Sorry folks, I was on vacation for a week and generally haven’t been reading much beyond The Big Lead and the FJM’s lately. It’s either a testament to your devotion to reading this blog or a sign that you have no life that the “recurring visitors” that I get has remained constant. I'll go with the former.
Today I listened to (Boston) Sports Talk Radio during my lengthy commute to work, and by the end I was sort of yelling at my radio in annoyance at the general tone of their NBA MVP discussions. Here’s a little synopsis of the events:
Gerry Callahan and John Dennis are the hosts, and they both (Dennis more vehemently so) conveyed that Kevin Garnett should be the NBA MVP. They had their share of points and whatnot, but I can make this real real simple. Here are the basic reasons that were given to support Garnett:
1. Ultimately will be the best player on a team with the best record in the NBA.
2. Ultimately will be the best player on a team that had the biggest turnaround in NBA history, and he wasn’t on the team last year so he has been the major reason for that impact.
Now, let me tell you the real reasons why they believe that Garnett should be the MVP:
1. They are sports talk radio hosts in Boston.
2. They are not sports talk radio hosts in New Orleans, Los Angeles, or Cleveland. If they were, they’d be using the many arguments for those players instead.
Now, we first need to take a step back a little bit. The award, for right or wrong (wrong) is called “Most Valuable Player”. While I will always believe that the intent of the award should just be to award the basketball player who played the best basketball over the course of the basketball season (Most Outstanding Performance at Playing Basketball - MOPPB), it is unfortunately called the MVP – which does have a better ring to it.
Why am I discussing this? Because at one point John Dennis read a dictionary definition of the fucking word valuable. They frequently noted that the award was not for the most outstanding, but the most VALUABLE, in support of Garnett. This is maddening, but unfortunately we’re left with the word valuable to deal with.
So why do I disagree with them? Let’s discuss the two main arguments put forth:
1. Ultimately will be the best player on a team with the best record in the NBA.
Well that’s definitely a nice place to start an MVP argument, and the Celtics’ 24-5 record against the West means that for right or wrong we sort of have to throw out the conference argument. But the Celtics were 7-2 when he was out, which, while not being many games, is right on par with their overall winning percentage. Note that I don't think this is a disqualifier, but I note it just to point out that he has pretty good teammates contributing to that best record, if that's what you're hanging your hat on. Garnett isn’t carrying this team by any stretch. Paul Pierce is still the best offensive player on the Celtics, and he and Ray Allen alleviate a tremendous amount of the scoring load off of Garnett, versus what Mr. James is going through in Cleveland. But basketball isn’t all scoring, and Garnett has been a good rebounder and has anchored the best defense in the NBA. If you blindly believe that the MVP should go to the best player on the best team than there’s just nothing I can say, Kevin Garnett is your man.
Personally, I think that the MVP should go to a team with at least a .500 record, but other than that there’s too much to consider to just give the best player/best team the award. If you have a team with 3 stars and 5 good complementary players and they win 67 games and another team with 1 star, 2 good complementary players and a bunch of scrubs and they win 58 games with the Superstar averaging 30/8/8….then my MVP vote is probably going to the player on the second team. It’s really not as simple as checking the standings.
I don’t think John Dennis would have made much of an argument for Chauncey Billups winning the ’06 MVP (unless he lived in Detroit), or Clyde Drexler beating out Michael Jordan for the ’91 MVP. Allen Iverson would have to cough up his ’01 hardware to Tim Duncan, who would have to hand his ’02 MVP award to…Chris Webber. It’s just not that simple.
2. Ultimately will be the best player on a team that had the biggest turnaround in NBA history, and he wasn’t on the team last year so he has been the major reason for that impact.
Now this is why I wrote this post, as what he said in defense of this point led me to literally yell at the radio. Dennis pointed out that the Hornets won 39 games last year! They were 39-42. Not nearly as bad as the Celtics! The Lakers were 42-40! The Celtics were 24-58….this year they have the best record! The implication being that best player they added was Garnett, therefore he’s the MVP, because the other teams were already not-so-bad. Clearly they’ve improved, but they didn’t come from the same depths that the Celtics did!
