Centers' Little Helper

2011-12-30T02:17:00.007-05:00

Dwight is lost at the stripe but still setting great moving picks
I’ll soon be seeking employment with one or more NBA teams helping tall guys develop a jumper and improve at the stripe, and if I land a position it likely will entail surrendering my free-speech rights on basketball issues. Alas, that’s the NBA way, First Amendment be darned. So in the meantime I’m going to get some things off my chest.

One player I think I could help significantly is Dwight Howard, either on my own (my preference) or in conjunction with his personal shooting coach (Ed Palubinskas, assuming their off-season partnership has extended into the season) or Orlando Magic assistant coaches Mark Price and Patrick Ewing. My objective would be to help Howard develop — or rediscover — his very own shooting style, so he can be as spontaneous and instinctive with jumpers in the 10-to-15-foot range (much like one of his mentors, Hakeem Olajuwon) as he already is from in close with his lefty and righty jumphooks.

Read the rest at hoopshype.

2011-12-29T14:36:00.003-05:00

LeBron breaks through at the stripe by breaking a rule
It's early, but LeBron James looks very good at the line. He's got a relaxed, fluid and free arm motion, which is working well with his somewhat more open stance. But he's also following his shot, stepping over the line with his right foot before the ball reaches the basket. It's like he's daring the refs to whistle him for this rather obvious violation of the rules.

According to Ronnie Nunn, the former ref who oversaw the development of officials until being laid off this past fall, it’s a violation even if that step doesn’t hit the ground before the ball reaches the rim. (Nunn made that point on one of his “Making the Call” shows on NBA TV.) So the new LeBron is always (at least on the free-throw attempts I’ve seen this season) in violation, even though it’s often a close call as to whether his right foot has landed before the ball reaches the rim. He's definitely stepping before the ball arrives at the basket.

Can LeBron keep his new delivery while discarding the step-over? I think so. With LeBron, it looks more like an affirmative confidence-building measure — he's following the shot right into the basket, and he’s also guarding against his old habit of leaning back on his release. It’s not like Reggie Evans trying to get a head start on rebounding his own miss. Nor does it seem to be an involuntary reflex, as with Shaq at various stages of his career when, by design, his weight and release point were well-forward and there was a lot of acceleration in his stroke. Refs allowed Shaq to get away with this when the Lakers needed it most (against Sacramento in the 2002 Western Conference Finals). But in the 2008 playoffs when Shaq was a Sun facing the Spurs, the refs didn’t allow it. All of a sudden Shaq was losing points on the violation and trying to break a habit while simultaneously sinking a shot in a pressurized environment. Perhaps that explains why Shaq shot .500 (32 for 64) in the playoffs after shooting .595 (309 for 519) in the regular season. It certainly didn't help.

That’s the risk LeBron takes. He doesn’t want to arrive in the 2012 playoffs — or worse, the Finals — comfortable and confident with his deeply ingrained step-over stroke, and all of a sudden the refs decide to enforce this rule.

2011-12-06T18:16:00.002-05:00

SPOILER ALERT! NBA TV now run by spoilers
The league’s cable channel is giving away the outcome of many vintage games at the opening tip

(This is an essay I penned several weeks ago for which I could not find an outlet.)

By Dennis Hans

The NBA’s 2008 decision to relocate its cable channel, NBA TV, from New Jersey to Atlanta and turn the operation over to the TNT crowd at Turner Sports has, in one respect, been a disaster.

My favorite program on the channel is “Hardwood Classics” — rebroadcasts of great games dating all the way back to the 1963 Finals, when Bill Russell and Bob Cousy squared off against Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. Most are two-hour productions that trim away the fat of pre-game and half-time chatter so that most if not all of the action can be squeezed into the allotted time. Viewers are transported back in time to experience the game “as it happened,” in the words of the voiceover intro on many of the Classics assembled at the old studio in New Jersey.

Some of the Jersey productions add nothing to the original broadcast; others, at the start of each segment, flash in the upper right-hand corner for about 10 seconds the names of the opponents, the game number and playoff round, and the date it was played. The graphic is usually gone by the time the action resumes, and it doesn’t provide a clue as to who won or lost.

Tune in and you’re likely to be swept away by the grace and skill of these lanky, limber gazelles in the pre-bulked-up era of the ’60s, ’70s and much of the ’80s — and amused by their quaint habit of dribbling the top of the basketball. (Everyone knows that the proper way to dribble is to cradle the ball, keeping your cupped hand underneath or on the side of the ball for an eternity or two.) And unless you’re a history nut or a geezer with a good memory, you — and perhaps your kids or grandkids who are just developing their passion for basketball — won’t know the outcome and thus can get caught up in the unfolding on-court drama.

Well, no more. The geniuses at Turner have decided to display — right from the opening tip — an info graphic on most (not all) of their new Hardwood Classics productions that tells viewers who won. This despite having produced new on-screen intros by staff announcers such as Matt Winer and Rick Kamla drawing the audience in by dramatically setting the stage for what is to follow. Here, by Winer, is a typical one:

“In Game 3 of the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals, the Chicago Bulls were looking to advance to the NBA Finals for the very first time. Standing in their path: the nemesis Detroit Pistons, who won the last two NBA championships. Can Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and company take a commanding 3-0 lead in the series, and push Isiah Thomas, Dennis Rodman and the Bad Boys to the brink of extinction?”

Let’s overlook the error in logic in the opening sentence: You can’t sew up a seven-game series and thus “advance” by winning the third game. At least someone had the good sense to clear up the confusion with a correct concluding sentence. Alas, that was the last bit of good sense that the Turner people displayed in this production, for here is what viewers saw 25 seconds after Winer’s presentation: BULLS BREAK THROUGH IN MOTOR CITY

If you had happened to run to the kitchen and missed this important news when it first appeared, you did not get lucky. The helpful Turner people made this bulletin a semi-permanent on-screen fixture — a big, black rectangular block with white lettering in the lower left-center of the screen, often blotting out the bouncing of the ball and parts of a player or two. The info-block fades out only when the original broadcast flashes the score or some other helpful fact; once that fades out the 2011 info-block reappears.

An apparently newly discovered tape of the second half of Game 4 of the 1966 Eastern Conference Semifinals, between the Boston Celtics and the Cincinnati Royals, has been turned into a one-hour Hardwood Classic with a fine introduction by Kamla informing viewers that the Royals can eliminate the Celtics with a win. “Do they succeed at the Cincinnati Gardens?” asks Kamla. “Let’s find out.” Barely a second later, we did: CELTICS AVOID ELIMINATION, TIE SERIES 2-2

Believe it or not, these rectangular info-blocks are an improvement on another Turner innovation: a big blue info-blob, taking up a chunk of the lower-left portion of the screen, which ruined the new NBA TV editions of the 1972 and 1977 All-Star Game. (The only thing dumber is ESPN’s baseball telecasts, which superimpose the strike zone on the screen on every pitch, thus obstructing the view of the all-important pitcher-batter confrontation.) Fortunately for fans, the 1972 game airs occasionally on the ESPN Classic channel, minus the blue blob.

Here are three more playoff-game giveaways I’ve encountered in new Hardwood Classics productions from a great NBA decade:

Introducing the start of the 1983 Knicks-Nets series, Winer asked, “Who will take control in Game 1 in Brendan Byrne Arena?” The answer arrived instantaneously: BERNARD KING LEADS KNICKS TO WIN

Winer, setting the scene for the hard-fought 1986 Milwaukee-Philadelphia series, asked “Who will seize control in Game 1 at The Mecca?” Two seconds later his colleagues spilled the beans: BARKLEY LEADS 4th QUARTER COMEBACK

For Game 6 of the 1986 Finals, Team Turner opted to skip a 2011 intro and go right to the original CBS broadcast. Another change: the info-block was raised to the less obtrusive upper left corner, which is where the outcome was immediately revealed: CELTICS WIN 16th NBA TITLE

See if you can discern the winner of the following playoff matchups, using only the subtle clue of NBA TV’s on-screen, ALL-CAPS perma-script:

BARKLEY POWERS SUNS WITH BIG DOUBLE-DOUBLE
BARKLEY’S TRIPLE DOUBLE LEADS SUNS TO WIN
JOHN STOCKTON COMES UP CLUTCH
LAKERS SURVIVE & ADVANCE TO NBA FINALS
MICHAEL JORDAN’S 1ST CAREER PLAYOFF SERIES WIN
SUPERSTAR PERFORMANCE BY KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR
M. JORDAN’S SCORING SPREE LEADS BULLS PAST SUNS
K. JOHNSON LEADS SUNS TO WIN & EXTEND SERIES
BULLS REPEAT AS CHAMPIONS

I don’t know if Ted Turner is still running his media empire, but whoever is in charge I implore thee: keep the NBA TV braintrust as far away as humanly possible from Turner Classic Movies. I don’t want Robert Osborne’s fascinating, non-spoiler set-ups to be followed by a permanent on-screen spoiler caption as the film rolls.

[SPOILER ALERT!!! If you’re new to classic movies and plan on becoming a fan, stop reading now or avert your eyes as you skip ahead to the final paragraph.]

In short, I don’t want to see this:
“Detective Robert Thorn discovers that Soylent Green, a popular processed food, is made from PEOPLE!”

Or this:
“Shy oddball Norman Bates, who years ago murdered his mother without getting caught and now impersonates her, stabs to death Marion Crane in the shower.”

Or this:
“Norma Desmond will soon be ready for her close-up — down at the police station, for the murder of struggling screenwriter and reluctant gigolo Joe Gillis. The butler DIDN’T do it, though he did write all of Norma’s ‘fan mail’ and was once her director AND husband!”

Please, NBA TV. The on-screen clutter is annoying and unnecessary even when it’s innocuous (e.g., JORDAN & MAGIC DUEL IN THE FINALS). It’s unacceptable when it announces the result. Let Winer and Kamla dramatically set the stage, but don’t undercut their efforts and sabotage the viewing experience by allowing the production geniuses to mark their territory with info-block spoilers. Just show the darn game as it was originally broadcast, and let fans of all ages who are discovering these rare treats for the first time enjoy the suspense as well as the artistry of vintage NBA basketball.

2011-06-13T07:02:00.002-05:00

Livin’ La Vida Choka
That will be the theme song for LeBron James and the Miami Heat for at least the next 12 months — and possibly many more.

"At the end of the day, all the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today," said The Hoopster Formerly Known As King. "They have the same personal problems they had today."

But they'll be smilin', and their problems won't seem quite so daunting as long as their singin' La Vida Choca.

2011-02-10T20:44:00.002-05:00

Ronald Reagan turns 100
The 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth came on February 6, kicking off another round of tributes and a highly favorable HBO documentary by a filmmaker one would have expected to take a more critical view. I offered a different take on his presidency in an essay that appeared Tuesday: Reagan’s Third-World Reign of Terror.

Back in 2001, when the nation celebrated his 90th birthday, I dissected PBS’s fawning tributes on the Charlie Rose show and the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: Looking at Reagan Through (Charlie) Rose-Colored Glasses.

In 2004, I took a more thorough (and sardonic) look at Reagan's Dark Global Legacy.

2010-11-29T11:38:00.009-05:00

Dwight's free-throw routine is illegal
Dwight Howard's current free-throw routine takes 12-to-15 seconds to execute, which means he is in violaton of the time-limit rule, which says "Each free throw attempt shall be made within 10 seconds after the ball has been placed at the disposal of the free-thrower."

Assuming he's been taking this long all season (I didn't put him under the clock until last week), Dwight, through games of Nov. 28, is averaging 7.0 illegal points per game. Thus his scoring average, in a league where rules mattered, would be 15.6 rather than the career-high 22.6 he is currently averaging.

Dwight averages 13 free-throw attempts per game. One would think that at least one of the three officials on hand would get suspicious after the first few interminable attempts, give Dwight a warning and put him on the clock for the rest of the game. Alas, it seems that none of the league's refs — and none of their supervisors in the stands nor the supervisors' bosses at NBA headquarters — knows how to count to ten.

Don't the refs get bored as Dwight — 13 times a game — goes through his tedious ritual? Dwight is hardly the only cause of the excessive length of NBA games, but if he could cut his routine from roughly 13 seconds to 8 everyone in the arena would have an extra 65 seconds to enjoy life. Some fans might even use a portion of that extra time to ponder why a guy shooting a career low .539 from the line was taking so darn long back in the first month of the 2010-11 season.

Not all of Dwight's remaining 15.6 points per game are legitimate. For instance, he benefits from another counting deficiency of many NBA refs: the inability to count to 3. A number of his baskets come after uncalled 3-seconds violations. Those violations often are preceded by an uncalled moving pick out near the 3-point line, after which Dwight barrels into the lane and dislodges a defender, then illegally extends his arms clothesline-style so the defender can't get around him to deflect an entry pass. I mention all this just so no one gets the impression that these unfortunate refs, trained by the most incompetent supervisors in NBA history, would be just fine if only they could count.

2010-07-10T09:03:00.006-05:00

Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard owes me an apology and his readers a refund
I learned recently that Chris Ballard mentions me in his book The Art of a Beautiful Game: The thinking fan's tour of the NBA (see pages 88 and 89). It's the chapter on free throws, and the section dealing with Dwight Howard's ongoing problems at the line. Ballard gives me a fair shake at first, quoting from my analysis of the shooting style Howard was employing at the 2008 Olympics and the early months of the 2008-09 NBA season:

Dennis Hans, a self-styled shooting guru and freelance writer, wrote on his blog that the problem was "a premature unhinging of the flexed wrist of the shooting hand" and compared Howard's motion to the way golfers get in a bad habit of "hitting from the top."

