Bad Reporting

Okay, I misread that Twitter exchange because I wanted the world to be a better place. As Luis points out, Dudley asks "What would it mean to the city of PHX if we were able to beat the Spurs in this year playoffs?", King answers that it would unite the city in the wake of the immigration controversy, Hill and Nash concur. So basically, nothing. Absolutely nothing. Sports will make everyone set aside their differences. Typical bullshit.

So I don't know what to make of this exchange:

@irakoto: Phoenix players @the_real_nash @RealGranthill33 @loyaloneforlife @JaredDudley619 speaking out agst #immigration bill. Proud to be a fan

@loyaloneforlife: @lrakoto The Phoenix Suns are very socially conscious group of men. @Amareisreal,@RealGranthill33,@jrich23,@JaredDudley619,Nash, everyone!

Maybe I'm missing something, again, but saying you're aware of the city's strife ... does that make you socially conscious? Someone prove me wrong. Again.

Better Now Than June

FreeDarko is where you come for the NBA news you can't get anywhere else, the opinions that threaten convention. How about this one: That Amar'e Stoudemire dunk on Tolliver really was something. Yes, I know, a play almost instantly enshrined as the best of the season (that would make him the real Dunk Champ, btw, since "In-Game Contest" is impossible to pull off). For whatever reason, it didn't really sink in with me at the time. Maybe I was traveling at the time. But as I saw it—numerous times, though mostly in slow-motion—the Tolliver dunk was mostly about force and demolishment. Great, and the kind of thing that will break the dunk news cycle wide-open (or get it going at all, if that makes more sense). I even bought the Dunk of the Year line; sure, it was dramatic and the quintessential soul-killing assault. That's what the D-League is for, I guess.

As much as I like what Amar'e has done to his game since that fateful injury—the day, you could say, that FD lost its innocence and started chipping away at its will to live—I've always wondered if that physical phenom would ever return. I've tried, extensively at times, to convince myself that it didn't matter, or that it happened but only made sense on the level of words and reason. Yet watching him dunk, I saw something admirable, booming, but just a little sad. That spark of the divine was lost forever, so I thought, left to the likes of Tyrus Thomas—who, let's face it, never knew how to control and enact it like Amar'e. Since the days of Kemp, no dunker has as infernally mixed up size, speed, strength, reflex, and yes, savagery like 2004-05 Amar'e Stoudemire. Young Shaq coming from the other side of the spectrum, and Howard, great as he is, is more like Amar'e last season than this.

(Note: Eric Freeman is responsible for designating this the official AMARE IS BACK dunk. I expanded on that theme. I do not cheat voluntarily.)

I am not merely overworked, or cynical, or intent on my own death. For whatever reason, though, it didn't occur to me that this might be a revelatory moment, that the buzz might be over something more than kickin' ass and spoilin' shorts. Then, at some point during yesterday's playoff vigil, I watched it again. At full-speed, over and over again. That's when I realized two things: Fiddling with the speed and angle of a dunk on a replay detracts from it. Show it quick and dirty like it happened, for only then can we truly gauge its magnitude. And, two, that was the Amar'e of old. Most of you probably knew this weeks ago, but he tore right through Tolliver and into the rim while barely touching the ground; generating immense power so quickly, so effortlessly, that "delicate" needs to be added in there somewhere.

So yeah, I'm suddenly really excited to watch the Suns today. Let's take one more look and listen.

Bucking Mines

Timely as ever, I'd like to weigh in on the Steve Nash contract extension, which is now centuries old news in internet time...

There are many theories on what exactly "ruined" the Suns that have so defined this millenium of pro basketball. I choose to blame D'Antoni's (fixable) failure to get tough on the team's rebounding woes, bad luck with the timing of Amare's injuries, the firing of D'Antoni, the replacement of D'Antoni with Terry Porter, the ill-timed acquisition of Shaquille O'Neal, and in general, Steve Kerr. I don't really buy into theories about Sarver's cheapness, trading all those draft picks, or not holding on to Joe Johnson/Q-Rich/Marcus Banks...etc.



















