Letting Linsanity Sink In

There are two major reasons why we love to watch sports.  First, we admire the display of the world’s best athletes competing at the highest level.  The second – and much more powerful and impactful reason – is that we love seeing success stories, especially when the cards are stacked against them from happening.  As a whole, fans naturally root for the underdog and get caught up in the wave of Cinderella stories.  Much of the hardcore enthusiasm and pride instilled in sports fans comes from the inspiration and hope that a rare phenomenon gives them.

In the last week, we have been witnessing one of these phenomenons, the likes of which we’ve never seen before.  And it just so happens to be occurring within one of the most storied franchises.  I’m speaking, of course, of the one and only New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin.  In the last four games without “superstars” (yes, I’ll keep calling them that) Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire (Melo with a sore groin, and Amare coping with his brother’s untimely death), the Knicks have gone 4-0 – in large part due to Lin coming out of nowhere to lead his team to convincing victories over New Jersey, Utah, Washington, and the Lakers.  In those 4 games, Lin’s point/assist log looks like this: 25/7 vs. NJ, 28/8 vs. Utah, 23/10 at Washington (against last year’s No. 1 draft pick John Wall, no less), and a whopping 38/7 against Kobe and the Lakers.  With each game, Lin is gaining tremendous confidence, and has electrified the Garden.

Blowing by defenses left and right, Jeremy Lin has taken the sports
world by storm, and has the Knicks finally playing winning basketball

Since sneaking in to the NBA after 4 successful years at Harvard,
Jeremy Lin has gone relatively unnoticed by teams league-wide

Stats aside, this hasn’t been a good story; it’s been a GREAT story. After going undrafted out of Harvard, and between bouncing around teams in NBA and spending time in the D-League, this guy wasn’t on ANYONE’s radar.  Before Tuesday – when his contract became guaranteed – he was sleeping on his brother’s couch at night to save money.  Even Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey couldn’t help but praise the guy and express regret for not giving him a chance.  Of all the point guards on the Knicks roster – Baron Davis, Iman Shumpert, and Mike Bibby – who would have ever thought that Lin would be the answer as the floor general? 

These days, everyone in the sports world is asking if Lin’s remarkable run can be sustained, and whether he’s actually for real or just a one-week wonder.  I’ll put my answer simply:  One great game is an aberration.  Two is a trend.  Three is reality.  And four?  Well, considering the competition and the spotlight, his performance is no fluke.  Plain and simple - the guy can play.  He's constantly beating guys like Deron Williams and John Wall off the dribble.  Although turnover-prone so far in his first few games playing big minutes, his playmaking ability is top-notch.  And hey, he can dunk!  To put it in perspective, he's SECOND in PER - right behind freaking LeBron!  How good can he be?  It's tough to tell; I'm not going to say he's All-Star material, but I would say he could be a solid backup point guard on a contending team.  But more importantly, he needs to be in the right system to be effective.  Even with his new-found confidence, I think the quality of his play is always going to be dependent on the team and playing style.

Here’s a crazy thought:  what if Lin keeps this up through the rest of the season?  Imagine this scenario if Linsanity continues:  he’ll land a big contract over the off-season after teams commence on a bidding war for him.  Next season, he’ll be put on the All-Star ballot.  If the Lin bandwagon multiplies by then, fans WILL vote for him - especially from China and Taiwan.  While still pretty crazy and farfetched, Lin being voted as a 2013 NBA All-Star starting guard is not completely beyond the realm of possibility.  I mean, we all remember how many All-Star votes Yao Ming got – and even Yi Jianlian almost got voted in when he was put on the ballot a few years ago.  But Yi was not causing nearly the stir that Lin is now.  How crazy would that be?

Carmelo Anthony's ball-holding ways will be tough to mix
with Jeremy Lin's free-flowing pick-and-roll offensive style

Okay, now that I have gotten all the praise out of the way – time to play Devil’s Advocate.  Realistically, the Knicks are still not a winning team.  Before Linsanity started, New York was off to a disappointing 8-15 start in a year they had higher expectations.  Mike D’Antoni was on the hot seat, and Melo and Amare’s superstardom has come into question (and rightfully so).   So while they are having success without those two, you have to wonder how their return will impact the team.  As I’ve beat to death over and over, Melo and Amare happen to be two gifted scorers with the same team-killing deficiencies.  Defensively, they are two of the worst starting forwards in the league.  On offense, the two scoring juggernauts and iso-happy games severely penalize the team’s overall ball movement.  Without them, Lin and the Knicks have been primarily running pick-and-roll plays, where Lin has been incredibly effective.  In that scheme, there has been a free flowing offense that we are used to seeing from D’Antoni-led teams.  But when Melo and Amare return, I just can’t see them letting Lin dictate the offense – especially Melo, who has never taken kindly to the idea of being a second fiddle.  Over his entire career, he has never given me any reason to believe that he can adjust for the betterment of the team – at least not yet.  And if Melo continues dominating the ball, Lin's play might suffer.The subsequent destruction of chemistry is my biggest fear for the Knicks as a team, in the aftermath of Linsanity. 

