End of season awards (and such)

MVP: Kevin Durant.  (2^nd place: everyone else)

Dude, Durant is just sick.  Sick.  Lebron is still a great player but in the weak East he didn't have to be great as the Heat just sorta slagged along all year long.  Who’s next on the list?  Chris Paul missed too many games, the Spurs are too balanced to pick out any one player, Kevin Love is great but has yet to elevate a squad based solely on his own performance (I’ve got a theory on that…), James Harden can score with the best of ‘em but, man, his defense is awful.  Durant is the MVP, there’s really no competition. 

Defensive POY: Joakim Noah

The Bulls were left for dead by their own front office but Coach Thibodeau and Joakim Noah refused to play for a draft pick.  So here they are planning on a deep playoff run even though the depth just isn’t there.  They just might do it too.  Wouldn’t be too shocking at all if they nailed the Pacers in the second round and made the Heat work for every penny in the conference finals.  All because of Noah.  Can’t give him the MVP because his offensive efficiency isn’t explicable by the stats (which are all about offense and not defense) but how do you not acknowledge the driving force of the over-achieving-est team in the league? 

ROY: Michael Carter-Williams

This rookie class was disappointing but remember: Nerlens Noel didn’t play a single game, Anthony Bennett started the season injured and by the time he was healthy the team around him had already imploded, Alex Len was surrounded by guys all competing for Most Improved Player of the Year, Ben McLemore didn’t set the world on fire but he was a contributor on a so-so squad, Georgie Djieng languished on the bench for a team that didn’t bother to notice that he was actually pretty good, and Trey Burke and Victor Oladipo played for teams that weren’t even trying to win ball games.  This season wasn’t about developing young players, it was about tanking and making room for new young players.  This class was disappointing but I think the league around this class was disappointing.  The kids are alright.  Carter-Williams had the most opportunity and did the most with it. 

Coach of the Year: Greg Popovich

Jeff Hornacek, Doc Rivers, Tom Thibodeau, Eric Spoelstra, and Dwayne Casey all had fine years but (to paraphrase Bill Simmons) Pop has mastered the regular season.  #1 seed in a brutal Western Conference and you can’t even tell who the star of the team is.  They get contributions from all over the floor, up and down the bench, despite constant tweaking of the rotation.  Pop knows how to make it interesting, educational and still win games while preparing for the post-season.  As much as people are bored of the Spurs, I love ‘em, I love watching them, I love seeing them win games.  Spurs-Thunder has classic written all over it this year.  

Hornacek got career years out a collection of cast-offs.  Doc Rivers helped his two of his best players to take a step up and has made that Clippers team more dangerous in the playoffs than they’ve ever been.  Thibodeau refused to lose and rode his team to the 3rd seed when his own front office was begging him to tank.  Spoelstra took a lethargic Heat squad to within one game of the #1 seed in the East and is just generally the most underappreciated coach around.  Dwayne Casey won where no one has won before when no one expected him to.  

A modest proposal

There are 30 teams in the NBA, 16 make the playoffs, 14 get left behind.  The 14 non-qualifying squads get ping pong balls corresponding to their horrible records put into a hopper and chosen at random (sorta) to determine the order of the upcoming draft.  Frankly, this system is kinda dumb.  Why not let the game on the court determine who gets what position?

I suggest a system that gives awful teams an advantage without handing them the pathway to the finest young talent; a system where the hard working, almost-good-enough teams get an opportunity to move out of their mediocre draft position.  A one-and-done tournament, 13 games in 4 rounds where the lesser teams get home court advantage but must win on the court to maintain or improve their draft position. 

#1 and #2 get a bye (guaranteeing a drop of no more than 4 spots in draft position) and home court advantage throughout the tourney.  #3-#8 match up against #9-14 where the match-ups seek the closest competition rather than the furthest (3-9, 4-10, 5-11, 6-12, 7-13, 8-14).  Conference affiliation is disregarded.  The higher ranked (most losses) teams get home court advantage.  The loser of the game takes on the lower draft position while the higher team now possesses the better draft position and the higher seed.  Round 1 trims 14 teams down to 8 and definitively determines the 9-14 draft picks. 

The tourney now continues with winning teams either re-seeding (to higher seeds) or retaining the higher seeds they already possessed.  We introduce the #1 and #2 seeds and resume with the higher seeds retaining home court advantage.  8 teams turns to 4 in round 2; 4 teams to 2 in round 3; the #1 and #2 draft picks being determined by the final game.  (Optional: the final round could go to 3 games with the seeds being reversed: the team with the #1 pick gets the first game at home while the #2 seed gets the last two (if necessary) home games.  The winner of the series gets the #1 pick, the loser gets the #2 pick)

Make any sense?  Let’s illustrate using the end of year standings. 

