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Tag Archive - Noam Schiller

Menacingly Vengeful Pasta

April 8, 2011 in by with 11 Comments

Photo via Carlos Porto on Flickr

The MVP race. Yup, that ole bit.

It’s been a while since the MVP debate has been an enjoyable conversational topic for NBA enthusiasts. For the past two years, Lebron James has rendered the entire affair meaningless, what with his 31+ PER here, and his 29-7-8 per game numbers there, and the 60 wins, and the Cleveland, and the what not.

This year, however, Lebron finally gave us enough of a reason to completely discredit his candidacy – be it by playing at only 95% of his previous world-best capacity while adjusting to new a completely new set of teammates (how dare he!), or choosing where he’d like to continue his career (no, seriously, how dare he!). Sadly, the ensuing blabbering has turned into such a wild mess of Derrick Rose hating and Dwight Howard knocking and advanced stats this and watch the games that it has been grating at best, sickening at worst, and generally about as fun as an NCAA title game.

Of course, if this isn’t the first NBA piece you’ve ever read then, you know this. If it is, I’d like to introduce myself: I am Noam Schiller, 15 time NBA MVP winner, and have won 20 titles with the best team to ever play in the NBA, the Noamsville Noams.

For the sake of this piece, though, I will be working under the assumption that you recognize me as no more than a punk who just happens to have a keyboard. Given this assumption, nothing that I might happen to write here can change your opinion on this monstrosity of an award show. Whether you’re pro-Rose, pro-Howard, still think that being the best player in basketball should be rewarded even if Lebron happened to piss some dudes off this summer, are part of a Kobe Bryant campaign that is suddenly gaining momentum which I can’t for the life of me explain, like Kevin Durant’s beautiful face too much to give it to anybody else, or are behind some mysterious candidate X (Pooh Jeter Pooh Jeter Pooh Jeter), you’re staying in your camp after reading this.

Now, unlike most of the internet these days, I’m cool with that. I’m all for pluralism. It has enhanced the way we consume basketball and live our everyday lives in unmeasurable ways. Whenever something remotely interesting happens, we have millions of marvelous minds working towards instantly providing us with analysis and perspective and sometimes just plain humorous snark through a handful of mediums. And while the occasional flash of idiotism may rear its ugly head more often once we provide more voices with the necessary microphones, this is a small price to pay for what can only be described as a blossoming fountain of knowledge.

That knowledge, however, is key. That sharing of mindsets through which we strengthen each other, even when the other side doesn’t agree with us. When that knowledge is absent – or even worse, present yet ignored – pluralism crosses the line from a melting pot of opinions and intellectual tools to a random assortment of statements, each more dogmatic than the other. And unless you’re Kevin Smith’s career, Dogma never gets you anywhere.

And yet, when this dogmatism is contested, those who dare stand up to it are called haters. Those who provide statistical analysis suddenly don’t watch the games – this despite the fact that NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would spend the time glossing over sheets of numbers without actually being interested in whatever it is that the numbers represent. And the saddest thing is, you don’t even have to contest an opinion to be caught in the crossfire. All one has to do is ask “why?”, even if it’s just out of curiosity, before he is buried in a flurry of capitalized letters and exclamation points.

Well, I’ll ask it anyway. Why?

How can we excuse not using data when it’s staring us in the faces? Because we didn’t like math in high school? Because we’re too manly to sit down in front of a sheet, put on the reading glasses that we don’t want people to know we have, and let our minds out for a jog? Because we want to feel closer to the people who did it in the old days? Let me tell you a secret – the old days were awful. We’re much better than them. This isn’t “hating” – it’s evolution.

Take your “advanced stats”. Bill Simmons recently wrotethat Rose is “The guy whose MVP candidacy got crapped on by the entire blogosphere because his plus/minus and true shooting percentage weren’t quite good enough”. Well, aren’t those valid concerns? It’s not like basketballvalue.com draws random numbers and inserts them into their plus/minus tables – this is data that describes things that are happening on the court, in games. Ditto for TS%, or rebound rate, or Synergy numbers, or even pretentious tell-all numbers like PER or Win Shares. I agree that one always must use caveats, always use context, never take these numbers for their face value without checking and double checking, but to ignore them completely? To discredit their value while putting one’s entire weight on ambiguous statements like “value to the team” or “where would they be without him”?

This writing may (will) be seen as a specific indictment towards those on the Rose side of this MVP debate. Though I will not deny that I am opposed to the Rose movement, I promise you, besmirching it is not my intention. All other MVP candidates have major flaws to their campaigns, all of them well documented basically everywhere, and Rose has had a mind-boggling season for a thrilling team.

But it just so happens that Rose’s specific flaws, like Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson before him, are the flaws of a player whose statistical pedigree lacks in respect to the success of his team, his ability to pass the eye test, and his ridiculously passionate fan base. And while the latter two are not bad things – the eye test is ultimately the reason we watch sports, and passionate fan bases are to be encouraged – ignoring statistics when they are right there just because they don’t support my premise is just that: ignorant.

If you do decide that those flaws Rose represents aren’t as condemning as Dwight Howard’s inability to provide a go-to option on offense down the stretch or Lebron James’ failure to lead a team to the amount of wins they were supposed to win on paper because our paper got it wrong – then that’s fine. But you need to back it up. And yes, I expect there to be some statistical data there. And no, “this is what my eyes tell me” doesn’t cut it. Because all I need to do is send you to the nearest M.C. Escher painting to show you how easily eyes can be deceived. And even if your eyes are absolutely, positively, completely perfect in every single way (otherwise known as being Paul George) – could it possibly hurt to use your other senses too? To gain the ability to use another useful tool? To check and double check, if for no other reason, just to set an example for those damn “stat guys”?

This stands not only for those defending their arguments, but for those attacking others. Valid points may be concocted in places other than your own mind, because there are millions of fantastic minds out there. Including yours. Respect those other minds by reading what they say, contemplating their points, carefully building your counter. If I tweet about Derrick Rose’s defense, and you immediately respond by talking about his carrying the offense in crunch time, then you have failed. You arrived at a boxing match with a baseball bat. Sure, that bat may help you in bludgeoning me to death, but that’s not what we’re here for.

A final, hypothetical argument.

Lets say that you support Derrick Rose for MVP. Since it seems like the majority of the NBA community does at this point, you probably do. Now, say that I come up to you and say “you know what? Rose has been great this year, but looking at how great Blake Griffin has been playing, and how he’s been a beacon of hope for a moribund franchise going nowhere I think he’s the most valuable player. Because that’s how I define VALUE.”

