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Tag Archive - NBA

When Kings Are Deposed: The Maloofs’ Small Pockets

May 15, 2012 in by with 3 Comments

By now you should have seen the new Sacramento Kings documentary Small Market, Big Heart on the strife and struggles of the franchise, the city, the fans, and owners in an opposition of wills with different goals. Despite vague assertions of support for #HereWeStay it’s pretty clear the Maloofs have been packing for some time now.

Only one other NBA franchise has moved or changed identities more times than the Kings, the Washington Wizards. Should the Maloofs manage to sway the relocation committee their way the Kings franchise will equal the Wiz as the least stable with six incarnations.

The Kings split home games in Omaha for two seasons

The Smoking Gun

There are those who would tell you the Maloofs have intended to move the Kings for a decade, to a bigger market, a major market. You have to be savvy and spendthrift to keep a small market team afloat, something the Sacto owners have never mastered or maybe never have been interested in achieving at all.

In the case of the Seattle Supersonics-Oklahoma City Thunder bail out, owner Clay Bennett, like the Maloofs, insisted he intended to keep the team in the northwest. The smoking gun came to light when email chains emerged which indicated a public smoke screen all along on this front.

Financial crisis is the crux of it in the case of the Kings. Simply put, the Maloofs are nearly broke — well, by the standards of the wealthy, anyhow. They lack the necessary funds to keep an NBA team competitive or profitable in Sacramento after several poor investments into ventures such as odd reality shows, a skate park in South Africa, and a sinking casino.

While the Maloofs’ finances have likely stabilized somewhat now, what they do hold — the Kings and quite a bit of Wells Fargo stock — isn’t conducive to getting ahead, back to the previous cushier lifestyle afforded them, as currently constituted. They are poor by NBA owner standards, not able to keep pace with the upward trend the league as a whole has experienced over the last decades.

A move to a large market inherently raises profit margins, generally and relatively speaking, or at least the potential is there in an Anaheim market that even already sporting two NBA teams has more untapped opportunities than Sacramento to get ahead once again, they hope. It’s projected that an Anaheim Royals team would pull about 10% of the LA Lakers’ market away from them, equaling about $500 million a year in lost television revenue from the lucrative Lakers deal.

Approval to Pack?

It takes a majority of NBA owner votes to approve any move, so how likely is it that enough would approve one?

Any team that recently moved, would like to one day, or, like the Orlando Magic threatened to, netting a new arena for their efforts, would likely side with the Maloofs. Wild cards are teams up for sale, ones considering it, or recent new owners. It doesn’t appear likely at this time that the Maloofs would have enough support to pull it off, but landscapes can change quickly, as we saw during the lockout, when NBA owners are involved.

Understandably, even those that may support a move have expressed concerns about the precedent it would set by putting three major sports teams of the same variety in a single market.

The relocation committee in the NBA consists of (irony alert) the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Clay Bennett, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Glen Taylor, the Miami Heat’s Mickey Arison, the San Antonio Spurs’ Peter Holt, the Indiana Pacers’ Herb Simon, and the Utah Jazz’s Greg Miller (and a replacement for Ed Snider that I couldn’t find). Contact information can be found here.

So, Where is this Headed?

The city and the fans of Sacramento have a legitimate beef in trying to keep the team, showing overwhelming support and doing their part when all was on the line, and coming through only to have the door slammed shut at the last minute, excuses made in a bizarre press conference that left only questions in what was supposed to be a time of answers.

The Maloofs will relinquish the franchise, the only question is when and where — they know a large market team appreciates faster than a small one most times, hence the push for the Los Angeles market. Should they manage to land in LA they could get enough of a financial bump in a sale so as to begin rebuilding the family’s financial legacy. They know if they stay in Sacto they will only tread water, slowly sinking.

The best case scenario for the fans here is a hero comes riding out of the sunset to save the day, making the Maloofs an offer they can’t refuse, keeping the team in town. Who knows, it could happen. Things appeared bleak for the New Orleans Hornets and they landed on all six feet.

But for now, all remains in limbo. Sooner or later, something has to give.

HoopIdea: Embrace The Assist, Everyone Wins

March 20, 2012 in by with 1 Comment

Via Flickr - Toban Black

Over at the mothership Henry Abbott and the boys have begun a fan input session known as HoopIdea whose purpose is to further the game by expanding resources into the cyberworld, taking in new ideas on how to improve the basketball experience.

Assist:

A pass that directly leads to a basket

-Basketball U, NBA.com

 

Only the pass directly before the score may be counted as an assist… A pass that leads to a shooting foul and scoring by free-throws does not count as an assist.

-Hoopedia, NBA.com

But why? That last is counter-intuitive, seemingly penalizing a good play resulting from teamwork. Considering the often isolation-heavy nature of the NBA game today wouldn’t we want to promote and reward good teamwork? Not to mention that it’s simply common sense in the purest form in the spirit of the assist stat itself.

Long a staple of team play, the NBA big man is passing less and less these days, even as overall field goal percentages have been on the rise. David Stern has been very conscious of, and sensitive to, where his teams’ points-per-game stand on an annual basis, even tweaking defensive rules for several years to promote up-tempo pace and scoring, and to much success; this odd, shortened season aside, scoring in the NBA has hovered around the hallowed 100 PPG mark for several years now.

