Truthfully Speaking

There’s been a few different Big 3s in the NBA over the years.  From Kareem, Magic and Worthy in the ‘80s, to Jordan, Pippen and Rodman in the ‘90s and now with the Heat trio of today.  But before LeBron & Co. came together in Miami the Eastern Conference already had another Big 3 running the show, and that trifecta played for the Boston Celtics.

When this Celtics regiment began forming in the summer of 2007, the first pick-up they made was Ray Allen in a trade with the rebuilding Seattle SuperSonics.  Allen was a seven-time NBA All Star who struggled to have much of an impact in the playoffs other than a conference finals push with Milwaukee in 2001.  He brought athleticism to the guard position that Boston hadn’t seen in many years.  Plus he was Jesus Shuttlesworth and if you don’t like He Got Game, then you just don’t appreciate the game of basketball.

One month after acquiring Allen, the Celtics continued their remodeling by trading for ‘04 MVP Kevin Garnett.  Like Allen, KG never had much of a supporting cast to help him out.  He got to team up with Latrell Spreewell and Sam Cassell during his MVP season, but the team came up short in the conference finals losing in six games to a Lakers team that featured four future Hall of Famers.

Paul Pierce was the only member of this core that wasn’t new to the team.  He had stuck with Boston through their up’s (an ’02 Conference Finals appearance) and downs (a 31-win season in ’07).  The only constant that the C’s had over all these years was Pierce.

A former Kansas Jayhawk, Pierce joined the league during the lockout-shortened ’99 season.  His scoring was outstanding, but he really could shine in any aspect of the game.  For a team that hadn’t seen any consistency since Larry Bird’s retirement in ’92, Pierce was a true sigh of relief.  He averaged over 20 points per game in seven of his first nine seasons prior to the formation of the Big 3.  With solid rebounding and assist numbers to match, Pierce didn’t show any signs of disappointment.

Although his scoring went down upon the arrival of Garnett and Allen, the team was performing very well.  They went on to win 66 games and the NBA championship against the franchise’s storied rival, the Lakers.  Pierce ended the playoffs as the Finals MVP.  That summer, he stated during an interview that he was the best basketball player in the world.  There were some strong disagreements against Pierce’s claim, mostly by Laker fans, but Pierce kind of had a point.  It’s not like Kobe’s team won a championship.

The following season the Celtics reached the conference finals, despite playing without Kevin Garnett, before returning to the finals again in 2010.  In the rematch with L.A., the C’s pushed the series to the limit before falling short in the last couple minutes of an exciting game 7.

Boston has had a tough time getting back to the finals ever since the Heat’s Big 3 came together.  Year after year though, no matter how many more jokes fans make about their age, Pierce and his team continue to finish the season strong and make a solid push into the playoffs.  Pierce’s numbers always stay consistent, too. 

Stars continue to come and go in the NBA, but Paul Pierce has remained one of the most reliable offensive options around for years.  He’s skilled, confident and he continues to play with determination all throughout the season.  Hopefully, we’ll see more of the same out of Pierce as he reaches the end of his career.  He’s already proven himself to be a standout player in a franchise that has a richer history than most teams in pro sports.  He’s proudly carried the torch for the Celtics for over a decade now and I hope we get to see a couple more deep playoff pushes before he hands that torch over to Rajon Rondo.

Fire Frank

After blowing another double-digit lead in the fourth quarter last night, the Pistons dropped another game to give them nine losses in their first ten games.  To those who don’t watch the Pistons regularly, you’d probably just think that the team doesn’t have any talent.  The truth is the team has plenty of talent; actually they’re quite good.  The problem is the team also has Lawrence Frank, who is solidifying his spot as one of the worst head coaches the NBA has ever seen.

Detroit is the second city in which Frank has head coached.  The first was New Jersey when he took over the Nets in 2004.  When Frank arrived midseason the team was slightly above .500 in winning percentage.  The team thought they could do better considering they were coming off of 2 consecutive Eastern Conference championships.  They fired coach Byron Scott and brought in Frank, then an assistant for the team, to replace him.

