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Sixers Have a Tough Decision to Make This Offseason
By Rafael Uehara
The Philadelphia 76ers fell a Rajon Rondo four-minute takeover (he scored 11 of the Celtics’ final 14 points, after Paul Pierce fouled out) and 10 points short from the Eastern Conference finals but using that achievement as a way to analyze the team’s performance this season and its prospects moving forward is misguided. For the Sixers to get as far as they did, they needed the Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics to deal with a number of injuries. As good a season Philadelphia had and as deep as it got, truth is the 76ers were not all that close from competing for the championship.
When Doug Collins was introduced as the team’s head-coach in the summer of 2010, many were puzzled. Collins seemed very comfortable on his sideline chair, broadcasting games for TNT and hadn’t coached in almost 10 years. Also, his hardnosed style of coaching didn’t exactly project to fit Philadelphia’s mostly young core, built around Jrue Holliday, Andre Iguodala, Thaddeus Young, Lou Williams and that year’s number two overall pick in the draft, Evan Turner. But it is undeniable Collins has done a good job, with the Sixers having won 51.3% of their games under his tenure. He has taken the most out of this understaffed squad.
Sure, we can point to the team’s poor, unrefined offense (lacking in high quality execution and based around mid-range jump-shooting despite the fact the squad lacks good mid-range jump-shooters) or his head-scratching substitution patterns but you can’t deny that under his tenure, the Sixers play hard and that type of effort led to them being one of the top defenses in the league, which fueled their overachieving run once they did get the breaks they needed. Professional sports are a bottom line business. And the bottom line here is, even with context, Collins has brought the Sixers back to relevancy.
But there’s a ceiling to how far only playing hard will get you and Philadelphia seems to have reached that ceiling. And in order to move on from here, the 76ers have a few tough decisions to make this summer. According to Sham Sports, they are actually in a very good position to decide their future. Credit where credit is due; team president Rod Thorn did a very good job being financially responsible over the last couple of years, even with the arrival of new ownership.
Here is Philadelphia’s picture: Elton Brand holds an early termination option but is set to earn $18 million dollars next year and it’s unlikely he’ll opt out of that, Williams is more likely to test free agency, Spencer Hawes’ one year deal is expiring and they hold qualifying offers on Sam Young, Jodie Meeks and Lavoy Allen. Iguodala, Thaddeus Young, Turner, Holliday and Nicola Vucevic are the only others under contract and they still hold the amnesty provision to use, which they should on Brand this summer, otherwise they run out of eligible players to use it on since it can only be applied to players whose deals were signed under the previous collective bargaining agreement.
Without the options, the Sixers only really have $32 million in salaries on the books for next season, some $28 million less than the projected cap line of $58 million. It makes sense for Philadelphia to attempt restructuring this offseason, given its financial flexibility. It’s not just about having the space to sign free agents, but rather being in a position to take advantage of the market, perhaps bidding for Pau Gasol or Al Jefferson or gambling on Tyreke Evans or Josh Smith, for example.
In my opinion, that’s what they should do; take this opportunity set up by their cap health and restructure to attempt shooting for that number two spot in the East behind the Miami Heat, which seems to be up for grabs. And before you shout “WHAT ABOUT THE BULLS?” you should read Brian Schroeder’s great insight on the challenges Chicago faces moving forward.
It’s unlikely that’s what they’ll do, however. With Collins remaining at the helm, it’s very doubtful they blow this core up. He seems attached to these players and appreciate how hard they have played for him over these last couple of years. So expect Williams to get his money and return. Despite how awful he looked against Kevin Garnett and Boston, Hawes is also projected to return. He’s a fit and did just enough against Chicago to get paid. Meanwhile the decision on Brand can go either way as he had a pretty good season and really only have one year left on his deal, becoming a trading asset even if he doesn’t manage to emulate this year’s production (18 PER, 52.1% true-shooting and 9.2% assist-rate on 18.9% usage, 96 defensive rating).
So for the Sixers to get to the next level with this same core that needed all these breaks to push a warned out, limping Celtics’ team to seven games and couldn’t hit water from a boat but still decided to keep settling from 15-feet and out on that decisive game seven, it will take some major emergence from Turner and Vucevic as volume scorer and legit escape valve, respectively. Turner did improve a lot on his second year and don’t take Vucevic’s low court time this season as a sign Collins simply isn’t a fan of his game as the same happened to Turner on his rookie season and now he’s a huge part of the rotation.
I guess Sixers’ management can rationalize keeping this core intact by assuming they can just focus all their efforts on refining the team’s offense and by the fact they are still pretty young at the top with Holiday and Turner and reasonably well mixed on experience and prime performance with Iguodala, Young and Williams behind them. On that notion, they trust the coaching staff to develop their young prospects into franchise-leading anchors and assume that Collins strongly-delivered message won’t get old and worn the team out as it has in the past.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
The Philadelphia 76ers fell a Rajon Rondo four-minute takeover (he scored 11 of the Celtics’ final 14 points, after Paul Pierce fouled out) and 10 points short from the Eastern Conference finals but using that achievement as a way to analyze the team’s performance this season and its prospects moving forward is misguided. For the Sixers to get as far as they did, they needed the Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics to deal with a number of injuries. As good a season Philadelphia had and as deep as it got, truth is the 76ers were not all that close from competing for the championship.
When Doug Collins was introduced as the team’s head-coach in the summer of 2010, many were puzzled. Collins seemed very comfortable on his sideline chair, broadcasting games for TNT and hadn’t coached in almost 10 years. Also, his hardnosed style of coaching didn’t exactly project to fit Philadelphia’s mostly young core, built around Jrue Holliday, Andre Iguodala, Thaddeus Young, Lou Williams and that year’s number two overall pick in the draft, Evan Turner. But it is undeniable Collins has done a good job, with the Sixers having won 51.3% of their games under his tenure. He has taken the most out of this understaffed squad.
Sure, we can point to the team’s poor, unrefined offense (lacking in high quality execution and based around mid-range jump-shooting despite the fact the squad lacks good mid-range jump-shooters) or his head-scratching substitution patterns but you can’t deny that under his tenure, the Sixers play hard and that type of effort led to them being one of the top defenses in the league, which fueled their overachieving run once they did get the breaks they needed. Professional sports are a bottom line business. And the bottom line here is, even with context, Collins has brought the Sixers back to relevancy.
But there’s a ceiling to how far only playing hard will get you and Philadelphia seems to have reached that ceiling. And in order to move on from here, the 76ers have a few tough decisions to make this summer. According to Sham Sports, they are actually in a very good position to decide their future. Credit where credit is due; team president Rod Thorn did a very good job being financially responsible over the last couple of years, even with the arrival of new ownership.
Here is Philadelphia’s picture: Elton Brand holds an early termination option but is set to earn $18 million dollars next year and it’s unlikely he’ll opt out of that, Williams is more likely to test free agency, Spencer Hawes’ one year deal is expiring and they hold qualifying offers on Sam Young, Jodie Meeks and Lavoy Allen. Iguodala, Thaddeus Young, Turner, Holliday and Nicola Vucevic are the only others under contract and they still hold the amnesty provision to use, which they should on Brand this summer, otherwise they run out of eligible players to use it on since it can only be applied to players whose deals were signed under the previous collective bargaining agreement.
Without the options, the Sixers only really have $32 million in salaries on the books for next season, some $28 million less than the projected cap line of $58 million. It makes sense for Philadelphia to attempt restructuring this offseason, given its financial flexibility. It’s not just about having the space to sign free agents, but rather being in a position to take advantage of the market, perhaps bidding for Pau Gasol or Al Jefferson or gambling on Tyreke Evans or Josh Smith, for example.
In my opinion, that’s what they should do; take this opportunity set up by their cap health and restructure to attempt shooting for that number two spot in the East behind the Miami Heat, which seems to be up for grabs. And before you shout “WHAT ABOUT THE BULLS?” you should read Brian Schroeder’s great insight on the challenges Chicago faces moving forward.
It’s unlikely that’s what they’ll do, however. With Collins remaining at the helm, it’s very doubtful they blow this core up. He seems attached to these players and appreciate how hard they have played for him over these last couple of years. So expect Williams to get his money and return. Despite how awful he looked against Kevin Garnett and Boston, Hawes is also projected to return. He’s a fit and did just enough against Chicago to get paid. Meanwhile the decision on Brand can go either way as he had a pretty good season and really only have one year left on his deal, becoming a trading asset even if he doesn’t manage to emulate this year’s production (18 PER, 52.1% true-shooting and 9.2% assist-rate on 18.9% usage, 96 defensive rating).
So for the Sixers to get to the next level with this same core that needed all these breaks to push a warned out, limping Celtics’ team to seven games and couldn’t hit water from a boat but still decided to keep settling from 15-feet and out on that decisive game seven, it will take some major emergence from Turner and Vucevic as volume scorer and legit escape valve, respectively. Turner did improve a lot on his second year and don’t take Vucevic’s low court time this season as a sign Collins simply isn’t a fan of his game as the same happened to Turner on his rookie season and now he’s a huge part of the rotation.
I guess Sixers’ management can rationalize keeping this core intact by assuming they can just focus all their efforts on refining the team’s offense and by the fact they are still pretty young at the top with Holiday and Turner and reasonably well mixed on experience and prime performance with Iguodala, Young and Williams behind them. On that notion, they trust the coaching staff to develop their young prospects into franchise-leading anchors and assume that Collins strongly-delivered message won’t get old and worn the team out as it has in the past.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
The Magic’s Attack of the Dwight Howard Conundrum
By Rafael Uehara
Despite being the most successful head-coach in franchise history, with Orlando winning 65.7% of its games and posting a Finals appearance under his tenure, Stan Van Gundy has been fired by the Magic. CEO Alex Martins denied Dwight Howard requested his firing at this time but truth is directly or indirectly Howard is responsible for the move here.
The NBA is a players’ league. There aren’t really a whole bunch of players that single handily affect a team’s win-loss bottom line, and there are even fewer that can individually lift an organization to contention. Dwight is arguably one of only two, with LeBron James the lone other as it’s always good to remember that after Shaquille O’Neal left and before Pau Gasol arrived, Kobe Bryant’s Lakers were getting pounded by the run-and-gun Phoenix Suns in the mid-2000s and after Shaq left and before LeBron arrived, Dwyane Wade’s Heat couldn’t win a playoff series.
So under normal circumstances it’s completely alright for the Magic to have done what they did, firing an elite level head-coach only to please the team’s best player. Even such a beloved figure like Magic Johnson hung a coach out to dry before. It’s perhaps immoral in a utopian world driven by self righteousness but that’s not the reality of professional basketball. Guys as good as Howard who mean as much as he does don’t grow on trees or hit the market every so often. So if you have one of those guys, you do everything you can to keep that guy in place, even if that means unreasonably firing a very productive employee, partially responsible for your success just because the special one is tired of his negativity.
The former part of that last sentence is where the conundrum emerges. Had the firing of Van Gundy guaranteed Howard, who has flirted over the last 18 months with the idea of leaving for a better team in a more attractive market following on the footsteps of others in his generation such as James, Chris Bosh, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams, to sign an extension with Orlando and commit to the organization for the next half-a-decade, the Magic would be right for not hesitating on pulling the trigger on Stan Van.
But there are no assurances Howard is absolutely staying. He remains non-committal. You can argue Dwight is leveraging the organization with his threaten to exit to force them to remain proactive in the pursuit of a contention status upgrade. But a counter to that is a commitment from Howard would actually make it easier for the Magic to structure their plans. So based on his behavior, it’s easier to assume he just wants to leave and go play somewhere else.
The catch here is apparently Dwight does not want to get the heat these others guys, especially James and Anthony, caught for departing the franchises that drafted and invested a lot to make them happy. Apparently people’s perception of him is a very important thing for Howard. It’s why many believed he waived his early termination option for this summer at the trade deadline; because he wasn’t prepared to deal with the public’s scrutiny.
