An underlying theme from my previous post on the workings of NBA leadership was this: The Miami Heat have the potential to re-write the book of basketball convention. Not only is the team talented enough to be tremendously successful according to conventional standards, but their makeup and synthesis are so tremendously unique that they could radically change the unwritten rules of the sport. Everything from the importance and function of the point guard to the means of acquiring talent to the superstar mentality is now up for debate, and those conversations could and should rage on well beyond the day when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh’s time together in Miami comes to an end.

Among Miami’s more interesting potential contributions to the basketball discussion is an organizational change to one of the game’s most storied and emblematic plays: the last-second shot. Henry Abbott has explored the dynamics of the last-second shot on a number of occasions (with others such as Roland Beech and Kevin Pelton as integral parts of those discussions) on TrueHoop, with play-calling as a particular point of emphasis. Abbott explains:

In the big picture, maybe teams should re-think how they handle key possessions, because what’s happening now is less effective than how teams score at other times. A big part of that is that teams are very predictable. Almost every coach goes to their superstar in this situation, and knowing what’s going to happen gives the defense an advantage they don’t normally have.

…I am fascinated to know why defenses are so much more effective with the game on the line than at other times in the game. Half-court heaves are part of it, certainly. And rushed shots. And highly focused defense. And maybe referees tend to be cautious in those parts of the game, which could favor the defense.

But it also seems to me that with the game on the line the play-calling is extremely safe and formulaic. The normal notion of finding the open man is very constrained, and takes a back seat to the idea that stars are supposed to shoot at these times. (Remember the uproar a couple of years ago when LeBron James simply hit the open man?) Analysis would prove, I’m certain, that with the game on the line, teams use far less movement of players and the ball, and there is a lot more star vs. one or even two elite defenders (like Ray Allen last night).

Surely that’s part of it too, right? It’s like there’s some kind ethical code that under no circumstances can you dump it down to Kendrick Perkins with the game on the line. But if he’s wide open, maybe you should.

It’s a point that was well-worth a moment’s consideration before the stars aligned, but it’s an absolutely fascinating idea now that Miami’s roster is in place. If any team is really in a position to deviate from the late-game play-calling norm, wouldn’t it be Miami? They don’t just have a go-to guy. The Heat now have two of the best clutch performers in the game, one versatile power forward who has been a solid late-game option for his own team in the past, a gunner who hit 40% of his clutch (“4th quarter or overtime, less than 5 minutes left, neither team ahead by more than 5 points,” as defined by 82games.com) threes last season, a deceptively clutch forward with a reliable spot-up game, a shoot-first guard with a penchant for hitting big shots, and even a PG just two years removed from hitting one of the biggest shots in the history of the NCAA title game. The Heat aren’t just loaded with options. They have a veritable arsenal when it comes to endgame scoring.

Statistically speaking, James is not only Miami’s best player, but also their top performer in the clutch. LeBron averaged more points per minute in clutch situations than any other player last season, thanks to shooting 48.8% from the field while leading the league in free throw attempts per clutch minute. Wade’s ’09-’10 clutch numbers weren’t great, but the man essentially won the 2006 championship with his ability to score, create, and get to the line late in the game (plus, for what it’s worth, he was a much better clutch performer in ’08-’09).

With two remarkable clutch options, who do the Heat go to when they need a last-second bucket? The beauty of that question may be in the fact that there is no consistently correct answer. Opponents will no doubt be aware that James and Wade are the preferred options, but Erik Spoelstra has an opportunity to really push opposing defenses to their limits with the collection of talent laid before him. All it takes is an actual play. Not screening for LeBron so he can catch the ball 25 feet from the basket and go to work. Not just running a counter to get Wade open. I’m talking about a real NBA set, complete with off-ball action, staggered screens, three-point shooters who don’t have their feet nailed to the ground in the corner, and maybe even a slash to the basket. Feel free to gasp. Miami is set for incredible success this season not just because James, Wade, and Bosh are all immensely talented, but because of the way that talent will allow them to play off one another. Giving the ball to LeBron or Wade alone to isolate betrays the team’s most obvious strength, whereas operating in a more structured endgame offense would allow the Heat to be brutally effective down the stretch in close games.

It can work because Spoelstra has a ton of options. It’s not just LeBron and Wade, after all. The rest of the roster is perfectly capable of taking and making the big one.

Chris Bosh, though being a step removed from James and Wade in terms of sheer clutch scoring, is a key to unlocking the Heat’s late-game offensive potential. If Bosh slides over to center, opposing teams have to account for him but will likely be put at a disadvantage when they do. Bosh’s combination of size and shooting is what makes him such an interesting endgame option, as his ability to hit from mid-range and beyond forces opposing bigs to step out of the paint. Not only does that give James or Wade an excellent kick-out candidate, but it reduces the resistance that any penetrator with the ball will encounter at the rim from shot-blockers. Defending James or Wade on an isolation set is difficult enough, but throw in some additional player/ball movement and take away the possibility of help-side shot blocking from the 5, and that task grows exponentially more difficult.

Pan to Udonis Haslem, who is ready and waiting at the free throw line extended. Haslem may not be the most heralded late-game scorer, but last season his per minute clutch scoring (22.7 points per 48 clutch minutes) was right in line with that of Deron Williams and Paul Pierce. He was a top-15 clutch rebounder (15.0 per 48), ranking ahead of Pau Gasol, Chris Bosh, Andrew Bogut, Carlos Boozer, Nene, Marc Gasol, Paul Millsap, Al Jefferson, Brook Lopez, and so many others. And just to sweeten the pot, Haslem shot 52.9% from the field and 83% from the line during such situations while playing for the bundle of offensive misery known as the ’09-’10 Miami Heat. He’ll knock down the open shot — and trust me, with this team he’ll be open — hit the boards when there’s a few seconds to spare, and will give James and Wade all the room they need to run the offense on the strong side.

