A little over a month ago, we all sang, and drank, and were merry in celebrating that Mike Dunleavy had stepped down as coach of the Clippers. I’ve got nothing against the man himself, other than the fact that he’s a bit more than partially responsible for how bad the Clippers have been for the better part of this decade. It’s not all on his shoulders — after all, who’s to say what would have become of the Clips had they not blown a 3-1 lead against the Suns in the 2006 playoffs, or had lottery pick Shaun Livingston not had the injury nightmare of a lifetime, or of the one successful core not inexplicably regressed, or if Elton Brand hadn’t bolted in free agency — but he’s had more than a hand in the horrible management of the worst franchise in basketball.

It’s honestly a bit impressive that the Clippers have been so bad for so long; you’d figure that eventually, Dunleavy and Sterling were bound to stumble into success. Maybe their brush with hope was back in ‘06, but it left as quickly as it came. Dunleavy has had chance after chance to not only justify his position as head coach, but rectify the mistakes he’s made as a general manager. He’s had no right to complain about his roster, or his coach’s use of the roster, because Dun is one of those guys in a rare position to both build the team to his liking and manage everything from the contracts to the minutes. He’s blessed with considerable power but cursed with accountability for everything…or at least he should have been cursed with accountability. Few GMs or coaches could have gotten away with losing so consistently, but give Dunleavy credit: he managed to stay alive, even if it’s only because the man signing the checks was a cheapskate who inked him to a foolish deal and refused to cut him loose.

But that’s enough dancing on MDSr’s grave; there will be plenty of that going on today, and I feel like I’ve already done plenty of it before. Enough is probably enough, if only because this move should have come long ago. I come to praise Caesar, not to bury him. This particular man and this particular franchise are so easy to hyperbolize that he’ll get his share of criticism and he probably deserves it. But not everything turned to dust under Dunleavy’s watch, and while his roster moves on the whole can’t be called a success given that Dunleavy coached the Clips to a winning record just once in seven stints, L.A.’s selections in the draft during his time as GM have actually been pretty successful.

———

2003:
Chris Kaman, 6th overall pick – Kaman is still the starting center of the Clips today, and though he’s battled injury and some pretty wicked consistency issues, he’s had a solid season. Kaman has found success despite playing a very different style than Baron Davis, which isn’t easy. But post-heavy sets have been a staple of the Dunleavy era, and as the Clips shift directions next season (assuming that Kim Hughes doesn’t return as head coach), it should be interesting to see how Kaman is utilized in the future.

Sofoklis Schortsanitis, 34th overall pick - Schortsanitis never made it to the U.S., but is still playing professionally for Olympiacos.

2004:
Shaun Livingston, 4th overall pick – There’s no telling whether or not Livingston would have put it all together and actualized the star potential that pushed him to the top of his draft class straight out of high school. The Dislocated Knee Cap Heard ‘Round the World not only closed Livingston’s season, but significantly lowered the ceiling on his career.

Lionel Chalmers, 33rd pick – After a short stint in the NBA (two years of salary but only one year with minutes played), Chalmers went across the pond and across another, smaller pond to play in Italy. He’s now a fixture in Russian basketball, where he led his league in scoring last season with 21.4 points per game. He did have some value to the Clips, though: Chalmers was part of the trade (along with Marko Jaric) that brought Sam Cassell to L.A. for the ‘06 playoff run.

2005:
Yaroslav Korolev, 12th overall pick – Swingandamiss. The big draft blunder of Dunleavy’s tenure, Korolev was a lottery pick that did anything but pan out. That said, it’s not like MDSr overlooked any obvious stars; the best players still on the board at 12 in the ‘05 draft were all hidden gems (Danny Granger, David Lee, Monta Ellis), and while it would have been nice for the Clips to pick up a talent of that caliber, you could say the same for almost every GM in the league.

Daniel Ewing, 32nd overall pick – Two seasons, about a million in salary, and over 120 games in the league. Ewing never made his mark, and now he’s trying to make a buck and a name for himself playing professionally in Poland.

2006:
Paul Davis, 34th overall pick – The Clips didn’t have a first rounder in ‘06, which was actually okay considering they finished 47-35 and the pick that would have been theirs fell to number 22 overall. There’s still value at that point in the draft, but it’s not like they surrendered a lottery pick.

Guillermo Diaz, 52nd overall pick - You know the drill. Decided to play overseas, still playing professionally in Italy, and the Clips hold his draft rights. Not that it matters all that much.

2007:
Al Thornton, 12th overall pick – Thornton may not look like a terrific pick now, but he started his career the way you’d expect an older rookie to start it: he made an impact with his NBA-ready body and his experience. The problem has been Thornton’s refusal to make a single significant stride since his rookie season, and though Al occasionally shows flashes of something more, he looks like he’ll end up as a role player. Not a great pick, but not exactly a horrible one, either.

Jared Jordan, 45th overall pick – The Clips eventually traded Jordan to the Knicks for cash, but he’s never made an NBA roster. Jordan bounced around a few summer league teams, but he’s currently playing professionally in Germany.

2008:
Eric Gordon, 7th overall pick – I was way down on Gordon when the 2008 Draft was approaching, but he’s been fantastic. It’s unclear whether or not Gordon will ever be capable of being a team’s top scoring option (I’m leaning no), but he’ll be a stellar supplementary scorer. He’s much more efficient than you think (especially if you’re Matt Moore): he gets to the line with incredible regularity, doesn’t turn the ball over, and combines nice touch from mid and long range with a solid handle and driving ability. Not the best finisher, but so proficient at creating contact that it almost doesn’t matter. He’s not the most versatile cat in the world and the defense is definitely a work in progress, but Gordon can score and he can do it efficiently.

DeAndre Jordan, 35th overall pick – There was a time where Jordan was lauded as a potential lottery pick, but he failed to get off the bench for consistent minutes, much less make a consistent impact during his stint at Texas A&M. He’s come a long way since then. Jordan’s development is a crucial part of what the Clippers will do from this point forward. With Kaman, Jordan, and Blake Griffin, the Clips could actually be pretty stacked at power forward and center. Jordan has shown he’s capable of being a pretty dominant NBA player, but I’m sure those in L.A.’s front office would settle for him simply becoming more consistent. Jordan has nothing but time; he definitely has NBA-level talent and athleticism, and he’s just 21 years old. Great, great value for a second rounder.

2009:
Blake Griffin, 1st overall pick – Bust. And by “bust” I mean “he’s awesome.” And by “awesome” I mean “should be playing right now, if not for some horrible, horrible luck.” I know everyone’s waiting to watch the fireworks in free agency and anxious to see who wins the John Wall sweepstakes, but Griffin is a legitimate reason to want to fast-forward to October.

———-

That’s essentially one blown first rounder in seven years, and even that pick was a late lottery selection in a weak draft class. Mitch Kupchack selected Sasha Vujacic and Brian Cook, albeit with late first round selections. Sam Presti gave away Carl Landry, Rodrigue Beaubois, and Glen Davis. Buford handed over Leandro Barbosa and Goran Dragic. Pritchard picked Greg Oden over Kevin Durant, WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY THE BUSTIEST BUST OF ALL BUST TIME, AM I RIGHT?!?!?!?!

