Reforming the NBA and the USA

2009-01-27T15:42:00.003-05:00

Incompetent Officiating, Part I:
Self-blinded refs have Dwight’s UMP back

In one respect, Orlando’s 90-to-80 loss to Boston on TNT January 22 was like many Magic games this season: star center Dwight Howard “set” perhaps 15-to-20 UMPs.

An UMP is an uncalled moving pick. I place “set” in quotation marks because Howard — and many other modern screeners — operates under the assumption that one need not be set when setting a pick. Howard’s body language is that of an NFL H-back protecting his quarterback. His body is alive, ready to move left or right to block the onrushing foe.

On a standard Magic play Howard will come out near the three-point arc and wait for a teammate to activate the pick-and-roll by dribbling along a path slightly to Howard’s left or right. As the dribbler’s defender starts moving laterally, Howard will step, slide or extend a forearm into the defender’s path. Heck, sometimes he does all three on the same pick. That’s a TRUMP, or triple uncalled moving pick.

If Howard can obstruct the defender with a legal stationary screen, he’ll do so. But if he has to move left to prevent the defender from getting “over” the screen cleanly, he’ll do that. If he has to slide right to prevent the defender from going “under” the screen cleanly and picking up the dribbler on the other side, Howard often will roll to the basket before the defender has a chance to get past him. Those are obvious fouls, but we can forgive Howard for thinking that both tactics are perfectly legal given that he draws so few whistles — maybe one for every 40 moving picks.

Of course, two can play this game, so sometimes it’s a Magic player taking UMP lumps. On January 24, backup point guard Anthony Johnson was on the receiving end of a different kind of TRUMP, as Miami’s Jamaal Magloire clipped him with three consecutive single UMPs on the same possession, starting at 9:03 of the second quarter. On each occasion he made a late lateral move to obstruct AJ. The first freed Chris Quinn for a jumper, and when the Heat retrieved the miss and kicked it back to Quinn, Magloire executed two more UMPs, the second of which drew a whistle. On Johnson, who had the unmitigated gall to negate the effect of the illegal moving pick by grabbing Quinn.

A fascinating aspect of this epidemic of UMPing is that it takes place out in the open, at a leisurely pace, with one or more refs staring at the play. It’s impossible to miss — unless you’ve been trained to miss it.

Back when the NBA operated with two sighted refs rather than three blind ones, such blatant moving picks would draw whistles. Actually, they would rarely be attempted, because players would know from experience that Richie Powers, Mendy Rudolph, Earl Strom or Jake O’Donnell — and even the run-of-the-mill refs — would catch nearly all of the obvious moving picks and many of the subtle ones.

Modern refs suffer from a peculiar form of blindness: self-blindness. You see, the geniuses who run the NBA have decided that the best way to officiate is to watch only the defender. So while I’m observing Howard (or Kevin Garnett) moving four-feet laterally on a pick, Bob Delaney is zeroed in on the defender to see if he’s doing anything nefarious to the dribbler as he maneuvers around the moving pick that Delaney has been trained not to see.

This criticism is not aimed at Howard, nor at the refs, most of whom, maybe all, would do perfectly fine if properly trained. It’s aimed at the people at the top who are responsible for how the rules are interpreted and how the refs are taught to enforce them.

If David Stern, Stu Jackson and Ronnie Nunn ran security for banks and 7-Eleven stores, the security cameras would be aimed exclusively at the clerk behind the counter. Far better to record on tape his or her frightened reaction than such irrelevant information as the face, size, body movement and weapon of the robber.

2008-12-16T17:10:00.004-05:00

What Dwight can learn from Sergio
One can go overboard with golf-to-basketball analogies, but I’ve got one that will change Dwight Howard’s career.

A common flaw among dreadful golfers is the tendency to “hit from the top.” Also known as “casting,” as in casting a fishing line, a golfer who hits from the top breaks his wrists at the top of his backswing. In so doing, he loses power and accuracy while reducing his chances of making solid contact on a consistent basis. To make progress, he will have to learn to “retain the angle” late into the downswing — that is, keep his wrists cocked until they approach the hitting zone.

Sergio Garcia is renowned for retaining the angle, and he’s one of the best ball strikers in the world. (Putting, alas, is another story.)

A decidedly uncommon flaw among NBA players is the basketball equivalent of hitting from the top: a premature unhinging of.the flexed wrist of the shooting hand. Howard has it, and it’s been especially obvious (at least to me) this season and last.

(to be continued)

See here for a lengthy analysis:
What Dwight can learn from Tiger

2008-11-06T18:41:00.002-05:00

Analogies that illuminate Dwight Howard’s free-throw woes
A candidate in a tight race has much greater confidence in a poll with a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points than a poll so flawed that its margin of error stretches 12 points in each direction. Well, a free-throw stroke that consistently produces a shot that travels about 15 feet, plus or minus three inches, is far more accurate than one whose margin of distance-related error is plus or minus 12 inches. If you’ve watched Howard shoot free throws, you know his directional accuracy is pretty good but that he has no idea how far the ball is going to travel.

As I’ve explained before, Howard was a fine free-throw shooter until his second pro season, when the Magic’s coaching staff started monkeying around with his shooting style.

Think of the Magic as Howard’s doctor and his stroke as his heart. A smart doctor will leave a healthy heart in the patient’s body. This doctor, however, removed Howard’s healthy heart, then compounded the blunder by replacing it with a diseased one! Howard’s putrid percentages, which have been even worse in the 2007 and 2008 playoffs and the Olympics than in the last three regular seasons, in which he never reached 60 percent, suggest that his body is rejecting the transplant even as his brain tries gamely to convince himself that all is well.

Stay tuned for an essay relating Howard’s free-throw saga to the monster created by Dr. Frankenstein.

2008-06-07T12:15:00.000-05:00

Senate Intelligence Committee confirms what I proved BEFORE the war: Bush team not only was erroneous; in many instances it was deceitful

Here’s a portion of a story in the June 6 Washington Post:

"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the committee chairman, said at a news conference. "As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed."

The report, the last and most contentious of a series of Senate reviews of prewar intelligence, sought to compare the administration's public claims about Iraq with the intelligence reports available to them at the time. While many of the White House's statements -- such as Bush's warnings about a secret Iraqi nuclear program -- were amply supported by intelligence files at the time, the report said, others were not.

Bush and other administration officials strayed far from official intelligence reports when it came to describing alleged ties between al-Qaeda and Hussein, the report said. It cited repeated statements by Bush, including his Oct. 7, 2002, Cincinnati speech in which he alleged that Iraq had "trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making" and had maintained "high-level contacts that go back a decade."

The report said that "statements and indications by the president and secretary of state suggesting that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qaeda with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence."
Approved by eight Democrats and two Republicans on the 15-member committee, the report also highlights an October 2002 claim by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that Iraq had concealed its stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in underground bunkers too deep to be destroyed by air power alone. Rumsfeld, in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, had told senators that U.S. officials did "know where a fraction" of Hussein's banned weapons were, adding that a "good many are underground and deeply buried," suggesting that ground forces were required to destroy them. His statement contradicted intelligence at the time that no such facilities were known to exist, the report states.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a committee member, called for a separate investigation of Rumsfeld's statements, which he said appeared intended to drive support for an invasion. "This is stunning: The secretary of defense, testifying before Congress about whether or not ground forces would be strategically necessary in a war against Iraq, said the executive branch 'knew' something that it did not know," he said.
[end of story excerpt]

Here’s a bit of what I wrote before the war:

Grifter-in-Chief Bush Aided by Media’s Wusses of Mass Credulity (Oct 19, 2002)

Bush Is Racking Up “Frequent Liar Miles” (Jan 18, 2003)

The Evidence Bush is Withholding Weakens, Not Strengthens the Case for War (Jan 28, 2003)

An Open Letter to the U.N. About Colin Powell (Feb 4, 2003 — pre-U.N. presentation)

Lying Us Into War: Exposing Bush and His “Techniques of Deceit” (Feb 10, 2003)

I’m Calling You Out: Marching Orders for Journalists, Officials and Celebrities Who Believe in “Informed Consent of the Governed” (Feb 19, 2003)

Public’s Pro-Inspections Posture Mostly M.I.A. on Talking-Heads TV (Feb 28, 2003)

The Disinformation Age: How George W. Bush and Saint Colin of Powell are lying America into an unnecessary war — and what honest journalists can do about it (March 4, 2003)

How to Deter Bush’s Fibbing and Hoopsters’ Flopping (March 14, 2003)

2008-05-22T14:54:00.010-05:00

Wilt Decrees End of Spurs Dynasty:
Chamberlain and his fellow Hoop Gods add Popovich to list of coaches condemned to a ringless future for their hack-a-bricklayer antics

The San Antonio Spurs will never win another championship so long as Gregg Popovich remains with the organization. He will not add to his total of four rings this season or anytime soon because he angered the Hoop Gods — particularly their leader — by repeatedly resorting to off-the-ball intentional fouls against Shaquille O’Neal in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs.

