Lakers get Steve Nash

[laduane1]

Lakers gave up way to much to get Nash. They should have at lease top 14 protected the #1 this year. Suns will get better while the Lakers get older. Suns will have two lottery picks unless the Lakers step up and do something in the second half.

[JohnVancouver]

Yabba dabba doo

[GMATCallahan]

You need to actually watch the games instead of just using stats. Nash has not had an impact on any Laker so far in a positive way. The offense is not being run correctly and Nash has not been able to affect the game in a huge way on the offensive end of the ball. So your "analysis" (if that is what you call having an idea and then using stats to try to prove them) is incorrect.

Now, if Nash was running the offense and Kobe was involved then that would be a different story. Also, in combination with that Kobe having less defensive attention on him should allow for easier scores. Again though no true analysis or conclusions can be made at this point since the Lakers have been in such disarray.

However, it is foolish to think that a good passing player that draws attention and is not selfish is not going to make the game easier for other players. And hence get easier shots. Just like KJ would get Barkley easy shots. "Dramatic" increases in fg% though may or may not happen.

Who says that I don't watch the game? I'm sure that I watch it much better than you could ever imagine watching it, which is why I correctly predicted that adding Nash was not automatically, by itself, going to result in the same type of "Nash effect" that existed in Phoenix. You protested, only to be proven wrong and you ought to apologize, but I won't insist. Yet my visual study of the game allowed me to understand that what had occurred with Nash in Phoenix would not simply or easily or completely transfer to Los Anageles, a point that you apparently missed. So, obviously, you're the one who needs to spend more time watching the game, and I don't just mean on television, but studying film, breaking down film, rewinding constantly until you recognize what's happening. For you clearly did not comprehend the game's fundamental equation of space equals time and how it can fundamentally affect the pick-and-roll.

The statistics just reflect a greater truth that can be gleaned by watching the game. Indeed, you display symptomatic confusion by thinking that if someone cites empirical evidence to support an argument, than he must not be "watching the game." If you "watch the game," you'll know that Kobe Bryant has always forced shots and launched bad shots, that he has continued to force shots and launch bad shots with Nash, and that he will probably always force shots and launch bad shots for as long as he plays in the NBA. That instinctive tendency is just part of his DNA, it is reflected in the statistics (the correct use of which merely mirrors the proper viewing of the game), and if you don't understand that reality, then you must not be watching the game. You're the one who is twisting matters to satisfy your desires and fallacies and you seem to think that if I don't harp on a Captain Obvious point like yourself and I instead move to the bigger picture, then I don't understand something. Conversely, I don't harp on the Captain Obvious points because I understand them to be a given.

As I wrote in the long post, great point guards indeed create easier shots for teammates. Yes, K.J. did it for Barkley and Nash will sometimes do it for Bryant. Since you place a premium on "watching the game," let's go to the videotape. From the 3:53-4:41 portion of this video from late in Game Four of the 1993 NBA Finals at Chicago, yes, K.J. creates a very easy shot for Barkley.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wM5BTWYmBs

From the 2:24-2:40 portion of this video, you'll see K.J. create two very easy shots for Barkley during the 1993 playoffs (the first is from the third quarter of Game Six of the NBA Finals).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNfvoys9D_k

From the 1:55-2:00 portion of this video, you'll see K.J. create another very easy shot for Barkley during a home game against Golden State on March 21, 1996.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0CFhahCzF8

http://www.basketballreference.com/teams/boxscore.htm?yr=1995&b=19960321&tm=PHO

And from the 1:02-1:14 portion of this video, from the regular season finale of the '94-'95 campaign, you'll see K.J. feed Barkley for another very easy hoop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8CgKSXPAI

http://www.basketballreference.com/teams/boxscore.htm?yr=1994&b=19950423&tm=PHO

So, yes, I "watch the game" and I know that K.J. created easy shots for Barkley and that Nash can do the same for Bryant. In fact, during halftime of the November 9, 2006, contest between the Bulls and Cavaliers at Cleveland on TNT, Barkley and Kenny Smith were lamenting LeBron James needing to lead fast breaks rather than finish them, and the following exchange ensued.

Smith to Barkley: "How many times, when you were coming down the court, in Phoenix, did you get two or three layups just by playing with Kevin Johnson?"

Barkley: "Oh! I miss Kevin Johnson. Kevin, come on out of retirement, help me out."

The situation was as if Barkley had entered a time warp and flashed back to his days in Houston at the end of the 1990s when he was campaigning for the Rockets to sign a retiring K.J., and when Sir Charles was trying to convince his former Phoenix teammate to come play with him in Houston.

