10 THINGS I LIKE
1. The San Antonio Spurs
Don't look now but the Spurs are 9-1. Everybody always overlooks and underestimates the Spurs every single year. They're too old. They're too boring. Age will catch up to them. Parker's gotten slower. Duncan's a wash. Ginobili's bald. All that nonsense. Yet, at the end of the day, the Spurs get Ws and manage to finish atop the Western Conference and make deep playoff runs year after year. This year, they've been annihilating opponents, turning games into blowouts by halftime. Their stingy D ranks only second to the Pacers in terms of fewest points allowed per game. And it always seems that every night, it's somebody different from their bench stepping up. One night it could be Boris Diaw. The next it could be Marco Belinelli. The day after it could be Ginobili. And you want to know what the scariest thing is? The Spurs haven't even hit their stride yet. Duncan missed a few games with injury, Danny Green has been woefully inconsistent, and Kawhi Leonard hasn't even been putting up anything remotely similar to his big time playoff performance last postseason. Once the Spurs start really clicking, the rest of the NBA better be on high alert.
2. Kevin Love's passing
We know Kevin Love is a monster. The double-double machine puts up video game numbers night in and night out and his ridiculous stat lines are so common for him that we barely even bat an eye anymore. But this year, he has expanded his arsenal even further and thanks to the way Rick Adelman's offense is set up, we are learning how great of a passer Love is as well. Despite never averaging more than 2.5 assists per game in a single season, this year Love is averaging better than 5 assists per game. And it's all thanks to Adelman's new system that places a lot of emphasis on Love's passing from the high post. Thus far, he's doing a great job of facilitating and finding the open man with crisp passes inside. And his outlet passes! My goodness, something out of the book of Wes Unseld. Wow. Now that he's added another wrinkle to his already refined all-around game, it speaks even further volumes as to how truly special a player Kevin Love is.
3. The Golden State Warriors offense
The Warriors offense has been such a joy to watch this year. They are instituting some new split action plays on offense which confuse the defense and force them to commit to doubling one wing or the other. And when the defense commits, the ballhandler (in this set, most often their big men David Lee and Andrew Bogut) hits the open man for an easy layup or an uncontested three. And because Lee and Bogut are such capable passers AND because the defense will refuse to leave Klay Thompson or Stephen Curry alone for a 3, more often than not, this play results in success. It kind of reminds of the read option in football, almost as if Lee and Bogut act as the quarterback and read the defense before determining the next course of action. And the rest of their offensive sets haven't been too bad either. Curry is a master at the pull-up jumper, Klay Thompson has been curling off screens (sometimes double-screens) and nailing his 3s, and Iguodala has discovered the jump shot that has eluded him throughout his entire career. Meanwhile, down low, David Lee has been keeping opposing bigs off balance with arrays of pump fakes from the high post (which the D has to honor because of Lee's prolific midrange game) and then putting his head down and attacking the basket or finding Andrew Bogut for an easy layup once Bogut's man slides in to help. The offense is both sophisticated and a lot of fun to watch unfold and so far, that's been a winning combo for the Dubs.
4. Andrea Bargnani
Bargnani, the Italian who was a former #1 overall pick, has become something of a running punchline in the NBA. He grabs a pathetic number of rebounds for a 7 footer, gets a bad wrap for being flatfooted and disinterested on D, and doesn't do much else other than shoot jumpshots. He was unloaded to the Knicks for next to nothing this offseason by Masai Ujiri in one of Ujiri's first moves as the GM of the Raptors and expectations were quite low for him. But then, Tyson Chandler was lost for 4-6 weeks with a leg injury and with no capable bodies left, Bargnani was immediately thrust into huge minutes at center. And he has performed admirably. He turned some heads with an un-Bargnani like 8 rebound performance against the Bobcats and turned even more by following a few days later with 11 rebounds against the Hawks. He's hitting the open jumpers that the Knicks are creating for him and he's even blocking a shot here and there (the most memorable of which was a rejection of Dwight Howard last night). Plus, he's proving that he's not a completely useless one-on-one defender (just don't expect much in terms of help defense). The usefulness of Andrea Bargnani has been one of the more pleasant surprises in the first couple of weeks of the NBA season.
