dunkside

Here’s a quick recap on how, since taking over the Suns, Robert Sarver managed, through a mix of dumb and cheap decisions, to ruin the beautiful team put together by the Colangelo’s:

1. Draft picks were sold with complete disregard for the franchise’s future. The worst such decision was selling the #7 pick in 2004, which could have brought the Suns one of Josh Smith, Andre Iguodala or Luol Deng (who could have easily replaced Marion when he decided that he wanted out)  or a PF/C like Andris Biedrins or Al Jefferson to help Amare in the paint. Either of Josh Smith or Iguodala could have filled the role of athletic defensive wing player very well, while Biedrins, a tall defensive C who can rebound, would have been a great match next to Amare’s offensive prowess.

2. Joe Johnson was lowballed and chose to walk even when the Suns matched Atlanta’s offer. He must have felt disrespected to a terrible degree to leave a contender and give up the opportunity to play with one of the most unselfish players in the league. Some people still feel that had the Suns had JJ at 100% in 2005 they could have went all the way.

3. Colangelo was let go and replaced with Steve Kerr. Chaos ensued. Literally.

4. Suns traded Marion for Shaq, the complete opposite type of player to what D’Antoni’s system required. Needless to say that it did not work out well. The Suns were booted by the Spurs from the playoffs (again) and they dropped from elite team to good team despite Shaq playing better and was more motivated than he ever was during the last 4 seasons.

5. D’Antoni was replaced with Porter in an attempt to change the style of the team.

6. By running their offense through Shaq instead of Amare they alienated their youngest star (and only chance to stay relevant after 2010) in order to appease a guy who ruined their style and will be gone in 2010 anyway.

7. In their attempt to become a more defensively oriented team, the Suns traded their only defensive stopper, Bell, together with Diaw for another scorer (J-Rich).

8. Finally realizing that Porter only made them a bad offensive team while failing to improve their defense, they fired him only half a season into his contract and turned the team over to Alvin Gentry who reinstated the run&gun style. But it was a case of too little too late.

The Suns will be soon eliminated from the playoffs and with an owner like Sarver it wouldn’t surprise me to see them follow in the steps of the Clippers.

Cheap owners, General managers Phoenix Suns, Robert Sar

So the Thunder beat the Grizzlies with Thabo replacing Durant (out with an ankle sprain) in the starting line-up. Big deal, right ?  Every dog has his day. And the Grizzlies suck anyway. Well, now the Thunder won their second in a row with Thabo in the starting line-up, this time missing not just their best player but also their 2nd best player (or 3rd, depends on how you rank Green and Westbrook). Thabo’s stats weren’t impressive, but were  good (15 points on 6-11 FG, 7 reb, 2 ast, 1 blk, 1 TO). What’s more important is that the win came on the court of a team that already has more than twice as many wins and is fighting for the playoffs – Dallas is now 8th with Phoenix right behind them. They should be pretty motivated at this point of the season, which makes the Thunder’s win even more impressive.

Of course this doesn’t mean Thabo is a star, but what it shows is that he’s a quality player that can be a serviceable back-up and can even produce as a starter if needed . Yet somehow there wasn’t enough room for him on the roster of the Bulls. Did I mention that he’s paid like 10 times less than Hinrich and he can play multiple positions ? Well, he is and he does.

General managers, Player analysis John Paxson, Oklahoma City Thunder, Thabo Sefolosha

At the trade deadline Paxson solved the logjam in the backcourt created by the arrival of Salmons by trading away Thabo Sefolosha instead of getting rid of his beloved Hinrich. I complained about it at the time.

Sam Presti seemed to see what Paxson could not, so the Thunder got Sefolosha and he started getting minutes. So far the results are not bad. 2 games ago Thabo had 12 points on 5-9 FG and 8 rebounds in a close loss at Dallas, and in his last game he got the starting job replacing the injured Durant. The result: 15 points on 5-13 FG to go with 11 reb, 3 ast, 2 stl, 1 blk and 3 TO, and a W at Memphis.