But for all those easy baskets that K.J. fed to Barkley, do you know what? Barkley's field goal percentage did not increase in Phoenix, nor did Barkley's True Shooting Percentage increase in Phoenix (actually, those marks decreased, probably because Barkley was moving into his thirties and because in Phoenix, Barkley received something of a green light to chuck threes). K.J. gave him a lot of easy baskets, but K.J. did not render Barkley a more efficient scorer overall. And do you know why? The reason is because Barkley still played his own game. Like Bryant and unlike someone such as Kevin Garnett, who lacks virtuosic scoring skill, Barkley was not going to make much of an effort to blend his game with K.J.'s, to avoid playing "hero basketball" and use the great point guard to become more disciplined and efficient. Had he done so, the Suns would have probably won a championship or two or three, but Barkley was Barkley. The effect of all those easy buckets and dunks from K.J. was still going to be negated or neutralized by Barkley holding the ball for an eternity and slowly dribbling in a limited radius for an eternity while the rest of his teammates stood and watched to see what he was finally going to do. Barkley was still going to play "hero basketball," still going to attempt impossible shots, still going to fire three-pointers recklessly, still going to demand the ball in the post constantly, still going to play with an "I'm Charles Barkley and you're not, consequences be damned, give me the damn ball and get out of my way" attitude. You can even see some of those dynamics in that last video that I posted, from the 1995 regular season finale. View, for instance, the 5:24-5:53 portion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8CgKSXPAI

It was funny then; it wouldn't be so funny when a frigid, fatigued, or hurting Barkley tried to play "hero basketball" in the playoffs and basically gave away possessions as a result. Kevin Johnson made a lot of players more efficient: Tom Chambers, Eddie Johnson, Dan Majerle, Mark West, Tyrone Corbin, et al. The reason why the Barkley trailed failed so badly for Philadelphia was basically Kevin Johnson. The Sixers received three starters off a 53-win team who had all shot over 51 percent from the field (Jeff Hornacek, Tim Perry, Andrew Lang), but none of them proved nearly as efficient once removed from Kevin Johnson. Yet Charles Barkley? K.J. fed him for some really easy buckets, but he didn't make Barkley more efficient because Charles Barkley was going to play Charles Barkley Basketball. And like Barkley, Kobe Bryant is still going to play "hero basketball." He did it when Shaquille O'Neal was in his prime and he has done it with Steve Nash running the point. Nash will give Bryant some easier looks, but Kobe Bryant will still play Kobe Bryant Basketball and launch Kobe Bryant Shots.

The point is that superstars such as Barkley and Bryant retain their own style, their own rhythm, their own prerogatives, their own implicit and subconscious agendas as players. Thus a great point guard does not fundamentally change the game for a superstar; the effect is marginal and often statistically negligible. On lesser players, the effect may be enormous, but not on the superstar. Indeed, Dirk Nowitzki actually reached new levels of shooting and scoring efficiency (and scoring volume) after Steve Nash departed Dallas.

Part of the point is also that Nash and Bryant don't gel naturally. I've watched a number of Laker games (although not last night), at least when Nash has been on the court, and I've seen the lack of complementation. Bryant is the kind of player who needs and wants the ball to find his rhythm. He needs to create his own flow and he doesn't naturally fit into someone else's flow. So if he's playing with another dominant ball-handling guard, as opposed to a "placeholder" type of point guard such as Derek Fisher or Brian Shaw, the dynamic is not going to work smoothly on a routine basis. Part of the reason why "the offense isn't being run correctly" is because Nash and Bryant don't really mesh; there are too many chefs in the kitchen and the "disarray" isn't happening for some accidental or random reason.

That's not to say that the Lakers can't improve or function effectively on some level; perhaps last night will constitute a building block in that direction. But saying that "the offense is not being run correctly" is a way of masking larger contradictions. "The offense is not being run correctly" because the personnel doesn't fit the offense, meaning that there isn't optimal spacing, there's a ton of friction, and while something positive may yet emerge, it's going to have to emerge by fighting through a lot of static and learning how to minimize that static over time. "The offense is not being run correctly" in part because Kobe Bryant is Kobe Bryant, not Jared Dudley.

Now, if you replaced Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Metta World Peace with Jason Richardson, Channing Frye, and Jared Dudley, I'll bet you that the offense would run correctly in an instant. The problem, as I wrote a month ago, was that Nash by himself is not going to result in the same type of offense featured in Phoenix, that you needed the right spacing and flow, along with the right personnel to create the right spacing and flow. That personnel may start with Nash, but in no way does it end with him and the wrong personnel and spacing can short-circuit everything and cause the offense to run "incorrectly." Why do you think that the offense is not being run "correctly"? Part of the issue is that in this offense, Kobe Bryant is kind of a square peg in a round hole. That's not to say that you trade him or that matters can't work, but there are going to need to be technicians gradually enlarging the round hole so that the square peg gradually fits better and better, if you catch my drift. The fit is not natural, so the Lakers are more like a construction project suffering constant delays and setbacks. My whole point, which so upset you and some others here, was simply that in contrast to that Youtube video, the Lakers were not likely to click as the Suns did because the spacing and personnel would not naturally complement the "Nash style." Even if the offense starts running better, Kobe Bryant is not going to stick to the system's logic in the manner of Jared Dudley (nor should he, necessarily).

