Nets lose to the Cs on the road. Not on TV (at least not Verizon, that I can tell). It was sorta kinda close, in a schoolyard kinda way. The Cs are the #1 Eastern seed. The Nets are going home.
Are the Celtics 32 games better than the Nets?
I wonder - Pierce has won 0 titles, Ray 0, KG 0. I'm not convinced that they can even win the East, much less the title. Then again, if this is the street ball league, who's gonna stop them?
It's funny - we talk NFL, we think coaches - Parcells, Bellichick, Landry, Lombardi... We talk baseball, we think managers - Lasorda, Pinella, Torre, Sparky... We talk hockey - Bowman, Arbour...
We talk NBA and the only coach we talk about is Phil, and maybe Pop, but mostly we talk talent. And not smart talent, not fundamentally sound talent - not, say, Steve Nash - but raw talent. Shaq. Kobe. Lebron.
Not that Shaq, Kobe or Lebron CAN'T be fundamentally sound, they certainly can. We see flashes. But mostly we see flashy.
Can the talent in the NBA be coached? Is the Lakers' success this year all about Pau Gasol?
In 1967 the 76ers got a new coach, Alex Hannum. He took his best player, one Wilt Chamberlain, aside and told him, look - you have all the records in the book. You've done amazing, gargantuan things. Yet you lack a championship ring. I have an idea that if, when the ball comes to you, instead of fighting off the double- and triple teams they throw up against you and shooting, you find the open man, or men!, they'll have easy shots, undefended shots, and we'll be unstoppable.
That's coaching. Imagine telling the league's greatest offensive player to stop scoring and start making assists. What was he, nuts?
Funny thing - Wilt listened. He led the team in assists and was 3rd in the NBA (a center!). The Sixers won 69 games and, most importantly, won the NBA - the only team to break the Celtics' stranglehold on the NBA championship in the 60s.
Tim Duncan is a great and heady player, and fundamentally sound. But I also have to think that he listens to Greg. And by listening to Greg, he sets the example, and then the rest of the team listens to Greg. The result? 4 championships.
I like watching San Antonio like I liked watching the Nets from 2002 thru 2006. Now we seem to have a street ball team.
I'm not interested in circus shots and flashy dunks. Championships are not garnered with circus shots and flashy dunks. A circus shot or a flashy dunk is worth no more points on the scoreboard than a dorky but fundamentally sound lay up.
I like people getting open. I like defense. I like boxing out. I like looking for the open man.
The basketball season for the Nets ended on that disastrous 0-9 stretch in January. Since then it's been street ball.
I don't like street ball.
If that's what the Nets have become, they've lost a season ticket holder.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Game 81 - Street Ball
Perhaps this is what bothers me about the contemporary NBA. I have railed pretty much all season against the poor quality in-game coaching of one Lawrence Frank. He has made strategic blunder after tactical blunder, he's tone deaf to his team's struggles and mechanistic in his substitution patterns.
Nonetheless, I watched tonite's game in amazement. Nets up early, go to sleep, down nearly 20 at the half, come back to take a late lead, make bonehead decisions, wind up going into overtime, go up by 8 within a minute left, win by 4.
Through it all, NEITHER coach has any impact on the game. Granted, both teams are done for the year, what incentive do they have. So it becomes a schoolyard game.
I was reading about Golden State's latest loss, something like coming back from down 16 to take a 15 point lead, and then losing. And I am struck - I don't remember this happening in the 60s, or the Magic/Bird/Dr J era, or even the Jordan era. I remember close games involving, at least, playoff teams, 2 point, 4 point, 6 point leads going back and forth. I remember good passing, even on breaks, boxing out, and above all, defense.
Not always. The mid-70s were fairly run and gun, as the ABA players and style were digested into the league. I remember strategy. I remember intelligent play - Oscar, Bradley, Lucas, West, Kareem, Russell, McHale, the Chief, etc.
I remember Kidd, as well, when he came here in 2002. It was a pleasure to watch because he imposed on the team a disciplined style of smart play. Maybe it was Eddie Jordan's Princeton like offense, on steroids with the athleticism of KMart, Kittles and RJ. It featured a lot of running, sure. But it was heady. With defense.
You see this now from one team - San Antonio. Is it the coach? Is it Duncan? Is it luck?
It ain't luck.
It's a commitment to fundamental basketball within the framework of today's incredible athletic talent.
Today's talent is clearly superior to any other era. I don't think that's debatable. Unfortunately, the NBA has become, as I have noted earlier, the Nothing But Ability league. No defense. No strategy. No in-game tactical soundness. Ability.
Brilliant moves, flashy dunks, great looking alley oops, incredible shots.
But for every flashy dunk is a missed foul shot, for every great looking alley oop is a bad decision, for every incredible shot is an "ill-advised" shot. I put that in quotes since I hear it most from Walt Frazier.
Walt Frazier... I was not a Knicks fan then - I was a Lakers fan. I couldn't stand him, as an opponent. But you had to respect his play - his intelligent play.
Frazier probably wouldn't have the size or talent to play in today's NBA. This is an amazing thing. Because Clyde could make nearly every current team a contender. Through sheer intelligence.
I digress (boy, do I digress)...
The point is, who listens to coaches today, anyway? Again, I can think of only one team, and it's the same one.
Frank had nothing to do with this victory, and would have had nothing to do with a loss, either. This was a street ball game.
Where's the Professor?
Nonetheless, I watched tonite's game in amazement. Nets up early, go to sleep, down nearly 20 at the half, come back to take a late lead, make bonehead decisions, wind up going into overtime, go up by 8 within a minute left, win by 4.
Through it all, NEITHER coach has any impact on the game. Granted, both teams are done for the year, what incentive do they have. So it becomes a schoolyard game.
I was reading about Golden State's latest loss, something like coming back from down 16 to take a 15 point lead, and then losing. And I am struck - I don't remember this happening in the 60s, or the Magic/Bird/Dr J era, or even the Jordan era. I remember close games involving, at least, playoff teams, 2 point, 4 point, 6 point leads going back and forth. I remember good passing, even on breaks, boxing out, and above all, defense.
Not always. The mid-70s were fairly run and gun, as the ABA players and style were digested into the league. I remember strategy. I remember intelligent play - Oscar, Bradley, Lucas, West, Kareem, Russell, McHale, the Chief, etc.
I remember Kidd, as well, when he came here in 2002. It was a pleasure to watch because he imposed on the team a disciplined style of smart play. Maybe it was Eddie Jordan's Princeton like offense, on steroids with the athleticism of KMart, Kittles and RJ. It featured a lot of running, sure. But it was heady. With defense.
You see this now from one team - San Antonio. Is it the coach? Is it Duncan? Is it luck?
It ain't luck.
It's a commitment to fundamental basketball within the framework of today's incredible athletic talent.
Today's talent is clearly superior to any other era. I don't think that's debatable. Unfortunately, the NBA has become, as I have noted earlier, the Nothing But Ability league. No defense. No strategy. No in-game tactical soundness. Ability.
Brilliant moves, flashy dunks, great looking alley oops, incredible shots.
But for every flashy dunk is a missed foul shot, for every great looking alley oop is a bad decision, for every incredible shot is an "ill-advised" shot. I put that in quotes since I hear it most from Walt Frazier.
Walt Frazier... I was not a Knicks fan then - I was a Lakers fan. I couldn't stand him, as an opponent. But you had to respect his play - his intelligent play.
Frazier probably wouldn't have the size or talent to play in today's NBA. This is an amazing thing. Because Clyde could make nearly every current team a contender. Through sheer intelligence.
I digress (boy, do I digress)...
The point is, who listens to coaches today, anyway? Again, I can think of only one team, and it's the same one.
Frank had nothing to do with this victory, and would have had nothing to do with a loss, either. This was a street ball game.
Where's the Professor?
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Wanting the Team to Lose
A reader wondered aloud why any fan would purposely want their team to lose. I want to address that. Consider this cautionary tale:
From 1984-1989 the San Antonio Spurs had been quite like the Nets - a bad team that occasionally made the playoffs, only to be bounced out in the first round. (They actually made the playoffs with losing records twice, once with only 31 wins, the other with 35 - the latter after having made it at 41-41. sound familiar?)
After an abysmal 21 win season in 89, they got David Robinson in the draft, and immediately became contenders. Over the next 7 seasons they won 56, 55, 47, 49, 55, 62 and 59 games. Altho they made it to the Western Conference finals in 95, they never made it to the Finals. Then the Admiral got injured, out for the 97 season.
Had he not been injured, the Spurs very likely would have won at least 50 games in 97, probably 55, their average with him the previous 7 seasons. Still, without him they probably could have won at least 30 or 35. They were not that bad of a team.
Instead they went into the tank. A deep funk that cost their coach, Bob Hill, who had taken them to their only Western Conference Finals appearance, his job, even tho he did not have his star player for all but 6 games of the year.
This abysmal losing, this embarrassment of an underachieving team, gave the Spurs the first pick in the draft. They got one Tim Duncan. And Greg Popovich.
Since then the Spurs continued their regular season winning ways - winning high 50s or low 60s games a season (except for the strike shortened 99 season, when they won a league high 37 games. And winning 4 NBA titles.
How did the Celtics get Larry Bird? Going 29-53. That's how.
Now, if you were a Spurs fan on the eve of Game 77, in 1997, with your team at 20-57, and you had a crystal ball that showed the glory to come with Pop and Tim, but in order to get Tim you'd need to lose your last six, would you be rooting for your team to lose?
Or better - if you were 3-15 on the eve of Game 19, and your coach, who had just lead your to 62 and 59 wins, your first trip to the Conference finals, and probably more shots at it once the Admiral was healed, was to be fired, would you think that was high handed and unnecessary? Now, suppose you had that crystal ball and it said, look, there is a coach out there who will lead you to 4 titles in the next decade, but you have to flush the most successful coach you've ever had, even tho he's struggling this year in the absence of your best player, would you still think it was high handed and unnecessary?
Tuesday is the last home game of the season. I am going, bringing the family and I also have two other tickets. They're playing the Bobcats. They should win easily. I want them to win easily. I want to have fun.
I got these tickets, my first full season tickets for any sport, for a song this year. The same deal is available for next year. If they were still in playoff mode, it would be a slam dunk. If they had poor talent, I still would probably do it.
Right now, I am probably not gonna do it. And for one reason. The head coach, Lawrence Frank.
I'm sorry, but altho I don't like losing, I really hate it when games are lost unnecessarily. I get aggravated when I and most other fans in the stands are screaming for timeouts that never get called, timeouts that do get called when they are irrelevant or even counter productive. I get upset and angry when talented players that could help the team like Sean Williams sit on the bench and clear duds like Trenton Hassell get non-trivial playing time. In crucial situations. And then don't come thru.
My family has told me several times they don't like going to the games with me. I brood. I scowl. They are like I used to be - they cheer the team on, they try to give the team support late in games. They, to their credit, rarely want to leave early.
But they are sick of me and my negative attitude.
Know what? I'M sick of me and my negative attitude.
I don't want to be that way. Perhaps if the Nets decided to unload RJ and let Nenad go via free agency, perhaps if Devin Harris went down with an injury in the summer, or Josh Boone had to get a knee job that required him to miss the season, you know, the things that happened in 99 and 2000, my expectations would be set low, and Frank's stupidity wouldn't bother me. Perhaps his clutching onto timeouts like Gollum does the ring might actually come in handy on those rare nights when the Nets find themselves in the game with 2 minutes to go and needing a rare victory. Perhaps then.
This isn't fantasy. I remember the year 2000 when (I counted) 20 games came down to the last 2 minutes with them in the lead or down by 2 or less and they lost. That was hard to take. But the Nets were decimated with injuries. I had no expectations for the team to win more than the 31 they did win. They had a guy who never should have been coach. The owners pushed him into it. He left the NBA for good after that season. Marbury showed great heart in trying to lift that team single handedly.
I hated the losing but I wasn't negative. I wasn't, oh brother, here they go again. Or rather, here HE goes again.
This wasn't 20 years ago when the Nets had no talent, when they had traded away a potential Hall of Famer for a sure fire Hall of Shamer. This wasn't the days of the empty RAC. This wasn't the days of the Butch Beard embarrassment or the screaming John C. This was less than a decade ago. I was positive.
As recently as 2006 I had been positive. I laid the blame for their collapse to the eventual NBA Champion Heat at Cliff Robinson's doorstep. The Nets had nearly swept the Heat in the regular season, but nearly got swept out of the postseason by them. The Heat had a hot hand. They had Shaq. They had a hot Duane Wade playing way over his head, a game he had not evinced since. Okay. Retool and try again in 2007.
At the beginning of the 2007 season I told the guy who eventually sold me season tix this year that I "had a good feeling" about the upcoming season. But by mid-season I was getting disturbed by an unsettling trend. The Nets were losing a lot of games due to questionable coaching decisions.
In 2003 when the Nets cruised to the Finals and were about to face the Spurs, I was jubilant. For the first time in their NBA history they had a great shot at winning it all. The 2002 season had been miraculous, but they did not match up well with the Lakers. I had little expectation that they could win. But in 2003 it seem that things were set up for them.
In my opinion, then and now, Byron Scott single handedly squandered that chance for them. With bafflingly abysmal coaching decisions.
A team plays well. It's a close game. Your best player has the ball in his hands to take the last shot but misses, and you lose by 1. That's basketball.
A team comes out for the championship game and is just cold as Iceland. They lose in a romp. That's basketball.
At the end of a close game that can go either way, a player tries to call a timeout when you have none left, the other team gets a technical and the ball, and you lose. That's basketball.
A team is in the finals, Game 7, on the road, and a player who has been doing it all season for you goes unbelievably cold. Time and again he takes shots and misses while the other team capitalizes. You lose the championship. The coach says, He's done it for us all year - I wasn't about to take it out of his hands this late in the season. It was his to win or lose. We win or lose with him. Ok, maybe. That one hurts and is questionable, but at least he leaves it up to the guy who brought them there. That's basketball.
But a coach that allows big leads to be squandered while his team is clearly floundering, a coach who clutches onto his timeouts so that he can have them at the end of the game when it is too late and using them only humiliates the team further, a coach that sits a red hot player when you have a 9 point lead going into the last quarter of a Game Six after having defaulted on at least 2 earlier games by not playing your only 7 footer against a team with 2 talented ones, those are not basketball inevitabilites - they are reversible, avoidable bad decisions. Unforgivable mental coaching errors. Stubbornness. Unwillingness to coach the game in front of their eyes. Those coaches are not basketball coaches. They are liabilities.
The Nets lost 30 games this year when they had considerable leads deep in the game. 30. And in those 30, Lawrence Frank acted in ways that virtually ensured those would be losses. He did NOTHING to stop them. In fact, he did everything to make the inevitable. And if that were not bad enough, forced his team to play foul ball, doing nothing but elongating the sting and increasing the humiliation.
He did a similar thing last year, before the trading deadline. The team had struggled in the beginning when finally they got to 20-20 before going on the road for a West Coast swing. The history of the team on those swings, even in the glory years of 2002 and 2003, had not been good. Yet there they were, with the lead with under a minute, 3 games in a row. They lost all 3.
I'm sorry, you can't tell me the coach was not involved in those losses. He was. All 3.
Kidd had seen enough. He wanted out. Thorn could not pull the trigger on a deal. After the trading deadline Kidd willed the team to the playoffs. Ok, one bad.
But here we were again, for the 4th consecutive season, a surprisingly bad start, a team "searching for an identity". A good coach establishes an identity. A team does not have to search for one.
Especially a team loaded with talent.
I began to see, in that dismal 2007 season, that Frank was costing the team several victories. Despite that, their talent dispatched the overrated Raptors with some ease and had a shot at making it past the vastly overrated Cavs to reach at least the Conference Finals. Talent did that. But Frank undermined it. They bowed out in 6, with two of those 4 losses easily avoidable and winnable. They should have won that series in 6, not lose it in 6.
Perhaps they could come together again with a healthy Krstic and a new season. But the 2008 season began just as the previous 3 - a surprisingly bad start, and this time against poor struggling teams at home. Once again, the talk was about searching for an identity. 30 games into the season, still searching for an identity.
Mark my words - if Frank stays, as he is likely to do, the Nets will start the year just as they have the past 4, unaccountably struggling against teams with lesser talent, losing in blowouts to good teams. Someone, probably RJ if he is not traded, will say "We're still trying to discover our identity as a team".
A pattern has been established, and by then, what would the only common denominator be?
Not JKidd. Not Vince Carter. Not RJ (remember, he was injured most of 2005 after picking up the slack for the injured JKidd at the beginning of 2005).
The common denomiator is Lawrence Frank.
This is not just statistical. If you watch all the games, like I do, it's easy to see the patterns. The announcers see all the games as well, and altho they are trained and compensated not to call out players and coaches, you could hear the mystification about why certain players are sitting, why timeouts were not called, why the team should not have an identity deep into the season.
Players make mistakes. In the heat of the battle, physical mistakes are made. Occassionally mental mistakes are made. If mental mistakes are made with frequency the coach is very quick to sit the player. That's basketball.
Coaches make mistakes, but none of them are physical. They are all mental. Sure, sometimes you gotta roll the dice and things don't pan out. Sometimes you make errors in judgement and you deal with the consequences.
But when mental mistakes are made not just with frequency but in a predictable pattern, that coach needs to sit.
This coach needs to sit. He is not helping the team; he's hurting it. In the standings, in the locker room, in the handling of its talent, in its prospects. He is not learning from his mistakes. He is not helping his players learn, because he himself does not learn.
I know the realities - I've written about them at length. The owner does not care. The president cannot act on his own. The coach has 2 more years on his contract and the owner doesn't want to pay him for nothing. His grandiose development scheme, of which the team is just a pawn, is floundering, and he is in no mood for basketball, except to get them in that goddam arena in the hope that that might put things back over the top. The last thing he wants to do in that atmosphere is part with money and get nothing in return.
But having a hamstrung team be deconstructed and embarrassed in an empty building is not something. Losing $30 million a year (per the NYT) is getting less than nothing.
There is talent here. A starting five of Carter, RJ, Harris, Boone and a healthy Nenad, with Boki, Swift, Sean Williams and Marcus Williams in the wings is quite a good and deep team. With decent, not great, but decent, coaching, this is a 50 win team, especially in a weak East. That might fill the building more. That will get you to the playoffs. If nothing else, that will make the team much more attractive when you sell the team in 3 years, 2 if your project collapses.
That is, you eat $5 million but lose only $20 a year. That's a net (sic) savings of $5 million.
I don't get Sean Williams sitting. I don't get Trent Hassell playing. And I don't get Thorn thinking that Frank is a good coach. All I do get is that the owner doesn't give a Ratner's ass about basketball. He cares about real estate development.
So Bruce - look, man, your project is dangling by a thread. You're losing $30 mil a year. You can save conservatively $5 mil of that just by doing the right thing - lose the coach.
I don't want the Nets to lose, per se. I want them to lose the coach. Losing might give them a better draft status, but if Frank remains that talent will just be squandered, wasted. However, if losing meaningless games at the end of a mean season results in losing a losing coach and giving a talented team a better shot at winning, who wouldn't want that?
From 1984-1989 the San Antonio Spurs had been quite like the Nets - a bad team that occasionally made the playoffs, only to be bounced out in the first round. (They actually made the playoffs with losing records twice, once with only 31 wins, the other with 35 - the latter after having made it at 41-41. sound familiar?)
After an abysmal 21 win season in 89, they got David Robinson in the draft, and immediately became contenders. Over the next 7 seasons they won 56, 55, 47, 49, 55, 62 and 59 games. Altho they made it to the Western Conference finals in 95, they never made it to the Finals. Then the Admiral got injured, out for the 97 season.
Had he not been injured, the Spurs very likely would have won at least 50 games in 97, probably 55, their average with him the previous 7 seasons. Still, without him they probably could have won at least 30 or 35. They were not that bad of a team.
Instead they went into the tank. A deep funk that cost their coach, Bob Hill, who had taken them to their only Western Conference Finals appearance, his job, even tho he did not have his star player for all but 6 games of the year.