You, being the rational and intelligent reader that you are, start laughing. Perhaps you call me a funny name, or toss a beverage at me. But I’m a persistent little bugger. I show you ratings and attendance numbers for the Clippers, providing indisputable proof that Blake has single-handedly made the team relevant again. I hand you a 70 foot billboard covered in a fantastically crafted collage of tweets going insane about the former Oklahoma star. I point out how Baron Davis – BARON DAVIS – bothered to get into shape (albeit two months late) for the guy. I call Clipper Darrell, ask him what he thinks about Blake Griffin, record the ensuing rant, and play it to you in it’s entirety with unicorns frolicking around us and bubble gum raining from the sky. I can’t convince you – not when my premise is so foolish – but you can’t convince me either. MVP is subjective, that’s how I define it, and you have to live with that.

Or, instead, we can live in a society where foolishness is unacceptable and opinions, even if they are just opinions, lead to people being held accountable. I like that better. But hey, what do I know – I think Dwight Howard is the MVP.

Boundary and Nexus: Maximizing Inefficiency

January 10, 2011 in by with 10 Comments

Image via Flickr

It’s a well known fact: the long 2 is the least efficient shot in basketball. 

The reasoning is quite simple, really. The further you are from the basket, the harder it is to make shots. And since by going further than the long 2 range you gain an extra point for every shot, long 2s are the furthest, low scoring attempts in basketball. 

This (correct) notion has become ingrained in our analytical DNA. Sure, the long jumper is impressive when it goes in, but no basketball fan in their right mind would rather see Lebron James settle for a foot-on-the-arc fadeaway when you know that he can take it to the rim at will. 

However, there is more to basketball than just “long 2s bad, close 2s and open 3s better” (yup, that was an Animal Farm reference. Because at HP we are dedicated to bringing you both snot-nosed, self righteous, social-critiquing literature, and zombie movies). Long 2s are shot, and often, whether it’s because the players that shoot them know they can make them, want to keep defenses honest, or are just plain lazy. But how damaging are they anyway? 

Lets start by taking it back a few steps, and numerically conforming the statistical inferiority of the long 2. With the help of the life-altering Hoopdata.com, here is a table of the league average eFG% for different shooting ranges as far as Hoopdata’s records go (the 2006-2007 season), and the averages over the entire stretch (since the current season is just midway, I weighted the results under the assumption that the average NBA team has played 34.7 games this season, as was true of January 7th). 

The results: 

 

The number that jumps off the page is that the percentages for the 10-15 foot “in-between” range were not only in the same area of the 16-23 foot range, but actually worse for 4 of the last 5 seasons and over the entire 5 year stretch. However, that figure becomes much less surprising when you look at the figure right next to it – the % of made shots that were assisted. This makes sense – although we very often see shots from that range taken in ISO situations, you see plenty of spot ups from just inside the arc, and very few spot ups from 10 to 15. And in general, it’s much easier to make shots when your body is all lined up and a passer hits you than when you have to create on your own. 

In addition, shots from in between are usually tougher makes. Many of them are either of the floater variety (hello Derrick Rose) or come off the mid-range post game (hello Kobe Bryant). But Roses and Kobes are few, and these shots tend to be harder to make, especially since they are taken closer to the shot-altering reaches of various big men. So while I didn’t expect the two ranges to be similar percentage-wise, it does seem to fit in with general convention – in a vacuum, you’d rather be open from 13 feet than from 18 feet, but how you get there and how you’re being guarded is a factor. 

Moving on from the percentages, we reach the amount of field goals attempted from each range. Interestingly enough, there has been a baffling drop in attempts at the rim in 2010-2011 – 4.5 less a game. However, the corresponding, nearly matching jump in shots from 10 feet in (up 4 shots a game) makes me think that shot locations may be counted differently this season in contrast to years past, thus creating the difference. I may be wrong with this assumption, but since it’s not our topic of focus, we’ll keep it at 2-bit conjuncture levels. 

In what is our topic of focus, though, the “shots attempted” numbers are quite odd as well. The average NBA team since 2006 attempts 20.9 long 2s a game, which accounts for 26% of all shots. This exceeds the amount of shots from every other range except at the rim. Remember, this is the widely acknowledged least efficient shot in basketball. Are teams just stupid? Or is there more to this? 

Allow me to toss out two theories as to why this is the case. First of all, the evolution of the sweet shooting big men – initially just known as Euros, then acquiring the ever descriptive name “stretch 4s”, has surely helped in this regard. While some of these gigantic sweet-strokers make their hay behind the three point line, a substantial amount of them score their points off the 20 foot range. Guys like Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Chris Bosh, The Artist Formerly Known As Rashard Lewis and David West have made multiple all-star teams behind the premise that their high point of release combined with their shooting prowess makes them efficient from the non-efficient range. Nowitzki, specifically, is probably the best long 2 shooter in recent history, making a ridiculous 53% from 16 to 23 feet this season (by far his best since in Hoopdata’s records and unlikely to sustain but still darn impressive) while taking 43% of his shots from that range. 

The list of big men shooters goes on and on. Amar’e Stoudemire has been more than just a dunker for years now. Al Horford seemingly can’t miss a long jumper. Pau Gasol, Lamarcus Aldridge, Luis Scola, Kevin Love. All good shooters. In today’s NBA, even if you’re big, you need to make that shot. With so many more players capable of making the shot, it makes sense that more players take them, even if it’s not as efficient as getting to the line or spotting up a bit further back for an extra point. 

Another reason could be the annoying-but-ever-present pick up mentality that a swished jumper is more impressive than banging into your defender for two freebies. What’s more memorable, those Kobe jumpers that don’t even touch the net as they account for 2 more on the scoreboard, or when he fools his defender into fouling him on a 3 point shot that was never intended to go near the rim? Players want to show they can make those shots, so they attempt a disproportionate amount of them, even if their strengths lie elsewhere. Just look at Allen Iverson’s career. 

Of course, this still doesn’t excuse teams from focusing way too much on the least effective way to score points. While nobody would make the argument that good teams shouldn’t shoot long 2s at all – if you’re got a good shooter and you’re open, then by all means, knock it down – the stark contrast to conventional wisdom presented by these numbers makes one wonder. Do better teams try to lessen their long 2 attempts? Conversely, do they try to bump it up a few notches for their opponents? Does this even affect them? 

