9 turnovers in the first quarter, and the Pacers are still up 2 after one quarter. Amazing. 1 post-up by James, resulting in a foul.
In other NBA news, maybe you guys can shed some light on something that’s puzzling me. Much has been made about when Dwight Howard basically forced his coach out of Orlando. That he left the Magic shortly afterwards didn’t bolster his popularity any. It seems that whenever a player and a coach have a dispute and the coach leaves, the player is slammed. Unless you’re Magic Johnson and end up winning 5 championships, players choosing coaches are seen as kind of a bad thing.
Chris Paul’s in that situation right now. It was widely reported that he wasn’t too fond of Vinny Del Negro, and that contributed to Del Negro being let go. Now I hear on the radio that even though Byron Scott was in the running, the Clippers didn’t want to be seen as kowtowing to their star, and Chris Paul doesn’t want to be seen as a coachkiller, by bringing in Scott which had coached him in New Orleans and apparently is still close.
My question is: why not? I think its kind of dumb when management makes a coaching decision without consulting their star players, or even giving them a stake in picking who is going to be hired. Kobe wasn’t consulted by Lakers management when they hired Mike Brown, and though I’m sure there’s plenty of circumstances in which such unilateral decisions by management worked out, I think its less of a crapshoot if the star player, the one the whole team is based around, is given a chance to throw names into the mix.
The players are ultimately the ones playing. Who thinks that Kobe or Chris Paul doesn’t contribute more to the success of the team than a coach? Unless you’re talking about a respected veteran coach with a system in place, like Phil Jackson or Popovich, I think for the most part, the players should be consulted and listened to. What do management know of the on-court situation except what they see? The players are the ones playing! And if Byron Scott already has Paul’s respect and they like each other, all the better!
Well, there’s another way to interpret those two pieces of data, of course. My money’s on the six eight Iron Giant making it easy on the seven footer shooting from the elbow more than the other way around.
But I do think both Wade and Bosh are being severely underrated, Wade’s obvious neuropathic insanity at present notwithstanding. These aren’t guys who are getting 16, 18, 22 points as league-average scorers; these are 25 point scorers living on limited shots and using them extraordinarily efficiently. If you think you’re going to replace Wade’s yearlong production on the open market, I hope you’ve got a line on Tony Parker or Steph Curry, because 21+ on 15 shots doesn’t just fall out of the sky. Wade shot 52% and Bosh shot bloody 53.5% this year. Bosh has 21 makes from three in the playoffs the last two years, shooting 50%. And playing the 5. You go right ahead and take those shots, Al Jefferson.
Lebron helps your percentages, and you win because of Lebron, by and large. But I think the chances that any given 20 point scorer could replicate Wade or Bosh’s production or role in the offense are not good. These are special players, too. Those three or four extra makes every game, over the course of a season, are the difference between a contender and one of the all-time greatest.
By the way, Lance Stephenson really looks like Chris Bosh
I think that the story of the game was Miami’s steals. They had 11 total, and were led by Mike Miller’s 3 picks. The announcers certainly mentioned the Pacers turnovers, but didn’t mention Miami’s hand in the stat (see tennis, errors, forced and unforced). Dollars to doughnuts says that “active hands” was a top bullet point before the game - they seemed to be swarming and swiping whenever the ball came near the paint.
Were the lights too bright for Indiana? While there were certainly a few ticky tack calls, nobody really stepped up their game and overcame that.
Wade was pretty great for the most part, it will be interesting to see how he fares in game 1, after pushing his limits in game 7. Danny Green, imho, will be a much tougher challenge than Lance Stephenson. Green is not as prone to foul trouble, and won’t chirp.
