Golden State Troubles

In an effort to double our Christmas content, both C-Post and I will be writing posts on the just now finished Clippers-Warriors game. His will focus on the Clippers and mine on the Warriors. Both will frighten and excite, in equal measure. Both will poke fun at Bill Simmons, but only mine will contain a new Blake Griffin looks analogy. Happy Hannukah!

First this, and now this. Will the people of this eminently livable state ever catch a break? If they ever do they're going to have to change a lot. After watching this loss to the Clippers, I think this team is in serious trouble. Before the game I was quaffing as deep from the Clipper kool-aid as anyone, well anyone who's addiction to basic cable TV show references doesn't dictate their sports coverage (I've truly Broken Bad; also, Justified). After watching that game I can't conclude, as I had before hand, that the Clippers were a top team in the West this year. Yes, Griffin showed signs of being Malone 2.0 tonight. But Deandre Jordan still shoots 2/10 on free throws and Vinny Del Negro is still the coach (and, at one point tonight, that meant that he played Chris Paul, Chauncey Billups, and Mo Williams in an attempt to set the record for most good point guards ever on the floor at one time). Until Billups and Paul stage a coup, that team has a ceiling somewhere around 6th in the West.

But I didn't come here to kick dirt at the Clippers. I came here to say that Golden State is doomed. This team played better defense than in the past, but at the cost of a complete breakdown of their offense. Both Curry and Ellis played frantic, confused, mistake riddled basketball that looked both ugly and embarrassing. Throughout the fourth as the Clips staged their push for victory (a push that merely required Blake to hit a couple of shots, Chris Paul to do a single ankle breaking pull-up, and Jordan to sit on the bench), the Warriors totally fell apart. With greater and greater desperation, Warriors charged recklessly at the basket, shooting wild shots or throwing the ball away to the Clippers, or both. The players on this team revealed themselves to be quite athletic and amazingly fast (especially this new kid, Ish Smith, he should be looked out for, both for his speedy skills and his amazing name), but incapable of playing together. Time and time again, balls were thrown wildly away, passes to teammates were only known about on the sending end; the receivers had no clue they were coming. All in all this team looked like a low-seeded March Madness team, panicking in the last 2 minutes of the game, wildly flailing at the basket with hopes of being national heroes. No one seemed to trust any one else, and Marc Jackson looked physically sick (I can't blame him, this was probably like showing up to your dissertation and realizing you had been studying Biology all these years instead of Chemistry). It seems like the Warriors' gutsy move of playing Curry and Ellis continues to not pan out and that the addition of Ish only complicates things further. The good news, I guess, is that they seem much better defensively. The bad news is that this has collapsed both their offensive abilities and any reason you might have harbored for wanting to watch a Warriors game.

A lot about how the Association will pan out this year seems to have been revealed this first day. Carmelo can and will score at will. Kobe is hitting his ceiling, but he's making sure he'll do as much damage to the ceiling as he can so that it never fucks with him again. The Celtics are washed up. The Clippers aren't there yet; neither are the Bulls. Dwight Howard will almost certainly be leaving the garbagemen around him who make you want to reconsider Varejão and the Cavs' excellence. This season is going to belong to the Thunder and the Heat and, ultimately, to the Heat alone. And Golden State is far, far from being playoff ready. We already almost knew that, but now we do for sure. With the rise of the Clippers, Grizzlies, and (in my humble hopes) the Timberwolves, there is absolutely no room for this team at the top. There isn't even room for it with the Jazz, Rockets, and Suns. All is not lost though. If the team trades Ellis and Jackson works hard at coaching them into something that resembles a team, we could see them back in playoff contention in not too much time. If not, they might be in for a decade of Clipper like status. A fate that not even high-flying Alfred E. Newman look-a-like Griffin and best point guard alive of the week, Paul can get you out of overnight.

The Clip Show

In an effort to double our Christmas content, both A-Town and I will be writing posts on the just now finished Clippers-Warriors game. His will focus on the Warriors and mine on the Clippers. Both will frighten and excite, in equal measure. Both will poke fun at Bill Simmons, but only his will contain a new Blake Griffin looks analogy. Happy Hannukah!