Things haven’t really smoothed over, however. After the “I stay” day, rumors emerged that in order for him to agree to waive his player option in the upcoming free agency window, the Magic promised Howard input over all key decisions within the organization’s structure including the right to ask for Van Gundy’s and general-manager Otis Smith’s dismissal, which he does. Then Van Gundy confirms the rumors to be true in one of the most fascinating moments in NBA history. The public’s perception of Dwight hit an all-time low even as he needed to undergo season-ending back surgery shortly after.
And now that Van Gundy is gone, it’s clear what the Magic are doing. Stan Van is a much respected figure because of the work he did in Orlando. And whether or not Howard did really ask for his dismissal is irrelevant by now. People are sure he did. And since we’ve established Dwight apparently cares, going through with his departure would defeat the purpose of why he hasn’t forced his way out decisively yet. The Magic are gambling on Howard’s immaturity, trying to trap him on his own logic.
It’s a risky gamble. Van Gundy would have been an instrumental asset in the rebuilding of the franchise in case of an eventual departure by Howard. But by looking as if they are being kept hostage by Dwight, Orlando somehow managed to actually increase its chances of keeping him, even if crimpling itself on the way. There is no doubt they are a worse team today than they were on Sunday, Van Gundy was that meaningful for that operation.
But if in the end, it pays off and Howard feels he can’t leave, then it will have been worth it. Dwight’s Q rating has made people forget how great of a player he is. Again, he is one of only two players in the league that can on his own assure contention. Most fans may be fed off with his antics by now but those have to remember they can’t take winning for granted. It’s annoying, to say the least, to have your team taken hostage by an immature superstar but because of the landscape of the league, it’s understandable why the Magic attacked the Dwight Howard conundrum the way they did.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
Despite being the most successful head-coach in franchise history, with Orlando winning 65.7% of its games and posting a Finals appearance under his tenure, Stan Van Gundy has been fired by the Magic. CEO Alex Martins denied Dwight Howard requested his firing at this time but truth is directly or indirectly Howard is responsible for the move here.
The NBA is a players’ league. There aren’t really a whole bunch of players that single handily affect a team’s win-loss bottom line, and there are even fewer that can individually lift an organization to contention. Dwight is arguably one of only two, with LeBron James the lone other as it’s always good to remember that after Shaquille O’Neal left and before Pau Gasol arrived, Kobe Bryant’s Lakers were getting pounded by the run-and-gun Phoenix Suns in the mid-2000s and after Shaq left and before LeBron arrived, Dwyane Wade’s Heat couldn’t win a playoff series.
So under normal circumstances it’s completely alright for the Magic to have done what they did, firing an elite level head-coach only to please the team’s best player. Even such a beloved figure like Magic Johnson hung a coach out to dry before. It’s perhaps immoral in a utopian world driven by self righteousness but that’s not the reality of professional basketball. Guys as good as Howard who mean as much as he does don’t grow on trees or hit the market every so often. So if you have one of those guys, you do everything you can to keep that guy in place, even if that means unreasonably firing a very productive employee, partially responsible for your success just because the special one is tired of his negativity.
The former part of that last sentence is where the conundrum emerges. Had the firing of Van Gundy guaranteed Howard, who has flirted over the last 18 months with the idea of leaving for a better team in a more attractive market following on the footsteps of others in his generation such as James, Chris Bosh, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams, to sign an extension with Orlando and commit to the organization for the next half-a-decade, the Magic would be right for not hesitating on pulling the trigger on Stan Van.
But there are no assurances Howard is absolutely staying. He remains non-committal. You can argue Dwight is leveraging the organization with his threaten to exit to force them to remain proactive in the pursuit of a contention status upgrade. But a counter to that is a commitment from Howard would actually make it easier for the Magic to structure their plans. So based on his behavior, it’s easier to assume he just wants to leave and go play somewhere else.
The catch here is apparently Dwight does not want to get the heat these others guys, especially James and Anthony, caught for departing the franchises that drafted and invested a lot to make them happy. Apparently people’s perception of him is a very important thing for Howard. It’s why many believed he waived his early termination option for this summer at the trade deadline; because he wasn’t prepared to deal with the public’s scrutiny.
Things haven’t really smoothed over, however. After the “I stay” day, rumors emerged that in order for him to agree to waive his player option in the upcoming free agency window, the Magic promised Howard input over all key decisions within the organization’s structure including the right to ask for Van Gundy’s and general-manager Otis Smith’s dismissal, which he does. Then Van Gundy confirms the rumors to be true in one of the most fascinating moments in NBA history. The public’s perception of Dwight hit an all-time low even as he needed to undergo season-ending back surgery shortly after.
And now that Van Gundy is gone, it’s clear what the Magic are doing. Stan Van is a much respected figure because of the work he did in Orlando. And whether or not Howard did really ask for his dismissal is irrelevant by now. People are sure he did. And since we’ve established Dwight apparently cares, going through with his departure would defeat the purpose of why he hasn’t forced his way out decisively yet. The Magic are gambling on Howard’s immaturity, trying to trap him on his own logic.
It’s a risky gamble. Van Gundy would have been an instrumental asset in the rebuilding of the franchise in case of an eventual departure by Howard. But by looking as if they are being kept hostage by Dwight, Orlando somehow managed to actually increase its chances of keeping him, even if crimpling itself on the way. There is no doubt they are a worse team today than they were on Sunday, Van Gundy was that meaningful for that operation.
But if in the end, it pays off and Howard feels he can’t leave, then it will have been worth it. Dwight’s Q rating has made people forget how great of a player he is. Again, he is one of only two players in the league that can on his own assure contention. Most fans may be fed off with his antics by now but those have to remember they can’t take winning for granted. It’s annoying, to say the least, to have your team taken hostage by an immature superstar but because of the landscape of the league, it’s understandable why the Magic attacked the Dwight Howard conundrum the way they did.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
Lakers in a Really, Really Tough Position Moving Forward
By Rafael Uehara
It was an odd season for the Los Angeles Lakers. It all started with the way they were swept in the Western Conference semifinals by the eventual champions Dallas Mavericks last season. Dallas’ three-point shooting and speed off the edges overwhelmed Los Angeles. And a bush-league clocking in the air of Jose Barea by Andrew Bynum closed out the embarrassing performance by the Lakers.
Phil Jackson then retired, something designed to take place regardless of the season’s outcome. Mike Brown was hired to succeed the winningest coach in NBA history in terms of titles. In five years coaching LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, Brown won 65.4% of his games but successive playoff disappointments and James’ eminent departure culminated on his firing. His hiring puzzled many but from a basketball standpoint made sense. LA had just bombed on the playoffs due to its defensive deficiencies and Brown was someone qualified to solve that issue.
In the offseason, general-manager Mitch Kupchak felt the only way to improve the roster was by using power-forwards Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol as trading chips. Kupchak had a deal in place with the New Orleans Hornets and the Houston Rockets, only for commissioner David Stern to step in and veto the trade as acting owner of the Louisiana franchise. But the specifics of the deal had already been made public and an upset Odom might or might not have requested a trade, that’s unclear. Either way, Kupchack shipped him to Dallas for absolutely nothing.
Once the lockout was settled and the season got underway, the issues the Lakers faced were multiple. Brown chose to uninstall the triangle offense the team had run for over a decade and install a system based more on low post play in which perimeter players had to generate their own offense off the dribble. Kobe Bryant did fine with it but the role players struggled. That meant Bryant asserted himself more and more aggressively and the team’s offense looked absurdly poor and downright predictable. They were still winning games, however, because the defensive improvement Brown was hired to bring did come through.
As the season progressed, though, things got better. In no moment up until late in the regular-season, LA looked like a juggernaut or anything but as Bynum emerged as a dominant force now he was healthy throughout the entire year and Gasol began to understand his role within the offense better, the ascendance was clear. And when Bryant sat out seven games in the beginning of April to nurse a hurt left shin, the supporting cast was forced to step up and, for the surprise of most, they actually delivered.
The Lakers were playing the best basketball of the year as the postseason opened and two dominant wins over the Nuggets in LA gave the impression they were legit contenders for the title. Denver, however, resurrected, helped by the Lakers’ inconsistencies, and pushed the series all the way down to a game seven. Against the Thunder in the second-round, the Lakers have now fallen in five games, in a series that was closer than the final score indicates but that was not close enough for us to see a scenario in which LA would have won.
And now the Lakers look forward and find themselves in a really tough position to move ahead. According to Sham Sports, Bryant is on the books for over $27 million dollars, Gasol for $19 million and Bynum $16.1 million (a team option was picked up earlier in the year) for next season. As of right now, the trio combines for 108% of the Lakers’ projected cap (which should remain at just $58 million). And even the cap line expands some, it’s still unrealistic for LA to keep them all and retool the supporting cast, which held them back with the lack of athleticism.
That means Gasol is most likely going to be traded. Pau did not have his most prolific season as a Laker this year but the notion he is on a steady decline is misguided. His role within the team’s offense changed. He was no longer featured in the low block, with his back to the basket but rather in the high post, with the team taking advantage of his passing skills. The production was still there if you cared to see it as Gasol posted the third highest assist-percentage of his career but in about four percent less usage than in the other two years and his shooting percentages remained about the same.
As mentioned above, Gasol was nearly traded to the Rockets in a deal that would have brought Chris Paul to the Lakers. That deal is no longer realistic as Paul now plays for the Clippers. Houston remains Pau’s most likely destination, however, because Daryl Morey has been so desperate for an elite player that he’s probably willing to overpay for him. That means a third trading partner we have no idea of whom right now will get involved since the Lakers can’t get both Kevin Martin & Luis Scola back because that doesn’t solve the issue as $19 million in yearly salaries would be leaving and $21 arriving.
Brooklyn and Dallas are other possible rumored destinations but neither can provide something that would satisfy the Lakers on a straight-up trade, so a couple more scenarios a third trade partner would have to be involved. Regardless of to whomever and for whomever in exchange, it’s safe to Gasol should be traded this summer.
And that’s where the Lakers’ flexibility pretty much ends. With Ron Artest, Steve Blake, Ramon Sessions (who apparently was planning on opting out prior to the playoffs but that can’t be true anymore after he was dreadful over the last 12 games) and Josh McRoberts are on the books for a combined $19 million next season, it would take a magic trick for general-manager Mitch Kupchak to turn that personnel over. LA still holds the amnesty provision but even if they use it on Artest, which apparently is no longer a lock based on how he performed late in the year, they should still be way over the cap.
Bynum is untouchable. That’s because of the leap he took this season and because acting decision maker Jim Buss handpicked him in that 2005 draft. Meanwhile, Mike Brown isn’t expected to get canned. He is still under contract for three more years and it’s unreasonable to justify firing him over this season that featured special circumstances. And an argument can be made he actually did better with this team than his predecessor the year before.
Although we all flirted with the idea of amnestying Bryant, BECAUSE HE’S SET TO EARN $30 MILLION A COUPLE YEARS FROM NOW AND NOT BECAUSE HE CAN’T GO ANYMORE, for a while there, it really doesn’t make sense. The Lakers wouldn’t have the ability to re-sign him - in a backdoor, handshake, pre-agreed deal - for the length of his original contract and Bryant would go through that bidding system and probably end up in San Francisco or Brooklyn.
So where do the Lakers go from here? Even having as good a trading chip as Gasol, it’s tough to see them enhancing this core and contend next year. Financially, they are then tied up for one more year as only Bynum should be on the books for the 2014-2015 season and they can re-sign Bryant to a more reasonable contract at that time. It is common knowledge contenders go through a drought after the window is closed but not the Lakers. So this four-year stretch we are midway through is bigger deal for them.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
It was an odd season for the Los Angeles Lakers. It all started with the way they were swept in the Western Conference semifinals by the eventual champions Dallas Mavericks last season. Dallas’ three-point shooting and speed off the edges overwhelmed Los Angeles. And a bush-league clocking in the air of Jose Barea by Andrew Bynum closed out the embarrassing performance by the Lakers.