Everyone makes mistakes, and Korolev was Dunleavy’s. MDSr made quite a few more in free agency, in signing or refusing to sign his own players, and in poorly assessing the value of personnel on the Clippers and across the league. But even though he fell well short of deserving the position of power he had been inhabiting, the dark days the Clippers have faced since 2003 weren’t nearly as dark as they could have been. That’s the most solace I can offer a franchise that has seen the playoffs once over that same span, has seen its franchise player walk out the door, and now will try for something completely different beginning with this off-season. With Dunleavy gone, the Clips are on the verge of something. That’s all we can say. Whether that’s some roster turnover with a new coach and renewed hope is up to Donald Sterling.

That’s a scary thought, isn’t it?

“Darren Collison. 16 points. They have him with 20 assists tonight… And this is a Hornet’s rookie record of 20 assists. I’m going to say this politely. They need to watch the video of this game because Darren Collison has about 13 assists in the game, not 20. The person keeping assists tonight is a little unclear on the rule. You’ve had balls thrown in and then guys making moves then scoring and still an assist will be credited. That’s up for the league to look at, eventually.”

This was a quote by Bob Fitzgerald towards the end of the Hornets victory over the Warriors Monday night. Bob Fitzgerald is the Warriors play-by-play man. When I was watching the game and saw the stat, it didn’t really seem correct to me either. I guessed that Collison might have around 15 assists. To hear 20 was sort of alarming.

We’ve heard about issues in the past with Nick Van Exel in Denver or what’s been assumed with Chris Paul in New Orleans in terms of his stats being inflated for the hopes of ending up on SportsCenter because of pretty round numbers. Well, 20 assists for someone that the Hornets are desperately hoping takes away some Rookie of the Year recognition from Tyreke Evans with his half of a season’s worth of brilliance is quite the round number to make people notice.

Since Fitz wanted someone to check out the video tape and see if 20 was a legit number for Collison tonight, I decided to cue up the old League Pass Broadband and go over each registered assist for Collison.

For clarification, we’re going by the generally accepted definition of an assist:

“In basketball, an assist is attributed to a player who passes the ball to a teammate in a way that leads to a score by field goal, meaning that he or she was “assisting” in the basket.”

Here is a break down of each assist credited to Darren Collison with my description of the play and the verdict of whether or not it should be an assist.

Assist 1: Fast-break pass to Morris Peterson on the wing for three
The first score of the game by the Hornets happened off a turnover in which Collison intercepted a horrible pass, took it the other way and threw a pass to Mo Pete on the wing that was offline too. Mo controlled the pass with a bounce, gathered himself and shot the three. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 2: Transition three by Morris Peterson
Collison quickly jogs the ball up the floor and finds Morris Peterson running with him all alone. He throws a quick pass to Mo Pete on the left wing again and Peterson rises up for his second three in as many attempts. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 3: Pass to Peja Stojakovic in the mid-post for a jumper
This is the first questionable one of the night for Collison. He dribbles up the right side where Peja has his defender in the post around 16 feet from the basket. Collison passes to Peja who isn’t even looking at the basket. He’s not really facing it so much as he’s facing the scorer’s table. He turns and takes a big jab step towards the baseline. When the defender recovers because he realizes he isn’t going anywhere, Peja makes one more small jab step and then fires up the jumper. I find it hard to believe that this pass led to the score in the spirit of the definition of an assist. Verdict: Invalid Assist

Assist 4: Alley-oop to Emeka Okafor
Completely legit here. It’s a lob into the center of the key, which Okafor catches and dunks in one motion. I like to call it the ‘ole alley-oop. It’s catchy (pun intended). Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 5: Morris Peterson three in the right corner
Collison gets the ball into the post on the left side of the floor. After the pass to West down low, he cuts into the middle of the lane. He catches the pass from West and the defense collapses to the middle. He kicks out to the right corner where Peterson catches and fires the three. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 6: Pass to West inside for a basket
Collison and Okafor run a pick-and-roll on the right side of the floor. Collison drives towards the middle, jumps in the air and then passes to a cutting David West on the baseline. West catches the ball and puts it up in one motion for an easy score. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 7: Pass inside to Okafor for a turnaround basket
In a pseudo-transition opportunity, Collison dribbles down the middle of the court and finds Okafor with good position in the paint around 10 feet from the basket. He dumps it into Okafor who takes a dribble while he fakes back to the middle of the lane with his right foot and then turns and gets fouled on a turnaround jumper that goes in. This one is kind of sketchy because by the rule he doesn’t really make a move toward the basket at first. But in the spirit of the rule, I think it’s a good assist call. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 8: Pass inside to Okafor for the dunk
Collison runs a pick play with Songaila on the left side of the floor. As he dribbles towards the middle, he finds Okafor in the center of the key, right in front of the basket. He quickly drops the ball into Okafor, who makes a strong drop-step to the basket and dunks it home immediately. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 9: Pass to Thornton off the screen for a jumper
Collison dribbles the ball on the right wing above the three-point line as Marcus Thornton comes off a screen on the baseline to the same side of the floor. Thornton pump fakes then dribbles the ball to his right before pulling up for a jumper. There’s no way this should count as an assist. The score was completely created off of Thornton’s fake and then dribble to free himself up for the shot. Verdict: Invalid Assist

Assist 10: Pass to Julian Wright in the Post who scores a layup
I will admit that so far, the majority of the assists are completely legit. However, this one is pretty egregious. Collison dribbles up the right side of the floor and finds Julian Wright in the post about 12 feet away from the basket. Wright catches the ball, faces up to his defender and then dribbles towards the baseline. He spins back into the lane before laying it up. This is in NO WAY an assist. This shouldn’t even be close. He took two dribbles and about five steps total after catching the ball with his back to the basket to begin with. I’m starting to think the league should have a team of guys to verify stats after the game. Verdict: Invalid Assist

Assist 11: Transition pass to Thornton on the right wing for a three
This is an easy one to call. Collison gets the pass in the backcourt from David West off the rebound and pushes it up the floor. He finds Thornton on the right wing, who catches the pass with one foot inside the three-point line. Without a dribble or hesitation, he slowly gathers himself behind the line and drains the three. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 12: Dribble handoff for the Peja three-pointer
Collison dribbled this one on the left side of the court just inside the three-point line as Peja curled behind him from the baseline. Collison dropped it off to Peja for the quick three. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 13: Pass into the mid-post for a Peja layup
Collison pushes the ball up the court after a Curry missed floater. He finds Peja in the post on the left side. Peja catches the ball and squares up. He jabs towards the baseline and back to the middle twice before taking it into the middle and making the layup. Five seconds and two dribbles after Peja catches the pass, he scores a layup and somehow Darren Collison gets an assist. This is inexplicable. Verdict: Invalid Assist

Assist 14: Pass to the right side for a Peterson three
Off a broken and wild play in which Collison saves the ball on the opposite end of the court, he brings the ball back up the middle of the floor, draws a double team as Morris Peterson sneaks to the right perimeter. Collison finds Mo Pete for a three on the right side. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 15: Alley-oop pass to Emeka Okafor for the dunk
Pick-and-roll play at the top of the key for Collison and Okafor that results in Collison drawing both defenders and Emeka rolling unabated to the basket. Collison throws a perfect lob and Emeka dunks it home. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 16: Transition pass to Peja for the layup
Collison pushes the tempo once again and catches the Warriors defense slow to set up or even react. He dribbles up the middle of the floor and find Peja right under the basket. Peja catches the ball and goes right up for the little reverse layup. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 17: Pass to Okafor in the middle of the key for the short runner
With the shot clock running down, Collison dribbles down the right side of the lane and kicks it back to a cutting Okafor in the middle of the paint. He catches and puts up a quick little runner. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 18: Pass to David West on the baseline for the step-back jumper
Collison dribbles from the right wing over the top of the three-point line towards the middle of the floor. As he drives into the foul line area, he passes off to David West who is fading towards the baseline from where Collison just was. West doesn’t catch the ball cleanly and by the time he corrals it, he shoots the jumper from the baseline. Even though the catch wasn’t clean, the pass clearly led him into that shot. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 19: Handoff pass to James Posey for the three
After a steal by Thornton, Collison catches the ball in the frontcourt on the right side of the floor. He has James Posey trailing right behind him and circling back to the three-point line. Collison takes the pass and dumps it off to Posey for the immediate three. Verdict: Valid Assist

