports fan. So the Blazers missed out on the greatest player of all time 23 years before the Oden/Durant draft. That was a thing that happened, and everyone agrees at this point that it was one of, if not the worst draft pick of all time. But it happened when the team’s logo, uniforms, arena, owner, and front office were completely different. The only thing the Blazers of 1984 and the Blazers of 2007 have in common are a city and a name. That they passed on a future superstar in favor of an injury-ravaged big man both of those years is pure coincidence. I shouldn’t have to explain this. If you’re reading this site, you’re not stupid. But I want to slam my head against the wall every time I see an analyst or Twitter user try to connect the dots on some kind of Walton-Bowie-Oden lineage. Viewing Oden in this context forces us to think about a) the way the Walton era ended, and b) the fact that the team passed on Michael freaking Jordan. That’s why we want to distance him from the team’s past.

Durant’s superstardom can be grating during nationally televised Blazers-Thunder games, where the announcers insist on beating that tired narrative into the ground. Other than those two or three games a year, holding Oden’s plight against him does nobody any good. People love to play the what-if game. I can honestly say that I’ve never once tried to picture an alternate universe in which the Blazers had drafted Durant. That may be hard to believe, but it’s true. Oden was such the consensus pick at the time that the thought has never crossed my mind. I’ve never been as emotionally attached to an athlete as I am to Oden. I take this stuff personally, even though I know I shouldn’t.

This part is simple: I love Durant as a player, and I want to be able to enjoy what is potentially an all-time great without having my nose rubbed in my hometown team’s recent misfortunes. 98 percent of the time, I’m nodding along with the announcers who fawn over Durant, because how can you not? It’s just a little hard to stomach five minutes of talk about how poised he is because he didn’t pick up a technical on the rare occasion that he gets called for a foul when it directly follows an Oden/Durant head-to-head career comparison infographic. That’s always going to hurt. Therefore, I am left with no choice but to remind people at every opportunity how widespread the belief was that Oden was the pick. It’s totally irrational. I get that. But it is what it is.

In the end, this all comes back to Oden, and the only thing to do is feel awful for him. At this point, basketball is secondary. All that matters is Oden’s physical and mental well-being. You need knees for things besides basketball. Like walking. If he comes out of this able to do that, he’s golden. He’s made enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life (something, by the way, nobody should resent him for). The hard part will be dealing with the public derision and the being reduced to a trivia question, like Bowie or Darko. You have to hope he has the right people around him who can keep him grounded and not let the negativity get to him. If he gets a second chance in the NBA, so much the better. But I just want him to get a second chance as a healthy human.

Obviously.

Photo via Marc Duncan, Associated Press

It usually happens later. For Shaun Livingston, however, it happened early – too early – in what should have been a long, illustrious NBA career. It, of course, is the transition from being a present or future franchise centerpiece to being a capable and important role player. Most often, players have to make this transition due to a debilitating injury – or simply old age – that robs them of their all-world skill.

It’s something that many players struggle with; Allen Iverson refused to subjugate his game and flamed out of the league. Stephon Marbury couldn’t handle not being the focal point of a team.

Others, though, attack the task with zeal. Tracy McGrady transitioned from All-NBA small-forward to backup point guard and offensive facilitator. It took him a few years, five teams and a bunch of knee and back injuries to get there, but he did it. Grant Hill was one of the best players in the league in Detroit and Orlando, but injuries sapped his explosiveness and derailed much of his career. Since landing in Phoenix, he’s excelled as a premier wing defender and fill-in-the-blanks guy. Tim Duncan has slid gracefully into a secondary role in San Antonio after so long being the focal point of everything the Spurs wanted to accomplish.

We constantly praise those that are capable of making this transition, deriding those who can’t while at the same time ignoring how difficult it must be. Just how humbled by your declining talent or lack of physical capabilities do you have to be in order to recognize that you can no longer do what you once could? And then, even after that realization, how hard is it to inhabit a new role so different from the one you occupied for most of your life? How ego-less do you have to be to make such a transition? We, as fans and consumers, assume and expect that players will do everything in their power to subjugate their game for the betterment of the team and for the elongation of their careers while often declining to see the bigger picture.

“Allen Iverson would be so good as a secondary player if he would just take less shots and become more of a distributor,” we’d say. “His quickness and his court vision could allow for him to create so many open shots for teammates,” goes the narrative, as we don’t stop to think about whether taking the attack dog mentality out of Iverson would completely and permanently diminish is effectiveness. “T-Mac is such a good passer, such a smart player. He’s long and strong and quick. He can use that to his advantage and become a point forward and defensive stopper,” we opine, while ignoring the fact that he’s likely never played either role in his life. Necessity and circumstance often force players into roles they never imagined having, and it’s only the strongest among them – mentally – that are able to succeed.

