By now, you’ve probably heard about Ron Artest’s game-winner last night in pivotal Game 5 against the Suns, but what you might not know is exactly how it happened.
In the video below, you’ll see Kobe catch the ball on the sideline and chuck up a horrible shot. But what you need to pay attention to is Ron Artest and Jason Richardson on the other side of the court. Watch as Richardson turns, stands and watches Kobe’s shot. He’s supposed to be boxing out Artest, but instead, he’s about as useless as you or I am sitting at home.
Did this play look familiar? Watch Pau Gasol’s easy route to the bucket to score his game-winner against the Thunder in the first round.
This happens time and time again. It even happened to Hakeem Olajuwon in the 1983 NCAA title game when Lorenzo Charles snuck in behind “The Dream” and dunked home the game-winner…
Once a last-second shot goes up, the tendency is for players to stop and watch, especially when they think the game is over. But with 3.5 seconds to play, there is plenty of time for a shot to go up and for a tip in on the miss. That’s what Jason Richardson, Jeff Green and Hakeem Olajuwon failed to realize in these clips.
It does no good to stop and watch. After Kobe’s desperation shot attempt, the only way the game doesn’t go to overtime is if Richardson or one of his teammates fails to box out his man. In that situation, he should be seeing both Artest and Kobe (in his peripheral vision), and when the shot goes up, he needs to make contact with Artest and do whatever it takes to keep him away from the rim. If he had even slowed Artest by a half second, the game would have gone into overtime.
After the season, I like to tackle questions like these. To me, a good three-point shooter has to shoot a high percentage and make a good number of threes per game, so I put a few requirements on the eligibility of players:
1. They must have played in a minimum of 60 games during the season.
2. They must make a minimum of 38% of their 3PT attempts.
3. They must make a minimum of 1.0 threes per game.
Here are the results:
(As always, click on the graph for a larger version.)
Most impressive shooter? It has to be the rookie Stephen Curry, who quickly adjusted to the longer distance in the NBA and finished with the fourth-highest percentage of eligible players. He was also in the top 10 in makes per game.
Biggest surprise? Probably Jason Kidd. A career 35% shooter from deep, Kidd has been well over 40% since joining the Mavs. He’s hitting more of his threes because he’s able to play off of Dirk Nowitzki and can spot up instead of trying to hit threes off the dribble.
Best big man shooter? Channing Frye, who hit 2.12 threes a game at a 44% clip.
So who is the best shooter in the NBA? Well, it depends on your criteria. Accuracy and number of makes are important, but it’s even more impressive when the player in question is the first or second option on his team (like Aaron Brooks, Chauncey Billups, Paul Pierce, John Salmons, Steve Nash — or Jason Richardson — and Stephen Curry), and can still make a lot of threes at a high percentage when the defense is game-planning against him.
Jason Richardson dropped 34 points and snagged 10 rebounds to give the Celtics a rare loss at the TD Garden. He was 10-16 from the field and 6-7 from long range. The Celtics shot almost 52% from the field and still lost, mainly because they allowed the Suns to shoot 54% from 3PT, bolstered by J-Rich’s hot night.
One defensive weakness that the Celtics have is at off guard. Ray Allen has never been known as a great defender, and as he’s gotten older, he’s getting worse. To compensate for this, Boston usually game plans for the league’s premier shooting guards, but above average players like Richardson don’t get that kind of attention until it’s too late.
With the win, the Suns are 5-1 and in a tie for first place with the Lakers in the Pacific Division. Along with the Heat (5-1) and the Rockets (4-2), the Suns are one of the most surprising teams early in the season.
The economy is really starting to take its toll on professional sports, and the NBA is no different. Bad contracts are bad even when the economy is pumping, but they really stand out in tough times like these. So I decided to look through the payrolls team-by-team to try to identify the worst contracts in the NBA. I expected to list 15-20 names, but I ended up scribbling down 68. That’s right, there are no fewer than 68 bad contracts in the NBA.
I didn’t include any of the players that are in the final year of their contracts because…well, what’s the point? They’ll be off the books in a few months anyway. Instead, I wanted to focus on those contracts that are going to haunt teams for years to come, so to be eligible, players have to have at least a year left on their current deals.
