Manu Ginobili – Fansmanship

Luke’s Western Conference Finals Breakdown

Luke Johnson — Sat, 26 May 2012 06:42:38 +0000

For the 2nd year in a row, Kobe Bryant and the all mighty Laker Show are on the outside looking in. Even without the Lakers, there are four remaining participants with a righteous chance at league superiority.

For the San Antonio Spurs, none of this new. While the league has celebrated the Lakers, Hollywood part deuce — the Clippers, the return of the Chowds — Boston Celtics and evil three (now two) in Miami, the poised veteran Spurs quietly go about their business, methodically behind the scenes.

Gregg Popovich — favorite, for coach of the year — has brilliantly woven together the champion tested trinity of Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan with skilled youth ( Dejuan Blair, Kawhi Leonard, Gary Neal and Tiago Splitter). The Spurs also got well-timed mid-season additions of Boris Diaw and Stephen Jackson. These veterans lengthen the rotation and give the team two more dynamic all-around scorers.

This year’s Spurs are unlike the defensive-minded Spurs teams of the past. This year’s version ranked 1st in points scored while maintaining their defensive identity, 6th overall. They were 1st in three-point field goal percentage and overall field-goal percentage, pacing their usual offensive efficiency. Without question, the youth of the team has lit a spark under their elder statesmen. Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, and Mau Ginobili each had their best season in three years. Parker’s season was the most notable and while his numbers were not as flashy as Kevin Durant or LeBron James, (18 points, 3 rebounds, 8 assists per game, 48% FGs), he had an MVP-level season.

How important will that veteran depth be?

The uptempo Thunder will provide an answer. Durant, Westbrook and company ran the “veteran depth” of the Lakers in five games. The Thunder have evolved the right way over the last three years, as they continue their ascent toward NBA dominance. While their superstars have established themselves, the team has also discovered burgeoning talents along the way, including James Harden, Serge Ibaka and Erik Maynor. Coach Scott Brooks, has masterfully crafted together a young team of personalities, and made sure players know their roles.

While many have argued that the best facilitator on the team is James Harden, Coach Brooks has maintained trust with radically dynamic, Russell Westbrook. Westbrook responded, putting together his best season, exuding team orientation, and deferring his shot (at times) to Durant. This dissolved plausible tension between the two stars and relayed belief in his fellow players. Westbrook’s ability to put the team first has helped the Thunder build a strong network of unselfish attitudes.

Thrust this recipe into a fan-crazed “small-town” metropolis like Oklahoma City, and the Thunder have one of the best home court advantages in all of sports. The Ford Center rocks and roles with the Thunder blue, igniting a team of young believers with a much needed chip on their shoulder.

Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook definitely have something to prove. Dissolving in the Western Finals to the would be champion, Dallas Mavericks, last year brought into question whether or not the two stars could co-exist, and whether they were built with a champion’s poise. This year has been different: Durant and Westbrook have backed each other in the media, while the Moses-bearded Harden has slowly become the new era version of Manu Ginobili.

Maturation, when developed the right way, is a slow, soggy process. One that, if waited for, can build a perennial power from the ground-up. Along their journey, the Thunder have bonded and gelled a unified front — one that finished 2nd in points scored, 4th in three point field goal percentage, 9th in total defense, 2nd in steals and 1st in blocked shots.

These facts you need to know before selecting your Western Finals Winner

1. The Spurs have won eight of the last ten meetings between the two teams.

2. Tony Parker scored a season-high 42 points on 29 shots against Russell Westbrook in their last meeting.

3. Parker has historically struggled guarding stronger more agile point guards. This is important because he will have to defend the Westbrook-Durant pick-and-roll.

4. The Spurs are 8-0 in the playoffs this season.

5. The Thunder came from behind three times against Lakers in the fourth quarter of the conference semi-finals series. Will they be able to do the same against the Spurs?

6. The Thunder are averaging 1.08 points per possession in playoffs; the Spurs, 1.18.

Ultimately, the series will come down to both teams’ big three and whether or not the cerebral spurs or quick Thunder can guard the pick and roll. Parker is a blur in the open court and his team’s spark. If he gets off hot like he did in the teams’ last meeting, the series could be over quickly . When guarding the Spurs in the open court, a team must play the corners for the pull up three and partly sag, to hinder the erratic Parker’s drive. Getting the Spurs into a half-court game is not a guarantee of victory by any means, but beating an aging Tim Duncan is the only way the Thunder can beat the Spurs.