Livingston, once a future star for the Los Angeles Clippers, has developed into a steady backup guard for the Milwaukee Bucks this season after playing well in the same role for the Charlotte Bobcats last year.

But let’s rewind for a minute. Livingston was supposed to be a superstar. The long, lanky, 6-foot-7 point guard reminded many scouts of a young Magic Johnson, and with reason. Livingston’s passing, his vision and his creativity were unparalleled in his class. He played the game with a youthful exuberance that few others could match. He was named co-MVP of the McDonald’s All-American Game as a high school senior in 2004, and was hailed as a top 5 draft pick and potential franchise savior.

The Clippers made him the 4th overall selection in the 2004 NBA Draft. They already had Sam Cassell on their roster, so Livingston was their backup point guard and sometimes shooting guard. He struggled a bit with injuries through his first two seasons, but was still a valuable contributor on the 2005-06 Clippers team that made a surprise appearance in the playoffs. Livingston played pretty well in the playoffs that year, putting up averages of 7.5 points, 4.7 rebounds and 4.8 assists in 27.7 minutes per game off the bench.

The 2006-07 season finally saw Livingston beginning to live up to his endless potential. He started over half the Clippers’ games and was playing nearly 30 minutes a night, averaging just over 9 points and 5 assists per. He was shooting a career-high 46% from the field. He was rebounding more, turning it over less, taking smart shots and getting the Clippers into their offense. On February 23, 2007, Livingston dished out a career-high 14 assists against the Golden State Warriors. Things were looking up for the young man from Peoria, IL. Little did he know that just three days later, everything would change. If you’ve already seen it, I urge you not to watch the video below. If you haven’t, prepare your eyes for one of the most gruesome sports injuries ever (Livingston’s injury comes at the 1:51 mark, I was unable to find any singular clips on YouTube).

Livingston’s knee was shot. He tore his ACL, MCL, PCL and lateral meniscus and dislocated his patella and tibia-femoral joint for good measure. His career as we knew it was over right then and there, almost before it started. Livingston never played for the Clippers again. He bounced around the league over the next few years, catching on here and there, teams hoping they could tap into that limitless potential he once had, but it was for naught. Livingston wasn’t the same player, and he never would be. He was signed by the Miami Heat and traded 4 games later to the Memphis Grizzlies. Memphis waived him on the spot.

He then landed with the Tulsa 66ers, the D-League affiliate of the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually impressing them enough to earn a call up back to the big team. He played sparingly in 8 games and was mildly effective. He appeared in just 10 games the next season before being waived again. Livingston then landed in Washington, where he played out two consecutive 10-day contracts before being signed for the rest of the season. He was on his way back.

In 26 games and 18 starts for the Wizards in the 2009-10 season, Livingston averaged 9.2 points per game on 53.5% shooting and  chipped in 2.2 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game for good measure. He played well enough to earn himself a 2-year guaranteed contract with the Charlotte Bobcats for $7 million, covering the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons. Livingston appeared in a career-high 73 games for the Bobcats last season. He played less minutes, but he made the most of them; he was no less effective than he was in his short stint with Washington the year before. His per-36 minutes numbers were some of the best of his career.

Livingston’s in Milwaukee now, mostly splitting his time backing up Brandon Jennings at the point and Stephen Jackson and Carlos Delfino at the 2-guard spot. He’s logging 23 minutes a game and has actually started 18 of the Bucks’ 31 contests. Even in games like yesterday’s against the New Jersey Nets where he struggled from the field, Livingston is finding a way to make an impact. Despite a 1-for-9 shooting line, he still managed to tally 10 points, 3 rebounds and 6 assists in his 34 minutes in a 7-point Bucks victory. In Milwaukee’s shocking comeback win over the Miami Heat last month, the game that saw Brandon Jennings go off from the three-point line, Livingston put up what was possibly his best line of the season with 10, 5 and 5, and 2 steals as the cherry on top.

Every once in a while, he gives us a blast from the past.

He’s not a building block. He’s not a centerpiece. He’s just a guy that fits in. And that’s okay. Most of us are just happy to see him back out there.

Photo by gopangnair via Flickr

NBA fans might not have seen it coming, but no one was surprised after it happened.

