Instead of trying to ‘put down’ the dynamic duo of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade [Miami Heat, 2010-2011], by comparing them to the perceived to be ‘less-than’ dynamic pairing of Jack Sikma and Gus Williams [Seattle Supersonics, 1978-1979] …
———————————————
Bringing it all together
So why were two good players able to team up and win it all when some of the all time greats (Wade and LeBron, Stockton and Malone, Drexler and Porter) have failed to do so? The answer is that they had perfect timing. They were in the league when the requirement to be a top team was much lower and the competitive advantage of a top team wasn’t as high. Additionally the playoffs were easier if you were a top team. Putting this all together let team work prevail! Of course as I’ve chronicled, this is not the way things are any more. And that’s why modern superteams can still fail and why teamwork is no longer enough to win it all.
———————————————
… what ‘Mr. Dre’ SHOULD really be doing is asking the following question:
When Kris Humphries was strictly a back-up front-court player for the Raptors [i.e. in 2006-2007, 2007-2008 and 2008-2009] … and, then, needlessly traded away in a multi-team package deal to acquire Hedo Turkoglu [i.e. see A and B for further details] … there were very few – if any – other voices in the on-line hoops community extolling his virtues, as a solid future starting-calibre Power Forward in the NBA, if afforded a legitimate opportunity to ply his trade properly. Some 3-5 years later, however …
Kris Humphries [#3]. How many people heard of him before this? Well, here at the Wages of Wins network, all of us. That’s because he’s been surprisingly productive. Another great value-for-your-dollar player, he could be a great asset to any team, especially one lacking rebounders.
———————————————-
it is gratifying to see that this corner’s original assessment of Kris Humphries’ actual basketball talent … made well in advance of others – i.e. including both stats gurus [!] and non stats-based NBA observers – was indeed highly accurate, while the vast majority of naysayers, at the time, have now been proven wrong.
The fact is …
While there is little-to-no “competitive advantage” generated by player “evaluations” that are exclusively post facto, based on simple comparative stats analysis, there can be a great deal of “competitive advantage” generated by taking careful note of the specific opinions [i.e. in the form of "evaluations" AND "projections"] offered by someone who legitimately has the ability to make an accurate assessment of a player’s actual basketball ability as much as 3-5 years in advance.
What was your reaction to the Finals? I think it was a triumph of great teamwork over great individual play. The Miami team really is not. They weren’t ready to play the team game the way the Mavericks were, and that’s why the Mavericks came out on top.
What about how people react to LeBron James? I think people just did not like his style, in self-promoting and aggrandizement of himself that ESPN was part of, and the event on ESPN turned a lot of people off. All these things to say about him as an individual. It’s a team game. People seem to lose sight of that pretty quickly.
How does he proceed from here? That burden, really, is going to fall on the franchise, to get the right players that comprise a good team. He’s always going to be, for his whole career, a dominant and outstanding player. The way that they put the team together and promoted the team really did not do the team any good, and it didn’t do the game any good. It’s a team game and they should promote it as such.
For the most part, today’s article by one of ‘The Godfathers of modern-day statistical-based analysis for the NBA game’ – i.e. Dean Oliver – strikes the right note:
Credit the Mavs and don’t kill LeBron. The Mavs’ defense did a great job keeping creators out of the paint. If you want to criticize someone, criticize the coaches, Scotty Brooks and Erik Spoelstra, for not figuring out how to attack the Mavs’ defense in a more decentralized way.
What team did the best against the Mavs’ defense this year? The Orlando Magic, who shoot 3s like maniacs. The Heat could have done more to spread the floor by running more sets for perimeter shooters, but they were also reportedly hampered a bit by an injury to James Jones. Don’t get me wrong, Brooks and Spoelstra are good coaches who just couldn’t quite match the moves quickly enough. And, of all the voices criticizing Westbrook and LeBron for what they did and didn’t do, [#1] I didn’t hear any of them offering constructive criticism for how to beat the Mavs’ defense.
A final lesson for the playoffs: When teams are fairly close, the NBA playoffs become a chess match. This makes it difficult to have basic statistics characterize a series. There are no great rebounding or shooting or turnover statistics to characterize the 2011 Finals, because adaptations constantly change what wins.
