goliath
06-08-2005, 10:28 PM
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050608
By Bill Simmons
Page 2
Fact: There have only been three Game 7s in the NBA Finals since 1979.
Fact: Not since the '98 Bulls has the eventual champion been in danger of blowing the series during an NBA Finals.
Fact: There's a 90 percent chance that we're headed for another lopsided Finals.
The Spurs have too much for anyone to think they can mess with Texas.
With all due respect to the world champs, the Pistons are a seven-man team that can't even slap together three good games in a row. You really think that's cutting it against a team with a ceiling as high as the Spurs? I keep reading how this series is going to be boring, how we could have some 50-48 games, how America will be falling asleep by Game 2. Has anyone actually watched the Spurs? What more could you want from a basketball team? They banged bodies with a physical Nuggets team in Round 1, handled Seattle's smallball gimmick in Round 2, then played run-and-gun with the Suns in Round 3. Can you remember another basketball team adapting to three different styles in three rounds like that? San Antonio is more malleable than Russell Crowe.
That's why the Pistons are in trouble. They have one distinctive style – slow everything down, limit possessions, keep doing the little things, take good shots in crunch time, don't beat themselves – and their uncanny ability to make two or three game-changing plays in the final minutes has been positively Belichick-esque. Well, guess what? The Spurs can play the exact same way, only they have the two best players in the series (Duncan and Ginobili), a better bench and homecourt advantage … and if that's not enough, they've been resting for a week while the Pistons were enduring a grueling seven-game series against a team that probably would have beaten them if Dwyane Wade wasn't injured.
This isn't a pick against the Pistons – I love what they have done during the past two seasons. It's just that the Spurs are that good. In fact, I think they have a chance to become the best title team in eight years (since the '97 Bulls). So I'm going with the Spurs in five.
Some other thoughts …
• Interesting quote from Suns coach Mike D'Antoni this week: "[Tim Duncan] is the ultimate winner, and that's why they're so good … I hate saying it, but he's the best player in the game."
Translation: Duncan is so good, I just threw my 2005 MVP under the bus.
And since Duncan is in his absolute prime right now (eighth season, 29 years old), the whole "Is he the greatest power forward of all-time?" debate has been one of the running subplots of the playoffs. On "Pardon the Interruption" this week, both Kornheiser and Wilbon agreed that he was headed that way but hadn't earned the title yet. Which I find patently absurd, of course. Why couldn't you make the claim? What other power forward was the best guy on a team that won three titles in his first eight seasons? Who was a more complete player? And most important, what would you change about him?
Maybe he isn't as unstoppable in the low-post as Hakeem; maybe he isn't the defender that McHale was; maybe he isn't as good a passer as Walton; maybe he doesn't rebound like Moses; maybe he isn't as explosive as Barkley was; maybe he doesn't put up big numbers quite as consistently as the Mailman did. But he's in the general ballpark with each of those guys in their best categories, isn't he? Has any big man ever brought more to the table?
Comparing him to the other candidates at power forward ...
Karl Malone – Fifty years from now, people will examine his stats and say, "Wait a second, this guy was one of the five best basketball players ever!" And that's why you shouldn't totally trust statistics. There was no stat that could fully capture the Karl Malone "Uh-oh, I'm taking another dump in a big playoff game" Face. :lol
Gettin in shape wasn't on Sir Charles' to do list in Philly.
Charles Barkley – His ceiling may have been higher than anyone else's, but Barkley's career actually makes me a little angry. You watch those old Suns games from the '93 season and it's like, "Why the heck did it take him nine years to get in phenomenal shape?" And unlike Malone, his playoff stats were always better than his regular season stats – for instance, in the '86 playoffs (his second season), he averaged a 26-15 in 12 games. Remarkable. I think we will see 20 more Karl Malones before we see another 6-foot-4 power forward who could dominate games like that. Still, he just wasn't as consistent as Duncan, although he is infinitely more fun to hang out with.
