But the refs did appear to take care of the point spread.
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
But try as they might, even the refs are no match for the 3.
This looks like the same refs that gave Duke the National Championship.
Lebron would rather walk than guard.
Broken record time.
Perry has to be the cornerstone, like Wayne and Frank have to be cornerstones. If anyone of those three flop, with Oubre in the NBA, and Jaylen Brown in HarryandCuonzoland, this team is just in serious trouble.
And with a combination of likely weak experienced 5s and green wood Diallo being counted on at the 5, the 3 stands out as the tipping point position for this team.
Put another way, this team can be as good as its 3.
And the 3 comes down to Svi, Vick and Greene, if Greene were healthy.
With Greene healthy, we really don't have to worry about the 3 position much. Svi and BG ought to be able to committee the 3 adequately.
But if BG is a slow heal, or a no heal, it starts getting scary.
Freshman Vick's leg diameter is sized with a spaghetti measure.
Greene seems like it should take him a whole season to get back to sharpness and pop.
Thus by process of elimination.
Svi is the key.
Where did Iguadala learn to shoot free throws--the butcher shop?
What Steph Curry needs on him is Lebron.
But Lebron is having to play to many minutes to smother Curry AND walk to all of the Cav's points.
Yep. And the folks that stay in that suite fly the Pacific in the $10,000/flight 747 suites.
There is another stratum of life above the rich.
Its called the XTReme Rich.
Blatt deserves strokes for getting the Cavs to the Finals and even to 3-2 with all the injuries.
But he is just getting mercilessly outcoached in game 6.
Kerr came to the NBA at the right time with the right guns.
Not only is 3>2...
3>Lebron.
I used to think Shaq was the greatest walker of all time.
But Lebron is now the King of Stroll.
I have never seen a player that consistently walked both when he starts his move and as he finishes.
Its impressive.
Kobe could have scored another 5000 points doing this.
MJ another 10,000.
Wilt and Kareem another 20,000 points each.
I am not sure why Lebron dribbles at all. Maybe just because he likes to for old times sake. The refs sure wouldn't require him to.
Will the players get to stay in this sort of room, I hope?
Every culture is so rich, when we get past the stereotypes and get to the home cooking.
I have learned not to doubt you on player assessments.
I am, therefore, amped to see Cheick.
Alas, I will not be in Korea for the WUG, but I can recommend the barbacued dog on cracker o'dourves at the cocktail party!!!
Thesis: The 30 Second clock should be exploited by defensive minded coaches by switching defenses at least once and maybe twice during a possession.
Why?
To begin with, by the time the ball reaches half court, it's really a 27 second clock, assuming no full court pressure is applied.
Because each defensive switch usually requires an offensive team to recognize the change, reposition, and resume. For easy figuring, let's say it takes 5 seconds. Boom! One defensive change just reduced the effective 27 second clock to a 22 second clock.
You know where I'm headed.
Good defensive teams should switch more than once.
Two switches will take away a total of 10 seconds.
Boom!
17 second clock.
Then mask the initial defense you are in so it takes the offense 3 seconds to try to figure out what defense you are actually in.
Boom!
14 second clock.
Then run a little 3/4 court press. Switch it frequently among m2m press, 2-2-1 press, and 1-2-1-1. Let's say it forces the opponent to take 6 seconds instead of 3 seconds in order to recognize, maneuver, and get it to half court and then recover their composure.
Boom!
11 second clock.
Who doubts Self Defense will become dominant with only 11 seconds to guard?
It might not work this way in the early part of the season.
Red Auerbach rightly noted that:
"Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up."
Some new offensive schemes will be tried to capitalize on the 30 second clock.
Defenses will take awhile to adapt to those offensive changes.
But once that adaptation occurs, the first defensive team to do the things I have outlined above and so reduce an offenses shot clock to 11 seconds is really going to control outcomes of games.
A lot depends on whether Frank is as good of a shooter as he showed last season, or whether he shoots back to an average this season.
Very few good outside shooters, even without injuries, sustain two great shooting seasons in a row.
Unless Frank has a great shooting season, I doubt he can be League MVP.
The Designer seems a better conference MVP candidate to me.
So much of what has stood between Perry and greatness has been between his ears.
He seemed to break through that barrier mid way through the second half of last season.
He could easily get much better this season, if his recovery from injury and recovery from getting punked permit it.
Easy.
The teams that emphasize defense the most.
Why?
Simple.
From 35 to 30 seconds is a 15% drop in the time great defensive teams have to expend max energy guarding.
Thus the defensive minded coach now essentially adds 15% to his energy budget that he can allocate to increased longer bursts of peak defensive intensity, when his team has the defensive talent to lock down other teams, or, when not, an additional 15% of the energy budget to be added to transition, or increased effort on offense.
Think about it. The thirty second shot clock is absolutely going to leave more jump in the legs of KU's shooters on offense, so KU's trey balling percentage should go up a little, other things equal. Talk about a bonus!!!!
