Kicks: Hyperdunk 2010

Space Odyssey

Kobe Bryant: 16 Years Old

USA Wins World Championship: Highlights

Take that Communism

Thursday’s 89-79 victory over Russia was particularly sweet for the US. First of all, it came on the 38th anniversary of the 1972 Olympic basketball finals in which the Soviet Union fraudulently beat the US. And with Mike Krzyzewski and Russian Coach David Blatt sparring verbally in the media, sports journalists and players had a little something extra to pretend to think about.

But the unrelenting buffoonery of David Blatt quickly got old and it’s become clear he’s a weedy and not very bright commie sympathist who shouldn’t be addressing subject matter from the days of ideological hostility.

Thankfully, Kevin Durant is the epitome of a capitalist machine who can do pretty much anything that needs doing: he’s 6’9, can score from anywhere, adapts and is exceptionally versatile. On Thursday he was his usual self; scoring 33 points, just 2 shy of the US FIBA scoring record set by Carmelo Anthony in 2006.

The US is now just two wins away from its first world championship since 1994. But despite Durant’s heroics, the game was far from smooth sailing. The Americans missed 17 of their first 25 shots, rotated too slowly on defense, and were outworked on the boards, trailing for much of the first half. Even throughout the second half, Russia fouled the trash out of the US and managed to run a fluid offense, capitalizing on its size and frustrating the Americans.

But finally, at the end of the second quarter with the US leading by an uncomforting 5 points, Team NBA’s speed and agility started to payoff, forcing the Russians into making turnovers that would lead to fast break points and American dunks.

In hindsight, if a team like Russia isn’t up by at least 10 on the US by half, they’re not winning. Big bulky teams simply can’t keep up with America’s quickness, depth and speed for four full quarters. The Russians did do well though. Sergey Bykov scored 17 points, and a 10 point loss isn’t bad considering they played without the country’s best player and MVP of their 2007 European championship, Utah Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko.

Team USA will next play on Saturday, facing the winner of Lithuania-Argentina game.

NBA Summer Signings

This summer was one of the biggest free agent classes in NBA history, and not just because of the triumvirate formed in Florida. The number of acquisitions, resignings and deals were staggering. There was more talent up for fists of cash than a group of strippers paying their way through med school. A lot went down, so in case you missed anything here’s a synopsis of some of the more relevant signings.

Dirk Nowitzki-4 years, $80 million deal with Dallas.

Carlos Boozer-5 years, $76 million deal with Chicago.

Rudy Gay-5 years, $81.6 million deal with Memphis.

Joe Johnson-6 years, $123 million deal with Atlanta.

Amare Stoudemire-5 years, $100 million deal with New York.

Ray Allen-2 years, $20 million deal with Boston.

Ray Felton-2 years, $15.8 million with New York.

Ben Wallace-2 years, $3.8 million with Detroit.

Jermaine O’Neal-2 years, $12 million deal with Boston.

Richard Jefferson-4 years, $39 million deal San Antonia.

JJ Redick-3 years, $19 million deal with Orlando.

Nate Robinson-2 years, $9 million deal with Boston.

Mike Miller-5 years, $25 million deal with Miami.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas-2 years, $2.8 million deal with Miami.

Shaquille O'Neal-2 years, $2.8 million deal with Boston
Steve Black- 4 years, $16 million deal with Los Angeles.

Hakim Warrick-4 years, $18 million deal with Phoenix.

Shaun Livingston, 2 years, $7 million deal with Charlotte. 

For teams still looking to throw some money around, there ain’t much left, except maybe this motley bunch of elderly trash: Flip Murray, Earl Watson, Jerry Stackhouse, Michael Finley, Larry Hughes, Devean George and Allen Iverson. 

While I’m sure it pains everyone to see Iverson on a list of unwanted NBA driftwood, given his age and extreme ego, he makes a problematic free agent for any team. Shame, he’s got the athleticism, skills and experience to make an extremely effective 6^th man. But again, given the ego we all love him for, he won’t be willing to do that and the future for Allen Iverson looks as bleak as Flip Murray's. 