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5. JJ Redick
Perhaps nobody has benefited from a change of scenery this offseason more so than JJ Redick. A slinky mover off the ball and an elite 3 point shooter that has been known for canning triples ever since his days at Duke, Redick is really benefiting from playing with an elite point guard in Chris Paul. Paul gets him the ball in space right on the money and Redick always there to knock down the open shot. Before this year, Redick's point guards were Jameer Nelson and Brandon Jennings. Not exactly the best facilitators in the world. But now in Los Angeles, the Chris Paul effect has resulted in career best numbers: he's scoring a career high 16 ppg and connecting on a career best 47% of his shots. Plus, he's shown a bit of ability to create his own shot, put the ball on the floor, and throw in a nice ball-fake or two to create an open look at the rim. Well done JJ.
6. The Phoenix Suns
So thought the Suns were the headlining act for Tankapalooza 2013/2014 did you? Well apparently nobody gave the memo to Eric Bledsoe and Co. as they come blazing out of the gates with a surprising 5-4 record. Bledsoe has been unstoppable, Markieff Morris has been getting to the rim and posting gaudy numbers off the bench, Gerald Green has been showing that he's more than a dunker, and Miles Plumlee has emerged as a decent low post threat. Throw in the fact that the Suns are running early and often under new coach Jeff Hornacek and you have yourself quite the fun team to watch. Once Goran Dragic gets fully healthy, the Suns could take it up even further. This moderate early success may not be sustainable for the entire year but for now, let's just sit back and enjoy the ride.
7. The Atlanta Hawks
Ahh, the Hawks. Everyone forgot about them and just assumed they were cast-offs, doomed to rot away in the doldrums of the Eastern Conference after losing Josh Smith to free agency. Not so. The Hawks have kicked off the year with a 5-4 record. Jeff Teague has been posting career bests all-around. Al Horford continues to show us why he is one of the most underrated centers in the league. Paul Millsap is putting up numbers reminiscent of his best days in Utah. And Kyle Korver has been an absolute sniper from behind the arc. Don't be surprised if this Atlanta team slides under the radar and vultures a #5 or #6 seed in the East.
8. Lance Stephenson
This guy was supposed to be an afterthought. He filled in admirably for Danny Granger in last year's playoffs as the starting SG but Granger was supposed to come back this year, send Stephenson back to the bench, and all would be fine and dandy. Well, Granger suffered a new calf injury to go along with his recovery from knee surgery and Stephenson's number was called upon once again. And boy has he responded. He is averaging a popping 14-6-6 line on the season as the 4th or 5th option for the Pacers. His three point shot has been on, he's been making plays, and he's been chasing down loose balls. He even had a 13-11-12 triple double in 34 minutes against the hallowed Memphis defense (who we'll get to in a moment) the other day. Not bad for a guy who was supposed to be an afterthought.
9. Gordon Hayward
Yes, the Jazz are 1-9. Yes, they look completely lost and have no chemistry whatsoever on the court. Yes, opponents are scoring at will on them. And yes, Jazz fans are probably already pre-ordering their Andrew Wiggins/Jabari Parker jerseys from eBay. But don't blame any of that on Gordon Hayward. He looks brilliant. Averaging 20-6-5 on the season, he's been doing it all for that team. He's been making plays for Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter to get good looks down low. He's been aggressive and getting to the rim often. He's showed an expanded offensive arsenal and has amped up his defensive intensity. And he really hasn't shied away from being handed the keys to Tyrone Corbin's Ford Pinto offense. So even if the Jazz could be headed for a historic level of stink, at least Gordon Hayward is fun to watch go to work.