It’s tough to compare someone making superstar money to an average, everyday role player, so I split these 68 contracts up into three groups: the Overpaid Role Players, the Not-So-Super Stars and the Injury-Prones. I will rank them from least-worst to most-worst with the thinking that I wouldn’t trade the player for anyone further down the list but I would trade him for anyone previously mentioned. So, for example, if a guy is listed #7 within a particular group, I’m not trading him for anyone ranked #6-#1, but I would think seriously about moving him for a guy that is ranked #8+.
So let’s start with the role players and go from there…
(Note: In most cases, I don’t blame the player himself for his outrageous contract. The fault lies with the general manager that inked the guy to the deal. However, this rule goes out the window if the player has a history of only producing in his contract year – I’m looking at you, Tim Thomas.)
The deal for Jason Richardson, Jared Dudley and a 2010 second-round pick cost him only Raja Bell, Boris Diaw and Sean Singletary, and it immediately restores the Suns’ flagging hopes of breaking back into the West’s upper crust. Phoenix Suns GM Steve Kerr has faced a lot of questions during his short stewardship of the Suns, but the only question to ask after Wednesday’s trade with Charlotte is whether he was wearing a ski mask.
Raja Bell is not the player he was two years ago, so this trade is essentially Jason Richardson for Boris Diaw, so let’s take a look at each player’s numbers:
Since Diaw plays fewer minutes (24.5) than Richardson (35.1), it’s wise to compare their Player Efficiency Ratings as well. Richardson (16.97) is the 14th-ranked shooting guard while Diaw (13.47) is #48 amongst power forwards.
Steve Nash and Shaquille O’Neal are a little long in the tooth, so this is a “win now” move for the Suns. The trade doesn’t put them in bad shape for the summer of 2010, when they’ll have to re-sign Amare Stoudemire and try to attract another player to replace O’Neal and Nash, whose contracts expire after the 2009-10 season.
Richardson is a tremendous scorer and will fit nicely if the Suns try to push the tempo again. Currently, they are #14 in the league in pace, so with the arrival of O’Neal, and to a lesser extent Terry Porter, these are not the run-and-gun Suns that we saw under Mike D’Antoni. Even if they keep their current pace, Richardson is a good shooter and should thrive alongside willing passers like Nash, O’Neal and Grant Hill.
As for the Bobcats, I’d say that the Larry Brown Era is not off to a very good start.
Offseason Movement: The Bobcats re-signed Emeka Okafor to a big contract, which will keep the big man in Charlotte for the foreseeable future. The team hired Larry Brown to take over as head coach. Keep Your Eye On:D.J. Augustin, PG
The Ray Felton Era may be over in Charlotte. The team drafted Augustin #9 overall, and it looks like they want him to be the point guard of the future. Brown is notoriously tough on his guards, so it will be interesting to see how this position battle evolves over the course of the season. The team has talked about playing Felton at off guard, but he doesn’t shoot the ball well and Jason Richardson will likely get most of the minutes there, so I’m not sure how that’s going to work. The Big Question:Does Larry Brown still have it in him?
Brown is known for turning teams around. With the team building around Okafor, Richardson and Gerald Wallace, he does have some talent to work with. Can Brown get something out of Adam Morrison? It’s not a given that the 68 year-old has the energy or the stamina to succeed during the grind of another NBA season. Outlook: The potential is there for a playoff berth in the East. If Brown can coax good play out of Augustin/Felton at the point, Richardson provides efficient shooting at off guard, and Wallace and Okafor continue to produce on the front line, then the Bobcats might be in business. The bench is a question mark, but that’s true for most of the teams in the league. If the team doesn’t buy in to what Brown is selling, we could be looking at another season of New York Knicks-style griping and complaining, only no one will care because it’s Charlotte.
Check out our NBA Preview page for a look at every team. We’ll be posting three previews per business day, which will take us up to the start of the season on Tuesday, October 28th.
Jason Richardson dropped 34 points and snagged 10 rebounds to give the Celtics a rare loss at the TD Garden. He was 10-16 from the field and 6-7 from long range. The Celtics shot almost 52% from the field and still lost, mainly because they allowed the Suns to shoot 54% from 3PT, bolstered by J-Rich’s hot night.