In order to answer these questions, I once again turned to last season’s shot location data per team (last season and not this season for the larger sample size). I plotted the percentage of shots each team took from from 16 to 23 feet (looking at the percentage of shots and not the total amount of shots from each range in order to adjust for pace) versus each team’s offensive efficiency, in order to measure just how damaging the “worst shot in basketball” is anyway. 

 

This graph clearly shows us that there is some kind of relationship between the relative amount of long 2s a team takes; however, this relationship is far from conclusive. As we can see, the scatter on this graph is fairly large, and the correlation between the two variables is only 0.0768 (running on a scale of 0 to 1, where 1 is a perfect relationship, and 0 being a Tony Allen-O.J. Mayo relationship), which means that many other variables have far stronger effects on offensive efficiency. However, some kind of effect is there, even if it’s minimal. 

Look at the two extremes on the chart, and you see exactly the teams you’d expect to find: Orlando took the least long 2s in the league by far, right on par with Stan Van Gundy’s “Dwight inside or everybody else from 3” strategy, taking it to second in the league in offensive efficiency; meanwhile, if you watched the Chicago Bulls last year, you know that Vinny Del Negro “coached” his team into an offense full of long jumpers and void of any offensive movement, resulting in the highest percentage of long 2s in the league and the 28thranked offense. Right on their heels were the Washington Wizards, who spent the season featuring notorious gunners; early on, Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler were the ones taking your contested long shots, only for the likes of Andray Blatche, Nick Young and Al Thornton to take over the inefficiency load once the two former all-stars left the team via suspension or trade. 

As for some outliers, the iso-heavy yet offensively efficient Hawks and Blazers expectedly broke the trend, ranking 9th and 4th in percentage of long 2s, and 3rd and 7th in offensive efficiency, respectively. The Bosh-led Raptors also efficiently built around long jumpers, ranking 6thon both accounts. Underperformers were just as familiar, with a cluster of offensively terrible squads such as the Bobcats, Bucks, Pacers and Clippers appearing far below the trendline, with 09-10 laughingstocks New Jersey and Minnesota falling even further. All these 6 clubs were around the league average as far as taking long 2s, but were so atrocious elsewhere that it dragged them towards the lower regions of our graph. 

So good teams tend to take less long 2s, but it’s not a necessity for a good offense. How about good defenses? Do they corner opponents into long jumpers? We go for the same exercise, only with shots given up and defensive efficiency. 

The defensive graph seems to very easily break into three groups. The elite defensive teams of 2010-2011 – those in the 100 to 102 points per 100 possessions range – seem to have been all over the place as far as giving up long 2s. On one end we have the Magic, who seem to employ the same defensive strategy as they have on offense – have Dwight take care of the inside, everybody else close out strong on 3 point shooters, and thus force opponents to take plenty of 2 point shots from too far away. This plot ranked them 3rd as far as long 2s conceded. On the other side we have the Thunder, whose opponents were 3rd from the shallow end, presumably due to a lack of a true physical presence inside to deter opponents from stepping out for their 2 pointers. 

Looking past that elite group, we have an Atlanta-Portland-Dallas-Utah-Chicago clump, whose defensive efficiency ranges from 102.6 to 104 (ranked 10th to 14th), and whose opponents take long 2s 24.4% to 25.3% of the time. It’s hard to note any effect long 2s have on this particular group, since they are all very similar. 

The third group is the most interesting one as far as our research, and it shows the what pretty evenly breaks into the bottom half of the league defensively. In this region, there seems to be a pretty direct effect. In fact, the correlation for just this part of the chart was 0.381, by far stronger than that of the offensive graph. When we add the top 14 defensive squads, the correlation drops to 0.1019. In fact, if you take another glance at the trendline, it really does look as if it was tailor made for the top half of the graph before the evenly distributed bottom came and dragged it down in it’s original shape. 

The difference between top and bottom is very odd, and I find no explanation for it, seeing how there is no reason why something should only affect bad defenses and immediately stop mattering once you creep up to number 14. As such, we can probably dismiss it as a fluke, leaving a message very similar to that of the offensive graph: channeling your opponent to the inefficient long 2 gives you a better chance of being a good defensive team, but you can just as easily be a great one without it. There are many ways to skin a cat, this just happens to be an effective one. 

To get a good look at the complete effect of long 2s, I combined the two graphs by plotting differentials – offensive minus defensive. Since this is basically combining the two previous graphs, we shouldn’t be surprised that the results are pretty similar. The Magic again were stalwarts, with the absolute best differential in both categories, proving both that they strategically avoid the inefficient shooting range while funneling their opponents towards it, and that they are extremely successful in doing so. 

 

The conclusions here may seem trivial. However, they have analytical value. We know that long 2s are bad shots, but this gives us two seemingly conflicted truths: that it is generally smart to reduce those shots for yourself while encouraging your opponent to take them; and that is more than possible to fail while doing so, or succeed without it. While the long 2 is often considered to be inefficiency incarnate, it is not a death knell. It can be manipulated and molded into a prosperous ordeal.

On: LeBron

October 28, 2010 in by with 4 Comments

A discussion of the reigning MVP and most polarizing figure in the NBA today, reflected in various styles.

THIS POST IS ON: LEBRON

Part I, Longform: The Main Event

Dan Feldman is the author of Piston Powered on the TrueHoop Network. He graciously agreed to write this selection on LeBron and the real core of his ethos. You can reach Dan at @pistonpowered. The topic? FUN! -Ed.

In May, a reader e-mailed Bill Simmons about a way to analyze players: one-word goals. Force yourself to describe a player’s singular purpose in one word, and you’ll learn a lot about him.* The concept is marvelous, but Simmons and the e-mailer both missed the mark on LeBron. They both chose “amaze.”

There’s a more apropos word:

Fun.

*I thought choosing “greatness” rather than “winning” for Kobe was genius. “Yes he’s going to win some, but only because he wants to be considered great and that will be a by-product at times.”

You can view all of LeBron’s decisions to date through the lens of: how can he maximize his fun? LeBron might not realize this is how he approaches everything, but he’s been successful.

LeBron can appear selfish, immature and secluded. And he might really be all those things. But he has only developed those traits in the name of having fun.

Despite his tarnished image, few NBA players appear to enjoy playing basketball as much as he does. He spends a lot of time smiling on the court — and for good reason. He’s the best player in the league. That’s gotta be fun.

Pregame faux photoshoots are fun. Dunks are fun. Celebrating every above average play is fun.