The Suns were always a team poised to win RIGHT NOW. There was no use for building toward the future with late first round picks. They never had a distinctly "old" team until the Hill/Nash/Shaq triumverate, and with Nash and Amare alone, they ALWAYS have a fighting chance.

And now they still do.

Despite Kerr's idiocy, Amare and Nash (miraculously) are still there. Nash might be on steroids for all I know (BLOGGER ALERT), but he isn't going to be demonstrably worse this year. And Amare might be better (?). May I present to you the possibility that this Nash extension gives the Suns one last glimmer of hope?

--Nash signing an extension says one of two things: (1) I believe I can win a championship with this franchise, or (2) This franchise gave me a new life and two MVP trophies. I owe it to them to re-sign, and PS, I'm satisfied. Either way, a happy Nash is good for at least 15 and 8.

--A summer and a half worth of ridiculous trade rumors may in fact inspire Amare Stoudemire to play tougher than he already does? I don't know. This might be a reach.

--A strong supporting cast of IF guys. IF J-Rich can knock down the open jumpers, IF Robin Lopez proves to be a serviceable back-up, IF Leandro Barbosa can regain form....the Suns have depth

--A host of players that can potentially solve the rebounding quandary (again, IF Robin Lopez is worth a damn...)

--Teams will no longer GET UP to play them. The Suns no longer boast that fear-inducing NBA championship squad on paper that causes TNT/ESPN/ABC to over-book them and teams to treat matches with them like Gladitorial arena battles. The Suns, for the first time in the Nash era, may actually be able to sneak up on teams...

Am I blindly grasping to hold on to an era that no longer exists? Potentially. But I am soberly not ready to admit that the Suns are over, merely because of what the Shaq trade appeared to signal (rebuilding). Nash's re-signing initially gave me feelings of emptiness, the thoughts of him and Amare roaming around in blank space, carrying the guilt of two 19th century Russian lit protagonist partners in crime. But then I reoriented: It signaled a last gasp of hope.

I am curious to see what the Suns do with desperation, which could be the last motivational tool they have.
























ADDENDUM:

The original version of this post (embarrassingly) included references to both Matt Barnes (the news of whose signing I totally missed) and Ben Wallace (inexcusable for falling off my radar). All I can say is that my NBA game has not been air tight this summer, and I'm getting back on track.

Also, I suppose I *should* reference the only things the Suns have actively done this season besides signing Nash: Grant Hill, Channing Frye, and Earl Clark. Truth is, these guys don't add much, except for providing even more of a blank canvas for Nash and Amare to operate on. Grant Hill keeps shit stable in the locker room. Channing Frye's young-journeyman tag should provide him with some inspiration to get back to rookie year form and to improve on his rebounding, and Earl Clark does absolutely nothing for me (I actually think getting a PG who could spell Nash (Jrue, Ty Lawson) would have been a better pick here).

The important thing is that, for the first time in a while, Phoenix is keeping shit simple. Contrast this with 2009 playoff alums Dallas, Utah, or even, say, Portland, who at this point have generated too high of expectations and are spinning squads of 'too many people who need to be kept happy.' Steve and the Suns made a mutual gesture of good faith, and this bump of positivity coupled with a sense of "nothing to lose" gives them some optimism for 09-10.

Baked Alaska

I usually hate the sun, in fact, it places undue pressure on me to love life and makes me that much more determined to hide in the shadows. But fuck it, it's been gorgeous here for three days, there's only so much basketball on, and no one's checking their email. So I'm suddenly filled with spring fever—more like compulsion—and have to get to the water and get my tan on.

Before I run out the door, though, I did want to say a few things about last night's game. Sorry for the lack of frilly language, these are more notes that grew out of post-game conversation:

-I recognize that this Cavs loss somewhat mutes my latest spasms of LeBron-mania.

-That said, it is kind of sad to watch Bron go straight at Howard like the DPOY doesn't have shit on him. You wonder if an angrier Dwight might help here.

-At some point, I began to wonder if the Magic could only win, or at least impress me with a win, if they made a comeback that was . . . ummm, magical?

