An introduction to the point

Charley Rosen has an off-season piece up today running through the requirements of the point guard position. In some ways its classic Rosen. For one thing, Charley goes through everything that might be asked of a point guard and classifies each a 'must'. Off the cuff I would guess that less than 10 players in the NBA meet Charley's criteria for an acceptible point. Of course, nothing but perfection is really acceptible to former coach Rosen, which is why his in-season articles are overwhelmingly critical of all but the very best teams and players. I'm not knocking him: unlike most other sports journalists he's actually interested in writing about the details of the game; which for this fan is much appreciated.

Rosen observes that on offense

Points must also have a firm conceptual grasp of the totality of the game at hand... the point guard must be aware of every matchup, the score, and the clocks. Plus, he must know how many timeouts are available to each team. Even the tendencies of the refs.

Obviously, since the No. 1 is responsible for safely carrying the ball into the attack zone, he must be a superior ball-handler and passer with a well developed off hand. What's more if he's playing with go-to scorer who's routinely two-timed, the No. 1 must also be an efficient outside shooter.

What other offensive skills must he command?

+ Utilizing screen/rolls to the max.
+ Being able to penetrate well enough to compel the defense to send help.
+ Being able to finish in heavy traffic, which usually means having some kind of high-arcing flip shot that can be released in a hurry while the converging bigs are still gathering to jump.
+ Making sure to reward a big with an appropriate pass whenever he runs the court.


On the flip side, however transcendent a No.1's talent level might be, his effectiveness (and playing time) will be limited if he's prone to making bad decisions. Such as:

- Making the wrong (or even right) pass at the wrong time to the wrong teammate.
- Forcing a fast break.
- Over-penetrating and getting caught in a spot where there's limited air space in which to either pass or shoot.
- Shooting too much or too quickly (in the shot clock) while under too much defensive pressure.
- Forcing passes into crowds.
- Being oblivious to opponents looking to ambush passing lanes.
- Not being aware of the shot clock, the matchups, and/or which opponents might be in foul trouble.
- Failing to properly position the ball so that the designated play can be undertaken with the appropriate timing and spacing.

Moreover, history proves that teams led by shoot-first point guards are more pretenders than contenders. No NBA team has ever won a championship when its No. 1 has led the league in scoring. And only three teams have won titles when their point guard was also their leading scorer — Isiah Thomas with Detroit in 1990, Magic Johnson with the Lakers in 1987, and Walt Frazier with New York in 1973.

Those who followed the Celtics last season will have little difficulty spotting the multiple places on this list where Marcus Banks was, and Delonte West is, lacking. Delonte, for all his strengths, can only deliver on about half of Rosen's 'musts'. Marcus Banks was/is a walking liability to make every bad decision here and then some. These are just both player's offensive liabilities.

Not surprisingly, Ainge has been rumored over the last year to be involved in almost every PG on the trade market (e.g. Andre Miller, Allen Iverson, etc.) and then picks up Telfair and Rondo on draft night. Both come advertised as something well short of what Rosen would call acceptible.

Good for him

In the summer of 2003 Mike James was a classic fringe NBA player. Someone who was too small to play defense on shooting guards but without any point guard skills whatsoever, James was a free agent the Miami Heat had little/no interest in resigning. Watching him as the #2 offensive option in Toronto this last season I routinely couldn't freaking believe we were talking about the same player.

After signing him at the end of the summer the Celtics exchanged James for Chucky Atkins two-thirds of the way through the 03-04 season (in the infamous Rasheed Wallace deal) and we looked worlds better on offense right away. You know you're a lousy PG when Chucky Atkins is a big immediate improvement. James had an early season game in the fall of '03(I can't remember the opponent now) when he hit the winning a shot at the buzzer and it seemed to ruin him for the year. He spent the rest of his time in Boston charging uncontrollably into the lane and too often turning the ball over in a crowd. That and standing around for the first 15 seconds of the shot clock doing nothing are my primary memories of the Mike James PG experiment. He, Pierce and Davis looked awful together; like a bad pick-up team of guys who all want to shot, don't care much for team defense, but are all good enough that everyone defers to them anyway. This was during the (to date) low point of Pierce's career and he looked miserable through lots of it.

Now James is on to his 7th team in 6 years-- and paired with Ricky again-- but this time will get $6M+ for his efforts. The guy has certainly worked hard enough on his career. Nice for him that his retirement just got a whole lot better.