Lots of Dunks, Lots of Threes, USA Blows Out Angola

Team USA scored 120 points in 40 minutes, blowing away puny Angola in the first round of elimination play.

But this is the United States of Amnesia we’re talking about, and even one afternoon of loose play, obscene dunks and egoistic chuckles from the bench have the potential to screw up whatever reality check the narrow victory over Brazil offered. 

So no, blowing out Angola in the first round of the FIBA tournament was not a good thing. Whatever Angola offered in competition did nothing to prepare Team USA for the large, well-oiled machines of Greece, Spain and Lithuania.

   

According to US guard Stephen Curry, Angola is more of a ‘one-on-one team’, which is just a clever euphuism for saying Angola has virtually no offense. At one-on-one, the Americans are hands down the best in the world, but FIBA isn’t about individualism, it’s about team play. The US needs to get used to playing against teams that move the ball extremely well, not teams like Angola who scramble for every play.  Team USA has now won its last three games by an average of 43 points and might be getting over-overconfident again. 

The good news is Billups finally broke out of his 3-point shooting slump hitting 5 out 7 threes.  The US will now face Russia in the quarter final match on Thursday. 

Russia is something of an odd team coached by David Platt, an American/Israeli citizen who grew up in Massachusetts and went to Princeton. He’s been hocking his coaching trade on European basketball courts for the last two decades.  

And revving up for the game on Thursday he’s pulling some weasely tricks, even going so far as dropping media bombs claiming that the controversial and much rigged 1972 Munich Olympic Gold Medal game  in which the Soviet Union beat the US was legitimate. Everyone knows nothing in communist Russia was legitimate, especially that game. But Russia is a huge underdog and anything that can even potentially distract the Americans from their game is worth a try. 

Information on the Russian team is fairly grey. The country’s best 3-point shooter is Sergei Monia who played in the league long enough to have a few cigarettes with the Portland Trailblazers a couple of years ago. Other big guns include Timofey Mozgov who’s playing with the Knicks next season and Sasha Kaun who played for the Jayhawks in Kansas last year. The rest of the team is like most of the stuff that comes out of Russia; weird, vague and potentially dangerous. 

One thing that’s clear about Team Russia tough  is that they’re big, very big. Mozgov is afull five inches tallers than the US’s 6-10 starting center Lamar Odom. Russian power forward Andrey Vorontsevich is at least four inches taller than his US counterpart Andre Iguodala. These guys aren’t just big; they’re physical, aggressive and like most Eastern European teams can shoot the ball extremely well. With an average age of only 23, Team USA is young and Russia will try to stay close long enough to force them into panic mode.  

Kevin Durrant should be an MVP contender for the next decade or so. With his size and speed, he’s excellent at getting to the free throw line; able to shoot around 90% there, he’s deadly. And with help from fellow leader Billups, look for the US to pull out with at least a 10 point victory. 

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Paycheques

With Team USA struggling to perform properly in an international tournament that doesn’t completely revolve around money, it’s a good time to look at what really shapes NBA competition; Pay day.

The 2010/11 season includes some bizarre and lucrative remuneration. No surprise, Kobe cleans up and will rake the most coin next year with his $24,806,250 salary The second highest paid player in the NBA next year will be, shockingly, Rashard Lewis. He'll make an obscene $19,573,711 as a result of a long and asinine contract he signed in 2007  Though a decent player, he only averaged 14.1 ppg and 4.4 rpg last year yet he’s making almost as much as Steve Nash ($10,310,938) and Caron Butler ($10,500,000) combined.

Other crap players making huge sums of money off contracts they signed years ago before they fell off include Michael Redd at $18,300,000, Vince Carter at $17,522,375 and Andrei Kirilenko at $17,823,000. Despite fading in to obscurity and irreverence, Elton Brand will make $15,959,099 next year. Ever more mind boggling is that despite being 36 years old, Marcus Camby will still make $11,749,832 off the Portland Trailblazers.