Assist 20: Pass on the fast-break to Thornton for the layup
After the Curry turnover, Collison pushes the ball up the right side of the floor in a two-on-one fast-break with Marcus Thornton. Once he gets the defender to commit to his side, Collison shoots a pass across the lane to a streaking Thornton who lays it up on the right side of the hoop. Verdict: Valid Assist

Overall, it’s not quite as bad as Bob Fitzgerald made it out to be. There was one questionable assist, four assists that shouldn’t have counted and ultimately, 16 assists that I’m fine with Collison having. Did he ACTUALLY set the rookie record for the Hornets with 20 assists? Technically, he did. In reality, he didn’t.

Either way, it brings up the question of whether or not the league does need to monitor this. They go back and look at the tape for flagrant and technical fouls. For anything close that wasn’t called and actually should have been a flagrant or technical, they can reverse it.

So why not have a dedicated team of video watchers for each night to verify the game scorer’s findings? It doesn’t take much. If we’re going to base awards and All-Star appearances off of numbers, shouldn’t we be absolutely sure that those numbers are legit?

What a great night of basketball!

There were only five games on the schedule but four of those were really good, one of them saw over 260 points scored and even the Wolves-Mavericks game wasn’t THAT bad. Al Jefferson had a big night to keep it interesting before the Wolves gave way to the better team.

With that said, I’m ready to give out some damn faces and you can’t do that without a proper opening act.

What do you say, boys?

Lion Face: Wilson Chandler’s Last Stand

For a Knicks team that can’t play any defense or defend the basket that well, they sure did a good job of protecting the rim against the Hawks on Monday night. Wilson Chandler’s block on a potential Josh Smith game-winning dunk not only helped the Knicks win the game but they also held Atlanta to under 100 points. When the Knicks hold their opponents under 100, they’re 15-7 this season.

Lemon Face: Roger Mason, Jr.
I know that shooters are supposed to shoot themselves out of slumps. I get that. They can’t know if they’re hitting unless they’re shooting. But at the same time, when one of your teammates has it going and another one is filling in really nicely for Tony Parker and you still have a HOF big man on your roster, maybe you shouldn’t keep firing up shots like it’s Pop-a-Shot at an arcade. Mason was 1/10 in this game and 0/8 from three. Hell, I could have done that for a much cheaper price tag than what the Spurs paid Mason in this game.

Lion Face: Manu Ginobili
Speaking of having it going, Manu Ginobili looked scary good Monday. With Parker down and George Hill as more of a scoring fill-in than a distributing point guard, they need Manu to be more aggressive and to make some plays. While he did a good job of moving the ball, he did a much better job of lighting up Quicken Arena with his scoring. Manu had 38 points with seven threes and only 23 field goal attempts. He pulled out all of the stops: pull up threes, spot-up threes, drives to the hoop. He even gave us the Shammgod move that he loves to pull off when he’s got it going. I have to think he has a decent shot at the Whoa Boy today (welcome back, fellas!).

Lemon Face: Mike Bibby
I guess technically Mike Bibby is still an NBA player. He’s paid an NBA salary to be on an NBA team. But he doesn’t exactly embody the NBA right now. He’s been horrible this year. You would think against teams like the Knicks, he’d be able to boost his miserable stats a little with the lack of defense this team often shows. Instead, he couldn’t do anything but manage one point and one assist to go with his 0/4 shooting from the field in 21 minutes of action. I guess you can still consider him a shooting threat in the crunch time of playoff games, but I’d much rather run with a point guard tandem of Jeff Teague and Jamal Crawford. At least they’re legit threats.

Lion Face: Danilo Gallinari
Danilo is a really bad man when he’s on. With the Hawks starting out in a good scoring rhythm early in this game, Danilo kept this game close by going 5/5 for 12 points in the first quarter. When the Knicks had their big third quarter, he scored a quarter of the points with eight on four shots and four free throw attempts. He finished the game with 27 points for the game-high and proved to be a problem the whole game. He stretched the floor to open up the middle and the rest of the perimeter for his team. David Lee was good off of pick plays because you simply can’t bring that help defender off of The Rooster.

Lemon Face: Jonny Flynn/Corey Brewer
I think Jonny Flynn can be an exciting player but when I look at him as the future point guard of my favorite team, it makes me want to start following Lacrosse more and more. Flynn can be good for short bursts. He might even score in the high 20s occasionally. But he’s more a jitterbugging kind of guard who looks less than average way more than he looks like the guy who will be manning the ship when the team returns to prominence. You could see that when he had just 13 points and a 1:1 assist to turnover ratio because he racked up eight of each.

Also, Corey Brewer has been tricking the majority of us with a decent falling jumper for a good portion of the season. Does he look like Anthony Morrow out there? Not even close. But he looks less like Marty Conlon this year than the previous two. Against the Mavericks on Monday, he fell back down to Earth where we expected him to be his whole career. 11 points on 10 shots and 1/7 from three doesn’t exactly convince me the jumper has been fixed long-term. Maybe I’m just being too harsh with the way I criticize this team.

Lion Face: Al Jefferson
That’s why I love Al Jefferson. He can keep my spirits up when he’s being fed the ball in the post and unleashing his hellish post package against the poor sap who has been assigned to keep him out of the paint. Jefferson had every pump fake, drop-step and counter-move ready at his disposal against the Mavs and it was all deadly. 36 points on 21 attempts with 13 rebounds against the smaller than hoped frontline of Dallas was impressive. He kept his game from being completely embarrassing. Let’s not trade him unless we get Danny Granger, okay? And even then I’m not so sure I’d ever really want that.

Lemon Face: Sasha Pavlovic
Two years ago, I was laughing at the fact that this guy was still in the league. It didn’t make any sense at all. He was a shooter that couldn’t really shoot. Now? He’s on the Wolves and he still can’t shoot. Against the Mavs, he had seven points on 10 shots with 1/6 from three. He was a minus-20 in the game in just 21 minutes. That seems like it would be hard to do. By accident, you would assume he’d be on the court when an errant three-pointer or two goes the team’s way.

Lion Face: Anthony Morrow
This guy is the best outside shooter in the NBA. It’s not Ray Allen. It’s not Steve Nash. It’s not Paul Pierce much to his chagrin. It’s not even Dirk Nowitzki who I’d bet my life on making the next jumper. It’s Anthony Morrow. We all remember the tale of his existence. He’s pure like snow. He’s pure like virgin snow. I can’t believe his jumper is not butter. He had 28 points in an OK Corral-level shootout with the Hornets Monday night. It came on 11/13 shooting with 6/6 from deep. 16 of his points and four of his threes came in the fourth quarter. He was a perfect 7/7 from the field in the second half and helped lead the Warriors in a second half shooting display of making 28 of their 40 attempts. Anthony Morrow made everything look effortless and if the defense hadn’t clung to his jersey on the final possessions, he probably would have won the game.