At the same time I'm not sure how this TWolves team comes together. If Foye lives up to his billing they'll have three pretty identical players in their backcourt, but not one of them a point guard who can make his teammates better. McHale has spent the last several years trying to add talent through free agency, and getting nothing from the draft. It's left him with a roster of over-paid rotation players many of whom are on the downside of their careers. Will the soon-to-be-32-year old James be much different? I wouldn't count on it.

Best of the World Cup.

The Guardian has its best and worst of the World Cup, and a couple items are of note:

Best song

USA

'One Superpower, there's only one Superpower', to the tune of 'Guantanamera' - The Girl from Guantanamo Bay. And England's 'I'd rather be a cabbage than a Swede'.

Best prediction

Boston Globe

Pre-tournament guide, Boston Globe: 'ENGLAND: like the New York Mets. Massively, ridiculously overrated by their media, always involved in some sort of comic downfall, insane injuries, woeful management. A car crash waiting to happen, at which stage the local media go berserk.'

But for the best song, I'm still fond of "Steve Gerrard."

World cup speculation

A recurrent topic at work the last few weeks has been what the US World Cup team would look like if soccer were the #1 sport in the US. Simmons mentions this in passing during his 'Top 40' NBA column.

Some of my thoughts so far:

Strikers: Reggie Bush, Allen Iverson
Midfield: LeBron James, Michael Vick, Randy Moss
Defense: ARod, Amare Stoudemire, Ty Law
Goalie: Kevin Garnett



But then, I know a lot less about soccer than other people on this board

Simmons' Column

As an NBA junkie I've always enjoyed reading Bill Simmons' annual trade value column, and I love to laugh at the Celtics and Clippers that Simmons overrates. This year's highlights:

Chris Kaman (#39) over Devin Harris, Tayshaun Prince, and 50 other guys who didn't make the list?

Shaun Livingston (#27) over Kirilenko, Hinrich, Tony Parker, Michael Redd and many more? The Clippers can only hope that Livingston becomes the PG that Parker and Hinrich are now.

Paul Pierce (#18) over Shawn Marion? Marion got a bunch of MVP votes this year.

Monster feeding.

Seth Mnookin, author of the about-to-be-released Feeding The Monster, an account of the Red Sox' recent success, has a blog on which he has been posting some out-takes of his interviews with people like Nomar Garciaparra and Curt Schilling.

World Cup kiss

Simmons salutes the World Cup. Soccer? Not so much.

Da Bulls

I suppose it's time for me to gloat or cheer. That's what TS expects, I know it. But I've given all of you a hard time for drinking the Kool-Aid and seeing the bright side of even the worst Celtics deals, so I'm going to take my own advice and give you a neutral analysis of the Wallace acquisition and the state of the Bulls.

My take: Wallace is not at all what the Bulls need right now. We need a top-flight scorer in the worst way ... at crunch time, we rely on Ben Gordon and Andres Nocioni to score. 'nuff said. We also need some sort of presence in the post. Wallace provides us with none of that.

In fact, what big Ben gives the Bulls is more of what we already have. The Bulls were the best defensive team in the NBA last season, and picked up its top defender. At a certain point, there begins to be diminishing marginal returns to more defense.

In fact, the NBA is evolving away from players like Ben Wallace. A few years ago, the Pistons were the right model to use to build a team. Tough, bruising interior defense won championships. But the rules changes have made the game more scorer-friendly, more guard-friendly, and more slash-to-the-basket friendly. In the playoffs, big Ben was often on the sidelines and wasn't a dominating force. In fact his weak shooting made him a liability at times.

And, of course, we overpaid for him. He's not worth $15+ million a season. And he's already 31, so he'll be 35 in the last year of his deal. Not good.

The bottom line is that in a vacuum, the Wallace deal is not the right move for the Bulls to make. He's not what we need, he's too expensive, and he's aging. The "smart" move would have been to sign Pryzbilla and wait for the right trade.

But I like this move. A lot. Why? A few reasons:

1) We didn't have a better alternative. Our cap room would have been worth a lot less next season, because we will have players to re-sign and couldn't keep our cap room open forever. If we didn't get Wallace, we would have had to sign Pryzbilla or Mohammed and hope we could use the rest of our cap room to work out a trade. Wallace is by far the best player available--there isn't a better player on the FA market, and it is increasingly clear that no one like Garnett, Jermaine O'Neal, or Marion is available via trade. Wallace is the best we could get with that cap room.

