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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.
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.
Jazz @ Chicago, ATl @ BOS seem to also be pretty interesting.
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.
also, a very nice article on Patrick Beverly, who overcame much to make it to the NBA.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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....
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.
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.
Wow that seems rough on whoever got their season vacated.
Yeah, I forgot to add GSW at 41-41
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.
Well at least they've switched things up tonight, right?
You know things have gone horribly wrong with your teams season when it's almost a relief to see them lose by 29.
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).
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.
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.
I'm really enjoying these "I'm no fan of Kobe Bryant, but..." posts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Rockets have an inexplicable inability to beat really terrible teams, they lost all their games againt the
pickup basketball team from hellKings 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.
In other Laker news, Pau Gasol is slated for a late March/early April return. 20 quality minutes a game from Gasol would dramatically upgrade the bench contributes the Lakers have been getting.
LeBron regularly guards whoever the other team's best player is/whoever MIA can't guard that night. Durant does not have the same level of responsibility.
plays slightly more minutes,
True
his team has about the same record as the Heat despite losing Harden,
True
has tactical value in being better from the line than James,
True. Also has the added value of getting a lot more calls than James.
also superior outside shooter which helps OKC through opp. need to not give any space on perimeter.
Not true if you parse out assisted/unassisted shooting.
Is it really a good idea to play just 8 guys when your team is like the 2nd oldest team in the league? Though it is understandable from the Laker's POV where they're threating every game as must win, still....
When your 9-12 are Devin Ebanks, Robert Sacre, Darius Morris and Chris Duhon, probably.
Why would the Lakers wait until Gasol is healthy to fire D'antoni?
(Except for the fact that Patterson's playing better than Houston's current mess at the 4. not like that helps the King in anyway, nor is Houston that much more likely to miss the playoffs because of it.)
Chris Anderson really has been a nice addition for them. Miami has only lost one game with him on the roster. He's a good rebounder, has got enough size to guard some of the bigger centers, and is active defensively.
Got to say that was a pretty good way to handle the general amusement that the Twitterverse was having at his expense.
Also, while I was joking about him being brave earlier, I am actually impressed with him for contesting that. I mean, in retrospect, I guess it would have been better for him to let it go, since all he accomplished was getting on a poster and giving an and-1, but ####, at least he tried. He gets to be on a poster for whatever in the hell Greg Monroe and/or Charlie Villanueva were doing on that play. They ought to buy him dinner for hanging him out to dry so bad.
This obviously is the most important point and I totally agree, so I should just stop here. But...
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.
Paul and Anthony's team will both finish with better records than the Lakers - almost no one predicted that before the year. Parker was another candidate for 3rd/4th before his injury; depending on what the Spurs do while he's out might help him stay there. Even with the MSM credit, Kobe's only finished in the top 3 four times outside of the year he won; impressive, but still it's not exactly like he gets a voting bump for being Kobe. Maybe it's just because I've never been as down on the Lakers as others*, but Kobe dragging the Lakers to a 7th or 8th seed still rings a bit hollow as a narrative for me; now say he were putting on these careers numbers and the rest of the team wasn't shitting the bed, then yes, I say that narrative gets him more votes.
*In fact, I said it would be Utah giving up the playoff spot to them. So while it happened maybe a bit quicker than I expected, I'm not surprised. I have a feeling there are others (perhaps in the MSM) that feel the same way.
----
Not that I don't believe him, but I don't think it's a coincidence the first time we hear about this is right after the Bulls leak he's ready to play. He hasn't talked much, but he's only talked about his knee and problems with that before.
Chris Anderson really has been a nice addition for them. Miami has only lost one game with him on the roster. He's a good rebounder, has got enough size to guard some of the bigger centers, and is active defensively.
He's been everything the Heat have wanted Haslem and Anthony to be the last couple of years. He's an amazing fit on that team.
When they signed him, I had a "now, it begins!" vibe - though I've certainly been guilty of overrating Andersen's potential impact before.
Perhaps. On the other hand, he is 34, in his 17th year, and is "better than ever." Howard has played at about 70% or less most of the year and has missed some time (seems to be doing a bit better now), Nash has missed 24 games, Gasol has missed 28 games and is still out. The Lakers' roster beyond those four guys is very weak.