After an extended wait, Kobe Bryant found himself in a usual position. Demanding the ball at the end of a game, he proceeded to take an ill advised shot with three defenders collapsing in around him. The Lakers squandered a late game lead to give the young Bulls their first victory of the shortened season. Down the 101, the Clippers ended their game differently by dominating the free form Warriors. After the Chris Paul debacle unfolded in the fashion that it did, it became apparent that these two teams would be compared to each other all season long. Today's games further accentuate a question that is now being asked (and answered) by many followers of the NBA: are the Lakers in for a dismal year, and are we experiencing the birth of the Clip Show? Although the prospect excites me, I believe that both of these propositions are ultimately wrong.

Let's begin with the Lakers. Today they lost to a strong Chicago team in a game that they should have won. They were leading very late by about four points only to lose it at the last second. They had uncharacteristic turnovers (Kobe coughed the ball up on his first two possessions) and Pau Gasol shot 25% from the free throw line. In addition, they are without their starting center and are currently in the process of adjusting to a large number of new players as well as a new coach. All of these factors lead me to believe that the Lakers, although they are not the favorites to win an NBA championship, are certainly not a bad team. They are instead one that needs to play a few games together first. I think that they are easily capable of finishing in a top three position in the conference.

The Clippers are considerably more interesting. The organization collected a number of wizened veterans to complement a core of talented young players, in addition to creating the closest thing we have seen to Stockton and Malone since Stockton and Malone. They seem built to win now, and their substantial victory tonight would appear to be a testament to this notion. There are a number of problems, however, with this team. They do not have a consistent three point threat. Their starting shooting guard, Chauncey Billups, is no shooting guard at all (see: 6-18 shooting, or Alistair's fantasy shooting percentage). Furthermore, do not expect him to play 38 minutes per night effectively for the entirety of this contracted season. They are lacking a consistent rebounder, since Kaman was shipped out and DeAndre Jordan has committed to blocking every single shot an opponent takes all season. Caron Butler led the team in boards and chewed straws tonight. Lastly, they are coached by a doofus. He seems like someone who understands basketball well enough, but is neither a strong motivational coach in the Doc Rivers mold nor in possession of a grander tactical plan based on the pieces his team has acquired.

This leads me to believe that although the Lakers are probably over the hill and will not compete for championships in their current form, the Clippers are not ready to be the best team in LA just yet. If they can make a few more moves, however, this team will be one of the most fun and dangerous in the Association.

The Broom of the System

Here we are back at square one, angry owners, power-hungry players and a commisioner lacking credibility and control. Did basketball ever stop? Not according to those Nike ads where Melo hoops with the Hasidim. Also not according to the tornado of super-team rumors, from the big Stapler to the garden they call Madison. Just a few weeks after the two sides seemed at an impass, we're back to fiscally unsound free agent signings and Dan Gilbert's panties in a bunch. If we were just going to go back to business as usual, why did we have to miss those meaningless October and November games at all?

The Associations gift is also its curse; it's the professional sports league that relies the most on individual talent. This makes the NBA far more marketable than the helmeted goons of the NFL & NHL and workmanlike tedium of Major League Baseball. This is not just a marketing ploy, or the fact that we get to see these guys up close in HD and courtside. Basketball is ultimately a game that one or two guys can dominate. And at any given time in the NBA, there are at most 12 of those guys, while 16 teams make the playoffs. That means that if you're one of the dozen superstars, it basically doesn't matter where you play, you'll be in the tournament. So why the hell would you stay in Cleveland?

The prospect of nuclear winter was in fact a good one for the league - everyone sitting on their hands while college football and the Boston Red Sox search for redemption dominated Sportscenter would have showed the NBA how little its regular season is missed. Sure, come April we would have felt a little emptiness, but by then we've got the Masters, the NFL draft, MLB opening day and the Final Four. Yes, we all would have missed the playoffs; we would not have missed a mid-January Nets-Bobcats game. There are far too many meaningless games played in the NBA regular season, meaningless in two ways: first, lacking playoff implications; and second, lacking star power. Rather than going back to the same old song, and having to petulantly block the Chris Paul trade to avoid the rise of another "super team" (I thought the Lake show already was a super team?), we should have had a nice long reconstructionist timeout where we remedied these two problems. Here are the three proposals to make the league more exciting from October to March.