2) We got an impact player. Yes, the game has changed. But there's no doubt that Wallace is a very good basketball player, no matter how you slice it. His PER was 17.54 last season, his "fair salary" rating was $14.26 million, and he was worth 32 win shares. He's won the Defensive Player of the Year award four of the last five seasons. He's been to the All-Star Game each of the last four years. Getting an impact player through the draft is a gamble, and getting one in trade usually means giving up a lot in return. We added one for "free." Maybe worth overpaying for.

3) Because he's a big, we didn't overpay as badly as it seems. Big players often command a premium. Nene just signed a six-year, $60 million deal. The Bulls signed Tyson Chandler to a six-year, $63 million deal just a season ago. Since this is only a four-year deal, the hope is that he'll have some value in seasons three and four (with a soon-to-expire contract) if things don't work out as planned.

4) We cripple a division rival at the same time. It's hard to believe that the Pistons will be able to compete for the East crown without Wallace, given that they already were pretty thin. On pure Win Shares alone, going from Wallace to Mohammed should mean six fewer wins.

5) Wallace has great intangibles. The Bulls are all about intangibles nowadays. They only will draft hard workers, gym rats, etc. They were willing to sit Tim Thomas and lose him for nothing rather than have a lazy player ruin their team persona and chemistry. By all accounts Ben Wallace fits right into the Bulls' mold. Plus his veteran leadership and character should help the Bulls develop. As icing on the cake, he should help us get better calls from the officials. (We can only hope.)

So given the context, I think this was a good move overall. The rumor is that Paxson wanted to get Pryzbilla but Reinsdorf pushed him to go all-in for Wallace. I like the move and I think it was the best alternative we had, given that players like Garnett weren't available. So what does this mean for the Bulls? A few thoughts:

1) Wallace makes Chandler expandable. Now the Bulls have to find a buyer for Chandler. Yes, his value has never been lower, but we're going to need some money to re-sign our young guys and it's unlikely that we would ever play two no-offense players like Chandler and Wallace together. Hopefully the Bulls end up getting more than P.J. Brown and J.R. Smith, but I'd take that deal if nothing else materialized.

2) We're keeping Tyrus Thomas. There was a lot of speculation that the Bulls took Thomas in order to package him to the T-Wolves for Garnett. He certainly seemed redundant on a team that already had Chandler, Nocioni, and Deng competing for minutes at the 3 and 4. Now that we have no cap space, and with Chandler gone, it looks more likely that we'll keep Thomas. That makes me happy, because I think he will be by far the best player in the draft long-term. He can handle the ball like a guard, he's a tough and brutal defender, he's extremely athletic, and he plays like a seven-footer.

3) We won't make a trade for another impact player. Despite ridiculous reports to the contrary, the Wallace signing makes a Garnett trade far less likely. Now that the Bulls are capped out, we have to match salaries with the T-Wolves in any trade. I hope the Bulls make a deal for a post player or a big guard, and I expect they will, but it will more likely be someone like P.J. Brown than Kevin Garnett.

All in all, the Bulls' future still looks as bright as it did before draft night. With two lottery picks and Ben Wallace joining a playoff team that is young and still developing, this team could make noise in the East next season. Talk of contending for the East crown is too optimistic, in my opinion, but this season will be a disappointment unless the Bulls have home court in the first round and make it into the second round.

Wallace the Bull.

Hey r.m. -- look out for the ceiling.

eta: OK, so only an hour+ late....

And in other free agent news

I'm slow to comment on it here, but the big story before Ben Wallace jumping ship was Peja agreeing to a deal with the Hornets.

1) Boy, did the Artest implosion go badly for Bird. They waste two years on the guy and then trade him for a four-month Peja rental that gets them nowhere in the playoffs. By all accounts the Pacers had tuned out Carlisle well before the end of the season, Bird is pissed at half the team, and now he can't even work a sign-and-trade to get something from Stojakovic jumping ship. Ouch, babe.

2) Bird and Walsh's decision to only negotiate with West Conference teams-- on the assumption the Pacers would be a power in the playoffs and so would Artest's new 'mates-- sure looks like a poor one now. Think they'd rather go with that Ricky Davis/Marcus Banks/picks deal that was floating around?

3) Funny how having a great PG on your team makes you a whole lot more attractive to certain NBA free agents. How big a pull for Peja do you think was the upgrade from Anthony Johnson to Chris Paul? With Cedric Simmons, Hilton Armstrong, and now Peja NO/OK is becoming an interesting team.