Do you see the flaw in this logic? That led to me yelling this in my car:
CHRIS PAUL WAS ON THE MOTHER FUCKING HORNETS LAST YEAR YOU FUCKING MORON! KOBE BRYANT WAS ON THE LAKERS! THEY ARE THE REASON WHY THEIR TEAMS WON THOSE GAMES LAST YEAR!
With me yet? You can’t give the MVP to Garnett on the basis of the turnaround unless you have some magical ability to forecast what Cleveland, LA, and New Orleans records would have been last year minus their MVP candidates (not nearly as good). Next year, when the Celtics probably regress by a few games, will Dennis eliminate Garnett from MVP contention because they went backwards? Of course not, and he shouldn’t. It’s a stupid criteria for basing the highest individual achievement in the sport on. Let’s talk about which basketball players played the best basketball THIS YEAR, why does last year mean anything at all? The Celtics roster is totally different anyway – it’s basically like a new team.
In summary, let’s just rename the award please.
Showing posts with label Kevin Garnett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kevin Garnett. Show all posts
Friday, March 28, 2008
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Garnett and Culpepper Are Just NAMES
Ray Ratto was a scrub wrestler from the 1980’s. I remember him submitting in the Billy Jack Haynes full nelson in about 4 seconds. Okay just kidding, he’s a columnist at CBS sportsline.com, where I have never read a single decent column but feel the need to keep going back because it’s so terrible. Ray Ratto just sounds like a scrub wrestler name. His latest work, "K.G.? Daunte? NAMES will always fool us", is about how we shouldn’t get all riled up about NAMES. Because NAMES don’t mean anything and are over-rated.
Daunte Culpepper isn't likely to save the Oakland Raiders from another hard year.
Well, duh, he’s sucked or has been injured the last couple of years. He’s a huge question mark and is effectively a place holder for JaMarcus Russell. Plus, it’s football, and one guy doesn’t mean that much to a teams success, unlike basketball.
And Kevin Garnett won't make the Boston Celtics a title contender in the Eastern Conference.
Oh.
Well, not alone. But he and Ray Allen combined with Paul Pierce immediately creates a pretty formidable line-up that everyone besides you thinks will challenge for the Eastern Conference. But I’m sure you have some good, sound, reasoned support for this logic.
But they are NAMES, and we love NAMES. NAMES have done great things in the past, or looked like they were going to. They make their new teams intriguing because their NAMES are attached to them.
Good god, this is unreadable.
We ask too much of them, though. We always do.
I see.
Garnett's trade to Boston in exchange for several itinerant Celtics and a four-year extension on his elephantine contract made the Celtics an Eastern Conference power again, after the lost 15 years of the post-Bird Era. That is, if you believed the drooly hysteria you read and heard over the last week.
Or if you have a passing knowledge of Kevin Garnett’s current ability and the relative competition in the Eastern Conference. Also, itinerant means nomadic. So they are…nomadic players? Like Al Jefferson, Gerald Green and draft picks?
But there is a lot more drool than truth here, because Garnett comes to a team with two other $20 million/per players (Paul Pierce, Ray Allen) around him, and a glorified D-League cornucopia after that. The Celtics were the worst team in the East last year, yet nobody asked to show how Garnett is suddenly worth 40 wins, except to say, "It's the East."
No one with a brain is saying he’s worth 40 wins. The biggest improvement ever was a Spurs team that added Tim Duncan and David Robinson coming back from injury (played 6 games the year before). You just made this up to refute it as stupid. I fucking hate that.
Paul Pierce only played in 47 games last year. Had he played 82 games, and the Celtics won the same % of games that they won in the games he played, they would have won like 35 games. Not good, but much better than 24 wins. I think, in effect, that many people are saying that Garnett and Ray Allen will result in about a 15-20 win improvement (on the 35 wins). But anything can happen in the playoffs.
