More Timberwolves Errata

MORE TIMBERWOLVES ERRATA

Jul 30, 2012 by Patrick Minton

So, I wrote an article saying the Wolves could win 57 wins next year and Twitter kind of errupted. I thought I'd make a few clarifications to some of the common responses I have seen.

The Kahn Supremacy sounds racist.

Whoops. This honestly never crossed my mind. I chose the article because I had just recently written an article called The Kahn Redemption, and there's this movie coming out called the Bourne Redemption, and there's this other movie called the Bourne Supremacy, so I thought it was a clever play on words. You know, I did my best to ignore the swell of "oh my god they're the whitest team ever" jokes on Twitter, and whenever I see one, I'm tempted to reach for the 'Unfollow' button, not because I am offended, but because, you know, they aren't funny anymore*. They're like making Linsansity puns. The first few were funny, then it gets boring really fast.

*Except for SLAM's Myles Brown (@mdotbrown). That dude's hilarious, and he has a free pass to make as many Timberwolf jokes as he'd like.

The Timberwolves haven't won a game in April in forever.

Here's where we drag out my favorite blurb from every investing site in the history of the internet: Past performance is not indicative of future results. In other words, causality matters; shit doesn't just happen because that's what happened last time. In this case we might say: the past performance of those losers that are no longer on the team are irrelevant to the team's future performance. If I replaced Gasol, Bynum, and Bryant with Milicic, Johnson, and Beasley, would you predict the Lakers to be a top 4 seed, because after all, the Lakers go deep in the playoffs every year? Yeah, didn't think so. I know more than a few teams next year are going to be saying "We just lost to the Timberwolves?" in their best Allen-Iverson-talkin'-bout-practice voice, but Wes Johnson, Darko Milicic, and Michael Beasley are not walking through that door. Get over it.

Brandon Roy is not coming back. You're living in the past.

You missed the part where I wrote that the real superstar acquisition is not Roy; it's Andrei Kirilenko. My prediction involves Roy playing worse than Martell Webster did last year. If Roy's knees are not healthy, they'll play Shved at the 2. All they need is almost-average.

Rubio's only got one knee.

Rubio is also not central to this team's success, other than providing some average-level play. I only assigned Rubio limited minutes and I gave him a lower WP48 than last year. Ridnour is a pretty average point guard and if Rubio isn't really healthy than Adelman will likely play him more. Average is all they need at point guard. Anything Rubio does well is a bonus.

No one on that team can score efficiently.

They can't spread the floor.

This one baffles me because it seems that the people making this argument don't understand that you can look up how many shots each player took last season, and see how many points they scored, and see if it took them lots of shots to score. There are a ton of efficient scorers on this team. I guess some guys seem to think scoring "efficiently" means "creating shots" or some bullshit. I actually had a guy ask me why Love is a more efficient scorer than Ricky Davis. I'm like...well, whenever Love shot the ball, more points went on the scoreboard? Another guy said that "All Pek can do is get fouled in the paint, he can't score". Aside from the fact that this isn't...factual....wait, you guys know free throws count, right? They're not just practice shots, you actually get points for them? OK, just checking.

The bit about spreading the floor is weird too. You do not HAVE to have 5 sharpshooters. Having a bunch of 3 point scorers is not the only way to spread the floor or achieve spacing. You can spread the floor by having a deadly high post player and a deadly low post player, for instance. The Golden State Warriors, Orlando Magic, and Atlanta Hawks are all examples of teams that ranked very high in three-point shooting last year, but were nowhere near the top in offensive efficiency. 3-piont shooting is good but it isn't a panacea and it isn't the only way to spread the floor. It's yet another reason that I think the addition of Ray Allen to the Heat isn't anywhere near as big a factor as most.

In other words, Ridnour and Love both shoot the three well, and even on bad knees Roy will probably still hit about 35%, and you've got Budinger off the bench, and that's probably enough. It's also true that even if the guy catching the ball isn't Ray Allen or Kyle Korver, defenders will still close out on guys who catch the ball wide open behind the three-point line. They'll spread the floor just fine.

