The Denver Nuggets Lose in Philadelphia to the 76'ers 115-113 and Allen Iverson: What Could Have Bee

The Nuggets, despite being on the ropes with respect to making the playoffs, could not survive serious offensive droughts in the 2nd half and could not step it up to win a winnable game; the Philadelphia 76’ers defeated the underperforming Nuggets 115-113. The Sixers had all three of the known outside factor advantages. They were the home team, the Nuggets were playing on back to back nights while the 76’ers were rested, and the Nuggets were in a higher alert status than were the Sixers due mostly to coaching errors and the Nene illness. An estimate of the advantage the Sixers had due to all of these outside factors is 12 points, so the Nuggets made up 10 of these points, but could not make up the other 2 to at least send the game into overtime.

Are the Nuggets doing everything possible to try to make the playoffs? No, they are clearly not. Chucky Atkins and J.R. Smith played only 6 and 15 minutes respectively, while Marcus Camby played 37 minutes and had 5 points and Eduardo Najera played 20 minutes and had 0 points. Even worse than not having a center who can make a lot of power drives, post-ups, layups, and dunks, is the fact that the Nuggets almost always have at least 1 front court player who is largely left out of the offense in every game. Sometimes it’s Camby, sometimes it’s Carmelo Anthony, and sometimes it’s Eduardo Najera. It used to be Kenyon Martin in certain games many weeks ago, but rarely anymore is it him. But it’s almost always someone, so the Nuggets are always playing with one front court player tied behind their backs so to speak. And because Karl gives only 2 guards a lot of playing time, Iverson and Carter, and because Carter is a low rate scorer, they are always playing with one guard tied behind their backs as well.

Are the Nuggets at least going all out effort wise to make the playoffs? Probably not; they have a coach who likes to explain away losses by talking about the tough personality of the other team, as if the opponent was a living thing with a major psychological advantage over the Nuggets, who I guess, in Karl’s world, are too unserious and psychologically wobbly to ever be a truly good basketball team. But teams are not human and they don’t have personalities except in a superficial, stylistic sense. Karl is clearly confused about what a personality really is; it’s a lot more complicated and a lot less of a factor in winning basketball games than he thinks.

Teams are a collection of players, and even the personalities of the players are almost always a relatively minor factor. What is needed to win basketball games is within the capability of every personality to produce; everyone has the ability to step it up and do well on the court, regardless of how you would describe or analyze their personalities. Everyone agrees that J.R. Smith has an immature, impulsive, and somewhat unpredictable personality, but that has not stopped him from being one of the best shooting guards in the NBA so far in 2008. Sometimes I almost feel silly discussing these things, but I have to, because this is how the Coach of the Denver Nuggets thinks.

ALLEN IVERSON: WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN, PART 1

So Allen Iverson returned to Philadelphia, but for all practical purposes he never left. Amazingly, there has not been the slightest adjustment in Iverson’s role after the move from the 76’ers to the Nuggets. He still has exactly, and I mean exactly, the same role he had in Philadelphia. He’s still playing the same old position, shooting guard, even though he started out in high school, in college, and in his rookie of the year season as a point guard, and even though he returned to that position for most of the 3 1/3 years after Coach Larry Brown left the Sixers, and even though the Nuggets are starting a player at the point, Anthony Carter, who has never been even hypothetically let alone actually regarded as a starting point guard until this year.

In 7 years prior to coming on the Nuggets, Carter never started more than 30 games in a season, never played more than 23.5 minutes a game, never made more than 4.8 assists per game, and never scored more than 6.4 points a game. This is the player that George Karl chose over Allen Iverson to be the starting point guard for the Denver Nuggets after Chucky Atkins, who has been regarded as a true starting point guard for many years, was lost for most of the season. And now as if to make everyone absolutely sure that he doesn’t know what he is doing on the point guard front, Karl has suddenly discontinued the crucial effort to get Chucky Atkins in good form for the playoff run and for the playoffs. Atkins played 3 extremely good games in a row, against the Grizzlies, the Raptors and the Sonics. Then, after he was only average in the Pistons game, he played only 6 minutes in this 76’ers game. So much for the theory that even Karl is not dumb enough to not know that getting Atkins back into good form is crucial for the Nuggets if they really want to make the playoffs, and if they really want to avoid losing a playoff series 4-0 or 4-1.

Before this season, Carter had started 102 games in an 8-year career and had played about 7,000 minutes. Before this season, Atkins had started 314 games and had played about 16,000 minutes. But in Karl’s mind, Carter needs to start the rest of the way for the Nuggets regardless of whether Atkins is back in good form or not. In fact, Karl apparently doesn’t even consider himself to be responsible to try to make sure that Atkins gets back into top form.

Lord help you if you are injured and don’t come back for awhile while playing for George Karl, because when you do come back, you might find that your entire NBA career now counts for nothing, and you are no longer considered, in Karl’s world, what you were before the injury.

I had a forum conversation with a 76’ers fan on a 76’ers forum. I am reprinting it here, because you can see what I am up against as I explain why the Nuggets have failed this year. And how it turns out that the trade of Andre Miller for Allen Iverson failed, not because it was intrinsically a bad trade, but because the Nuggets simply did not understand that using A.I. in the exact same way that Larry Brown used him would lead to the exact same result, Melo or no Melo: no playoffs or a quick early out in the playoffs. All having Carmelo Anthony and Marcus Camby on his team does for Iverson is to offset the fact that the Western Conference is far better than the Eastern Conference.

Iverson has ended up in the exact same situation he was in Philadelphia. Iverson in Denver, like Iverson in Philadelphia, continues to be asked to do too much and not enough at the same time. As in Philadelphia, Iverson in Denver is asked to play both guard positions at once and he is asked to be at the same time the number one playmaker and the number one scorer among guards for the Nuggets. But he is not asked to adjust his game a little, so that the number of easy to defend isolation plays he runs is reduced and the number of hard to defend passing plays he runs is increased.

By reading the following interesting interchange, you can see how even a major 76’ers and Iverson fan has fallen into the trap of thinking too narrowly about Iverson and what he can do. There is a logical fallacy, or optical illusion if you prefer, involved with thinking that Iverson can not be a good point guard. And there is more of interest, so read on.

NUGGETS 1:
Well, I don't think Iverson is a perfect PG, and he is obviously a much more aggressive scorer than most PGs, but I think it is going too far to say he is a poor PG. Just a few quick reasons off the top of my head:

1. Iverson was the PG in his 2 years at Georgetown University and heavily dominated in assists for his team.
2. As you confirm, Iverson was the PG in his rookie of the year first year in the NBA.
3. As you confirm, Iverson returned mostly to the PG position after Larry Brown was gone. It turns out that although Iverson has played more years at SG than at PG, more coaches have preferred Iverson at PG over SG.
4. The NBA front office has always considered Iverson to be a PG at least as much as a SG, since his position at the all-star games has been PG, not SG.
5. Everyone agrees that Iverson can play either position, and he frequently plays both positions at once at the same time. So if he were truly a poor PG, wouldn't he have evolved over the years to limit himself to the SG role, with or without having to be told to do that by coaches? In other words, if he is much better in the SG role than in the PG role, than why can he still be seen today often running the point, and why is he 7th in the NBA in assists per game, ahead of most of the actual point guards?
6. The Nuggets, once Chucky Atkins went out for most of the season, were left with the choice of playing Iverson at the point or playing Anthony Carter at the point. Carter is someone who never averaged more than 23.5 minutes per game and 4.8 assists per game before he was befriended by George Karl, who likes his personality and conservative playmaking style. So even a good number of those who don't think Iverson is all that great a point guard would have to agree that the Nuggets should have played him at the position in the emergency they found themselves in when Atkins was lost for most of the season. In other words, Karl made a mistake regardless of exactly how great a PG Iverson really is.

76’ERS FAN:
These are because of his height. Iverson's height makes him a defensive liability at SG, and tall, effective points are a rarity.

Most of his coaches have preferred him at SG, I'll show you

PG: Davis, O'Brien, Thompson
SG: Brown, Ayers, Ford, Cheeks, Karl

Cheeks didn't have another point option, so he was forced to play AI there, but he hated it. He even played Iguadala there in the 06-07 season over Iverson.

NUGGETS 1:
Cheeks can’t be counted as just SG, because it was both, so he should be 1/2 point for each. Ayers and Ford can only count as 1/2 each, because they coached in the same season, and it is even rarer for one of the best players in the NBA to have his position changed during the season than it would be for him to have his position changed from one year to the next. So it is really 3 1/2 coaches each. But I bet if I went back to high school, it would be PG again!

76’ERS FAN:
The same is true in the all-star game. He gets point by virtue of being shorter.

NUGGETS 1
Well if he’s too short to play the SG position in the all-star game, then he is definitely too short to play the SG position in ordinary games. One or the other is wrong; either the NBA front office is wrong for listing him as a PG for all-star voting, or Larry Brown and George Karl are wrong for designating him as a SG.

76’ERS FAN:
Assists do not equal being a good point guard. Iverson gets most of his assists as bail outs - last resorts after his scoring options are exhausted. He doesn't set up the offense, and he holds the ball for too long to be an effective point. When he runs it, the other players feel alienated from the game, and it leads to inconsistency from the team. His numbers will look great, but the overall offense becomes stagnant. It's why the Nuggets traded for Blake.