One wonders how many Bulls players will end up flourishing on other teams just as soon as they get traded. First was Chandler, but there was the excuse that he’s playing with Chris Paul, and on the Bulls he’d have no one to get him the ball like that. Then Duhon explodes in New York. He’s averaging 12.2 ppg and almost 8 ast while shooting over 40% from the 3p line while in Chicago opposing players dared him to shoot the 3. But he plays for D’Antoni, who’s system is known for inflating everyone’s stats (although I doubt his system teaches you how to shoot 3s). And now it looks like Thabo Sefolosha is on the same path.

Meanwhile the Bulls have “enjoyed” a “magnificent” display of basketball from Hinrich, who’s been averaging 7.6 points on 42.5% FG, 1.3 rebounds and 3.6 ast over the last 6 games. And he’s been doing it while being paid just a little over 8 million more than Thabo is. A real bargain I’d say. But then, you can’t really put a price on love, can you ? And John MacBeth Paxson loves him some Kirk.

General managers, Player analysis John Paxson, Thabo Sefolosha

In a bad contract trading frenzy, Memphis traded no 5 pick Kevin Love and Mike Miller plus some filler to Minnesota for no 3 pick OJ Mayo. Out of the 6 contracts traded, 4 were of the bad type. I really don’t remember any trade involving as many bad contracts, but considering who was doing the trading, this isn’t really a surprise.

As for the trade itself, it’s hard to pick a winner between Kevin McHale and Chris Wallace. The Wolves did one good thing: they got Mike Miller. But I can’t agree with John Hollinger on this one (he thinks the Wolves won the trade). I don’t think it was worth sending Mayo for Love, especially since by the trade deadline they’ll be trading Miller to a contender for an expiring and a late 1st round or 2nd round pick. Well, unless someone offers McHale a trully horible contract or 2 that he can’t resist in exchange for Mike Miller. Perhaps something like Jerome James and Jared Jeffries.

I may be biased against undersized not-so-athletic white PF, but historically, who’s the last 6′10 white PF who was worth a high draft pick ? Actually Love ain’t even 6′10. He’s 6′7.75″ without shoes and barely 6′9.5″ with some big ass shoes. So let me rephrase that. Who’s the last 6′8 white PF who was worth a high draft pick ? All the white PF/C who are any good are at least 6′11: Bogut, Biedrins, Bargnani (assuming he stops sucking soon), Kaman. The closest thing I can think of is Nick Collison, but he has a full inch over Love, better wingspan and better standing reach. Considering Collison in his best season so far produced 9.8 ppg and 9.4 reb, I don’t think that’s worth a no 5 pick.

There’s one other thing that makes me no tlike this trade for the Wolves. Here’s a quote from Hollinger himself:

Obviously the Jefferson-Love combo raises some concerns at the defensive end, since neither is especially tall or moves well laterally, but offensively they could be devastating.

This sounds familiar. Now where did I hear these same words ? Oh, right, here:

Additionally, Randolph is a slowfooted, lethargic defender. Pairing him with Curry — another slowfooted, lethargic defender — raises some obvious red flags, particularly since the Knicks defended poorly a year ago. Combining the two would create what is almost certainly the worst defensive frontcourt in basketball.

The trade may not be completed for a few days, but despite my reservations about Randolph’s defense, demeanor and salary, it has to be considered a huge coup for New York.

We all know how that “coup” turned out. Everybody was raving about how 2 low post scorers are better than one, but they’d have been better off searching the word “redundant” in the dictionary.

There is a saying about how if you don’t learn from past mistakes you’re doomed to repeat them, and looks like Kevin McHale didn’t learn shit from any of his past mistakes. And there were lots of them. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he offered Kwame Brown the MLE this summer.

General managers, Trades Chris Wallace, Kevin Love, Kevin McHale, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves

Derrick Rose better be praying the Bulls listen to John Hollinger and DON’T pick him in the draft. Cause if they do, Paxson is getting ready to ruin his career Thabo Sefolosha and Tyrus Thomas style. Despite refusing to acknowledge that Rose is about to be the Bulls’ pick, Paxson already preaches patience with Rose (or Beasley).

“Deron didn’t jump into this overnight. His first year, he didn’t start most of the season. Utah had a little bit longer-range view on him. Whether it’s us or Miami, I think the same thing applies for Derrick.”