The X- factors on the Thunder’s side, are both Westbrook and Harden. Can Westbrook divert Parker’s drive, create turnovers and get himself into the open court where he’s best? Can the Spurs step in front of Westbrook’s arrow-like split of the pick and roll (between the pick instead of over it) and rotate quickly enough to disturb his above the rim aggression? Harden IS the team’s best facilitator and is close to the quickest guy on the court. His use of body control to draw fouls on the perimeter could be something that gets Parker, Neal, Danny Green and Ginobili into foul trouble.

Oddly enough, Durant is odd man out. Despite his overall impact on the series — which will be huge — the reigning scoring champ will act as decoy and “another option” to create diversity within the Thunder attack. This isn’t to say Durant can struggle in the series and the Thunder win. But it is to say, if Westbrook and Harden can out-match Parker and Ginobili, the series should belong to the Thunder. Who can possibly shut down the most fluidly gifted scorer in the league? Second-year player Danny Green is the Spurs’ best option, but the concept of him stifling Durant’s scoring is a bit far-fetched. In their last meeting, Green disrupted Durant the best he could, and the star finished 8 of 19 from the floor with 25 points.

I’m bent on believing in cerebral experience above and beyond maturing youth. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if the Thunder made a run at winning a championship, I would be more surprised to see the Spurs ousted in the Western Conference Finals. A reborn Tim Duncan has solidified the Spurs as not just a run and gun squad but as a half court, beat you up, shot clock working post threat also. This will be too much for the Thunder. The presumed “passing of the torch” between the two similar teams, will not be this year. Duncan is hungry for a 5th ring to continue his ascension into a top – ten player of All – Time, Parker is hungry for league-wide adoration (historically ignored in great point guard talks) and Gregg Popovich desires his name to be among the likes of Phil Jackson, Red Aurbach, Pat Riley and Lenny Wilkens.

Next year Thunder. Spurs in 6.

Why Big Shot Bob is the Answer to Everything

Luke Johnson — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:08:13 +0000

Is LeBron James the “Robin,” or the “Sellout,” many angered sport fans are shouting all across the country? Is the two time MVP, eight time all-star, the one dubbed by Scottie Pippen to be, “the greatest player in NBA history,” a bust in the glimmer of these comparisons?

There is only one man who can answer these pondering’s, that being “Big Shot Bob,” otherwise known as Robert Horry, who made a living with the Rockets, Lakers, and Spurs, en route to seven rings by nailing the clutch shot.

Why does this matter? He was never a star, but he has rings galore bronzed on his swish- svelte fingers.

In today’s NBA we judge all-time greats by how many rings they’ve won and whether or not they led their teams to title town. But is this a fair assessment, considering a life-long bench guy like Horry can be carried to seven?

Never was Horry the franchise guy. In fact, as great as he seemed in closing minutes, Robert Horry never became the player we expected him to be after his timely three point shooting for Houston’s 2nd title run.

Horry’s brief stint in Phoenix after a trade in 1996, proved he was not endowed with a star motor. A hot tempered, dramatic and aloof head case, Bob languished averaging 6.9 points at a career low shooting clip: 41.8%. A trade by mid-season to the L.A. Lakers–a team filled with Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Nick Van Exel, Eddie Jones, Elden Campbell, and Cedric Ceballos changed the trajectory of his failing career.

So why then is Bob a champion? Why not franchise guys like Barkley, Malone, Stockton, Dominique, Ewing, or Reggie Miller?

Each of those listed above were worthy of winning gold, were they not? All of them were respective franchise pieces with the heart, skills, and late game heroics to hold the O’Brien.

The answer to their problems was Michael Jordan’s Bulls: a team of role guys surrounding the king of the sport with that IT factor needed to win it all. Something today’s critics use to gauge greatness and rank the all time elites.

So what is the issue then with the tautness of this old-time equation? Why not turn a blind eye and allow this to be the answer to everything?

Simply because it just does not add up. It does not offer enough answers. If Big Shot Bob has seven, or the likes of Jack Haley–former twelfth man for Jordan’s final three peat has three, the equation’s a bit off. We need something else, a new perspective when thinking of the greats and why and how they never hung the O’Brien.

And I believe individual luck IS the partly the answer, luck, a maddening machine random like the California Lottery. Historians prefer the term historical happenings–a notion that choices are made for no other reason except that they were made, and the dominoes re-arrange the cosmos of a world more closely inter-connected than we might wish it to be (think guy who smells like farts at the movies, or the swine flu victim winding a cough onto the back nape of the neck.)

Luck.