It can send a negative message to Paul’s teammate, that the coach is Paul’s guy, and not a neutral, team-oriented coach. Given the reported issues between Paul and Griffin, I’d say the Clips would be well served by bringing in a coach with no preexisting relationship with either player. If Byron Scott comes in and decides to play the slow half-court style that Paul prefers intead of the up-tempo fast-break attack that Griffin and DeAndre Jordan want, Scott could easily alienate Griffin and Jordan, because they’d likely see it as Scott taking Paul’s side because they are pals, or Scott just taking orders from Paul, rather than making an honest, dispassionate decision based on what Scott thinks would work best for the team. Whereas, if they brought in, say, Jerry Sloan, and he made the same decision, Griffin and Jordan would have to accept that it was unbiased. So, I’d advise the Clips to pass on Scott. Though, they have to worry about Paul leaving next summer, and they’re a wildly inept franchise, so who knows what they will do?
It’s both. Bosh is open more when defenders have to help off of him to deal with James, and James faces less help when defenders are reluctant to help off of Bosh because he’s such an accurate shooter. That’s how good teams become greater than the sum of their parts, and how LeBron’s shooting percentage got so gaudy.
Bosh is absolutely underrated, he’s a first banana who agreed to play third banana, and out of position, to win titles. He gets way too much flak.
Hey, Al Jefferson is good, now. He’s not a stretch-5 like Bosh, but he demands a double team in the post, and gives you 19 and 9 every night on 50% shooting. Plus, at 6’ 11" and 289, he can hold his ground against the Hibberts and Marc Gasols. Problem is, he’s slow as molasses, which means he gets destroyed on pick and rolls, he’s not much of a rim protector because he can’t jump and is slow to rotate over, and the Heat can’t afford him. I expect Utah to let him leave, and built around Enes Kanter (UK’s own!) and Derrick Favors, so he’ll get a nice payday somewhere. Atlanta would be nice, Al Horford could finally play his natural position, the 4.
It was an anti-climax to such a great series. The Pacers were pressing early, taking bad, quick shots, and they were clearly unprepared for the ball pressure Miami unleashed, symbolized by all those steals and the backcourt trap on Hill. Oh well. If the Pacers bring West back, start Hill-George-Granger-West-Hibbert, and upgrade their bench, I expect to see them in the conference finals again next year.
I guess I owe Wade an apology for suggesting he come off the bench, he looked like the old Wade last night.
I predict the Spurs win in 6. Finals MVP is Tony Parker.
The Heat were excellent and won that game, so they don’t need to completely remake their team. This should be a great finals, all the more because the Heat had so much trouble with the Pacers.
We’re not talking about what they did years ago. We’re talking about what they are doing right now. (Also: is LeBron about to slip on a banana peel and fall off a cliff?) There’s no guarantee of future wins, but they know what the team as currently constructed can do. So if you’re proposing a huge shift in direction it ought to be obvious that change will make them better. That’s not the case.
You’re saying the exact thing right now about the Pacers and the Heat but you don’t seem to be aware of it. The Pacers are very good and they should improve. They have some problems to address (poor ballhandling, almost no bench) but you’d expect them to remain a very good team. The Bulls will be better next year than they were this year. The Nets and Knicks should still be good even though they’re flawed and it might be hard for them to get much better than they are right now. But the Heat are extremely good and you don’t just panic and trade one of your top players because teams around you are improving. Especially not if you’re Pat Freaking Riley and have the most job security imaginable in the NBA. You have to have a plan.
No, it wouldn’t have. Remember Boston? That was the team he was competing with, not Orlando.
It’s easy to say they should fix those problems. The question is ‘how bad are these problems and what does it cost them to fix them?’ Bosh playing like a small guy has worked very well for them this year. It was a problem against the Pacers, but again, they were extremely good. We’ll see about Wade’s injury status, which is a big question. The aging veterans thing is by design and I don’t know why you think it’s a problem.
He didn’t drag Wade and Bosh around this year. Wade struggled with injuries and that may become a bigger problem, but he averaged 21 points, five rebounds and five assists. Bosh played the role they want him to play. Last night he wasn’t even that good, but the fact that he got some looks and was active in rebounding and blocking shots made a big difference. Battier was useless against the Pacers but was a very important piece for them the last few years. Yes, he’s also getting old and it won’t get any easier for him to defend big guys. Is there a reason they should look at dealing Wade or Bosh (for what?) instead of dealing more replaceable players like Battier and Miller and Lewis?
