Amid a bevy if impressive sequences, the most significant play of the game to me (in a big picture way) occurred in the second half when Beasley caught the ball in the post against Oden.  It drives me nuts when smaller guys are in this situation and then dribble out only to fake and jab for 5 seconds before taking a step back jumper.  You see this at least two or three times a game.  But Beasley, recognizing the mismatch, dribbled out to the wing to exploit his speed advantage (Oden followed half way) and then went right at the rim.

Oden slid his feet quickly enough to keep pace with Beasley, jumped in perfect sync with him to contest the shot, and kept his arms straight up to avoid fouling.  There was contact in the air, but it was incidental, chests and shoulders, and refs typically don’t call if you keep your arms up and as long as one guy doesn’t go flying.  Oden played it just perfectly.  But Beasley scored anyway.  He took the contact in the air, switched the ball to his right hand, and finished softly over Oden.

GREG ODEN

That Oden didn’t block the shot is irrelevant.  He’s been a shot-blocking machine this season, and that alone invalidates concerns that microfracture surgery would limit his explosiveness.  No, the only thing between Oden and true greatness is foul trouble (his other injuries don’t seem like chronic threats.)  If he can limit his fouls enough to stay on the court 35 minutes a game, he’ll be a superstar.  That a goodly number people wrote him off as a bust as soon as he had knee surgery was absurd.  But I also find fault in the plethora of apologist commentary that said we need to adjust our expectations of Oden’s ceiling, to appreciate him for what he is.  For example, consider John Hollinger’s (espn insider) profile on Oden from the pre-season:

So let’s be honest here about what Oden is and what he isn’t. What he is, certainly, is an effective, slightly awkward big man who can rebound and block shots. What he is not is a once-in-a-generation center. Oden is too awkward offensively and too foul-prone to be the kind of dominator some thought he might be coming out of Ohio State.

Wipe away those expectations and it was a solid rookie season.

I wouldn’t take umbrage with this if Hollinger had spoken in the past tense and told us what Oden was and wasn’t in his rookie year, that he wasn’t a once-in-a-generation force in his rookie year.  Of course he wasn’t.  Between injuries and going one-and-done in college, Oden has played vastly less basketball than any previous NBA great center in his rookie year.  Check out this list of all time shot-blockers; it’s made up almost exclusively of guys who played three or four years in college.  And it isn’t just the all time greats and players from previous generations.  Check out the list of active shot-blockers; only the high-school kids had less experience than Oden and only Dwight Howard caught on quicker than Oden has been.  He’s much better than the others were at 21.  Really, considering the circumstances, it’s way too early to give up on hoping that Oden can be a once-in-a-generation dominating center.  I’m not saying he will, but I think he’s got a good shot.

Regarding his supposed clumsiness, so far he’s less turnover-prone than a bunch of greats at his age, like Patrick Ewing.  How else do you judge clumsiness in basketball?  Lack of obvious grace?  Whatever; Dwight Howard is somewhat less than graceful on offense.  Oden’s already got a much better shooting touch.  And how does anyone know if Oden will remain foul-prone?  What evidence is there that it’s a question of innate ability?  Frankly, the most important data I see for Oden is his free-throw percentage.  He took 200 foul shots in college, lefty, while recovering from right-hand surgery.  And he sunk over 60% of them.  So far this season he’s over 75% with his right hand.  That he picked up shooting it lefty in so little time and shot it better than a number of highly skilled alltime great bigs…  This year’s present clip, albeit a fairly small sample size, isn’t likely a clip, given that lefty shooting in college.  It’s more likely to be a result of time, practice, repetitions.  It’s evidence of his ability to improve.

Anyway, regardless of what Bill Simmons and lesser lights believe, I think the Oden or Durant argument is far from over.  But for injury concerns for Oden, they’d be neck and neck.  Durant’s a scoring machine, but he’s not yet anywhere close to the defender Oden is.  And while Oden isn’t nearly as good an offensive player, but he’s far better on offense than Durant is on defense.  Then again yesterday Durant looked like top-form Andrei Kirilenko on defense for a few plays, so who knows.  That’s the point, who knows?