-Based on conversations with my friend Nate, Kevin Pelton, and my own two eyes, it's become obvious to me: Howard is a monster on offense provided he's in motion. Give him the damn ball, just make sure he's cutting, leaping, or in a position to make one step and then dunk. That's why, even though he could stand to diversity his offense, it is on SVG and other players to see this gives them a tremendous weapon right now. See also Game 1 of this series.

-Someone needs to tell Howard that him stationary in the post is a total dead-end. Unless he's got a total mismatch. When Amare was a raw killing machine in 2004-05, the trick to his success was that he avoided this situation like the plague. Now, Howard will never be able to expand his range, or ability to put the ball on the floor, like Stoudemire has done—the main way he's overcome the obvious limitation of not playing in the post. So who knows what the long-term prognosis for Howard is. But Amare was never as imposing as Howard. There's no reason he can't be used creatively so that, in short, the post is always the terms set by Howard's lateral or upward motion.

-Not surprisingly, Kevin just realized he'd said something like this several years ago:

For years now, Howard has drawn comparisons to Phoenix's Amaré Stoudemire because of how both players have a prodigious combination of size, strength, and athleticism. The comparisons break down at some point, because Howard is a far better rebounder and defender than Stoudemire, but the Magic clearly learned from how the Suns accelerated Stoudemire's development by pairing him with Steve Nash and surrounding him with double-team neutralizing outside shooters.

And also. . .

We're trained to recognize that those kind of outside shooters help beat double-teaming of a post player, a style so popular in the NBA in the 1990s that was perfected by the Houston Rockets around Hakeem Olajuwon. However, the Suns of recent vintage have demonstrated that deep threats can be just as valuable when it comes to running pick-and-rolls. Even though Magic point guards Carlos Arroyo and Jameer Nelson are not on Nash's level, the Orlando pick-and-roll is still difficult to defend because teams can't leave the outside shooters to provide help and because Howard is so good at going up and getting the ball on lobs to the rim.

-KP adds: "The point now is they realized this a long time ago, and then seemed to forget it in these playoffs, either because Nelson/sorta Turkoglu were hurt or because of ORTHODOXY."

-Tangentially related, Rafer Alston is so weird. He's at his best as a straightforward guard. Nothing outside-of-the-box or too improvisational.

-So yeah, despite Joey's earlier critique of Howard, the Magic could be making a lot more of the current situation. And maybe Dwight could stop making me feel so damn bad for him, as LeBron plays like him with perimeter skills.

-It's true, I wrote something claiming that a big game from J.R. was more important to the Nuggets than Billups stepping it up. That probably would've made more sense around these parts. But I would still like to forget it happened.

-GO WONDER PETS!!!!!!!

Scratch All Backs

We've got a more substantive post coming later, and I'm not in the business of posting videos that have turned up already on bigger sites. But these are too amazing, and work too well in tandem, to not waste air out here.



(via You Been Blinded)

(via Awful Announcing)

Takes me back to kinder, more innocent times. For the league, for this site, and for us all.

CONVENTION TYPHOID: Dream Ticket 2010

In the middle of the Olympics, it came to us. A thought bigger than LeBron in Russia, or Brooklyn, or even the mystical significance that 2010 has taken on. Thank you, Akron Beacon Journal, for tapping into the motherlode of idle basketball reflection, of lighting the way with a single observation that's the difference between bullshit Y2K and Revelations. The very simple principle, which remained hidden in plain sight like the wonder of the natural world, is as follows: The Cavs could not only re-sign LeBron, but also bring in Wade or Bosh. Or Amare, or Josh Howard, who are part of that 2010 free agent class. Cleveland has one star already, and of all the teams like that, only they will have the cap room to ink another.

Let's forget, for a second, the practical concerns of what this would do to the entire team. The Celtics worked around three gigantic contracts; I, for one, think it's just a matter of Ferry paying his usual kind of player less. Also, while you could make the argument that Boston had three grizzled, ego-less vets ready to get in line and win, thus making their situation totally different than two young superstars in their prime, don't shortchange LeBron. He only happens to be the most versatile player in the universe, and has only been reduced to a meager 30/7/7 machine by Mike Brown and his team's total paucity of everyone and anything resembling flexible talent. So fuck off, stop doubting, and return to the fold of those who believe that, with Bron in our midst, anything is possible. Like winning two championships at once while traveling back in time.