Granted, it would have been helpful to his readers if Ballard had quoted more from my analysis, either the blog post or the longer piece for HoopsHype. That way, his readers would understand why it's bad for golfers to "hit from the top" and for Howard to have that long, slow, back-and-forth, premature-unhinging motion (both as a free-throw shooter and jumpshooter).

Even Howard eventually figured out that it wasn't working and likely never would, as he drastically changed his shooting style in the summer of 2009 (after Ballard's book went to press), rendering idiotic the statements by assistant coach Patrick Ewing ("It's just repetition, repetition, repetition — and believing in it") and former Magic player Nick Anderson (who told Howard, as paraphrased by Ballard, "there was nothing wrong with his mechanics, that it was mental"). Whether Ballard sees himself as the "thinking fan" in his book's subtitle or the thinking fan's "guide," the implication is he's capable of independent thought. So why couldn't he discern that Ewing and Anderson are clueless, and that the only reason to quote them at length would be to make fun of them?

(I dissected Howard's new-but-unimproved 2009-10 stroke here.)

But what really irritates me is what Ballard writes immediately after the "hitting from the top" quote:

In case we didn't get the point, Hans also called Howard's form "a sickly shooting motion," "lousy" and a "monstrosity."

Ballard gives the reader the impression that I ran out of serious things to say and, rather than simply end my analysis, took some parting pot-shots. But if you read the section of my essay from which Ballard plucked his mini-quotes, you'll see that such is not the case, and that the monster metaphor ("monstrosity") explains how various Orlando Magic assistant coaches over several seasons transformed an 18-year-old with a fairly sound and simple stroke into a young man of 23 or 24 who not only was lost at the line, but was failing with a convoluted contraption of a stroke that was not his own: it had been pieced together — with Howard's gullible, authority-worshipping ascent — Dr. Frankenstein-style. Here's what I wrote:

Howard, on the other hand, begins a long, slow and gradual unhinging of his shooting wrist right from the start of the “forth” segment. There’s no snap at the end because there’s nothing left to snap: you can’t snap and already-unhinged wrist. This prevents him from extending on his shot and is the cause of the lame-looking bent-arm finish.

This sickly shooting motion, which he’s constantly ingraining with his daily sessions practicing free throws, is a double whammy. It hasn’t worked at the line, and it shows no sign of working from the field. His inability to even attempt short- and mid-range jumpshots when the flow of the game presents such opportunities seriously impedes his offensive development.

What Howard thinks is a fundamentally sound stroke is actually a fundamentally unsound non-stroke. He has a long, lousy, slow-motion follow through where his stroke should be. How a rookie with a nice-looking shot ended up four years later with this monstrosity is a long story. (I told some of it here this past spring.)

I use the word “monstrosity” not to be cruel but for how Howard’s shot has been assembled. It’s been pieced together over time by various assistant coaches in the manner that Dr. Frankenstein constructed his monster. In both cases, the parts don’t add up to a smoothly functioning whole. It’s not what he had as a rookie, nor what some of his tall teammates have today.

I may have more to say on other glaring flaws in Ballard's free-throw chapter. It's not surprising that he would consider Dan Barto's gobbledygook junk-science analysis of Howard worthy of inclusion. Barto, a young, gung-ho, well-meaning sort who is way too technical for his own good, helped turn Andrei Kirilenko into one of the most confused and dreadful jumpshooters in NBA history in 2006-07. Also, Ballard's discussion of Shaq at the stripe suggests the author slept through the first seven seasons of the 21st century's initial decade.

2010-05-10T09:51:00.004-05:00

Rajon (or Rondo) and the Rondoliers
Now that the Rajon Rondo has emerged as a phenomenal and charismatic force of nature on the basketball court, it's time to retire the "Big Three" nickname. It's absurd to refer to the gritty but aging trio of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce by that term. Let’s rebrand the trio — what the heck, all of Rondo’s teammates — as “the Rondoliers.” The Boston team that has the Cavs on the ropes is “Rajon and the Rondoliers,” or, if you prefer, “Rondo and the Rondoliers.”

Someone with mad photoshop skills can produce the appropriate visuals, with green and white replacing the black and white of the gondolier’s horizontally striped shirt. I see the Grizzled Three, oars in hand, along with Perk, Sheed, Scal, Big Baby and the rest, catering to their reclining leader’s every whim: they know that their title hopes rest on the continued brilliance of their tireless maestro.

2010-04-30T14:35:00.003-05:00

Downhill shooter: Duncan once again fragile and frozen at the stripe
Tim Duncan shot .725 from the stripe this season, a little better than his adequate-for-a-center career mark of .687. But he has always looked vulnerable, as if he were one bad miss from starting another horrid streak, banging line-drive low fades off the front rim and, occasionally, off the back.

Well, the playoffs are here and once more he’s gone cold. The Spurs survived his 17 for 35 performance vs. the Mavs, including 1 for 7 in Thursday night’s clincher. I think he can stink up the joint in the second round and survive, but he’ll need to shoot well at the stripe to lead the Spurs to victory over the likely Western Conference Finals opponent, the Lakers.

Duncan isn’t tall enough to shoot a “downhill” free throw to a ten-foot high basket, but he comes mighty close. That leaves little margin for error, which tends to magnify little flaws that can creep in. A few misses and he starts to press, which in his case means focusing more intently, which adds to the tension in his body, which leads to even less fluidity and arc, which leads to more misses.

I can’t imagine him and the Spurs attempting a makeover at this critical juncture; more than likely, they’ll do what they’ve done in the past: hope the slump will vanish as mysteriously as it arrived.

His career .687 mark has not been characterized by consistent mediocrity; rather, he’s been on one long free-throw roller coaster. The main reason is that his approach to this unguarded 15-foot shot is in conflict with his very essence. Duncan is a laid-back, casually attired, easy-going, graceful, highly coordinated native of the Virgin Islands. The one and only season (2001-02) where he had a routine and delivery befitting such a man he shot .799 in the regular season and .822 in the playoffs — both career highs.

As I've pointed out to various Spurs staffers (to no avail), that routine had a rhythm and a flow — qualities that have rarely appeared in the various deliveries he has since employed. For the last several years he has opted for a five-second staring contest with the rim, followed by an abrupt lifting of his dangling arms into a quick, single-motion shot. It’s unpleasant to watch even when it’s working, as it did this season prior to the All-Star break. (He shot .750 before and .667 after.)

Maybe he’ll recapture his early season stare-and-fling groove. For the long haul, however, he’d be better off if his slump continued, for it just might make him face the music. Or better yet, listen to it. Something lilting; you know, with rhythm and flow.

2010-04-14T23:39:00.018-05:00

Silly Goose: How Dwight Howard’s willingness to be coached ruined his shooting stroke
Back on March 23 I was interviewed by Tim Keown of the bi-weekly ESPN The Magazine for a piece he’s doing on who is most likely to lose a game or series in the NBA playoffs by failing at the free-throw line. It was a very pleasant chat, and I’ll know some time in May if any of my words of wisdom make it into his story.

Now that Shaq is 38 and an offensive afterthought, the likeliest candidate is Orlando’s Dwight Howard. As I told Keown, as a rookie right out of high school Howard had a respectable free-throw stroke and shot 70 percent or better in three separate months that season. He hasn’t had a single 70-percent month since, and he’s now put six seasons in the books. Instead of improving on his .671 rookie mark, Howard has put together five seasons of percentages between .586 and .595, despite the advantage of many more per-game attempts.

Howard’s problem is that he’s coachable. Beginning with his second season, Howard has allowed a succession of mostly clueless coaches to monkey with his shot. It started with Randy Ayers and Mark Bryant, who were assistants under Brian Hill. These are the guys who took credit for introducing to Howard the one feature that has had the most to do with his consistent ineptitude at the stripe and his failure to develop a short- to mid-range jumpshot that he can fire instantaneously in both planned and spontaneous situations. That feature is the gooseneck follow-through.

If I ever get the chance to deprogram Howard, the first thing I will explain to him is that your shooting style should determine what your follow-through looks like, and that even within a given style different types of shots will produce different follow-throughs. Some styles don’t lend themselves to a gooseneck follow-through, and if you try to impose the gooseneck you’ll distort or short-circuit your natural stroke and very likely won’t be pleased with the results.

Howard has gone through a variety of shooting styles over the years. Here, for instance, is my analysis of his late-2008 stroke, and in a column leading up to the 2008 playoffs I explained where he had gone wrong and how he could recapture his rookie form. This season he has utilized what I call a “little boy’s” technique, where you release the ball from a fairly low head-high position or even lower. (Kids shoot this way because the low release allows them to generate sufficient power to get the ball all the way to the basket.) Some tall guys have shot well this way, including Hall of Famers Magic Johnson and Jerry Lucas. On the current NBA scene, we have Matt Bonner launching his shoulder-fired moon shots from deep while also shooting accurately inside the arc and at the stripe. None of these guys were or are gooseneckers. It’s not a coincidence.

A few seasons back Andrei Kirilenko became one of the worst shooters in NBA history (based not on overall FG percentage, but his percentage on jumpshots), when a well-meaning but misguided off-season shooting coach persuaded him that the gooseneck was the key to shooting success and that he should hold that gooseneck high for several seconds after every shot. The result? Some of the sickliest wounded ducks the world has seen; airballs from 20, 18 and even 12 feet. No one on the Utah Jazz staff could figure out what was wrong — even after I pointed out the problem in letters to the coach and GM. Kirilenko’s offensive game deteriorated so badly that his coach and teammates, cognizant of the need to win games, gradually froze him out of the offense. This culminated in Kirilenko, a good guy with a sensitive soul, breaking down and crying after a practice during the Jazz-Rockets playoff series.

Looking at the big picture, Howard would be better off this summer scrapping his little-boy’s shot rather than trying to perfect it. That’s because it’s of almost no use as a jumpshot from the areas where Howard should operate: it’s too easy to block. As I explained a few years ago to assistant general manager Dave Twardzik, Howard needs to first develop a jump-shooting style that can be effective from eight-to-15 feet in a variety of situations, including being closely guarded by tall defenders who can jump. Such a shot won’t replace his nice repertoire of ambidextrous jumphooks, running hooks, spinning mini-push shots and (theoretically illegal) Shaq-style battering-ram dislodgings; rather, it will be a sweet addition. Sometimes the timing of a play, an expiring shot clock, or the lack of space to dribble or spin calls for a spontaneous jumper, and that needs to be in his arsenal — though “needs” may be too strong a word. If idiotic “bully ball” continues to be rewarded by Commissioner David Stern’s bumbling b-ball braintrust, Howard in most cases can use the threat or reality of dislodging to force double-teams and then pass the ball out to an open three-point shooter. (Enjoy it while you can, Orlando. When I replace Stern and assume dictatorial powers, the first two things to go will be the three-point line and all "moves," such as the ludicrous "back down," that smack of might makes right.)

Once Howard has a center-appropriate jumper, he can then build a free-throw routine and stroke based on how he releases his jumpshot. Should he have trouble translating that new stroke to the stripe, he can always revert back to his rookie form (strictly for free throws). That wouldn't be my first option, but it is possible to succeed with different shooting styles for field goals and free throws. Rick Barry and George Mikan were deadly with the underhand granny shot and Larry Brown used a two-hand set-shot for his free throws. Dwight would probably be at 75-80 percent right now if he had stuck with his rookie routine and delivery.

It’s worse than a waste of time for Howard to continue to shoot hundreds of free throws every day with his current style. All he is doing is ingraining a motion that will never translate to a workable, spontaneous jumper for a low-post center.

2010-04-14T12:28:00.004-05:00

With Friends Like These: Mike Breen sees NBA refs as suckers to be conned
What do refs and their union leadership think when they hear Mike Breen, the play-by-play voice of the NBA on ABC and ESPN, matter-of-factly commend a player for a “good sell job” when his theatrics produce a favorable call?

One of the most difficult aspects of a ref’s job is distinguishing legal “incidental” contact from contact meriting a foul. It’s a challenge when the players are honest; it’s a monumental one when players present a distorted picture for the refs by exaggerating the force of contact, yelling for effect, flailing from self-initiated contact, or engaging in other acts of deception to trick the ref.

It’s bad enough that low-life color commentators such as Mark Jackson, Doug Collins and Reggie Miller praise this garbage. They’re supposed to be opinionated, and it’s hardly surprising that the latter two — quite possibly the all-time leaders in total career flops (Miller) and most flops per minute (Collins) — want their antics to be regarded as legitimate skills. It’s far worse when a neutral, theoretically objective play-by-play announcer — the semi-official voice of the league — offers similar praise.

I don’t know when Breen first adopted that philosophy and phrase, but here’s a typical example from the 2009 postseason. After Jeff Van Gundy said he couldn’t tell from the replay if Luis Scola flopped or Pau Gasol genuinely pushed off and thus merited the offensive foul called on him, Breen added “Good sell job by Scola.” He said this in the same tone he would say “Nice deflection by Ariza” or “Clever pass by Brooks.”

Breen is a former (youth-level) ref who presents himself as a defender and ally of referees. He is the last person on earth who should be lauding and normalizing fool-the-ref deceit for impressionable young hoopsters and their parents watching at home.

Active refs bargained away their right to free speech in their labor agreement with the league, so they can’t say what they think of Breen’s attitude. But what does Lamell J. McMorris, official spokesperson of the National Basketball Referees Association, think? What do retired refs think?

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.

2007-05-20T12:28:00.002-05:00

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.

2007-04-23T14:08:00.002-05:00

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."

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.