Chalmers seems to get by on a reputation more than anything, but luckily Eddie House has been a upper-tier clutch option in the past. In House’s last full year with a quality team (’08-’09 with Boston), his clutch scoring put him on par with Kevin Durant, Steve Nash, and Chauncey Billups. House also bested designated Celtic shooter Ray Allen in almost every relevant regard: clutch scoring output, clutch field goal percentage, clutch three-point percentage (57.1% to 37.5%), and even clutch assists. Mike Miller was also very effective from beyond the arc in the Wizards’ close games in ’09-’10, shooting an impressive 40.0% from three. Never is floor balance more essential than when a team needs but a single bucket to win, and the combination of House and Miller (with a dose of Chalmers now and again, if you’d like), along with Bosh and Haslem holding steady from mid-range, should give Miami’s clutch offense all the room it needs to breathe.

In almost every regard, the Miami Heat will not be like other basketball teams. So why should they be when it comes to their play-calling with the game on the line? Erik Spoelstra has all of these incredible scoring options laid out for him. No coach in recent memory has been more empowered to go away from the “Get X the ball and get out of the way,” endgame mantra. If there’s really a place where Spoelstra’s talents can stand out amidst the incredible star power on Miami’s roster, it’s there. If they win 73, it’ll be credited to James, Wade, and Bosh. If they win the title, the significance of free agency and Pat Riley’s savvy will be noted repeatedly, with Spoelstra as a footnote. Spoelstra and his staff will have a number of difficult tasks ahead of them from finding out ways to stay competitive at the 5 to keeping all of Miami’s mouths fed, but this is one arena where Miami’s head coach has the ability to be a bit of a revolutionary.

I had the chance to go catch Team USA’s final exhibition on American soil before they head off to Turkey for the 2010 FIBA World Championship starting on August 28. As expected, the US boys rolled over the French in Madison Square Garden, winning 86-55, although they didn’t look particularly good on offense or defense early and were deadlocked with France at 16-16 after one quarter.

It was just an exhibition, but it still offered a little insight into what we might be might see from Team USA in Turkey. Here’s a few thoughts from Madison Square Garden.

• The team started off sloppy early in the first quarter, at one point turning the ball over on two consecutive possessions, mishandling easy passes in semi-transition. Unforced errors like that shouldn’t be happening with Rajon Rondo and Chauncey Billups on the floor (although it was more KD and Iggy’s fault, respectively, in these two specific instances). As for the starters, I think what we saw today will likely be the same group we see starting the first game in Turkey: Rajon, Chauncey, Iggy, Durant and Tyson Chandler. Chauncey’s vet savvy and shooting make him a good fit at the two, Durant and Tyson are locks, and Iggy/Gay seems like essentially a coin-flip as both bring some much-need athleticism/slashing to the wing, but Iggy does play a little more D, so I would take him. Rajon/Rose could go either way, too, I suppose, but Rajon has the experience, and that seems like the go-to tiebreaker for USA coaches.

• Speaking of Rondo … On Saturday, Rajon mentioned that he had not yet gotten the chance to return a phone call to chat with his new teammate Shaq, but when asked if he’s looking forward to running the break with the big fella, he said “hopefully he can keep up with me … I’ll wait for him.” He also expressed that playing for Team USA was a change since, compared to guys like Steph Curry, Eric Gordon and Jeff Green, he’s “like a veteran,” he said. “On my team, I’m the young guy so it’s a different look.”

• The play of the day went to one of those young’ns. Steph Curry forced a nice steal around half court by playing pesky D then was able to tip toe the sideline to keep it inbounds, immediately whipping a behind-the-back dribble to get by two defenders and pushing it up the floor. He was far from done, however, freezing a defender in transition around the elbow with a sharp crossover and getting all the way to the cup. Rather than take a contested layup, he dumped it off to Rudy Gay for a power dunk. The sequence was MSG-approved and marked one of the many dunks that sent the near-capacity-eventually (started about half full and then filled up most of the way) crowd into a frenzy.

• Rondo had a pretty nice play of his own, however, Rondo-ing his way by a France defender for a sweeping, easy lay-in. It was impressive, sure, but at this point I almost expect one of those per game. Unconfirmed reports lead me to believe that the French kids watching at home are calling the play “Le Rondo’d.”

• Rudy Gay wasn’t gonna let the little guys have all the fun and added to the highlight reel with back-to-back breakaway dunks early in the fourth. The first, a Harold Miner-esque, leaning reverse two-hander, gets a 9 out of 10 from me, while the second, more of a 270-degree, spinning one handed reverse, deserves a solid 8 out of 10 on the in-game dunk-o-meter. Iggy added a nice power windmill dunk of his own on a first-half breakaway. I was well aware of MSG’s affinity for dunks, but it seems that patriotic dunks are that much sweeter.

• Eric Gordon barely saw the floor early (93 seconds in the first half ), but got some run in the second (about 12 minutes) as, presumably, Coach K and company wanted one final look at the kid. He hit two treys and added one other bucket, but my gut tells me he’ll be the last man cut from Team USA. Steph Curry just seemed to be a little more ingrained in the rotation from the two games I saw this weekend, bringing the ball up on occasion and spacing the floor with his shooting. And if it’s just shooting they care about keeping, Danny Granger also did this yesterday — although I never actually thought Granger had a chance of getting cut anyway unless his finger was actually injured. (It’s not. He’s fine.)

• Nando De Colo of France (a player who the Spurs own the rights to and RC Buford, according to Jeff Garcia of Project Spurs, has called the best point guard currently playing in France) hit a nice trey right in front of the press box during the first half. He easily has the best name of anyone who was in Madison Square on Sunday.