Love's not going to get many free throws next year. This happened to Dwayne Wade, LeBron, and Kobe when they got good teammates.

Last I checked Shaq was a "good teammate" in 2006, but Dwayne still got to the line a lot. Another possible explanation for the drop off for is that they just got older. Beating the defender on the perimeter becomes harder, changing direction to avoid charging help defenders gets harder, etc. If Love stops getting any calls, he won't be as efficient. It's true. He also won't be as efficient if his three-point shooting falls off. Or if he stops getting offensive rebounds.

It's also true that if there are monsters under my bed, I'm likely to get eaten tonight in my sleep. But I'm not going to worry about it until I find evidence that the monsters exist.

Then there's this last one:

It's not Kahn, it's Adelman.

You know what, I believe you. Kahn has been a terrible general manager for years. There are a few possiblities:

Kahn suddenly got a lot smarter at evaluating basketball talent
Kahn suddenly realized that he's terrible at evaluating basketball talent and delegated this to somebody else
Adelman or someone close to him essentially usurped Kahn's decision making within the organization
Kahn has always had a decision-by-committee style and Adelman's camp currently has the respect of the committee
etc etc

Y'all should know by now that I am a huge proponent of using Occam's Razor, which would essentially eliminate the first bullet point. So, I suspect that some combination of the other bullet points is much more likely. But unless we're given access to the inside, we'll never know. And since the Captain goes down with the ship, we are also forced to give the Captain the praise when things go very well, even if it's really Spock and Scotty who are doing all the work. And, as Arturo pointed out, even if all he did was step back and bring in competent personnel executives and listened to them, this is something that many GMs never achieve, because they allow their egos to run rampant, and Kahn deserves praise for this.

Basically, we have to hold ourselves accountable. We can't bitch and moan about everything Kahn ever did wrong, then ignore a bunch of great moves as if they didn't happen. The same thing happened to McHale. He made a lot of very poor decisions, but he made some good ones. He drafted Garnett, Pekovic, and, essentially, Kevin Love. Remember all of you bitching about the OJ Mayo trade? It's probably the greatest trade in Timberwolves history, and certainly one of the most lopsided trades of all time. He absolutely nailed Memphis' balls to the wall with that trade. How many of you have come out and said "Ok, he sure got that one right."?

If we don't praise David Kahn for these moves, then we essentially lose all credibility when we criticisize his decisions. And in the end, it doesn't matter if he's gotten smarter or if he is just smart enough to listen to other people who know what they are doing. That's also part of being a leader.

Categories: Minnesota Timberwolves

Brett Gunter

Patrick,
Never occurred to me that your title sounded racist. The pun was pretty obvious, and the Bourne series is everywhere right now. Many of the points you address would seem to come from people who didn't read the post closely enough. Your WP guess absolutely was not 'pie-in-the-sky;' it was more, 'Holy crap, these guys will need some bad luck to NOT be good.' The T-wolves aren't anywhere on my hierarchy of Teams I Hate So Much I Never Want To See Them Win, so if they're great next year, I won't mind. Once I'm past all my prejudices, I just want to watch good players play; if you put a bunch of them on the same team, you get to watch a lot of wins--and I'm with you in thinking that just might happen in Minn this year.

295 days ago

William Guo

I understand this was meant to be a fairly optimistic exercise to prove your point about Kahn redeeming himself; the squad undoubtedly looks better now than at the end of last season. I think three potential flaws that overestimate the Wolves:

1) Pekovic can sustain his form. He's clearly better utilized with Adelman and an additional year in the NBA has given him invaluable experience, but I don't think you're regressing to the mean enough with his performance. Teams will scout him more, defend him better, and he may simply get less lucky. To a lesser extent, Stiemsma as well - extrapolating an undrafted player's 766 minutes is a bit scary to a .150 WPA/48 is a bit scary.