2006-10-27T08:32:00.000-05:00

Amare needs a second opinion pronto
Amare Stoudemire is jeopardizing his career when he takes the advice of the Suns’ medical and coaching staff to play and practice through the pain he’s experiencing in his surgically repaired knees. [LATE UPDATE: The Suns have now clarified that they don't want Amare to practice or play with pain. Instead, they want him to distinguish "soreness" from "pain," and to push through the former but sit out with the latter. Exactly HOW he's supposed to make this distinction is not clear. It's not as if he's been living with troublesome knees all his life and thus has oodles of practice in making this subtle distinction. This could be a prescription for transforming occasional soreness into the chronic variety.]

Amare should instead listen to himself and his own shrewd advice to take a day off periodically rather than push through the pain or even the theoretically "normal and expected" soreness. He also should immediately contact Matt Harpring of the Jazz (who, like Amare, underwent microfracture knee surgery) and Matt's surgeon and ask about the success they had early last season when the doc mandated limited minutes and no back-to-back games — and Coach Sloan followed the doc's orders to the letter. Later in the season, after Matt had a couple of successful, pain-free months under his belt, the doc gave him permission to play without limitations so long as the pain didn't return, and by that point the knee was up to the task. Now that was after Matt's SECOND operation. The year before, after the first, he played every day until the pain became unbearable. The damage he did in doing so necessitated that second op. Harpring learned the hard way what Amare and the Suns hopefully can learn the easy way. Incidentally, back before Matt had his first op, but after fighting through knee pain for several months, he got — with the Jazz's blessing — FIVE different medical opinions before choosing surgery and the surgeon to perform it.
Amare should also talk to Jason Kidd, who can remind him that frequent stiffness and pain is not part and parcel of a successful recovery from microfracture surgery. Kidd has had none of that. Not once since his comeback has he looked like he was dragging a leg or in pain. He hasn’t missed a game, and he’s had no trouble with the knee. That’s not the case with Amare, and it wasn’t the case initially with Harpring. Amare should not assume that the Suns’ “braintrust” know what they’re talking about with their full-speed-ahead, skip-no-games-or-practices, ignore-the-soreness approach.

2006-10-11T15:31:00.000-05:00

NEWSWEEK: Majority of Americans now believe Bush misled on Iraq; Hans, Rangwala and others made that case BEFORE the war

Newsweek reports that “for the first time in the NEWSWEEK poll, a majority of Americans now believe the Bush administration knowingly misled the American people in building its case for war against Saddam Hussein: 58 percent vs. 36 percent who believe it didn’t.”

Just a reminder, in the weeks and months BEFORE the March 20, 2003 invasion, I explained in great detail just what Bush, Powell and company were up to and how the mainstream media — aside from a few honorable exceptions — were helping them get away with it, as you can see from the chronologically listed links below. See in particular the overlapping essays “Lying Us Into War” and “The Disinformation Age,” where I document at length what I dubbed the Bush team’s “techniques of deceit.”

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)

Rumsfeld Offers Media Good Advice on How to Protect Viewers From Leaders’ Lies (Jan 25, 2003)

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

The White Hawk Club (who gets to talk on public-affairs TV) (Jan 30, 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)

With “Liberals” Like These, Who Needs Conservatives: How Powell wowed Mary McGrory and Richard Cohen, the crème of the Washington Post’s credulous crop (Feb 23, 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)

Far and away the most thorough, relentless and accurate analyst of the shaky pre-war claims of the Bush and Blair administrations was Glen Rangwala, a young professor of politics at Cambridge University in England, His pre- and post-war writings are collected here.

Don’t miss his devastating critique of Powell, posted Feb. 14, 2003 — that is, well before the start of the war — dissecting each of the 44 claims he made at the UN.

Rangwala was on the case long before I was, working with the anti-war wing of Britain’s Labour Party but receiving scant attention from the overrated Brit media, which trumpeted the claims in Blair’s now-discredited Sept 2002 dossier but not Rangwals’s critique. It wasn’t till January 2003 that I stumbled across his mammoth analysis of U.S. and U.K. claims about Iraqi WMD, first posted Sept. 27, 2002. That’s two weeks before the U.S. Congress granted Bush the authority to got to war against Iraq should the need arise (it never did, of course, but he went anyway). Here’s an updated version of Glen’s mammoth analysis.

If the US and UK media had served their citizenries rather than their governments, the rush to war would have ground to a halt.

2006-09-24T21:54:00.000-05:00

Chavez, Chomsky and talking-heads TV
At the U.N. last week, Hugo Chavez branded Bush “el diablo” and plugged Noam Chomsky’s book Hegemony or Survival, which has shot up to Number One at amazon.com — a remarkable feat for a book that's three years old AND already had one stint as a big seller. I recommend it, too.

It’s nice to see Chomsky getting some positive publicity in the mainstream media, where he’s usually ignored or slandered by commentators who take a line or two out of context to make him look foolish or even despicable. A reasonable person who gets to see the full context of the quoted passage or interview might (or might not) take issue with Chomsky. But that person would be unlikely to consider him beyond the pale.

Six years ago I penned a piece on how to provide ideological balance to talking-heads TV, where far too often timid centrists (Michael Kinsley), roadkill moderate liberals (Allan Colmes), or even everyday reporters who quite properly aren't permitted by their boss to express opinions on the issues of the day (e.g., NPR's Mara Liasson, who moonlights as an implied liberal on Fox) are matched against articulate, fire-breathing rightists. Jeff Cohen (see Aug. 6 entry below), FAIR, myself, Eric Alterman and others have for many years documented this con; recently, newcomer mediamatters.org has taken up the same cause.

Here’s my Feb. 2000 essay “"This Week" With Noam and Cokie: A modest proposal to untilt talking-head TV.

2006-08-22T12:42:00.000-05:00

Same old Yao
Yao has fouled out of the last two World Championship games. China was blown out by USA and lost an overtime squeaker to Puerto Rico. While Yao displayed his sweet stroke and fine offensive arsenal, at the defensive end he continues to foul at an alarming rate, for reasons I explained way back in 2004 here. His foul trouble and early exit midway through the 4th quarter cost China the Puerto Rico game. Someone must get through to him and his exceedingly dumb coaches in China and Houston that, for Yao, playing smart defense is not about creating countless collisions with offensive players. It’s about using his decent mobility and agility to, as a general rule, avoid body-to-body contact as a help defender while using his exceptional length and active hands to block or bother shots.

So, Yao, here is your goal for 2006-07: get your fouling rate down to one per 13 minutes. Do that and you’ll average 38 minutes, 28 points and 10.5 rebounds, and you'll make everybody in Houston very, very happy. It all starts with tuning out your coaches.

2006-08-06T19:18:00.000-05:00

Recommended Reading
Hot off the presses is Jeff Cohen’s book Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media. Cohen, for my money, is the most effective progressive to appear on talking-heads TV. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, his only regular gig was a several-year stint on the Fox cable show News Watch. But that was a once-a-week, 30-minute show that he shared with a host and his three co-panelists. What he needs is his own hour-long show five nights a week. He left the Fox show to take a job at MSNBC as one of the producers of Phil Donahue’s show. The year or so there is the depressing heart of Cohen’s book, as corporate suits refused to let Phil be Phil. The show became a sick joke, with Donahue reduced to the pathetic role of legitimizing one right-wing nut after another, as I explained in the Jan. 8, 2003 essay Defensive Donahue Needs to Go On the Offensive or Get Off the Air. My one big problem with Cohen’s generally excellent book (which is chock full sharp observations) is that he’s far too kind to Phil. Unlike Jeff, Phil was an incompetent advocate for his causes — such as preventing the looming, wholly unnecessary U.S. invasion of Iraq — as I show in that essay. During his stint at MSNBC, Donahue wouldn’t have recognized an effective talking point if it smacked him upside the head.

My second recommended read was published back in 1979; I picked it up at the library a few weeks ago. Second Wind is Bill Russell’s fascinating life story and wide-ranging insights on race, politics, relationships, foreign policy and basketball. The Celtic legend’s literary collaborator on the volume is Taylor Branch, who later came to fame for a series of books on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. Russell revolutionized basketball when he invented — and made a science of — shot-blocking at the U. of San Francisco in the mid-1950s and turned it into an art form in Boston, where he led the Celts to 11 NBA titles in his 13 seasons. Today’s long and limber centers should heed his defensive wisdom and ignore the directives of coaches who want them to turn every opposition drive into an ugly block/charge collision. Such directives explain why the modern center is constantly plagued with foul trouble.

2006-08-06T18:50:00.000-05:00

Look for USA victory at hoop World Championships
In an increasing number of quarters it has become conventional wisdom that the rest of the world has caught up with the United States in basketball. In my view that’s nonsense, but given the dismal 6th place showing at the 2002 World Championships and the debacle at the 2004 Olympics in Greece, one can understand why folks would consider the international playing court to now be level. I attribute those poor showings to a combination of weak and/or poorly constructed squads, mediocre coaching and insufficient preparation time. None of those factors will be present in 2006 and 2008.

I’d predict a landslide, but the rules of FIBA — particularly the chipshot trey — tend to minimize the difference between teams rather than reveal it.

2006-07-10T20:31:00.000-05:00

Powell pushed Prague Connection before Cheney did
My latest political essay focuses on one of the many ways Colin Powell helped Bush build public support for an invasion of Iraq even before his disgraceful performance at the U.N. on Feb. 5, 2003. I hope to put together a comprehensive piece on Powell’s many contributions. The current offering was inspired by recent testimony before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee by his former chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, who still views his ex-boss — and the president — through rose-colored glasses. He prefers to hold what he calls the “Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal” responsible for most of the bad foreign-policy stuff that’s transpired. Last time I checked, both of those guys work FOR the president. Let’s hold Bush responsible. And let’s not overlook the key contributions of Powell, Tenet and Rice in paving the way for an unnecessary and disastrous war.

2006-07-08T15:52:00.000-05:00

ATTENTION, NBA COACHES!
NOW is a great time to get help for your problem shooters. Training camp is months away, so whether the player in question needs fine-tuning or a major makeover, this is the moment to make some changes and put them to the test.

I’m available for part-time or full-time duty. A three-day trial is more than enough time for you to determine whether I can be a big help to Ben Wallace, Shaq, Dwight Howard, Gerald Wallace, Tyson Chandler, Jason Maxiell, Andres Biedrins, Rajon Rondo or any of the others who struggle with their free throws and/or jumpshot. If a player struggles year after year, it’s not in his head. It’s in the way he shoots. The problem could be in his technique, timing or rhythm — or in all three. Progress begins when flaws are identified and then, one at a time, ironed out.

Check out the links to the right under the headings “Hot off the presses” and “Shooting analyses” to get a feel for my “Different strokes for different folks” philosophy. Links under the other headings show that I have a track record of successfully challenging conventional wisdom on very serious matters. I do the same on basketball, including the CW that 1,000 shots a day cures everything including the common cold. Those shots can just as easily ingrain the bad habits that are the cause of your career FT percentage languishing at 53 (Shaq) or 42 (Big Ben).
Hans_d@mail.firn.edu

2006-06-20T23:25:00.000-05:00

Wade Wins Title for Heat
Over at Hoopshype you’ll find my analysis of how and why Miami won the NBA crown. It begins and ends with the incomparable Dwyane Wade — hence the headline Dazzling Dwyane is the difference.

2006-06-17T10:58:00.000-05:00

Suspension solutions
Jerry Stackhouse is suspended for Sunday’s pivotal Game 5 for an intentional hard foul on Shaq. The big problem is that the play made by Stack — deliberately shoving/grabbing airborne Shaq hard to eliminate the chance that Shaq would make the layup — is widely regarded as a legit “basketball play.” I’d say that at least 2/3 of NBA coaches and players share this view.

My view is that it should be considered a non-basketball play and carry sufficient penalty so that no player would ever consider attempting it. The only legit defensive play for Stack in that particular situation would be to try to force a miss without deliberately fouling — for example, by reaching in with the left hand to strip the ball or just cause a bobble, which might be enough to cause a miss; slipping around the backside of the mammoth Shaq to try to make a play on the ball with your right hand; challenging the shot by jumping into vacant space where you might be able to block the shot or force Shaq into an awkward double-clutch.

If the penalty for a deliberate foul was an automatic 3 points, there’d be no deliberate fouls. This would eliminate the 2 or 3 plays per game where someone is put in danger by a hard, intentional foul. Most of those fouls don’t produce injuries, but some do. Injuries are a part of the game, but those particular injuries should NEVER occur. I’ve seen too many postseasons ruined for various players — and thus their teams — because someone on the other team brutally enforced his coach’s “No layups!” edict. (I mention coaches because, in my view, THEY are the problem. Coaches, not players, set the tone and give the marching orders.)

As for suspensions based on the severity of the intentional foul, my view is that a play like Stack’s should have the following penalties: If committed in the regular season, suspension for 10 regular-season games. If committed in the playoffs, suspension for 20 regular-season games, beginning at the start of the next season. In addition, if the foul causes an injury, the fouler should be similarly incapacitated for however long the foulee is hobbled and/or sidelined.

Applying that logic to Stack, he’d be suspended for the first 20 games of next season, but because Shaq wasn’t hurt, there’d be no playoff suspension. And instead of Shaq having to go to the stripe to, as the saying goes, “earn ‘em at the line,” the scorer would simply add 3 points to the Heat’s total, and possession would revert to the Mavs.

For more of my ideas on humanizing the game so that actual BASKETBALL PLAYS determine who wins and loses, see this essay at DallasBasketball.com.

