Shumpert is already back and playing at a really high level.

How do you define that, other than the fact that simply playing in the NBA is playing at a really high level? It looks like Shumpert has been kinda awful since his return: 7 PER, .015 WS/48, and the team has been a lot worse with him on the floor. The Knicks with Shumpert are -6 points per 100 possessions, compared to +4 overall. Maybe Rose's camp has seen how Shumpert's been struggling and how it took Rubio about 6 weeks to get his form back, and they're worried that he might really underwhelm if he comes back now.

Shumpert stashed a cognitive dissonance machine in the rafters of MSG - it only works within a 50 mile radius, though.

I would classify myself as a "Kobe-Hater" as far as a person can be a hater when I'd rank him somewhere in the top-20 NBA players of all-time. That said, the fact that he's posting his career high in shooting percentage in his age-34 season while leading the league in field goal attempts in remarkable. The guy has a million miles on him and he just keeps going. It's pretty amazing especially when you consider the style he plays.

I got to watch the LAL-OKC game the other night. Kobe was suffering through an arm stinger that was making his fingers tingle and go numb every time he snapped his elbow to shoot. He left the game a couple times because of it. The two things that impressed me were him coming back into the game with the stinger and shooting some nothing-but-net free throws that must have hurt. And also doing so much ball-handling with his left hand, and still being effective.

I started with an irrational dislike for Kobe, but seeing his comments to the press, his durability, his playing (effectively!) through pain, and his adaptability in his 30s really impresses me.

I could easily see him playing until around age 40, and being effective for a team in more limited roles at that point. Its interesting to judge Kobe's career when he's accomplished so much, but still has a lot of seasons ahead of him.

pont of clarification: 202 is not a knock on nj - just a comment on iman

I'll wait for (hopefully!) a full season of Iman Shumpert being healthy before evaluating him too much. Getting significantly injured your first year has to put a crimp in player development.

Houston at Golden State today is pretty big, if Houston win they pull even with GS, with the Lakers playing at home against the Raptors it seems a given that they're going to pull 1 game closer with one of them.

Jazz @ Chicago, ATl @ BOS seem to also be pretty interesting.

So listening and reading some more, there's actually quite a bit of people upset - I wouldn't say mad - at Rose now - a lot more than I thought when I posted earlier. Sounds like his personal doctor cleared him to play 2 or 3 weeks ago and said playing in games in the next step in his rehab. The only reason he isn't playing right now is totally on him. Which part of me understands; it's got to be hard for him to realize or accept he's never going to feel 100% until he's playing. The team planted this story, as a push, since they've been trying to get him on the court for weeks. So it doesn't sound like anyone - but him - thinks playing right now risks anything for future seasons. That's a tough spot for him, but purely as a fan it's hard to accept him sitting out much longer now. By all accounts, it's not a 2013 or 2014-2024 decision.

Now, no one has every questioned his desire or will to play before - and a lot of the success of the Bulls under Thibs has been because the whole team has been like that. Deng has put off wrist ligament surgery for 2 full seasons now because he doesn't want to miss any time (or miss the Olympics), Noah is constantly playing through foot problems, and Hinrich keeps coming back from his leprosy and hurting something else (7 totally different injuries this year). I can't help but wonder if this is affecting the team at all or contributed to their lackluster (results and effort) in February. But now that I know he medically should be playing, I'm anxious to see him again (and he was medically cleared when he said he might not play this year). He's not Bynum, but I hate questioning him at all.

http://www.thedreamshake.com/2013/3/8/4080344/patrick-beverleys-journey-to-the-nba

also, a very nice article on Patrick Beverly, who overcame much to make it to the NBA.

[208] Maybe they all should have had surgery this year, and grabbed a lottery pick.

Magic Johnson just suggested that Andrew Bogut is a bum defensively (when healthy). But then, it was already obvious he is a terrible analyst.

Well...if anyone's an authority on bad defense...

It must be really hard to be a Jazz fan right now.

Gotta say, not easy being a Laker fan right now, either.

[210] oh, plenty of fans did suggest that. They would have had to find a way to keep thibs away for the year for it to work.