NUGGETS 1:
There is some truth in your observations, but you can’t use those observations to prove that Iverson is a poor PG, because the SG position has different priorities than the PG position does, and any player moved from PG to SG would have to change his game or be a failure at SG. In other words, there is a lack of logic in saying: “Look, there’s Iverson running another isolation dribble and fade away again. See, he would be a bad PG. But he’s doing what shooting guards are allowed and frequently encouraged to do, so it is an invalid observation.

It's not really much different from saying that Ray Allen, Rashad McCants, or Jason Richardson would not be good point guards based on how they are playing right now. It's true, but it isn't a valid or logical observation.

76’ERS FAN:
The nuggets are visibly more energetic and better on offense with Carter in the game. He's not as explosive as Iverson, but he's solid and consistent, which denver really needs. Keeping blake would've done them better, but they didn't want to pay the luxury tax.

NUGGETS 1:
I think the Nuggets are more energetic and better on offense with the Iverson / J.R. Smith backcourt than they are with the Iverson / Carter offense. Adjusted for pace, and you have to adjust to get the real truth, the Nuggets are about the 5th best team in the NBA on defense, but only about the 15th best team in the NBA on offense.

76’ERS FAN:
Playing carter has really helped the nuggets' turnovers, as Iverson turns the ball over way to much as a point, he's never had even a 2 to 1 assist to TO ratio while playing that position.

NUGGETS 1:
The Nuggets are still a high turnover team even with Carter. Iverson is still handling the ball extensively even while being designated the SG. In every game, Iverson runs the point to one extent or another. The more Iverson runs the point, the less value Carter has in games. J.R. Smith offsets his turnovers with steals and explosive scoring, so the Iverson PG / J.R. Smith SG backcourt would not be worse than the Carter PG / Iverson SG backcourt in terms of net damage from turnovers. George Karl simply decided that he couldn’t stomach the number of turnovers you would get with the Iverson / Smith backcourt; he never made a reasonable estimation of all costs and all benefits.

76’ERS FAN:
Don't get me wrong. I'm as big an Iverson fan as there is, and I've watch nearly every Nuggets game since he was traded. But I'd like to see him appreciated for what he is. Classifying him as a point exposes his weaknesses at that position. He's an incredibly versatile shooting guard who can fill in there when needed.

NUGGETS 1:
Well the Nuggets lost their starting PG for most of the season, so if AI wasn’t needed then at the position, then when would he be needed? Never, because Karl will go through all kinds of contortions to avoid playing AI at the point, because Karl buys into the myth that AI is a poor PG, or at least because he thinks that AI has been spoiled as a PG by playing SG for so many years.

Iverson briefly started at PG last year for the Nuggets, and did reasonably well. But ever since Karl grew to detest J.R. Smith about a year ago, starting AI at the point has been out of the question, because he would have to start J.R. Smith at 2-guard if he did that and he will not start J.R. Smith under any circumstances. Smith has been one of the best shooting guards in the NBA since 2008 began, but all it has gotten him is about half a dozen more minutes per game. Karl still refuses to even consider starting him and would rather miss the playoffs than start J.R. Smith.

76’ERS FAN:
By the way, the reason the Nuggets are struggling is inconsistent effort, especially on the defensive end, and a lack of ball movement. Combining two isolation players in Iverson and Anthony was never a good idea. They don't, and can't work off of each other, so they end up taking turns scoring, with one of them holding the ball 5-10 seconds on most possessions. It effectively limits both of their explosiveness.

And by not involving the players enough, it takes their heads out of the game, which leads to long stretches where they barely play any defense. Carmelo is the worst at that, but Iverson isn't much better, and his height hurts things.

NUGGETS 1:
Ok, you have done extremely well describing some of the big problems the Nuggets have with Iverson at SG, unaccountable for how many isolation plays he runs at that position. If Iverson is designated the PG and you tell him: “A.I., I want 10-12 assists per game and 18-20 points per game instead of 7 assists per game and 25 points per game,” and as long as all the years he has played the wrong position for Brown and Karl have not made him unable to adjust, which I greatly doubt, you have gone a long way to solving the big problems that you described.

You see what is going on here? Iverson is faulted for not being a good point guard while he is assigned to the shooting guard position, by people who swear he is not a good enough point guard to be designated as a point guard. This is both a circular and an illogical argument. Most of the Iverson critics are trying to have it both ways. They are criticizing Iverson for not being what he has not been instructed to be, on account of an assumption that he can’t be that. They are watching Iverson playing the SG position and saying “Look, there’s Iverson running all of those isolation plays. You see, he can’t be a good point guard.” To which I respond: you have no point and you are not making any sense.

The bottom line is that the Nuggets clearly should have moved AI to PG after Chucky Atkins went out for most of the season at the beginning of the season. That is what all the basketball sites were expecting at the beginning of the year; all of the depth charts were showing Iverson starting at PG and Smith starting at SG. But George Karl dislikes J.R. Smith with a passion and has overestimated his negatives by far. Almost every decision Karl makes in relation to the guards has the same common denominator: Smith's playing time is reduced from what it would be if a different decision were made.

Now we will never know for sure if the Iverson / Smith back court would have gotten the Nuggets a decent seed in the playoffs, but I would be extremely surprised if it would not have. I think the Nuggets would have been 3rd, 4th, or 5th seed in the West had the Nuggets realized who really was their best point guard, and their best back court.

PROJECTIONS

Nuggets 1 Current odds, to the nearest 5%, of the Nuggets making the playoffs: 40%
Nuggets 1 Current odds, to the nearest 5%, that the Nuggets and their suffering fans will be stuck with George Karl for next season: 75%

The current odds of the Nuggets making the playoffs, according to Hollinger at ESPN’s excellent team analysis system, are 44%. However, at the same time the Nuggets are projected to most likely be the 9th seed in the Western Conference, and there is no 9th playoff seed. By far the main way the Nuggets can make the playoffs is by beating out the Golden State Warriors for the 8th and final seed in the West. If the Nuggets and the Warriors finish with identical records though, the Warriors will most likely be the team that makes the playoffs, not the Nuggets. This is because the tie breaker, assuming the two split their season series 2-2, will be who has the better Western Conference record, and the Warriors are 2 games ahead in the loss column on that right now.

So it seems right now that the Warriors and the Nuggets will be battling it out for the last playoff spot in the West. Both of them are considered likely to make the playoffs in statistical terms, but most likely one of them will fail to make the playoffs. Nuggets 1 agrees with Hollinger’s system, which is saying that the Warriors are favored over the Nuggets to get the 8th spot.

The Suns made a poor trade, but they have been on a winning streak lately, and they have won several key games, which means they may not be in a lot of danger of falling out of the playoffs after all. Key recent Suns’ victories include a win over the Spurs on March 9 and a win over the Warriors on March 13. But it is way too early to claim that the trade was not a mistake after all and that Shaquille O’Neal will work out for the Suns.

The Hollinger odds don’t take into account that Nene is not going to be available in top form for the Nuggets for the stretch run. Also, there may not be enough time for Atkins to get back to full speed, especially since George Karl is notorious for taking forever to work a player he is not sold on back into the rotation following an injury. So it’s still unknown whether Atkins is ready to rescue the Nuggets from not making the playoffs, and whether Karl will give him enough minutes if he is ready. If the Hollinger system adjusted for the Atkins and the Nene situations, it would show a lower percentage chance than 44% for the Nuggets to make the playoffs.

In summary, the Lakers, the Rockets, the Hornets, the Spurs, the Jazz, and the Mavericks are currently considered locks to make the playoffs, the Suns are virtual locks, and the Warriors are favored over the Nuggets for the final, 8th spot. The Rockets have become total locks now, despite the loss of Yao Ming for the season, thanks to their 22-game winning streak. The Suns are still in some trouble, due to their poor trade, which was Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks for Shaquille O’Neal, but they are in less trouble after their key early March wins at home over the Spurs and the Warriors.

PLAYOFF TEAMS PROJECTED FINAL RECORDS-HOLLINGER-ESPN
1. Lakers 58-24
2. Rockets 55-27
3. Hornets 55-27
4. Jazz 54-28
5. Suns 54-28
6. Spurs 53-29
7. Mavericks 53-29
8. Warriors 50-32

NON-PLAYOFF TEAMS PROJECTED FINAL RECORDS-HOLLINGER-ESPN
9. Nuggets 49-33

The Warriors are now 2 1/2 games ahead of the Nuggets for the last playoff spot. Golden State has a slightly more difficult schedule than the Nuggets do the rest of the way, making this race closer than it appears. However, if the Nuggets make up the 2 1/2 games, so that the Warriors and the Nuggets finish with identical records, and the season series between them ends up tied 2-2, the Warriors are likely to get the playoff spot rather than the Nuggets, because it is likely that the Warriors will finish at least 1 game ahead of the Nuggets in Conference record, which would be the tie-breaker if the Warriors and the Nuggets split their 4 head to head games. The Nuggets and Warriors have each won one game in the head to head series so far.

