NBA Awards and the Defensive Player of the Year Bias...

It’s the first week of the NBA playoffs and that means it’s season awards time.  Well, individual awards that is.  The big team award won’t happen until mid-June when the Champ is crowned.  Obviously that is the most important “award” in hoops, but the individual awards have their place too, they are a matter of historical reference.  But as with all awards they conjure up endless debate because there are so many ways to look at it, and really, all of this stuff is just a matter of opinion anyway right?

Okay, I’ll just come out and say it.  I’m not a fan of awards, and even more so, those ridiculous awards shows.  The Performing Arts is teeming with them, and these days there are just way too many.  Hollywood, Broadway, the Record biz… enough already.  You can buy awards now for crying out loud.  Studios campaign for them like politicians in an effort to add prestige to their films and TV shows.  They plan their release dates accordingly.  It’s really kind of gross.  One of my favorite random Simpson’s references is from about ten years ago when Homer was watching the Award Show of the Year - Award Show, on TV… the Awardies.  Brilliant.

Dwight Howard... is the Eraser...

But honestly, at least the NBA just hands out its awards with five-minute acknowledgments before games, not with all the pomp and circumstance of the more extravagant ego trips.  The major ones are the league's Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year, and Sixth Man of the Year.  The MVP is by far the most controversial of the lot, because the definition of the MVP is so vague.  Most Valuable Player?  Does that mean best player?  Most indispensible?  No one knows.  And the league wants it that way.  More conjecture is a good thing, and whatever the voters decide goes.  Now this year we’re all pretty sure that Derrick Rose of Chicago will win the MVP, Clipper Blake Griffin will definitely win Rookie of the Year, the Bulls’ Tom Thibedoux will be Coach of the Year, Lamar Odom just won Sixth Man, and a few days back, Dwight Howard shocked absolutely no one by winning his third straight Defensive Player of the Year Award. 

Starting in 1982 five of the first Six DPOY’s were awarded to perimeter-oriented players, but since then - since 1988, only two perimeter players have won the award; Gary Payton in 1996 and Ron Artest in 2004.  It has basically morphed into “the Shot-Blocker of the Year Award” where big men are always heavily favored.  This shift has been embraced and now it is just generally accepted that the little guys get enough attention elsewhere; so they should just let the big men have their respective moments in the sun.  This thinking does make some sense of course, because good defensive teams are always anchored by a dominant low post presence, so the best defenses are all showcased by a ferocious shot-blocker.  But c’mon… in the last 23 years, the “best defender in the league” has been a low-post player 21 times?  No way.  I’m calling Shenanigans. 

Long ago it became clear that, in basketball, stats are difficult.  There are just too many variables and intangible things happening throughout a free flowing team game to ever really quantify individual statistics definitively.  But the two major stats that have come to represent the defensive end of the floor are blocks and steals.  Generally 3 blocks or 3 steals per game for a player is considered very good, but oddly, neither stat is necessarily indicative of playing good defense.  And conversely, a player could play great defense all game long, and not log a single statistic to prove it.  So how could any of the voters know who the best defensive player is?  Watch ALL the games???  Well, naturally it makes the Defensive Player of the Year Award quite difficult.

But still, what’s with the big man domination?  If you’re talking about versatile defenders, those guys don’t really cut the mustard do they?  Which brings us to arguably the most versatile defender (and thereby maybe the best defender) of all-time, Scottie Pippen.  Scottie Pippen was the most dominant defensive presence of his era.  He made the NBA’s All-Defensive First Team eight times, and Second Team twice.  (During that ten-year span, Dikembe Mutombo won DPOY 4 times, Hakeem Olajuwon twice, Alonzo Mourning twice, and David Robinson once.  It was the all centers club.)

But Scottie, could do it all.

Pippen was 6-7 with long arms, and was deadly quick, an amazing leaper, and incredibly competitive.  He could basically defend any player at any position; and shut them down.  He may have done more to disrupt opposing teams' offenses than any other player in NBA history, and yet he never won a Defensive Player of the Year award.  I don’t think he was ever even the runner up.  That's just crazy.  So here is where we need to adjust our thinking on this award.  People, please consider all of the great defenders in the league, not just the lumbering big men in the paint.  Remember the (slightly) shorter guys too!