This abysmal losing, this embarrassment of an underachieving team, gave the Spurs the first pick in the draft. They got one Tim Duncan. And Greg Popovich.
Since then the Spurs continued their regular season winning ways - winning high 50s or low 60s games a season (except for the strike shortened 99 season, when they won a league high 37 games. And winning 4 NBA titles.
How did the Celtics get Larry Bird? Going 29-53. That's how.
Now, if you were a Spurs fan on the eve of Game 77, in 1997, with your team at 20-57, and you had a crystal ball that showed the glory to come with Pop and Tim, but in order to get Tim you'd need to lose your last six, would you be rooting for your team to lose?
Or better - if you were 3-15 on the eve of Game 19, and your coach, who had just lead your to 62 and 59 wins, your first trip to the Conference finals, and probably more shots at it once the Admiral was healed, was to be fired, would you think that was high handed and unnecessary? Now, suppose you had that crystal ball and it said, look, there is a coach out there who will lead you to 4 titles in the next decade, but you have to flush the most successful coach you've ever had, even tho he's struggling this year in the absence of your best player, would you still think it was high handed and unnecessary?
Tuesday is the last home game of the season. I am going, bringing the family and I also have two other tickets. They're playing the Bobcats. They should win easily. I want them to win easily. I want to have fun.
I got these tickets, my first full season tickets for any sport, for a song this year. The same deal is available for next year. If they were still in playoff mode, it would be a slam dunk. If they had poor talent, I still would probably do it.
Right now, I am probably not gonna do it. And for one reason. The head coach, Lawrence Frank.
I'm sorry, but altho I don't like losing, I really hate it when games are lost unnecessarily. I get aggravated when I and most other fans in the stands are screaming for timeouts that never get called, timeouts that do get called when they are irrelevant or even counter productive. I get upset and angry when talented players that could help the team like Sean Williams sit on the bench and clear duds like Trenton Hassell get non-trivial playing time. In crucial situations. And then don't come thru.
My family has told me several times they don't like going to the games with me. I brood. I scowl. They are like I used to be - they cheer the team on, they try to give the team support late in games. They, to their credit, rarely want to leave early.
But they are sick of me and my negative attitude.
Know what? I'M sick of me and my negative attitude.
I don't want to be that way. Perhaps if the Nets decided to unload RJ and let Nenad go via free agency, perhaps if Devin Harris went down with an injury in the summer, or Josh Boone had to get a knee job that required him to miss the season, you know, the things that happened in 99 and 2000, my expectations would be set low, and Frank's stupidity wouldn't bother me. Perhaps his clutching onto timeouts like Gollum does the ring might actually come in handy on those rare nights when the Nets find themselves in the game with 2 minutes to go and needing a rare victory. Perhaps then.
This isn't fantasy. I remember the year 2000 when (I counted) 20 games came down to the last 2 minutes with them in the lead or down by 2 or less and they lost. That was hard to take. But the Nets were decimated with injuries. I had no expectations for the team to win more than the 31 they did win. They had a guy who never should have been coach. The owners pushed him into it. He left the NBA for good after that season. Marbury showed great heart in trying to lift that team single handedly.
I hated the losing but I wasn't negative. I wasn't, oh brother, here they go again. Or rather, here HE goes again.
This wasn't 20 years ago when the Nets had no talent, when they had traded away a potential Hall of Famer for a sure fire Hall of Shamer. This wasn't the days of the empty RAC. This wasn't the days of the Butch Beard embarrassment or the screaming John C. This was less than a decade ago. I was positive.
As recently as 2006 I had been positive. I laid the blame for their collapse to the eventual NBA Champion Heat at Cliff Robinson's doorstep. The Nets had nearly swept the Heat in the regular season, but nearly got swept out of the postseason by them. The Heat had a hot hand. They had Shaq. They had a hot Duane Wade playing way over his head, a game he had not evinced since. Okay. Retool and try again in 2007.
At the beginning of the 2007 season I told the guy who eventually sold me season tix this year that I "had a good feeling" about the upcoming season. But by mid-season I was getting disturbed by an unsettling trend. The Nets were losing a lot of games due to questionable coaching decisions.
In 2003 when the Nets cruised to the Finals and were about to face the Spurs, I was jubilant. For the first time in their NBA history they had a great shot at winning it all. The 2002 season had been miraculous, but they did not match up well with the Lakers. I had little expectation that they could win. But in 2003 it seem that things were set up for them.
In my opinion, then and now, Byron Scott single handedly squandered that chance for them. With bafflingly abysmal coaching decisions.
A team plays well. It's a close game. Your best player has the ball in his hands to take the last shot but misses, and you lose by 1. That's basketball.
A team comes out for the championship game and is just cold as Iceland. They lose in a romp. That's basketball.
At the end of a close game that can go either way, a player tries to call a timeout when you have none left, the other team gets a technical and the ball, and you lose. That's basketball.
A team is in the finals, Game 7, on the road, and a player who has been doing it all season for you goes unbelievably cold. Time and again he takes shots and misses while the other team capitalizes. You lose the championship. The coach says, He's done it for us all year - I wasn't about to take it out of his hands this late in the season. It was his to win or lose. We win or lose with him. Ok, maybe. That one hurts and is questionable, but at least he leaves it up to the guy who brought them there. That's basketball.
But a coach that allows big leads to be squandered while his team is clearly floundering, a coach who clutches onto his timeouts so that he can have them at the end of the game when it is too late and using them only humiliates the team further, a coach that sits a red hot player when you have a 9 point lead going into the last quarter of a Game Six after having defaulted on at least 2 earlier games by not playing your only 7 footer against a team with 2 talented ones, those are not basketball inevitabilites - they are reversible, avoidable bad decisions. Unforgivable mental coaching errors. Stubbornness. Unwillingness to coach the game in front of their eyes. Those coaches are not basketball coaches. They are liabilities.
The Nets lost 30 games this year when they had considerable leads deep in the game. 30. And in those 30, Lawrence Frank acted in ways that virtually ensured those would be losses. He did NOTHING to stop them. In fact, he did everything to make the inevitable. And if that were not bad enough, forced his team to play foul ball, doing nothing but elongating the sting and increasing the humiliation.
He did a similar thing last year, before the trading deadline. The team had struggled in the beginning when finally they got to 20-20 before going on the road for a West Coast swing. The history of the team on those swings, even in the glory years of 2002 and 2003, had not been good. Yet there they were, with the lead with under a minute, 3 games in a row. They lost all 3.
I'm sorry, you can't tell me the coach was not involved in those losses. He was. All 3.
Kidd had seen enough. He wanted out. Thorn could not pull the trigger on a deal. After the trading deadline Kidd willed the team to the playoffs. Ok, one bad.
But here we were again, for the 4th consecutive season, a surprisingly bad start, a team "searching for an identity". A good coach establishes an identity. A team does not have to search for one.
Especially a team loaded with talent.
I began to see, in that dismal 2007 season, that Frank was costing the team several victories. Despite that, their talent dispatched the overrated Raptors with some ease and had a shot at making it past the vastly overrated Cavs to reach at least the Conference Finals. Talent did that. But Frank undermined it. They bowed out in 6, with two of those 4 losses easily avoidable and winnable. They should have won that series in 6, not lose it in 6.
Perhaps they could come together again with a healthy Krstic and a new season. But the 2008 season began just as the previous 3 - a surprisingly bad start, and this time against poor struggling teams at home. Once again, the talk was about searching for an identity. 30 games into the season, still searching for an identity.
Mark my words - if Frank stays, as he is likely to do, the Nets will start the year just as they have the past 4, unaccountably struggling against teams with lesser talent, losing in blowouts to good teams. Someone, probably RJ if he is not traded, will say "We're still trying to discover our identity as a team".
A pattern has been established, and by then, what would the only common denominator be?
Not JKidd. Not Vince Carter. Not RJ (remember, he was injured most of 2005 after picking up the slack for the injured JKidd at the beginning of 2005).
The common denomiator is Lawrence Frank.
This is not just statistical. If you watch all the games, like I do, it's easy to see the patterns. The announcers see all the games as well, and altho they are trained and compensated not to call out players and coaches, you could hear the mystification about why certain players are sitting, why timeouts were not called, why the team should not have an identity deep into the season.
Players make mistakes. In the heat of the battle, physical mistakes are made. Occassionally mental mistakes are made. If mental mistakes are made with frequency the coach is very quick to sit the player. That's basketball.
Coaches make mistakes, but none of them are physical. They are all mental. Sure, sometimes you gotta roll the dice and things don't pan out. Sometimes you make errors in judgement and you deal with the consequences.
But when mental mistakes are made not just with frequency but in a predictable pattern, that coach needs to sit.
This coach needs to sit. He is not helping the team; he's hurting it. In the standings, in the locker room, in the handling of its talent, in its prospects. He is not learning from his mistakes. He is not helping his players learn, because he himself does not learn.
I know the realities - I've written about them at length. The owner does not care. The president cannot act on his own. The coach has 2 more years on his contract and the owner doesn't want to pay him for nothing. His grandiose development scheme, of which the team is just a pawn, is floundering, and he is in no mood for basketball, except to get them in that goddam arena in the hope that that might put things back over the top. The last thing he wants to do in that atmosphere is part with money and get nothing in return.
But having a hamstrung team be deconstructed and embarrassed in an empty building is not something. Losing $30 million a year (per the NYT) is getting less than nothing.
There is talent here. A starting five of Carter, RJ, Harris, Boone and a healthy Nenad, with Boki, Swift, Sean Williams and Marcus Williams in the wings is quite a good and deep team. With decent, not great, but decent, coaching, this is a 50 win team, especially in a weak East. That might fill the building more. That will get you to the playoffs. If nothing else, that will make the team much more attractive when you sell the team in 3 years, 2 if your project collapses.
That is, you eat $5 million but lose only $20 a year. That's a net (sic) savings of $5 million.
I don't get Sean Williams sitting. I don't get Trent Hassell playing. And I don't get Thorn thinking that Frank is a good coach. All I do get is that the owner doesn't give a Ratner's ass about basketball. He cares about real estate development.
So Bruce - look, man, your project is dangling by a thread. You're losing $30 mil a year. You can save conservatively $5 mil of that just by doing the right thing - lose the coach.
I don't want the Nets to lose, per se. I want them to lose the coach. Losing might give them a better draft status, but if Frank remains that talent will just be squandered, wasted. However, if losing meaningless games at the end of a mean season results in losing a losing coach and giving a talented team a better shot at winning, who wouldn't want that?
Game 80 - Seven
The Nets beat the even more pathetic and shorthanded Bucks tonight, 111-98. In a way, it's a pity - perhaps if the Nets had completely let go of the rope for the season, Thorn might be convinced to "go in another direction" with respect to the coach.
He continued his baffling exile of Sean Williams, a player who could really help out the team, in favor of Trent Hassell, a player who cannot and does not. SWill was the only non-phantom (Van Horn) non-injured (Boone) player not to get out on the court despite the obvious blow out last night in Toronto. He played exactly 1 minute in a game in Cleveland where his presence, energy and shot blocking might have made up for Frank's bonehead coaching. Last night he was again the only non-injured, non-phantom player not to play, even when Frank emptied the bench at the end. I think it's safe to say that one of those two will not be here next year. Regrettably, the Nets will probably keep Frank and flush Williams, one of the very, very few bright spots in this Franked up season.
Nonetheless, Frank gets props for the Rule of Seven - If your team has a double digit lead, and it gets cut to 7, call time out. Stop the bleeding. Stop the momentum. Set up a play. End their hope.
Imagine if he had done that vs Cleveland... Or over 20 other games in this travesty of a season...
After a close first half they had built up a 15 point lead with 10 to go in the 4th. But by 8:27 it was down to 89-80. Marcus (I'm the One Who Gets to Play) Williams took an ill-advised 3 pointer (which, btw, the Nets do a lot when they are losing leads - instead of slowing the game down and working it in, looking for a high percentage shot, they seem to want the heroic dagger, which nearly never comes - a mark of a poorly coached team), the Bucks get the rebound. I'm saying to the TV, Call timeout. Call timeout.... The Bucks score. Lead down to 7 with just under 8 to play. Call timeout. Call timeout!
Devin Harris brings the ball up. Call timeout! CALL TIMEOUT!
Then what to my wondering eyes does appear but a TIMEOUT on the court of the tiny reindeer!
Good. That's the right thing to do.
And it was the right thing to do. The Nets set up a play. Get RJ an open rhythm jumper. 9 point lead, momentum broken. Back and forth a little 7-9, 7-10, 7-8, but before you know it 3 minutes have been burned off the clock. When the Nets go up by 13 at the 5 minute mark, everyone knows that this game is over.
It wasn't that the Bucks had run out of gas trying to catch up, as the coach's excuse goes - it's just that Frank didn't give them the gasoline can as he has so frequently this season. His team had amassed a good sized lead fairly late in the game and then started to struggle. Okay, so PRESERVE AS MUCH OF IT AS YOU CAN without calling an unnecessary time out. The best last place to do that is the 7 point mark. (Nine is better, but seven is the limit.)
This is not a secret or a big discovery on my part. Most coaches have a feel for this. That's why you don't notice them coaching.
You notice brain boy coaching because of his incredible tone deafness to this obvious fact as he clutches his timeouts for that magical last minute so he can demoralize his team even more. (How many games did we see this year when he did just that? 30? See below!)
But tonite he calls a timeout immediately when the lead shrinks to 7 and winds up winning a laugher. On the road.
He could have won 10 more games like this this year, very conservatively. A 10 victory swing and the Nets are 43-37 and the 4 seed in the East. Very conservatively. If he won half of those games where his stunningly stupid coaching did not come into play they are 48-32, with two shots at winning 50. That's how much Frank has cost this team this year.
He is responsible for at least 10-15 losses with poor in game coaching. He -not a disaffected Kidd (and exactly why was he disaffected?), nor an injured Carter, nor a disappearing Jefferson, nor a major trade - is the reason the Nets will finish with their worst record since 2001. He is.
He came in with a 14 game winning streak. After that his record is 176-176. And that's with The Big Three. And that's with a 49 win season, ie, a +16 win season in the middle.
The Nets have a talented roster, with potentially a deep bench, minus Hassell and plus Sean Williams. Even without Kidd this is at least a 47-55 win team. They are 25th in the league in offense, 23rd in defense.
He should be gone after this season. He brings nothing.
Rod Thorn knows that. The question is, does Bruce Ratner know?
And does he even care?
He continued his baffling exile of Sean Williams, a player who could really help out the team, in favor of Trent Hassell, a player who cannot and does not. SWill was the only non-phantom (Van Horn) non-injured (Boone) player not to get out on the court despite the obvious blow out last night in Toronto. He played exactly 1 minute in a game in Cleveland where his presence, energy and shot blocking might have made up for Frank's bonehead coaching. Last night he was again the only non-injured, non-phantom player not to play, even when Frank emptied the bench at the end. I think it's safe to say that one of those two will not be here next year. Regrettably, the Nets will probably keep Frank and flush Williams, one of the very, very few bright spots in this Franked up season.
Nonetheless, Frank gets props for the Rule of Seven - If your team has a double digit lead, and it gets cut to 7, call time out. Stop the bleeding. Stop the momentum. Set up a play. End their hope.
Imagine if he had done that vs Cleveland... Or over 20 other games in this travesty of a season...
After a close first half they had built up a 15 point lead with 10 to go in the 4th. But by 8:27 it was down to 89-80. Marcus (I'm the One Who Gets to Play) Williams took an ill-advised 3 pointer (which, btw, the Nets do a lot when they are losing leads - instead of slowing the game down and working it in, looking for a high percentage shot, they seem to want the heroic dagger, which nearly never comes - a mark of a poorly coached team), the Bucks get the rebound. I'm saying to the TV, Call timeout. Call timeout.... The Bucks score. Lead down to 7 with just under 8 to play. Call timeout. Call timeout!
Devin Harris brings the ball up. Call timeout! CALL TIMEOUT!
Then what to my wondering eyes does appear but a TIMEOUT on the court of the tiny reindeer!
Good. That's the right thing to do.
And it was the right thing to do. The Nets set up a play. Get RJ an open rhythm jumper. 9 point lead, momentum broken. Back and forth a little 7-9, 7-10, 7-8, but before you know it 3 minutes have been burned off the clock. When the Nets go up by 13 at the 5 minute mark, everyone knows that this game is over.
It wasn't that the Bucks had run out of gas trying to catch up, as the coach's excuse goes - it's just that Frank didn't give them the gasoline can as he has so frequently this season. His team had amassed a good sized lead fairly late in the game and then started to struggle. Okay, so PRESERVE AS MUCH OF IT AS YOU CAN without calling an unnecessary time out. The best last place to do that is the 7 point mark. (Nine is better, but seven is the limit.)
This is not a secret or a big discovery on my part. Most coaches have a feel for this. That's why you don't notice them coaching.
You notice brain boy coaching because of his incredible tone deafness to this obvious fact as he clutches his timeouts for that magical last minute so he can demoralize his team even more. (How many games did we see this year when he did just that? 30? See below!)
But tonite he calls a timeout immediately when the lead shrinks to 7 and winds up winning a laugher. On the road.
He could have won 10 more games like this this year, very conservatively. A 10 victory swing and the Nets are 43-37 and the 4 seed in the East. Very conservatively. If he won half of those games where his stunningly stupid coaching did not come into play they are 48-32, with two shots at winning 50. That's how much Frank has cost this team this year.
He is responsible for at least 10-15 losses with poor in game coaching. He -not a disaffected Kidd (and exactly why was he disaffected?), nor an injured Carter, nor a disappearing Jefferson, nor a major trade - is the reason the Nets will finish with their worst record since 2001. He is.
He came in with a 14 game winning streak. After that his record is 176-176. And that's with The Big Three. And that's with a 49 win season, ie, a +16 win season in the middle.
The Nets have a talented roster, with potentially a deep bench, minus Hassell and plus Sean Williams. Even without Kidd this is at least a 47-55 win team. They are 25th in the league in offense, 23rd in defense.
He should be gone after this season. He brings nothing.
Rod Thorn knows that. The question is, does Bruce Ratner know?
And does he even care?
Game 79 - Goodbye Postseason
In 2002 the Nets had visited the postseason only briefly a few times before. Their longest NBA postseason run had been 5 seasons in a row, back in the "glory" years of the early 80s, when they lost in the first round every time except 84, when they bowed out in the second. (They did make the postseason 7 times in a row in the ABA, winning it twice.)
Their last post season run had been 92-94, when they lost in the first round all 3 times (Cleveland twice and the Knicks). Their last post season appearance had been in 98 against the Bulls, with the predictable and by now traditional first round exit.
In comes Kidd into a group of demoralized, injury prone but very talented young players and BOOM (thanks John Madden) - two Finals appearances in a row, one which they could well have won, four in a row after that, during which they made it past the first round twice.
This will go down as the first Golden Era of the Nets. The Jason Kidd Era.
Kidd is gone. So are the Nets.
Before he came the Nets were an embarrassment. As if to verify and drive home that point, the Nets were an embarrassment tonite.
Tonite, after amassing an 11 point lead in the 2nd, just let go of the rope, as the selfsame Jkidd opined earlier in the season.
That made it official - no postseason for the Nets.
Despite an incredibly weak East, despite the fact that .500 (like last year) would give you the
7 seed and 2 over (like 2005) would give you the 6, this team had underperformed and been miscoached so badly that even that was not possible. Atlanta will make the playoffs with under 40 wins. The Nets could not even manage 40. With this roster, JKidd notwithstanding.
Despite just being cannon fodder for the carpetbagger Celtics, even that modest goal could not be reached.
A fitting end to a bad season.
Their last post season run had been 92-94, when they lost in the first round all 3 times (Cleveland twice and the Knicks). Their last post season appearance had been in 98 against the Bulls, with the predictable and by now traditional first round exit.
In comes Kidd into a group of demoralized, injury prone but very talented young players and BOOM (thanks John Madden) - two Finals appearances in a row, one which they could well have won, four in a row after that, during which they made it past the first round twice.
This will go down as the first Golden Era of the Nets. The Jason Kidd Era.
