Erick Blasco

Here are the differences---the Jazz had Mehmet Okur to create spacing. The Bulls have Joakim Noah. Deron Williams is an excellent jump shooter. Derrick Rose isn't. Teams won't defend the Bulls within 18 feet. It'll create problems with their offense against the better defenses in the league. There'll be a lot of sagging into the paint, so those cuts Brewer lives off of won't be there. There's also balance issues. If Deng is playing the baseline, then when Derrick Rose drives off screen/rolls, Brewer's stuck at the wing, which isn't his strong point. In Utah, the Jazz don't run a ton of high screen/rolls so D-Will was always back to prevent breakaways. There's the potential for ugly offense with Chicago's lineup.

Not after watching Miller last season. He's breaking down and isn't the player he once was. I wouldn't trust him to play important minutes. I downgraded his grade because of Yao's health problems. One thing that helps the Shaq grade---If he is a bust, when the playoffs start he becomes a third-string center behind a very good Perkins and the potentially useful Jermaine O'Neal. The Celtics don't have to live and die with Shaq which limits the risk. He still offers a potentially high reward.

A bit late to the party but congrats AL!

They signed Shawne Williams a few days ago, after I wrote down the 20 players I was going to discuss. I didn't even know he signed until just now. The only other player they signed with meaningful NBA experience is Roger Mason who slipped through the cracks. I'll bring him up when I write my season preview articles. Thanks for the read!

Sorry for the huge gap between articles---in late August, in a one week stretch, I was named student manager of the cafe I work at, was appointed an R.A. of the new dorms that opened on my campus, and received a very hands-on internship. Combine that with how bad the dorm's wi-fi is, and I haven't been able to keep in touch with the ins and outs of the NBA. I hope to contribute more this month, and hopefully the wi-fi will pick up.