Winning is fun, and in the regular season or early rounds of the playoffs, winning easy to a player of LeBron’s caliber. Winning deep in the playoffs is also fun, but it’s much more difficult. Difficulty isn’t fun, and that’s why LeBron disappeared during the conference finals against the Celtics.

LeBron’s desire to have fun doesn’t end at the sideline. Fun explains his summer, too.

Holding the basketball world’s attention for months is fun. You can go about it the hard way, like the Lakers and Celtics, battling until the end of the season. Or you can make several teams believe they’ll sign the best player in the world. Either way, everyone focuses on you all season.

Having teams beg you to join them is fun. LeBron is one of the few players never recruited by colleges. He was an NBA lock years before graduating from St. Vincent-St. Mary. It’s one of the few fun experiences denied to the young multi-millionaire. A series of hotel meetings changed that.

Fun also explains why LeBron ultimately signed with the Heat.

Living in Miami is fun.

Playing with your friends is fun.

Winning championships is fun.

This plan may backfire for LeBron, of course. Winnings titles is hard. The most successful players of this generation, Kobe and Duncan, don’t have much fun on the court. But they win. Winning and fun don’t exactly go hand in hand.

Maybe LeBron has found the easy way out. He’s aligned himself with an incredibly talented group of teammates, teammates who can do the non-fun work. With Bosh, LeBron won’t have to play in the post. With Wade, he won’t have to lead.

LeBron might have put himself in a position Kobe and Duncan never could: maximizing his fun and championships. I don’t care what anyone says about LeBron now, if he wins titles, and he has a great chance to do that, he’ll be the face of the NBA.

And that face will have a huge smile.

TIME TRIALS

Thursday night I contacted the HP family and told them they had thirty minutes or less to jam out a set number of words on LeBron. They attacked the challenge head on. These are the results of their efforts. -Ed

Rob Mahoney

Even after months of constant vilification, LeBron James still looks odd in black.

The NBA is filled to the brim with arrogance, showmanship, and greed. It’s a hype machine not reliant on fossil fuels, but powered by the purely renewable resource of human imagination. It’s easy to point to The Media as the source of all hype, the benefactor of the stars, the generator from which everything detestable to the average fan originates. After all, it has to come from somewhere, and it couldn’t possibly be from us…could it?

LeBron, The Decision, and the Miami Heat all inspire hatred, which most trace back to media oversaturation. I don’t see it. The most infuriating part of the summer’s free agent preparations and presentations was not the sheer volume of coverage, but our indisputable hunger for it. We claimed to want less, but sent a different message with our TV ratings and our click-throughs. We claimed to have be tired of LeBron, but turned him into a daily trending topic. We claimed to want other things — other free agent coverage, more Team USA analysis, more trade talk – and yet when the moment came, we shushed those around our television sets, scanned Twitter furiously, and mashed the refresh button in anticipation.

As much as we “hated” the summer of 2010, the free agent hoopla, and all of LeBron’s shtick, the most bothersome fact of all is that we refused to look away. We had that power all along, but we followed the saga through every update. As people, we knew that what LeBron was doing was childish and self-absorbed, but we were powerless to do anything but indulge him.

LeBron James is deeply flawed. But the reason why he’s struck such a chord with sports fans is that he reminds us that we are, too.

We are enablers. We are the justification. We know better, and should have refused the obsessive step-by-step coverage of LeBron’s decision. We didn’t, and in order to interpret our decision in a way that makes sense to us, we flip the script. Rather than be accountable for the fact that we chose to read and watch and consume information on every aspect of LeBron’s summer, it had to be LeBron. It had to be the media. It had to be anything other than an immature, preening star being an immature, preening star, on television, while we all elected to watch. The only agency involved was LRMR, and we had no will of our own. That has to be the case.

But what if it’s not? What should we do? Should we admit that we’ve made mistakes?

Zach Harper

First impressions after LeBron James’ first two games with the Miami Heat?

Work in progress.

While that seems like a very basic analysis of a 1-1 record by the Heat in which they’ve completely overhauled their roster from something out of a NBA superstar’s nightmare to a coach’s fantasy, it permeates throughout every aspect of the way this team has played so far.

This team has started out very slowly in its two games against Atlantic Division foes so far and the reason for that is the lack of continuity this roster has with one another. For the most part, it should be expected because they haven’t been together in a meaningful setting at all. But the blame and vitriol will immediately go to LeBro James for the way he’s performed in these two games.

It’s been quite the mixed bag for LeBron with his 31-point effort that included a flurry of long jumpers to bring the Heat within tying distance against the Celtics in a game that looked to be a laugher for Decision critics early on. He led his team to just 30 points in the first half and managed to be down by 20 points very quickly. His defense has been suspect as well. While his isolation defense is still very good, his ability to close out on shooters and actually challenge shots on defensive rotations leaves a lot to be desired.

He’s also been forcing the ball like crazy. 17 turnovers in two games is an alarming number at any level of basketball. Some of that is bad timing with his teammates. But for the most part it’s just him forcing things that aren’t there. He’s trying to bully his defenders and instead ends up playing out of control basketball. This might have to do with the fact that it’s been about a half decade since he played the point guard position. Carlos Arroyo is out on the court to make the lineups look pretty and organized but LeBron has been the facilitator of this team thus far.

The solution is undoubtedly to set him up for easier decisions and give the Heat some much-needed offensive organization. LeBron has essentially been thrust into an All-Star game system in which isolations and trying to make your own magic happen rules the possession. He is not thriving in this when he has to face a defense that actually gives a damn. It’s on Erik Spoelstra to make LeBron’s job easy and give him less responsibility while having more of a role.

Maybe that means he goes into the post a lot more than even what we’ve seen early on. Running the ball through a posted LeBron like an oversized Mark Jackson could be the simplest way to cut down his turnovers and maximize the usage he is exhibiting on the court. LeBron is clearly feeling some pressure from the expectations. It’s the only reason to explain the fact that he had 10 games of eight or more turnovers in seven years with the Cavaliers and has already had two in his first two contests with the Miami Heat.

It’s safe to say he’s handling having to do less in the offense pretty poorly. With fewer responsibilities, he’s trying to make more happen and that’s a recipe for bad execution.

I don’t expect LeBron to do this all season of course. He’d end up shattering the season turnover record of 366 by more than 300 turnovers.

It’s just going to be a mixed bag of highlights and forceful play until he settles down and realizes that less is more or more is less or 1-on-5 basketball is no longer necessary.