Kidd is gone. So are the Nets.
Before he came the Nets were an embarrassment. As if to verify and drive home that point, the Nets were an embarrassment tonite.
Tonite, after amassing an 11 point lead in the 2nd, just let go of the rope, as the selfsame Jkidd opined earlier in the season.
That made it official - no postseason for the Nets.
Despite an incredibly weak East, despite the fact that .500 (like last year) would give you the
7 seed and 2 over (like 2005) would give you the 6, this team had underperformed and been miscoached so badly that even that was not possible. Atlanta will make the playoffs with under 40 wins. The Nets could not even manage 40. With this roster, JKidd notwithstanding.
Despite just being cannon fodder for the carpetbagger Celtics, even that modest goal could not be reached.
A fitting end to a bad season.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Game 78 - This Jerk
The banner came on the screen - $299 Season Tickets. That's what I have. I was enjoying this game. The Cavs are a very flawed team with a very good player. Not great. Not yet. But very good.
The Nets have been playing well. Up by 4 at the half. Last 2 minutes is a wash. Fine. Middle of the third now and the Nets are up 14. I call the kids into the room.
Hey guys, have you had fun with us having season tix? Yeah! they both say in unison. Do you think I should get them for next year?
Only one of them has an objection - the older one says "it's a long commute...". I'm surprised that the younger one hasn't said "They stink!" the way he has been saying quite a bit lately. So should I guys? Yeah!
"But they need to get a new coach!" the younger one opines.
Granted, he reflects what I say, since he's 10....
Cavs begin to whittle away, but with 2 minutes left in the third, the nnets are up by 9. Nine. N-I-N-E.
With 49 seconds left in the qtr, the score is TIED. THEN AND ONLY THEN DOES BRAIN BOY CALL TIME OUT.
He does NOT know how to in game coach. A breeze turns into a rout. IN ONE MINUTE.
Right at the moment its six minutes into the quarter. SIX MINUTES. The Nets have scored exactly 3 points. THREE. And are now down by 8, a 24-5 run. 24-5!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND THIS JERK HAS NOT CALLED A TIME OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HEY ROD - THIS TEAM HAS NO HOPE WITH THIS JERK AS ITS COACH!!!!!!!!!!!
New graphic - Second chance points 11-11. It had been 11-3 Nets.
The Nets are now down 10 with 5:25 left to play. Time out. I don't know who called it but for the Nets it's WAY TOO LATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU CAN'T EXPECT A STRUGGLING TEAM TO MAKE UP A 10 POINT DEFICIT WITH 5:25 LEFT IN THE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He does EVERYTHING to undermine the confidence of this team. He does NOTHING to help it.
He is a complete in-game failure, a lost soul, a dufus, a jerk.
(Another graphic splashed across the screen - the Nets are shooting 8% in the 4th... Why do the Nets have timeouts left? Why aren't other players out there?? Nevermind, the Nets are down 14 now and just gave the Cavs their second straight old fashioned 3 point play. There's 3:40 left. God, jerk, aren't you tired of this? When are you gonna figure out it's YOU, not "we" - YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU.)
Another graphic - the Nets are shooting, right now, with less than 2 minutes to go, 1-15. ONE FOR FIFTEEN. Do you thing maybe their confidence is shot? They're now down by 17, as another graphic shows they've missed their last 17 shots.
AND FRANK CALLS TIMEOUT! CAN YOU EFFING BELIEVE IT??????
WHAT GAME IS THIS BUFFOON WATCHING???????????????????
Final - 104-83, a 21 point loss. It was once 67-53. Since that point they were outscored 51-16. FIFTY FREAKING ONE TO SIXTEEN.
There is no way, NO EFFING WAY, this dunce of a supposed coach should be allowed even to finish the season.
FIRE HIM NOW!
The Nets have been playing well. Up by 4 at the half. Last 2 minutes is a wash. Fine. Middle of the third now and the Nets are up 14. I call the kids into the room.
Hey guys, have you had fun with us having season tix? Yeah! they both say in unison. Do you think I should get them for next year?
Only one of them has an objection - the older one says "it's a long commute...". I'm surprised that the younger one hasn't said "They stink!" the way he has been saying quite a bit lately. So should I guys? Yeah!
"But they need to get a new coach!" the younger one opines.
Granted, he reflects what I say, since he's 10....
Cavs begin to whittle away, but with 2 minutes left in the third, the nnets are up by 9. Nine. N-I-N-E.
With 49 seconds left in the qtr, the score is TIED. THEN AND ONLY THEN DOES BRAIN BOY CALL TIME OUT.
He does NOT know how to in game coach. A breeze turns into a rout. IN ONE MINUTE.
Right at the moment its six minutes into the quarter. SIX MINUTES. The Nets have scored exactly 3 points. THREE. And are now down by 8, a 24-5 run. 24-5!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND THIS JERK HAS NOT CALLED A TIME OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HEY ROD - THIS TEAM HAS NO HOPE WITH THIS JERK AS ITS COACH!!!!!!!!!!!
New graphic - Second chance points 11-11. It had been 11-3 Nets.
The Nets are now down 10 with 5:25 left to play. Time out. I don't know who called it but for the Nets it's WAY TOO LATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU CAN'T EXPECT A STRUGGLING TEAM TO MAKE UP A 10 POINT DEFICIT WITH 5:25 LEFT IN THE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He does EVERYTHING to undermine the confidence of this team. He does NOTHING to help it.
He is a complete in-game failure, a lost soul, a dufus, a jerk.
(Another graphic splashed across the screen - the Nets are shooting 8% in the 4th... Why do the Nets have timeouts left? Why aren't other players out there?? Nevermind, the Nets are down 14 now and just gave the Cavs their second straight old fashioned 3 point play. There's 3:40 left. God, jerk, aren't you tired of this? When are you gonna figure out it's YOU, not "we" - YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU.)
Another graphic - the Nets are shooting, right now, with less than 2 minutes to go, 1-15. ONE FOR FIFTEEN. Do you thing maybe their confidence is shot? They're now down by 17, as another graphic shows they've missed their last 17 shots.
AND FRANK CALLS TIMEOUT! CAN YOU EFFING BELIEVE IT??????
WHAT GAME IS THIS BUFFOON WATCHING???????????????????
Final - 104-83, a 21 point loss. It was once 67-53. Since that point they were outscored 51-16. FIFTY FREAKING ONE TO SIXTEEN.
There is no way, NO EFFING WAY, this dunce of a supposed coach should be allowed even to finish the season.
FIRE HIM NOW!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Game 77 - A surprising win
So I went. Next to last home game. Last one isn't for 10 days. I was tired. But I had the tickets and decided to go. My youngest son would rather go to a birthday party that wasn't going to be fun than watch the Nets lose again. My wife stayed home with him. My other son Jeff went with me.
Before I left I decided to try and find positive things and focus on them. I was gonna write that in this blog before I went so that it was documented. But when I tried to envision what could possibly be positive, I lost momentum.
The Nets started the game well, which is always a treat, but usually the light before the storm. And sure enough, after having built up an 8 point lead, they started to falter. Then Frank did something unaccountable - he made reasonable coaching decisions. Like calling time out.
And he did it not once, not twice but 3 times. In the first half. Each time the team responded and stopped the bleeding. That's why you do that - to stop the other team's momentum and refocus your team to start some of your own. When he coaches like that, against a team fighting for playoff positioning without sitting anyone, you can actually envision some hope.
But I have no confidence that he is changing his ways.
On the other hand, Al Iannazone hinted that if the Nets finish poorly, he could be gone, despite what Rod Thorn has said. So in a way I wanted them to collapse.
I don't believe the Nets have a future with this guy as coach. But if he would just in-game coach like tonite, you could imagine the talent on this team coming out.
He did play Hassell unaccountably long, and at weird moments. He did sit Sean Williams too long as well. But eventually he put in Sean and left him in even as SWill picked up two quick fouls.
The Nets let it get close and actually fell behind by a point in the third, closing it with a 2 point lead. Then they took off at the beginning of the fourth, and before you knew it they had an 11 point lead with 5 minutes to go.
A well coached team would have made it a laugher, but as it was it got a little dicey, letting Toto get to 8 down. Some sloppy back and forth coupled with a great block by Williams and a great charge take by Trent Hassell from Bosh allowed the Nets to maintain a 9 point margin at the buzzer.
Wouldn't it be a blast if the Nets could play well for the rest of the season, 5 nice efforts? It might take the sting out of a really abysmal and bitterly disappointing season...
We'll see...
Before I left I decided to try and find positive things and focus on them. I was gonna write that in this blog before I went so that it was documented. But when I tried to envision what could possibly be positive, I lost momentum.
The Nets started the game well, which is always a treat, but usually the light before the storm. And sure enough, after having built up an 8 point lead, they started to falter. Then Frank did something unaccountable - he made reasonable coaching decisions. Like calling time out.
And he did it not once, not twice but 3 times. In the first half. Each time the team responded and stopped the bleeding. That's why you do that - to stop the other team's momentum and refocus your team to start some of your own. When he coaches like that, against a team fighting for playoff positioning without sitting anyone, you can actually envision some hope.
But I have no confidence that he is changing his ways.
On the other hand, Al Iannazone hinted that if the Nets finish poorly, he could be gone, despite what Rod Thorn has said. So in a way I wanted them to collapse.
I don't believe the Nets have a future with this guy as coach. But if he would just in-game coach like tonite, you could imagine the talent on this team coming out.
He did play Hassell unaccountably long, and at weird moments. He did sit Sean Williams too long as well. But eventually he put in Sean and left him in even as SWill picked up two quick fouls.
The Nets let it get close and actually fell behind by a point in the third, closing it with a 2 point lead. Then they took off at the beginning of the fourth, and before you knew it they had an 11 point lead with 5 minutes to go.
A well coached team would have made it a laugher, but as it was it got a little dicey, letting Toto get to 8 down. Some sloppy back and forth coupled with a great block by Williams and a great charge take by Trent Hassell from Bosh allowed the Nets to maintain a 9 point margin at the buzzer.
Wouldn't it be a blast if the Nets could play well for the rest of the season, 5 nice efforts? It might take the sting out of a really abysmal and bitterly disappointing season...
We'll see...
Game 76 - Mail call!
VC sat out. They played in Detroit.
They mailed it in. Down 16-6 just 7 minutes in, and they were done.
And they are done.
They mailed it in. Down 16-6 just 7 minutes in, and they were done.
And they are done.
Game 75 - Another Loss
I had donate these tickets to a charity silent auction back in February, when JKidd was still on the team. At the time the 76ers were struggling near the bottom of the standings. I expected the Nets to rally after the All-Star break and make the playoffs, and I saw this game as being an easy and uninteresting win for them.
Didn't quite work out that way. Kidd was gone in a couple of days. The Nets tanked on the Texas Swing. The 76ers realized that it was indeed Iverson who had been holding them back all those years and were among the hottest teams in the NBA. The Sixers are now the FIVE seed in the East, two games over .500. I didn't even think the Nets could make it over .500 back then!
So now the Nets have accepted their role as a lousy team. They were tied at the half and only down 5, altho they ended the quarter on a patented 4-7 run by the Sixers to put them in that hole. They got it to 93-91 with 4:15 to go, when Philly did a remarkable, un-Frank-like thing - they called timeout.
From that point, the 76ers cruised, immediately burying a 3 and finishing 15-8.
Now End The Season.
Didn't quite work out that way. Kidd was gone in a couple of days. The Nets tanked on the Texas Swing. The 76ers realized that it was indeed Iverson who had been holding them back all those years and were among the hottest teams in the NBA. The Sixers are now the FIVE seed in the East, two games over .500. I didn't even think the Nets could make it over .500 back then!
So now the Nets have accepted their role as a lousy team. They were tied at the half and only down 5, altho they ended the quarter on a patented 4-7 run by the Sixers to put them in that hole. They got it to 93-91 with 4:15 to go, when Philly did a remarkable, un-Frank-like thing - they called timeout.
From that point, the 76ers cruised, immediately burying a 3 and finishing 15-8.
Now End The Season.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Musing About the Future, Part II
Thus spake Thorn:
"I don't have any thoughts or ideas of replacing him at all," Thorn said yesterday. "He's done a good job for us, and I'm sure he'll continue to do so in the future."
Okay, Rod. So, they vastly underperform, with our without Jason Kidd. So they don't make the playoffs for the first time in 7 years, even when 10 games under .500 in the East will guarantee you a playoff spot. So they have a losing record for the first time in 7 years.
Yeah, keep the coach, that's the ticket...
So, what if the Nets are 12-20 in December for the 3rd time in 4 years?
Aah, we knew this. We've said it in this very blog a couple of times. Ratner doesn't want a new coach. Even if he did, who'd take this lame duck job?
What changes can be made? Trade RJ? Dump Sean Williams so some other team can reap his considerable upside? Force Boone to shoot 500 foul shots a day in the off season? Dangle Marcus Williams to get a shooter?
Anything that happens, the Nets will be a young team looking for guidance. Can Frank provide it?
I don't see any hope if he remains coach, and according to Rod Thorn, he will remain coach.
His contract is up in 2 years, ie, at the end of the 2009-2010 season. That's supposed to be the last season in NJ.
Ratner is saying the bad economy means an indefinite delay in the Atlantic Yards project, except that is for the arena.
This is a team set adrift...
"I don't have any thoughts or ideas of replacing him at all," Thorn said yesterday. "He's done a good job for us, and I'm sure he'll continue to do so in the future."
So Frank stays, and with two years left on his contract, he gets another shot at turning the team around.
Yes, even if they don't make the playoffs.
"I don't see anything that can transpire that would change my mind," Thorn said. "I got a call from a writer the other day who said he's writing a column that the coach should be fired. So I know it's out there in the media, and from fan e-mails. But that's not going to influence me one way or the other. I know the job Lawrence does for us."
Okay, Rod. So, they vastly underperform, with our without Jason Kidd. So they don't make the playoffs for the first time in 7 years, even when 10 games under .500 in the East will guarantee you a playoff spot. So they have a losing record for the first time in 7 years.
Yeah, keep the coach, that's the ticket...
So, what if the Nets are 12-20 in December for the 3rd time in 4 years?
Aah, we knew this. We've said it in this very blog a couple of times. Ratner doesn't want a new coach. Even if he did, who'd take this lame duck job?
What changes can be made? Trade RJ? Dump Sean Williams so some other team can reap his considerable upside? Force Boone to shoot 500 foul shots a day in the off season? Dangle Marcus Williams to get a shooter?
Anything that happens, the Nets will be a young team looking for guidance. Can Frank provide it?
I don't see any hope if he remains coach, and according to Rod Thorn, he will remain coach.
His contract is up in 2 years, ie, at the end of the 2009-2010 season. That's supposed to be the last season in NJ.
Ratner is saying the bad economy means an indefinite delay in the Atlantic Yards project, except that is for the arena.
This is a team set adrift...
Game 73 - Ho hum.
As expected, a road loss.
Followed the script. Started falling apart in the 4th. Frank won't call time out. Game got away.
They lost.
Ho hum.
Followed the script. Started falling apart in the 4th. Frank won't call time out. Game got away.
They lost.
Ho hum.
Game 74 - Don't know what to say...
Candidates:
1. Season in a nutshell. Coulda won, but made too many mistakes: missing 5 of 7 free throws in the last 2 minutes, shooting 3s on fast breaks when those possessions could have brought them within 2. And how many times are we gonna see 4 Nets standing around flat footed while THE ONE opponent gets the rebound?
2. Fire Frank. He waited too long to call time out in the beginning of the third. Weird subs.
3. Losing teams never get calls vs winning teams.
By losing, the Nets not only do mortal harm to their playoff "hopes", they ensure the first losing season since 2001.
They played well, but not well enough, or smart enough to contend.
The Nets have eliminated themselves. They have their excuses - RJ says JKidd checked out in training camp. Rod Thorn thinks it was all about the JKidd turmoil. Frank says it's all the new players joining a team seeking its "identity".
If this loss happened in December, we'd say, okay, not bad. Even now, even with all the disappointment, we still say, okay, not bad.
Our expectations have been lowered. No one wants to make the playoffs anymore. No one wants to win. Avoiding embarrassing losses are the highest virtue. That and glimpses of what the team might be next year.
What can one say?
1. Season in a nutshell. Coulda won, but made too many mistakes: missing 5 of 7 free throws in the last 2 minutes, shooting 3s on fast breaks when those possessions could have brought them within 2. And how many times are we gonna see 4 Nets standing around flat footed while THE ONE opponent gets the rebound?
2. Fire Frank. He waited too long to call time out in the beginning of the third. Weird subs.
3. Losing teams never get calls vs winning teams.
By losing, the Nets not only do mortal harm to their playoff "hopes", they ensure the first losing season since 2001.
They played well, but not well enough, or smart enough to contend.
The Nets have eliminated themselves. They have their excuses - RJ says JKidd checked out in training camp. Rod Thorn thinks it was all about the JKidd turmoil. Frank says it's all the new players joining a team seeking its "identity".
If this loss happened in December, we'd say, okay, not bad. Even now, even with all the disappointment, we still say, okay, not bad.
Our expectations have been lowered. No one wants to make the playoffs anymore. No one wants to win. Avoiding embarrassing losses are the highest virtue. That and glimpses of what the team might be next year.
What can one say?
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Game 71 - Oops! Forgot!
The Nets dominate the embarrassing Knicks. It wasn't close. This is the way the Nets should have handled the Knicks all season. If they had won 2 of the 3 they lost to them...
Oh well. Atlanta was idle. The Nets pick up half a game.
How's THIS for a short blog entry, Steve?
Oh well. Atlanta was idle. The Nets pick up half a game.
How's THIS for a short blog entry, Steve?
Game 72 - A Win...
I turn on the TV (didn't go tonite) and RJ sinks two free throws to make it 68-52 with 1:45 left in the half. 68 for a half is their season high, made just recently. There's 1:45 to go in the half...
Marv and Jim patter about the bulge. Spanarkel opines that if Indiana can get to to within 10 by the end of the half it'll be a lift for them. Marv observes, well they have a 14 point lead....
Score at the half - 68-60.
Number of timeouts called by Frank during that run - 0.
Wait! It gets better.
To open the third the Nets get the ball. No matter. Indiana scored the first 6 points of the half to cut the lead to 2, 68-66. With just under 5 minutes to go in the quarter, it's all tied. To be fair, the Genius calls a timeout at the 8 minute mark. Of course, the Pacers are down only one at that time...
Here's the kicker - the Nets are shooting 54%! And it's tied!
I've never seen a coach do less with more. I can't stand to look at him. Even if they make the playoffs he should be fired. He's that bad.
And it ruins my enjoyment of the game. I watch in dread as they commit stupid fouls, giving Dunleavy, of all people, a 4 point play. A 4 point play!
Then with about 4 1/2 minutes left, Indiana, intelligently, starts the hack-a-Boone strategy. Boone misses both. Hack again. 1 for 2. Hack again. 1 for 2 again!
God, boob! Substitute him out! Any fool rec coach knows that! Put in Sean Williams. Put Diop back in. IT ELIMINATES THE PACERS STRATEGY, YOU BLITHERING JERK!
Luckily, and I do mean luckily, Indiana can't buy a shot, and with 2 minutes left, Frank can determine who shoots if Boone is hacked again.
No harm, but still foul coaching.
I give a lot of credit to VC - 14 rebounds, but the best part was watching him do what no other Net does - BOX OUT. It was a pleasure to watch him exert his will on the game.
I also like the fact that 4 guys scored 20 or more, with Boki contributing 18. Good balance. Like to see that.
On the other hand (another hammer of the coach), why didn't Sean Williams play? Where was Swift? And why did Hassell get minutes? 1-2 with 2 rebounds and 2 points in 15 minutes is not exactly what I would call a quality outing... You mean to tell me that SWill or Swift couldn't do better? I just don't get this fool...
OK, they're 1/2 game behind Atlanta, which cruised and crushed the Bucks. Saturday the Nets play Phoenix, so, as Spanarkel just said on the post game, winning in Indiana is crucial.