Plus, Self's sticky defense is going to pick up a little sooner and maybe press a little more and so the opponent is going to have less effective time to look for an open shot.
And if the refs keep allowing more contact again, then this 30 second clock is going to greatly hamper ever getting an open look at all.
Thus the teams that squeeze the three the quickest and the farthest out, or cram it inside and muscle for the short three, should also benefit.
I think the defense oriented coaches can reap the most benefits on both ends.
KU, WVU, TCU (if Trent can get some scorers), Tubby (if Tubby can get some scorers), and OU.
KSU could be added to the list in concept, because Weber is an Okie Baller that stresses defense, but his program self immolated.
Not the playbook.
Correct.
And so glad you have joined in debunking the myth of the complexity of the offense.
The offense that he wants them to run most of the time was designed for players to learn in three weeks for the Olympics.
Tyrell Reed was able to distill perimeter play to: don't let it stick, feed the post, make the open look on a kick out, and make three passes before shooting. Shizz, that's easier than the Oklahoma Shuffle that my high school team ran. Its easier than the double high post that my high school team ran. It makes the triangle seem like linear optimization.
The ancillary routines are simple, too.
The chop aka the Iba Weave takes about three reps for a junior high player to master. I know because my junior high coach had us learn it once.
Pick and roll has been played on play grounds in 2 on 2 for as long as I can remember. My brother and I used to run pick and roll on all the kids in the neighborhood when we bet who bought the bomb pops in summer time from the popsicle man on the three wheeled Harley with the cooler on the back.
Fade curls? Oh, man, that is not rocket science.
Frankly, the hardest thing Self asks them to do is all of these Bo Ryan derived race out high, catch and dribble farther out, then hook and drive right back in. And that's only hard because of the timings and the stress it puts on the joints. L&As aren't used to making those kind of 180 turns on the run. They like to fake once on the wing and take a few long steps and go 747.
Self's defense is easy sheep dip too.
What is different about Self is how hard he expects guys to play on both ends without a break.
They have never done that before.
How hard our guys go is why Self has such a sterling W&L statement and so many conference titles. In the long grind of a season, the teams the play the hardest win the most games, because intensity can overcome talent in the long grind. But it can't in the 6 game series that is the Madness. The Madness is all about healthiness,talent, execution, and referees wanting your team to win.
Because of how hard KU plays to win all those games in the long grind, KU is always among the most injured and among those showing the most wear and tear by March.
But there is another difference about Self and it goes to what you were pointing out. Execution. He is a stickler for doing things the right way up until one explodes to make a play. So: 95% of the game he is 100% intolerant of things done less than the right way. And 5% of the game, players get to impact their own way. And if their own way works, they get praise, and if it doesn't, they get their butts chewed out. This is where the real mind-intercourse occurs for freshmen trying to break bad habits of youth. 95% of the time they strain to do it right; then just about the time they get it, they are supposed to go impact in their primal beast mode that got them recruited in the first place. Impacting undoes all the habituation learned the previous 95% of the game in many, if not most players.
It all goes back to this "both-ness" thing I have talked about regarding Self.
Self is a "both" type.
Never "either."
You have to be able to play the controlled way and the uncontrolled way.
You have to be able to think and not think.
You have to be able to switch back and forth between these extremes.
And until you can do it, he is a nagging wife with you.
And, not surprisingly, this causes young players as much stress as it does young husbands.
You need at least two seasons to get used to Self demanding you to do both, because most players have never, ever, ever, ever, EVER had to do both before.
Both is a bitch.
Both hurts.
Both breaks you out of the temple of your familiar to borrow from Alice Walker.
Both is outside your comfort zone.
But both is where the big increments of mental development can happen.
Two seasons of nagging, of demanding a monster physical specimen named Thomas Robinson learn to play under control AND beast is what finally freed him into Superman.
Making lightening fast but contact averse 2 guard Tyshawn Taylor drive into contact and think about help, then when that didn't work, make him play point guard and force him to think about everyone all the time while also driving into pain in the lane...that is what freed the greatness in Tyshawn.
Offenses and defenses can be learned in three weeks, learned to be executed flawlessly in two months,.
What cannot apparently happen in a single season for many (all?) players, no matter how talented, is to pass through the crucible of "both" and come out on the other end into a nonlinear improvement that a team can cornerstone on for a season.
Andrew Wiggins couldn't do it, but he had such awesome talent that he could drop 14 ppg while he was caught in the crucible and his posse was apparently telling him to protect the merchandize and let Embiid be saddled to carry the team and take the blows. Andrew and the posse apparently understood that all Andrew needed were to showcase games one first semester and one second and he was then hardwired for the number one. Injury avoidance was the only rational course of action until the paychecks started. Let the big lion killer from Cameroon take the tough luv from Butcher Barnes' boyz, not the next Lebron. And so it went. But I digress.