The final stragglers have chosen a team, and the rosters for the upcoming 2010-2011 season are essentially complete. Let’s look at the final free agent signings and how they’ll affect their upcoming teams. Ronnie Brewer—Chicago Bulls Brewer is a solid perimeter defender with terrific athleticism and long arms. He’s excellent at playing passing lanes, but is also a disciplined positional defender. He’ll add some defensive punch to the Bulls, who with Brewer and Luol Deng, will have two solid defensive presences at the wings. On offense, Brewer is an explosive leaper who will excel in transition, and along the baseline whenever Derrick Rose breaks down the defense. Deng is another player who operates mostly along the baseline, however, and Rose also does most of his work going to the basket. With the personnel, it’ll be difficult for the Bulls to play to their roster’s strengths, while maintaining good court-balance. Also, a major reason for Chicago’s downfall last season was a lack of spacing. Brewer’s chicken-wing release renders him an unreliable jump shooter, while Deng and Rose also aren‘t proficient long-range shooters. Defenses will be more effective at packing the paint when Kyle Korver isn’t on the court. Brewer’s defensive chops and top-flight athleticism will help Chicago in the regular season, but he doesn’t do enough for an offense that will have trouble against the better defenses in the league. Grade: C+ Keith Bogans—Chicago Bulls Bogans is a physical defensive presence and a respectable three-point shooter who adds some depth to Chicago at the wing. He’s not quick enough to be a full-time defensive stopper, nor is he accurate enough from deep to be a difference maker. He does provide insurance should Ronnie Brewer go down with an injury, and he’ll able to slow down some of the league’s bigger wings. He’s not the worst fourth swingman in a rotation, but he’s not the best either. Grade: C+ Kurt Thomas—Chicago Bulls Thomas is an instant defensive upgrade over Brad Miller, and lineups with Thomas and Joakim Noah will be difficult to score against. He’s still an effective back-to-the-basket defender, and as a help defender, he knows where to be and when to be there. He’s still a solid rebounder, though his diminishing hops allow some opponents to steal rebounds away from him. Offensively, he can still plug mid-range jumpers with regularity, though he needs teammates to create his offense. However, Thomas will be 38 when the season starts and has logged major minutes over his NBA career. With Taj Gibson’s solid defense, mid-range shooting, and younger legs, Thomas will be a fourth man in a three-man rotation, which is the perfect role for him. He’d play enough spot duty to keep his senses honed, but won’t be overtaxed by the strain of playing too many minutes. A good situation for both Thomas and the Bulls. Grade: B+ Brad Miller—Houston Rockets Miller can stretch the floor with his perimeter shooting, and he’s still a terrific passer for his size, but he can’t move, is a total stiff defensively, and is an awful rebounder. Given that the Rockets can use some more movement in their offense, Miller can facilitate some scoring, but it’s impossible to hide him defensively. Given Yao Ming’s injury history, the Rockets may be forced to give significant minutes to Miller, where the more he plays, the more his defense gets exposed. It’s doubtful that Miller, who is 34 years old and coming off a miserable season, will contribute too many productive minutes for the Rockets. Grade: D+ Tony Battie—Philadelphia 76ers At this stage in his career, Battie is little more than a mid-range jump shooter who doesn’t provide much else. He’ll be the sixth big man on Philadelphia’s roster, and will mostly provide leadership for a frontcourt that is extremely young, excluding Elton Brand. Grade: D Luke Ridnour—Minnesota Timberwolves Ridnour is a heady point guard who is excellent at running an offense and maximizing the capabilities of his teammates. He sees the floor well, makes good decisions, and has an excellent mid-range pull-up jumper when he needs to score. He’s not a good finisher, and while he can apply some ball pressure, isn’t much of a defender either. However, he’ll be a veteran mentor to Jonny Flynn, and will provide some stability off the bench to an extremely inexperienced team. Ridnour’s value will be that he’s one of the few players on Minnesota who knows how to play more than one-on-one or two-on-two basketball. Grade: A Royal Ivey—Oklahoma City Thunder Ivey is a terrific defensive point guard who doesn’t bring much to the table offensively. Given that the Thunder are stacked with offense throughout their roster, Ivey will fill a niche as a spot defender over Eric Maynor. Also, should Maynor go down with an injury, the Thunder would be fine with Ivey playing six minutes a half spelling Russell Westbrook. Grade: B Matt Barnes—Los Angeles Lakers Barnes is a rangy forward who plays disruptive defense and can run the floor, which makes him a useful player off the bench. However, he’s also a poor three-point shooter who doesn’t space the floor, which will be problematic in the Lakers’ triangle. He’s not an ideal signing, and the Lakers won’t operate at peak offensive efficiency with him on the floor, but he does bring some defensive chops and athleticism to Hollywood. Grade: C+ Theo Ratliff—Los Angeles Lakers The ghost of Theo Ratliff can still bang in the post, commit six hard fouls, and grab an occasional rebound, but the more that’s asked of him, the worse off you are. On the other hand, he’s an improvement on D.J. Mbenga. Grade: C- Antoine Wright—Sacramento Kings Wright is an average defensive player whose reputation is better than his game. Offensively, he isn’t a terrific shooter and can’t pass or create his own offense. For a Kings team building around young talent, signing a player like Wright, who doesn’t have a treasure chest of experience or upside, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Grade: F Josh Powell—Atlanta Hawks Powell has good athleticism for a power forward and he can hit his share of mid-range jump shots, but if he couldn’t take advantage of the multitude of open looks he was afforded as a Laker, what can reasonably expected of him on the Hawks? He’s not a defender, rebounder, or playmaker either. Grade: D Eddie House—Miami Heat House can’t handle, he’s a mediocre defender, and he’s not good at finishing in the lane. What House can do is change the outcome of games with his three-point shooting. He shoots the three at roughly 40% for his