Frank finished strong, going 25-15 to end the season.  The team went on to lose in the 2^nd round of the playoffs to the eventual-champion Pistons.  That was as far as Frank would ever get this team in the playoffs.  When Frank was fired from the team in ’09 he had gotten the team off to a 0-16 start, 1 game shy of the worst start in NBA history (the Nets went to 0-18 after Frank was fired).

Last season, Frank took over the struggling Pistons team and got them off to a 4-20 record to begin the year.  A slow start was expected since the team was still in a state of rebuilding.  Detroit ended the year by going 21-21 to finish with a 25-41 record.  What I was thinking we’d see this year in Detroit was a team that could play at a .500 level, only with the an improved Greg Monroe as well as Andre Drummond and Kyle Singler coming on board.  What I’ve been forced to watch instead is a clueless coach who doesn’t know how to properly manage a basketball game.

Many times in these first ten games, we’ve seen the Pistons take strong leads late in the game.  They were up by as much as 13 both last night against the Magic and in the home opener against the Houston Rockets.  They also held an 11-point lead to start the fourth quarter against the reigning Western Conference champion Oklahoma City Thunder earlier this week.  After taking these leads, Lawrence Frank likes to change his lineup and watch the other team take the game over and regain the lead.

Most coaches do something to stop a big lead from being blown away.  Against the Denver Nuggets this week, the Miami Heat saw a 13-point lead quickly dropped to 6 in the fourth quarter.  They called a timeout, changed the lineup and took control of the game right back.  Scoring spurts happen in basketball, but it’s up to the coach to properly manage the game and bring such runs to a halt.  Frank won’t do this when his team sees the lead getting shortened, he’ll wait until it’s completely gone.  Every game the lineup that is playing better for the Pistons gets a good lead throughout the game and then is sat out to start the final quarter.  Frank then gives them less than 6 minutes to play catch-up, and that’s tough for a young, inexperienced team like Detroit.

Aside from his late game mishaps, there are several other problems in Lawrence Frank’s coaching tactics.  Though it has picked up over the last few games, he still remains very reluctant to play Greg Monroe at a power forward alongside Drummond at center.  What's even more disappointing is that the few times he has played the two together it works out great.  Monroe is a good passer who has smart court vision.  He can handle the ball at the top of the key, forcing defenders to step outside and put Drummond in a one-on-one situation with centers that he can handle with ease.  When Jonas Jerebko is playing with Drummond, defenders aren’t as scared to leave him unguarded and would rather play tighter on Andre.  Jerebko is a good basketball player, but Frank shouldn’t be using him at the power forward position.  He’d benefit much for at small forward, where he can match the speed of his opponents and beat them with his length.

The lack of knowing what position players fit into isn't the end of Frank's coaching inefficiencies either, as he also cannot arrange a proper starting lineup.  After the team got their first win with Singler playing in place of the ill Rodney Stuckey, coach Frank wanted to put Stuckey right back into his starting role.  Stuckey told Frank this would be a bad move and that the starting lineup worked better with Singler at the two-guard.  Basically Lawrence Frank needs his players to do the job of recognizing who plays well together and choosing a lineup based off that.

What upsets me the most about Lawrence Frank is his insistence that he’s not doing anything wrong.  He refuses to switch up his style of coaching, saying that things will fall into place for this team eventually.  He really doesn’t want to mess with that formula that led to a 1-9 record, he apparently thinks it’s working for them.  In post game interviews Frank gives the impression that there’s nothing more he can do with the talent he’s been given.  Personally, I think this is just one big slap in the face to every player on the roster.

Stuckey has been struggling every game, and Brandon Knight is having a tough time getting back into his groove as well.  Besides those two, the Pistons have been getting good production out of everybody.  What worries me is that the good players present on Detroit’s rebuilding roster may get discouraged from sticking around.  Among centers in the east, Greg Monroe ranks third in scoring, rebounds and assists in addition to leading in steals.  He will never get an All Star game selection playing on a team that can’t even get two wins in ten games.  He still hasn’t hit his full potential either, and he never will until he gets to play power forward.

If you’ve read my previous posts, you know how I feel about the weakness of big men in the NBA today.  Drummond and Monroe have the potential to be one of the strongest duos of any team around.  I don’t think Drummond should start quite yet, mostly because Jason Maxiell has really worked hard and deserves to be in the starting rotation.  He creates big plays that prove he belongs out on the court to get the team going.  Still, Drummond and Monroe just need more time on the court together.

