I’m not a big an NBA fan as my blog bud Ron is. I haven’t paid too much attention to the NBA since the Johnson/Worthy days of the Lakers, and after that, only a passing interest in the finals. I’m a Tar Heel alum, and even I tired of Jordan’s dominance. However, I love watching college hoops (ACC games especially, of course). So I do get interested in the draft and seeing where the players I’ve watched closely over the season end up as professionals, how they may contribute to their team, and if they’re underclassmen, whether or not they should have waited.

With that, let’s take a look at this year’s draft.

Blazers – Greg Oden – Really. I’m shocked. He’s a franchise player, blah blah. The Heels spanked OSU early in the year without Oden, and the rematch that never was in the tournament would have been a true test, having to face both Hansbrough and Wright (sorry, draft gods and UF fans, Hansbrough and Wright >>>> Horford and Noah). Oden was a non factor in OSU’s win against Georgetown and so we didn’t get to see him much against Roy Hibbert. Yes, he’s big, wide, agile, intelligent. He’s David Robinson without the marquee looks. He should get his own shoe named after him. Will he be the man the Blazers can build a team around? Can he stay healthy?

Supes – Durant – Another shocker. Durant will likely be a star. He’s not going to help the team the way Ray Allen did, whom the Supes traded away for the rights to pick Jeff Green (?) and got a couple of decent role players in the process. Durant looks stronger than he is, which is kinda scary. But he’s only what, 19? He’s still growing, where as Oden looks like a 40 year old man. Oden seems to have a master’s grasp on everything about his position except staying out of foul trouble. Durant, I’m thinking he will have a steeper learning curve, though his skill will take him a long way at first.

Hawks – Al Horford – Lots of upsides for him, and he appears to have not fully physically matured, to me at least. Along with the pick of Acie Law, the Hawks got a good haul. Perhaps now people will actually watch the Hawks play.

Grizzlies – Mike Conley. He was the key to OSU’s tournament success, far more than Oden. Conley lit up the Heels during their game even though the Heels won. He’s a great athlete who appears to have learned good training habits from his pops. Good point guards are an undervalued position (by fans at least). Some thought the Grizz might take Brendan Wright. I think they were right not to.

Celtics – Jeff Green – traded for Ray Allen and some good role players. I think the Celtics got the best deal. Green didn’t impress me when I saw him play. Perhaps there was too much focus on Hibbert, however, I didn’t think he was better than Wright.

Bucks – Yi Jianlian – Only scouts here know a lot about him. I saw short clips of him and he seems to be a pretty well rounded 7 footer, can take you outside for a three, can leap and rebounds well, he might even learn the skill of “posterizing.” With his experience in the game (some think he’s about 25 years old) he will make an immediate impact.

Timberwolves – Corey Brewer – Solid player. I think he’s better than Horford, though perhaps Horford will get much much better as he gets older, and is taller and stronger. Brewer is a slasher.

Charlotte – Brandan Wright, traded to Golden State for Jason Richardson. Hmm. I didn’t think Wright was quite ready, and that had he waited until after Hansbrough left, he would be a top three pick AND have an NCAA title ring. Charlotte’s trade signaled they thought he wasn’t quite ready as well, since they need immediate assistance. Also, the Bobcats have another solid inside/outside forward who can actually shoot from 15 feet, fellow Tar Heel Sean May, and Richardson gives them a proven scorer. I thought Wright’s defense was a little suspect at times, however, some scouts seem to think that’s his strength right now. Some question his work ethic, and so did I last year as it seemed he would disappear for some games, however, he could turn out to be another Sam Perkins, whose lanky body masked his intense play by making him look lackadasical. Whenever I thought he wasn’t contributing, he’d put in a quiet 20 plus point game.

Chicago – Joakim Noah – the class clown of the draft. Smart kid with a good work ethic and good skill, even if he isn’t the greatest athlete. His pops was a rebellious type to whom the tennis world never quite warmed to, and Joakim seems to be a player outside the NBA mold. Should be interesting to see how well he fits in the locker room. As a 7 ft power forward, it will be interesting to see how he fits on-court as well. He’s going to play like many of the European big men I think (we forget Noah is a European big man).

Supes – Spencer Hawes – will probably impact the organization as a 6th man for awhile. He might get pushed around a lot by other centers, and he doesn’t have the shooting ability to move outside.

That’s the top ten. The only other name I can think of to talk about right is Jared Dudley. People are counting him out, and rightly after he underperformed last year. Still, he has the kind of game that can flourish in the NBA. He may be this year’s steal.

It’s been 40 years since the Hawks moved from St. Louis to Atlanta, and during their time there they’ve mostly been dismal. It’s been eight years since they even made the playoffs, and lately such topflight players as Jason Terry have opted to take less money and go elsewhere rather than earn max dollars playing for a team universally deemed as a failure. You have to be at least 40 and maybe older than that to remember when the Hawks were a championship contender. Sadly race played a factor in the breakup during the early ‘70s of a potentially great club. “Pistol” Pete Maravich was drafted, which was a great move. What wasn’t so great was subsequently letting Joe Caldwell go to the ABA and losing Bill Bridges for simply being cheap. Of course during those years the Hawks always ran into either the Lakers or the Knicks (yes, there was a time when the Knicks were a great team) and got bounced out of the playoffs.

