Basketball Free For All

It is truly rare to be able to sense a catastrophic event before it happens. However, for those carefully attuned to the recent offseason developments in the NBA, Detroit seems poised on the brink of the abyss.

Talk about piling on. It’s no secret that Detroit is in trouble in these oh-so-tough economic times (median sale price for a house in Detroit these days is $8,000; and no, that number is not missing any zeroes).

But taking a step back and examining the moves the Pistons have made to assemble the 2009-10 Pistons, it is clear that the old Pistons are truly gone. With Rasheed Wallace and Chauncey Billups gone, the perennial Eastern Conference Finalists have been forever changed, and most certainly for the worse.

It is understandable that Joe Dumars and the Pistons wanted change. After so much disappointment and so many letdowns following their 2004 NBA Championship, it was inevitable that they would overhaul their roster. But change for the sake of change is not improvement and that is exactly what the Pistons’ roster moves have felt.

The point of any change is to make the team better. Any roster move (applies to both fantasy and real life) that does not make the team better, either in the present or future, was a bad move.

So let’s break down the Pistons’ offseason moves to see if there is reason to believe this team has improved during the 2009 offseason.

Coaching Change

After a disappointing 2008-09 season, rookie head coach Michael Curry was canned in favor of another rookie head coach, John Kuester. But what do we know about John Kuester and can we expect his tenure to be different from Curry’s rookie season as a coach?

Kuester has a long track record as an assistant coach in the NBA, including working for Hall of Fame Head Coach Larry Brown on the Pistons’ 2004 championship squad and for Brown’s entire tenure as head coach in Philadelphia. More recently, Kuester worked with the Pistons’ Eastern Conference rival the Cleveland Cavaliers under head coach Mike Brown.

Kuester’s most recent, and most famous role was of Mike Brown’s offensive coordinator with the Cavaliers last season, a season that saw the team jump from 19th (and a very ugly 19th, at that) in offensive efficiency to fourth last season with Kuester joining Cleveland’s ranks.

Yes, the Cavaliers enjoyed a solid season from new addition Mo Williams, Lebron James improves, and the club also got a full year’s run out of Delonte West; but the shape of the Cleveland offense was markedly different with Kuester on board, something you couldn’t completely pin on personnel changes and internal development. Kuester had these guys in the right places.

Source: Yahoo!

No doubt about it, the 2008-09 Cavaliers were much better offensively than the 2007-08 version. That is a statistical fact. What is up for debate is how much of that is due to the continued development of Lebron James, how much is due to the addition of Mo Williams and first full season of Delonte West and how much is due to Kuester’s X’s and O’s.

Watching Cleveland’s offensive sets last season, basically every play revolved around putting the ball in Lebron’s hands and clearing out the lane. Lebron was the primary playmaker and rarely played off the ball, where his athleticism allows him to be deadly. Don’t underestimate the impact of the addition of Mo to the Cavalier’ success. With Williams on board, James had another guy he could trust to take big shots and initiate the offense instead of relying solely on himself.

One word is notably absent from discussions of Kuester’s assistant coaching gigs: defense. With all of his experience assisting Coach Larry Brown, you hope that Brown’s defensive philosophy has rubbed off on Kuester. For defense more so than any other factor is going to be the key to the fate of the Pistons’ 2009-10 season. And that is mainly due to the roster changes that were made over the last few months in Detroit.

Roster Changes

The current Detroit roster marks the start of the new era (i.e. end of the Rasheed Wallace era in Detroit).

Out: Rasheed Wallace; Allen Iverson; Antonio McDyess; Amir Johnson; Arron Afflalo; and Walter Herrmann.

In: Charlie Villanueva; Ben Gordon; Chris Wilcox; and Ben Wallace.
Rookies: Austin Daye; Deron Washington.

With all the changes, the depth chart looks fairly different from last season. (Not seeing Sheed on the Pistons roster just seems strange; beware).