GM posturing: signs and symptoms

In almost every interview Ainge gave before the NBA draft he talked about how much he believed in players who could shoot the ball. Whatever their other flaws, Ainge explained, players who could shot always put pressure on the defense, always contributed something on the court. How, you might ask, since only one player can shot per possession? Sush! True sports journalists just print what their sources tell them: thinking for yourself is not allowed. You wanna get fired like David Aldridge?

For weeks we got to hear speculation about the Celtics trading down to take J.J.Redick, or lusting after Adam Morrison. What does Ainge do on draft day? He takes two PGs with tremendous potential whose overwhelming liability is supposed to be their poor shooting. Hmmm, funny how that worked out.

Don't ask me why all this comes to mind as I read in today's Herald:

The Celtics are still in the hunt for Allen Iverson, but after taking some steps forward with their moves on draft day, they have grown a bit wary of giving too much up for the 76ers star.

According to league sources, the Celts are willing to let Philadelphia complete its check of the marketplace before making a final offer. And with the 76ers possibly needing to wait until the July 12 start of the free agent signing period (in case one of the returning players must be part of a sign-and-trade) to facilitate a multiteam deal, there appears to be some time to work things out.

The Celtics also are said to have varying degrees of interest in New Jersey’s Richard Jefferson, Seattle’s Rashard Lewis, Indiana’s Jermaine O’Neal and Phoenix’ Shawn Marion. But sources weren’t so sure the Nets would part with Jefferson, and O’Neal is said to be on the lower end of the Celts’ wish list.

The key has become how much the C’s must surrender to get a veteran who fits.

Director of basketball operations Danny Ainge said Wednesday that his team’s biggest need is experience, and while he acknowledged yesterday that the C’s are now in better position to withstand a 2- or 3-for-1 trade, he doesn’t want to overspend unless he’s convinced the impact warrants it.

Hah hah ha ha ha ha...

"O’Neal is said to be on the lower end of the Celts’ wish list"

...Hah hah ha ha... Oh, stop it, you're killing me...

What does cap space get you, anyway?

Multiple news outlets report the Bulls just signed Big Ben Wallace to a 4-year, $52M deal.

If they keep Tyson Chandler (which is doubtful) the Bulls might just have the best rebounding, defensive frontcourt in the league. All they'd need is to bring in Pat Riley and go back in time to the mid-90s and they'd be set.

It's probably safe to assume Chandler is gone before the end of the summer.

Is it too late for the Pistons to retract the trade dumping Darko on the Magic? The Pistons can suddenly afford to resign him now.

Spotted this morning.

Red Dodge station wagon with a Patriots license plate frame around Virginia plates reading: BRUSCHI.

Iverson

Now to the other big Celtics story

The published and unpublished reports are that the 76ers are determined to move AI before the start of the season. Ainge had conversations before the draft that had to involved moving Raef or Wally (the two big contracts) plus various young players and/or picks.

I'll admit to completely conflicting sentiments about this.

On one hand, from a pure talent/productivity standpoint, trading away Wally/Ratliff and getting back Iverson (if those are the only substantial pieces to this) is an absolute no-brainer. I love Iverson's insane competitiveness and drive. If only he'd gone into an individual sport, instead of one with all those annoying team-mates and coaches, he'd no doubt be a world champion. He's clearly one of the top 20 players in the game, and would be deadly next to Pierce in a half-court setting. Anyone who can average 33 points and 8 assists is doing something right.

At the same time Iverson insists on having the ball during something like 70% of his team's total time of possession and 100% of crunch time. He has absolutely failed to get along with every other good/great player he's ever been paired with. He has consistently been an absolute coach-killer. He refuses to practice. There's no evidence that he makes anyone on the court better. I could go on. The only time Philly went to the Finals was a year (2001) that the Eastern Conference was awful and they were succesfully able to surround AI with role players that played manical defense, rebounded, and got out of his way on offense. That doesn't describe the current Celtics roster. Leaving aside his talent AI's rap sheet reads even worse than the "bad Pierce" that so many people were complaining about ~18 months ago.

I just don't see how he and Pierce do more than tolerate each other on the court. This trade has as much a chance of ending up like a Stephon Marbury/Steve Francis pairing as a playoff berth. Great for a rotisserie league, lousy in real life. Before this rumor broke I would have said that the Celtics biggest needs were: interior defense, perimeter defense, post scoring, and better PG play. Despite the fact that this describes something like 75% of the game, Iverson gets you none of them.