From their perch in the Great B-Ball Beyond, the Hoop Gods take seriously their responsibility as guardians of the game. When they see coaches making a travesty of their sport and turning off fans, when they see NBA executives too clueless to fix a rule that invites look-at-me coaches to bring a rhythmic, entertaining game to a screeching halt, they impose their own brand of justice.

Chamberlain, a highly sensitive giant who shot an abysmal .465 from the line in the playoffs, arrived in Hoop Heaven on October 12, 1999 and immediately established himself as the dominant force among the Hoop Gods. Beginning with the 1999-2000 season, he’s made it his mission to make life miserable for the Hack-a-Bricklayer coaches: no rings and much humiliation for them, many rings for the players they’ve sought to embarrass.

The grafs above are from an early draft of an essay that has since been revised and updated and can be found here.

2008-05-03T15:52:00.003-05:00

Battier fails to escape first round AGAIN
Shane Battier never won a playoff game in 12 tries with Memphis. He’s never won a playoff series with Houston, though at least he’s been on the winning side in individual games, having won 3 of 7 last season and 2 of 6 this season. I’ll have more to say on this later, but he is a major reason for the failure of his pro teams to win meaningful games.

Battier is a wonderful fellow and I like his politics (we're both backing Obama), but he’s a Top Five underdeveloped underachiever. Ninety percent of his offensive game consists of an impression of Little Jack Horner. The only difference is that Shane is standing in the corner while Jack prefers to sit. I realize this is by design — the design of his various coaches — but the reason Shane meekly goes along is because of his woefully inadequate game inside the arc. He plays along with the common perception that he has limited natural ability, but in truth he has more than enough coordination, touch and athleticism to have a fine, varied game. The fact that he doesn’t is the fault of Shane and a string of coaches, starting with that overrated icon at Duke.

Shane’s career playoff scoring average is a paltrey 8.2 points in 33.3 minutes. If he had developed his game in his younger days he'd have double the average. And by having that well-rounded game his playoff minutes would be up as well. He should be an 18 points in 40 minutes guy, not an 8 in 33. If he were the player he's capable of being, his postseason record wouldn't be 5 wins and 25 losses.

2008-05-03T11:22:00.001-05:00

Mike Woodson’s dumb Game 5 mistake
Perhaps if Mike Woodson had not served as an assistant coach under Larry Brown, he would not have cost the Hawks their best chance at victory in Game 5 by sitting Joe Johnson for nearly 10 first half minutes with two measly fouls. He finished the game with three. The Celtics spurted while Johnson sat.

Brown has an even more abnormal fear of losing a player to fouls than did his coaching mentor, Dean Smith. Brown coaches as if he has a bonus clause that says he gets $10,000 every time one of his starters finishes the game with three or fewer fouls. This approach has cost his team dearly in the playoffs. If Karl Malone hadn’t been playing on one leg it might have cost the Pistons the 2004 title and Brown his only NBA ring, as I explained here.

2008-04-10T12:44:00.000-05:00

My quick-fix for Dwight Howard’s persistent free-throw woes
You can read my analysis here.

2007-11-29T15:37:00.001-05:00

The NBA’s real integrity problem:
Thirty years ago, Red Auerbach called out players and coaches who cheat. The league has yet to act.

By Dennis Hans

In the wake of the Tim Donaghy gambling-ref scandal, NBA Commissioner David Stern spoke of reaffirming “our covenant with our fans;” a key pillar of which is that “our games are decided on their merits.”

Alas, often that is not the case, even if it turns out that Donaghy never attempted to influence the win-loss outcome (as opposed to the point total or point spread) of a single game. The NBA’s covenant with its fans has long been broken because the commissioner’s definition of “integrity” is as narrow as the president’s.

While campaigning for president in 2000, George W. Bush repeatedly pledged to restore honor and integrity to the White House in one breath and lied about taxes and Social Security in the next. Once in office, Bush demonstrated his honor and integrity by remaining faithful to his wife as he lied the country into war. I documented his administration’s “techniques of deceit” prior to the invasion of Iraq in a series of essays, including this prescient masterpiece.

Stern is no liar; in fact, he’s much more the “plain-spoken straight shooter” that Bush pretends to be but is not. But Stern shares Bush’s gift for compartmentalization, which enables him, on the issue of NBA integrity or lack thereof, to miss the player-coach-announcer forest for the Donaghy twig.

What has undermined the league for years is disreputable players deceiving honest refs into making bogus calls. This has led to an unknown number of games being decided on something other than their merits.

For 23 years Stern’s silence has implicitly condoned flopping, flailing, diving, leg-kicks and unnatural arm-lifts by shooters (the two fastest growing forms of cheating), and other fool-the-ref techniques employed to gain unmerited free throws and/or saddle key foes with unmerited foul trouble and unmerited bench time in pursuit of unmerited victory. The problem is perpetuated by coaches who teach or at least condone these tactics and by broadcasting clowns who praise the deceivers and thus teach the next generation of hoopsters that this is how a true pro plays the game.

Would a devout guy like Ben Gordon become a leg-kicking devotee (the main reason for his dramatic increase in free-throw attempts, from 3.4 per game in 2005-06 to 5.4 last season) without this chorus of seemingly respectable people condoning this stuff?

These devious tactics — and the sordid strategy I call “minutes shaving,” where you use deceit to prevent an opponent from getting his regular playing time — win games. Fans know it, which is why they roar whenever a real or bogus foul sends Tim Duncan, Amare Stoudemire, Shaquille O’Neal or some other star to the bench. (Even if the benching foul is legit, if an earlier one was bogus then it is the bogus one that made the difference, because without it the guy would still be on the court.)

Big guys are whistled for legit fouls at a high rate because of the requirements of their position and the perverse nature of the modern NBA game, as I explained in this 2006 essay. Thus, it may only take one early fraudulent foul added to the player’s accumulating total to transform an active, splendid 42-minute night into a half-active, half-cautious 30-minute night — and a likely win into a frustrating loss.

A court document in the Donaghy case noted that “NBA referees are subject to a collective bargaining agreement and to rules of conduct set by the NBA. Those rules of conduct require that NBA referees conduct themselves according to the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and professionalism . . . .”

Unfortunately, Stern holds players to no standard of on-court integrity (though he does have zero tolerance for such serious stuff as untucked jerseys). His legacy is an ethics-free league where blatant forms of cheating are not called cheating but are elevated to legitimate basketball “skills,” on a par with dribbling and shooting.

It’s not like the league is unaware of its problem. Last season, an occasional question on Director of Officials Ronnie Nunn’s weekly show on NBA-TV, in the segment where he and his guests reviewed difficult calls from the preceding week, was “Block, charge, or flop?” Nunn’s predecessor, Ed T. Rush, told Charley Rosen in 2003 that “There's a long list of veteran players whose sideline game is ‘fool the ref.’" Such players “are extremely good at things like flopping or pulling an opponent down on top of them. . . . The younger officials are more susceptible to being fooled than the veterans.”