Now, that’s not to say that Dwight Howard isn’t deserving of the award this season because I think he is.  But the fact that Scottie Pippen may have been the best defender ever and was never really in contention for this award once (much less multiple times) is pure folly.  We can’t let that happen again. 

Hmmm… I guess I do care about awards after all.

Thanks for Reading. 

Underdogs OUT!            

The NBA playoffs and the Lost Underdog Factor...

UMDuluth took the NCAA Frozen Four Championship
in dramatic fashion with a Golden Goal against Michigan.

So we’re done with the NFL, College Football, Hoops, and Hockey Championships, and now it’s finally time for the NBA Playoffs; or as it’s known around here, the best time of the year.  (Also because of the NHL playoffs though... the Hockey Golden Goal is the coolest thing in sports!...  but we’ll have to get to that another day.)  Now, obviously we love the NBA and their playoffs, but this time of year has also admittedly become something of a buzz-kill to Underdog aficionados around the world.  Why?  Well because, historically, in the NBA the Underdogs rarely pull through.   

Unlike the amazing one-game matchups that captivate the nation for three weeks in March, the NCAA’s bigger basketball brothers engage in a much more drawn-out and calculated championship tournament.  Each round consists of a best of seven-game series so the drama is gradual, and inevitably the more talented/experienced team always seems to win.  Yes, there can be some thrilling upsets in individual games but almost never in a series.  The intensity of a one-game-win-or-go-home scenario only simultaneously occurs for both teams in the event of a seventh game, and that just doesn’t happen very often.  

But that won’t stop us from pulling for our mighty Underdog brethren in the face of the longest odds.  It is as Theoden says in the Lord of the Rings, when he is told that his army can't possibly defeat the enemy, “Yes.  But we will meet them in battle none-the-less!”

So who are our great Underdogs in shining armor/armour this year?

In the East it is hard to think of any of the Underdogs as having a chance in any round.  But the most compelling matchup has to be the offensively-potent New York Knickerbockers against the suddenly-defensively-mortal Boston Celtics, in the 3-6 matchup.  What an incredible turn of events!  The Celtics were looking unbeatable in the East for most of the season, but Danny Ainge hurled a major roll of the dice on trade deadline-day by trading the C’s big defensive anchor Kendrick Perkins to the Oklahoma City Thunder, and shocking everyone who follows the NBA in the process.  Finally back from injury, Perkins was poised to reclaim his position and solidify the Celtics defensive identity, and with it their status as a legit championship contender.  But instead, in a blink of his eye, Perk found himself wearing a Thunder jersey in the NBA’s newest city.  It was unprecedented.  A core member of a championship team, dealt just before the most crucial point of the season.  What a gamble!

Perkins still looks strange in blue.

On the face of it, Ainge’s thinking seemed perfectly defensible.  He didn’t think they could afford to re-sign Perkins in the off-season, and he didn’t think they had enough depth at the wing behind Ray Allen and Paul Pierce, in potential matchups against Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, and Dwayne Wade, so bringing back young swing-man Jeff Green in the trade made some sense.  But what he didn’t foresee was the damage the trade would inflict on the guys that stayed behind.  Unquestionably, the Celtics are not the same team anymore.  If you’re looking for an argument proving a player’s worth beyond statistical numbers, look no further.  It’s right here.  The Celtics are lost right now without Perk, and if the Knicks can somehow make some magic happen in this first round series, Danny Ainge may end up looking like the Dope of the young Century.  How could you purposefully hamstring your own team that way?  I guess, sometimes when you swing for the fences, you miss.

When we look to the Western Conference matchups, the Underdog picture gets quite a bit more interesting.  Big Kendrick Perkins’ arrival in Oklahoma City has sadly once-and-for-all pushed the Thunder (2010 Underdogs of the year, Honorable Mention) from true Underdog Status, at least in the first round.  But they could still prove to be quite a bit of a nuisance to the defending champion Lakers in the later rounds, which at least preserves them some partial-underdog status.  