So if this fear is realized, and the Knicks struggle integrating his two stars with Lin, what does D’Antoni do?  Does he put his foot down and tell the team that Lin will be the team’s primary playmaker, and ask his two stars to put their egos aside?  Can he somehow integrate Melo and Amare’s scoring prowess without adversely affecting the team’s successful style of play lately?  Tyson Chandler has really stepped it up on both ends of the court, but will he keep it up?  I don’t see any positives from this happening, but for the sake of Knicks fans, I really hope I’m wrong.  Knicks fans have experienced far, far, far more disappointments and letdowns than success throughout their lifetime, so hopefully this can turn around their fortunes on a more permanent basis. They are long overdue for some optimism in the team.

Regardless of this particular team’s success, I think Lin has turned his own career around and will never again have to worry about finding a place to crash.  Whether or not he can sustain this run, he has instantly impacted the league and inspired fans worldwide in a way that few ever have before.  As fans, let’s not question him and just enjoy the ride while it lasts.

My Thoughts on Melo Trade

All-Star weekend, as far as I’m concerned, lived up to expectations.  When that happens, it’s hard to forget the weekend.  Thanks to the long-anticipated trade of Carmelo Anthony to the New York Knicks – where he wanted to be all along – All-Star weekend has been forgotten and all eyes are on the new-look Knicks as well as Thursday’s trade deadline.  After months of negotiating, the trade finally happened.  It’s hard to envy the front office of NBA teams who have deal with this crap.  I can’t imagine the long hours they all put in to make everything work, both numbers-wise and team chemistry wise.  Luckily, trades talks rarely last this long, and are never as long as it takes Brett Favre to make decisions. 

First, before breaking down the trade – I gotta point this out:  I guess Knicks fans forgot all about Melo’s sucker punch on then-NY PG Mardy Collins 5 years ago.  Shouldn’t NY fans be more skeptical about picking up a hit-and-run type guy, after having guys like Anthony Mason, Larry Johnson, Charles Oakley, and many of the tough guys in NBA history?  Maybe Melo’s gotten tougher over the years to fit that bill. 

On to the trade – let’s start with Denver’s side:  in losing both Melo and Chauncey Billups, they gained a whole lot more than what they would have gotten had they lost Melo for nothing as a free agent this summer.   That, in itself, is a victory.  If you look strictly at Points in vs. Points out in the trade, Denver actually got more (53.4 vs 48.3 PPG) in return for their trade.  Obviously, that’s a glass half-full approach on Denver’s end (not to mention one of the many examples of using stats to sell a positive outlook).  Nevertheless, with a projected starting lineup of Felton, J.R. Smith, Chandler (I think Gallo will be traded), K-Mart, and Nene, the Nuggets are still 7^th or 8^th seed-playoff quality team.  Losing a superstar is never good, but they really did the best that they could, given the circumstances.  In other words, they’re much better off than Cleveland and Toronto were after losing LeBron and Chris Bosh.

 Will they keep this lineup together?  We’ll see by Thursday’s deadline.  There’s lots of reports out there, involving shopping Nene, that may essentially blow up the team.  So, there is no point in analyzing their outlook for the rest of the year until after Thursday.

So, let’s talk about the new-look Knicks.  Some argue that the Knicks gave up way too much in the deal, considering they theoretically could have risked waiting until the summer to sign Melo.  But according to sources, Knicks GM Donnie Walsh became increasingly convinced that Melo became increasingly concerned about his financial security with the looming salary cap cut-backs as part of the upcoming new Collective Bargaining Agreement.  That’s a valid concern, and New York decided to give in and make a move for Melo right now.  Plus, I trust Walsh’s judgement on this a whole lot more than I would’ve trusted former awful GMs Scott Layden and Isiah Thomas, who outright destroyed the franchise for a decade.

On the positive side, let’s be clear on this:   this was a good move by the Knicks and great for the NBA from a marketing standpoint (for obvious reasons). In terms of basketball, this move needed to be made.  The Knicks had a relatively easy 1^st half of the regular season, yet are only two games above .500 into to the All-Star break.  The trade talks were clearly getting to the team, as the players who overachieved to this point (e.g. Chandler, Felton) were slowly-but-surely slipping.  With Melo, New York will have new life and the Garden will see a buzz it hasn’t seen in a long, long time.  You HAVE to be happy if you’re a Knicks fan. 