Even MVP Dirk Nowitzki had a statistically bad game in the clincher. Did he have a good series? Absolutely. [#2] But the tactical moves were what won this series.
———————————————-
in an effort to explain accurately what happened in the NBA Finals.
re: Bolded Text #2
This observation is 100% accurate.
re: Bolded Text #1
This observation, however, is not completely 100% accurate.
What you see below is the specific email which was sent by yours truly to Kevin Pelton [Basketball Prospectus], at 1:03 PM on Saurday afternoon [Jun-11-2011]:
Unfortunately, I cannot read the rest of this article.
From the part which I can see, however, it seems as though your analysis is heading in the right direction.
Thus far, Rick Carlisle has been the best coach in the NBA Playoffs … by a wide margin.
As a direct result, the Mavericks are only 1 more win away from winning the championship.
Erik Spoelstra will need to improve his feel for the game and make better decisions:
[for example]
- start the game with the 5-man unit of Chalmers + Wade + James + Anthony + Bosh
- finish the game with the 5-man unit of Wade + Miller + James + Haslem + Bosh
- use a rotation which includes Chalmers [PG], Wade [PG-OG], Jones [OG-SF], Miller [OG-SF], James [SF-PG], Anthony [PF], Haslem [PF], Bosh [C-PF] and Ilgauskas [C]
- use Ilgauskas [C] against Chandler [C], in order to space the floor and pull Tyson away from the basket more frequently
- use a 2-3 zone defense, on occasion, when JJ Barea is on the floor
- ensure that their players stop allowing Jason Terry to shoot while either: A. dribbling/moving to his right, or B. Standing still
- ensure that their players make Jason Terry drive to his left left-hand side AND THEN finish his own drives at the rim, without being able to make draw and kick-out passes to open teammates for high percentage 3PT-shots
if Miami is going to win the next 2 games.
The Heat have the better personnel available in this series … and SHOULD have already won the championship in 5 games … but the Mavs are certainly capable of winning, if Rick Carlisle continues to out-coach Erik Spoelstra by a significant margin.
Cheers
khandor
———————————–
Down-the-road, Kevin Spoelstra is … eventually … going to become an outstanding coach in the NBA.
Unfortunately, yesterday evening Miami needed him to be much closer to accomplishing THAT specific goal right now.
Rick Carlisle was THEDifference-maker in the NBA Finals … and, as a direct result, the Dallas Mavericks are the World Champions!
Given the resources which Miami had to work with this season, the Heat should have been able to capture this year’s NBA championship.
There’s a very good reason, however, games actually need to be played before an authentic Championship TEAM can be crowned.
From the start to the end of this season:
Mark Cuban [Owner]
Donnie Nelson [General Manager]
Rick Carlisle [Head Coach]
Dirk Nowitzki [Player Leader #1]
Jason Terry [Player Leader #2]
Jason Kidd [Player Leader #3]
Shawn Marion [Key Role Player #1]
Tyson Chandler [Key Role Player #2, vital off-season addition]
DeShawn Stevenson [Key Role Player #3]
JJ Barea [Key Role Player #4]
Brendan Haywood [Key Role Player #5]
and each member of the Mavericks’ supporting cast:
Caron Butler [injured]
Peja Stojakovic
Brian Cardinal
Ian Mahinmi
Corey Brewer
Rodrigue Beaubois
Dominique Jones
did a fantastic job! … learning lessons from years gone by and then implementing specific practices which eventually contributed to their team’s major on-court success.
Throughout the 2nd half of yesterday’s game, it was readily apparent that the Dallas Mavericks actually had THE LEVEL OF COLLECTIVE BELIEF which is necessary to surmount all obstacles and claim a League Championship
In the game of basketball … which, incidentally, cannot be played without a properly designated ‘coach’, according to the rules … this COLLECTIVE BELIEF is rooted, fundamentally, in only 1 person, who occupies a position at the heart of the organizational flow chart and, therefore, is [in fact] capable of positively effecting each member of ‘the collective’, both, above AND below him, in a positive way, which can then put the team in the best position possible to achieve major on-court success through the actions of their players.