However, these same rules have also in part had the unintended effect of creating a brand of basketball that tends to reward hero-ball and somewhat selfish play. That’s not good basketball. Good basketball includes a lot of movement, not a lot of dribbling resulting in a low percentage clanker or hefty doses of momentum-freezing free throw line stoppages from ball-dominant, high usage players. When did we forget that a passed ball moves faster than a man?

Let’s say Andrew Bynum receives the ball on the low block and spots a streaking Matt Barnes as the double-team comes, whom he then dumps off to. Barnes, ahead of his man, finishes the play at the rim. Bynum is rewarded with an assist.

But what if the beat defenders aren’t happy about it, deciding they’d rather burn a foul than let Barnes and Bynum pad the stat box? Well, then Barnes is still rewarded for his part with a trip to the free throw line. Bynum, however, is not rewarded for making an unselfish play instead of forcing up an awkward attempt.

Just one of dozens of possible scenarios, give the assist-man some love here by rewarding him with 0.5 assists per made free throw. Isn’t that, after all, “a pass that directly leads to a basket,” the very definition of a basketball assist? Once that whistle blows the play is paused, officially resuming again only after leather meets iron or twine (or in the worst-case scenario, for the shooter at least, he draws no iron nor twine, essentially turning the ball over).

The man at the line is suddenly more motivated to help a teammate want to help him more by making this fundamental freebie, thereby also raising a game’s overall scoring at the same time as it leaves a man beaming for getting something in return for his unselfish play in the flow of an offense, while also causing a potentially cheap-shot defender from thinking twice about putting a more motivated shooter to the line.

Unselfish play is rewarded. Teammates are more motivated. The product is improved.

Everyone wins.

 

 

Understanding Advanced Stats: Somewhere To Start

March 6, 2012 in by with 5 Comments

When citing advanced statistics for a variety of situations — everything from predicting to what might happen in an upcoming game to attempting to discern what actually did happen after the fact, to sporting a spirited debate and everything in between — I often get asked what a particular metric means within it’s context and without. In the wake of the recent Sloan Sports Conference there was a renewed vigor from followers who were desirous of finding a way to ease into this fast-growing aspect of analyzing what their eyes are seeing on the court.

“Where do I start if I want to understand advanced stats? Half of this makes no sense to me, and the other half is gibberish.”

Don’t worry, even experienced, learned statisticians find some of the material over their head, which makes perfect sense as much of it is extremely complex, a satisfactory conclusion being reached only after a lengthy process that may have led the researcher in several directions before finding the elusive eureka door. A large portion of the focus at this year’s Sloan was brainstorming a way to bring these fringe fans into the circle of understanding.

Shrinking the space between the analytics community and the “average fan” has been a thread through this entire event. Multiple panels and presentations have found themselves circling the idea of why that gap is closing, the rate at which it’s closing, how to speed up the process and whether it’s possible to close the gap completely.

For the most part the themes with a basketball slant presented at Sloan — “fit,” “space,” “physical performance,” “pressure,” “chemistry” — are foundational enough for even the most casual fan to interact with. However, the vehicles for discussion used here at Sloan are largely inaccessible and decidedly unpalatable for large swaths of sports fans.

One of the ideas that drives this effort is “language containers.” The premise is that human language has evolved into a means of capturing ideas by providing containers in which to place a concept. To fully and completely master a concept you must understand all the language that defines and informs that idea.

For example, to be entirely fluent and comfortable with the concept of subtraction your language container must include: “take-away,” “less than,” “smaller than,” “fewer,” “deficit,” “debit,” etc. To understand the concept of usage rate, you have to build a language container that includes the definition of a possession. The concept of a possession, in turn, requires its own container, built on the understanding…

Language and concepts, Ian Levy, Special to TrueHoop

…and so on.

No wonder “average fan” loses interest quickly, ending up mired in and mucking through antiquated per-game box scores or eschewing stats altogether in favor of “my eyes tell me all I need to know.” Presented this way, trying to get advanced stats to stick in the mainstream made even myself start searching through the cobwebs to see if I possessed the necessary 55 gallon drum of a language bucket.

So let’s start with the basics, a couple very useful and mostly self-explanatory metrics that can quite easily become part of your statistical vocabulary, something to build on (and we’ll continue on to even more useful sites and metrics in future posts *that can help you win that Twitter debate with me, if you’d like).

*This is the part where I admit that the catalyst for my finding ever-more-complex metrics started out just so I could stump my detractors. I love a great debate as much as anyone, so I sometimes spent hours staring at a series of complex numbers until the light would finally go on and I’d find context and the real-time ability to apply it. Naturally, once I went through the eureka door there was no going back. Suddenly whole new possibilities of understanding had opened in a glorious avalanche of application

Every coach in the NBA will say that valuing a possession is vital to success. But what does this mean, exactly? Are all field goal percentages and points scored equal? Hardly.

Enter eFG% (effective field goal percentage) and TS% (true shooting percentage). Common sense will tell you that the farther you get from the basket the less likely a shot is to fall, however, the long two is the lowest percentage shot in the NBA while 3-point percentages are at all-time highs. eFG% takes into account that a made three is worth more on the scoreboard than a made two, while TS% goes a step further and adds in free throws to the equation. Since about one in three offensive possessions ends at the free throw line you can see why this is relevant. TS% gives a measurable value to a player or team’s efficiency on offense, and is the more widely used of the two metrics, offering more information at a glance.