This exact dynamic, though, seems to be depressing his value around the league. Iverson is a top 50 all-time NBA player and the only other teams interested are Memphis, Golden State, Denver and Atlanta. Are you kidding me? Even with all I said above, if you can get Iverson for .50 cents on the dollar and give the Celtics a good chance to catapult into a 50 win team, I'm not sure you can turn that down.

Here's the thing, though: You can't overpay for someone. If only Memphis, Golden State, Denver and Atlanta are interested and we can far and away make a better offer than all of those teams with the possible exception of Atlanta, who has no No. 1 pick next year because it's already promised to Phoenix. Would Atlanta be dumb enough to trade Marvin Williams AND Josh Smith to Philly for a 31 year old guy with some miles on him? I don't think so.

I have to say, it strikes me as a Dan Duquette/Lou Gorman type move to overpay now for AI. From what little I saw I thought AI slipped noticeably on the defensive end last season and the new rules didn't have as big of an impact on his game as they did for Arenas, Kobe and others. In addition, smaller players who take a ton of contact just don't last that long in this league. Look at guys like Tiny Archibald, Isiah, Mo Cheeks, Kevin Johnson and others: they all slowed down noticeably when they hit 31-32. The mitigating factor is that Iverson is such a unique player and athlete, maybe he's just indestructable, but he does not take care of his body and there have always been rumors dogging him that he goes out every night, gets 2-3 hours of sleep, refuses to care about nutrition or exercise, etc etc. He's averaged something like 65 games a year for the last 7, so he's just not that durable. Finally, I suspect he would walk all over Doc.

And then there's this: The market for AI will be much more reasonable in December and January when Philly sucks and he starts pushing to leave... it never, ever makes sense to trade for someone who's on the block in July. Teams always get more desperate near the start of trading camp or during the season. I would offer Rondo, Green, Ratliff and a lottery protected No. 1. And that would be it. If Philly doesn't take it that's fine, you walk away happy. But I really don't think Philly can do better than that. Giving up Green and Jefferson and Rondo/Telfair seems absolutely insane. It's a Lou Gorman move.

The problem with it is there's no free agent that will help us this year, with AI we would be over the cap next year, and we would have used all our trading chips. So there would be no real way to get a third impact guy, with no one left on the roster with the potential to become one.

If Iverson really does want to come here, we're better off having him be pissed that a trade didn't happen, then sabotaging his Philly situation a la Vince Carter. If you're AI, Boston is the ideal place for you - another top-15 player as wingman, good young players willing to play in your shadow, close to home. My vote: If they don't accept Rondo-Green-Ratliff-No. 1, wait until the season starts and then make another run.

Post-draft thoughts (3 of 3)

Finally, another B. sent along this email about Telfair. It's second-hand to me, third-hand to all of you.

Coaching Varsity Basketball in New York State does not qualify me as a super NBA scout, but I do have a pretty good knowledge of basketball. I just wanted to share with you a few incidents regarding Sebastian Telfair that most people probably have never heard about. Every year the New York City champions travel to Upstate New York and play for the Federation title at the Glens Falls Civic Center. Three years in a row Sebastian Telfair led his team to New York City Public School titles. This is something that has never happened before and likely never will again. He also won a Federation title as a junior and then lost as a senior in his last high school game vs Mount Vernon, a team featuring five future division one players.

Three different occurances at the Federation Tourney sum up what type of kid Sebastian Telfair is and how different he is from 99% of the McDonald's All american types we see nowadays.

A) In his Junior year Telfair led his team to the Federation title and was awarded the MVP trophy during the ceremonies. This is the biggest honor you can receive in New York basketball other than the Mr. Basketball award (Which he won his senior year). However in the championship game the hero in overtime had been his teammate Antonio Pena. After Telfair was handed the MVP trophy, he walked over to Pena, gave him a hug, and then presented him with the MVP trophy, which to this day Pena still has. The place erupted in applause.

B) As a Senior Telfair was absolutely mobbed with young autograph seekers(two of them my children) on the floor of the Civic Center after a semifinal win. I would estimate there were about 50 young kids all hoping for an autograph. It was after 9PM and these were all young kids needing to get home soon. MSG network approaches Telfair just as he had begun to sign autographs. They request he begin a interview which would be seen on the network that night. Now the scene was what interested me. You had a 17 year old being asked to go on TV and have himself shown to a huge audience, while he pondered turning away or delaying signing for 50 kids. Telfair took the gentleman from MSG aside and told him that he would love to do the interview, but ONLY after every child who wanted to get an autograph had received one. He then proceeded for a good twenty minutes to sign every single autograph. And I don’t mean just a quick signature. This kid looks the children in the eye, asks them how old they are, if they are doing well in school, do they listen to their parents, who is their favorite player, etc? I was stunned. NO ONE does this at age 17, NO ONE.