We don’t know that! Why should we assume we do? (Well, I’m reasonably sure Bosh will continue to do the stuff they want him to do- the question is why you think that’s some kind of accident or mistake.)
And I think that’s nuts. I eagerly await a list of realistic replacements for either of them, because so far I haven’t seen one. Take a look at the list of guards who scored about as much as Wade did and tell me of them the Heat could get in a trade. Or show me some guys who can space the floor like Bosh and put up the same kind of numbers with more post presence.
No kidding.
If you compared this year to the last couple of years you’d see that’s wrong. Bosh didn’t take a lot of threes before this year and it made a huge difference in their spacing and their offense got better. It gave LeBron more room to work down low, and yes, the difference between 15 to 18 feet and 22 to 24 feet is significant.
Are all three of those guys going to play at the same time or something? They already have plenty of spot up shooters: Allen, Battier, Miller, Lewis, and even LeBron now and then.
This seems to really offend you for some reason. I’d like to point out that it doesn’t matter.
Have you watched the Heat at all this year? Yes, there is some redundancy between LeBron and Wade. That’s why if they had to lose one of these guys, they’d let Wade go. They did struggle for this reason in their first year. If you did not notice, Wade and LeBron have figured out how to play together. The Heat had the best offense in the NBA this year, so you can’t sit there and tell me these guys don’t know how to play together or Wade doesn’t know how to defer to LeBron. He obviously does.
They do.
You’re wrong. Guys who can score 20 points a game are typically very well paid and they are used to being primary options. Here is the full list of guards who scored 20 points a game this year: James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Steph Curry, Tony Parker, Chris Paul, Ty Lawson, Deron Williams. To say these guys are not available or wouldn’t come cheap is a huge understatement. Lawson and Curry are probably the only ones making significantly less money than Wade, and that fact in itself makes them much more valuable to their teams. Golden State isn’t trading Curry, and Denver isn’t trading Lawson. The Heat can’t afford the other guys and their teams would not trade them.
That’s what everybody said when they signed these three guys in the first place. Perhaps you noticed everybody was absolutely 100% dead wrong.
No, I definitely wouldn’t. But that doesn’t explain what you were saying about his karma.
As a matter of fact, yes, they do. And so far nobody’s managed to come up with a workable replacement for either of these guys, which suggests the Heat shouldn’t replace them.
I don’t know what the Clippers are doing or why Sterling said what he did- other than perhaps the fact that he’s a petty jerk who wanted to keep Del Negro because he liked him. They didn’t turn him loose just because of Chris Paul. Sterling wanted to bring him back and his basketball people said “No, we need a new coach.” They convinced him (and they were right). Paul may not have been all that fond of Del Negro, but he didn’t make this happen. And yes, it’s fair for players to have input. If you bring in a coach just to cater to one guy it can cause problems, but I don’t think that’s the case here.
Yeah, when Miami needs to, they can really D it up. And it’s tough to get rebounds when you keep getting stymied on the perimeter and have to take tough jumpers. Wade actually had more boards than Hibbert.
Both teams shot around 40%, but Miami forced 10 more turnovers, which led to fast breaks that Indiana had to foul, which put them in foul trouble they couldn’t rectify because their bench is lousy.
Marley, I think you’re spot-on. Wade isn’t an ideal running mate for James (ideally, you’d want a 2-guard who could work off the ball and shoot a high percentage from 3, while playing outstanding defense, like a young Ray Allen or Klay Thompson in a couple of years). Although, Wade’s post game and rebounding ability offset a lot of that.
Although 3 of the 4 conference finalists had powerhouse front lines, the fact that it’s Miami in the Finals indicates that they can contend with Bosh at the 5, as long as they play their game: force live-ball turnovers, work for open 3s, and play highly disciplined, on-a-string help defense. Poor Hibbert just got smothered by traps and double-teams, and Indiana was seldom able to make they pay for it, because Miami helps the helper so well.
