Category → Commentary
Player to watch: Kobe Bryant
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Magic Basketball previews the 2011-2012 NBA season with a look at the players we’re most excited to watch this year.
In the 1960’s, a study titled the “Milgram Shock Experiment” was performed. The point of the study was to gauge how far normal humans will go just because they are directed to do so by authorities.
In a nutshell, participants believed they were administering painful shocks to subjects. They assumed they were doing serious damage, but many participants kept administering shocks because they were told to do so. When it was over, everyone involved claimed to have learned a ton about human nature and the costs of demands by authorities.
Now the study is discussed in nearly every psychology class but with one important caveat: the study was so far out of bounds by current ethical standards that it is no longer appropriate to conduct due to long term consequences of participant’s mental health. Still, professor’s always close by saying “it was the most fascinating experiment of all-time.”
I’m starting to feel like we are approaching an experiment in the NBA that should never be conducted again. Eventually, there will be a rule in place to limit the number of obstacles all-time greats can endure towards the end of their career, and it will probably be called “The Kobe Bryant No Dumping Rule.”
Ponder all of the madness that has unfolded for Kobe since the Lakers’ collapse in the playoffs:
- Phil Jackson out. Mike Brown in.
- Knee surgery in Germany.
- Lamar Odom sent to Dallas for nothing.
- David Stern vetoed a trade that would have formed the best backcourt in NBA history.
- The Clippers landed Chris Paul.
- The Lakers are considered by some as the second best team in Los Angeles.
- And Kobe’s wife recently filed for divorce.
Seriously, how much can one guy handle? In a fair world, David Stern would have locked out the players again for “basketball reasons” so Kobe could have a few months to digest it all.
The Magic’s bench needs to improve
Photo by Fernando Medina/NBAE
I sat down with the task of writing about the Orlando player who most needs to redeem himself, but frankly, I just can’t do it.
As far as the major players on the roster, there just isn’t much sense in talking about “redemption.” We know Dwight’s situation. We’ve covered the bejeezus in the past out of Hedo’s slippage, and while I know Nate disagrees, I think his play suggests not so much the need for him to redeem himself as it does the fact that he ain’t that good anymore. Jameer has proven himself steady, with one outlier season of excellence. Jason Richardson is an aging leaper, and Glen Davis’ struggles weren’t really on the Magic and also I’m tired of talking about him, too.
You see what I’m saying? Most of the roster on this team has a floor and a ceiling that are about exactly the same. However, when you start looking at the reserves, you notice that how little contribution the Magic got last year from certified role players whose names aren’t Ryan Anderson. And so, while the failures of last season aren’t exactly on their heads, I think the players who most need to step it up this year are J.J. Redick, Chris Duhon and Earl Clark.
One of the best things about Van Gundy Ball is that the team system is able to absorb players with fairly limited skill sets and ask them to perform roles which accentuate their abilities, which allows the team to put players on the court who bring definable positive skill sets to their position at all times. This is a sharp contrast to an approach of trying to “steal minutes” — when Magic reserves are on the court, ideally, they are put in a role where their abilities are accentuated much more than their weaknesses are masked. In 2010, and even the season before that, this was often the case, but last season, the bench was populated with players either performing well below their career averages or failing to cultivate the one skill they could use to change a game.
Clark is a perfect example of the latter case, and the largest enigma currently on the roster.
Can Hedo Turkoglu redeem himself?
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I’m tired of making 2009 comparisons. Yes, the Dwight-centered offense was clicking in 2009. Yes, guys were playing to (and beyond) their potential in 2009. Yes, Jameer Nelson shot the lights out from just inside the three-point line in 2009. Yes, the Magic were true contenders in 2009.
So this is my final plea. No more complaining and moaning about how this team has somehow fallen from grace and made more administrative mistakes than a scandalous charter school. This is it.
The guy who needs to prove himself more than anyone else this year on the Magic roster is Hedo Turkoglu. That is to say the guy who needs to come back to 2009 form is Hedo Turkoglu.
