I am always up a for good debate at the old saloon, so why not recreate that on the internet (I know how original) So, instead of flying solo and debating my own conscious I decided to recruit some help for tonight's post and so I reached out to noted haberdasher, part-time blogger and noted Tecmo NBA basketball enthusiast "Phat" Joe for some help. I was trying to get this done on Saturday, but my guest does not drive a car, does not handle money and sure as shit does not type on his computer on his day of rest. The following is a transcript of an email exchange we had over the course of yesterday and today regarding all things NBA. My questions/responses are from "Chuck Nevitt" and well "Phat" Joe's are from "Phat" Joe.
Enjoy...
On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 12:11 PM, "Chuck Nevitt" wrote:
Hello, PJ
We might as well start with one of my favorite subjects and probably your least… LeBron James. And by that I mean why is it I keep finding myself having to defend his game against basketball idiocy? “ He will never be as good as MJ” Look I know that, but last I checked MJ has not played a meaningful basketball game in 13 years. So, why is that the permanent stock answer that almost every half wit and Chicagoan keeps saying whenever the words LeBron James are mentioned in a sentence? I get that people are annoyed by the coverage by say an ESPN at times and on the TV side of it the ESPN NBA product is pretty miserable save for Hubie Brown. You can hate LeBron for “The Decision”, running off-tackle plays late in the game, etc, but I find it really hard to say that there is a much better player going in the current NBA or at least he is in the top 3 right now. So, I guess the question I have is can LeBron James be considered underrated and overrated at the same time?
I really look at something like the conversation a lot of people are having about say the greatness of Dirk Nowitzki is a far more interesting topic than this tired LBJ/MJ non-argument. The Dirk thing seems to be debating where he fits into the hierarchy of NBA forwards not so much is he better than say Larry Bird or Karl Malone, which I think is a better debate because it is really difficult to compare eras in the NBA.
From: "Phat Joe" Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2011 3:47 PM
To: "Chuck Nevitt"
Sorry this took so long. You would think that having Die Hard on in the background for the 283rd time wouldn't be so distracting, but alas...I'm not sure I would call LBJ underrated or overrated, but I think I would call him historically overextended (as of now) and athletically under appreciated. Simmons ranked LBJ as the #20 basketball player of all time. I just can't wrap my head around that. Not yet at least. I can't rank a guy that has a substandard (for his talent) jump shot and no post game (for his size) ahead of a guy like Pippen who could do almost everything asked of him on a basketball court. That said, LeBron's overall package of tools is unlike anything sports has seen. He is basically a hybrid of Randy Moss and Urlacher, but 4 inches taller. The things he can do on the floor are legitimately scary. To have his athleticism and strength at his size isn't really fair to the majority of the rest of the league. He is 280 pounds with the body control of Kerri Strug. No player in the league now or maybe have has as many HOLY SHIT moments a night than LBJ. He is a treat to watch, but in the sense that a lot of guys are throwers and not pitchers, LeBron is still to me more of an athletic freak than an all time great basketball player. I do agree with you though that he is at least a top 3 player in the league if not the best. LBJ doesn't owe anyone an apology for being really good at what the current NBA allows his skillset to do.
I think as far as why Chicagoans immediately turn to the "LBJ is no MJ" argument is because most Chicago sports fans (a.k.a. irrational jagbags) are extremely territorial when it comes to their sporting heroes. Try telling someone that Ryne Sandberg isn't in your top 3 2B of all time or that you would trade Patrick Kane for a 2nd line center and a physical defenseman and watch the steam in his eyes rise. Just the threat of someone ascending to MJ's level is enough to get out their Great MJ Defender costumes. We see it with Kobe, we see it with LBJ. Just comes with the territory I guess.
I agree with you about Dirk being a much more interesting topic. He has always been historically undersold in my opinion, partly resulting from having the '06 championship stolen from him. Had the Mavs won that series, Dirk's career arc would have accelerated much faster. He is probably the toughest match up defensively of our lifetime with the exception of Shaq. Trying to find someone 6' 10'' that has the foot speed to keep up with Dirk is pretty much impossible. Anyone shorter than that and Dirk either posts them up or simply shoots over them. He is easily the best European of all time, and I think in a way that has effected his reception here as far as reputation goes. Part of me wishes Dirk was born in Ohio or Wisconsin to see how he would have been received here. Bird's legacy stemmed from being a farm boy from middle America, and I think that elevated his status on a historical level a lot more than most people will admit. If its not the Bulls that take home the O'Brien Trophy in a few weeks (or months), I hope it goes to Dirk and the Mavs. I think your trepidation about comparing eras is interesting to me. While I agree that it isn't the best way to go about looking at the hierarchy of players in a given sport, isn't there enough information and footage available to at least surmise to some degree how certain guys would perform in different eras? Don't we know to some degree that LBJ as he is currently constituted would struggle and have to adjust if he was playing in the early 90's when guys were actually allowed to defend?