2) Rubio's play only impacts his own WP/48, not everyone else's. As per The Full Court Pest's analysis on Steve Nash, there could be an element of Rubio making everyone better and more efficient on shooting. The repercussions of his injury may shake the team.

3) Good rotations by Adelman. His fascination with Luis Scola despite better options - Landry, Patterson, Hill - may mean that he overplays Roy or Barea.

293 days ago

robert miller

I'm still struggling to determine whether you are very serious about the posts you provide or are doing a bit of trolling. Undoubtedly your statistical analysis is solid but it seems you get drowned in it. You seem to be the sort of fan that makes very stark statements about players. Either they are terrible, bad, good, or phenomenal. Broad strokes for a game that is so dependent on system and skill set. A player like Darren Collison can show shades of top tier pg play in NO but cannot replicate that play in a system less dependent on the pick and roll like Indiana. Likewise a player like Lin can be of no consequence on a Golden state team where PT is limited and his skill set isn't useful and then he can explode in D'Antoni's offense. Ultimately, all NBA players possess talent. The most underrated element of the game is determining how to use said talent and how to cater to it within the team framework. Of course, your analysis is shrewd and many of your points are right but to a non NBA geek or a basketball lifer you can seem somewhat naive. Let's examine your projection of over 50 wins for the Timberwolves:

57 wins? Essentially you are basing this on continued development and excellent play of Love/Pek and some positional improvements in AK , Shved, and Roy. The problem is...there are peripheral and important factors to be examined. The obvious notes would be speculation as to whether AK or Roy could truly achieve even a semblance of what they were able to do in their "primes." In addition, one might be speculative as to what Shved can contribute (from what I've seen I'm not sure whether he could even be considered an avg bench player). Furthermore, Rubio's style and success is so dependent upon his quickness that he will likely struggle (as most players do after such a serious injury). Indeed, Luke Ridnour is a solid back-up but he is quite long in the tooth within a league where those whipper snappers like to take it to the rim with lightning speed (see: Lawson/Westbrook). I would also like to point out the fact that the Timberwolves were 25th in points allowed. Yes indeed AK47 should help....but how much? The man is good but sadly is on the decline and isn't capable of anchoring the whole defense. So the presumed mediocrity of what should be slower guards on defense (post surgery ruby vision and Ridnour) in addition to an ok but potentially mediocre defender in Roy and Kevin Love who despite incredible rebounding numbers is a very mediocre defender leaves the Wolves in only a slightly better position.

The offense should be much improved however.

Nonetheless, we haven't even considered the matter of cohesion. I am quite sure that you were among the clamoring masses that thought the Heat would win 60+ games the first season they were assembled (how couldn't they...by your measures they made incredible leaps and bounds at SF and PF) but sadly cohesion matters and coaches and players must understand what roles to play in order for projected wins to become actual wins.

With all this being said I think you should temper your expectations...you guys should make the playoffs...but you aren't gonna have a home advantage. Especially not with some of the beasts lurking in your conference (and even in your division) 50 wins max...most likely 45

291 days ago

Brett Gunter

Robert,
Your name would suggest English is your primary language; is it possible you only skimmed the article in question, or heard about it from someone else who did? Patrick does not project this new T-Wolves roster to exceed career bests; in fact, only a few are expected to maintain their previous season, and most are projected to come in with lower WP48 than their career bests, or last year, or even career averages. Roy and AK47, the projections you seem to find the most heinous, are for them to be about half the players they once were; if you find that 'pie-in-the-sky,' I'm guessing your friends have nicknamed you Eeyore.

As for defense, you may have a point; on the other hand, the Suns used to regularly win 60 without ever once HEARING the word from D'Antoni. Defense wins championships, no question--but offense can still win a bunch of games. Also, Adelman's teams typically show a willingness to play D.

