Jack’s Blog

A press release from Dallas said Derek Fisher requested to be waived by the Mavericks so he could spend time with his family.  No one can ever question Fisher’s character.  He was a major factor in the negotiations for the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA), a level head in a room of . . . unlevel heads.  He can be remembered for, among other memorable plays, returning at game time and ultimately knocking down a crucial three to help the Jazz beat the Warriors in Game 2 of the NBA playoffs.  He had been with his daughter for her complicated, delicate eye surgery and flew from New York to Salt Lake City.

Although Fisher had built up enough equity with fans, what doesn’t quite pass the smell test is his excuse for retiring.  Players who want to spend more time with their families usually are guys whose ability has waned to where they no longer can make significant contributions to their clubs.  If family time was so important, different decisions would be made and more families would stay together.  There actually are players and coaches who work in the professional ranks without divorce or hard feelings.

What must be done is to prioritize properly.  The NBA schedule is brutal (as are all the other professional sports leagues).  For a select few (emphasis on few), the answer is to keep the family together during the season.  Obviously, this can only work if the player is married with children who aren’t of school age.  It’s expensive and because most teams don’t allow non-team personnel on their charters, it becomes one agonizing experience after another for the wife.

The better solution is to understand that family time together is limited.  Therefore, when everybody’s together, make it quality time.  I know - and have worked with - many coaches who realize that, while they may be physically tired from the stress and travel of a long season, when they get a day off, nothing interrupts family time, whether it’s a cookout, catching a movie or going to a school performance.

Players who claim they’re giving up their career so they can have more “family time” simply means their skills have eroded and no team’s offered them a contract.  In too many instances, they sacrifice their family for their career which is a shame when they could have both.  In no means am I giving marital advice, but I often wonder why some of those guys are in such a hurry to get married.  Worse, yet in vogue today, are those who bring children into the world only to become absentee dads.

No matter what someone’s salary is, the fact remains:

“Making a baby is not the same as being a father.”

Athletes have found themselves in slumps they wish they could climb out of just as coaches have had to deal with players not getting the job done as effectively as they knew they could.  There simply seems to be times when the player can’t call on the ability he or she knows is there.  Other times coaches get frustrated because they’ve seen the athlete perform and wonder what could have happened.

Is it malaise?  Poor nutrition?  Sophomore jinx?  Girlfriend/boyfriend problem?  Trouble with family?  Anxiety?  Running with the wrong crowd?  We’ve all had to face the issue as players or coaches.  Some of us as both.  And possibly more than once.

When there’s a problem, the first thing to do is get help.  Just yesterday I read an article about the Los Angeles Clippers’ Lamar Odom.  As NBA fans (and probably those who watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians) know, the big fella, husband of Khloe, was traded to the Dallas Mavericks last season.  Odom, an integral player on the back-to-back world champion Lakers during the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons, was terribly upset that he had to leave LA - even though the Mavs, his new team, had just won the 2010-11 championship.

He never could find his form with Dallas.  It got so bad, he even served a stint in the D-League.  In an effort to find out what, exactly, what was going on with his new investment, Mavs’ owner Mark Cuban questioned Lamar about his commitment to the team - was he was in or out?  Allegedly, that was the last straw for Odom.  He didn’t even finish the season in a uniform.  This year he was traded to the Clippers, not the Lakers, but in the same old tinseltown as his previous stop.

Unfortunately for Odom and the Clippers - and for Khloe and their baby daughter - his “game” never returned to its previous LA form.  Game after game, week after week  - basically no production from the former Sixth Man of the Year.  It’s not that the Clips were losing.  On the contrary, they were playing the best ball since anyone could remember.  If only they could get the Lamar Odom of old back.

While his numbers aren’t great, since this month began, he’s been getting an average of about 21 minutes/game.  His coach, Vinny Del Negro has been quite patient, saying all along, it would awhile before Lamar got into playing shape.  VDN even commented that his guy has recently lost 12 pounds and would continue to drop weight.  He was very pleased with Odom.  Of course the Clippers are on a six-game winning streak.  However, it would be a very Merry Xmas if the “Lamar Odom of Years Past” were to make an appearance.

Asked about the reasons for his sudden production, Odom disclosed what every coach and player needs to commit to memory:

“My mind and my body are starting to attach again.  That feels good.”

Sure, the NBA has a great rivalry in the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers but that only occurs when they meet in the NBA Finals.  OK, a regular season game between the two is exciting but everyone knows it’s nothing more than a preliminary to the real games, i.e. if they play in the finals.