Lemon Face: Brook Lopez
I thought Brook Lopez was going to be a below average player when he got drafted. I’m never really big on PAC-10 big men in the modern era unless they’re related to the Beach Boys in some way so I had a bit of a bias going against Brook. I also didn’t think he was very intelligent despite the fact that he went to Stanford. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong. He’s extremely talented and a very intelligent player on the court. He’s going to be a good center in this league for a long time. But Monday night, he had to go against one of the truly big boys in the NBA in Marc Gasol. And Gasol kind of ate his lunch. He managed just 10 points on 10 shots. He grabbed only seven rebounds to Gasol’s 13. He did pass out six assists but had three turnovers to go with them. He just wasn’t good enough to beat Gasol on the road. In a couple of years, he’ll probably be picking and choosing which lunches he eats and which ones he steps on.

Lion Face: Courtney Lee
Ever since February hit us, we’ve been starting to see the same Courtney Lee that we saw emerge in the playoffs last year. His explosiveness seems to be back and his scoring with punches in bunches mentality is also showing itself around here again. He scored 30 against the Grizzlies after scoring 25 two days ago in New York. He helped keep this game a lot closer than the Grizzlies were comfortable with and was a big part of the Nets staying in this game in the first half. Welcome back, Courtney Lee. In your honor, I’d like everybody to watch this from last May.

Lemon Face: Hamed Haddadi
He didn’t do anything wrong. But Hasheem Thabeet is back up from the D-League after posting really good numbers that hopefully got his confidence back up. This means that “Who’s Your Haddadi and What Does He Do” will never see the light of the court again. Get him a comfy seat and a magazine on the bench. He seems like a Cat Fancy type of guy.

Lion Face: Marcus Thornton
When Buckets has it going, you need to make sure you’re tuning in. Don’t just tune in; study it like the Zapruder film and figure out if there’s a second gunman on the perimeter. Thornton was scoring in a variety of ways against the Warriors. He made some really difficult circus shots around the basket. He drained threes like his name was Anthony Morrow. He got out on the break and scored. He just has a good nose for the ball (if I can borrow the cliché) and finds a way to get the ball in a scoring position. There is a #leaguepassalert hashtag on Twitter to help you know which games to navigate to when the action is getting heated. Soon there will need to be a #BucketsIsDoingHisThing tag so we know when Marcus Thornton is the primetime viewing suggestion.

Lion Face: Reggie Williams
Once again, I’d like the D-League to stand up. Reggie has been here for five games now after Monday and he got a chance to have a breakout game against the Hornets. He responded by tying the game-high of 28 points and proving that perhaps he belongs in this league from here on out. The 28 points came on an efficient 16 shots and he even added six assists to go with it. He didn’t force the issue. He played within the hectic, chaotic Warriors offensive schemes and succeeded.

Lion Face: Darren Collison
Darren Collison is playing so well that people have contemplated the Hornets needing to trade Chris Paul in order to bring in a bevy of skilled players. While that’s maybe the dumbest idea in the history of the modern era not conceived by Isiah Thomas’ GM ability, it proves the point that Darren Collison has been pretty special since taking over for the injured All-Star. Collison’s turnovers (4.8 per game last month, seven Monday night) are an issue he needs to resolve. But his scoring and distributing has been through the roof. He’s kept the Hornets competitive and winning.

Monday, he allegedly set the Hornets’ rookie record for assists in a game (more on the alleged aspect of this later today) by racking up 20 to go with his 16 points. He helped limit Stephen Curry’s offensive production by sticking to him all night. Curry ended up with 12 points on 13 shots and that was thanks to two threes in the final two minutes to bring the Warriors within striking range. Collison had the chance to ice the game on the last Hornets’ possession of the game until they had to shoot free throws to clinch the game. He drove Steph to the right side, crossed back over backwards through his legs and then went left for the score inside. He knew he had a weak defender on him and set him up perfectly for the clinching basket. It’s that kind of leadership ability that has people foolishly thinking CP3 could be expendable.

Before the trade deadline, before the term starter was placed in front of his name and before Mike Wilbon said he was playing like the next Kevin Garnett, Andray Blatche was on notice as a literary subject for Backboard’s Shadow. (Not to toot my own horn.)  He’s always had the skill set to be a difference maker, but as Celtics broadcaster Mike Gorman stated Sunday night before Washington blew a winnable game in Boston, Blatche has the type of talent that’ll keep both teams in the game.  He takes bad shots; tends to loaf around the court and sulk when things aren’t going just so.  But since the all-star break, he’s been showcasing himself as a seriously skilled big man, one who’s certainly going to be in the Wizards future plans.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. In a year that was supposed to be a healthy bounce back from last season’s embarrassing, injury riddled campaign, the Washington Wizards have been in the headlines this season for all the wrong reasons. A sketchy incident involving several firearms and immature inner-locker room quarrels cast a dark shadow over the franchise.  The aftermath was the franchise player’s season coming to an abrupt end and the other two mainstays getting shipped far, far away to teams that have an actual shot at playing meaningful basketball in the spring.

Blatche has decided in his fifth season at just 23 years old, that this was the time to breakout.

Throughout his career he’s shown brief indications of a prodigious gift.  He’s 6’ 11”  with outside touch, something that makes professional scouts drool.  A little over a week ago he scored a career high 36 points to go along with 15 rebounds against the New Jersey Nets.  A week before that he went on an offensive barrage versus the Timberwolves, netting 33 points with 13 boards .  In between those two notable performances was 26 points and 18 rebounds in an overtime loss to the Knicks.  In that game he let it all pour out.  51 minutes of hustle when the next highest contributor was Randy Foye who logged 40 minutes.  It was the type of performance an all-star gives his team on a nightly basis and is indicative of what Blatche is capable of.

Since replacing Jamison and Haywood as a centerpiece in Washington’s front court, Blatche has been sublime.  Upon returning from the all-star break, he’s started in all 10 games on the schedule, averaging 24 points, just over 10 rebounds and three assists per game.  Not only is his 18-footer gaining respect around the league, but his entire offensive game is on the cusp of something special.  He’s so young and so talented with skills and dimensions that could have him replacing Arenas as Washington’s go-to scorer (should the franchise man return next year).  It seems like nothing can stop him.  Nothing, except of course, but himself.

Before this season began, Blatche embodied a major reason why the NBA changed its high school entry rules for the draft.  The Kwame Browns, the Eddy Currys, the Jonathan Benders of the basketball world were bogging down the overall level of play with immaturity and unfulfilled promise.  They lacked fundamentals, they lacked any sort of on-court IQ and they lacked a responsibility to perform for the franchises signing the million dollar checks.

As a 21-year-old, three-year veteran, Blatche was a thoughtless millionaire.  Right after signing his contract extension, he tried to solicit sex from an undercover police officer. He was later arrested on June 4, 2008 in Virginia on charges of reckless driving and driving on a suspended license for the third time.

After a heartbreaking loss in Boston on Sunday night that saw Washington helplessly watch the Celtics go on a 20-4 run to close out the game, Flip Saunders called out Blatche for jawing back and forth with Kevin Garnett in the fourth quarter.  Blatche ended up with 23 points, shooting 50 percent from the field and performed at a nearly unguardable level for long stretches throughout, but it was his waking of a sleeping giant and the casual, unconcerned post-game explanation that make him such a puzzling player.