Late in the third quarter of their 104-97 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday, the Knicks were reeling. They were down 12 points, and Jeremy Lin already had more turnovers in the quarter than he had in the first half. After a disappointing loss to the Hornets on Friday, one had to wonder if the magic in New York was fading and whether the regression to the mean was in full swing for Lin. Even the arrival and debut of J.R. Smith had swung to both extremes, from a ridiculous first quarter in which he seemingly couldn’t miss to an ice cold 3-for-8 from the field.

Then the wave broke, and Dallas was subsumed by the deluge. The Knicks brought in Steve Novak and Smith to flank Lin, who played the entire second half. New York went on a run in the last two and a half minutes of the third to narrow the gap, and Madison Square Garden started to titter at the thought of another Lin-led comeback. The energy in the arena, even 3,000 miles away and beamed into outer space and back, seemed different this time, though. Where previously hope and anticipation had lived, anxious to peak out their heads but weary of being struck down by harsh reality, confidence and expectation now stood. There would be no surprises this time; not against the defending champions, and not with the recent past fresh in everyone’s minds.

And that’s when I knew that Jeremy Lin had truly arrived. Until that point, his career was a giant “Yeah, but.” Yeah, the Knicks were 7-1 with Lin in the lineup, but they were doing it against weak competition. Sure, things were rosy now, with everyone sharing the ball and buying into the team concept, but Amar’e and Carmelo were going to come back soon and ruin everything. Yes, Lin’s numbers have been fantastic, but he has too many turnovers and needs to correct that.* Of course, Lin has been playing incredible basketball, but other players have burned across our field of view like so many shooting stars, only to flame out and come crashing back to earth.

*An argument that I don’t mean to dismiss by including it here. Yes, Jeremy Lin turns the ball over too much. Yes, it’s something he needs to look to fix. There are no “but”s here. He’s playing well. The Knicks are winning. But he could be playing better. No excuses. Play like a champion.

The whole situation, enjoyable as it’s been, always seemed to have an air of inevitability to many. The other shoe would drop, and those who celebrated Lin’s accomplishments would be left eating crow. But on Sunday, Lin and the Knicks seized that foregone conclusion and made it their own. As New York rallied and took the lead less than a minute into the fourth quarter, the Garden was no longer in a tizzy because they couldn’t believe what was happening in front of them. They were ecstatic because this was what they expected and what they knew their team was capable of. They – we – had seen it happen too many times already to be filled with that giddy energy that comes with being on the edge of one’s seat. This was a confidence usually reserved for champions and contenders, a sense that this was their time and that their squad was best prepared for this scenario.

And the fact that it came against the Mavericks made it all the better. This was a Dallas team that was coming on strong of late, working through their early-season problems to yet again forge an elite defense (3rd in Defensive Rating). They’re the team with the late-game assassin and the championship pedigree, yet here were the Knicks, executing to near-perfection down the stretch. Novak exploded for 14 points in the fourth quarter. Lin had six assists and two crucial steals, and New York fended off a Mavericks run by keeping their composure, getting a couple of big stops and relying on their gameplan.

Lin and the Knicks once again had us shaking our heads on Sunday. This time, though, it was at how routine and predictable they’d made it all seem, rather than out of shock and awe. He’s become another fantastic basketball player, leading his team to victory against one of the better defenses in the league by burying them in the fourth quarter. His story is still as remarkable as it was two weeks ago, but now it’s buttressed by outstanding play, to the point that we’d be downright disappointed if the Knicks had done anything else. And that’s saying something.

This game was just as impressive as those when it was all brand new to us, even if the novelty has worn off. Jeremy Lin and the Knicks are making the extraordinary look routine. Yeah, the Mavs may have had a double-digit lead with 15 minutes left to play. But Lin had his own plans for how the game would end.

Of course he did. Who would expect anything else?

Photo by RawryTheRacingCar via Flickr

The problem with an overload of awesome is how thoroughly something can slip through the cracks.

Sure, everyone knows about what Ersan Ilyasova did on Sunday, but how many people really processed his production? It’s hard to blame someone who shrugged off 29 points and 25 rebounds by the Turkish Count of Caroms, what with all the other various goings-on. LeBron James and Dwyane Wade decided to set up their own alley-oop camp, open to all of the children (even those to whom James had to apologize). Jeremy Lin and the Knicks detonated a JR Smith-shaped nuclear device on the defending champions, reducing them to smoldering smithereens. The Thunder and Nuggets put on one hell of a show, fronted by the 3-piece band of Durant, Westbrook and Ibaka-shaka-laka-shaka-block.