I’ll start by saying this — Hedo was a thorn in my side in 2009. Now, before the mud slinging begins, let me explain. I am first and foremost a LeBron James fan, and despite my affiliation with the Magic, I will come out now and admit that at the start of the 2008-2009 season when the Cavs acquired Mo Williams, I hoped more than anything else that it would be the year that LeBron won his first title.
I watched those playoffs closer than I’ve watched anything before, and admittedly as a straight up diehard LeBron fan.
From the very first quarter of the first game of the 2009 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Orlando was going to win the series. It actually wrenched my gut. There was no way around it. This team was too hot, too fluid, too zoned, and had too many leaders, the most deadly of which was Hedo Turkgoglu.
Turk was a beast. He commanded the offense with veteran vigor. He shaped the way the Magic played, and I don’t think I’m too far off in saying that he played like a captain — a leader.
It was not just his offensive threat, either. It was the fact that he was long (and confident) enough to stare down LBJ as if to say, “we don’t give flying fart about who you are and how you’ve swept every team in the playoffs to this point. We are the Magic, and we are going to beat you.”
It’s this very confidence that Turk lacks now.
Player to watch: Stephen Curry
Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Magic Basketball previews the 2011-2012 NBA season with a look at the players we’re most excited to watch this year.
When Eddy asked me to think of a player I was most excited to watch, my mind immediately went to every player on the Thunder roster. But — curses! — Nate beat me to it with his killer piece on Tuesday on James Harden, the league’s pre-eminent beard.
I realized I’m tired of talking about Ryan Anderson, even though I’m really stoked for his season, and tired of hearing how excited everyone is for Ricky Rubio. And then I wanted to write about one of the players involved in these mega trade rumors, but I realized that those are being covered so exhaustively that even thinking the name Chris Paul triggers some sort of trauma-induced narcolepsyasdfjasfmcea.ddffll. See? Like that. It just happened.
In trying to think about who I was excited about this year, I was forced to stare into the new Twitter-created attention abyss, wherein everything about the NBA is so rapidly transmitted, commented upon and digested that anything exciting is ground into a mealy pulp of commentary within minutes. For those of you scoring metaphors at home, I just said that Twitter has turned the NBA into a chasm of boring oatmeal — everything in today’s news cycle happens so fast that you can’t be surprised by anything, and everything fresh about the league is so quickly overexposed that it becomes stale.
Even the rookies, for God’s sake: I already know how Rubio struggles with his shot, I already know about Derrick Williams’ problems as a “tweener” (there’s a word I would banish from English) and I know how Jan Vesely’s girlfriend kisses and what every basketball writer I follow thinks about that.
I realized I was struggling to dredge up excitement because I have a hard time imagining being surprised any more. And then, somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, I thought: “Stephen Curry.”
Player to watch: James Harden
Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images
Magic Basketball previews the 2011-2012 NBA season with a look at the players we’re most excited to watch this year.
My love for LeBron James has not gone undocumented. You can argue with me, hate me, judge me, or even discredit me. I stand firmly on my convictions that he is the best player in the game. But that’s not why I am writing today, nor is it the sole reason I live and breath NBA basketball.
The very same way that LeBron James represents my passion for the NBA, and really the game of basketball, James Harden represents all that there is to look forward to in the future of the league.
Whoa, that is a huge jump. Sit tight. I’ll explain what I mean.
There are basically a handful of super stars in the league that we are forced, either because of regional convictions or otherwise, to pick from and stand behind. Kobe guys are convinced that he’s the most clutch and greatest player to play. Dwight fans think that no one understands (like they do) the importance of defense, blocked shots, and presence. LeBron guys, while usually afraid to admit their love, are still convinced that he’s going to win five to seven championships pretty soon. I fall in that camp, by the way. Durant scores a lot, big time fantasy guy, we get it. But what goes unmentioned a lot of times are the rising stars that still grip us and represent the part of us that roots for the underdog (by that I mean undersized, underskilled, and under-everything). And really forget rooting for the underdog. How about rooting for a situation where we get to experience the growth, development, and arrival of a star.