Some players getting decent paper who actually deserve it (worth would be a more operative word here) are Carmelo Anthony who makes $17,149,24, Tim Duncan  who earns $18,835,381, Kevin Garnett’s $18,832,044 (debatable), Pau Gasol at $17,823,000 and Dirk Nowitzki at $17,278,618.

The highest paid point guards are Chris Paul and Deron Williams who each make $14,940,153 a piece. They deserve every penny of it and will make a hell of a lot more as they evolve into this generations greatest point guard. They should be in Turkey right now.

Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, who all agreed to take pay cuts in order to form Florida's Axis of Evil, will get paid $14,500,000, $14,200,000 and $14,500,000 a piece. There’s no state income tax in Florida, so the hit they took on their paychecks  to play in Miami is a bit less then it would be in a state like California where the income tax rate is 10.3%.

It’s worth noting that Mr. Bryant will make almost $10 million more than Mr. James this year. If LA manages to beat Miami in the  2011 finals, that number’s going to sting even more.

The Faith Slips Further

It’s looking more and more like this whole FIBA goat dance is just gonna be one big learning experience for Team USA, and one that culminates in the most clichéd and boring learning experience of all; losing.

Barely beating Brazil by two points yesterday, the US saw for the first time an opponent set the tone of play. Brazil was able to force the US into a stagnant game that lacked a coherent offense, pick-and-rolls, post-ups and set plays. It was nothing more than a shambolic scramble with most points coming of steals and converts. And even on the break the Americans would often try to play too fast, resulting in alley-oops thrown to no one or balls fumbled out of bounds. Most of time, players should have slowed things down a bit, made the extra pass, or just given the ball to Chauncey Billups, because he’s the only guard on the team playing like a professional athlete at the moment. 

With twelve players of similar calibre and talent, nobody other than Kevin Durant and Chauncey Billups should be playing more than five minute stretches. If anything, the depth of Team USA allows for short spurt substitutions and hockey-like lines in which athletes can play the kind of mad, intense defence that leads to fast breaks and a game that barely needs a set offence. Why Coach Kryzewski stopped emphasising this philosophy is frustrating. He needs to understand that he isn’t coaching Duke and that Team USA is a very different beast.

If you watched the game, you’ll know how tense the last minute was. With 3.5 seconds left and the Americans up by a very un-American two points, Brazil’s Marcelo Huertas had an opportunity to even the score from the free throw line. After choking on the first attempt, Huertas deliberately and brilliantly missed the second shot in such way that he snagged the rebound. Huertas then immediately fed the ball to Phoenix Suns’ Leandro Barbosa under the net where his tightly defended shot just barely rimmed out. Team USA staved off defeat, but it really doesn’t get any closer than that.

There’s a lot hyperbole being thrown around now about ‘eye openers’ and how ‘adversity makes a family tougher’ which is a little bit worrisome. NBA players rarely offer honest commentary that isn’t useless, but from today’s hogwash it sounds like not only do the players not understand what’s going on, their clinging to an idea that experiencing a near loss is enough of a wake-up call to ensure they don’t do it again. It’s not. The rest of the World Championships will be about strategy and implantation, not epiphanies and constraint regarding American grandeur.

Kryzewski told the players to expect an atmosphere and intensity comparative to a Game 7 in the NBA playoffs. Everyone with Team USA can say that as much as they want, but it doesn’t looks like they’re going to be hard-pressed to actually get into that mind set.

The good news is Team USA has a week to work on getting a coherent and fluid offense together before its faces a team like Brazil again. Next up are Iran and Tunisia, countries of no consequence and inevitable pushovers.  Let’s just hope they don’t spend these games behaving like American tourists basking in their own fame while admiring each other’s crossovers and dunks.