We don't have the Celtics' Big 3 because McHale (1) is one of the all time worst GM's in any sport, and (2) thinks he's still a Celtic.  And the sad part is this is not a Pohlad-type situation.  The Timberwolves' owner probably WOULD pay for the talent, if McHale had ever been smart enough to pick up the talent.  (I am not defending Taylor -- he is an idiot for not firing McHale years ago.  But McHale is the guy who traded the rights to Ray Allen -- plus a draft choice, if I am not mistaken -- for Stephon Marbury, and ten years later traded Brandon Roy for the rights to Randy Foye.  And traded Sam Cassell AND a first round pick for Marko Jaric.  And traded Wally AND a first round pick for Ricky Davis.  And drafted Wally instead of Shawn Marion.  And drafted Paul Grant instead of Bobby Jackson.  And drafted Rasho instead of Brad Miller.  And drafted Will Avery instead of Andrei Kirilenko or Ron Artest.  And drafted Ndudi Ebi instead of Josh Howard or Leandro Barbosa.  And drafted Louis Bullock instead of Manu Ginobili.  And forfeited first round picks in years where Michael Redd (2000) Gilbert Arenas (2001) and Carlos Boozer (2002) were available in the second round.  So the Wolves SHOULD be the team with Garnett and Allen, and at least a couple of other stars as well.  Instead, they are the worst team in the NBA, with half as many wins as the second worst team.  What a disgrace.        
 
 
 


 

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To: mnbuckets@yahoogroups.com
From: marc@...
Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:16:19 -0600
Subject: [mnbuckets] NBA All Stars

I've been doing a thing this year...based on NBA box scores, I pick “3 stars,” like in the NHL, for each game, but they’re based on points + rebounds + assists – turnovers and so on and so on, just adding and subtracting all the stuff in the complete boxes on the internet. Of course it doesn’t count any defense whatsoever and you can figure out what else it’s missing. But there it is, 3 stars each night, and they get credit for their total “points” each night IF and only if they’re one of the 3 stars. Otherwise they get 0. So here are the results.

1. Carlos Boozer, Utah 1010
2. Dwight Howard, Orlando 977
3. LeBron James, Cleveland 929
4. Kobe Bryant, LA Lakers 922
5. Alan Iverson, Denver 849

6. Al Jefferson, Timberwolves 839
7. Baron Davis, Golden State 821
     Chris Paul, New Orleans 821
9. Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas 795
10. Yao Ming, Houston 774

The top 5 could go out on the court together and play as a 5 though the one thing you might want is a true point, so then you’d swap Davis or Paul (I’d take Paul) in for Iverson.

Your West all-stars would be Boozer, Bryant, Iverson, Al Jefferson believe it or not, and Davis or Paul, with Kobe moving up to the small forward spot. The one thing you don’t have is a true small forward, that would be Carmelo Anthony at 649.

The East only has 2 of the top 10, those being Howard and James. The rest of their top 5 would be Kevin Garnett 756, Michael Redd 698 and Antawn Jamison 696. If you wanted a true point guard, and you would, that could either be Dwayne Wade 613, who is more of a combo guard but probably even then more of a shooting guard, or else you’d have to drop all the way down to Jason Kidd at 475, which is only 15th numerically.

Garnett started out fast, among the top 3 in the league for a long while, but over the past 2-3 weeks he’s had quite a few games where his numbers, at least, weren’t much. Paul Pierce has been doing more of the work that shows up in the box score over the past month. They’re not the top 2-some, however—Boozer and Deron Williams of Utah are.

Emerging are guys like Andre Iguodola 587, Caron Butler 633, David West of New Orleans 551, Brandon Roy 622, Chris Kaman 576. Some big names with smaller numbers are Kidd, Jermaine O’Neal 295, Tim Duncan 592, Steve Nash 602. Some of them were hurt at one time or another.

BTW, about a month ago, they added +/- to the box scores and that’s not reflected here. They weren’t in there the first month of the season. The numbers would be a lot different if I added that in. Maybe I’ll try that for awhile and see what happens.

My MVP ballot would not match the top 10 list above, I’d have to consider defense and how good a guy is at crunch time (like a Kevin Garnett who doesn’t have to play a ton of minutes and can defer to Pierce sometimes, but in a close game is going to be da man). But I thought this was pretty interesting. It takes some time so I may not continue all year, but it has helped me to notice some things I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, like the emergence of a Chris Kaman not to  mention Chris Paul, who has probably had more direct and immediate impact on wins and losses for his team than anybody (Garnett being the other obvious choice on that criteria, but here I’m just talking about things you could miss if you weren’t looking real close). I would say that Paul has replaced Jason Kidd among the top 2 points in the NBA. I can’t remember now if he was available when the Wolves picked Foye last year. Brandon Roy of course was available to the Wolves and Portland has already had a 12-13 game winning streak this year. Maybe Foye will be at the Roy level when he gets back, but he is never gonna have the impact of Chris Paul.

And while we’re on the topic of the Timberwolves, note that Jefferson has more “3 stars points” than KG, which just shows you the impact of having a team around you (or not). A year ago we had KG and Boston had Pierce. Why the hell couldn’t the Wolves have gotten Allen and Pierce in here versus Allen and KG going there? A year ago, everybody thought Danny Ainge was a moron. Of course, put KG, Pierce and Allen all on the same team and make Randy Wittman your coach and you think you’d be 26-3? I didn’t think so.

As for the Wolves, ah, these are like the good old days when giants like Bill Blair and Sidney Lowe walked the earth. The way to build a winning team is to...to...to...I’ve got it, the way to build a winning team is to LOSE! Yeah, right. Been there, done that. Bring in 2 lottery draft picks next year (first of all, of course, they’ll be picks selected by Kevin McHale and his so-called brain trust) and then surround them with a bunch of guys who’ve never done anything in the NBA but lose and a coach who’s never done anything in the NBA but lose. What do you think is gonna happen? Like I say, been there, done that, deja vu all over again. What a pitiful crew.

But thank goodness for high school ball, which is what I’ll mostly be writing about. You won’t be hearing a whole lot more about the NBA from me.

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