I experienced something awesome last June. Most of the people I see every day here in Chattanooga know very little about the NBA (but goodness they will talk SEC football like it’s their job). They ask me a lot of dated questions about LeBron’s decision, and cite tired arguments about Kobe or LeBron being better — but their knowledge doesn’t go much farther than that.
Side note: I told a few guys at work this week that Chris Paul got traded to the Lakers and received more than three blank stares followed by a confused, “who?”
But something happened when the playoffs started. For many reasons, but primarily the story line revolving around LeBron and the Heat, people started giving the game a closer look. What I mean is the NBA is slightly less a wretched league infested by selfish, gutless prima donnas who want to “go one-on-one with anyone.” Yes, that is how most southern boys view the NBA. My geographic position in Chattanooga has typically left me sheepishly asking the bartender to change the channel from an SEC baseball game to an NBA game.
But last year during the playoffs, bars came alive with (perhaps) bandwagon Grizzlies fans rooting their hearts out for the likes of Marc Gasol, O.J. Mayo, and Zach Randolph. What? It was such a weird sight, but I realized that the draw for most of these guys was a.) the fact that Memphis was an underdog, b.) the guys on the team who were getting national attention for their unprecedented performances (Randolph, specifically), and c.) how identifiable Memphis was for these guys. It’s a regional thing.
It’s a good thing to access the game through superstars, but the game becomes addictive when you realize that guys like Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol (and James Harden — yes, I’m getting to him) can hang in a 48-minute game with, well, anyone.
The point here is that superstars doing superstar things have given new interest in the league that didn’t exist years ago, they get you to turn on your TV, or in my case, to revitalize your interest in the game of basketball. But it’s the rising stars that keep you coming back. They give you that hope that you’re witnessing something that will be talked about in years to come.
All that said, James Harden is by far and away the most exciting non-superstar to watch this year, and here’s why.
Stan Van Gundy and the future of the Magic
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Usually when a team realizes the axe is hanging over their current era, one of the first questions that circulates is about the coaching. So far, though, as perhaps you’ve noticed, the spotlight has been on Dwight Howard and almost nothing else. Perhaps this is because the Magic are in sort of a bizarre situation with Stan Van Gundy, by all reasonable accounts a top five coach whose teams perennially overachieve but whose lack of mystical machismo or good suits has led to his being underappreciated.
We know two things, though: the Magic will be a completely different team within a year’s time, and it would be pure lunacy not to have SVG usher the team through the transition. Because it is fun to think about things like this, and because it is instructive to examine the coaching situation to figure out how the Magic will operate, I want to imagine what a rebuilding team helmed by SVG would look like.
At his only other professional head coaching stop, Van Gundy took over a Heat team that was in a weird place. This was before Dwyane Wade was really Dwyane Wade (who, despite a strong postseason, posted just a 17.6 PER on the year), and what little talent the Heat had meshed so poorly the team had won 25 games the year before. In Van Gundy’s first year, the Heat — just to recap, with a rookie star and only one other player whose PER was higher than 17 — won 42 games and gave the team with most wins in the league, the Pacers, a bear of a second round series. This is Van Gundy’s most “rebuilding” year and, given that the Heat were just two seasons away from a title afterward, I think it’s safe to call it an unmitigated success.
As the coach of the Magic, Van Gundy has demonstrated two things that I think would make him an ideal coach for a rebuilding team: a commitment to defense, and a willingness to play unorthodox ball to cater to his players’ strengths and limitations. Young players (remember those?) were developed as role players and given increased responsibilities as their skills developed, and under Van Gundy, this development has been rapid. Think about the fact that Courtney Lee went from being a non-lottery pick who was a spot player to having a play drawn up for him to beat the Lakers in the Finals — this is a coach who knows how to bring players along while negotiating their growing abilities and roles. You can see this time and again in Orlando, and nowhere more clearly than with Dwight Howard.
The potential awkwardness of All-Star weekend
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Two summers ago I moved back to St. Louis where I had spent the first twenty something years of my life. To my surprise, the MLB All-Star Game was scheduled to be played at Busch Stadium. While it wasn’t the Busch Stadium that I had grown up going to, I felt an undeniable heartwarming anticipation about the game. It was a pride thing, to be sure. Fans from all across the country would get to come see my downtown, my stadium, stay at my hotels, dine in my restaurants, and see my All-Star, the prince himself, Albert Pujols.