2006-06-13T12:39:00.000-05:00

My debut at 82games.com
Speaking of Shaq’s — and the Miami Heat’s — desperate plight, I’ve just explained at some length what he must do: Shaq must look to his past for free-throw solution.

2006-06-12T10:14:00.000-05:00

My quick fix for Shaq’s free-throw woes
This postseason Shaq is shooting a beyond-putrid .373 at the stripe, including 2 for 16 so far in the Finals. I feel for the Diesel. He really is conscientious, but this is a case of the blind (Miami’s coaches) leading the blind (Shaq). Is it possible to turn things around by Tuesday evening’s Game 3? Yes.
The blueprint for the quick fix was on display hours before Game 2, when ESPN Classic rebroadcast several recent Finals games, including the pivotal contest of 2000, 2001 and 2002. The latter two featured the one Shaq delivery that has worked reasonably well. I could help him recapture that old-school one-handed form — and the sequence, timing and rhythm of that delivery — in 2 hours. Once again he’ll have an arc and directional accuracy, and his distance control will be much improved. He could easily shoot 67 percent the rest of the series, and if he plays well in other phases that just might put the Heat over the top.
You listening, Pat Riley?
Hans_d@mail.firn.edu

2006-06-08T05:52:00.000-05:00

Mavs beware Spinal Shaq’s Big Bottom
Climbing fast on the heavy-metal charts just in time for the NBA Finals is Spinal Shaq’s remake of Spinal Tap’s thundering-bass megahit, “Big Bottom.” The original featured lead vocalist and derriere devotee David St. Hubbins (a.k.a. Michael McKean); the remake features his younger but by no means little brother, Diesel St. Hubbins.

Diesel St. Hubbins, as you may have guessed, is the big-haired, leather-clad, hard-rockin’ alter ego of Shaquille O’Neal. As hoop fans know, O’Neal has a growing cast of personas and monikers: Most Dominant Ever, the Big Aristotle, Don Dadda, Shaq Daddy, Last Center Left and Shaq Fu, to name a few. But those cats are playing it uncharacteristically cool in the run-up to Game 1. They’re making nice with the Mavs, praising young DeSagana Diop and even their favorite punchline, Erick Dampier. Not a single Shaq persona has reprised the joke about Damp having what it takes to be a decent center — in the WNBA.

But now here comes Diesel St. Hubbins cuttin’ loose with his revamped lyrics and colossal caboose. I can’t believe that owner Mark Cuban and the Mavs will simply turn the other cheek when they hear how Spinal Shaq intends to rear-end Dallas’s hoop-championship dreams.

Big Bottom

Original music and lyrics by Spinal Tap
New lyrics, incorporating some of the old, by Diesel St. Hubbins, as channeled by Dennis Hans
(To view the original lyrics, click here)

The harder the butt whack
The better for big Shaq
That's what I said
The bigger the cushion
The sweeter the pushin'
Or so I have read

I rule the paint with one hell of a heine
Dispatch Sagana whose bum is so tiny
Big bottom
Big bottom
Talk about bun cheeks
This boy’s got ’em
Big bottom, yes it’s one of a kind
Bow down before this behind

Envision the basket
And Damp in a casket
You know what I mean
One smack from my backside
And he’ll think that he died
I’m diggin’ the scene

Got both buns loaded and Dirk’s in my sight
No Hass-el-hoff gonna save him tonight
Big bottom
Big bottom
He wish he had my cheeks
But he ain’t got 'em
Big bottom says the crown will be mine
Bow down before this behind

The video is even more disturbing than the lyrics. It reveals the awesome power of an unleashed trunk with a whole lotta junk, knocking defenders hither and yon as prelude to a dunk.

If you’re Mark Cuban, do you show the video at the arena to incite the hometown fans, or do you suppress it out of fear that it will scare to death your 1-through-12 roster of willing but bony bottoms?

2006-05-31T15:39:00.000-05:00

I’m with Kobe on flopmeister Raja Bell
Much as I like Mike D’Antoni and the Phoenix Suns, it’s hard for me to root for a team with Raja Bell, who does indeed deserve to be disrespected. He makes a joke of the game — and his coach, his owner, Suns legend Jerry Colangelo and Commissioner David Stern — with his incessant flopping. He can be a feisty, annoying and very effective defender playing it straight. He ought to give it a try.

The great sports columnist for Salon.com, King Kaufman, joins Jeff Van Gundy in calling for a technical foul whenever a ref presumes a player has flopped, rather than the ref merely allowing the play to continue with no whistle. That would be a small step in the right direction, but the NBA can do better. I’m still mulling over an appropriate penalty in the playoffs, but I think we could eliminate flopping long before the playoffs roll around with this regular-season penalty: 10-game suspension for the player, during which time his coach — who almost certainly, at a minimum, condones the flopping and may encourage or even teach the tactic — must a wear clown suit in public, in recognition of his contribution to REALLY "disrespecting" the game.

2006-05-31T15:26:00.000-05:00

Plow right through on Route 32
In pivotal Game 4, Bob Delaney whistled Big Ben twice for what I call “Failure to yield the right of way on Route 32.” Route 32 is the highway that runs from the favorite post-up spot of Number 32 (Shaq) on the left side of the lane to his other favorite spot, just in front of the basket. Traffic along this bumpy, eight-feet stretch of road is often heavy, prompting Shaq to hop into his bulldozer and plow through the congestion. On the two occasions in question, right after he fired up the engine and traveled the first few feet of his journey, the ref blew his whistle and gave Ben a ticket for standing in the middle of Route 32. The rule requires Ben to pull off to the side of the road until Shaq reaches his destination and dunks. Once that happens, Ben is free to go where he pleases — at least until Shaq again shows up at Route 32.

I much prefer shake-and-bake Shaq to bump-and-grind Shaq. He can be a great player for another couple of seasons sticking to the former. That would also make him less prone to foul trouble and provide the opportunity to polish his rich assortment of legit low-post moves and shots.

2006-05-30T16:29:00.000-05:00

Bad things about NBA refs, Part 1
Twice Dwayne Wade has taken very nasty spills in the postseason, and twice the refs and announcers have failed to identify the intentional nature of the fouls. Here is how Michael Sweetney and Dale Davis got away with it:

In both cases, the defender intentionally fouled vulnerable airborne Wade with his left hand — a push to the chest by Sweetney, a whack across the arm by Davis — while going for the ball with his right hand. That’s not how you attempt a clean block. That’s how you make an intentional foul LOOK like an attempt at a clean block.

In both cases, the intentional foul with the left hand is what caused the rotation of Wade’s torso and led to him falling like a sack of potatoes on to his back or hips from quite a height. The fall in the Bulls game could very easily have cost the Heat the series. So far, it looks like he survived last night’s spill in decent shape. But rest assured, the wonderful Wade’s days are numbered if the league permits him to be routinely assaulted in this way.

2006-05-25T12:46:00.000-05:00

Ben’s free throws a risky, wristy proposition
Here are the first four paragraphs of my latest piece dissecting the seriously flawed free-throw form of Ben Wallace:

For four years I’ve been explaining to Ben Wallace and various coaches and executives with the Detroit Pistons that he can’t get better at the free-throw line merely through countless repetitions of his longstanding, tried-and-failed, all-wrist method. Little did I know that Ben has a chronic injury to his right wrist that makes his flawed delivery even more problematic. It’s a horrid shooting style with a healthy wrist, and it’s even worse given Ben’s condition.

More on that wrist in a minute, but first let’s consider the frightening free-throw facts.

In the regular season, Ben basically matched his career average of .418 by draining free throws (FTs) at a .416 clip. This postseason, through two rounds and 12 games, he’s 10 for 42. That’s .238.

His 0 for 7 in Game 5 vs. Cleveland was instrumental in the Pistons’ two-point loss. His 2 for 6 in Game 6 nearly cost Detroit, which squeaked by with a two-point win. Fortunately, his 0 for 4 in Game 7 was inconsequential, as the Pistons won handily.

If the Pistons’ coach and president are smart, they’ll enlist my help pronto. The season may very well hang in the balance. My advice is to act soon, before Shaq and the Heat sign me to an exclusive tutoring deal for the remainder of the postseason.
Hans_d@mail.firn.edu

2006-05-25T11:04:00.000-05:00

How to get pump-fake calls right
Steve Kerr was about to make a valid criticism of current NBA officiating during Wednesday’s game when he got sidetracked. Raja Bell had just pump-faked, getting Jerry Stackhouse to jump to the right of Bell in an attempt to block or bother the shot while avoiding contact with the shooter. Bell, seeing that Stackhouse was about to fly past him, leaned a couple feet to his right to create a collision, then heaved up a prayer. The whistle blew. Foul on Stackhouse.

I believe Kerr was going to say something like “This is absurd.” If he was, he’s right. Since when did it become a foul for a defender to leave his feet? That’s how you make plays! Today’s refs don’t exercise near enough judgment. On these pump-fake situations, the rule should protect active defenders who aren’t invading the shooter’s space, which should consist of the shooter’s starting place and perhaps the area one-to-three feet DIRECTLY in front of him, depending on the situation.

Guys shooting treys are generally going to jump toward the basket, coming down 2 or 3 feet closer to the hoop from where they rose up. If you’re 14 feet from the hoop and you get the defender off his feet, you should be entitled to your takeoff place and maybe a foot directly in front of you. But if you lean left or right or take an unnaturally long step toward the hoop to cause contact that otherwise wouldn’t occur, that should never be a defensive foul.

We need to return to thinking of the pump-fake as a tool to turn a contested shot into an uncontested one: you get the guy off his feet, pause, then rise up for your shot while he’s descending. It’s only a foul if the defender jumps into space that a reasonable person would consider to be the natural jumping area for that particular shot. We need to get away from the mindset that you’re entitled to two shots merely for getting the guy off his feet, irrespective of the space the defender is jumping into.

2006-05-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

Blame Riley for Shaq’s free-throw woes
(This essay appears at Inside Hoops.com.)

In one sense, Shaquille O’Neal’s free-throw woes are indeed mental: His coach has a mental block that prevents him from understanding that repetition alone is not the answer.

Shaq’s problems at the stripe are 100 percent physical. A gifted, graceful athlete with a keen sense of rhythm away from the basketball court, Shaq nevertheless is a robotic, fundamentally flawed klutz at the line who can’t even keep the ball from sliding in his shooting hand as he’s about to release it. He was that way his last season with the Los Angeles Lakers, and he’s been that way his two seasons with the Miami Heat.

In Miami, the person most responsible for Shaq descending ever deeper into the depths of free throw (FT) despair is Pat Riley.

At the time of Shaq’s arrival Riley was president of the Heat, and Riley may have had some basis for his belief that he, coach Stan Van Gundy and the rest of the staff could help Shaq at the stripe. Here’s how Riley expressed that belief on July 29, 2004, in response to my letter explaining how I could help the Diesel (who had just shot .a dismal .490 for the Lakers after having shot a career-best .622 the season before):

The Heat “have an excellent team of assistant coaches and trainers who have developed their own system, which they are anxious to apply to Mr. O’Neal. These techniques have proven to be very successful, and we are expecting the same outcome with Mr. O’Neal.”

Alas, “Mr. O’Neal” proceded to stink out the joint in the 2004-05 pre-season. And the first few weeks of the regular season. And December, January and February. By the All-Star break, it should have been crystal clear to Riley that the “system” and “techniques” of his “excellent” staff were having no observable positive effect.

Applying the philosophy “If it’s broke, don’t fix it,” Riley, Van Gundy and staff helped Shaq shoot a career-low .461. But the good thing about Shaq is that he “makes them when they count”: In the 2005 playoffs his percentage skyrocketed all the way to .472.

Riley took the coaching reins from Van Gundy early this season, and Shaq continued to fire bricks with the same basic delivery from last season, finishing up at .469.

It’s worse than you think
Those putrid numbers don’t begin to tell the story, for Shaq’s arrival in Miami coincided with the NBA’s new “zero tolerance” policy for FT lane violators. This has amounted to a de facto, league-approved subsidy to the Heat and Shaq, whose pause-at-the-top release disrupts the timing of rebounders, who see Shaq just a few times over 82 games. A competently run league would explore practical remedies — such as requiring refs to remind rebounders to “Wait for the pause at the top” every time a delayed-release shooter like Shaq or Elton Brand attempts a live free-throw. Alas, it seems that NBA refs prefer to play “Gotcha!” with anxious rebounders.

I don’t get to see many Heat regular-season games, but I've seen enough to know that it’s not unusual for Shaq to have two or three misses wiped off the books in a single contest. I’d be shocked if he didn’t average at least one do-over per game. If that conservative one-per-game estimate is right and we include those uncounted misses, Shaq has actually been a 42-percent shooter as a member of the Heat.

This postseason, he’s cruising along at a .400 clip (36 for 90) after 12 games, as Riley continues to wait patiently for the “system” and “techniques” to take hold.

Mind-reading Riley
What accounts for Riley’s unending patience? My hunch is that he’s confused on two key points.

First, because of the infinite variety of shooting styles among good FT shooters, Riley may well believe that ANY style can be made to work if the player will only put in the time. And if it doesn’t work, that simply means that the player — be he Wilt, Ben Wallace or Shaq — simply can’t shoot.

The logical flaw here is that Shaq has been far more effective in two chunks of his career, each with a distinctive style that differs significantly from his Heat style, which features scant rhythm, poor mechanics, a challenging release point (a few inches above the center-rear of his head), the ball sliding in his shooting hand as he bends his knees, and a stroke initiated by a simultaneous, herky-jerky lerch of hands and legs.