Sure wish they’d knock off all the flopping though, it makes them so easy to hate. Go Spurs! Hoping that Kawhi Leonard can harass LeBron the way Deshawn Stephenson did in '11, and that the Duncan/Parker pick and roll can work its magic.
I only have 2 points to add to this discussion.
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A fully staffed Spurs team and a fully staffed Heat team didn’t meet this season. The first meeting was when Pops let Duncan stay home on the road trip and got penalized by the Commish. The second meeting was the season finale and Lebron/Wade took a breather after their streak got snapped. It’ll be interesting to see how Duncan fares against Bosh.
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I always thought that Lebron would actually be best used off-ball. Lebron may have an absolute advantage in ballhandling as well as finishing ability but his comparative advantage he has athletically at PF is out of this world. Wade handling the ball and Lebron being the roll guy, the spot up guy, the recipient of the oop, etc. would cut into his raw numbers but the team would be a lot better balanced than marginalizing an aging Wade.
Now, this season Lebron has been otherworldly in terms of scoring efficiency and defense and they won a butt-ton of games so it’s hard to criticize but I still think that the team dynamic, especially in the playoffs, would have been better if they had tapped Wade to be the primary ball handler to begin with and forced Lebron to play off-ball like Larry Bird.
And not just Duncan! Duncan, Ginobili, Parker, and Green. The fact that these teams didn’t really play during the season does make this a little more interesting.
He is an exceptionally good passer. Taking that away sounds like a bad idea.
Especially since his comparative advantage as a big forward is compounded by his floor game. The Heat use him on the move with misdirections and side pick and roll stuff quite a bit anyway.
But talking specifically about replacing Bosh (and Wade) in the Heat offense, the problem isn’t that he’s terrible on defense, even though that’s true; the problem is that he can give you 19 and 9 on 50% shooting as a number one option, not a number three option. I’d be very, very surprised if Al Jefferson’s ever been on a team where he wasn’t #1 in touches once he became a starter. Which is all well and good if it’s the best you’ve got; a lot of teams wouldn’t mind just slopping it down into the post to a 20 and 10 guy every chance they got. But every time this Heat team did something like that, it’d be tying a hand and a half behind its back. They run a very sophisticated and very difficult to scheme against offense in the context of which Bosh gives you 18 and 8 on 13 shots and probably, what, three post touches per game? That’s not something most centers can do, and it’s not something Al Jefferson has shown any reason to believe he can do. It’s like saying Tyler Hansbrough could do Birdman’s job because Hansbrough averaged more points and rebounds.
That’s not to say the Heat couldn’t run a different offense that made good use of Al Jefferson, but it is to say that the suggestion by YogSosoth that it’s an Achilles’ heel not to have a guy like that is an incredible disservice to the unique and pretty awesome things the Heat can do, most of which Lebron makes possible, but some of which relies on Bosh.
You don’t need to replace him with a guy who is better right now, or who will score exactly 20 ppg. The extra shots can be distributed to a handful of other guys. You just need a younger, cheaper, more healthy option. At some point, you have to take a chance on switching horses. Yes, it might blow up in your face, but it’s better to not waste Lebron’s best years putting out a slowly declining team than taking a chance on long term success. Now I am not sure that time has come right now, but to act as if he is impossible to replace is foolish. It’s done all the time.
I don’t think that’s true. I don’t know of any respected journalist that thought the Heat could never put together a championship caliber roster after signing the bog 3. What they thought was that they would have to constantly rely on aging band-aid solutions. That part has been true to a large extent.
Because you are stubbornly asking people to predict the future. Would anyone have predicted George and Curry to be near-superstars a year ago? Even a few months ago. Things change quickly, and nobody is gonna trade a player that is as close to as good as Wade right now for Wade. The Heat need to trade a known quantity for potential. I think they can do that.