PG: Rodney Stuckey, Will Bynum
SG: Richard Hamilton, Ben Gordon, Deron Washington
SF: Tayshaun Prince, Austin Daye
PF: Charlie Villanueva, Jason Maxiell
C: Chris Wilcox, Kwame Brown, Ben Wallace

The main problem with the Pistons new makeup is that most of the players they lost were known to be decent defenders, especially Wallace and McDyess. And the players they took on, Villanueva,  Gordon and Wilcox, are not known for being great defenders (to be politically correct). But that is all opinion.

What do the numbers say?

In trying to compare the outgoing players, offensive and defensive efficiencies are useful for comparing players on different teams that play at different paces, which can skew raw statistics. Comparing the net difference between a player’s offensive efficiency (O-Rating) and defensive efficiency (D-Rating) to show their net impact on the court.

Looking at the minutes is very important when consulting statistics such as these because in general a small sample is much less reliable than a larger sample.  It’s probably wise to take any advanced statistics with a grain of salt for any player who logged less than a thousand minutes. Like most statistics, the bigger the sample size the better.

First take a look at the players the Pistons have added to the roster.

*Table is sortable. Click on column headers to sort data.

And compare them to the outgoing players.

*Table is sortable. Click on column headers to sort data.

On the face of it, the exchange of players seems like it would be a negligible difference (excluding players who played less than 1000 minutes last season). The incoming players are a combined +8 and the outgoing players are a combined +8 as well. Everything seems to be in perfect harmony, right?

Wrong.

There are two main reasons why: Ben Wallace and Chauncey Billups.

First, let’s deal with Big Ben. Wallace’s career is clearly on its last legs and thus he can be expected to play a rapidly diminishing role on the team as time progresses. As the single biggest positive on the incoming side, this means that the incoming +8 is actually skewed and is only positive solely because of Wallace.

The more bearish you are on Wallace’s future performance, the worse this exchange of players looks. To put it in perspective, the exchange made the Pistons defensively worse off in the medium and long term (-4 excluding Big Ben).

Continuing with the long term perspective, let’s revisit the franchise altering trade of Billups for Iverson. Yes, I know McDyess was a part of that trade but he ended up back with the Pistons after negotiating a buyout and returning to D-Town. So this trade was Billups for Iverson, straight up.

Using mathematical properties, we can substitute Billups for Iverson in the outgoing chart.

*Table is sortable. Click on column headers to sort data.

With the Billups effect accounted for as well, suddenly the outgoing players are a +20 (again excluding players with less than 1000 minutes) and the incoming players are either a +8 or -4 depending upon how you view the impact of Ben Wallace for both next season and the future. This gives the entire transaction a net impact of either a -12 overall or a shocking -24.

The Verdict

On paper, it appears that the Pistons’ recent makeover has actually made them worse off overall. The big x-factor will be rookie head coach John Kuester. Teams can overcome having poor defensive players on them through superb coaching. In some cases, however, the defensive liabilities are just too great to overcome. This might be one of those cases. But make no mistake, Kuester has a chance to be a truly great coach one day.

Regardless, it is clear that the 2009-10 Pistons have huge potential. Train wreck potential (see also Memphis Grizzlies, 2009-10). For the Pistons faithful, let’s just hope that Joe Dumars hasn’t taken the D out of Detroit once and for all.

This past Saturday, the ever-present NBA trade rumors began to swirl again. This time talks were centered around one of the NBA’s biggest stars (literally), Shaquille O’Neal of the Phoenix Suns.

The Suns and the Cleveland Cavaliers are rumored to be engaged in preliminary trade talks that would send O’Neal to the Cavs for the expiring contracts of Ben Wallace ($14 million) and Sasha Pavlovic ($4.95 million with $1.5 million guaranteed). This is strictly a cost cutting move as far as the Suns are concerned.

The team does not want to go deep into luxury tax territory, especially considering that this is a team that failed to even reach the playoffs in 2009. Bloated with the league’s sixth largest payroll last season and an aging core of superstars, the Shaq trade could really help free up some money for Phoenix as well as allow them to return to their run and gun offense.