Yes, you read that right. Paxson is about to bench a 1st overall pick. Let me just say this again: Paxson is about to bench a 1st overall pick. We’re not talking about a weak draft here. This is a good draft with a few players with star potential. Has that ever happened in the history of the league ?

Has anyone before taken incompetence this far ? I mean other than Isiah Thomas, whose picture is now featured next to “incompetence” in the Encyclopædia Britannica. Paxson is so damn afraid of making a mistake or taking a risk that he’s hurting the team more than if he was to take a calculated risk. He’s so damn cautitous that I suspect he’s wiping his ass before taking a shit. I don’t think I need to mention again how when getting enough play time Tyrus and Thabo put up really nice numbers. And the high picks that did not get play time usually didn’t develop that fast, if at all. Yet, despite all historic evidence to the contrary, he’s about to commit perhaps the biggest mistake so far.

And how does he explain his plan of “we’re not going to play the rookies/young players lots of minutes until they turn 35″ ? He preaches patience. PATIENCE ?? You fucking moron, patience is what YOU should show by insisting your 1st overall pick plays at least 30 minutes per game while allowing him to learn from his mistakes. THAT is patience.

Yet instead of him showing patience with a rookie, he’s asking for patience from the fans. But he might soon find out that the fans patience has run out. Not with the players, but with his ineptitude.

At first it looked as if Skiles was the one who didn’t want to play the rookies. Than, strangely, same thing happened with Boylan, despite Paxson’s public comments about young players getting more playing time in order to develop. If the same thing happens with Vinny Del Negro, there can only be one culprit. I wonder if his contract includes bonuses depending of the number of wins in a season or making the playoffs. If it does, then the Bulls are fucked, cause they have a young team which needs to be developed but the front office guy’s interest would be to sacrifice development for a few extra meaningless (for the team in the long term) wins.

General managers Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, John Paxson

Otis Smith, also known as the guy who gave Rashard fucking Lewis 20 million per season, was offered an extension by the Orlando Magic. According to ESPN:

It was a reward for building a team that won the franchise’s first division title in 12 years, and advanced in the playoffs for the first time since that last title.

I may be alone on this, but to me mortgaging the franchise’s future for a division title should’t be rewarded with an extension. The Magic have wasted their huge salary cap last summer yet they still miss a true power forward, a true point guard and a good shooting guard. That’s 3 positions out of 5. Worst of all, the guy they spent all that money on isn’t even the 2nd best player on the team, being outplayed by Hedo Turkoglu, who’s paid about 1/3 of the money Rashard makes.

Even worse, Otis Smith’s sole good decision during the summer, the hiring of Stan Van Gundy, was forced by Billy Donovan refusing the job, as Stan was not Otis’ first choice.

So be sure that in a few years when the Magic are way over the cap and stuck in mediocrity and when Dwight Howard will ask for a trade, I will be the first one to say “I told you so”.

General managers Orlando Magic, Otis Smith

Dumars finally found out what the rest of the league already knew. Namely that Flip Saunders is not a good postseason coach. His teams are usually great during the regular season but they choke in the playoffs.

Betting against history is NEVER a good thing, and that’s exactly what Dumars did. History won again as Saunders took a team that went to the finals on consecutive times – winning once – and was unable to get them past the Eastern Conference Finals. This despite having the best overall winning percentage in 2006, the best winning percentage in the East (4th overall) in 2007, and 2nd overall in 2008.

Who will the Pistons name as their next head-coach ? If they’re smart, they will pick Terry Porter despite already granting the Suns 2 interviews with him. Or they could chose from a number of young assistant coaches.

Meanwhile there already are people painting Saunders as a candidate for the Suns job. If the Suns are smart and they paid any attention in history class, they will stay clear of him. The past 24 NBA titles are shared between KC Jones, Pat Riley, Chuck Daly, Phil Jackson, Rudy Tomjanovic, Gregg Popovich and Larry Brown. That’s 7 coaches that won the title in the past 24 years. In the past 17 years, with Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich dominating, there were only 3 other coaches that got a title: Larry Brown (who might be considered some sort of a fluke as the Pistons met a completely dysfunctional Lakers team), Rudy T and Riley.