If other good teams play each other, there is a modicum of interest, e.g. Miami vs. any of the top clubs but that’s due more to the players than the teams.  Well, the NBA has a true rivalry now and it doesn’t matter who’s playing for which squad.  The New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets.  For those people who aren’t from that area, New York City is composed of five boroughs: Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island.  Ask residents of each and they’ll tell you they’re from New York (as in New York City).  All except the guys from Brooklyn.  They’ll say they’re from Brooklyn.  Kenny “The Jet” Smith (a native of Queens) acknowledged as much last night on TNT’s studio show.

Another former Tarheel point guard, Raymond Felton said he felt the Knicks-Nets rivalry could become like UNC-Duke.  He said the Nets talk “a lot of blather.”  This type of comment is not heard from anybody about any other team until the playoffs - and when it’s said then, it just seems to be a rallying cry to somehow squeeze out a victory.  The Nets and the Knicks make it personal because living in NYC (Brooklyn or elsewhere) hardens guys.  Or crushes them.

There are other states in which there are multiple teams but while Houston, San Antonio and Dallas all have winning franchises, Texas will always be a football state.  Florida has a clubs in Orlando and Miami, both with very good teams for years (save last year’s debacle in DisneyWorld), but Florida is a place you visit.  Although people are now from Florida, their parents (definitely grandparents) are from somewhere else.  That’s a similar situation to California, the only state that is home for four pro basketball franchises (only because Kevin Johnson governs with the same never-say-die attitude that he played with).  The Kings, and for that matter, the Warriors, haven’t been good enough to warrant a rivalry with anyone.  Those guys are struggling for survival, hoping to snatch a playoff spot (and exit after round one).

LA has two very good teams but the overall atmosphere is too laid back.  Besides, the Lakers have been king for so long and Clips have been bad for so long that the Clippers resurgence is just now being recognized.  As a matter of fact, the Lakers had better recognize it real quick or they’ll lose the tie breaker (which may or may not be significant) since they already dropped one to the Clips earlier in the season.  Right there is the difference between NY and LA.  In New York, if one team beat the other, fans of both would know it.

In New York, things are different.  People from New York are . . . from New York.  Their parents and grandparents too.  Maybe their great- or great-great-grandparents weren’t from New York.  If not, they were from Europe.  NY fans show before the tipoff, not LA style, are loud knowledgeable, intense, sarcastic and obnoxious.  Basketball is not just a game - it’s something that’s taken much more seriously.  It’s one of the items discussed at every bar, restaurant, barber shop (not hair styling salon) and dinner tables.  Depending on the time of year, maybe the only one.

What about college ball, you ask?  That is supposed to be a religion in New York.  It is.  So is high school.  The basketball is what’s worshiped.

Someone very close to me said there would only be one other NBA rivalry fans would love to see as much as the Knicks and the Nets:

“It would be the Washington Wizards  . . . but only if the Harlem Globetrotters had a franchise.”  

It’s always amusing to me when fans hit the panic button after the first game of the season.  Well, for supporters like that, the Lakers just forced a major run on panic buttons.  The only thing about that is this time, it might just be the proper move to make.

It’s widely known the Lakers went 0-8 in the preseason.  LA coach Mike Brown even said his team might go winless in the preseason.  The staff was trying to put in the Princeton offense.  Ding!  Ding!  Ding!  There is the problem.  Pete Carril, the inventor of the Princeton offense when he was head coach at - duh - did so for a couple of reasons.  One was, being at Princeton, he had guys who were extraordinarily bright.  This isn’t always a formula for success in athletics as book smart doesn’t necessarily equate to ball smart.  But Pete’s guys were both.  Secondly, Pete knew that when his teams played the “big boys,” the only chance he had was to slow the game down and frustrate better players.

Certainly, running the Princeton offense wasn’t going to be done because the Lakers were smarter than their opponents (even though their starting five might just be).  The Lakers have better players than their opponents (maybe not all of them) and need to be doing exactly what Pete Carril was doing at Princeton, i.e. taking advantage of his players’ abilities.  Like pushing the ball first and foremost, then running pick and rolls with Steve Nash, pounding the ball inside to Dwight Howard, isolating Kobe Bryant - putting all their guys in positions to do what they do best - exactly what Carril’s offense did.

Defensively, one issue they have is that they have to doubleteam every pick and roll because of Nash.  They obviously can’t switch.  He also has a tough time staying in front of quicker guards and as he gets older, there are A LOT of quicker guards (while attacking him wears him down, so has Father Time).