Indeed, though I’d add that plenty of experienced refs are susceptible, and there’s a long list of young players in addition to the veterans with a bag of fool-the-ref tricks.

A “cheater’s tax” to eliminate fool-the-ref deceit
In today’s NBA you can cheat without ever having to think of yourself as a cheater, which explains why so many of the best, like Gordon, are fine, upstanding citizens in their non-basketball lives. The likes of Derek Fisher, Robert Horry, Chauncey Billups, Anderson Verajao, Reggie Evans, Raja Bell, Mehmet Okur, the Collins twins, Andres Nocioni and Desmond Mason — among many others — might be reluctant to go into their act if they knew every leg kick and every flop, dive or flail from incidental, imaginary or self-initiated contact would get them compared to the latest blood doper or steroid user And they’d really be reluctant if their team had to pay a “cheater’s tax” every time a ref thought one of them had just tried to pull a fast one.

I recommend a one-point tax for players without a cheating reputation and a two-point tax for established cheaters, who deserve to be in a higher tax bracket. The points would be added immediately to the other team’s score. This, in my view, is superior to a technical-foul penalty, advocated by Jeff Van Gundy and some anonymous current refs (who bargained away their free-speech rights to Stern and thus cannot speak publicly on officiating issues without a permission slip), because there’s no prolonged stoppage in play for a free throw and the penalty is a sure thing. It would all but eliminate this nonsense and might do wonders for the NBA “brand” — a key concern for the image-obsessed and basketball-clueless commissioner.

Repeat offenders, along with their enabling coaches, could be suspended for 10 games or so. If a player still refuses to clean up his act, ban the bum for life. No one will miss him, and every young hoopster contemplating a career as an NBA con man will get the message.

Broadcasters for cheating
Speaking of Van Gundy, he was a breath of fresh air this past postseason, expressing on ABC and ESPN his contempt for floppers. But his appearance was a fluke — a result of the Rockets’ early playoff exit and the networks’ odd desire to add a coach with TV experience to their broadcasts. The Disney subsidiaries could just as easily have saddled viewers with the equally qualified Doc Rivers, a proud flopper as a player and long-time proponent of the view that fool-the-ref tricks are legit b-ball skills. (When Rivers and Van Gundy were co-analysts for a 2006 playoff game, Van Gundy joked about how much he appreciated Rivers’ flops when he played for Pat Riley’s Knicks and Van Gundy was an assistant coach, thus demonstrating that even he subscribes to the situational-ethics philosophy that so many coaches live by.)

The majority of ABC/ESPN broadcasts don’t include Van Gundy, and here is what we typically hear whenever a con artist goes into his act: Mark Jackson and Mike Breen praising his salesmanship as he dives out of bounds to draw a bogus rebounding foul or collapses from marginal — and thus legal — contact. On the league’s other broadcast partner, TNT, Reggie Miller, John Thompson and 1970s flopper Doug Collins will compliment a trickster for a “smart, veteran play” as he kicks out a leg to draw an unmerited shooting foul. Heck, Magic Johnson might even salute him for playing the game “the right way”! He did just that for Miller — arguably the most prolific cheater in NBA history.

A great game degenerates on Stern’s watch
On-court cheating didn’t begin with Stern’s tenure. But it has increased, diversified and gained widespread acceptance under his ostrich-style watch, which commenced in 1984.

Stern inherited from predecessor Larry O’Brien a fast-paced, free-flowing, wonderful game. The great Celtics-Lakers finals of 1984, 1985 and 1987 featured an occasional endangering cheapshot — usually by a Celtic — but were generally flop-free affairs. Yes, Detroit’s Bill Laimbeer and other floppers littered the NBA landscape, but back then he was widely despised because of his flopping. If he were playing today, the Inside the NBA show would invite him to demonstrate his techniques on one of its ludicrous TNT Fundamentals segments.

Typically, Fundamentals isn’t devoted to fool-the-ref tricks. Instead, it unintentionally highlights another aspect of Stern’s disastrous stewardship, as TNT’s chosen experts demonstrate how to brazenly break the rules in plain sight while counting on Ronnie Nunn’s refs to take the violator’s side. Last season, Carlos Boozer demonstrated how to dislodge a low-post defender, Sam Cassell how to create shooting space by pushing off and (via replay highlight) how to draw a shooting foul by jumping into an airborne defender who’s not remotely in your space, and Shane Battier how to draw a bogus charge by sliding over late and relying on the ref to make a bad call. Battier didn’t put it quite that way, but a majority of the segment’s dozen or so replay highlights of his so-called “defense” should have been blocks, not charges. Even his how-to demonstration with teammate Steve Novak was a late-arriving, leaning-and-sliding block!

The frequency with which conscientious refs botch those particular calls suggests that the problem is not with the refs but with the guidance and directives from their supervisors and, even more so, from the Rules and Competition Committee headed by Stern’s tone-deaf vice president, Stu Jackson. (Another Bush-Stern parallel: when it comes to senior staffers, both leaders place greater value on loyalty to the boss than competence.) Yes, refs in the pre-Stern era missed their share of calls, but at least the rules they imperfectly enforced made common sense. Dislodging wasn’t a legit “move”; therefore, thin centers could guard powerful ones and neither guy would be at undue risk for foul trouble. If a shooter on the perimeter took an unnatural jump into an airborne defender, chances were good he’d be called for an offensive foul. The pump fake was a tool to get free for a shot, not a license to jump sideways or abnormally forward and collect an automatic reward of two or more free throws.

With Stern at the helm, the NBA followed one of its best decades, the Eighties, with its worst. With each passing season the game became increasingly more slow, brutal and boring. The league hit its ethical low point in the 1996 Finals, when Dennis Rodman’s incessant successful flopping made a joke of the game, the refs and the commissioner — and tainted the Bulls’ title. These days the game is still played at a snail’s pace by many teams. And while NBA ball is slightly less brutal than in the Nineties and the first few seasons of this decade, today’s game is actually far more dangerous, thanks to recent rule changes that reward undercutting, as I explained in this Letter to Ronnie Nunn. So cheating is just one of the on-court problems that has worsened under Stern.

Red erupts over 1970s flopping explosion
A decade before Stern took command, Bill Bradley chronicled the 1973-74 season in his insightful diary Life On the Run. Here’s what he said about the Chicago Bulls distinctive brand of defense: “They fall down in front of offensive players at the slightest brush” (p. 53).

Dick Motta’s Bulls, led by Jerry Sloan, had actually been playing that way for a few seasons. Back then flopping was fairly new — and much more common at the college level than in the NBA, where only the Bulls were making a joke of the game by relying so heavily on the odious tactic. But it was just a matter of time before it spread throughout the league.

One of the first to cry “Enough!” was the legendary Red Auerbach. To be sure, Auerbach was no paragon of virtue in his 16 seasons (1950-66) as coach of the Celtics. For example, he didn’t seem the least bit troubled that his original “sixth man,” the great Frank Ramsey, was the first NBA player with a fool-the-refs obsession. Nevertheless, by 1976 there were so many players performing for the refs that even Auerbach was disgusted. So he devoted an edition of his CBS halftime feature, Red on Roundball, to flopping and another tactic Motta (a terrrific, underrated offensive coach) brought from the college ranks that Red rightly considered bad for basketball: help defenders running to the spot where an airborne driver is likely to land, in hopes of drawing an unwarranted charging foul. (Our discussion will stick to the flopping part of the segment, but it’s worth noting that Red had no use for Battier-style defense even before the future Dukie was born!)

First, Auerbach had Mike Riordan demonstrate how an offensive player can “fake a foul” by setting a screen and then collapsing convincingly from slight contact that ordinarily wouldn’t cause him to budge. Next, Clem Haskins showed how a defender can use the same no-resistance technique to draw a bogus foul from a dribbler. Those displays set the stage for Red’s rant:

“Coaches today — in high school, college and pro — are teaching the players how to fall. This is unreal. They’re teaching them how to fall! . . . I’m very, very much opposed to this type of basketball.”

Auerbach said his critique was not directed at referees. “It’s aimed at coaches. It’s aimed at players. What are we going to do about it? Let’s clean this thing up. Let’s not hurt the game.”