Now that the Nuggets are 2 1/2 games behind the Warriors, the two remaining Nuggets-Warriors games are more important than ever. If the Warriors win both games, the Nuggets are almost certainly out of the playoffs. If each team wins one game, the Warriors remain slightly more likely to make the playoffs than do the Nuggets. If the Nuggets win both games, then the Nuggets are a little more likely than the Warriors to get the last spot. The Nuggets-Warriors games are on Saturday, March 29 in Denver and on Thursday, April 10 in Oakland. Neither the Warriors nor the Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights in either of those games.

WARRIORS REMAINING SCHEDULE, All times, EDT
Fri, Mar 21 Houston 10:30 PM
Sun, Mar 23 @ LA Lakers 9:30 PM
Mon, Mar 24 LA Lakers 10:30 PM
Thu, Mar 27 Portland 10:30 PM
Sat, Mar 29 @ Denver 9:00 PM
Sun, Mar 30 Dallas 9:00 PM
Tue, Apr 1 @ San Antonio 8:30 PM
Wed, Apr 2 @ Dallas 9:30 PM
Fri, Apr 4 @ Memphis 8:00 PM
Sun, Apr 6 @ New Orleans 7:00 PM
Tue, Apr 8 Sacramento 10:30 PM
Thu, Apr 10 Denver 8:00 PM
Sat, Apr 12 LA Clippers 10:30 PM
Mon, Apr 14 @ Phoenix 10:00 PM
Wed, Apr 16 Seattle 10:30 PM

NUGGETS REMAINING SCHEDULE, All times EDT
Fri, Mar 21 @ New Jersey 7:30 PM
Sun, Mar 23 @ Toronto 3:30 PM
Mon, Mar 24 @ Memphis 8:00 PM
Thu, Mar 27 Dallas 10:30 PM
Sat, Mar 29 Golden State 9:00 PM
Mon, Mar 31 @ Phoenix 10:00 PM
Tue, Apr 1 Phoenix 9:00 PM
Sat, Apr 5 Sacramento 9:00 PM
Sun, Apr 6 @ Seattle 9:00 PM
Tue, Apr 8 @ LA Clippers 10:30 PM
Thu, Apr 10 @ Golden State 8:00 PM
Sat, Apr 12 @ Utah 9:00 PM
Sun, Apr 13 Houston 9:00 PM
Wed, Apr 16 Memphis 9:00 PM

At this point the odds for whether the Nuggets will make the playoffs are still close to 50%, creating the maximum possible drama. It is going to be a very close call. We think that the Warriors will finish with either 49 or 50 wins. The Nuggets would need to finish 10-4 to reach 50 wins. This is realistically the minimum they must do to have a decent chance of making the playoffs. 9-5 will probably not be good enough and 8-6 will definitely not be good enough. To be almost guaranteed a playoff spot, the Nuggets must go 11-3 in their last 14 games.

If you win a division you get into the playoffs regardless of how poor your record is. For the Nuggets, winning the Northwest Division is extremely unlikely at this point; the odds on that are at 3%. The odds that the Utah Jazz will win the Northwest are 97% right now. The Nuggets would have to beat the Jazz in their remaining game against them and they would also have to hope that the Jazz stumble down the stretch.

NUGGETS INJURY REPORT FOR PLAYERS WHO PLAYED IN THIS GAME
Allen Iverson: suffered a non-displaced fracture on the end of his right ring finger vs. San Antonio on 3/7. X-rays were negative, and he remains probable for the Nets game on March 21.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Nene: He underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on Jan. 14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He has now missed 32 straight games. He is out until at least April, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. CBS Sportsline says Nene is most likely out for the rest of the season.

76’ERS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Herbert Hill: knee injury and surgery, and he could be out for the rest of the season.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of March 20, 2008

The Nuggets are under a GREEN ALERT, on account of the following problems.

NUGGETS INJURIES, ILLNESSES, SUSPENSIONS, AND PERSONAL LEAVES
1. Nene illness 14 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED CRUCIAL PLAYER SLUMPS
None.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
NOTICE: THIS SECTION NEW AND IMPROVED as of March 19, 2008
EXTREME PLAYING TIME DECISIONS CONSTITUTING AN ERROR
At any given time, Karl may be doing one or more of the following:

1. He may be imposing a draconian penalty by completely benching a player who should not be benched unless the Nuggets want to shoot themselves in the foot or the head.
2. He may be severely under playing a player, either due to an excessive penalty for some mistake the player has made, a miscalculation of the benefits and costs of that player, or due to subjective factors up to and including extreme dislike of a player and a desire to make sure that the player is removed from the team in the off-season.
3. He may be over playing and over relying on one or more very experienced and talented veterans.

The new system we will use will employ the ranges of playing time minutes that are considered reasonable for the Nuggets. These are plenty large enough ranges to allow for plenty of coaching discretion, but if the playing time is outside of these ranges, it is clearly a coaching error:

Allen Iverson: 32-42
Carmelo Anthony: 30-42
Marcus Camby: 28-38
Kenyon Martin: 24-34
J.R. Smith: 22-34
Linas Kleiza: 16-28
Eduardo Najera: 16-24
Chucky Atkins: 14-22
Anthony Carter: 12-20
Yakhouba Diawara: 0-14
Taurean Green: 0-10
Steven Hunter: 0-10

Playing times lower than the minimum or higher than the maximum are coaching errors, and are usually charged at the rate of 1 alert system point for each 2 minutes of error. If a player is injured or sick to any extent, then this rule does not apply. Nor will the rule apply in games in which there is garbage time, except in the case of players who are playing below their minimum minutes on a repeated basis.

EXTREME PLAYING TIMES CONSTITUTING COACHING ERROR FOR THIS GAME:

J.R. Smith: Underplayed, 4 points
Chucky Atkins: Underplayed, 4 points
Kenyon Martin: Overplayed, 2 points
Anthony Carter: Overplayed, 1 point
Allen Iverson: Overplayed, 1 point

If you think this is really bad, think again. This current toll of playing time errors is actually a little light by Karl’s standards.

4. The Nuggets have extreme offensive inconsistency and an excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a good partial system on offense. They over rely on fast pace and on isolation plays, especially isolation plays by Anthony and Iverson. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson’s intelligence in recognizing different situations in different games, and responding appropriately, usually reduces the damage. But Iverson does not control everything of course, and the lack of any real consistency in how the offense is run leads to damaging problems that can appear at any time. But these problems are much more likely to appear just when the Nuggets can least afford them, when they are playing one of the best teams in the NBA.

At one time earlier this season, Iverson and Carter were marginalizing Carmelo Anthony to some extent and Anthony, one of the top two scorers on the team, was not getting the ball enough. That problem went away when Anthony ramped up his rebounding. But the problem has shown signs of coming back again lately. If that problem appears when the Nuggets are playing an elite team, the Nuggets’ chances of winning the game go down substantially. The problem recently appeared in the March 18 Pistons game, and it helped to cause the Nuggets to lose.

Another big problem has developed due to a combination of the unstructured offense and the Karl lineup, and it is not going to go away anytime soon. That would be the double point guard problem. The Nuggets don’t know in advance who is going to be the main playmaker in the game: Iverson, Carter, Atkins, or some combination. More importantly, it is foolish to have two point guards in the game for more than a small number of minutes. If Iverson has decided to run the point, as he always does to one extent or another, he counts as a point guard whether he is labeled one by the coaching staff or not.

In general, and as always in the Karl era, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays. True, they have plays they commonly run on the fly, but the players obviously don’t know about them in advance; they happen randomly. The offense is pretty much an unscripted, recreation department pick-up game style of offense.

How good your defense is is determined more by effort and skill than by strategy. For defense, strategy and tactics are less important than on offense. But they are still important, especially in a close game versus a good team. One thing that determines how well a team can defend is whether it has matched up the best and most appropriate players to guard the various offensive threats of the other team. On defense, the main strategic decision is whether you are playing zone or man to man defense. The correct choice usually will vary during each game. The decision is frequently made on a gut feeling of the coach and/or the defensive floor leader as to which is better at a particular point in the game, and with a particular opposing lineup on the court. But despite the fact that strategy and tactics are relatively important, the most important things with respect to defending is overall effort, hustle, anticipation of where the play is going, skill in avoiding unnecessary fouls, and ability to rotate off screens and picks.

This games’ toll due to the lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and patterns: 5

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 4 Points.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 35, which constitutes GREY ALERT.

GREY ALERT (30-39): There are relatively minor problems leading to a small threat against the success of the entire season. It is still possible to beat quality teams, but it will be more unusual to beat a quality team, because about 1/4 of what would have been wins against good teams will now be losses. There should be no impact with respect to medium and poor teams..

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT ALERT STATUS
The description of the alert status the Nuggets are in is a worst case scenario one; it assumes that the other team is in GREEN or NO alert. All teams, of course, have an alert status, and the key thing that can swing games is not so much the actual status of the two teams, but the difference in the two statuses. The difference in the alert status is a third outside factor that impacts a game, joining home court advantage and extra rest advantage, if any. We use 15 alert status points as constituting a difference.

OBSERVATIONS ON NUGGETS STATUS
George Karl has been doing better than usual with the rotations lately; no one is benched who should not be, and the offense has been in super drive against poor and average defensive teams. All of these things have helped to push the alert status down to GREEN Alert.

Atkins has been removed from the unusual player slump designation. The best news of the month for the Nuggets is that Atkins has, in effect, finally arrived in Denver. This might give the Nuggets just enough 3-point shooting firepower to keep up with the Warriors in the race for the final playoff spot, as long as Atkins gets playing time.

