Unfettered Optimism: Spurs Start Strong

The 2017-2018 season has begun, and the Spurs are 3-0. Of course they are, they're the Spurs. Did I mention that they are playing without Kawhi Leonard and Tony Parker? Who cares? There's always a bit of excitement to start out a new season and this season is no different, in fact, there may be more buzz, despite the prediction of an inevitable fourth Golden State Warriors/Cleveland Cavaliers showdown in the NBA Finals. But the season is young and anything can happen, and I certainly like what I'm seeing so far from the other guys and the hope is that we'll get better when Kawhi and Tony come back. Here are three things I'm super excited about.

"Letting them Play": Officiating the Last Seconds of an NBA Game

Officiating an NBA game is hard.

Heck, officiating any sort of organized sport is pretty difficult. Someone is probably going walk away from some play unhappy. At some point in time during the game there will be a guy that thinks the dude with a whistle is an idiot.

The NBA game of basketball moves so quickly that it's difficult to get all the plays. Invariably, something gets missed. Yet there are rules to the game for a reason. I'm not advocating we become hidebound and call every single rule, but I think the whole concept of "letting them play", especially in late game situations is, well, frankly kind of dumb. You undermine yourself.

Why are we considered "boring"?

A blowout is a blowout right?

Then why is it that we are so fascinated by the Warriors destroying the Suns or Nets but not the Spurs obliterating the Jazz or Hawks? I mean let’s think about it, let’s take a look at the last 5 games where both the Spurs and Warriors have the same exact record 4-1. The Warriors played the Nets, Pacers, Celtics, Bucks, and Suns. The score differentials were +16, +8, +5, -13, +25 respectively. Sure, we can give them some slack for most of those games being away, sure we can say that they had a back-to-back (and their loss came on the second night of one), but I don’t think those things are huge mitigating factors, and besides, if you are gassed on the second night of a back-to-back after going to double overtime in the first game, it’s both a credit to the opposing team and kind of your own fault that you got the two extra periods anyway. The Spurs played the Raptors, Lakers, Hawks, Jazz, and Wizards. I would posit that the strength of schedule based solely on the opponents is comparable. The point differentials were -3, +22, +25, +37, +19. I mean, that’s crazy. Look, I think both teams are great, the margin of difference in point differential is less than 0.2 so I don’t want to take anything away from either team, but I am curious as to why people would be more willing to watch a Golden State 50 point victory over a San Antonio 50 point victory.

Eastern Conference Rankings

The NBA season is back upon us and like anybody with a supposedly “informed” opinion on the matter, the unenviable task of ranking the teams based purely on speculation Is something we’re supposed to do. Of course, we’re already a couple of days into the season so I’m a little behind, but the sample size has been small enough that we haven’t really set any trends, so I don’t think that this will be a huge dent in my initial projections. Of course, the irony of writing this on the plane is that I, being too stingy to pay for the WiFi on the plane means that I won’t have the backing of internet research at my hands, but at the same time, I won’t have the distraction to prevent me from actually getting around to writing this post. So without further ado, let’s begin; on with the East.

Mid-season moves?

As per usual around the time of the All-Star break teams are starting to consider if any roster moves are necessary to make that improvement to take things to the next level. Gregg Popovich is already thinking ahead with his benching of Tony Parker and Tim Duncan in their last game against Portland and gave the younger guys some burn, with Manu Ginobili, Tiago Splitter, and T.J. Ford all still out with injury we were looking at a rather limited rotation of Cory Joseph, Gary Neal, Kawhi Leonard, Richard Jefferson, DeJuan Blair, Matt Bonner, James Anderson, Danny Green, and D-League call-up Eric Dawson. Super. However, given the frenetic pace of the compact season, it seems that teams are thinking twice before pulling the trigger on any major moves. Some free agents have returned from China and J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin have both signed with the Knicks and the Clippers respectively. Wilson Chandler is expected to return and sign a deal with the Nuggets given that FIBA clears him.