Alas, the NBA didn’t clean it up, and the game is still hurting. At least that’s how Red (in his after-coaching life) would see it. But he was old school. For a modern, sophisticated, Stern Era outlook on fool-the-ref deceit, let’s turn to the Suns’ much-admired two-time MVP, Steve Nash.

But let’s first recall that, like me, the anti-war point guard had a low opinion of the fool-the-citizenry deceit employed by Bush, Colin Powell and other senior officials as they repeatedly presented unproven and implausible allegations about Iraqi WMD and links to al Qaeda as established facts. Is it Nash’s credo that “All is fair in love and sports, but not war”? Read on.

The perfect Stern-Era MVP
It’s Game 5 of the 2007 Suns-Spurs series — the infamous “suspension” game, with Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw out for the Suns on an absurd technicality and instigator Robert Horry out for the Spurs.

In the minds of most fair-minded fans, those facts mean that it is impossible for the Spurs to win this game on Stern’s beloved “merits.” (Then again, this fair-minded fan thinks the Suns stole Game 4 with a furious comeback fueled by a fourth-quarter flop fest that robbed the Spurs of possessions and put Duncan alternately on the bench and on egg shells. Then yet again, Stoudemire spent most of the series in foul trouble, and it’s possible the Spurs — who employ Horry and two award-winning Argentinian actors — had a conscious strategy of performing for the refs in hopes of blunting the lethal weapon that wreaked such havoc in the 2005 playoffs.)

Even though this is only the Western Conference semifinals, because these are clearly the league’s two best remaining teams this game may very well determine the NBA championship. The series is tied 2-2, and tonight’s winner will be in the driver’s seat.

The Suns are ahead by 5 with 3:10 remaining when Nash is whistled for a shooting foul as Manu Ginobili fires and misses from beyond the arc. Ginobili makes all three free throws, keeping the Spurs rally alive and providing the ultimate margin of victory (88-85).

After the game, Nash commented on that critical play and Ginobili’s ability to appear to be fouled even when he isn’t:

"Manu's great at that stuff. I really admire it. When I say that, I don't say it with any disrespect. I don't know if I fouled him or not. I just felt like when I ran to him, I was like, 'Pressure his shot, and don't foul him,' and the next thing you know, I was on top of him. I don't know if he pulled and kicked a bit, but it was a terrific play, unless I just fouled him."

I take Nash at his word. He and his coaches and some of his 2006-07 teammates (not clean-playing Stoudemire and Shawn Marion but definitely Raja Bell and Reggie Miller-protégé James Jones) subscribe to the whatever-it-takes ethos that is rampant in Stern’s NBA, where only the easily suckered refs are expected to be honest.

Nash thinks this is cool, that tricking the refs is basketball at its most elevated and sophisticated. Auerbach, however, is rolling over in his grave. What does Stern think? Isn’t it time he pulled his head out of the sand and took a stand? Does the NBA’s global ambassador really want to be remembered for teaching the world how to wink at and legitimize cheating?

2007-08-01T09:33:00.000-05:00

KG goes to Boston
Here is my take on the Kevin Garnett trade: Garnett must change to lead Celts to crown.

It's time for KG to dare to be great and stop settling for being, at both ends of the floor, merely very good, albeit consistently very good. In the piece I explain why Tim Duncan has a much greater defensive impact than does KG, and what KG needs to try to do to close the impact gap. I don't think KG is capable of Duncan's level of excellence as a goalie-style defender, but if he accepts the challenge and proves to be nearly as good, the Celts become legit title contenders.

2007-06-30T09:03:00.001-05:00

When Mr. Blackwell Meets Mr. Shaqwell
This sartorial satire ran in slightly different form in the Oct. 16, 2005 New York Times. Here is the original link.

New York Times
Oct. 16, 2005

When Mr. Blackwell Meets Mr. Shaqwell
The Fashion Police Arrive in the N.B.A.

By Dennis Hans

Word on the street is NBA commissioner David Stern has enlisted Shaquille O’Neal in his campaign to rid the league of players who wear sloppy, jockish or otherwise unbusinesslike attire when out of uniform and in the public eye.

Stern will do his part by fining any player who frightens small children and offends red-state sensibilities by donning a throwback jersey, blue jeans, sneakers or, God forbid, a do-rag. O’Neal, via his “Mr. Shaqwell” persona, will turn dress-code violators into laughingstocks with witty put-downs in the tradition of Mr. Blackwell, the Hollywood designer known world-wide for his annual list of the “Ten Worst Dressed Women.”

O’Neal first unveiled Mr. Shaqwell last spring, when he nearly brought veteran TNT sports reporter Craig Sager to tears with nasty comments — in both pre- and post-game interviews — about Sager’s eye-catching neon-orange sportcoat and matching tie.

Although O’Neal enjoys skewering contemporaries, he knows his history and has always treated trailblazers with the utmost respect. He befriended George Mikan, basketball’s first highly skilled skyscraper and superstar, hailing the Laker legend for paving the way for future giants, including himself. Well, what Mikan was to centers, Mr. Blackwell is to rappers.

As O’Neal and anyone else who has ever cut a rap CD knows, a staple of the genre is the rhyming insult. Long before the first hip-hop MC picked up a mic to put someone down, the wicked fashion critic was composing rhymes that sliced and diced stylistically challenged celebrities. Without Mr. Blackwell, there is no Snoop, Cube or Shaqwell.

And he’s still at the top of his game. Here is Mr. Blackwell’s verdict on Jessica and Ashlee Simpson: “From gaudy, to grim, to downright frenetic — these two prove that bad taste is positively genetic!” As for this year’s worst-dressed winner, Nicollette Sheridan of Desperate Housewives infamy: “In barely-there bombs she’s a taste-free pain — let’s crown her the Tacky Temptress of Wisteria Lane!”

O’Neal holds a master’s degree in law enforcement, so he’s a natural to walk the NBA’s fashion-cop beat. Informed sources say Mr. Shaqwell has already prepared the following zingers for the league’s most notorious sartorial stinkers, all of whom are prime candidates for hefty dress-code fines:

• With worn-out jeans and long, greasy hair, the Suns’ Stevie Nash is a grungy nightmare.

• A.I. [Allen Iverson] “keeps it real” with his gangsta attire, but if I said he looked sharp I’d be a 7-foot liar.

• Tim Duncan is to bland what tuna is to canned. He buys his threads at the Big & Tall store, in a special section marked “Dressed to Bore.”

• Mark Cuban is rollin’ in dough, but his jock-wannabe jerseys scream “Just say no!”

• Tom Tolbert’s turtle-neck chic can’t disguise the fact he’s a pencil-neck geek.

Mr. Shaqwell has also penned a put-down of a coat-and-tie coach who, in more ways than one, simply doesn’t measure up: “The only thing sadder than vile Hack-a-Shaq is Jeff Van Gundy as a Munchkin in Black.”

Catty, to be sure. But Mr. Blackwell believes Mr. Shaqwell has a long way to go — and not just as a fashion critic: “It’s not just his free throws that leave much to be desired. If he plays D like he disses, it’s time he retired!”

2007-06-07T10:42:00.001-05:00

Verajao wins my “Blanche DuBois Defender of the Year” award

In his Courtside Blog for the San Antonio Express-News, Richard Oliver cites my recent piece on the Cavs' Anderson Verajao, who's in San Antone for tonight's first game of the NBA Finals. (Scroll down Oliver's blog to the section “Flopping on the Deck.”)

As I explain in the essay,

The honor goes to the player who best exemplifies the fundamental characteristics of Ms. DuBois, the tragic figure of Tennessee Williams’ stage and screen masterpiece, “A Streetcar Named Desire”: dependence on “the kindness of strangers” and a preference for “illusion” over “realism.”

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

Blanche said it, and Verajao lives it. The strangers he depends on are the NBA’s Rules and Competition Committee (RCC), headed by Executive Vice President Stu Jackson, as well as the referees who enforce the Committee’s rules, interpretations and “points of emphasis.”