career, and isn’t shy to make them in pressure situations, excelling from deep in the 2008 Finals and 2009 playoffs. He gives the Heat a reliable shooter when teams focus on Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, and his lack of a handle is mitigated by Wade and James’ ball-handling abilities. His strengths play well to what Miami can use, and his weaknesses are mitigated by his surroundings. He’s a smart signing. Grade: A Tracy McGrady—Detroit Pistons Because the Pistons didn’t already have too many wings, they signed Tracy McGrady. T-Mac has lost much of his explosion and is almost strictly a perimeter player, so much so, that most teams backed away at signing him, even for a bargain-basement contract. While he’s still an above-average playmaker, there’s a high level of redundancy between McGrady, Ben Gordon, and Rip Hamilton all playing the same position, none of whom are adept at creating their own offense consistently anymore. Is McGrady there to simply sell tickets? Asking if he’s part of a future plan implies Detroit actually has a future plan. Grade: D Shaquille O’ Neal—Boston Celtics Shaq is certainly going to be an interesting fit with the defense-oriented Celtics. First of all, let’s get the Shaq screen/roll talk out of the way. Of course Shaq is going to be a screen/roll liability, and he’ll certainly give up some baskets based on his inability to shown or recover on screen/rolls and screen/fades. The hope is that Boston’s coordinated help defenders can rotate in time to cover for Shaq’s statuesque defense. On the other hand, Shaq’s hulking mass takes up an enormous amount of space in the paint, where the specter of painful contact deters some players from attempting to drive into the middle. Shaq’s big enough to rough-up the roughhouse post scorers, and sometimes people fail to comprehend that sometimes, being that big is good defense by default. Still, the prospect of Shaq defending in space will surely turn Doc Rivers’ hair white. Shaq makes up for his defensive deficiencies by continuing to be a solid post performer. He still is too massive for many centers to guard, he’s still enough of a scoring threat to force double teams, or at least increased defensive attention, and he still assaults opponents with foul trouble that wouldn’t be accrued against other centers. The hope is that Shaq can provide some post scoring for a Celtics team which, with Kevin Garnett playing more and more on the perimeter, doesn’t have much of a frontcourt post threat. He’ll also sets massive screens allowing teammates the extra space needed to turn the corner or pop an open jumper. Most importantly, by the time Boston rolls into the postseason, Kendrick Perkins should be healthy, allowing Rivers some liberties in choosing Shaq for his post offense and defense, or Jermaine O’Neal for his jump shooting and more rangy defense. There’s still some gas in Shaq’s tank, particularly since he won’t have to abuse his engine with the teammates he has. Grade: B+ Von Wafer—Boston Celtics Wafer is a streak-shooting guard who can create his own offense, but displays poor shot selection and fails to comprehend his own limitations. He’ll either fall into place in Boston and provide some punch off the bench, or he’ll wind up in Doc Rivers’ doghouse. Grade: C- Earl Boykins—Milwaukee Bucks The diminutive Boykins used to be as quick as a shadow, allowing himself to scoot and shoot from anywhere on the court. Court vision and running an offense were never his strengths, plus, despite being better than you think at defending the post, his small stature made him a defensive liability. Still, he had enough juice in his legs to be an effective backup guard on an uptempo offense. Nowadays, Boykins isn’t as quick as he once was, which limits his ability to get to openings on the court, and magnifies all his weaknesses. In short, Boykins is a less-than-satisfactory backup, and will likely be the third-string point guard on Milwaukee’s roster. As a backup to the backup though, Boykins is certainly a better option for a playoff-destined team like Milwaukee, than a project guard, a D-League call-up, or a head case. Grade: B- Kwame Brown—Charlotte Bobcats Brown’s stock-in-trade is post defense and rebounding, but his lack of offensive skills, and his bad hands leave him a one-dimensional player. For the Bobcats, who lost Raymond Felton in free agency, scoring is going to be a season-long problem for them, and a problem Brown won’t alleviate. The hope is that Brown can help anchor an elite defensive unit, but with Charlotte’s roster, the best they can hope for is another early playoff exit. Grade: C Delonte West—Boston Celtics The hope is that West’s personal issues stemming from Bi-polar disorder can be smoothed out, and he can put aside a disastrous 2009-2010 season and return to being the tough, smart, bulldog of a player he was prior to last year. However, with personality disorders like Bi-polar disorder, it’s difficult to anticipate how West will perform. His downside is as a useless third-string point guard who contributes little to the team. His upside is a gritty, championship-caliber third guard who can get into the paint, make plays off the bounce, pass, shoot, and defend. Given the low-risk, high reward associated with picking him up, signing West is a smart move. Grade: B- Rodney Carney—Golden State Warriors Carney is a good athlete and a decent shooter who doesn’t have a high basketball IQ. Given that Nellie-Ball is officially done by the bay, the Warriors will return to more of a conventional approach to basketball by default. Still, the Warriors roster is shaped to run, just as Carney is best off in a running offense. Should Golden State get enough defense and rebounding to fuel their open court attack, Carney could be a useful player off the bench. However, given that Carney’s a very ordinary halfcourt player, and the Warriors still don’t project to being a respectable defensive team, Carney likely won’t contribute many wins to this year’s Warriors. Grade: D Louis Amundson—Golden State Warriors Amundson makes an impact on a basketball game despite not being able to create his own offense. He’s an energetic defender and shot blocker, with a perpetual motor and non-stop hustle. He moves well without the ball, has a soft touch around the rim, and runs the floor as well as any big man. As seen by his personal success in Phoenix, and how he helped the Suns reach the conference finals, Amundson is the perfect fit for a madcap offense with runners and scorers lacing the roster. Grade: A+