Graydon Gordian

Initially, LeBron James seemed to be more than another NBA celebrity, or even era-defining superstar. He appeared to be a palpable step forward. Not a step forward on the court, although of course his unique physical talents suggested that he may have been that when he first came to the public’s attention.

He was a step forward in terms of how he understood his own celebrity. He was conscious, and conscientious. He was everything to everyone: Somehow both humble and theatrical; yeoman-like and flamboyant; a hometown hero with big city swagger.

It’s not that professional athletes, and more specifically NBA players, haven’t had complex, somewhat paradoxical public personas in the past. But they never manufactured that complexity – that subtlety – so consciously and so thoroughly.

When looking for the historical precedents of a phenomena, it’s possible to always look farther and farther back. To see the revolution as not only inspired by the uprising immediately preceding it, but as an outgrowth of the public unrest that preceded that.

Personally, I see Magic Johnson and Larry Bird as the origin of modern NBA celebrity. Obviously there were famous athletes before them, but it was Bird and Magic who most boldly explored – consciously or unconsciously – the interrelationship between advertising, media and the game of basketball.

It was Magic who first said, if I smile incessantly, I can be all things to all people. It was Bird who first said, if I shrug my shoulders and say “aww shucks” in an Indiana accent, I can disguise the pit bull that I am on the floor.

Jordan was the next evolution in this chain, combining Magic’s charisma with Bird’s need to obfuscate the vicious style of his play. That’s not to say Bird or Jordan were cheap or dirty players. They were just arrogant and mean-spirited, and absolutely brilliant.

However, by smiling over and over again alongside a Big Mac or a pair of shoes or a pack of underwear, Jordan not only convinced us he wasn’t an asshole. He convinced us he was Magic. He played basketball with cartoon characters and flailed around in a grass skirt with overweight sketch comedians. The distance between Jordan the man and Jordan the brand was so great that it appeared there was no distance at all.

In the wake of this unprecedented transformation, Kobe Bryant entered the scene. For years, he seemed to be on the same steady path that his forebears had laid out for him. But his inability to shake the “selfish” label, combined with an act of indiscretion in Eagle, Colorado, derailed his stardom, at least until he finally won his fourth title. But then again, maybe the post-Jordan malaise was never meant to have a star.

At first, it seemed that LeBron had learned from Kobe’s mistakes. There were no press conferences with sunglasses, or rumors of infighting with his team’s other superstar, although that person’s non-existence helped some. There was just a perfectly manicured image.

It actually started to fall apart long before The Decision. I remember the exact moment LeBron exposed his chink in the armor. It was at the end of Game 6 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals. The Cleveland Cavaliers had just lost the series 4-2 to the Orlando Magic, and instead of congratulating the victors, LeBron stormed off the court.

All things considered, it wasn’t a severe offense. I’ve seen several players do the same thing, including the much-revered Tim Duncan at the end of the first round of the 2009 playoffs. But given how much we had come to expect from LeBron, how flawless the whole production had been up until that point, the whole world noticed.

Noam Schiller

One of Lebron James’ biggest supposed adjustments this season is supposed to be playing Magic instead of playing Jordan. After years of being not only the best guy on his team (he’ll be that on all teams) but the only decent guy on his team, he suddenly has to share the spot light with two all world guys. While the general theme of thinking is that Lebron prefers to be the distributor over the scorer, this is very much speculation, as none of us possess the ability to read Lebron’s mind (and if you do and you’re not sharing what happened in Game 5 against Boston, shame on you).

All of this has been pretty much played out in every outlet possible, so I won’t overwhelm you with unnecessary details. Just know that Wade+Bosh>all Cavaliers from 2003 onward and let’s move on.

What really interests me, though, isn’t how Lebron will learn to play with Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade (though that’s obviously interesting in and of it’s own) – it’s for him to truly learn how to play with himself (that came out all kinds of wrong). Because for all of his pedigree – best basketball player alive and all that – he still has an abundance of untapped talent.

The still raw post game. The mediocre-at-times outside shooting. The still questionable decision making, such as opting for jab step jumpers over thunderous penetrations, or overplaying his passing game (seriously, Lebron, just because you’re the only human being alive that can successfully convert a full court pass while you’re in the air doesn’t mean you can’t just make a simple bounce pass).

To me, Mike Brown’s biggest sin wasn’t leaving Shaq on the floor instead of J.J. Hickson, or Larry Hughes instead of Daniel Gibson, or insisting that Ben Wallace guards Rashard Lewis. It was the inexplicable resistence to make Lebron James a better basketball player. Brown instilled a commitment to defense in James for the 2008-2009 season… and that’s kind of it. All other Lebronian progress seemed detached from his coach – again, to these eyes.

And that, to me, is Miami’s greatest challenge (title reference!). Sure, they could win 7 straight titles. They could give us unlimited highlights and the type of defense that we haven’t seen since the last time the league’s best 2 and the league’s best 3 played together. And all of that could be absolutely awesome to watch, even if you’re not a Heat fan.

But as someone who constantly ponders players maximizing their potential, and who laments those who don’t (pours one out for Andray Blatche), turning Lebron into LEBRON could be the greatest achievement ever. Talent wise, this is a kid – still a kid – who can be the best ever. He can. Jordan was Jordan, and we all appreciate him for that, but he was not a faster Karl Malone with the court vision of John Stockton. Nobody was ever born with this raw talent, save for maybe Wilt. By villanizing James, Miami owes us this much. Make him all that he can be, because we’ve never seen anything like it before, and we deserve it.

Your 2010-2011 Hardwood Paroxysm Season Predictions Post: Where We Look Like Morons In Seven Months. Again.

October 26, 2010 in by with 4 Comments

Well it’s that time of year, kiddos. Autumn is in full swing, Halloween’s bursting at the door, and the NBA is ready to kick off its most exciting season in ages… before it goes completely silent while two sides who are both wrong figure out an agreement neither side will be satisfied with. Awesome. Anyway, big slate o’ games tonight and we’ll have piece from each one. But for posterity’s sake, thought we’d put our predictions in print.