After all, even if they had been terrifically lucky with injuries, New Jersey was going to lose a lot of games this season: their roster is dreadful.  The best coaching imaginable isn’t going to make an all-star out of Trent Hassell or make 35-year-old journeyman Yi Jianlian young again (though some have tried); the Nets were positively destined to be lottery fodder.  And of course they’ve actually been atrociously unlucky with injuries.  Devin Harris played gimpy for the first two games of the season before missing ten of the next (and Frank’s last) fourteen games.  Without Harris, the Nets are not-yet-star Brook Lopez, a swiftly improving Chris Douglas-Roberts, and a bunch of kids (who play like kids) and scrubs.  And apart from Lopez, only Josh Boone (5 shots per game) is shooting over 45%.

Actually, the only advantage the Nets typically enjoy is that Lopez’s unusually good handle and ability to finish with either hand makes him very effective from the high-post, and he regularly gets a step on big defenders who aren’t comfortable that far from the basket.  Since Harris’ replacement, Rafer Alston, is utterly incapable of penetrating, Frank frequently ran the offense through Lopez, and despite an inevitable increase in turnovers, Lopez has largely done an admirable job.  Considering that big men operating on the high-post is almost as unusual to see as a sky hook, you have to give Frank some credit for creatively utilizing the only mismatch on the roster.  Regardless, given their paucity of developed talent, the Nets were going to do a lot of losing this season, whether they were coached by Lawrence Frank or Phil Jackson, (not that Jackson would deign to coach a team with fewer than two established stars.)  Because this was so clear and predicted by everyone, I thought Frank had a real shot to make it through the losing streak.

Also, having a roster without (developed) talent is an inevitable byproduct of the house-cleaning and talent restocking that the Nets have been working on for the last few years.  Yes, they’re awful this year, but in the big picture, the Nets are exactly where they need to be, as I recently pointed out.  All through the time they were shedding very good but expensive players from their roster, they kept Frank at the helm.  So why ax him now?  And what do they do for the rest of the season?  What high quality coach is going to take on a team that’s going to lose 60–70 games this season?  Unless they give Hubie Brooks or Doug Collins a pile of money to come out of retirement for the rest of the season, the Nets will have to hope they stumble upon another wunderkind—as Frank was widely dubbed when he became the Nets head coach at 33 and led the team to 13 straight wins.  I mention that early praise because, with respect to Frank, that initial 13–game sample made him a wunderkind as much as the 0–17 start this season made him a failure; both were overreactions to a small sample of Frank’s work.  The latter overreaction comes from Rod Thorn, a man who does so much right and so much wrong.

Indeed, this firing reminds me that Thorn is one of the best and most godawful GMs in the league—only Danny Ainge compares.   Thorn built a contender out of very little, but then he held on for too long, when the window had clearly closed.  In particular, the pressured re-signing of Vince Carter put them in a serious bind for the future.  However, in just two years Thorn turned Carter, Jason Kidd, and Richard Jefferson into Devin Harris, kids on rookie contracts, an old man from China, and expiring contracts that will give the Nets the most cap space in the league for this summer’s outstanding free agent class.  On the other hand, with few exceptions, Thorn has drafted utter CBA-level stiffs.  (Seriously, you almost wish that Thorn would make Isiah Thomas his head talent scout—but with no authority to make decisions.)