Phil Jackson then retired, something designed to take place regardless of the season’s outcome. Mike Brown was hired to succeed the winningest coach in NBA history in terms of titles. In five years coaching LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, Brown won 65.4% of his games but successive playoff disappointments and James’ eminent departure culminated on his firing. His hiring puzzled many but from a basketball standpoint made sense. LA had just bombed on the playoffs due to its defensive deficiencies and Brown was someone qualified to solve that issue.
In the offseason, general-manager Mitch Kupchak felt the only way to improve the roster was by using power-forwards Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol as trading chips. Kupchak had a deal in place with the New Orleans Hornets and the Houston Rockets, only for commissioner David Stern to step in and veto the trade as acting owner of the Louisiana franchise. But the specifics of the deal had already been made public and an upset Odom might or might not have requested a trade, that’s unclear. Either way, Kupchack shipped him to Dallas for absolutely nothing.
Once the lockout was settled and the season got underway, the issues the Lakers faced were multiple. Brown chose to uninstall the triangle offense the team had run for over a decade and install a system based more on low post play in which perimeter players had to generate their own offense off the dribble. Kobe Bryant did fine with it but the role players struggled. That meant Bryant asserted himself more and more aggressively and the team’s offense looked absurdly poor and downright predictable. They were still winning games, however, because the defensive improvement Brown was hired to bring did come through.
As the season progressed, though, things got better. In no moment up until late in the regular-season, LA looked like a juggernaut or anything but as Bynum emerged as a dominant force now he was healthy throughout the entire year and Gasol began to understand his role within the offense better, the ascendance was clear. And when Bryant sat out seven games in the beginning of April to nurse a hurt left shin, the supporting cast was forced to step up and, for the surprise of most, they actually delivered.
The Lakers were playing the best basketball of the year as the postseason opened and two dominant wins over the Nuggets in LA gave the impression they were legit contenders for the title. Denver, however, resurrected, helped by the Lakers’ inconsistencies, and pushed the series all the way down to a game seven. Against the Thunder in the second-round, the Lakers have now fallen in five games, in a series that was closer than the final score indicates but that was not close enough for us to see a scenario in which LA would have won.
And now the Lakers look forward and find themselves in a really tough position to move ahead. According to Sham Sports, Bryant is on the books for over $27 million dollars, Gasol for $19 million and Bynum $16.1 million (a team option was picked up earlier in the year) for next season. As of right now, the trio combines for 108% of the Lakers’ projected cap (which should remain at just $58 million). And even the cap line expands some, it’s still unrealistic for LA to keep them all and retool the supporting cast, which held them back with the lack of athleticism.
That means Gasol is most likely going to be traded. Pau did not have his most prolific season as a Laker this year but the notion he is on a steady decline is misguided. His role within the team’s offense changed. He was no longer featured in the low block, with his back to the basket but rather in the high post, with the team taking advantage of his passing skills. The production was still there if you cared to see it as Gasol posted the third highest assist-percentage of his career but in about four percent less usage than in the other two years and his shooting percentages remained about the same.
As mentioned above, Gasol was nearly traded to the Rockets in a deal that would have brought Chris Paul to the Lakers. That deal is no longer realistic as Paul now plays for the Clippers. Houston remains Pau’s most likely destination, however, because Daryl Morey has been so desperate for an elite player that he’s probably willing to overpay for him. That means a third trading partner we have no idea of whom right now will get involved since the Lakers can’t get both Kevin Martin & Luis Scola back because that doesn’t solve the issue as $19 million in yearly salaries would be leaving and $21 arriving.
Brooklyn and Dallas are other possible rumored destinations but neither can provide something that would satisfy the Lakers on a straight-up trade, so a couple more scenarios a third trade partner would have to be involved. Regardless of to whomever and for whomever in exchange, it’s safe to Gasol should be traded this summer.
And that’s where the Lakers’ flexibility pretty much ends. With Ron Artest, Steve Blake, Ramon Sessions (who apparently was planning on opting out prior to the playoffs but that can’t be true anymore after he was dreadful over the last 12 games) and Josh McRoberts are on the books for a combined $19 million next season, it would take a magic trick for general-manager Mitch Kupchak to turn that personnel over. LA still holds the amnesty provision but even if they use it on Artest, which apparently is no longer a lock based on how he performed late in the year, they should still be way over the cap.
Bynum is untouchable. That’s because of the leap he took this season and because acting decision maker Jim Buss handpicked him in that 2005 draft. Meanwhile, Mike Brown isn’t expected to get canned. He is still under contract for three more years and it’s unreasonable to justify firing him over this season that featured special circumstances. And an argument can be made he actually did better with this team than his predecessor the year before.
Although we all flirted with the idea of amnestying Bryant, BECAUSE HE’S SET TO EARN $30 MILLION A COUPLE YEARS FROM NOW AND NOT BECAUSE HE CAN’T GO ANYMORE, for a while there, it really doesn’t make sense. The Lakers wouldn’t have the ability to re-sign him - in a backdoor, handshake, pre-agreed deal - for the length of his original contract and Bryant would go through that bidding system and probably end up in San Francisco or Brooklyn.
So where do the Lakers go from here? Even having as good a trading chip as Gasol, it’s tough to see them enhancing this core and contend next year. Financially, they are then tied up for one more year as only Bynum should be on the books for the 2014-2015 season and they can re-sign Bryant to a more reasonable contract at that time. It is common knowledge contenders go through a drought after the window is closed but not the Lakers. So this four-year stretch we are midway through is bigger deal for them.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
As Everybody Stumble, Spurs Remain Title’s Top Contender
By Rafael Uehara
The San Antonio Spurs are undefeated in the 2012 NBA postseason. Behind a 102-99 victory on game four yesterday – May, the 20th – the Spurs swept the Los Angeles Clippers in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs to clinch a berth in the West Finals, waiting for the winner of the Oklahoma City Thunder-Los Angeles Lakers series. It was another demonstration of machine-like execution and depth by San Antonio, which assisted on 28 of 38 field-goals, rotated 10 players and had six of them scoring in double figures.
No team in the NBA has played better basketball. The Spurs are in a dominant, dominant run as they have won their last 18 games and 34 of their last 39 since the start of March. San Antonio has just dismantled opponents behind a career year from Tony Parker, a rejuvenated look from Tim Duncan, great coaching from Gregg Popovich and key all around contributions by role players such as rookie Kahwi Leonard, second-year import Tiago Splitter, third-year pro Danny Green and in-season pickup Boris Diaw.
These are not your big brother’s Spurs, walking the ball down the court, playing through Duncan in the post and shutting down opponents on defense. With Parker a more assertive playmaker within the offense (second highest usage rate of his career, career high 40.3% assist rate), San Antonio has reinvented itself from that version that won three championships in a five year spam in the mid-2000s to a more fast-paced attack, heavily based on the high screen and roll action to manufacture its scoring.
Featuring Parker’s aggression and cerebral running of the scheme, Popovich has developed them into an offensive juggernaut that led the league in offensive efficiency in the regular-season, averaging 108.5 points per 100 possessions, and that has averaged 109.6 points per 100 possessions in the postseason. The concept of pace and space has virtually made the Spurs unstoppable as their shooters have broken the bank this year - 61.8% effective shooting by Emanuel Ginóbili, 59% by Matthew Bonner, 54.9% by Green, 54.3% by Leonard and 52.2% by Gary Neal.
Defensively, this team doesn’t resemble the one that featured Bruce Bowen, Michael Finley, Nazr Mohammed and Rasho Nesterovic on their primes but throughout the year, the Spurs have shown they have enough assets to adjust to what opponents are throwing at them. A perfect example of it was game three of the series against the Clippers, in which Blake Griffin completely punked Diaw, Splitter and Bonner in the first-half. San Antonio then threw Duncan at him in the second, Griffin was consistently pushed off the deep post position he enjoyed earlier in that game and was a non-factor as San Antonio resurged to win that game.
In Leonard, Green and returnee Stephen Jackson, the Spurs have a multitude of defenders to throw at high volume wing scorers, like the ones they should face against the Thunder in the likely conference finals. All those guys are lengthy, versatile, fundamentally sound stoppers who can provide effective perimeter pressure. Chris Paul turned the ball over at a 10.8 percent rate during the regular-season. Checked by Green most of the series, Paul recorded 18 giveaways in four games against the Spurs in the postseason.
Based on their jaw-dropping end to the regular-season, the Spurs opened the playoffs as the main favorites to win it all. And as everybody has stumbled, San Antonio has unrealistically maintained the pace and remains the top contender for the championship. The Thunder are in a similar but not quite as impressive continual run. Meanwhile while others have dealt with injuries (Bulls, Heat) and ups-and-downs (Lakers, Celtics, Sixers, Pacers) the Spurs have some way, somehow kept their extremely high level of play a constant.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
The San Antonio Spurs are undefeated in the 2012 NBA postseason. Behind a 102-99 victory on game four yesterday – May, the 20th – the Spurs swept the Los Angeles Clippers in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs to clinch a berth in the West Finals, waiting for the winner of the Oklahoma City Thunder-Los Angeles Lakers series. It was another demonstration of machine-like execution and depth by San Antonio, which assisted on 28 of 38 field-goals, rotated 10 players and had six of them scoring in double figures.
No team in the NBA has played better basketball. The Spurs are in a dominant, dominant run as they have won their last 18 games and 34 of their last 39 since the start of March. San Antonio has just dismantled opponents behind a career year from Tony Parker, a rejuvenated look from Tim Duncan, great coaching from Gregg Popovich and key all around contributions by role players such as rookie Kahwi Leonard, second-year import Tiago Splitter, third-year pro Danny Green and in-season pickup Boris Diaw.
These are not your big brother’s Spurs, walking the ball down the court, playing through Duncan in the post and shutting down opponents on defense. With Parker a more assertive playmaker within the offense (second highest usage rate of his career, career high 40.3% assist rate), San Antonio has reinvented itself from that version that won three championships in a five year spam in the mid-2000s to a more fast-paced attack, heavily based on the high screen and roll action to manufacture its scoring.
Featuring Parker’s aggression and cerebral running of the scheme, Popovich has developed them into an offensive juggernaut that led the league in offensive efficiency in the regular-season, averaging 108.5 points per 100 possessions, and that has averaged 109.6 points per 100 possessions in the postseason. The concept of pace and space has virtually made the Spurs unstoppable as their shooters have broken the bank this year - 61.8% effective shooting by Emanuel Ginóbili, 59% by Matthew Bonner, 54.9% by Green, 54.3% by Leonard and 52.2% by Gary Neal.
Defensively, this team doesn’t resemble the one that featured Bruce Bowen, Michael Finley, Nazr Mohammed and Rasho Nesterovic on their primes but throughout the year, the Spurs have shown they have enough assets to adjust to what opponents are throwing at them. A perfect example of it was game three of the series against the Clippers, in which Blake Griffin completely punked Diaw, Splitter and Bonner in the first-half. San Antonio then threw Duncan at him in the second, Griffin was consistently pushed off the deep post position he enjoyed earlier in that game and was a non-factor as San Antonio resurged to win that game.
In Leonard, Green and returnee Stephen Jackson, the Spurs have a multitude of defenders to throw at high volume wing scorers, like the ones they should face against the Thunder in the likely conference finals. All those guys are lengthy, versatile, fundamentally sound stoppers who can provide effective perimeter pressure. Chris Paul turned the ball over at a 10.8 percent rate during the regular-season. Checked by Green most of the series, Paul recorded 18 giveaways in four games against the Spurs in the postseason.