Long ago Shaq had a fairly conventional stroke that produced consecutive seasons of .638, .528 and .592; that’s his last two years of college and his NBA debut. (I didn’t see him in college, but a few months ago I saw the 1993 NBA All-Star Game. Rookie Shaq shot the ball like a normal person. His mechanics could have used some fine tuning, but he had a smooth delivery that produced a nice arc and backspin.) Things went steadily downhill until he began to turn things around in 2000-01 with the help of a 1970s LSU sharpshooter named Ed Palubinskas. Using an old-school one-handed stroke (something that was fairly common up to the mid-1960s) and a bizarre fingertip grip, Shaq had some very good stretches in the three-year period he worked off and on with Ed, including that .622 mark in 2002-03 and postseasons of 62 and 65 percent.

This suggests that HOW Shaq shoots is a factor in HOW WELL he shoots.

Second, the fact that Shaq shoots a respectable percentage in practice may have persuaded Riley that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with his technique or delivery. If so, let’s count Riley among the many coaches who have yet to figure out that everyone — even Wilt and Big Ben — shoots reasonably well in practice. That’s because FTs in practice bear only a superficial resemblance to FTs in games. You shoot the latter one or two at a time in between intense stretches of banging and running, and often with considerable time between trips to the line, even for line-dweller Shaq. The only FTs in practice that resemble their game counterparts are the first two you shoot. As for the next 48, each becomes progressively easier because you’re standing there doing the same thing over and over. It’s easy to strike a groove, but it’s a false groove. It doesn’t help you with your next meaningful FTs, which might come a day or two later mid-way through the first quarter.

The question the Heat should ask is not why Shaq made or missed this or that FT in a recent game. Rather, they should ask: What are the characteristics of Shaq’s technique, rhythm and/or routine that explain why, under game conditions, he shoots 42 percent?

And here are a few follow-ups:

Are these flaws fixable? How quickly can we iron out the flaws and ingrain the corrections? Should we tackle any or all of these problems now? Can we make a bad situation worse — that is, could Shaq plummet from 38 percent in the first two rounds to 25 percent in the next one or two rounds? Even if we can make the situation worse, does the possibility of swift, dramatic improvement to 60-65 percent render it a risk worth taking? Given that no one on our Heat staff appears to have a clue what is wrong or how to fix it, how could we, of all people, help Shaq? Being clueless, how can we evaluate outsiders who claim to have the answers?

Those are daunting questions as the Heat prepare for the Eastern Conference Championship Series.

A way out of the wilderness
My advice would be to hire me, as I seem to be the only one who has bothered to compare and contrast the various deliveries Shaq has used in his career. I’ve also written a number of analyses of Shaq’s oft-changing form, beginning with a June 2000 piece for the online edition of the Sporting News. I could help now with a quick fix — re-connecting the muscle memory buried deep in his bones to recapture the rhythm and form of either of his decent periods, or create a hybrid that combines the best elements of each. I could also help over the long haul, developing a sound, rhythmic, repeatable and low-maintenance routine that will enable him to shoot 65-to-75 percent in his twilight seasons.

Phil Jackson, in his book The Last Season (pp 205-06), drops my name and mentions a small portion of the advice I passed to Mitch Kupchak who passed to Phil who passed to Shaq, which may have played a role in Shaq pulling out of a prolonged 30-percent slump that had lasted into the first round of the 2004 playoffs. After my advice arrived (covering, among other things, how to recapture the proper sequence and timing of his .622 delivery), Shaq began to look a tad better, though his release was still a mess and his uncomfortable release point added to the degree of difficulty. He shot 22 for 42 for the remainder of the Spurs series, and 48 percent overall (Game 3 of the Spurs series through the Finals). To be sure, 48 percent stinks to high heaven. Still, it’s a big help to a team when a guy who lives at the line goes from 30 to 48 percent — about two points per game that postseason.

Other flaws I mentioned went unaddressed, including a doozy I spotted early in the 2004 Western finals faceoff with the T-Wolves: the ball sliding in Shaq’s shooting hand. I alerted Kupchak who passed the tip along, presumably to Jackson, but no correction was attempted.

That glaring flaw plagues Shaq to this day. Who knows, maybe Miami’s “excellent” staff considers Shaq’s sliding-ball trick a key to FT excellence and thus have encouraged him to retain it. All sarcasm aside, this would seem to be easy to correct — but only if someone brings it to Shaq’s attention and helps him make the necessary adjustments so he can join the rest of the b-ball universe of players who, for some strange reason, prefer to shoot without the ball sliding in their shooting hand.

Here are some of the pieces I’ve penned on Shaq at the stripe; the two from 2004 mirror the advice I sent to Kupchak that spring:

How I’ll (again) help Shaq at the stripe (March 12, 2006)
http://hoopshype.com/columns/shaq3_hans.htm

Why Shaq Can’t Shoot (April 16, 2005)
http://www.insidehoops.com/shaq-shooting-041605.shtml

Hacker Shaq invites Hack-a-Shaq (Jan. 28, 2005)
http://Hoopshype.com/columns/heat_hans.htm

Shaq’s free-throw odyssey (May 10, 2004)
http://www.insidehoops.com/shaq-free-throws-051004.shtml

Shaq's free-throw fix is in 2002 tape (May 6, 2004)
http://Hoopshype.com/columns/shaq2_hans.htm

It would be a shame if Riley’s ego prevented him from getting help for Shaq — help that could spell the difference between a loss in the Eastern or NBA Finals and a Heat championship.

hans_d@mail.firn.edu

2006-05-16T11:55:00.000-05:00

The artistry of Tim Duncan
Although he’s one loss from elimination, this postseason Tim Duncan has dusted off his low-post repertoire and reminded folks just how great he is. A combination of a healing foot and opportunities to operate one-on-one against the Sacramento and Dallas big men has enabled him to display his fab footwork and ambidextrous artistry. I’m not sure Popovich made the right decision in benching his bigs (I probably would have given Tim a chance to guard Dirk at least for 15-20 minutes per game so that the Spurs could, at certain times, employ a strong rebounding lineup), but that move has worked splendidly at the offensive end.

Duncan is looking better at the line, too. He didn't opt for the free-throw makeover I recommended, but he has made technical adjustments to the position of his arms and shooting hand at address, and this has made for a crisper, more confident release. He’s still prone to the way-shorts, but the ball comes out of his hand much more cleanly. The result is improved directional accuracy and a slightly less flat shot.

Time will tell if he can sustain the improvement — or if he'll even get a chance to. A determined Dallas squad is intent on ending the Spurs season Wednesday night. Should be a barnburner.

2006-05-15T14:19:00.000-05:00

Blame America, not Europe, for the flop
My latest hoopshype essay is titled Blame America, not Europe, for the flop. Here’s the long subtitle: “Pat Riley is brain-dead or dishonest when he claims that crafty hoop immigrants from Europe introduced flopping to an innocent NBA. In truth, Americans were taking dives to con refs decades before Euros made it to The Show.”

2006-05-15T12:33:00.000-05:00

Elton Brand and Bernard King
Elton Brand on offense bears a striking resemblance to the great Bernard King, who had a stretch under Hubie Brown with the mid-1980s Knicks where he was an unguardable, ridiculously efficient scoring machine. That’s Brand today, right down to the in-your-face, unblockable jumpshot with the unorthodox release. Brand’s release is more behind-the-head than King’s, while King’s was a tad quicker and sometimes would come while King was still rising. Both guys are deadly off the dribble from 10 to 15 feet.

King was a great scorer from the get-go, while Brand didn’t reach greatness until this season. He’s always been very good, but this is the season he perfected his midrange jumper. Couple that with heightened mobility from dropping 20 pounds and you wind up with a legit MVP candidate.

Two big edges he has on King is on the boards and as a swatter. King was a fine rebounder as small forwards go, but Brand is a power forward and boards like one. He’s also an elite shot blocker, both as a helper and on his own man. What a wonderful player. Great guy, too.

2006-05-13T10:39:00.000-05:00

NBA values out of whack
Reggie Evans squeezes Chris Kaman’s testicles in a tussle under the boards and gets a fine but no suspension. Cliff Robinson violates NBA drug policy — presumably for testing positive for marijuana, though Robinson maintains his innocence and seeks a re-test (false positives are rare but they have occurred in the NBA testing program) — and is suspended for five games. That means the Nets are without their second-best Shaq defender for the remainder of the series with the Heat. Friday night, without Robinson, the Nets lost a close game, and it appears that the suspension will be the determining factor in the series. This stinks.

Any league that welcomes alcohol sponsors should not be suspending players for using a less dangerous, albeit illegal, drug such as pot. I speak as a non-toker and very light drinker who can’t help but notice that alcohol wreaks far more havoc than marijuana. If a player has a problem with pot — as has been the case with Quyntel Woods, Damon Stoudamire and some others — intervention and perhaps carrot-and-stick rewards and penalties to help the guy stay clean are called for. If there’s no evidence of a problem, the NBA should simply look the other way. Just because Vin Baker, Chris Mullin, Jayson Williams and quite a few other players have had serious drinking problems doesn’t lead us to conclude that every player who enjoys beer or wine occasionally — or even regularly in moderation — needs alcohol counseling. The league should apply the same logic to pot.

If a player is physically and mentally ready for evening games and morning shootarounds and practices, that's a pretty good sign that any recreational use of booze or pot is not a problem in his life or career. Not a guarantee, but a pretty good sign. Robinson is respected and liked by his Net teammates and coaches; his discipline and professionalism are reflected in the fact that he's still productive at age 39. (Admitted pot smoker Robert Parish played NBA ball till he was 43 — the all-time longevity record.)

Also, there’s no good reason why Robinson’s suspension couldn’t wait till the start of the next season. Why punish his teammates so severely for an infraction (assuming he is indeed guilty) that’s tantamount to jaywalking? The NBA — especially its gutless Players Association — needs to quit kissing up to our govt’s drug warriors and make a stand for sensible drug policies. Most players don’t think there’s anything wrong, despite what the law states, with adults smoking pot occasionally. They should demand an NBA drug policy that reflects their sensible thinking, not one that kowtows to people they despise.

2006-05-02T15:14:00.000-05:00

Bonzi Wells is Charles Barkley
I reserve the right to change my mind, but as of today I’m rooting for the Kings to take the NBA crown.

Perhaps the most remarkable story of this postseason is the emergence of Bonzi Wells as the second coming of Charles Barkley. With Bonzi and Ron Artest at the two wing positions, the Kings remind me of the old Packers backfield of John Brockington and MacArthur Lane. Each had fullback size and power but with halfback maneuverability.

Bonzi and Ron are about as COMPLETE as two players can be, excelling at most every phase of the game. And where one is so-so (Ron on the boards), the other is out of this world. Bonzi has been a terror on the offensive boards, and the ability of Bonzi and Ron to beat various Spurs off the dribble has turned this opening round series into a donneybrook.

2006-05-02T14:57:00.000-05:00

Nocioni is THAT good
Hot off the presses, I come to the depressing conclusion that Andres Nocioni — even without the benefit of his unscrupulous antics — is a better power forward than the late, great NY Knick, Dave DeBusschere, who was voted in 1996 one of the NBA’s top 50 players. Nocioni splits time at the two forward spots, but when he’s at the 4 the Bulls take off. Nocioni, like DD, is short as 4s go, but also like DD he has a great advantage in quickness, skill and well-roundedness over most 4s he faces. Now if he’d just cut out the flops and cheapshots I might actually pull for the guy.

Speaking of flops, it’s good to hear Jeff Van Gundy condemn this vile practice with such passion. I’ve got problems with JVG, but on the flopping issue he’s A-OK.

2006-05-01T15:03:00.000-05:00

Playoff Diary: Foul trouble is killing NBA bigs
Among the many serious structural problems with the NBA game under David Stern’s disastrous commissionership is the constant foul trouble — and missed court time — of quality big men. I outlined several of the causes a few months ago in the essay Starting centers merit more minutes.

While great backcourt players are putting in 40 to 48 full-bore, free-and-easy minutes — as they should —Shaquille and Jermaine O’Neal and others have been forced to sit for long stretches and tippy-toe when they are on the court.

Part of the problem facing the O’Neal brothers is that for the past several years they’ve been permitted to dislodge their defenders, leading them (and a number of copycat dislodgers, including Dwight Howard, Yao Ming, Zydrunas and more) to logically conclude that dislodging is a legit power move. But this season many refs are calling dislodging a foul — not all the time, but enough to confuse the O’Neals, who have no idea how their pet “move” will be called from game to game or even quarter to quarter. Also, the league has forced defenders to resort to blatant flops or no-resistance semi-flops (the latter is light on the histrionics, and it usually involves the defender offering resistance to the first bump by the dislodger and no resistance to the second bump) as the only way to neutralize brute strength.

Wilt never picked up dislodging fouls because he played in an era where you weren’t allowed to butt-whack your way to the hoop. Heck, it never occurred to him to even try. (For his career, Wilt averaged a foul every 23 minutes, and most every one he committed came on defense.) Low-scoring Wes Unseld could have averaged 40 points a game if he had been allowed to pulverize opponents in the low post. But he played when such antics would have gotten him 6 fouls in the first 6 minutes.

Phil Jackson is a genius, but part of that is of the "evil genius" variety. It was under Phil in L.A. that the “double dislodge from the left block” (as I have dubbed it) became Shaq's patented — and somehow legit — go-to move. That legitimation is one of several "turns for the worse" under Stern’s tenure. I give the commish high marks for creating a level playing field where small-market teams can compete with the big cities, but as for the game on the court, Stern inherited a flowing, fast-paced game in 1984 and mostly sat on his hands as the game grew rougher, slower and uglier.