facepalm. So many players with bad form! LeBron and Odom are super wristy with their shots, and AI is all herky jerky. At least some of you have said your styles have worked for you, but everyone should try to shoot like Ray Allen.

Jeff Van Gundy said during last year's Finals that you can't find five better on-ball defenders in the league than Tony Allen, and I'm inclined to agree with him. Quick, strong, long, and preemptive, I think he needs more respect than what he's been given. He may be a better defender than Battier and Artest at this point. He's more athletic than each, and he's pretty strong. Also, due to his nature as a specialist, he takes far fewer plays off than Kobe.

ROCKIES!!!!!!!!!! ROCKTOBER ISN"T DEAD YET!!!!!!!!

Two of the Hawks biggest problems I've found the past two years are heart and coaching. Their offense is iso-oriented which virtually never works against next-level defensive teams in the playoffs, and all they do on defense is switch everything, resulting in bad mismatches. Their team defensive concepts were also non-existent during the playoffs last year, with breakdown, after breakdown, after breakdown. With their modus operandi being one-on-one play, naturally the team would go into a funk whenever things went against them. Teams that don't have outstanding team concepts are doomed to fail. Unfortunately, the Hawks have virtually the same roster going into next season. As for the original question, JJ used to be really good. He can create his own jumper, get to the basket, he's a decent defender, an underrated playmaker, and he can shoot and post up. He looks old though. All those heavy minutes of him having to iso for himself look like they've zapped his legs. He's certainly not good enough for this Hawks team to win more than maybe one playoff series against a mediocre opponent. Some of the suggestions made have been trading Horford or Smith. I agree with Nitro that Smith can't be Atlanta's three, but I disagree that Smith shouldn't be moved. He still doesn't understand help defensive concepts beyond selling out for blocks. There are clips all over NBAPlaybook during the Magic series of Smith botching pick-and-roll coverage. Some of it is coaching, but players who've been in the league awhile (Smith is no longer a young pup) can't be so mistake prone, especially if they aren't good individual defenders and Smith is not. Like JJ, I'm not sure Smith is a title-caliber player.

He's had character problems since his days at Lincoln, why is anyone surprised?

I don't think it's a conspiracy, I think it's personal bias incorporated into one of the worst refs of all-time. Bavetta's an [expletive]. BTW, here's the litmus test for refs. Find Steve Javie and use him as a constant. If a ref is deviating that far away from Javie, something is definitely up.

If Devin Harris had a season like his 2008-09 season, the Nets don't come close to approaching the worst record in NBA history. He took the first 90% of the season off, and his play and the Nets' play reflect that.

His play is a major reason why the Nets played as poorly as they did. Bad habits are bad habits.

Snake, I watched the Jazz-Nuggets series intently, plus I have about three Jazz-Nuggets playoff games on tape I could rewatch, and I'd be shocked if players Lawson were guarding didn't shoot under 75% against him that series. He was eaten alive by Deron Williams, absolutely eaten alive. They just posted Williams up and Lawson was helpless, and Williams was able to beat him off the bounce by getting a half a shoulder past him. Obviously Williams is kind of good and Lawson is better against quick guards (and did have some offensive success against the Jazz), but big guards will pulverize him. Until he shows he can be at least competent over extended stretches, I'd limit him to the role he had last year as a speedy tempo changer off the bench. He's not a bad player, but strong guards will annihilate him.