Can Amare and Melo co-exist?  This remains to be seen.

Landing former Finals MVP Chauncey Billups should not be overlooked, either.  Chauncey has always been a great leader, and will gladly welcome playing in the D’Antoni system after playing for more controlling coaches like Larry Brown in Detroit and George Karl in Denver.  He is clearly an upgrade, in the short term, over Ray Felton.  I just wonder if he’ll be happy in NY, as he wanted to retire in Denver.  The Nuggets front office admitted that one of the hold-ups to the trade was trying to avoid including Chauncey in the deal.  Head coach George Karl even said that he was more sad about Chauncey leaving than anything.  Although he is 34, his game has aged in a positive manner and is still a very effective point guard. 

Amare struggles guarding good bigs like Gasol

As exciting as this trade is, you need to play devil’s advocate.  This trade was good, but are the Knicks going to be that good?  We all know that both Melo and Amare Stoudemire are two of the best scorers in the league (Amare at #2 in NBA with 26.1 PPG, Melo at #6 with 25.2 PPG), and arguably the most gifted scorers at their respective positions.  But the question of whether they fit together as teammates drives the biggest skepticism thereof.  This is a legitimate concern, as these two guys aren’t exactly known for their play without the ball, particularly on defense.  As I’ve pointed out before, Amare is just plain awful at guarding elite 4s and 5s.  For a guy with his caliber of talent, he is an average rebounder at best.  He’s picked up his efforts in terms of help defense, as he ranks 3^rd in the NBA in Blocked Shots.  But in terms of one-on-one defense and boxing out, he should be better than he is.

Even on offense, there are valid concerns.  Can two guys that score 25+ PPG co-exist?  They both need the ball in their hands to be effective, and a lot of pressure will be on D’Antoni and Billups to facilitate the offense and preserve team chemistry.  Remember that the Nuggets were not an elite team with the Allen Iverson-Anthony combo, despite the two of them being top 5 in the league in scoring a few years back.   They ran into a lot of problems in the playoffs as well, as there was a struggle between the two in terms of deciding who should have the ball in closing moments.  I can’t anticipate that this situation will be much better playing with Amare.  And, as dynamic of a duo as they are, they are still only the 4^th best duo in the league in my opinion, behind the Lebron/Wade, Durant/Westbrook, and Kobe/Gasol combos. 

Is there reason for hope?  Of course.  Will the Knicks be title contenders this year?  Of course not; just look at how long it took Miami to start gelling as a team with their three-headed monster.  They probably won’t make much ground in the playoff race, and will probably extend a 1^st round playoff series (either vs. Chicago or Orlando) to 6 games at best.  In the short term, things might not pan out that quickly.  But the bottom line is that the NBA is a star’s game; you acquire the star and figure out the remaining pieces from there.  Donnie Walsh and company will spend endless hours trying to add pieces to the puzzle over the next several seasons. 

I still don’t think the Knicks will threaten to overtake Miami, Chicago, or even Orlando (if D12 stays) in the next couple years – especially if the new Collective Bargaining Agreement drastically decreases team cap space as expected (and thus essentially ruling out the possibility of picking up either Deron Williams or Chris Paul in 2012). In summary, this trade makes them good – but not great.  But if you’re a Knicks fan, you should be ecstatic that this team will be relevant again.  In the Scott Layden and Isiah Thomas eras, the Knicks were doomed to several years of futility.   

Rivalries

The word "rivalry" is being thrown around a lot.  Oddly enough, it always gets mentioned whenever the Knicks are playing a good team.  Tonight, they happened to have just beat Miami the day after Amare boldly said "Nobody's afraid of the Heat."  Then came the clips from the famously games in Heat-Knicks history, defined by several heated incidents during each of their playoff series from 1997 to 2000 (PJ Brown flipping Charlie Ward into the stands in 97, Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson causing a huge brawl with Jeff Van Gundy hilariously hanging on to Mourning's leg in 98, and Allan Houston's one-handed runner to lift the Knicks in 99).  In that timeframe, the two teams faced each other all 4 of those years and each series went the distance.  This NEVER happened between any two teams in the league.  Back then, this WAS a legitimate rivalry.

