khandor’s sports blog

If you take a closer look at two plays from last night’s game between Milwaukee and Washington:

i. At the 0:13 mark of the video clip … when a clear travel violation by JaVale McGee is not called by the Center Official, who is looking directly at the play;

ii. At the 1:07 mark of the video clip … when a highly questionable travel violation by Roger Mason is called by the Trail Official, despite the Lead Official, who is looking directly at the play, as well, making no call whatsoever:

you should be able to see that what was said earlier this season by Mark Cuban was an accurate description of the current state of officiating in the NBA, despite the League Office stating otherwise.

Read this fantastic interview from today’s TrueHoop:

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Tyson Chandler, speaking freely

When I watch JaVale McGee, he reminds me of young you. So long and jumping so high. When I see him jump so often, I can’t help but think: Save a little of that, JaVale! Do you see that?

When you’re young, they say you’re young and you’re dumb. You can’t gain that knowledge except for just playing. There are some Dwight Howards who come in and blossom early and are able to dominate. Then you have guys like myself, and Andrew Bynum, and I think the same thing about JaVale McGee. It’s going to take him a while before he truly gets it. But his athletic ability and his just physical capability … he should be able to change a game. And I definitely think he will.

It’s just time and understanding and placing, coaching, guys working with him, before he dominates out there. He has something that you can’t teach.

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and it should then become impossible to deny the proper place that first-rate:

#1. Ownership,
#2. GMing,
#3. Coaching, and
#4. Players [themselves],

ALL have to play in the creation of a championship-winning environment in the NBA.

When you get right down to brass tacks …

For any NBA team:

1. The players are an extension of the head coach.

2. The head coach is an extension of the General Manager.

3. The General Manager is an extension of the CEO/President.

4. The CEO/President is an extension of the Owner.

5. The Owner is … precisely where ‘The Buck [starts and] Stops‘.

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The owners: a free agency scorecard

… perhaps the most important person in a free agent supertar’s future is their next owner. Coaches have an average tenure of a few years. Teammates change year in and year out.

But if you’re LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh or another top free agent, whoever owns your next team is going to make hundreds of decisions, year after year, with the potential to affect whether or not you win a title.

Hiring a coach, getting a new point guard, changing the defense … almost everything on an NBA team is malleable. But when under contract, even the most powerful superstars in the league have little-to-no influence over ownership. Which means as they shop for new teams, at the top of the list is finding the right owner.

Based on conversations with people familiar with the thinking of top free agents, including team personnel, agents, and insiders, here’s a list of owners who are best positioned to appeal to free agent superstars:

1. Dr. Jerry Buss
2. Mark Cuban
3. Mikhail Prokhorov
4. Micky Arison
5. Wyc Grousbeck
6. etc.

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Where do you suppose Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Limited [MLSE] is ranked, according to TrueHoop?

Finally … a stats guru speaks who is at least on the right track.

How stats apply to individual match-ups for elite level NBA coaches
WW: Tracy McGrady is a player who has never helped his team as much as people thought. Allen Iverson — for one or two years he was really good.

The best player of the decade, though, I’d say, was Kevin Garnett. We have a rating over the last eight or nine years, and Garnett comes out number one. And I think everybody else [other stat experts] has that too, so that’s nice.

Although I don’t like Garnett. When I watch on TV, he’s turning too edgy. Chippy attitude.

Another guy who is totally overrated is Amare Stoudemire. I mean, he’s a stat stuffer. Troy Murphy gets great stats, but never does much for the team.

(UPDATE: Winston amends this statement: “With Golden State Troy Murphy was a stat stuffer who did little to help the team but with Indiana the last two years he has improved to where he is an above average NBA player.”)

There’s a bunch of guys like that.

Andre Iguodala, though. Whenever he’s on the court for Philadelphia, they’re great. Whenever he’s off, they suck. God knows why he’s a good player. I watch him play, and I don’t know. (More on Iguodala.)

Jason Kidd is a little like that, but you can see why he makes guys better. But not Iguodala.

HA: Sometimes I feel like I can see Kidd’s greatness, but other times, at this stage of his career, I can’t. 

WW: Kidd can’t guard a fast guard. They go right by him like he’s standing still. They always did. Against Chris Paul … Jason Kidd might as well be standing still on defense.

But the interesting thing: Devin Harris can nail Tony Parker. But Steve Nash can beat Devin Harris. But Parker can beat Nash.

