I officially cannot stand John Hollinger. I’ve had my qualms with him, but he’s officially on my bad side. I guess I should be thankful that he has always been there for me when I’ve had writers block, but the combination of his inane power rankings and his recent thoughts on centers have temporairly thrown me over the edge.
Check out his piece on ESPN on centers. First off, in this day and age of the NBA…the term center is used very loosely. We live in an era of the power forward. A lot of teams play two guys who would be deemed ‘power forwards’ such as Utah (Boozer and Okur) or Portland (when they went with Frye and Aldridge). We’ve pretty much seen the end of the real, real, dominant centers. I mean there’s Dwight and Amare…but what is Amare? A 4 or a 5? They are so interchangeable, I mean it really doesn’t carry the same meaning in 2007 as it did in 1992. Is Bargnani really a center? He’s 7 foot tall and in some lineups the Raps put him at the ‘5’ but he can step out and shoot the ball. Are guys like Biedrins and Kendrick Perkins centers? They are the big men, they get the rebounds but offensively their jobs are to get the rebounds, play defense and catch passes off penetration. I’m not sure there can really be an article about centers but I’ll play along.
Immediately he draws my ire by stating that ‘..20 of the league’s 30 teams are somewhere between satisfied and ecstatic with their center play this season.’ I’ll get back to that quote later but let’s look at the 10 teams he says have a problem in the middle.
The first four teams he throws out there who have a ‘real’ problem at the center position are Toronto, New Jersey, Seattle and Chicago.
Toronto: I’m not sure I would throw Toronto out there like that, with their system and the way they play they have no need for a real, traditional, big time center. They have their low-post monster and Chris Bosh with their PG and shooters spread around. At center they have Rasho Nesterovic, who admittedly does suck but really has no responsibilites besides rebounding and playing defense. Also backing him up is Andrea Bargnani who is struggling this year but isn’t a true center. I mean he may be at the 5 and can score in the post but he’s more of a 3 or a 4, it just works in the lineups they use. At the end of the day they’re 18-17 and when I think of why they struggle I never once think about their play at center.
New Jersey: Yeah I’ll go with you on that Hollinger any combination of a Collins, Jamaal Magloire and Josh Boone isn’t that great. It somewhat works because of the maestro J-Kidd (who by the way should be in any and all MVP talks right now, even with that stache).
Seattle: Completely disagree. They have a load of big men and at that they have very servicable big men. The three I think of are Chris Wilcox, Nick Collison and Kurt Thomas. One of them plays center. Wilcox is averaging 13 and 7, Collison nearly 9 and 9 and Thomas is averaging about 6 and 10. What more do you need from your big men? I’m not seeing that as their problem. Their problem? Their coach is an idiot, Earl Watson plays a lot of minutes at point guard and Wally’s World is their #2 perimeter scoring option. But I’m just ranting.
Chicago: I’m assuming the smoking gun is being pointed at Ben Wallace here. And I’m not so sure why, yes he is struggling and is far from the Big Ben of old but at the end of the day is still top-15 in the league in blocks and top-25 in rebounds. If they actually had a decent option at power forward (aka someone who can actually score in the post) then Big Ben would be looking great right now. But when you have Big Ben on the court who can’t score in the post and Noah or Thomas it makes everything look worse. Why do you think Joe Smith is going off?
Then he talks about four teams that ‘could be better but are getting by OK with what they’ve got’. Atlanta, Boston, Memphis and Dallas are in there. I don’t see why he throws Atlanta in there because they’ve got Al Horford who is 1020102 times better than what they had last year. Sorry Zaza. Boston doesn’t need a great center when you have Kevin freakin Garnett on the floor. All they need is for Perkins to block a couple shots and learn to catch passes I mean they have Big Baby out there half the time. Memphis…well…they could use a center. Darko has been hurt, Stromile Swift lost his game in DC when he was in the dunk contest, Hakim Warrick is too small and Pau…well who knows what happened to him. Dallas…they have Dampier and Diop. And here is where an argument beings. Do we argue that Dampier and Diop are servicable for what they have to do, or do we bemoan them for being offensive liabilites for the most part? It’s a tough line to cross. I mean they are centers pretty much by default but if they caught it in the post you wouldn’t be afraid at all. Would Dallas be that much better with someone else?
Then he says Miami and Portland ‘would be fine if not for injuries to their star big men.’ The Miami comment is obvious. No Zo and No Shaq means big problems. But Portland? Are you smoking? We’re #1 in the Northwest Division and damnit we have a great center by the name of Joel Przybilla. I don’t care what stats you want to pull up, I will always want Big Joel on my team. He brings a tough inside presence, he plays defense, rebounds, plays his role. He’s one of the most underrated players in the league in my opinion just because of what he brings to this Blazers team. Honestly, you could ask Coup or any Blazer fan…the difference when Big Joel is on the bench is glaring. Teams will take it in on Channing and LMA. Not so much when they see Big Joel. We’ll be just fine when we have Oden AND Big Joel as his backup. Monsters indeed.