While the decision to rest Tony Parker in his All-Star play and the new found youth in Tim Duncan's legs may have snapped our win-streak at 11 on the Rodeo Roadtrip, it was to be expected. We've seen Pop start to take fewer chances with his stars in order to have fresher legs come playoff time. That being said, the bench has been playing very well together and despite an extended injury to Manu, the Spurs role players have been coming together and making the Spurs one of the hottest teams in the league. However, despite that, the concern that is to be had given our frontcourt rotation is still, well, just that, a concern. Currently, Pop typically starts Blair next to Duncan, and brings in Splitter and Bonner in off the bench, however, the issue that is to be had is that Blair and Splitter cannot coexist on the floor at the same time, which somewhat limits Pop's rotations. While there have been great improvements, their defensive limitations do make a frontcourt pairing of Bonner and Blair somewhat questionable. So, what are we looking for? Well, ideally, we'd like someone that can play next to both Duncan and Splitter, as those two, I believe will be the key pieces to any run in the playoffs.

While we can take something of the 2005 Championship frontcourt rotation route as a model, we need to remember that Duncan is 6 years (and thousands of basketball minutes) older, and while Tiago Splitter looks to be way better than Nazr Mohammed, Matt Bonner is no Robert Horry. So who is available? Well, that question is difficult enough as it is, but the question that we need to understand before that is who do we have to offer? This is presuming a trade scenario presents itself. Generally speaking, the offense is still largely based around Parker, Ginobili, and Duncan, and the key role players have been Leonard, Splitter, Neal, Bonner, and Green, which means who do we have available to trade? Richard Jefferson, DeJuan Blair, James Anderson, and Cory Joseph. More the latter three as I don't know that anyone really wants Jefferson's contract. In total, Anderson, Joseph, and Blair probably sum up to around $2.5 million in salary, so we'd have to get something comparable back.

With that, who are we looking for? Well, if we're considering someone that can play next to Duncan AND Splitter the immediate players that come to my mind are Splitter's Brazilian teammate Anderson Varejao, Tony Parker's French teammate Ronny Turiaf, or maybe the Birdman Chris Andersen. However, I don't know that we can make anything work. While the Nuggets are suffering through some major injuries, requiring the minutes of Birdman, they also already have a high energy big in Kenneth Faried, thus making Blair not very attractive in a package. While they are decimated by injuries the return of Wilson Chandler may make the wings unnecessary as well.

Honestly, I can't say I've been doing my homework in paying attention to what's going on this season, but from a cursory glance, it doesn't seem that we can find someone to work with, I personally think Ronny Turiaf might work if Washington is just looking to shed salary, and he's slated to return from his injury soon as well. With the crowded frontcourt of Andray Blatche (also due to return from injury), JaVale McGee, Trevor Booker, Kevin Seraphin, and Jan Vesely it's hard to imagine that a veteran role player like Turiaf would find a lot of time in there when Washington is looking to develop its youth. However, with that youth I don't know that we'd be able to package anything that would be attractive to the Wizards as well.

James Anderson might be the biggest trade piece available, and with the development of Tristan Thompson and Samardo Samuels it's possible that Varejao is the most available, especially with the wings at Cleveland being hit hard with injuries, James Anderson might be able to find a chance there to show his stuff, however, that being said, there's no guarantees there either. It's been said before that it's hard to make a trade in the NBA, and that's true, particularly in this shortened season where healthy big men seem to be at a premium. I could probably putz around for something that would work, but honestly, there's not much that I can think of that would be appealing to another team. It's not that the package we have would be bad, it's just that it's actually a little redundant to the rest of the league. Maybe something I haven't thought of will come up, I trust Buford, and this little thought exercise was just a way to consider things down the line. With injuries mounting, it may not be the best idea to shop around, but rather to stick with what is working, and maybe I'm being pessimistic about our chances in the post season, but hey better safe than sorry. I mean, it's not like the Lakers would just give Pau Gasol away.

Oh the Linsanity!

Will somebody think of the children?