Based on their jaw-dropping end to the regular-season, the Spurs opened the playoffs as the main favorites to win it all. And as everybody has stumbled, San Antonio has unrealistically maintained the pace and remains the top contender for the championship. The Thunder are in a similar but not quite as impressive continual run. Meanwhile while others have dealt with injuries (Bulls, Heat) and ups-and-downs (Lakers, Celtics, Sixers, Pacers) the Spurs have some way, somehow kept their extremely high level of play a constant.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
2012 LegaBasket Playoff Overview
By Giovanni Reale
As 2012 LegaBasket playoffs open, Montepaschi Siena begins its attempt at a sixth straight league championship, which would become a LegaBasket record. However, the 2011-2012 regular-season couldn’t more of a distant memory for the team that will shoot for history this postseason. Siena put all of its focus into returning to the EuroLeague’s Final Four, eventually getting eliminated by the eventual champions Olympiacos Piraeus in the quarterfinals, and sort of lost track of things in domestic play, losing eight games compared a combined 12 in the previous five championship campaigns.
Many believe this will be the most thrilling postseason in recent memory because Siena has not looked like the dominant force of years past. Having said that, they still open the playoffs as the top favorites to win it all, as players that have dealt with nagging or semi-serious injuries such as Igor Rakocevic and Rimantas Kaukenas are returning to fitness and they also have in Bo McCallebb and David Andersen the league’s two best players.
McCallebb was named the LegaBasket’s MVP and Andersen the runner-up. The awards were voted in by a panel of press members, general managers, coaches and the captains of the 17 teams. Banco di Sardegna Sassari’s head-coach Romeo Sacchetti was named coach of the year, Banca Tercas Teramo’s Achille Polonara was voted the league’s rising star – award given for the best performer under 22 years of age (beating both Alessandro Gentile and Niccolò Meli, more high profile developmental prospects), and Umana Venezia’s Federico Casarin was named the executive of the year.
It’s curious to note that every team qualified for the playoffs has a losing scoring differential, except for Siena (+8.9) and Olimpia Milano (+0.8). The first couple of rounds will be played in best of five series format (2-2-1) with games played every two days and the championship series will be played in a best of seven series format (2-3-2), if necessary, of course.
Siena and Cimberio Varese are featured in the 1-8 matchup. Mens Sana arrives as the league’s top scoring team (82.1 points per game) and the most accurate from the foul line (79.4%). Varese succeeded in clinching the playoffs for the second year in a row despite building the team with a low budget. A team that was not full of talent but that was well coached by Charlie Recalcati who will leave the franchise at year’s end, Varese relies on Yakhouba Diawara’s prolificacy scoring ability. But honestly, we don’t see any chances for Varese to pull the upset here, especially considering that the first two games will be played in Siena and that the series will move to Varese for the third, which probably will be a series clincher, with Cimberio probably exhausted. Montepaschi won both regular-season meetings and is projected to advance in three games.
Milano and Umana Venezia are featured in the 2-7 matchup. Many ups and downs for Emporio Armani during the season, featuring Danilo Gallinari leaving after the end of NBA lockout and Drew Nicholas getting cut. They suffered with injuries and for being a young team but they ended the regular season with eight straight wins, taking advantage of an easy schedule and overcoming Bennet Cantù for the second seed. Antonis Fotsis had the best three-point percentage in the league at 43.8% while the team dished the best average of assists (15.6 per game). Olimpia Milano’s performances looked too much reliant on Ioannis Bouroussis’ outings while both young players Alessandro Gentile and Niccolò Melli showed signs of growth in some games.
Meanwhile, Venezia arrives as definitely the real revelation of 2011-2012 regular-season, coming from the Legadue and forced to set up a team in just a few days prior to the start of the year due to a mix-up with the federation. They stayed between second and fourth place in the standings for most of the year but lost four straight to close the regular-season and fell to the seventh seed. To add to Venezia’s incredible journey, they had to play all of their home games in Treviso at Palaverde because of their home arena’s noncompliance to league rules, yet Umana always played in front of a sold out crowd.
Milano won both regular-season meetings. It had just 10 days to integrate Justin Dentmon, signed to replace the injured JR Bremer Jr., while Venezia had an important period of rest to recover mentally from the four straight losses at season’s end. We expect great enthusiasm but also inexperience. And there is no doubt game three will be a madhouse. On the other hand, Olimpia Milano is supposed to advance to the next round thanks to their physicality and length of their roster. We project Milano to sweep.
In the 3-6, we have Bennet Cantù and Scavolini Siviglia Pesaro. Cantù had to reckon with injuries and split attention with the EuroLeague appointments and in the end, they lost the second seed in the playoff bracket and that is quite important because they’re almost unbeatable at home. They ended the season with the best defense (only 69.9 points allowed per game) and the best three-point shooting percentage (at 38.2%). Gianluca Basile proved he can still make the difference with his clutch triples while Giorgio Shermadini was a great integration down the boards during the season.
Meanwhile, Pesaro arrives as giant killers. They beat Cantù twice and Milano and Siena once each. That’s enough to describe the potential of this team that has in the trio Jumaine Jones-Ricky Hickman-James White its best performers but whose growth is probably mainly due to Daniel Hackett’s improvement. A squad full of talent, it’s not strange that they drew more fouls than any other team in the league (23.5 per game). Pesaro won eight road games – only Siena did better. Furthermore, they are the best team from two-point range with 56% shooting and had the best blocker of the league in Marco Cusin (1.4 denials per game).
Pesaro won both regular-season meetings and proved they can match-up well against last year’s runner-ups. Add to it that Vladimir Micov’s return for the first couple of games is uncertain and you see why this series is hard to project. In the end, we still believe Cantù’s experience will prevail and they will advance in four games.
In the 4-5 duel, Banco di Sassari Sardegna faces Canadian Solar Bologna. Sassari improved their great results from last season (eighth place), taking that next step by clinching home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs this season. It arrives as the second best scoring team of the league, playing at their best when they have control of the boards and can push for transition opportunities.
Meanwhile, Bologna found its best set when Terrell McIntyre had to retire due to injury and when Jared Homan was released due to disciplinary reasons. Since that moment, Chris Douglas-Roberts enhanced his performances, Giuseppe Poeta found his rhythm and the frontcourt duo Viktor Sanikidze (best rebounder in the league, LegaBasket’s leader in double-doubles), Angelo Gigli became a factor.
Sassari and Bologna split the regular-season series. Both teams finished with 40 points in the standings and both teams have a nearly intact home record, but if Sassari has its strength in offense, Bologna sets its game on defense. We projected this series to go to a fifth game and Bologna’s individual talent should come through then.
Editor's Note: Giovanni Reale is a staff blogger for 'the Basketball Post', providing info on Italian basketball. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @Pariolino.
As 2012 LegaBasket playoffs open, Montepaschi Siena begins its attempt at a sixth straight league championship, which would become a LegaBasket record. However, the 2011-2012 regular-season couldn’t more of a distant memory for the team that will shoot for history this postseason. Siena put all of its focus into returning to the EuroLeague’s Final Four, eventually getting eliminated by the eventual champions Olympiacos Piraeus in the quarterfinals, and sort of lost track of things in domestic play, losing eight games compared a combined 12 in the previous five championship campaigns.
Many believe this will be the most thrilling postseason in recent memory because Siena has not looked like the dominant force of years past. Having said that, they still open the playoffs as the top favorites to win it all, as players that have dealt with nagging or semi-serious injuries such as Igor Rakocevic and Rimantas Kaukenas are returning to fitness and they also have in Bo McCallebb and David Andersen the league’s two best players.
McCallebb was named the LegaBasket’s MVP and Andersen the runner-up. The awards were voted in by a panel of press members, general managers, coaches and the captains of the 17 teams. Banco di Sardegna Sassari’s head-coach Romeo Sacchetti was named coach of the year, Banca Tercas Teramo’s Achille Polonara was voted the league’s rising star – award given for the best performer under 22 years of age (beating both Alessandro Gentile and Niccolò Meli, more high profile developmental prospects), and Umana Venezia’s Federico Casarin was named the executive of the year.
It’s curious to note that every team qualified for the playoffs has a losing scoring differential, except for Siena (+8.9) and Olimpia Milano (+0.8). The first couple of rounds will be played in best of five series format (2-2-1) with games played every two days and the championship series will be played in a best of seven series format (2-3-2), if necessary, of course.
Siena and Cimberio Varese are featured in the 1-8 matchup. Mens Sana arrives as the league’s top scoring team (82.1 points per game) and the most accurate from the foul line (79.4%). Varese succeeded in clinching the playoffs for the second year in a row despite building the team with a low budget. A team that was not full of talent but that was well coached by Charlie Recalcati who will leave the franchise at year’s end, Varese relies on Yakhouba Diawara’s prolificacy scoring ability. But honestly, we don’t see any chances for Varese to pull the upset here, especially considering that the first two games will be played in Siena and that the series will move to Varese for the third, which probably will be a series clincher, with Cimberio probably exhausted. Montepaschi won both regular-season meetings and is projected to advance in three games.
Milano and Umana Venezia are featured in the 2-7 matchup. Many ups and downs for Emporio Armani during the season, featuring Danilo Gallinari leaving after the end of NBA lockout and Drew Nicholas getting cut. They suffered with injuries and for being a young team but they ended the regular season with eight straight wins, taking advantage of an easy schedule and overcoming Bennet Cantù for the second seed. Antonis Fotsis had the best three-point percentage in the league at 43.8% while the team dished the best average of assists (15.6 per game). Olimpia Milano’s performances looked too much reliant on Ioannis Bouroussis’ outings while both young players Alessandro Gentile and Niccolò Melli showed signs of growth in some games.
Meanwhile, Venezia arrives as definitely the real revelation of 2011-2012 regular-season, coming from the Legadue and forced to set up a team in just a few days prior to the start of the year due to a mix-up with the federation. They stayed between second and fourth place in the standings for most of the year but lost four straight to close the regular-season and fell to the seventh seed. To add to Venezia’s incredible journey, they had to play all of their home games in Treviso at Palaverde because of their home arena’s noncompliance to league rules, yet Umana always played in front of a sold out crowd.
Milano won both regular-season meetings. It had just 10 days to integrate Justin Dentmon, signed to replace the injured JR Bremer Jr., while Venezia had an important period of rest to recover mentally from the four straight losses at season’s end. We expect great enthusiasm but also inexperience. And there is no doubt game three will be a madhouse. On the other hand, Olimpia Milano is supposed to advance to the next round thanks to their physicality and length of their roster. We project Milano to sweep.
In the 3-6, we have Bennet Cantù and Scavolini Siviglia Pesaro. Cantù had to reckon with injuries and split attention with the EuroLeague appointments and in the end, they lost the second seed in the playoff bracket and that is quite important because they’re almost unbeatable at home. They ended the season with the best defense (only 69.9 points allowed per game) and the best three-point shooting percentage (at 38.2%). Gianluca Basile proved he can still make the difference with his clutch triples while Giorgio Shermadini was a great integration down the boards during the season.
Meanwhile, Pesaro arrives as giant killers. They beat Cantù twice and Milano and Siena once each. That’s enough to describe the potential of this team that has in the trio Jumaine Jones-Ricky Hickman-James White its best performers but whose growth is probably mainly due to Daniel Hackett’s improvement. A squad full of talent, it’s not strange that they drew more fouls than any other team in the league (23.5 per game). Pesaro won eight road games – only Siena did better. Furthermore, they are the best team from two-point range with 56% shooting and had the best blocker of the league in Marco Cusin (1.4 denials per game).
Pesaro won both regular-season meetings and proved they can match-up well against last year’s runner-ups. Add to it that Vladimir Micov’s return for the first couple of games is uncertain and you see why this series is hard to project. In the end, we still believe Cantù’s experience will prevail and they will advance in four games.
In the 4-5 duel, Banco di Sassari Sardegna faces Canadian Solar Bologna. Sassari improved their great results from last season (eighth place), taking that next step by clinching home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs this season. It arrives as the second best scoring team of the league, playing at their best when they have control of the boards and can push for transition opportunities.
Meanwhile, Bologna found its best set when Terrell McIntyre had to retire due to injury and when Jared Homan was released due to disciplinary reasons. Since that moment, Chris Douglas-Roberts enhanced his performances, Giuseppe Poeta found his rhythm and the frontcourt duo Viktor Sanikidze (best rebounder in the league, LegaBasket’s leader in double-doubles), Angelo Gigli became a factor.