For most of the article Hollinger grapples with exactly what a center is these days. I would venture to say that the talent level in the post has improved across the league. I would agree with that. But I truely think that there is a lack of great centers out there because it is such a gray area. When I think of Al Jefferson I think of a power forward. Ditto with Okafor, Boozer, McDyess, Sheed, KG, Amare, Dwight. When I think of a center I think of Kaman, Biedrins, Chandler, Bynum…I mean why do you think the All-Star ballots always struggle to find quality centers?
But where Hollinger got me were his Center Rankings. Using his Player Efficiency Rating he says the both Amare and Dwight are better than Tim Duncan. This is why I don’t like using stats and formulas and all that kind of junk. Call him a center if you want but he has to be #1. Has to. There is not a better player in the post than Tim Duncan. Hands down, ask Coup I’ll argue that there isn’t a better basketball player on the planet than Tim Duncan. I’d say Dwight would be #2. But there is no way I would ever say that Brendan Haywood is better than Chris Kaman or that they are both better than Chandler, Ilgauskas and Shaq. Also the fact that Stromile Swift is #25 makes me laugh.
Onto something more pleasant.
All-Star voting closes in 10 days with the final public updates being released today. I probably should have made this the blog post but oh well you got to listen to me complain about Hollinger. That’s more fun for me. Out East at the forward spot you’ve got KG and LeBron. No surprises there. Poor Chris Bosh has KG’s move to the right coast to blame, despite his hilarious video (Bubba was the undisputed highlight) he remains in third. Down by about a million votes. No joke. Pierce is 4th and surprisingly Yi is 5th. So I guess China loves Yao but doesn’t care about Yi. The guards are D-Wade and J-Kidd look like they will breeze there way in. This one had more of a race with Ray Allen and Vince Car
ter both garnering 700,000+. I blame Agent Zero being 5th on the injuries. At Center in the East it is Dwight Howard with a dominant lead over Shaq. The rest is ugly…at least Sheed is third. Eddy Curry should want to go into hiding: Zaza Pachulia got more votes than him. Yikes indeed.
Out West, Tim Duncan stayed a forward and will stay in the starting lineup. He leads them all this year. No controversy for Melo has he is second with 1,000,000+ votes as well. Dirk is third and then it’s a drop off as Boozer is 4th with 500,000 less votes than Dirk. He’ll be on the team though and if he’s not its a damn shame. How Luis Scola got more votes than Kevin Durant and Grant Hill is unbelievable…I guess they love him in Argentina. The guards are loooking like Kobe and T-Mac unless AI or Steve Nash can sneak in. Crazy that AI, Nash, Chris Paul or Baron Davis will not be going to the All-Star game. And they are all All-Stars. T-Mac is definitely mirroring VC right now, taking his place as ‘that guy who gets voted in even though he really shouldn’t have.’ Although I think AI and Nash split votes like those two popular best friends in high school who are up for homecoming court, except everyone likes them the same so they split it and the band geek wins. To be truthful the West team should really just be a bunch of guards but it won’t be. At center…it is of course Yao. Erick Dampier remains at #4 ahead of Pau Gasol, Tyson Chandler, Mehmet Okur, LMA, Biedrins and Chris Kaman. And by the way…it is in that order.
- A couple things that bothered me last night. One was the constant replays of Tyler Hansbrough dunking over that 7’8 guy. The first time I saw it, it didn’t quite soak in. I was like ‘wow that dunk was kind of lame he just swung around’. But then I saw that the guy who was guarding him had his damn arms at the rim. I felt bad for him though because immediately as Hansbrough came down he put his head down and slowly started walking back up the court. Poor guy. #2 is Monta Ellis blatantly taking Steve Blake out. This may be the first time I sound like a homer, but look at the replay and tell me Monta didn’t knee him in the calf on purpose. I mean…I know you’re fast Monta but why were you running into him anyways? He didn’t even have the ball! You could’ve ran behind him or something.
- Everyone is calling the Bobcats win in Boston an upset and like it’s the biggest deal ever. I disagree. The Bobcats ahve been underachieving all year, remember this was a team that was getting major league hype coming into this year. I would know…I provided some of it. But at he end of the day they caught Boston on an off-night (No Ray-Ray and a lot of missed jumper) and Jason Richardson was on fire. Case closed…this isn’t like college where this is a major upset. This is the improved NBA where any team can beat any team on a given night. Give the Bobcats their credit for finally showing glimpses of what they can do and don’t bemoan the Celtics for actually losing a game to somewhat not named Detroit, Orlando or Cleveland.
- Potential blog post: who is having the worst time as a basketball fan right now? Knicks, Clippers, Heat, Sonics or Cavs. You tell me people.
Be back later with a look at tonight’s doubleheader.