One question lingers: did Brown really not care if they went 0-8 in the preseason because, as Vince Lombardi said, “Winning is a habit; so is losing” and we all know basketball (as are most sports) is a game of habits.  Sure, all the guys weren’t playing in preseason games so it’s tough to get in sync.  But this was a home loss, to a Mavs team without Chris Kaman.  And, oh yeah, Dirk Nowitzki.  Charles Barkley wasn’t even commenting on the Lakers’ loss when he said post game, “You can’t judge the Mavs without their two best players - Dirk and Kaman.”  Ouch.

So is it time to panic?  Hey, it’s only 1 game out of 82 (at least they get in a whole season this year).  Can they come back?  Sure.  Although I am truly an admirer of the Princeton offense, Los Angeles is not the time nor the place to run it.  Except for maybe Cal Tech.

Mike Brown comes off as a pretty cool customer and is certainly an intelligent man but he ought to consider this one stat.  Last night was the only game in Steve Nash’s career in which he scored less than ten points and had fewer than five assists when playing at least 20 minutes.  There are many learned people who will tell you that stubbornness is an admirable quality.  Mike Brown seems to come off that way.   He would be wise to keep in mind Alexander Herzen’s thought on being stubborn, considering how many coaches’ careers have ended because of it:

“There is nothing in the world more stubborn than a corpse: you can hit it, you can knock it to pieces, but you cannot convince it.”

Dwyane Wade reached out to a couple of his friends and the three talked about hooking up and creating a dynasty.  The first year, they went to the NBA Finals and lost.  This year, well, you know what happened.  The Celtics pulled off the same move, getting Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to join forces with Paul Pierce.  That move turned out OK too.

With the new CBA being what it is, teams will be using this philosophy to build an instant winner.  Which, after all, is what the fans want.  I find it amusing that when a team is getting older, one question that’s always thrown out is, “Should the team be blown up and built back up again.”  There are a variety of opinions.  I have never doubted the sincerity of those who say the team should be blown up.  Yet I wonder how many of them will stick by their team through the rebuilding process.

Often, which decision is made is based on the location of the team.  Small market teams usually have a more devoted fan base and can withstand growing pains better.  Not that losing doesn’t hurt.  Whatever the case is with those clubs, the teams found in large markets have a loyal group of fans as long as the team wins.  If there’s a prolonged (a short?) period of losing, many will say, “Good luck.  Get back to me when you start winning again.”

Contending isn’t enough for these clubs.  There’s “blow up” talk regarding the Knicks (at least they’re finally good enough to talk about blowing them up), Celtics, Spurs, Mavs and the Lakers.  It’s hard to believe that anyone who has anything to d0 with the Los Angeles Lakers would ever considering anything for their team but challenging for the championship.  I just turned 64 and can’t remember a season in which LA wasn’t a serious contender.

The latest move the Laker brass pulled off will either give the team a chance to add another title to the rafters or . . . call for the bomb squad.  For years the pundits listed “point guard” as a negative for the Lakers.  Adding Steve Nash to their current group will eliminate that problem - unless the talk turns to defense.  Now, if a deal can be made to trade Andrew Bynum for Dwight Howard (don’t ask for the details or why Pau Gasol isn’t the big guy traded), the Lakers become deeply involved in title talk.

After this past season, people became believers in LeBron’s multi-championships boast.  The Oklahoma City Thunder is, for many - especially for small market teams - the prototype organization.  Young and built through the draft, the Thunder made it to the finals this year.  If not favored to win it next year, they’ll certainly be one of the favorites.  The problem is the draft’s so fickle, it might be too hard a road to take.

When the Knicks traded for Amare Stoudamire, Tyson Chandler and Carmelo Anthony after the Celts and Heat made theirs, the boundary lines were set.  After Phoenix acquired so many draft picks for Nash, small market teams were given their game plan.  The problem for the NBA is there are so many more small market franchises that, while ratings for the Finals will be great, the league office might consider condensing the regular season again.

These arguments will be further bolstered if the Lakers get Dwight Howard.  And if that happens, everybody will have to deal with it because at that level, the best advice could be a line from Zig Ziglar:

“Don’t be distracted by criticism.  Remember, the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.”

It was reported that when the Miami Heat lost to the Dallas Mavericks in last year’s NBA Finals, one of the Heat players (Dwyane Wade?)  said the guys took a week or two off and then went back to work - to prepare for this year.  They knew how close they came and also knew what was needed to take that final step.  Getting to the finals is quite an accomplishment but when you don’t win it all,   . . . you lost.  Just like the other 28 teams in the league.