The Nuggets have been unable to issue any prediction about when or whether Nene is going to return to the court. There was a rumor recently that he was going to return by mid-March, but there is no sign that that will become a reality. CBS Sportsline is saying that, most likely, Nene will not return to the court at all this season, including for the playoffs. However, since all other injuries are history, and since J.R. Smith has played so well that he is neither benched nor severely shortchanged of minutes these days, the Nuggets might be able to stay in the NO alert to GREY alert range, avoiding being disadvantaged to all but the lucky and perfectly managed elite teams.

The mid January losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks in January, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT and especially RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do

EXPLANATION OF OUTSIDE FACTORS
The alert status system is still relatively new, but a preliminary estimate of what the game points advantage will be for each 15 points of alert status points difference has been made, and that estimate is 3-5 points. For now we will use 4 points for each 15 alert status points. The Home court advantage has also been estimated to be 3-5 points and we use 4 points for it. The extra rest advantage is very uncertain, and would differ a little from team to team, but it must be at least as much as the home court advantage. For now, until we can study it more, we will use 4 points for the extra rest advantage. In summary, we are using 4 points for each of the three outside factors.

IMPACT OF OUTSIDE FACTORS, INCLUDING ALERT STATUS, ON THIS GAME
The 76’ers had no important players unavailable, and a rough estimate of their alert status is that they are in GREEN alert. They roughly had a 15 points or 1 level advantage over the Nuggets in alert status, which translates into a 4 point advantage. The 76’ers were home. The Nuggets were playing on back to back nights. In summary, the 76’ers had a 12 point edge over the Nuggets due to outside factors. Since the 76’ers won by only 2 points, we can confidently say that the Nuggets would have won this game were it not for the outside factors.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 9 76’ers 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 76’ers 9

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 16
76’ers Non-Starters Points: 30

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 17
76’ers Non-Starters Rebounds: 15

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 6
76’ers Non-Starters Assists: 0

THE NON-STARTERS IN THIS GAME
There was no garbage time. Each coach played 9 players for at least 6 minutes, but one of the Nuggets, Chucky Atkins, did not play 10 minutes or more while all of the 76’ers played 10 minutes or more. Atkins was denied the courtesy of even 10 minutes of playing time despite the fact that he has played extremely well lately.

It is very unusual for Karl to play 9 players for 10 or more minutes. Right now he is forced to, because pushing J.R. Smith below 10 minutes is out of the question the way he is playing, and there is a huge mess at PG which requires Karl to play 2 official point guards for much more than 10 minutes each. Anthony Carter took over the PG position for the bulk of the season when Chucky Atkins went out for 2 months with hernia surgery and when Karl refused to name Iverson as the official point guard. Atkins was poor in limited games before he went out. Carter has been better than expected, but apparently Karl agrees with most fans that Atkins will be eaten alive if the Nuggets make the playoffs. So Atkins, who has far more experience, including playoff experience, may be the Nuggets’ only hope at the position in the playoffs and in the stretch run to make the playoffs for that matter. So Karl has to give Atkins playing time in a last chance desperate bid to get Atkins up to speed. But since Atkins is inconsistent so far, Atkins minutes have to be limited, and so Carter still has to play a lot of minutes also.

In scoring, the 76’ers non-starters almost doubled up the Nuggets’ non-starters, 30-16. In rebounding though, the Nuggets’ non-starters were slightly better, 17-15. Due to the overwhelming dominance of Andre Miller as a playmaker in this game, the 76’ers non-starters made no assists. The Nuggets’ non-starters made 6 assists.

STARTERS
Points: Nuggets 97 76’ers 85
Rebounds: 76’ers 42 Nuggets 27
Assists: Nuggets 22 76’ers 22

The Nuggets starters defeated the 76’ers starters 97-85. But the 76’ers starters out rebounded the Nuggets starters 42-27. Each starting five made 22 assists.

I hope to develop the reserve watch feature further in the future, because I want to try to expand what I already have in terms of a game coaching evaluation system. But the complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
3: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. While some are biased in favor of offensive players, such as the efficiency measure at the NBA site, many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player, which I think is a very good balance between offense and defense:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS-76’ERS PLAYER RATINGS
Ratings of 50+ indicate superstar power performers.
Ratings of 40-49 indicate star power performers
Ratings of 30-39 indicate power performers.
Ratings of 20-29 indicate key role player performers.
Ratings of 10-19 indicate ordinary role player performers.
Ratings of 0-9 indicate unimportant players

NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Allen Iverson: Game 51.7 Season 41.1
Kenyon Martin: Game 41.1 Season 23.1
Carmelo Anthony: Game 35.0 Season 39.0
Anthony Carter: Game 23.8 Season 20.0
Linas Kleiza: Game 20.1 Season 18.4
Marcus Camby: Game 17.7 Season 32.7
J.R. Smith: Game 10.3 Season 16.6
Eduardo Najera: Game 5.6 Season 13.3
Chucky Atkins: Game 1.6 Season 10.4

Nene: Did Not Play-Illness

Yakhouba Diawara: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Taurean Green: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

76’ERS PLAYER RATINGS
Andre Miller: Game 50.3 Season 31.4
Andre Igoudala: Game 38.6 Season 33.4
Samuel Dalembert: Game 33.4 Season 25.0
Willie Green: Game 25.3 Season 18.9
Rodney Carney: Game 14.6 Season 9.2
Thaddeus Young: Game 14.5 Season 14.3
Reggie Evans: Game 11.7 Season 13.7
Jason Smith: Game 11.5 Season 9.1
Louis Williams: Game 9.0 Season 17.4

NOTE 1: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.
NOTE 2: This performance measure does NOT include the quality and quantity of each player’s defending, including the number of shots that the player prevented from going in the basket. The best Nuggets defenders, which are the ones who consistently make the extra effort and have the strength and defensive talent to make that effort pay off, are Camby, Martin, Nene, Najera, and Diawara.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLAYER RATINGS:
Allen Iverson was the most productive player on the court and was a superstar power performer. Andre Miller was slightly behind Iverson and was also a superstar power performer. Kenyon Martin for the Nuggets was a star power performer.

Anthony was a power performer for the Nuggets while Igoudala and Dalembert were power performers for the 76’ers.

Among players who were power performers or better, each team had 3.

For the Nuggets, Iverson and Martin gave the most to try to win this game: Martin was about 75% more productive than usual and Iverson was about 1/5 more productive than usual, and he is the 5th most productive player in the NBA on average. The only 4 players who are more productive than Iverson are LeBron James, Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, and Amare Stoudemire.

Carter was about 1/5 above normal and Kleiza was about 1/10 above normal and these two were key role players in this game

Carmelo Anthony was 90% as productive as usual.

The major down Nuggets were Camby and Najera. By far the biggest disappointment for the Nuggets was Marcus Camby, who was only about 60% as productive as usual. He dropped from being a star power performer to being an ordinary role player. Najera was also a big disappointment, as he was only about 40% as productive as usual, with normal playing time

In the case of 2 other Nuggets who were below normal, reduced playing time was involved. J.R. Smith was about 60% as productive as usual, but this was partly due to minutes below his seasonal average, Atkins was extremely unproductive, but this was almost entirely due to lack of playing time.

PG Andre Miller was by far the biggest upside for the 76’ers, with a 2/3 more productive performance, up to superstar power performer from ordinary power performer

C Dalembert, SG Green, and SF Carney all did damage to the Nuggets’ chances, as all 3 were a solid 1/3 above normal. Each one of these moved up one level from normal. Dalembert, for example, moved up from being a key role player to a power performer. SF Igoudala was even more of a power performer than usual, 15% above the normal.

The biggest disappoint for the 76’ers was PG Williams, who was only about half as productive as usual on 80% of the usual minutes.

Among other less important players, PF Jason Smith was about 1/4 more productive than usual while PF Young was exactly normal. Former Nugget PF Reggie Evans was about 85% as productive as usual.

In summary, the 76’ers had only 1 player who played substantially below normal, while the Nuggets had 4, one of which was a huge loss, Camby, and 2 of which who were affected by reduced playing time.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.80 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Star Plus-Spectacular Performance
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Extremely Poor-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-76’ERS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. Andre Miller, Phi 1.290
2. Allen Iverson, Den 1.202
3. Anthony Carter, Den 1.133
4. Kenyon Martin, Den 1.082
5. Rodney Carney, Phi 1.043
6. Willie Green, Phi 0.973
7. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.957
8. Carmelo Anthony, Den 0.946
9. Andre Iguodala, Phi 0.877
10. Samuel Dalembert, Phi 0.835
11. Jason Smith, Phi 0.719
12. Thaddeus Young, Phi 0.690
13. J.R. Smith, Den 0.687
14. Reggie Evans, Phi 0.532
15. Louis Williams, Phi 0.500
16. Marcus Camby, Den 0.478
17. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.280
18. Chucky Atkins, Den 0.267…Atkins played only 6 minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The best player on the court was Andre Miller, who beat out Allen Iverson; both of them were star-plus though.

Kenyon Martin and Anthony Carter were stars for Denver.

Among players who were stars or better, the Nuggets had 3 and the 76’ers had 1.