He has the physical tools to be LaMarcus Aldridge with court vision, but his drive to succeed and his need to dominate are too blasé.  It’s what’s in between his ears that could either hold him back or push him towards excellence and a max contract in a few years.   It’s one of the more intriguing plot lines basketball fans in D.C. have to follow now that the Wizards are officially starting from scratch.

The Bargnani talk veered off into a discussion of whose minutes a guy like Reggie Evans should be slicing into, if any? Is it Bargnani’s or Johnson’s? The stats point to the Raptors being a better team with Johnson on the floor as he brings more defense at the cost of offense which we seem to have in spades. Does Bargnani get a free pass when compared to Johnson? Amir gets yanked out of the game after two bad plays, but Bargnani continues to see floor time (39+ minutes last night) despite being a non-factor on defense and providing inconsistent offense. Is it a double-standard? What kind of message does it send?

via Rapcast #63: Bargnani indicted | Raptors Republic – ESPN TrueHoop’s Raptors Blog.

I kind of hope the Raptors re-sign Bosh and then find some magical way to trade Bargnani. Because the amount of crap that kid gets in comparison to two role players behind him is ridiculous.

Reggie Evans can’t play. I mean, he can. You just don’t want him to. He’d make a nice mascot, but I don’t want him working pick and roll defense on the floor. And that’s the good side of him. Because if he tries to shoot, whoa boy.

Amir Johnson is the other one. The dude was a rallying point in Detroit. Now he’s a rallying point in Toronto. I honestly believe that fans want him to start and for Bargnani, scoring 20 points with 10.5 7.5 (CORRECTION: I massively screwed up here and posted Barg’s TRR, which is horrid at 10.5, instead of his Total rebounds, which is mediocre at 7.5) boards per 40, mind you, to come off the bench.

Andrea Bargnani is a better basketball player than Amir Johnson. A MUCH better basketball player. All those things that people tend to denigrate him for, the defense, the focus, etc.? Those are systemic problems. It’s not like the Raps are a solid defensive squad except when Bargnani’s out there. They are systemically bad at defense.

Meanwhile, when he is on the floor, he provides a range shooter and athletic big that creates matchup nightmares all over the place. When Johnson is on the floor? He creates a big man version of Matt Barnes without the range.

I’m not sold on Bargnani as a centerpiece, but that’s the whole problem with this Raptors roster. The core pieces that have been set up as what should be built around, probably aren’t. That includes Bargnani. But that also includes Amir Johnson, Reggie Evans, Jose Calderon, and possibly even Chris Bosh.

UPDATE: I fear I may have (yet again), oversimplified things without pointing out all the random nonsense going on inside my head. So a few follow-ups.

1. The podcast is quite good. That’s why I linked to it. They mostly talk about the facts, which are that the defense does statistically play better with Johnson on board rather than Bargs, and there could be a host of reasons for that.

2. My main beef with the Reggie Evans thing is that there is a palpable sense from Raptors fans (not specifically the fine gents at Raps Republic) that they need more Reggie and Amir. That that will make them a better basketball team. Which completely ignores the fact that what Bargnani gives them on offense is really difficult to replace. A big that can stretch the floor, drive, and hit from the perimeter? That’s kind of a big deal. I know there’s some disappointment with Evans from Raps fans, but instead of turning on management, Bargs seems to be the main target.

3. It actually brings up a really interesting idea I’d like to kick around, on if there is a significant increase in sixth through eighth men off the bench in defensive lineups on average, and where Johnson lines up with that.

Brown has a player option to stay with the Lakers for $2.1 million next season second year of a bi-annual exception deal. Brown and his agent will not talk contracts, but the Lakers front office expects him to turn down that option thinking he can make more on the open market.And he can.Brown is about as athletic a guard as there is in the league, and there’s no doubt he can run the floor and finish on the break. Just ask YouTube. But he also has a solid outside shot he’s hit 43 percent of his looks from 16 to 23 feet this season, has pretty good handles and plays solid defense. His decision making as a lead guard within the Lakers triangle offense is holding his minutes back right now, but in a less structured system he might flourish.Plus, Brown is the kind of player the team marketing guys can sell.

via Shannon Brown slam dunk to be a free agent – ProBasketballTalk – Basketball – NBC Sports.

Being on good teams makes you better. Josh Powell looks better than Brian Cardinal, even though Cardinal is likely a better player. Jordan Farmar looks better than Kyle Lowry, even though Lowry is likely a better player. And on and up it goes to the top. The only player who looks as good as he did four years ago is Kobe Bryant, and that’s because he’s kind of sort of awesome.

But when you take guys away from that comfy system, when you remove them from a position of reverse-court on the non-overload side, take away the safety and security of the wide-open corner three, things look suspiciously different. Just ask the Rockets and Trevor Ariza. Ariza’s not an abject disaster, by any means. A talented, long defender who can knock down a shot or two. But as we’ve covered before, he’s not a volume guy. He’s meant to do what he did in LA. Fill in the holes. But when you’re a pivotal piece of a championship winning team, your value goes up, even though in reality, you could plug in any player of your type (in this instance, long, athletic three-point specialists- and he only learned the three-point thing last year in the triangle) and they would succeed in that system. It’s why the corpse of Derek Fisher still haunts that backcourt. No one else can look as good in that system for his price.

In Brown’s case, it’s even more of an exaggeration. Laker fans adore Brown. He’s so much like Ariza in a different model, it’s stunning. The highlight plays: instead of speedy inbounds steals and corner threes, it’s garbage-time dunks and pull-up jumpers. The lack of real defensive acumen: watch Brown try and cut off the baseline some time. It’s like watching the Mambo No.5.

Brown’s a fine player. But in this summer’s spending spree, even if it’s limited by the economy and next year’s CBA, Brown’s going to get paid. Being a championship backup point guard on the market is enough, then you throw in his dunk value kitsch, and the big shots he will inevitably hit in the playoffs (with no one around to guard him, or look at him, or suggest a nice Cabernet after the game), and you’ve got yourself a prime case of value-hiking.

Maybe Brown really is a star that’s just waiting to excel. But if I’m looking at the two Lakers point guards, I’d go more with the guy who shows flashes when he’s outside the triangle and struggles within, versus the garbage-time highlight champ who’ll likely be striking a hard bargain.

I would never get into a fight during a basketball game. It’s so immature and unnecessary.

If someone wanted to fight me, I would give them a really scary face. I’d try to look like the king of the jungle. It would be the face of a lion because nothing is more intimidating outside of Miley Cirus’ smoker-voice than a freaking lion. But what if it didn’t affect the person who wanted to fight me and they made their own lion face?

Then I would have to cower and respectfully back down after they called my bluff. I would scrunch my face up like I just had something very sour and citrusy. It would be like a lemon face. Like I was sucking on a lemon.

Guys, care to demonstrate?

Thanks, gentlemen.

Lion Face: Matt Barnes

Here’s what I liked about the whole Matt Barnes-Kobe Bryant thing: it was kind of a throwback to the days when NBA players could be a little tough. Now? Guys get suspended for making contact with someone’s head, whether it was dangerous or just trying to help them shoo a fly away. Barnes went after Kobe. Kobe tried to bully Barnes. Barnes knowing he had nothing to lose and everything to gain from standing up to Kobe never stopped. He pushed the envelope with Kobe. He faked a ball at his face on the inbounds. Kobe never flinched. It was a pissing contest and in the end, Matt Barnes’ clutch three was enough to hold off Kobe’s flurry. This reeked of Chris Childs all over again.