It’s not transitive. We can show that. That’s really interesting. That shouldn’t be. But it is. There are probably a lot of other things like that.

If coaches see other examples of things like that, we can back them up with data. Del Harris really got to like us, I think, because a lot of times our numbers confirmed what he thought. It’s hard to argue with the numbers when you’ve got a full amount of data on it.

Last year [Maverick assistant] Terry Stotts did a really great job asking us questions. Before the Spurs series, they asked us about Antoine Wright.  He’s not on the team anymore, thank god. OK, he had a bad rating in our system. But the fascinating thing was, when he played small forward, he was good. When he played shooting guard, he was terrible. So we can break that down. I can find every combination where he was small forward and he was good. Every combination where he was shooting guard he was terrible. 

Against the Spurs, they used him as a small forward and he was great. Every time he played for Howard at small forward, they killed the Spurs.

Things like this … I needed the coach to ask me the question because I would have never thought of it. You don’t just throw the numbers at the coach, because, I mean, 500,000 numbers! But if the coach understands what he’s doing, and says “I think Antoine Wright can play small forward can you tell me if that’s true?” That’s how you use the stuff.

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THIS is the direction in which basketball analysis NEEDS to go.

Sincere thanks to you … Wayne Winston!

PS. It’s the job of an elite level basketball coach to answer correctly the questions which Wayne Winston doesn’t happen to have the specific training, knowledge base and experience to discern properly on his own … e.g. What really makes Andre Iguodala as good as he is given what the “average” stats/numbers have to say about his level of play?  Those who can DO THAT are the ones with the type of Basketball Analysis/Acumen you SHOULD BE listening to in order to better understand, How The NBA Game Actually Works, Based On Individual Match-ups.

PPS. Class for NBA 101 is now finished for today … or, in fact, for some of you, at least, it may just be starting … from scratch.

PPPS. Btw … What Wayne Winston had to say in this piece about there being no distinction necessary between the use of players like Brandon Bass [#4/PF] and Dirk Nowitzki [#5/C], on the court together, regardless of their position, and the effect/thinking of Mike D’Antoni, just happens to be wrong.

Winning is still the currency that drives Mavericks’ Cuban
Mavericks president Terdema Ussery flipped to his newspaper sports section last Tuesday and chuckled.

There in the cover photo was his boss, Mark Cuban, rejoicing after Jason Terry’s game-winning shot against Minnesota. Arms raised, jumping, screaming, the frozen moment is vintage Cuban – suspended in time, if not exactly midair.

“I told my wife, ‘That picture couldhave been taken 10 years ago,’ ” Ussery said. “No difference at all. There’s your owner, with his 6-inch vertical leap.”

Cuban’s youthful appearance, drive and exuberance have changed little since, at age 41, he signed a letter of intent to purchase the Mavericks on Jan. 3, 2000.

In reality, he is now 50, a married father of two girls, has an artificial left hip and according to Forbes, is at least $137 million lighter in the wallet where the Mavericks are concerned.

“I’m not going to comment on our P&L [profit and loss] specifics,” Cuban said. “But I have always said I’m in this to win, not make money.”

For most pro sports owners, such a bottom line would be cause for alarm. In Cuban’s case, the subject evokes a sweat-dripping shrug from atop the StairMaster outside the Mavericks’ locker room, where he churns before most home games.

Tonight, his Mavericks host San Antonio in Game 3 of a best-of-seven, first-round NBA playoff series that is tied, 1-1. For some teams, extended playoff runs make the difference between loss and profit, or between profit and prosperity.

Not so the Mavericks. Even though this is their ninth straight playoff appearance, Cuban recalls finishing in the black only twice during his tenure, although according to Forbes’ figures it happened only once.

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Until your favourite NBA team has an owner with a similar raison d’etre as Mark Cuban, and the other individuals whose team’s names are on this list, you can simply forget about ever winning the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

Leadership in a pro sports organization starts at the very top, with an unwavering Commitment to WINNING the League Championship, not to being in ‘the black’ each and every year.

[PS. Which teams in the NBA today do NOT have a sole owner who is in a similar well-healed state like Mark Cuban? or, Wyc Grousbeck? or, Dr. Jerry Buss? or, Peter Holt? or, Mickey Arison? or, Jerry Reinsdorf?, or Paul Allen? or, etc.]

… wait for it … at the 5:40 mark

what the ‘average adolescent boy’ would do … if he had a billion dollars and owned an NBA team.