10. The proposed Iman Shumpert-Kenneth Faried deal
I know a lot of people are sour on this deal but I think this deal makes a lot of sense for both teams. The Nuggets need a perimeter defender badly ever since losing Andre Iguodala to free agency. Randy Foye is best served in a bench role and Evan Fournier isn't quite ready for a major role yet. Trading for Iman Shumpert would solve a lot of problems for them. He does a little bit of everything: defense, getting to the rim, hitting jumpers, crashing the glass, a true glue guy. He could immediately start on the wing and while his 3 point shooting isn't exemplary, in the long term, the Nuggets will have Danilo Gallinari healthy again to space the floor. On the Knicks side of things, trading for the Manimal makes sense now because they are absolutely desperate for size, for rebounding, for a presence down low, especially with Chandler on the shelf. Faried defines hustle, has a nice touch around the rim, and is one of the best young rebounders in the game. Plus, when Chandler returns, they'd be able to co-exist because Faried isn't much of a ballstopper and doesn't need the ball in his hands down low all the time. A Faried-Chandler frontcourt. Can anyone say "offensive rebounding?" And while I doubt that such a deal will actually get done, at the very least, it's quite an intriguing proposition.
10 THINGS I DISLIKE
1. The way Scott Brooks, Dwane Casey, and Larry Drew are running their teams
These are the three coaches that stand out to me in terms of grossly mishandling their teams so far in this season. Remember when Scott Brooks was widely concerned to be one of the best coaches in the NBA after he led the young 2011-2012 Thunder to the NBA Finals? Those days seem like a distant memory now with his questionable rotations and coaching decisions. Brooks is a stubborn man as evidenced by his propensity to give huge minutes to his favorite veteran has beens, namely wash up Kendrick Perkins and washed up from being washed up Derek Fisher, while letting his young, promising pieces, namely the New Zealander rookie Steven Adams and the exciting Reggie Jackson, rot on the bench. Dwane Casey meanwhile isn't doing much better. He is running his offense through the black holes on the perimeter known as Rudy Gay, Kyle Lowry, and DeMar DeRozan, guys who absolutely love the contested midrange jumper aka the worst shot you can take on a basketball court from a pure efficiency standpoint, and he's wondering why he's not having success. Take the Raptors double OT loss against the Rockets the other night. Rudy Gay took 37 shots, bricking 26, DeRozan took 25 shots, clanking 19, and Lowry took 16 shots, clunking 10. For those of you keeping score at home, that's FIFTY FIVE MISSED SHOTS in the span of one game amongst three players. Missed shots, not even the number of total shots taken. Meanwhile, the piece of the future, Jonas Valanciunas is struggling to get touches thanks to this Axis of Evil on the Raptors perimeters and is even struggling to get minutes thanks to Casey's love for Amir Johnson and Tyler Hansbrough (and even Aaron Gray to an extent). Well done Dwane. And now let's get to Larry Drew. It takes a special man to have a more questionable rotation that Scott Brooks. But when you're parading out a "meaningful" lineup of Nate Wolters, Brandon Knight, Gary Neal, Khris Middleton, and Ekpe Udoh, you take the cake. This is a man who benched the Bucks 44 million dollar man Larry Sanders for entire quarters on end (a guy we'll get to a little later) and refuses to start his best big man, John Henson, despite the fact that he only has 7 or 8 healthy players on his roster. I am dumbfounded by these three coaches.
2. The Matt Barnes incident
In case you didn't know, a little brouhaha went down the other night at the Staples Center when the Thunder squared off with the Clippers. Blake Griffin and Serge Ibaka, who have a bit of a history dating back to when Griffin posterized Ibaka in OKC and Ibaka responded the next time they faced off by making a not so subtle attempt to disguise taking a low blow at Griffin as typical box-out fare, got tangled up in the first half, some light pushing and shoving ensued before Barnes escalated things by jumping in and shoving Ibaka. Both Barnes and Ibaka were ejected after cooler heads prevailed but the real story was what Barnes tweeted after the game.