I'm sorry. I just have no faith in Frank's ability to get the team up and focussed, and we all know he can't coach in the game.
This stinks.
And we freaking WON!
Marv and Jim patter about the bulge. Spanarkel opines that if Indiana can get to to within 10 by the end of the half it'll be a lift for them. Marv observes, well they have a 14 point lead....
Score at the half - 68-60.
Number of timeouts called by Frank during that run - 0.
Wait! It gets better.
To open the third the Nets get the ball. No matter. Indiana scored the first 6 points of the half to cut the lead to 2, 68-66. With just under 5 minutes to go in the quarter, it's all tied. To be fair, the Genius calls a timeout at the 8 minute mark. Of course, the Pacers are down only one at that time...
Here's the kicker - the Nets are shooting 54%! And it's tied!
I've never seen a coach do less with more. I can't stand to look at him. Even if they make the playoffs he should be fired. He's that bad.
And it ruins my enjoyment of the game. I watch in dread as they commit stupid fouls, giving Dunleavy, of all people, a 4 point play. A 4 point play!
Then with about 4 1/2 minutes left, Indiana, intelligently, starts the hack-a-Boone strategy. Boone misses both. Hack again. 1 for 2. Hack again. 1 for 2 again!
God, boob! Substitute him out! Any fool rec coach knows that! Put in Sean Williams. Put Diop back in. IT ELIMINATES THE PACERS STRATEGY, YOU BLITHERING JERK!
Luckily, and I do mean luckily, Indiana can't buy a shot, and with 2 minutes left, Frank can determine who shoots if Boone is hacked again.
No harm, but still foul coaching.
I give a lot of credit to VC - 14 rebounds, but the best part was watching him do what no other Net does - BOX OUT. It was a pleasure to watch him exert his will on the game.
I also like the fact that 4 guys scored 20 or more, with Boki contributing 18. Good balance. Like to see that.
On the other hand (another hammer of the coach), why didn't Sean Williams play? Where was Swift? And why did Hassell get minutes? 1-2 with 2 rebounds and 2 points in 15 minutes is not exactly what I would call a quality outing... You mean to tell me that SWill or Swift couldn't do better? I just don't get this fool...
OK, they're 1/2 game behind Atlanta, which cruised and crushed the Bucks. Saturday the Nets play Phoenix, so, as Spanarkel just said on the post game, winning in Indiana is crucial.
I'm sorry. I just have no faith in Frank's ability to get the team up and focussed, and we all know he can't coach in the game.
This stinks.
And we freaking WON!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Musing About the Future, Part I
The Nets are not going to the playoffs, of this I am thoroughly convinced. Thus, on a night when I am not particularly angry about their most recent loss, I thought it would be constructive to begin speculating about the future of the team...
1. Forget draft position. Since they won't make the playoffs they will be a lottery team. But what do they need?
At every position they have either youth with rough talent or stardom. 1 is Devin Harris and Marcus Williams. There is not a 1 out there of NBA calliber sufficient to leapfrog ahead of both of them. 2 is VC, who is a star. They might get some strength there, but it is not apparent who that would be. 3 is RJ, a star, and Boki, as good as anything outside of Beasley, but why would you get Beasley just to sit him behind RJ? 4 is Boone and SWill, youth and talent, and I might add, intelligence. 5 is Krstic, who is coming back to form, if slowly (he had a creditable game last night), Stromile who is serviceable and Diop who is a question mark. Ager might surprise if given the chance. Hassell is expendable.
So what is really weak that any of the current crop of players can fix?
Whatever, whoever they get is not gonna turn a franchise around like a Magic or Duncan or Ewing or Olajuwon, LeBron or MJ or Bird. It would at best be more young talent.
With Kidd gone, RJ and VC are the leaders, and likely to be the only leaders, as Armstrong is almost definitely gone. Any trade of those two stars would just make the Nets even less able to mold their suddenly youthful roster. There are not blockbuster trades in the offing involving those two.
Even if the Nets get #1, don't expect much to come from it.
2. Fire the coach. Right at this moment, Frank is 186-170 with the Nets (which is to say all time). If they do indeed go 2-10 to finish the season, or even 5-7, aside from the 14 game winning streak he got as his honeymoon in 2004, he would be dead even. And that includes the 49-33 season of 2006. His last two seasons would put him somewhere between 15 and 20 games under .500.
He is not great at molding or inspiring talent, and aside from RJ and VC, this team will be nothing but young talent next year. Frank is not a great in-game coach, and does not show signs of great preparation either. Read this blog for a litany of his foibles. I'm tired repeating them.
Young players today respond to those coaches who played - the Mo Cheeks of the world. The Eddie Jordans of the world. The experienced teams like guys like Popovich, guys who have deep benches and know how to handle them. The Nets, however, are not going to be an experienced team next year.
More than Jason Kidd's supposed bad attitude, Frank has run this team out of contention and into the ground. A month into the post-Kidd world and it is clear that JKidd's "checking out" was not the source of the Nets' woes.
So Frank must go.
The problems, then, are twofold:
- Who'd wanna come an replace him in limbo?
- Would the apathetic owner expend the effort needed to find, woo and hire a new coach at this juncture?
3. The owner. My wife used to be a big Knick fan. The Dolans made sure that that ain't gonna happen any more.
I used to feel for Knick fans - bad coaching, bad player personnel decisions, but no change possible because the owners were that clueless.
Now, however, I feel almost as bad for myself. At this point, we still have Rod Thorn, thanks be to god! Were he to leave, all bets would be off.
I firmly believe the Nets have as much or better young talent than any team in the league. All they need is a decent in-game coach. At least, that's all they DID need. Now they need a good in-game coach who knows how to teach and motivate and integrate young players.
Problem is, Frank still has a year on his contract. No one is gonna pick him up, so there is no motivation to re-up him this summer to avoid him being a lame duck. Until very recently, I didn't see Ratner parting with the $1 million or less that he would have to eat to fire Frank.
But with the recent admission by Ratner that the larger Atlantic Yards project having to be postponed due to economic conditions, but still keeping to the plan to build the arena "on schedule" (ie, meaning just one year late), he should be more motivated than ever to keep the Nets as cogent and competitive a team as possible.
If he truly (and who really knows?) thinks that building the arena and moving the Nets is the best way to keep his wet dream alive, then it will become crystal clear that he needs to keep the Nets a happening thing - return them to being a perennial playoff contender. And Rod Thorn has already made sure that there is a nucleus of young talent to make that happen. All that would be needed is a better coach.
The idea of that coach bring his playoff team into a sparkling new arena as a conquering hero would be a tasty morsel to drop on the lap of someone. He could turn it into a selling point.
Assuming, of course, that he is serious about keeping to his plan to build the arena...
If not, if he sees that even with the arena already in situ, his larger project is doomed or delayed beyond all reckoning, he will sell the team. Post haste.
Imagine the potential wreckage from that!
Even if Ratner did decide to fire Frank and get the next guy, whom indeed would he get?
One could envisage Larry Brown being the conquering hero coming back to NY, this time with a decent roster and a great GM. But two years in limbo is a lot to ask of a Larry Brown.
Brian Hill could take over. Enh. He's actually coached in the finals. Of course, he had Shaq. Without Shaq he has not done very well. Especially in developing young talent.
What about a Mike O'Koren, or some other ex-Net, willing to take a chance on romance? Or (gulp) Mark Jackson..?
Whoever it might be, they would be consigned to 2 years in purgatory, with no guarantees that they would ever get out. The arena could be further delayed. Ratner might decide to cut losses and sell the team. The new ownership might be wooed by the NJSEA to stay in the swamp. It could be a mess for a decade to come.
Bad basketball and back to being the East Coast Joke (along with the West Coast Joke Clippers) of the NBA...
Without Ratner punting and selling the team, without him giving up the ghost of Atlantic Yards, Lawrence Frank is safe, simply by default.
And we can look forward to two or more years of bad basketball...
1. Forget draft position. Since they won't make the playoffs they will be a lottery team. But what do they need?
At every position they have either youth with rough talent or stardom. 1 is Devin Harris and Marcus Williams. There is not a 1 out there of NBA calliber sufficient to leapfrog ahead of both of them. 2 is VC, who is a star. They might get some strength there, but it is not apparent who that would be. 3 is RJ, a star, and Boki, as good as anything outside of Beasley, but why would you get Beasley just to sit him behind RJ? 4 is Boone and SWill, youth and talent, and I might add, intelligence. 5 is Krstic, who is coming back to form, if slowly (he had a creditable game last night), Stromile who is serviceable and Diop who is a question mark. Ager might surprise if given the chance. Hassell is expendable.
So what is really weak that any of the current crop of players can fix?
Whatever, whoever they get is not gonna turn a franchise around like a Magic or Duncan or Ewing or Olajuwon, LeBron or MJ or Bird. It would at best be more young talent.
With Kidd gone, RJ and VC are the leaders, and likely to be the only leaders, as Armstrong is almost definitely gone. Any trade of those two stars would just make the Nets even less able to mold their suddenly youthful roster. There are not blockbuster trades in the offing involving those two.
Even if the Nets get #1, don't expect much to come from it.
2. Fire the coach. Right at this moment, Frank is 186-170 with the Nets (which is to say all time). If they do indeed go 2-10 to finish the season, or even 5-7, aside from the 14 game winning streak he got as his honeymoon in 2004, he would be dead even. And that includes the 49-33 season of 2006. His last two seasons would put him somewhere between 15 and 20 games under .500.
He is not great at molding or inspiring talent, and aside from RJ and VC, this team will be nothing but young talent next year. Frank is not a great in-game coach, and does not show signs of great preparation either. Read this blog for a litany of his foibles. I'm tired repeating them.
Young players today respond to those coaches who played - the Mo Cheeks of the world. The Eddie Jordans of the world. The experienced teams like guys like Popovich, guys who have deep benches and know how to handle them. The Nets, however, are not going to be an experienced team next year.
More than Jason Kidd's supposed bad attitude, Frank has run this team out of contention and into the ground. A month into the post-Kidd world and it is clear that JKidd's "checking out" was not the source of the Nets' woes.
So Frank must go.
The problems, then, are twofold:
- Who'd wanna come an replace him in limbo?
- Would the apathetic owner expend the effort needed to find, woo and hire a new coach at this juncture?
3. The owner. My wife used to be a big Knick fan. The Dolans made sure that that ain't gonna happen any more.
I used to feel for Knick fans - bad coaching, bad player personnel decisions, but no change possible because the owners were that clueless.
Now, however, I feel almost as bad for myself. At this point, we still have Rod Thorn, thanks be to god! Were he to leave, all bets would be off.
I firmly believe the Nets have as much or better young talent than any team in the league. All they need is a decent in-game coach. At least, that's all they DID need. Now they need a good in-game coach who knows how to teach and motivate and integrate young players.
Problem is, Frank still has a year on his contract. No one is gonna pick him up, so there is no motivation to re-up him this summer to avoid him being a lame duck. Until very recently, I didn't see Ratner parting with the $1 million or less that he would have to eat to fire Frank.
But with the recent admission by Ratner that the larger Atlantic Yards project having to be postponed due to economic conditions, but still keeping to the plan to build the arena "on schedule" (ie, meaning just one year late), he should be more motivated than ever to keep the Nets as cogent and competitive a team as possible.
If he truly (and who really knows?) thinks that building the arena and moving the Nets is the best way to keep his wet dream alive, then it will become crystal clear that he needs to keep the Nets a happening thing - return them to being a perennial playoff contender. And Rod Thorn has already made sure that there is a nucleus of young talent to make that happen. All that would be needed is a better coach.
The idea of that coach bring his playoff team into a sparkling new arena as a conquering hero would be a tasty morsel to drop on the lap of someone. He could turn it into a selling point.
Assuming, of course, that he is serious about keeping to his plan to build the arena...
If not, if he sees that even with the arena already in situ, his larger project is doomed or delayed beyond all reckoning, he will sell the team. Post haste.
Imagine the potential wreckage from that!
Even if Ratner did decide to fire Frank and get the next guy, whom indeed would he get?
One could envisage Larry Brown being the conquering hero coming back to NY, this time with a decent roster and a great GM. But two years in limbo is a lot to ask of a Larry Brown.
Brian Hill could take over. Enh. He's actually coached in the finals. Of course, he had Shaq. Without Shaq he has not done very well. Especially in developing young talent.
What about a Mike O'Koren, or some other ex-Net, willing to take a chance on romance? Or (gulp) Mark Jackson..?
Whoever it might be, they would be consigned to 2 years in purgatory, with no guarantees that they would ever get out. The arena could be further delayed. Ratner might decide to cut losses and sell the team. The new ownership might be wooed by the NJSEA to stay in the swamp. It could be a mess for a decade to come.
Bad basketball and back to being the East Coast Joke (along with the West Coast Joke Clippers) of the NBA...
Without Ratner punting and selling the team, without him giving up the ghost of Atlantic Yards, Lawrence Frank is safe, simply by default.
And we can look forward to two or more years of bad basketball...
Game 70 - A Loss, Just a Loss
I have seen almost every game this season. I suspect there is one, but tonite's game at Philadelphia is the only one that comes to mind as a regular loss. Nothing more.
The Nets lost tonite, not because of bad defense (they held the red hot Sixers to 91 points at home), not because they gave up (they came back from 10 down and took the lead going into the 4th), not because of dufus coaching (Frank was essentially invisible, which coaches should be if they are coaching well), not because of a hangover, or injury, or disgruntled players or what all. They shot 25% in the fourth, and lost the game.
And that's perfectly fine. They shot over 60% in the third to take the lead, then could not buy a shot in the fourth. They lost by a mere 4 points. They had their shot, but their shots didn't drop.
There were a lot of hard fouls that were not called, but unless you're the Spurs, the visiting team, especially a sub-mediocre team, is not gonna get calls in a close game. Devin Harris cost the Nets a point, which Kidd never would have done.
But that's not why they lost. They did not lose heart, they did not mail it in, they did not show signs of a team collapsing, as they did in Chicago. They did not look beat before they stepped onto the court, as they did on the Southwest swing. They lost because they could not buy a shot down the stretch.
And that's ok.
It happens. It happens to the best and worst teams. A truly bad team (like the 99 and 2001 Nets) has it happen a lot. Those teams barely averaged 40% for the season. This team is not bad. They just had a cold shooting night.
True, they dropped a game and a half behind Atlanta, a team they manhandled just two games ago, and into a tie with mighty Indiana, a true bottom feeder. But not because of last night.
Every team is gonna lose games. Every team is just gonna get beat - not clobbered or destroyed, just defeated - during the course of the season. The team usually that beats itself the least generally winds up on top.
The Nets are in bad playoff shape at this point because they are the leading team in the NBA at beating themselves. This blog has been a chronicle about all those malaises itemized above - bad coaching, bad defense, "letting go of the rope", disgruntled star, key injury (the six game skid in mid-November when Carter went down), mistake after mistake, mailing it in. The Nets lost the vast majority of their losses this year to one or another or combination of those reasons.
Perhaps as high as 40. But last night was a genuine L. No shame in that.
Their record, unfortuately, bears the shame of those other 40 losses. It is those 40 that puts them in their current disadvantageous position. Ironically, last night's loss, which put them now more than a schedule quirk behind the truly bad Hawks, might do more to hurt them psychologically than all those abysmal no-shows and Frank-ensteins.
The remaining schedule is unkind. They play 5 at home, 7 on the road. I don't expect to see another road win all season. Of their 5 home games, two are against Phoenix and Toronto, teams the Nets have shown they just can't beat. Another is against these self-same 76ers.
2-10. That would bring them to 31-51, worst record since... Well, you all know the end of that sentence....
At this point, the best we can reasonably hope for is losses like tonite. Just losses - not routs, embarrassments or mail-ins. Good, honest hard-fought losses.
The Nets lost tonite, not because of bad defense (they held the red hot Sixers to 91 points at home), not because they gave up (they came back from 10 down and took the lead going into the 4th), not because of dufus coaching (Frank was essentially invisible, which coaches should be if they are coaching well), not because of a hangover, or injury, or disgruntled players or what all. They shot 25% in the fourth, and lost the game.
And that's perfectly fine. They shot over 60% in the third to take the lead, then could not buy a shot in the fourth. They lost by a mere 4 points. They had their shot, but their shots didn't drop.
There were a lot of hard fouls that were not called, but unless you're the Spurs, the visiting team, especially a sub-mediocre team, is not gonna get calls in a close game. Devin Harris cost the Nets a point, which Kidd never would have done.
But that's not why they lost. They did not lose heart, they did not mail it in, they did not show signs of a team collapsing, as they did in Chicago. They did not look beat before they stepped onto the court, as they did on the Southwest swing. They lost because they could not buy a shot down the stretch.
And that's ok.
It happens. It happens to the best and worst teams. A truly bad team (like the 99 and 2001 Nets) has it happen a lot. Those teams barely averaged 40% for the season. This team is not bad. They just had a cold shooting night.
True, they dropped a game and a half behind Atlanta, a team they manhandled just two games ago, and into a tie with mighty Indiana, a true bottom feeder. But not because of last night.
Every team is gonna lose games. Every team is just gonna get beat - not clobbered or destroyed, just defeated - during the course of the season. The team usually that beats itself the least generally winds up on top.
The Nets are in bad playoff shape at this point because they are the leading team in the NBA at beating themselves. This blog has been a chronicle about all those malaises itemized above - bad coaching, bad defense, "letting go of the rope", disgruntled star, key injury (the six game skid in mid-November when Carter went down), mistake after mistake, mailing it in. The Nets lost the vast majority of their losses this year to one or another or combination of those reasons.
Perhaps as high as 40. But last night was a genuine L. No shame in that.
Their record, unfortuately, bears the shame of those other 40 losses. It is those 40 that puts them in their current disadvantageous position. Ironically, last night's loss, which put them now more than a schedule quirk behind the truly bad Hawks, might do more to hurt them psychologically than all those abysmal no-shows and Frank-ensteins.
The remaining schedule is unkind. They play 5 at home, 7 on the road. I don't expect to see another road win all season. Of their 5 home games, two are against Phoenix and Toronto, teams the Nets have shown they just can't beat. Another is against these self-same 76ers.
2-10. That would bring them to 31-51, worst record since... Well, you all know the end of that sentence....
At this point, the best we can reasonably hope for is losses like tonite. Just losses - not routs, embarrassments or mail-ins. Good, honest hard-fought losses.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Game 69 - The "F" Bomb
Y'know, the NBA nowadays is run like the old Soviet Union, in this respect: You can't get the truth, you can only get the acceptable party line.
Here's a few of those studied myths that passes for "analysis" nowadays:
- "We spent so much energy catching up that we had nothing left in the tank"
- "Well, you gotta give him a blow at some time..."
The Nets were down 12 at the half. Vs Utah they were down 10. Vs Atlanta they were down 7. In the latter two games they came back, took the lead, and kept on going, winning easily. Last night they did not.
So, does party line 1 above make any sense? Didn't the Nets expend, ostensibly, just as much energy if not more coming back and winning those two games, rather handily?
And last night - what about Denver? Didn't they expend as much energy if not more building up an 18 point lead?
No folks, this is just plausible deniability.
The Nets came roaring back in the third last night, just as they have in their two recent good looking wins at home (which is redundant, since they haven't won, or even tried to win, on the road since early February...). Here's the difference:
Vince Carter spent the first several minutes of the 4th quarter on the bench.
Which leads us to plausibly deniable myth number 2, above. Well, you gotta give him a blow some time...
Okay. How about at the end of the game, when it's out of reach, one way or the other? How about at the end of the season? How about next game, you know, the one you're gonna throw in the towel in the 2nd quarter, on the road?
Lawrence Frank happened last night. That's the difference. The F-bomb. Period. Space space.
The Nets took the lead, 88-86, after being down 18, in the very same 3rd quarter, and there was still 2 mins to go in the quarter. VC was the reason, pure and simple. And not just scoring - defense, passing, leadership. They (as is their wont in the Frank error) didn't finish well in the last 2 minutes, but they're only down 93-90.
So what does F-boy do?
In the 45 years I've been watching the NBA, I have only seen one other coach be so tone deaf to the game at hand. His name was Byron Scott. F-twerp was his ass-istant.