Here is the breakdown:

With O’Neal’s $20 million salary (but a $21 million salary-cap number due to a trade kicker), the trade could save the Suns $9.9 million or even more if Wallace wants a buyout. The trade would save the Suns $3.1 million in payroll and projected luxury tax. Cutting Pavlovic, who has $1.5 million guaranteed in his final contract year’s $4.95 million salary, could save another $6.8 million in payroll and tax.

From a straight basketball perspective this is a home run for the Cavaliers. The Cavs made it all the way to the Eastern Conference finals this year but ultimately fell short of their goal of winning a championship. The Cavs were exposed for their lack of a true interior presence. Zydrunas Ilgauskas (whose foot is full of metal plates and screws from multiple surgeries) was nowhere near up to the task of providing a defensive answer to the man-child that is Dwight Howard in the paint.

Adding Shaq to the mix allows Cleveland to match-up with the Howards, the Elton Brands and the KGs of the Eastern Conference. They would immediately have a post presence to go to late in games when Mo Williams‘ and Delonte West’s jump shots aren’t falling.

Lebron James can’t possibly be expected to carry the offensive load every single night can he? Putting Shaq in the middle clogs the lane and gives you a legitimate defensive stopper as well as a more than capable offensive option (60% field goal percentage last season).

As evidenced by his time in Phoenix, Shaq’s biggest defensive flaw might be defending the pick-and-roll. However, he would still command double teams in the post freeing up the rest of the Cav’s shooters. Cleveland, with Shaq and a couple other key additions, would be in great position for a title run next season.

One thing is for sure though. Shaq still has a little diesel left in that huge tank of his.

Mo Williams laid out a fantastic stat curse after Cleveland’s tough game three loss in Orlando. During his post-game remarks, Williams laid it all there:

“We’re the best team in basketball,” he said.

Really? The Cavaliers, winners of 66 regular-season games and their first eight straight in the playoffs, certainly haven’t looked superior to the Orlando Magic.

They can’t stop Dwight Howard inside. They can’t contain Orlando’s squadron of outside shooters. They are missing easy, open shots. They’re not giving Lebron James enough support, and they trail 2-1 in the Eastern Conference finals.

Williams remains confident.

“They deserve respect,” he said. “They are a good team. But we are the best team in basketball. I don’t feel that they’ve had to adjust to us one time in the series.”

So, Mo. You’re sure the Cavaliers will win Game 4 on Tuesday night and rally to win the best-of-seven series. Willing to guarantee it?

“Guarantee we’re going to win the series? Yeah, yeah,” he said. “We are down 2-1. But there is nobody on this team and definitely not myself that says we are not going to win this series. Yeah, it is going to be tough. We know that. We get this game tomorrow, go home, still got home-court advantage.

“We don’t see ourselves losing two out of three at home.”

Source: ESPN

So how did Williams respond to his own stat curse guarantee?

In nearly 46 minutes of action, Williams tallied 18 points on 33/00/89 percent shooting, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, 0 blocks, 1 turnover and 2 fouls. Not exactly All Star caliber numbers and not what you would expect from a starting point guard (in overtime no less).

Makes you wonder what the fuss was about when he was supposedly snubbed for an All Star bid. After all, All Stars are supposed to play their best basketball when it matters most and last night it really mattered in so many ways, the least of which being to back up his guarantee.

As of now, I’d be more inclined to believe a guarantee from Lehman Brothers or Bernard Madoff.

One of the big rumors near the trade deadline this season was the Phoenix Suns sending Shaquille O’Neal to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic.

“The Phoenix Suns discussed a potential trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers which would have paired Shaquille O’Neal with LeBron James for a run at the NBA title, two NBA executives familiar with the talks said Thursday morning. A Cavs official, however, said any talks regarding O’Neal have since ended.

One agent said the Suns told him they weren’t doing a deal. The Cavs’ discussions with Phoenix centered on sending Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic to the Suns.”

Source: Yahoo! Sports

Anyone think the Cavs would want a take-back on this one?