C) In his final game ever in High school Mount Vernon High school badly outplays Lincoln and Telfair loses his chance at repeating as Federation Champions. The next day he will fly to the McDonalds All american game. He already seems a lock to go to the NBA draft and is close to signing a million dollar sneaker contract. He already has won three straight city titles, was named NY state Mr. Basketball, set the Alltime New York state scoring record and is on the cover of Sports Illustrated. I would think that most kids in this situation would be disapointed they lost, but more than ready to move on to all these other great things.

Not Telfair. He was absolutely inconsolable after the game. Devastated, in tears he clearly could not stand the fact that his team had lost. All he cared about was winning. People knock kids who cry after losing. I remember Bird after losing to Magic in the 79 finals sobbing into a towel. I love kids who cry after a loss, because it tells you where their priorities lie. With Telfair, Bird and probably the Morrison kid everyone is laughing at. At least with these kids you know winning is number one on their list.

If Sebastian Telfair does not make it big in the NBA, It will not be due to a lack of heart, smarts, class, court vision or love for the game. I am quite sure if he had gone to Louisville for two years and was in this draft, there is a great chance he would have been picked by Toronto at number one, they badly want a point guard. At the absolute worst he would have been a top five pick.

I have to laugh when people like Jay Bilas and Dick Vitale are saying Marcus Williams or Randy Foye are better. I would bet anything, if Sebastian was leading either UCONN or Villanova this past year, they wouldn't have been teams that missed the final four. And I seriously doubt either Marcus Williams or Randy Foye would have won three straight New York city titles like Telfair did. He is a winner like no one else who has ever come out of New York City. He led them to three straight city titles when numerous alltime greats have failed to do so. Alcindor, Hawkins, Erving, Anderson, Mullin, Mashburn, etc, have all tried, and no one ever did it.

This is the first pure point guard in Boston since Sherman Douglass. But he is much more talented than Sherman ever was.

I have been watching New York City point guards for the past 25 years. Kenny Smith, Kenny Anderson, Derrick Phelps, Rod Strickland, King Rice, Adrian Autry, Pearl Washington and several others. Not one of these kids was close to Telfair as far a pure god given court vision and awareness. Not even close.

This is a case of a kid who was forced financially to come out early. He then goes to the WORST team he could have possibly gone to and far away from home no less. He is just 18 years old and still shows several early flashes for a young kid with no one to dish to. His role models/go to guys on that team are Zach Randolph and Darius Miles?

If he had gone to college for two years, which he couldn’t afford to do financially, it would be obvious how good he is. I don’t think anyone in Boston has any idea what is about to happen. Basketball is about to be fun again. Get ready for an array of thread the needle passes, penetration and winning plays. An absolute non stop motor from end to end. The losing ends now. He is special. Ask Lebron James what he thinks of this kid. Ask Shawn Livingston or Dwight Howard. They all know how good he is. It is just a matter of this year or next, it is about to happen. How the Celtics finally had something good happen is beyond my comprehension. But NBA ticket will now have to be purchased in my household. The Celtics are about to be back in a big (or 5' 11") way and I actually want to see it.

Post-draft thoughts (2 of 3)

H. played division 1 college ball and has remained distantly involved in professional hoops (in ways we won't get into) since then. It's an indication of the kind of perverse basketball fan that he is that he watched most of the Portland Trailblazers games last year. The following is taken from an exchange we had post-draft:

The conventional knock on Telfair is that he regressed his second year and was a bad PG on a bad team, but this is crap.

The Blazers had three PGs competing for minutes last year: Telfair, Blake and Jack. Despite being 5 and 2 years younger then both of them, Telfair won the starting job convincingly coming out of training camp. He played very well for the first 6 weeks of the season before going down with a wrist injury that had him out until January. Blake took over the starting job when Telfair went down, during which the Blazers stunk, and the team started juggling Blake and Jack in hopes one of them would take over. Once Telfair came back it took him about 6 weeks to get his groove back, during which the team had a dysfunctional three-PG rotation going.

