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I assumed you would. My guess is most Knicks fans don't share that sentiment, however (insert winking emoticon here).
KnickerBlogger's current post header: Eddy Curry earns first championship ring
Cavs: The Blog is talking about the draft and has nothing up about it at all, which is probably a good idea. Didn't look for any comments.
Things the made the Cavaliers a great team in 2008-09 (besides Lebron obviously) - fantastic defense, rebounding, 3 point shooting around Lebron, and protecting the ball. I'll give you that the 3pt shooting could take a dive against better defenses in the playoffs, but most of those things should continue to show up. The only time that Mike Brown really got hammered in a mismatch athletically was against Dwight Howard, and he threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at Howard. Every Cavs big man tried to guard him (including Lebron) to no avail. That wasn't an issue adjusting. And Lewis, Turkoglu, and the rest of the Magic roster were successful because they shot lights out, not because of athleticism.
And I'm not sure why the 07-08 Cavs are included here, but the 08-09 Cavs were not just the 07-08 Cavs + Mo Williams. Delonte West was a key addition, Varejao took a huge leap, and even Lebron improved (mostly on defense). The 08-09 Cavs would have mopped the floor with the Drew Gooden-Sasha Pavlovic-Larry Hughes version that was ran out the year before.
My guess is most Knicks fans don't sahre that sentiment, however (insert winking emoticon here).
Yeah, I'm getting a lot of #### for it from fellow Knicks fans still angry about The Decision. Whatever.
Delonte West was on the 07-08 Cavs. He played 35 mins a game in the playoffs for the 07-08 Cavs. Gooden and Hughes were traded at the deadline for West. Pavlovic played on the 2008-09 Cavs. Mo Williams of the the LeBron-era Cavs was totally a creation of LeBron James. To a lesser extent, this is also true of Andy V and West and most of the roster.
The things that made the Cavaliers a great team in 2008-09 was LeBron James. You can end the thought there. The Cavs of 09/10 were the worst 60+ win teams of all time. If you go back and read the epic playoff thread started by robinred, you can see it was well discussed at the time.
I think Wade was worse in that series, Bosh didn't play much (as you mentioned), and the Miami shooters weren't drilling every single open look. Boston also has a few guys who can at least pretend to deal with Lebron one on one, where as OKC was limited to just Thabo.
Also, my sense (not sure how to confirm this by the numbers) is that Lebron avoided settling for the long 2 more in this series than he did against Boston, likely because KG was able to roam in the first few games without Bosh, so the paint was a much less welcoming place than it was against OKC.
They did, which should be expected since they were the top defensive team in the regular season. But Mike Miller and the rest of the Heat long range shooters did get some open looks against Boston, and just missed them. When you'd got Lebron and Wade drawing double teams/ help defenders you'll always have some decent looks for 3, at it's impossible to predict when your guys will catch fire.
If OKC had pulled one of games 2-4 out, and sent the series back home, I'm pretty confidant that Miller doesn't have anything close to that kind of game again.
Looking back at Lebron in 2009:
Game 1: Lebron scores 49 on 20-30 shooting. Magic shoot 9-20 from 3, win by 1.
Game 2: Magic 10-23 from 3, Lebron scores 35, including 3 at buzzer to win by 1.
Game 3: Lebron's shooting not good, 11-28, but he gets to the line 24 times, makes 18, scores 41. Magic win.
Game 4: Lebron scores 44 on 29 FGA, 18 FTA. Magic 17-38 from 3, win in OT. James, down by 2 in regulation, gets a foul call on Pietrus with half a second remaining, hits both free throws. Down 4 with 4 seconds in OT, James hits a 3. After a foul and 1 of 2 free throws, Lebron choked on a 38 foot 3 point attempt.
Game 5: Lebron scores 37, triple double, Cavs win by 10.
Game 6: Lebron has his worst game, 8-20, 25 points, in a 13 point loss. Magic hit another 12 3 pointers, though taking 29 attempts.
Lebron played about as well as humanly possible that series. Without his buzzer beater in G2 it would have been a sweep. As for his defense, I don't remember the details but the circumstances don't seem to have presented a good matchup. Lebron can shut down pretty much any scorer one on one. But the Magic had Lewis, Turk, Alston, and Pietrus all going off on three pointers pretty much any game. He can stop one of them, but not all of them.