The point is: Self was born to coach'em up with the "both" thing. Its who he is. Its what he does. And he absolutely will not stop until he decides he has to let go or keep the team from winning another title. He let go of Andrew, when he realized Andrew couldn't make it through the crucible in time to win conference. But all of that "both-ness" was layed into Andrew the first semester like a seed that would sprout in the NBA. It had delayed payoff. And that is why some smart parents insist on putting their kids through the Self Experience. It pays big dividends. Ask Mother Morris. Ask Tyshawn's mom. Etc. Etc.
Self's medicine works, but it takes time and it liberates few in a single season...so far.
But remember: Self is relentless about this stuff. He probably considers it a great test of his coaching ability to see if he can find a way to reformulate his "both-ness" crucible into a technique that gets results in a single season, rather than 2 or 3.
Persons that are great at anything, and Self is great at this, don't give up the magic, because of an obstacle. They work the problem. And they keep working the problem. Self has been modulating himself and altering the scenery and stage directions endlessly since he committed to OADs.
He is trying to make himself do "both."
Both induce the crucible that usually takes 2-3 seasons, AND find a way to do it in one season.
It may be the only challenge left that is keeping him coaching at all at this point.
He seems to have everything else wired.
Is Tristan dating someone named Isolde?
I forgive Bill every thing but not radically increasing 3ptas to 80% of all FGAs and winning 5 straight rings before opposing coaches copy him.
😇
Agreed. So many come to mind. So many different forms! Just in my time.
This assessment of NBA trifectates is a good ranking system that lists some remarkable shooters:
"...make at least 150 threes in a season three times
make at least 200 threes in one season
shoot greater than 45 percent from deep at least twice
or have met special circumstances that warrant inclusion (he either played before the 3-point line existed or played when it wasn’t as big a part of the game).
A few of the toughest cuts:
Michael Jordan (never a great 3-point shooter, even though if you really needed one shot, he’s probably your guy)
Kobe Bryant, Dana Barros, Ryan Anderson, and Mike Miller (only made more than 150 twice)
Dirk Nowitzki (only made more than 150 once)
Mark Price (injuries probably kept him off this list)
Sam Perkins and Allan Houston (not quite as good as I remembered)
Paul Pierce (always very very good but never great…only made more than 150 in a season once)
Kevin Durant (has made at least 125 four straight seasons, and will probably break 150 eventually, but doesn’t yet meet any of the criteria).
After browsing NBA history, I came up with five groups of guys that met the previous criteria.
Group One – Wings that murdered you off the ball
Reggie Miller – The greatest shooter coming off of two, three, or four screens in NBA history, he sometimes struggled to create his own shot.
Ray Allen – Allen may have barely finished behind Reggie in terms of coming off screens, but he was also a much better creator for himself.
Peja Stojakovic – Stojakovic was slower than both Miller and Allen, but his height and quick release made him equally deadly.
Glen Rice – Rice was not quite as prolific as any of these guys overall, but he was probably scarier than all of them if he got hot.
Group Two – Wings that could create their own shot
Ben Gordon – The former UConn standout has averaged almost two threes per game for his entire career, while shooting better than 40 percent, even though he has only started just a third of his games.
Mitch Richmond – Richmond was a thicker, west-coast version of Reggie Miller. But, unfortunately, he rarely played on great teams.
Dale Ellis – You know Ellis as the long-time NBA leader in three-pointers made.
Group Three – Point Guards
Steve Kerr – Kerr shot better than 50 percent from deep four times and 90 percent from the free throw line six times.
Jason Terry – The Jet is actually fourth all-time in three point shooting and has also made a living off of being “Mr. Clutch” for several teams.
Chauncey Billups – Billups was a consistently great shooter for 11 years until injuring his Achilles tendon last season.
Dell Curry – Stephen’s dad shot at least 40 percent from deep for eight-straight seasons.
Steve Nash – Nash is one of the few guys in history to shoot 50/40/90 for a season…and he did it in five straight seasons.
Stephen Curry – He’s only just entered the league, but this season alone should earn him a spot on the list.
Tim Hardaway – The “creator of the crossover” was also one of the best shooters in the NBA from 1994-98.
Group Four – “Bigs”
Steve Novak – The career 43 percent shooter has actually shot better than 47 percent from deep in three separate seasons.
Rashard Lewis – Lewis sits eighth on the all-time list, and his seven-year stretch from 2003-10 is one of the best shooting performances in history.
Group Five – Legends that are hard to quantify but must be included
Pete Maravich – The Pistol played most of his career before the 3-point line, but studies show that he would have averaged upwards of ten threes a game in his college years if there had been a line…so he has to be included.
Jerry West – The Logo is a legendary shooter in NBA circles.
Larry Bird – As mentioned before, Larry Legend went to work before the 3-point line became popular, but his resume speaks for itself.
Rick Barry – Barry was one of the best 3-point shooters in ABA history, and actually carried his success over to the NBA unlike other ABA bombers."
--Jon Washburn, MSF
http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/2013/05/ranking-the-best-shooters-in-nba-history/ ↗
Of course this list leaves off many more great shooters, as the author Washburn notes and does not even consider some of the great college shooters that did not translate to the NBA. My sentimental favorite in this vast group is Purdue's Rick Mount.