In the Western first round, the Memphis Grizzlies and Portland Trailblazers look to be the major players in the upset category with compelling matchups against the Spurs and Mavericks respectively, but the most unlikely of all the Underdogs this year has to be those scrappy and resilient Denver Nuggets.  What an incredible story this is!  Their trade of Carmelo Anthony has had the "reverse Kendrick Perkins effect!"  As we all know the Nuggets were all but forced to trade their best player (ever?) to the Knicks at the trade-deadline, and all of the experts predicted their inevitable demise, slipping out of the playoff picture.  But what has happened has been something quite miraculous.  They’ve played far better without Melo than they did with him!  They move the ball beautifully.  The offense is actually allowed to move fluidly, without a “superstar” ball-stopper to disrupt it, forcing his own shot.  And most importantly, they play ten deep in their rotation, something unheard of in the NBA.  

The Nuggets lead the NBA in the unofficial stat, most tattoos.

Since the days of Jordan and Pippen, the formula for winning in the NBA has always been “you need two superstars.”  And lately that has morphed to, “you need three superstars… or at least 2.5 (Chris Bosh.)”  The Nuggets have NONE!   J.R. Smith, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Nene?  No “house-hold names” in the bunch!  And it makes the Denver Nuggets the only real possibility of a Cinderella Story in the NBA playoffs.  They are the Butler Bulldogs, just a little bigger, and taller, with more tattoos (Kenyon Martin and Chris Anderson alone must have 100.)  Everyone counted them out, but now the have a real chance to silence the doubters and prove that Underdogs aren’t dead in the NBA.  The favorites have had their day.  Now it’s time to mix it up!!!  :)

Well, at least the Underdogs will have their chance.  C'mon Nuggs!

Thanks for reading.

Underdogs out!         

UConn Butler and the Art of the Off Night...

“No way that just happened.”  Tommy Callahan, Tommy Boy, 1995. 

So our highly heralded Butler Bulldogs, the 2010 Underdogs of the year, once again defied incredible odds and made it to the NCAA Championship game!  After beating VCU in their Final Four matchup, the famously scrappy squad continued their miraculous two-year run in the Tournament that had many national media members actually saying that they should not be considered Underdogs at all anymore.  Noooooo.  Don't say that!!!  So what happened next?  Well, they went out and played in what history will almost certainly remember as, “the worst Championship game ever played.”  The Bulldogs shot 18.8% from the floor.  Ouch.  And that percentage is not just from three-point range by the way, that’s from everywhere.  (In fact they shot better from behind the arc, at a 9 out of 33 clip, than they shot from "two-point land" at 3 out of 31!  Amazing.  I’m pretty sure that that 3-31 from two-point-territory has never happened before… in a basketball game at any level!)

If they had even managed to shoot 30% (and that still would have been bad for them) they might have been able to win the game anyway, because UConn played awfully on offense as well.  The Huskies shot just 34%, including 1-11 from the three-point line and looked just as out-of-sync on offense as their counterparts.  Usually that’s not nearly good enough to win the NCAA Championship, but on this night it was.  UConn took over in the second half, leaving the Butler guys to wonder what could have been.  After extraordinarily making back-to-back trips to the Tournament Championship game, they finished their season on monday night in perplexing and embarrassing fashion.  From the mountaintop straight to the valley.  Well, that’s sports for ya.   

Ugh.  Sorry Butler.  For what it’s worth you will still get strong consideration for this year’s Underdog of the Year Award if you haven't wrapped it up already.  Admittedly though, that is probably not much consolation.  But c’mon, it’s nobody’s fault.  Who would have guessed that your two best players would shoot 5-28 from the floor?  That the best individual shooting percentage on the team was Chase Stigall's 27%?  Or that the bench production would total two Ronald Norad free-throws?  Maybe it's really a question for the super-computers at NASA.  How could every single player on one given team all be that off at the same time?  I don't know if a probability for such a scenario is even possible to calculate, but I'd have  to imagine that it would be astronomically small.  It's the perfect storm for a nightmarish offensive output and it’s just the kind of thing that can happen in a one-and-done tournament.  On any given night, for no particular reason, things can fall apart.  But hey, at least both teams played inspired defense!  

Honestly though, lots of NCAA tournaments have ended in similarly anti-climactic fashion.  It’s not an indictment of the system and maybe it’s actually a vindication.  Nothing could possibly live up to the thrill of the first two rounds of the tourney with all of the amazing competition, cinderella stories, and buzzer-beaters.  And it's very possible that the two teams that remain standing at the end are technically “inferior teams” to some that are watching at home, but that’s what makes the Tournament so special.  Because Butler isn’t the best team in the country.  Maybe they’re not technically even in the top ten.  But they deserved to be there.  And Underdogs everywhere are going to be waiting with bated breath to see what they do next year!