2010 was a different story. I can't offer any defense for the way he played in the last 3 games of that series. But it's in the past, and he's moved on to become a champion. Congrats, Lebron.
He played 24 games that postseason, 1 more than Lebron. Ironically, had Miami lost 1 more game and finished in 6, as the Spurs did with the Nets, Lebron probably passes Duncan. Talk about disincentives, he'd have to lose more to get more win shares. In light of that I'll say it's close enough to give them a tie for best postseason run in the modern era.
I remember this, and I remember people were mainly saying, going into the playoffs that yar, they've got all the right pieces around LeBron and Cleveland looks like a clear favorite.
Small nitpick, but he only scored 19 in Game 2 against the Knicks.
Watching this series, I was trying to mentally match up the Heat with the Bulls. We didn't see much of the Bulls healthy and peaking this year, but I was trying to compare the Bulls at their best to Miami at their best. And dammit if the Bulls still didn't come up short. So I see this quote, and I can't help but think of the similarities between the LeBron Cleveland teams and the current Bulls.
The big questions would be could Deng or Noah have been able to slow down LeBron. Because Miami is very beatable when he plays any level below great. Hell, there were teams in the playoffs that played the Heat tough and even won games when he was playing great. Really a testament to the consistent greatness he showed the last few weeks.
The Cavs played noticeably better after the trade. They wouldn't have hung with Boston at all without it. And I'm sure you can understand there's a difference between how a guy works with your team when he first gets traded there and after an offseason working with the team/coach.
Yes, Lebron was by far the biggest part of that team, but he doesn't produce a team that was top 20 all-time in wins and margin of victory without a lot of help, these last two Miami teams that would supposedly mop the floor with them couldn't come close. When you say stuff like "worst 60+ win team of all time", I know you've let the hyperbole train run well off the tracks.
And Gibson and Asik. LeBron wouldn't have gotten in the lane as easily as he did against OKC. But that's the Bulls' strength, and we did see Miami struggle with that type of defense against Boston; of course, the Bulls have a lot more size than Boston, so it would have been that defense *plus* a rebounding advantage for Chicago. The question really is the Bulls offense against the Heat defense. Last year's ECF was a lot like the Finals this year in that the loser won game 1 in a somewhat convincing manner (Bulls moreso than Thunder), and then the rest of the series was relatively close (and that will be or already has been forgotten by many who only look at the 4-1 margin); Bulls choked the clincher away in the last couple of minutes instead of getting run off the court but the point remains.
I think the Bulls were a better offensive team this year than last; Rose was more efficient and smarter, Rip was a huge upgrade on Bogans, etc. I think the Heat looked like a better defense in the playoffs than last year; a lot of that is Battier and Battier's weaknesses would be less exposed against a less athletic team like the Bulls. I still think the Bulls would have been in trouble when LeBron switched to Rose since they still don't have a 2nd ball handler/creator. So perhaps the Bulls, with HCA, could have extended a series against Miami out longer than last year, but they still probably come up short.
I know that we are suppossed to bask in their glow, but I've been wondering that since game 2. I feel like Spurs would have provided more matchup problems by being able to counter the small lineup with those Bonner at PF lineups and possibly even SJax. And Duncan would have caused problems for MIA, which Ibaka/Perk/Collins just weren't. Though, as said, the Heat played their peak basketball at the right time which you can't say about the Spurs/OKC.
It's difficult to understate how poorly he looked from a box score perspective (relative to expectations) this year. Per 36 minutes, he was a 7.5/3.7/2.0, shooting 39/34/62 (each of those is down quite a bit from his career norms: post-rookie season, he was a 45/39/76), while splitting his time between the three (35% of team minutes) and two (25%). Interestingly, 82games has him essentially not playing the four during the regular season, where he seemed to have success in spot work in the playoffs. (How we capture position in a lineup with a bunch of wings is up for debate.)
What can they do? Trade him or buy him out. They can't amnesty him, they signed him after that. The bigger things are what do they do with Miller and Anthony.
And, at what point do OKC fans realize that this is what Perk is?
Jason Terry would be good, too
But what is it about being young that transcends talent? Can they not adjust to the bigger media circus? Is there something you learn about making adjustments? Also, we have to consider that many of these younger teams were not actually considered the most talented. Apparently, despite what was said when Miami played Boston and Indiana, we now were all aware of just how much more talented this Miami team was than the rest of the league.
