The world is Kobe's

I find it highly suspect that after being criticized for distracting from the playoffs with his trade requests, Kobe went silent until the DAY AFTER THE NBA FINALS. So basically, the NBA, not happy that Kobe was taking the spotlight off their season had him subdue his demands until after the season. This is a conspiracy theory, no doubt, but its a believable one, and it demonstrates how control the league has over media outlets.

What's Gotten into Robert Horry (and other first half observations)

Game Two is half over, and the Cavs have about half the Spurs score. Of course, I didn't expect the game to be anything like this, but the way the Spurs are playing is exactly what they did in game 1 and the rest of the playoffs (but better). So there's really not much worth noting, its all just a day at the River Walk. First of all, what the hell is wrong with Robert Horry? He's not supposed to come on until the game's waning minutes, yet he has played phenomenally, with three blocks, and a whole bunch of boards.

-Tony Parker is just waltzing into the lane. What is wrong with the Cavs' front line? Where is Drew Gooden's help defense? I join Jeff Van Gundy in being absolutely blown away by the Cavs' ineptitude.

-When he airballed the FT, I really thought that Bowen had just broken Lebron James. Clearly, I was wrong. He is still not playing well, but he has forced himself back into this game. The emphatic dunk and the string of good hard drives show that this young man is not as easily daunted as I thought.

-Harvey Araton had a nice piece in the New York Times today where he asks whether the Spurs would have the same reputation if they played in New York. He certainly has a point. The Bulls were predictable, running their offence through a single player. The Lakers of the 2000s were predictable, running a bunch of plays that involved only two players. The NBA is a part of the entertainment business, and reputation is a facade. Nothing about the Spurs reputation has anything to do with what they actually do on the court. I just posted at length about this at Five Tool Tool. EDIT: True Hoop has some more on the same issue (and cites the same article). It seems that this season has seen a growing amount of voices calling for more Spur appreciation. Lets see how they are depicted next season (I expect the league and the fans to embrace the 'bad guy' persona, booing the Spurs in every arena).

The NBA is racially charged?

First of all, second round starts Saturday, I should have match up breakdowns by tomorrow night. There are going to be two great games on TV tonight, and unless a miracle happens, I wont be able to watch either, major bummer. I’ll say this though, Houston and Utah are both playing great basketball, and I expect the Jazz to extend to seven tonight. I also expect Golden State to take care of business tonight, but if the Mavs win, I don’t think Golden State has the ability to win a game seven on the road.

The biggest story right now, or what should be the biggest story right now (honestly, what is Kobe doing on espn.com’s front page?) is the study done by Justin Wolfers, a business professor at Penn, and Joseph Price, a Cornell economics student. As you might have heard, these two analyzed foul calls and turnovers from 1991 to 2004 and found that referee teams (which are made of three people) that are predominantly white make 4.5% more calls on black players. While the opposite is also true (black refs calling more on white players) the effect there is much less and seems to be negligible.

Now, ever since David Stern has begun to remarket the league back in the mid ‘80s, the NBA’s racial make up has been relegated to elephant in the room, everyone sees it and no one in any official position talks about it. Because the NBA partially controls the content being aired on ESPN, TNT, and ABC, the major media outlets don’t address it much either. So when the New York Times propels race relations to the front page, the NBA quickly was up in arms with a reaction. The NBA produced its own study, written by unnamed ‘experts,’ which examined individual calls and claimed no bias. While the NBA’s study is useful in that it isolates individual referee’s calls, it has a much smaller data base (148,000 calls, that might not even be a full season), and its anonymous authorship coupled with the fact that it is produced in house and not by independent scholars makes it highly dubious.

Is race an issue in the NBA, with out a doubt. Race plays a role in much of what the NBA does as an organization, and some would argue that it has a lot to do with how the fans interact. The NBA is a league in which predominantly white league leadership oversees a predominantly black group of sports-entertainers for the benefit of a predominantly white fan base. There is a lot that can be said about this, and if anyone is interested, I highly recommend David Shields work Black Planet. (http://www.amazon.com/Black-Planet-Facing-During-Season/dp/0609806661) Shields, a professor at Washinton University, followed around the Seatle Sonics in the mid ‘90s, producing an insightful look at race’s role in the NBA and how it is addressed (or unaddressed) by the league, its players, and its fans.