But what really bugs me about the Frank firing is that I don’t think it was a tactical decision; the players never quit on Frank, and he’s always been a capable Xs and Os guy.  Instead, I think Thorn fired Frank because that’s just what you do when your team loses a bunch.  You fire the coach.  You just do, period.  That it’s protocol doesn’t make it less stupid, and it recalls the same thinking that led Thorn to re-sign Vince Carter.  That’s just what you do when your star player’s contract ends.  You re-sign him.  You just do it, period.  And though re-signing Carter wasn’t quite stupid—he was still an all-star level guy—it was clearly the wrong move in the big picture; it showed a lack of patience, vision, and creativity (they couldn’t have found a sign-and-trade partner?)  Firing Frank, on the other hand, shows a lack of gumption.  I might have also put it, “lack of grace under fire,” but come on, who was calling for Frank’s head?  Who was calling for Thorn’s?  I should note the very legitimate possible caveat: it might have come from ownership.  But I sure didn’t see any pressure in the papers or on the TV.  And it’s not like Nets fans were chanting for Frank to be fired—though that’s mostly because there are no Nets fans.

In the end though, the Nets probably won’t pay for their dumb decision; because this season is practically irrelevant to them.  It was inevitable that they were going to be lousy this year, and it’s almost inevitable that they are going to get much, much better in the near future.  Provided the Nets are careful with Harris, he should be fine in the long run, Lopez will get better and better, and it would literally be difficult for the Nets to come out of this summer without at least one legit star from free agency.  Add the 10% chance that Rod Thorn doesn’t screw up their imminent top four lottery pick too badly, and the Nets should be serious contenders within three years.  Lawrence Frank deserved a shot with that team.  But who knows, maybe they draft right, hire Jeff Van Gundy, and I never say another bad thing about Rod Thorn.  I hope so, because I’m not a Nets fan, but I do live in Brooklyn, and I like a good show.

Philadelphia 76ers:

Aw hell, I liked the Elton Brand signing.  Tells you what I know.  Well, really, it tells you what I knew.  Prime Brand would be a very solid match for this team.  I just wasn’t up on the latest dope on him—i.e. that I hadn’t paid attention to the Clippers for a year-and-a-half.  Apparently he sucks now.  Who knew?  I didn’t read many articles bashing the signing, until the season started.  I hadn’t seen him since the Achilles tear.  I had just read that his recovery was way ahead of schedule, and that in those eight games he played at the end of the season, he seemed healed, and looked good.  Since he blocked 2 shots per in those eight games, I figured that those reports were probably true, and that he still had his hops and his quickness.  That’s key, because it’s only because of his hops and his quickness that Brand is not an undersized power-forward.  If he can’t move like he used to move, he’s not even a starter in the league, much less a star.  Still, I don’t think it’s certain that he has lost it for good.  Has he really had enough time on the floor, given two injuries, with this new team, and now a new couch, to really know that this is it for his A game?  It’s appropriate to be skeptical, and were he a free agent, I wouldn’t take a chance on him for more than a two year mid-level, at most.  But he’s 30 not 34, and his first few months with the Sixers, when everyone said he wasn’t meshing with the team, he was still doing about 17-10, with a block-and-a-half.  He’s got a shot.

Other than Brand, Philly is set to be good this year, but not more than good.  And for the future, I don’t know if they’re more than good.  Samuel Dalembert and Jason Kapono are the only guys other than Brand who are paid way too much, and both have only one year left after this one.  Iguodala will be worth his fat contract as long as he continues to defend exceptionally well.  And he’s young enough to keep that up through the length of his contract.  Louis Williams looks a lot like Devin Harris to me, except he’s younger, and a little smaller, but cheaper.  Thaddeus Young seems like he’s still figuring it out because he can go in a number of different directions; it looks like he’s testing them all out at once.  He’s good upside, but I haven’t seen enough to know what it is.  As for Speights, Holiday, Smith, eh, I don’t know yet.  I’ll let you know when I do.