I do not have a lot of analytic points to make. I was just happy to have a sports team pay off. Cheering for Minnesota teams, Georgetown hoops, and UW football has yielded more failures and moral victories than triumphs for the last 20 years. My proudest moment was my favorite player from my childhood (KG) leaving the city and winning for a team I don't especially like. Lebron and I are exactly the same age and I started following him when he was a HS sophomore prodigy. I have defended him- often against logic- for his whole career and it made me really happy to see someone in whom I became truly invested climb the mountain.
I am also happy for Mike Miller. The story about him ignoring doctors because they couldn't do anything for him is funny. I am happy for Juwan Howard and the rest of the fab 5 for finally winning a ring. I am happy for Bosh, whose reputation probably took the biggest relative hit going to Miami, and he finished the series very well. I was even impressed by how humble Wade was, which is against type, but humanizes him, particularly given the really tough family stuff he has had to handle.
Bosh was out pretty much the entire time that people were down on the Heat.
With the Bucks, you've also got Oscar Robertson to temper the inexperience of Kareem. For young champions, there's the 1979 Sonics. Their 3 best players (Williams, Sikma, DJ) were 23-25. 77 Blazers as you mention had top players all in their early to mid 20's. But league quality issues make it a different case. Between the decline of the Cowens Celtics and the Clyde Knicks, and the rise of Magic and Bird, there was no dynasty to contend with.
Sixers could have been that team. Dr. J was a better player in the late 70's than he was in the early 80's. And they did go to the finals in 77. Too bad they couldn't put quality players around him until a few years later when there was more competition. I could easily see a slightly changed history where they won 3-4 titles and filled that gap.
Considering that Moses Malone was trade twice after the ABA dispersal draft, Sixers could have probably gotten him if they wanted to. Replace Dawkins with Moses from 77-82, and you've got a dynasty.
I'm happy for a number of the Heat as well. For Miller (who's had an interesting career), for Bosh, for Turiaf. For Juwan. Kind of for LeBron.
Interesting that you (Andrew) said that you were impressed with Wade's humility - I thought he was struggling to seem humble during the postgame stuff. (Note: I don't dislike him, though I didn't like some of his antics during the playoffs).
I think that's overstated as well. Having said that, LeBron claims that his failure last year changed him (and I think that's true) - so there's something to be said for people changing for the better because of past postseason failures (Chris Bosh committing himself more fully to spending time at the five is another example) -- an opportunity that inexperienced teams haven't necessarily had. Still - that's only one way to learn, one of many.
I think that has to do more with roster movement, length of players' careers, and the enormous effect that one or two great players can have on a series.
As for the youth thing, I think it has little to do with absolute age, and more to do with skill. Young teams don't win championships because young players are rarely good enough to win championships as a team's focal point. I think the Thunder lost less because they're 22/23 than because their defense didn't hold up, in large part because they didn't have anyone who could check LeBron, and their offense didn't have answers for the Heat defense. Some of that is execution, some of that is bad luck on shots, some of that is Scott Brooks not making the right adjustments, etc. I don't know that I believe you can really point to age specifically.
I don't think it's overstated. I think it's complete ###### nonsense. The thing is that EVERY team is a bad bet to win a championship. Even the best team in the league is maybe 25%. The way OKC handled the oh so experienced Spurs, should really have killed off any finger-pointing at age.
They lost to a very good Heat team, with the best player in the league playing at a superlative level. There's really nothing more to say than that. The better team won, not because they were more experienced, but because they were just better.
Why would that be nonsense? What are you pointing to? Of course, its hard to win an NBA championship, but we have a clear 25 year trend and enough teams for a decent sample. Yes, OKC handled the Spurs, but as Moses said "fo-fo-fo". A week ago, people were expecting an all-time great series and what we got was an OKC team that was every bit as good as the Heat all year, with more depth, as much if not more top-shelf talent, homecourt, no injuries yet they got dismantled. They shot under their averages in 3pt% and Ft%, one of their best but most inexperienced players was AWOL for most of the series and even their second best player was highly inconsistent. You can disagree, but I think your off on calling it nonsense.
Not sure we accounted for LeBron going Super Saiyan.