Neither Paul Pierce or Ray Allen made $20 million last year. I don’t know their upcoming salaries but they’d need pretty good size raises to reach $20 million.
And nobody tries to explain how the Celtics are suddenly the equal of the Pistons, Heat, Bulls or Wizards, because they can't. Not with a straight face, anyway. They are, at best, scrambling to get to that second rung on the Eastern stepstool, the kind of team that wins 39 games and is in the hunt for a playoff berth until the end.
No one is delusional and thinks that three guys who have not played together will instantly gel into a 65 win team. But, if healthy, they seem to have the type of game and personality that would mesh pretty well together. Remember how well the Timberwolves did with Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell? Well, that’s what people are thinking, but in a weaker conference and with better stars than Cassell and Sprewell. You think they are a 39 win team, not nearly as good as the Wizards. I see. How many games did the Wizards win last year? 41. Makes sense, let’s move on!
But Garnett is a NAME, surrounded by two other NAMES in Allen and Pierce, and so those who don't say they can win the conference say that they are "relevant" again, which is a keen word that in this context means "OK, I'll watch 'em if I don't have anything better to do."
That’s not what relevant means. That’s what relative indifference means. Relevant means I’ll try to watch them, frequently. Also, you’re using keen like a word that means the exact opposite. Like nebulous. But you’re the writer and I’m internet columnist reader guy.
You see, while Garnett was and is a sensational player, he is once again surrounded by substandard support (and no, we are not speaking of Pierce and Allen as support, but the other nine players, if they can afford that many), plus he is working for a general manager and coach (Danny Ainge and Doc Rivers) who are probably holding their jobs by their teeth. This actually looks worse the longer you look at it, but we love stars, and Kevin Garnett is a star. Better, he is a NAME, and we think NAMES can solve any problem, even this one.
Why can’t we speak of Pierce and Allen as support? You need, like 2-3 stars, 3-4 functional players and a couple of serviceable guys who aren’t total fuckups to have a good basketball team. Are they deep? No, of course not. But most teams really aren’t either.
If Ainge and Rivers are barely holding onto their jobs, won’t that increase the pressure to win, now? How is that fact, in and of itself, bad for the Celtics performance in ’07-08? I say “in and of itself” because you do still have Doc Rivers coaching the team, and that’s not good.
So good luck on that one.
As for Culpepper, he has signed a one-year deal to rent in Oakland, who have been the Celtics of football for the last few years. Culpepper is a NAME, too, even though he was hurt all of 2005 and had a terrible experience with Nick Saban in Miami in '06. He is coming to a team that doesn't have equivalents for Paul Pierce or Ray Allen, one which managed last year to perform the extraordinary feat of finishing 12 games behind its division leader in a 16-game schedule. If anything, the Raiders of '06 were worse at what they did than the '07 Celtics were at what they did.
Right, I agree, these are two situations that are totally incomparable and it would be a waste of everyone’s time to compare them.
And unlike the Celtics, who are now married to Garnett for years to come, Culpepper goes to the Raiders as a layover until a better destination comes along next year.
Also, basketball is played on hardwood, and football is played on a big field. In addition, if you tried playing basketball with a football you would be very frustrated when dribbling, but outlet passes would rock.
He has superficial comparison points to unsigned draft choice JaMarcus Russell, and he could serve as a starter and mentor (or backup and mentor, if the Raiders want to irritate the hell out of him), but our interest is strictly based on Culpepper being a NAME.
What do you want fans to do? They are simply tracking the news. Big name players, and players who were once really good, is generally news. No one thinks this means that the Raiders will be winning the Super Bowl.
He once led the Vikings to a 15-1 record, then without Randy Moss (who preceded him in Oakland and essentially removed himself from the Hall of Fame as a result) faded, was catastrophically injured, and served as his own agent to get a flexible deal that would put him back on the market next year.
So more on why the situations are incomparable, then you drop the comparison on us. NAME! Wham! Brilliant!
This, then, doesn't sound like anything other than two sides in a jam who happened to have what the other side wanted, and much less a matter of the Raiders wanting another NAME from that mythical Viking team nobody remembers anyway.