Sassari and Bologna split the regular-season series. Both teams finished with 40 points in the standings and both teams have a nearly intact home record, but if Sassari has its strength in offense, Bologna sets its game on defense. We projected this series to go to a fifth game and Bologna’s individual talent should come through then.
Editor's Note: Giovanni Reale is a staff blogger for 'the Basketball Post', providing info on Italian basketball. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @Pariolino.
Olympiacos Piraeus Wins EuroLeague Championship Behind Historic Comeback
By Rafael Uehara
Amazing doesn’t begin to describe Olympiacos’ unbelievable run at the 2011-2012 EuroLeague championship. Down 19 points to CSKA Moscow with a little over 12 minutes remaining, the Greek club then went on a furious 28-8 run to win it on a Georgios Printezis floater with 0.7 seconds remaining. It was a comeback of such historical proportions by the Oly that I’m admittedly personally incapable of finding words to describe the feelings of those watching on that moment the game ended. So I won’ try.
This is the Reds’ second EuroLeague title in club history. After so many years of disappointment with a squad built with high profile names such as Milos Teodosic, Sofoklis Schortsanitis and Ioannis Bouroussis, it makes sense Olympiacos finally wins it all with a team built with one single star in Vassilis Spanoulis and around him a couple of young prospects in Kostas Sloukas and Kostas Papanikolaou, players acquired on the cheap in-season in Joey Dorsey and Kyle Hines and Pritenzis, who after a couple of years away returned to the club where he first arrived at age 15 to hit the shot that brings the club back to relevancy.
For most of the game, it was a miserable contest really. CSKA led 10-7 at the end of the first as both teams couldn’t control their emotions and were erratic on offense, combining for 13 turnovers on 33 possessions, and then 34-20 at halftime as Teodosic took over in the second-quarter, at one moment hitting back-to-back-to-back three-pointers and then no-look feeding Darjus Lavrinovic below the rim for a layup. It looked hopeless for Olympiacos at that point.
And it did more so early in the third as Oly continued to turn the ball over at an absurd rate which kept them from putting any sort of comeback attempt together. Meanwhile CSKA wasn’t necessarily playing the ball that made them the heads-on favorites to win it all coming into the weekend but was doing just enough to remain in control and when Alexey Shved broke away for a layup to put the Russian club up 19, the game looked all but over.
But it was a 13-point game at the start of the fourth when Olympiacos went on a furious 8-0 run during a three-minute stretch to reenergize its crowd that changed all momentum. Dusan Ivkovic’s crew just never gave up. The frontline featuring Hines and Printezis just started outhustling CSKA’s taller, stronger and more skilled frontcourt. They created havoc below the in the paint, generating second chance opportunities to fuel Oly’s run.
CSKA simply went through the motions during all of this. It’s tough to know what exactly was going through the players’ and head-coach Jonas Kazlauskas’ minds but the easy assumption is they checked out too early and even when Olympiacos made the push early in the fourth, they still didn’t take it seriously and at the time to secure the title, which they believed they had already won, they could no longer match Olympiacos’ intensity and adrenaline.
Leading by three with under two minutes to go, Teodosic went to the foul line and missed one of two free throws. On the other end, he fouls Papanikolaou and was actually one split second away from doing something even more stupider by fouling him in the act of shooting, which would have mean three free-throws right there. But in the end it didn’t matter. Old man Ramunas Siskauskas went zero for two at the line after Papanikolaou hit his, then Spanoulis drove the length of the court and magnificently fed Printezis on the baseline when Kirilenko cheated to help too soon. And the rest is history.
Spanoulis was named the Final Four’s MVP but as Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia reminded us, the ballots were passed during the third quarter when it looked like CSKA was going to run away with this game. Printezis, the pure heart of the comeback, was the true most valuable player for the team’s win in the championship game. And while Spanoulis fueled their arrival to that moment, he isn’t the one that will forever live in history.
Head-coach Dusan Ivkovic was terrific for managing to make his players continue to play hard when it looked like there was no more reason for it. And then when they did, he rewarded those, Hines & Printezis, who made a difference by keeping them out there throughout the comeback even as Printezis looked spent and Hines committed some dumb turnovers that made it appear the run would fall short.
Papanikolaou goes as the unsung hero. The 22-year-old did not have a fantastic season and at times, it seemed he was more involved on last year’s team compared to this one’s but he stepped up big this weekend, hitting big time shots in the semifinal against Regal FC Barcelona and completely giving the league’s MVP a run for his money on the championship game as they were matched for most of the night, outplaying him with 18 points on 5-5 shooting from the field and 5-6 from the foul line with just two turnovers compared to 12 points on 4-5 shooting and four turnovers by Kirilenko.
Papanikolaou is automatically eligible for the 2012 NBA Draft and up until Thursday, he was projected to go undrafted after failing to build up on last year’s arrival to the scene. But after this weekend, he will possibly be a commodity in the second round as he’s shown a neck to perform in the grand stage against elite class competition with his combination of terrific defensive hustle and instincts and an offensive skill set of intuitive cutting and quality shooting that NBA teams are always looking for. At a minimum, a handful of teams must already have called Olympiacos’ front office to familiarize themselves with the status of his buyout situation.
Olympiacos put together one impressive stretch of five wins in six games, overcoming Montepaschi Siena, Barça and CSKA on their way to the title. As far as legitimacy of a championship goes, they are in the pantheon after surviving three of Europe’s most dominant powerhouses. After so much disappointment over the last decade or so, the red part of Athens can smile, drink and celebrate again. Their Cinderella story has a happy ending.
Editor's Note: The video of Printezis’ buzzer beater live from Istanbul is a courtesy of EuroLeague Adventures. Freaknick, Slam and Rob did a great job providing us the temperature of the Final Four this weekend. And their effort is deeply appreciated by readers, such as me.
Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
Amazing doesn’t begin to describe Olympiacos’ unbelievable run at the 2011-2012 EuroLeague championship. Down 19 points to CSKA Moscow with a little over 12 minutes remaining, the Greek club then went on a furious 28-8 run to win it on a Georgios Printezis floater with 0.7 seconds remaining. It was a comeback of such historical proportions by the Oly that I’m admittedly personally incapable of finding words to describe the feelings of those watching on that moment the game ended. So I won’ try.
This is the Reds’ second EuroLeague title in club history. After so many years of disappointment with a squad built with high profile names such as Milos Teodosic, Sofoklis Schortsanitis and Ioannis Bouroussis, it makes sense Olympiacos finally wins it all with a team built with one single star in Vassilis Spanoulis and around him a couple of young prospects in Kostas Sloukas and Kostas Papanikolaou, players acquired on the cheap in-season in Joey Dorsey and Kyle Hines and Pritenzis, who after a couple of years away returned to the club where he first arrived at age 15 to hit the shot that brings the club back to relevancy.
For most of the game, it was a miserable contest really. CSKA led 10-7 at the end of the first as both teams couldn’t control their emotions and were erratic on offense, combining for 13 turnovers on 33 possessions, and then 34-20 at halftime as Teodosic took over in the second-quarter, at one moment hitting back-to-back-to-back three-pointers and then no-look feeding Darjus Lavrinovic below the rim for a layup. It looked hopeless for Olympiacos at that point.
And it did more so early in the third as Oly continued to turn the ball over at an absurd rate which kept them from putting any sort of comeback attempt together. Meanwhile CSKA wasn’t necessarily playing the ball that made them the heads-on favorites to win it all coming into the weekend but was doing just enough to remain in control and when Alexey Shved broke away for a layup to put the Russian club up 19, the game looked all but over.
But it was a 13-point game at the start of the fourth when Olympiacos went on a furious 8-0 run during a three-minute stretch to reenergize its crowd that changed all momentum. Dusan Ivkovic’s crew just never gave up. The frontline featuring Hines and Printezis just started outhustling CSKA’s taller, stronger and more skilled frontcourt. They created havoc below the in the paint, generating second chance opportunities to fuel Oly’s run.
CSKA simply went through the motions during all of this. It’s tough to know what exactly was going through the players’ and head-coach Jonas Kazlauskas’ minds but the easy assumption is they checked out too early and even when Olympiacos made the push early in the fourth, they still didn’t take it seriously and at the time to secure the title, which they believed they had already won, they could no longer match Olympiacos’ intensity and adrenaline.
Leading by three with under two minutes to go, Teodosic went to the foul line and missed one of two free throws. On the other end, he fouls Papanikolaou and was actually one split second away from doing something even more stupider by fouling him in the act of shooting, which would have mean three free-throws right there. But in the end it didn’t matter. Old man Ramunas Siskauskas went zero for two at the line after Papanikolaou hit his, then Spanoulis drove the length of the court and magnificently fed Printezis on the baseline when Kirilenko cheated to help too soon. And the rest is history.
Spanoulis was named the Final Four’s MVP but as Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia reminded us, the ballots were passed during the third quarter when it looked like CSKA was going to run away with this game. Printezis, the pure heart of the comeback, was the true most valuable player for the team’s win in the championship game. And while Spanoulis fueled their arrival to that moment, he isn’t the one that will forever live in history.
Head-coach Dusan Ivkovic was terrific for managing to make his players continue to play hard when it looked like there was no more reason for it. And then when they did, he rewarded those, Hines & Printezis, who made a difference by keeping them out there throughout the comeback even as Printezis looked spent and Hines committed some dumb turnovers that made it appear the run would fall short.
Papanikolaou goes as the unsung hero. The 22-year-old did not have a fantastic season and at times, it seemed he was more involved on last year’s team compared to this one’s but he stepped up big this weekend, hitting big time shots in the semifinal against Regal FC Barcelona and completely giving the league’s MVP a run for his money on the championship game as they were matched for most of the night, outplaying him with 18 points on 5-5 shooting from the field and 5-6 from the foul line with just two turnovers compared to 12 points on 4-5 shooting and four turnovers by Kirilenko.
Papanikolaou is automatically eligible for the 2012 NBA Draft and up until Thursday, he was projected to go undrafted after failing to build up on last year’s arrival to the scene. But after this weekend, he will possibly be a commodity in the second round as he’s shown a neck to perform in the grand stage against elite class competition with his combination of terrific defensive hustle and instincts and an offensive skill set of intuitive cutting and quality shooting that NBA teams are always looking for. At a minimum, a handful of teams must already have called Olympiacos’ front office to familiarize themselves with the status of his buyout situation.
Olympiacos put together one impressive stretch of five wins in six games, overcoming Montepaschi Siena, Barça and CSKA on their way to the title. As far as legitimacy of a championship goes, they are in the pantheon after surviving three of Europe’s most dominant powerhouses. After so much disappointment over the last decade or so, the red part of Athens can smile, drink and celebrate again. Their Cinderella story has a happy ending.
Editor's Note: The video of Printezis’ buzzer beater live from Istanbul is a courtesy of EuroLeague Adventures. Freaknick, Slam and Rob did a great job providing us the temperature of the Final Four this weekend. And their effort is deeply appreciated by readers, such as me.
Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
What's Next for the Bulls?
By Brian Schroeder
“You guys are in store for a lot of other championships when you look at this team tonight. Don’t be surprised if you have six more coming.”- Michael Jordan, March 2011.
A few hours ago, Derrick Rose had successful surgery to repair his torn left ACL at Rush University Hospital on the West side of Chicago. His recovery time is listed as anywhere from 6-10 months. Even longer will be the gap until he regains any semblance of his MVP form, and MVP award that is no longer his to defend, with LeBron James officially being announced as its recipient for the third time in the past four years. The 2010-2011 season is beginning to feel more and more like a dream, albeit one with a bad ending. What do you do when the dream ends? Do you pretend that it wasn’t a dream, or do you prepare for what happens next? Do you get on with your life? This is the idea that I, as a nearly lifelong Bulls fan, want to address. Where does the team go from here?
