NBA Officially in a State of Chaos

For the most part, the basketball community felt a huge sigh of relief when the lockout was lifted.  But did that spell the end of the turmoil among Commissioner David Stern, the players, and the owners?  We should have known better.  We should have predicted that, after months of several heated discussions, that rifts would be permanently created and grudges would be held.  After both sides made considerable compromises to end the lockout, promises were made to both the players and owners that efforts would be made to ensure their needs would be met.  So after all this, what’s the outcome?  For one, every team transaction, from here on out, will be further scrutinized by everyone in the league.  Now, the same day the lockout ended, we’ve already seen how ugly things have become with the chaotic Chris Paul trade fiasco.  In the end, the NBA has seriously tarnished its brand, and things seem to quickly be spiraling out of control. 

Let's hope the league wises up and allows CP3 and Kobe to become teammates

The unfathomable veto of the trade that would have brought Chris Paul to the Lakers is the latest episode in what’s been a devastating blow to the NBA’s image.  Owners were furious that yet another star player would be moving to a premier franchise.  And from my understanding, it wasn’t JUST the acquiring of Chris Paul alone that prompted the owners to react; rumors swirled that the Lakers still had a chance to acquire Dwight Howard from the Magic.  While it may not have been feasible immediately after the Lakers parted with both Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom to get Paul, owners were still weary that Howard might eventually finagle his way to LA – especially if he’s not traded to another team. 

Scola (left) and Gasol (right) would provide offensive
firepower to their respective teams' front lines

What kills me is that this trade was said to be vetoed for "basketball-related" reasons.  Are you kidding me?  From a basketball perspective, it's fair to say that New Orleans may have fared the best of the three teams from doing this trade.  Lamar Odom, Luis Scola, and Emeka Okafor together would have formed a playoff team-quality front court for the Hornets.  That's before even mentioning the acquisition of Kevin Martin and Goran Dragic - who are both up-and-coming prolific scorers (if you don't know Dragic, check out this 23-point 4th quarter outburst he threw down on a very good San Antonio team in the 2010 Western Conference Semis).  From a marketing perspective, you obviously can't replace CP3 - even with these high quality players.  But it baffles me that the league doesn't realize that this is a much better option than letting Paul walk at season's end, and thereby giving New Orleans nothing in return. 

 This isn't a bad trade for the other two involved teams, either.  In the aftermath of losing Yao Ming, Houston would have landed the second-best big man in the league in Pau Gasol - and were already in the running to land Nene.  And of course, Kobe and CP3 would form the best back court in the NBA for the Lakers - albeit with a thin front line.  So how the hell is NOT doing this trade better for all three teams from a basketball perspective? 

Clearly, there are lingering issues resulting from egos of owners and players in the aftermath of the lockout.  So who's at fault for keeping this going?  

By opposing the trade of CP3 to LA, Cavs owner Dan Gilbert is
showing that he's obviously not over the loss of LeBron James

To owners, the new CBA should have further prevented teams from stacking up the league’s best players; ever since LeBron, D-Wade and Bosh joined forces in Miami last offseason, owners became determined to not allow something like that to happen again.  Thus, when the very first news they hear (on the SAME DAY the lockout ends, to boot) is the rumors of CP3 and Dwight Howard both going to the Lakers, their natural reaction is to push back.  They were promised competitive balance, and felt they were lied to.  I think all basketball minds agree that New Orleans, in the proposed trade, got a pretty damn good deal out of it.  But if we’ve learned anything this offseason, it’s that most owners don’t see things from a basketball perspective – only money. 

At the same time, you can’t blame players for wanting to play for bigger market teams.  To CP3, his desire to achieve long-term security (by signing an extension with the Lakers) has been denied.  If he blows out his knee this season, he’s screwed.  There’s no denying he has a right to be livid at the league.  Smaller market teams want more than 1% chance of landing star players to improve their venue, but other than a few exceptions – Reggie Miller with the Pacers, Tim Duncan with the Spurs, and Kevin Durant with the Thunder – star players prefer bigger markets.  That’s never going to change, and owners need to come to terms with that. 

Things will only get uglier from here on out.  We’re being told that this happened ONLY because the NBA currently owns the Hornets, causing a perfect storm for this debauchery to happen.  But hence forth, every blockbuster trade - especially between big and small-market teams – is going to be heavily scrutinized.  Even the New Jersey Nets, who are widely anticipated to be considered a bigger market when they move to Brooklyn next season, got in trouble for tampering in their ongoing attempts to trade for Dwight Howard.  Howard, who is open to the idea of playing with All-Star guard Deron Williams, now has more political obstacles to overcome.

