By Bill Simmons
Page 2
The most shocking television moment of May sweeps didn't involve Terry failing to make the final two on "Survivor," the gang finally escaping on "Prison Break," a model opening a suitcase without mugging for the cameras on "Deal or No Deal," or even Jack Bauer never realizing that he could just play the Logan/Henderson tape on somebody's voicemail at CTU.
Now? You don't have to stop -- you can run over, pretend you're setting a high screen and basically careen into the defender. You can pretend to stop and continue moving your feet to sideswipe the defender as he's stepping around you (a Tyson Chandler specialty). You can even set a screen, make a 180-degree turn, chase the defender, then clip him with a moving pick a second time (a Yao Ming classic). All of these moves are legal in a wink-wink way. Boris Diaw raised it to another level -- instead of setting the screen on Nash's defender, sometimes he runs next to Nash, then quickly cuts toward the basket and "accidentally" picks off Nash's defender at full speed, almost like a wide receiver cutting across the field and picking off someone else's cornerback.
I know this all sounds mildly confusing, but the high screen has become the single most important play in basketball. Four teams execute it correctly (by bending the fake rules that aren't actually in place): Phoenix, Dallas, San Antonio and Detroit. Gee, what do those four teams have in common? And while we're here, if you ever wondered how Steve Nash played for eight years and never even made second-team All-NBA, then became a two-time MVP in the blink of an eye, it wasn't just because of his hair and his skin color, or because he found a coach who understood how to build a team around him. Nash took advantage of the aforementioned rules that made penetrating guards just as valuable as reliable low-post scorers (as we're seeing in this year's playoffs with Nash, Wade, Harris & Terry, Parker, Hinrich, Billups, even an old-timer like Sam Cassell).
Thanks to those rules, SmallBall has taken over the Western Conference playoffs this spring. Avery Johnson realized after one game that Dallas could beat the Spurs only by playing two point guards (Harris and Jason Terry) and exploiting San Antonio's shoddy perimeter defense; eventually, Gregg Popovich had no choice but to go small himself (even Big Shot Brob is riding the pine). The Suns-Clips series turned into a splendid SmallBall contest in Games 4 and 5, with the notable exception of the Chris Kaman parts (it's simply the wrong series for him, something Mike Dunleavy will probably realize around Game 12). Coincidentally -- or maybe, not coincidentally -- these have been two of the most entertaining and electric playoff series of the decade.
Which raises the million-dollar questions ...
Is this where we're headed? Are teams better off building for SmallBall over a conventional style? If you can play only five players, and you don't have an above-average center on your roster -- which most teams lack, by the way -- why not just play your best five guys regardless of position?
For instance, last summer's most important signing turned out to be Raja Bell, a much ridiculed move at the time. Remember? Twenty-five million for Raja Bell? What was Phoenix thinking? Actually, they were thinking that he's a great defender who makes 40 percent of his 3s. Perfect for them. So they started pursuing him on midnight, July 1, then overpaid to make sure they got him. Ten months later, he looked like an absolute bargain even before he saved their season Tuesday night. Meanwhile, the Zydrunas Ilgauskas contract (four years, $55 million) would have been fine in 1998, but it's a roster killer in 2006. Much like in real life, you can't survive with slow big guys anymore.
Just look at this year's draft. As recently as three years ago, LaMarcus Aldridge would have been the first pick, because, after all, you always take a good big man first, right? Not this year. LSU's Ty Thomas (a Marion-like forward) will be the first pick, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Aldridge and Adam Morrison (another player who would have been more effective five years ago) will drop out of the top three, whereas Brandon Roy (Washington's outstanding shooting guard) and UConn's Marcus Williams (yes, the Laptop Guy, as well as the only elite point guard in the draft) will end up going higher than people think (and doing better than people think). In the old days, you needed a franchise player to realistically contend for a title. Now? You need two penetrators (including an alpha dog), three or four shooters and two guys who can rebound and protect the rim. That's it. Just ask Phoenix.
It's a different world. Suddenly, Chris Paul and Devin Harris have more value than Chris Bosh and Andrew Bogut. Suddenly, a max contract for Ben Wallace doesn't make quite as much sense. Suddenly, Kirk Hinrich's ceiling has been raised from "multiple All-Star" to "potential three-time MVP." Suddenly, expensive, shoot-first point guards like Baron Davis and Stephon Marbury are untradeable unless you want someone else's junk back. Suddenly, you would be committed to an institution if you drafted Rafael Araujo over Andre Iguodala, and you would throw a three-day long party if Jameer Nelson fell to you at No. 20. Suddenly, it doesn't seem smart to trade Ben Gordon, Tyson Chandler and two lottery picks to Minnesota for Kevin Garnett with about 98,000 miles on his odometer. Suddenly, a team like the 2006 Dallas Mavericks can win an NBA title.