From a personnel standpoint, one has to assume management will stand pat. If there’s one thing I can say about the Reinsdorf administration, it’s that they never quite seem to be able to temper their own expectations. Despite the fact that this team probably wouldn’t have been able to get past the Miami Heat, management will almost certainly go about as if they had. The Rose injury is exactly the sort of excuse this administration needs to justify not over-spending or engaging in any sort of meaningful roster turnover. For the sake of this piece (and for the sake of my sanity), I will assume that this isn’t the case. The contracts of Omer Asik, Mike James, John Lucas III and Brian Scalabrine expire this offseason. Asik is restricted, the latter three are not. It stands to reason that Asik, Lucas and Scalabrine will all be back, as all three are favorites of Tom Thibodeau and the Bulls’ fan base. At the very least, the Bulls will be compensated if someone wants to overpay for the offensively challenged Asik. So let’s assume he’ll be back. The year after, 2013, sees the contracts of the rest of the so-called “Bench Mob,” Taj Gibson, Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer, and C.J. Watson expire. Once again, the best player of the bench, Gibson, is restricted, while the rest of unrestricted. It seems almost impossible for all four to return. Gibson is probably the most likely candidate to stay. The other three, while valuable, are also more easily replaceable.
I suppose, were I in control of the Bulls’ roster, I would do what they should have done six months ago and amnesty the contract of Carlos Boozer. Boozer, who turns 31 in November, is easily the least cost-effective player on the team, posting a career Bulls average of 16.2 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 2.2 assists on 52% shooting. These are by no means ineffective numbers, but considering the fact that over the next three seasons, he’ll be making almost $50 million, more than anyone else on the team except Rose himself, he needs to go. His production will only slip as he loses more and more of his athleticism. He was signed to be a presence in the post. He has become a mid range jump shooter.
The first thing the Bulls could do with the money saved from amnestying Boozer’s contract is go after New Orleans Hornets guard Eric Gordon, whose contract expires this summer. The salaries don’t match up, but with some tinkering (namely convincing the bargain-bin Richard Hamilton to retire), it isn’t unfeasible. Outside of Gordon, one of the best young shooting guards in the game, and a perfect complement to Rose, the services of Ray Allen and Jason Terry, both proven playoff performers, will be available. I would suggest Allen, if at all possible. There is also the matter of the NBA Draft, this year’s class being one of the deepest in recent memory, due in part to the NBA Lockout. The Bulls have only one pick as of now, the 29th overall selection at the back end of the first round. Former All-American forward Draymond Green may be available to add depth to both forward spots, which may be more of a necessity if Boozer is parted with. Also of note is Nikola Mirotic, last year’s first round pick, who just came off a very successful season with Real Madrid. The talented 21 year old may not be ready for the NBA, but whenever he is, he guarantees to be a useful piece at either forward spot.
There are two other pieces are worth mentioning, and they are possibly the two most important on the entire team: Derrick Rose and Tom Thibodeau. There is no guarantee that Rose, who looks to return sometime around January, will ever regain his vaunted explosiveness. His game is, perhaps more than any other star in this league, predicated upon quick cuts, often off of one leg. Without that explosiveness, he’s not much different a player than someone like Brandon Jennings, who, while talented, is never going to be confused for a potential championship building block. While it’s true he’s still only 23, an ACL tear is possibly the most devastating injury he ever could have suffered, and the fact that it comes during what is ostensibly the Bulls’ best championship window since 1998 is disheartening. His recently signed contract extension kicks in during the 2012-2013 season, so if he can’t come back near the MVP level he showed last season, he very well might become as overpaid as Boozer is now.
As for Thibodeau, there is only one stat I can bring to evaluate his performance. His career record in the regular season stands at an imposing 112-36 (.757). His career playoff record? 11-11 (.500). I’m not saying that he is incapable of winning in the playoffs. After all, he was three wins from a trip to the NBA Finals in his rookie season. I’m just saying that his style, winning by attrition, might not be the advantage come playoff time that it is in the regular season. His rotations are also still cause for questioning, as are his injury protocols (by this I don’t mean Rose’s injury. I mean Noah’s. No one in their right mind should have let Joakim Noah re-enter Game 4 like Thibodeau did. Not with that injury. It was risky and stupid).
At the expense of sounding pessimistic, I bring up the proceeding not to evaluate the Bulls’ relative failures. I do it to evaluate their chances in the future. And those chances, with an overpaid power forward, an increasingly battered small forward, and an injured star, are looking worse and worse in a conference where LeBron James and Dwyane Wade reign supreme. What do you do when what felt like fate turns out to be only pain? For the city of Chicago, this is an all too familiar question. We are thoroughly acquainted with the sound of a championship window shattering.
Editor's Note: Brian Schroeder is a featured blogger for 'the Basketball Post', providing insight on the NBA and the NBA's Developmental League. More from Brian can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @cosmis
“You guys are in store for a lot of other championships when you look at this team tonight. Don’t be surprised if you have six more coming.”- Michael Jordan, March 2011.
A few hours ago, Derrick Rose had successful surgery to repair his torn left ACL at Rush University Hospital on the West side of Chicago. His recovery time is listed as anywhere from 6-10 months. Even longer will be the gap until he regains any semblance of his MVP form, and MVP award that is no longer his to defend, with LeBron James officially being announced as its recipient for the third time in the past four years. The 2010-2011 season is beginning to feel more and more like a dream, albeit one with a bad ending. What do you do when the dream ends? Do you pretend that it wasn’t a dream, or do you prepare for what happens next? Do you get on with your life? This is the idea that I, as a nearly lifelong Bulls fan, want to address. Where does the team go from here?
From a personnel standpoint, one has to assume management will stand pat. If there’s one thing I can say about the Reinsdorf administration, it’s that they never quite seem to be able to temper their own expectations. Despite the fact that this team probably wouldn’t have been able to get past the Miami Heat, management will almost certainly go about as if they had. The Rose injury is exactly the sort of excuse this administration needs to justify not over-spending or engaging in any sort of meaningful roster turnover. For the sake of this piece (and for the sake of my sanity), I will assume that this isn’t the case. The contracts of Omer Asik, Mike James, John Lucas III and Brian Scalabrine expire this offseason. Asik is restricted, the latter three are not. It stands to reason that Asik, Lucas and Scalabrine will all be back, as all three are favorites of Tom Thibodeau and the Bulls’ fan base. At the very least, the Bulls will be compensated if someone wants to overpay for the offensively challenged Asik. So let’s assume he’ll be back. The year after, 2013, sees the contracts of the rest of the so-called “Bench Mob,” Taj Gibson, Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer, and C.J. Watson expire. Once again, the best player of the bench, Gibson, is restricted, while the rest of unrestricted. It seems almost impossible for all four to return. Gibson is probably the most likely candidate to stay. The other three, while valuable, are also more easily replaceable.
I suppose, were I in control of the Bulls’ roster, I would do what they should have done six months ago and amnesty the contract of Carlos Boozer. Boozer, who turns 31 in November, is easily the least cost-effective player on the team, posting a career Bulls average of 16.2 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 2.2 assists on 52% shooting. These are by no means ineffective numbers, but considering the fact that over the next three seasons, he’ll be making almost $50 million, more than anyone else on the team except Rose himself, he needs to go. His production will only slip as he loses more and more of his athleticism. He was signed to be a presence in the post. He has become a mid range jump shooter.
The first thing the Bulls could do with the money saved from amnestying Boozer’s contract is go after New Orleans Hornets guard Eric Gordon, whose contract expires this summer. The salaries don’t match up, but with some tinkering (namely convincing the bargain-bin Richard Hamilton to retire), it isn’t unfeasible. Outside of Gordon, one of the best young shooting guards in the game, and a perfect complement to Rose, the services of Ray Allen and Jason Terry, both proven playoff performers, will be available. I would suggest Allen, if at all possible. There is also the matter of the NBA Draft, this year’s class being one of the deepest in recent memory, due in part to the NBA Lockout. The Bulls have only one pick as of now, the 29th overall selection at the back end of the first round. Former All-American forward Draymond Green may be available to add depth to both forward spots, which may be more of a necessity if Boozer is parted with. Also of note is Nikola Mirotic, last year’s first round pick, who just came off a very successful season with Real Madrid. The talented 21 year old may not be ready for the NBA, but whenever he is, he guarantees to be a useful piece at either forward spot.
There are two other pieces are worth mentioning, and they are possibly the two most important on the entire team: Derrick Rose and Tom Thibodeau. There is no guarantee that Rose, who looks to return sometime around January, will ever regain his vaunted explosiveness. His game is, perhaps more than any other star in this league, predicated upon quick cuts, often off of one leg. Without that explosiveness, he’s not much different a player than someone like Brandon Jennings, who, while talented, is never going to be confused for a potential championship building block. While it’s true he’s still only 23, an ACL tear is possibly the most devastating injury he ever could have suffered, and the fact that it comes during what is ostensibly the Bulls’ best championship window since 1998 is disheartening. His recently signed contract extension kicks in during the 2012-2013 season, so if he can’t come back near the MVP level he showed last season, he very well might become as overpaid as Boozer is now.
As for Thibodeau, there is only one stat I can bring to evaluate his performance. His career record in the regular season stands at an imposing 112-36 (.757). His career playoff record? 11-11 (.500). I’m not saying that he is incapable of winning in the playoffs. After all, he was three wins from a trip to the NBA Finals in his rookie season. I’m just saying that his style, winning by attrition, might not be the advantage come playoff time that it is in the regular season. His rotations are also still cause for questioning, as are his injury protocols (by this I don’t mean Rose’s injury. I mean Noah’s. No one in their right mind should have let Joakim Noah re-enter Game 4 like Thibodeau did. Not with that injury. It was risky and stupid).
At the expense of sounding pessimistic, I bring up the proceeding not to evaluate the Bulls’ relative failures. I do it to evaluate their chances in the future. And those chances, with an overpaid power forward, an increasingly battered small forward, and an injured star, are looking worse and worse in a conference where LeBron James and Dwyane Wade reign supreme. What do you do when what felt like fate turns out to be only pain? For the city of Chicago, this is an all too familiar question. We are thoroughly acquainted with the sound of a championship window shattering.
Editor's Note: Brian Schroeder is a featured blogger for 'the Basketball Post', providing insight on the NBA and the NBA's Developmental League. More from Brian can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @cosmis
Grizzlies Go Back to Gasol & Randolph to Force Game Seven Against the Clippers and Re-Emerge as Title Contender
By Rafael Uehara
The Memphis Grizzlies made a run to the second round of the playoffs last year only falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder on game seven, that after overcoming the number one seed San Antonio Spurs behind a frontcourt-based attack relying on Zach Randolph’s and Marc Gasol’s versatility in the post. Through paint domination - high volume low block scoring and high percentage second chance manufacturing - Memphis looked like a legit title contender.
The idea was to emulate that same formula this season but Rudy Gay’s return from injury – he was sidelined throughout last year’s entire run after undergoing surgery to repair a shoulder issue – and Randolph’s partial MCL tear - that sidelined him for 38 games - changed those plans. The Grizzlies acquired Marresse Speights in-season who has a different game than Randolph’s, floating around the mid-range area more than setting position deep in the low post.
Through Speights’ presence and Gay’s volume shooting – he led the team in attempts, with a 16.4 average - Memphis became a more perimeter oriented team than they wanted to be. Gasol still balanced the attack inside but the team’s fifth-leading ranking in paint scoring is more due their eighth-leading ranking in fast-break scoring dimension resulted from their high percentage of takeaways than the frontcourt-based attack they had in mind.
Against the Clippers, the Grizzlies have a substantial advantage upfront. DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin are a strength challenged combo who struggle with fundamentally sound defense. Reggie Evans isn’t quick or athletic enough to matchup with either of Memphis’ frontline players and Kenyon Martin, despite still being a great option on switches, does not bring all that much on the boards. And offensively, Evans & Martin are weak links.