Le Fin.

Everyone has an identity. In fact, most of us have a few identities. For example I identify, among other things, as a Memphis Grizzlies fan, fantasy nerd, heavy drinker, basketball writer, and a forward-thinker.

I have not been all of these things my entire life, but I have been them for quite some time, and have no plans on changing because they are my identity. These descriptive little noun-phrases certainly don’t tell you everything about me, however, chances are you’d have a decent idea what you were in for if we met at the airport.

Players have identities too, after all, don’t we all put our pants on one leg at a time? And as it turns out, player identities tend to pretty much stay the same over time. No matter what system you plug Courtney Lee into, the kid’s pretty much giving you a solid but unspectacular shooter with good defense. So he’s basically a “Bowen.” That’s why we know that no matter where he goes, Lee’s not likely to enter fantasy relevancy – don’t waste those late prospective picks on players with role identities.

Let’s move on to looking at some other negative identities that could have a little more relevancy, I’ve included an archetype with each, along with some players that most people probably haven’t seen much of (in order of relevancy), even though their names are likely to show up in fantasy drafts a few months from now. Now these guys aren’t all bad, in fact many are excellent players. They are constantly limited by their identity, though, so temper your expectations for growth and let someone else take them 10-20 picks above their spots on the player rater:

• Combo-guard: Everybody knows this one ever since Dwyane Wade hit the scene as Finals MVP – combo-guards score, assist a little bit, steal some too, and, most importantly, are constantly confused with point guards. But they’re not point guards, and they never will be. Just because they’re young and have the PG tag doesn’t mean you should draft these guys looking for assists. Tyreke Evans, Aaron Brooks, Jrue Holiday, Mo Williams (he’s probably worse without LeBron), Rodney Stuckey, George Hill, Jarret Jack, Goran Dragic (barring a Nash injury, then he does the Collison-starter impression I’ll elaborate on later)
• Goofy giants: Likely because of the shortage of impact big men, every year someone over 6’10” will have a big year, get massively overrated, then fall back to earth since they were never really great at basketball at all. Normally a free throw percentage under 60 and bountiful turnovers, despite low usage rates, are an indicator that these dudes have the scoring instincts of a 4^th grader or Andres Biedrins. Most of these guy’s teams don’t get televised often, but if they did, you’d know why I think a regression, or stunted growth in the case of Noah and Lopez, is in order. Joakim Noah, Chris Kaman, Roy Hibbert, Serge Ibaka, Derrick Favors, Robin Lopez.
• Volume shooters: I used to think that the term “volume shooter” didn’t make any sense. How could a player need to shoot every other possession to be valuable? Why can’t they do anything else, or just shoot less and up their efficiency? Then O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay came into my life, and now I know better. Some players are just meant to score, and aren’t ever going to fill up the boxscore; others show promise when they’re the number 1 on a bad unit, but are going to see their production plummet as their squad gets new, better options. Monta Ellis (usage or minutes dropping), Andrea Bargnani (never rebounding), Andray Blatche (not going to be running the offense with Wall and Gil), Kevin Martin (third fiddle if Yao returns), Marcus Thornton (just don’t see 20 a game with Paul, Ariza, West), Michael Beasley, Marreese Speights (defense, blackhole-ness keeps him off the court)

Obviously identities aren’t all bad, though. Lots of guys play like something more than their stat lines would suggest – you can see they are better players than they’re getting credit for.

• True points: Assists aren’t the end all of a player’s passing ability, in fact they’re one of the most system-oriented stats in the game. Take Darren Collison for example. Stepping into the Hornets point guard spot for super-stud Chris Paul, he average practically the same assist numbers as CP3. But he also turned the ball over every other play. None of these guys will be averaging a double-double next year, but will a little tweak in their systems or a new environment they could catch up on the elite crowd Nash, Williams, Paul, Rondo. Stephen Curry, Brandon Jennings, Raymond Felton, Jose Calderon.
• Stud finishers and high-flyers: Sean Marion never did create his shot very well, but he slammed enough home to complement the rest of his do-it-all game. These players, like Marion, lack the dribble skills to really be effective, so they need a great facilitator. Losing that facilitator means you’re dropping in the ranks, while gaining one means you’re jumping up. Gerald Wallace (scoring or efficiency is dropping), Carl Landry (whole team’s improving), Anthony Randolph (D’Antoni will find a way to STAT-ify him), Blake Griffin (good value pick with Baron Davis), Thaddeus Young (Jrue is a combo-guard, but they’ve got three passers now).
• Amorphous blobs: Every summer we start talking about positional revolution, and every season we kind of forget about it. But some players, like Rondo, find a way to totally defy convention and party like they’re Magic. These guys are going to stuff your stat sheets in unexpected ways, remember, every extra assist David Lee picks up on Zach Randolph is the difference between Jason Kidd (pre-ranked 16) and Baron Davis (pre-ranked 45). For simple reference I’ve included each player’s unconventional abilities, and included some bigger name guys who do things you still might not know: Josh Smith (passing, steals), David Lee (passing, free throws), Marc Gasol (sneaky everything but threes), Nene (steals), Kevin Love (free throws, threes, passing potential), Terrence Williams (rebounds, passing, steals), Boris Diaw (almost gets 1-1-1 out of power forward spot, Andrei Kirilenko (steals, blocks, candidate for ‘never forget comeback of the year’).

Some of the big-name fantasy analysts will tell you to put players in tiers based on their position. I rather prefer to try to think of tiers this way because so many young players are drafted on what they “are supposed to do” as opposed to what they’ve actually done. A clearer grasp of the things that define these guys as players, for better or for worse, will keep you off the wrong hype trains, especially when you’re talking about guys you might not see on TV all season.