Also keep in mind that when the defense helps to deal with Nash or Nash's pick-and-rolls, it is not going to regularly or eagerly help off Bryant, further reducing Nash's ability to bolster Bryant's efficiency.

But when you end your post with the disclaimer that dramatic increases may not happen, I'm not sure what we're even debating. When I suggested that Nash won't fundamentally change the game for Bryant, that's what I mean, that the change to Kobe's scoring efficiency will be minimal or negligible or frankly nonexistent. Of course Nash will create some easier shots for Bryant, just as K.J. did for Barkley, but what will the overall impact or net result be? As in Barkley's case, there probably won't be much of one with Bryant.

Remember, dude, that you've been wrong on everything so far and I've been right on everything so far. The reason is that you're analyzing the game based on abstractions, clichés, and Captain Obvious points that border on irrelevancy given the idiosyncratic context, whereas I'm using video, nuance, and empiricism, all three factors. I'll keep your ideas in mind, but I'd say that you've been gratuitously dismissive toward mine, especially since they're obviously based in both visual analysis and empirical evidence.

And I'm still not saying that the offense won't ultimately work on a palatable level or that the Lakers won't make the playoffs. All that I ever did was suggest that Nash's "presto" effect in Phoenix wouldn't necessarily transfer to the Lakers' lineup and that Kobe Bryant's game wouldn't be greatly affected by his point guard, one way or the other. For a short while in the late nineties, the Suns featured Kevin Johnson, Jason Kidd, and Steve Nash, all on the same team. Even if Kobe Bryant had been playing with all three of those point guards, I still don't think that he would have become a 50 percent shooter, for that's just not who he happens to be as a player.

[TyCobb]

[GMATCallahan]

Okay, the short version?

"The offense isn't being run correctly" and "disarray" exists in part because Kobe Bryant is Kobe Bryant. That statement is not meant to blame Bryant, but to suggest that he does not naturally blend into a Nash-led D'Antoni offense. The two guards can play together successfully, but the lack of natural complementation means that Nash is unlikely to fundamentally change Kobe's efficiency levels; in the main, Kobe will determine Kobe's efficiency levels, regardless of whether he's playing with an elite center such as Shaquille O'Neal or an elite point guard such as Steve Nash. And the defense is not going to regularly or eagerly help off Bryant to deal with Nash, further reducing the chances that Nash will seriously alter Bryant's efficiency. Just because Nash will create some easy shots for Bryant doesn't mean that Kobe will necessarily become more efficient overall, just as Charles Barkley did not play his most efficient basketball with Kevin Johnson and Dirk Nowitzki did not play his most efficient basketball with Steve Nash. Indeed, true superstars (not pseudo-superstars, but MVP-caliber virtuosic scorers) are largely immune to the quality of their point guards.

[GMATCallahan]

Allow me to leave with the following, final point. Many people assume that John Stockton made Karl Malone much more productive and efficient in Utah, that without Stockton, Malone couldn't have gotten his shots, or at least not his high-quality shots. But consider the following facts:

In 1,412 regular season games in Utah with Stockton, Malone averaged 25.4 points on .517 field goal shooting.

In 22 regular season games in Utah without Stockton, Malone averaged 25.1 points on .524 field goal shooting.

In other words, Malone as a member of the Jazz was about a 25-ppg scorer on approximately 52 percent FG shooting—with Stockton, or without him. There was virtually no statistical difference. And Utah went 13-9 in those 22 games without Stockton, a .591 winning percentage, good for 48 wins per 82 games. That number isn't elite and Stockton made the Jazz better, but Utah still won at a secure, playoff-type pace without him. And from the statistics (rather than the myths), the guys that Stockton really made better were the likes of Bryon Russell and Greg Ostertag, not the superstar, Karl Malone. Russell, for example, shot .342 from the field and .255 on threes in 18 games without Stockton in '97-'98, compared to .455 from the field and .365 on threes in 64 games with Stockton that season. Likewise, Ostertag shot .360 from the field without Stockton that year and .537 with him.

But in Malone's case, he played at a Hall of Fame level with Stockton and without him, with virtually no statistical difference. And although 22 games do not represent a huge sample, the sample is large enough to receive a ballpark sense, especially since those 22 games came in portions eight years apart.

So if John Stockton didn't necessarily make Karl Malone more efficient, then Steve Nash isn't necessarily going to render Kobe Bryant more efficient.

Anyway, I've had my say. Maybe I'll check back after the season after everything has settled out.