Um, yeah. Insightful! Let’s just look at your picture instead of parsing this mess.
New GGAS policy, no pictures of Ray Ratto.
Still, it has our interest because Culpepper is, in fact, still a NAME, and everyone is still a sucker for a NAME.
Culpepper really doesn’t have our interest, or at least mine. The Garnett situation does, because he’s been an awesome player for a long time and him going to the Celtics with Pierce and Allen is interesting to basketball fans. What, you goofy looking bastard, is so bad about that?
In fact, you know who else is a NAME? Michael Vick. But that's another story, or stories, for other times.
So, what are we as fans supposed to do? Not care about the NAMES? I don’t get the point? Write a fucking story about Jeff Suppan or Udonis Haslem if you don’t care about NAMES.
And STOP CAPITALIZING "NAMES"!
Daunte Culpepper isn't likely to save the Oakland Raiders from another hard year.
Well, duh, he’s sucked or has been injured the last couple of years. He’s a huge question mark and is effectively a place holder for JaMarcus Russell. Plus, it’s football, and one guy doesn’t mean that much to a teams success, unlike basketball.
And Kevin Garnett won't make the Boston Celtics a title contender in the Eastern Conference.
Oh.
Well, not alone. But he and Ray Allen combined with Paul Pierce immediately creates a pretty formidable line-up that everyone besides you thinks will challenge for the Eastern Conference. But I’m sure you have some good, sound, reasoned support for this logic.
But they are NAMES, and we love NAMES. NAMES have done great things in the past, or looked like they were going to. They make their new teams intriguing because their NAMES are attached to them.
Good god, this is unreadable.
We ask too much of them, though. We always do.
I see.
Garnett's trade to Boston in exchange for several itinerant Celtics and a four-year extension on his elephantine contract made the Celtics an Eastern Conference power again, after the lost 15 years of the post-Bird Era. That is, if you believed the drooly hysteria you read and heard over the last week.
Or if you have a passing knowledge of Kevin Garnett’s current ability and the relative competition in the Eastern Conference. Also, itinerant means nomadic. So they are…nomadic players? Like Al Jefferson, Gerald Green and draft picks?
But there is a lot more drool than truth here, because Garnett comes to a team with two other $20 million/per players (Paul Pierce, Ray Allen) around him, and a glorified D-League cornucopia after that. The Celtics were the worst team in the East last year, yet nobody asked to show how Garnett is suddenly worth 40 wins, except to say, "It's the East."
No one with a brain is saying he’s worth 40 wins. The biggest improvement ever was a Spurs team that added Tim Duncan and David Robinson coming back from injury (played 6 games the year before). You just made this up to refute it as stupid. I fucking hate that.
Paul Pierce only played in 47 games last year. Had he played 82 games, and the Celtics won the same % of games that they won in the games he played, they would have won like 35 games. Not good, but much better than 24 wins. I think, in effect, that many people are saying that Garnett and Ray Allen will result in about a 15-20 win improvement (on the 35 wins). But anything can happen in the playoffs.
Neither Paul Pierce or Ray Allen made $20 million last year. I don’t know their upcoming salaries but they’d need pretty good size raises to reach $20 million.
And nobody tries to explain how the Celtics are suddenly the equal of the Pistons, Heat, Bulls or Wizards, because they can't. Not with a straight face, anyway. They are, at best, scrambling to get to that second rung on the Eastern stepstool, the kind of team that wins 39 games and is in the hunt for a playoff berth until the end.
No one is delusional and thinks that three guys who have not played together will instantly gel into a 65 win team. But, if healthy, they seem to have the type of game and personality that would mesh pretty well together. Remember how well the Timberwolves did with Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell? Well, that’s what people are thinking, but in a weaker conference and with better stars than Cassell and Sprewell. You think they are a 39 win team, not nearly as good as the Wizards. I see. How many games did the Wizards win last year? 41. Makes sense, let’s move on!