After watching them get man-handled by Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic, do you think the Cavs brass are dying to hit reset? Shaq is one of the few centers that can guard Howard one-on-one without getting annihilated. He also can get into Howard’s head, causing him to make poor decisions and to get into foul trouble (using that all important ‘veteran saavy’).

Wallace does a decent enough job guarding Howard, but is such an assent on the offensive end that the Magic don’t really have to guard him. This allows his man to act as a help defender or weak-side shot blocker. When guarding Wallace, Howard doesn’t get into foul trouble as much, which is critical to slowing down the Magic (although Marcin Gortat has proven to be a force off the bench as well).

With Lebron James, Shaq and Mo Williams the Cavaliers would have three players in the starting lineup capable of dropping twenty points on any given night. Even if they had to throw Wally Szczerbiak into the deal to make it sweet enough for the Suns, the Cavs would still be in much better shape and would probably not be facing elimination at the hands of the Magic in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Hindsight is 20/20 — which coincidentally is what the Cavs need to avoid elimination (20 points and 20 boards from the center position).

With the top two seeds still alive and kicking in the Western Conference, both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Denver Nuggets avoided upsets on their way to the Western Conference Finals. However, both teams took divergent routes this season to arrive at the same destination; the doorstep of the Promised Land.

For the Lakers, it seems as though their season was predestined from the moment training camp began. Kobe Bryant and company finished the season with the second best record in the league, second only to Eastern Conference power house, the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Lakers also sported high profile wins against some of the toughest competition this season and stole a game from the Cavs at the Q (39-2 record at home this season, with the Lakers being the only team able to dethrone the King at home;  The Philadelphia 76′ers beat the Cavaliers at home in the final game of the season by one point with Lebron James in street clothes).

For the Nuggets, the season started ominously with the front office kicking Marcus Camby to the curb for peanuts (well, salary cap relief). At that time, the Nuggets faithful were despairing the loss of their defensive anchor for nothing in return. Little did they know that the front office had an ace up their sleeve and would pull-off one of the best trades since the Lakers acquired Pau Gasol from Memphis last season.

In what has proven to be a franchise-altering move, the Nuggets shipped out Allen Iverson for Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess (who was ultimately waived and re-signed with Detroit for a better shot at winning a title… whoops). Since that time, the Nuggets have gone from possible lottery team to legitimate championship contender. If Allen Iverson truly is the Answer, the Denver Nuggets certainly weren’t interested in finding out what the question was. In contrast to the Lakers, this team has had to prove the doubters wrong every step of the way on their journey to being one of the last four teams standing.

So how do these two teams compare to one another?

Tale of the Tape: The Los Angeles Lakers

Record: 65-17
W-L%: .793
Rank: 2nd

The Lakers played consistently good basketball throughout the course of the regular season. Outside of Laker Nation, the Lakers probably didn’t get quite of enough credit for their accomplishments this season with Lebron James, and to a lesser extent Dwayne Wade and the Celtics’ Big Three garnering most of the media’s attention. They also maintained the best record in the West even with Andrew Bynum missing 32 games leading up to the playoffs.

Pace: 94.4, 5th
O-Rating: 112.7, 3rd
D-Rating: 104.6, 6th
Differential: +8.1 (O-Rating minus D-Rating)

Of the numerous basketball cliches out there, one in particular describes this Lakers team when they are firing on all cylinders. It is the well known saying that ‘their defense creates their offense.’  But for this Lakers squad it really holds true, with Trevor Ariza leading the charge (and earning himself a nice raise in the process going into free agency this season). Ariza, who is the Lakers’ defense personified, gets into the passing lanes, pushes the tempo and finishes way above the rim without ever giving up on a play. When Ariza and the Lakers play inspired basketball, they are really an exciting team to watch.