They did get the right value---another defender and $10 million dollars.

One postseason and one half-season of shooting is enough to justify $10 million dollars? The Rockets can get the same offensive things out of K-Mart that they got from Ariza, and Lee can play pretty good team defense. They'll plug Battier back in to the small forward position and use Budinger as a backup offensive spark. Ariza is superfluous at his price.

Reading a little more into it, the Rockets basically save $10 million on the trade. Almost $5 million straight up, plus $5 million more because they were over the luxury tax threshold.

Trevor Ariza had an offensive win share last season of 0.1. That means that Ariza contributed slightly less than 0 average wins last season with his offense. His true shooting percentage is under 50%, which is poor. He shot less than 40% overall, and less than 35% from three. By trading him, the Rockets save a bit of cash, get another decent defensive player back, and open up more playing time for Shane Battier, Kevin Martin, and Chase Budinger.

http://nbaplaybook.com/2010/08/10/can-he-bounce-back-devin-harris/#more-4576

Nope, this is strictly based on player and expected role. No contract info was used.

I remember when I first started writing about basketball in 2007. That was the Cavs-Spurs Finals and Ilgauskas did a heroic job of defending Duncan the last two games of that series. He really made Duncan work, and his size and sheer mass really caused some problems. He stayed in front of Duncan, and this was before Duncan's decline. Centers now can face and go at will on Z. When you watch him, he just can't move anymore. It's been a precipitous drop and the numbers will catch up soon enough. He can hide in the regular season by standing near the basket and not moving, but that won't fly in the postseason. Oh yeah, the Heat will rebound. I don't disagree with that. My point is that one of Ilgauskas' biggest strengths is that he's a pretty good offensive rebounder, but those are strengths that will probably be mitigated against a number of possible rivals. Zydrunas won't play catch with himself off the backboard against, say, the Lakers as often as he does in the regular season. Wade forced a lot of penetrations last season (in many respects he had too--Spoelstra doesn't run much weak-side stuff and Wade isn't a great shooter, but Boston did a terrific job of choking off his screen/rolls and isolations. The Celtics weren't rushing out to make sure Jermaine O'Neal's jumpers were contested, and they probably won't do anything radical against Ilgauskas. They'll leave him to double, but most of these teams are committed enough to showing and recovering exceptionally well. I just don't think Ilgauskas will perform as well as he needs to.

It's almost certainly just a meaningless oversight, but does anyone notice that the link to the page is http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2010/08/jeff-van-gundy-will-be-shocked-if-bulls-lose-a-game/1 Adding Carlos Boozer has just made Chicago unstoppable! But while I think there's a lot of hyperbole, remember what the Celtics did the first year of the trio? They romped early in the season, then got a little bored, but still destroyed teams. What's to stop a really good Heat team from doing the same?