Regardless, the length of the great shooter list makes clear how many more great shooters there have been than great footers.
KU in a strange way seems a crucial tile in the Big Shoe mosaic--kind of a wild card to mix metaphors.
In retrospect Dean, Roy and Sonny appear possibly pivotal in the beginning to building what kind of appears again in retrospect perhaps the first structure for collective biasing of player distribution apparently involving Big Shoe. Before them it appears coaches and alumni of an individual school worked unilaterally to attract players to single schools. Hypothetically speaking, Dean and Sonny seem to have been possibly the first to engage in bias-ing of talent to TWO schools by apparently working with Roy at KU and dividing up not so much the country, as the recruits geographically. What in retrospect seems a kind of Dean/Sonny/Roy alliance apparently cooperated to some kind of degree for some apparent period to channel eastern talent to Dean and western talent to Roy, if one were to give credence to Roy's reputed indication that he agreed with Dean to recruit west of the Mississippi. This apparent cooperation, if in fact it were real, in effect appeared to indirectly help limit talent available to other programs. And KU appeared for a time not just Nike KU, but perhaps a proto-Nike-Jordan West. I have some vague recollection of Roy at KU talking about having recruited MJ to UNC and of MJ even visiting KU. At the time, it seemed like nothing more than a former player lending a former coach some of his star power to help him recruit. But it appears somehow different in retrospect if one hypothesizes a possibly broader dynamic involving Dean, Roy, Sonny and MJ.
Somewhere along the way Nike's Jordan line emerged and Sonny and Nike parted ways.
And Roy had some recruiting controversy arise reputedly related to Jaron Rush and Myron Piggie.
Later Roy left to answer Dean's call to return to a faltering UNC and Self and KU carried on as Nike KU for a time.
Then KU and Self reputedly signed with Adidas.
Thus, some interesting figures in the legacy of Big Shoe involvement in college basketball appear to converge and diverge during Roy's tenure in the KU BASKETBALL legacy.
Of course, the above is at most hypothetical speculation based on appearances. From the outside looking in, it seems impossible to say what really happened.
I like short guards when they can all guard and offend like those three, you have the ultimate defensive stopper at 3, and Shady, Jackson and Kaun inside
I agree that I overstated the case. Let me restate it this way. The top ten three point shooters in the NBA could in any year give Golden State 85- 90% of what Curry gives, if given similar role and GS could compensate with trading for a slightly better Trey baller at another position. Great shooters are Not scarce.
Bing back at you.
Connections.
What are the connections?
And how are those connections soldered into a circuit joining all those we at least know a little of?
Those seem crucial concepts of this situation.
Big Shoe is here.
And Big Agent is over here.
And in between appear to be the AAU coaches, the basketball factory academy coaches, certain juco coaches, and the agent runners.
And over here are the players and their families.
To keep things simple, lets leave out Big Media and Big Gaming, Officiating, Conferences and the NCAA and its member institutions. Let's get the sub circuit, if you will, nailed down.
(Note: Honestly, I feel so dumb about this stuff. I can't believe I have watched college basketball all these years and read posts about recruiting, and I still can't understand this circuit that delivers players hither, thither, and stack.)
What we need is for, someone, say, a retired AAU coach, to draw us fans a little wiring diagram of the circuitry today.
If I recall correctly, a few old AAU coaches talked to Dan Wetzel and Don Yaeger, authors of 2000's "Sole Influence: Basketball, Corporate Greed, and the Corruption of America's Youth."
But that was then and this is now.
Maybe AAU has become such a big revenue generator in its own right that AAU coaches have too much to risk to talk openly about the circuitry.
Maybe an agent runner?
Thanks for the heads up about the list. I completely missed that.
That link you woke me up to lists the following schools as schools either that had broken it off with adidas, or were in negotiations about doing so.
"Cornell, Rutgers, Washington, Georgetown, University of Montana, Santa Clara University, College of William and Mary, Northeastern University, Temple University and Washington State terminated contracts with adidas. In addition, administrators at Oregon State told USAS they sent a termination letter on April 16. Oberlin and three University of Minnesota system campuses (Twin Cities, Crookston and Morris) advised adidas that they would not renew when their current athletics apparel contract are completed. Wisconsin has sued adidas, with the assistance of the Wisconsin attorney general, and in mid-March, Penn State suspended its contract, giving adidas 60 days to rectify the situation."
Plus the University of Michigan which had a $60 million dollar contract with adidas was then cited as being in negotiations with adidas about the PT Kizone issue.
Are you still thinking these sorts of schools would contract with adidas on a handshake? I have a hunch those kinds of schools had written contracts that lawyers had a hand in.
Next, IMHO, the Black Enterprise story, as reported, especially with the link to the original story, is still relevant for all the reasons I indicated above, especially to me because I missed most of this the first time back in 2013, as far as I can recall. I posted it here, because I figured maybe a few other board rats missed most, or all, of this story in 1913, too.
Plus, thanks to you, we now have another fascinating vector to keep an eye on.