The floor would be littered with the bones of replacement players Thibs ground into dust?

Laker defense is really, really bad. Trying to make the big 4th quarter push, and they've allowed baskets the last five times down the floor. Really not good.

Kobe Bryant's really just kind of impossible.

Well, if nothing else, the Jazz have been consistent on this road trip: 3 straight road games, 3 straight losses at the buzzer when they led in the final seconds. Let's see if they can go 4 for 4 tomorrow.

Maybe they need to adopt the Lakers gameplan - play like crap for 3 quarters, then go on a furious rally in the 4th to win anyway.

Just 7 and a half more months until the 2013-2014 seasons kicks off!

Something to think about: Miami has won 17 in a row and has 22 games remaining on their schedule. Pat Riley was a member of the 1972 Lakers team that won 33 in a row.

Kobe Bryant's numbers over the last two games:

14/21 FG 42 pts/12 ast/7 reb 7/8 FG in 4th qtr.
11/22 FG 41 pts/12 ast/6 reb game-tying 3 in regulation, game-winning dunk in OT

He has turned the ball over a lot, given some of it back on D, and it has been against lottery teams. But even with the caveats, for a guy at his age with his mileage, it is simply remarkable.

Kobe Bryant's really just kind of impossible.

That play at the end of OT is just the worst, stupidest defense I have ever seen. How the #### do you try to double a guy 45 ft from the hoop just to let him dribble straight to the basket for a dunk? With 10 secs left. Maybe I'm spoiled from watching a great defensive team, but I think the Grizzlies(Pacers, Spurs, etc) could play better defense than that with 3 guys on the court.

As a side note, Rudy Gay is doing the best job of anybody in selling the Memphis case for trading Rudy Gay. I though there was a chance that freeing him from Memphis's system might work out well for him, but so far, it appears to just be making his bad tendencies worse. Rudy Gay, Jumpshooter is a player who needs to take a breather for a while. He looks so damn natural taking an 18-footer, but the results do not reflect it. He's taking 8 shots a game from 16ft+ for Toronto and probably needs to be taking maybe 3 or 4.

That is actually really bumming me out. I like the guy, a lot. He was fun to root for and he's got a lot of talent. But the meme of "Rudy Gay can create his own shot" is seriously annoying because that is literally about the least useful thing that he can do on offense and it seems like he has totally bought into it as his main skill. Yes, Rudy Gay can go out and get about as many semi-clean looks from 18ft as he feels like, but he's gonna shoot 35% on them, so maybe he shouldn't. I am starting to think that Lionel Hollins may have done a better job of harnessing him into the Memphis offense than I thought.

That play at the end of OT is just the worst, stupidest defense I have ever seen.

I should note that this shouldn't detract from Kobe's play on this possession. I actually thought it was pretty slick of him to use the dumbass big coming to double to screen his own man and get to the hoop. But seriously though, there are 4 Raptors within 5 ft of Kobe when he dunks that and yet somehow he might as well have been in a layup line.

Just 7 and a half more months until the 2013-2014 seasons kicks off!

I think Utah's a fair bit better than GSW, if that's any consolation.

I think the 6-9 in the West end up as:

Houston: 45-37
LAL: 44-38
Utah: 42-40

I suppose it wasn't obvious, but my Shumpert line was a joke. He has been putrid and the Knicks were stupid to hold on to him if any of those deadline rumors were true.

Didn't pick up on that, sorry. My line, indeed, was really about those rumors and people's reactions to them as well.

Andrew Bogut + GSW jersy = ......

How the #### do you try to double a guy 45 ft from the hoop just to let him dribble straight to the basket for a dunk?

The Lakers' color guy, Stu Lantz, said more or less the same thing, bagging on Gray and on the Raptors, while also going orgasmic about #24. I got the feeling that a couple of the Raptors just sort of froze, and seemed to forget that they were playing and instead just watched. It was a weird play.