EDIT: But seriously, the series was incredibly tight other than Game 5.
EDIT 2: Coke.
OKC actually did the fo-fo-fo thing. But since Moses won that ring we've added another playoff round. We need fo fo's to get to the promised land.
Heat didn't do any dismantling until the final game. The first 4 were close enough that either team could have won.
I don't know if being a young team gives you any special disadvantage in the NBA finals. There may have been any young championship teams in a long time, but that might just be because young teams being good enough to challenge for a championship are so rare themselves.
Maybe I'm falling for the sappy stuff with his kids, but that seemed genuine to me.
baudib on OKC: You're presuming that Brooks changes his rotations sooner than later, I guess. Or that Bosh gets hurt again at some point?
It was a close series - I think people will forget that remarkably quickly, but it was. Were I a betting man, I'd've considered putting money on the Thunder after game 4.
As for experience/youth - I don't want to be too dismissive. Not because of the pressure of it all, mind you, but because it's a fundamentally different situation with the playoffs, where matchups mean a lot more, where you play the same team over and over, and where long run strategies go out the window. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some small, real effect - but that it might be hard to measure.
64 Royals - 25 year old Oscar, 23 Jerry Lucas. Like everyone else at this time, they couldn't beat Russell.
69 Bullets - Unseld as a rookie, Monroe was 24. Nothing in playoffs.
78 Blazers - didn't win, but same crew won the title in 77.
79 Sonics - won
89 Cavaliers - Price, Harper, Daugherty were 25 and under. Ran into Jordan in playoffs. This seemed like a great team that would grow together, but too many injuries to all 3 prevented this. 2 years later they had their best showing, going to the ECF, but ran into Jordan again.
95 Orlando Magic. Swept in Finals, next year lost to a Jordan bent for revenge, Shaq took his talents to Venice Beach.
Too small a sample to draw any conclusions about this. Except that assuming the team will have many more chances for a title is not a safe bet. Injuries and free agency can screw that plan up quickly.
As AROM points out in 2246, we really don't.
Which should tilt the series in the Heat's favor since depth is less important in the playoffs.
Did not get dismantled, played the Heat close and lost.
Which should be expected playing against a team that is far above average defensively.
Yeah, Westbrook is a model of consistency in the regular season.
The point I am making is that every time a young team challenges and falls short, the narrative becomes about their how their youth cost them. But the Thunder were maybe 5/1 to win the title before the playoffs, and we would have gotten the same bs if they had lost to the Spurs or any other team. You need a lot of teams to come up short at those odds before it becomes even remotely significant. Why aren't we getting the age doesn't win championships narrative when the Spurs go out, or the Celtics?
This gets a well said. It's projecting the narrative into the causation. There's actual on court basketball reasons the Heat won that have nothing to do with age (or experience).
It was a close series - I think people will forget that remarkably quickly, but it was.
Yep. I said that above, and it's already happening.
Yes. I and others said before the series that the fact that Miami and OKC were of equal quality in the regular season and Miami got to add the advantages of better star health and a shorter bench would make them a favorite. I had them in 6 and they played even better. OKC was a very popular pick, so much that Miami was 3/2 or worse to win the series, probably because the Spurs were viewed as vastly superior to Boston (maybe an overrating of regular season success).
I'm stunned.
League will appeal.
***
If nothing else, I suspect Miami would've played their bigs more v. the Spurs (Anthony, et al.) - that's a minus.
Not sure it would have been enough to disrupt the offense entirely, but SA is much more adept at having bigs double on the baseline side. It is a staple of their post defense. OKC tried to mimic that last night, but they were so slow to arrive that Lebron often found the open guy before the help arrived. The counterpoint would be that they swing the ball so well that they could get it to the open man with one additional pass, or that Bosh could pull the post help defender away from the low block enough to slow him down from getting to the low side. I'm not sure how that would play out over a series, but they really don't use the same tactics.
And, I WIN!!!
They have this guy from the Virgin Islands who can probably handle Bosh and/or protecting the rim. I hear he's supposed to be pretty good.
3 games. 4-1 vs. Knicks, 2-1 vs. Celtics, 4-1 vs, OKC.
I really was amazed at how little OKC got from their bench. Harden, in particular, was basically invisible for the series.
This is one of the stories that gets lost in the OKC narrative - how limited their supporting cast is. They have a group of players that are either good on one side of the ball only, or just bad. Losing Maynor really cost them.