HoopData

An advanced stat everyone can understand and apply is shot location, and no one chronicles it better than our TrueHoop sister site HoopData.

Last season someone asked “What the hell happened to Paul Millsap’s rebounding numbers?!” A good question considering Millsap was a three-time NCAA rebounding champ who went from pulling down almost 10 rebounds per game per-36 minutes to barely 8.0. What made it especially perplexing was that it was long assumed by many that in the absence of “that stat-padding, rebound-stealing Boozer” that Millsap had backed up for years, he should be bringing down at least 12 rebounds per game. And Al Jefferson’s rebound numbers weren’t going up opposite Millsap in the starting lineup, so where’d they go?

I suspected I knew already. First stop, HoopData. Mystery solved.

Spending twice as much time as before in the outer Mongolia of the basketball floor naturally means you’re not in a position to fight for boards as often as you used to be. But there’s two ends to a basketball court, so if this mystery was to be solved successfully it would have to mean that those missing rebounds were on the offensive end, which brings us to our next stop.

BasketballReference 

At first glance the numbers don’t conclusively back up our assertion of where the missing glass went. Per game, Millsap’s rebound numbers on the D-glass were up one per-game, which makes sense since he was now starting, playing more minutes, while his O-reb numbers were down only 0.1 from the previous year, not nearly the drop we’d expect to see and seemingly not enough to account for the noticeable drop. But since he was now in a starting role, playing more minutes, we bounce down to the next box, per-36 minutes, where per-game numbers are normalized to a degree. Even that difference was negligible.

This is where an understanding of advanced stats can help unravel a quandary. The next box down, that dreaded “Advanced” stats box, gets bypassed by the majority of fans, simply because it’s largely not understood. Really, those “%” signs are no more intimidating than “!!!1!1!!1!” once you get it.

It stands to reason that not every team or player plays at the same pace or the same amount of minutes, meaning that one that plays faster and longer has a chance to amass more basic box stats than one who doesn’t. What these ADV%s do then, is to further equalize a metric by putting it on an even plane by adjusting for both pace and volume. This has the effect of making it the most accurate measurement for a variety of comparison purposes.

Suddenly, those two missing Millsap rebounds per game, or more accurately, precisely 1.9, can’t hide anymore, and we see that the difference is indeed on the offensive glass as we first suspected. We have confirmation and a deeper understanding of what’s happened, all thanks to advanced stats. Sans understanding, this cannot be rectified, making Millsap a better, more complete player.

You may have noticed that Millsap’s rebounding numbers have, well, rebounded this year. If this Advanced Stats 101 was useful to you let me know, because we can go on to the next level of the advanced stats world and explore why specifically that is in future offerings with things like mySynergySports and 82Games, and more.

See, that hurt a lot less than say pulling fingernails, didn’t it? Advanced stats are your friend and companion in a new world of information and technology. If you run into a wall in your exploration, feel free to hit me up on Twitter and I’ll point you in the right direction if I’m able, or we can learn it together. It is, after all, an ever-expanding world of statistics, and there’s some pretty stellar stuff on the immediate horizon.

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More fairly simple advanced stats sites that can help you understand your team or a game better

TeamRankings NBA Stats

PopcornMachine Game Flows

Pro tips

• On most sites if you mouse over the stat heading column header it will give you a short explanation of it

• Many sites’ stats are sortable by column heading when you click on them

• HoopData and BasketballReference both have advanced stats box scores for games

• PopcornMachine game flow player mouse-overs are helpful in showing a player’s +/- in a particular matchup, one of the less suspect uses of this now-mainstream stat. Their box scores further break down player performance by quarter when you click on a player

If you want more, let us know. Advanced stats aren’t an exclusive club for bald guys and geeks, and NBA Fan has been called by many the most intelligent fan in sports for good reason, and we’ve barely scratched the surface today.

The Way We Were

November 8, 2011 in by with 3 Comments

Author Illustration

“Haha, why are you watching this garbage? Everybody knows it doesn’t matter who wins.”

“Yeah, I know. I just…well, I saw this old holo-bio and it was… different then somehow. All these people, they were like, crazy about their teams back then, I guess.”

“It’s true, kids. Oh, hi, Mike, your mother know you’re here? Good, good. Yep, it sure was a different game then, not like now, what with the blowouts and Gilbert-may-care 5-pointers and all. Guys used to really give a shit, I mean really give a shit about what went on out there. It was like life or death for some of ‘em, y’know, the way they laid it out there, left it all out there, night in and out. 82 times a year, plus some, if you were lucky and good. Not these impossible-to-understand year-round on-off schedules like they have now, there were real seasons with real playoffs back in the day.

Man, before the No Basketball Apocalypse there was this one year when we thought a playoff series between the Bulls and Celtics would never end! It was glorious! Derrick Rose… you guys know who that was, right? I mean, before he went off to Spain and Greece and the Philippines and wherever else the hell it was… no? Well, no matter. Just trust me when I say he was spectacular, or was gonna be. Anyway, he just explodes out of the gate in his first ever playoff game, tying all these records and stuff, and takes the defending champs –the defending champs!– all the way to seven games! Seven games, and something like nine OTs! No, seriously, I swear it! Hell, that kid was so good he nabbed the MVP –that’s Most Valuable Player, y’know, of the league– a couple years later.