The bottom line is that the Pistons have a lot of potential on their team, more than most teams have to work with.  They couldn’t be 10-0 right now by any means, but any other coach would have them with at least four wins through the first ten games.  The Orlando game, as well as the home games against the Thunder and Rockets were played well by the team and lost by Frank down the stretch.  What do we have to lose in firing Lawrence Frank?  Being 29^th out of 30 teams is nothing to be happy about and it’s time for him to go.  This team can hold their own and win games against just about anybody in the league.  It’s time that they stop being held back by poor decision-making at key points of a game.  Now is the time to fire Frank.

Party in the City Where the Heat is On

Thursday night was the first glimpse that I got of LeBron James and the Miami Heat this season.  A few things caught my attention during their match-up against the Nuggets.  The first was the fact that Reggie Miller is the most awful commentator I’ve ever had to listen to in my entire life, but I’ve already known that for quite a few years.  More importantly though, I saw the way that LeBron is continuing on with the same level of play that he was at last year.

What amazed me so much about this last game was the way that LBJ looked like he wasn’t even trying that hard.  He was pretty laid back offensively, yet he was still in complete control of his teammates the whole time.  I would compare it to the play of Chauncey Billups during his time with Detroit.  He can see the floor clearly and knows how to work the offense to bring the most out of each player.  The difference with LeBron is that he has phenomenal athleticism, which allows him to drive to the hoop for an uncontainable score or hit a jumper off the dribble.  In all honesty, there’s not one area of his game that needs any improvement.

Supporting LeBron and the rest of the Big 3 this year, we have what is arguably the best group of 3-pointers this league has ever seen.  Ray Allen is the best long-range shooter ever and Shane Battier knows how to get open at his hot spot in the corner.  On top of those two, the team also has long-gunners Rashard Lewis, Mike Miller, Norris Cole and Mario Chalmers.  This team becomes even better 3-point shooters with LeBron running the court.  He alone collapses opposing defenses enough to leave his teammates unguarded at the perimeter.  With Wade and Bosh around as well, the team puts on a clinic from deep.

Another player on the Heat that I enjoy watching is Udonis Haslem.  Sure he’s not the best player out there, but Haslem knows what his role is on the court and he plays it well.  Personally, I find him to be one of the most solid big men in the NBA among those coming off the bench.  He’s also the only tough down low player that the Heat have.  Bosh likes to play the midrange game more, and the team’s centers are an absolute joke.  In fact, out of Joel Anthony, Dexter Pittman and Josh Harrelson, not one of them has ever scored 20 points in a game.  Harrelson and Pittman are still young, but Anthony is in his sixth year now and has yet to top 13 points in a game.  I really don’t see him as being talented enough to play on an NBA team.  The team could really benefit from having a good shot-blocker in the frontcourt.

Among other role players on the team, Battier does more than just make 3-pointers.  Though he's not quite the defender he used to be, the former Blue Devil still plays some of the best on-ball defense in the league against players of many positions.  Aside from that, he stands alongside Nick Collison as one of the top charge-takers in the league.  Little actions like that can really force the extra possessions that help the star players to take control in key moments.

Getting back to LeBron though, you can really start to see a ripple effect from him reaching out to other players in the league.  Michael Jordan was followed by many players who came into the league acting as his clones.  Kobe, Grant Hill, Vince Carter and Jerry Stackhouse all began their careers in the mid to late ‘90s.  Each of them tried to mimic MJ’s intensity, but none of them could quite pull it off the same way.  Now we’re seeing characteristics of King James in players like Rudy Gay and DeMar DeRozan.  Of course, these players aren’t bad athletes; I just think it’s obvious that LeBron is already having an influence on his competition less than a decade after he was drafted.

Of course, LeBron still has a long way to go if he wants to surpass Jordan and reach his goal of becoming the greatest of all time.  At only 27 years old, he may have more than another decade to do so.  Assuming he doesn’t follow Jordan’s path into early retirement, he just might be able to truly earn the "King," title that he's been claiming for years.

P.S. - I'm now on Twitter, follow me @TheLakerHater1.