Offensively, you cannot overlook three time champion and former MVP Kobe Bryant. He draws a huge amount of attention from opposing teams’ defenses and makes life much easier for his teammates to get high-percentage looks. At the same time though, last season’s key acquisition, Pau Gasol, has made it much easier for Bryant to get good looks as well. Having Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum as your backup weapons makes the Lakers a very dangerous team. Add in great perimeter shooting and you have a team that punishes you for doubling to try and stop Bryant. They truly make you pick your poison.

First Round, v. UTA: 4-1
Conference Semifinals, v. HOU: 4-3

In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers took care of business fairly efficiently in taking five games to dispatch of the Utah Jazz. However, the conference semifinals provided the Lakers with a much bigger challenge in the Tracy McGrady-less Houston Rockets. When Yao Ming went down for the season after game three, the Lakers and everyone else in the world counted the young and injured team out of the running.

The trouble for the Lakers was that the Rockets didn’t get the memo that everyone else in the world got that the series was over and they played like their (playoff) lives depended on it.  The simple fact that it took the Lakers seven games to move past the Rockets (refer to Lebron James, Mo Williams and the rest of the Cavs to see what a championship team truly looks like) has given legitimacy to the argument that this team is mentally focused enought to win a championship. However the 2007-08 Celtics didn’t exactly cruise to victory against the Hawks or Cavaliers in the first two rounds of the playoffs either.

Tale of the Tape: The Denver Nuggets

Record: 54-28
W-L%: .659
Rank: 5th

The Nuggets played like an entirely different team this season by both addition by subtraction and also by, well, addition. The Nuggets gained by subtracting Allen Iverson, who is the epitome of a high-volume, low-efficiency scorer in decline. Iverson is unwilling to admit that he can no longer carry a team on his back and unable to accept any lesser role. This is probably the ultimate chemistry killer in the locker room. Billups, in an absolute contrast to AI, is the consummate professional and a savvy, championship proven veteran (they don’t call him Mr. Big Shot for nothing). You replace an undersized and disgruntled shoot-first point guard with a professional, pass-first floor general who demands a commitment to defense from his teammates and you have a vastly improved Nuggets squad this year.

Pace: 94.3, 6th
O-Rating: 110.4, 7th
D-Rating: 106.8, 8th
Differential: +3.6

Much like the Lakers, the Nuggets play high tempo basketball and especially push the ball and force the issue on their home court. Defensively, both Nene and Kenyon Martin play physical defense in the paint and tend to force jump shooting big men like Dirk Nowitzki out of their element (although to Dirk’s credit he played phenomenal basketball against Denver in the Western Conference Semifinals). What really stands out when looking over this Denver Nuggets squad is that they played great team defense, which is exactly what they’ll need to do to try and limit Kobe Bryant. Dahntay Jones, despite earning minutes from George Karl based on his perimeter defense, is simply over-matched against Bryant. It must be a concentrated and carefully executed five man strategy if you hope to stop the Black Mamba.

Offensively, this team is a true partnership with Billups and Carmelo Anthony sharing the leadership onus for this team. Billups calls the plays and initiates the offense while Melo is the finisher. Off the bench, J.R. Smith provides instant fire and has matured from playing alongside Billups (although he is still J.R. Smith so keep that in mind). He is prone to occasionally taking ill-advised jumpers or pull-up threes. But when this guy is on, he can absolutely make it rain. Smith is the true X-Factor for the Nuggets offense.

First Round, v. NOH: 4-1
Conference Semifinals, v. DAL: 4-1

Melo could not being player better basketball this postseason (27.0 points, 6.4 rebounds, 4.3 assists on 48/45/83 percent shooting). Him and Dirk really battled last series with Anthony rising to the challenge and hitting big baskets when they mattered most. Chauncey Billups is right there alongside Melo in terms of playoff production (22.1 points, 7.3 assists, 3.8 rebounds on 49/54/96 percent shooting) and impact on ball games. As a result, the Nuggets made quick work of both the Hornets and the Mavericks along the way.

Regular Season Matchups

The Lakers and Nuggets played four regular season games this year, with the Lakers holding the 3-1 advantage. But upon closer examination, the team’s head-to-head play is not so clear-cut.