I think that the post offense would have been the key to Pop's strategy. You have to keep the Heat from running and gunning, and the ability of the Spurs to slow the game down would have been helpful for those times when the Heat started clicking. The Thunder didn't want to slow the game down and didn't have the tools to do it even if they did.
I do have to say thinking about the post offense, it makes me giddy to think of Lebron guarding Duncan in the post during the Heat's many switches. I doubt it would be successful, but it would be cool to see in a NBA finals.
perry jones
darko milicic
from a comp standpoint, both players had great size, both players had great athleticism, and both players had a diverse offensive skillset. darko could do a lot of things on offense, but he couldn't do any of them at an NBA level, and i see the same thing with perry jones. jones isn't a great shooter, or a great slasher, or a great playmaker, or a great rebounder, or a great defender, or a great shotblocker. he dabbles in a lot of those things, but for an NBA player, he's not even average in any of them.
and since the NBA tends to be a league where one- and two-dimensional players excel at a greater rate than more well-rounded talents, i think jones is gonna have a lot of the same issues**.
thoughts?
**well, jones won't likely have to deal with larry brown, so that may help. and the team that drafts him probably won't be passing on carmelo anthony and chris bosh and dwyane wade to pick him.
but other than that...
Very interesting comp. I think you did a good job articulating the type of similarities that may exist. I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment. First, they are not all that physically similar. Darko was over an inch taller with much longer arms (7'5 to 7'1.75), which basically had him profiling as a center immediately. He was also 16 lbs heavier. My eyes tell me that Jones is more explosive than Darko ever was, and the extra 6" on the vertical seem to affirm that belief. Darko was viewed as a very skilled player- good passer, soft hands, excellent coordination- and none of that is really false, he just doesn't finish well and appears really lazy. I think that's where the comp comes from: both guys seem like they just don't care for stretches. Of course, people said the same about Rudy Gay in college, and he developed pretty nicely. Bottom line, I think Jones is a slightly smaller, considerably more athletic version of Darko at very least, which probably puts him more in the Anthony Randolph camp of crappy Minnestoa backup bigs who can't get playing time. Either way, as you kind of said, getting a guy like that in the middle of the first round really isn't a bad thing.
Another issue is the jack of all trades/master of none characterization. I think I agree with you that picking 15+, you are probably better off going for someone who has at least one playable skill. On the other hand, you are probably more likely to find an impact player or a star player if you go after the well rounded guys with lots of risks. I guess it is a question of how you want to allocate your team's risk.
darko milicic
I think someone like Yi Jianlin is probably a better comp.
It's not like Jones is a total stiff. The guy's put up some really good stats, he just has games where it looks like he's not even playing sometimes. It'll be interesting to see who takes him, because he wants to be a 3, he's probably better at it, but since he's 6'11" no lets him.
Rudy Gay was the #5 performer in Hollinger's metric his draft year* - by comparison, Jones doesn't rate as a first rounder this year (though Hollinger subjectively bumped him up to 28 on his board). He doesn't rebound, or get steals, or blocks. He doesn't go to the line. He has range, but doesn't hit his jumpers. He's a good ballhandler, but doesn't create for others or shoot a particularly high percentage. He's not a scorer. Honestly, I've seen profiles in the D-League that I like more.
Yes, I can see how Jones' athleticism could translate well to the NBA game, but there's zero chance that I'd draft him.
* Not his tool's best performance - he had Ty Thomas and Shelden Williams as his top two, though I made some of the some mistakes that year, probably for similar reasons.
That said, in my mock draft that year, I got Brandon Roy and Paul Millsap, so I didn't do that badly.
Duncan doesn't protect the rim that well anymore, and he certainly isn't quick enough for Bosh.
I agree that Perry Jones will not translate well, and I wouldn't draft him high at all. He doesn't seem like more than an athletic tall guy that has a bit of handle and a bit of an outside shot. No skill is great, and if any were to get great it's likely by the time he's a FA.
The only reason I was able to do this is because BB-ref has newspaper box score scans of every NBA game ever. The boxes were pretty light back then, just telling you how many field goals and free throws players hit (without giving FG attempts). But it's good for with/without, just noting which players were in the lineup.