From Russia with Love

After a big slump in 2004, USA men’s basketball restored it's reputation as the strongest basketball program on earth both in ’08 and this past summer.  This year’s team really boasted that US dominance when they performed feats such as scoring 156 points against Nigeria, which had Al-Farouq Aminu of the Hornets and former lottery pick Ike Diogu on the team's roster.  Even if the US is still blowing away the competition, I am glad to see that the international competition is continuing to increase.

France's team featured 6 current NBA players, as well 2 more who formerly played in the NBA.  They were also missing a plethora of players such as Joakim Noah, Mickael Pietrus, Johan Petro, Ian Mahinmi and Rodrigue Beaubois, who were all either injured or chose not to play internationally this year.  Spain has established themselves in basketball as 2^nd to the U.S., featuring 5 current NBA athletes on their roster.  Juan Carlos Navarro, Felipe Reyes and Rudy Fernandez are most certainly skilled enough for the NBA as well, and the team took home the silver despite taking a hit in losing Ricky Rubio to injury.  One country really took me by surprise more than any other this summer, and that was Russia.

At the time of the 2012 Summer Olympics, the team had only 3 current and 2 former NBA players on their roster.  Despite that, team captain Andrei Kirilenko lead the way to a bronze medal this summer and many spectators were quite impressed.  AK-47 seemed to return to his old form for the ’12 Olympic games, and he has really carried that play into the current NBA season.

After 6 games, Kirlenko is averaging 11.2 points, 7.7 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 2 blocks and 1.7 steals per game.  None of those numbers are great, but each of them is solid and that really shows the all-around play that he has kept up for his entire career.  As for fellow T’Wolve and bronze-medalist, guard Alexey Shved, he has been playing pretty well for a rookie.  Both have been a big part of Minnesota’s 4-2 start without Rubio and Kevin Love.  Timofey Mozgov, the other current player of Russia in the league, has been limited to 1 game for Denver due to a knee injury, but I want to talk more about the Timberwolves.

I’ve always respected Minnesota because of how it reminds me of my home state of Michigan.  Both are located in the Midwestern U.S. and are known for their freezing cold winters that seem to last as long as 8 months at their worst.  I was a fan of the Timberwolves during the team’s Garnett-era, and I’ve continued being a fan today.  Kevin Love is my favorite player in the league and I believe that if his recovery permits him to play enough games this season, he will easily be a front-runner for MVP.  In a way though, the team is not just representing Minnesota this year, but also Russia.

Just like Yao Ming helped the Rockets get just about every NBA fan in China on their side, I imagine that Kirilenko and Shved together will help Minnesota do the same for their home country.  It doesn’t hurt that they also have Nikola Pekovic at center, a native of the distant Russian neighbor of Montenegro.

The T’Wolves have plenty of great, young and exciting talent on their team this year.    Derrick Williams and Chase Budinger are skilled, explosive dunkers and I couldn’t be happier to see that Brandon Roy is returning after injuries led him to announce his retirement at only 27 years old.  Hopefully we’ll get to see a quick and healthy recovery from both Rubio and Love because this team is going to be quite the spectacle at full strength.

The rise of the NBA overseas is pretty exciting though.  They bring a different style of basketball to the U.S. and it also brings a wider range of talent to the league.  I also like to see players of the same nationality like Kirilenko and Shved playing together.  Like I mentioned with Minnesota and Michigan, Minnesota and Russia have some similarities in their geography and weather trends as well, both being known for their cold air.  Now they share similarities in their basketball too, and hopefully that gives Russian basketball fans an NBA team that they can cheer on this season.

Now what would be a good nickname for a team with a couple Russians and a guy named Love?  Hmm....

This Goes Out to You, and You, and You

The Lakers are struggling and since I am The Laker Hater, I love seeing that happen.  There are quite a few things about this year's team that already, I find myself just anxious to complain about.  I was going to try to contain being a hater for a short while this season, but with Friday’s announcement that Mike Brown has been fired as the team’s coach, I’m starting it now.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of Mike Brown.  At the same time, he’s not the worst coach in the world (that one goes to Lawrence Frank right now).  He has a finals appearance, a coach of the year award and a win-loss percentage above .600 going for his career.  The bottom line is that after only 71 games as the Lakers head coach, he did not deserve to be fired.