Shaq and Jermaine have plenty of legit moves, and if they had been denied dislodging rights years ago they would have adjusted and added and/or polished other elements of their low-post game. So the Lakers might still have gotten their three-peat, or at least a two-peat, but they wouldn’t have changed the game for the worse in the process.

I first wrote about the legitimation of Shaq’s dislodging in a 2002 essay on how to officiate Shaq, both for the good of the game and for Shaq himself. Now more than ever, the NBA needs to heed my advice.

2006-04-28T18:41:00.000-05:00

Two Daily Show bits bear suspicious resemblance to satirical essays I penned years ago
Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show for April 27 featured two segments based on satiric concepts I created several years ago. I could use ten million bucks, but I probably won’t sue, as I presume that the show’s writers came up with the ideas on their own. But if they feel guilty about unintentionally ripping me off, maybe we can work something out.

The bits were well done, though they lacked the bite and insight of my originals.

The first bit was called the “Global Political Index,” which tracked the shifting fortunes of various political figures as if they were stocks. Back in 1999, in a piece that first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, I concocted “The Nightly Peoples Report,” which tracked the shifting value of various nationalities in relation to the gold standard, “the American.” It played off the notion that our government and media place wildly differing values on human suffering, based on our govt’s relation to the perpetrators of the suffering. (Sometimes the perpetrators were, in fact, the US govt.)

The second bit announced the merger of Fox News with the Bush White House, playing off the news that Fox’s Tony Snow had just been named White House spokesman and the correct presumption that Fox News functions in many respects as an arm of the Bush administration. Back in 2000, I announced the merger of CBS — that is, the Columbia Broadcasting System — with the government of Colombia. I showed how CBS News in general and Mike Wallace in particular presented a picture of Colombia to U.S. viewers that dovetailed nicely with the propaganda needs of the U.S.-allied Colombian regime. Glaring distortions in CBS coverage would lead the typical viewer to believe that Colombia was most deserving of the massive U.S. military aid being pushed by the Clinton administration. “60 Minutes” portrayed the Colombian army as at war with both leftist guerillas and rightist paramilitary death squads, which was only half true, for it was collaborating with the rightist death squads that, at the time, were responsible for about 70 percent of the politically motivated killings of civilians in Colombia.

2006-04-08T12:54:00.000-05:00

Ben Wallace is lost at the line; I can help
For four years I’ve been explaining to Ben Wallace and various coaches and executives with the Detroit Pistons that Ben Wallace can’t get better at the free-throw line by practicing his current method. He needs either a drastic makeover, or dramatic improvements in the mechanics, timing and rhythm of his current method.

Ben is shooting a woeful 42 percent for the season, and about 20 percent over his last 7 or so games.

The current coach, Flip Saunders, has his good qualities, but stroke analysis is not one of them. Here’s what he said recently about Ben at the line, as reported in the Detroit News:

Saunders said that Wallace's free-throw shooting is baffling because he has decent form on the shots and in practice, he makes 70 and 80 percent of them. "My theory is, he plays so hard defensively and he's so intense, his body gets so wound up that when he gets to the free-throw line, he can't get that calmed down. You need to be relaxed to shoot free throws. But he is so intense on the one end, that when he goes on offense, it's like he just stepped out of the weight room."

Saunders is wrong about the form and unaware that most every bricklayer shoots decently in practice, where you take shots in bunches rather than two at a time a couple times a game with an hour between trips to the line.

Here's how I described in 2002 Ben's release, comparing it to two fine shooters who Ben resembled somewhat in form, but not in substance; the analysis still applies:

Whereas Reggie Miller and Doug Christie’s wrist-based release and follow through are the culmination of a simple, unified, rhythmic, whole-body delivery, Ben’s wrist snap is an abrupt, isolated movement largely divorced from his body.

That’s not Ben’s only problem, but it is the most significant one. He can’t fix any of them if he’s listening to coaches who tell him his form is fine and that his free-throw woes stem from the intensity with which he plays — as if he were the only NBA player who busts his butt.

Ben has a couple of weeks before the playoffs start to make some progress. I’m available to help. A respectable percentage in the playoffs — 60 to 70 percent — could be the key to a Pistons championship.

Ben, Flip or Joe Dumars are welcome to drop me a line at hans_d@popmail.firn.edu

2006-04-08T09:53:00.000-05:00

A coach for most valuable player
My latest hoopshype column makes the case for a coach, Mike D'Antoni of the Phoenix Suns, as the NBA's most valuable player. Here's the opening to the counterintuitive essay:

Mike D’Antoni is the 2005-06 NBA Most Valuable Player. By a mile.

Yes, I’m aware that D’Antoni coaches, rather than plays for, the Phoenix Suns. We’re breaking new ground by picking a coach, which is even more radical than baseball giving its MVP — generally the preserve of everyday players — to a pitcher.

But what is the cliché we hear whenever commentators debate the merits of the various MVP candidates? So-and-so deserves the award because he “makes his teammates better.” Well, it says here that D’Antoni is even more responsible for the stellar performance of Steve Nash’s teammates than Nash is.

One big advantage D’Antoni has over Nash — the reigning MVP and a strong candidate to win again — is that the coach is largely responsible for the dramatic improvement of the one Sun who is not a teammate of Nash. That would be Nash himself. Until the pass-happy humanitarian moved to the Arizona desert, no one considered him to be even a remote candidate for MVP. Throughout his Mav years, he wasn’t even a lock to be selected as an All-Star reserve, as he made the Western squad in only two of six seasons.

Click on the link above to read the rest. And here are my thoughts on the pro prospects of some of the Final Four participants, one of whom, the great Joakim Noah of Florida, has just decided to stay in school at least another year.

2006-03-22T15:24:00.000-05:00

Old lie won’t die if news media don’t brand it a lie

At his March 21 news conference, Bush repeated one of his favorite whoppers in the middle of this statement about why he invaded Iraq: "I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences. And therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it.”

In the real world in the months preceding the invasion, Saddam accurately disclosed that he had no WMD or active WMD programs. UN inspectors went wherever they wanted whenever they wanted and inspected every suspicious site. They were hitting all the places recommended by US and British intelligence, and if they had been allowed to complete the job (the option of taking Saddam at his word was, quite correctly, not on the table), within a few months Iraq would have gotten a clean bill of health. There would have been no legit cause for war. UN inspectors would have continued to inspect, monitor and verify Iraq's ongoing compliance INDEFINITELY, as mandated by the Security Council. That mandate would have remained in place as long as the US so desired, because as a permanent member of the Security Council it could veto any resolution calling for the lifting of the OMV (Ongoing Monitoring and Verification) program. On-site inspections and the ban on importing WMD-related materials would have continued for as long as the Bush administration and its successors wanted.

One of the first times (maybe the first) that Bush offered this bizarre explanation came on July 14, 2003, when he took a few questions from the press after a meeting at the White House with Kofi Annan. Bush said
that US forces removed Saddam Hussein from power after “we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in.”

I wrote about it at the time, to no avail. (See my article ”Undeleted Uranium and the ‘Highest Standard’", which examines the incredibly lax truth-telling standards in the Bush administration.) July 14, 2003 should have been the last time Bush offered such an explanation, because in a sane world the major media would have called him on it. He would have been forced to explain himself, which he wouldn’t be able to do, at which point he would have to admit that he had lied or was confused to the point of being delusional. Whichever the case, it should have placed him in seriously hot water for a prolonged period, and been one more reminder that the man simply cannot be trusted.

It’s impossible to overstate the ignorance, incompetence and cowardice of the White House press corps and the top dogs at our major “news” organizations. For reasons only each of them can explain, they, with few exceptions, let this howler stand. In one mild exception, Dana Milbank and Dana Priest noted gently in the Washington Post that Bush's statement “appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective.”

That's better than nothing, but Milbank and Priest have no way of knowing what Bush did or did not "believe" in the pre-war period. He might have regarded the inspections as quite effective in demonstrating that there was no sign of WMD activity and no WMD residue in the soil at countless sites that US and Brit intelligence asserted were hotbeds of WMD activity. Bush might have regarded the inspections as quite effective in persuading fair-minded people that Iraq did not have an active nuclear-weapons program, despite contrary claims from unscrupulous characters named Bush, Cheney, Powell and Tenet. Maybe what Bush actually "believed" is that the inspections were effective but not helpful: the longer the process went, the more obvious it was becoming that Iraq was not a WMD threat. The inspections were effective, all right — effective in robbing Bush of his pretext for war. Maybe that's what Bush believed.

A few days after co-writing the July 2003 story with Priest, the excessively blasé Milbank explained on CNN why the news media either ignored Bush's howler or treated it as no big deal. He told Howard Kurtz (his Post colleague and the host of CNN’s incredibly lame media-analysis show “Reliable Sources"), “I think what people basically decided was this is just the President being the President. Occasionally he plays the wrong track and something comes out quite wrong. He is under a great deal of pressure."

Well, nearly three years later the wrong track is still playing in Bush’s head. I surfed around the evening news shows last night and saw no mention of it, including on shows that referenced Bush’s exchange with Helen Thomas that included his ludicrous statement. From the little I’ve seen of today’s print media — including a Milbank column — Bush is getting away with it again.

So here’s a reminder to Milbank — who clearly knows the truth, having reported it in the Post — and to countless other Washington-based journalists who are far more pathetic than he: The Iraqi government correctly said it no longer possessed WMD or WMD programs, and unimpeded UN inspectors were in the process of confirming that very fact when our president aborted the process by launching a war of aggression. When Bush makes an absurdly false statement that absolves him of responsibility for the war and its aftermath, it is your DUTY to tell your readers or viewers what the truth is, and to force the president to PUBLICLY set the record straight. This should happen EVERY TIME he does this. The president should not be allowed to get away with saying that up is down and black is white. Ever.

As for Bush’s war of choice, it has led to the death of tens of thousands of Iraqis and more than 2000 Americans — and there’s no end in sight.

2006-03-20T13:11:00.000-05:00

I’ve solved Duncan’s free-throw dilemma

The Spurs’ graceful center-forward is at .635 from the stripe with a month to go in the season; four years ago he shot .799, followed by .822 in the playoffs. In a matter of hours I could get him squared away. The honcho in San Antone, Gregg Popovich, recently said he’s learned valuable insights into coaching tactics, techniques and philosophy from coaches in foreign lands. Now if we can just get him to open his mind to teaching methods from non-coaches in domestic lands!

The difference between a title and a close-but-no-cigar finish could be Duncan’s performance at the stripe. Will Popovich stick to the head-in-the-sand approach currently utilized by Pat Riley with regard to Shaq, or will Pop open his mind? That’s the question.

UPDATE March 30: I first wrote about Duncan's yo-yo free-throw career during the 2005 playoffs, in this Inside Hoops essay. It was chock full of insights, as usual, but I wrote it from an erroneous premise: that Duncan was shooting in 2005 with the same basic delivery as in his banner 2001-02 season. A few weeks ago I learned that that was not the case. I've alerted the Spurs' braintrust to the differences, and time will tell if they heed my advice. The Spurs have more smart, open-minded people in their organization than your typical NBA franchise, so there's a decent chance they'll do some heeding.

2006-03-13T10:13:00.000-05:00

Krugman and I expose McCain’s warts

Paul Krugman of the New York Times seems to me the sharpest establishment columnist going today. Way back in 2000 the Princeton economist documented time and again the essential dishonesty of candidate George W. Bush, with particular emphasis on Bush’s economic and social-security proposals. Krugman carefully showed how Bush’s numbers didn’t add up, and he showed how Bush repeatedly fudged yet paid no penalty for the fudging. Why? Because Krugman was a lone voice challenging Bush’s integrity, while the media chorus was lauding him as a plain-spoken Texas “straight shooter.”

Today Krugman takes down someone who’s even more beloved by the mainstream media than Bush had been until a few months ago: John McCain. Krugman shows that McCain is a cave-in artist rather than The Man Who Stands Tall, and that he’s far more conservative — and hawkish — than his reputation. He’s not a moderate, and to be fair to McCain, he routinely and accurately describes himself as a “proud Reagan Republican.”

Anyway, I’m glad Krugman has finally gotten around to puncturing the McCain myth. Granted, I beat him to the punch by six years, focusing on McCain’s belligerent, neanderthal approach to foreign policy, which echoed Reagan in its fondness for rightwing dictatorships and insurgent/terrorist groups that slaughtered and tortured with impunity. Perhaps the most amazing thing about my McCain takedown is that the Miami Herald published it. The Herald link for that Feb. 25, 2000 column, “A Foreign-Policy Quiz For McCain,” no longer exists, but this one does.

2006-03-12T22:25:00.000-05:00

How I’ll (again) help Shaq at the stripe

That’s the title of my latest essay on Shaq’s ongoing free-throw woes, posted March 12 at hoopshype.com.

As I’ve told the Miami Heat repeatedly for the past two seasons, Shaq cannot “repetition” his way out of his trouble at the stripe, for his current delivery is the problem rather than the solution. He entered the NBA in 1993 with a fairly conventional grip and stroke that produced a nice arc and ball rotation. But he abandoned or lost the hang of that delivery within a year or so. Eight years later he had some success with a completely different and decidedly unconventional — but compact and pressure-proof — delivery. He lost that, too.

There are a variety of ways he can get back on track, and I propose one such path in the essay. Feel free to pass it along to Shaq or his coach, Pat Riley. As I explain, things worked out pretty well two years ago when Shaq’s coach in L.A. paid heed to my advice and passed it on to Shaq. Alas, that Laker team blew up before I could be of even greater help.