Anthony is hurting some now; Paul has missed a few games. Parker is out. Bryant, OTOH, although he is much older than all of these guys, has played every scheduled game and is leading the NBA in minutes played.
Personally, my ballot would be James/Durant/Paul 1/2/3, but I do not it would be "shocking" if Bryant got as high as 3rd depending on how things go the rest of the way.
and what player shouldn't be suspicious of team doctors? as a group their credibility is questionable at best
good for rose in putting common sense and restraint ahead of 'looking tough'
Not a subject I'd normally get into but... a bit of basketball culture I've never gotten (like, on a level that resonated with me) is players' reluctance to be dunked on. Everybody gets dunked on. A lot. If stopping one basket puts me on multiple posters as a victim, sign me up. Far from emasculating or whatever, I'm showing that I can take lumps, I'm going to fight for my team.
Rose: I don't know what's going on there, nor am I sure that Rose is "putting common sense and restraint ahead of 'looking tough'" (or not). What. A. Mess.
Agree with your point, but it's actually Rose's personal doctor that has cleared him to play. His doctor told him playing is the next step in his rehab; that was weeks ago now. That's the only reason it's a story.
Bryant, OTOH, although he is much older than all of these guys, has played every scheduled game and is leading the NBA in minutes played.
Him leading the league in minutes is by far the amazing thing to me.
I don't know who I'd have third - Bryant hasn't played himself out of that possibility.
I'm talking more from a prediction side, not a deserve side. Kobe very well may be the 3rd most valuable player this year, I'll just be shocked if the voters agree.
Me too. He's gotten a lot of credit for keeping them afloat.
This seems much more like myth than fact to me. I've watched a lot of Heat games, and I don't think that's how their defense operates aside from some playoff 4th quarters and occasionally the final possession or two when it's close in the regular season. Whenever Battier is on the court, the Heat tend to give Battier the tougher assignment. Otherwise they go straight by position unless Ray Allen can be hidden somewhere else. Certainly LeBron has the ability to be an incredible, versatile individual defender, but they don't use him like that until they feel like it's absolutely necessary.
If you look at variants of APM, LeBron is #1 with a bullet.
Fair enough. The Thunder certainly use Thabo and Ibaka to take defensive pressure off Durant more than the Heat use Battier to that end.
ok
still find with the guy's decision. now if next season comes and he's still gunshy then people can pile on
(skit-skat-voo-dee-lee-vat toot-en-de-hay!)
***
A question with Rose, HW, is how much of this is actual gunshy-ness v. something else.
Yeah -- I think the Heat can be hard to evaluate because its not always clear which gear they're playing in. They certainly weren't in top gear the first half of the season.
That dunk isn't as impressive if Brandon Knight clears out, then its just bad defense. If you force a guy to make a highlight-of-the-year candidate to score, you've probably played good defense. Props to Brandon for contesting him there.
And hamstring injuries never miraculously get better. Maybe as much as knees, a hamstring injury can be a hinder an entire career.
edited to add I dont think this is what they should do, and I think rose will be back with in a week and a half
I know what you're saying, but...
Toronto is 10 games behind the Bulls and Philly is 11 back. If the Bulls lose their last 19 games, can the Raps go 11-7 or Philly go 13-7 to pass them?
Bill Simmons did a interview with Tony Parker around the ASG, and he made a good analogy that the Spurs are kinda like the Larry Bird era Celtics, people keep writting them off as old but they stuck with it till the bitter end and were usually very competitive.
The San Antonio Spurs are like the Keyser Soze -- nobody knows who they are. Sure, Duncan is 36 and Ginobili is 35, but Parker is only 30, and a lot of their other key contributors (Leonard, Splitter, Green) are young.
Amusingly, he and Kenny Kadji (University of Miami's 3-point shooting center) were both top-10 centers in the same recruiting class.
294 - i think it's just a bad team trying to see if they can make an asset more valuable
posted this in the wrong thread last night, but haddadi had another good game - career high 13 pts in 18 or 19 min, plus 8 reb
Gtown version just does not have NBA size. He's a shoot first PG who is too small to be a plus defensively. While he is skilled, I can see why teams wouldn't care much about giving him a second look.
This reminds me of a certain other Big East alum, who the best player in history decided to draft with a lottery pick a couple years back...
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