A lot of DeRozan's numbers came when Meeks was guarding him. As I said many weeks ago, the Lakers should have tried to pick up somebody who can play a little perimeter D, even if he were a DLeague guy who never scored a point.

is there any chance kobe wins mvp this year? i know he's not the best player, but after writers had written off the lakers, he's carried los angeles on his back.

glad mchale switched montejunas off of lee (2 fouls early) - that was ugly.

gonna be interesting to see how utah plays against the knicks tonight....

also, Rockets have 4... yes 4 games left against Phoenix.. who the hell make these schedules

is there any chance kobe wins mvp this year?

None. And rightly so. Impressive as it's been to see him turn around a team with so much turmoil and lead them to the playoffs at an age when most players are deep into their decline phase, how could you justify giving it to a player on a 45(ish) win team when LeBron and Durant have clearly better numbers and play for 60 game winners?

I'm thinking the 17+ game winning streak and 65 or so overall wins gives LBJ the award in a landslide. Durant will (and should) be a near unanimous 2nd.

gonna be interesting to see how utah plays against the knicks tonight....

I'm guessing they'll play just fine until the middle of the 4th, when their lack of playmakers will lead to several costly turnovers, their lack of defense will allow their opponent to hit big shots down the stretch, and their lack of a go-to guy will lead to their own game winning attempts falling short.

That pretty much sums up the Jazz's last two weeks in a nutshell.

I just rewatched the last five mintues of the 4th quarter and overtime from last night's Laker game. Man, that's good stuff.

I think the 6-9 in the West end up as:

Houston: 45-37
LAL: 44-38
Utah: 42-40

Wow that seems rough on whoever got their season vacated.

Wow that seems rough on whoever got their season vacated.

Yeah, I forgot to add GSW at 41-41

booey - i don't think he deserves it, but hey, rose won an mvp...kidd came in second a bunch of years back - and you've got andre dawson and jeff burroughs having trophies on their shelves. i think he'll definitely get sympathy votes.

the tough part with lebron winning mutiple mvps is if he returns to merely superstar level, and some inferior player 'leads' on a surprise team - well, lebron will be left out in the cold.

way back when everyone was praising mark jackson and how great the warriors 'were', i noticed their pythag was well below their actual record. would be kinda funny if they finished out of the playoffs, when you could make a case it's just reverting to the mean.

The Lakers, at absolute best, will be the 6th seed. Most predictions before the season had them top 2. No f'in way Kobe sniffs the MVP, no matter how much they've "overcome" or what have you or how great Kobe has been. If he finishes in the top 3, I'll be shocked.

I'm guessing they'll play just fine until the middle of the 4th, when their lack of playmakers will lead to several costly turnovers, their lack of defense will allow their opponent to hit big shots down the stretch, and their lack of a go-to guy will lead to their own game winning attempts falling short.

That pretty much sums up the Jazz's last two weeks in a nutshell.

Well at least they've switched things up tonight, right?

Woo hoo! Jazz did NOT lose at the buzzer for the 4th straight game!!!!

You know things have gone horribly wrong with your teams season when it's almost a relief to see them lose by 29.

booey - i don't think he deserves it, but hey, rose won an mvp...kidd came in second a bunch of years back

Rose won on a 60+ win 1st seed...Kidd's near win came as a 1st seed. If Kobe didn't win on a low seed in 2006 or 2007 when there were no clearly better candidates, then it's sure not gonna happen this year when there are.

Win totals have always meant as much to NBA MVP voters as individual stats have. Too lazy to look it up, but I'm pretty sure the lowest win total for an MVP in the 25 or so years I've been following the NBA has been Nash's 54 in 2006 (not counting lockout seasons, of course).

the tough part with lebron winning mutiple mvps is if he returns to merely superstar level, and some inferior player 'leads' on a surprise team - well, lebron will be left out in the cold.

You could argue that this already happened with Rose in 2011. But if the voters are bored voting for LeBron again and decide to look elsewhere this season, it'll be Durant they pick rather than Kobe. He's even got a good narrative himself since the Thunder haven't skipped a beat despite losing a top 10-15 guy in Harden.

If he finishes in the top 3, I'll be shocked.