1. Make the playoffs smaller. I know, the playoffs are by far the best part of the year. Everyone is trying and stuff! As fun as it is to see Brandon Roy remember his own name for a quarter and a half against the Mavericks, are the 2010-2011 Blazers really the best the NBA has to offer? Why are they playing marquee games that we all have to watch? Same for the Pacers and the Hawks and the Knicks. In basketball, everyone who is decent gets in. Every big name you can think of gets to play post-season basketball. Well what if only 12 teams made the playoffs? I know, I know, the Grizz wouldn't have made the cut last year - or maybe they would have because they would have been trying harder all season. I'm a firm believer that the only teams that should be allowed into the post-season are ones that have a legitimate shot of winning it all. And let me tell you something - last year's 76ers didn't get knocked out because the refs were on the take. They lost because they sucked. The other benefit of this is that legitimately good teams might miss out every once in a while, which would increase scrutiny, give us more guys to call choke artists, and heighten the drama of every game throughout the course of the season. 

2. Make the league smaller. Mega-contraction. Don't just cut 2 or 4 teams - cut 6. You redistribute all those expansion rosters onto the other teams, suddenly the Thunder have a deep bench and maybe John Wall has someone competent to oop his alley. Again, no one wants to see those terrible teams with no star power, and we don't have 30 superstars. Shit, we don't have 24 superstars (Don't Monta Ellis on my head and tell me it's raining), but cutting the league by 17% would be a start. The owners don't want to hear it, but if you want a juicy TV contract, you have to provide a juicy product. And LaMarcus Aldredge ain't that.

3. Increase Loyalty Incentives. Right now, a big star gives up 4 or 5 million dollars a year by choosing a big market over a small one. Buy guys like Dwight Howard will make a lot more money in LA on endorsements than he will in Cougartown. Also, they give you a Kardashian when you get off the plane. But what if Howard was giving up 10 or 15 million dollars a year? That's right - if hometown teams want to keep their franchise players, they should be able to pay them 30 to 35 million dollars a year, while no free agent changing teams will be able to make more than 20. The max could increase with MVPs won or All-Nba teams made. This last measure is two-fold. First, it will make stars think twice - I don't think it will keep everyone in place but it would make a guy like Chris Bosh think about selling his soul to be third banana. More importantly, it would be harder to put together a dream team under the cap, and it's hard to imagine a guy like Lebron agreeing to get paid half of what his teammate Dwayne Wade does.

The NBA didn't try anything radical in its resolution of the lockout. It went back to business as usual with both sides unhappy and trying to buck the system. Chris Paul's aborted trade is the first of many unfortunate situations that  will arise as the result of avoiding the problem as opposed to confronting it. The problem is the players in the NBA have more power than those in any other league. A system must be put in place that both harnesses this talent and encourages players monetarily to pursue their legacies independently of one another.

David Stern Shits The Bed

Nearly without exception, every time I've been to an NBA game, someone sitting near me who's been drinking beer remarks a little too loudly to his friend that of course the Lakers or the Celtics or the Heat were winning, because that's what makes the league money, because that's how David Stern wanted it. I've always considered these guys to be of the same type (though far more harmless) as those who claim that 9/11 was a conspiracy hatched by the CIA and the Mossad. Well, I no longer have that luxury. Like it or not, we're now living with a league that is no longer governed by teams, players, and coaches acting autonomously, where everyone was allowed to do what they thought would advance their careers, and everyone could pursue winning as best they knew how. By nixing the Chris Paul to the Lakers trade, the NBA has signaled strongly that basketball decisions are not up to a single team. As commissioner of the NBA, David Stern is responsible for that horrendous decision. He should resign.

Not to get too Ayn Randian about it, but if teams aren't allowed to do what they think is best for them, to make the decisions they think necessary to succeed, then what's the point in letting them compete at all? If it isn't going to be legitimate competition and just competition up to a point, what is the point of any of it? Why not just give every team a trophy and be done with it? I think that this decision has done irrevocable harm to the NBA. Far more than LeBron's ridiculous decision ever did. I hope that the NBA hears the outrage and overturns a fatally stupid mistake. Damage will be done, the league will be weakened, but not as badly as it is right now. It is far better to have indecisive fools at the top than fools at the top who insist on terrible decisions.

Don't get me wrong, I was not a huge fan of this trade. I thought that by snagging Scola, Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, and the loose change that was Dragic and a draft pick, the Hornets did better than one could have possibly expected. That's at least two all star caliber players, scoring, rebounding, defense, and the chance to rebuild. The Rockets gave up a lot of the pieces they have been hoping to mesh around a hall of fame figure for a hall of fame figure in Gasol. And the Lakers made a gutsy and probably stupid move in putting two guys who are amazing, amazing basketball players who both need the ball, who injury might soon claim, and who would be playing under the strictest of scrutinies, on the same team. This would have likely blown up. It certainly would have blown up the Jackson system and everything that dude built. Since I hate the Lakers and like Chris Paul, I would not have liked this. I would start by defending him, find that he was taking to LA well, and quickly begin to hate him. Nonetheless, disappointed as I was at that prospect, I could hardly wait for basketball to start. It would have been amazing to see. Kobe could again be averaging 30 points a game. And Chris Paul, a master at collapsing defenses could, while feeding one of the best shooters in the game, have frequently racked up 20 assists.