Game one of the series is known for LA’s 27-point fourth-quarter comeback. Actually on that game Memphis dominated - scoring 95 points on their first 73 possessions, good for a 130.1 offensive rating for the stretch. But they did it because they shot unusually well from three-point range - going 11-16 as Mike Conley Jr. and OJ Mayo exploded to combine for 9-11. They never really established some sort of frontcourt edge. According to Hoopdata, Gasol & Randolph combined to use just 29 of the team’s 91 possessions.
On game two, Memphis dominated again and almost blew it again but won the game by scoring 31 points at the foul line. Gasol & Randolph combined to use just 24 of the team’s 90 possessions, again per Hoopdata. Asked about Gasol’s specific low amount of touches, just four shots on that game two, head-coach Lionel Hollins threw it on Marc, arguing he is the one that has to demand the ball late in games.
As the venue shifted to LA, the Grizzlies looked their worse in the series. The 86-87 loss on game three was only close because Gay took over in the fourth and started hitting some unconscious shots. On that game they scored just 14 points at the rim – in perspective, they averaged 32.8 during the regular-season. Then on game four, Conley Jr. provided a spark, scoring or assisting on 42 of the team’s 97 points, but they fell short in overtime. Over the two games in LA, Gasol & Randolph used just 53 of the team’s 190 possessions.
With their backs against the wall, the Grizzlies finally re-focused on their game-plan and with back-to-back wins, managed to force game seven at FedEx Forum on Sunday – May, the 13th. On the 92-80 blowout in game five, Gasol had 23 points and four assists, posting a 25.8% usage rate, his highest of the series up until that point. Randolph wing-manned him with 19 points on 6-11 shooting from the field and 7-10 from the foul line. Playing through them, Memphis got the best looks they generated all series. And with the tone set, yesterday on game six, the combo combined to score 41 points on 33 shots to lead the way on the team’s 90-88 win.
As good seasons Conley Jr., Gay and Mayo have had anchoring the team’s offense on the perimeter, the Grizzlies will only go as far as Gasol & Randolph can take them. After looking slow there for a while, Zach has shown over the last two games he can still emulate the sort of production that made him a key figure on last year’s run. And Gasol proved all he needs is for them to feature him and devote him the possessions necessary.
Back home for game seven and against a Clippers’ squad that does not contain Griffin and Paul at 100%, the Grizzlies are the clear favorites to advance. They would then face the Spurs, against whom they got good memories. Seen as a title contender coming into the year, Memphis has flashed they still have the potential to fulfill those expectations. All it takes is discipline within the game-plan; just continue going back to Gasol & Randolph.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
The Memphis Grizzlies made a run to the second round of the playoffs last year only falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder on game seven, that after overcoming the number one seed San Antonio Spurs behind a frontcourt-based attack relying on Zach Randolph’s and Marc Gasol’s versatility in the post. Through paint domination - high volume low block scoring and high percentage second chance manufacturing - Memphis looked like a legit title contender.
The idea was to emulate that same formula this season but Rudy Gay’s return from injury – he was sidelined throughout last year’s entire run after undergoing surgery to repair a shoulder issue – and Randolph’s partial MCL tear - that sidelined him for 38 games - changed those plans. The Grizzlies acquired Marresse Speights in-season who has a different game than Randolph’s, floating around the mid-range area more than setting position deep in the low post.
Through Speights’ presence and Gay’s volume shooting – he led the team in attempts, with a 16.4 average - Memphis became a more perimeter oriented team than they wanted to be. Gasol still balanced the attack inside but the team’s fifth-leading ranking in paint scoring is more due their eighth-leading ranking in fast-break scoring dimension resulted from their high percentage of takeaways than the frontcourt-based attack they had in mind.
Against the Clippers, the Grizzlies have a substantial advantage upfront. DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin are a strength challenged combo who struggle with fundamentally sound defense. Reggie Evans isn’t quick or athletic enough to matchup with either of Memphis’ frontline players and Kenyon Martin, despite still being a great option on switches, does not bring all that much on the boards. And offensively, Evans & Martin are weak links.
Game one of the series is known for LA’s 27-point fourth-quarter comeback. Actually on that game Memphis dominated - scoring 95 points on their first 73 possessions, good for a 130.1 offensive rating for the stretch. But they did it because they shot unusually well from three-point range - going 11-16 as Mike Conley Jr. and OJ Mayo exploded to combine for 9-11. They never really established some sort of frontcourt edge. According to Hoopdata, Gasol & Randolph combined to use just 29 of the team’s 91 possessions.
On game two, Memphis dominated again and almost blew it again but won the game by scoring 31 points at the foul line. Gasol & Randolph combined to use just 24 of the team’s 90 possessions, again per Hoopdata. Asked about Gasol’s specific low amount of touches, just four shots on that game two, head-coach Lionel Hollins threw it on Marc, arguing he is the one that has to demand the ball late in games.
As the venue shifted to LA, the Grizzlies looked their worse in the series. The 86-87 loss on game three was only close because Gay took over in the fourth and started hitting some unconscious shots. On that game they scored just 14 points at the rim – in perspective, they averaged 32.8 during the regular-season. Then on game four, Conley Jr. provided a spark, scoring or assisting on 42 of the team’s 97 points, but they fell short in overtime. Over the two games in LA, Gasol & Randolph used just 53 of the team’s 190 possessions.
With their backs against the wall, the Grizzlies finally re-focused on their game-plan and with back-to-back wins, managed to force game seven at FedEx Forum on Sunday – May, the 13th. On the 92-80 blowout in game five, Gasol had 23 points and four assists, posting a 25.8% usage rate, his highest of the series up until that point. Randolph wing-manned him with 19 points on 6-11 shooting from the field and 7-10 from the foul line. Playing through them, Memphis got the best looks they generated all series. And with the tone set, yesterday on game six, the combo combined to score 41 points on 33 shots to lead the way on the team’s 90-88 win.
As good seasons Conley Jr., Gay and Mayo have had anchoring the team’s offense on the perimeter, the Grizzlies will only go as far as Gasol & Randolph can take them. After looking slow there for a while, Zach has shown over the last two games he can still emulate the sort of production that made him a key figure on last year’s run. And Gasol proved all he needs is for them to feature him and devote him the possessions necessary.
Back home for game seven and against a Clippers’ squad that does not contain Griffin and Paul at 100%, the Grizzlies are the clear favorites to advance. They would then face the Spurs, against whom they got good memories. Seen as a title contender coming into the year, Memphis has flashed they still have the potential to fulfill those expectations. All it takes is discipline within the game-plan; just continue going back to Gasol & Randolph.
Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
2012 EuroLeague Championship Game Preview
By Rafael Uehara
And we have narrowed it down to two. CSKA Moscow and Olympiacos Piraeus will play for the 2012 EuroLeague title on Sunday – May, the 13th – after winning hard-fought battles against defending champions Panathinaikos Athens and 2010 champions Regal FC Barcelona, respectively, in the semifinals on Friday. It will be the first time these two historic organizations will meet each other with Europe’s crown on the line.
CSKA Moscow arrived to the Final Four as the heavy favorites to win it all, based on its great performance all year long in which it showed to be a dominant force who has reached an outstanding level of cohesiveness as a unit. And all of it was in display on the team’s 66-64 win over Panathinaikos Athens, behind 17 points, nine rebounds and four blocks by Andrei Kirilenko and 15 points and five rebounds by Alexey Shved.
The Russian club actually started the game flat, allowing PAO to open a 29-15 first-quarter lead. Greek club’s head-coach Zeljko Obradovic surprised by starting Sarunas Jasikevicius alongside Dimitris Diamantidis at the backcourt and Kostas Kaimakoglou alongside Aleks Maric upfront, essentially throwing his best offensive weapons out there from the get-go, which made a difference as PAO’s attack gave CSKA’s defense fits.
In the second-quarter, however, CSKA upped the ante. Kirilenko, low maintenance and unassertive early, became more energetic on defense and aggressive on offense. Combined to Shved’s boost of fuel on both ends off the bench, Kirilenko led CSKA’s 17-5 second-quarter run in which the Russian club held the Greek club to five points on 18 possessions, forcing six missed shots at the rim, six missed shots from three-point range and four turnovers.
Panathinaikos continued to struggle early in the third, at one point totaling just 13 points on a 15-minute spam between the middle quarters. But then Obradovic brought Kaimakoglou back off the bench for the struggling Mike Batiste – CSKA’s lengthy and strong frontline was just a terrible matchup for Batiste who finished with 11 points but on a 3-9 shooting to go with six turnovers, and just like against Maccabi in the quarterfinals, Kaimakoglou revitalized PAO’s on a key moment by getting to the foul line.
In the fourth, the Hall of Famer Jasikevicius dropped yet another historic performance, scoring seven of PAO’s nine points in the quarter but CSKA took the lead late when head-coach Jonas Kazlauskas went center-less in crunch time, which stressed matchups in their favor and also turned out to be affective on defense as it provided more help-defense and double-team flexibility, well exemplified on the last possession of the game when a double-teamed Diamantidis found no great passing lane and ended up turning it over to seal the game’s faith.
In the other semifinal, Olympiacos Piraeus upset Regal FC Barcelona, 68-64, in a rematch of the championship game of two years ago. Vassilis Spanoulis was fantastic - dropping 21 points on 7-19 shooting and six assists, supported by Georgios Printezis who had 14 points on 5-7 shooting and four rebounds. For Barça, Juan Carlos Navarro was really the only bright spot with 18 points on 6-15 shooting.
Barcelona arrived having posted the most impressive defensive campaign in modern era as it allowed opponents to average only 86.1 points per 100 possessions on 45.1% effective shooting, both league-leading statistics by a rather wide margin. But Olympiacos managed to push Barcelona’s historic defense like no other team but Real Madrid has been able to this season, scoring 68 points on 68 possessions. Spanoulis just shattered the team’s pick-and-roll coverage with his masterful running of the set, always getting what the defense would give him. Olympiacos scored 24 points in the paint and 27 from three-point range.
Offensively, Barça was dreadful. It was held to 11 points on 18 possessions in the first-quarter, had just 29 points on 34 trips at halftime and finished with 64 on 68, a 94.1 offensive rating. And that was only the case because it posted a 46.3% offensive-rebounding rate as it grabbed 19 offensive rebounds to make up for the terrible 6-30 (20%) shooting from outside the paint and the 13 turnovers (giveaways on 19.1% of their possessions). The issues for Barça were chronic pains that should have caught up with them a while back. This has been a team that relied heavily on Navarro and Erazem Lorbek to dictate the mood of their offense. Still dealing with plantar fasciitis that has bothered him all year long – he was questionable for the game, and affected by Acie Law IV’s size, Navarro didn’t have the most efficient of games, posting a .466 effective field-goal percentage and five turnovers. And Lorbek was shut down, going for just nine points on 12 shots in 29 minutes, by Printezis who defended him extremely well, able to push him off the low post and then affectively front him.
Barça then struggled badly to manufacture scoring. The game was slow-paced and without transition opportunities, Chuck Eidson can’t make a difference and he went scoreless on 18 minutes. Pete Mickeal, heating up late in the year, was then the hope to provide an escape valve but he also no-showed, scoring just four points on eight shots in 23 minutes. Second-chance scoring really was the only thing they had going for them.
In the fourth, head-coach Xavi Pascual gave in and let Marcelinho Huertas and Fran Vázquez try to make something happen off the pick-and-roll. Neither Huertas nor Vázquez seem to have the vote of confidence of the coach because they don’t meet the ridiculous high defensive standards held by Pascual but with the season on the line, they were the ones responsible to try saving the ship.
It worked some as Barça got within two in a couple of occasions late but it never really was able to put a string of stops and scores together in order to take the lead. Huertas & Vázquez helped on offense but hurt on defense as Spanoulis continued to shred Barça’s pick-and-roll coverage and Joey Dorsey was killing them on the offensive glass. Luigi Lamonica called a couple of ticky-tack fouls that helped Barça go on one last charge but Spanoulis put an end to it all on a stop-and-pop 25-footer and fed Dorsey for an And-one in the ensuing possession.