From: "Chuck Nevitt"
To: "Phat" Joe
Agree 100% that Dirk has been undersold. And that is part of the problem on how most people tend to not validate a player because they have not won a championship. We could get sidetracked in a whole other debate here, but I did want to bring up one point. And that I always find it fascinating watching Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley interact during the playoffs. It seems to me that sometimes Kenny feels like his points are more valid because he has a ring and he holds that over Barkley. I do not think anybody in their right mind thinks that Kenny Smith is better than Barkley, but people do to some degree discredit Barkley because he did not win a championship. Barkley only got one shot at a ring and it is not like he choked on the big stage he put up 27/13/5 averages against the Bulls. I just think he happened to play on some average to good teams that at most points in his career were never capable of winning a championship. I guess what I am saying is that for me I can more easily validate a great player in the NBA without a ring rather than say a QB in the NFL without a championship because it just seems like there a fewer opportunities in the NBA for players to win titles than say the NFL.
To answer your other point about my trepidation to compare eras I guess I should clarify my stance a little bit. This is weird to quantify it this way, but I see the NBA in two distinct eras since I have been alive and that is the Pre-Shaq (1980-1992) and Post-Shaq (1993-current) eras. The reason I say that is it seems like the league has just gotten more athletic since around the time Shaq came into the league. That is not to say there were not great athletes in the league before that, but some of the things that guys are doing now is just incredible. So, yes I would still have difficult time comparing a guy, who played say pre-1992 to a guy that is currently playing the league. However, you also brought up a great point of there being all this footage out there that we can use and maybe gauge a little to see how the game has changed or in some respects still stayed similar to what it was before and I really think that is a huge credit to the NBA marketing policy and more direct their YouTube policy. You can pretty much pull up any game from anytime and watch highlights if not the full game on YouTube, which is pretty awesome.
From: "Phat" Joe
To: "Chuck Nevitt"
The Barkley appearance on The BS Report last week dealt with the whole never winning a title argument and Charles' feelings about it. I highly recommend it for anyone who didn't catch it. I think Charles has always carried the burden of not winning a title, fair or unfair. I think judging individual players on titles is a slippery slope. Barkley always lost to a better team/player. Not all guys can say that, as some stars just didn't show up all the time (ahem, Patrick Ewing). Kenny does seem to try and keep Charles in his place on the set, especially during the playoffs. They should both just get out of the way for my guy C-Webb.
In regards to the question of eras, I didn't necessarily mean YOUR trepidation as much as basketball fans overall not wanting to compare eras. It is pretty hard to compare the 50's and 60's to today's game, but the latter eras are more similar. I do agree with your Pre-Shaq and Post-Shaq timelines. I also like to term those two as the Some-White-Guys Era and Few-White-Guys Era. I guess my point was just that in the 80's and more so the 90's didn't feature a red carpet to the rim like today's game does.
Getting back to the local flavor...what do you make of the Bulls? Its way early in the series to start pointing blame around, but its pretty evident that Thibs needs to dial a new number or two. Something needs to change with the rotation at the 2 spot. Also, my tweet last night about Simmons re-awarding the 2011 NBA MVP in the 2nd addition of The Book of Basketball was only half-tongue-in-cheek. Rose has four points on six shots during the 4th quarter of the two losses. If it was LBJ or Wade or Kobe that put up those numbers in back-to-back losses they would be getting killed for it. Rose seems to be getting a bit of a pass. What say you?
From: "Chuck Nevitt"
To: "Phat" Joe
I think the Bulls are very frustrated at this point. And most of that has to do with the excellent defense being played by the Heat. Also, when you get 5 points between your starting SG and C you are going to lose pretty much all of the time. I think Thibs although he does not have a lot of buttons to push has really been I do not know if would say outcoached, but more so out-adjusted . What Spo has done as far as his rotation and making in game defensive adjustments has been really good. Although, it helps when you have three legitimate scoring options that can create their own shots. I think Rose tends to get a pass because not many basketball people really respect most of the Bulls roster especially from an offensive standpoint. I sort of wrote about this on Saturday about Westbrook being constantly scrutinized after every game and I think in large part of that has to do with him having Durant as a teammate, who is probably a better player. Whereas with Rose the conversation turns to: “well who else is going to take shots?” I was discussing this last night with some friends and I said I thought that was Rose’s worst game of the playoffs. I was afraid that Rose may break down at some point this year because of his excessive usage rate and I think we are seeing some of that now. Which means he will probably come out and score 40 points next game and make me look like an idiot, which I would gladly welcome.
I think this Bulls team is playing against not so much the Heat, but the history of the NBA. That pretty much tells us that no team has won a championship with the PG being the main scoring option. The closest example I can think of and a good comparison to this Bulls team, which they mentioned on the FreeDarko podcast the other day was the Bad Boy era Pistons. I think that is a very good comparison because this roster is comprised of a talented point with a bunch of athletic bigs and some wing scoring much like the Pistons were. The big difference being the Pistons had Joe Dumars at the 2 and some serious punch off the bench with Vinnie Johnson, Mark Aguirre or Adrian Dantley at certain points. The Bulls do not have that which makes it difficult for their chances at a championship. But there I go again breaking my own rules about comparing era's, but hey it fits my narrative...