So what about this new study? I cannot say I’m surprised. Everyone who takes an intro to psych class can tell you how powerful stereotype is when it operates on the subconscious. Referees are human beings, and they have their prejeduces, even if they do not foster them consciously or overtly. No one is claming that the NBA’s refs, or league officials for that matter, are racist, rather they are claiming that race plays a role in the NBA, just like it does (unfortunitly) everywhere else. I would like to be able to say that we live in a fully color blind world, I cannot. Certianly, the relationship between blacks and whites is nothing like it used to be, and as far as race relations go, I think this society has been heading in a good direction. But no one should expect that we can completely remove human prejudices, even from the most impartial observers. More important than the question of whether this study holds water or not, I think, is the issue of what should be done now. Is there a way to remove some of this prejudice? There must be, though I cannot think of anything practical anyone can do right now. Rather than outright denying these claims, the NBA should be working on ways of alleviating the problem, if it can. Of course, to do this would be to acknowledge that race is, indeed, a powerful force in the NBA, just as it is in all of society; but if the NBA took necessary steps to take care of this issue, it would speak volumes about its moral priorities as an organization. As it stands right now, Stern and his lawyers look like a bunch of scared business men trying to cover their asses.

Don't, Don't, Don't Believe the Hype

Between now and Thursday, when the Mavs and Warriors battle again, there is going to be a lot of talk about Dirk, and how he ‘elevated his game,’ ‘silenced critics,’ etc. I think this says a lot about the relationship the media has with the NBA and how powerful they are in influencing how the game is sold. The media is trying to spin the series to tell us fans a story. It’s a story of emotion, where the emotionally charged Warriors are out-emoting the scared Mavs. Dirk Nowitzki, the erstwhile MVP is being bashed because he lacks the ‘fire’ to elevate his game. He is compared to the great scorers of all time and falls short, not because of a deficiency in his game, not because he is easily defended, but because of his ‘passion,’ his ‘drive,’ his ‘confidence.’ Then, like manna from heaven (from the league’s perspective), Dirk puts together his best game of the series in a do or die situation, and a new chapter is added to this heavily constructed story. Columns will come out tomorrow applauding Dirk for silencing the critics, ignoring the fact that the people writing these columns are the very critics he silenced. Folks, most of the people whose stuff you read (yes, even Bill Simmons) are writing for mass media outlets, most of which have close financial ties to the NBA. And so they spin, taking a complex series and telling it as a nice, neat, narrative.

Basketball, like all sports, is in large part a game of intensity, emotion does factor heavily into what these players do every night. That said, 67 win teams do not lose to 42 win teams on intensity alone. Make no mistake people, Dirk Nowitzki is as competitive as most. Not everyone is Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, or Steve Nash (to name a few), but if you don’t think Nowitzki plays with fire than you aren’t watching closely enough. What’s hurting the Mavs is not an emotional deficiency, it has to do with a combination of a brilliant coaching job on the part of Don Nelson, the unique nature of Nowitzki’s game, and the fact that the Mavs just don’t match up well with the Warriors.

Don Nelson is of a unique mold among coaches in that he needs teams that can play to his style, he doesn’t coach to a team’s strengths (see Knicks, 1995). However, when blessed with the right type of lineup, he is among the best strategists in the game. When he was with Golden State the first time, and definitely during his stint with Dallas, Nelson was great at running the team in a way that emphasized his team’s ability. Add that to the fact that he is intimately acquainted with the Mavs’ personnel, and you have a recipe for a great coaching job. I could cite a number of things that he has done to hurt the Mavs, but let’s focus on how he is defending Dirk.

When people claim that Dirk Nowitzki redefined the 4 position, they say it because he has a unique playing style. Dirk is slow, he can be explosive off one dribble but does a poor job creating his own shot off the dribble. Despite his size, he plays best while facing the basket, and because of this can be very ineffective on the low block. And, of course, Dirk’s stroke combined with his size makes his shot nigh unstoppable. To play down his deficiencies, the Mavs usually run a 1-4 set, which means that Dirk gets the ball in the middle of the floor, while everyone else spreads out along the base line (1 player at the top, 4 players at the bottom). Usually teams isolate their scorers on one side or the other. The problem with isolating the middle of the floor, like the Mavs do, is that it means that a double team can come from anywhere. Nelson knows this, and he has the personnel to exploit this weakness in the Mavs set. He has doubles coming from all over the floor, forcing Nowtizki to make a decision: He can try to pass out of the double team, a tough prospect because the middle of the floor is a difficult place to pass out of effectively (and Dirk is not a terrific passer). Another option is to use his dribble to commit to one side, which is exactly what the Warriors want Nowitzki to do. Once they get Nowitzki to put the ball on the floor, they have him at his most vulnerable. Turnovers and bad shots ensue. These tactics are effective, they take Dirk off his game, and THAT is when the mind games start, that is when the confidence begins to eek away. It is not emotion that is dictating this series, it is strategy.