Besides hurting the egos of Odom and Gasol and probably Scola and Martin (but who cares about the egos of those guys? They don't play in LA, am I right, sports world?) and making it very difficult for them to go back to their teams and give them their all, this arrangement irrevocably damaged New Orleans. Chris Paul is leaving. Under this trade his team got some value for him. Now that's gone. They'll have to play a season out while he eyes the exits and watch him go at the end for nothing. The NBA also killed this team's ability to operate autonomously. They totally undermined the idea of having this team at all. It's a huge shame that New Orleans has suffered the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, that an economy that could have supported an NBA team is really unable to after the storm, and that the league has to subsidize the team to keep it viable. The people of New Orleans deserve a lot of things, and an NBA team, while almost ridiculous next to other things that are needed, is certainly on that list. But for all the hardships that have befallen the city's basketball squad (including Chris Paul's knee problems) David Stern is the man who has given the Hornets its hardest blow. Subsidizing was meant to be a way to keep the team afloat, but if subsidizing means that the Hornets won't be allowed to be run like a team, then they might as well not exist at all. Why let the team dwindle away its resources until it has nothing left? Who the fuck wants to play for a team that's run this way? Who wants to root for a team like this -- a team that isn't run to win championships, but for the enjoyment and utility of the other owners throughout the league? All of those owners should be ashamed of themselves. They should think carefully how they would react if the league blocked a deal they made or invalidated a contract they offered (some of them might take a little hard to the comic sans). If the Hornets aren't going to be treated like a team, they should be disbanded. And if that's unappealing, then they should be left to their own devices.

This all came, pathetically, mere days after it was publically announced that Dell Demps could run the team however he wanted. It was like Brezhnev assuring the other communist states that they were autonomous countries, free to govern themselves how they saw fit within their own borders, and then turning around and invading Czechoslovakia. Stern has brought dishonor on the whole league. By ensuring New Orleans will get nothing for Paul, he has validated everyone who says that only a few teams matter. He has also invalidated the worth of all the other players in this trade, by acting as if it was too unbalanced to go down. Worst of all, he has remade the NBA in the image of the WWE. A fake show where athletes do not really compete and being champion is as useless as being the ref, where all that matters is the drama. David Stern has shit the bed. He has covered all the rest of us in his excrement and dealt a bad blow to the league and those who love it. Today should be his last day at the league's helm, because he can no longer steer the ship. He no longer seems capable of knowing where he's taking the league or what he's doing. And as he dicks around, professional basketball is changing for the worse. David Stern has been a blessing for basketball. He has truly built something huge and beautiful, an institution that rose from humble beginnings to attract a world following. But he has stayed on too long. And now, instead of adding to his creation, he is, one plank at a time, helping dismantle it.

Current Headlines in Order of Import

Jamaal Tinsley to the Jazz!


Chris Paul is going to the Lakers for Gasol and Odom.

Super Teams: An Examination

With the lockout all but over and rumors flying like crazy that Chris Paul and Dwight Howard are about to have new homes, possibly together, likely in large media markets, it seems the NBA is ready to enter into the next era. The era seems to be one of a few super teams. The only silver lining that could have possibly emerged from the lockout, and the only real reason to go through that bullshit -- other than to deny Dirk Nowitzki his right as a descendant of the Germanic hordes to throw the first pitch of a World Series game -- was to stem the tide of players abandoning small market teams in droves to go play in a few well chosen cities, effectively reorienting the league as one in which more than 4 teams could compete for a championship, maybe even gaining the parity enjoyed by the NFL. If this was the metric by which to measure the lockout, then the lockout came up shorter than LeBron in game 6. It is now easier for players to abandon the teams that discover and train them for new deals elsewhere. I think the NBA probably did this by arguing from the mistaken premise that what happened in the last twelve months will also happen over the next decade. League management and owners noticed that the decision was a huge gain to the league. It increased revenue, ticket sales, and interest, not just in the Heat, but in the entire league. People started paying attention to basketball in a way they hadn't since Jordan. Great, everyone thought, let's replicate that.