Kudos to Rick Carlisle! … who, for a long time now, has simply been one of the best coaches in the NBA.
Rick Carlisle said the players win the game, and in the big picture he’s right about that.
But in a series of razor-thin margins between the players on the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks, the slightest of adjustments can have an outsized impact. Three straight final-possession games have the Mavs and Heat justifiably tied at two apiece, and Tuesday it was the subtle adjustments Dallas’ coach made before and during the game that swung it.
We talked about Dallas’ superior depth heading into the series, but look at the box score and you’ll realize the Mavs were using a tighter rotation than Miami’s. Carlisle made a fairly complex series of adjustments that involved changing his starting backcourt so that he could entirely reupholster his forward rotation, and then threw a few more wrinkles into his special fourth-quarter sauce as the Mavs once again rallied late.
Ultimately, he was using a 7.5-man rotation, with Brian Cardinal as the 0.5 with “remove only in case of emergency” tattooed on his warm-ups. Dallas’ bench only played 71 total minutes, barely more than the 67 from Miami; only six Mavericks scored.
And Carlisle made it work.
———————————————————————-
When basketball is played properly, at the highest level ofcompetition, it’s a game of highly specific ‘individual [i.e. micro] match-ups’ and ‘split-second decision-making’, by, both, players and coaches, involving:
[for example]
i. Player X from Team A vs Player Y from Team B;
ii. Teammate 1 with Teammates 2, and 3, and 4, and 5;
iii. Team A’s 5-man unit vs Team B’s 5-man unit;
iv. Team A’s specific strategies vs Team B’s specific strategies;
v. Team A’s specific tactics vs Team’s specific strategies;
rather than ‘macro-based statistical number crunching’ concerned with “averages” and “standard rates of performance”.
The Correct Answers To The 10 Questions Asked by Henry Abbott
Q1. Play of the Game?
A1. The Team Defense which Miami played on Dallas’ 2nd last possession when the Heat collectively forced a crucial TO from the Mavs’ best player at crunch-time.
Q2. True or false … Chris Bosh hammed it up a little bit with the eye injury?
A2. False. The man’s left eye was partially closed for the balance of the game. That does not happen without an actual injury occurring to the eye. [Kudos to Hollinger.]
Q3. On scale of 1 to 10, how amazing is it that Tyson Chandler went a whole half without fouling?
A3. 1. Good players actually know how to play the game without committing unnecessary fouls … and, while still maintaining an adequate level of aggressiveness … if the situation dictates that this is how they must play in order to have the team succeed. Tyson Chandler is a relatively good basketball player.
Q4. How amazing is it that Chris Bosh hit the game-winner?
A4. 1. If you are an astute basketball observer, and have watched countless hours of games played by Misters Wade, James, Bosh, Haslem and Chalmers, and acknowledge that Rick Carlisle is, in fact, one of the best coaches in the NBA today, then, in all likelihood, you knew, in advance, that either Chris Bosh or Mario Chalmers would be the most likely Heat players to score a FG in that specific situation … given the way the Mavs were probably going to defend against the high middle pick with the ball in D-Wade’s hands.
Q5. Same scale … Dirk was lousy in crunch-time; how amazing was that?
A5. 1. Dirk was anything but lousy in crunch-time. [Kudos to Hollinger.]
Q6. Dwyane Wade is clearly back; he was back last game. What was wrong with him? He had some bad games for a while; do you think he was injured, or just no one’s perfect all the time?
A6. It’s important to look at more than “just scoring points” when evaluating “What constitutes a bad performance is from a specific player.” It is simply not an accurate description to suggest that Wade “had some bad games for a while,” because he may have shot a lower percentage than usual or scored fewer points, in general.
Q7. Better defender, Dirk or Bosh?
A7. Bosh … by a wide margin. [Kudos to Adande.]
Q8. Dirk, better shooting off the catch or off the dribble?
A8. Off the catch … by a wide margin. [Kudos to Adande, re: off balance. ]
Q9. True or false … Udonis Haslem guards Dirk better than anyone?
A9. False. Kevin Garnett, when healthy, guards Dirk Nowitzki better than anyone else in the NBA.
Q10. True or false … This series is over?
A10. True. Miami is going to win this year’s NBA Championship.