Lemon Face: NBA Officiating
The two games I paid the most attention to on Sunday were the Magic-Lakers game and the Kings-Thunder game. The two games were arguably the worst officiated games I’ve seen all season. The Magic game was a cavalcade of bad calls. Dwight Howard was getting called for fouls he didn’t commit. The Lakers apparently fouled Vince Carter enough to get him 10 free throw attempts… in the first quarter. There was an offensive goaltending call against the Magic when there was no goal to tend on the play. In the Thunder-Kings game, the game was officiated so ineptly that the teams had no idea what they could get away with and what they couldn’t. So they just tried everything. Nocioni got a flagrant because Westbrook fell down due to poor balance. Jeff Green, Kevin Durant and Westbrook all got first half technical fouls because… well… it’s not quite clear what they did wrong. What we saw in these two games on Sunday was a failure to control the game by the officials and it was due to their inconsistencies.

Lion Face: Vince Carter
Vince got the free throw line 14 times against the Lakers. In fact, he was really aggressive in the first quarter and sort of set the tone for the entire game. He finished with 25 points but he jumped the game off with 15 first quarter points. I can’t believe we had a game between two great teams on national television and Vince was actually responsible for it being fun. It made me think that maybe we were back in 1999 again. I was going to go watch The Matrix and throw on the Slim Shady LP. It was a year for rebellion in 1999 and Vince Carter rebelled against his legendary malaise-filled play. Good for him.

Lemon Face: Kobe Bryant
We have to hear so often when Kobe makes a big shot that everybody who isn’t a Lakers fan is going to relish in this a little bit.

Wait, we’re still relishing in it. You feel that? That’s failure. That’s Kobe failure.

Okay, are we done? No, not yet. A little bit longer. Okay, that’s enough…

After this one last bit of relishing. Okay, back to understanding they’re the best team in basketball when they want to be.

Lion Face: Kobe Bryant
For all the failure and feuding with Matt Barnes, Kobe had a decent game. The shot was struggling a bit with a 12/30 but he finished with 34 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. He did a decent job of moving the ball. Was there too much isolation for Kobe? Absolutely. But the Lakers were also about half a shoe size on two outside shots (one by Fisher and one by Bryant) from taking that game into overtime.

Lemon Face: Ben Gordon
What would you say, YOU DO here? You’re getting $10 million this year and you’re playing terribly. You’ve never scored this few points since your freshman year at Connecticut. In 26 minutes, you shot 1/7 and scored six points. You didn’t get a single assist. You turned the ball over two times. I’m not good at math but I think that assist to turnover ratio isn’t even an integer. Ben, I know you don’t want to try unless you’re on a playoff team but how about a little effort?

Lion Face: Drew Drue Dru Jrue Holiday
However you spell it, you certainly couldn’t defend it on Sunday. Holiday threw in his hat into the ridiculously talented point guard ring of this year’s rookie class. Is he going to be one of the top five point guards from this draft? Most likely not. But he showed against the Raptors that he could be a valid scoring option while providing a steady hand at the point and good defense in the backcourt. He got the basket with ease and he knocked down three-pointers. The thing about Holiday is he probably won’t make any All-Star teams in his career but you could see him being the floor general for a title contender.

Lemon Face: Kevin Garnett
It’s been 14 years since Kevin Garnett went an entire game without making a field goal. Sunday, it happened again to the delight of every trolling non-Celtic fan who has decided to vilify him because he yells obscenities into the open air. He actually didn’t have a bad game overall. He had eight points and 10 rebounds. He racked up three assists. He got to the free throw line 10 times. But he couldn’t make a single basket against Andray Blatche? Seriously? C’mon, KG.

Lion Face: JR Smith
I really feel bad for Nuggets fans. They’re one piece away from being able to challenge the Lakers in a seven-game series. It probably needed to be an extra big man but it easily could have just been retaining Linas Kleiza. Instead, now they have to pray Kenyon Martin isn’t out for the rest of the season and hope JR Smith continues to have great contributions like the 20-point, seven-assist performance he had against the Blazers. If you’re going to base your playoff hopes on the shot selection and offensive execution of JR Smith, then you’re probably in for a disappointment. But on any given night in the regular season, he can be electricity. When his game is going, he’s unstoppable.

Lemon Face: The Celtics’ First 42 minutes
For the first 42 minutes of the game against the Wizards, the Celtics were looking to be the most pathetic playoff team we’ve ever seen. Old. Disgusting. Letting themselves go. They could only manage a measly 66 points against the Washington Wizards who gutted their team in hopes of tanking and rebuilding. And then…

Lion Face: Ray Allen’s Clutchitude
The Celtics got their stuff together. Shots started falling. They got away with being more physical than the Wizards even if it meant bending some rules. And most of all, Ray Allen’s shot started to fall. He threw down a dunk. Then he sniped in a couple of clutch threes to give the Celtics a lead and then a win. Say what you will about the Celtics trade deadline deal and not taking advantage of Ray Allen’s expiring, if there is ANY chance that the Celtics can make a great run into the playoffs this year it only happens with Ray Allen’s clutch shooting.

Lemon Face: Randy Foye
Oh I remember you, Randy Foye. My Wolves fandom remembers you all too well. People will look to the eight assists and say that your playmaking ability is actually quite underrated. They’ll ignore the 3/14 shooting night. But I know better. All of us know better who tried to talk ourselves into you over Brandon Roy. I won’t let you fool anyone ever again.

Lion Face: Aldray Thorntatche
Al Thornton and Andray Blatche almost single-handedly beat the Boston Celtics on Sunday by becoming this two-headed monster of a forward tandem. They helped inspire JaVale McGee to get to the line and block a handful of shots. Most of all, they combined for 47 points, 20 rebounds and four steals. They seemingly took turns terrorizing the old guys on Boston throughout the game. I would like to see this monster more often. In fact, I’d like to see this monster so much and so consistently that the Wizards have no choice to build around it. And I want that to end up being a good decision.

Lemon Face: Kings’ Free Throw Shooting
In a game they lost by six, the Kings missed nine free throws. Tyreke Evans missed three in the fourth quarter. Carl Landry who had made 88% of his Sacramento free throws going into this game and was also on a streak of 20 made in a row, missed his first two attempts. He’d go on to miss one more. This is the reason Sacramento can’t have nice things.

Lion Face: Russell Westbrook
Westbrook got inadvertently hit in the eye by Carl Landry. It split Westbrook open and he had to get stitches in the game to close the wound. He came back right before the end of the third quarter to try to make sure his team didn’t blow a road win they could definitely use. He seemingly had enough of the rough play and Thunder miscues. So he went to the basket. Over and over again. He scored 13 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Thunder to victory and finished with a stat line of 21 points, eight rebounds, four assists and five stitches. From now on, instead of making note of all the times Westbrook drives to the basket, we should make note of all the times he gets stopped driving to the basket. It will be a much shorter list for us to keep.

Lion Face: Andre Miller Dunked… What?

I don’t know what to tell you. Do I believe it actually happened? Of course not. That would be preposterous . There’s no way Andre Miller dunked in a game at the age of 47. It’s just no feasible. Maybe he laid it up really hard. Maybe Jerryd Bayless was wearing an Andre Miller jersey as some sort of sophomore hazing ritual with the Blazers and HE dunked the ball. Maybe we’re watching a video game and someone messed with his dunk rating. I’m not quite sure how to explain what the video shows. But I do know one thing: there’s not a single reason for ANY OF US to believe that Andre Miller dunked a basketball on Sunday night. Not a one.