The second contending edition had Hall-of-Famer Dominique Wilkins, Doc Rivers and Tree Rollins among others, but could never get past the Celtics. The last decent Hawks team with Dikembe Mutumbo and Mookie Blaylock actually had the Chicago Bulls down by two games in a playoff series, but then Michael Jordan took over and quickly erased any chance of a Hawks victory. But those days are long gone, and the Hawks have been little more than a joke throughout much of the last two decades.

Perhaps the most amazing sports paradox of the moment is the fact that pro basketball, a sport dominated by African-Americans, has so little traction in heavily black cities like Atlanta and Memphis. The Grizzlies once seemed on their way to becoming a popular attraction, but last year’s 22-60 nightmare took all the wind out of those sails. Their best player Pau Gasol wants out of town, they now have a rookie coach and new general manager, and things just look bleak.

Meanwhile everyone wants to live in Atlanta, but no one wants to play there. If the Hawks make more idiotic draft moves despite having both the number 3 and number 11 choices, they’ll lose even more of the few fans they still have left. It’s hard to implore anyone to come out and watch a hideously coached, ineptly run franchise, and it doesn’t matter what color the people running it are if the product stinks.
Ron Wynn

Cultural reflections (6/13.07)

Last night’s 75-72 abomination in the third game of the NBA playoffs just narrowly missed breaking the all-time record for fewest total points in a final. You have to go back to 1955 and the days when Fort Wayne, Indiana was in the league to get a worse outcome and that was back in the days of set shots and supposedly far inferior athletes. What this current San Antonio Spurs/Cleveland Cavaliers mismatch is doing besides sending people racing away from their television sets is also spotlighting something that many people repeatedly miss when talking about and analyzing basketball at any and all levels. There is an enormous difference between being a great athlete and being a great basketball player. One doesn’t always equal the other, though when it does (people like Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, etc.) the results are phenomenal. But unfortunately so much of current pro basketball has become two-on-two isolation, walk the ball up the court and try to do a backdoor lob for a dunk. This in turn is pretty easy to defense, especially when you have a veteran, well-coached team that knows how to rotate people to open shooters quickly. San Antonio has simply decided to double, if necessary, triple-cover Lebron James and take their chances with everyone else. They also don’t fall off him the second he drives the lane the way the Pistons did. When James heads for the rim, people on both the weak and strong sides collapse, forcing him to either pass off or try to score over two or three people.

Sadly, there’s also been so much dubious rhetoric and coded discussion about basketball in general, and the NBA in particular, that now every statement made that’s remotely critical can be seized upon by either racists on one end or apologists on the other to cloud the issue. For instance any comment about athleticism is immediately deemed to be about black players, thus those who like to parrot stereotypes will hammer the tiresome line home all day long about the NBA only being about leaping and dunking. Anyone who’s ever seriously watched a host of people play from Bill Russell and Sam Jones to Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, and on down the line knows there are tons of great African-American players who not only have mastered the physical side of basketball, but its mental one as well. Likewise, if you’ve spent any time at all watching European basketball, these guys don’t walk the ball up the floor. There’s plenty of fast-breaking, flashy passes and long-range shooting, because there’s not as much emphasis on strength and back-to-the-basket action. The Steve Nash’s of the world are really just playing the way NBA teams all used to play during the ‘60s and ‘70s. The old Boston Celtics, the first pro team by the way to start five black players, once averaged 120 points a game for an entire season. They ran, pressed, passed the ball all over the place, and never put on an exhibition remotely resembling the aberrations that are occurring now.

The point is that it is style, not race, that’s currently hurting pro basketball. While understanding that if the NBA were 75% white some of the criticism might be lessened, let’s consider the 90% plus white NHL, which is about to disappear off the pro sports map. There’s a league that has changed its rules, opened up its game, and is actually very entertaining, especially during the playoffs. Yet they just got the lowest ratings in NBC history for their climatic event, the Stanley Cup playoffs, a fact that also has something to do with markets and teams and all that stuff, but is still food for thought.

Instead of worrying about the length of player shorts and whether they’re wearing ties on the bench, David Stern ought to be hammering away at far more important issues germane to his league’s continued health. First, he should immediately call in the ownership groups at such inept franchises as New York, Atlanta, and Philadelphia and strongly urge them to improve the quality of drafting and scouting. Secondly, he should agitate for more coaches to embrace fast-break, attacking offense and pressing defense. Even if they don’t have the personnel to immediately change gears, at least they can start moving in that direction, because games where both teams haven’t passed the 50-point mark midway through the third quarter are immense turnoffs.

Finally, he should abandon the East/West nonsense and just make the playoffs a 1-16 proposition, doing everything possible to ensure the best match-ups across the board. When the first and second round games are markedly better than the finals, you have a major competitive problem. The first-round upset of Dallas did mess up the anticipated Dallas/Phoenix Western conference final, but there’s still no way a second-round series should be the glamour series. Setting aside the ridiculous application of an arcane rule that deep-sixed the Phoenix Suns, they shouldn’t have been playing San Antonio at that point anyhow.

I’m not even sure that I’ll be watching the fourth game Thursday night, or that I even care if Cleveland somehow extends the series. As someone who grew up watching the epic Russell/Chamberlain spectaculars, then was thrilled by the Bird/Magic/Jordan theatrics, that’s something that’s very difficult to say. But as great as LeBron James may become. looking at him dribbling the ball back and forth between his legs, one man on top of him and two others ready to converge in the lane if he moves an inch in any direction, doesn’t exactly thrill me.
Ron Wynn