Doing so will likely prove difficult, if not self-defeating. One reason the decision stood out was because it was novel. Not just LeBron's method of delivering his news, but also his choice of going to Miami. But as more and more players follow suit, America will lose interest in Basketball and follow other forms of entertainment. (Even if America would tune in again and again for LeBron to break their hearts and stumble over his prepared remarks, not every player is LeBron, when we get to Bynum's decision, we've started the steady descent to Kris Humphries'.) The dwindling attention the US will attach to hoops will likely be accelerated, not slowed by the fact that, with teams turning players over faster and faster, only the die hard basketball fans will even know who's on their teams. Long gone will be the days the casual fan can say, Tim Duncan, he's killing for us. And, when you lose that, enjoyment of the sport becomes a niche endeavor only attempted by true devotees who try to outflank each other with mastery of the most obscure references and microtrends. This is not the fate you wish on something you want to succeed financially, something you want to avoid the egos and wailing and finger pointing and blame shifting that leads to lockouts.

But it's whatever. Like it or not, we're in the era of super teams. It remains an open question whether the super team formula will succeed. Will Shane Batier sign with the Heat? Will Greg Oden? Will these teams be able to attract enough veteran cogs to build a working machine or will they surround their stars with rosters like that of the Heat? My gut says not really. There are, after all, so many talented veterans to go around and I think they, more than anything, want a sure thing. They're likely to still sign with San Antonio, Dallas, Boston, Los Angeles, and Miami. New York is going to have a hell of a time trying to attract them. And so is whoever else wants to get in on this super teams trend: New Jersey, the Clippers, and everyone else who will try to get several of the best players in the world to join their squads. It is telling that, in the first experiment of super teams (one in which they played a classic team made of a future hall of famer surrounded by a great cadre of role players and veterans who all had a position and played it well), the super team lost to the classic team. Clearly the jury is still out and clearly we're kidding ourselves if we think that the Heat aren't about to win several championships. But when they do, it will likely be because of Battier and Oden's complimentary skills and not just Dwyane Wade and LeBron carrying Bibby around on their backs.

Let's leave that question aside and get at the root cause of the super team phenomenon for a second. There are two basic theories that explain the rise of the super teams. One is that it is a result of a new outlook by a younger generation of Basketball stars. The other is that there are now new opportunities to franchise oneself in giant cities on a larger stage that didn't used to exist. Both of these theories attempt to explain why, in the past, players would, by and large, dance with the teams that brung 'em, and seem to be shifting away from that. The first theory says that Carmello signed in New York, because for him, in our increasingly disjointed world, he didn't really care about the Nuggets and felt little connection to Denver. The second theory says that, in the past, Mr. Anthony wouldn't have been able to sell that much more in Portland or in New York, but that now he can tap into a large and growing media market and really make some money (above and beyond the national commercials that Michael Jordan opened up for everyone). The first theory is unfalsifiable, at least in the immediate, non-mind reading term. The second theory, however, can be falsified by examining the evidence of other players, those also around today but of a slightly different basketball "generation" than the current crop of all stars. These are dudes like Nash, Duncan, and Nowitzki. By looking at these guys and their behavior, we might be able to see whether they are leaving their home cities in droves. What we see is the opposite. In the last couple years, these guys, plus Ginobili, Bryant, and Pierce (delegates of what now counts for the old NBA guard) have all agreed to contract extensions with their current team, despite the possibility (except in Bryant's case) of potentially making more money elsewhere. It would seem that, so far, the trend towards super teams really is one that is based in culture and not economics. That is good in a way because it means that it is reversible and can be undone without taking the drastic step of forcing New York to subsidize Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City mattress commercials. But if we see Steve Nash going to the Heat or the Knicks, it will be too late. The culture will then have totally permeated the NBA from top to bottom, and it will be very hard to remove or change it. This could be a death knell for the sport, leading to diminished public interest, frustration of all fans who happen to not live in a few key cities, and diminished revenue which will again lead to a cessation of basketball and even less interest in the sport.

Let's not get too negative though. Basketball is back. Even if it's top level will only exist in a few locations, at least it's free of the prison of college campuses. Watching the Cleveland Cavaliers will always beat watching the Big East. And, if the super teams attract attention abroad, maybe enterprising young Chinese and Nigerian men will eschew soccer for basketball, raising the quality of NBA players, filling the ranks of the other squads with quality bodies, and, potentially, eliminating the super team trend. Either way, I now have somewhere to go to watch dunks other than here.

Today's Reason To Laugh, Be Embarrassed