Here’s the thing, though: Telfair beat out Blake again, and they started playing Blake at SG to make room for Telfair at the point with Jack backing him up. Remember, the team was a basket case by this point. None of his team-mates were playing hard, none of them were doing the things away from the ball that a PG needs for the offense to work. The team was a complete mess. I watched almost every Blazers game after the All Star Break and Telfair was one of the only guys who played like he gave a damn. And I think this is important: the TV announcers loved Bassy. Every single game they made a point of talking about how hard he practiced, how much work he put in on his own time. The people around the team seemed to genuinely love the kid. On a garbage team where everyone had punched the time clock I think this sort of thing says a lot about him.

I really believe that a true PG, which Telfair is, has no chance on a team with young players who have no chemistry or quality NBA talent. This kid could thrive in an offensive system that actually has roles and a couple of veteran players. Do you realize that his running mate in the backcourt last year the majority of the time was Steve Frickin Blake and Juan Dixon? No PG is going to look very good or put up numbers when Blake or Dixon is your SG. The defense could all leave the court to get a beer and Dixon still wouldn’t be able to get open. I think Telfair will do well over the next couple of years. Just giving him Paul Pierce to pass to off dribble penetration will make him worlds better.

You have to give kids this young time to mature on and off the court before dumping them off to the next team. I think Portland just made a mistake. But keep in mind that both Telfair and Khryapa were John Nash's picks and once he was fired Pritchard finally got rid of Telfair (who he reportedly never liked) and Khryapa (who was lower profile but likely a similar scenario). That stupid movie Telfair made probably didn't help, since Portland is such a marketing disaster right now. When McMillan came in last season, the Blazers wasted a bunch of time seeing if they could make Telfair into Delonte West: bring it up, pass it off to the wing or post, and go stand around and set up for the open jumper. Not his game at all, and suddenly Telfair looked like a pretty ordinary PG, with occasional flashes on the fast break. Telfair is more a pick-and-roll, penetrating PG.

Telfair improved his three-ball shooting from 24% as a rookie straight out of HS to a very respectable/solid 35% in his second year. He has excellent form and rotation while his shot selection/getting used to the speed of the game figures to continue to improve and has been given accolades for his work ethic on a team that it would have been easy to quit on. I wouldn't say he will be a perennial All-Star or anything but he might be the best PG the Celtics have had in 20 years (yeah, i know this isn't saying much).

Post-draft thoughts (1 of 3)

It was a particularly busy week at work, with lots of time on the road sans internet connections. Consider this some belated thoughts from Wednesday night.

Telfair of course is the big story.

It’s difficult to evaluate Telfair in context, because there’s very little precedent for his career. To my memory he is one of only three point guards to have gone straight from high school to the pros. The other two were Shaun Livingston and BronBron. LeBron lasted less than one season playing the point in Cleveland. As he bulked up they moved him first to SG and now SF. The Clippers traded for Cassel so they wouldn’t need to rush Livingston into starting, and he played inconsistently but well in ~25 min/g this last season. This is in line with Bassy, who averaged ~20 min/g his rookie year and ~25 this last season.

The conventional wisdom is that PG is the hardest position to learn to play at the pro level. Most PGs spend 1-2 years in college and then take another couple of years to adjust to the NBA game. Consequently almost every NBA PG who amounted to anything didn’t come into the league until they were a couple years older than Telfair is now (Kidd:22, Stockton:23, Tim Hardaway:23, etc.). I’ve spent some time digging and I can find very few examples of people who were above-average NBA point guards in their early 20s. Magic came into the league at 21, but played a lot of SG his rookie year next to Norm Nixon (21st NBA all-time assists leader). Mike Bibby came in at 20 (Telfair’s age now) and averaged 30 mpg for an 8-42 Grizzlies team. The only other comp I could find was Isiah, who joined the Pistons at 21 and averaged 33 mpg and 8 apg his rookie season. Any discussion of Telfair should start with acknowledging that the kid just has an incredible amount of talent to have been holding his own as an NBA PG at ages 19 and 20. You have to be doing something well if the only players who played better than you in the pros at about the same age were Magic, Bibby and Isiah.

Talent in this case means that Telfair has all the PG traits that are very difficult to teach: court vision, passing ability, an instinctive understanding of how to create high-percentage shots for teammates in the half court and in transition. These are all mental/psychological things that other PGs with tons of physical ability (I’m looking at you, Marcus Banks) never developed.

I mention Banks only because there’s some talk in the Boston sports media about whether Telfair is going to be another PG experiment like Banks, bound for the same disappointment. If people want to compare the two let’s start by observing that at the same stage of their careers Marcus Banks was finishing up his second season at Dixie State Junior College without any scholarship offers from the major conferences. I’m not knocking Banks, but on one hand you have someone who at age 20 was finishing his second season in the pros and another who ended up attending a school in the Mountain West Conference after avg. 16/4 in JC.