From: "Phat" Joe
To: "Chuck Nevitt"
Agree whole-heartedly with you on Spo. For the Bulls to win this series, their COY needed to be COY and their MVP needed to be the MVP. So far, neither of them have been very good. The Bulls haven't really adjusted much at all, at least from what I can see. A little bit rotation wise, but not a lot. You are obviously a better X and O guy than I, but why have the Bulls not switched away from the pick and roll to try and make it not so easy to double Rose? Wouldn't a 1-4 give him more room to operate? I understand that the Heat are a terrific defensive unit, but it looks to me that the Bulls offense has been brutal. If I may, I'd like to follow that with two personnel questions. 1) Is there no room in the current rotation for Big Sexy? With the Heat backing off Noah and covering the cutters, wouldn't it be ok to try and steal minutes with two big men that can knock down a 15 footer? I'd like to Thomas and Gibson play a little with Boozer. Its not like Noah has been any good anyways. 2) Is playing Bogans crunch time minutes really such a wild idea. He isn't as good of a defender as Brewer and he isn't as good of a shooter, but he is the best all-around 2 the Bulls have. Korver is killing them on both ends of the floor and Brewer just isn't spacing the floor at all. Why not let Bogans get some burn down the stretch?
From: "Chuck Nevitt"
To: "Phat" Joe
Both personnel questions are legitimate questions that I have yet heard be asked of Thibs. I do not know if they win the series with your suggestions, but at this point it would not hurt to try. I would love to see Thomas get some run at some point during the series and as crazy as it sounds Bogans outside of the first 3 Indiana games has been their most productive 2 guard, so it would make sense to at least attempt to give him some 4th quarter minutes. It seems to me that Thibs is just sticking with his regular season rotation with very little adjustments and it has been pretty obvious that it is not working against Miami. And that to me has been part of the Bulls problem in the playoffs. It seems like for the most part the Bulls have not adjusted their game at all from the regular season to the playoffs. I am not talking about intensity or “playoff tough” I mean more of the X’s and O’s and exploiting certain matchups or using different lineup aspect. Look at Miami's offense and you can read how they are running more cuts in the playoffs than they did at any point of the season and those are they type of things I would like to see with the Bulls. The suggestion of a "1-4" look giving Rose more room to operate is interesting and might work better than what we saw last night. Which was pretty much pass to the wing/Rose dives to the baseline/ to set an upscreen to get Boozer in the post/ if a post touch is not open then Rose gets it back and runs PNR with the other big. Now all of these suggestions involve at some point players being able to spread the floor and hit some shots. However, it is some of those fine tune adjustments that coaches make from game-to-game that just seem to have been absent so far by Thibs in the playoffs on the offensive end. And I am willing to cut him some slack since this is his first time around as a head coach.
I wanted to finish up with a question about the OKC Thunder and this theory I have that they are pretty much the NBA’s equivalent of an indie rock blogosphere buzz band. And what I mean is that they kind of started getting some buzz last year; they are adored by kind of this stat/trendy segment of NBA writers; they had some underground success (pushing the Lakers to 6), garnered a little more hype (this regular season) and now are in the midst of putting together a more commercial/successfully 2nd outing (run through the playoffs) that is being recognized by a larger audience. And of course with that larger audience comes the inevitable backlash (Westbrook). So, where will they be in 3 years… We will see the band split and their two creative forces venture out into semi-successful solo projects or stay together to win mainstream recognition and some awards along the way (MVP’s, Championships, etc.)
From: "Phat" Joe
To: "Chuck Nevitt"
I don't have any illusions that those things would change anything either, but it would be an interesting change from beating your head against the wall doing the same thing over and over like they have the last 2 games. If Korver isn't on (and if you aren't going to run a few plays for him or give him enough burn to get in a flow) he has no use on the court. Brewer is an ok guy, but he isn't stretching the floor. Bogans probably isn't the answer in the future, but I think he may be the answer now.
That is just an outstanding comparison for the Thunder (and a quick sidenote speaking of indie darlings gone mainstream, the 2 new Arcade Fire singles are really good including one with your guy David Byrne). I think the future of OKC has yet to be decided but will ultimately come down to how the Thunder lose. If they go down together and it turns into a scenario where its just getting beat by better teams and them growing together as a unit, then I think they can stay together and make beautiful music together. If every misstep continues to get put on Westbrook going 7/21, there may not be a choice but to move him. You never know, Westbrook may go out on his own and try a solo act somewhere else. I think he would end up being more David Lee Roth than Phil Collins (success-wise), but hopefully they can put the egos behind them and just be ok with being basketball's Radiohead (who thankfully didn't break up).
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I wanted to thank Joe for being a good sport and indulging me in this little project
Till next time...
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