Rankings:

1 Bucks                      8 Pistons

2 Sixers                      9 Cavs

3 Magic                      10 Pelicans

4 Celtics*                   11 Knicks

5 Jazz                         12 Nuggets

6 Lakers                     13 T-Wolves

7 Kings**                   14 Suns

            *(Celtics and Jazz tied in the standings and split in 2 head-to-head meetings.  How to break the tie?  I suggest overall points scored to determine the ‘better’ team.  The Jazz outscored the Celtics by 2 points thus I’d make the Celtics #4 and the Jazz #5)

            ** (Kings and Pistons tied in the standings but the Pistons swept both games against the Kings, thus the Kings get #7, the Pistons get #8)

Round 1

9 Cavs @ 3 Magic

10 Pelicans @ 4 Celtics

11 Knicks @ 5 Jazz

12 Nuggets @ 6 Lakers

13 T-Wolves @ 7 Kings

14 Suns @ 8 Pistons

            The loser of each of these games gets the higher position in the draft order while the winner takes the lower seeding and moves forward in the tournament. 

            Let’s just play it out:

Winners                     Draft Picks

3 Magic                      9^th pick -- Cavs                    

4 Celtics                     10^th pick -- Pelicans

11 Knicks                  11^th pick -- Jazz

6 Lakers                     12^th pick -- Nuggets

13 T-Wolves             13^th pick -- Kings

14 Suns                      14^th pick – Pistons

            Re-seed and continue.

Round 2 (Quarters)

5 Knicks @ 1 Bucks           

6 Lakers @ 2 Sixers

7 T-Wolves @ 3 Magic

8 Suns @ 4 Celtics

Winners                     Draft Picks

5 Knicks                    5^th pick -- Bucks

2 Sixers                      6^th pick -- Lakers

7 T-Wolves               7^th pick -- Magic

8 Suns                        8^th pick -- Celtics

            Re-seed and continue.

Round 3 (Semis)

3 T-Wolves @ 1 Knicks

4 Suns @ 2 Sixers

           

Winners                     Draft Picks

3 T-Wolves               3rd Pick -- Knicks

4 Suns                      4^th Pick -- Sixers

            Flip the seeding for home court in the Final. (In the Final you should reward the team that won the most games instead of lost the most)

Round 4 (Final)

1 T-Wolves @ 2 Suns

*(Or for a 3-game final)

(Game 1: 1 T-Wolves @ 2 Suns)

(Game 2: 2 Suns @ T-Wolves)

(Game 3: 2 Suns @ T-Wolves)

Stagger these game days in with the Championship playoffs and as the good teams play on, the lesser teams claim their tickets for the draft and look toward next year.  The lesser teams will produce exciting games, interesting match-ups and everyone will still be playing their stars, so the level of competition should be good.  Look, the Milwaukee Bucks were uniquely horrible this year but at home against a mediocre team, they’ve still got a decent shot in a single game.  By the end of the year some teams are shot and just cannot keep going.  That’ll happen.  But some teams will catch a second wind, get hot, benefit their futures and create some energy.   

The upside of this tourney is the awful teams get at least one extra home game with some post-season intensity that some major league cities rarely see, they still have a good shot at a good pick and the players get to keep playing. 

The middle teams that aren’t awful but just aren’t good enough to compete with the best get a chance to play their way up in the draft; they have to go on the road to do so but the reward is pretty good and theoretically they are the superior teams in this tournament so let them endure the hardship of success by making them go on the road to earn their prize. 

Best of all you remove the impetus to tank games and rest players because every team makes the post-season and every single game determines seeding.   Since every team would get a post-season, every team would properly prepare for it making sure their stars are playing through the finish line.  (A match-up like Pelicans at Celtics becomes Anthony Davis against Rajon Rondo where there’s something meaningful to play for; otherwise at this late date in the season those guys would be wearing suits on the bench rather than playing a meaningless game)

The downside is sometimes the current personnel of a franchise is not really that interested in the future of the franchise.  The lame duck coach and the unsigned free agents don’t get much out of this except 1-3 more games in a town they were already ready to leave.  And the last teams into the Championship playoffs are now the ones that get squished on both sides: little chance at a Championship and no chance at better access to the talent pool.  Also the #3 and #4 seeds are the real booby prizes: they have to defend what little they’ve got with little chance of moving higher in the draft. 

