khandor’s sports blog

According to certain basketball-related web sites and so-called “stats gurus” who operate them, the work of Flip Saunders has not been the main source of the different problems experienced by the Washington Wizards during his tenure with the team:

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Flip Gets the Blame … Again

The Wizards are really, really bad this year. Because of the team’s lack of success, it made a desperation move and fired its coach, Flip Saunders. But Saunders wasn’t the problem. The problem is that the team is riddled with bad players. And the team’s management has failed to remedy this problem by holding on to the bad players. Thus, Washington will continue to be bad in the absence of Saunders unless its management starts making good decisions. Unfortunately firing Flip doesn’t signal that the management understands this. Flip has been fired several times thanks to unrealistic expectations. While good moves can make a franchise good, unrealistic expectations seem to lead to bad franchises and fired coaches.

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This is simple hogwash.

A more accurate interpretation of what has actually happened to the different teams coached by Flip Saunders, to this point in his career as a coach in the NBA, runs along the following lines:

i. Saunders’ Minnesota Timberwolves did not go further in the Western Conference Playoffs than the collective talent level of the players on their roster allowed;

ii. Saunders’ Detroit Pistons did not go further in the Eastern Conference Playoffs than the collective talent level of the players on their roster allowed; and,

iii. Saunders’ Washington Wizards have not finished higher in the Eastern Conference than the collective talent of the players on their roster has allowed;

primarily because he was, and is, not an authentic elite level basketball coach … with the ability to extract MORE wins from his team than just their collective talent level will produce, relative to their peers … in spite of being a very knowledgeable basketball coach, in terms of X’s and O’s.

Although the overall talent level of the players on the Wizards’ roster this year is not where it needs to be in order to compete effectively for a Top 4 position in the Eastern Conference,

Initial Assessment of Team Rosters in the NBA’s Eastern Conference

there is actually more than enough NBA-level talent on their roster at-present to allow this team to compete effectively for a lower tier playoff position … if it is coached by an authentic elite level practicioner, e.g. Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich, Doc Rivers, Rick Carlisle, Stan Van Gundy, Nate McMillan, George Karl, Jeff Van Gundy, etc., who has the vision, acumen and ability to inculcate discipline to the individual players on his roster within the framework of the team.

Unfortunately for Wizards’ fans moving forward – at least, in the short term future – it is also the case that the team’s new interim head coach, Randy Wittman, does not fit properly into this important category [i.e. an authentic elite level basketball coach], as well … and Ernie Grunfeld [GM] will most likely need to be held accountable for repeatedly making poor managerial decisions like this one.

If the Raptors actual intent this season is to try to win as many games as possible, then, Dwane Casey needs to make an adjustment in his current starting line-up.

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Casey considers changes

Following Sunday’s loss in Los Angeles, a game that was once again dominated and all but determined by a listless first-quarter Raptors performance, Casey is no longer content to stay with the status quo. At the very least he’s seriously considering changing a few pieces.

It’s not so much the mounting losses, although that’s clearly part of it, but how the losses are coming.

For the first time this year on Sunday, Casey called out one of his players for a lack of effort, clearly identifying Amir Johnson in the process.

Casey went to great lengths on Sunday to emphasize that he wasn’t placing blame on any one player. In fairness the questions Sunday left him little choice but to address the fact that Johnson played only seven minutes.

He had to explain why he wasn’t out there and the truth was Aaron Gray was running hard and ensuring DeAndre Jordan didn’t add to the number of crowd inciting lob-finishing dunks he was throwing down much to the appreciation of the Staples Center crowd.

Monday in Phoenix, though, Casey pointedly said that were any changes coming, it wasn’t going to be done to single out any individual’s performance or lack thereof.

“We still have a couple of positions we’re looking at,” Casey said. “Right now, we’re going to sleep on it again tonight. Everything we’re aiming to do is nothing that’s an indictment of any one player, it’s more of us having balance, finding the right combination to get off to quick starts and a balanced game.

“We’ve got too many ebbs and flows with the game as far as our points production, our defensive focus and the whole nine yards. That’s what we’re trying for more than: ‘Hey, it’s this one guy’ (that’s the reason) we’re not winning.”

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If, however, the Raptors actual intent this season is to try to lose as many games as possible – so that they can obtain as high a pick as possible in the 2012 NBA Draft Lottery … which is precisely what it SHOULD be – then, Dwane Casey needs to keep using DeMar DeRozan [OG] exactly how he has been used in Toronto’s line-up for all 17 games thus far this year.

Muhammad Ali at 70: What he meant, what he means

Muhammad Ali’s brilliance was not that he was an antiwar prophet. He wasn’t Malcolm X in boxing gloves, debating foreign policy between rounds, jabbing his hands and then saying, “So how about that Cuban missile crisis.” But unlike the Ivy League advisors who made up the “best and the brightest” in power in those days, Ali understood that there was justice and injustice, right and wrong. He knew that not taking a stand could be as political a statement as taking one.