Come to think of it, that might have been the last year they really played basketball for real. Not like this garbage they peddle now that all the kids laugh at and no one watches unless soccer and XLLaCrosse are over early. Yeah, those Bulls were really, really good. Say, you know that guy in the logo? He was a Chicago Bull too. And maybe the best player ever. Don’t laugh! I’m not joking, he used to be as cold-blooded on the court as he is as The Silent Judge on that one show now. He once destroyed every team that got in his way for six straight championships, well, except for two years off in the middle when he played baseball –that’s like cricket, kinda, only with simple scoring and a stick instead of a paddle.

Whatever! Just because I don’t understand “the intricacies of cricket scoring” doesn’t mean I’m “old,” knock that off! I just…

Anyhow, so this dude takes a couple years off and out of nowhere comes this big man who could move like nothing I’d ever seen before or since, and he leads his team to two straight titles, one of ‘em as the lowest seed in the league’s history, well, back before the Mickey Mouse rules they have now. Mickey Mouse? He was… nevermind, it means “stoopid.” So, these Rockets, they practically back into the playoffs, losing two of their last three games to the team they have to play in the first round, and this Hakeem the Dream dude, he steps out and drops something like 50 or 60 points on this other big dude they called The Mailman. What’s mail? It was… dependable, that’s what mail was. So, these two big guys go back and forth all series long, trading shots and post moves –that’s where big guys used to go to work back before everybody started slinging rocks from the moon– and they take the series and run with the momentum all the way through the Finals.

And the fans… oh, man, the fans! They were rabid back then! I used to be hoarse for three days after a game just trying to out-yell the guy next to me tryin’ to have my voice heard too. No kidding, I’m dead serious. It was an event to go to a game back then, you couldn’t just buy a ticket and cruise right down to the front row like now. And games like that were the talk of the town for weeks, sometimes years, afterward. It was a kind of badge of honor to be able to say, “Hey! I was at that game when so-and-so did that!”

What happened? You know, I’m not even sure now. I do remember that it was one helluva roller coaster though. It seems like they were close –oh, so close– for so long. And then one day POOF! It was just gone.

Okay, well, not gone gone. But it was never the same since. People just didn’t come back, and those that did… they were… changed. Tainted. Hurt. More… quiet, or more accurately, maybe, muffled. It was like the passion and joy had been sucked out of them by some kind of evil sports-mongering bloodsucker. And when they did speak the cynicism was as plain as the sponsors on the uniforms of today, as sharp as a plasma knife slicing through a holiday ham at Christmas dinner down at the depots.

Man, I really wanted to see what that kid on the Clippers –that’s right, there used to be only two teams in LA and a team called the Clippers were one of ‘em– was gonna be capable of. Those exhibition-type dunks now? He used to do ‘em in traffic against defenses hellbent on keeping him from the rim at any cost. And they couldn’t! He used to go up in the air and come down like rain. Well, like rain back before…

Hmm? Right. Sorry, kids, I was rambling off in the land of daydreams and recollections. The game used to be that good. Really.

Well, I’m off to smash some peaches with a sledgehammer. If your mom asks you have no idea what happened to ‘em. Hey! Don’t forget your short crosse and helmets. And be back before the hydro-dome lights kick all the way on.”

Joakim Noah’s No Kobe Bryant

May 24, 2011 in by with 8 Comments

There’s no quick fix to major issues of social tolerance, and that is why it was no surprise to watch Joakim Noah utter the same disparaging slur Sunday night for which Kobe Bryant was shouted down just a few short weeks ago. Movement is not going to come quickly, and it’s not going to come without a lot of work.

I won’t rehash everything I wrote about Kobe after his incident, but in short, he was wrong, and he should be held accountable. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t mean to imply hateful feelings, and it doesn’t matter that a fan provoked him. He needed to be more mature and contain his emotions. That’s what professional athletes are expected to do.

What’s more interesting this time around, though, is the marked difference between the penalties handed down to Bryant and Noah. Kobe was fined $100,000, while Noah was docked just half that number. Same word, same situation, same penalty, right? Apparently not. The NBA’s explanation for the variation in the totals of the fines was this: Kobe’s outburst involved verbal abuse of a game official, while Noah’s did not.

I just don’t see how that reasoning could be any more bogus.

First of all, there is no assurance that Bennie Adams actually heard what Kobe said to him. In fact, had he heard it, he probably would have given Kobe a T (with good reason). But if the target of the so-called verbal abuse didn’t actually hear the abusive language, is that really abuse after all? If Bryant had said the same word in the privacy of his home, would that be verbal abuse toward Adams? It doesn’t seem so.

The second concern with that explanation is the more meaningful one. By penalizing comments to a game official to a higher degree than comments to a fan, the league is making a fairly clear statement that it doesn’t operate in the full interest of the common people who pony up the money that makes the NBA work. Protecting the experience of the fans should be the principal goal of the league.

Sure, referees are important, too. But Kobe’s comment didn’t impede him from doing his job. He was just fine. Meanwhile, the fan subjected to Noah’s comment might be so turned off that he might not ever spend a dollar on the league again. One isolated fan doesn’t matter, but this sets a bad precedent for the league and its treatment of the most important person in this whole debacle — the consumer.