You try driving the lane on him then. Duncan still blocked 88 shots this year, that's 27 more than Kevin Garnett. During the season, their defense rating was 5.4 points better with Duncan on court, in the playoffs it was 17.3 points better. You might be right about Bosh though, they only met once in the regular season. It was a Miami blowout, and Bosh went 14-22, scoring 30.
I don't want to rip on Brooks too much because his track record and continued improvement are pretty impressive. The Thunder are not built like any other championship team. If I had to compare them to someone, I'd say it's the '76 76ers who lost to Portland with Erving, McGinnis, Free, Collins, etc.
I don't expect James Harden to play as badly as he did over any 5-game stretch. Maybe this can be attributed to youthful inexperience, but I think a lot of it has to do with simple variance. I also don't expect Shane Battier to shoot like he did in Games 1 and 2 very often. The Heat generally got one great performance by a role player each game, which is a great recipe for winning, but they've certainly gone long stretches before without getting anything outside the Big 3.
Mostly out of my own curiosity, my own top 10 that year was Thomas, Millsap, Balkman, Patrick O'Bryant (?), Rondo, Shelden, Roy, Brewer, Aldridge, Gay. That was a weird draft.
How does he rate other people? How does he rate Chamberlain? And what about Russell's offense?
I know you read Liberty Ballers and you must know that they are pretty high on taking Jones at No. 15 if he falls there. College ball and scouting aren't my thing but I know Jones was an uber underachiever.
In football, I can think of some guys who were incredible athletes who didn't produce at the college level but were projectable. Jason Pierre-Paul comes to mind immediately, as well as Antonio Gates. Are there any examples of guys who were talented underachievers in college who went on to become stars in the NBA?
This would be my thought too (edit: about how Chamberlain rates). I would expect early basketball to be much like early baseball - the median is so much lower, that the gap between the superstars and the average player is larger.
I guess you could have gone to a library and gathered old microfilm, but until the last year or so boxscores from Russell's time were generally not available. Now they are and we can thank Sean Forman and Justin Kubatko for making them available.
Neither of them are stars, but I think Thaddeus Young and Demar DeRozan had similar profiles (good athletes, very highly ranked recruits, mediocre college stats) to Perry Jones and became NBA rotation players. Perry Jones is about 5 inches taller and stayed in college an extra year, so the low number of blocks and the lack of improvement are more worrisome, but I don't think he is hopeless.
The more I watched him the more I thought he was overrated rather than just an underachiever. This is a guy who did score more in during big 12 play his freshman year than he did in high school. A lot of his reputation came off of highlight videos and some big games on the AAU scene.
The other Baylor kid (Quincy Miller) is a better prospect assuming his knee is healthy. He's not quite as big, but he's a better shooter, more confident, and just has a much better feel for the game. Medical red flags seem to be the primary reason he's dropping on a lot of the mock drafts I have seen.
Young's college #s translated well to the pros. Demar's not so much but he (again, off memory) showed great improvement over the year - jones has not improved much.
AROM: I have some numbers for Allen Iverson that I did a couple years ago, but I stupidly did not include points allowed. From 1998-99 (Iverson's second season) to 2005-06 (his last full season with the Sixers), he missed 96 games. The Sixers went 39-57 (.406) without him and 223-173 (.563) with him. They scored 86.9 points per game without him and 96.3 with him.
And wrt Gates: I'd forgotten about his stop at EMU, where he was a basketball walk-on, if memory serves. Anyway, his last year at Kent State, he was 20.6/7.7/4.1 in 33.2 mpg, shooting 48/35/71. Age aside (almost 23 on draft day), you could've considered him a lesser (and shorter) version of your Royce Young / Draymond Green types. Not an NBA talent, but a useful guy in Europe.
Here are the numbers:
WITH Iverson
W-L 299-227
W% .568
PF 95.8
PA 94.5
WITHOUT Iverson
W-L 39-59
W% .398
PF 86.8
PA 89.4
Point differential of +1.3 with Iverson vs -2.6 without him.
Yes, I was mistaken. I was thinking of another Chamberlain/Russell thing I read. I was right, though, about the conclusion, since I got the book out and looked:
Uhh, ok. But don't blame me if someone says, "MORE Chamberlain/Russell crap? NO!!!"