Kevin McHale – We'll never know how good he could have been because he broke his foot during the '87 season (when he made first-team All-NBA and shot 60 percent from the field), then aggravated the injury beyond repair during the playoffs. He was never the same after that. But he was the best low-post player in the history of the position, as well as the best defender (everyone forgets this now, but he has to be the only guy who ever guarded Kareem and Andrew Toney within a two-month span).
Elvin Hayes – A little before my time, but everyone seems to agree that he made Karl Malone look clutch by comparison.
Bob Pettit – Sorry, I can't vote for anyone who played during an era when players actually smoked butts at halftime.
My vote still goes to Duncan. Although Amare Stoudemire might end up blowing everyone else away before everything's said and done. Or, as Detroit reader Mike Rooney points out, "If there's an NBA lockout, there's a chance that Amare Stoudemire could put on 150 pounds like Shawn Kemp did. Shouldn't that be enough to get the sides to agree?"
• This is worth rehashing one more time: The center spot was San Antonio's Achilles' heel dating back to David Robinson's retirement and the indefensible Rasho Nesterovic signing, the only real mistake of the R.C. Buford Era (yes, that's the Spurs GM, and yes, that's a stage name). So when they hijacked Nazr Mohammed from the Knicks in February – one of those crazily one-sided trades that actually made me gasp out loud when it happened (the trading equivalent of seeing a Lindsay Lohan photo from the past six weeks) – they didn't just acquire a half-decent center who could give them 25 minutes a night, they were knocking their only weak link (Rasho) out of their playoff rotation. In 16 playoff games, Rasho hasn't played a total of 100 minutes yet.
So in a way, the Mohammed trade was the 2005 equivalent of the Rasheed Wallace trade; maybe it didn't have the same cachet, but it was just as crucial to the overall success of the team. You can't win a championship with Rasho playing 25 minutes a game … but you can win a championship with Mohammed playing 25 minutes a game. In other words, there isn't a day that goes by that R.C. Buford isn't thinking, "Thank God I called Isiah that day just to offer that stupid trade that I never thought he would do." :lol
By Bill Simmons
Page 2
Fact: There have only been three Game 7s in the NBA Finals since 1979.
Fact: Not since the '98 Bulls has the eventual champion been in danger of blowing the series during an NBA Finals.
Fact: There's a 90 percent chance that we're headed for another lopsided Finals.
The Spurs have too much for anyone to think they can mess with Texas.
With all due respect to the world champs, the Pistons are a seven-man team that can't even slap together three good games in a row. You really think that's cutting it against a team with a ceiling as high as the Spurs? I keep reading how this series is going to be boring, how we could have some 50-48 games, how America will be falling asleep by Game 2. Has anyone actually watched the Spurs? What more could you want from a basketball team? They banged bodies with a physical Nuggets team in Round 1, handled Seattle's smallball gimmick in Round 2, then played run-and-gun with the Suns in Round 3. Can you remember another basketball team adapting to three different styles in three rounds like that? San Antonio is more malleable than Russell Crowe.
That's why the Pistons are in trouble. They have one distinctive style – slow everything down, limit possessions, keep doing the little things, take good shots in crunch time, don't beat themselves – and their uncanny ability to make two or three game-changing plays in the final minutes has been positively Belichick-esque. Well, guess what? The Spurs can play the exact same way, only they have the two best players in the series (Duncan and Ginobili), a better bench and homecourt advantage … and if that's not enough, they've been resting for a week while the Pistons were enduring a grueling seven-game series against a team that probably would have beaten them if Dwyane Wade wasn't injured.
This isn't a pick against the Pistons – I love what they have done during the past two seasons. It's just that the Spurs are that good. In fact, I think they have a chance to become the best title team in eight years (since the '97 Bulls). So I'm going with the Spurs in five.
Some other thoughts …
• Interesting quote from Suns coach Mike D'Antoni this week: "[Tim Duncan] is the ultimate winner, and that's why they're so good … I hate saying it, but he's the best player in the game."