Nevertheless, I find myself believing that the disparity in the value of the respective fines was actually justified but hardly for the reasons a league official prescribed earlier today. Instead, there is a certain proportionality here that makes the difference defensible.

When I think about what a fine from the NBA really means, it isn’t really an admonitory action. The NBA, like many other organizations, is a business. When someone associated with the league takes an action that is damaging, it is only fair that the league should make that individual pay back money to recoup the reputational consequences suffered.

Accordingly, it seems, the more damage an action does to the league, the greater the penalty should be. And there is no doubt that whatever action Kobe takes will garner much more attention than the same action taken by Noah. There was a media frenzy for Kobe’s incident, and that made sense. The media will play up the big stories (and Kobe is definitely one of those), as that’s what people want to read and hear — there is the most money in the stories centered around the greatest players in the league. While Noah’s actions were wrong, it is simple enough to say that not as many people care about Noah as care about Bryant. Consequently, Noah’s transgression was much less of a blemish on the league than Bryant’s, so it required less reparation.

For those who find that unfair, consider that notoriety is a double-edged sword. Negative actions for notorious actors will have a significant negative portrayal. That said, those same people will receive much greater positive attention when they do something good than the average player. Kobe and the others have to deal with both sides of the attention coin.

To put it bluntly, this is a textbook example of a double standard on the part of the NBA. As it happens, though, this double standard is a rational one.

The Truth About LeBron James

May 12, 2011 in by with 23 Comments


If you stumbled upon this post expecting me to reveal some tabloid story about affairs or controversy, you will be sorely disappointed. Instead, I intend to deviate from the traditional narratives that are undoubtedly running rampant following the Miami Heat’s victory over the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Semifinals on Wednesday night. It is no secret that the world’s biggest spotlight has been focused on the Big 3 of Miami the entire season and that spotlight only gets brighter as they advance through the playoffs.

After LeBron’s struggles with the Cavaliers against Boston, the mainstream media quickly created the most apparent storyline to define James as a basketball player. You’ve heard it all before.

“LeBron isn’t clutch,” or ”LeBron doesn’t have the killer instinct” or ”LeBron is a quitter” or ”LeBron can’t get past the Celtics.”

 

While the last point was certainly true (before tonight), I refuse to take the laziest route and start to slap labels on players when they are merely entering their prime. The Decision understandably had some backlash on how people viewed James and quite possibly cost him the MVP this year. Lots of people have disdain for LeBron and many of those people can be found in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Now, before you immediately roll your eyes at the notion of yet another writer from northeast Ohio commenting on LBJ, give me a chance to approach the topic with as little bias as possible. You won’t be shocked to find out that I am actively rooting against the Heat or that I am not particularly fond of LeBron James. However, I hope that does not prevent me from providing some relatively intelligent insight on the issue.

Wednesday night, against the Celtics, I came to a revelation of sorts. I do not hate LeBron James, but rather I am supremely disappointed. For the past year now, I’ve heard both sides of the argument. There are those that say it was a classless betrayal and there are those that question what he ever “owed” to the Cavaliers. To respond to the second part, the answer is, of course, nothing. James owed nothing (apart from a little decency) to the Cavaliers fans or the organization. Those who believe that he did are misguided (read: wrong). But that’s not the reason that I have so much disdain for LeBron James. It seems that so many people are shocked that LeBron was “finally” able to get past the Celtics and “finally” come up in the clutch. The notion of James exorcising his demons by taking down Boston is overblown and quite frankly, stupid. I, for one, am not all that surprised by it and after watching him play for 7 years in Cleveland, know that completely dominating the end of the game is nothing new to him. The truth is that LeBron James is the best player in the league and it’s been that way for several years now. And as long as I’m being completely honest, it’s not even close. This lone fact is what frustrates myself and other Cavaliers fans to no end. That which comes off as pure hatred is actually bitter disappointment.

I had the pleasure of watching one of the most supremely gifted athletes of our generation on a nightly basis and he was dominating games for my team. He carried us to the playoffs year after year and regardless of how they looked on paper, the most recent Cavs teams were really good. As you know, however, not quite good enough. I knew the opportunity that he provided for my city and was absolutely crushed when he took it away. The objective, basketball analyst in me truly appreciates the greatness of James but the Clevelander in me will never forgive him.

As far as I am concerned, the media narratives are bunch of nonsense. LeBron did not magically gain the ability to execute down the stretch this year or step up his game in the playoffs. Rather, he now has another superstar playing alongside him and the Celtics were therefore less of an obstacle. I understand that the NBA is all about winning at any cost, but every part of LeBron’s character now leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. He took the easy way out and teamed up with Dwyane Wade. Was it a wise basketball decision? Yes. He plays for fans that can barely fill the arena in the postseason. Is that his fault? Of course not. Regardless of who’s at fault, the result remains the same. Cavs fans came to know a player that was capable of taking virtually any team to the NBA Finals and in the blink of an eye — he was gone.

If the Miami Heat end up winning the title as I believe they will, the national media and casual NBA fans will jump all over the notion that LeBron has evolved into the champion that he never was in Cleveland. While on the surface this is true, I see no real difference between 2010 LeBron and 2011 LeBron. The only difference I notice is the added pressure for him to win a ring and the fact that he will soon be doing it for a franchise other than the Cavaliers. The point I feel the need to reiterate is that he earned the right to “take his talents to South Beach.” He fulfilled his obligation in Cleveland and gained free agent status.