Now I’m not naive enough to believe the Heat was the first squad to ever use such a ploy.  However, they did seem like a much more focused group this year who was determined to shed their previous year’s strategy.  DWade allowed LeBron to lead - beginning with the mini-speeches prior to taking the floor before each game.  Chris Bosh embraced being the #3 option.  James didn’t worry that people were saying he shied away from scoring at crunch time.  He just made the right play - and it usually resulted in a score for the Heat, whether from a LeBron basket, free throw or assist.  The guys they were counting on to make open threes came through.

If OKC employs the same post-finals philosophy, the Thunder might be hoisting next year’s trophy.  After all, the team that rolled to a 2-0 finals lead returns more or less intact.  Plus, they ooze talent and have character (according to every pundit covering them) and claim to like playing with each other.  Their coach seems to be the perfect match for this group.  Seldom does a club appear to have so many of the right ingredients.

Whatever happens, it looks like NBA fans will be seeing more and more rivalries.  The team that wins it will have to rely on each other but, when it comes to a player improving his game, the best advice is from one of the greatest winners of all-time, John Wooden:

“A good place to look for a helping hand is at the end of your arm.”

Dirk Nowitzki amazed everyone with his free throw shooting in the NBA playoffs.  In the finals, especially, he shot 97.1% (33-34)!  In Game 6, the Miami Heat, needing a victory to force a Game 7 (which would also be played at home), missed thirteen charity tosses (they shot an abysmal 20-33) - and lost by ten.

My wife, Jane, is a graduate of the University of Tennessee so, naturally, her sport of choice is football.  She’s come to appreciate basketball, however, having been married to me for 24 years and having watched our two sons play high school hoops.  Now that the younger one, Alex, is being recruited by Division I colleges, her interest in the game has peaked.  Yet, she still doesn’t have a thorough knowledge of it.

Sunday was not only Game 6 of the NBA finals (and the clincher) for the Dallas Mavericks.  It also happened to be graduation day at the University of California-Irvine for our older son, Andy.  This meant we didn’t get to watch the game.  Rather, we listened to the broadcast on our drive home. As Hubie Brown and Dr. Jack Ramsey kept mentioning the increasing number of free throws missed by the Heat, Jane made the comment that she couldn’t believe they kept missing.

Since I have a greater understanding of the game, I started to explain that it wasn’t as easy as people think.  She then said something that put all my knowledge into perspective and showed common sense might just trump intelligence:

“Shouldn’t guys who make it to the professional level be able to shoot free throws?”

Out of town on business.  The blog will return Tuesday.

Hall-of-Fame coach Larry Brown used to say high school coaching is the purest form of teaching the game of basketball.  In California, high school coaches are allowed to work with their players year round.  While this can be an invaluable time for coaches and their teams, overzealous members of the profession can, unwittingly, cross the line and put undue pressure on their players - and themselves.

It’s June and every weekend there are tournaments (whether high school or AAU) in which teams can play up to six-eight games.  I’ve found it to be true that when kids are in the gym, they don’t get into trouble.  Recently, I spoke with John Welch, an assistant with the Denver Nuggets (and with whom I served on Jerry Tarkanian’s Fresno State staff).  John is a true basketball junkie, known to those in the business as “Johnny Workout.”  He has strong feelings about kids playing too much.   Too much five-on-five, that is.  John, as well as many other coaching “lifers,” sees two problem areas.  One is not enough attention to fundamentals.  The other, a real bone of contention with Welch, is that kids don’t play enough one-on-one, two-on-two and three-on-three.

John’s belief, shared by many other veterans in the business, is that kids learn much better how to play when fewer guys are involved.  Young guys playing five-0n-five can hit a jumper, leak out for a breakaway layup and hit another shot during the course of the game, then “hide” - and think they played well.  Fewer guys in the game force kids to be more active participants - in pick and roll situations, help and recover, understanding offensive spacing, etc.

Another issue with five-on-five is that it’s a game - meaning score is kept.  Sure, score is also a factor in three-on-threes, etc. but there’s one difference: coaches aren’t involved.  Last night, a few of us “dinosaurs” watched high school competition and saw a varying amount of “coaching intensity”- ranging from coaches encouraging to others enraged.  Somewhere, someone made the claim that losing is unacceptable - ever!

That adage was adopted by a few coaches, some of which became extremely successful.  My feeling is that these coaches would have been successful anyway - without the excessive pressure these spring and summer games inflict upon teenagers.  Yet, due to this desire to excel, too many coaches are coaching like the outcomes actually mean something - and, unknowingly, burning out their most valuable assets.

The consensus among the group I was with is that:

“The only coaches in the country who need to be stressing out this late into June are the staffs of the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat.”