Coaches often come under fire when they’re leading these super-teams of today’s NBA.  The same thing happened with Erik Spoelstra last year, but Pat Riley chose to keep him around and the results were great for them.  Personally though, I still rank Spoelstra among the league’s worst head coaches right down there with Frank, but that’s a separate story.  I knew Mike Brown would be on the hot seat quick, but firing him after just 5 games this season is low.

The Lakers current struggles aren’t due to Mike Brown’s coaching though.  The Lakers are struggling because Dwight Howard isn't rebounding as well as he normally does.  The Lakers are struggling because Steve Nash is injured.  The Lakers are struggling because Kobe is turning the ball over more than he ever has.  This is a big reason why I hate Kobe Bryant and the rest of this organization so much.  It can’t be the players’ fault that the team is losing.  The players are too good; they do no wrong.  It’s all the coach’s fault, right?

Let me ask this to you Kobe fans out there: if he’s better than LeBron, how come he couldn’t get Mike Brown a trip to the finals?  LeBron did, and he never had players even half as good as Pau, Nash, Bynum or Howard out there.  He had Ilgauskas, Larry Hughes and some guy who calls himself Booby.  Yet he carried that team to the Finals, past a Pistons team that finished with the best regular season record in franchise history.  Sure the Cavs got swept in the finals, but that was expected against the Spurs, who were making their 4th finals appearance in under a decade.

Speaking of hating on Kobe, he needs to shut up and quit it with these so-called “injuries.”  This has happened a good 5 or 6 times per season over the past few years and has happened twice already this season.  The Lakers, along with Bryant himself, put out statements about how Kobe is going to play in the next game, despite an injury suffered just days before.  Every time, Kobe gets out there looking like he’s at 100% strength.  A sore ankle does not qualify as an injury.  High levels of physical activity often result in soreness, and it’s no reason to sit out practice as he did this week.

What’s happening is that Kobe’s trying way too hard to build some sort of reputation for being some type of “iron man,” athlete out there.  It’s not tough to play through a little post-game soreness.  In fact, it’s quite pathetic to try to make a big deal out of every little ounce of pain as if it’s something that’s going to effect your playing.  You're not injured, you're being a crybaby.

Kobe has been talking about how he wants Phil Jackson to return to coaching in Los Angeles and I really hope we don’t end up seeing that situation.  Phil Jackson has already come out of retirement twice, and his indecisiveness in staying retired just irritates me.  I’ve never really liked Phil Jackson and I was happy to see his career end the way it did. 

In his last outing as a head coach, we saw the Lakers getting swept in a game that the Mavericks won by nearly 40 points.  The Lakers took the defeat in a truly despicable  fashion, with Lamar Odom getting ejected for body-checking Dirk Nowitzki's and Andrew Bynum getting the boot for a vicious elbow to the mid-section of JJ Barea, a guy who is a full 1 foot and 110 pounds smaller than him (Bynum's likes to use this dirty move, see here).  Game 2 saw Ron Artest clotheslining Barea as well.  I loved watching them fall apart and prove to everybody how disgraceful they were in losing.

Another thing I don’t like about Phil Jackson is his recognition as one of the greatest coaches ever.  I get it; he does have 11 championships to his name.  At the same time, he has never played a single season without some combination of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Shaq, Kobe or Pau Gasol on his team.  The fact that he had seasons where guys like Gary Payton, Karl Malone, Glen Rice and Horace Grant were third and fourth options out on the court shows the immense amount of talent he had to work with.  He also had great court leaders like Rick Fox and Derek Fisher, as well as solid role players like Toni Kukoc, Steve Kerr and Robert Horry.

I’m not saying Phil Jackson is a bad coach.  It’s just so clear that he was given the easiest of situations to work with for his entire career.  If he does come back to the Lakers, it will just be more of the same thing.

All of my Laker-hating comes from being a fan though.  I do acknowledge how great of a team they are, but I just can’t stand the arrogance and lack of sportsmanship that their players, coaches, “fans,” and the rest of the organization as a whole represent.  Regardless of who takes over the coaching duties, I hope to see the team’s struggles continue.  Let’s see how long their next coach can hang on for.