In other words, coaches that have been recycled over and over and over again don’t win titles. Most coaches that won a title did so in their first 4-5 years on the job, so if your goal is winning a title, you have better chances if you try with a new young coach than with someone like Flip Saunders. Or Doug Collins for that matter.

Coaches, General managers Doug Collins, Flip Saunders

Lost on Garnett

Lost on Gasol

Lost on Kobe

Lost on D’Antoni

Making it worse, the last 2 named the Bulls as their prefered destination.

Nuff said.

General managers Chicago Bulls, John Paxson

Yesterday John Paxson denied the rumor* that Larry Brown was a candidate to become the Bulls’ next head coach. Said Paxson: “I have not begun the process (of evaluating coaching options for next season)“.

John Paxson doing what he does best: standing

So what the fuck ARE you doing then ?? You’re not evaluating coaching options, you sure as hell ain’t discussing trades (cause if you were, the Bulls might have had Kobe AND Gasol). The only thing you’re doing is denying that you’re doing anything. That’s gotta take like what ? 5 minutes per day ? What the hell are you doing to improve the Bulls the rest of the time ? Sitting on uncle Jerry’s lap** and counting his money ? Or did he hire you just part time so he can save some more cash ? At least that would help explain your activity (or lack thereof).

How else can you explain overpaying for Ben Wallace and trading Chandler for PJ Brown and JR Smith and then letting PJ expire without using his contract to trade for a star player ? Not to mention banishing JR Smith for two 2nd round draft picks. Incidentally, JR Smith (who may be certifiably insane), just dropped 8 tree-pointers in a game. Are you trying to tell me he’s not better than Chris “can’t make an open shot to save his own life” Duhon ? Especially on a team starving for offense.

* the rumor was published by the Philadelphia Inquirer, so you know it was Larry Brown (who’s currently a part of the 76ers organization) that planted it in order to test the ground and see if he has a chance to land the Bulls job. He’d love to clear his name (by taking a team and drastically improving it) and stick it to the Knicks. So the Bulls are perfect for his goals: they are clearly underachieving this season, so improving them would be easy for him, and they play the Knicks 4 times a year.

** for those of you who don’t know who I’m talking about, that’s Jerry Reinsdorf, who may be even greedier than Donald Sterling of the Clippers (and that’s saying something)

General managers Chicago Bulls, John Paxson, Larry Brown

Since I wrote the post on Antawn Jamison I’ve been thinking about this “contract year” phenomenon. Seems like most of the players in the NBA suddenly find themselves extra motivated when they are in a contract year. I guess it’s easy to stop caring and play disinterested when your money is guaranteed. But sometimes the difference is eye-popping. And it’s not an isolated thing. There are many players who got paid a shitload of money after just one good season. Sometimes after one good half a season or even less (Jerome James comes to mind). And right after they got their money, they reverted to their donkey balls sucking ways.

Here are some examples:

• Erick Dampier
• Michael Olowokandi
• Bobby Simmons
• Larry Hughes
• Tim Thomas
• Rashard Lewis

But how can GMs fall for this time after time after time ? Are they really that stupid ? Well, it seems they are. So they need a tool to tell them a certain player is playing this well only because he’s got his sights set on a new fat contract. So who’s best at creating tools that analyze statistical information ? Well, none other then John Hollinger. He’s got the PER, formulas to predict the evolution in the NBA of college players and foreign players (they require ESPN Insider), the playoff odds and is pretty much the stats guru amongst the well known NBA analysts.

I think John Hollinger would be the best to figure out a formula to red-flag players who are “coincidentally” playing the best ball of their career in their contract years. Such a task may seem easy at first, after all guys like Dampier or Olowokandi are so easy to spot only someone like Kevin McHale would think they gonna keep playing like that or even improve on that. But then there are guys like Caron Butler who just had his best season in his young career in the 2004-2005 season. He then signed a 5 year, 46 million contract and he kept improving his game and this season he’s basically playing at superstar level while leading Washington to an unexpected 4th place in the Eastern conference.