The day of the game I took the MetroLink down to the stadium with a buddy of mine. We had no intention of going to the game because of the outrageous scalp rates, and we also had no idea just how captivating the festivities were going to be.
The city was alive. Streets filled with excited, freshly tanned fans in the July heat, walking eagerly from spot to spot, clad in the crispest and most expensive All-Star jerseys you have ever seen. Barbeque pits were blazing, tailgate parties were raging, and music was blasting as everyone came together to soak in the sheer brilliance of an All-Star weekend.
I’ll spare the boring details from our experience downtown and jump straight to the climax. As we wrapped around the backside of the stadium just minutes before the President threw out the first pitch, we stopped, engulfed by a crowd of thousands, as the starting lineups were introduced.
With just a glimpse of the crowd over the short left field barrier, we anxiously awaited the announcer’s introduction of our hero, Prince Albert. My friend looked at me, his arms crossed with a frustrated look on his face.
“This crowd is too loud,” he said. “We’re not going to hear when Albert gets called.”
I responded, “No, man. You’ll know when that happens.”
Seconds later, the city felt like it erupted. People were cheering like they had lost their minds. Hats flew in the air, and even the thousand folks outside the stadium were in complete pandemonium was Albert was introduced. This was our city, our stadium, our festivities, and our guy was the star of the show.
Embracing uncertainty
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There’s not a good way to introduce this season for the Magic, because you already know all the things that one might say. The elephant in the room has been trumpeting his trunk for three seasons now, and the second we heard that a new CBA was forthcoming, Orlando became one of the four or so franchises most under the microscope for the coming season.
It feels like Orlando can’t win. For years, despite having a perennial MVP candidate, one of the best and most innovative coaches around, and now the NBA’s best arena, Magic fans have felt like the team has been overlooked. And now that the team has the spotlight, the scrutiny is mostly about the roster’s shortcomings and the increasing probability that Dwight Howard will be plying his wares elsewhere next season.
Now check it, y’all: I have nothing new to say about Dwight Howard, and I may not for a long time. But it’s looking like a season of worry and tooth-gnashing for Orlando, and while I don’t want to trivialize how much is at stake for the franchise, I am here to say that we just ought not sweat it.
Post-lockout, I feel like a dude on the rebound after a bad breakup. I been burned. I learned a few things about love I hadn’t thought about before. (Disclosure: I am coming to you live and direct drinking a Manhattan and blaring Sam Cooke right now.) I just spent months watching the owners — men whose businesses I devote an outsize proportion of my time and resources to following — behave as if they simply did not care whether basketball happened. It’s not news that money makes the world and the league go ‘round, but what I’m saying is I’m having a hard time reinvesting in the league in the exact same way. Me and the NBA are going to go out a couple times, I’ll focus on the positives, and we’ll see during the playoffs if it will be love again.
I don’t mean to be saying I won’t follow or be invested in the league this year, I’m just determined to understand its goings-on within the proper frame of reference: as parts of a pure entertainment system, with little of the seriousness that would inspire real angst about where Dwight is going. I would like him on the Magic for his career, sure. I’d like it even better if he was kept on the Magic by means of a daring trade that brought another top-tier player to the Magic. And those things might happen.
But whereas last season I might’ve gotten annoyed with the trade speculation or the fact that countless observers who’ve been ignoring the Magic’s good features for years will now be talking about their shortcomings, this year I’m the prettiest girl at the prom. Every fun scenario for the future of the league involves the team we’ve been following for years, and while in the short term the Magic may get less competitive, it’s harder to imagine a scenario with so many rich possibilities.
One of the things that has driven me the craziest about the Magic the past few seasons — ever since the trade for Vince Carter, really — was the high-quality limbo in which the team has been floating. I believe pretty firmly that whatever the result of this season is, rooting for the Magic is going to be more fun that it was last year. Perhaps we’ll get to watch an extremely young team of high draft picks, perhaps we’ll see Dwight paired with a similarly talented player. What we almost certainly won’t be seeing, God willing, is a team of high-priced veterans whose skills we are already sure of and don’t fit any sort of team identity.