As I’ve shown in a series of articles dating back to 2001 (which I recount in this December 2006 open letter to Director of Officials Ronnie Nunn), under Jackson’s seven-year stewardship the RCC has shown ever-increasing kindness toward late-arriving or still-sliding help defenders (who will often make a late lateral slide or hop in reaction to evasive action the driver has taken to avoid the charge seeker), whistling innocent offensive players for charging as promiscuously as Blanche slept with young men after her husband’s suicide.

The preference for illusion over realism and a willingness to, as Blanche puts it, “misrepresent things,” leads into a discussion of flopping, and Verajao is on record acknowledging that he sometimes exaggerates the force of an opponent’s contact. That makes the ref’s job nearly impossible, because he has to distinguish legal “marginal contact” — a common occurrence in NBA games — from contact that merits a foul.

2007-05-31T09:38:00.001-05:00

My 2005 NY Times essay showing that a super-fast pace and NBA titles have often gone hand-in-hand

Here is the original link.

New York Times
January 9, 2005

Phoenix Pays a Little Homage to Much Faster Times
By DENNIS HANS

The Phoenix Suns are a much-needed breath of fresh air for an N.B.A. that remains far too bruising and boring. After 32 games, they were averaging a league-best 109.3 points, an astonishing 7.9 points more a game than the Dallas Mavericks, ranked No. 2 in that category.

But for those who become winded watching Steve Nash and his buddies run up and down the court, consider this: The Suns average 85 field-goal attempts a game. The 1960 N.B.A. champion Boston Celtics averaged 120.

Take a minute to let that sink in. We're talking 41 percent more attempts than today's run-and-gun Suns. On average, the 1959-60 Celtics would hit the Suns' average of 85 attempts with two minutes remaining in the third quarter.

The Suns are headed in the right direction, and I hope they run all the way to the N.B.A. title. Nothing would make me happier than Mike D'Antoni becoming a coaching role model.

D'Antoni learned the game from his father, a legendary high school coach in West Virginia whose teams turned on the crowd by running the opposition right out of the gym. It was a style that kept the focus on the players on the floor, not on the "genius coach" on the sideline. Most important, it was a style that made kids want to play basketball.

Critics say the Suns cannot race their way to an N.B.A. title, but the record shows D'Antoni is on the right track. The Suns' up-tempo style is reminiscent of that of the greatest teams in history, most of which ran at every opportunity and led the league in scoring or field-goal attempts or were near the top. The greatest team over a prolonged stretch - the Bill Russell-era Celtics of 1957 to 1969 - won 11 titles in 13 seasons. They led the league in field-goal attempts every season from 1959 to 1965 and won the title each of those seven years.

Two of the greatest single-season teams, the 1967 Sixers and the 1972 Lakers, each led by Wilt Chamberlain in his moderate-scoring phase, led the league in scoring. The Sixers averaged 125 points, on an average of 100 field-goal attempts, and the Lakers averaged 121 points, on 98 field-goal attempts, each without benefit of a 3-point shot.

When Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson joined forces for the 1970-71 season, they led the Bucks to the scoring title (at 118.4 points a game) and the N.B.A. title.

Magic Johnson's Lakers and Larry Bird's Celtics were always near the top in scoring, and those teams combined to win eight titles from 1980 to 1988, when the league scoring average was about 110. The other title team in that stretch - the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers, led by Moses Malone and Julius Erving - ran its way to a 112 average.

The N.B.A.'s second-greatest dynasty, the Michael Jordan-era Bulls from 1991 to 1998, led the league in scoring in two title seasons and scored well above the league average in each of its six championship years. That team also served as a beacon in the dark days of the slow-paced Thug Era, first by dethroning the Bad Boy Pistons, then by serving as the worst nightmare for Pat Riley's Broadway Bullies.

In comparing today's go-go Suns and the early-1960's Celtics, it must be noted that the Boston teams played in a league without the 3-point shot. If we convert the Suns' 9.1 successful treys per game a game to 2-pointers, their scoring average would plummet to 100.2. The lowest-scoring team in the 1960's, the 1969 Bulls, averaged 104.7.

To be fair to the Suns, a portion of their staggering field-goal-attempt deficit compared with the early 1960's Celtics is not their fault. Rather, it is a reflection of the walk-it-up, milk-the-clock, prevent-fast-breaks-at-all-costs philosophy of some opposing teams shackled by control-freak coaches. (Thankfully, their numbers are dwindling, and a few of the worst offenders have started to lighten their grip.)

Such coaches did not haunt the league when Red Auerbach was running the Celtics. The closest thing to a slow-down team in 1960 was the Cincinnati Royals, and they fired 104 field-goal attempts a game, 22 percent more than today's beep-beep Suns.

Fans of the Suns can take comfort in another feature of the early Celtics: their running did not prevent them from being a great defensive team. That greatness was predicated on quickness, which they had in abundance.

Alas, the Suns do not have Bill Russell as their last line of defense, but they do have active, athletic players who get their hands on an awful lot of passes, dribbles and shots. If the Suns can remain above average in field-goal defense and sustain that in the playoffs, their efficient, reasonably brisk offense could carry them to the N.B.A. crown.

The 2005 crown, that is. The 1960 Celtics would run them right off the floor.

Dennis Hans is a writer who lives in Florida.

2007-05-20T12:28:00.001-05:00

Barney Fife and David Stern
In my latest HoopsHype column, Insane ruling leaves Spurs-Suns unsettled, I draw a parallel between NBA commissioner David Stern, his VP Stu Jackson and Deputy Barney Fife. Here’s an excerpt:

David Stern and Stu Jackson point solemnly to the “red letter” rules governing players stepping on the court when an altercation breaks out or going into the stands under any circumstances. The commissioner and his executive vice president remind me of Deputy Barney Fife, who could always be counted on to make a mess of things in Mayberry through rigid enforcement of some silly, poorly crafted law whenever Sheriff Andy Taylor was away,. Like Stern and Jackson, by-the-book Barney ranked “correctness” above “fairness.” Soon the whole town would be in an uproar until sensible, fair-minded Andy returned to clear up the mess and restore sanity.

That’s why I’m proposing that Stern be immediately replaced by Sheriff Andy Taylor. Yes, I realize he’s a fictional TV character from the early 1960s. But we could get a young actor with a Carolina twang to portray him, and his modus operandi would be to ask himself before every basketball decision, What would Andy do?

And here’s a piece from a couple of weeks ago explaining Golden State’s upset of Dallas: Baron, luck and (maybe) subconscious racism propel Warriors.

2007-04-23T14:08:00.001-05:00

Steve Nash, SI’s Chris Ballard, endorse my expansive view of athleticism
Appropo my 2001 essay on athleticism in the April 18 post, which elicited a bunch of comments courtesy of a link by ESPN NBA blogger Henry Abbott, here is Sports Illustrated’s Chris Ballard, along with Steve Nash, discussing Nash the athlete:

Which brings up the biggest misconception about Nash: that he is an overachieving nonathlete who has made good mostly on smarts and hustle. But to suggest that Nash isn't a good athlete is to define athlete in the narrowest fashion. In many ways Nash is one of the best athletes in the NBA. He probably could have played professional soccer (his brother, Martin, does), and he was an excellent youth hockey player. "He wins at pretty much everything he does," says Whitley, who lists arm wrestling and beer chugging as the only two events in which he can take Nash. "He won't pick up a golf club for nine months, and then he'll shoot in the low 80s. His hand-eye coordination is amazing."