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

Rob Mahoney:

Division Winners:
Northwest: OKC
Southwest: Dallas
Pacific: L.A. Lakers
Central: Chicago
Atlantic: Boston
Southeast: Miami

1. Lakers
2. Mavericks
3. Thunder
4. Spurs
5. Blazers
6. Rockets
7. Jazz
8. Grizzlies

Lakers over Grizzlies
Mavericks over Jazz
Thunder over Rockets
Blazers over Spurs

Lakers over Blazers
Mavericks over Thunder

Lakers over Mavericks

1. Heat
2. Magic
3. Celtics
4. Bulls
5. Bucks
6. Hawks
7. Bobcats
8. Knicks

Heat over Knicks
Magic over Bobcats (Again? Sigh.)
Celtics over Hawks
Bucks over Bulls

Heat over Bucks
Magic over Celtics

Heat over Magic

Heat over Lakers

Three random predictions that will probably be wrong:

  1. Greg Oden will come back from injury with a very specific vengeance, and literally ask Matt Moore to “Tell [him] how [his] patella taste.” Not quite All-Star caliber, but Oden will be effective defensively and put up quasi-All-Star numbers.
  2. Everyone will ooh and ahh over Kevin Durant all season long, and he’ll win the MVP award despite Dwight Howard, LeBron James, and probably Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul posting superior overall seasons.
  3. Jawad Williams will be your least favorite member of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who might be your least favorite team to watch. By that, I mean that of all the Cavaliers that you don’t really care about, you don’t care about Jawad the most.

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

Zach Harper:

Division Winners:
Atlantic: Boston
Central: Milwaukee
Southeast: Miami
Pacific: L.A. Lakers
Northwest: OKC
Southwest: Dallas

West playoffs:
Lakers vs Suns
Mavs vs Spurs
Rockets vs Blazers
Thunder vs Jazz

East playoffs:
Heat vs Bobcats
Magic vs Knicks
Celtics vs Hawks
Bucks vs Bulls

Lakers over Rockets in WCF
Heat over Celtics in ECF

Heat over Lakers in Finals

Three random predictions that will probably be wrong:

  1. Greg Oden plays over 55 games (Double-layer cake or nothing!)
  2. LeBron wins Defensive Player of the Year
  3. Matt Moore shatters his own record of Twitter fights with Lakers fans per 36-Minutes

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

Noam Schiller

Division Winners:
Southeast: Miami
Atlantic: Boston
Central: Milwaukee
Pacific: L.A. Lakers
Northwest: Utah
Southwest: San Antonio

Lakers over Rockets
Spurs over Suns
Jazz over Mavs
Blazers over Thunder

Lakers over Blazers
Spurs over Jazz

Lakers over Jazz

Heat over Pacers
Magic over Knicks
Celtics over Hawks
Bucks over Bulls

Heat over Bucks
Magic over Celtics

Heat over Magic

Heat over Lakers.
Three random predictions that will probably be wrong:

  1. Tyreke Evans will average 25-5-7, make the all-star game, and will be touted by Bill Simmons as this league’s best young point guard.
  2. Around January, Josh Smith will demand a bigger role in the offense, and will either get traded or get his wish.
  3. Tony Allen will win DPOY. No, wait, that’s Sheridan’s thing. So… either Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner will lead the Sixers in rebounding

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

Graydon Gordian:

Division Winners:
Pacific: L.A. Lakers
Northwest: Thunder
Southwest: Spurs
Atlantic: Boston
Central: Chicago
Southeast: Miami

1. Lakers
2. Spurs
3. Thunder
4. Mavericks
5. Rockets
6. Blazers
7. Jazz
8. Grizzlies

Lakers over Grizzlies
Spurs over Jazz
Thunder over Blazers
Mavericks over Rockets

Thunder over Spurs
Lakers over Mavericks

Lakers over Thunder

1. Heat
2. Magic
3. Bulls
4. Boston
5. Hawks
6. Bucks
7. Bobcats
8. Knicks

Heat over Knicks
Magic over Bobcats
Bucks over Bulls
Celtics over Hawks

Heat over Celtics
Magic over Bucks

Heat over Magic

Heat over Lakers

Three random predictions that will probably be wrong:

  1. The East wins the All-Star game.
  2. The Spurs win the Shooting Stars Competition.
  3. John Wall wins the skills competition.

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

Jared Wade:

Celtics
Bulls
Heat

Lakers
Thunder
Mavs

Heat over Cs in ECF
Lakers over Spurs in WCF

Heat over Lakers in Finals

Three random predictions that will probably be wrong:

  1. LeBron wins the MVP
.
  2. Andres Nocioni is exposed for running an illegal dolphin fighting ring
.
  3. Rob Mahoney once again murders double-digit Mexican migrant workers during an NBA season without getting caught — the “Refried Threepeat,” he will later term his 2010-11 “season” in his tell-all, confessional biography written from prison to finance his failed legal defense.

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

Matt Moore:

Division Winners:
Atlantic: Celtics
Southeast: Magic
Central: Bulls
Pacific: Lakers
Southwest: Mavericks
Northwest: Thunder

1. Magic
2. Heat
3. Celtics
4. Bulls
5. Bucks
6. Hawks
7. Knicks
8.  Bobcats

Magic over Bobcats
Heat over Knicks
Celtics over Hawks (NOTE: I feel horrible about this and literally spent fifteen minutes fretting over it. Nothing sets itself up more for the series that gets hyper-competitive while everyone in the blogosphere goes “Wait, what?!”)
Bucks over Bulls

Magic over Bucks
Heat over Celtics

Heat over Magic

1. Mavericks
2. Spurs
3. Lakers (They coast for the first month and last two months of the year.)
4. Thunder
5. Jazz
6.  Rockets
7. Blazers
8. Hornets

Mavericks over Hornets
Blazers over Spurs
Lakers over Rockets
Thunder over Jazz

Mavericks over Thunder
Lakers over Blazers

Lakers over Mavericks

Yes, Lakers over Heat. I know. Original.

Three random predictions that will probably be wrong:

  1. John Wall is Rookie of the Year, and it’s not close.
  2. O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay start to have serious issues over usage.
  3. Dwight Howard averages over 35 points a game versus the Heat this season.

The Boundary and Nexus with Noam Schiller: Positional Revolution, Noam Style

October 21, 2010 in by with 5 Comments

Noam Schiller is the author of and a contributing writer for Cowbell Kingdom and Both Teams Played Hard. Today his new column for Hardwood Paroxysm debuts as he seeks to explore those concepts which stretch the traditional limits of the game, its players, and the league. We are, of course, thrilled to have Noam on board as a regular contributor to HP. Please remove your shoes and walk with Noam to the Boundary and Nexus. -Ed.

First: An Introduction, Of Sorts:

If there is one thing that people absolutely despise, it is the idea of conformism.