Kleiza and Anthony were outstanding for the Nuggets, while Carney and Green were outstanding for the 76’ers.

Igoudala and Dalembert were very good for the 76’ers. Jason Smith was good for the 76’ers.

Young for the 76’ers and J.R. Smith for the Nuggets were mediocre.

Evans and Williams were poor for the 76’ers. Camby was very poor for the Nuggets. Najera and Atkins on limited minutes were extremely poor for the Nuggets.

Among players who were mediocre or worse, the Nuggets had 4 while the 76’ers had 3.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

Carmelo Anthony: +5
Anthony Carter: +2
Kenyon Martin: +1
Allen Iverson: +0
Marcus Camby: +0
Linas Kleiza: -3
J.R. Smith: -5
Eduardo Najera: -5

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Turnovers: NBA Average: 14, Nuggets’ Total 13, Team 0, Anthony 4, Atkins 0, Camby 2, Carter 0, Iverson 2, Kleiza 1, Martin 2, Najera 0, Smith 2

Personal Fouls: NBA Average: 21, Nuggets’ Total 27, Anthony 3, Atkins 1, Camby 1, Carter 3, Iverson 3, Kleiza 5, Martin 5, Najera 4, Smith 2

Chucky Atkins played 6 minutes and was 0/1 and 0/1 on 3’s for 0 points, and he made 1 assist and 1 rebound.

Eduardo Najera played 20 minutes and was 0/1 and 0/1 on 3’s for 0 points, and he made 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Marcus Camby played 37 minutes and was 2/6 and 1/2 from the line for 5 points, and he made 4 blocks, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals.

J.R. Smith played 15 minutes and was 3/10, 2/5 on 3’s, and 1/2 from the line for 9 points, and he made 2 assists and 2 rebounds

Carmelo Anthony played 37 minutes and was 9/20, 3/4 on 3’s, and 5/6 from the line for 26 points, and he made 4 assists and 4 rebounds.

Linas Kleiza played 21 minutes and was 2/7, 1/3 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 7 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Kenyon Martin played 38 minutes and was 10/15 and 2/4 from the line for 22 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 4 steals, and 4 assists.

Anthony Carter played 21 minutes and was 5/8 and 2/4 on 3’s for 12 points, and he made 3 assists, 3 steals, and 1 rebound.

Allen Iverson played for most of the game, 43 minutes, and was 13/24, 3/5 on 3’s, and 3/5 from the line for 32 points, and he made 8 assists, 3 steals, and 2 rebounds.

 

I thought it was pretty bad that Philly didn't do a tribute for AI.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Bethel is most famous for NBA superstar Allen Iverson having attended there. In 1993 Bethel not only won the state championship in basketball but football and girls track as well. Allen Iverson led the basketball team as a point guard, and the football team as the starting quarterback. He played iron man football, coming into the defensive secondary as needed, as well as returned kickoffs and punts.</div>

Source

So the complete count is:

4 1/2 coaches have designated A.I. as the point guard
3 1/2 coaches have designated A.I. as the shooting guard.

Brown and Karl end up in the minority, and only 1 1/2 coaches other than Brown and Karl have thought of A.I as a shooting guard. I am reporting this in detail in the next report.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tremaine @ Mar 22 2008, 04:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>NUGGETS 1
Well if he’s too short to play the SG position in the all-star game, then he is definitely too short to play the SG position in ordinary games. One or the other is wrong; either the NBA front office is wrong for listing him as a PG for all-star voting, or Larry Brown and George Karl are wrong for designating him as a SG.</div>

This is wrong on so many levels

1) There is no designation of PG and SG on all star voting. There are 3 positions on the ballot, Center, Forward and Guard. The two guards with the most votes are the starters for their conference.

2) There have been many times where a Conference doesn't have player for a traditional position in the starting lineup. Where a player plays in the all star game has no logical impact on where they should play on their team. For the 2007 game, the starters for the West as voted by the fans were TMac and Kobe at guard and Duncan and KG at forward.

3) It isn't that AI is too short to play SG in an all star game because he did spend plenty of minutes at SG in the games. Rather it is was that he was the shortest member of the starting lineup. In the 2001 game, where AI was named MVP, the East won in the final minutes with AI and Marbury on the court together.

4) It is absolutely ridiculous to attempt to draw comparisons between all star game play and regular season play. In an all star game, there is essentially no defense played unless a game is close in the final minutes of the 4th quarter. Additionally, because of the offensive talent level on each team, no one is going to face double teams. The game play is nothing like regular season or playoff NBA basketball.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tremaine @ Mar 22 2008, 10:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Bethel is most famous for NBA superstar Allen Iverson having attended there. In 1993 Bethel not only won the state championship in basketball but football and girls track as well. Allen Iverson led the basketball team as a point guard, and the football team as the starting quarterback. He played iron man football, coming into the defensive secondary as needed, as well as returned kickoffs and punts.</div>

Source

So the complete count is:

4 1/2 coaches have designated A.I. as the point guard
3 1/2 coaches have designated A.I. as the shooting guard.

Brown and Karl end up in the minority, and only 1 1/2 coaches other than Brown and Karl have thought of A.I as a shooting guard. I am reporting this in detail in the next report.
</div>

Counting a High School coach on the same level as a D1 College coach and on the same level as NBA coaches is beyond ridiculous. Counting a D1 College coach on the same level as NBA coaches is ridiculous.

 

NUGGETS 1
Well if he’s too short to play the SG position in the all-star game, then he is definitely too short to play the SG position in ordinary games. One or the other is wrong; either the NBA front office is wrong for listing him as a PG for all-star voting, or Larry Brown and George Karl are wrong for designating him as a SG.[/quote]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>1. This is wrong on so many levels

There is no designation of PG and SG on all star voting. There are 3 positions on the ballot, Center, Forward and Guard. The two guards with the most votes are the starters for their conference.</div>

I stand corrected on the voting but since AI actually started at PG for at least 7 straight all star games, I am still correct with respect to the overall point; if AI is a poor point guard but a good shooting guard, then why did he almost or actually never start at SG in the all-star game? You suggest that it was due to the fact that mostly SGs were selected to the all-star game, so it was by default. I bet I will be able to disprove that when i check it out within the next week.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>2) There have been many times where a Conference doesn't have player for a traditional position in the starting lineup. Where a player plays in the all star game has no logical impact on where they should play on their team. For the 2007 game, the starters for the West as voted by the fans were TMac and Kobe at guard and Duncan and KG at forward.</div>

I'm checking these details out this week when I get a chance. I think my point will be strenghthened if I do that, because I will see who Iverson was chosen to be PG over. I know there are more than 2 guards on the all-star team, but if the guard starters are automatically determined by the voting regardless of exact position, my point still stands. Consider the possibilities. If the starting lineups are determined by votes and votes alone, either there were two point guards and Iverson was chosen as the best or real point guard between the two, or there was one of each position and the positions were reversed for the all-star game; Iverson was moved to PG and a PG from the regular season was moved to SG, or there were two SGs and Iverson was chosen as the one as more appropriate to be the PG. In any of these three possibilities, my point still stands. No matter what, the League front office and/or the coach of the all star team was saying over and over that Iverson is a PG.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>3) It isn't that AI is too short to play SG in an all star game because he did spend plenty of minutes at SG in the games. Rather it is was that he was the shortest member of the starting lineup. In the 2001 game, where AI was named MVP, the East won in the final minutes with AI and Marbury on the court together.</div>

It sounds like that all-star team was coached by Larry Brown or someone who thinks like he does.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>4) It is absolutely ridiculous to attempt to draw comparisons between all star game play and regular season play. In an all star game, there is essentially no defense played unless a game is close in the final minutes of the 4th quarter. Additionally, because of the offensive talent level on each team, no one is going to face double teams. The game play is nothing like regular season or playoff NBA basketball.</div>

True, the all-star game is different, but how and why should how the game differs from an ordinary game affect who plays point guard? And how many other players have started at a different position at the all-star game compared with their usual positions, as A.I. has about 7 times? Is that due to the top vote getters being mandated to start? If so, then fine, but my point still stands, because A.I. was chosen to be the point guard 7 straight all star games among 2 point guards to choose from, among a point guard and a shooting guard to choose from, or among two shooting guards to choose from. I have no evidence yet that he was EVER chosen to start at SG in any all-star game.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (cpawfan @ Mar 23 2008, 01:39 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tremaine @ Mar 22 2008, 10:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Bethel is most famous for NBA superstar Allen Iverson having attended there. In 1993 Bethel not only won the state championship in basketball but football and girls track as well. Allen Iverson led the basketball team as a point guard, and the football team as the starting quarterback. He played iron man football, coming into the defensive secondary as needed, as well as returned kickoffs and punts.</div>

Source

So the complete count is:

4 1/2 coaches have designated A.I. as the point guard
3 1/2 coaches have designated A.I. as the shooting guard.