So instead of sweating the devil I know — that extremely frustrating, ill-conceived devil whose limitations I’m acutely aware of — I’m going spend the season embracing the devil I don’t.
What went wrong for the Orlando Magic, Part II
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The rise and fall of the Orlando Magic as an elite team and championship contender will be examined by Magic Basketball in a two-part series — here’s Part II.
As the Magic continue to face their uncertain near-future, I’m thinking about something I imagine a lot of us are: John Milton. Specifically, I’m thinking about Paradise Lost, his account of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden. It seems to me that Magic nation probably feels how Adam and Eve did shortly after God exposed the whole apple/fig leaf-clothing fiasco: “We had it all, and we blew it somehow, and now we need to figure out who to blame. Also, I hate snakes.” Yeah, verily, fellow Magic watchers, we have dined on the ambrosia of celestial basketball, have stared lovingly into the pond at our reflections as Eve did, contemplating how nice it was to be a perennial contender. And now we must make our way into the less hospitable basketball wilderness, to try and figure out how to reclaim that divinity.
There is a strain of criticism in Paradise Lost readers that says that Adam and Eve did us all a solid by getting kicked out of Eden–their screw-up, basically, gave us life as we know it. It’s a pleasant take on the notion of original sin, usually called the fortunate fall. By sinning their way out of Eden, Adam and Eve became people, and exposed the rest of the race to all the goods and bads that come with the territory. For the Magic, our fortunate fall was Rashard Lewis.
You remember that sign-and-trade. The Magic were getting a 27-year-old inside/outside player, the Sonics’ career leader in three-pointers, a player who had scored more than 20 points per game for three straight seasons and was coming of a career high in that department. Of the trade, Stan Van Gundy said, ”It really makes our roster very, very good. And even more than that, what this says to me and what our organization has done with Rashard shows me and should show everyone out there how committed this organization is to winning and winning a championship.”
Imagining Dwight Howard with the Lakers
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I believe the Magic should keep Dwight Howard throughout the season and either make the requisite moves to make him a permanent member of the Magic, or let him leave this summer. Kevin Arnovitz can explain to you why this is a good choice. However, if they trade him, I hope it is to the Los Angeles Lakers. This is why:
Western Conference
I do not want to see Dwight play the Magic a few times every year, especially in Orlando. Most importantly, I do not want to ever face him in the Eastern Conference playoffs. First of all, he is the most dominant center in the NBA, and that is always a tough obstacle to overcome. Secondly, it would be awkward to have him become Public Enemy No. 1 in Orlando. I don’t think anyone is interested in the Brett Favre Packers-Vikings saga turning into the Dwight Howard Magic-(insert Eastern Conference team here) saga.
It’s the Lakers
There used to be (still is?) a show on MTV called “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” The main idea was to find top-notch girls who went out with inferior men. I think the kids call this “out-kicking your coverage.” Anyways, I can stomach Dwight wanting to leave the Magic for the Lakers. The Lakers have more history, media coverage, fans, etc. Whatever. I get it. Conversely, I would not be able to justify him wanting to leave the Magic to play for the Nets. The Nets may be moving to Brooklyn and are under the direction of a rock star owner, but they are not a better franchise than Orlando. Magic fans would constantly be saying “did he really leave us for the Nets?”
Haul
The Magic are built around Dwight Howard, and Brook Lopez ain’t Dwight Howard. Andrew Bynum isn’t either, but he is a heck of a lot closer. In my opinion, Bynum is the most comparable player in the NBA to Dwight. If Bynum lands on Orlando’s roster, the Magic could basically maintain the same philosophy on the court. With the package from Los Angeles (or through the draft), they could improve at other positions on the floor to make up for the loss of Dwight. Again, I’m not saying they would be a better team if they traded for Bynum, but they may be able to make a few moves to compensate at other positions while getting the best possible replacement at center.