Wade is a for sure hall of famer. Of course you can’t just pick up any bum to replace him. But, the sum of Wade, Bosh, and James is less than the individual parts in many respects. Yes, they can and often do play well together, but they have done so largely because Lebron has established himself as the far superior player, meaning the other two defer to him. The fact is you don’t need a guy to replace Wade that is as good as Wade is for Miami to still be great. Pau Gasol is not better than Shaq was, but as an eventual replacement for him, he was good enough. Steve Nash got traded, then won 3 (IIRC) MVPs, yet it made sense for Dallas to do it when they did. The point is, if Miami had blown game 7 last night, that would be a pretty clear sign that things are not working. And if that is the case, trading a star for a cheaper player with more long term upside makes the most sense. Now, if they keep winning, maybe you ride it till the wheels fall off. But the idea of trading Bosh or Wade isn’t stupid if you dont get the results you want.
Setting aside the issue of hinging your franchise’s long-term future on a single game (which is dumb, but setting it aside), what’s an example of something they could legally do that you think would be a good idea? It doesn’t have to be something the other team would agree to, even; I’m just wondering what precisely you think would make the Heat better? You say they’d still be great, well, great. They’re great now. Who’s going to make them better?
A relatively healthy Greg Oden, 20 minutes a game?
Right. The best way to use James is to use him all sorts of ways: as the roll man in the pick and roll, as the ball-handler in the pick and roll, as a post-up threat, as an off-ball cutter, as a spot-up shooter. His true advantage is his amazing breadth of skills, and the lack of holes in his game. Mixing it up means the defense can’t anticipate what Miami is about to run, they are forced to react to it. Miami’s multiple-pick-and-roll offense is built to make this happen.
Jefferson did average 16 and 11, on 51% shooting, as a third-year player on a Boston team where Paul Pierce was the #1 guy.
I’m not arguing for trading Bosh and signing Jefferson, just defending Big Al as a legit offensive center. He can shoot a little, too, he’s at 41% from 16-to-23 feet on 5.7 attempts per game, which is much worse than Bosh but better than league average, especially at his position.
Jefferson couldn’t do Bosh’s job for this Miami team, but neither could Bosh do Jefferson’s. Considering the three consecutive Finals appearances, it’s safe to say that Bosh works for this team. Jefferson might too, in a different role, but why tamper with what they’ve been doing? If they could get a big body, like a Jefferson or a Pekovic to defend upper-echelon centers that Haslem and Bosh can’t handle, that’d be a smart move, but they can’t afford a Jefferson or a Pekovic without dumping one of their big three, and they’d be foolish to do that. I’d look at Chuck Hayes if I were them, though, he’s been a very good low-post defender despite his size. He more than held his own against Pau Gasol in the playoffs a few years back; and he doesn’t front, the man just cannot be backed down. He makes just over $5 million a year in Sacramento. Full disclosure: I am a huge Chuck Hayes fan, he’s on my Mount Rushmore of UK players.
That’s a good idea, if he can pass a medical exam.
I think they’d benefit from bringing Josh Harrellson back once Juwan Howard’s roster spot is free this summer. He shoots 3’s at an above-average rate, his per-minute rebounding has been quite nice, and he’s 6’ 10", 275. They waived him when they signed Birdman, but Harrellson is dirt-cheap and can play credible minutes as a backup stretch 4 or 5.
Miami has a whopping 6 players who will be unrestricted free agents this summer:
Ray Allen
Chris Andersen
Mario Chalmers
Juwan Howard
James Jones
Rashard Lewis
I’d let Lewis, Jones, and Howard walk, re-sign Chalmers, and lean on Allen to take a cheap, cheap contract. Anderson is a maybe, if his demands are reasonable, bring him back.
If it doesn’t work out with Allen, make a run at JJ Redick or Kevin Martin, also unrestricted free agents.
brickbacon, I’m curious as well: whom should Miami trade Wade for, that’s younger, cheaper, more healthy, and has the potential to be a 20-ppg scorer? Bear in mind the salary-matching rules for trades.
I can think of a few options, if it could be made to work under the salary-matching rules, but they are all gambles, to say the least. Note that shooting guard is arguably the weakest position in the league right now, making Wade extra-valuable.
