The smaller, faster NBA.

Bill Simmons has a provocative column -- sans Isaiah-bashing, alas -- up today about changes in the NBA. I recommend the whole thing, but will excerpt some key portions to give a flavor and perhaps spur some further discussion:

After two depressing playoff seasons (2003 and 2004) sent casual fans scurrying away, the league made a conscious decision to change the overall mentality of the game itself. . . . Here's how they did it:

1. They sped up the game by giving teams only eight seconds to get the ball over midcourt and resetting the shot clock to 14 seconds in certain situations (after a foul, a kicked ball, an illegal defense, and so on).

2. They started whistling players for the shoving/grabbing/clutching/mugging crap that had been plaguing the league since the Riley/Daly days (I still think Riley should serve some prison time though).

3. They cracked down on flagrant fouls -- almost too much, actually -- allowing players to attack the rim without worrying about being splattered against the basket support.

4. They relaxed the illegal defense rules, allowing smaller teams to use soft zones and double-team scoring threats more easily (also allowing teams to play more scorers at the same time, since they couldn't be as much of a liability defensively).

5. Referees were ordered to allow moving picks as long as the player setting the pick didn't stick a knee out to trip the defender.

The last one was an unannounced, under-the-table rule change that Team Stern will deny in public to the death, much like Marcellus and Butch always will deny what happened in Maynard's basement with Zed and the Gimp. But it happened. I have more than 200 games on DVD, including just about every relevant game from 1984 to 2004, and players were never allowed to set moving picks before last season. They had to approach the dribbler, come to a full stop, and remain still as the dribbler made his move. Watch an old Jazz game some time -- remember how Stockton and Malone were considered the masters of the pick-and-roll? Well, the Mailman held those picks every time. He never moved. If he did, they whistled him.

With a guy like Boris Diaw setting moving screens for him, Nash suddenly became a lethal player -- and two-time MVP.
Now? You don't have to stop -- you can run over, pretend you're setting a high screen and basically careen into the defender. You can pretend to stop and continue moving your feet to sideswipe the defender as he's stepping around you (a Tyson Chandler specialty). You can even set a screen, make a 180-degree turn, chase the defender, then clip him with a moving pick a second time (a Yao Ming classic). All of these moves are legal in a wink-wink way. Boris Diaw raised it to another level -- instead of setting the screen on Nash's defender, sometimes he runs next to Nash, then quickly cuts toward the basket and "accidentally" picks off Nash's defender at full speed, almost like a wide receiver cutting across the field and picking off someone else's cornerback.

I know this all sounds mildly confusing, but the high screen has become the single most important play in basketball. Four teams execute it correctly (by bending the fake rules that aren't actually in place): Phoenix, Dallas, San Antonio and Detroit. Gee, what do those four teams have in common? And while we're here, if you ever wondered how Steve Nash played for eight years and never even made second-team All-NBA, then became a two-time MVP in the blink of an eye, it wasn't just because of his hair and his skin color, or because he found a coach that understood how to build a team around him. Nash took advantage of the aforementioned rules that made penetrating guards just as valuable as reliable low-post scorers (as we're seeing in this year's playoffs with Nash, Wade, Harris & Terry, Parker, Hinrich, Billups, even an old-timer like Sam Cassell).

Thanks to those rules, SmallBall has taken over the Western Conference playoffs this spring. Avery Johnson realized after one game that Dallas could only beat the Spurs by playing two point guards (Harris and Jason Terry) and exploiting San Antonio's shoddy perimeter defense; eventually, Gregg Popovich had no choice but to go small himself (even Big Shot Brob is riding the pine). The Suns-Clips series turned into a splendid SmallBall contest in Games 4 and 5, with the notable exception of the Chris Kaman parts (it's simply the wrong series for him, something Mike Dunleavy will probably realize around Game 12). Coincidentally -- or maybe, not coincidentally -- these have been two of the most entertaining and electric playoff series of the decade.

Which raises the million-dollar questions ...

Is this where we're headed? Are teams better off building for SmallBall over a conventional style? If you can only play five players, and you don't have an above-average center on your roster -- which most teams lack, by the way -- why not just play your best five guys regardless of position?

For instance, last summer's most important signing turned out to be Raja Bell, a much ridiculed move at the time. Remember? Twenty-five million for Raja Bell? What was Phoenix thinking? Actually, they were thinking that he's a great defender who makes 40 percent of his threes. Perfect for them. So they started pursuing him on midnight, July 1, then overpaid to make sure they got him. Ten months later, he looked like an absolute bargain even before he saved their season Tuesday night. Meanwhile, the Zydrunas Ilgauskas contract (four years, $55 million) would have been fine in 1998, but it's a roster killer in 2006. Much like in real life, you can't survive with slow big guys anymore.

Just look at this year's draft. As recently as three years ago, LaMarcus Aldridge would have been the first pick, because, after all, you always take a good big man first, right? Not this year. LSU's Ty Thomas (a Marion-like forward) will be the first pick, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Aldridge and Adam Morrison (another player who would have been more effective five years ago) will drop out of the top three, whereas Brandon Roy (Washington's outstanding shooting guard) and UConn's Marcus Williams (yes, the Laptop Guy, as well as the only elite point guard in the draft) will end up going higher than people think (and doing better than people think). In the old days, you needed a franchise player to realistically contend for a title. Now? You need two penetrators (including an alpha dog), three or four shooters and two guys who can rebound and protect the rim. That's it. Just ask Phoenix.

The new breed of NBA player: quick point guards like Chris Paul will become even more valuable in the new-and-improved NBA.
It's a different world. Suddenly, Chris Paul and Devin Harris have more value than Chris Bosh and Andrew Bogut. Suddenly, a max contract for Ben Wallace doesn't make quite as much sense. Suddenly, Kirk Hinrich's ceiling has been raised from "multiple All-Star" to "potential three-time MVP." Suddenly, expensive, shoot-first point guards like Baron Davis and Stephon Marbury are untradeable unless you want someone else's junk back. Suddenly, you would be committed to an institution if you drafted Rafael Araujo over Andre Iguodala, and you would throw a three-day long party if Jameer Nelson fell to you at No. 20. Suddenly, it doesn't seem smart to trade Ben Gordon, Tyson Chandler and two lottery picks to Minnesota for Kevin Garnett with about 98,000 miles on his odometer. Suddenly, a team like the 2006 Dallas Mavericks can win an NBA title.

Read the whole thing.