Stop Looking for the Next Thunder People

As you can tell by the title, I'm a bit exasperated from all the media coverage being devoted to trying to find this years version of the Thunder, or in other words, a young team that didn't win that much last year, but is really set to surprise teams this year and make the leap into the playoffs.  I've heard this comparison be given to the Kings, Clippers, Grizzlies (doesn't totally make sense as they won 40 games last year), Warriors, Sixers, Pacers, and pretty much every team that's young and sucked last year.

But in reality, what the Thunder did last year was almost unmatchable.  They managed to more than double their win total (from 23 wins to 50) despite only really adding James Harden and Serge Ibaka (both rookies).  This team benefited most from the ridiculous improvement of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, as well as a team effort to focus on and improve the defense (they went from 20th in Defensive Rating in 2008-09 to 9th last year).

The team also had remarkable health, with Durant, Westbrook, Green and Sefolosha starting all 82 games, and the other starter, Krstic, playing 76.  That's in addition to 73 games played for Ibaka, 55 played for Eric Maynor (who played 81 all year when you factor in that he started the season with Utah), 75 for Nick Collison, and 76 for James Harden.  That's a steady 9 man rotation that the Thunder were able to count on pretty much every night last year, a luxury most teams never have.  Attribute it to their youth or luck, but its a rare feat for a team to be that healthy all year, and hard to match.

As I mentioned earlier, the Thunder also saw massive improvement from Kevin Durant, who jumped from being a darn good scorer, to possibly a top 5 player in the NBA in just his third year.  Russell Westbrook also saw a big improvement in his game, and became a great second banana to Durant.  A lot of the young teams in the league don't have even one player on their team that has the upside of a Durant or Westbrook, and even if they do, they don't have two, with a solid scoring option like Jeff Green as well.

So stop looking for the "next Thunder" with these young up and coming teams, because what you're likely going to get is the next Grizzlies instead (in terms of win-loss record thankfully).

Programming Note: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Sorry John.  It's just too much work to do the recap every day.

Well after doing a few days of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly for every single team, each and every day, I think I'm going to have to call it quits on doing it daily, and for now at all, since if I do it, I want to be thorough.  It's a LOT of extra work to look at each game and analyze it each and every night, and one thing that its given me is a newfound respect for Kelly Dwyer of Ball Don't Lie and his fantastic Behind the Boxscores.

I don't want this blog to simply become a recap of each night's action, and if I continue with the series, that's basically what will happen.  I want to instead write because I want to write, not because I feel like I have to.  It was an interesting experiment, and perhaps one day if the Pick and Scroll grows larger I'll bring it back.

But for now its good night and good luck on that, and I'll now have more time to write about things other than just the nights action, which for the most part, the people that were really interested, already watched, or caught up for themselves.

Thanks to whoever did read the series and enjoyed it so far.  Hopefully you continue to read, and I'll be trying to get at least a piece or two out every weekday, but this time on broader subjects.

Examining the flaws of the NBA's Award Process through the All-Defensive Team

Sorry I haven't posted a lot lately.  School has started up again, and with work as well, I don't have as much time as I did in the summer.  Also its been pretty quiet on the NBA front other than the World Championships (Congrats to the USA!).  But with training camps just around the corner its time for me to pick up the writing once more.

The NBA award process is a tricky business.  Every year ballots are sent to members of the media to vote for each award and the final tally makes the award.  This isn't an ideal system to me, as many members of the media have biases, and also tend to vote for players who are the better story, or more well-known.  Nowhere is this more evident to me than in the All-Defensive Teams.  These teams are often just re-makes of the All-NBA teams, with maybe a couple smaller names thrown in.  A lot of players are voted into this team based on past reputation (For example, Jason Kidd named to the 2nd team in 2007).  How else do you explain Shane Battier as only having won 2 All-Defensive awards, both 2nd team?

Let's use last year's All-Defensive Teams as an example, with their points total (2 points for a 1st team vote, 1 for a 2nd team vote):

1st Team:
Dwight Howard (57)
LeBron James (45)
Gerald Wallace (30)
Kobe Bryant (34)
Rajon Rondo (50)

2nd Team:
Tim Duncan (21)
Anderson Varejao (15)
Josh Smith (20)
Thabo Sefolosha (14)
Dwyane Wade (20)

Its not surprising to me at all that the two players who haven't been on All-Star teams also had the least votes.  There also were a slew of votes for players that shouldn't have even been considered. Jason Kidd led the players who didn't get voted in with a point total of 14, despite being too slow to stay in front of anyone for the past few years.  Manu Ginobili got a vote (1st team no less) despite San Antonio's defense being .9 pp100 worse with him on the court.  Joe Johnson also got a 1st team vote, with Atlanta's defense being almost 4 pp100 worse with him on the court.  This is even worse because Joe's teammate Al Horford, one of the best post defenders in the league, only got a single second place vote.  There are a few more headscratchers as well.

This is unfortunate for the NBA in my opinion, because plenty of players who do play spectacular defense often go unnoticed for the bigger names.  You'll notice that of the small names on the list of All-Defensive players this year, both were on teams with increased media exposure: Varejao with LeBron and Sefolosha with the media darling Thunder.  But other players who deserved more votes like Horford, Arron Afflalo, Nick Collison, Andre Iguodala and many others miss out on that attention.  There's no doubt that some of the big names do deserve the award. After all, many great players are great because they're good on both ends of the court.  But I always hate to see when a player beats out a player more deserving simply because of the name on the jersey.

It is because of this award mainly, but also for other reasons, that I think the NBA needs to overhaul its award process.  Don't let the media vote for the awards based on player performance. Let the Players be the ones to vote.  Not only would this make the vote fairer in my opinion (players know who the toughest guys they play against are) but it would make the award more meaningful, since its voted on by their peers.  The media can still be involved in some of the other awards like Executive and Coach of the Year, and perhaps even 6th man and Most Improved Player.  But MVP, All-NBA, Rookie of the Year, All-Defensive, and Defensive Player of the Year should be voted on by the players.

What do you think?