Ali, strictly in boxing alone, was an all-time great. He was an Olympic gold medalist at 18, the sport’s first three-time heavyweight champion and the participant in multiple matches that contend for the title of Fight of the Century. But it was his highly improvisational political courage that transformed him into a legend.

Ali’s refusal to fight in Vietnam was front-page news all over the world. In June 1967, he was found guilty of draft evasion by an all-white jury in Houston. The typical sentence was 18 months. Ali received five years and the confiscation of his passport. He immediately appealed, and his sentence was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Ali, undefeated and untouched at this point in his career, was stripped of his title for refusing to serve in the military, beginning a 3 1/2-year exile from the ring.

One group that deeply understood the significance of Ali’s stand was Congress. The day of his conviction, the House voted 337 to 29 to extend the draft four more years. It also voted 385 to 19 to make it a federal crime to desecrate the flag.

By 1968, Ali was out on bail — with no boxing ring to call home. But he was never more active, because a young generation of blacks and whites wanted to hear what he had to say. And Ali obliged. In 1968, he spoke at 200 campuses. In one speech, brimming with confidence — as if the might of the U.S. government were no more menacing than a club fighter — Ali said, “I’m expected to go overseas to help free people in South Vietnam and at the same time my people here are being brutalized; hell no! I would like to say to those of you who think I have lost so much: I have gained everything. I have peace of heart; I have a clear, free conscience. And I am proud. I wake up happy, I go to bed happy, and if I go to jail, I’ll go to jail happy.”

The significance of what this meant to people around the globe cannot be overstated. Even in extreme isolation in an island prison, Ali’s courage reached a former boxer turned political prisoner named Nelson Mandela. After his release, Mandela said: “Ali’s struggle made him an international hero. His stand against racism and war could not be kept outside the prison walls.”

When you look at the early schedule for the Washington Wizards what you should see:

is that tonight’s home game against the Toronto Raptors actually qualifies as an almost “must-win” situation … at least, if they are going to be able to avoid a prolonged losing streak to begin the season.

If both teams are healthy for this game:

then, the Wizards will have a solid opportunity to get a W, depending on the work done by Flip Saunders vs Dwane Casey.

Related:

Wizards need more than just better talent, need culture change

This is the Box Score and the Play-By-Play for last night’s game between the Detroit Pistons and the Chicago Bulls.

This is the GameFlow Chart.

When you look at the different combinations Lawrence Frank used at the Point Guard and Off Guard positions in this game:

you should get a clear picture of a main reason Detroit lost this game by a margin of 24 points … and it isn’t because:

A. Carlos Boozer [PF] was a 1-man wrecking crew; or,
B. The players on the Pistons roster, as a whole, simply are not “good enough” to compete effectively with a team that has an overall “talent level” like Chicago.

Lawrence Frank is a good NBA head coach who actually knows what he’s doing.

Hopefully it doesn’t take him too long to figure out a workable solution to Detroit’s rotation problem at the guard positions, whenever Rodney Stuckey is not available to play.

It really is quite simple …

… if you understand what makes “winning teams” fundamentally different from “losing teams” …

… and, IT has nothing to do with an “individual player’s performance-based statistics”.

If there is going to be 1 home game on their regular season schedule this year that the Raptors will most definitely come away with a W it will be this evening’s contest against the Nets:

The published wagering line for tonight’s game [as of 1:00 PM this afternoon] is:

TORONTO RAPTORS -270

Even though this price certainly qualifies as a “Big Ticket”, with Deron Williams [PG], Kris Humphries [PF] and MarShon Brooks [OG] all absent from New Jersey’s line-up this evening, and Toronto playing the 1st of 7 games in a span of only 9 days, with a back-to-back on the road tomorrow night, in Philadelphia …

Season’s Greetings!

On occasion, certain highly charged – and mis-directed – young men can, unfortunately, make the mistake of acting like an out-of-control adolescent without the knowledge of the actual difference between right and wrong.

In this specific instance, however …

The person who MOST needs to be held accountable for the egregious repeated on-court actions of Masters Cole Vanderbilt and Kennan VanHollebeke is … not the group of Three seemingly Blind Mice with the responsibility of “officiating” this contest properly, but … his wholly irresponsible head coach, Mr. Oscar Garza.

With due respect to all involved parties …

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The national attention and negativity of this situation has drawn a statement from the high school basketball coach of Cole Vanderbilt.

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The most important question is …

Going forward, what – if anything – is Mr. Garza going to do to ensure that the players in his charge conduct themselves in a civilised way?

Until Mr. Garza provides an appropriate answer to it … in the view of yours truly … he has no business being allowed to coach high school basketball, while permitting his players to commit the range of outright dirty plays shown in this video clip from just this one game.