Back in April, I predicted the Mavs would lose to Detroit in the Finals. Now? I'm reconsidering. Can the Pistons really match baskets with the Mavs? How does Ben Wallace have an impact guarding Nowitzki 20 feet from the basket? Who does Rip Hamilton guard? Can the Pistons keep pulling that whole "fat cat" routine -- they assert their dominance one night, then relax the next, and they've been doing it since late January -- against a team as explosive as Dallas? And could the Mavs really end up becoming the first team to win a title solely with outside shooting since the '73 Knicks?
I think they can pull it off. In the meantime, let's kick back and savor a new era of professional hoops. Tuesday night, the Clips rallied from 19 points down in Phoenix by playing SmallBall and out-Phoenixing Phoenix (which should have happened from the opening tip, of course), eventually blowing a three-point lead with a foul to give and 3.6 seconds remaining in overtime, then losing a borderline Stomach Punch Game in double-OT. (Have I mentioned that Mike Dunleavy is coaching this series with both hands wrapped around his neck? I mentioned that, right?) But it was a phenomenally exciting game, and sometime during the night, I realized that this was the eighth or ninth ESPN classic-caliber playoff game of the spring. This can't be an accident.
So maybe it's time to recant my "There will never be another game like Game 4 of the 1984 Finals" proclamation from three years ago. Maybe there won't be another game with that kind of star power. Maybe Kareem and McHale would have sprung for 60 a night against these gimmicky small lineups. Heck, maybe McHale would have been imprisoned for what happened to Rambis nowadays. But Game 5 of the Clips-Suns series was nearly as dramatic, Game 4 of the Mavs-Spurs series was almost as well-played, and with the way these playoffs are going -- you have to go back to 1993 to find a spring with this many high-caliber games, and we're not even in Round 3 yet -- there's an outside chance that one of these games could rival the famous Game 4 in every category but "Hall of Famers on the floor."
One thing is for sure: I'll be watching. As Devin Harris proved on Monday night, with the New-And-Improved NBA, you never know what you might miss.
Page 2
The most shocking television moment of May sweeps didn't involve Terry failing to make the final two on "Survivor," the gang finally escaping on "Prison Break," a model opening a suitcase without mugging for the cameras on "Deal or No Deal," or even Jack Bauer never realizing that he could just play the Logan/Henderson tape on somebody's voicemail at CTU.
Now? You don't have to stop -- you can run over, pretend you're setting a high screen and basically careen into the defender. You can pretend to stop and continue moving your feet to sideswipe the defender as he's stepping around you (a Tyson Chandler specialty). You can even set a screen, make a 180-degree turn, chase the defender, then clip him with a moving pick a second time (a Yao Ming classic). All of these moves are legal in a wink-wink way. Boris Diaw raised it to another level -- instead of setting the screen on Nash's defender, sometimes he runs next to Nash, then quickly cuts toward the basket and "accidentally" picks off Nash's defender at full speed, almost like a wide receiver cutting across the field and picking off someone else's cornerback.
I know this all sounds mildly confusing, but the high screen has become the single most important play in basketball. Four teams execute it correctly (by bending the fake rules that aren't actually in place): Phoenix, Dallas, San Antonio and Detroit. Gee, what do those four teams have in common? And while we're here, if you ever wondered how Steve Nash played for eight years and never even made second-team All-NBA, then became a two-time MVP in the blink of an eye, it wasn't just because of his hair and his skin color, or because he found a coach who understood how to build a team around him. Nash took advantage of the aforementioned rules that made penetrating guards just as valuable as reliable low-post scorers (as we're seeing in this year's playoffs with Nash, Wade, Harris & Terry, Parker, Hinrich, Billups, even an old-timer like Sam Cassell).
Thanks to those rules, SmallBall has taken over the Western Conference playoffs this spring. Avery Johnson realized after one game that Dallas could beat the Spurs only by playing two point guards (Harris and Jason Terry) and exploiting San Antonio's shoddy perimeter defense; eventually, Gregg Popovich had no choice but to go small himself (even Big Shot Brob is riding the pine). The Suns-Clips series turned into a splendid SmallBall contest in Games 4 and 5, with the notable exception of the Chris Kaman parts (it's simply the wrong series for him, something Mike Dunleavy will probably realize around Game 12). Coincidentally -- or maybe, not coincidentally -- these have been two of the most entertaining and electric playoff series of the decade.