Not that anybody really gives a shitt who finishes 3rd (or 2nd, actually) in most MVP votes, but if the Lakers finish strong, and he has a few more games like the last two, I think he could get 3rd. Paul's and Anthony's narratives have lost a little steam; Harden and the Rockets are still largely under the radar. Certainly Duncan might get 3rd. As I have pointed out a few times, MSM guys as a general rule give Bryant more credit than statheads do, just as Lakers fans give him more credit than people in opposing fanbases do, and Bryant has a pretty good narrative this year if the Lakers get in. It is the other guys who are seen as the disappointments, not him.

Not that anybody really gives a shitt who finishes 3rd (or 2nd, actually) in most MVP votes, but if the Lakers finish strong, and he has a few more games like the last two, I think he could get 3rd.

He might, but nobody other than Lebron is a serious contender for MVP in the Lebron Era. Kobe's reward for this season is solidifying his mainstream status as Second Greatest SG in NBA History and likely entry into the NBA All-Time Conventional Wisdom Top 10.

I'm really enjoying these "I'm no fan of Kobe Bryant, but..." posts.

You could make a not crazy argument for Durant

The suns are almost out of centers and are doing weird stuff with rotations - this means ... Haddadi time! Career high 28 min: 6 pts, 11 reb, 3 blk in a win over Houston

The Suns should play Haddadi 30 minutes a game for the rest of the year and see what happens. I mean, he had the higher PER on the Grizzlies during the playoffs last year.

That was always the funniest(read: saddest) thing about the Thabeet era in Memphis. They'd use Thabeet as their 2nd C and he sucked. Then every now and then Haddadi would get a little burn and you'd watch him and think, "Damn, I think this guy is better than the #2 pick." Like he's slower than hell, but he at least looks like he knows basketball-type things to do on a basketball court.

As an aside it is amazing to me that an NBA team can likely win 60+ playing Kendrick Perkins and Hasheem Thabeet 37 mins a game. I'm also mildly amazed that at least from the numbers, it looks like there is an argument that Thabeet should be the one playing 25 MPG and Perkins should be playing 10. Although really, should we play Perkins or Thabeet more is a question for which no correct answer exists. Either that or the correct answer is Nick Collison.

Damn it, what a debacle that was.

Important to remember that IIRC Utah has the tiebreaker with the Lakers.

WRT 243:

DK--let's hear the Durant argument. James right now IMO is about where Jordan was in the early 90s. As Phil Jackson said after the 1993 Finals, when they had given the MVP to Barkley: "Michael is the MVP. Everybody knows that."

245-

"What if the Memphis Grizzlies had taken James Harden with the #2 pick?" will be in the 2025 on-line only edition of TBOB.

I vote James. But...
Durant has a bigger gap between his PER and the guy he's guarding than does LeBron (per 82games), plays slightly more minutes, his team has about the same record as the Heat despite losing Harden, has tactical value in being better from the line than James, also superior outside shooter which helps OKC through opp. need to not give any space on perimeter.

246: Yeah, I fully expect to see that one day. The mild bright side from my perspective is that I think that it might have worked out worse if they'd taken Tyreke, who was the other main rumor around Memphis at the time, although I have no idea what the Grizz Draft Board looked like after Thabeet. Don't get me wrong, I think Tyreke is a much more talented basketball player than Thabeet, but I'm not sure that he is actually good enough to make a good team better. At least Thabeet was bad enough that they decided to cut bait on him pretty quick. It strikes me as plausible that it might be better to totally whiff on a pick than to only sort of miss.

That said, my assessment of Tyreke is pretty off-the-cuff and based on not much. It actually looks like he's having a pretty decent year this year, so maybe he would have been a much better pick too. Harden or Curry definitely would have been. Oh well. Marc Gasol turned out to be way more awesome than I would have thought in '09, as did Mike Conley for that matter. You win some, you lose some.

247: If I was going to make an argument for Durant, I'd also point out that his team has about the same record as the Heat despite playing in what appears to be a much tougher conference. I'd still vote Lebron though.

GS / Rockets / Utah all lose, Lakers now tied with Jazz.

The Rockets have an inexplicable inability to beat really terrible teams, they lost all their games againt the pickup basketball team from hell Kings too.

They seem to run the middle of the pack teams out of the gym all the time, but loses to great teams (not really a fault on them) and really terrible teams.