I’m not exactly sure what this video (courtesy of USA Basketball) is supposed to be. It’s part documentary, part propaganda film, part highlight reel, and part bare-bones press conference coverage. Still, Mike Krzyzewski’s emphasis on continuity needs to be heard. K’s appraisal of the natural advantages afforded other national teams is more significant than most NBA fans realize. Whereas previous incarnations of Team USA were able to overwhelm opponents with their talent (and sometimes their preparation), this year’s team will hardly be so overtly dominant.

Kevin Durant aside, Team USA lacks the elite talent necessary to walk over their more formidable opponents. That makes chemistry and familiarity more important than ever, both for the Americans and every other team in contention. If Team USA can’t gel on both sides of the ball before the elimination rounds begin, they’ll be extremely vulnerable against squads like Spain, Brazil, Greece, and Argentina. Continuity was the goal of Krzyzewski’s USA Basketball endeavor, but this year’s crop speaks to the program’s failure in that regard. Krzyzewski and Colangelo’s vision never involved walking into the FIBA World Championships with a slew of odd-fitting parts boasting a minimal amount of international experience, but circumstance trumped commitment, and the Americans will have to make do.

EDIT, 8/12: Trez Kerbz had a chance to interview Krzyzewski for Ball Don’t Lie, and this particular quote from K ties into a familiar theme:

TK: How do you prepare differently in college and when you’re over in Turkey playing a ton of games in just a few weeks?

MK: The biggest difference is that we’re not a team yet. You know, when I’m preparing my Duke team, we have a lot more time that by the time we play in the NCAA tournament, we’ve had a lot of time. Here, we’ve just had our fifth practice. At our first one, somebody asked me last week when I was at an event, they said, “how long has your team been put together?” I said, “four days.” So that’s not a lot of time. Where as, some of the other countries have this continuity with guys playing together all the time. That’s the biggest obstacle we face, is the continuity that another country might have with their unit.

Team USA’s most obvious element of intrigue is the finality of its roster. Each team participating in the FIBA World Championships can only bring 12 players, and with 15 Americans in New York set to resume training camp today, the “THREE WILL BE SENT HOME” angle is understandably pulling. It’s intertwined with non-contextual player comparisons (“Rose or Rondo???”), but more importantly, the roster crunch naturally creates its own drama. There are a limited number of spots for a slightly larger number of players. The tension in that discrepancy is hard to ignore and generates a very organic interest.

Yet at this point in the process, choosing who will play is far from Mike Krzyzewski and Jerry Colangelo’s biggest concern. The roster has undeniable flaws: a lack of elite talent, few legitimate big men, players ill-suited for success in the international game. However, this more or less the same pool Team USA has had from the beginning, and relocating from Vegas to NYC doesn’t change that. Brook Lopez wasn’t going to recover quickly enough to become some great hope in the middle. LeBron James was never going to walk through that door. This is the kind of team we’ve expected for weeks, and while it does matter if K and Colangelo cut Jeff Green or Danny Granger or Eric Gordon or whomever, none of the remaining roster choices would significantly shift the Americans’ chances one way or another. The key players are locked in, and those on the fringe are neither much better nor worse than their counterparts. Some are better fits than others and a few have desirable skills that many lack, but the difference between Eric Gordon and another guard will not end up deciding Team USA’s fate.

Right now, Team USA’s focus should be on repetition. The style that the Americans are looking to play in the World Championships requires that everything they do is easily replicable. The team’s ball-handlers need to be able to make on-target passes to their teammates time and time again, be they on the break or in a half-court set. While having a Chris Paul or Deron Williams might help in that respect, the group of talent Team USA has at point guard is fully capable of making the necessary plays…provided they reach the desired comfort level with their teammates. Putting together the right lineups is one thing, but Coach K needs to run those lineups into the ground. In drills, in scrimmages, in exhibition games, and in the preliminary contests in Turkey. Everything before the elimination stage is a trial, and every second of playing time brings those players closer to the lofty chemistry level needed for extended success.

Beyond that, this team needs to run. Constantly. Mike D’Antoni would be the first to tell you that it takes a well-disciplined and well-conditioned team to run for an entire game, and based on Team USA’s aggressive defensive strategy, these players need to be in regular season shape. That wasn’t the case in Vegas, even at the intrasquad scrimmage at the camp’s conclusion. A number of players admitted to showing up out of playing shape, and despite going through half-speed and full-speed workouts with the Team USA staff, the Americans don’t quite look ready to run the ball down the throats of their elite competition. Here’s to hoping that the remaining 15 have stayed fresh during their break from camp, because while Team USA may have the commitment to run the break on offense and attack ball-handlers on defense, it won’t mean all that much unless the players have the endurance necessary to implement those strategies.

However, above all, Team USA needs to focus on specific applications of their defensive philosophy. The US team that competed in the 2006 World Championships was fairly stacked (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony, Joe Johnson, Antawn Jamison…and Brad Miller all competed), but was eliminated by Greece in the semifinal due to their lack of preparation. The Greeks meticulously dissected Team USA’s defenders by way of the pick-and-roll, despite their game plan practically being written on their foreheads. Krzyzewski referred to the opposing players by number rather than name while conducting post-game interviews — not because Greek pronunciation is overly difficult, but because Team USA’s scouting and preparation were clearly subpar. If the Americans had done their homework in 2006, they certainly could have bested Greece in the semifinals. Spain would still have been a tough out in the final, but a national team that talented deserved better from its coaching staff.