Anyways, I figured that given last week's peek into how everyone has been writing about Jeremy Lin, it was my turn to take an official stab at what I think of him. Naturally, as an Asian American NBA fan, I'm ecstatic that Jeremy has made it this far and has gotten this sort of recognition. I won't vehemently declare that "I told you so" because frankly, I will honestly (and rather sheepishly) admit, I didn't know a lot about him, and I didn't think he was THIS good. Of course, we only have a five game sample size where he's played over 30 minutes, in a PG-friendly Mike D'Antoni offense, but despite the fact that his amazing victories come over the Nets, who really don't have anyone except Deron Williams who isn't really a defensive standout, the Jazz, who have an old Raja Bell who lives mostly on his reputation and Devin Harris who has lost all confidence in everything basketball, the Wizards who basically pay $56 million for a glorified pick-up team, the Lakers on the wrong side of a back-to-back (the flip side of which was a great OT win over Boston), and Minnesota, who frankly, I'm not entirely sure what make of, but really isn't known for its defense either. That being said, in those five games Lin did average 26.8 points, 4.2 rebounds, 8.0 assists, and 2.0 steals on a blistering 58.8% shooting. I mean, sure, on the flip side he did average 4.6 turnovers and only shot 17.6% from beyond the arc, but the raw stats really are something to behold.

That being said, I, like every other person out there who didn't watch the games, voraciously devoured any and all YouTube highlights that were out there. Recently, someone asked me who I thought Jeremy Lin reminds me of by his play, he also mentioned some people likened Jeremy Lin to a Rajon Rondo-lite. I don't really quite buy that, while I'm not entirely enamored of Lin's jumper, it's serviceable, that being said, I finally figured out who Lin reminds me of. Frankly, being an Asian American Spurs fan you can all see where this is going, but honestly, if we all think about this reasonably, I think people can see how this is a fair comparison. Who does Jeremy Lin remind me of? Why, our very own Tony Parker of course.

So... what does a 23 year old 6-3, 200 lb, Asian-American Harvard graduate from Mountain View, CA have with a 29 year old 6-2, 180 lb, Frenchman have in common? Where do I begin?

While both being relatively unheralded, as Parker, drafted in 2001 (with the 28th overall pick), was picked up by San Antonio when European talent was still largely untested and more of a novelty than a norm, Parker was, at the very least, drafted, in the first round no less. I'm not saying that all first round picks are good, but at least someone thought he would be good. Lin on the other hand, was passed over by most major college programs and ended up in Harvard, which is one of those schools that you want to go to, but not for sports. Parker has 3 rings after ten years in the season, basically came in as the de facto starting point guard after the departure of Avery Johnson. Lin, started, in Summer League, after not getting drafted, and only really got extended minutes due to the injury to Summer League teammate Rodrigue Beaubois. He then got picked up by the Warriors, his "hometown" team, and played garbage minutes behind Stephen Curry, Monta Ellis, and Acie Law (or something like that). After bouncing back and forth between the NBA and D-League, he got cut before workouts of his sophomore year by the Warriors, picked up and cut shortly thereafter by the Rockets, and finally picked up by the Knicks, and then was almost dropped by them, but was given one last opportunity and from there it's history. I mean, ultimately he was in the right place at the right time. Mike Bibby hasn't been a relavent name since Chris Webber was a King and the Toney Douglas and Imam Shumpert experiments were, to put it kindly, utter failures, and Baron Davis was hurt and/or out-of-shape as per the Baron Davis norm. So what did D'Antoni have to lose, let's give the only other guy on the roster that has actually played some PG a run, and the Knicks win 5 in a row.

Wait, I thought they were supposed to be similar players... Well, it's actually all in the game, not in the history. First, let's consider both Lin and Parker, while we have a significant smaller sample size from Lin than from Parker, I think it's pretty safe to say that both players like to look for their shot first. If I were to think of a way to describe them, they are the consummate shoot-first team players. Wait? What? Here's what I mean, both players make their teams better by shooting. Now, I don't mean Gilbert Arenas pull-up 30 footers, but when their shots are falling, they can better get their teammates involved. Both of them like to attack the basket. While Lin is slightly bigger and Parker probably faster, they both do something that guards aren't always known for doing much, scoring in the paint. How it manifests itself may be different, Parker gets around defenses faster while Lin can absorb more contact, both are relentless in their attacking of the rim, with little twists, turns, and flips. I haven't seen as big an arsenal of shots from Lin (i.e. Parker's patented running tear drop), but the general style of play is basically the same. As noted by their extraordinary FG percentages (for guards). They both excel at running the pick-and-roll. Now granted both D'Antoni and Popovich's offenses live off of the pick-and-roll, both of them do the job well. Both have serviceable, but not great jump shots, extending, at times, to the three point range.