To think Michael Jordan fell to number three in the 1984 draft could be easily overlooked for a variety of reasons: Sam Bowie, the number two pick before MJ, was a college superstar and a big man compared at the time to the greats. The Blazers already had a gifted wingman in Clyde Drexler andat the time the league was built around bigs: Kareem, Sampson and Olajuwan, Robert Parish, Patrick Ewing, and Moses Malone.

But that doesn’t make things less ludicrous. Look at how the draft shaped the NBA forever. MJ goes to an ordinary Bulls team built in perhaps the greatest city in America, where he wins ROY, ultimately five MVP’s, slam dunk contests, becomes the games biggest mogul, and wins six titles. Alongside Oprah, MJ is easily the greatest name in Chicago history and can be attributed for an economical explosion that saved the lower West side of the city once run with crime: drug abuse, gang wars, and prostitution.

Bowie, in the annals of the NBA, is known as ‘the bust.’ He never won a thing in the pros: no all star games, no shoe deals, thus injuring the once bright ideal the Blazers had in trading their franchise Center Bill Walton to Boston.

This, my friends, is the Sam Bowie, a supernatural element that cannot be ignored.

Luck.

Yet like so many children born into inner city poverty without the tools necessary to change their lives, we cannot judge the stars through the a similar bias, because not all players are born lucky into a posh franchise. The gift of playing in Los Angeles or Boston does not come to everyone. Not every player is born into a showtime era, a team so deep they make the ocean look like a kids pool.

For some, seeking a new home is like divorcing an abusive wife. In order for Mitch Richmond to adorn gold, the talented and true shooting guard had to eventually break ties in the perils of Sacramento. Karl Malone found it necessary to join with Kobe and Shaq in 04′ after a long tenure in Utah. And even the humble Clyde Drexlerleft a hell of a situation in Portland to win it Houston. All three of which were great with or without (Sing it Bono) a championship.

The reality of the situation is heart breaking for most. We as childish dreamers wish our favorite player could be greater than the others, but this is not real. Embracing a pragmatic approach to the sport tied less to your heart strings will allow you to see greatness wrapped in many different packages.

Reality 1: Great players DO NOT win championships, great TEAMS win championships. The 2004 Detroit Pistons are a perfect example of this. A team of role guys without a future hall of famer, the Pistons had the momentary IT. Call it faith, hard work, purity, and any other beautiful thing you want, but to explain why they won a title over an L.A. Laker team stocked with four future hall of famers would be absurd.

Reality 2: Like the stars in the sky, NBA STARS need other STARS. Think for a moment about the teams who’ve won championships the last thirty years. All of them have one thing in common: team depth and stars surrounding stars. Magic had Kareem and Worthy; Bird–Mchale and Parish; Dr.J–Moses Malone; Isaiah–Dumars and Rodman; MJ–Pippen; Hakeem–Clyde; Shaq–Kobe and Wade; Duncan–Robinson, Parker, and Ginobili; Pierce–KG and Allen.

Reality 3: Winning titles does mean a lot, but it does not mean everything for a myriad of reasons. If the 1919 Chicago Blacksox or dirty referees like Tim Donaghy can throw World Series and playoff games, then how serious can we take this thing? Not very. Take everything with a grain of salt and learn other decided facets when it comes to judging all-time greats: MVP’s, All Star appearances, Career Totals, Game Winners, Ability to close, Athleticism, Re-defining the sport, dominance-ometer, and sociological affects.

LeBron James is not a sell out because the guy wants to win, he’s a realist. A star unselfish enough to admit that NO star including himself, can win a title completely on his own.

LeBron is stuck in the the Bill Clinton Vacuum. Though he does great things, he is brushed aside because of one unlikeable decision.

But greatness is not a grade school quiz on being friendly, it is brutal giftedness. And likeability is not the twin brother to being great.

LeBron made a decision to better his career andhis life. Leading a Cleveland Cavs team the last seven years, that never boasted anybody better than a has-been version of Antawn Jamison warrants James departure. No it does not warrant the overdone TV cinematic’s regarding “the decision,” nor the Pat Riley blowout introduction party in South Beach. Yet neither should it foster the illogical hysteria across America attempting to deny the man’s sheer dominance and greatness.

This isn’t patty cake kids. We are talking about a production entertainment, where all titles are but a decorative decor. They might help the woman look fine, but if that woman is not fine without the jewelry or the tight fitting jeans, I say run, run as fast as you can.

Drop by the nearest bar and have a scotch on me. Look through the world with freshness and at what is truly great (it is not the girl next to you.). It is the scraggly bartender able to whip up drinks faster than the average Joe.