Walk up to an ape-descendant and tell him that the intricate folds of his mind are identical to that of his ape-descendant brethren, and the reaction might make you drop the word “descendant” all together. It’s an infuriating concept, the thought that you, special being as you are, think just like everybody else. We want to believe we are different, that each and every one of us is free – if not physically, than mentally and spiritually. Wars have been fought and countries have risen from the blood and the ashes just to support the notion that no, I am me and you are you and we’re all awesome in multiple ways which we can’t understand. Except for Serge Ibaka, who is awesome in ways we all very easily understand and cherish.

The funny part is that by fighting against conformism, in tattooing the morals of individuality on our bodies and souls, and touting the anti-conformistic movement, we unintentionally turn the tables. Anti-conformism becomes the property of the masses, thus sneakily removing the need for the “anti” prefix that we so gladly boast. Conformism wins again, except that in doing so, it makes us feel victorious. Sneaky little movement, indeed. Revolutionists become yes men, outside the box is just the inside of a bigger, less discernible box (I got you now, Stephon Marbury!), and opening paragraphs become long and incoherent.

Of course, you’re not reading this because you’re brushing up on your ability to analyze social phenomena. There’s a reason why this site’s official twitter account is @HPbasketball and not @HPphilosophy. And in the NBA, unlike in the field of human behavior, conformism is pretty well received. You build teams, coach them, and win with them in a very certain way. And while there are outliers to the rules – as there are everywhere – the conventional wisdom chooses to ignore them, constantly reminding us that guys like pre-meltdown Don Nelson and Mike D’Antoni are fun to watch, but ultimately doomed to be unsuccessful.

Conventional wisdom is wrong.

Which is why I will be stopping by here every now and then to point out exactly where conventional wisdom is wrong, whether the gap between said perception and actual reality is being properly utilized, and how it can be blasted open to make the world a better place. Because even if dispatching well established beliefs is hard, there is always room for innovation and development.

Just remember, though – whether or not any of my “solutions” are applicable matters less than the actual message: in a game played by some of the world’s most versatile athletes, and taught by some of the world’s most versatile minds, there is absolutely no reason to stick one’s head in the sand and walk the same course that’s been walked for years just for the hell of it.
And hey, worst case scenario, you just won yourself a free Monty Python clip.

Positional Revolution, Noam Style:

If you ignore Lebron James, Chris Bosh, Amar’e Stoudemire, Carlos Boozer and David Lee signing free agent deals on new teams, Dwyane Wade, Joe Johnson and Rudy Gay re-upping with their old pals, Kevin Durant’s complete Durantulization of the FIBA World Championship, John Wall going first in the draft, David Kahn screwing up everything, Shaq going green, the Anthony Tolliver sweepstakes… basically, if you ignore everything but the NBA blogosphere, and most of the blogosphere itself, one might be inclined to call this the summer of the positional revolution.

Though the subject has been surfacing for quite a while now, the weak dam which was struggling to hold in the gushing waters of positional overthrow as is was blasted open by Drew Cannon of Basketball Prospectus, with his fantastic take on the subject. It was then revisited and revised multiple times throughout NBA cyberspace, including by HP’s very own Rob Mahoney (via The Two Man Game), and on this site by stats whiz Tom Haberstroh, whose name I managed to spell without checking. I heartily recommend you carefully read each and every take on this subject, as it is truly a riveting discussion, with great minds contributing their very valuable thoughts to it.

However, in the spirit of Boundary and Nexus, allow me to rewind even before Drew’s original post, to try and understand just how we arrived at inadequate positional definitions in the first place. Just empty your mind for a few seconds, forget everything you know about combo forwards and tweener shooting guards, and ask yourself why positions are even here.

This question doesn’t get asked nearly enough. In fact, I don’t think it gets asked at all. Every single time the ball goes up, we have 10 positions on the court, just as we have two hoops, three refs, and four lines which determine the court’s dimensions. But those things are part of the rules. Without them, the means available towards achieving the game’s objective would be murky and unclear. There would be no order.

How do positions instill order in the game? If I call Chris Paul a center, or if I call Andrew Bogut a ham sandwich, is the game played any differently? Will Bogut now be limited to guarding opposing unkosher delicatessen, or can he still matchup against other big men without the constant fear of being digested?

In and of their own, positions have absolutely no effect on gameplay. None. They are but names, artificial slots through which watching the game is easier, via some sort of generalization of roles. A point guard handles the ball, creates for his teammates, is the shortest guy on the court and guards the opposing player who fits the same description. Why? Just cuz. Don’t question it, go with the flow.

If you would be so kind as to tolerate a few sentences of two bit sports psychology, I believe that this is the reason why small ball resounds as basketball in its most purely chaotic form. In four seasons with Steve Nash and under Mike D’Antoni, the Phoenix Suns finished with the league’s 3rd, 2nd, 4th and 16th (this isn’t really what we’re discussing, but if you forgot what year it was when Shaq joined the Suns, this stat is a good place to start) best turnover ratios. The Golden State Warriors, widely considered the representative of anarchy in the NBA’s congress, haven’t dropped out of the top 13 in turnover ratio since 2002-2003.

Because those teams played smaller and faster then common sense dictates, though, our convention-tinted glasses show us a game trending towards the random, caution thrown in to the wind with no regard for consequence. Part of this is the illusion of pace – more possessions cause more turnovers regardless of how the teams execute those possessions – but even when looking at turnovers per game, the Warriors were 19th in the league last season, clearly sub-par, but not nearly as bad as their reputation would suggest. The Suns finished 7th, 3rd and 9th in the first 3 SSOL years. And yet, the stereotype remains.

Now, clearly there is much more to an organized game than turnovers. I’m not here to try and tell you that last year’s Warriors weren’t a complete and total mess. However, this is a phenomena worth mentioning: positions help organize the game in our heads, with us being fans, media, analyzers, and yes, even coaches. As far as the actual game, though, they are nothing but names. It’s not a coincidence that they derive their names from the numbers 1 through 5 – those numbers are the easiest labels possible for something that is, at the core of the matter, just a label.

This also shows in the actual names given to the positions. The name “guard” gives one the association of a player focused entirely on defense. Tell that to Mo Williams. “Forward” makes you think of an offensive player. Somehow, the memo slipped by Luc Richard Mbah a Moute. And sure, in the classic version of the game, the center is the one who plays in the middle, but I think we all know what happens when you put Channing Frye on the court.