I would also like to promptly apologize to Amare and Josh Howard for not regularly including them in my assessment of the awesome force that is 2010. Howard's stock is crazy low right now, but pre-Kidd he was on the ascent. He has two seasons to get it together. I, for one, am optimistic. As for Amare, it's well-known that he can't play defense, and may never exactly regain his pre-surgery ability to instantaneous achieve lift-off. I stay up at night wondering if that's the case, and wishing the questions would stop tearing at my mind-space. Regardless, he's still an athletic as fuck big man who can score 200 ways around the hoop, and is good for some rebounds, at least on paper. Max deals have been signed for far less, and far less dominant—and more fractuous—individuals have been regarded as franchise saviors. Sidenote: The internet should erase everything anyone wrote about the Knicks after they got Randolph. It's the blogosphere's equivalent of eugenics.



What I want to do, and what I plan to do when my office gets gloomy and I wonder what it all means, is spend a lot of time thinking about how fucking awesome any of these pairings would be. Putting Bron and Wade together almost makes my brain shut down, especially after the Olympics. My meager grasp of X's and O's notwithstanding, the sheer amount of game that would harness, every night for several years without Coach K smirking on the margins, is almost overpowering. This may be faulty logic, but I've seen both of them single-handedly beat better teams many, many times, while also doing an admirable job of playing off of lesser teammates when necessary. LeBron still could become both Magic Johnson 2 and C-Webb's revenge without sacrificing his Jordan-esque opuses. Not to say that James needs to become a #2, but certainly having Wade—a more traditional SG who nonetheless knows how to involve others and boards like a motherfucker—would allow him to open up his game, instead of being forced to beg for a fastbreak, and then settle for an iso that likely ends in some Cav fumbling a pass.

James and Bosh is more orthodox, but deceptively so. It would give LeBron someone really skilled, and dynamic, to hit, feed, or set up near the basket, which would also obviate the King's much-noted lack of a post game. This is the kind of partnership that would instantly streamline, and take a lot of the rough, desperate edges off of James that have been interpreted as hubris or stagnation. The only problem, if this even is one, is that James is a one-man fastbreak, so Bosh's ability to run the floor wouldn't really matter much. Oh well. This team in the half-court would be like two tigers filled with dynamite, strapped to circling sharks, just waiting to explode and turn the sharks into ghost-sharks that would live forever and steal our daughters. I think that is a much more concrete dream for the Cavs than the Bron/James basketball orgasm whose name can barely be spoken.

Amare and Howard are, despite my doctrinary commitment to these two, lesser players. And it is not without irony that I not how cleanly this pair splits the euphoria outlined in those Wade and Bosh scenarios. From a style, swagger, and all-out ridiculousness perspective, Stoudemire and LeBron would be a joy to see together. If there's one thing James really lacks, it's a consistent sense of personality and, well, style, beyond that of history-making agent who both dutifully oversee and is in thrall to his own outsized importance in basketball. Amare, as we all know, is a one-way player, but could be a major influence—whether good or bad—when it came to unlocking a little more energy, and non-business-like vitality, in LeBron (some of which, it should be said, we saw in the Olympics). I'm not quite sure how to approch this from a basketball perspective: They are pretty similar physically; Amare has maybe an inch on LeBron, James's less svelte. But–and maybe this is my Amare fandom speaking—I can't imagine that James wouldn't welcome a chance to play with Stoudemire, who would detonate on command near the basket, as well as draw defenders from all over with his ability to slash like a forward (Note: he's better at that than Garnett ever was).



Josh Howard, recent difficulties aside, is three things: An offensive threat who, unless he's being meticulously placed by Jason Kidd, can score from all over, and a disruptive defensive presence who is kind of like Shawn Marion as a shooting guard. A more modest triumph than one of these other guys would be, and yet exactly the kind of player's player who LeBron knows the true value of. This doesn't conjure up images of a 2-on-5 stampede like the other combination do, but Howard might not bring max money, and, if there's one other decent, reasonably paid player on that roster (Mo Williams, maybe), would provide the Cavs with an excellent nucleus that wouldn't shackle LeBron or make us alternately feel bad for him and despise him for an awfully uninspired way of doing business. Good players make superstars better, usually, and Howard is one of those players. However, this one is getting way too caught up in the realm of the real, and forcing me to try and think of offensive schemes that aren't metaphors for AP Physics, so we'll stop this one here.