And, honestly, I’m probably forgetting some performances that were earth-shattering and enjoyment-splattering all over our brain cavities. Therein lies the point; what Ilyasova did was absolutely spectacular, yet it’s hard for it to even get a foothold among the mountain of miracles and mastery we witnessed on Sunday. A man who grabbed 25 rebounds and scored 29 points barely registers as a blip on the radar, which is both sad and ridiculous.

Think about it for a second; Ilyasova grabbed, by my estimate, 36% of his team’s misses while he was on the floor. We all make mistakes; how awesome would it be to have someone around who, a third of the time, gave you another shot to clean up your screw up? That female customer you accidentally called sir because, come on, that totally looks like a dude?* Poof, never happened, try again! Spill coffee all over a report that’s due in 5 minutes? Good thing Ersan’s got your back with a second copy, ready to go! E-mail your boss pictures of your vacation at that nudist commune? …even Ersan has his limitations, but he’ll help you update your résumé!

*Seriously, I’ve done that before. Where was Ersan Ilyasova when I needed him?

Notching that many rebounds would be one thing, a feat so rare as to only happen twice so far this season (Dwight Howard had the other 25-rebound game, and it took him overtime to get there). To put up 25 points of his own, though, puts Ilyasova in rare company. This is only the 24th time since the 1985-86 season that a player has had at least 25 points and 25 rebounds in the same game. It hadn’t happened in 464 days, since Kevin Love went off for a 30/30 like he was producing his own ESPN documentary.

Check out the list of players with a 25/25; it’s an impressive collection of names. Hakeem Olajuwon. Chris Webber. Kevin Garnett. Robert Parish. Lorenzen Wri…well, you get the idea. Some of the best big men in the modern era have posted a 25/25, and now Ersan Ilyasova is among them.

Sure, it might have taken 23 shots to get those 29 points. Yes, it was a game between the Bucks and Nets sandwiched between some of the best NBA action we’ve seen all season. But what Ilyasova did tonight was astoundingly impressive, even if it was only one of a dozen outstanding parts of a joyous Sunday.

Ersan Ilyasova scored 29 points and grabbed 25 rebounds. Try not to forget it.

Yes, he truly is. Sing it, Lionel.

Yesterday Kris Humphries contributed 24 points, 18 rebounds and 5 assists in a surprising Nets victory over the Chicago Bulls. I know the Bulls were without Derrick Rose yet again, but every Nets victory is surprising unless it comes against Charlotte or Washington.

But leave the surprise at the door when it comes to Humphries. Over the last four games he’s averaged 18.3 points, 10.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.8 blocks. And check this, he’s done it on 72.1% FG. Hell, he’s even hitting 78.6% of his free throws in this stretch.

Well, this could just be a very good hot streak for Mr. Hump, some might say. And it’s something worth pondering. Howevuh, this recent spate of production has come against the Bulls, Indiana, Memphis and San Antonio, all playoff caliber teams. They have their deficiencies, like Duncan being old, Z-Bo being hurt, and Carlos Boozer starting, but these aren’t also-rans.

But wait, if you haven’t noticed, Humphries has actually been balling the whole season. Last year he was a breakout darling averaging 10 points and 10.4 rebounds, but he’s been just as good this season::

Actually, he might be better in my estimation. He has garnered more minutes with Brook Lopez being out with a broken foot, but many a player has faltered when given more playing time. Humprhies has kept up the production while increasing the efficiency.

So why isn’t Hump getting the same kind of pub that say Danilo Gallinari (PER of 20) or Carmelo (20.2) or even (apparently controversial) all-star Roy Hibbert 18.5) are getting?

Oh… oh, that’s right. I totally forgot.

Well, umm… let’s see… at least he didn’t marry Nicole Richie.

Nevertheless, as NBA aficionados, I expect that we can totally overlook such sensationalist tabloid features and appreciate the work that Humprhies is doing in New Jersey. He’s one of only ten players right now putting up a double-double in points and rebounds. And with the return of the Brookie Monster today, I suspect Humprhies’ play will only get better. The aggregate numbers may not totally reflect it, but everyone’s better off playing alongside Lopez instead of Petro.