It's not just the NBA-owned Hornets whose trade discussions are under scrutiny;
the growing chaos has hindered trade talks involving Dwight Howard (left) and Brook Lopez (right)

What a mess.

So who is to blame for the NBA’s image spiraling out of control?

The easy scapegoat, of course, is David Stern.  He’s the one who allowed the lockout get to the point where it did.  He’s the one who’s been really wishy-washy on why he vetoed the trade.  He’s the one hiding from all the heavy criticism.  But remember that ultimately, Stern answers to the owners; the only reason he’s employed is because of the owners.  He claims all of his decisions are not affiliated with any pressure he gets from owners, but IMO, that’s not plausible. 

David Stern has long ago worn out his welcome

All things considered, he really needs to retire.  He’s gotta go.  The NBA badly needs new leadership.  Regardless of whether he’s truly at fault, we know Stern’s reputation is now irreparable, and that he shouldn’t linger around any longer trying to salvage it.  Besides, he wouldn’t be the only sports figure failing to go out on a high note; just two months ago, we saw Penn State legend Joe Paterno’s last season marred by the Jerry Sandusky scandal.  But unlike Paterno, Stern’s leadership has been far from flawless up to this point.  In fact, you can question the very beginning of his reign upon the first NBA draft lottery in 1985:  many conspiracies are out there giving solid evidence that Stern “aided” the New York Knicks to win the draft lottery – and of course allowing them to land #1 pick Patrick Ewing.  Of course, the infamous Tim Donaghy scandal comes to mind as well, which put the entire integrity of the game into question.  Fair or not, Stern’s legacy will always be associated with these conspiracies. 

It's tough to imagine either Greg Oden or Brandon Roy
ever setting foot on an NBA court again

The growing rift between the owners and players is not the only sad story to surface before this already-shortened season even started.  Portland Trailblazers star Brandon Roy, who could no longer avoid the inevitable, called it quits on account of his gimpy knees.  We saw flashes of the great player he could have been in Game 4 of last year’s First Round matchup vs. the eventual NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks, and it appears that's the last of him.  Things are also looking pretty glum for his teammate Greg Oden, who is continuing to struggle making his way back on the court after a heavily injury-ridden start to his career.  So on the Blazers front, the already-sad story is only getting sadder. 

Somehow, even after the labor situation resolved itself, the NBA is looking worse and worse.  All we can hope for now is for the chaos to subside, and that things start looking up once the actual basketball gets underway.  Until then, the bleeding won’t stop and the growing divide between players, owners, and the commissioner will not be set aside.

Misleading Stats

Anyone take statistics in college?  Well, any stat expert knows very well that you can make stats tell you basically anything.  Anybody can manipulate stats into telling you some ridiculously misleading things.  Car dealers, real estate agents, and any other shady salesperson knows how to hustle people, and part of their tactics are to use bogus stats - even if the stats themselves may be true.  News anchors, politicians, and other public figures heavily use stats to reflect their viewpoints.  The trick is to look for stats that actually mean something.  For instance, let's use the real estate example.  Any agent who is desperate for money these days (very common nowadays, especially in this economy) can give you seemingly convincing numbers to try to get you to buy a house quickly.  They will feed you the usual bs:  "This house was once valued at <some previously listed price that is ridiculously higher than what it was actually worth before coming down> - this is a great deal!"  Or, "So-and-so numbers in today's economy show that if you don't buy now, the price will start to come back up - you better jump on it!"

Basketball stats, in the same manner, can be just as deceiving.  In fact, a lot of player agents use this tactic to their advantage when trying to get a player as much money as possible (thus as much commission for themselves as possible).  They try to trick NBA GMs into thinking that their player is worth way more than what they are actually worth, using deceiving facts to help them buy into it.  How on earth did Darko Milicic land a $20 mill contract last offseason?  I think we would all like to know, though everyone in the league knows that the Minnesota Timberwolves' President of Basketball Operations, David Kahn, is not the smartest manager out there.  In fact, watch this hilarious clip of Chris Webber interviewing Kahn.  C-Webb couldn't hide how offended he was that Kahn actually thought that Darko is the best passing big man since Vlade Divac.  He also was shocked that Kahn had the nerve to compare Darko's growing pains to C-Webb himself.  I think even casual NBA fans know that there is no comparison whatsoever between the two.  I was about to put a comparison chart together, but then wised up and realized how much time and effort I would have wasted trying to prove the obvious.  So C-Webb couldn't hide his disgust over Kahn's comments, and Kahn reportedly called him a schmuck afterwards.