Oliver uses a bunch of methods which he explains in detail, and comes up with an individual won-loss record, sort of similar to Bill James' old individual won-loss record, which combines % of team defensive stops made, percentage of team offensive possesions comtributed to, percentage of team minutes played, and percentage of games started. He weighs the first two by a factor of three each, and the last two by a factor of one each. He uses ORTG and DRTG and creates an estimate of W/L and how many games players were responsible for. Here is what some look like, rounded to integers:
1996 Bulls
Jordan 16-0 (his "losses" were .4)
Pippen 12-1
Kerr 5-0 (his "losses" were 0.0)
Rodman 7-1
Dickey Simpkins 1-2
2002 Spurs
Duncan 16-1
Robinson 10-1
Malik Rose 4-3
Bowen 2-5
So, looking at Kerr for example, that tells you he had a pretty small role on the team, but more or less filled it to perfection, which makes sense.
When Oliver talks about Chamberlain, although he comes at it from a totally different POV, he says stuff that would have helped Simmons' TBOB case in some ways had Simmons read BOP. Short version:
1. Adjusted for context, the 50 PPG would be about 35 PPG in the early 2000s (Simmons talked about this some IIRC).
2. Chamberlain's owner and coach (Eddie Gottlieb and Frank McGuire) wanted Chamberlain to score as much as possible and planned the early 1960s team that way. IMO Simmons should have mentioned this in TBOB and IIRC he didn't. I became aware of it reading The Rivalry by John Taylor, a book Simmons read and didn't like.
3. Oliver says that as Chamberlain's career continued and he played with better teammates, he shot less, became more efficient and his effect on team D appeared to improve, leading to:
Chamberlain often played crazy numbers of minutes by modern standards; supposedly as a young man, he played 48 minutes pretty often, which would partially create the larger number of wins.
Oliver doesn't have the data to generate W-L for Russell and Chamberlain, but he does do it for a lot of other guys in the chapter, called The Great Ones. These numbers are through 2002:
Stockton 176-26
Malone 215-54
Barkley 166-29
Jordan 180-28
Rodman 92-22
Kareem (1974-1989) 118-26
Bird 143-30
Magic 139-19
Olajuwon 183-56
Ewing 142-69
Shaq 120-24
Individual seasons:
Jordan 88 18-1
Magic 87 13-1
Bird 86 15-1
Rodman 90 9-0 (losses .3)
Barkley 90 15-1
Iverson 01 11.4-4.6
Bryant 02 12-4
He also runs numbers for some other guys, like Parish and McAdoo.
In explaining it, he looks at Jordan's 1996 numbers and says:
The book is ten years old, but it holds up very well and includes chapters on teamwork and usage/efficiency.
it won't be free throws, that's for sure.
it's really very annoying.
that's exactly what i see, and exactly why i don't want to draft him.
Well it's tough for fans of teams that aren't the sixers, since they don't have the 8 greatest players in basketball history on their team.
I have no idea why Charlotte would make that deal, though.
I'd be willing to move Asik for a late lottery pick, which is roughly what I think he's worth.
Asik is an RFA, fwiw.
The reason you consider a deal like what's discussed here if you're Chicago is to enjoy the value over salary the lottery pick gives you, they're one of the best deals in the league. I don't think that needs to be what Chicago focuses on right now (iow, they don't need that kind of retool) and I'm far from sure that the #2 pick this year will turn out to be a sure thing stud.
* okay, that seriously overstates things - it was a down year - his fg% was down as were things like his +/- #s. still, he was an above average starter - at minimum.
Edit: Or is this just Reinsdorf being cheap?
Sure. And with all of that, he still didn't give them a ton. He was .412 from the field, and .367 from 3, taking 4 per game. Per 36 min, his slash line was 14/5.9/2.7 (all lower than his career averages). He also chipped in just under a steal and a block per 36.
Moving to advance metrics, his PER was 14.1 and his WS/48 were .132. His simple rating was +2.1, 4th best among Bulls starters, beating out Boozer. He's a good defender.
All that said, if you can trade a guy who was probably your fourth best player (while making 10 million+ per year) for the #2 pick in the draft, you make that trade 99 times out of 100. This gets even easier when you can pick a guy who can slot right in at spot immediately vacated by the guy you just traded. You get younger, cheaper and potentially more talented. Yeah, it can blow up on you, but that's a good basketball move, imo.
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