As I have repeatedly mentioned here, Scott took an on-fire Kerry Kittles and a 9 point lead and benched them both to start the 4th quarter in Game 6 in San Antonio in 2003, the Nets best chance to win it all. He personally hamstrung his own team by being tone deaf to the game at hand. Any fool (or, as Kidd said, "my own son" (who was like 5 at the time)) could coach that game better. This is not even to mention Scott's inexplicable non-use of Dikembe Mutumbo during much of the series.
F-brain took a page right out of that storied history, benching Vince at the very time he was hottest, at the very time he was in the flow, at the very time the young players on the court needed his leadership. Benched him.
Result? The Nets are down, once again, by 13 with 9 minutes left. Game the F over.
What game was the screaming marionette watching? Why does he bother showing up? Print out the game plan, the sub plan, the timeout plan, and stay in your office and watch tape.
When it got to 97-90, you have to know - Hey, if they score again, unanswered, they're up by 9 and (listen now, Larry, you might learn something here) IT'S THE FREAKING FOURTH QUARTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's the game that's happening on the floor, Fool. Coach THAT game, not the one in your robotic brain. COACH THE GAME IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES.
Call time. Put Vince back in, pronto. Set up a play. Get fouled. Chances are, it's 97-92. Five points is nothing with 10 or 9 to go.
Nope. Vince sits. The lead goes up to 9. Frank watches. Tim Capstraw, the agitprop mouthpiece, I presume under constraints not to criticize the obvious, tries to mollify a 10 year old fan in the post game by saying, well, YOU GOTTA GIVE HIM A BLOW SOME TIME, and besides, VC was kneeling at the scorers table before F-jerk called a time out, he says, contradicting himself like the guilty criminal - I don't beat my wife, and besides, she likes it. Sometimes you got to call a time out just to get a guy in the game.
Well, Tim, of course, you and I both know that you wouldn't have to call the time out IF THE HOTTEST PLAYER ON THE COURT IN THE THIRD STARTED THE FOURTH AS HE SHOULD HAVE.
What Jason Kidd did not like the most about Byron Scott was exactly this - he was tone deaf to the game at hand. I saw Kidd seething in 2003-2004, sitting on the pine to start the 4th as the team unraveled. The leader of the team, sitting on the pine at that juncture. Seething.
Last night, for perhaps the 30th or 40th time this season, the leader of the team sat on the bench as the game slipped away in the beginning of the 4th.
Imagine - VC starts the 4th. The Nets keep close and win. Vs Denver. Third quality win at home. Something to build on.
Or, they keep it close but lose in the last minute. Still, okay.
Instead, the F-bomb is dropped on the Nets. MVP for the Nuggets? The Nets clueless and complicit coach.
Had Vince started the 4th and played its entirety, he would have played 42 minutes. That would not have led all players. AI played 45.
Wilt Chamberlain AVERAGED 49 minutes one year. 49! And there's only 48 in regulation!
This was game sixty F-ing nine, not game 10!
Which leads to another myth that F-clown subscribes to:
- This is just one of 82 games.
If you believe that, F-dolt, with 13 games left in the season and your team fighting for the last playoff spot, you belong elsewhere.
Like, on the F-ing unemployment line.
Here's a few of those studied myths that passes for "analysis" nowadays:
- "We spent so much energy catching up that we had nothing left in the tank"
- "Well, you gotta give him a blow at some time..."
The Nets were down 12 at the half. Vs Utah they were down 10. Vs Atlanta they were down 7. In the latter two games they came back, took the lead, and kept on going, winning easily. Last night they did not.
So, does party line 1 above make any sense? Didn't the Nets expend, ostensibly, just as much energy if not more coming back and winning those two games, rather handily?
And last night - what about Denver? Didn't they expend as much energy if not more building up an 18 point lead?
No folks, this is just plausible deniability.
The Nets came roaring back in the third last night, just as they have in their two recent good looking wins at home (which is redundant, since they haven't won, or even tried to win, on the road since early February...). Here's the difference:
Vince Carter spent the first several minutes of the 4th quarter on the bench.
Which leads us to plausibly deniable myth number 2, above. Well, you gotta give him a blow some time...
Okay. How about at the end of the game, when it's out of reach, one way or the other? How about at the end of the season? How about next game, you know, the one you're gonna throw in the towel in the 2nd quarter, on the road?
Lawrence Frank happened last night. That's the difference. The F-bomb. Period. Space space.
The Nets took the lead, 88-86, after being down 18, in the very same 3rd quarter, and there was still 2 mins to go in the quarter. VC was the reason, pure and simple. And not just scoring - defense, passing, leadership. They (as is their wont in the Frank error) didn't finish well in the last 2 minutes, but they're only down 93-90.
So what does F-boy do?
In the 45 years I've been watching the NBA, I have only seen one other coach be so tone deaf to the game at hand. His name was Byron Scott. F-twerp was his ass-istant.
As I have repeatedly mentioned here, Scott took an on-fire Kerry Kittles and a 9 point lead and benched them both to start the 4th quarter in Game 6 in San Antonio in 2003, the Nets best chance to win it all. He personally hamstrung his own team by being tone deaf to the game at hand. Any fool (or, as Kidd said, "my own son" (who was like 5 at the time)) could coach that game better. This is not even to mention Scott's inexplicable non-use of Dikembe Mutumbo during much of the series.
F-brain took a page right out of that storied history, benching Vince at the very time he was hottest, at the very time he was in the flow, at the very time the young players on the court needed his leadership. Benched him.
Result? The Nets are down, once again, by 13 with 9 minutes left. Game the F over.
What game was the screaming marionette watching? Why does he bother showing up? Print out the game plan, the sub plan, the timeout plan, and stay in your office and watch tape.
When it got to 97-90, you have to know - Hey, if they score again, unanswered, they're up by 9 and (listen now, Larry, you might learn something here) IT'S THE FREAKING FOURTH QUARTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's the game that's happening on the floor, Fool. Coach THAT game, not the one in your robotic brain. COACH THE GAME IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES.
Call time. Put Vince back in, pronto. Set up a play. Get fouled. Chances are, it's 97-92. Five points is nothing with 10 or 9 to go.
Nope. Vince sits. The lead goes up to 9. Frank watches. Tim Capstraw, the agitprop mouthpiece, I presume under constraints not to criticize the obvious, tries to mollify a 10 year old fan in the post game by saying, well, YOU GOTTA GIVE HIM A BLOW SOME TIME, and besides, VC was kneeling at the scorers table before F-jerk called a time out, he says, contradicting himself like the guilty criminal - I don't beat my wife, and besides, she likes it. Sometimes you got to call a time out just to get a guy in the game.
Well, Tim, of course, you and I both know that you wouldn't have to call the time out IF THE HOTTEST PLAYER ON THE COURT IN THE THIRD STARTED THE FOURTH AS HE SHOULD HAVE.
What Jason Kidd did not like the most about Byron Scott was exactly this - he was tone deaf to the game at hand. I saw Kidd seething in 2003-2004, sitting on the pine to start the 4th as the team unraveled. The leader of the team, sitting on the pine at that juncture. Seething.
Last night, for perhaps the 30th or 40th time this season, the leader of the team sat on the bench as the game slipped away in the beginning of the 4th.
Imagine - VC starts the 4th. The Nets keep close and win. Vs Denver. Third quality win at home. Something to build on.
Or, they keep it close but lose in the last minute. Still, okay.
Instead, the F-bomb is dropped on the Nets. MVP for the Nuggets? The Nets clueless and complicit coach.
Had Vince started the 4th and played its entirety, he would have played 42 minutes. That would not have led all players. AI played 45.
Wilt Chamberlain AVERAGED 49 minutes one year. 49! And there's only 48 in regulation!
This was game sixty F-ing nine, not game 10!
Which leads to another myth that F-clown subscribes to:
- This is just one of 82 games.
If you believe that, F-dolt, with 13 games left in the season and your team fighting for the last playoff spot, you belong elsewhere.
Like, on the F-ing unemployment line.
Friday, March 21, 2008
"Slow Economy Likely to Stall Atlantic Yards"
So pronounced the NYT today, Good Friday, as the lead story on the front page:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/nyregion/21yards.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
"The slowing economy, weighed down by a widening credit crisis, is likely to delay the signature office tower and three residential buildings at the heart of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the developer said.
Atlantic Yards began with Mr. Ratner’s purchase of the Nets in 2004 and the idea of moving the team, which currently plays in New Jersey and loses about $30 million a year, to the railroad yard."
Back in 2004, right after Ratner, and old client of mine, bought the team, I predicted that the Nets would never play a single game in Brooklyn. It was crystal clear that buying the Nets was a move that Ratner needed to get his project done. He had been planning it for at least 10 years before - a cardboard mockup of it's early conception lay in a glass case in his foyer in the 90s. But it was met with a great amount of resistance.
Getting a pro sports team to come into Brooklyn, stirring the borough's odd singularism and civic pride, might be just the trick to overwhelm the annoying indigenous resistance to the monument to his outsized ego. Jay-Z was just the most prominent of Brooklynites to lend support to the idea.
And it looked like it was working. Challenge after challenge, which previously had hamstrung the project, were now batted away by an abetting court system emboldened to use eminent domain in support of the oligarchist du jour, which in this case was our boy Bruce.
Yet, at around the same time that the most serious legal challenge was quashed last fall, the team announced that, well, they weren't gonna be opening the 2009 season in Brooklyn after all - it would be 2010.
That would make 6 seasons in limbo. No wonder Jason Kidd, when asked about the deal back when it was first done, said it didn't matter to him because he would be retired before they played a game in Brooklyn.
New Jersey constantly trades places with Connecticut as having the wealthiest residents in the nation. The Garden State routinely supplies many of the best basketball players in the world. It has one of the largest percentages of African-Americans as residents. Its largest city, Newark, conveniently placed at the crossroads of several modes of public transportation, now sports what is being hailed as the finest new arena in the country, two blocks from a major train station that serves a population area of 10 million souls. And Newark, which has had a black mayor since 1968, would be a natural location for a basketball team.
So why is it that the Nets are a team that "loses about $30 million a year"?
Can you spell A-t-l-a-n-t-i-c...?
The history of this franchise has always been about how to shoot yourself in the head while aiming at your foot. While in the ABA in the Nassau Mausoleum the Nets somehow grab Rick Barry from the NBA and win a championship, then pluck the greatest talent of his day in Dr J, the man who most revolutionized the game outside of Wilt Chamberlain, and win another. The league collapses, but the new owners, probably looking at the same demographics as I noted above, decide to move the surviving franchise to NJ, and Central NJ at that. The 76ers freak out, as do the Knicks, and to mollify them, the J is given to Philadelphia.
Funny thing is, it is soon revealed that the team will not be playing in CNJ (at the RAC) but in North Jersey, no threat to the 76ers market at all! However, the State of NJ builds their arena far, far away from any part of one of the largest public transportation system in the country. It's one thing to drive out in the middle of nowhere to watch a football game, given the tailgaiting that surrounds the spectacle and does not lend itself to using public transportation. But nobody's gonna tailgate in January before a night time basketball game (or hockey game, for that matter).
Nonetheless, in 8 years the Nets upset the defending NBA Champion Sixers (with Dr J, no less) in the playoffs and look like they are the up and coming team in the league. But substance abuse and a revolving coaching carousel kill the team again. The trade of Buck Williams for the oft injured flameout Sam Bowie did not help...
After another 8 years of abysmal play, the Nets at least get some very good young players because their draft position is so low, and also get the first European player of any note in Drazin Petrovic, and before you know it they have Chuck Daly as coach. They win 45 games and get into the playoffs 3 times in a row, not being able to get past Cleveland two of the three times. Still, the future looks bright...
But management instability and a literal haggle of owners force Daly into "retirement" (which lasts exactly two years). His replacement? Butch Beard...
Then they get John Calipari in a Rick Pitino copy cat move. The team essentially swaps rosters with Philadelphia, but somehow they end up with Sam Cassell, and they make a creditable showing, returning to the playoffs to be sacrificed to the Bulls, altho they lose three close games. People are talking about coming to play for the young talented Nets and their high profile coach, altho some are worried about Calipari's "yelling"...
Coach C lasts 20 games the next year before being fired on a plane flight back from a game...
The Don Casey era (error?) begins...
But all that bad play gets the Nets 3 quality draft picks, yet again - Kerry Kittles, Keith Van Horn, Kenyon Martin. Jayson "Shotgun" Williams is one of two premier rebounders in the NBA, and has an outsized attractive personality. And soon we learn that Stephon Marbury is homesick, and since the Knicks can't take him, he comes to the Nets. Looking pretty good.
Three broken legs and a bad knee later, the Nets have endured three consecutive .300 seasons, keeping the Swamp dismal yet again.
Then comes THE TRADE. Finals back to back. Byron Scott miscoaches away the Nets best chance at a title, but "the Nets' future is bright" says JKidd, even as Scott is replaced by Lawrence (Seriously, I'm Not Jeff Van Gundy's Evil Twin) Frank and Kidd's knee needs major repair, as he refused to join San Antonio for a slam dunk shot at a ring.
Then comes the Ratner deal. Kenyon and Kittles are flushed. Kidd gets mad but gets Thorn to take a chance on romance with Zo Mourning. We all know how THAT worked out.
Somehow it results in getting Vince Carter, Mr Vinsanity himself, to come to the Meadowlands. The Big Three is coined. They win 49 in 2006, and despite a mediocre (exactly) 2007 season, get to the second round for the 5th time in 7 years, pushing the eventual NBA Finals representative from the East in a hard fought series that they could have won. (In those 5 seasons, they lost to the eventual NBA championship team 4 times, the other losing to a finals team and runner up.)
Then it falls apart again, as it becomes clear that Ratner really doesn't care and then Kidd really doesn't want to play in limbo any more.
I want to see Ratner fail. I want to see the team play in Newark, where they belong. I want to have an owner who will let Rod Thorn do his thing. I want Rod Thorn to stay, to become the Lou Lamoriello of basketball. I want to see these young players blossom.
I'm tired of this team being played like a pawn in some egotistical game of development chess.
And I want a new coach.
And I'm sticking with my prediction - this team will not play a single game in Brooklyn.
Which leads to this irony: Rumor has it (Selena Roberts in Sports Illustrated, no less) that Jay-Z and LeBron are very close, and that IF the Nets actually DO make it to Brooklyn, LeBron will come to the Nets:
http://fannation.com/blogs/post/167195
Wouldn't it be just like the Nets to NOT move to Brooklyn, thereby undermining their best chance to grab the best young player in the league, and maybe, just maybe, win it all??
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/nyregion/21yards.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
"The slowing economy, weighed down by a widening credit crisis, is likely to delay the signature office tower and three residential buildings at the heart of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the developer said.
“It may hold up the office building,” the developer, Bruce C. Ratner, said in a recent interview. “And the bond market may slow the pace of the residential buildings.”
Mr. Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner, did not specify the kinds of delays possible, but suggested that construction could be put off for years. His comments are his first public indication that the darkening economy has slowed the ambitious project, spanning 22 acres at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.
The developer did say he was confident about starting construction on a $950 million basketball arena for the Nets by the end of the year...Atlantic Yards began with Mr. Ratner’s purchase of the Nets in 2004 and the idea of moving the team, which currently plays in New Jersey and loses about $30 million a year, to the railroad yard."
Back in 2004, right after Ratner, and old client of mine, bought the team, I predicted that the Nets would never play a single game in Brooklyn. It was crystal clear that buying the Nets was a move that Ratner needed to get his project done. He had been planning it for at least 10 years before - a cardboard mockup of it's early conception lay in a glass case in his foyer in the 90s. But it was met with a great amount of resistance.
Getting a pro sports team to come into Brooklyn, stirring the borough's odd singularism and civic pride, might be just the trick to overwhelm the annoying indigenous resistance to the monument to his outsized ego. Jay-Z was just the most prominent of Brooklynites to lend support to the idea.
And it looked like it was working. Challenge after challenge, which previously had hamstrung the project, were now batted away by an abetting court system emboldened to use eminent domain in support of the oligarchist du jour, which in this case was our boy Bruce.
Yet, at around the same time that the most serious legal challenge was quashed last fall, the team announced that, well, they weren't gonna be opening the 2009 season in Brooklyn after all - it would be 2010.
That would make 6 seasons in limbo. No wonder Jason Kidd, when asked about the deal back when it was first done, said it didn't matter to him because he would be retired before they played a game in Brooklyn.
New Jersey constantly trades places with Connecticut as having the wealthiest residents in the nation. The Garden State routinely supplies many of the best basketball players in the world. It has one of the largest percentages of African-Americans as residents. Its largest city, Newark, conveniently placed at the crossroads of several modes of public transportation, now sports what is being hailed as the finest new arena in the country, two blocks from a major train station that serves a population area of 10 million souls. And Newark, which has had a black mayor since 1968, would be a natural location for a basketball team.
So why is it that the Nets are a team that "loses about $30 million a year"?
Can you spell A-t-l-a-n-t-i-c...?
The history of this franchise has always been about how to shoot yourself in the head while aiming at your foot. While in the ABA in the Nassau Mausoleum the Nets somehow grab Rick Barry from the NBA and win a championship, then pluck the greatest talent of his day in Dr J, the man who most revolutionized the game outside of Wilt Chamberlain, and win another. The league collapses, but the new owners, probably looking at the same demographics as I noted above, decide to move the surviving franchise to NJ, and Central NJ at that. The 76ers freak out, as do the Knicks, and to mollify them, the J is given to Philadelphia.
Funny thing is, it is soon revealed that the team will not be playing in CNJ (at the RAC) but in North Jersey, no threat to the 76ers market at all! However, the State of NJ builds their arena far, far away from any part of one of the largest public transportation system in the country. It's one thing to drive out in the middle of nowhere to watch a football game, given the tailgaiting that surrounds the spectacle and does not lend itself to using public transportation. But nobody's gonna tailgate in January before a night time basketball game (or hockey game, for that matter).
Nonetheless, in 8 years the Nets upset the defending NBA Champion Sixers (with Dr J, no less) in the playoffs and look like they are the up and coming team in the league. But substance abuse and a revolving coaching carousel kill the team again. The trade of Buck Williams for the oft injured flameout Sam Bowie did not help...
After another 8 years of abysmal play, the Nets at least get some very good young players because their draft position is so low, and also get the first European player of any note in Drazin Petrovic, and before you know it they have Chuck Daly as coach. They win 45 games and get into the playoffs 3 times in a row, not being able to get past Cleveland two of the three times. Still, the future looks bright...
But management instability and a literal haggle of owners force Daly into "retirement" (which lasts exactly two years). His replacement? Butch Beard...
Then they get John Calipari in a Rick Pitino copy cat move. The team essentially swaps rosters with Philadelphia, but somehow they end up with Sam Cassell, and they make a creditable showing, returning to the playoffs to be sacrificed to the Bulls, altho they lose three close games. People are talking about coming to play for the young talented Nets and their high profile coach, altho some are worried about Calipari's "yelling"...
Coach C lasts 20 games the next year before being fired on a plane flight back from a game...
The Don Casey era (error?) begins...
But all that bad play gets the Nets 3 quality draft picks, yet again - Kerry Kittles, Keith Van Horn, Kenyon Martin. Jayson "Shotgun" Williams is one of two premier rebounders in the NBA, and has an outsized attractive personality. And soon we learn that Stephon Marbury is homesick, and since the Knicks can't take him, he comes to the Nets. Looking pretty good.
Three broken legs and a bad knee later, the Nets have endured three consecutive .300 seasons, keeping the Swamp dismal yet again.
Then comes THE TRADE. Finals back to back. Byron Scott miscoaches away the Nets best chance at a title, but "the Nets' future is bright" says JKidd, even as Scott is replaced by Lawrence (Seriously, I'm Not Jeff Van Gundy's Evil Twin) Frank and Kidd's knee needs major repair, as he refused to join San Antonio for a slam dunk shot at a ring.
Then comes the Ratner deal. Kenyon and Kittles are flushed. Kidd gets mad but gets Thorn to take a chance on romance with Zo Mourning. We all know how THAT worked out.