Brown and Karl end up in the minority, and only 1 1/2 coaches other than Brown and Karl have thought of A.I as a shooting guard. I am reporting this in detail in the next report.
</div>

Counting a High School coach on the same level as a D1 College coach and on the same level as NBA coaches is beyond ridiculous. Counting a D1 College coach on the same level as NBA coaches is ridiculous.
</div>

The high school and the college coach should count at least equal to the NBA coaches, because they had Iverson first and could judge what he was intrinsically. And unlike NBA coaches, they have no political agendas other than doing what is best for their players. A college or a high school coach could theoretically be in danger of being fired if he repeatedly played players at the wrong positon, because they are responsible for preparing players for the next level without making any gross errors. But NBA coaches can change any player's position whenever they want, and justify it by saying they are trying to win more games, which is what their primary responsibility is. Precisely because they are not as on the hook for winning as NBA coaches are, college and high school coach decisions on what position a player is best for must be respected and counted.

If you are saying that the 30 NBA coaches are all vastly more intelligent basketball wise than the thousands of high school and college coaches are, I disagree. Just like in any profession, it is largely random chance that determines which coaches rise up into the limelight. Not to mention that there are thousands of coaches of all different capabilities who would not want to coach in the NBA even if they were offerred the opportunity.

What you need to do to make your point is explain why John Thompson and Mike Bailey were/are incompetent coaches, at least with respect to the PG position.

 

Here is the coach you need to prove is incompetent if you want me to not count him. Good luck.

Mike Bailey, Allen Iverson's High School Coach

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tremaine @ Mar 23 2008, 01:04 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>The high school and the college coach should count at least equal to the NBA coaches, because they had Iverson first and could judge what he was intrinsically.</div>

You can't honestly believe this. There is no logic or basis in reality to this. By your logic, every player in the NFL that is playing a different position than what they played in HS or College is playing the wrong position.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>And unlike NBA coaches, they have no political agendas other than doing what is best for their players.</div>

Wrong. HS Coaches are trying to win games, not do what is best for them. When you have a player as great as AI, it really doesn't matter where you play them.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>A college or a high school coach could theoretically be in danger of being fired if he repeatedly played players at the wrong positon, because they are responsible for preparing players for the next level without making any gross errors.</div>

Again wrong. HS Coaches are judged on wins and losses, not developing players.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>But NBA coaches can change any player's position whenever they want, and justify it by saying they are trying to win more games, which is what their primary responsibility is. Precisely because they are not as on the hook for winning as NBA coaches are, college and high school coach decisions on what position a player is best for must be respected and counted.</div>

Again, completely and totally without basis or logic.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>If you are saying that the 30 NBA coaches are all vastly more intelligent basketball wise than the thousands of high school and college coaches are, I disagree.</div>

Coaching in the NBA is about far more than X's and O's


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Just like in any profession, it is largely random chance that determines which coaches rise up into the limelight.</div>

No, it isn't random chance in the NBA or in any profession. People make their own opportunities.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Not to mention that there are thousands of coaches of all different capabilities who would not want to coach in the NBA even if they were offerred the opportunity.</div>

Based upon what evidence?


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>What you need to do to make your point is explain why John Thompson and Mike Bailey were/are incompetent coaches, at least with respect to the PG position.</div>

It is completely dishonest of you to attempt to turn this into prove X is incompetent. Person X being less competent than person Y is nothing like saying person X is incompetent.

You've spent a lot of words and not made one valid point.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>You can't honestly believe this. There is no logic or basis in reality to this. By your logic, every player in the NFL that is playing a different position than what they played in HS or College is playing the wrong position.</div>

You didn't really make a point. Are you claiming that high school and college coaches can often not judge what positions their players should play? That's ridiculous, I would think. I don't care how many players are playing the wrong position, especially in football. I know for a fact that only a few players in the NBA are playing the wrong position, Iverson being one of them.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Wrong. HS Coaches are trying to win games, not do what is best for them. When you have a player as great as AI, it really doesn't matter where you play them.</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Again wrong. HS Coaches are judged on wins and losses, not developing players.</div>

If a coach repeatedly puts players in the wrong position, he is going to get fired. it's that simple. It's not as if that incompetence could be kept a secret. On the other hand, most high school and college coaches who lose a few more games than expected do not get fired, whereas that can happen in professional sports.

High school and college coaches are judged first and foremost by how successful they are in getting their players to the next level, in both the athletic and institutional senses. If you go to Mike Bailey's site, the dominant thing on Mike Bailey's page is a description of all the players who went on to various successful college and pro careers after he coached them. How many wins he got is shown, but is in no way highlighted on the page. Just as Bailey's camp draws business more by advertising player success stories than by advertising Bailey's win-loss record, high schools and colleges draw talented recruits by emphasizing their player success stories first; the winning percentage is not as important as these success stories. But for the record, Bailey was massively successful in terms of wins and losses.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Again, completely and totally without basis or logic.</div>

So NBA coaches can not change a player's positon? That's news to me. And/or high school and college coaches are concerned far more about winning than about developing their players? State a case instead of just disagreeing with me.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Coaching in the NBA is about far more than X's and O's</div>

I have to keep guessing at what you are arguing. I am going to guess that you are saying that there are X's, O's, winning and losing, public relations, political agendas (office politics) with the front office and the owner, and handling volatile millionaire players involved. How am I doing with your argument?

Even if NBA coaches are automatically better at the things that don't apply in high school and college, how would it follow that they are more qualified to determine what position a player plays. If you had to bet, you would bet that the NBA coaches would be less qualified to judge what position a player should play, since they can't get a head coaching position unless they can do all the non-basketball stuff well.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>No, it isn't random chance in the NBA or in any profession. People make their own opportunities.</div>

Random chance is a major factor in determining which of thousands of possible coaches end up as the 30 NBA coaches. There is simple mathematics involved.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Based upon what evidence?</div>

Countless interviews of coaches have shown this to be true.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>It is completely dishonest of you to attempt to turn this into prove X is incompetent. Person X being less competent than person Y is nothing like saying person X is incompetent.

You've spent a lot of words and not made one valid point.</div>

Well at least you have said something half way concrete, I think. So apparently, you think that Larry Brown and George Karl are more competent than Mike Bailey and John Thompson, due to the level difference, and maybe also more competent than Jim O' Brian. Actually, you still technically did not make the argument; it had to be deduced. Maybe you are worried about getting sued so you could not state it directly, ha ha.

In any event, you next have to present evidence as to why Brown and Karl are more competent than Bailey, Thompson, and O'Brian, that would pertain to choosing which player on the team should be the starting point guard.

Note: this is the last time I am going to try to flesh out skeleton and vague arguments just to make a response. It's a little too much like arguing with myself. And I am beginning to think that I am being made a fool of for responding to these types of arguments, and that in order to look good on the forum, I am supposed to not respond to these. How do I know you actually believe what you are implying? In order for me to respond, I need complete, direct, logical arguments, with evidence if at all possible. I don't think I should be responding any more to statements that require a lot of deduction to figure out what is really being claimed. I think what I am supposed to do is ignore any argument that is too vague or too indirectly stated, with no evidence to boot.

 

You have not made any points, therefore, there is nothing to really respond to. Each and everyone of your major premises is completely wrong on their face. I just went through each and everyone of them point by point and you proceeded to get wrapped up in semantics about the wrong things.

I'll try this again from a different angle. Lets go step by step starting with the following four questions.

1) There are lots and lots of NBA PF's and SF's that played Center on their HS team because they were the tallest and most talented player on their team. How does that fit into your "model" of how you think HS coaches do things? An example, Richard Jefferson played Center on his High School team.

2) There are lots and lots of NBA PF's that played Center in college and lots and lots of NBA PG's that played SG in college. How does that fit into your "model" of how you think college coaches do things? Examples, Kenyon Martin was the National Player of the Year as a college Center and Gilbert Arenas played SG at Arizona.

3) Do you honestly believe that on court High School Basketball is the same as on court College Basketball?

4) Do you honestly believe that on court College Basketball is the same as on court NBA Basketball?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tremaine @ Mar 23 2008, 07:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>If a coach repeatedly puts players in the wrong position, he is going to get fired. it's that simple. It's not as if that incompetence could be kept a secret. On the other hand, most high school and college coaches who lose a few more games than expected do not get fired, whereas that can happen in professional sports.

High school and college coaches are judged first and foremost by how successful they are in getting their players to the next level, in both the athletic and institutional senses. </div>

Your bolded statement is completely incorrect. College coaches especially are first judged by their wins, losses and NCAA tournament performance.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>If you go to Mike Bailey's site, the dominant thing on Mike Bailey's page is a description of all the players who went on to various successful college and pro careers after he coached them. How many wins he got is shown, but is in no way highlighted on the page. Just as Bailey's camp draws business more by advertising player success stories than by advertising Bailey's win-loss record, high schools and colleges draw talented recruits by emphasizing their player success stories first; the winning percentage is not as important as these success stories. But for the record, Bailey was massively successful in terms of wins and losses.</div>

There is no logical correlation between the marketing for a basketball camp and what HS coaches are judge upon for keeping their jobs. That is marketing to attract the attention of parents who have several choices of camps to send their children to.


Lets look at this from another angle. Here are the description of some well known college coaches that are in the basketball hall of fame. Note the lack of description of who they coached that went onto NBA stardom.