Why has the Black Enterprise portal chosen to present this story in the way that it has, in the timing that it has, given all the issues of resolution and old news that you cite?
There is just something about some stories about Big Shoe that appear to keep them from going away, when reason suggests they ought to, and instead, keep getting more complicated as they evolve.
Maybe it has to do with context; i.e., that the stories initially are reported in a very sketchy context of what Big Shoe is actually doing in college basketball, and that context of what Big Shoe is doing then emerges with greater detail as time passes, and that in turn makes some of the old stories, like this one, be viewed in a fresh light that is itself still some how incomplete.
No, it was not driven by your assertion alone, but I can see how you might have come to that conclusion. Instead, it was based on recall of several posters starting probably last season, and sometimes even including me, grappling with this whole three point making issue. For a time I bought into the idea that shot creators were essential to playing winning basketball with the trey ball. After thinking about it over the summer, and doodling a bit with pencil and paper with Xs and Os I have changed and come to think that there is sound reason to think open treys can be created by a combination of scripted action, interspersed with simply quick shooting from farther out, when teams lack "shot creators." Regardless, thanks for expanding on your thoughts. It was helpful in better understanding your thinking. And your thinking seems sound to me. And though I enjoy agreeing with you, I wish we did not have to be in agreement on the refs giving Duke the game, I wish they had blown a fair whistle and that we could have agreed on that...for the good of the game.
Rock Chalk!
While I agree that the writer that wrote this story is probably not going to win a Pulitzer anytime soon, I try never to let writing style come between me and useful content.
For example, when I have read about the US Civil War, some of the most telling facts and opinions I read were written rather poorly by unskillful journalists and not very articulate soldiers and civilians.
Likewise, when reading basketball opining on boards, occasionally some of the most insightful things I have read are from aliases that have not written them very well, at least according to my subjective notions of good exposition.
Further, though I hate to admit it, sometimes I put things skillfully, again according to my subjective standards, and learn I am completely wrong, as you and others make usefully clear from time to time. :-)
Next, I also noted some ambiguity of posting date. I didn't make much of it. Maybe I should have. I guessed that the story was first written in 2013, and then perhaps edited/added to/subtracted from on the more recent date you mention. It is an interesting point to note, but it is not unprecedented in my recall that stories posted one date are altered and re-posted at a later date. Regardless, it would be very interesting to know what was added or subtracted in the interests of building a historical time line of Big Shoe's actions in college basketball the last decade.
That being said, the article, as it stands, might have relevance to board rats on a few levels.
First, awareness of it adds a significant data point to the evolutionary timeline of the current situation involving Big Shoe. Back in approximately some two year period apparently spanning portions of 2011 to 2013, adidas was apparently not only struggling with the Euro depression that reputedly drove it to try to offset Euro losses by aggressive attempts at increasing market share in North America, it was simultaneously seeing its efforts blunted by at least 17 schools reported in this story telling adidas thanks but no thanks, while Nike and the Dallas Cowboys apparently agreed to make amends and move on. What the story does NOT tell us is adidas reason for not similarly making amends, and instead apparently bearing the adversity of losing 17 schools. Maybe someone will be able to find that out, too. Whatever the answer will be, the situation indicates a significant divergence in strategy by Nike and adidas and those sorts of divergence in strategy might sometimes offer insight into the competition among players in an activity.
Second, the story makes it appear possible that perhaps some of the schools were not just walking away at the end of contracts, but rather walking away during contracts; that would be very significant news, if it were in fact the case. Why? Because it suggests that these shoe contracts are not viewed as an airtight commitment; that there are legal recourses based on legacy conduct by adidas that can allow the contracts to be walked away from. I find this interesting, because I, as a layman and a fan, had assumed these shoe contracts to be largely enforceable.
Third, this story suggests that adidas' difficulty in signing more schools might be rather more complicated than just Nike already having a lot of the bases covered. And it raises the question of whether adidas has been largely the cause of adidas' reputed difficulties in penetrating the North American market, rather than its interplay with a larger competitor.
Fourth, the story leaves a possible impression, given the two dates when the story appears to have been written, and apparently then amended, that this issue may not be entirely extinguished.
At least those are some points of relevance that strike me even without further reading on the topic, and being a layman and a fan, rather than a legal expert.
Finally, I do recall anything in the story, nor do I recall reading a published list of the 17 schools that ended their contractual relationship with adidas elsewhere, confirming your belief that the schools were all inconsequential schools and involved handshakes, rather than written contracts. Thus, I am not clear why you would assume that to be the case. But if it were the case, I am also not clear why this would not establish a precedent that these contracts between schools and adidas were something less than airtight. But again, I am a layman, and perhaps lacking sufficient legal expertise to appreciate the situation.
Haven't looked at the numbers, but anecdotally, I would say UW had more and better trey shooters than KU, but the stacks did not. The stacks stack athleticism and size (the variables of ceiling) first and foremost, and skills (the variables of foundation) second. This is why the stacks have such a hard time winning the rings and require so much assistance from referees to do so.