Somehow it results in getting Vince Carter, Mr Vinsanity himself, to come to the Meadowlands. The Big Three is coined. They win 49 in 2006, and despite a mediocre (exactly) 2007 season, get to the second round for the 5th time in 7 years, pushing the eventual NBA Finals representative from the East in a hard fought series that they could have won. (In those 5 seasons, they lost to the eventual NBA championship team 4 times, the other losing to a finals team and runner up.)
Then it falls apart again, as it becomes clear that Ratner really doesn't care and then Kidd really doesn't want to play in limbo any more.
I want to see Ratner fail. I want to see the team play in Newark, where they belong. I want to have an owner who will let Rod Thorn do his thing. I want Rod Thorn to stay, to become the Lou Lamoriello of basketball. I want to see these young players blossom.
I'm tired of this team being played like a pawn in some egotistical game of development chess.
And I want a new coach.
And I'm sticking with my prediction - this team will not play a single game in Brooklyn.
Which leads to this irony: Rumor has it (Selena Roberts in Sports Illustrated, no less) that Jay-Z and LeBron are very close, and that IF the Nets actually DO make it to Brooklyn, LeBron will come to the Nets:
http://fannation.com/blogs/post/167195
Wouldn't it be just like the Nets to NOT move to Brooklyn, thereby undermining their best chance to grab the best young player in the league, and maybe, just maybe, win it all??
Game 68 - Dr Jekyll Doesn't Hide
This is the most schizophrenic professional sports team I have ever followed. I just don't get it.
After the Nets refused to get off the plane in Chicago, squandering a chance to put some distance between themselves and the sub-par teams it is fighting for the chance to be ritually sacrificed to the juggernaut that is Boston, after showing no heart whatsoever, here they come home, a house of horrific play, where they are dead (and I mean dead) even 17-17, and take apart Atlanta, winning the season series against the nearly as schizo Hawks, and looking very good doing it.
I mean, VC exerted his will on the game. RJ gave 100%, at the very least in the 2nd half. And LFrank coached the kind of game you expect from an NBA coach - ie, you wouldn't have to talk about how is lost-ness contributed to the loss-ness.
Tonite and vs Utah they looked like the team they have always looked like on paper - when you have VC and RJ going full bore, this is a hard team to defend, a hard team to beat. A team that's never out of it. When VC and RJ lead, the young guys feed off of it. Sean (Remember Me, Coach?) Williams and Josh (The Big Upside) Boone all elevated their games, caught in the tail wind envelope of the Big Two. Devin Harris is never gonna be JKidd, but that's because Devin Harris is gonna be Devin Harris - a different kind of player, one who can score and altho he cannot yet exert his will on a game like Kidd can (or on an entire season, as Kidd thrice did), he doesn't have to if VC and RJ decide they will. He, too, can be swept up in their jet trails as well, and when he does, you have another Big Three.
Commentators complained that not much defense was played, but I disagree. Sean Williams continues to shine in my estimation, with several key blocks. RJ shut down his man. VC got key rebounds and contributed to several key stops, keeping things from being worse than a 10 point deficit at the half.
Let's not lie - the Meadowlands cum Brendan Byrne cum Continental Airlines cum Izod Arena is barely half full most nights, and that half is not exactly enthusiastic basketball afficionados. Most nights the actual crowd would barely pack the RAC, and half the time most of the fans are there to see the opposition, be it LeBron or KG or even Hedo Turkoglu. It's hard to attribute the play of the Nets last night and vs Utah to the crowd lifting the team. And that's not to mention those ugly, ugly wins the Nets have on either side.
Last night, this Jekyll/Hyde team was solidly Jekyll and a pleasure to watch. So, why doesn't the good doctor show up more often?
I don't think anybody knows. I don't think VC knows why his play has been so bipolar, why it took til Game 68 for him to score near 40. I don't think RJ knows why he has been disappearing in the 4ths of late, only to catch fire the last couple of homestands, only to disappear in between on the road.
And I don't think the estimable Lawrence Frank knows why he steps outside his box to coach like a real coach some games, only to recede to his robotic substitutions and timeout patterns most other games.
I've seen some really, really bad Nets basketball over the years - the Butch Beard Embarrassment, Sam Boo-ie, Yinko Dare, Don Casey's not even walking wounded. Bad, bad basketball. Those teams didn't have games where they put it all together and you said, There - that's what we expected to see all season. No, how they played in those years was what we expected to see - cager crap.
But this team... Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson, Nenad Krstic... So much talent you could afford to start Jason Collins as your 5th man, to take an occasional charge and to launch an occasional flat footed three. Two years ago this team won 49 games and had to collapse at the end of the year in order not to exceed the franchise record 52. They spit the bit (or the roach, as it were) vs Miami, the eventual NBA Champs, but still, they looked like a team that could contend for years to come.
Instead, for two years now, we've had nothing but underperformance.
Some of that, as I have documented this season, is attributable squarely on the slight shoulders of Frank, whom I hold responsible for at least 10 losses this year. Nets win them and they're 39-29 and 4th seed in the East, exactly where the Celtics players said they should be after their last meeting with the Nets. And that only assumes them winning 50% of games they lost at the end. They could be 49-19 at this point, with a little luck.
But some of those 20 losses are attributable to a lack of heart, or initiative, or what? On the FAN today, Benigno and Roberts were talking about Isiah and what a crappy coach he's been, about which they expressed some surprise, given how great not just a player but a field general and example he was in the Pistons' glory years. How come he can't seem to get that across to his players as a coach? Joe pointed out that it might be because Isiah as a player was a self starter - he needed little coaching, and thus lacks the ability to identify what it is that motivates those who are not by nature self-starters.
JKidd was a self starter. VC, when he first came over from Toto, was a self starter. RJ can be a self starter. Devin Harris can be a self starter. And some nights you can see it. VC took the team on his extravagantly talented shoulders last night, and so did RJ, and so did Harris. And you can't blame it on Atlanta not being that great, because they proved it against Utah a few nights earlier.
But then you have a game like the one vs the Bulls... "Game"?? No one on the Nets showed any game that night. I expected to see Armond Gilliam coming off the bench...
These guys are pros. VC and RJ have been around long enough to know the value of consistent professional play. Especially when you have so much young talent that is looking to you for their cues.
The Nets are showing that they can actually be better with Devin Harris than they were the last couple of years with JKidd.
The problem is, we never know if they're gonna show us they ARE better on any given night... Or just plain good, for that matter.
After the Nets refused to get off the plane in Chicago, squandering a chance to put some distance between themselves and the sub-par teams it is fighting for the chance to be ritually sacrificed to the juggernaut that is Boston, after showing no heart whatsoever, here they come home, a house of horrific play, where they are dead (and I mean dead) even 17-17, and take apart Atlanta, winning the season series against the nearly as schizo Hawks, and looking very good doing it.
I mean, VC exerted his will on the game. RJ gave 100%, at the very least in the 2nd half. And LFrank coached the kind of game you expect from an NBA coach - ie, you wouldn't have to talk about how is lost-ness contributed to the loss-ness.
Tonite and vs Utah they looked like the team they have always looked like on paper - when you have VC and RJ going full bore, this is a hard team to defend, a hard team to beat. A team that's never out of it. When VC and RJ lead, the young guys feed off of it. Sean (Remember Me, Coach?) Williams and Josh (The Big Upside) Boone all elevated their games, caught in the tail wind envelope of the Big Two. Devin Harris is never gonna be JKidd, but that's because Devin Harris is gonna be Devin Harris - a different kind of player, one who can score and altho he cannot yet exert his will on a game like Kidd can (or on an entire season, as Kidd thrice did), he doesn't have to if VC and RJ decide they will. He, too, can be swept up in their jet trails as well, and when he does, you have another Big Three.
Commentators complained that not much defense was played, but I disagree. Sean Williams continues to shine in my estimation, with several key blocks. RJ shut down his man. VC got key rebounds and contributed to several key stops, keeping things from being worse than a 10 point deficit at the half.
Let's not lie - the Meadowlands cum Brendan Byrne cum Continental Airlines cum Izod Arena is barely half full most nights, and that half is not exactly enthusiastic basketball afficionados. Most nights the actual crowd would barely pack the RAC, and half the time most of the fans are there to see the opposition, be it LeBron or KG or even Hedo Turkoglu. It's hard to attribute the play of the Nets last night and vs Utah to the crowd lifting the team. And that's not to mention those ugly, ugly wins the Nets have on either side.
Last night, this Jekyll/Hyde team was solidly Jekyll and a pleasure to watch. So, why doesn't the good doctor show up more often?
I don't think anybody knows. I don't think VC knows why his play has been so bipolar, why it took til Game 68 for him to score near 40. I don't think RJ knows why he has been disappearing in the 4ths of late, only to catch fire the last couple of homestands, only to disappear in between on the road.
And I don't think the estimable Lawrence Frank knows why he steps outside his box to coach like a real coach some games, only to recede to his robotic substitutions and timeout patterns most other games.
I've seen some really, really bad Nets basketball over the years - the Butch Beard Embarrassment, Sam Boo-ie, Yinko Dare, Don Casey's not even walking wounded. Bad, bad basketball. Those teams didn't have games where they put it all together and you said, There - that's what we expected to see all season. No, how they played in those years was what we expected to see - cager crap.
But this team... Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson, Nenad Krstic... So much talent you could afford to start Jason Collins as your 5th man, to take an occasional charge and to launch an occasional flat footed three. Two years ago this team won 49 games and had to collapse at the end of the year in order not to exceed the franchise record 52. They spit the bit (or the roach, as it were) vs Miami, the eventual NBA Champs, but still, they looked like a team that could contend for years to come.
Instead, for two years now, we've had nothing but underperformance.
Some of that, as I have documented this season, is attributable squarely on the slight shoulders of Frank, whom I hold responsible for at least 10 losses this year. Nets win them and they're 39-29 and 4th seed in the East, exactly where the Celtics players said they should be after their last meeting with the Nets. And that only assumes them winning 50% of games they lost at the end. They could be 49-19 at this point, with a little luck.
But some of those 20 losses are attributable to a lack of heart, or initiative, or what? On the FAN today, Benigno and Roberts were talking about Isiah and what a crappy coach he's been, about which they expressed some surprise, given how great not just a player but a field general and example he was in the Pistons' glory years. How come he can't seem to get that across to his players as a coach? Joe pointed out that it might be because Isiah as a player was a self starter - he needed little coaching, and thus lacks the ability to identify what it is that motivates those who are not by nature self-starters.
JKidd was a self starter. VC, when he first came over from Toto, was a self starter. RJ can be a self starter. Devin Harris can be a self starter. And some nights you can see it. VC took the team on his extravagantly talented shoulders last night, and so did RJ, and so did Harris. And you can't blame it on Atlanta not being that great, because they proved it against Utah a few nights earlier.
But then you have a game like the one vs the Bulls... "Game"?? No one on the Nets showed any game that night. I expected to see Armond Gilliam coming off the bench...
These guys are pros. VC and RJ have been around long enough to know the value of consistent professional play. Especially when you have so much young talent that is looking to you for their cues.
The Nets are showing that they can actually be better with Devin Harris than they were the last couple of years with JKidd.
The problem is, we never know if they're gonna show us they ARE better on any given night... Or just plain good, for that matter.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Game 67 - No
Listless, careless, diffident basketball. When I turned it on, the Nets were down 37-30 in the second. When I switched back to PBS (yeah, it's that bad), they were down by 10 and shooting over 50%. When I turned back, it was halftime and they were not displaying the score, but soon it was mentioned that the Bulls had gone on a 16-0 run to end the quarter.
Game over.
Even if the Nets had the character to come back from something like that (why don't the Nets ever have 16-0 runs?), their coach doesn't know how to help them.
They lose by (you guessed it) 16.
Up down up down up down down down down down down up up down.
Now End The Season...
Game over.
Even if the Nets had the character to come back from something like that (why don't the Nets ever have 16-0 runs?), their coach doesn't know how to help them.
They lose by (you guessed it) 16.
Up down up down up down down down down down down up up down.
Now End The Season...
Game 66 - Finally, a quality win!
So, 66 games into the season, count 'em, 66, and the Nets finally get a quality win!
Utah had just beaten the vaunted (and overrated) Celtics in Boston and had come down to play a diffident Nets team. The expectations were, hey, let's just have a competitive game.
Up by 3 after 1 (and scoring 32 points), they were down by 7 at the half, and 5 after 3. Usually they would pack it in.
Instead this time they showed grit, selflessness and one had a view of what the team could be like if it tried.
There is enough talent on this team to win 50+ games, easily. Even without Kidd.
Can they keep it up?
This week coming up is key - Chicago on the road, Atlanta at home, the two teams they are competing with for the 8th spot.
We'll see...
Utah had just beaten the vaunted (and overrated) Celtics in Boston and had come down to play a diffident Nets team. The expectations were, hey, let's just have a competitive game.
Up by 3 after 1 (and scoring 32 points), they were down by 7 at the half, and 5 after 3. Usually they would pack it in.
Instead this time they showed grit, selflessness and one had a view of what the team could be like if it tried.
There is enough talent on this team to win 50+ games, easily. Even without Kidd.
Can they keep it up?
This week coming up is key - Chicago on the road, Atlanta at home, the two teams they are competing with for the 8th spot.
We'll see...
Game 65 - A Needlessly Shaky Win
Cleveland is a mediocre team, but in the anaemic East they qualify as a good team, even if they swapped 1/3 of their roster with the Bulls. Even still, Ben Wallace did not play, nor did Ziggy.
So it should be an easy Nets win, right?
Looked like it would be - 38-20 after 1. Ok, I've seen many teams cough up a 1st qtr bulge like that before. But 58-47 at the half, looking pretty good.
Well, of course, "teams in the NBA go on runs", the Magnificent Frank has intoned, excepting of course his own club, and so here we are, with 5 1/2 to play, and the Nets are ahead by 1. ONE! Cleveland goes on a 22-10 run, and Frank calls one time out, has a TV timeout, but still hoards them.
I'm sick of such coaching. Just sick of it. I can't even enjoy a gutty win at the end.
Please fire him...
So it should be an easy Nets win, right?
Looked like it would be - 38-20 after 1. Ok, I've seen many teams cough up a 1st qtr bulge like that before. But 58-47 at the half, looking pretty good.
Well, of course, "teams in the NBA go on runs", the Magnificent Frank has intoned, excepting of course his own club, and so here we are, with 5 1/2 to play, and the Nets are ahead by 1. ONE! Cleveland goes on a 22-10 run, and Frank calls one time out, has a TV timeout, but still hoards them.
I'm sick of such coaching. Just sick of it. I can't even enjoy a gutty win at the end.
Please fire him...
Monday, March 10, 2008
Game 64 - Houston, we don't have liftoff
Same things continue to apply:
Last two minutes of 1st: 2-7
Last two minutes of the half: 1-5
Shooting pct 1st half: 22%
3pt pct in 1st half: 0%
28 points total in the half. That's LESS THAN 50% of the point total when they beat the Bucks and scored 68 in one half. They got only 2 points more than that in the ENTIRE GAME vs San Antonio. And the Nets would need 42 points in the second half just to make that humiliating total...
What's the point?
ADDENDUM:
Okay, game over. The lost by effectively 20. They scored 45, count 'em, 45 in the second half to finish with 73. They broke 20 only in the last quarter. They shot 30% for the game, and ZERO from 3pt land. ZERO!
They let a 41 year old Dikembe Mutumbo (remember him, Byron?) dominate them inside. RJ and VC combined for a whopping 25 points. They should be AVERAGING 25 a game, EACH of them.
Frank's postgame comments were worthless, as were Carter's.
This is a sad, sorry team.
I made a prediction that the Nets would be 28-36 at this point, and even that proved to be optimistic.
Fire Frank, please, Rod.
Last two minutes of 1st: 2-7
Last two minutes of the half: 1-5
Shooting pct 1st half: 22%
3pt pct in 1st half: 0%
28 points total in the half. That's LESS THAN 50% of the point total when they beat the Bucks and scored 68 in one half. They got only 2 points more than that in the ENTIRE GAME vs San Antonio. And the Nets would need 42 points in the second half just to make that humiliating total...
What's the point?
ADDENDUM:
Okay, game over. The lost by effectively 20. They scored 45, count 'em, 45 in the second half to finish with 73. They broke 20 only in the last quarter. They shot 30% for the game, and ZERO from 3pt land. ZERO!
They let a 41 year old Dikembe Mutumbo (remember him, Byron?) dominate them inside. RJ and VC combined for a whopping 25 points. They should be AVERAGING 25 a game, EACH of them.
Frank's postgame comments were worthless, as were Carter's.
This is a sad, sorry team.
I made a prediction that the Nets would be 28-36 at this point, and even that proved to be optimistic.
Fire Frank, please, Rod.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Game 63 - Mailing it in
No, I'm not talking about the Nets, altho they, too, mailed it in.
I watched the Devils, then UNC vs Duke, and only at the end did I flip over to the Nets g(sh)ame. 100-81 with 5:00 to go in the 4th. I checked Sportsline to see the box score. Down by 9 after 1, 18 after 2, 22 after 3...
I'm not very interested in this blog any more, playing out the string, just like the Nets. I have nothing new to add or say. Frank can't coach in game. The team has stopped listening. They don't care. Thorn has done his job. The owner could give a Ratner's ass.
BTW - the lowly Hawks picked up a game and a half on the Nets tonite, to bump them out of the 8th ("and final") playoff spot. The Nets have yet to lose to Houston on this "brutal" road trip.
The only thing brutal about it is the level of play of the Nets.
I watched the Devils, then UNC vs Duke, and only at the end did I flip over to the Nets g(sh)ame. 100-81 with 5:00 to go in the 4th. I checked Sportsline to see the box score. Down by 9 after 1, 18 after 2, 22 after 3...
I'm not very interested in this blog any more, playing out the string, just like the Nets. I have nothing new to add or say. Frank can't coach in game. The team has stopped listening. They don't care. Thorn has done his job. The owner could give a Ratner's ass.
BTW - the lowly Hawks picked up a game and a half on the Nets tonite, to bump them out of the 8th ("and final") playoff spot. The Nets have yet to lose to Houston on this "brutal" road trip.
The only thing brutal about it is the level of play of the Nets.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Game 62 - Alley...Oops!
This is flat out no fun any more. This is drudgery...
That's how the Nets must feel.
I watched the Devils tonite, then Bill Moyers. By the time I turned it on it was the 4th quarter and they were down 15. Ho hum.
They had a 3 point lead at the half. NO opens up the 3rd with a 16-2 run. The Talented Mr Frank didn't call timeout until it was a 12-2 run. He was actually challenged by a reporter in the post game - why didn't you call another one. Well, you wanna have a few in the bank, at least one, for the last 20 seconds of the game... Brilliant...
I watched the highlights on the postgame. Alley oop! Alley oop! Alley oop! Nets standing flat footed... Alley oop! Alley oop!
Remember 2002, 2003? It was the NETS who were the running team, the fast break team, the JKidd to Kmart alley oop! team. Now the Nets are the Washington Generals of the NBA.
Alley oop!
At one point as they break for commercial they show Tyson Chandler running off the court laughing at the Nets.
I can't imagine this team winning another game all season. Frank is depressed and dejected - he has no solutions, won't change his rigid approach, and the team is not listening. They are incapable of playing a full 48 minutes. Alley oop!
Frank's postgame assessment was right on and very perceptive - they got a lot of fast breaks off our long perimeter jumpshots. Profound, really. So, brain boy, WHY CAN'T YOU COME UP WITH A WAY TO STOP THAT???????????
Ratner doesn't care. Thorn has done his job in the best way that can be expected. Frank cares but is incompetent. The team senses all this and doesn't care anymore.
I don't care any more.
That's how the Nets must feel.
I watched the Devils tonite, then Bill Moyers. By the time I turned it on it was the 4th quarter and they were down 15. Ho hum.
They had a 3 point lead at the half. NO opens up the 3rd with a 16-2 run. The Talented Mr Frank didn't call timeout until it was a 12-2 run. He was actually challenged by a reporter in the post game - why didn't you call another one. Well, you wanna have a few in the bank, at least one, for the last 20 seconds of the game... Brilliant...