Anyway, the point of all this is to read between the lines.  It's difficult to judge how good players are just by looking at a stat sheet.  You need to dig deeper, just like John Hollinger does.  Sometimes the stats tell the story, but a lot of times they don't.  Guys that carry your fantasy team are not necessarily carrying their own REAL team.  Here are some of the biggest misleading stats in basketball:

Points

This is the most obvious one.  A lot of guys can score in the NBA.  But are all of the top scorers efficient?  Do they help their team win by jacking up so many shots?  Not necessarily.  There are so many examples of guys that scored a lot in their careers but never won (or got close to winning) a title.  Some guys just like to be gunners and take as many shots as possible.  Some are forced to carry a high scoring load, because the rest of their team can't score.

Let's take Monta Ellis and Kevin Martin, for instance.  They currently have the 4th and 10th highest scoring averages in the league.  Part of it is that the Warriors and Rockets are both terrible (requiring Ellis and Martin to jack up more shots), but the other part of it is that these guys need to take a lot of shots to get their points.  The best way to filter out gunners is to see how many field goal attempts (FGA) they need to get their points.  Truly great scorers that know how to win get their points from being aggressive and drawing fouls.  If they need a ton of FGAs to get their points, chances are they are not that efficient.

A.I. knew how to win scoring titles, but not championships

Since Ellis and Martin are victims of being on bad teams, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.  Let's pick on Allen Iverson.  For simplicity's sake, let's pick the 2001-02 season, fresh off his MVP season as well as an appearance in the NBA Finals.  He scored 31.4 ppg - his highest season scoring average in his career, and led the league in scoring that year.  If he were to be a free agent that following offseason, his agent would be going bonkers and shoving those stats in GMs' faces.  "The league's best scorer needs a max contract!"  Let's dig deeper into that stat, though:  was he all that efficient?  To get his 31 ppg, he needed 27.8 shots per game to get there.  His shot percentage?  39.8%, with a horrid 29.1% touch from beyond the three point arc.  Ouch.  He does get some assists, but I will delve into that misleading stat in the next section.

You can argue that his team lacked offensive talent and needed him to carry that load.  But is being an inefficient high scorer benefiting your team all that much?

Assists

If you get a lot of dimes, you are seen as an unselfish player.  Unfortunately, it's not that black and white.  Using the efficiency analogy I used earlier with shot efficiency, there is also such a thing as passing efficiency.  One good way to measure this?  Weighing turnovers against assists.  Using the same 01-02 Allen Iverson statline, he had 5.5 apg.  At what cost?  He averaged 3.95 turnovers per game, good for worst in the league.

Now, you can argue that assist-to-turnover ratios can be deceiving as well.    If you're thinking that assist-to-turnover ratio is a better stat than assists or turnovers alone, one can argue it can be just as misleading.  Do other players have worse assist-to-turnover ratios than Iverson?  Of course.  But point guards obviously have so many more opportunities to get assists than other positions.  It's hard for someone like Dwight Howard to rack up a high assist to turnover ratio, as he's not running the offense and he constantly commands double and triple teams.  He's going to lose the ball almost as often as he dishes out assists.  Unlike Iverson, it's not his job to run the offense efficiently.  There is a double standard there, however, as guards are put in a position to commit a lot more turnovers than centers.

As Iverson's athleticism wore down and he became even less efficient, no NBA team wanted him anymore.  And that's why he's in Turkey.  His career is eeringly similar to that of Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis.  All three were looked at as highly talented and gifted scorers, but in the end, all were fairly ineffective and harming their teams as often (if not more often) as they were helping them.

Team Stats

Let's move away from individual stats for a second.  Judging teams based on their stats can be deceiving, as well.  As an example, a team that ranks either last Total Offensive Rebounds isn't necessarily doing anything wrong.  The San Antonio Spurs are usually ranked among the lowest in this stat category.  Are they a bad team?  Obviously not.  Well, try to put two and two together.  They are known as a great defensive team.  Because of this, they opt to run back and sacrifice chances to get offensive rebounds in order to get their defense set up as soon as possible after a shot.  On the contrary, think of great offensive teams - during the "Seven Seconds or less" era of the Phoenix Suns, they were consistently leading the league in scoring.  But were they the best team?  No, but they were fun to watch.

Ask Tim Duncan: the Spurs don't care about stats

Now you can ask, why do we even look at box scores?  Because aside from watching entire games and understanding the dynamics of basketball, stats are the next best way to judge how a team or player performed.  While one stat is not nearly enough to tell the story, multiple stats can help tell some of the story. Like with all things, basketball is a complex game that's way beyond numbers. Unfortunately, most things in life cannot be judged by stats alone.  You can argue that ALL stats are meaningless.  But that's the point - take any stats with a grain of salt.  Instead, use them as tools and read between the lines before passing judgement or making decisions.