I also find the examples you cite to be confusing. Darren Collison has been MORE productive in IND than he was in NO; same for Lin, better per minute in GS. Your preference for quick over old seems like the eyeball test; per minute, Ridnour and Westbrook are in a career dead heat. As for Shved, you might want to turn on the Olympics; both the boxscore and the eyeball test suggest he will be respectable--plus his contribution, in Patrick's projection, in negligible. The most baffling, however, is your use of the Heat to argue the benefits of cohesion. (A team I despise, by the way, so no fanboy stuff here.) Miami wiped out their entire roster, reducing their cohesion, presumably, to zero; they missed the projections of 'the clamoring masses' of 60+ wins by, at most, 3 (they won 58, made the Finals, and were a LeBron vapor lock from a title). If the T-Wolves 'only' win 54, do you really imagine any of their fans will be unhappy?

I can't really quibble with a prediction of 50 wins; things go wrong every year. I would disagree with that number as a ceiling, and 45 would be disappointingly low--but that isn't my issue with your comment. You suggest that the projection is naive, or provocative, or both; your analysis, however, falls short in terms of factual accuracy, as well as lessons drawn from history.

291 days ago

robert miller

@Brett Aside from the cheeky questioning of my ability to read, I can appreciate your response and you raise valid points. I am not as intimately related to this site or it's statistical markers as you are. Again, I noted in my post that I appreciate the presence of these stats (teams pay good money for people that can extrapolate this sort of data) and they do provide some legitimate information about future player/team performance. My main point is....this site seems to woefully disregard any sort of positional or system-related analysis. Sometimes players/teams need to be viewed outside of the scope of their stats. This is obliquely mentioned in this blog but more of the substantive statements made here involve pure statistical analysis.

As for your statements regarding Lin/Collison's efficiency I'm not sure what you are getting at. In the first place per minute stats aren't a great indicator of what kind of a player one will become when given sufficient minutes. It makes for amusing speculation and many coaches may use this information to give a guy a chance but this is trivial. In the case of Lin he received minimal minutes in GS because they were filled at the Guard position, but even beyond that....the coach didn't see anything special in practice that showed he could run their system or warranted significant minutes... talk less of the fact that he probably played mostly garbage time in blowouts. As for Collison, I'm not quite sure how less points, less assists, and a lower fg% in fewer minutes accounts for him having "been more productive." There was much talk around the NBA of Darren Collison's bright future as a potential 2nd tier or even 1st tier PG when CP3 went down that season and he stepped up in his rookie year (he was avging 19 and 9 as a starter). Most likely Indiana noticed that spark and picked him up in hopes he could replicate the sort of production he gave in NO. Of course, he did not exactly establish himself in IND as the type of player they wanted and now he is in DAL. I may be being reductive in discussing Collison but those are the salient points. To argue that he was a better player there is a bit ridiculous. They seem pretty happy with George Hill.

Now for your main point:
"You suggest that the projection is naive, or provocative, or both; your analysis, however, falls short in terms of factual accuracy, as well as lessons drawn from history."

Let me be fair to you, perhaps I may have come off a bit strong in my post. I don't seek to denigrate this blog. I do however, think the prediction is provocative. Not shockingly, others did too which is why another post had to be made in order for the OP to re-substantiate his point.

My particular bias is that I have a strong hatred of our hyperbole culture. The 24hr news cycle is ripe with this sort of hyperbolic speech that paints every player and every thing as simply horrible, awesome, or average (and thus, underwhelming). This blog provides some statistical evidence as to who truly is horrible, awesome, or average; however, it veers into the lane of being too arrogant or drunk with power because of this purely academic information. I say this generally with regards to this blog, and it is well known that Frank has caused some people's feathers to be rustled (myself included) with some of his blunt speech about players.