New York Knicks

The biggest joke of this NBA season is how many teams are desperately trying to clear salary cap space for this all-time great free agent class, when this is what they should be doing every year.  Teams should either be contending for a championship, growing into a contender, or clearing the books and restocking their rosters—that’s it.  None of this being competitive (which means being good enough to contend for the second round of the playoffs) or drawing fans crap.  As a fan, I don’t ask that my team contend every year, but just that the roster be composed only of players who I can imagine playing a significant role on a championship team—including the inexpensive ninth guy in the rotation—or guys with contracts short enough to not get in the way of building a contender.  So Knicks fans, chill the f#ck out and be content that your team is doing a terrific job of clearing the books and restocking the roster with talent.

Granted, when I say restocking the roster with talent, I’m talking about one or two guys.  Provided continued health, Danilo Gallinari looks like a real keeper.  Being a 6’10” deadeye shooter gives you a ten year NBA career.  Add Gallinari’s ball handling and passing skills and you’ve got significant upside.  I like Tony Douglas too, at least for the duration of his rookie contract.  He has Rodney Stuckey’s body—they’re the same height when you account for Stuckey’s massive head—and seem to have similar physical skills, but their games are polar.  Douglas can shoot, but doesn’t go to the rim; Stuckey drives but is a terrible shooter.  I’m always skeptical of the prospects of guys who don’t get in the paint, but Douglas a few years on a cheap contract to develop cajones.

After those two guys they’re a mess, but (critically) a mess of short contracts.  David Lee’s situation is the only legitimate conundrum they have on the roster, and it will take a delicate touch to handle.  But it can’t be resolved until the summerfest is underway.  Right now, watching the Knicks consists of rooting for their young players to develop and hoping they realize that Wilson Chandler has peaked.  Well, that may not be the case, but it’s painful to watch a guy play with such alpha confidence in his own very modest abilities.  He can’t dribble or shoot, so dribble and shoot he does.  I don’t see anything there, but maybe I’m wrong (I’m not.)  At least he’s only on a rookie contract.

Even Eddy Curry is only an issue because instead of having tons of cap room this summer, the Knicks wish they could have tons and tons of cap room.  What can you do?  They’re trying like crazy to trade him (and I can only imagine it happening after the season, unless they give away Lee,) but regardless, he’s only on the books for one more year.  If LeBron and co. weren’t on the market, Knicks fans wouldn’t care about one more year of the Knicks effectively having a 14-man roster.  For a team that screwed up on historic levels, hiring not one, but two of the worst GMs in the last twenty years, consecutively, that they’re so well positioned for the future should have every Knicks fan in happy hysterics.

[As for LeBron, the idea that the Knicks don’t have enough talent to woo him is just silly.  I don't mean it's likely they sign him; I'm just saying that any of the teams that will have enough cap room to sign LeBron would easily have a combination of talent and cap space (so they can get other pieces apart from LeBron) to be at least darkhorse contenders next year and serious contenders the year after.

And regarding including Lee in a trade to get Curry's contract off the books this year, I'd do it in a second.  Millions of people would decry the horror of it, sure, but I don't see the Knicks building a strong future with Gallinari and Lee at the PF and C, or as SF and PF.  Nor would second choice Chris Bosh work with either of them.  All three are power forwards.  How much do you want to pay a guy to play out of position?]

[NOTE II: My friend wrote me last night about the post: "The big worry with Gallinari isn't talent- it's the track record of guys with back problems at 20. It isn't good, frankly. Let's see him get through an 82-game schedule before we even begin to worry about upside."  Well, two thoughts, I don't know the extent of the injury, the damage, the healing, the prognosis, umm...nothing.  I read what was to read on it, but yeah, but I don't know if this was an isolated injury or if there are no such things as isolated back injuries.  No idea whatsoever.  I will say though, I think my friend is right about something important: Knicks fans do have something to worry about after all!]

Tim Hardaway tore his ACL, lost a step, and never returned to All-Star form.  DeJuan Blair has no ACLs and he was selected in the first round of the NBA Draft – you just never know.  Has Young done ample research on the long-term risks of microfracture surgery, and consulted orthopedic surgeons who might shed some light on Amare’s prognosis?  No way.  He does nothing to indicate that he has, or that he has a clue.  All that we can know, without more information, is that Amare is still an ultra-quick high-flying force of nature, and Bob Young is a hack.