So let this be a celebration of basketball. Basketball that may never be, but that, on the heels of the Olympics, is a possible landing zone for the Redeem Team's staggering, but to me ultimately kind of wasted and meaningless, explosion of style, action, and consequence. Let us be as one, even if nothing comes of this and the Cavs move to Iraq. This is the new fantasy basketball, and I plan to be at its center. I love everyone.

Made Flesh

Frank Deford was on NPR this morning talking about how stupid it was to try to compare Michael Phelps to competitors from other sports, and while he obviously has a legitimate point, I can't help but think of Amare Stoudemire when I watch Usain Bolt. It's the irrepressible swagger in the starting blocks, the preternatural cool under pressure, and more than anything, the sheer physical dominance over his opponents. Like Amare, Bolt manages to look like a man among boys, while at the same time seeming himself to still be a child. It's this rawness that prompted NBC announcer Ato Bolden to proclaim that, although he had just pulled off a astonishingly commanding victory in the 100 meters, Bolt had horrible technique. Or to lament to millions of viewers before the 200 final that Bolt was "still clownin."

For anyone who thinks I'm insulting Bolt--already one of the greatest sprinters of all time--by comparing him to a mere three-time All-Star who's never advanced past the Western Conference Finals, remember back to the 2005 playoffs. At the age of 22 (the age Bolt turns tomorrow), Amare was clearly the best player in a Suns-Spurs series that featured two former MVPs still in their prime. Bolt is that Amare Stoudemire, the pre-injury Amare for whom the sky was literally the limit. He put together STAT lines like 42 points, 16 rebounds, and 4 blocks, and seemed like he was only scratching the surface of what he could be. Even Lebron has failed to exhibit that kind of almost casual supremacy, and despite his youth, King James has always seemed much older and wiser than his years (see Wednesday's tie picture).



And don't even think about mentioning the name Jordan. For today's sports fan, Michael Jordan is the standard to which we hold all other athletes. Tiger Woods is the "Michael Jordan of golf" or Roger Federer is the "Michael Jordan of tennis." It's gotten ridiculous. Deford is tearing his hair out. And, anyway, the "Michael Jordan of track" is clearly Carl Lewis: the greatest of his generation, transcendent all-around talent, loved by all, but who hung around a little too long. While he may yet scale the same heights as Jordan, Usain Bolt is something different.

Bolt, like Amare before the microfracture, has the kind of talent and presence that make a non-believer like me want to get religion. I'm reluctant to suggest in any way that Bolt doesn't train as hard as Phelps or anyone else, but there is something about him that makes me want to use words like "blessed" or "predestined." Or, better still, Bolt is beatific.

Nothing Ages You So Fast As Refusing To Mature

Quickly: I truly and seriously am coming to hate the MVP award. Next year, I'll just find the player who best embodies the most positive cliches and fucking say he should win. Why bother with shit like how well they actually played during the season when you have data like "rebounding is about desire. Kobe wants it more, so he's a better rebounder than LeBron" at your fingertips? Kobe is becoming the NBA's answer to Juno for me-I really like him, but his supporters are so overwhelmingly fawning, pretentious, and obnoxious that I have begun to loathe his very concept. Also, I have become convinced that Jason Collins is the NBA's answer to Pi: he is an elaborate inside joke on the public by NBA literati, an experiment to see if people will believe something truly horrendous has value they are unable to see if they say it enough. (Shoals: You can cut that out if you want. It just felt really good to write.)

















So anyways, the best player who has no way been tarnished by MVP talk this season, other than to call his hopes for the award hubris, has been Amare Stoudemire, who is very quietly putting together one of the best scoring seasons in a long, long time.