With that being said, I'm cognizant that my argument didn't take into account all the WP48's and PERs and the whole gamut of exhaustive stats I could have referenced. Mainly because I don't really feel I needed to. I made some substantive points about the Wolves and gave my honest opinion. The model for Rick Adleman's style presumably is centered around his old, early 2000s Kings teams. Those teams didn't play much defense (though they were significantly better than last year's sorry lot of Wolves) but were able to win because of personnel that seem somewhat incredible looking back. Chris Webber in his prime, Peja shooting over 40% from three (21ppg), a good Mike Bibby, Hedo, Gerald Wallace, Doug Christie, Vlade Divac, and Bobby Jackson. As such they were able to score 104.6 points a night. I won't even go into detail regarding the fact that the league wasn't quite as superstar packed and dangerous back then (in addition their division only had one playoff team besides them) but I can confidently state that the personnel on that team was much more of a threat to put up the points necessary to make up for mediocre defense than the current incarnation of the Wolves who are in a more formidable division with the Thunder, Nuggets, Trailblazers, and even Jazz expected to fight and scratch every night. My point is this....the old Kings were a GOOD team with a facile enough sort of schedule in a mediocre enough division that they could pull off nice season runs. This current Wolves team is a GOOD team (albeit not as good as the previously mentioned Kings team) in a challenging division during a particular time where the league is particularly talent laden.

The Wolves are good but I think we are reaching a bit here. The stars would have to nicely align in some sort of ideal cohesion/health/luck kind of way for them to win 57 games. As for your statements about Ridnour and Westbrook being in a dead heat...I don't know any human that would build a team around Luke Ridnour (don't get me wrong his % are solid and he seems to be a great TEAM player) but I know plenty that would take Westbrook's defense and offensive vigor and build around it even though he can be out of control at times.

On a final note: HEY man, I'm a basketball fan like you. I enjoy engaging in a bit of rigorous debate but I don't mean to belittle or troll anyone. I would appreciate if you respect me as a fellow fan and human being and not insult my intelligence or somehow imply that I'm being the eternal pessimist.

291 days ago

Brett Gunter

Robert,

I've been told I'm naturally sarcastic, but I'll do my best to keep it in check. I understand where you're coming from with most of your comments, and I think that place is near where I was before discovering 'The Wages of Wins'. The position you'll find among its supporters is that the statistics matter, can be weighted properly, and are thorough enough to approximate a player's value quite well. I am by no means the person most qualified (or inclined) to present a statistics-based defense of Wins Produced as a metric; you've found the network, and if you're interested in looking at hard data about validity, you'll find plenty.

I take a more anecdotal approach; I find that when a player does important things better--shoots a higher %, gets more boards, assists, steals, or blocks, or commits fewer fouls or turnovers--his WP48 increases; this leads me to believe it is measuring something significant. Most other metrics fail this simple test. PER, for example, rewards players who shoot as woefully as 31% or so; if they chuck up more shots, with the same soul-crushing inaccuracy, their PER still increases. Simply put, PER claims a player doing something badly, but more often, is getting better.

I was told long ago that one should avoid certain tactics in a debate (while informal, this is certainly a debate). One was to reference the arguments one COULD have made, but chose not to. I once saw someone place a handful of index cards on his podium and mention the facts he could present, if he had time; his opponent plunked two boxes of cards on the table and said, "If I just had time...." Your inference that advanced metrics are not important to you, or that your own visual evidence takes precedence--I am not positive which position you are taking--is a tough sell on this or other WoW sites. I am one of many, I think, who prefer numbers to the untrained eye--and frankly, the trained eye will have to prove that claim to me.

Debaters are also advised not to make unsubstantiated statements of opinion and treat them as facts. Neither of us know why Lin didn't get minutes in GS, or why he was cut; all the OPINIONS you give about Collison ignore the fact that his WP48 was better in IND--and George Hill's was higher still. We do not know why he was traded; there are many possible reasons, and having an EVEN BETTER starter is one which avoids making a value judgment while lacking concrete knowledge.