Ultimately, there is nothing fundamentally wrong about what LeBron did and none of it truly warrants the venom he receives. Instead, when we hold The Decision against him, it’s due to disappointment. Not because he did anything wrong, but because he failed to live up to our own contrived, personal expectations. The fact of the matter is, the dominance that James showed in crunch-time against the Celtics has been in him all along. As with most great athletes, it just took a little bit of prodding and a lot of losing for it to be channeled effectively. LeBron probably could have dragged a team with Mo Williams as the 2nd best player to a world championship, but didn’t want to wait around to find out. He has every right to do as he desires. Conversely, we have every right to criticize him as we please. As an NBA writer, I’ll appreciate him but as a Cleveland native, I’ll hate him.

 

Coping With Powerful Distractions

April 27, 2011 in by with 19 Comments

Photo Courtesy of Nuzz on Flickr

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Clutch performance has been a touchy subject this season. There are the typical statistical arguments, eye-test arguments, and those based on everything imaginable in between. But it is really worth debating the best pressure performers?

The recent end-of-game shots by a pair of the league’s star players have foregrounded this question. Derrick Rose shot 4-of-18 from the field in Game 3 against the Pacers, but he hit a game-winning layup. LeBron James scored 31 points on 55 percent shooting in Game 4 vs. the Sixers but missed a key floater late in an eventual Heat loss.

It’s natural, then, to call Rose the success and LeBron the failure in these cases, as the Bulls won and the Heat did not, consistent with those final shots. Fundamentally, that’s fair. But the full-game execution of these players seems to suggest that the boundary between triumph and futility is maybe not so lucid.

The final minutes of games draw the most attention as they often noticeably influence results, and that is why top players’ execution down the stretch is so frequently subject to scrutiny. With that said, the appeal of these late-game scenarios distracts most viewers from the truth of clutch production: it’s totally overemphasized.

An oft-ignored basic principle of basketball is that the value of shots does not vary with respect to the progress of the game. Two points is two points, whether they come five seconds after the tipoff or find the net with just seconds left to play. The perceived significance of missed shots in the early going is usually negligible, as those flubs are often forgotten by the time of the game at which it is possible to process their negative impact — especially if the consequences of those misses are neutralized by late-game makes. But in many cases, if a player had passed up an ill-advised shot that did not fall in favor of a high-percentage look during a low-pressure moment, the make-up basket in the clutch would not have been necessary.

In other words, if the goal of basketball is to win games, maximizing output and efficiency at the end of games should not be the goal, for in an ideal situation the preceding portion of the game should preclude the necessity of “big” shots. When a particular team plays well in the first 46 minutes of its games, its only task in the final two minutes is to protect a lead rather than to escape a deficit with heroics.

Here’s a rudimentary illustration to demonstrate this.

(Owing to the divisive nature of this topic, bringing up specific names here would only be counterproductive — as loyalty-driven commentary would do nothing more than muddy the dialectic — so it’s wise to deal only in generalities.)

Take two players, X and Y, in two separate games with entirely equivalent final box scores, who each notch 30 points. Player X scores all 30 of his points before the one-minute mark of the fourth quarter, at which point his team is up three points. Player Y, however, only scores 24 of his 30 points before that one-minute mark, at which point his team is down three points. Player X doesn’t shoot in the final minute, but his team still wins by three. Player Y hits two three-pointers, including a tiebreaking buzzer beater, and his team also wins by three.

Player Y is the one you’re going to see in the highlights, the one whose crunch-time accomplishments will be the talk of the NBA community at large for the next day. But Player Y didn’t put his team in the best position to win. It was Player X who hit his shots early, avoiding a predicament that required an “exciting” shot; the situation merely required holding a lead. Maybe Player X is the better winner, then, however counterintuitive that realization is. After all, his performance increased the likelihood of a win for this team compared to Player Y’s, as it’s certainly easier to hold a lead than to recover from trailing.

With all that said, it’s easy to make a claim that is entirely dependent on inference and conjecture. Bolstering the case further, though, is the argument’s practical traction.

Consider the following teams: the Miami Heat, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Chicago Bulls, the San Antonio Spurs, the Boston Celtics, and the Orlando Magic. Arguably the six best teams in the NBA this season, right? They were also the top six teams in the league in scoring differential after three quarters (Thanks to @snghoops for pointing this out) at the end of the regular campaign. Meanwhile, those same squads were 12th, 15th, 17th, 5th, 28th, and 14th, respectively, in fourth-quarter output. Put simply, the NBA’s elite teams do their work early on in games such that they can put scoring on the back burner: all they are tasked with late is protecting a lead. Indisputably, taking care of business early in contests has more than just a theoretical association with success.

Of course, any team, irrespective of its performance, will invariably find itself down by a slim margin late in some games. In those cases, someone to hit key shots would, in fact, be valuable given short-term considerations. (In the playoffs, this excellence might take on extra importance in accordance with the greater gravity of each contest.)