Lute Olson http://www.hoophall.com/halloffamers/bhof-lute-olson.html

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Robert "Lute" Olson

Enshrined 2002
Born September 22, 1934
Maryville, North Dakota

Lute Olson's quiet demeanor on the bench qualifies him as a throwback to basketball's early game coaches, but his brilliance as a recruiter, tactician and builder of programs has enabled him to excel like few others in the modern collegiate game. Following successful stints at Long Beach State and the University of Iowa - where he guided the Hawkeyes to five consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament and the 1980 Final Four - Olson transformed Arizona into a national power and brought new prominence to West Coast basketball. Olson has made the Wildcats a fixture in the national championship hunt each season, guiding his teams to Final Four appearances in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000 decades. He is one of a handful of coaches to take two different teams to the Final Four and his more than 700 victories ranks him among the college basketball's all-time leaders. With a winning percentage at Arizona exceeding the 80 percent mark the last two decades, Olson stands alone in that impressive category.




* NCAA Championship at Arizona, 1997
* National Coach of the Year, 1988, 1990
* Gold Medal coach at Jones Cup (1984) and World Championships (1986)
* One of only five head coaches in NCAA history to record 24 or more 20-win seasons</div>

Mike Krzyzewski http://www.hoophall.com/halloffamers/bhof-...krzyzewski.html

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Michael "Mike" Krzyzewski

Enshrined 2001
Born: February 13, 1947
Chicago, IL

Although Mike Krzyzewski's basketball career began modestly at the United States Military Academy in 1976, over the next two decades he developed into one of the great college basketball coaches. As head coach at Duke University, Krzyzewski's coaching style and his commitment to combining high academic standards with college athletics has often been compared to UCLA's John Wooden. Named the NABC Coach of the Decade for the 1990s, Krzyzewski led Duke to five straight Final Four appearances and nine total in his first 21 seasons at Duke. Under Krzyzewski, a five-time ACC Coach of the Year, the Blue Devils have won six ACC Tournament Championships and nine ACC regular season titles. In 1992, Krzyzewski was an assistant coach on the U.S. Olympic Gold Medal team. Upon enshrinement, Krzyzewski's three NCAA national championships ranked him third in history, trailing the legendary John Wooden and Adolph Rupp.




* National championships at Duke at the time of his enshrinement, 1991, 1992, 2001
* Nine NCAA Final Fours at the time of his enshrinement, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1999, 2001
* Seven-time National Coach of the Year at the time of his enshrinement, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1997, 1999, 2000
* Winningest active coach in the NCAA tournament</div>

Jim Boeheim http://www.hoophall.com/halloffamers/bhof-jim-boeheim.html

Dean Smith http://www.hoophall.com/halloffamers/bhof-dean-smith.html

John Wooden http://www.hoophall.com/halloffamers/bhof-...oden-coach.html

Jim Calhoun http://www.hoophall.com/halloffamers/bhof-jim-calhoun.html

 

Whats the point of arguing the position that AI played? is it because you think he would be a better pg for the nuggets? IMO no matter what the argument is, the bottom line is that AI is good enough to be good at any position and could do well at either. However, AI is at his best when he was a taller pg at his sided who plays good D and can Distribute. AI is my favorite all time player hands down, probably the 2nd or 3rd best scorer ever, and and is by far the toughest player to ever play the game, but i won't go out and say that he's the best decision maker, or floor general on the teams he plays for. Yes, he can be a pg and play it at an allstar level, but if he doesnt have to worry about running the offense, and only worries about scoring, steals, and leading his team with his heart, then he's going to have less turnovers, and probably still the same amount of assists, because he gets them on drive and dishes mostly. Chucky Atkins and Anthony Carter, are good backup guards that can get you some offense, but what the Nuggets really need is a true pass first, defensive pg. That will make this team a contender IMO.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>You have not made any points, therefore, there is nothing to really respond to. Each and everyone of your major premises is completely wrong on their face. I just went through each and everyone of them point by point and you proceeded to get wrapped up in semantics about the wrong things.

I'll try this again from a different angle. Lets go step by step starting with the following four questions.

1) There are lots and lots of NBA PF's and SF's that played Center on their HS team because they were the tallest and most talented player on their team. How does that fit into your "model" of how you think HS coaches do things? An example, Richard Jefferson played Center on his High School team.</div>

I don't care how many play one positon in high school and another position in pro. I already said that I am aware that pro coaches can change positions if they think it is the correct thing to do. The question for me is whether it was correct for Larry Brown to do that for his team. And the other question for me is whether George Karl, faced with the loss of his starting point guard for most of the season, made the correct decision for the Nuggets when he refused to start AI at the point.

I'm also not trying to prove that AI's career would have been better if he had stayed at PG. I think that is true, and I would like to prove it, but I have doubt that I can prove something like that beyond a shadow of a doubt.. (At least I don't think I will be able to at this time.} I can make that seem very plausible, which is what I am going to be doing.

What I am in the process of proving beyond a shadow of a doubt is that AI would have been of more value to his teams had he always played the PG position. Originally, I intended to just prove that the Nuggets would have been much better off if AI had been the PG starter, but then I realized the parallels between the Nuggets and the 76'ers are so obvious that I should see if I can prove it for the 76'ers historically as well.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>2) There are lots and lots of NBA PF's that played Center in college and lots and lots of NBA PG's that played SG in college. How does that fit into your "model" of how you think college coaches do things? Examples, Kenyon Martin was the National Player of the Year as a college Center and Gilbert Arenas played SG at Arizona.</div>

If true, that's relevant only if the high school and/or the college coaches, in your view, were generally in the wrong, and should have been playing the player at the position they would have in the pros. For example, was Gilbert Arenas' coach dumb for not playing him at PG at Arizona, and is this a typical dumb mistake that a college coach makes? Is that what you are saying, that many more player position mistakes are made by high school and college coaches than are made by pro coaches?

But I think you are saying something different: you are saying that the situations are so radically different that it is normal for players to play different positions from high school/college to the pros. I don't know what the actual, real number of position changes from high school/college to pro is, but I'm going to assume for the hell of it that it is a substantial number like you think.

If that is so, then I can't use the coach counts to prove that Iverson was moved to the wrong position, but neither can you use the coach counts to disprove the theory that Iverson should not have been moved. Because if the situational differences overwhelm the position assignment, then you can't prove or disprove whether Iverson was moved to the wrong positon by number of coaches and/or the levels of those coaches. (Because the situations dictated the position decisions.)

But I never intended to rely on the count of coaches as a huge part of my argument. I knew I had to point out that many other coaches have differred with Brown and Karl, or else hardly anyone was going to carefully consider the rest of the evidence. When I investigated the coaches, I knew that my best case scenario would be that there would have been very slightly more coaches who played AI at the point than at the 2-guard. The best case scenario is what played out, which gives me the green light to continue to make the project bigger rather than smaller, and I am going to continue to give this project the great attention that it deserves in the weeks and even the months ahead.

I am going to have dozens of reasons when I am through, and relatively few of them will be slam dunk, but all of them will help my side. If it were true that all or most of AI's coaches have played him at the point, I would never get a lot of people to agree that it was a mistake, regardless of how much evidence and how many arguments I had. This coach count is a preliminary argument, which gets my foot in the door. This was like a preliminary hearing in a court of law.

Unless there are fair and objective ways to compare Mike Bailey, John Thompson, Johnny Davis, and Jim O'Brien to Larry Brown and George Karl, the basic coach count may be all that anyone can do on the general coach comparison front. From here on out, the coaches will be compared with respect to the actual situations they faced at the times they made their point guard decisions, and whether their decsions were correct, incorrect, or ambiguous.

But I have succeeded in my objective on coach count and coaches in general already; all I had to do was show that there have been a substantial number of coaches who thought AI should play the point. It wasn't just the high school and the college coaches. Johnny Davis, Jim O'Brien, and Maurice Cheeks to some extent are 3 NBA coaches who exclusively or extensively started AI at PG.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>3) Do you honestly believe that on court High School Basketball is the same as on court College Basketball?</div>

No, and the subject is not part of my arguments or evidence.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>4) Do you honestly believe that on court College Basketball is the same as on court NBA Basketball?</div>

No, and the subject is not part of my arguments or evidence, unless someone can prove that NBA coaches are generally correct while high school and college coaches are frequently incorrect when they make decisions about what position a player should play. I think it would be pretty strange, to say the least, if someone tried to prove that high school and college coaches make frequent incorrect decisions about where a player should play.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>High school and college coaches are judged first and foremost by how successful they are in getting their players to the next level, in both the athletic and institutional senses.

Your bolded statement is completely incorrect. College coaches especially are first judged by their wins, losses and NCAA tournament performance.</div>

Ok, there is confusion because I didn't specify something. The lead-in to that was me arguing that high school and college coaches would be fired if they were caught assigning players to the wrong position enough times. so when I was describing how college coaches are judged, it was still in that context: the context of how their employer would judge them, and whether they would be in any danger of being fired. So, to be more clear than I was, let me restate what I meant exactly:

The school boards, the high school administrators, and the college administrators, as evaluation criteria #1, use how successful a coach is in developing his players, and how successful he is in inducing colleges and pro teams to recruit and draft those players up to the next level when they evaluate the value of that coach to the institution. The coach's employer, who obviously decides whether the coach will ever be fired or not, does NOT use wins and losses as the number one criteria at the high school and college levels. A possible exception to this would be a handful of college basketball and college football teams which are known to be the best teams in the land. This exception would be only a very small percentage of all college teams.