[tysonironmike]

Jesus **** christ...

[AcecardZ]

Okay, the short version?

"The offense isn't being run correctly" and "disarray" exists in part because Kobe Bryant is Kobe Bryant. That statement is not meant to blame Bryant, but to suggest that he does not naturally blend into a Nash-led D'Antoni offense. The two guards can play together successfully, but the lack of natural complementation means that Nash is unlikely to fundamentally change Kobe's efficiency levels; in the main, Kobe will determine Kobe's efficiency levels, regardless of whether he's playing with an elite center such as Shaquille O'Neal or an elite point guard such as Steve Nash. And the defense is not going to regularly or eagerly help off Bryant to deal with Nash, further reducing the chances that Nash will seriously alter Bryant's efficiency. Just because Nash will create some easy shots for Bryant doesn't mean that Kobe will necessarily become more efficient overall, just as Charles Barkley did not play his most efficient basketball with Kevin Johnson and Dirk Nowitzki did not play his most efficient basketball with Steve Nash. Indeed, true superstars (not pseudo-superstars, but MVP-caliber virtuosic scorers) are largely immune to the quality of their point guards.

So to what do you blame the Lakers' disarray on defense? Most here agree they're in far bigger trouble defensively than they are offensively.

fwiw just a slight increase in the Lakers' defense would significantly improve their offense. Would you agree with this? They'd get more steals leading to more run outs that would lead to easier baskets and a higher shooting percentage. The two go hand in hand and right now the Lakers' D is simply atrocious. The offense won't improve until the defense does. It's that simple.

[GMATCallahan]

Okay, the short version?

"The offense isn't being run correctly" and "disarray" exists in part because Kobe Bryant is Kobe Bryant. That statement is not meant to blame Bryant, but to suggest that he does not naturally blend into a Nash-led D'Antoni offense. The two guards can play together successfully, but the lack of natural complementation means that Nash is unlikely to fundamentally change Kobe's efficiency levels; in the main, Kobe will determine Kobe's efficiency levels, regardless of whether he's playing with an elite center such as Shaquille O'Neal or an elite point guard such as Steve Nash. And the defense is not going to regularly or eagerly help off Bryant to deal with Nash, further reducing the chances that Nash will seriously alter Bryant's efficiency. Just because Nash will create some easy shots for Bryant doesn't mean that Kobe will necessarily become more efficient overall, just as Charles Barkley did not play his most efficient basketball with Kevin Johnson and Dirk Nowitzki did not play his most efficient basketball with Steve Nash. Indeed, true superstars (not pseudo-superstars, but MVP-caliber virtuosic scorers) are largely immune to the quality of their point guards.

So to what do you blame the Lakers' disarray on defense? Most here agree they're in far bigger trouble defensively than they are offensively.

fwiw just a slight increase in the Lakers' defense would significantly improve their offense. Would you agree with this? They'd get more steals leading to more run outs that would lead to easier baskets and a higher shooting percentage. The two go hand in hand and right now the Lakers' D is simply atrocious. The offense won't improve until the defense does. It's that simple.

I'd primarily blame the Lakers' defensive disarray on age. They thought that Dwight Howard could be the great equalizer, the great eraser of physical shortcomings elsewhere, but he's coming off back surgery and not the same athletic force as in the past. And I also sense that the Lakers' underachieving offense is distracting from their defensive concentration and hampering their defensive enthusiasm. Unless you possess a slew of defensive-minded players, which obviously isn't the case in LA, then suffering offensively can create a "slumped shoulders" effect on defense.

Steals would definitely help, as they probably lead to the best offensive opportunities, but steals generally come with younger, more athletic and energetic players, the kind that the Lakers lack.

I think that the problem is that no one really knows how much the Lakers can improve defensively given their personnel (and coach), so they (observers both inside and outside the organization, I imagine) look to the offense as a savior, with all these big names and elite skills. Maybe they really will need to trade Gasol in an attempt to retool the rest of the roster around Bryant, Nash, and Howard, because too many important ingredients seem to be currently absent.

I'm out, peace.

[GMATCallahan]

By the way, what do we have here?

Jared Dudley currently ranks fifth in the NBA in three-point field goal percentage at .457, and Channing Frye places sixth at .447.

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/3-points/sort/threePointFieldGoalPct

And Steve Nash last played in the NBA almost two years ago.

What made the Nash-led offense work in Phoenix was the complementary nature of the personnel, how Nash could complement—and be complemented by—skilled, floor-spreading shooters such as Dudley and Frye. Nash did not turn non-shooters into shooters; he took advantage of those kinds of shooters, and he helped them as they helped him. The Lakers, conversely, tried to make a Nash-led system work with a different type of personnel-package, so of course the experiment did not produce the same sorts of results, as I stated at the start.

[Slava]

This is a topic not worth revisiting.