There have really been two big knocks on Telfair’s game:

The first is his outside shooting ability, which is absolutely essential for a slashing PG to keep NBA defenders honest. The thing is that after athletic conditioning this is one of the easier things for a dedicated player to improve once they make the pros. Tony Parker is only one example of many PGs would came into the league with a mediocre/bad FG%. Jason Kidd and Tiny Archibald are two others. With Telfair, there’s some reason to believe that his shooting has already gotten better. His eFG% improved from .413 to .444 from his rookie season to last, partly because his 3PFG% improved from .246 to .352. In general, Telfair doesn’t need to lead the league in efficiency. He only needs to get good enough that defenders can’t sag off of him on the perimeter. That, combined with his first step and driving ability and you have someone who will be unguardable in single coverage by all but the most elite perimeter defenders. Even if he never makes this leap, then he may very well have a career path like Maurice Cheeks, Sherman Douglas, Pooh Richardson and other starting PGs who had long, successful if unexceptional careers.

The second real knock on Telfair is his size. At 5’11”— 6’ if you’re feeling really generous— Telfair is going to be a strictly average NBA defender at best. And even being average is going to take a lot of work and competitiveness on his part. Taller PGs like Chauncey Billups will post him up every chance they get. There’s not a lot he or the team can do about this other than to set up a defensive scheme that doesn’t call for him to be a the guy to stop the other team’s first option.

Let’s define a ‘true’ PG as someone who can break down perimeter defense with dribble penetration, is willing and able to make accurate passes to team-mates, and has enough BBIQ to move the ball to generate a high-percentage shot somewhere on the court. Let’s say if you can do those three key things, you’re a true PG. Everyone else— no matter how well they play defense, set picks, hit three pointers, etc.— are shooting guards playing out of position. I’m also ruling out players like Stephon Marbury, who could do all the above but choose not to in favor of scoring 30ppg.

Here’s the thing: there has always been a limited supply of talented true PGs in the NBA. Since expansion I’d guestimate that there have only been about half as many true PGs to go around as there are teams that want/need them. This has caused lots of teams like the Celtics to take small shooting guards with some other skill set (e.g. Mike James, Milt Palacio, Dana Barros, David Wesley, Delonte West) and play them at the point. Rick Pitino and Jim O’Brien famously declared the point an irrelevant position and manned it with the best defending, three-point shooting guards they could find for cheap.

There’s no question the Celtics now have a 20-year old, gifted, true PG prospect. At worst, I suspect that Telfair will be a 10-year decent NBA starter (think TJ Ford pre-injury or Kirk Hinrich) starting at the latest in 2-3 years. If he were going to bust out for lack of skill it would have happened already. At best Telfair has the talent to become a several-time All Star. In the most barren NBA draft in years, is that good return on the 7th pick? Sure. The players I’ve mentioned above that are rough comps for Telfair’s career so far all went top 3. This doesn’t mean that Bassy is going to have a career close to theirs. Just that if you want a chance at that kind of lottery ticket, you don’t normally get the chance as late as the 7th pick in the draft.

Italia.

Not that Ukraine is any great shakes, but Italy is going to the semi-finals and so far the United States are the only side to record a goal against them.

"This is not a team."

Simon Kuper has the best piece I've seen on what's been happening with Brazil, and in particular with Ronaldinho:

This is not the football [Brazil coach Carlos Alberto] Parreira wants to see. But he doesn't aspire to "joga bonito" either. Instead he wants Brazil to pass the ball around for long stretches. "When we put the ball on the ground, we have a technical advantage that is superior to any opponent," he says. But to pass, you need players willing to run into space to receive the ball. Ronaldinho ran in 2002, when he was the team's junior member. This year only Robinho - currently injured - has budged much.

Ronaldinho has grown so frustrated that against Ghana on Tuesday he actually stopped smiling. Several times after passing into nothingness, he turned to the intended recipient (usually Adriano) and demonstrated with his hands how the player should have run: hook sideways, then sprint deep. Once, after crossing a ball that Adriano could have headed in had he but moved, Ronaldinho made an even simpler gesture: he nodded an imitation header. Presumably Adriano understood. Ronaldinho excels at Barcelona where Samuel Eto'o and Ludovic Giuly chase his passes, but with Brazil he is helpless.

Ladies and gentlemen: Coco Crisp!