FD Guest Lecture: Players Club

The MVP race is wide open, and we mere fans could spend days debating the candidates' relative merits. Good to know that those more directly involved feel the same way. Courtesy of The Dugout, here's an invaluable glimpse inside the conversation between these truly peerless peers.

Also, keep an eye on Deadspin starting tomorrow, when our playoff previews invade.

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.

The Clarity in the Cataracts

This really is a new and exciting time to be arguing about the game's best player. Ever since Jordan retired, MVPs have come and gone, but in the back of everybody's mind, there was never really a debate over who the game's best player was-Iversons and Nowitzkis and KGs and Nashes have streaked through the basketball world and claimed their moments in the sun, but in the back of the mind the league had returned to being in the shadow of giants-Shaq laid in the back of everybody's mind as the true best player in the league, and when he passed over the hill, it was Duncan. It's no coincidence that every finals since Jordan retired has featured either Shaq or Duncan, and they captured the title all but one time in the last nine years.



























But now, with the Suns setting around Shaq and Duncan finally aging and falling below 20 points per game, and Dwight Howard not yet able to claim the throne of The Dominant Big, the NBA's brightest stars are also deserving of the distinction as the league's true best player. Currently, the man occupying that throne is Kobe Bryant, the current gold standard of true and lasting NBA greatness.

Deserving or no, Kobe is a unique heir to the throne-while previous standard-holders made their claim based on games and achievements impervious to doubt or question, Kobe's greatness is shrouded in mystery; his closest historical comparison would be pre-championship Chamberlain or Jordan, who consensus dictated were inferior to Russell and Bird/Magic before they won their rings, but Kobe is different even from them. He has the necessary rings to make his claim, but won them as his team's second-best player, and is probably even better as an individual player now than he was when he achieved his rings. There is precedent for great players winning championships after their individual primes, but almost none who achieved their individual primes after their championship years.













I was talking to my boss, who runs the LA Times' Laker Blog and watches Kobe as much as any human being on the planet, and he simply said, "If you watch Kobe Bryant every day, there is no way you don't think he's the best player in this league." It's easy to see what he means-Kobe is at the same time the league's most well rounded player and the one most capable of singular domination. He can shoot beautifully, he can explode to the hole and put jaws on the carpet, he combines power with grace, he's a great passer with surpassing court vision, he plays defense, and he has a dizzying array of moves to compliment and harness his skills.

But to call him a jack-of-all trades is to discount his ability to focus all his energies and envelop a team in a flurry of baskets; although he no longer holds the league's scoring title, he is still the one most capable of an outburst of scoring that can cripple a team all by itself-witness 81, or the 30 points he scored after the third quarter had ended against the Mavericks on Sunday. He plays every game with legendary resolve and competitiveness. (My favorite documented video evidence of this-the 1997 dunk contest. (Music NSFW.) First of all, Bob Sura was in the dunk contest. Second, look right after Michael Finley misses the two-ball dunk with Kobe sitting on a 49-He fist-pumps. A 19-year old kid rooting for a fellow dunker to fail. Cold-Blooded.) Quite simply, he is a humanly perfect basketball player, which, when coupled with the championships on his resume, makes him a logical choice as the game's true great, and allows us to forgive him the trespasses of failing to win a playoff series in the absence of Shaq.














The thing about Kobe being the league's best player because of his perfection is the exception, rather than the norm, to the league's greatest players. The league's greatest players have always been Gods, capable of impacting the game through their sheer force of being rather than their individual ability-Wilt impacted games without needing to do the impossible because of his crushing impact on the boards, on defense, and the way he changed everything on offense before he even shot the ball-likewise with Russell, Shaq, Walton, Moses, and Kareem. Likewise, Bird, Magic, Robertson, and now Nash change the game through their ability to change the game through their passing and divine sense of the game.

God does not need to be perfect in our eyes because we acknowledge that we are unable to understand his ways. If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, than he must have known Satan would rebel, and that his rebellion would lead to the fall of Man from Paradise, and would have no need to create an heir if he is indeed immortal, but we concede what would be human flaws because we understand that God is beyond human notions of flaws or mistakes, and trust that he knows what we cannot understand. Likewise, we do not question Shaq, Duncan, or Wilt's footwork and free throw touch, Russell, Moses, and Kareem's ability to shoot from outside or operate outside the free-throw line, Magic's jump shot, or Bird's lack of athletic ability-they are beyond normal faults because the divine force of their games makes any questioning of their human shortcomings mere insolence and narrow-mindedness on our parts.















If great point guards and centers are the Gods of the game, than great perimeter players are the humans—capable of great things, able to change the world, but limited by their relative lack of power to the Gods to change at their will, and not able to have their flaws forgiven. Pistol Pete was created to be the perfect basketball player, and was as quick and as fluid a ball-handler and shooter as ever played the game, but lacked the blessing of the gods, and, like Cesar or Alexander, fell humbled without achieving the holy grail or even an MVP award. Then the Messiah came.

Like Jesus, Jordan was all the more powerful because he contained the force of the divine wrapped in the trappings of humanity. Jordan was not gifted with Wilt or Shaq's dominating physical force, or Magic and Larry's ability to affect what was happening on the entire court when they had the ball in their hands; he needed to be humanly perfect to be great, and like Jesus, he was humanly flawless-the quickness, the leaping ability, the coordination, the ball-handling, the mid-range shot, the defense, the relentless determination, everything. He even lives in parables; of being cut from his high school team, of perfecting his defense and his jump shot, of playing through the flu, of treating every scrimmage like a game 7. But as with Jesus, Michael only appeared to be mortal-he held inside his human trapping the ability of the divine, the ability to produce miracles when needed, to walk across water and over Craig Ehlo and Byron Russell and come out with six championships.
















(Quick aside: LeBron is something new and scary and different altogether, the power of a dominant big with the vision of a dominant point who plays on the perimeter. Look at his game-winning layup in game 5 up against Jordan's "final shot." Jordan is played more or less straight up, while all 5 Pistons were watching LeBron-Jordan's shot was the pinnacle of human basketball skill, while LeBron was something altogether different. Look at LeBron's game today: down the stretch, he tilted the entire floor left, then went right for the slam. On his next possession, he went to the one-on-one step-back jumper. Next time down, he drew the defense and hit a wide-open Wally Sczerbiak for the dagger. Not to pull out superlatives, but that's legendary big power, legendary point game-changing, and a human feat of skill, all in one stretch. This is a special, special player, as his Shoals' boy Chris Paul, combining divine court vision with a new-era type of speed and athleticism. But this is Kobe's show.)















In the meantime, Kobe dominated the Mavericks down the stretch with a flurry of jumpers and drives for contact, burying them with 22 fourth-quarter points and 8 more in overtime. We know Kobe is human basketball perfection. Now, armed with the weapons necessary to obtain a ring to call his own, we may get an answer to the question we've been asking ever since Shaq left Kobe in purgatory; is Kobe blessed with divine providence, or is he simply a mortal king? Is he Napoleon, or is he the Second Coming? Kobe is the best mortal basketball player on the planet, probably the best since Jordan. It is because he is human that he is yet to make it back to the finals, but it is because he is perfect that he retains a tenuous grasp on the coveted title of the game's best.

With Duncan finally sliding away from the picture, Kobe's playoff run in the loaded West will be a test of the power of human perfection against all those who dare oppose it. In the playoffs, he will either become a deus ex machina and bury all that dare challenge him with a series of timely jumpers and left-handed floaters or reveal himself as only mortal and watch as his jumpers fall short of Nirvana. What I'm trying to say here is that I am really fucking stoked for this year's playoffs.