Nevermind the choice language or the fact that he tweeted while the game was still going on, a clear violation of NBA rules. What really bugs me is the ideals behind this. Barnes is basically calling out his teammates and telling them to fight their own battles. It's really a shame what the NBA has become nowadays. What happened to the days of enforcers? Whose one job it was to protect the team's stars? If a team's star got hit with a dirty play, the enforcer would come in, rough up the offending party, the offender(s) would know to never pull those shenanigans again, and that was the end of that. Call me nostalgic for an era of basketball I never even lived through but what happened to the Bill Laimbeers? The Charles Oakleys? The Rick Mahorns? The Kermit Washingtons? The Maurice Lucases? The guys who kept basketball pure, who had their brothers back at all times no questions asked. Granted, there are some players that still try to uphold this tradition of good, old-fashioned, hard-nosed ball like they played back in the day (see: Udonis Haslem clobbering Tyler Hansbrough in the 2012 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals), but Matt Barnes actions and words the other night all but ensure that this style, this tradition, this era of basketball is all but dead. And that sucks.
3. The Rockets Twin Towers 2.0 Experiment
Well that didn't work. I never took the Rockets preseason experiment to try to recreate the glory days of Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon with Dwight Howard and Omer Asik. I'll refer you to a few tweets that I made when this experiment first came to light. Note the August 16 date
So now that the Rockets have tried and failed with it in the regular season, I must ask. Was I right or was I right? The two big men have slowed down the Rockets breakneck pace, have performed worse on defense when together than when on the court separately, and have clogged up driving lanes and made it difficult for the Rockets wings to penetrate. It seems as though Kevin McHale has come to his senses and benched Asik in favor of capable floor spacer Terrence Jones, but now Asik is once again demanding a trade from the Rockets. In fact, last night, during the Rockets-Knicks game, the TNT crew showed Asik sulking on the bench, shaking his head whilst sitting quite uncomfortably next to Dwight Howard. I think that about sums up how this Twin Towers experiment has gone. What a disaster.
4. Derrick Rose
We knew he might be rusty after 18 months away from the game. We knew he might be bad. We knew it might take a while for him to find his groove. But we didn't know it would take this long, that he'd be this rusty and this bad. The 2010-2011 NBA MVP Derrick Rose has looked like a shell of himself to say the least in the first couple of weeks of the young season. After lighting the universe on fire during the preseason looking aggressive and a penchant for showcasing his increased 3 point range all of that has disappeared in the regular season. Rose is shooting 33% from the field, 25% from behind the arc, leads the league in turnovers per game, is struggling to make plays and find the open man, and ranks tied for dead last in win shares at -0.3 meaning that the Bulls would average 0.3 more wins if Rose wasn't on the court at all. Ognjen Kuzmic has contributed more win shares to his team!! Now Rose is out with a hamstring injury that seems minor but has the potential to be nagging if not handled well. Yikes.
5. The Miami Heat defense
The championship level defense that the Heat pride themselves on has been a bit lacking as Miami has stumbled out of the gate to an un-Heat-like 5-3 record through their first 8. The intensity has been nowhere near as fiery, closes are late, traps are less aggressive, and the team is a half-step slower getting back in transition. The two-time defending champs are giving up over 100 points per game and maybe you can chalk it up to them not being as hungry, chalk it up to the overused "The Heat don't try until the second half excuse," chalk it up to the championship hangover, or chalk it up to adjusting to the new pieces (Rashard Lewis with a meaningful place in the rotation and Michael Beasley existing) but the one thing we can all agree on is that the defending champs have to get their act together on defense and get it together soon.