I strongly believe UW would have walked away easily with the national championship in a legitimately officiated Final Four. They would have beaten Duke by 15 easy, and probably by 20 with a 50/50 whistle. It appeared Duke was really not a very good "team" at all, and their OAD center appeared a flipping joke saved from total humiliation only by an apparently asymmetric whistle for the last 20 minutes.
Trey balling will eventually be the way to win at all levels of basketball, once all the old think of coaches gives way to the reality of statistics and probability and the realization that shooters will get more efficient as offenses and player selection and skill development focus more and more on three point making.
Basketball thinking is about as hidebound as boat design and that is really hidebound.
IMHO, the ONLY thing that prevented UW from winning was the referees arbitrary bias. Period.
Golden State is not an anomaly at all.
Golden State is the statistically driven future of the game.
Curry is not a freak, at all. He is just a great player that shows what other players can do, just as Luisetti once showed the way to the jump shot itself.
Golden State proves that the three ball is mightier than the greatest athletic freak on the planet, when the refs have not yet intervened decisively in Lebron's favor.
There are always way more unstoppable trey ballers than there are Lebrons. Waaaaaaay more.
There are always way more unstoppable trey ballers than there are superstar footers. Waaaaaaaaaaay more.
And this is not at all driven decisively by Curry being freakishly able to "create shots," which is just the latest rationalization for why the trey balling cannot really dominate the game, and why KU's great shooters cannot dominate the game. Curry is a great shooter and a good creator. But there have been tons of guys that can do what Curry does. They come along much more frequently than MJ's and Lebrons and super centers. At any given time in the history of the game since 1960, there have been several of them playing at the same time--easily enough to build a helluva three point shooting team out of. But the hide bound thinking of coaches has prevented the building of such teams coupled with the good defense that Golden State plays. People are way underestimating the quality of defense Golden State plays. They just have to make their commitment to defense in a different way given that they are organized around playing such defense with the abilities of their trey ballers.
There is no law handed down from basketball heaven that says good defense can only be played by superior defenders, any more than that good offense can only be played by superior offenders. Self regularly chooses superior defenders playing great defense and gets by with good offenders. There is no reason he cannot flip this around and play superior offenders and get by with them playing good, but not great defense. All basketball is strategic tradeoffs seeking the best net benefit between offense and defense resource allocation.
Curry is frankly not that unusual as a shooter. His coach is just the first NBA coach in quite some time with the vision necessary to build his offense around three balling, when he had a fine shooter like Curry.
Only the refs, or a horrendous shooting slump, can deny Golden State. Considering Lebron is on Cleveland, I am betting on the refs allowing enough asymmetry of contact by the Cavs beyond the trey stripe to induce a three point shooting slump by Golden State and a Cav win.
In the Age of the Shoe-Agent-Media-Gaming Complex regime, referees will always be used to "favor" the winner that stimulates the most revenues for the regime. There will be occasional referee failures, but they will be the exception and not the rule. And some of what seem "referee failures" will probably occur intentionally in service of Big Gaming.
The sport appears fixed at college and pro levels and until the appearances change, I am going to remain a skeptic of its legitimacy.
But if we leave the biases of fixing out of it, there is just no statistical way for teams tailored around good trey shooters shooting more threes and playing sound defense not to win most of the time against teams playing good defense and conventional offenses pissing away 3 point scoring opps taking 2 point shots. And the more threes you take, the greater your probability of outscoring a conventional offense, assuming both teams play not equal, but nearly equivalent defense. This is such no brainer that it is kind of pathetic to watch even the best coaches, like Self, but all of them really, wearing stochastic blinders. It must have felt somewhat like this, when Galileo looked at planets through his telescope, mastered the obvious, and told Christendom that the earth was not the center of the universe.
3 >2
This is as powerful a relational formula in basketball as E=mc^2 in physics.
Its up there with compound interest in finance and V=I/R in valuation.
The way to win big and often against any and all conventional offenses is to shoot the trey ball at a higher percentage and substantially more than an opponent, while playing nearly as good of defense.
To paraphrase Frank Lloyd Wright, "Less is more, only if more is not good."
Three is better than two only if your three shooters are not good.
And shot creation can always be accomplished a variety of ways. It NEVER has to rely on an individual creating his own shot, but it certainly can rely on that whenever you have such players.
Rock Chalk!
Not sure if this were ever posted here, but it is worth a read within a context of hypothetical on-going destabilization and regime change strategies in Big Shoe and CBB, and what KU might, or might not be able to do in the midst of it.
IMHO, here is an important quote from the 5.1.2013 story in Black Enterprise.
"The major sports apparel company [adidas] had their contracts terminated or suspended by 17 schools to be exact." (italics added by yours truly)
http://www.blackenterprise.com/lifestyle/adidas-and-college-sports-sweatshops/ ↗
This "or suspended" appears to suggest (note: I am only a layman fan trying to interpret a news story, not a legal professional offering expert opinion) that a university's legal counsel (like KU's?) could somehow justify suspending a contract, because of adidas overseas conduct toward manufactures, as in this prior case with an Indonesian shoe manufacturer, PT Kizone. As a layman, I have no way of evaluating the legal feasibility of this sort of thing in KU's case. I am only calling attention to the issue.