Of course I’m prejudiced when it comes to feeling which sport is the most exciting to watch.  There’s no other sport that has more non-stop action, abundance of scoring and plethora of great athletes than basketball.  A friend of mine has been saying for years the NBA is the best entertainment because it’s the best of the best basketball players in the world.  While that’s true, then it must stand to reason that this NBA Finals would be the best of the best - teams.

This year’s finals has both great players and groups of guys who understand the team concept better than all the other professional clubs.  The first four games were, at the risk of making one of the greatest understatements of all-time, intensely competitive.  The fifth one exceeded the first, mainly because both offenses were nothing short of sensational.

The Dallas Mavericks are putting to rest any talk of them being a soft, offense-only club with little heart.  Throughout the playoffs, game after game, they’ve battled back from fourth quarter deficits.  Last night was another example.  As far as the Miami Heat. Game 5 disproved any notion that they are a selfish team.  Anyone watching the game, independent of which team they were pulling for, had to see an incredibly well-played game.  Other than LeBron James not making shots - and looking uncharacteristically lacking confidence (in his jump shot) - the game was everything a fan could have hoped for when he or she sat down to check out the action.

The ESPN studio crew of analysts began their post game dissection with unusual praise (Michael Wilbon saying these past five games were the best first five games of an NBA final he can recall seeing) but they soon lapsed into their”comfort zone” of negative comments.  At the beginning of each show, Jon Barry is lauded for his pre-game on the money predictions.  Of course we never hear those pre-game gems until the post-game show.  Do I think the guys are making up JB’s “brilliance?”  Well, to borrow a phrase from, for my money, the most annoying sports anchor on TV, Stuart Scott, “I’m just sayin’.”

Barry more or less ridiculed Heat coach Erik Spoelstra for opening the game by posting up LeBron James.  Following Game 4 Spoelstra was criticized for not getting James more involved.  Trying to post him early was a tactical move like any other coach makes - wise if it works, open to second guessing if it doesn’t.  Wilbon entered the fray by saying LeBron should have been rested more.  His reasoning?  It was necessary to play James when Dwyane Wade was out of the game but when he returned and was effective, Spoelstra needed to put James on the bench for a blow.  Forget that James never looks winded and that the suggestion reeked of “Wade and James can’t be effective together because each needs the ball.”  If ever a move would be fodder the armchair coach, that suggestion would begun more arguments than who was better - Russell or Wilt?

To top off the late night tomfoolery, Magic Johnson chimed in with the statement, “Rick Carlisle is out-coaching Erik Spoelstra.”  Now, Magic Johnson is one of the game’s best players ever, one of its greatest ambassadors and as charismatic an individual as has played professional sports, but as a coach?  On second thought, maybe it was an insightful comment because, after witnessing his brief foray into the field of coaching, he probably knows better than anyone what getting out-coached means.

The main point of this blog is, after such a competitive, well-played game, the best analysis would have been:

“Don’t hate; appreciate.”

When Jason Terry called out LeBron James, many, including people in the Mavs’ organization, questioned his sanity.  When the smoke cleared - and Terry came up clutch down the stretch of Game 4 - those who wondered why Terry would make such wild statements realized it was something the JET felt he needed to ignite himself.  Now that Dallas has tied the series, the Mavs’ DeShawn Stevenson felt compelled to take his turn at King James, claiming the Heat superstar “checked out” at the end of the game.  Although he was somewhat baited into the comments by Jim Rome, why Stevenson thought additional piling on was in order has the same people - and several others - scratching their collective heads.

Keep in mind that Stevenson was the guy who, as a high school player, committed to Kansas but never attended college due to low SAT scores.  Actually, his test score was well above what the NCAA mandates.  His second score.  The first time he took the test, what he posted wasn’t too much higher than the minimum.  Then he was invited to play in a post season all-star game - in North Carolina.  While he was there, he found the time to retake the standardized test - and raised his score.  About 500 points!  Anything over a 200 point increase is considered a red flag.  Not sure what color flag a 500 point increase commands.

No problem.  Enter the NBA directly out of high school.  Only those with mega talent can make the jump and basketball talent is something Stevenson doesn’t lack.  Apparently, however, as his SAT scores showed, Stevenson’s critical thinking ability leaves something to be desired.  Chris Mullin, one of the all-time great second guards, wasn’t as critical of Stevenson.  Mullie’s statement was simple.  He didn’t think anybody needed to fire up LeBron.  What Stevenson said wasn’t all that inflammatory.  It was just unnecessary.

He just needed to be reminded:

“Make sure your brain is in gear before you put your mouth in motion.”