dMult is a stat the guys at Basketball Prospectus use to evaluate defenders playing the same position. Basically they take a tally of each player's production (I don't know what stats they specifically use for production...it might be some variation of PER) across a season. They then take what those players did when defended by a certain counterpart, say Jermaine O'Neal. At the end, they'll tally how each center performed across the entire 82 game series, vs. how well they performed against Jermaine O'Neal. In the end, they'll assign a number with a baseline of 1.000. Numbers less than 1.00 are better than average, higher numbers are worse than average. Dwight Howard's dMult was the best in the league at a ridiculous 0.548. It means that opposing centers only accrued 55% of their normal production when Dwight Howard was in the game. David Lee's was 1.282, meaning that players accrued 128 % of their usual numbers when defended by Lee, etc. The stat has its flaws. It doesn't account for help defense or cross-matching but it's a nice took to complement Ratings which I believe are heavily based on team stats and on-court off-court. numbers. Also, since it measures all teams, it's a stat best used for how good a player is against the wide scope of all the players in the league. It's less reliable in the playoffs when there are very few bad teams to pad stats. Ilgauskas has had LeBron James, Anthony Parker, and Delonte West for two years. It's not quite Ron Artest, Shane Battier, and Rajon Rondo, but Cleveland had some good perimeter defenders, plus Varejao and Ben Wallace. Cleveland put together a nice defensive roster. Yes Wade is better than Parker, but it's not as if Ilgauskas has been on Golden State. He's been on good rebounding teams before (From what I remember, that Cavs team that went to the Finals was really solid on the glass), where he was a major reason why those teams were good rebounding teams. He's not that same player anymore. Yes he has more offensive talent around him, but he's a shooter on a team whose biggest rivals (the Celtics, Magic, and Lakers) have frontcourts who can cover defensive ground. KG can rotate out to shooters. Rashard Lewis will force Ilgauskas to shoot over him (and Howard has been a little bit better defending players who can shoot). Gasol and Odom can help and recover. Ilgauskas might grab a board or two against Boston, but he's not going to get all these putbacks against the Lakers and against Howard and Gortat. My point is that, the Heat could've sent out a calling card if Miller would want to latch out and try to win a ring. Thomas is another good interior defender (and as the wasted minutes Sheldon Williams provided last postseason mean anything, you can never have enough veterans who can defend), and he does a lot of the same things Ilguaskas can do, though without three-point range. Plus he's real good in the locker room and has enough clout to keep some of Miami's egos in check. Ilgauskas is just another LeBron groupie who's buddy-buddy with him. The Heat could use a player to keep everyone focused. Spoelstra has never come close to having the egos he has to manage, and Riley's a bit distant since he's not on the bench and locker room every game. Maybe Magloire can be that guy, but Thomas seems like a perfect fit on multiple levels. At least he can defend a guy like Bynum in the post for short stretches.

Very nice with the "his efforts didn't end up mattering anyway" snarky line when he was the best offensive player on the floor for the Celtics that game, and who hit a huge three to make it close within two minutes left when the Lakers were pulling away. Jermaine still has to prove that he can provide even the relatively modest numbers Wallace put up. Just because he's slipping into a lesser role doesn't always mean that he'll be able to meet responsibilities needed of him. One thing about Wallace---he also was a disaster last regular season. It's not as if he had a successful regular season as a 5th/6th option. What if O'Neal takes a similar trajectory, but bombs in the playoffs as well? My point is that players who are used to falling when needed don't always come through in lesser roles. Habits are habits. O'Neal has a negative Offensive Win Share for his playoff career. That's pretty bad. O'Neal's post defense may be fine, but his dMult was slightly below average on a good defensive team. For the sake of discretion, Rasheed Wallace had a worse dMult for last year, but he sleptwalked through the entire regular season. BasketballProspectus doesn't have playoff-only statistics on their player page but Wallace simply plays defense at a higher level. For example, how do you chart post up stats where Wallace successfully fronts the post and denies an entry pass? O'Neal almost exclusively plays behind defenders, yet when you look at Boston in the playoffs, Wallace is three-quartering, pushing centers out of the post, getting his hands in front of entry passes, and making pinpoint rotations when teammates are getting beat. We saw that against Cleveland, Orlando, and Los Angeles. Have we seen Jermaine O'Neal do that? Then there's the minutia of O'Neal being a poor screen-setter. Then there's the fact that he's as big an injury risk as anyone in the NBA. Is there some All-Star caliber defender out there? Perhaps not, but creative teams will always find ways to fill holes. Just because O'Neal's possibly the best of bad options, doesn't make him a good option. Anthony also came out of the womb with three personal fouls and has zero offensive skills. I like Anthony a ton as a limited-minutes backup, and I like Haslem a ton as a medium-minutes backup at the four, but between he, Bosh, and Ilgauskas there will be openings near the basket so long as those are your centers. The Heat will probably be a top-10 defensive team next year too. I understand how good the organization is at protecting poor defenders. Heck, Antoine Walker and Jason Williams started on a title team. But Ilgauskas is just a body. He does nothing to influence a game against good teams. Opponents will leave him to double elsewhere. The Cavs played him in only three games against the Celtics last year for good reason. If you want to sign a bargain basement guy who won't contribute much offensively, why not just sign Theo Ratliff as your 5th big? Why not sign Kurt Thomas? Why not sign Brad Miller who's a lot like Ilgauskas but can pass? These are precious roster spots, they can't be wasted.