To Nash, the rap on him is a matter of semantics. "In our business people always equate athleticism with explosiveness, not with coordination, agility, footwork or creativity," he says. "I know I could learn to do anything, basically. I've always been able to pick things up athletically, even though I might not be dunking the ball." Even that last statement is not entirely true. At a practice two months ago Nash surprised teammates by dunking twice, once with his left hand off his right foot and once off two feet on an alley-oop from Raja Bell. Neither dunk, Nash takes pains to point out, was what one would call thunderous. "But," he says, "just barely still counts."
[End of excerpt]

Back in 2003, long before Nash earned his first MVP, I wrote about his underrated athleticism — and the woeful lack of athleticism of some of his Mav teammates — for Inside Hoops and Mike Fisher's DallasBasketball website. Here’s a sample:

NATURAL NASH: How Steve Nash Ranks as an NBA Athlete
By Dennis Hans
April 29, 2003

As the Dallas Mavericks trounced the Minnesota Timberwolves on ABC March 30, Bill Walton observed that Mavs point guard Steve Nash has “as little physical ability as any player in the NBA.”

Wake up and smell the incense, Bill. Nash is fast, quick, elusive and super-coordinated. He’s got great hands and a soft touch. He’s one of the top penetrators in the game, and even though he’s a righthander he can drive and finish with his left hand as well as or better than any natural lefty.

Like everyone else playing point guard in the NBA, Nash has labored long and hard to master the many skills his demanding position requires. But so did tens of thousands of college playmakers who never reached the NBA, let alone started, let alone earned a spot in the All-Star Game. Many of those NBA wannabees had the the requisite smarts and dedication, but they lacked that other indispensable quality possessed by Nash and every other standout NBA playmaker: oodles of talent.

Like most point guards, Nash is considerably shorter and lighter than the average NBA player. Perhaps that explains Walton’s confusion: The big redhead appears to believe that tallness and poundage — both of which he has in abundance — are “abilities.”

Sorry, Bill. Although your 84 inches and 250 pounds place you in select company, those measurements tell us nothing about your past abilities (in Walton-speak, “the impeccable footwork, the pinpoint passing, the Russell-esque timing as he swats shot after shot”) or present liabilities (“the bonehead proclamations, the nonstop mouth, the annoying habit of expressing everything in groups of three”). If height and weight were “abilities,” Chuck Nevitt and Felton Spencer would be NBA legends.

Walton’s confusion on this point explains his failure to notice that most of the players in the Target Center March 30 had considerably less “physical ability” than Nash. If we judged the players on how well they moved and how effectively they performed a variety of skills with and without the ball, those with the most ability were named Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Nick Van Exel and Troy Hudson. The least able were named Evan Eschmeyer, Reggie Slater and Marc Jackson. No one in the latter group remotely resembled anyone in the former. . . .

2007-04-21T19:13:00.000-05:00

Jon Barry for Commissioner; Sam Mitchell imitates idiotic Larry Brown
Glad to hear Jon Barry express his disgust with the escalating number of charging calls — particularly on plays where the contact occurs AFTER the guy has already passed or shot. In the Jan. 31 entry below, I note that 35 years ago refs.tended to ignore such contact, which occurred rarely because only Dick Motta’s Bulls played D in this revolting and dangerous manner, though that soon changed. Today’s Bulls and Heat are mirror-image teams, so be prepared for a ton of block/charge collisions and foul trouble as the series unfolds. The NBA, in its infinite stupidity, continues to make life easier for charge-seeking stiffs and non-stiffs. I’ve been writing about this for a long, long time; you’ll find some links to the right, including the Letter to Ronnie Nunn.

Sam Mitchell lost Game 1 today by sitting Bosh for long stretches with just two fouls. This is really dumb — Larry Brown dumb — and doubly so when one takes into account Bosh’s very low fouling rate. Bosh ended the game with three fouls. Mitchell should have given him every chance to play 40 to 45 minutes, which you can’t do if you sit for 14 first-half minutes.. Here, Sam, is the advice I offered Larry Brown.

2007-04-18T13:50:00.000-05:00

Amaechi, Hardaway and the vexing question, Are pro hoopsters “athletes”?

Back in 2001, I posed that question in an essay that ran in the online edition of the Sporting News. That may well have been the only occasion when Tim Hardaway and John Amaechi were mentioned in the same essay prior to Hardaway’s ignorant rant about gay athletes and gay people in general. My essay had nothing to do with sexual orientation (Amaechi was still in the closet), dealing instead with the ludicrous claim that NBA hoopsters are “the greatest athletes in the world.” Many, including Tim Hardaway in his younger days, are. But the league is so overrun with mediocrities (such as Amaechi and several of his 2000-01 Orlando Magic teammates) that the claim, as a generalization, is laughable.

On a side note, I was pleased to hear Amaechi’s Magic coach, Doc Rivers, and former Magic teammate Grant Hill say recently that they would welcome and be publicly supportive of an openly gay teammate. That said, I think Amaechi is off-base when he suggests that Jazz coach Jerry Sloan had it in for him because Sloan suspected he was gay.

The impression I got from Amaechi’s book is that Sloan was rightly disgusted with Amaechi’s lack of commitment. Due to Amaechi's limited athelticism, he was always a pathetic defender and rebounder (by NBA standards). But he did have a well-rounded, ambidextrous offensive repertoire (developed at Penn State). For him to be effective as a Jazz reserve, he had to keep that repertoire razor sharp, and that meant lots of extra work. Otherwise, you end up shooting 32.5 percent, which is what he shot his first season with the Jazz.

It's perfectly fine for a brilliant guy like Amaechi to have interests beyond b-ball, but Sloan is fully justified in expecting a highly paid professional to act like one. Alas, by the time he joined the Jazz Amaechi had lost the work ethic that enabled him to make it to the NBA in the first place. Then again, perhaps if Sloan had been more open to Amaechi's ideas on tweaking certain plays to enhance his effectiveness, his attitude and dedication would have been better.

Amaechi completely misses Sloan’s REAL bias: He actually likes slow dudes with limited talent (e.g., Jarron Collins), because he knows they won’t freelance on offense; he can always count on them staying within the confines of his system. Hard as it is to believe, Amaechi’s slowness and lack of jumping ability explain why Sloan’s Jazz was willing to give a fading, 30-year-old stiff a fat 4-year contract. And remember, this was toward the end of the Stockton-Malone era, when the only chance for the Jazz to make another title run was to surround their slowing but still highly skilled all-star tandem with active, athletic youngsters who would improve over the course of a long season if given playing time. Collins or a dedicated Amaechi might help you win a few extra regular-season games, but they're of limited value in the REAL season, the playoffs. Sloan made the same mistake in the middle of Amaechi's first Jazz season by signing Rusty LaRue to back up Stockton. LaRue was a very slow white dude who wouldn't make mental mistakes but also couldn't make plays. Giving the likes of LaRue and Amaechi playing time or, years later, letting Mo Williams get away because you prefer the much slower but slightly more polished point-guard tandem of Carlos Arroyo and Raul Lopez are coaching "mental mistakes." Better yet, it's a coaching "mindset," one that limits Sloan and prevents me from ranking him among the elite coaches.

Anyway, here’s that Dec. 21, 2001 Sporting News piece.

Many pro hoopsters are mediocre athletes
By Dennis Hans

Here’s a variation on the popular question, Are pro golfers “athletes”?

Are pro basketball players athletes?

The question seems sacrilegious. For years we’ve been told that professional hoopsters are “the greatest athletes in the world.” But the evidence is underwhelming.

Consider first the countless skyscrapers drawing fat NBA checks who are plagued by some combination of slow feet, bad hands, little agility, no rhythm, poor timing, bricklayer’s touch and other deficiencies. Last season [2000-01], nearly half the roster of the Orlando Magic -- a playoff team -- was filled with such people.

When I think “great athlete” I don’t think Michael Doleac (nice touch, but slow reflexes and can’t run or jump), Don Reid (can run fast in a straight line and can jump; can’t do much with the basketball), Andrew DeClercq (ditto), Pat Garrity (good hands and great stroke; sub-par quickness and jumping ability), or John Amaechi (brews a mean cup of pre-game tea; Brit’s other abilities less apparent). All are respected, intelligent, hard-working pros. But well-rounded, world-class athletes? Hardly.

What if we asked them to do something outside their sport that posed a modest athletic challenge, like making the routine plays of a shortstop? Garrity is the only one who could reliably field grounders (if hit directly at him) and make an accurate throw. But turning two with a baserunner bearing down would be a near-death experience.