Off the court, Lin reminds me of another great Spur, while their games couldn't be more different, I believe that Lin has the potential to be that nice guy like David Robinson. You can tell both players genuinely enjoy playing the game, which makes the game that much more enjoyable to watch. Beyond the fact that both players are devout Christians, I thought it was great to have David Robinson Twitter endorse Jeremy Lin.

Again, even Jeremy Lin ends up being closer to Toney Douglas rather than Tony Parker, I still think he's made his mark. He's shown us a willingness to face the odds, and to make the most of his opportunities. While I don't think he'll be a Spur anytime soon (thought that would be pretty awesome), I look forward to seeing how he grows in this league. While expectations are high, I'm have to say, I'm pretty dang proud to have been around to see his emergence.

Best Record Beware: Does Barkley know what he's talking about?

There are a couple of things I'd like to go through on this specific post, and I'm kind of juggling ideas of how exactly I go about doing that while I'm actually writing this.  Somewhat unprofessional, I know, but not being a journalist, I'm okay with ditching professionalism for colloquialism.  So there are a number of things that spurred this post.  One of the major ones was a statement made by Charles Barkley:

"I got Dallas and the Lakers ahead of the Spurs to be honest with you.  To be honest with you, if the season ended today I think Oklahoma City can beat the Spurs because I think the Spurs are a little overrated to be honest with you because I think they play very hard, they play very smart but I think they are missing a big guy to be honest with you.  Tim Duncan is struggling on the downside of his career but I just don’t think they don’t get enough easy baskets because their two best players are Parker and Ginobili, and I love Ginobili, but I believe in jump shooters being your go-to guy to be honest, that was my only knock on Oklahoma City.  I always tell people you don’t win with jump shots.  They have gotten better around the basket defensively but I think Dallas and the Lakers are the two best teams in the West." 

Now, when I actually sit down and read that, it's really confusing to me, but I think I get the gist of it.   I think.  Essentially, Barkley is saying that despite the league best record, the Spurs aren't his favorites to win a championship, which can be a legitimate statement.  It was only in 2007 that we saw the league-best 67-15 Dallas Mavericks embarrassingly ousted from the first round of the playoffs by the Cinderella We Believe Golden State Warriors, lead by Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, and Jason Richardson.  We saw in 2009 66-16 Cleveland Cavaliers get destroyed by a Hedo Turkoglu and Dwight Howard pick-and-roll in the Eastern Conference Finals and then in 2010 the 61-21 Cavaliers saw LeBron James check out during the second round against the Boston Celtics.  So if we've learned anything from history, we do know that regular season record isn't necessarily indicative of anything.  In 2006 the 64-18 Detroit Pistons were upset by the Miami Heat, led by Dwayne Wade and Shaquille O'Neal in the Eastern Conference Finals.  So that means in the last 5 years, only the 66-16 Boston Celtics of 2008 both held the NBA league-best record AND won a championship.  That's not to say that there is a negative correlation, but rather, that they are probably less related than one might initially imagine.  Fair enough.

That brings me to the second point though, which is where Barkley thinks that all these other teams are ahead of the Spurs, which I'm not entirely sure about.  While it's fair to say that on paper, Lakers have an edge, I don't know that you can definitively declare the Spurs patently "worse" than the Mavericks and Lakers considering that the Spurs at worse can split the season with either team, having already beaten both teams twice out of their annual four meetings.  I mean, on paper, sure, the Lakers and Mavericks "look" better, but that isn't always telling.  I mean, seriously, when was the last time the Spurs "looked good" on paper?  2003? Yet with all these no-name players and journeymen and such, the Spurs have managed to cobble together consecutive playoff appearances and 4 championships since Duncan's rookie year in 1998.  However, I can still see that just based on intuition how Barkley would pick the Lakers over the Spurs (though maybe it's bias that causes me to dislike the Mavericks and wonder how anyone could think that team is good).  Let's look at all these teams that Barkley likes over the Spurs:

	SPURS	LAKERS	MAVERICKS	THUNDER
PG	Tony Parker	Derek Fisher	Jason Kidd	Russell Westbrook
SG	Manu Ginobili	Kobe Bryant	Rodrigue Beaubois	Thabo Sefolosha
SF	Richard Jefferson	Ron Artest	Peja Stojakovic	Kevin Durant
PF	DeJuan Blair	Pau Gasol	Dirk Nowitzki	Serge Ibaka
C	Tim Duncan	Andrew Bynum	Tyson Chandler	Kendrick Perkins
G-3	George Hill	Steve Blake	J.J. Barea	Eric Maynor
G-4	Gary Neal	Shannon Brown	Jason Terry	James Harden
F-3	James Anderson	Matt Barnes	DeShawn Stevenson	Daequan Cook
F-4	Antonio McDyess	Lamar Odom	Shawn Marion	Nick Collison
C-2	Tiago Splitter	Joe Smith	Brendan Haywood	Nazr Mohammed
Res	Matt Bonner	Luke Walton	Ian Mahinmi	Cole Aldrich
Res	Chris Quinn	Devin Ebanks	Brian Cardinal	Nate Robinson

On paper, I can kind of see where he's going.  I mean, the Lakers do have the formidable frontcourt rotation of Gasol/Bynum/Odom to continually deal with, and of course the machine that is Kobe Bryant.  Additionally, Blake and Barnes aren't significant steps down from Fisher (which I know isn't saying much) and Artest.  Now, I am somewhat predisposed to disliking Dirk, so maybe I underrate him a little, but with an aging Kidd and Marion and a shooter as streaky as Jason Terry, it's hard to say that an equal number of things has to right for the Mavericks as it does for the Spurs to win a 7 game series against any one of these teams.  Granted Tyson Chandler is the 7 foot interior defensive anchor that Erick Dampier never was and Dirk never will be, but can we really say that Beaubois and Barea are significantly better than Hill and Neal?  As for OKC, while adding Perkins and Mohammed give them one of the better defensive frontcourt rotations of Ibaka/Perkins/Collison/Mohammed, paired with the ultra-effective pairing of Westbrook and Durant, I can see this being a very good team.  I can understand who they might be considered a contender now, but first, Perkins needs to get back healthy, until then we have to reserve our judgment.  I wouldn't want to play any of these teams in the playoffs, but do I think we have a legitimate chance of beating each one?  Yes.  Certainly, "anything can happen" does apply in the playoffs, especially with teams as good as these four, but blanket statements like "I have the Lakers and Mavericks ahead of the Spurs because I think they can beat the Spurs in a 7 game series."  are just kind of ignorant, because on the flip side, it's so close that the Spurs could just as easily win said 7 game series.

Which kind of leads my rambling to my last point, which is simply, I don't think Charles Barkley has watched a Spurs game.  Essentially, he labelled Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili "jump shooters" and went on to say, "you don't win with jump shots".  Okay, fair enough.  76% of Ginobili's shot attempts are categorized as jump shots on 82games.com, but so are 81% of Kobe Bryant's, 86% of Kevin Durant's, and 88% of Dirk Nowitzki's shot attempts, furthermore, Tony Parker only has about 52% of his shots categorized as jump shots, so essentially, the go-to guys on the Spurs are less jump shooters than all the other teams.  That was a lot of numbers, let's see if a chart can help:

	Tony Parker	Manu Ginobili	Kobe Bryant	Pau Gasol	Dirk Nowitzki	Jason Terry	Kevin Durant	Russell Westbrook
% jump shot	58%	76%	81%	55%	88%	88%	86%	63%
% close	42%	22%	17%	34%	11%	11%	8%	33%
% dunk	0%	1%	1%	5%	1%	1%	6%	4%
% tip	0%	1%	0%	0%	0%	0%	1%	1%
% inside	42%	24%	19%	45%	12%	12%	14%	37%

Okay, so the premise is that the more shots you take inside, the easier the two points are.  Well, if that's the case, the Spurs get the most easy shots for its two stars.  I mean, the Mavericks are pretty much just jump shooters other than Tyson Chandler.  If jump shooting doesn't win, then the Mavericks shouldn't really be that good right?  Maybe I'm just confusing myself now.  Anyways.  My point is this, the Spurs may not be the clear favorites, but they have to be in the talk.  My take is that given all the ups and downs of this year, you can't really count them out, and there is no definitive favorite.  My other point is that Charles Barkley has either a) never watched a Spurs game, b) very ignorant about the Spurs' players, or c) all of the above.  That being said, I've never really taken Chuck too seriously when it comes to legitimate basketball talk, so I'm not going to start now.