But nothing in basketball is free of exception. It’s about swaying the odds as far as possible in one’s favor. No team is going to hold its opponents to 0 percent shooting, but it would much rather have them shooting 40 percent than 50 percent. Similarly, no team will completely avoid scenarios in which it needs a final shot to win, but minimizing that reliance is optimal. The team that performed the best during standard, “non-clutch time” would have a leg up in that regard and simply let clutch situations take care of themselves.

It would be challenging, probably impossible, to find a coach in the NBA that would prefer to win every game on a last-second shot than to win comfortably, especially in the long term — assuming, again, the coach’s principal goal is to win.

So the apparent discrepancy that allows the clutch movement to gain momentum is this: the interest of fans is not always compatible with the most efficient, reliable way to win a basketball game.

Sports ethicist Edwin DeLattre is one that believes there is an inherent need for excitement in successful competition. He writes:

“Whether amidst the soft lights and the sparkling balls against the blaize of a billiard table, on the rolling terrain of a lush fairway or in the violent and crashing pit where linemen struggle, it is the moments when no let-up is possible, when there is virtually no tolerance for error, which make the game. The best and most satisfying contests maximize these moments and minimize respite from pressure. When competition achieves this intensity it frequently renders the outcome of the contest anticlimactic, and it inevitably reduces victory celebration to pallor by contrast … Exclusive emphasis on winning has particularly tended to obscure the importance of the quality of the opposition and the thrill of competition itself” (From William Morgan’s Ethics in Sport, Second Edition).

At their most basic, professional sports are meant to entertain fans, to inspire awe with spectacular athletic feats. For DeLattre, the power and frequency of the entertainment is enough to belittle the end result of the game. As it happens, the plays in close games tend to amplify the greatness of players’ actions, as fans identify with the struggle of their teams. Clutch shots provide a feeling of release that enhances the sports-viewing experience for most. Accordingly, many people find it necessary to dissect particular players’ success in these situations. After all, who wouldn’t want to watch the most dramatic actors in the league?

Just remember this: these clutch performances are great for the league and the viewer, but that’s about it. Tense late-game scenarios certainly aren’t sought out with winning in mind. Before anointing your player of choice the King of Clutch, it might be worth it to revisit how meaningful that title really is and what your view of success in sport really reduces to.

Revealing An Iceberg

April 14, 2011 in by with 25 Comments

My initial reaction to Kobe Bryant’s comments during last night’s game were ones of anger, considerable anger. I didn’t react that way because I’m a “Kobe hater,” or because I wish ill on the Lakers. I was angry at the nature of the comments, the insensitivity for which Bryant happened to be responsible.

Kobe Bryant is an icon in the NBA, a figure who transcends basketball and stands for leadership, perseverance, and plenty of other values. To see him use derogatory language was disappointing, as he should know better. The normative question as to whether athletes should be considered role models is a loaded one, and one that will probably remain insoluble. With that said, it is irrelevant in this case. What matters is that Bryant is seen as a role model, whether he likes it or not, and he has to act accordingly. What he said was not compatible with his role-model persona.

On Wednesday afternoon, Bryant issued some haphazard comments to get out in front of the story:

“My actions were out of frustration during the heat of the game, period,” he said. “The words expressed do not reflect my feelings towards the gay and lesbian communities and were not meant to offend anyone.”

In the wake of the situation, Bryant made the right decision to respond right away. The problem, though, is that these remarks aren’t very meaningful. He didn’t really apologize for himself, only for the misfortune of the situation. He’s a very proud man, and it’s understandable that he had a problem with admitting guilt for harm he didn’t intend. In this instance, though, intent is irrelevant.

There’s no contention that Bryant was complimenting Bennie Adams when he uttered the regrettable slur in his direction. It was a negative comment. That’s undeniable. By expressing his disgust with those words in a negative connotation, he necessarily implied discriminatory feelings toward the homosexual community.

But the real tragedy of the situation isn’t that Kobe used this phrase. It’s used quite frequently, probably among the NBA community, and he was just the guy to get caught on national TV (For those who think this bad luck excuses his behavior, though, that’s bogus. It was the same luck in the genetic lottery that got Bryant to the NBA.). The real tragedy is that Bryant is only a notorious representative of a pervasive toxin plaguing our entire society. It is, for whatever reason, still socially tolerated and commonplace to discriminate against the homosexual community in casual conversation, and Bryant was an eye-opening reminder of that societal glitch.

There’s a discrepancy between the reception of words like the one Bryant used and that of racial, religious, or gender-based slurs. If a white NBA player were to use the N-word in a derogatory context to or about another black player, that would be egregious and met with duly severe castigation. Why, then, is society lagging behind in attaching the same stigma to homosexual slurs? Until those words are just as socially taboo, a problem needs solving.

When the NBA levied its $100,000 fine on Bryant later in the afternoon, it was a step in the right direction. That’s chump change for Bryant, honestly, but it sends a message that the league is not going to tolerate this type of insensitivity from its players. Still, this should be just the first step in a series of moves to push reforms for the league.

In everyday society, there is no way to discourage people from committing these acts of discrimination. They’re protected by the freedom of speech and driven by personal insecurities. The NBA has no such problem. As a private, controlled body, the league has the power to forbid this type of behavior by its players. In that way, the NBA has the potential to be a major agent of social change by setting an example, serving as a pioneer of social justice in the spotlight.