Here's my criteria for legitimate rivalries.  All 4 rules apply when it comes to judging whether two teams have current, legitimate rivalries:

1.  The teams should have played head to head in more than one playoff series.
2.  The head-to-head matchup should not be completely one-sided.
3.  At least one or two noteworthy fights or heated exchanges must take place to define the rivarly.
4.  The two teams must have faced each other at least once within the past 5 years.
5.  The teams have to be good (i.e. playoff teams).

Rule 1 is kind of implied by Rule 2 - it's not a rivalry if the teams have only met only once OR if one team has won every matchup.  Remember the so-called Cavs-Wizards "rivalry" a few years ago? They had one good playoff series in 2006, but since then?  Cavs swept the Wizards in 07 and ousted them in 6 games (fairly lopsided despite going this many games) in 08.  The famous Kings-Lakers series in 2002 was one of the most competitive (and controversial) playoff series of all time.  But the Kings never beat the Lakers before or after that series.

Rule 3 is almost kind of a byproduct of what happens when Rules 1&2 are satisfied.  When teams face each other so many times, heated exchanges are almost inevitable.  They're virtually a guarantee when you have to go up against guys like Kevin Garnett for just one game, much less for multiple playoff series.  Controversy off the court counts as well, such as verbal jabs at press conferences between coaches and players.

Rule 4 eliminates pairs of teams that USED to be rivals, but one team or the other started sucking since.  The aforementioned Heat-Knicks rivalry is one of them.  As for Rule 5 - well, nobody cares about crappy teams that have a rivalry with one another.  Otherwise, we might as well put high school team rivals on the list.

That said, here's my list of current legitimate rivalries:

1.  Lakers/Celtics
2.  Spurs/Mavericks
3.  Suns/Spurs

Lakers-Celtics
Head-to-head:  Celtics 9-3
Recent Matchups:  2008 Finals, 2010 Finals

One of the many promos for the league's most famous rivalry

This is undoubtedly the league's juiciest rivalry, with a storied history between the NBA's two winningest franchises.  With the most star power and no shortage of trash talkers (KG, Pierce, Sheed, Kobe, Artest), these two teams could very well face each other again for at least a couple more years and add to their rivalry.  This is the NBA's premier rivalry with tons of history and promising battles to come.

Spurs-Mavericks
Head-to-head:  Spurs 3-2
Recent Matchups:  2006 Conf. Finals, 2009 First Rd., 2010 First Rd.

The 2006 matchup was by far the best series between the two teams, ending in a Game 7 OT in favor of the Mavericks.  If Ginobili did not commit the worst foul of the century on Nowitzki, the Spurs would arguably have gone on to win the championship (yes, they would not have had an epic collapse against D-Wade's Heat the way Dallas did).

Suns-Spurs
Head-to-head:  Spurs 6-4
Recent Matchups:  2005 Conf. Finals, 2007 Conf. Semi-finals, 2008 First Rd, 2010 Conf. Semi-finals

If it weren't for the Suns 4-0 sweep of the Spurs last year, this would not be a rivalry per Rivalry Rule #2.  Before that series, the Spurs appeared to have Phoenix's number, despite a number of grueling playoff series. There was plenty of drama between the two teams, with Phoenix seemingly never getting any breaks.  In 2005, Joe Johnson fractured his left orbital bone on his face.  In 2007, Steve Nash's nose couldn't stop bleeding in Game 1, and as a result he was unable to stay on the court consistently in crunch time.  In Game 4, Robert Horry decked Steve Nash into the scorer's table in Game 4 of the series, leading to suspensions of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw (forever changing Horry's nickname to 'Cheap Shot Bob' in my mind).  In 2008, the Suns were a popular pick to beat the Spurs as they shook up their roster, bringing Shaq in as their center.  Despite signs that the trade made the Suns match up against the Spurs better, San Antonio quickly dismissed them in 5 games.

By then, it appeared that Steve Nash would never be able to get through the Spurs.  But the most unexpected turn of events happened after Phoenix won their first two home games to go up 2-0:  Goran freakin' Dragic scored 23 of his 26 points in the 4th quarter of Game 3 to give the Suns a 3-0 lead.  Freak things like this tend to happen to in back-and-forth rivalries.

Runner-ups but not quite rivalries yet:  Celtics-Magic, Celtics-Bulls
Rivalries in the last 10 years that aren't really rivalries anymore:  Spurs-Lakers, Cavs-Pistons and Cavs-Celtics (obviously because of LBJ's departure), Suns-Mavs

The Eastern Conference is in need of some rivals, but there is hope for them.  Among the top four teams in the East (Celtics, Heat, Bulls, Magic), rivalries promise to form in the near future.  

All-Star Starters Announced

I was 100% correct in my All-Star starter predictions....