I believe that a major contributor to this disparity is the build of basketball itself. Among the definitions of “position” on the online Merriam-Webster dictionary are the following:

1. an act of placing or arranging: as a : the laying down of a proposition or thesis b : an arranging in order;

2. a : the point or area occupied by a physical object;

3. a : relative place, situation, or standing;

In other sports, this makes for a very intuitive definition of positions. Baseball’s first baseman stands on first base. The wide receiver goes wide, and receives. Soccer’s defensive midfielder plays in the middle of the field, while focusing more on defensive assignments. Positions are not only defined by where the athlete is placed on the field and what they do there, but derive their names from it. Everybody fits into a very certain mold, with special players being able to play multiple positions – but never transcending them.

Basketball is very different in this regard. First and foremost, the court is much smaller, which means that every player arrives at every single spot on the court at some point or another. We are thus deprived of the most dominant characteristic for naming positions. You’ll never call a player a “left baseliner” or a “right free-throw-line-extendeder”, even if it’s a player who tends to drift towards those spots on the court, because it’s absolutely ridiculous.

Also excluding basketball from other sports is the increased mobility. All ten players are (at least theoretically) involved in both offense and defense. Points are given in different portions for baskets made from different areas of the court. The ideal basketball player isn’t one who is outstanding at a few categories, but the best at everything. And if he does everything and is good at everything, how can his position be named after what it is that he does?

Denied the chance of defining positions in a manner similar to other sports, basketball positions are usually a function of size and skill. The first part makes some sense – in no other game is a player’s frame so critical, because in no other game do you have the objective of placing round spheres in tall places.

The skill part, though, is a problem. There are so many different things one needs from a basketball player – ball handling, the ability to create for both his teammates and himself, rebounding, outside shooting, inside shooting, mid-range shooting, height on defense, speed on defense, awareness on defense, and not being Adam Morrison, to name a few. As any statistician will tell you, when you have so many traits, there are infinite possible combinations of these traits to put together in a player. Ignoring almost all of these combinations to create 5 “positions” leaves one with very few traditional basketball players.

Then you add the height as well. Conventional wisdom says that players of certain height do certain things. Well, what if they don’t? What if you had a 7 footer with Derrick Rose’s lightning speed, Steve Nash’s ball handling skills, Lebron James’ court vision, Anthony Morrow’s outside shooting, and Al Jefferson’s post game? What position would he be?

And yet, despite myriad evidence that it makes no sense, we insist on defining positions by skill set. This league is full of point guards who don’t get points, shooting guards who can’t shoot, small forwards who are big, power forwards who are weak, and centers that consistently stay in the outskirts of the court. Tweeners, exceptions, oddities – call them what you want, but they are a dominant part of this game, at times even the best the game has to offer. Forcing them into this predetermined mold makes no sense. If Evan Turner isn’t enough of a shooter to play next to Andre Iguodala at the 2, than he isn’t enough of a shooter to play next to Andre Iguodala anywhere.

Cannon’s brilliant piece delved into the skill set subject at great length. Cannon categorizes players not by traditional position, but separately on offense and defense, with offense being what I called “skill set” and defense being predicated on size. Using this system, teams need not to have a 1, a 2, etc., what they need is an ensemble of players that can guard all sizes, and whose skills on offense complement each other to the point of capably scoring. Much more descriptive than the traditional build, since it actually describes what it is players do. Sounds like such a basic premise, but amazingly, it has been ignored so far.

However, this system is still far from flawless. The offensive positions (handler, creator, scorer, rebounder) are still way too general, and apart from the separation between the two ends of the court, the defensive look is still very close to the traditional one. As Tom Ziller eloquently countered:

“If Rodrigue Beaubois is a “D1″ — meaning he guards point guards despite often playing shooting guard next to Jason Kidd or J.J. Barea — then you’re assuming there are “1s” for him to guard, which is just the type of assumption the Positional Revolution aims to destroy.”

As Ziller says, the D1 through D5 premise is yet again predicated on defining players by both skill set and height. Cannon’s method plots his defensive positions on a “size-speed” scale, but matching up with an opponent’s size and speed isn’t always the best way to guard him. A prime example here is a player who has been breaking positional templates for over a decade now in Dirk Nowitzki. On paper, Cannon’s method would have Dirk guarded by a D4. However, historically, Dirk has had the most trouble playing against tenacious yet undersized defenders, such as Bruce Bowen and Stephen Jackson (by the way, it’s no coincidence that so many of these examples come straight from the mind of Don Nelson), who would be cast as D2/D3 types.

The question which has to be asked here – is there really such a thing as defensive position? Isn’t that side of the court completely matchup based anyway? Think how often you’ve heard concerns that a player can guard big point guards, but not quick ones, or perimeter big men, but not post up guys. And even that doesn’t go deep enough, because within these lines you then need to distinguish between high volume shot blockers, top notch stealers, or those who are adept at drawing charges. If we truly categorize defenders by who they can check and how they can do it, we’ll end up with too many positions to keep track of. Such a system has no value.

Which leads me to my own, personal basketball experiences. As a player in high school, we had positions 1 through 5. However, these positions had very little to do with what we could actually do. Sure, the 1 usually handled the ball and the 5 was usually the tallest, but I played every position from 1 to 4 despite being one of the shortest guys on the team. The value of the positions had nothing to do with what every player could do on the court, but in defining where players stood within the offense, and in running plays. Much like I mentioned earlier – they were merely an organizational tool. On defense, they were ignored completely – each player checked somebody from the other team, and if the matchup was bad, we switched.

Taking things even further away from the NBA, just for the sake of the argument, think of pick-up basketball. If you show up on an asphalt court and call “I’ve got small forward!”, you probably won’t be permitted to play. But what separates pick-up ball from professional ball (apart from the obviously heightened level of play)? Coaching. Order. A hierarchy that goes past “give me the ball because I’m the loudest”.

I’m very much on board with the positional revolution, because it maximizes assets much better than tradition. The five established positions offer some wiggle room, but not enough to encompass players of all kinds and types. As such, it is more than likely that every team in the league has multiple “unorthodox” players on their roster. If they are utilized in an unorthodox way as well, their abilities can be utilized to the fullest. But if you take a Tyreke Evans and tell him he has to focus only on creating for his teammates, or take a Dirk Nowitzki and deny him the chance to play outside of the post, you’re missing out.

The value of the positional revolution isn’t the creation of new positions. It’s in dropping the positional system entirely. No more this guy versus that guy, just 5 on 5. Sure, it’s much easier to offer analysis when all it includes is a number from 1 to 5. But we mustn’t allow our laziness as fans to get in the way of properly understanding the game. On the verge of a season where a team without a traditional point guard or a traditional center might play basketball of unprecedented quality, it may be time we realize that.