The 2008 Olympics were a different story. The Americans’ defense was absolutely suffocating, in part due to personnel, but also thanks to an added emphasis on defensive prep. It’s not enough for Team USA to put in their defensive rotations and assignments and call it a day. They’ll have to do better. While playing pressure defense is a neat idea in theory, to do so intelligently demands far more than long arms and a hot motor. It requires anticipation, and that anticipation requires both instinct and instruction. There are certain things that Team USA will do well naturally. But knowing which players are the most threatening, which act as their team’s crutch, and which are the most capable ball-handlers/passers are all going to aid in the Americans’ ability to force turnovers. That exercise runs deeper than a glance at the depth chart to see who’s running the point.

To say that basketball requires repetition is the furthest thing from a novel concept, yet it really does need to be said with this team. This isn’t summer camp, nor is it an All-Star Game or a charity exhibition. This is supposed to be a real basketball team, and soon they’ll be taking on formidable opponents. The World Championship isn’t the Americans’ for the taking this year. They’ll need to continue to work hard, but even more importantly, they’ll have to work hard toward successful execution, team familiarity, and intelligent defensive play.

If you’re not sick of the Miami Heat yet, you will be. Everything that LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh do and say for the foreseeable future will be covered, evaluated, and overanalyzed ad nauseum. The absolutely ridiculous level of the talent amassed in Miami demands constant and obsessive coverage,  if only because this situation is unlike anything the league has seen in the current era (at the very least). The unprecedented exists to be explored and to be cherished, until media oversaturation makes everything a tad bittersweet.

That allure of the unknown is what makes analysis of the Heat so intriguing. They don’t just have the potential to be a great team. They have the potential to completely change the way we think about basketball.

Everything we know, think we know, write, and think to write about the NBA is subject to framing. It’s the multi-faceted lens through which we view the game, and it affects the way we judge every player, every action, and every result. Among the most basic of these lenses is something of an archetypal set, in which we expect players to fully function within the historical roles laid out before them. It’s not about being a point guard or a power forward, or even a scorer or distributor, but something as fundamental as being a team’s alpha personality. There are leaders and there are followers, and the basketball collective has deemed those that follow necessarily inferior to their noble and revered shepherds. Those with great talent are expected to lead, as if considerable production and leadership qualities were linked by something other than convenience.

That dominant, alpha personality stems from nature…or at least what we thought was nature. The thinking goes that in primal packs of feral dogs or wolves (as well as various other species), the strongest and most assertive of the bunch naturally assumes a dominant, or alpha, role. As a society, we’ve embraced the concept almost universally, and alphas are lauded for their competitive spirit, willingness to dominate, and confidence. Being in charge has been made glamorous, largely on the evolutionary basis that the strong take control and the strong survive.

That same mentality exists in basketball just as it exists in any other human sphere, but with a very public, added pressure to assume an alpha role. Jordan embodied it. Kobe is consumed by it. Some of that fire is within them, but there’s no question that it’s also stoked from the outside.

Jordan chided LeBron for the very notion of surrendering that role in order to team up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Not because it was the wrong basketball or business move. Not because it wouldn’t give LeBron the best chance to win the first title of his career. But because after years of drinking a smoothie blended of alpha testosterone, individual brilliance, ridiculous success, and hubris, the very idea was unfathomable to Jordan.

This need to dominate not only one’s opponents but also one’s teammates is deeply embedded in sport as a whole, and there’s really no escaping it. Athletes strive to be alpha dogs, and if that desire doesn’t come naturally, it’s manufactured and nurtured within them from as early as possible.

So how about this for a foundational shake-up: What if everything we thought we knew about natural leadership and the alpha mentality turned out to be wrong? What if the very idea is an observational error propped up by years and years of confirmation bias?

Jeninne Lee-St. John of TIME Magazine examined the latest in canine sociology, with a specific emphasis on how the recent research impacts dog training methods. However, there’s something running far, far deeper here, that’s absolutely relevant to all things human:

The [alpha] debate has its roots in 1940s studies of captive wolves gathered from various places that, when forced to live together, naturally competed for status. Acclaimed animal behaviorist Rudolph Schenkel dubbed the male and female who won out the alpha pair. As it turns out, this research was based on a faulty premise: wolves in the wild, says L. David Mech, founder of the Minnesota-based International Wolf Center, actually live in nuclear families, not randomly assembled units, in which the mother and father are the pack leaders and their offspring’s status is based on birth order. Mech, who used to ascribe to alpha-wolf theory but has reversed course in recent years, says the pack’s hierarchy does not involve anyone fighting to the top of the group, because just like in a human family, the youngsters naturally follow their parents’ lead.

The point isn’t necessarily that seniority offers a more instinctive pecking order, though there is some truth to that. Rather, the significance here is in the potentially flawed model that persists all around us. There is a desire to compete and lead inherent in human nature that goes far beyond anything wolves could ever possess, and the motivations and logic behind those desires are fairly complex. However, the basis for the ‘one leader dominates all’ approach is based, semantically anyway, on the assumption that nature wills it so. This is the way it’s supposed to be because this is the way it’s always been, and this is the way it’s always been because of something existing in our very constitution. Yet maybe we’re only seeing what we want to see; what if there’s nothing natural — or even all that effective — about the alpha approach at all? What if we’re limiting our potential (in basketball and in life) as human beings by subscribing to an artificial and counterproductive brand of leadership?

The Miami Heat are interesting for myriad reasons, but fairly high on that list are questions and curiosities over the team’s leadership structure. What leadership role does LeBron James take on what used to be Dwyane Wade’s team? Or Wade on a squad where he’s no longer the best player? What about Erik Spoelstra? Pat Riley? Or Chris Bosh, who made it very clear coming in as a free agent that he wanted to be at the center of his new team’s universe? There’s so much yet to be determined in regard to the interpersonal politics of the Superfriends, and it doesn’t have to be decided by LeBron and Wade subtly fighting their way toward alpha supremacy. There are clearly other motivations at work here, and perhaps even a very natural willingness to bow to the will of collective leadership.

Some things don’t necessarily have to add up for reality to make sense.