And regarding whether Nowitzki actually ‘elevated his game’ in the fourth tonight, undoubtedly Dirk played his best fourth quarter tonight, but very little of what he did was different from other games. Those two big threes he hit in the last few minutes? They looked eerily similar to the two he hit at the end of game 4. The difference? These came a few minutes earlier, where as Dirk’s hot shooting in game four was too little too late. So, when you read that Dirk has found his fire, regained the competitive spirit, or whatever hyperbolic statement ESPN.com throws at you, think really hard before you buy into the hype.

Knicks...

Playoff hopes are dwindling, but I would expect no less from a team that gave Kelvin Cato big 4th quarter minutes tonite. Some observations:

-Well, after jumping on the Mardy bandwagon yesterday, I had to grimace along with Mike Breen when Collins over dribbled, making a pass to Curry too late and comitting the turnover that started Detroit's fatal run.

-I gotta say I like the wierd zone the Knicks threw at the Pistons during the second quarter. Not sure how to describe it. Clyde called it a 2-1-2, which I guess it was, but really it was a 2-3 that kinda morphed into a 3-2 as the middle guy down low would slide up. While a 2-3 zone puts you in good position to double down in the low post, this defense was designed, I assume, to double Webber/Wallace on the high post, where they create havok with their terrific passing skills. I liked it, and I think it vexed the Pistons a bit.

-I love Pistons basketball. Aside from maybe San Antonio and Dallas, no team looks as professional as the Pistons, always seeming to be able to get off the shot they want when they want it. Tonite though it looked like they just arrived after hotboxing the team bus. True, they are looking forward to the playoffs, but until the end there, this was a wholly different team. I will say though that the Knicks defense (*cough* Mardy Collins *cough*) helped.

-Nate Robinson showed once again how dangerous a scorer he is capable of being. Still, I counted along with Breen (best play-by-play guy in the game FYI) around 5-7 instances where he just threw up a bad shot (though I'll admit one or two went in), often leading to a Pistons' break. While I think I was a little hard on him in my post the other day, little man's got some growing up to do.

-Steve Francis just blows my mind. Does he care? Doesn't he? I know he is hurt, and I know this is a bad situation for him. But it seems to me that he is in a position to make some moves over the last six games and maybe improve his trade value, if not convince Isiah to keep him on board. He showed some signs tonite, maybe one or two. But then you get plays like the one that got him ejected. The 14 year olds I coached knew better than to dribble, BACKWARDS mind you, into a corner. I don't even think we'd see that from li'l Nate.

On another note, two great articles from two of my favorite writers in the buisness. Much worth checking out:

Selena Roberts of the NYTimes writes an article that no one intrested in youth sports can afford not to read (http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/sports/08roberts.html). The line between cheating and 'intelligent ballplaying' is thin and morally dubious. Is it cheating to foul a guy in such a way that the refs wont see it? That's been a large part of playing defense for years. Yet it is a case of going outside of the rules. One practice this past year our best post defender asked me to show him "some dirty tricks the refs won't catch." My first instinct was to show him how to tug a jersey as the guy turns, or how to crouch in a way that lets you stick your knee into the offensive player, both tactics that I use in pickup, but it just felt wrong. Definitly an issue worth discussing (so comment!)

Jack McCallum, basketball guru for SI writes a piece about the coaching match between the Mavs' and Suns' staffs leading up to one of their regular season games (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/jack_mccallum/04/03/mavs.suns0409/index.html). Very intesresting for any fan. What I took out of the article was that NBA players are so good, when you create a defensive scheme, its really a case of picking your poison. A good example is Devin Harris, a player whom the Suns' staff want to shoot jumpers, is not such a bad shooter, but his penetration skills are so good, the Suns go under screens for him, practically begging him to step back for a jump shot. Coaching in the league must be really difficult.