Via ViaMoi on Flickr

BETTER NEWS: CHRIS PAUL IS GREAT DOWN THE STRETCH — The Clippers are 8-3 in games decided by six points or less, and those eight wins include ones over the Blazers, Heat, Mavericks, Nuggets, Jazz, Magic and 76ers. Part of the reason is that Paul is a wizard in crunch time. Those who watched him in New Orleans knew he could execute late with the best of them, but the difference now is that Paul is scoring a a lot more and a lot more efficiently.
Last year, Paul took 111 shots total in the fourth quarter with the scoring margin less than five points. He had an effective field goal percentage (incorporating three-pointers) of just 47.3 percent on those shots. That’s not terrible all things considering — Kobe Bryant, for example, was at 46.1 percent in those spots — but it’s not elite. This year, though, Paul has already taken 48 shots in those situations and has an effective field goal percentage of 56.2. That’s insane, especially considering so many of those shots come on the same kind of isolation plays that usually lead to low-percentage looks.

Let there be no doubt that Paul is the king of crunch time in the NBA this season.

BAD NEWS: THE CLIPPERS CAN’T SHOOT FREE THROWS — The most important quality for teams that win close games is effective free throw shooting. That’s why it’s so strange that the Clippers are winning despite shooting just 67.6 percent from the line as a team. Only the Orlando Magic are worse, and that’s because they have Dwight Howard on the team.

The biggest culprits are Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, who are way down at 52 and 49 percent, respectively. The Clippers can get away with benching Jordan in the final two minutes, so his low percentage can be masked. They can’t do the same with Griffin. Considering how often Griffin probably should be getting the ball late in games, that’s a problem.

via Taking Stock Of Lob City: Are The Los Angeles Clippers Contenders? – SBNation.com.

I’m one of the few guys out there who buys the Clippers.

The old school guys hate them because they heard the Lob City nickname and they hate that and because, well, the Clippers aren’t supposed to be good. It’s the same principle behind Top 25 voting in college football, that is, traditional powers get the benefit of the doubt and the non-traditional powers basically have to beat everyone by 100 just for them to say “Eh, not bad.” What’s worse, the new writers and bloggers don’t trust them either. The metrics scream “STAY AWAY FROM THIS TEAM WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE.”

But there I am, keeping them in the back of my mind as someone I wouldn’t be surprised at late in May.

I tend to stay away from teams that create free throws as a huge function of their offense (HELLO KITTY BACKPACKS ASSEMBLE). Those calls can absolutely vanish in the playoffs (say, in the WCF against a veteran team). ( Denver is an exemption this year because I’m basically rolling with the fun factor there and I get more scared with every game, regardless of the losses.) I like teams that can hit shots, that can play defense, that can create matchup problems most of all. The Clippers can do two of the three, and I like their prospects for that missing link in the playoffs.

Bear in mind the Mavericks weren’t a top-five defensive team last year. They were seventh in defensive efficiency. Sadly for the Clippers, they’re 23rd. So it’s not like the hill to climb is short. But there’s no reason that team shouldn’t be better defensively. Paul’s lock-down, even if his size can get problematic. Griffin’s still wet behind the ears. DeAndre is a monster who chases too much. That’s something that can be coached out. And the rest are vets. Maybe VDN can’t do it, but it should be noted their points per game allowed has dropped month to month to month, though I don’t have pace-free stats available. It’s also notable that they have a majority of quality defensive performances, and then when they fall apart, they fall apart hard. That’s something they can work through or at least avoid with a hot streak.

Most of it, though? Most of it is Paul. That’s why I believe. Because this sandbag-till-it’s-close-then-murder-everything process is working. Down the stretch as Prada notes, he’s not an assassin, he’s John Woo’s “The Killer.” The crossover and soft jumper just pops home and there’s no defender with enough energy to attack him. Griffin doesn’t have to be dominant. He has to be good with a handful of great. Butler is going to give them big games. Williams is going to give them big games. Evans rebounds. The weaknesses are there, but in a season this wide open, going with a superstar-led team that has Blake Griffin but doesn’t rely on him isn’t a bad bet.

And it all comes down to VDN, doesn’t it?

Can he screw it up? Can he somehow make them better? Can he just hold his head above water?

Coaches surprise in the playoffs. Doc Rivers was not though of well in terms of X’s and O’s before 08. George Karl had calls for his head in 2008. Lawrence Frank is a good coach who can’t win. Phil Jackson has 11 titles basically by shopping at Barnes and Noble and giving three of the top 10 players of all time the ball a lot. This stuff is an art. It’s not a science. But we’ve never seen inspiration from VDN. We’ve only seen the materials and the finished product, which hasn’t, you know, impressed.

Maybe the Clippers are as sunk as everyone says. Maybe not. But in the context of these superstars and what makes sense, you can see the blueprint working. It’s not reaching for an imaginary source of combustion. It’s not science fiction. It just needs the spark.