Our other area of disagreement may be largely a matter of style. I suspect you are in the vast majority who prefer the Westbrook type to the Ridnour model; you should realize that your choice, when looking at production, is not so clear-cut. Will the spectacularly ATHLETIC Russ sell more tickets? Yes--on the road, where you don't get a penny of it; home fans respond to wins, and so far in their careers, the difference per minute is very small. Does Russ have more 'potential,' whatever that is? Very likely--but he would have to change his mindset to realize it, and the smart money isn't betting on that. I suspect 'potential' gets many a coach fired, for 'not getting the best out of his players.' If you want the highlight-reel team, knock yourself out; I'll take the shot-MAKERS over the shot-TAKERS every time.

Didn't mean to be such a windbag; let me close by saying your litmus test is probably Carmelo Anthony. If you believe he's a superstar, or even a second-tier star, you won't be happy on WoW sites. If you wish he'd check his ego at the door the way he does for the National Team, and abandon the ballstopper persona that makes his coaches and teammates comtemplate self-immolation, then welcome--you're in the right place. But tether your sacred cows outside; they might get ground into hamburger here.

290 days ago

robert miller

@Brett I think I now see where you are coming from. I think I'm something of a hybrid when it comes to my willingness to accept advanced stats. I too struggle at times with Carmelo's style of play. I'm a New Yorker and as someone who has watched most games he has played as a Knick he strikes me as a guy with superstar talent, but he lacks what I will call "the multiplier effect." He doesn't actually make other players around him better in the same way people like Lebron James do (the ability to pass out of a double team and attack the basket consistently does wonders for WP48 I would assume, among other things) and as such Melo is a second class star. However, I do think he has the potential to truly reach that next level (you can only iso-ball for so long right?) Now for some other notable points you made:

Debate advice: You are indeed right. I don't play fair when it comes to my arguments. I studied English in college and when making arguments I tend to use rhetoric and persuasive speech and not just pure unadulterated numbers. I'll even go as far as begging the question if I'm desperate....

Are Advanced metrics important to me?: I would like to think so (or at least the basketball fan and fantasy bball player in me would like to think so). I do a lot more staring at stats and trying to get an edge on which players will over-perform or under-perform than the average individual and for that reason I respect the WP48. However, in some cases the WP48 can make you guys look like aliens at times (Brandon Wright performing at a star/superstar level?). Or even James Harden being "better" than Kevin Durant. I think my overall stance is that I take the information with a grain of salt and try and consider peripheral factors that may cause some (perceived) outliers..

Opinions: In the case of Lin I did make the assertion that he was denied minutes because he was not deemed worthy of them for one of a few reasons. I honestly don't know why he wasn't given minutes...but there aren't many reasons as to why he avg'd 9min other than those I listed. Other options include:
-He was a rookie (some coaches hate Rooks)
-His coach was some sort of a dolt that couldn't see his luminous talent.
Both of these reasons were not used because I give coaches some credit (save Vinny Del Negro).

In the case of Darren Collison I really wasn't too opinionated. I just noted some statistical decreases. You make a good point about George Hill establishing himself as a better player but I still remember the strong "IND just made a great acquisition by acquiring a potential star in DCollison" headwinds of that time. I too was sucked into it and drafted him fairly early in a fantasy league expecting Chris Paul v1.0. You noted that his WP48 in IND was higher and I suppose it can't be ignored. Yet still, the raging basketball fan in me feels he was somehow better as a starter in NO. He just seemed to be doing more and having more of an impact (perception isn't reality). After looking at the WP48, my opinion has changed a bit. His WP48 did improve from his rookie to sophomore year but mostly because of reduced turnovers and marginal improvements in some other places (though he did decline in points assists and fg%).
Where you would say this shows he was smarter with the ball and was mildly better at rebounding or "defending" (.2 increase in blk/48 HOORAY) I would probably say he was being used in a system that wasn't as reliant on him play-making and facilitating (things I enjoyed seeing him do). In a way, I would consider him stunted despite the wp48 growth but I suppose this leads into the real interesting thing I wanted to respond to....