STATISTICAL INTERLUDE:

Amare's rocking 25 a night on 65% "True Shooting" which is FG% with free throws and threes in there too, basically making it better. The only other players, as far as I can tell, to post a higher TS% than Amare and score over 20 points a game are Kevin McHale and Charles Barkley. And that's it. Ever. Even a little bit scarier: The one thing "True Shooting" doesn't account for is "And-1" baskets, and Amare leads the league with 94 And-1 buckets.

RETURNING TO THE REGULARLY SCHEDULED PONTIFICATION:

So Amare's got 25/9/1.5 with some baggage in regards to the defensive end, on the previously mentioned historically nuts shooting percentage. Dirk won the thing on 24/9/3.5 on 60% true shooting and a whole hell of a lot of baggage on the defensive end, while KG's candidacy is far more legit than Amare's with 19.5/9.5/3.5 on 58%, as is DH with 21.2/14.4/1.5 on 62%.; While KG is quite beastly on the defensive end, and DH more than holds his own, Amare being at 13th in the race reeks of bullshit.



























(From the "Shit that's funny in retrospect" file: One Oscar-Nominated film in 1995 contained multiple instances of the phrase "Jew Motherfucker." It was not the one made by Mel Gibson, which won best picture.)

In reality, what Amare has gone and done is hit the glass ceiling of not being the guy who makes it happen on his team. So long as Nash wears the orange and purple and produces prodigiously, Amare will never receive his proper due, as his play is seen, to a degree, as a function of what Nash makes. Shawn Marion chafed under this to the point where he had to be moved, leaving his legacy as a perfect cog behind for a future as a flawed but uninhibited paradigm.















Nash and Amare now lie as the prime example of symbiosis in this league; both are the absolute best at what they do in terms of running a pick-and-roll, with Nash's unreal outside shot, ball-handling, and passing on the one end and Amare's explosion, ability to finish, ability to draw contact and hit free throws, and newly acquired deadly mid-range J on the other. As such, their success is inexorable from each other's talents: Both were very good before they found each other, but have now ascended based on the ability of the other.

Amare is a victim of the NBA's version of the Peter Principle- he's producing like a superstar, but is seen as a role player because his success is aided by the system he plays in rather than the system requiring him to sacrifice in order to aid those around him. To be given his proper due as a superstar, he must attempt to take on additional responsibilities until he inevitably hits an Iguodala-like wall or Curry/Kemp level all-out collapse.

















There's definitely some Peter Principle-type shit happening with the Suns, the most rigidly hierarchical team in the league-Nash has the ball in his hands, Shaq creates space, Raja makes open threes, Hill picks up slack throughout the facility, and Amare fills the existing space with aplomb.

The Suns make sense to us because they follow the rigid structure of our everyday life, while the Warriors operate on a constantly shifting paradigm in which Ellis, Davis, S-Jax, or even Harrington or Azubuike is capable of centering the offense around him based on the circumstances of the situation. And the Nuggets operate on a completely arbitrary system, with the strong but opaque notion of attack driving the team to an urgency that none of them really understand but are eager to execute.














Everybody says that the definition of a superstar is somebody who makes marginal players better. However, Amare is a superstar-level talent who is clearly made far better by the system that employs him, and him and Nash thrive because they make life easier for each other instead of one relying inordinately on the other to make life easy for him-Amare doesn't only look for wide-open dunks when he's around Nash, and Nash doesn't throw the ball into Amare and wait at the three-point line for open jump shots-instead, they both work in harmony with each other to produce the perfect high pick-and-roll.

Right now the NBA Peter Principle seems to dictate that anybody who is associated with the words "Most Valuable" has a god-given responsibility to shoulder a gigantic burden, while role players' respective strengths should be nurtured to the best ability of the team.

It's wouldn't seem to be all that radical of an idea, getting guys who make life easier for your superstars, but it seems to be one completely lost on NBA teams, who instead seem to be hell-bent on milking their superstars for all they're worth.




















Two major trades related to this principle occurred this season-the Shaq trade originally caused no small level of distress here and made me wish that the Suns had just traded Amare to the Hawks and officially given up on the dream, but by getting a guy who can create space for a guy who excels with space given to him by Nash, they unleashed the beast within Amare and have found something radical and new in the context of the half-court offense.