Which raises the million-dollar questions ...
Is this where we're headed? Are teams better off building for SmallBall over a conventional style? If you can play only five players, and you don't have an above-average center on your roster -- which most teams lack, by the way -- why not just play your best five guys regardless of position?
For instance, last summer's most important signing turned out to be Raja Bell, a much ridiculed move at the time. Remember? Twenty-five million for Raja Bell? What was Phoenix thinking? Actually, they were thinking that he's a great defender who makes 40 percent of his 3s. Perfect for them. So they started pursuing him on midnight, July 1, then overpaid to make sure they got him. Ten months later, he looked like an absolute bargain even before he saved their season Tuesday night. Meanwhile, the Zydrunas Ilgauskas contract (four years, $55 million) would have been fine in 1998, but it's a roster killer in 2006. Much like in real life, you can't survive with slow big guys anymore.
Just look at this year's draft. As recently as three years ago, LaMarcus Aldridge would have been the first pick, because, after all, you always take a good big man first, right? Not this year. LSU's Ty Thomas (a Marion-like forward) will be the first pick, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Aldridge and Adam Morrison (another player who would have been more effective five years ago) will drop out of the top three, whereas Brandon Roy (Washington's outstanding shooting guard) and UConn's Marcus Williams (yes, the Laptop Guy, as well as the only elite point guard in the draft) will end up going higher than people think (and doing better than people think). In the old days, you needed a franchise player to realistically contend for a title. Now? You need two penetrators (including an alpha dog), three or four shooters and two guys who can rebound and protect the rim. That's it. Just ask Phoenix.
It's a different world. Suddenly, Chris Paul and Devin Harris have more value than Chris Bosh and Andrew Bogut. Suddenly, a max contract for Ben Wallace doesn't make quite as much sense. Suddenly, Kirk Hinrich's ceiling has been raised from "multiple All-Star" to "potential three-time MVP." Suddenly, expensive, shoot-first point guards like Baron Davis and Stephon Marbury are untradeable unless you want someone else's junk back. Suddenly, you would be committed to an institution if you drafted Rafael Araujo over Andre Iguodala, and you would throw a three-day long party if Jameer Nelson fell to you at No. 20. Suddenly, it doesn't seem smart to trade Ben Gordon, Tyson Chandler and two lottery picks to Minnesota for Kevin Garnett with about 98,000 miles on his odometer. Suddenly, a team like the 2006 Dallas Mavericks can win an NBA title.
Back in April, I predicted the Mavs would lose to Detroit in the Finals. Now? I'm reconsidering. Can the Pistons really match baskets with the Mavs? How does Ben Wallace have an impact guarding Nowitzki 20 feet from the basket? Who does Rip Hamilton guard? Can the Pistons keep pulling that whole "fat cat" routine -- they assert their dominance one night, then relax the next, and they've been doing it since late January -- against a team as explosive as Dallas? And could the Mavs really end up becoming the first team to win a title solely with outside shooting since the '73 Knicks?
I think they can pull it off. In the meantime, let's kick back and savor a new era of professional hoops. Tuesday night, the Clips rallied from 19 points down in Phoenix by playing SmallBall and out-Phoenixing Phoenix (which should have happened from the opening tip, of course), eventually blowing a three-point lead with a foul to give and 3.6 seconds remaining in overtime, then losing a borderline Stomach Punch Game in double-OT. (Have I mentioned that Mike Dunleavy is coaching this series with both hands wrapped around his neck? I mentioned that, right?) But it was a phenomenally exciting game, and sometime during the night, I realized that this was the eighth or ninth ESPN classic-caliber playoff game of the spring. This can't be an accident.
So maybe it's time to recant my "There will never be another game like Game 4 of the 1984 Finals" proclamation from three years ago. Maybe there won't be another game with that kind of star power. Maybe Kareem and McHale would have sprung for 60 a night against these gimmicky small lineups. Heck, maybe McHale would have been imprisoned for what happened to Rambis nowadays. But Game 5 of the Clips-Suns series was nearly as dramatic, Game 4 of the Mavs-Spurs series was almost as well-played, and with the way these playoffs are going -- you have to go back to 1993 to find a spring with this many high-caliber games, and we're not even in Round 3 yet -- there's an outside chance that one of these games could rival the famous Game 4 in every category but "Hall of Famers on the floor."
One thing is for sure: I'll be watching. As Devin Harris proved on Monday night, with the New-And-Improved NBA, you never know what you might miss.