Of course, everyone other than the administrators of the schools uses wins and losses to evaluate the coach. But the smart coaches worry more about developing their players, especially their better players, and making sure those players get recruited or drafted to an impressive target school or team.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>If you go to Mike Bailey's site, the dominant thing on Mike Bailey's page is a description of all the players who went on to various successful college and pro careers after he coached them. How many wins he got is shown, but is in no way highlighted on the page. Just as Bailey's camp draws business more by advertising player success stories than by advertising Bailey's win-loss record, high schools and colleges draw talented recruits by emphasizing their player success stories first; the winning percentage is not as important as these success stories. But for the record, Bailey was massively successful in terms of wins and losses.</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>There is no logical correlation between the marketing for a basketball camp and what HS coaches are judge upon for keeping their jobs. That is marketing to attract the attention of parents who have several choices of camps to send their children to.</div>

Just as Bailey's camp draws business more by advertising player success stories than by advertising Bailey's win-loss record, high schools and colleges draw talented recruits by emphasizing their player success stories first; the winning percentage is not as important as these success stories except in a very small percentage of cases.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Lets look at this from another angle. Here are the description of some well known college coaches that are in the basketball hall of fame. Note the lack of description of who they coached that went onto NBA stardom.</div>

See the above explanation. I agree that the general public does not care very much about who a coach has helped promote upward. As I explained, my point was that the employers of the coaches care about that even more than they care about winning and losing. Because if a school has a coach who can not develop players and make them attractive to recruiters and teams, because he assigns alot of players to the wrong positon for example, the school is going to have big problems recruiting new quality student-athletes to come to their school. Because the student athletes themselves and their parents are more concerned about where they will be able to go after they leave the high school or the college than they are about the win-loss record. So the student athletes and their parents have to see success stories to be induced to choose the particular school in question.

Even though there was context, I should have made that clear at the time.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tremaine @ Mar 24 2008, 12:23 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>High school and college coaches are judged first and foremost by how successful they are in getting their players to the next level, in both the athletic and institutional senses.

Your bolded statement is completely incorrect. College coaches especially are first judged by their wins, losses and NCAA tournament performance.</div>

Ok, there is confusion because I didn't specify something. The lead-in to that was me arguing that high school and college coaches would be fired if they were caught assigning players to the wrong position enough times. so when I was describing how college coaches are judged, it was still in that context: the context of how their employer would judge them, and whether they would be in any danger of being fired. So, to be more clear than I was, let me restate what I meant exactly:

<span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%">The school boards, the high school administrators, and the college administrators, as evaluation criteria #1, use how successful a coach is in developing his players, and how successful he is in inducing colleges and pro teams to recruit and draft those players up to the next level when they evaluate the value of that coach to the institution.</span> The coach's employer, who obviously decides whether the coach will ever be fired or not, does NOT use wins and losses as the number one criteria at the high school and college levels. A possible exception to this would be a handful of college basketball and college football teams which are known to be the best teams in the land. This exception would be only a very small percentage of all college teams.

Of course, everyone other than the administrators of the schools uses wins and losses to evaluate the coach. But the smart coaches worry more about developing their players, especially their better players, and making sure those players get recruited or drafted to an impressive target school or team.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>If you go to Mike Bailey's site, the dominant thing on Mike Bailey's page is a description of all the players who went on to various successful college and pro careers after he coached them. How many wins he got is shown, but is in no way highlighted on the page. Just as Bailey's camp draws business more by advertising player success stories than by advertising Bailey's win-loss record, high schools and colleges draw talented recruits by emphasizing their player success stories first; the winning percentage is not as important as these success stories. But for the record, Bailey was massively successful in terms of wins and losses.</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>There is no logical correlation between the marketing for a basketball camp and what HS coaches are judge upon for keeping their jobs. That is marketing to attract the attention of parents who have several choices of camps to send their children to.</div>

Just as Bailey's camp draws business more by advertising player success stories than by advertising Bailey's win-loss record, high schools and colleges draw talented recruits by emphasizing their player success stories first; the winning percentage is not as important as these success stories except in a very small percentage of cases.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Lets look at this from another angle. Here are the description of some well known college coaches that are in the basketball hall of fame. Note the lack of description of who they coached that went onto NBA stardom.</div>

See the above explanation. I agree that the general public does not care very much about who a coach has helped promote upward. <span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%">As I explained, my point was that the employers of the coaches care about that even more than they care about winning and losing.</span> Because if a school has a coach who can not develop players and make them attractive to recruiters and teams, because he assigns alot of players to the wrong positon for example, the school is going to have big problems recruiting new quality student-athletes to come to their school. Because the student athletes themselves and their parents are more concerned about where they will be able to go after they leave the high school or the college than they are about the win-loss record. So the student athletes and their parents have to see success stories to be induced to choose the particular school in question.

Even though there was context, I should have made that clear at the time.
</div>

You didn't need to add context to it because 1) I fully understood what you typed and 2) it is still flat out completely wrong. Schools care first, second and third about winning.

You continue to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the world that you are attempting to describe.

Additionally, you continue to talk about players being in the "wrong" position when I've already demonstrated that it is a completely ridiculous concept.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Answer_AI03 @ Mar 23 2008, 09:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Whats the point of arguing the position that AI played? is it because you think he would be a better pg for the nuggets? IMO no matter what the argument is, the bottom line is that AI is good enough to be good at any position and could do well at either. However, AI is at his best when he was a taller pg at his sided who plays good D and can Distribute. AI is my favorite all time player hands down, probably the 2nd or 3rd best scorer ever, and and is by far the toughest player to ever play the game, but i won't go out and say that he's the best decision maker, or floor general on the teams he plays for. Yes, he can be a pg and play it at an allstar level, but if he doesnt have to worry about running the offense, and only worries about scoring, steals, and leading his team with his heart, then he's going to have less turnovers, and probably still the same amount of assists, because he gets them on drive and dishes mostly. Chucky Atkins and Anthony Carter, are good backup guards that can get you some offense, but what the Nuggets really need is a true pass first, defensive pg. That will make this team a contender IMO.</div>

PG's don't sit around thinking about what to do like writers sit around thinking about what to write. They just do it, like in the Nike add. The "making correct decisions" idea is overrated, because there are many possible offensive styles and many possible point guard styles that can be successful. Successful point guards who have different sytles are by definition making different decisions. With AI, you don't have to worry much about his decision making, his style, whether he is a "floor general" or not, or anything else that is subjective. This is by far the most important thing you need to focus on:

(1) AI at PG for the Nuggets: All Benefits - All Costs = ???
(2) AI at SG for the Nuggets: All Benefits - All Costs = ???

You have to estimate 1 and 2, and figure out which is the bigger. I am already overloaded with evidence that Karl picked 2 when the correct answer is 1. I am going to go back in time and see if data on the internet permits me to figure out whether Larry Brown made the wrong decision in 1997.

But I mostly agree with you as usual but there is a big problem for the Nuggets: the Nuggets are tapped out financially. The only way they could get a dream PG would be to gut the front court with a big trade, and the overall result would probably be that the costs would exceed the benefits. What I am saying is that a coach must make the best decision he can make in the circumstances that exist in a point in time. If the coach has a tough situation to deal with, then the only solution may be to make a decsion that is slightly controversial and/or unusually creative.

NBA coaches who only try to be traditional, cautious and conservative lose out in the end.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tremaine @ Mar 23 2008, 11:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>What I am in the process of proving beyond a shadow of a doubt is that AI would have been of more value to his teams had he always played the PG position. Originally, I intended to just prove that the Nuggets would have been much better off if AI had been the PG starter, but then I realized the parallels between the Nuggets and the 76'ers are so obvious that I should see if I can prove it for the 76'ers historically as well.</div>

One of the many fundamental problems with how you are attempting to prove this is by linking Karl and Brown's decisions. You lose all credibility when you do that.

Another fundamental problem that ruins your credibility is this discussion about what his HS and college coaches did with AI. What AI did in HS and college have zero impact on what he does in the NBA. The NBA game is a different animal from both HS and college and the position anyone plays at that level means nothing in regards to NBA success or failure.

You are building volumes of circumstantial "evidence" that doesn't have any value and is all easily and quickly refuted. While you obviously believe it helps build your case, the reality is that it ruins your credibility.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>You didn't need to add context to it because 1) I fully understood what you typed</div>

No, you misunderstood, and it is partly my fault.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>2) it is still flat out completely wrong. Schools care first, second and third about winning.</div>

Wrong, schools are heavily damaged financially if the coach can not get players recruited up to the next level, so they can not care about winning first. This is a money based society, not a socialist society. In the Soviet Union, your opinion carried the day.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>You continue to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the world that you are attempting to describe.</div>

Ad hominem junk, but the first one in a while though.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Additionally, you continue to talk about players being in the "wrong" position when I've already demonstrated that it is a completely ridiculous concept</div>.

Read more carefully, I am not talking about anyone being in the wrong position except Allen Iverson on the Denver Nuggets, and maybe on the 76'ers if data availability permits. If you think you have demonstrated that players are never in the wrong position, I feel sorry for you.

 

AI is one of the greatest scorers in the history of the game.

MJ, Kobe, TMac and LBJ are all players that like AI are/were talented enough to play PG full time for their teams. When you have a transcendent player on your team, you put them in the position that is best for them and build the team around them.