I watched the highlights on the postgame. Alley oop! Alley oop! Alley oop! Nets standing flat footed... Alley oop! Alley oop!
Remember 2002, 2003? It was the NETS who were the running team, the fast break team, the JKidd to Kmart alley oop! team. Now the Nets are the Washington Generals of the NBA.
Alley oop!
At one point as they break for commercial they show Tyson Chandler running off the court laughing at the Nets.
I can't imagine this team winning another game all season. Frank is depressed and dejected - he has no solutions, won't change his rigid approach, and the team is not listening. They are incapable of playing a full 48 minutes. Alley oop!
Frank's postgame assessment was right on and very perceptive - they got a lot of fast breaks off our long perimeter jumpshots. Profound, really. So, brain boy, WHY CAN'T YOU COME UP WITH A WAY TO STOP THAT???????????
Ratner doesn't care. Thorn has done his job in the best way that can be expected. Frank cares but is incompetent. The team senses all this and doesn't care anymore.
I don't care any more.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Game 61 - Two vignettes
At one point in the 3rd, the Nets are up 71-63. You got the sense that they were beginning to pull away from this decimated 14 point win.
The Griz hit a three. 71-66.
Then this:
- Memphis misses a layup, but gets an offensive board.
- Kickout for another 3. Hits. 71-69.
- Lawrence "the marionette" Frank is signalling for a timeout.
- Krstic has the ball out of bounds. It looks like the refs have called time. He steps on the line while throwing it in. Doh! The refs do not recognize the timeout. Turnover on the Nets!
- Griz miss a shot but loose ball foul on the Nets.
- Memphis inbounds it. Swatted out of bounds by Memphis, but refs say, no, Memphis ball.
- Foul on Nets. Two shots drained. 71 all.
- Timeout Nets.
I have seen the inbounding team turn it over by stepping on the line called in the NBA exactly twice - both this season, within a week of each other, both on the Nets.
Vignette two - Nets down 4 (of course) with a little over a minute left (of course). Miraculously Devin Harris steals the ball! He throws it down court where he anticipates VC will be, but the ball is just too long and winds up going back over to Memphis.
On the replay, there is Frank, jumping up and down, waving his hands and even legs wildly. He looks like a marionette on crack.
Mark Jackson mentions this stat as the seconds bleed away. The Nets are about to be swept for the season by the 14 win Grizzlies. They were swept in the season series by the 19 win Clippers. They have lost 3 so far to the 18 win Knicks. They are 0-7 against 3 teams that have not won 20 games. And this is not to mention their losses to Minnesota and Miami.
At 9:52 in the 4th, as Hakim Warrick finishes a 3 point play with a foul shot, I tell my son, they are going to lose again. He says, there is 9:52 left in the game. I told him, unless Frank calls a timeout right here, right now, they will lose.
He did not. They lost.
My rather dour prediction for the next several games had the Nets be 2-1 at this point.
They are 0-3.
Can we please just fire this guy??
The Griz hit a three. 71-66.
Then this:
- Memphis misses a layup, but gets an offensive board.
- Kickout for another 3. Hits. 71-69.
- Lawrence "the marionette" Frank is signalling for a timeout.
- Krstic has the ball out of bounds. It looks like the refs have called time. He steps on the line while throwing it in. Doh! The refs do not recognize the timeout. Turnover on the Nets!
- Griz miss a shot but loose ball foul on the Nets.
- Memphis inbounds it. Swatted out of bounds by Memphis, but refs say, no, Memphis ball.
- Foul on Nets. Two shots drained. 71 all.
- Timeout Nets.
I have seen the inbounding team turn it over by stepping on the line called in the NBA exactly twice - both this season, within a week of each other, both on the Nets.
Vignette two - Nets down 4 (of course) with a little over a minute left (of course). Miraculously Devin Harris steals the ball! He throws it down court where he anticipates VC will be, but the ball is just too long and winds up going back over to Memphis.
On the replay, there is Frank, jumping up and down, waving his hands and even legs wildly. He looks like a marionette on crack.
Mark Jackson mentions this stat as the seconds bleed away. The Nets are about to be swept for the season by the 14 win Grizzlies. They were swept in the season series by the 19 win Clippers. They have lost 3 so far to the 18 win Knicks. They are 0-7 against 3 teams that have not won 20 games. And this is not to mention their losses to Minnesota and Miami.
At 9:52 in the 4th, as Hakim Warrick finishes a 3 point play with a foul shot, I tell my son, they are going to lose again. He says, there is 9:52 left in the game. I told him, unless Frank calls a timeout right here, right now, they will lose.
He did not. They lost.
My rather dour prediction for the next several games had the Nets be 2-1 at this point.
They are 0-3.
Can we please just fire this guy??
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
How much can Lawrence Frank be making?
You've got a team here with Vince Carter on it, a guy who was a premier shooter, a guy capable of taking over a game and scoring 40 points. You've got Richard Jefferson who is capable of driving the lane and scoring 30+ on any given night. You had a point guard who was in the same class with Oscar Robertson and Magic Johnson in triple doubles.
You've got talented young big men, talented young guards. You've got depth at every position.
Yet if this team gets down 10, even in the first quarter, it's over.
I've never seen anything like it. Never in my 45 or so years of watching basketball.
The Nets make the same mistakes over and over. The coach coaches every game the same way, and does not make adjustments. For the last 2 years the Nets have played the same way, except for when Jason Kidd decided to exert his considerable personal will to win, which apparently VC and RJ do not have.
And neither does Lawrence Frank. Have you ever heard him take responsibility in other than a pro forma way? He does not. I don't think it's because he's egotistical. I think it's because he's lost.
The Nets do not come back from a 10 point deficit because they know they will not get help from the bench, and I'm not talking substitutes.
Why not just fire him? How much can he be making? A mil? Half a mil? Two mil? Why not fire his sorry butt and buy him out?
Really, I'm serious. He doesn't know how to coach in game. Rebounding woes continue. Their offense is a joke. They allow the opponent to have extended multiple runs, while they have 5, 6, 7 minute scoring droughts. Game after game after game.
Doesn't the red headed wonder get tired of Groundhog Day? Doesn't he ever tire of it?
Doesn't he ever tire of poor finish to quarters? Doesn't he ever tire of watching his team pull to 8 and get the ball, only to launch an ill advised three with 20 seconds left on the shot clock? Does he ever call a timeout, put his face in RJ's or VC's and say, DRIVE THE BASKET!?
If he is not, he should be fired for being incompetent. If he is, then his team has tuned him out, and thus he should be fired.
And it's not like there isn't talent out there - I bet Jeff van Gundy, who is from the NY area, would take the job, especially if it meant being the man who goes to Brooklyn...
Bruce Ratner - I know you don't give a crap about basketball. I know the Nets are just a pawn in your real estate development scheme. But hey - doesn't it make sense to try and make something of the last 2 or 3 years before the move to Brooklyn? And if it only costs you a mil or two, why not? You just locked up VC for several years at $15 million per. What's a couple of mil in a buyout?
THIS TEAM CANNOT IMPROVE WITH LAWRENCE FRANK AS COACH. They cannot grow, they cannot improve. They can only get worse.
How much can he be making?
Just fire his sorry ass...
You've got talented young big men, talented young guards. You've got depth at every position.
Yet if this team gets down 10, even in the first quarter, it's over.
I've never seen anything like it. Never in my 45 or so years of watching basketball.
The Nets make the same mistakes over and over. The coach coaches every game the same way, and does not make adjustments. For the last 2 years the Nets have played the same way, except for when Jason Kidd decided to exert his considerable personal will to win, which apparently VC and RJ do not have.
And neither does Lawrence Frank. Have you ever heard him take responsibility in other than a pro forma way? He does not. I don't think it's because he's egotistical. I think it's because he's lost.
The Nets do not come back from a 10 point deficit because they know they will not get help from the bench, and I'm not talking substitutes.
Why not just fire him? How much can he be making? A mil? Half a mil? Two mil? Why not fire his sorry butt and buy him out?
Really, I'm serious. He doesn't know how to coach in game. Rebounding woes continue. Their offense is a joke. They allow the opponent to have extended multiple runs, while they have 5, 6, 7 minute scoring droughts. Game after game after game.
Doesn't the red headed wonder get tired of Groundhog Day? Doesn't he ever tire of it?
Doesn't he ever tire of poor finish to quarters? Doesn't he ever tire of watching his team pull to 8 and get the ball, only to launch an ill advised three with 20 seconds left on the shot clock? Does he ever call a timeout, put his face in RJ's or VC's and say, DRIVE THE BASKET!?
If he is not, he should be fired for being incompetent. If he is, then his team has tuned him out, and thus he should be fired.
And it's not like there isn't talent out there - I bet Jeff van Gundy, who is from the NY area, would take the job, especially if it meant being the man who goes to Brooklyn...
Bruce Ratner - I know you don't give a crap about basketball. I know the Nets are just a pawn in your real estate development scheme. But hey - doesn't it make sense to try and make something of the last 2 or 3 years before the move to Brooklyn? And if it only costs you a mil or two, why not? You just locked up VC for several years at $15 million per. What's a couple of mil in a buyout?
THIS TEAM CANNOT IMPROVE WITH LAWRENCE FRANK AS COACH. They cannot grow, they cannot improve. They can only get worse.
How much can he be making?
Just fire his sorry ass...
Game 60 - Deja vu, only less
At the end of the 3rd quarter, the Nets were losing to a team shooting 35%. By 12.
Funny enough, the Nets were shooting 40%. And losing. By 12.
At one point in the second quarter it was 37-37. The Nets got their 38th point 5 minutes into the SECOND HALF.
So many times in these past two games the Nets got it to 8 and had the ball, but every time they could not close the gap. Turnover, needless 3 with 17 left on the shot clock, offensive foul, jumper with nobody under.
Once the Nets get down 10, AT ANY POINT IN THE GAME, they are done for. First quarter, fourth quarter, any point in between.
The Nets give off an aura of patsy, from the coach on down. The refs pick up on this. With 6 minutes left in the game the Nets have taken just 8 foul shots. SA has taken 24. A difference of 16. At 75%, the NBA average, that adds up to 12 points. Sound familiar?
Tim Duncan scored on a play where he took 4 steps. Ginobili made an assist where he tucked in the ball, "like Ahmad Bradshaw", Marv Albert helpfully added, ran four steps, then passed it. No whistle.
I am sorry, then an NBA game has such a differential in foul shot opportunities, you're not calling a fair game. Three times as many proves bias, period. Space space.
Stat just went up - Nets scored 29 points in the first 15 minutes, 27 points since. Their shooting pcts, by quarter:
1 - 67%
2 - 26%
3 - 33%
4 - 17%
At this moment, with less than 3 minutes left, the Nets are losing to a team shooting 33% - by 17! I have never seen anything like it.
Frank can't help this team. The refs sense the kill and abet it.
What's the point?
Funny enough, the Nets were shooting 40%. And losing. By 12.
At one point in the second quarter it was 37-37. The Nets got their 38th point 5 minutes into the SECOND HALF.
So many times in these past two games the Nets got it to 8 and had the ball, but every time they could not close the gap. Turnover, needless 3 with 17 left on the shot clock, offensive foul, jumper with nobody under.
Once the Nets get down 10, AT ANY POINT IN THE GAME, they are done for. First quarter, fourth quarter, any point in between.
The Nets give off an aura of patsy, from the coach on down. The refs pick up on this. With 6 minutes left in the game the Nets have taken just 8 foul shots. SA has taken 24. A difference of 16. At 75%, the NBA average, that adds up to 12 points. Sound familiar?
Tim Duncan scored on a play where he took 4 steps. Ginobili made an assist where he tucked in the ball, "like Ahmad Bradshaw", Marv Albert helpfully added, ran four steps, then passed it. No whistle.
I am sorry, then an NBA game has such a differential in foul shot opportunities, you're not calling a fair game. Three times as many proves bias, period. Space space.
Stat just went up - Nets scored 29 points in the first 15 minutes, 27 points since. Their shooting pcts, by quarter:
1 - 67%
2 - 26%
3 - 33%
4 - 17%
At this moment, with less than 3 minutes left, the Nets are losing to a team shooting 33% - by 17! I have never seen anything like it.
Frank can't help this team. The refs sense the kill and abet it.
What's the point?
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Game 59 - Oh well...
The good news is that from the 6:00 mark of the first quarter on, the teams played dead even.
The bad news is, they were down 10 at the time, 16-6. That proved to be the margin of loss.
Here's some more bad news:
- 35% shooting
- 27 field goals, only 8 assists. For the entire team.
- Out rebounded 51-42
The Nets fell in love the the jumper a couple of games ago. Last game they shot 68% in the first quarter, twice the rate as tonite. They finished at 51% last game, 17 points higher than tonite.
The Nets pulled with 4 a few times, but couldn't make it stick.
And then there's the old standbys - end of quarters:
Last 2 mins of 2nd: outscored 4-9, -5
Here's their record since the trade:
W
L
W
L
W
L
My prediction thus has to be revised down - 28-39 at the end of the trip.
The Nets cannot move forward with this coach. .500 is the best expected outcome.
.500 ain't gonna cut it.
The bad news is, they were down 10 at the time, 16-6. That proved to be the margin of loss.
Here's some more bad news:
- 35% shooting
- 27 field goals, only 8 assists. For the entire team.
- Out rebounded 51-42
The Nets fell in love the the jumper a couple of games ago. Last game they shot 68% in the first quarter, twice the rate as tonite. They finished at 51% last game, 17 points higher than tonite.
The Nets pulled with 4 a few times, but couldn't make it stick.
And then there's the old standbys - end of quarters:
Last 2 mins of 2nd: outscored 4-9, -5
Here's their record since the trade:
W
L
W
L
W
L
My prediction thus has to be revised down - 28-39 at the end of the trip.
The Nets cannot move forward with this coach. .500 is the best expected outcome.
.500 ain't gonna cut it.
The Upcoming Road Trip - Predictions and Results
So here we are again - 6 games under .500, with the "Texas swing" in the offing. Here are the next several games for the Nets:
Tonite - Spurs
3/4 - @ Spurs
3/5 - @ Memphis
3/7 - @ New Orleans
3/8 - @ Dallas
3/10 - @ Houston
3/12 - Cavs
3/15 - Utah
3/18 - @ Bulls
The Spurs have now won 8 in a row. They play tonite at the Meadowlands. Let's say the juju of the new team make-up, and Tony Parker's relief at Harris getting out of the division is real, and perhaps the Nets win that one. 27-32.
Then they play the Spurs in San Antonio. The probability of the Nets winning there, based on recent history, is essentially nil, but if we have given that the Nets just beat them in NJ, this probability decreases further. 27-33.
At Memphis. The Grizzlies have been decimated, but the Nets will be coming in one night off a bad loss in SA. However, so will the Griz. Tight, losable, but let's say they prevail, narrowly. 28-33.
At New Orleans. Hornets have the one of the best records in the NBA, have just beaten the new look Suns and Utah, and will have tuned up against the sub .500 Wizards, Knicks and Hawks. No chance. 28-34.
At Dallas. Kidd faces his old team, who, when not auditioning him, crush the Nets, especially in Dallas. 28-35.
At Houston. Houston is the hottest team in the NBA. 28-36.
Cleveland is now stacked to win, even on the road. 28-37.
Utah. Best team in the Northwest. 28-38.
At Chicago. The Bulls are way too decimated to contend with a demoralized Nets team, now certainly out of the playoffs, but it will be close, maybe OT. 29-38.
Nets net: Two more weeks down, three more games in the hole.
I just saw the Sixers beat the Suns, and have now passed the Nets as the 7th seed. Just behind the Nets are now the Hawks, Bulls and Indiana. That game on the 18th in Chicago could be for the 8th and final spot, even tho the Bulls have been dismantled. The Hawks could turn it around during the next two and a half weeks, playing as well if not better than the Nets and with an easier schedule during that span, featuring games against the Knicks, Heat, Wizards and Clippers. And guess who the Nets play right after the Bulls - Atlanta.
It is possible that the Nets could catch fire, but with San Antonio in a playoff race for the first time in years, and with an 8 game win streak, the best that can be hoped for is a split. Not exactly the best way to catch fire. The games are set up not to be conducive to streaks, at least not win streaks. They could get demoralized and swoon again and come back from Chicago with less than 28 wins. I'm being optimistic and predicting 2 road wins and a triumph over SA tonite. But wild optimism might have them win 2 more games than that, which would only put them at 31-36, a net increase of just one little game in the standings.
The Nets, with Kidd, with Frank, with the other Big Two, have dug themselves an inconvenient hole. After March 18 they will have only 15 games left, during which they will have to go 11-4 just to make .500. 11-4 while having to play Denver, Phoenix, at Detroit, Toronto, at Cleveland, at Toronto and at Boston. They will need to win at least 3 of those games and sweep the rest, including resurging Atlanta and at Philadelphia, just to break .500. Some of those games against the tougher teams might be easier since they would have clinched their playoff spots. But then some of the games against the "second division" teams might be tougher as they all claw for the privilege of getting destroyed by Boston or Detroit in the first round.
Things look bleak.
I can't possibly expect the playoffs this year. All I can hope for is for this team to play creditably and for Frank to learn some things, and hope for the best in what looks like several years of rebuilding.
Tonite - Spurs
3/4 - @ Spurs
3/5 - @ Memphis
3/7 - @ New Orleans
3/8 - @ Dallas
3/10 - @ Houston
3/12 - Cavs
3/15 - Utah
3/18 - @ Bulls
The Spurs have now won 8 in a row. They play tonite at the Meadowlands. Let's say the juju of the new team make-up, and Tony Parker's relief at Harris getting out of the division is real, and perhaps the Nets win that one. 27-32.
Then they play the Spurs in San Antonio. The probability of the Nets winning there, based on recent history, is essentially nil, but if we have given that the Nets just beat them in NJ, this probability decreases further. 27-33.
At Memphis. The Grizzlies have been decimated, but the Nets will be coming in one night off a bad loss in SA. However, so will the Griz. Tight, losable, but let's say they prevail, narrowly. 28-33.
At New Orleans. Hornets have the one of the best records in the NBA, have just beaten the new look Suns and Utah, and will have tuned up against the sub .500 Wizards, Knicks and Hawks. No chance. 28-34.
At Dallas. Kidd faces his old team, who, when not auditioning him, crush the Nets, especially in Dallas. 28-35.
At Houston. Houston is the hottest team in the NBA. 28-36.
Cleveland is now stacked to win, even on the road. 28-37.
Utah. Best team in the Northwest. 28-38.
At Chicago. The Bulls are way too decimated to contend with a demoralized Nets team, now certainly out of the playoffs, but it will be close, maybe OT. 29-38.
Nets net: Two more weeks down, three more games in the hole.
I just saw the Sixers beat the Suns, and have now passed the Nets as the 7th seed. Just behind the Nets are now the Hawks, Bulls and Indiana. That game on the 18th in Chicago could be for the 8th and final spot, even tho the Bulls have been dismantled. The Hawks could turn it around during the next two and a half weeks, playing as well if not better than the Nets and with an easier schedule during that span, featuring games against the Knicks, Heat, Wizards and Clippers. And guess who the Nets play right after the Bulls - Atlanta.
It is possible that the Nets could catch fire, but with San Antonio in a playoff race for the first time in years, and with an 8 game win streak, the best that can be hoped for is a split. Not exactly the best way to catch fire. The games are set up not to be conducive to streaks, at least not win streaks. They could get demoralized and swoon again and come back from Chicago with less than 28 wins. I'm being optimistic and predicting 2 road wins and a triumph over SA tonite. But wild optimism might have them win 2 more games than that, which would only put them at 31-36, a net increase of just one little game in the standings.