But Garnett is a NAME, surrounded by two other NAMES in Allen and Pierce, and so those who don't say they can win the conference say that they are "relevant" again, which is a keen word that in this context means "OK, I'll watch 'em if I don't have anything better to do."
That’s not what relevant means. That’s what relative indifference means. Relevant means I’ll try to watch them, frequently. Also, you’re using keen like a word that means the exact opposite. Like nebulous. But you’re the writer and I’m internet columnist reader guy.
You see, while Garnett was and is a sensational player, he is once again surrounded by substandard support (and no, we are not speaking of Pierce and Allen as support, but the other nine players, if they can afford that many), plus he is working for a general manager and coach (Danny Ainge and Doc Rivers) who are probably holding their jobs by their teeth. This actually looks worse the longer you look at it, but we love stars, and Kevin Garnett is a star. Better, he is a NAME, and we think NAMES can solve any problem, even this one.
Why can’t we speak of Pierce and Allen as support? You need, like 2-3 stars, 3-4 functional players and a couple of serviceable guys who aren’t total fuckups to have a good basketball team. Are they deep? No, of course not. But most teams really aren’t either.
If Ainge and Rivers are barely holding onto their jobs, won’t that increase the pressure to win, now? How is that fact, in and of itself, bad for the Celtics performance in ’07-08? I say “in and of itself” because you do still have Doc Rivers coaching the team, and that’s not good.
So good luck on that one.
As for Culpepper, he has signed a one-year deal to rent in Oakland, who have been the Celtics of football for the last few years. Culpepper is a NAME, too, even though he was hurt all of 2005 and had a terrible experience with Nick Saban in Miami in '06. He is coming to a team that doesn't have equivalents for Paul Pierce or Ray Allen, one which managed last year to perform the extraordinary feat of finishing 12 games behind its division leader in a 16-game schedule. If anything, the Raiders of '06 were worse at what they did than the '07 Celtics were at what they did.
Right, I agree, these are two situations that are totally incomparable and it would be a waste of everyone’s time to compare them.
And unlike the Celtics, who are now married to Garnett for years to come, Culpepper goes to the Raiders as a layover until a better destination comes along next year.
Also, basketball is played on hardwood, and football is played on a big field. In addition, if you tried playing basketball with a football you would be very frustrated when dribbling, but outlet passes would rock.
He has superficial comparison points to unsigned draft choice JaMarcus Russell, and he could serve as a starter and mentor (or backup and mentor, if the Raiders want to irritate the hell out of him), but our interest is strictly based on Culpepper being a NAME.
What do you want fans to do? They are simply tracking the news. Big name players, and players who were once really good, is generally news. No one thinks this means that the Raiders will be winning the Super Bowl.
He once led the Vikings to a 15-1 record, then without Randy Moss (who preceded him in Oakland and essentially removed himself from the Hall of Fame as a result) faded, was catastrophically injured, and served as his own agent to get a flexible deal that would put him back on the market next year.
So more on why the situations are incomparable, then you drop the comparison on us. NAME! Wham! Brilliant!
This, then, doesn't sound like anything other than two sides in a jam who happened to have what the other side wanted, and much less a matter of the Raiders wanting another NAME from that mythical Viking team nobody remembers anyway.
Um, yeah. Insightful! Let’s just look at your picture instead of parsing this mess.
New GGAS policy, no pictures of Ray Ratto.
Still, it has our interest because Culpepper is, in fact, still a NAME, and everyone is still a sucker for a NAME.
Culpepper really doesn’t have our interest, or at least mine. The Garnett situation does, because he’s been an awesome player for a long time and him going to the Celtics with Pierce and Allen is interesting to basketball fans. What, you goofy looking bastard, is so bad about that?
In fact, you know who else is a NAME? Michael Vick. But that's another story, or stories, for other times.
So, what are we as fans supposed to do? Not care about the NAMES? I don’t get the point? Write a fucking story about Jeff Suppan or Udonis Haslem if you don’t care about NAMES.
And STOP CAPITALIZING "NAMES"!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)