2006-03-08T16:40:00.000-05:00

Amare should skip back-to-backs upon return

Charles Barkley is at his best at getting to the heart of the matter and dispensing tough love to players and teams. He’s at his worst in examining complex questions with several variables. His advice to Amare Stoudemire not to return to action this season from preseason microfracture knee surgery is indicative of Barkley’s inability to make subtle distinctions.

For Barkley, all knees and microfracture surgeries are created equal. But they’re not. His favorite example, Chris Webber, wasn’t ready after 10 months. He, like Penny Hardaway, had a really bad knee. Jason Kidd, on the other hand, had a defect to a part of the knee that doesn’t bear weight. He returned after about 6 months and looked very much like his old self. He played limited minutes for the first month or so, but was soon playing his regular quota. That was last season. This season has been more of the same. He hasn’t missed a game and looks exactly like Jason Kidd.

Like Kidd, Amare’s knee had a minor defect, albeit one that can only be corrected through surgery. The Suns don’t seem to be pushing him to return prematurely, and Amare is the rare player who won’t let himself be pushed and knows just how risky and stupid it is to come back too soon or play too many minutes too soon after surgery.

It looks like he will indeed be ready for NBA action later this month, if his rehab continues on schedule with no setbacks. To reduce the likelihood of a setback after he returns, my advice to the Suns is to not play him on consecutive nights. From March 20 to the end of the season they have only four sets of back-to-backs, and there’s absolutely no reason to find out now if his knee can handle back-to-backs; that can wait till next season. Any unnecessary duress that could lead to swelling and/or pain should be avoided. There are no back-to-backs in the playoffs, when the games really count. The objective is to get his mind, body and game ready for those widely spaced postseason games.

The wise course when he returns to action within the next few weeks is to start him out at about 20 minutes, with the goal of progressing to 32 or so by the end of the regular season, assuming he encounters no physical problems. I expect Amare to be a dynamic contributor this postseason as the Suns win their first NBA crown.

2006-03-01T10:49:00.000-05:00

Baseball continues to discriminate against lefthanders

With another baseball season about to begin, I thought I’d share with you an essay of mine that appeared in the New York Times in 1998, explaining how baseball could modify the rule that effectively bars lefthanders from half of the everyday positions. My solution allows those lefties whose body frame and athletic attributes make them naturals for second base, shortstop, third base or catcher to garner their fair share of jobs at those posts.

Alas, I discovered that the influence of the Times — or at least its sports section — was far less than I had imagined. The anticipated groundswell never materialized. As for the title “Really Radical Realignment,” that’s a play on the term “radical realignment,” which referred to contemporaneous proposals to move various teams to new divisions or from the American or National League.

New York Times
March 29, 1998

Really Radical Realignment
A Lefty Demands That First Base Be Switched With Third

By Dennis Hans

You want “radical realignment”? Put first base down the left field line.

We lefties are 15 percent of the population, and we’re sick and tired of living in your world.

We don’t like driving on your side of the road. We’re not amused when your scissors and can openers don’t work. We don’t appreciate the crippling arthritis we develop writing from left to right — writing your way.

Most of all, we don’t enjoy watching you play second base, shortstop, third base and catcher.

Four positions. Half of the everyday jobs in baseball. Excluded. Locked out. Left out.

The so-called “national pastime” tells us, “Go home, Lefty. Buy an outfielder’s glove and maybe we’ll talk. Got a great arm? Then maybe we’ll hire you to strike out a lefty slugger with the game on the line. (Lord knows our righties can’t.) We don’t care if you’ve got Ozzie-like skills, there’s no room at the in(field).”

Physics is the surface explanation for our plight, discrimination the deep-rooted one. First, the physics.

Only a righty second baseman can turn a double play in one fluid motion. Only a righty shortstop can range deep in the hole, backhand a ground ball, plant and fire to first. Only a righty third baseman can charge down the line, barehand a bunt and sling it to first on the dead run. Lefties, on the other hand, must go through time-consuming 180-degree turns to complete these routine plays. Their throws reach first too late to nab the runner. From behind the plate, a lefty catcher’s throws to second tail away from the advancing base stealer.

Managers should pass us by, because a so-so righty at any of these positions is more effective than a superbly skilled lefty.

Now for the discrimination. Where is it written in stone that baseball can only be played with first base down the right field line and the bases run exclusively in a counterclockwise direction? A cavalier decision 151 years ago by the fallible humans of the Knickerbocker Club should not be confused with a writ from on high. The placement of first base could just have easily been down the left field line, left to the discretion of the home team or, as I shall advocate, left to the discretion of the defensive team.

Two hundred years ago, Americans amended the Constitution to guarantee freedom of assembly. Surely we can amend baseball’s constitution to extend that right to the infield diamond: “freedom to assemble regardless of handedness.”

Ask yourself these questions (I’ll provide the answers):

Q. Would righty infielders have the advantage if first base were down the left field line?
A. No. All the advantages they presently hold would fall to the lefties; we would prevail at 2B, SS, 3B and C.
Q. Would baseball be different in any significant way if the bases were run in a clockwise direction?
A. No. Still three strikes and you’re out, three outs in an inning, a tie goes to the runner, and so on.
Q. Wouldn’t it be simple — and fair — to let the team in the field dictate the direction its opponent runs the bases?
A. Yes.
Q. If this were the case, how would a team decide whether to play Lefty Defense?
A. By putting its players through infielding drills. If the team has an abundance of slick-picking southpaws, it would play Lefty Defense.
The transition period may be bumpy, but within a few years about 15 percent of teams will have converted to Lefty Defense. Those teams will recruit lefty infielders exclusively, just as the other 85 percent of teams will recruit only righty infielders. Of course, the pitching staff and other position players will be a mixture of lefties and righties on both types of teams. A Lefty Defense squad might well have an all-righty outfield and a predominately righty staff. Not a thing wrong with that.
Q. Can we really expect players to make the physical and mental switch to clockwise running when they face Lefty Defense?
A. Please, you’re insulting the intelligence of baseballers. Are football players confused after the quarter break, when they change ends? Do basketball players freak out at the start of the third quarter when they fastbreak toward the very goal they were defending in the second quarter? The football and basketball players change direction during games; baseballers will know before the game starts the direction they’ll run for the entire game. The batter facing Lefty Defense will receive signs from his third base coach down the right field line. He’ll note the first baseman’s glove on the lanky dude standing 100 feet from the plate down the left field line. Switching back and forth will soon be second nature; and kids, of course, will grow up running both ways.

We’re willing to forgive the 150 years of pain and suffering baseball has inflicted on us if baseball is willing to accept and promote Lefty Defense. If baseball drags its feet, we’ll take our struggle to the streets and the courts — protests in the former and multi-billion-dollar class-action suits in the latter. One way or the other, baseball will become an inclusive national pastime. We won’t be left out.

Dennis Hans is a freelance writer and an adjunct professor at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg.

2006-02-22T15:41:00.000-05:00

LA Times’ yellowcake “scoop” comes more than two years after I proved the same thing; also, mice are no match for con men Bush and Blair
In the previous post I noted how the NBA has finally figured out something that I figured out and wrote about years earlier. Well, on a somewhat more serious matter — tricking the American public into supporting an unnecessary war — last Friday (Feb 17) the Los Angeles Times revealed something that I proved in this Oct 2003 essay. To wit, that public, pre-war statements by the U.S. and British governments that Iraq was pursuing uranium from Africa or, more specifically, from Niger, were all based on forged documents or summaries of those forgeries. Other bits of equally worthless “evidence” being passed around by various intel agencies prior to the war simply didn’t support the 2002 claim by the Brits that Iraq was pursuing “significant quantities” of African uranium. And that claim — which the Brits sometimes presented as a claim, sometimes as a fact, and sometimes as an entirely different fact (an early draft of the Brits’ Iraq WMD “dossier” stated that they knew for a fact that uranium ore had not merely been sought, but bought!) — was the basis for Bush’s false statement in the 2003 State of the Union address about what the Brits’ had “learned.”

Incidentally, while much attention was belatedly paid to that now-infamous 16-word sentence, to fully appreciate the deceitful nature of the Bush team, you need to examine the entire paragraph that included those 16 words. I did so in my pre-war writings, and then in greater depth in the summer of 2003, after the yellowcake poop hit the fan, in this essay.

My politics aren’t that different from Tony Blair’s, but it’s hard to like someone so unscrupulous. As with Bush over here, in the run-up to war he repeatedly claimed to know for a fact things about Iraq and WMD he couldn’t possibly KNOW. Even when his intel chief told him that certain juicy info came from new Iraqi informants of unknown reliability — info that contradicted what the Brits were hearing from longer-term informants with a pretty good track record — Blair pretended publicly that the juicy but unconfirmed stuff was rock solid.

The LAT’s Drogin and Hamburger show how the will to believe — or, more likely, the willingness to pretend you believe — made this The Story That Would Not Die. No matter how many times honest intelligence officials in France and elsewhere sought to reassure various U.S. officials that uranium had not been diverted from the Nigerien mines France operated, and that there was no worthwhile evidence even of Iraqi interest in Nigerien uranium, the tale kept being revived. And not just by the bogeymen of so many of my liberal bretheren, Cheney and Rumsfeld. Powell peddled it in a major speech BEFORE Bush’s State of the Union address, and his State Dept put it in a so-called “Fact Sheet” in Dec. 2002.

The reason The Story That Would Not Die lived on is that the various truth-tellers were speaking up only in private. If any number of US and foreign officials who knew early on just how flimsy or even worthless the evidence was had said so publicly — had put their name, face, title and expertise on the line and said what they knew about the uranium tale — Bush, Blair and Powell would have had to sheepishly abandon that very scary propaganda theme. But on this and quite a few other pre-war issues, those in the know would not step forward. I addressed this phenomenon in 2003 in an essay called Of Mice and (Con) Men.

Respected figures from State, such as Richard Haass, and the CIA, such as Paul Pillar, stepped forward at some point after the Iraq war was launched to say that long before the Fall 2002 congressional debate, it had been made clear to them that Bush had already made up his mind to invade. (Haass got that word from Condi Rice around July 2002.) Yet they kept quiet as Bush assured the nation again and again that he had not made up his mind, that war should only be a last resort, and that he was quite willing to give diplomacy and inspections a fair chance. Haass, Pillar and others thus believed that Bush was misrepresenting his state of mind on a question of war and peace. If they had spoken up, if Congress had known Bush had made up his mind and was going to the U.N. for inspections partly as a ruse and partly to give cover to Tony Blair, we would have had an entirely different debate. Congress and the public would have known not simply that Bush was intent on war, but that he had been deceiving us on that critical matter. Could he have gotten a congressional authorization for the use of force under THOSE circumstances? I doubt it. So why are Haass, Pillar and their ilk continued to be thought of as respectable?

2006-02-20T15:39:00.001-05:00

Better late than never: NBA may finally get clear-path rule right
Why, you may ask, do I so often refer to the people who run the NBA as “morons”? A recent bit of good news illustrates the point. If I see a steady stream of similar reports, I just might rescind the label.

The good news is that the NBA's competition committee approved a rule change that will take effect in the 2006-07 season, if approved by the league's Board of Governors. At present, when a player commits a “clear path” foul — that is, intentionally grabs a player who has a clear path to the basket, the “penalty” calls for the fouled player to be awarded one free throw attempt, after which his team retains possession of the ball.

I wrote about this and other rules that reward intentional fouling back in December 2002, first for InsideHoops.com in an article titled “The NBA Needs a New Cliché: ‘Make him earn a defensive stop,’” and later for DallasBasketball.com under a different title. Here’s an excerpt:

Foggy thinking along a "clear path"
NBA bigwigs are so clueless that even when they created a special rule for the express purpose of penalizing one particular act that requires no skill AND deprives fans of a thrill, they devised a "penalty" that constitutes a reward! I speak of the "clear path" foul. When a player in the open court has a clear path to the basket and thus a near-certain two points, and a trailing defender reaches out and grabs him, the defender is "penalized" thusly: The fouled player is awarded a single free throw and his team retains possession of the ball.
As noted above, a sideline possession is worth, on average, one point, and a free-throw attempt .75 points. Thus, on average, the player committing a clear-path foul is SAVING his team .25 points! Announcers should call this preposterous rule by its rightful name: "The Clear-Path Intentional-Grab Reward."
To penalize a player for committing a clear-path foul that prevents two points and a thrill for the fans, award the fouled player and team three points. Make the penalty an actual penalty and refs will never have to invoke this idiotic rule again.
It's all pretty simple. If the league truly wants to penalize the rich variety of intentional fouls described above - none of which require skill or make the game fun to watch and play - it must impose penalties that penalize rather than reward.

Back to 2006, ESPN.com’s Chris Sheridan reports, “The ‘clear path’ rule would be tweaked because statistics showed teams are averaging less than 2 points when clear path fouls are called. ‘The original idea behind the clear path foul was we didn't want them to occur. But now, when they do occur, the offended team is not getting the yield point-wise that they should be,’ NBA vice president Stu Jackson told ESPN.com.”

There you see it: Jackson and the league did indeed have good intentions. They, like me, wanted to put an end to clear-path fouls. But Jackson and the rest of the NBA “braintrust” were so darn stupid that they couldn’t figure out that a penalty is only a penalty if it penalizes. If they had applied the basic principles of third-grade arithmetic back when they first created the clear-path rule, they could have gotten it right. Well, better late than never. They’ve finally passed third grade.

Now Jackson needs to apply the same logic to all intentional fouls. He should also send me a big check for my valiant efforts long ago to point him and his fellow NBA bigwigs in the right direction.