• Game One: 11/01/08. Lakers 104, Nuggets 97 (No Billups).
• Game Two: 11/21/08. Nuggets 90, Lakers 104.
• Game Three: 02/27/09. Lakers 79, Nuggets 90 (No Bynum).
• Game Four: 04/09/09. Nuggets 102, Lakers 116.

One of the Lakers’ three wins came against an Iverson-led Nuggets team, which, as discussed earlier, is essentially a different team. Empty win, Lakers 0-0. The second Lakers win was played out by two teams at full strength. Lakers 1-0. The third game involves a Bynum-less Lakers team, which is a different team as well. Lakers 1-0. The fourth and final game was again played out at full strength and again resulted in a Lakers win. Lakers 2-0.

Slam dunk, the Lakers are going to sweep the Nuggets in this series then, right? Not so fast. If you look at regular season games one through four again, paying particular attention to home court (the second team listed above was the home team), the Lakers two wins at full strength were both at the Staples Center. The two games that were thrown out for missing key players both occurred in Denver, where Denver is much more likely to play better basketball. While not providing hard evidence in favor of Denver winning the series, these few games definitely don’t give me any reason to count out the Denver Nuggets yet.

Position Battles

Point Guard: Advantage Nuggets. Hands down, and it’s not even close. Billups is a vastly superior floor general to Derek Fisher, although Billups is a better defensive assignment for Fish than Aaron Brooks proved to be last series. Fisher was absolutely embarrassed at times by Brooks’ speed and looked his age (34). Not to take anything away from Fisher, who is a great piece for the Lakers, but  he is clearly overmatched here.

Shooting Guard: Advantage Lakers. Hands down, and it’s not even close (again). I’m sorry but Bryant is better than Dahntay Jones and J.R. Smith combined. You better hope that Smith is ready to play lock-down defense, because Jones will be into early foul trouble in at least a couple of games in this series. One of the top five players on the planet and a nightmare to guard.

Small Forward: Advantage Nuggets. Again, not to take anything away from Trevor Ariza, but Anthony is clearly the better player. Ariza’s quickness may get the better of Melo at times, but Anthony’s strength will likewise cause problems for Trevor on the defensive end. Melo has forced his name into the discussion of best players in the postseason and I fully expect that trend to continue in the immediate future.

Power Forward: Advantage Lakers. Kenyon Martin is a very physical defender and could possibly cause Pau Gasol to lose his focus and start trying to get the referee’s ear. However, Gasol can stretch the floor and play with his back to the basket with equal skill. Martin is much more limited offensively which allows Gasol to conserve more of his energy for the offensive end.

Center: Push. Bynum has not fully proven that he is healthy and ready to be a factor in this series. Sure, he did play much improved basketball in the later games of the Rockets series, but he was also playing against a team without a true center or anyone who can body up on him (he is a beast). Nene has also not proven that he can be a consistent factor on the road in the post season, which is of crucial importance if the Nuggets hope to have a chance at upsetting the Lakers.

Bench: Push. This is a hard decision to make. Chris ‘the Birdman’ Andersen is the heart and sould of this Nuggets team and he, like Ariza, has earned himself a nice raise this season heading into free agency. He gets the crowd in the game. He blocks shots and alters way more shots than he actually touches. He provides highlight reel finishes in the open court. Besides him, the Nuggets have Anthony Carter, J.R. Smith and Linas Klieza to provide quality minutes.

The Lakers also have an extremely solid bench with depth at every position. Lamar Odom, Sasha Vujacic, Jordan Farmar, Shannon Brown and Luke Walton all provide production off the bench and can step in if an injury were to occur to a starting teammate. The Lakers generally only need Odom and other of these guys to have a big game and they are virtually unbeatable. The bench (more so than even the Bynum v. Nene matchup) will be hugely important in this series.

Final Questions

Which team will show the mental toughtness of a championship team, even through adversity?

Can the Denver Nuggets overcome the Lakers’ home court advantage?

Where will game four be played?