The 76ers made the de facto swap of Kyle Korver, a lights-out shooter, for Thaddeus Young, a slasher on a team full of them. On the surface, this wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, but taking the burden off of 'Dres Miller and Iguodala has transformed the 6ers into a shifting and furious full-speed attack.

Of course, this logic would seem to suggest that the Kidd trade would have worked instead of completing the downward spiral of the Dynasty That Would Be. Well, Dirk actually is a lot better with Kidd on the team, and if you saw them against the Warriors it's clear that the Kidd-fueled Maverick attack is pretty fucking scary, although the Warriors can't guard anybody at all right now. If I ever dared to question Don Nelson, I would be worried that his Bataan death-march rotation and suicide-style of play has worn the Warriors down for their playoff push, but I am confident this is all part of Nellie's master plan. Also, Harris is a guy who creates a good deal more for himself and others than people realize-Kidd's actually been more of a catch-and-shoot guy for the Mavs than Harris was. And Harris is pretty clearly an upgrade over Kidd defensively at this point in their respective careers. (The moral of the story: when you trade a 24-year old making the rookie scale for a 35-year old guard making max money and throw in DeSagnia Diop, expiring contracts, and draft picks, you should probably be absolutely positive that the player you're getting is better than the player you gave up.)























(I'm pretty sure I found this picture on this site. Occasionally, we must make sure that some things are never forgotten.)

If you follow the Cavs, it's shocking how different the offense looks with Delonte West playing with LeBron, as he pushes the ball to get LeBron transition opportunities and can tilt the defense with the ball in his hands to keep things from stacking up on LeBron, often leading to a resounding LBJ dunk off a simple dribble-handoff. And this was the third string point guard on the Sonics. Team USA showed that LeBron can be a fairly deadly shooter when he's allowed to set his feet and get a look at the target, but he takes a higher portion of his threes off the dribble than anyone else in the league. However, the conventional wisdom seems to be that LeBron should be surrounded by spot-up shooters who he can do all the work for.


























MAKING IT EXPLICIT-There seems to be a notion that the relationship between elite slashers/post-up players and spot-up shooters is symbiotic, as shooters supposedly keep the defense from "bunching up" and provide space for the stars in which to work. I find this to be mostly a load of crap-from watching guys like Kobe, CP3, LeBron, and Duncan, I can tell you that spot-up shooters get open looks via those guys about 95% more than those guys get open lanes via their shooters. For a case study, the Cavs have made the de facto swap of Eric Snow (possibly the worst outside shooting backcourt player in the league) for TITS GIBSON (arguably the best three-point shooter in the league this year other than Nash, who is a complete freak), and the upgrade gives LeBron perhaps a quarter-step more space than before-Snow and Boobie get left alone just the same, but Boobie can actually make the defense pay when the defense leaves him alone.

On a common sense level, I'd set a 40% three-point shooter up with a wide-open look and give him all the time he could possibly need before I'd leave LeBron or Duncan's man without help, because they're going to score in that situation like 90% of the time. The relationship between stars and spot-up shooters is, at best, a 90-10 proposition in terms of benefit.















Howard is one of the best guys in however long at getting and converting alley-oops and quick catch-and-dunks, to the point where he's scoring 20 points a game without an especially nice post game or any outside shot to speak of, but his status as a superstar has the Magic convinced that he should stick himself in the post and be surrounded with shooters instead of finding a more suitable option at point than Jameer Nelson to get him the looks he enjoys.

This is why I'm glad my boy O.J. Mayo had a fairly innocuous freshman year instead of a Durant/Beasley like star turn-as a role player, O.J.'s deadly shot and first step will be complimented by whichever team lands him, while Durant, and soon Beasley, were thrown straight into the fire of being the guy whose responsibility it is to nurture the rest of his team.



















The MVP race reflects the NBA's strict sense of hierarchy-one man is the superstar of his team, and all the rest are there to benefit from him, driven by a sense that every NBA team has one ideal play, with their superstar as the sole catalyst, that they run 110 times a game. However, in Amare Stoudemire, a superstar who keeps the trappings and benefits of a role player, we see the argument for a more collective effort, in which roles are symbiotic, each player helping all others, including the supposed superstars. And that's why a glimmer of hope still lies in the Suns.