2006-02-20T13:49:00.000-05:00

Free-Throw Observations on Shaq, Tim, LeBron
• Shaq had three entirely different free-throw strokes on display Sunday, from three periods of his career. Early in the day, ESPN Classic aired four vintage All-Star games. The 1993 contest featured Shaq as a rookie displaying a normal-looking delivery that produced an accurate shot with a nice arc and perfect backspin. His arm motion was a bit constricted, but he had a smooth, rhythmic leg action and delivery. Nothing herky-jerky or freaky looking. That could have been the foundation for a 70-75 percent stroke. He shot 59 percent that year, which ranks as his second best mark. In the following seasons his form went through a variety of changes, his percentage dropped steadily, and he hit rock bottom in the 2000 Finals. The 2003 contest featured Shaq with a freaky but compact and effective delivery molded by Shaq’s then-shooting coach, Ed Palubinskas. This featured a one-handed release with a bizarre grip, as the ball was perched on the tips of Shaq’s finger tips. Shaq shot a career high 62 percent that season. The 2006 game featured Shaq’s current release, which is his own creation (perhaps with input from Heat assistant Bob McAdoo), and has been in use the past two seasons. His official percentage was 46 last year and is 49 this year, but the actual numbers are probably around 40, as Shaq is the beneficiary of countless do-overs because of lane violations. Compared to 2003, Shaq’s release point has migrated about two feet in a southeasterly direction. A unique feature of his current stroke is that the ball slides in his shooting hand as his knees bend a split second before he releases the ball. As any fool could imagine, this introduces an additional element that can go wrong and which increases the degree of difficulty (as do other features of his stroke). For more on Shaq's fixable flaws, see this piece I penned last April.

There are many ways to be a decent FT shooter. Shaq doesn’t necessarily have to go back to the method taught to him by Ed P (with whom Shaq and/or Lakers management seems to have had a falling out by early 2004), with or without the fingertip-perch grip. That’s just one of the options to choose from. He can go back to a refined version of his rookie form. He can make technical adjustments to his present form (which in some respects resembles a bad imitation of Elton Brand’s unorthodox but highly effective delivery). Or Shaq can try one of several other methods. I’d be happy to help him select an option and help him master it. What I strongly advise against is sticking with an unfixed version of his current stroke. Yes, some days the ball comes out of his hand pretty good, and he has had a couple decent stretches in 2006. But it’s hard to be consistent when the ball is sliding in your shooting hand.

I also urge the morons who run the NBA to come up with a practical solution to lane violations. In back-to-back games vs. Orlando last week, Shaq got 4 do-overs and cashed 2. Counting the misses that were wiped off the books, Shaq was 8 for 23. The Heat outscore opponents by 3.8 points per game; I wouldn’t be surprised if his do-overs contribute the .8. The league’s silly obsession with strictly enforcing this rule has, for two years now, been a bonanza for the Heat. It’s the type of call that a ref would make if he was really keen on getting a good grade from his supervisor, because you always get the call right, and that boosts your percentage.

Here’s one possible fix: For Shaq and other shooters with a delayed release, rebounders can’t enter the lane until the ball hits the rim. The ref would remind rebounders of the new rule every time a delayed-release shooter goes to the line.

• Lebron James has technical flaws that he has to iron out if he’s ever to be better than a mediocre free-throw shooter. His basic form works fine when he’s firing treys or 20-foot fadeaways, because these shots require him to strongly accelerate and follow through. But those factors don’t come into play when you’re a powerful dude shooting a 15-foot set shot. From the stripe, his long stroke, minimal acceleration bordering on deceleration, poor follow-through posture and an awkward elbow position (the latter is either part of the problem or a benign idiosyncracy) combine to make this a more difficult shot for him than it needs to be, particularly in the clutch. He’s shooting a decent 74 percent for the season, but that’s what it has fallen to after a strong start.

• Tim Duncan looks better. I don’t know if he’s finally working with Chip Engelland, who the Spurs hired to help Tony Parker with his shooting form from mid-range and at the stripe (which has proved to be a very wise investment), or if Chip is sharing with Tim some of the advice I sent Chip in a recent letter or my analysis laid out in an Inside Hoops column last summer. In the letter I pointed out that Tim is “rhythmically clueless” — at least at the stripe. That is, he has no idea how to infuse rhythm into a routine that is devoid of it. If you have a tendency to leave the shot way short, as Tim does, having a routine where you hold the ball for five seconds while staring at the rim is likely to exascerbate the problem. The more you bear down, the more likely you are to introduce tension into some element of the stroke — tension that makes it more likely you’ll come up short again. Well, it appears that Tim is now making an effort to “get on with it.” He twiddles the ball a couple seconds and then goes into his shot. No five-second stare-down. I don’t want to get carried away based on three attempts in the All-Star game, but it looks like he’s taken a step in the right direction.

2006-02-16T15:06:00.000-05:00

NBA’s 60 Greatest

This weekend, as the NBA holds its All-Star game and celebrates its 60th anniversary, TNT will mark the occasion by adding to the league's roster of all-time greats. The NBA produced its list of the 50 greatest in 1996, when the league turned 50. TNT's "experts" — Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, the flopper twins Doug and Reggie, and a few others will put their heads together and come up with 10 current and former players who deserve to be added to the 50 greatest.
I've beat TNT to the punch with my list, just posted at HoopsHype. Mo Cheeks, DJ, Gus Johnson, Adrian Dantley and Artis Gilmore may be shafted by the strange, inscrutable Basketball Hall of Fame, but they all get credit from the expert who, in a just world, would matter most: me. I only wish I had room for such stylish and distinctive scorers as Alex English, Bernard King and Bob McAdoo, who are among the many near misses and honorable mentions I cite in the piece. It was particularly hard to choose among Dantley, English and King, three small-forward scoring machines. I probably should have put King at least a group higher in my hierarchy of near misses. In his prime, he was phenomenal and unstoppable with his quick-release J, as one emailer has already reminded me.

2006-02-08T16:44:00.000-05:00

Why Ben Wallace could leave Pistons
If free agent Ben Wallace signs with another team this summer, his recent stretch of 9 games through Feb. 7 might be the reason. He’s averaged about 38 minutes a night, but only four field goal attempts (FGA). It seems his only shots come off of offensive rebounds and alley-oops. Departed coach Larry Brown, for all his faults, took a real interest in helping Ben become a complete player. Under Brown’s predecessor, Rick Carlisle, Ben averaged a paltrey 6 FGA; he averaged 9 in each of his two seasons under Brown. (Click here for Ben’s year-by-year stats.)

Brown gave him touches, encouraged him to shoot when open and within his range, and gave him opportunities in the low post, particularly early in games. Ben was reasonably effective, but more importantly, he was getting better. Brown viewed him as a work in progress and thus didn’t have a cow if he shot an airball from 15 or lost the handle on a drive. What was important is that he was DRIVING. He was using his quickness and some new moves to get around his defender, and while he still had lots of work to do in finishing those drives successfully, he was on the right track. Ben was part of the offense in a variety of ways, and though he wasn't a consistent shooter, occasional hot streaks from mid-range helped the Pistons win some crucial playoff games.

It’s hard to fault Flip Saunders for anything, particularly at the offensive end. The Pistons have improved dramatically in scoring, FG percentage and trey percentage. They’re also more watchable than under Brown. They run more, and in the halfcourt the offense is more free-flowing and guys are free to take good shots that materialize early in the possession. Ben remains somewhat in the mix as a picker, cutter and occasional passer, but his FGAs are back where they were in the (depressing for Ben) Carlisle years, when the Pistons played mostly 4 against 5 on offense.

Ben is one of the smartest guys in the league, and by now he’s surely figured out that he has little chance to, as the Army Reserves commercial says, “Be all that you can be” under Flip. Will Ben be content with a max contract and a minimal offensive role? Or will he listen to offers from teams that will give him a chance to reach his full potential?

The reason I said “little” rather than “no” chance of fulfilling his potential under Flip is that there’s still a chance. Flip certainly appreciates Ben’s myriad contributions to the Pistons’ cause, and he’d be delighted if Ben could average 13-14 points and 10 FGA — if it’s within the flow of Flip’s tried-and-true offensive schemes and philosophy. The problem, which I’ll develop in a future post or essay, is that Ben is uniquely ill-suited to score in the flow. He shoots adequately from certain spots on the floor under certain ideal conditions. But making instant shooting decisions or instinctive catch-and-shoot or catch-dribble-and-shoot plays are not, at present, part of his game. As far as offense goes, I regard Ben as one of the worst-coached players in NBA history. It seems no one has worked with him on the types of drills that would help him develop an IN-THE-FLOW mid-range game of catch-and-shoot, stop-and-pop, dribble-and-shoot, fake-and-drive and other moves and shots that would take advantage of his quickness, explosion and judgment. Instead, he practices with a worthless oversized ball, as if his problem was a weak shooting wrist (and why practice with a ball that's considerably different from the one used in games?), and shoots countless repetitions from the same spot. (At least that's what I saw when dim-witted Bill Walton hailed Ben's pre-game drills as footage of same rolled on ESPN one night last season.) That is how NOT to develop touch, feel and instincts. That’s how you guarantee that you don’t.

2006-02-08T16:20:00.000-05:00

Democrat Feingold combines strong spine with sharp mind
Here is one reason why I hope the Democrats nominate Russ Feingold for president in 2008. It’s his statement on Bush’s wiretapping program and the shoddy and shifty explanations Bush and Attorney General Gonzales have made to justify keeping Congress in the dark and out of the loop. No one in Congress has a problem with using electronic means to discover and track Al Qaeda communications, but our system of checks and balances becomes a joke if the executive branch provides the judiciary and legislature incomplete and occasionally false info.
Feingold, unlike too many of his sad-sack colleagues, makes clear that it simply isn’t acceptable for the president and his pet AG to wilfully mislead the Congress and public.

2006-02-01T20:43:00.000-05:00

Welcome. I'll be writing a lot about NBA basketball, including how to make the game less brutal and fake, and more free-flowing, fast-paced and aesthically pleasing. I'm an expert on free-throw rhythm and technique, and on the nearly infinite variety of shooting styles that can succeed at the stripe and from the floor, so I'll be writing about that as well. I can be of great help to Shaq, Ben and Gerald Wallace, Dwight Howard, Reggie Evans and quite a few others, so if any of these guys (or their coaches or GMs) are friends of yours, have him or them give me a cyber-shout at hans_d@popmail.firn.edu.
I'll also be writing about politics, foreign policy, the news media, my troubled political party (the Democrats, who could use more Feingolds and Stephanie Tubbs-Joneses and fewer Bayhs and Clintons), and alcohol and illicit-drugs policy.
Feel free to nominate me for a MacArthur "genius" award, if you are one of the select few who are permitted to nominate. I'm also available for short-term academic gigs, under the right circumstances.
Here are some gems from my archives:

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)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0303/S00011.htm
http://www.takebackthemedia.com/com-hans-03-0304.html

Drugs and Terror and Teens and Death and Booze: Contradictions Dominate Super Bowl’s Commercial Breaks (2-9-02)
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0209-04.htm

Lying Us Into War: Exposing Bush and His “Techniques of Deceit” (Feb 10, 2003)
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=3024

How to drink “white”: Deconstructing the “Whassup” ads
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=9349

Recent Dossier-Related Revelations Blow Up in Faces of Blair and Bush (Oct. 20, 2003)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/print.html?path=HL0310/S00168.htm

How to Widen the U.S. Role in Colombia While Narrowing the Debate
http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia104.htm

I’m Calling You Out: Marching Orders for Journalists, Officials and Celebrities Who Believe in “Informed Consent of the Governed” (Feb 19, 2003)
http://www.takebackthemedia.com/com-hans-2-20.html

An Open Letter to the U.N. About Colin Powell (Feb 4, 2003 — pre-U.N. presentation)
http://hnn.us/comments/7993.html

With “Liberals” Like These, Who Needs Conservatives: How Powell wowed Mary McGrory and Richard Cohen, the crème of the Washington Post’s credulous crop (Feb 23, 2003)
http://www.takebackthemedia.com/com-hans-2-23.html

It’s a White, White, White, White Media World (Jan 30, 2003)
http://alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15068

Grifter-in-Chief Bush Aided by Media’s Wusses of Mass Credulity (Oct 19, 2002)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/10/19_grifter.html

How to Deter Bush’s Fibbing and Hoopsters’ Flopping (March 14, 2003)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0303/S00099.htm

Shaq’s free-throw odyssey (May 10, 2004)
http://www.insidehoops.com/shaq-free-throws-051004.shtml

Compute to Achieve (March 15, 2004)
http://Hoopshype.com/columns/compute_hans.htm

Increase Scoring by Restoring Freedom of Movement (Dec. 9, 2003)
http://Hoopshype.com/columns/scoring_hans.htm

Block/charge interpretation is ruining the NBA (April 21, 2003)
http://www.hoopshype.com/columns/charge_hans.htm

The NBA Needs a New Cliché: “Make him earn a defensive stop.” (Dec. 24, 2002)
(also known as) The Hard Foul is at Fault (Jan. 14, 2003)
http://www.dallasbasketball.com/morestories.asp?id=2428&NAV=9

Ben Wallace for MVP (April 25, 2005)
http://Hoopshype.com/columns/wallace_hans.htm

Phoenix following formula of champion ’71 Bucks (Jan. 6, 2005)
http://Hoopshype.com/columns/suns_hans.htm

Yao floundering under Van Gundy (Nov. 10, 2004)
http://Hoopshype.com/columns/yao_hans.htm

ciao for now.