Loren Lee Chen is the former author Pure Point and and a contributer for Stacheketball. You can follow his ramblings via Twitter. He was an official representative of Hardwood Paroxysm, along with Rob and Jared, at the Sloan Sports Conference at MIT on Saturday. Enjoy. -MM

When Matt first asked me to write about the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in January, I was flabbergasted to say the least.  My first reaction was something to the effect of, “Yes, yes, yes!” I mean, how often do you get a chance to be in the same room as Daryl Morey, Bill Simmons, Mark Cuban, Adam Silver, John Hollinger, and literally hundreds of the most prominent faces in the sports world.  As I kept thinking about it though, I started to get a little apprehensive.

As you undoubtedly know, Matt Moore has built a veritable army here at HP.  Why then, was he coming to me for this? I don’t have the innate writing prowess of Rob Mahoney, the comedic stylings of Jared Wade, or the statistical knowledge of Tom Haberstroh or Jon Nichols.  So, what do I have to offer?

Let’s take a step back for a second.  If I’m lucky, you used to read my now defunct blog, Pure Point, have seen me contribute to Stacheketball, or follow me on Twitter, but more likely than not, most of you have never heard of me before.  However, if you’re on this site right now, chances are that we’re a lot alike in that we like to consume as much basketball information as possible.  That’s the perspective I think I can bring to this discussion; I’m the everyman, I’m you.

Stepping into the conference center, I was immediately overwhelmed.  In a sea of 1000 attendees, trying to match faces to avatars and scouring name tags for familiar names was a daunting task.  I would have killed to be standing behind Sebastian Pruiti in the coffee line, to have bumped into Zach Harper in the hallway.  As chance would have it, fortune did happen to smile upon me, in the form of Gian Casimiro of KnickBlog, who happened to take the seat directly next to me during the opening remarks.  We talked basketball a bit, discussed how ridiculous the conference was, and generally just chummed it up. But when the first panel rolled around, we went our separate ways, and I was alone again. That is until a 6′3″, athletic-looking guy with a blonde crew-cut confidently strolled up and took the seat next to me.

Do you know the feeling you get when you see someone famous in real life? It’s like, “You know, that kinda of looks like… No, it couldn’t be…” I had that feeling, and then the man, possibly noticing my lingering stare, turned to me and non-chalantly said, “Hi, I’m Steve.” Steve, as in Steve Kerr, 5-time NBA Champion, GM of the Phoenix Suns.  Imagine that.

I introduced myself, and we got to talking.

The first thing I asked him, with a possible nod to Scott Schroeder in mind, was what he thought was the difference between the back-of-the-rotation guys, and those who are scraping away in the D-League, China, Europe, etc. According to him, there might be a talent discrepancy, but the main culprit is circumstance.  When a rookie comes into the league with superstars ahead of him, naturally he’s going to struggle to get off the bench.  If this keeps up for a couple years, he’s going to gain a reputation as someone who’s not good enough to play in the NBA.  Steve seems to be a man of examples, and in this situation he looked at Darren Collison.  When Chris Paul was healthy, Collison was a decent reserve, providing a few efficient minutes per game, but he wasn’t making the splash that the other point guards in the class– Tyreke Evans, Brandon Jennings, Steph Curry, Jonny Flynn, and even Ty Lawson– were.  But now that he has been given the reins to the team, we know that Collison might be one of the best there is.  If Chris Paul had never gotten injured, we might still think of him as nothing more than a serviceable back-up.  This might seem like general knowledge to us commonfolk, but it’s refreshing to see that top GM’s consider it as well.

The panel started up, and my brief encounter with greatness was over.  Still, the impression stayed with me for the rest of the conference. Finally, I felt like I belonged with these people.

The rest of the conference was business as usual, but one note in the final panel struck a note with me. Rob King, Editor-In-Chief of ESPN.com, was asked why athletes are gravitating towards Twitter and other social media outlets.  His response, “People are inherently lonely and disconnected. People want to connect; they want to know that they matter.”  That’s exactly how I felt. Being recognized by Jared Wade and Rob Mahoney, sharing a drink with Zach Lowe, Brian Robb, and Kevin Arnovitz, every one of the 19 new followers I got on Twitter throughout the day; these were all small confirmations that I mattered.  Hopefully, you think I do too.

One of the panels at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference yesterday dealt with performance enhancement. Obviously, steroids in baseball and — to a less hullabullo-ed degree — football are the first things that come to mind when the topic is broached. And indeed, supplements and pills led the discussion.

Kevin Arnovitz of TrueHoop broke down a story Steve Kerr told about the potential dangers of supplements.

Kerr talks about Tom Gugliotta, who went to GNC years ago and began taking a lot of legal substances. One night after a game, he got on the bus in Portland and collapsed. Portland trainers helped him. They called the Suns’ staff to find out what he was taking. The fact that the Suns knew, Kerr says, might have saved Gugliotta’s life. The lesson is that training staffs need to know exactly what their players are taking.

According to Kerr, the scare after Googs collapsed prompted all the trainers throughout the league to mandate that their players told them about any substances going into their bodies. “It came from that incident,” said Kerr. “It was an eye-opener for the entire league.”

And as the field of supplements and over-the-counter pills has increased, this has only become more critical. “Think of the explosion in that industry — in GNC,” said Kerr. “If it’s legal, somebody’s going to sell it.”

But like most people, Kerr doesn’t think MLB-type doping is a problem in basketball, and he only ever saw one example of a player trying to get an edge with an illegal substance — and it came about 20 years ago when he was still at the University of Arizona. It was also unsuccessful, as the player in question was trying to bulk up for pre-draft workouts that never led to an NBA career.

Kerr was similarly candid about himself and pills, saying that he took Vioxx late in his career to help with his knee problems. “I think Vioxx was a performance-enhancing drug,” he said. Obviously, Vioxx was a completely legal anti-arthritis pill/pain reliever, and whether it is really even performance enhancing or not is debatable. But Kerr felt it was. “Maybe some of it was psychological … I felt better, more confident.”

This led me to wonder what perfectly legal things might potentially be giving NBA players an edge other than pills and supplements. I don’t care to discuss that. My interest in that debate has been entirely exhausted by MLB coverage in recent years.

No, I’m curious about equipment.

The panelists talked about possible advantages gained by the utlra-buoyant suits worn by swimmers in the Beijing Olympics. Well, NBA players have begun donning a lot of new attire over the past decade, too. It doesn’t make them float, but it does dull some of the pain they might feel.

Guys like Dwyane Wade wear padded shorts under their uniforms to protect their hips and lessen the chance of an errant knee giving them a dreaded deep thigh bruise that can linger for weeks and hamper mobility. In short, this lets him drive to the hoop with less concern for his own health or fear of pain, which has always been a natural deterrent to penetrating just as it has been with taking a charge from a guy like Shawn Kemp on the other end of the floor.

Dwyane is quoted as saying as much on the webpage for McDavid’s “HexPad,” which are the padded shorts he wears.

“I never have any second thought about taking it to the hoop wearing HexPad” – Dwyane Wade

It’s hard to gauge exactly what type of advantage this gives Flash. Lots of other NBA players wear similar protective gear, so it is not like he is the only one who thinks they help. We do know, however, that George Gervin and Isiah Thomas didn’t wear HexPads in the NBA “glory days.” Then again, guys like Patrick Ewing and Kevin McHale did rock bulky knee-pads that must have helped them along the same lines.