Anyway, options:
Younger, cheaper, and healthier:
Bradley Beal
Arron Afflalo
JJ Redick
Wesley Matthews
OJ Mayo
Klay Thompson
Avery Bradley*
Iman Shumpert*
Tyreke Evans
Younger, equally expensive, healthier:
Monta Ellis
Younger, equally expensive, less healthy:
Eric Gordon
- = health is questionable due to single fluke injury, no signs of breakdown.
Then you’re dealing with a situation where the defense can focus on LeBron to a greater extent. And I think YogSosoth was proposing that they could get someone else who can score 20 a game, which they can’t.
At some point, they may have to take that chance. That doesn’t mean they need to do so now under the circumstances people are suggesting here.
I didn’t say he’s impossible to replace. I said a couple of times that they may move to replace him eventually (LeBron and Wade and Bosh are all free agents after next year). What I’ve said is that replacing Wade or Bosh is not as simple as some people are saying, and for that matter it’s probably not as urgent as they’re saying either. This team can deal from a position of strength and know that if they keep these three guys and the same type of supporting cast they should still be extremely good. What doesn’t make sense is gambling.
You’ve added several conditions that were not part of my post.
Again, yes, by design. And it’s worked very well. You can’t have 12 up and coming players and be a stable contending team all at the same time. The plan was that they could get these stars and a rotating cast of supporting players, including some veteran guys who would take less money to join the team. They’ve gotten better each year, so it’s worked.
They were both top ten draft picks and everybody knew Curry was an exceptional shooter, but yes, I’ll grant that these guys made more progress and played better in the playoffs than people expected.
As a team that has made the finals three years in a row and is lead by the best player in the league, no, they really don’t. If they make a change, they need to be sure they’ll be better, not just taking a chance because they’re worried they’ll slip if they don’t.
No, it wouldn’t. Smart teams don’t make those kinds of decisions based on one game.
I honestly don’t know enough off hand about salaries and the like to make a reasonable suggestion. But of the people on your list, Thompson, Redick, Evans, and a few others would be reasonable replacement if the acquisition allowed them to improve in other areas as well.
You are right. It’s not necessarily an emergency given they are now in the finals, but losing to Indiana (esp. after the first few games against a hobbled Chicago) would have forced things a lot.
But when could they replace either Bosh or Wade. Again, given that they may still win, I think you can breath a bit easier, but let’s assume they lost that game 7. When would they otherwise be able to trade Wade/Bosh? They both probably won’t take TOO much of a hometown discount after 2014. So you are either stuck giving them superstar money and paying stupid luxury taxes, or you trade them to a team while still under contract. That gives you (IIRC) one year give or take to make a deal. I suppose you could give it one more go, then pick up the pieces where they may fall, but that seems like a riskier proposition.
But do the Heat want to be extremely good, or do they want to win rings? The scenario as of a few days ago was the possibility of losing out on a ring again. If something doesn’t work 2 of 3 times, and you don’t have the ability to fine tune things without risk, then trying again doesn’t make that much sense given it’s less likely you will be as good as you were the past 3 times, and your competition is getting better.
It would have been based on 4 games. The 4 they would have lost to Indiana.
I’m not sure what to say if you really think these trades make sense for the Heat. Redick is useful, but not for too much other than shooting threes. Evans is a ballhog who doesn’t play defense and his development seems to have stalled or gone backward since his rookie year. Klay Thompson is coming along very nicely but Golden State isn’t going to trade him for anything.
I think they would have considered their options, but based on what’s been said here I am hard-pressed to imagine why they would have made any of these deals.
I don’t know if they will opt out of their contracts or what they’ll want if they do that. In that event I’m wondering if the Heat might find the cap space more useful than whatever players they might get back from a trade.
Oh, you can win championships without being extremely good now? I wasn’t aware. I also didn’t realize you can guarantee championships. The best way to win championships is to be really good - which they already are. Rolling the dice on changes when you’re already extremely good is dicey. I’m sure you saw how it worked out for the Thunder this year.
That’s still dumb, but no, it’s based on one game. They lost to Indiana three times and won the series, so they’re good. If they’d lost four times, they would’ve had to think about making some changes because the team was not working.