The Nets, with Kidd, with Frank, with the other Big Two, have dug themselves an inconvenient hole. After March 18 they will have only 15 games left, during which they will have to go 11-4 just to make .500. 11-4 while having to play Denver, Phoenix, at Detroit, Toronto, at Cleveland, at Toronto and at Boston. They will need to win at least 3 of those games and sweep the rest, including resurging Atlanta and at Philadelphia, just to break .500. Some of those games against the tougher teams might be easier since they would have clinched their playoff spots. But then some of the games against the "second division" teams might be tougher as they all claw for the privilege of getting destroyed by Boston or Detroit in the first round.
Things look bleak.
I can't possibly expect the playoffs this year. All I can hope for is for this team to play creditably and for Frank to learn some things, and hope for the best in what looks like several years of rebuilding.
Hack a Whomever - Why It Never Works
I hammer my boy Lawrence Frank for his poor in game coaching a lot, it's no secret. He can be a good coach in the NBA if he would leave his Byron Scott ideas about substitution and timeouts behind and just coach the in game situations as they arise.
So this little post is yet another attempt to dissuade him from the error of his ways. This time, however, I wish to appeal to his obvious respect for statistics and computing. This time, I have proof that what he is doing is essentially futile.
Frank, like Scott, is inordinately fond of hoarding timeouts for use at the end of the game in case he has to micro-manage it to erase a moderate lead late, say 7 points or less. This is essentially a self fulfilling strategy - IF you thus hoard, then you are almost ENSURING that you will need to use them, because your failure to use them earlier, to throw water on the other teams' runs or to settle down your own team when it is in disarray, guarantees that your leads will evaporate or close games will widen against you by the time the crunch arrives.
Frank does not see this. His strategy is akin to the Invasion of Iraq - there were no terrorists there, but your invasion gave them the opportunity to be there, and so they are there now. Similarly, the game was not close, but your coaching as if it would inevitably be close forced you to make it close, and thus it was.
There are a lot of time worn strategies in baseball that have never been challenged, such as playing the infield in. In this case, however, it occurred to me that we could indeed mathematically test the validity of the Hack a Whomever strategy at the end of the game. This blog is the results of that study.
Let's set the stage:
The Hack a Whomever strategy is one where one finds his team down by more than one score with less than 2 minutes remaining in the game. The idea is to foul the other team right away when they get possession, put them on the line, hope that they miss occasionally, and score as quickly as you can when you have the ball. If you get enough possessions, and the other team misses enough foul shots, you can narrow the gap to one score. Then "it's anybody's game".
Frank (and other coaches) further refine this strategy by relying on 2 point baskets, gambling that they can drive to the hoop and score 2 with greater percentage than 3s because the other team is not going to foul them.
There are various fallacies of this strategy, such as the unwillingness of the other team to foul you and make you earn it at the stripe. But without going there, I posed the simple question - Given this strategy, what is a reasonable expectation of points differential by using it?
I broke down the strategy into 6 identifiable and quantifiable variables:
SLG - Number of seconds left in the game
SYP - Number of seconds of your possessions
SFO - Number of seconds before you foul your opponent
YSP - Your shooting pct
OFP - Your opponent's free throw pct
COS - Whether you shoot 3s or 2s
Clearly, by the way, shooting pct varies with your choice of shooting 3s or 2s.
I began by constructing the formula. Given so many seconds left in the game (SLG), and given the amount of time in seconds it takes you to score (SYP) as well as how many seconds it takes you to foul the other team (SFO), the number of opportunities that both teams together within the time remaining will be:
SLG/(SYP+SFO)
For example, if there is 90 seconds left in the game, and it takes you 20 seconds to score and 10 seconds to foul, there will be at most 3 such exchanges of possession. If you can get your possessions down to 10 and can foul on average at 5, you can get 6 such exchanges.
Clearly, the number of possessions will not be an integer, so I modified the expression to take that into account, using the Greatest Integer Less Than function, or FLOOR:
FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1)
So if we plug in 12 seconds to score and 7 seconds to foul, say, we'll get an integral value for the number of possessions.
Now, how many points can we expect to score? Take the number of possessions, take the kind of shot, and take a shooting pct for that kind of shot. Thus:
YSP*COS*FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1)
So, if we're gonna shoot 2s, and we have 3 possessions, and we shoot 67%, we'll should expect to score 4 points. If we shoot 3s, have 6 possessions and shoot 50%, we should expect to score 9 points.
Of course, the other team is not standing still. They're getting fouled (btw, it is assumed that you are over the limit, which, in this scenario, is the best case - otherwise more time will have to tick down as you foul repeatedly with the other team not having to shoot free throws) and sinking some shots. Remember, they shoot 2 shots. Thus they are scoring:
2*OFP*FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1)
Given the NBA average of FT pct of 75%, and given those 3 possessions, the other team will score at least 4 points. If they have 6 possessions, they will score 9.
The expectation, therefore, of the strategy, is the difference between these two scoring expectations:
YSP*COS*FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1) - 2*OFP*FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1)
or, distributing out, we get:
(YSP*COS - 2*OFP)*FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1)
This is mathematically the expectation for the net points you will get from such a strategy. Like it or not, this is the formula.
All that remains is to plug some values in.
As we can see in our above examples, their net scoring is 0. That is, nothing is gained from this strategy.
Well, a coach might argue, that assumes an NBA average for free throw shooting. But at the end of the game there is more pressure, especially if the team you're facing is on the road (ie, you're at home) and if you foul the right person, ie, one who's a bad foul shooter.
Okay, lets use these numbers, then:
SLG - 90
SYP - 15
SFO - 10
YSP - .500
COS - 3
OFP - .400
This says there's a minute and a half left in the game, it takes you 15 seconds on average in a possession during which you score half the time and when you do it's a three, while it takes you 10 seconds to foul the duffer at the line who only shoots 40%.
Expectation? +2 points.
That's it? That's all I can expect?
That's it. So if you're down 3, you can expect to lose. You're far better off letting your team play.
Of course, no coach is gonna go into the Hack-a-Whomever down by 3 with 90 seconds left. They'd more likely use it if they were down, say 5. But if your expectation is net +2, why in the world would you do it?
Even more to the point, this scenario assumes you shoot 3s. LFrank, and many other coaches, would say, well, we don't have to shoot 3s. Oh no? Clearly, given 50% shooting, and shooting 2s, our expectation should be LESS. Ie, we'll lose by a larger deficit!
Even if we crank up our shooting pct to 75% shooting 2s, our expectation in the same situation with the duffer and the time allotted yields:
Expectation? +2 points!
See? Altho the 2, given matador D due to a reluctance of the other team to foul, has a much higher percentage of success, the net comes out EXACTLY THE SAME because the 3 pointer COUNTS AS MORE POINTS!
This only makes sense, after all. The other team is shooting foul shots and will sink some of them. You're making up the difference, but at a rate so slow it can't possibly ever shrink to zero within the allotted time, ie, the time that's left when you elected to use the strategy.
Thus Frank's strategy of Foul-and-go-for-2 is just as futile as if he let his guys bomb away from downtown.
Wait - the coach might say - we don't use this because it is guaranteed to work, or even likely to work. We use it in the hope we get lucky.
Fair point. So then, exactly how lucky do we have to get?
Let's be generous and very optimistic with our luck, and reasonable about when we're gonna use it.
Let's say we're down by 7 with 2 minutes left. This is the earliest we would use the strategy, and we would have to be awfully alert to decide to use it with that much time left. Let's further say that we're gonna go on a roll and shoot 75% from 3, only take 10 seconds off the clock, and foul a 40% duffer (say, like Josh Boone) from the line with 5 seconds EVERY time.
Expectation? +11.6
So this WOULD work - BUT there are other considerations.
For example, not only would you need to be lottery lucky, the lead will evaporate long before the 2 minutes is up. In fact, you will tie it in 0:40, and take the lead with 30 seconds left. Will you continue with the strategy after then?
And what if the other coach, sensing your use of the strategy early, puts all guards out there, all of whom are at least 65% free throw shooters? The best you can hope for is a tie. And that's assuming you have the perspicacity to start using the strategy with 2 minutes left. If you waited until only a minute and a half left, you lose.
I did see this strategy work exactly once, and it was at the college level. Stanford used it with a little over 1 minute left vs Rhode Island in the 98 NCAAs to advance to the Final Four. But they were even luckier than the improbable scenario posed above. And again, they were young college players, not professionals used to playing tight games on the road in packed houses.
Frank, however, does not get this. He robotically uses it, uses the version less inclined to success, and uses it so often without positive results that he actually undermines his authority by demoralizing a team that sees what every other person in the building sees - IT NEVER WORKS. WHAT'S THE POINT??
Take Tuesday's game vs Orlando. With 1:31 left the Nets foul, down 8. They are shooting 43% for the game, 42% from 3 land. Orlando is shooting 67% from the line.
Let's be optimistic and hope that we can score in 10 and foul in 5.
Now, I have, at this moment, not figured out what the expectation should be. Let's plug in these numbers and see what our expectation should be, both shooting 2s and 3s.
Expectation shooting 2s: -2.88
Expectation shooting 3s: -0.48
Either way, and anything in between, the Nets should expect their deficit to WIDEN, not close. In fact, they lost by 10, an increase in the deficit by 2 points, EXACTLY AS PREDICTED.
In fact, in order to have won, the following numbers would have had to apply:
SLG - 90 (fixed)
SYP - 10 (optimistic)
SFO - 5 (very optimistic)
YSP - .750 (wildly optimistic)
COS - 3 (which Frank would never do)
OFP - .400 (wildly optimistic)
and EVEN THEN all they would have done is FORCED OVERTIME!
Even if they just played it out, held Orlando scoreless, kept them to 20 seconds per possession and scored a 3 every time down, they'd win by just 1. BUT AT LEAST THEY'D WIN. And how improbable is that scenario compared with the wildly optimistic Hack-a-whomever scenario above?
Of course, the best scenario is to NEVER HAVE LET THE DEFICIT GET TO 8 WITH 1:30 TO GO IN THE FIRST PLACE. The score had seesawed all game with no team having a lead bigger than 6 until the very end, when Frank's inability to call a well placed timeout let it get out of hand.
The bottom line, then, is this:
- The Hack-a-Whomever strategy is theoretically set up for failure in almost all circumstances when it would be used.
- The Foul-and-Go-For-2 variant is EVEN LESS LIKELY to succeed.
Thus it would appear, to any rational coach with a desire to win, to NOT HOARD TIMEOUTS for this eventuality and JUST KEEP PLAYING THE GAME.
I will try to communicate this to Frank and Rod Thorn, in the hope that perhaps, just maybe, if the facts are laid out for him, he will change his approach and COACH THE GAME THAT PRESENTS ITSELF, not the game he has a priori decided on.
So this little post is yet another attempt to dissuade him from the error of his ways. This time, however, I wish to appeal to his obvious respect for statistics and computing. This time, I have proof that what he is doing is essentially futile.
Frank, like Scott, is inordinately fond of hoarding timeouts for use at the end of the game in case he has to micro-manage it to erase a moderate lead late, say 7 points or less. This is essentially a self fulfilling strategy - IF you thus hoard, then you are almost ENSURING that you will need to use them, because your failure to use them earlier, to throw water on the other teams' runs or to settle down your own team when it is in disarray, guarantees that your leads will evaporate or close games will widen against you by the time the crunch arrives.
Frank does not see this. His strategy is akin to the Invasion of Iraq - there were no terrorists there, but your invasion gave them the opportunity to be there, and so they are there now. Similarly, the game was not close, but your coaching as if it would inevitably be close forced you to make it close, and thus it was.
There are a lot of time worn strategies in baseball that have never been challenged, such as playing the infield in. In this case, however, it occurred to me that we could indeed mathematically test the validity of the Hack a Whomever strategy at the end of the game. This blog is the results of that study.
Let's set the stage:
The Hack a Whomever strategy is one where one finds his team down by more than one score with less than 2 minutes remaining in the game. The idea is to foul the other team right away when they get possession, put them on the line, hope that they miss occasionally, and score as quickly as you can when you have the ball. If you get enough possessions, and the other team misses enough foul shots, you can narrow the gap to one score. Then "it's anybody's game".
Frank (and other coaches) further refine this strategy by relying on 2 point baskets, gambling that they can drive to the hoop and score 2 with greater percentage than 3s because the other team is not going to foul them.
There are various fallacies of this strategy, such as the unwillingness of the other team to foul you and make you earn it at the stripe. But without going there, I posed the simple question - Given this strategy, what is a reasonable expectation of points differential by using it?
I broke down the strategy into 6 identifiable and quantifiable variables:
SLG - Number of seconds left in the game
SYP - Number of seconds of your possessions
SFO - Number of seconds before you foul your opponent
YSP - Your shooting pct
OFP - Your opponent's free throw pct
COS - Whether you shoot 3s or 2s
Clearly, by the way, shooting pct varies with your choice of shooting 3s or 2s.
I began by constructing the formula. Given so many seconds left in the game (SLG), and given the amount of time in seconds it takes you to score (SYP) as well as how many seconds it takes you to foul the other team (SFO), the number of opportunities that both teams together within the time remaining will be:
SLG/(SYP+SFO)
For example, if there is 90 seconds left in the game, and it takes you 20 seconds to score and 10 seconds to foul, there will be at most 3 such exchanges of possession. If you can get your possessions down to 10 and can foul on average at 5, you can get 6 such exchanges.
Clearly, the number of possessions will not be an integer, so I modified the expression to take that into account, using the Greatest Integer Less Than function, or FLOOR:
FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1)
So if we plug in 12 seconds to score and 7 seconds to foul, say, we'll get an integral value for the number of possessions.
Now, how many points can we expect to score? Take the number of possessions, take the kind of shot, and take a shooting pct for that kind of shot. Thus:
YSP*COS*FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1)
So, if we're gonna shoot 2s, and we have 3 possessions, and we shoot 67%, we'll should expect to score 4 points. If we shoot 3s, have 6 possessions and shoot 50%, we should expect to score 9 points.
Of course, the other team is not standing still. They're getting fouled (btw, it is assumed that you are over the limit, which, in this scenario, is the best case - otherwise more time will have to tick down as you foul repeatedly with the other team not having to shoot free throws) and sinking some shots. Remember, they shoot 2 shots. Thus they are scoring:
2*OFP*FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1)
Given the NBA average of FT pct of 75%, and given those 3 possessions, the other team will score at least 4 points. If they have 6 possessions, they will score 9.
The expectation, therefore, of the strategy, is the difference between these two scoring expectations:
YSP*COS*FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1) - 2*OFP*FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1)
or, distributing out, we get:
(YSP*COS - 2*OFP)*FLOOR(SLG/(SYP+SFO),1)
This is mathematically the expectation for the net points you will get from such a strategy. Like it or not, this is the formula.
All that remains is to plug some values in.
As we can see in our above examples, their net scoring is 0. That is, nothing is gained from this strategy.
Well, a coach might argue, that assumes an NBA average for free throw shooting. But at the end of the game there is more pressure, especially if the team you're facing is on the road (ie, you're at home) and if you foul the right person, ie, one who's a bad foul shooter.
Okay, lets use these numbers, then:
SLG - 90
SYP - 15
SFO - 10
YSP - .500
COS - 3
OFP - .400
This says there's a minute and a half left in the game, it takes you 15 seconds on average in a possession during which you score half the time and when you do it's a three, while it takes you 10 seconds to foul the duffer at the line who only shoots 40%.
Expectation? +2 points.
That's it? That's all I can expect?
That's it. So if you're down 3, you can expect to lose. You're far better off letting your team play.
Of course, no coach is gonna go into the Hack-a-Whomever down by 3 with 90 seconds left. They'd more likely use it if they were down, say 5. But if your expectation is net +2, why in the world would you do it?
Even more to the point, this scenario assumes you shoot 3s. LFrank, and many other coaches, would say, well, we don't have to shoot 3s. Oh no? Clearly, given 50% shooting, and shooting 2s, our expectation should be LESS. Ie, we'll lose by a larger deficit!
Even if we crank up our shooting pct to 75% shooting 2s, our expectation in the same situation with the duffer and the time allotted yields:
Expectation? +2 points!
See? Altho the 2, given matador D due to a reluctance of the other team to foul, has a much higher percentage of success, the net comes out EXACTLY THE SAME because the 3 pointer COUNTS AS MORE POINTS!
This only makes sense, after all. The other team is shooting foul shots and will sink some of them. You're making up the difference, but at a rate so slow it can't possibly ever shrink to zero within the allotted time, ie, the time that's left when you elected to use the strategy.
Thus Frank's strategy of Foul-and-go-for-2 is just as futile as if he let his guys bomb away from downtown.
Wait - the coach might say - we don't use this because it is guaranteed to work, or even likely to work. We use it in the hope we get lucky.
Fair point. So then, exactly how lucky do we have to get?
Let's be generous and very optimistic with our luck, and reasonable about when we're gonna use it.
Let's say we're down by 7 with 2 minutes left. This is the earliest we would use the strategy, and we would have to be awfully alert to decide to use it with that much time left. Let's further say that we're gonna go on a roll and shoot 75% from 3, only take 10 seconds off the clock, and foul a 40% duffer (say, like Josh Boone) from the line with 5 seconds EVERY time.
Expectation? +11.6
So this WOULD work - BUT there are other considerations.
For example, not only would you need to be lottery lucky, the lead will evaporate long before the 2 minutes is up. In fact, you will tie it in 0:40, and take the lead with 30 seconds left. Will you continue with the strategy after then?
And what if the other coach, sensing your use of the strategy early, puts all guards out there, all of whom are at least 65% free throw shooters? The best you can hope for is a tie. And that's assuming you have the perspicacity to start using the strategy with 2 minutes left. If you waited until only a minute and a half left, you lose.
I did see this strategy work exactly once, and it was at the college level. Stanford used it with a little over 1 minute left vs Rhode Island in the 98 NCAAs to advance to the Final Four. But they were even luckier than the improbable scenario posed above. And again, they were young college players, not professionals used to playing tight games on the road in packed houses.
Frank, however, does not get this. He robotically uses it, uses the version less inclined to success, and uses it so often without positive results that he actually undermines his authority by demoralizing a team that sees what every other person in the building sees - IT NEVER WORKS. WHAT'S THE POINT??
Take Tuesday's game vs Orlando. With 1:31 left the Nets foul, down 8. They are shooting 43% for the game, 42% from 3 land. Orlando is shooting 67% from the line.
Let's be optimistic and hope that we can score in 10 and foul in 5.
Now, I have, at this moment, not figured out what the expectation should be. Let's plug in these numbers and see what our expectation should be, both shooting 2s and 3s.
Expectation shooting 2s: -2.88
Expectation shooting 3s: -0.48
Either way, and anything in between, the Nets should expect their deficit to WIDEN, not close. In fact, they lost by 10, an increase in the deficit by 2 points, EXACTLY AS PREDICTED.
In fact, in order to have won, the following numbers would have had to apply:
SLG - 90 (fixed)
SYP - 10 (optimistic)
SFO - 5 (very optimistic)
YSP - .750 (wildly optimistic)
COS - 3 (which Frank would never do)
OFP - .400 (wildly optimistic)
and EVEN THEN all they would have done is FORCED OVERTIME!
Even if they just played it out, held Orlando scoreless, kept them to 20 seconds per possession and scored a 3 every time down, they'd win by just 1. BUT AT LEAST THEY'D WIN. And how improbable is that scenario compared with the wildly optimistic Hack-a-whomever scenario above?
Of course, the best scenario is to NEVER HAVE LET THE DEFICIT GET TO 8 WITH 1:30 TO GO IN THE FIRST PLACE. The score had seesawed all game with no team having a lead bigger than 6 until the very end, when Frank's inability to call a well placed timeout let it get out of hand.
The bottom line, then, is this:
- The Hack-a-Whomever strategy is theoretically set up for failure in almost all circumstances when it would be used.
- The Foul-and-Go-For-2 variant is EVEN LESS LIKELY to succeed.
Thus it would appear, to any rational coach with a desire to win, to NOT HOARD TIMEOUTS for this eventuality and JUST KEEP PLAYING THE GAME.
I will try to communicate this to Frank and Rod Thorn, in the hope that perhaps, just maybe, if the facts are laid out for him, he will change his approach and COACH THE GAME THAT PRESENTS ITSELF, not the game he has a priori decided on.
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