Imagine this quintet trying to hit a 90 mph fastball -- or a 75 mph one, for that matter. Or throw a curve for a strike. Not a pretty picture.

Rest assured, Omar and Nomar (Vizquel and Garciaparra) would be dazzling at basketball with just a little practice. That’s because they’re among the greatest of the real world’s “world’s greatest athletes” -- guys under 6-2 who look good playing any game you can name.

Not persuaded? Let us turn from basketball’s mediocrities to Charles Barkley -- purportedly among the all-time greats in a profession of “great athletes.” But can you be considered a truly great athlete if you devote most of your non-drinking spare time to a game that, to be adequate, requires a modicum of arm-hand-eye-leg coordination, yet you remain light years away from attaining adequacy? Of all the non-disabled men in the world under 70 who play golf regularly, Barkley is the worst. His disjointed, hitch-ridden swing is the most unintentionally hilarious sight in sports.

Consider the greatest of the greats. Michael Jordan was a devoted baseball player from his youth right through high school. Later, he re-dedicated himself to the game while still in his athletic prime, hoping he could make the majors. Alas, even by minor league standards he was pathetic. Scrawny backup infielders barely out of high school hit the ball with more consistency and authority.

[WARNING! Inexcusable cheapshots in next paragraph. What I should have said back in 2001 is that the very-tall demographic is fairly small, so that when you reserve a few hundred NBA jobs for the really tall, you run out of great athletes much quicker than if those jobs were reserved for guys between, say, 5-8 and 6 feet, who comprise a much greater share of the population.]

Lucky for Jordan, as a young man he stumbled upon a sport that, at the professional level, limits four of the five positions (all but point guard) to a tiny slice of the population: tall people -- the world’s least coordinated demographic. For every man over 6-4 who can walk and chew gum at the same time there are ten who can’t.

Nitpickers will shout, “What about Allen Iverson? He’s barely 6 feet, yet he plays shooting guard, one of the positions you say is reserved for the tall.” Yes, I admit that Iverson is an exception. It’s probably just a coincidence that the league’s most electrifying performer -- and MVP -- is a man of average height.

The NBA’s powerhouse propaganda machine has persuaded the world that the most meaningful test of athleticism is the height you can reach from a running or standing jump. Thus Greg Ostertag is an athlete, Lee Trevino is not.

In reality, Trevino has much in common with veteran playmaker Tim Hardaway, who meets most any definition of “athlete.” Both are short, stocky and incredibly strong. Both have great hands, a million shots, and the imagination and moxie to pull them off when it matters most.

There’s more to athleticism than touching the rim with your forearm. Among other things, athleticism encompasses timing, rhythm, speed, strength, reflexes, agility, dexterity, quick hands, soft hands, touch, quick feet, quick “first step,” jumping height, jumping quickness, jumping rapidity, hand-eye coordination, foot-eye coordination, leg-arm-hand-eye coordination, and throwing and kicking power and accuracy.

Different sports -- and different skills within a sport -- require different combinations of athletic qualities. That explains why Jordan is a well-rounded superstar on the court and an easy out at the plate. It is why he whips Barkley on the golf course and is whipped by his pals Davis Love III and Tiger Woods.

Some guys look like a great athlete at first glance but fade upon close inspection. Seven-footer Darryl Dawkins could run faster than Larry Bird and jump higher (once he gathered himself) than Magic Johnson. But when we factor in reflexes, coordination, hands, agility and touch, it’s clear why Dawkins had a mediocre career: He couldn’t hold an athletic candle to Magic or Bird.

Magic and Bird were rare big guys who could do many of the things a million or two little guys can do. Half the NBA players are 6-8 or taller, and if most of them had half the abilities of Magic and Bird, the claim that the NBA is home to “the world’s greatest athletes” would merit debate.

Given the reality of NBA rosters, that claim is a crock. With the possible exception of football (which features skill-position marvels and a smattering of agile giants, but too many guys whose best attribute is size), no other pro sport -- not soccer, baseball, tennis, golf or bowling -- has as high a percentage of so-so or woeful athletes as the NBA.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to watching some real athletes. John Daly and Vijay Singh are going for the green.

2007-03-22T14:27:00.000-05:00

Dwight Howard following in Shaq's bricklaying footsteps
One thing I like about Brian Hill, coach of the Orlando Magic, is he’s a principled foe of flopping. He’s also widely hailed as a great guy. But one serious flaw in his coaching repertoire — a flaw he shares with Jerry Sloan, Pat Riley and quite a few others — is that he has nothing constructive to offer any problem shooter on his team. Shaq’s stroke deteriorated under his watch from 1992 to 1996. The same thing is happening with Dwight Howard.

Will the Magic be smart enough to accept my offer to help? Or will the Magic follow the Pat Riley formula in Miami? Riley, alas, prefers to watch Shaq descend to ever greater depths of free-throw despair than consider the constructive criticism of an outsider with a reputation for being right about virtually everything. And not just about relatively insignificant stuff, like shooting a basketball. Right about important matters, as the essays linked at this blog attest.

2007-01-31T13:14:00.000-05:00

Still another injured center; the superior 1972 game
Ben Wallace had to be carried off the other night with a "collateral damage" knee injury. It now looks like he should be okay within a few days or a week, but it first had the look of a serious, possibly season-ending injury. Here's how it happened:

Udonis Haslem, in the restricted zone, spotted Kirk Hinrich driving on Jason Kapono, so Udonis first moved forward (to get out of the restricted zone) and to his left (to get in Hinrich's presumed path). Hinrich saw what Udonis was up to and tried to split the two defenders while jumping off both feet. That is, Kirk felt like he had a step on Kapono and by planting and jumping left, toward the basket, he'd slice by the outside of U's right shoulder. But while Kirk was planting for takeoff, Haslem was stepping forward with his right leg. So instead of U having his feet parallel to the baseline, his right foot was maybe 2 feet in front of his left (if you're looking from the sideline). Basically, U walked under or into Kirk, taking away the jumping lane Kirk envisioned. Thus, when he jumped to his left he collided with Haslem's right leg.

In a sane league, U would know in advance he'd have no chance of drawing a charge unless he were planted and waiting on Kirk BEFORE Kirk planted his lift-off foot or feet. But in today's NBA, U knows that he can run up to, into or under a driver, and so long as U is reasonably still when the two collide, he's got a good chance of drawing a charge. And on this play, that's just what he drew. As for the aftermath involving innocent bystander Ben Wallace, perhaps U lost his balance when Kirk made contact with his right leg, or maybe U made no effort to maintain his balance. (Riley-coached players can typically maintain their balance when hit forcefully while setting an offensive screen. When they're help-defending it's another story, as fairly mild contact usually is enough to knock them over.) In any event, U fell backwards into Wallace, who was focused on the shot and not expecting to be hit by falling timber in the paint. U's head struck Ben's knee. Ben first tried to shake it off but quickly found he couldn't put any weight on his leg and collapsed on the court.

This injury wasn't caused by Udonis, or Kirk, or fate. It was caused by the incompetent NBA leadership, David Stern and Stu Jackson, who've tweaked the rules to cater to the likes of Pat Riley and Scott Skiles. Although this play hurt the Bulls, it could just as easily have been Nocioni, Big Ben or Malik Allen in the Udonis role, crashing into the knee of Wade, Shaq or Zo. See my ”Open Letter to Ronnie Nunn” (he’s the NBA’s director of officials), for details on a number of injuries and scary falls that should never have occurred.

Folks, it's a numbers game. The more falling bodies in the crowded paint, the more injuries. Some mild, some serious, some devastating. It doesn't have to be this way.