How to differentiate between players who are only playing better because they look for more money in the summer and players who are going to keep working hard and improve on that after getting their new contract ? Well, here are a few things that should be taken into account when deciding if the improvement is legit or not:

• the improvement must be of at least 10-20%: the increase in production usually comes in points per game and rebounds. For example Rashard Lewis’ rebounding last season went up to 6.6 per game despite the fact that it went from 6.5 in 2003-04 to 5.5 in 2004-05 to 5.0 in 2005-06. That’s a 32% increase. He also had an increase of 11.44% in scoring from 20.1 to 22.4. It helps spot a contract year if the player is setting career bests, especially the 2 categories mentioned above. A prime example of this is Erick Dampier, whose rebounding almost doubled (from 6.6 to 12) and whose scoring increased by about 50% (from 8.2 to 12.3). He also had a career best (at the time) in FG%.
• there is spike in rebounding: unlike scoring which requires talent and plays getting called for you, rebounding takes first and foremost the will to go get the ball. You have to want that rebound more then anyone else on the court. So a player who is suddenly getting more rebounds in his contract year must have some extra motivation to go for all those rebounds. Unfortunately that motivation will evaporate before the ink dries on his new contract.
• there is a spike in FTA: a spike in FTA shows the player was more aggressive then usual. Just like with rebounding, once his motivation is gone, so will his aggressiveness. Here are a bunch of players who scored big contracts after a good contract year and their FTA for their contract year (in bold), a few years before that and the year after: Larry Hughes (3.6, 2.8, 5.5, 7.4, 5.4), Bobby Simmons (1.0, 3.0, 3.6, 2.7), Rashard Lewis (4.5, 3.4, 4.0, 5.5, 5.3, 3.4) – in this case Rashard may have tried to get an extension in the previous year which would explain the 5.5; as soon as he got his contract though he’s back to 3.4, Erick Dampier (2.9, 2.9, 2.7, 4.5, 3.9)

• player must be over 26 or have at least 6 years of experience: it’s expected from young players to improve on their stats, so if a young player does NOT improve his stats even in a contract year, or if the improvement is hardly noticeable, it probably means he reached his ceiling and the GM should not count on much improvement of the player’s per minute stats in the future

• numbers must be adjusted on a per minute base and take into account the pace at which the team is playing: scoring 15 points per game for Phoenix, Denver or Golden State is nowhere near the same as scoring 15 per game for Detroit or San Antonio

• the improvement must come against a trend set over the last few years: in the example above, Lewis’ rebounding was going south before his contract year. Naturally, after signing his huge contract in the summer of 2007, he’s currently averaging 5.1 rebounds per game. Sometimes players have a couple of good years, the contract year and the one before. Most likely explained by them trying to get a reach extension, and when they don’t get it they play even harder the next year for a new contract. For example Larry Hughes had a good year in 2003-04 with the Wizards. His scoring went up from 12.8 to 18.8, his rebounding went from 4.6 to 5.3. But the next season, in his contract year, he played even better recording 22.1 points, 6.3 rebounds, raising his assists from 2.4 to 4.7 and his steals from 1.6 to 2.9. As a result, he’s not able to steal the Cavaliers’ money. About 12 million per season. This requirement should filter out players like Caron Butler whose improvement continued a trend, a trend that kept going even after he signed his new contract.

• the improvement can not be (fully) explained by increased playing time, faster pace of the team, playing in a new system and/or for a new coach: Bobby Simmons received about 50% more playing time during his contract year and he upped his scoring from 7.8 to 16.4. That’s a 110% improvement and it can’t really be explained just by the increase in playtime. From 12.73 points per 40 minutes he went to 17.59. After signing his contract, he went back to 15.86 points per 40 minutes.
• the improvement can not be explained by increased role on the team (for example as a result of an injury to a star player): in case of Antawn Jamison his extra 1.5 points per game can be explained by his bigger role in the offense with Arenas out. But that doesn’t explain his career best 10.4 rebounds per game which represent a 30% increase over the 8 rebounds per game he got the previous season.

Now that the foundation is settled, is up to Mr Hollinger to come up with a formula that will let everyone know if a player will keep up his level of play or not after signing a contract. And, of course, it will be up to the GMs of the league to use that information for the benefit of their teams. But they won’t be able to say they were not warned or that they did not see that coming.

General managers Bobby Simmons, contract year, Erick Dampier, Hollinger, Larry Hughes, Olowokandi, Rashard Lewis