Take the Step Up movie franchise for instance.

I bet when you read that sentence you went to IMDB and searched for “Step Up” just to make sure there wasn’t an entirely different movie than the first one that popped into your head. And the first one that popped into your head was the dance movie starring the inexplicable Channing Tatum. Amazingly, THAT’S the movie franchise I’m talking about.

The third installment of this epic dance club trilogy opens up today in movie theaters nation wide and it was filmed entirely in 3D. That’s right. They made a dance movie in 3D. What’s even more incredible than the fact that this 3D dance movie was passed through every single step of the movie making process is the success of the movie franchise.

According to IMDB, the first and second Step Up movies were budgeted for a combined $35 million (estimated) and together they grossed over $120 million in the US alone. While I’m sure the movies themselves are plenty entertaining and they have die hard fans who would be quick to take you to task for not giving these beacons of entertainment a chance, it doesn’t make it any less surprising that the franchise without any big names (the three Channing Tatum fans are going to be furious with me) could be set to drop a third in-theater release.

And that’s where you sort of have to take a leap of faith with the movies. Even though it doesn’t make much quantifiable sense, maybe they’re just that good. Sometimes you can’t explain phenomena such as this and that’s where I’ll disagree with a brilliant basketball mind by saying Carmelo Anthony is one of the NBA’s elite.

Fellow HP brother and basketball genius Tom Haberstroh wrote a very good breakdown (ESPN Insider) of Carmelo Anthony, explaining why he shouldn’t be amongst the elite in the game. Tom makes a very compelling argument with statistical evidence that is nearly impossible to refute. But this is the time in which traditional basketball thinking and the world of advanced stats slam into each other like a couple of evenly matched sumo wrestlers.

“In the end, Anthony’s game demonstrates why it’s important to strip away the biases that color our perceptions of elite players. In Anthony’s case, the excessive shot volume, his team’s stat-padding tempo and the lack of a true 3-point game makes his 28.2 ppg seem far less impressive than his sparkling reputation would suggest.

If anything, it’s time we moved on from per-game statistics to evaluate our players. Millions of dollars are wasted every year basing player value on the archaic statistics that teams used half a century ago. And someone will surely overpay Anthony and offer him a max contract — just look at the deals Joe Johnson and Rudy Gay got.”

After explaining many reasons of why Carmelo Anthony falls short due to his seemingly one-dimensional game and why his offense might be more smoke and mirrors than fire and whatever the opposite or more tangible version of mirrors is, Tom throws down the advanced versus basic stats gauntlet. People who claim that Tom is just a “stat geek that needs to actually watch the games” clearly don’t understand what he’s saying or the reason he’s saying it. The evidence is correct.

But can it also be false? Outside of scoring, Carmelo doesn’t do anything at an elite level. He’s a marginal rebounder at best, a suspect defender and a guy that doesn’t create for his teammates nearly as much as he probably could and should. He throws out good but not outstanding PER numbers every season. His shooting numbers are good but not special. And yet at the same time, I can’t help but think he is a legitimate elite player in the NBA.

If you ask me (and I’m assuming you are in an indirect way if you read through nearly 300 words about Step Up before you got to the point of this post), the way Carmelo Anthony scores is what makes him elite. I don’t disagree with Tom’s points about the pace and shooting numbers making his gaudy points per game numbers look better than they actually are. But with the way he performs in the fourth quarter it’s hard for me to ignore just how good he is.

Over the past three seasons, Carmelo Anthony has been one of the better clutch scorers in the NBA. Yes, his shooting numbers have been up and down in terms of the percentage he’s made in these situations but he still puts up more points than just about anybody when it counts (thanks, 82games.com):

- In the 2007-08 season, Carmelo Anthony ranked just 20^th (36.3) in the NBA in points per 48 clutch minutes while shooting 42% from the field, 12.5% from three and 81% from the free throw line. But he got to the free throw line in these situations better than all but 14 players in the NBA at 17.6 free throw attempts per 48 clutch minutes.

- In the 2008-09 season, Carmelo Anthony was sort of unstoppable when it counted the most. Only Kobe Bryant and LeBron James scored a higher volume of clutch points with Carmelo finishing third in the league with 54.4 points per 48 clutch minutes. He shot absurd percentages of 56.5% from the field, 58.3% from three and 82% from the free throw line. He also got to the free throw line more than anybody with 24 attempts per 48 clutch minutes.

- This past season, Carmelo fell back down to Earth in terms of clutch shooting percentages. He made just 42.7% from the field, 14.3% from three and improved his free throw shooting to 87%. But he still finished fourth in the league in clutch points per 48 with 47.0 and second in clutch free throw attempts per 48 with 21.7 per.

While the percentages fluctuate quite a bit from year to year and the 08-09 efficiency from three-point range seems to be a complete anomaly, the fact that he scores when his team needs it the most can’t be overlooked just because he’s “not elite” during other parts of the game. Carmelo is an elite crunch time scorer and he’s been the best player on one of the best teams in the league over the past three years. He’s put his Nuggets in the conversation for one of the challengers to the mighty Lakers in each of the past three seasons in an impossibly tough Western Conference.

What’s funny to me is that nobody would question Kevin Durant being an elite player in the NBA right now. And when you look at the numbers of what he did compared to what Carmelo Anthony did, there isn’t a HUGE difference in the final output.

(Click chart to enlarge)

(Click chart to enlarge)

Aside from a PER, offensive rating and win shares, the numbers are pretty even all across the board. Durant’s TS% is also much higher than Carmelo’s but considering Durant just put together a historic season at the free throw line, I don’t think you can really use that against Anthony all that much. Win shares and offensive rating are fairly damning but I still don’t believe that it disproves Carmelo being an elite player in this league.