C’mon Butler!

Underdog of the Year ThreePeat??

Count ‘em out… I dare you.  

Thanks for reading.

Underdogs OUT.              

Happy Underdog Day!

Picked surprisingly high, Hayward, right, fit right in in Utah

The 2010 Underdogs of the Year were the Butler Bulldogs.  In their memorable run in last years NCAA tournament, this "Mid-Major" upstart out of Northern Indianapolis came within a half-court heave of winning the whole enchilada in the Championship game against Duke.  They weren't satisfied by simply shocking the world in making the Final Four, they actually thought they could win it all.  No one else believed in this Cinderella story then but they made people believe.  Then after the season Butler lost their best player to the NBA, when Gordon Hayward went ninth overall to the (you guessed it) Utah Jazz, and the writing was on the wall.  It was time for them to come back to Earth and settle back into their rightful place among the relatively inconsequential middle class of College Hoops, right?  To just be satisfied with another Horizon League title and hope to maybe make it past the first round in the NCAA Tourney, like most Mid-Majors.  Right?  Um… no.  Butler didn’t get the memo.

Defying even longer odds this year and destroying virtually every bracket in the country (along with Virginia Commonwealth… or as most Americans know them, “who?”), the Bulldogs have done it again.  They are back in the Final Four for the second straight year, which is an incredible thing just in itself.  But no one has ever done it like this.  The Tourney has known its fair share of Cinderella stories.  Over the last twenty years, George Mason, Gonzaga, and St. Mary’s have topped the list with unlikely runs in the tournament, but only George Mason ever made it the Final Four, doing it in 2006.  Until Butler did it last year.  And now, what???  They’ve done it again!  I think this is an entirely overused word but… That is unbelievable! 

Since that aforementioned 2006 George Mason squad lost to the eventual champion Florida Gators in their Final Four appearance, it seemed fitting that this years Butler squad would also try to make their own Final Four history against the G-men from Gainesville.  And while not nearly as dominant a team as that 2006 team was, the Gators were clicking and playing their best basketball of the season coming into that Elite Eight matchup.  So naturally, as with every single game they’ve played in the tournament for the last two years, Butler was the Underdog.  As a Gator fan I was terrified when our eleven point lead started to slip away with about eight minutes to play, and even more nervous when the Bulldogs forced overtime, behind Shelvin Mack’s brilliant (and infuriating) three-point shooting.  The guy couldn’t miss!  (Which was the only thing keeping them in the game because their supposed “best player” Matt Howard was having an off night.)  The Gators had the better talent, but as usual, the Butler Bulldogs proved to be more than the sum of their parts, and willed another win in overtime.  Ugh.  It was a really tough one to take as a Gator fan.  But as a hoops fan, I gotta give it up.  Butler deserved it.  Which should surprise no one at this point.  These guys are making the Cinderella story into something much more routine.     

So now, at last, we come to the Final Four.  And what’s the first game up?  The Underdog Showdown of course!  Butler, (a team that beat the 1^st, 2^nd, 4^th, and 9^th ranked teams in their bracket division) against Virginia Commonwealth, (who beat the 1^st, 3^rd, 6^th, and 10^th  ranked teams on their side, and had to win a play-in game just to be listed in the field of 64.)  If VCU wins the whole thing they will be the only team to ever play seven games in the tourney.  Um, yea.  The Underdogs have turned this thing upside down!  Nobody knows what’s going to happen in this tournament anymore, and that is really an amazing tribute to how brilliant the run to the College Basketball Tournament has become.  It’s not just about the marquee names, it’s about how five guys can jell together on the court and whether or not they can execute in the clutch moments.  You have to earn it.  And it makes College hoops really special.  Could you imagine schools like Butler or Virginia Commonwealth playing in the College Football National Championship game?  Impossible. 

Such an interesting word, impossible.

I don’t think the guys on those VCU or Butler squads know what it means.

Happy Underdog Day!!!
and Enjoy the Game!