So is this any big deal? Probably not.

But what about Kenyon Martin and others who now wear shin guards? It seems to me that if I was a guy whose main role was to challenge guys going hard to the rim and battling for rebounds in the post, it would be easier to do so if I didn’t have to worry about getting kicked in the shins. That hurts. Throw on the compression arm sleeve with a elbow pad that Kenyon likes to wear, a padded compression tank top under your jersey and some HexPads underneath your shorts, and you’re pretty well-armored from head to toe. May as well add some knee pads and a Rip Hamilton face mask to complete the package. Take the court in riot gear, essentially.

Now, I’m not sure of all the rules surrounding what you can and cannot wear for medical reasons. We know that full-leg compression tights are no longer allowed without a note from your doctor. And Dwyane knows that he can wear a bandage over a cut, but not a “Band-Wade” with his name on it.

We like to joke about the foolishness of all this stuff (see A Stern Warning’s “Over Accessorizers“), but given all the new, light-weight protective and support equipment out there (including the new shoulder sleeves that we have seen from Vince Carter, Michael Beasley, Antawn Jamison and Mike Miller this year), when does it all become too much?

Where is the line?

Hypothetically, I have to imagine that if any player tried to wear all the gear used by Kenyon, Wade, Ewing and Rip at the same time, the league would step in and tell him to take some of it off. But all this leads back to some of the other topics broached at the Sloan conference.

Eventually, bio-medicine is going to offer innovations that are true advantages more so than colorful fashion statements with protective qualities. The panelists speculated that artificial limbs might some day be stronger than natural ones. Cancer survivor Kyle Garlett completed an Iron Man Triathalon last year after receiving a heart transplant and getting an artificial hip. He is a hero who overcame long odds to accomplish such an athletic feat, but what if science develops artificial hips that improve performance?

Arnovitz brings up LASIK surgery as another performance enhancer that no one has an issue with now. And Tommy John surgery for baseball pitchers is now widely seen as a mostly innocuous way to make your arm stronger. But what about trying to surgically attach a fully inorganic arm? Maybe it helps your shooting form. Or maybe it just lets you go harder for rebounds. I dunno. I’m not a doctor. And, yeah, it certainly seems like something that would not be allowed in a league of non-cyborg basketball players.

Well, OK. No full metal limbs allowed. Seems like a good rule.

But what about a titanium finger?

Tougher call.

While I’m not able to be in Boston to attend the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, I’ve been following the great work being presented by all of those in the TrueHoop Network. Guys like Zach Lowe and Brian Robb at Celtics Hub, Sebastian Pruiti at Nets are Scorching and NBA Playbook, Henry Abbott and Kevin Arnovitz at TrueHoop, Haubs at The Painted Area, and our very own Rob Mahoney and Jared Wade here at HP have all submitted fantastic write-ups on some of the discussion going on at this conference.

The conference is essentially a meeting of the minds of the smartest and most innovative sports analysts that have graced the pro athletic world throughout the past decade. And while it doesn’t necessarily take a PhD to attend or understand a modicum of what’s going on and where the statistical revolution is headed, it is important to take the information and discussion from this conference and try to make sense of why the subject of advanced statistics is so essential to understanding the modern era of sports.

But I’m not writing this to get you to buy into advanced stats and analysis. I’m hardly someone that understands the majority of what these stats are. It was enough of a chore for me to figure out what offensive and defensive efficiency ratings were when I started my writing career (technically, I have one). The thing that most inspired me about this conference is that tolerance, understanding and acceptance are all underlying themes that correlate to the everyday world in which I write in.

The parallels between advanced statisticians and the way they’ve tried to earn acceptance into the front offices of the sports world compared to the way bloggers and new media technicians have attempted to move their way into the mainstream media are eerily similar in my opinion. 20, 15, even 10 years ago if John Hollinger walked into the office of someone like Kevin McHale or Glen Taylor and started talking about Player Efficiency Rating, they’d ask him to kindly leave and send a memo around the office urging everybody to make sure he doesn’t get his parking validated.

Now?

One-third of the league’s front offices have guys on staff that can do the PER calculations in their heads. In another decade, the majority, if not all, of the teams around the league will be using advanced stats and relaying them to NBA coaching staffs in order to maximize lineups and winning efforts on the court. It’s just where the sport is headed. The guys who were once called “nerds” and shunned away from the world of sports are still being called “nerds” but at least they’re contributing to the knowledge and success of NBA franchises.

And isn’t that sort of where blogging has come from and where it’s going?

A decade ago, the closest thing you could find to a successful blogger was Bill Simmons. Guys were clawing their way up and trying to find ways to get into the world of being legit sports coverage but the idea that anything other than the newspaper and major media industries covering sports to a mass audience was a pipe dream.

Now it’s not a pipe dream but commonplace. Three years ago, I was trying to figure out how to start a website of my own hoping to become a voice people know. Now, I’m a credentialed member of the media for all Sacramento Kings games. I’ve been on the Daily Dime three times, which for someone who has been reading it since it’s inception is pretty freaking cool. It says much more about the evolution of sports coverage than what I actually do.

To me, what this means is that ANYONE can make a name for themselves in the world of online media. It’s growing by leaps and bounds every day. The smart entities that once ruled the playground aren’t trying to take our lunch money anymore. They’re offering us affiliations and free-lancing gigs. Those who don’t accept the world of blogging are the ones that live in a mindset of stigmas and fear of change.

To many people, blogging is a style of “writing” that is uninformed, churlish and anonymous. It’s the fall of the written word and the reason the newspaper industry is in danger of going under. That’s probably the most short-sighted way of looking at what the world of blogging has brought to the media world. It’s dismissive and defensive. It’s flat-out wrong.

Blogging isn’t a style of writing. It’s a platform and nothing more. It’s a gateway to some of the most brilliant writers who have ever graced your computer screen. Do you think Bethlehem Shoals is a blogger or a writer or both? When you read his work does it even matter? Is Kelly Dwyer just some immature blogger in his mom’s basement? No, that would be a completely ignorant way of viewing his work and the industry at large.

Blogging is a different way to access the analysis and information. Blogging makes sports media better. Is it because the newspaper industry wasn’t doing a good job of relaying the story? Not at all. It’s that as technology grew and people became more demanding of when and how they received their information and knowledge, there was simply a demand for more coverage and the supply couldn’t satisfy it.

People wanted more analysis and more news. The smart ones in the mainstream media have found a way to work with this new movement. They’ve accepted it as a reality instead of an absolute threat. They’ve embraced it on their end. Look at what guys like Howard Beck, Sam Amick and Brian Windhorst (just to name a few) do on a regular basis. They’ve attempted to bridge the gap between mainstream media and blogging. And they’ve done a bang-up job at doing so. They’ve accepted and embraced where sports media is going and are staying ahead of the curve.

It’s the same thing with advanced stats. More information and more analysis make everybody smarter and more informed. Do you have to know what Win Shares or trackback links are? Not necessarily. You don’t have to read everybody. You can pick and choose a handful of writers to keep you smarter. You can learn some advanced stats inside and out to know if what you see on the court is actually what’s going on. The worlds have evolved together. Advanced stats came into the world as blogging exploded onto the scene. We’re both here and we’re both just trying to expand the coverage and the conversation of sports.

We’re not better. We’re not worse. We’re a different way of looking at things. And events like the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference show how far everything has come and give a glimpse of where we’re all headed.