Look to the fourth quarter of the last three seasons and you’ll see that Anthony has been far superior to Durant in clutch scoring. Yes, Durant is still so young and doing all of this at the equivalent of being a NBA toddler but it doesn’t change the fact that Carmelo bests him in a very important area despite taking a backseat to the current popular opinion of who is better between the two.

And for the first time in a long time, the primitive argument of “watch the games” may hold a ladle of water for this discussion. There’s no doubt when you watch a close Nuggets game in the fourth quarter that Carmelo Anthony is an elite player. He cuts through defenses by hitting face-up jumpers, pull-up jumpers and even gets into the paint to create some contact before creating some scoring. He’s not perfect by any means in these situations but he’s still one of the best there is in the NBA.

Maybe Carmelo Anthony isn’t in the elite class of LeBron, Kobe, Wade and Durant. Okay, he’s definitely not in their class. But he can still be an elite player in this league in the same way that Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and Deron Williams are for their respective teams. They impact games in ways that other players in the NBA simply can’t consistently do.

Step Up is an important part of the current movie industry in the same way Carmelo Anthony is an elite player in this league. Just because you look at the entire body of work and come away unimpressed doesn’t mean that the box office numbers are irrelevant.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to defend myself to Channing Tatum’s family fans.

Allen Law is the author of Straight Outta Vancouver. You may also know him from his work at FreeDarko. He most often goes by the name dj turtleface, which is, you know, neat. He’ll be dropping an unusual type of fantasy column on you here at HP. It’s based on the idea of… oh, okay, well.. I’ll just let him tell it.  -MM

Names and numbers are boring things.

Phonebooks have names and numbers. Why don’t I read those in my free time? Or, if I chose to be a bit more productive, I could sit and memorize the encyclopedia to make a nice little run at Jeopardy.  Now I’m no Krazy Ken Jennings, but  with the amount of time I spend playing fantasy basketball each year, I’m sure I’d at least be able to snatch one Daily Double.

The thing is pounding out statistics is not really my idea of a hobby. Or a job. Or anything, really. I hate dealing with names and numbers.

And ultimately fantasy basketball is a game of names and numbers. Names are the heart of fantasy. Names win you drafts and trades – the most interesting components of the game – and you begin the year with nothing but a list of names. But ultimately numbers are king. Stats win you points or matches, depending on your format of choice. When the time to deem a winner comes, the heartless machines inside ESPN don’t count LeBron’s or Dwight’s acquired, they just tally the ten categories.

Funny then, that I’m completely stuck on fantasy sports, isn’t it? It could be one of those loathsome, self-destructive, lose-lose relationships, I suppose. But it’s not. No, because I’m also here to tell you that if you hit up this very spot each week from here till the end of NBA days – sooner than you think, lockout baby! – it’ll give you all the fantasy basketball “expertise” that you’ll ever need.

Unlike names and numbers, theory, psychology, style and aesthetics, saying Queensbridge, systems analysis, creativity, and philosophy are all things I get behind. Unfortunately, you’ll probably notice a glaring absence these things when you read the sage advice of the Talented Mr. Roto.

There’s a better way to improve your fantasy basketball skills than looking at Player A and Player B, stunned to find out that Joel Pryzbilla is a poor man’s Marcus Camby. What’s the better way you ask, well, how about starting with actually improving you skills?

Traditionally fantasy advice is reactionary and, ultimately, a Band-Aid approach. Pick this guy up; check the stats. But don’t drop him; he’ll bounce back to the mean. Each week you get to see about ten hot names, so better hope they fit your struggling squad. No worries why your squad is struggling, by the way, because each week we’ll be here with a new Band-Aid.

Not to read like the back of a bottle of Pom, but just maybe the miracle answer to your fantasy woes is preventative, not a cure.

As an experiment, let’s try thinking about fantasy basketball through the frame of actual basketball. If you’re in a 10 man, head-to-head league, I suppose that’s a little like a big round robin, one-on-one tournament. Right? Yes, no? As a brief aside, consider whether you follow this flawed conceit or not a fair litmus test for whether you’ll like to RSS.

The names and numbers aren’t actually the game of fantasy, just like pump-fakes, crossovers, and step-back jumpshots are not the game of basketball. See, the players you have rostered are also only the most basic components of the game. They create the numbers that ultimately score the points that ultimately win the week, but those fantasy players do not actually create the victory.

Consider our one-on-one tournament, in which Carmelo Anthony is playing Stephen Jackson. I would drop a G on front row seats to see this, so we’ll stick with it for a minute. Anthony probably takes the Captain in the post. But Anthony’s eleventh point comes on a jab-step to a light fadeaway. The jab-step doesn’t win the game, nor do any of the preceding moves.

Carmelo Anthony won, and he didn’t win because he knows more about an up-and-under or jab than Jax. In elite competition, it’s not about knowing the components. Winning at the highest level is about who is best at combining and executing with those pieces, well, and luck’s in there too.

For a beginner, yes, it’s a helpful reminder that a drop-step without a dribble is a travel. And for a beginner, it’s perhaps worthwhile to debate whether you take Chris Paul with the number two pick this season. Or if Danny Granger is still a top ten player. Or if you can possibly pick Stephen Curry in the top twenty (OK, actually this is a relatively interesting debate, and one I will probably address, but not under the same terms you’re accustomed to).

And if you are going to spend time learning the components, then you damn sure better learn them right. Take the case of Amar’e Stoudemire signing with the Knicks. Where’s he on your board right now? It’s easy to think: A) He’s returning to D’Antoni, so no worries; or, B) He’s leaving Nash, which is bound to be bad news. Either is a overly simplistic assessment.