Ridnour's vs. Westbrook's: You said something asmusing. You claimed to have been someone who came from somewhat the same train of thought as I have. When did you join the dark side my friend? When did you become a pocket-protector-wearing, boiled goose-loving, Tim Duncan worshiping nba geek? I can't argue against you here because I think you are actually right and you've enlightened me. Ridnour is one of the unsung heroes....the lowly..4m/year multipliers. He probably is/was just as useful as Westbrook but can you be so Spartan my friend? Have you never enjoyed the full-court pressure and steals of Westbrook or the fastbreak jams? Are not his strong points REALLY strong ?

Granted...we have to suffer through random 15 footers in transition and bizarre and erratic play at times but gosh darn it "potential" and "talent" are nice things to have when you want to sell jerseys and market a team. Luke Ridnour hasn't gotten a human being hot and bothered about basketball since......well never.

Finally: I'm really curious about your opinion of Kobe Bryant. Do you honestly think the guy is below average? I'm not a Kobe fan at all so seeing his pathetic WP48 this year is kind of amusing to me. At the same time I know in my heart of hearts that the guy is still one of the greatest to play the SG position. Does he take some stupid ass shots and hog the ball at times? Of course, but hell...the guy is a hall of famer...I'm also very excited about his WP48 seemingly proving a previous point of mine about system/positional information. Do you find it strange that Kobe's WP48 decreased dramatically post Phil Jackson (and effectively post-triangle)? Are you willing to admit that systems and other non statistical information are important and must be considered?

289 days ago

Brett Gunter

Robert,

I swear I'm going to be brief this time. I found WoW from a link on ESPN's TrueHoop page a few years ago; at that time there were only about 13 months of archives, and I devoured them in a few days, then bought the book. I was always a baseball stat geek, even creating my own stats. In 1980, when I was 16, I called one of my stats BRI (baserunners per inning); I should have gotten a patent, and maybe WHIP, while a bit more refined, would have to call me Grandpa.

I began to look at basketball metrics in the 1990s, with Dave Heeran's TENDEX being the first I remember, but WoW struck me as a step further, because it sought to determine the actual value of each statistic rather than assigning an assumed or arbitrary value.

Now I'm just going to throw out some responses:

Iso ball rarely has a cure; see Allen Iverson, the WoW poster boy pre-Kobe and Melo.
WP frequently doesn't jive with the eyeball test. Harden was more efficient than Durant last year--but not the year before. Westbrook's kung-fu is certainly flashy--sometimes strong, sometimes goofy--but his pluses and minuses mostly cancel out. To quote another occasional WoW contributor, Robbie O'Malley: "Basketball ain't about the pretty." Wide open layups count for the same number of points as contested, spinning 22-foot fadeaway jumpers; there's no multiplier for degree of difficulty. This ain't diving; there are no judges, thank God.

Kobe, Kobe, Kobe. I'm a Laker fan since 1968; I wish you could go to WoW and compile the novel's worth of Kobe comments I've left there. In short: Good to very good most of his career (about average since '09, though); never played near the level of MJ, Drexler, Moncrief, or a healthy Wade or Ginobili; reliable, tough, plays through serious injuries, and still performs; nowhere near as good as he thinks he is (like AI and Melo). LA could have kept Eddie Jones, gotten virtually the same production until '08, drafted Steve Nash, and kept Shaq until he was too fat to play. Kobe's idea of his own worth poisons the team dynamic, and he should have been better than he ever was ('potential'). MJ's drive and work ethic? Maybe. But Reggie Miller's physical talent, and Wilt's basketball brain; "The team does best when I dominate every aspect of the game." He's been very, very good (but NEVER great), and he should have been amnestied last month.

I could go on forever (obviously), but I'll smash the keyboard against the wall now.

289 days ago

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