The current system rewards random.  It doesn’t seek to heal the infirmed, nor aide the healthy.  It just wants to dole out random rewards and punishments.  I don’t get it.  I’d rather reward skill.  To my mind this tourney is squeezing the last toothpaste out of the tube, it’s just an extra 13 games but if everyone knew they were there, they’d prepare for them and the fans get an extra handful of juicy contests on the way to baseball season.  

The return

I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky watching basketball, playing basketball, getting all up in basketball.  I’ve always loved sports (among other things) and I wouldn’t say basketball is my favorite.  I don’t have a favorite sport (although cricket is easily my least favorite sport) but what struck me last summer was that the NBA is a small enough pool of people that by now I know most all of the people in the fishbowl—indeed, some of these people I’ve been following since they were in high school.  For example, when I first started paying attention to pro basketball Larry Bird was still a fresh face in the league; since then I’ve seen him win MVP’s as a player, coach and general manager.  I've seen virtually his entire professional life.

Though I am a regular sports watcher, I want to sharpen my focus to the NBA.  Over the next few months I will give projections and recaps of the upcoming playoffs, keep an eye on the draft and continue to follow the moves, trades, signings, etc., on through the summer. I won’t be able to give the eyeball test to the NBA Summer League but I’ll look over the stats, try to ascertain which players are shining out or disappointing.  Also, I want to take a look back at last year’s transactions, give a 20/20 hindsight grade on who succeeded and who flailed badly.  I have little interest in pre-season so I generally pay little attention to basketball then preferring to watch the baseball post-season and NFL instead; but I suppose this year I’ll try to keep up. 

For decades, I’ve followed the personalities, the strategies, the projections, the standings and the stats.  The stats, as in baseball, have gotten continuously intricate and more interesting.  Do the intricacies reveal more about the game?  Not sure I’m convinced of that but I enjoy analyzing them just the same.  I don’t have a favorite team, I tend to follow any/all teams and throughout the course of a season I’ll pick out my favorites to watch.  (This year the Phoenix Suns were the team I most enjoyed watching and keeping up with and I gotta say Goran Dragic deserves more MVP votes that I reckon he’s gonna get)

Still figuring out my observational style but I think I’m more into studying the teams as opposed to individual players and the compositions of the teams (payrolls, draft choices, trade options, etc) more than the in-game strategy.  I’m interested in the teams within the larger context of the league itself and the players within the context of their team.  I dig the stars and the eyeball test is certainly a must as a fan, but the eyes can be deceived while the numbers are just numbers.  That said, I have the sinking feeling that over time statistics will only reveal the limitations of statistics.  

I watch NBA and I write so my mission is clear: I will write about the NBA.  

Euro Semi-finals

Portugal v Spain – Obviously Spain is the favorite and the best team but I can see Portugal giving them a good showing.  Portugal and Spain are mirror images: solid but not great on defense, dominating ball control in the mid-field, strangely weak up front.  Similar styles, similar game plans, but Spain has the superior talent and the amazing streak they’ve been on for 4 solid years now.  I would not be surprised to see Portugal sneak past Spain here.  I don’t think I’ll boldly predict it, no, I’ll go with the Spaniards but Portugal is capable of hanging with Spain for 90 minutes in a way that very few other squads in the world can.  This game could go to PK’s. 

Germany v Italy – I would be surprised to see Italy best Germany.  Italy is good team but not a great one.  They rely too much on sagging defense and quick strikes up front.  Against Germany that is a gameplan designed to frustrate the Germans, keep the scoring chances rare and push the game into PK’s where anything can happen.  That’s fine against England, might even work against Portugal or even Spain.  But I don’t see the Germans being held out of the goal for 90 minutes—and certainly not 120!  This game does not go to PK’s.  I’ll take Germany to stick a coupla goals in by regulation. 

Thunder 1-3 Heat

Strange to say, but this kinda shocks me.  The disappearance of James Harden is the first and foremost factor at work, I think; Lebron is having one of the greatest Finals ever but I think if Harden were putting up any kind of production then the Thunder would have already won this series.  History is loaded with one-man teams that couldn’t pull it off in the Championship.  Lebron’s been great before but he’s never been this close to victory. 

Just to make the devil’s advocate case: if Harden starts hitting his 3’s and Durant/Westbrook start getting the calls that they’re not getting now, then the Thunder could quickly return to 110 er’y night and run off 3 straight with a quickness.   They took 4 straight from the Spurs (who were a better all-around team) and though Lebron is the best player out there, I still think the Thunder have what it takes to neutralize him and push the offense. 