How legally bound to adidas is KU really?
Since other schools reputedly found their contracts with adidas something they could walk away from, it appears the color of money was (is?) what binds KU to adidas. Maybe not a surprise...maybe not even proof positive, but how about supporting evidence? :-)
P.S.: Also notice which leading adidas school near and dear to our hearts does NOT have a player in the picture posted with the story. Hmmm. Was a KU player cropped, or did a KU player just never appear in the photo? Idle off season question. Next.
@drgnslayr
Super idea. It would be great. Like Grand Prix racing oriented to teams oriented to brands, only with schools part of it. I could adapt.
Hypothesis: The apparent regime change strategy was apparently set up to neutralize the NCAA first; that was probably the point of the OBannon case batting lead off. The NCAA, like FIBA in soccer, has to be subordinated, before college basketball can be "rationalized" for producer oligopoly and increased private oligarchy subordination of the public university system. The private oligarchy apparently wants its producer oligopoly in control of basketball, while it wants itself to be in control of public
universities revenues and research.To control the culture and economy the private oligarchy has to drive a wedge between the republic and its university system. Period.
(Note: all of the above is hypothetical, of course.)
I luv Wayne and I suspect he will improve to an all league first team guy.
I didn't want complicate the thread, but the refs apparently selected the winner of all FINAL FOUR games.
This did not appear to be a remotely legit Final Four, so In a way neither of our assertions matter.
UNC had to burn a lot of bureaucratic capital and throw bodies overboard to save Roy and UNC BASKETBALL. We also don't know know what deals had to be made downstream. By taking on a Blue Blood with Nike-Jordan ties the signal was sent: no one is safe and the war of attrition is underway. This strategy works, because college basketball has since at least the 1920s bent rules for keeping players eligible, and because the alumni donation game has long been "creative." So: most schools are vulnerable to intimidation into regime change, because of their fears of their own SOP skeletons.
Agree mature teams are more gratifying (and must be as savor ex for their rarity) and our green bigs Diallo and Bragg will be the weak links, rather than the strengths.
But Kaminski and UW proved that a dominant player cannot get it done now without a stack; that's the sad truth.
Dominant player + stack = recipe for ring in the age of stacks.
Simmons plus the stack at LSU Should win the ring, if Jones can coach a lick.
But Stumpy proved you can't win with a stack and a Dom, if you are an average coach still leArning.
Or might it be problems with:
Big Philanthropy (development);
Big Shoe;
Big Agent; or
Big Media-Gaming Complex?
Is the big corruption an easy A, or the chase for billion of sports related revenues twisting the institutions and organizations--for profit and not for profit--of the overworld and the underworld?
Is the problem a small loan for a poor mother, or the ruthless struggle to oligopolize a global petro-shoe and petro- apparel market?
Is the problem getting a player's parent a job, when the stagnant economy is being managed not to, or is it apparently possibly managed outcomes of games and hypothetical large scale money laundering through Big Gaming?
I sense a bit of a problem with priorities here.
But the key point is in this era no one else can be as good in any other system either. Even the great stacks are shadows of the 08 team. 2012 UK did not play dribble drive as well as the 08 Memphis team did. The 2012 UK team could barely beat a 2012 KU team that had zero Mickey Ds.
The game has changed.
It's no longer even just about a few OADs.
It's about the stacks.
And Self only signed 1 OAD and not for lack of trying to sign more.
The asymmetric talent distribution system finally took its full toll.
He is fighting all the way.
He cannot even afford to bring his best coaching staff to WUG. He has to keep them recruiting.
WUG turned out to be anything but a recruiting nugget.
Self is increasingly a great general
caught on the side with inadequate logistics. He keeps finding ways to win battles and to save his out-talented army with skillful tactics and strategic advances to the rear, but the tide of the war is gradually cornering him. His method since 2012 has apparently been to play for time with as many OADs as Adidas lesser conveyor could provide and hope the powers that be eventually altered the system to be more equitable, but it hasn't happened. Instead the stacks spread and the clock was shortened to enhance the advantage of the stacks even further.
The situation is serious.
I believe young Brad Stephens read the writing on the wall and left the college game early.
I believe Donovan fought longer but finally gave up waiting, too.
Pitino broke radio silence about the asymmetry, so we know it's real.
Coach K apparently quit trying to fix things and appeared to game the situation to set his total w record and rack up a few more rings. He appeared to betray the right way guys he once appeared the leader of.
Other right way guys, like Williams, are behind circled wagons, or being routed on all fronts.
The System appears even beginning to clear its wake of those it used expediently early on its own side, like Cal.
To jump shift metaphors, this increasingly appears like @drgnslayr 's basketball Chicago.
Capone is mayor.
Self and his Untouchables are nearly alone.