6. The Brooklyn Nets
Well there's only one basketball and with all those mouths to feed in the Brooklyn offense, Nets fans' worst fears have been confirmed a bit. Brook Lopez has emerged as the alpha-dog in that offense and looks great with clean averages of a shade under 20 ppg and 6 rpg. But the rest of the team? All averaging career lows or near career lows in production. The worst of whom have been Deron Williams (who is only managing 11 ppg on sub-42% shooting) and Kevin Garnett (who looks awful with only 6 ppg, a disappearing midrange game, and a defensive game that looks as though he's running through cement, particularly concerning because he prides himself on defense). And that "stacked" bench? Led by Andray Blatche's 6 points per game. Terry looks lost, Kirilenko is hurt, and Alan Anderson is a non-factor. And to top it all off, Jason Kidd looks completely lost and clueless often turning to Lawrence Frank and his assistant coaches to run the show. Granted, they did get a quality win against the Heat, but it's hard to live up to the championship hopes when you're 3-5 giving up 101 points per game while scoring less than 96. Especially when you're getting blown out by the likes of Orlando and Sacramento.
7. All Pelicans not named Anthony Davis
Anthony Davis is having a breakout year. He's aggressive on both ends, has the midrange J working, showed off improved post-moves and is hitting the glass with a passion. He's averaging an unreal 22-11 line with 3 blocks per game on the season. Wow. But the rest of the team? Bluck. It's good to see Eric Gordon be aggressive getting to the rim but his jumper is appearing on milk cartons and it's only a matter of time before he's hurt again. Meanwhile, Tyreke Evans is struggling to lead the second unit and he's seen major dips in production across the board. And Jrue Holiday is having nowhere near the success he had statistically in Philly and is having a hard time adjusting to Monty Williams' offense. That's what happens when you have all those ballstoppers on the perimeter. And at the same time, Ryan Anderson is still hurt, Jason Smith is inconsistent, Greg Stiemsma just got hurt, and Jeff Withey is nothing more than a dunking prop. No wonder the Pelicans are 3-6. Without the Brow, they'd probably be 0-9.
8. The Detroit Pistons
What's eating the Maurice Cheeks gang? Remember that terrifying huge frontcourt of Josh Smith, Andre Drummond, and Greg Monroe? They've looked awkward and slow with one another and it makes spacing a real issue. Smith is launching his trademark awful 3s and Cheeks and Chauncey Billups aren't doing as much good as I thought with Brandon Jennings who has been chucking pretty hard and had some comments the other day that said that he'd be looking to get his shot off more rather than facilitating. For a guy like Jennings who is one of the most notorious chuckers in the league to be saying this bodes poorly for a Detroit offense looking to find its identity. The bench is a semi-bright spot but the Pistons have fallen flat on their faces out of the gate and have us all wondering if it's time to start hitting the panic button. Something's rotten in the state of Michigan.
9. Larry Sanders
Larry Sanders is a clown. After getting inked to a 44 million dollar extension with the Bucks in the offseason, he responded with an awful preseason that translated into an awful regular season. He averaged a paltry 2.7 and 3.7 rebounds to go with 2.0 blocks in a shade over 17 minutes per game. This perfect storm of Sanders' ineffectiveness and Larry Drew's incompetence led to friction and ultimately it boiled over one night with Sanders at a local bar. He allegedly instigated a fight, threw punches, and broke champagne bottles over people's heads. He lucked out because he wasn't slapped with criminal charges but the luck ran out there because he required thumb surgery to repair an injury suffered in the fight and he will be sidelined for at least the next six weeks. That's the worst thing that you can do for a guy like Sanders. Sign him to a big contract because that's when this kind of stuff starts to happen. Clown.
10. The Memphis Grizzlies defense
On paper, the Grizzlies have the best defense in the league. With two elite perimeter defending guards in Mike Conley and Tony Allen, the reigning defensive player of the year Marc Gasol, and the far from useless Zach Randolph and Tayshaun Prince, Memphis and new head coach Dave Joeger in particular seem to pride themselves on defense. Well that's not translating to success on the court. The super-perimeter duo aren't getting as many steals as we're accustomed to while Prince looks overmatched chasing his man around and Randolph looks particularly washed up on the defensive end. And Marc Gasol is "leading" the team with 0.9 blocks per game. They're even forced to roll Mike Miller out there fighting through screens on defense because they need his shooting so desperately. Giving up nearly 100 points on defense is a major problem when you're scoring less than 95 a game. Clean up your act Memphis!
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