The reason I thought the Thunder would win was that potent offense.  We learned in the Eastern Conference Finals that for the Heat to win, they have to be up comfortably in the 4th quarter.  That is precisely what I thought would NOT happen against OKC, who scores and scores and scores.  But w/out Harden, the Thunder offense is beatable and when Lebron is dominant, the Heat can roll with anybody (for 45 minutes or so).  

We consider it a foregone conclusion that the Heat will win tonight but it is not at all impossible that a week from now those words look like ancient runes scribbled on a cave wall.  We might be talking about Westbrook as MVP, Scotty Brooks as the greatest coach on the planet, James Harden and Serge Ibaka as the sexy free agents of the off-season.  Could be.  Could be that Lebron is still a goat, Coach Spo is no mo, Wade is angry and beyond reproach, Bosh breaks down crying, the Big 3 has to be disassembled.  Could be.  I doubt it but could be.  The Thunder might play come out blazing, feeling empowered by house money. 

Lebron has got it in him to rise and rise and rise again if need be.  I think Chalmers is a for real contributor, Wade is still good for 8-10 free throws, Bosh is a stud every other night and even when he’s not hitting Battier is giving the Heat a lot of useful minutes.  Lebron has more to work with then I noticed all year long.  And he’ll need them for just one more game.  I reckon Lebron would rather wrap this up pronto, so look for him to have one of his classic nights: 40 points, 8 boards, 8 assists, 3 blocked shots, 2 steals, something like 12-14 at the FT line.  If Bosh shines out, then the Heat can definitely keep pace.  I'll take the Heat to wrap it up tonight (but it wouldn't be a shocker if Durant/Westbrook went offfffff tonight). 

Euro: The quarterfinals

Still on track for Germany-Spain final.  Hard to call.  I want to say Germany is a little better than Spain but I thought that in 2008 and again in 2010.  Germany is playing well but have room to get better; Spain look a bit bored out there, effortless possession, indifferent attacking.  Is this the year the Germans finally get back to the top?  Sure, why not.  I’ll go ahead and pick against Spain again.  Germany 3-2 Spain in the final. 

Germany v Greece – Ouch!  Hate it when sport collides with international politics.  I’ll take Germany (in both). 

Portugal v Czech – Portugal is one of those older teams that seems like they can’t hang but they still totally got skills and can possess the balls for hours at a time. They could use more scoring threat up front (Ronaldo is a great player but he’s not cold blooded at the frame like that), but their mid is second only to Spain. Czech is scrappy, they won’t go quietly, but their forwards are struggling, they’ll need a change to best Portugal.  Portugal is the better team, the veteran team, they’ll control the ball and make the most of their opportunities.  I’ll take Portugal (but wouldn’t be surprised to see a Czech victory). 

Spain v France – France is a team in-between: wily veterans and young up-and-comers is a stew that needs precise seasoning; I ain’t convinced that France has that.  They’ve got decent big play ability, maybe they can break loose and score.  But even still I expect Spain to pepper the goal for 90 straight minutes.  And France doesn’t have much that’s gonna stop that. Spain is a pretty easy pick. 

Italy v England – These teams look similar to me: solid veteran defense, flakey offensive capabilities.  Even similar gameplans: saggy defense that wants to counterattack. I wanna say Italy has more talent throughout the midfield and those possessions should make the difference and more power up front (though I’m not sold on Balotelli and the team is not sold on DiNatale).  England does have Rooney rested and ready (hopefully more ready than against Ukraine) and Steven Gerrard, perhaps the most underappreciated player in the tournament.  I can see this one going to PK’s.

Euro: The teams that didn't move on.

Croatia – I loved Croatia!  Totally rooted for them throughout.  Liked them, liked the way they crossed the ball into the box (penetrated the crease routinely, had trouble finding the frame).  A good team.

Denmark – Pushed Netherlands aside, stood up well to Germany, held Portugal as best they could.  I was rooting for them, I wish they’d pulled out a better result. 

Netherlands – They had talent up front, I fully expected them to score and they just never got in a rhythm together.  They played like guys that just didn’t like each other. 

Russia – ditto.  Russia’s got good talent all over the field—that beatdown they put on Czech was not a fluke.  But that egg they laid in front of Greece wasn’t either.  Team of talented headcases (11 Marat Safins *shiver*). 

Poland – They played hard, gave Russia the business.  Scrappy but not a talent-laden squad. 

Ukraine – Rooted for them, nice win in the opening game.  But a lifeless side, they controlled the ball against England but never could convincingly challenge the goal. 

Sweden – Not a classic Sweden side.  Ibrahimovic up front is a beast but he seems selfish, poorly utilizes his teammates. 

Ireland -- Clearly the worst squad out there.  They were never in any of their 3 games, they were outmanned at every position.