The going just got tougher.
Basic gangland strategy suggests the wrong way types must want him bad.
To jump shift metaphors again, the revolt of the gladiatorial right way coaches is in disarray, betrayed apparently by one of its own in Durham, but crushed as all armies eventually are, not by betrayal, but by asymmetric logistics.
How long will it be before we hear the call: who is Spartacus?
Or maybe the sound of a cavalry coming?
As usual in regime change, It all depends on who's side Rome is really on this time.
Couldn't resist the allusion to "THE LONG HOT SUMMER." 😀
I quite agree this team hasn't a prayer of being as good as the 08 team; that team was full of great mature players good enough to have decent pro careers. This team cannot hope to equal it, nor likely will any future KU team. The 08 team was from another era when talented experienced teams were still possible, but even then improbable.
But this team has to have Svi be a dominant 3 to be even a very good team in this new era. Svi is crucial.
Fortunately for this team, it will never meet a team as good as the 08 team this season. So if Svi developed rapidly, it could at least back into a FF the way MSU did. Probably couldn't beat a stack, but it could get to a FF.
@Crimsonorblue22
More and more it looks like he made the right call to go early and get what money he could.
BARN BURNERS!!!!
P.S.: the way we know this is designed is that the real corruption of the game is not even being hinted at in mainstream sports media!!
We are entering first a purge and then a witch hunt about academic improprieties.
The fire has been set and spread by special interests with a regime change agenda to get their guys in control of the athletic departments and their guys in as coaches.
You ain't seen nothing yet. All the big trees are going to get scorched sooner or later.
This is fire starter and barn burner stuff. The special interests started the first fires to set this in motion, so now the various sides are setting counter fires. Soon all of D1 will be ablaze and the special interests will step in and rereguate the whole thing. You read it here first.
BARN BURNERS!!!!
Svi is crucial not because he needs to carry the team, but because the team has a huge hole at 3 if he cannot just be a 12/4 guy and be +3 to +5 on the opposing 3, plus help the short guards. Rush, Xavier, Wigs, Oubre, and Travis achieved the +3 to +5 most games; this is crucial in Self ball, because the opposing team's best player is frequently a 3, and to be a defense driven team, KU has to hold the edge over the three most games. Scoring 25-40 points is just window dressing for draft branding in Self Ball. The key always is the net advantage in scoring. Self only needs 12-14 ppg from any good defender that can hold his man to 8-11 ppg.
But Self Ball HAS to have this +3 to +5 edge at 3, or the guard and big play, even when good on the Sherron/cole teams, is headed toward mid 20 win seasons. The real fulcrum of Self Ball is the 3. He can massage around any weakness, because he is a wily cat, but he can't produce dominant teams without the dominant 3.
At the same time, a dominant 3 is not enough. He has to have good back court and front court players, too. But it's easier to bob and weave past occasional mismatches in front and back court than at the 3. In the high-low, there are two guards and two bigs. These allow re routing front, or back court play to avoid full stop. But there is only one 3. The two wings really are NOT interchangeable on defense. Self recruits dominant 3s for a reason. Losing Jaylen Brown was HUGE, because it made Svi, or Brannen stepping up crucial. And Brannen is odds on for a MEDRED.
So Svi is SOOOOOOOOOO crucial.
The message is very powerful: the man hired to bring youth, energy and Chicagoland recruits to KU that brought a recruit with baggage is NOT recruiting during the July window.
Further, Quartlebaum, hired because he was instrumental in recruiting players to a UNC program that was apparently then engaged in the "easy class scandal" activity is NOT RECRUITING during the July window.
Hmmm.
So he throws his senior season up in the air over $171 worth of stuff he could have bought at a garage sale for $20?
PHOF!
Chalmers and Devonte are about the same height, either in KU inches, or the English system, right?
Re: Frank, it's going to be interesting to see if he is and taller than 5-9 Nic Moore.
Self has been successful (30 win seasons) with two short guards only when he has had a dominant, do everything 3, and productive bigs, and one of the short guards was a draft choice capable of playing for an NBA champion twice. Otherwise, Self's 30 win teams are long at one, or both guards.
Inference 1: Selden plays two and Svi plays 3, if Svi has matured physically.
Inference 2: Devonte is a 2 only to go small and against pressure.
So much depends on Svi it's scary. If he were a great one, the team could get to 30 even with the committee of Diallo and Lucas at 5.
If the team has to go small with Frank AND Devonte, it means a third straight mid 2o-win season.
This deployment of coaches is very Interesting. Self is not EVEN sending a big man coach!!!
Ergo Diallo's rapid development must be of prime importance.
Ergo signing a footer must be of prime importance.
Self apparently is not taking the WUG seriously at all, since he could not sign bigs capable of making KU competitive.
Snacks appears on the shortest leash in history and the once designated recruiting specialist for Chicago appears on ice. Might the do-do involving Snacks and Cliff be waaaaay deeper than we have been told so far? What does it mean when a recruiting specialist in Chicago is not recruiting during the July window?