So here’s what David Stern should do: outlaw a specific list of slurs. When a player uses a word, fine him. Or suspend him. Or institute mandatory sensitivity training for that violator. Considering all the no-tolerance policies already in place with regard to performance-enhancing drugs, apparel, social media, or anything else, this shouldn’t be that much of a step up. It’s an easy solution to an ignored problem.

Consider this Tweet from Matt Moore:

If our priorities are so messed up that we chide one player for standard conduct and shrug off another player for being socially despicable, there needs to be improvement. And it needs to come soon.

Kobe Bryant might have been caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. But he’s a figurehead of a society with a flaw. And that figurehead has to be held accountable. Fortunately for him, there’s a chance something great comes out of all this.

The MVP, LeBron, and Media Oppression

April 11, 2011 in by with 10 Comments

The MVP race is all but sewn up. Derrick Rose is the apparent beneficiary of the media’s consensus, overcoming concerns he doesn’t merit the award. Without question, Rose is putting together an impressive season by any standards, but there’s a case to be made for players like Dwight Howard, Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James.

That said, despite his league-leading PER, his highest career field-goal percentage, and the stature of the Miami Heat at the top of the league, James can’t seem to get within sniffing distance of the crown. It’s not worth debating to whom the award should go at the end of the season, but the point here is that James is getting jobbed of due consideration.

Doubters will point to a couple of main reasons for writing off James: (1) The Heat would be fine without him (even though, as of a week ago, the Heat were about 10.5 points per 100 possessions worse without James and the Bulls just 1.5 points per 100 possessions worse without Rose); and (2) He doesn’t deserve a threepeat in MVP voting (this is just an irrational appeal to tradition in the sport).

It’s clear, however, that the reason that James isn’t getting any credit in the voting process — driven by journalists — is that the media hates him. James garnered plenty of hatred this summer with The Decision, and to be fair to LeBron, that disdain isn’t warranted.

When LeBron James came into this league (in fact, even a year before he came into the NBA), the community at large (hereafter referred to as “we”) had very egotistical representations of him. We constructed a narrative in which he became the “Chosen One.” He was supposed to come into the league and be the absolute savior for whatever franchise drafted him. After the Cavaliers selected him, no one cared about that team. Everyone cared only about LeBron.

And he was very selfish about it, solidifying his role as an icon and not merely a basketball player. We were all completely okay with it back then. This summer, LeBron exercised a right that Curt Flood and others mercilessly fought for in the 1970s to separate athletes from effective indentured servants. He went to Miami. Suddenly we had a problem with LeBron.

But most people will claim that the move itself was not what they had an issue with — it was the circumstances of the move that irked them. They viewed The Decision as an overblown, self-interested way to announce a change of team.

Even ignoring the charitable consequences of The Decision, how was LeBron’s egoism this past summer at all different from the rest of his career? We loved him for being an individualist when he came into the league, and we loathed him for not being a collectivist when he went to Miami. Isn’t that a double standard?

For now, however, assume instead that the contempt that NBA observers have held for LeBron is rational and justifiable. Why should that rule him out of the MVP race? The award is about achievement and excellence on the basketball court, not about selflessness and altruism. Isn’t it a problem that members of the media, who are supposed to be fierce protectors of objectivity and fairness, are playing favorites and taking sides?

To hope for pure objectivity in sports media is a useless exercise. That is, the sports world will never see a day in which every team and player benefits from the same amount of unbiased coverage. The logistics of markets and the nature of fan bases demand more coverage for the bigger teams.

Nevertheless, it’s quite reasonable to not only hope but also expect that the media approach any and all coverage with an open mind unpolluted by preconceived notions and uninhibited by personal grudges. The media bears the burden of honoring the trust that the public places in it. When influential figures start to lead the masses astray based on extraneous factors legitimized by subjective attitudes, that’s a notable issue.

LeBron took a divisive course of action last summer, but it is important for viewers and fans to decide on their own how they want to view him as a result. Instead, the media is peddling a dominating narrative that more or less makes the choice for the masses. Anyone interested in someone else for MVP either is a devout supporter of a particular player regardless of the race or has done the research to find the rare commentary that challenges the Rose testimony.

Rose might very well be the right selection for the MVP this season, however one really defines the award. It’s no crime against LeBron should he fall short of the award, but everyone deserves a fair shake regardless of his history. There’s no reason The Decision should be James’ scarlet letter.

The media gets to decide the MVP. If they’re going to have that kind of responsibility in determining a winner based on basketball achievements, they should at least try to be objective about it. Failing that, there are serious questions about the integrity of sports journalism.

Don’t Say We Don’t Care

January 8, 2010 in by with 5 Comments

Good times.

This was the first NBA game that I went to when I was ~12 years old. Was visiting family in Chicago, IL and my dad’s friend was a season ticket holder. He brought me along for the game with him and we watched Michael Jordan lead them to beat the Blazers in the final game of the series.

via Bulls win the 1992 NBA Championships on Flickr – Photo Sharing! by Bobby Russell.

Call the players overpaid, call the game blaise. Tell us they don’t play with enough heart, or “fundamentals.” Talk about the contracts, the agents, the shoe deals, the drugs, the guns, the whining to the refs, the length of the playoffs, the length of the regular season, or uncalled traveling.

But don’t say that NBA fans don’t care.

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