The other day I watched Game 5 of the 1972 NBA Finals on NBA-TV. Didn't see any falling bodies or block/charge collisions in the paint. Only two plays resembled the Mickey-Mouse defense that's all the rage today (taught by Riley, Popovich, Dick Harter, Carlisle and their many proteges and imitators): Gail Goodrich, apparently peeved over a call seconds earlier, collapsed from light, incidental, off-the-ball contact at midcourt, which the refs wisely ignored, and later Goodrich established good position at the foul line and tried to draw a charge from Walt Frazier on a fast break. But Walt was able to slow down and make a pass perhaps a split second before bumping Goodrich, and the result was another wise no-call. Refs in those days were more inclined to follow the ball than worry about contact AFTER a pass — particularly when the offensive player is pulling up rather than steamrolling the defender. Unlike Goodrich's earlier obvious flop, there seemed to be enough contact from Walt's slowing forward motion that the fall was legit, but the league at that time preferred that the defender in that situation react to the pass and follow the ball, not keep his feet glued to some meaningless piece of wood as the play unfolded elsewhere.

This would soon change, and the league took a dramatic turn for the worse in the mid-1970s, as refs began to cater to charge-obsessed coaches Dick Motta, Al Attles, Jack Ramsay, Larry Brown, Hubie Brown and others. Fortunately, the league's first block/charge and flopping era lasted only a few seasons. Things were better in the 1980s, with the great Laker and Celtic teams generally setting a good example. Going against the positive trend were the early-1980s Chuck Daly-Dick Harter Pistons and perhaps some other teams. But even that Pistons team (this was before the Bad Boys) weren't nearly as revolting on defense as a dozen teams today, including the Heat, Bulls, Cavs, Rockets, Bucks, Nets, Knicks, Hawks, Grizzlies, Clippers, Mavs and yes, the Suns.

2007-01-17T13:33:00.000-05:00

NBA’s unsafe work environment claims two more centers
Since writing the essay/letter alluded to in the Dec. 11 post below, two more centers on contending teams have bitten the dust. The other night Kurt Thomas hurt his elbow and is gone for 4 to 6 weeks from a nasty fall after being undercut on a fastbreak. Yao Ming broke a bone near his knee when he elevated to block a shot and came down amid crashing bodies caused by one of the countless block/charge collisions his Van Gundy-inspired teammates have created. He’s about halfway through his 6 to 8 week absence.

As noted in the essay, rules have been gradually tweaked over the years so that defenders these days are routinely rewarded for undercutting and causing late or borderline-late block/charge collisions. It’s bad for the game aesthetically, and it’s very dangerous. Too bad NBA honchos and the pathetic Players Association don’t care.

2006-12-11T15:14:00.000-05:00

The NBA’s unsafe work environment
I’ve written a very long Open Letter to Ronnie Nunn, the NBA’s director of officials, on what the league must do to end the growing practice of undercutting drivers. Most such plays don’t have a malicious intent, but two rules have evolved over time so that they provide players an incentive to do just that, as well as cause dangerous land-based collisions. It’s all about getting block/charge calls right — and fixing the rules and on-court mindset so that the NBA gets back to being a (light) contact sport, not a football-style collision sport.

I first wrote about this problem in 2001 at InsideHoops.com and the online edition of The Sporting News in a remarkably prescient essay entitled 15 Steps to an Exciting NBA.

2006-11-21T08:12:00.000-05:00

Paul Millsap is the NBA's version of Jim Brown
Paul Millsap, the Utah Jazz second-round draft choice from Lousiana Tech, is the early favorite to win Rookie of the Year. He also appears to have more long-term potential than anyone else in the 2006 NBA draft, even Tyrus Thomas. The guy Millsap reminds me of is not any hoopster, but the greatest runner in NFL history, Jim Brown.

Millsap, like Brown, combines speed, power, body control, explosive quickness and elusiveness. He even looks a little like Brown and at times seems to be a "man playing with boys," which was ALWAYS the case with Brown. He’s a complete player on both ends of the court, a rebounding monster, a nice shooter and a terrific finisher around and under the basket, which is another aspect of the NBA game where the men set themselves apart from the boys. The boys are trying just as hard (the repeatedly stuffed Knick Charles Smith comes to mind), but they simply don't have the men's ability or combination of abilities to get the job done in the crowded space around the hoop. Millsap gets it done.

2006-11-19T14:02:00.000-05:00

Riley’s to blame for Shaq’s knee injury
As I first explained this past June , Pat Riley has foolishly transformed his center into “Shaq Doleac,” charge drawer. All the block/charge collisions the Diesel has been causing have only made it more difficult for him to stay out of foul trouble, which has been his biggest problem with the Heat. It’s also made Shaq, who doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body, the most dangerous player in the NBA.

During the 2006 Finals he nearly destroyed Miami’s title hopes when he fell backwards and crashed into the side of Dwyane Wade’s knee after sliding over way late to try to draw a charge from Josh Howard. Wade was an innocent bystander, and the Heat were quite fortunate that the collateral damage was just a bad sprain and not a shattered knee.

Now fast-forward to last Sunday. Shaq slid over late to cause a knee-on-knee collision with Houston forward Chuck Hayes. Hayes is projected to be out 2 weeks with his battered knee, while Shaq tore cartilage in his own knee, which will require surgery and put him on the shelf for a minimum of 4-6 weeks.

Granted, Riley certainly didn’t want this to happen. But he is one of several tough-guy coaches whose chief legacy will be that they made the NBA a far more dangerous (not to mention ugly) game than it used to be, with their twin obsessions of block/charge collisions and “no-layups” hard fouls.

2006-11-13T14:37:00.000-05:00

Ironies abound in Shaq vs. Yao showdown
Imagine you’re a savvy hoops fan from Mars seeing your first NBA game Sunday night. You notice the two big centers, and you’ve been told that one guy is an aging superstar with four championship rings while the other is a promising young guy from a country where basketball is relatively new. But you’re not told which is which.

By the end of the night you’d likely think that Yao is the grizzled superstar and Shaq the still-learning young pup. Shaq would seem younger because he’s by far the more dynamic and explosively quick of the two. Yao would appear to be much older, given his relative slowness, but also more accomplished by virtue of his skill and artistry. You just might blurt out:

“Man, that tall, aging cat has got all the shots — and beautiful strokes for each of them. But that young, massive dude shows me nothing. He’s got no offensive game if the refs don’t let him bull his way to the hoop — which he’d never get away with on Mars. He’s got a mediocre jumphook and no jumpshot. And unlike the tall cat, he apparently can’t finish with his left hand.

“He’s just a raw athlete — but what an athlete! He covers more ground and his quicker off his feet and to the ball than the aging tall guy. Very impressive reflexes for a 12-boulder. [In the Martian metric system, one boulder equals 30 pounds.] But what a klutz at the stripe! That tall cat is automatic; he LOOKS like a shooter. This wide dude looks like he’s never seen a basketball in his life. It’s pretty obvious he’s from a place where b-ball is fairly new and the coaches don’t have a clue. Man, watching him try to shoot, you have to wonder if he’s ever been coached a day in his life.”

The good news for Shaq is that, even at 34 and showing the effects of a long NBA career, he has ample room to improve on his skills to offset what he's gradually losing in athleticism. The bad news is that he's stuck with the Miami coaching staff.

2006-11-11T11:33:00.000-05:00

In NBA caste system, it’s good to be “untouchable”
That’s the title of my latest HoopsHype essay. And here are the opening two grafs:

The NBA is rightfully proud of its missionary role in spreading the game of basketball to the four corners of the earth. But international influence can be a two-way street, and in recent years the NBA has absorbed and replicated, perhaps unwittingly, the worst excesses of one of the world’s worst systems: the caste system of India.

A league that once was an equal-opportunity meritocracy where every player, regardless of position, had a fair shot at greatness, now features a rules regime and style of play that grants privileges to perimeter players while rendering interior players — even Shaquille O’Neal — nothing more than dime-a-dozen, foul-plagued grunts.

Several months ago I penned a related piece, in my capacity as president of the mentoring group "Short People Helping Tall People." In "Starting centers merit more minutes" I explained that most NBA centers lead a life of constant frustration over foul trouble and limited minutes. Most of these guys don’t realize they’re in the same boat, and that’s prevented them from pulling together and advocating some rule changes that will make it as easy for them to stay on the court as it is for their shorter teammates. My essay discusses the modern center’s plight and proposes four such changes.