I like trades like this, big pieces being shifted around by two teams, Detroit and Denver, that needed a change. Or maybe not. Denver desperately needed a change, and this trade is terrific for them in every way I can think of, except…well, Allen Iverson is really cool. He’s the lead guitarist who does crazyamazing solos, which are wonderful, but sometimes he gets in the way of the ensemble, when he doesn’t have the right mix around him. Billups, meanwhile, is a perfect fit in Denver, and their team will be considerably better for this deal.

Whether or not Detroit needed change, especially such a huge change, is debatable. It might work out very well for them, or it might not.

AI in Denver

AI was a so-so fit in Denver. Offensively, he was terrific in their transition game, but didn’t compliment his teammates’ abilities in half-court sets. Defensively, Denver was as good a fit for AI as one could ask. AI’s style of defense pretty much entails lunging for steals in the passing lane. He gets two or more steals a game and, given his superior transition abilities, each is almost a guaranteed 2 points. However, when he misses, he’s often out of position and the opposition gets a momentary 5 on 4 advantage.

Purists hate AI’s risky D and…actually, I don’t think I’ve ever heard/read a defense of AI’s defending. Well, maybe he’s a reckless gambler, and maybe he’s Ricky Henderson; I don’t know. His steals probably create about 4 points per game, for his team. Is there any evidence to suggest that his missed steal-attempts costs his team 4 or more points per game? I really have no idea. It’s a high-risk/high reward strategy akin to stolen bases in baseball. As I recall, basestealers need to be successful about 74% of the time to acheive a net gain (Henderson stole at an 80% clip.) What’s the % in basketball? Dunno. Stealing a base only increases one’s chances of scoring, while AI’s steals are almost automatic scores, but each run in baseball is much more valuable than 4 points is to a basketball team. I really don’t know, but I’m not ready to condemn AI’s defense until I have better data. And I don’t know if the data we’d need, to know, is even collected.

Whatever the case, Denver was better positioned than most teams to minimize AI’s gambling. Marcus Camby was there to contest shots that opened when AI was out of position, and when Nene and Kenyon Martin are healthy enough to be on the floor, they are both pretty good at getting in the lane to draw charges. Again, there isn’t enough data to know the value of AI’s gambling, but it seems likely that the talents of Denver’s big men helped minimize risk.

AI in Detroit

Like I said, now we’ll see how good Rodney Stuckey is. I have no opinion; I’ve never seen the guy play. I’ve just heard glowing reports from just about every pundit. Stuckey needs to run the point, because (though Denver seemed to forget it) AI is a shooting guard.

Yes, AI is quite capable of bringing the ball up the court, and then he weaves and bobs, looking to penetrate, while his teammates stand around doing nothing. When AI catches the ball on the move, coming off screens and such, he gets the separation from the defender he needs to immediately attack the rim (or get a clean look for a jumper) which also create openings for his teammates.

If Stuckey can’t really run the point, Detroit is going to take a big hit in this trade, because they’ll get AI playing out of position. If Stuckey is 100% legit as a PG then…I don’t know. Even if the experiment works, I don’t know if it’s a net gain over what they already had. AI’s a weird fit for Detroit. I’ll have to think about it. It’s not an intuitive panacea for Detroit, but Dumars is wicked-smart, and I’m a big AI fan, so I’ll reserve judgment.

Billups in Denver

Billups fits perfectly beside Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith. Not only is he a more efficient point guard than AI, but he’s a much better distance shooter, which will give Anthony more protection from double-teams. Also, with Camby gone (traded for nothing,) and Kenyon Martin and Nene both on injuries that are yet to be determined, it’s probably better to have a defender who excels at staying in front of his man.