In the championship game, the most intriguing matchup will be between Olympiacos’ pick-and-roll attack and CSKA’s pick-and-roll coverage. Against PAO, CSKA did great on switches. Nenad Krstic somehow intimidated Diamantidis from trying to go at him as last season’s MVP consistently settled for outside shots. Diamantidis was a lot more aggressive against Sasha Kaun but Kaun was also pretty good on the mismatch, forcing tough finishes out of Diamantidis and Jasikevicius at the rim.
CSKA is also a phenomenal held-defending team. Kirilenko is great blocking shots off the weak-side. PAO tried hard to minimize his impact, with Romain Sato not touching the ball on offense more often than not and the team running their action away from him, but still had to deal with Kirilenko’s terrific help instincts. Shved is also good at helping on paint protection assignments and rotation. It’ll be curious to see if Spanoulis can shred them like he did Barça.
The battle on the glass will also be interesting. Olympiacos is terrible protecting their own glass but is pretty active on the offensive boards. It led the quarterfinals in second-chance opportunities, picking up 41.1% of their misses against Siena and then dropped 11-offensive-rebound (31.4% offensive-rebounding rate) performance on Barça. Meanwhile, that’s sort of a weakness of CSKA, who allowed opponents to pick up second chances on 27% of the missed shots they forced all season and a 28.5% offensive-rebounding rate to PAO.
On the other end, it’s tough to see CSKA struggling like Barça did. Despite his five turnovers and 1-6 three-point shooting, Milos Teodosic actually went well running the team’s offense in the second-half. The Russian club is also a lot more comfortable playing in transition, so don’t expect Shved to be neutralized like Eidson was. Krstic should have a great advantage in the post as he is taller than Dorsey, quicker than Pero Antic and stronger than Printezis. And that Kirilenko guy will find a way to contribute like he always does.
For Olympiacos, the key should be forcing bad looks from the perimeter which they proved they can do against Barça who went 3-11 from mid-range and 3-19 from three-point range. CSKA is coming from a bad perimeter shooting performance on its own (5-24, 20.8% shooting from outside the paint against PAO in the semifinal) and might just be having a cold weekend. Acie Law IV would be to helping Olympiacos there but his possible absence can hold them back in that department. We’ll see.
CSKA Moscow is the favorite to win the title. They were so all season long and arrived as so this weekend. The Russian club proved on Friday that even when things don’t click, they can figure out a course of action quickly and then bounce back. Olympiacos Piraeus, on the end, sure has proven they can pull an upset over a more complete squad than theirs and they are on a row, overcoming Montepaschi Siena and Regal FC Barcelona in consecutive stages. So an outcome on their favor would be yet another upset but not a really shocking one at this point.
This is supposed to be that weekend of the year we are blessed with the best of European basketball at its finest. And Friday sure didn’t disappoint. We have already seen high quality play, emotion and drama. With at least one of the Greek teams making into the championship game, we’ll also have a great scene once more. We have a chance at feeling devotion one more time this season. So enjoy.
Editor's Note: All season-long statistical data on this post was researched at in-the-game.org, one phenomenal website dedicated to keeping track of advance statistics in the EuroLeague. Simon Jatsch does an amazing job and I hope he knows how much his work is appreciated.
Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com
And we have narrowed it down to two. CSKA Moscow and Olympiacos Piraeus will play for the 2012 EuroLeague title on Sunday – May, the 13th – after winning hard-fought battles against defending champions Panathinaikos Athens and 2010 champions Regal FC Barcelona, respectively, in the semifinals on Friday. It will be the first time these two historic organizations will meet each other with Europe’s crown on the line.
CSKA Moscow arrived to the Final Four as the heavy favorites to win it all, based on its great performance all year long in which it showed to be a dominant force who has reached an outstanding level of cohesiveness as a unit. And all of it was in display on the team’s 66-64 win over Panathinaikos Athens, behind 17 points, nine rebounds and four blocks by Andrei Kirilenko and 15 points and five rebounds by Alexey Shved.
The Russian club actually started the game flat, allowing PAO to open a 29-15 first-quarter lead. Greek club’s head-coach Zeljko Obradovic surprised by starting Sarunas Jasikevicius alongside Dimitris Diamantidis at the backcourt and Kostas Kaimakoglou alongside Aleks Maric upfront, essentially throwing his best offensive weapons out there from the get-go, which made a difference as PAO’s attack gave CSKA’s defense fits.
In the second-quarter, however, CSKA upped the ante. Kirilenko, low maintenance and unassertive early, became more energetic on defense and aggressive on offense. Combined to Shved’s boost of fuel on both ends off the bench, Kirilenko led CSKA’s 17-5 second-quarter run in which the Russian club held the Greek club to five points on 18 possessions, forcing six missed shots at the rim, six missed shots from three-point range and four turnovers.
Panathinaikos continued to struggle early in the third, at one point totaling just 13 points on a 15-minute spam between the middle quarters. But then Obradovic brought Kaimakoglou back off the bench for the struggling Mike Batiste – CSKA’s lengthy and strong frontline was just a terrible matchup for Batiste who finished with 11 points but on a 3-9 shooting to go with six turnovers, and just like against Maccabi in the quarterfinals, Kaimakoglou revitalized PAO’s on a key moment by getting to the foul line.
In the fourth, the Hall of Famer Jasikevicius dropped yet another historic performance, scoring seven of PAO’s nine points in the quarter but CSKA took the lead late when head-coach Jonas Kazlauskas went center-less in crunch time, which stressed matchups in their favor and also turned out to be affective on defense as it provided more help-defense and double-team flexibility, well exemplified on the last possession of the game when a double-teamed Diamantidis found no great passing lane and ended up turning it over to seal the game’s faith.
In the other semifinal, Olympiacos Piraeus upset Regal FC Barcelona, 68-64, in a rematch of the championship game of two years ago. Vassilis Spanoulis was fantastic - dropping 21 points on 7-19 shooting and six assists, supported by Georgios Printezis who had 14 points on 5-7 shooting and four rebounds. For Barça, Juan Carlos Navarro was really the only bright spot with 18 points on 6-15 shooting.
Barcelona arrived having posted the most impressive defensive campaign in modern era as it allowed opponents to average only 86.1 points per 100 possessions on 45.1% effective shooting, both league-leading statistics by a rather wide margin. But Olympiacos managed to push Barcelona’s historic defense like no other team but Real Madrid has been able to this season, scoring 68 points on 68 possessions. Spanoulis just shattered the team’s pick-and-roll coverage with his masterful running of the set, always getting what the defense would give him. Olympiacos scored 24 points in the paint and 27 from three-point range.
Offensively, Barça was dreadful. It was held to 11 points on 18 possessions in the first-quarter, had just 29 points on 34 trips at halftime and finished with 64 on 68, a 94.1 offensive rating. And that was only the case because it posted a 46.3% offensive-rebounding rate as it grabbed 19 offensive rebounds to make up for the terrible 6-30 (20%) shooting from outside the paint and the 13 turnovers (giveaways on 19.1% of their possessions). The issues for Barça were chronic pains that should have caught up with them a while back. This has been a team that relied heavily on Navarro and Erazem Lorbek to dictate the mood of their offense. Still dealing with plantar fasciitis that has bothered him all year long – he was questionable for the game, and affected by Acie Law IV’s size, Navarro didn’t have the most efficient of games, posting a .466 effective field-goal percentage and five turnovers. And Lorbek was shut down, going for just nine points on 12 shots in 29 minutes, by Printezis who defended him extremely well, able to push him off the low post and then affectively front him.
Barça then struggled badly to manufacture scoring. The game was slow-paced and without transition opportunities, Chuck Eidson can’t make a difference and he went scoreless on 18 minutes. Pete Mickeal, heating up late in the year, was then the hope to provide an escape valve but he also no-showed, scoring just four points on eight shots in 23 minutes. Second-chance scoring really was the only thing they had going for them.
In the fourth, head-coach Xavi Pascual gave in and let Marcelinho Huertas and Fran Vázquez try to make something happen off the pick-and-roll. Neither Huertas nor Vázquez seem to have the vote of confidence of the coach because they don’t meet the ridiculous high defensive standards held by Pascual but with the season on the line, they were the ones responsible to try saving the ship.
It worked some as Barça got within two in a couple of occasions late but it never really was able to put a string of stops and scores together in order to take the lead. Huertas & Vázquez helped on offense but hurt on defense as Spanoulis continued to shred Barça’s pick-and-roll coverage and Joey Dorsey was killing them on the offensive glass. Luigi Lamonica called a couple of ticky-tack fouls that helped Barça go on one last charge but Spanoulis put an end to it all on a stop-and-pop 25-footer and fed Dorsey for an And-one in the ensuing possession.
In the championship game, the most intriguing matchup will be between Olympiacos’ pick-and-roll attack and CSKA’s pick-and-roll coverage. Against PAO, CSKA did great on switches. Nenad Krstic somehow intimidated Diamantidis from trying to go at him as last season’s MVP consistently settled for outside shots. Diamantidis was a lot more aggressive against Sasha Kaun but Kaun was also pretty good on the mismatch, forcing tough finishes out of Diamantidis and Jasikevicius at the rim.
CSKA is also a phenomenal held-defending team. Kirilenko is great blocking shots off the weak-side. PAO tried hard to minimize his impact, with Romain Sato not touching the ball on offense more often than not and the team running their action away from him, but still had to deal with Kirilenko’s terrific help instincts. Shved is also good at helping on paint protection assignments and rotation. It’ll be curious to see if Spanoulis can shred them like he did Barça.
The battle on the glass will also be interesting. Olympiacos is terrible protecting their own glass but is pretty active on the offensive boards. It led the quarterfinals in second-chance opportunities, picking up 41.1% of their misses against Siena and then dropped 11-offensive-rebound (31.4% offensive-rebounding rate) performance on Barça. Meanwhile, that’s sort of a weakness of CSKA, who allowed opponents to pick up second chances on 27% of the missed shots they forced all season and a 28.5% offensive-rebounding rate to PAO.
On the other end, it’s tough to see CSKA struggling like Barça did. Despite his five turnovers and 1-6 three-point shooting, Milos Teodosic actually went well running the team’s offense in the second-half. The Russian club is also a lot more comfortable playing in transition, so don’t expect Shved to be neutralized like Eidson was. Krstic should have a great advantage in the post as he is taller than Dorsey, quicker than Pero Antic and stronger than Printezis. And that Kirilenko guy will find a way to contribute like he always does.
For Olympiacos, the key should be forcing bad looks from the perimeter which they proved they can do against Barça who went 3-11 from mid-range and 3-19 from three-point range. CSKA is coming from a bad perimeter shooting performance on its own (5-24, 20.8% shooting from outside the paint against PAO in the semifinal) and might just be having a cold weekend. Acie Law IV would be to helping Olympiacos there but his possible absence can hold them back in that department. We’ll see.
CSKA Moscow is the favorite to win the title. They were so all season long and arrived as so this weekend. The Russian club proved on Friday that even when things don’t click, they can figure out a course of action quickly and then bounce back. Olympiacos Piraeus, on the end, sure has proven they can pull an upset over a more complete squad than theirs and they are on a row, overcoming Montepaschi Siena and Regal FC Barcelona in consecutive stages. So an outcome on their favor would be yet another upset but not a really shocking one at this point.
This is supposed to be that weekend of the year we are blessed with the best of European basketball at its finest. And Friday sure didn’t disappoint. We have already seen high quality play, emotion and drama. With at least one of the Greek teams making into the championship game, we’ll also have a great scene once more. We have a chance at feeling devotion one more time this season. So enjoy.
Editor's Note: All season-long statistical data on this post was researched at in-the-game.org, one phenomenal website dedicated to keeping track of advance statistics in the EuroLeague. Simon Jatsch does an amazing job and I hope he knows how much his work is appreciated.
Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com