Translation: Duncan is so good, I just threw my 2005 MVP under the bus.
And since Duncan is in his absolute prime right now (eighth season, 29 years old), the whole "Is he the greatest power forward of all-time?" debate has been one of the running subplots of the playoffs. On "Pardon the Interruption" this week, both Kornheiser and Wilbon agreed that he was headed that way but hadn't earned the title yet. Which I find patently absurd, of course. Why couldn't you make the claim? What other power forward was the best guy on a team that won three titles in his first eight seasons? Who was a more complete player? And most important, what would you change about him?
Maybe he isn't as unstoppable in the low-post as Hakeem; maybe he isn't the defender that McHale was; maybe he isn't as good a passer as Walton; maybe he doesn't rebound like Moses; maybe he isn't as explosive as Barkley was; maybe he doesn't put up big numbers quite as consistently as the Mailman did. But he's in the general ballpark with each of those guys in their best categories, isn't he? Has any big man ever brought more to the table?
Comparing him to the other candidates at power forward ...
Karl Malone – Fifty years from now, people will examine his stats and say, "Wait a second, this guy was one of the five best basketball players ever!" And that's why you shouldn't totally trust statistics. There was no stat that could fully capture the Karl Malone "Uh-oh, I'm taking another dump in a big playoff game" Face. :lol
Gettin in shape wasn't on Sir Charles' to do list in Philly.
Charles Barkley – His ceiling may have been higher than anyone else's, but Barkley's career actually makes me a little angry. You watch those old Suns games from the '93 season and it's like, "Why the heck did it take him nine years to get in phenomenal shape?" And unlike Malone, his playoff stats were always better than his regular season stats – for instance, in the '86 playoffs (his second season), he averaged a 26-15 in 12 games. Remarkable. I think we will see 20 more Karl Malones before we see another 6-foot-4 power forward who could dominate games like that. Still, he just wasn't as consistent as Duncan, although he is infinitely more fun to hang out with.
Kevin McHale – We'll never know how good he could have been because he broke his foot during the '87 season (when he made first-team All-NBA and shot 60 percent from the field), then aggravated the injury beyond repair during the playoffs. He was never the same after that. But he was the best low-post player in the history of the position, as well as the best defender (everyone forgets this now, but he has to be the only guy who ever guarded Kareem and Andrew Toney within a two-month span).
Elvin Hayes – A little before my time, but everyone seems to agree that he made Karl Malone look clutch by comparison.
Bob Pettit – Sorry, I can't vote for anyone who played during an era when players actually smoked butts at halftime.
My vote still goes to Duncan. Although Amare Stoudemire might end up blowing everyone else away before everything's said and done. Or, as Detroit reader Mike Rooney points out, "If there's an NBA lockout, there's a chance that Amare Stoudemire could put on 150 pounds like Shawn Kemp did. Shouldn't that be enough to get the sides to agree?"
• This is worth rehashing one more time: The center spot was San Antonio's Achilles' heel dating back to David Robinson's retirement and the indefensible Rasho Nesterovic signing, the only real mistake of the R.C. Buford Era (yes, that's the Spurs GM, and yes, that's a stage name). So when they hijacked Nazr Mohammed from the Knicks in February – one of those crazily one-sided trades that actually made me gasp out loud when it happened (the trading equivalent of seeing a Lindsay Lohan photo from the past six weeks) – they didn't just acquire a half-decent center who could give them 25 minutes a night, they were knocking their only weak link (Rasho) out of their playoff rotation. In 16 playoff games, Rasho hasn't played a total of 100 minutes yet.
So in a way, the Mohammed trade was the 2005 equivalent of the Rasheed Wallace trade; maybe it didn't have the same cachet, but it was just as crucial to the overall success of the team. You can't win a championship with Rasho playing 25 minutes a game … but you can win a championship with Mohammed playing 25 minutes a game. In other words, there isn't a day that goes by that R.C. Buford isn't thinking, "Thank God I called Isiah that day just to offer that stupid trade that I never thought he would do." :lol