Ok, nothing to be proud of.  But the starters were announced on TNT tonight.  Following the announcement,  endless debate ensued regarding who the reserves should be - just as expected . But the TNT crew, one of the most (if not THE most) entertaining TV crew in all of sports, had several points of contention among them.  Here were the main debates, with my take on them:

1.  Kevin Love - All-Star or not?

As mentioned earlier, I do not think Kevin Love should not be one of the reserves because of his team's success, or lack thereof.  Kenny Smith reiterated my thoughts on this - it's no disrespect to Kevin Love himself, but rather he is a victim of his team.  Charles Barkley and Chris Webber strongly disagreed, thinking that Kevin Love should make the team if Blake Griffin does (Griffin was unanimously picked among everyone in the TNT crew).  C-Webb said something that got me thinking:  "If Blake Griffin couldn't dunk, would you still think he should be an All-Star over Kevin Love?"  What he obviously meant by that notion is that while Griffin and Love have been equally impressive, people only give Griffin the nod because of his frequent highlight reel-making plays (and perhaps the bigger LA market).  

That's a good point by C-Webb.  Kevin Love has had a double-double in EVERY game since Nov. 19th.  Pretty absurd.  Off the top of my head, it's been slightly longer than since Blake Griffin has not recorded one.

Unfortunately for Love, what throws a wrench in his argument is the team success variable.  As Kenny said, Minnesota has won just two more games than Cleveland.  Griffin and the Clippers started very slow, and do not appear to be a playoff team.  Nonetheless, they are still +7 games ahead of Minnesota in the West and started 1-13.  After getting his first few NBA games under his belt, Griffin has been an absolute beast and has given the Clippers the one thing they have rarely had in the history of their franchise:  hope.  That cannot be measured in stats.  You can argue that the Clippers have more talent than Minnesota (which is true), but the All-Star game is also a fan's game.  The coaches are going to vote Griffin in over Love no matter what.  Even with the Yao injury, I don't think Love will get in because of all the other reserve candidates on winning teams that may not get initially voted in (Parker, Nash, etc.).  

2.  Bosh/Duncan - Lifetime Achievement or Deserving All-Stars?

The TNT crew had varying opinions on whether these two guys deserve to get in.  Barkley feels as though some players on great teams get awarded "lifetime achievement" votes, where players are voted in based on reputation instead of their performance through the first half of an NBA season.  This is probably true to an extent, but not in the case of these two guys.  Not if you value team success.

Miami would not be as good without Chris Bosh, and I think people have finally acknowledged that while he's been out with an ankle injury.  Though not a prolific low-post scorer, he is an absolute nightmare to guard for opposing 4s and 5s.  Too quick against bigs, and too tall and too good of a shooter against shorter bigs. His quickness also makes him a terrific pick-and-roll defender; he deserves much credit for Miami's suffocating D. I honestly think that if you turned back the clock and Bosh and Amare traded places this past offseason, the Knicks would be just as good (if not better) with Bosh and Miami would not be nearly as good with Amare.  This is mostly because I think Amare would not be putting nearly the same effort when the ball's not in his hands as often.  Even as the 2nd fiddle behind Steve Nash in Phoenix, he was a god awful defender.  Remember him getting absolutely lit up by Pau Gasol in last year's Western Conference semis?  I still wouldn't trust him to anchor any team's defense.

As for Tim Duncan, how can you leave him off the All-Star team?  Do the Spurs go 39-7 at this point in the season without him?  I didn't think so.  If you put him in the Timberwolves, he may not be getting multiple 20-20 games like Kevin Love is.  But he damn well would win them a lot more than 10 games to this point.  

3.  Changing the voting process

Ok, so maybe this wasn't even an argument.  But Yao being a shoe-in every single year is getting old.  Last year, it was Allen Iverson that was controversially voted in.  Tracy McGrady was very close to being voted in over Steve Nash, also.  Yi Jianlian was almost voted in a couple years ago when he was on the ballot.  I think every year, at least a handful of players either get selected or receive several more votes than other more deserving players.  

Are you kidding me?  How has this not been addressed yet?  I know the All-Star game is a fan's game, but things have changed since voting has become available electronically worldwide.  It's way too easy for certain countries with the highest population to vote for certain players who don't deserve to be voted in. Hell, if I were on the ballot, India would probably help me get more total votes than 90% of the players.  The sad part is, that's probably not much of an exaggeration.

Ray Allen suggested giving fans a partial vote, similar to the way it's done for the regular season MVP ballot.  I'm not sure what the best way to do it is, but David Stern and his board has to come up with something better than the way it is now.