I see a very different D’Antoni, though, as well as a very different role. The new 7 seconds or less is even closer to the Dream than ever because Nash stifled his teammates’ creativity since his own star was so bright. If the system remains as free-wheeling as it has in Mikey’s first two years, Stoudemire stands to see some interesting gains.

Remember, David Lee averaged 3.5 assists in New York last year. Stat is no playmaker, but when you’re passing to Pretty Toney and Eh, Dano!, there’s a good chance they’re shooting fast enough to fill the little dime holders in each of Stat’s rides. Even more underrated, how about the 2 blocks from 07-08? That big swat boost came during his last year with D’Antoni, an underrated defensive coach, and on a bad team with no other interior defenders. Sound familiar? Him and Anthony Randolph should fluidly switch between big spots, which means Amare could easily apply his hops to swats again.

But, really, that’s neither here nor there.  We were talking about how to improve at fantasy basketball after you already know your players like the back of your hand. For that, we’ll return to my list of loves: theory, psychology, style and aesthetics, saying Queensbridge, systems analysis, creativity, and philosophy.

Saying Queensbridge probably won’t get you very far. But the rest of these guys? They should be your new best friends:

• Having a fantasy theory and/or philosophy is tantamount to success. Very rarely can you completely out-class the competition in every way, however, you’ll always need to outsmart them.
• Unless you kill it in the psychology category and you find a way to flip Derrick Rose for Dwight Howard, or something similarly absurd.
• Style and aesthetics? You’ve got to run with your boys, the players you love, because it makes the game more engaging and you’ll be much more judicious. Similarly, drafting players you know is key to correctly evaluating their potential.
• And when players change teams, systems analysis is invaluable. When I say systems analysis, I don’t mean knowing Nelly is bat-$h!t insane, I mean predicting whether Mario Chalmers is going to lead the league in threes on the Super Villains.
• Creativity, finally, is what it all comes down to. In just about any game, you win by either improvising or crafting a plan so perfect that it either whips the competition even when they see it coming, or it’s so stunning in its devious beauty that it leaves them defenseless. Also, team names. Everybody loves the guy with the funny name.

If you prefer to stick with the names and numbers, I can’t blame you. They’re a simple distraction. If you want more, though, it sounds like we have plenty to talk about.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been updating the free agent market value for a win, measured by Kevin Pelton’s WARP2.  Today, I’d like to apply the same method to a retrospective look at last season’s production.

Given the general rate for wins, who were the best bargains in the game last year?

In my salary research using Patricia Bender’s salary index, I found that teams “paid” approximately $2.25 million per WARP2 last season.  I framed that with quotation marks because for the most part, teams do not purchase players every summer but rather in contract intervals.  The $2.25M pricetag a quick and dirty rule of thumb when you’re looking at player worth.  The price reflects what I found researching the contracts handed out this summer as well.

So who were the best bargains last year?  To find out, I converted each player’s WARP2 into a dollar amount by multiplying their production (WARP2) by the price for that production ($2.25M).  Team loses on their investment if they pay more than what they receive in production.  On the flipside, teams enjoy a profit or surplus of value if their player provides more production than they were paid.  So if the general market rate for wins is $2.25M per win, how much surplus value did teams receive on their investments?

I present the 20 biggest bargains of last year:

I’m guessing most people would argue that Kevin Durant is by far the biggest bargain in the game. But even though LeBron gets paid $11 million more than Durant, he still provides about $5 million more in surplus value.  The difference of $11 million would generally buy about 5 wins on the open market so the 7.1 extra wins that LeBron produced wins out.

Rondo was the most valuable player on the Celtics last year and that’s even before we look through the bang-for-your-buck lens.  Remarkably, the Celtics paid Brian Scalabrine 50 percent more than they paid Rondo and yet, the latter produced nearly 15 wins more.  And next year, Rondo will still only rank as  the fourth highest paid Celtic.

How about geezers Jason Kidd and Steve Nash? The Mavericks and Suns have gone the extra mile to make sure these two players, 37 and 36 years old respectively, can stay on the court and the dollar investments have been absolute steals.

Notice the surplus value of rookie contracts.  Several of these bargains are still under the pay scale of their first NBA contracts.  This is why the draft and player development are the lifebloods of shrewd franchises.

Brandon Roy missed 17 games last season but still measured out as one of the best values of last year, getting paid $3.9 million for almost 10 wins of production.  Impressive.

In next week’s edition, we’ll take a look at the biggest wastes of 2009-10.  Any guesses?

Thanks again to Kevin Pelton for his player metric.  Be sure to get the new Pro Basketball Prospectus when it comes out in early spring.  Now that’s a bargain.

Richard Jefferson signed a few days ago which mean’s it’s time for another market update on the free agency price.  To recap, I’m comparing every newly-signed player’s salary to their WARP2 from last season. It’s a quick and handy measure of how much teams are willing to pay for talent this summer.  Last year, the going rate for free agents was $1.49M for each win.  This year? It’s risen to $2.2M.

Here’s the full run down:

To reiterate from last week, the last row on this table subtracts players who likely signed for lower than the free market rate (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Dirk Nowitzki).  This takes a more accurate view of what teams pay free of cap spending restrictions.

$2.2 million per win is an increase since the last count because the newest additions have been sold at the rate of $3.3 million.  WARP2 didn’t think much of last year’s production of Ronnie Brewer, Joel Anthony, Richard Jefferson, and Marquis Daniels but teams were willing to pay more than the minimum and in some cases, much more than the minimum for these near replacement-level efforts.

Newly minted Matt Barnes looks like one of the best deals of the summer and should help bolster the Lakers’ chances of bringing home another championship.  It’s hard to imagine Ridnour posting another 5.3-win season but this objective method makes David Kahn look like a genius.

Next week, look for a team by team and position by position break down.  We’ll see if the summer’s $700,000 premium sticks.

Much thanks to Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus.