Points in the Paint 4.11.08: Super late Hall of Fame Edition
Posted by Rob Bonnette on 04.11.2008
Most Improved Player plus HOF!
Hey there everyone, I'msuper late again. Blame the computer and the tax man, not me! In this edition we're talking Hall of Fame and Most Improved Player!
Congrats to the Hall of Famers!
A new Hall of Fame class was announced this week; the NBA notables are Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Adrian Dantley. Ewing and Hakeen both had stellar careers at the college and pro levels, going to combined six NCAA Final Fours and three NBA Finals (four if you count the Knicks trip in 1999 that Ewing missed due to injury). They were among the best centers in the league for most of their careers, and both have to be considered among the top dozen or so centers in NBA history. It was their first time on the ballot, and they both deserved to get in immediately. Dantley taking this long to get in as an outrage; he should have as much of a no brainer as Ewing and Hakeem, yet it took him eight tries to finally get voted in. That is an absolute joke; Dantley had a stellar career at both levels and could have gotten in on the strength of either his college or pro career, yet he was shut out for this long. Here's how good Dantley was:
College numbers: 25.8 points on 56 percent shooting and 9.8 rebounds per game in three seasons. Averaged 30.4 points and 10.2 rebounds in his second year at Notre Dame.
Pro numbers: career averages of 24.3 points and 5.7 rebounds over 15 seasons, along 21.3 points and 5.4 rebounds in six postseason appearances. Averaged over 25 points per game in seven different seasons, and 30 points per game four different times. Shot over 50 percent from the floor in 12 of his 15 seasons, and made the All-Star team six times. Finished in the top three in scoring average five different times, and won the scoring title twice.
Now how on earth can you exclude someone with those credentials from the Hall of Fame? Politics, maybe? That's got to be it, because there is no legitimate reason to have disqualified him. Yes, he never won a ring, but neither did a lot of other people. So what. Now I'm sure that the voters who didn't want to pick him until now will have some stupid justification…whatever. At least they got it right, finally. Congrats, AD! It's well overdue.
Most Improved Player Rundown!
Like every other NBA award, there are different schools of thought on this one. With Most Improved Player we have the the guys who put up better numbers than the year before, and therefore must have improved their game, versus the guys who either displayed some abilities that they previously did not have or took a major leap in stature as a player. As always, I both understand and don't like both arguments. Improving one's numbers could simply be a matter of getting more shots or minutes, which could just as easily happen because the guy in front of you got hurt as it could because you actually got better. It could alos be the result of being better utilized by the coach, which may have nothing to do with you. Some coaches, like every other kind of boss, just don't see how to use people right and limit their roles while other coaches get it and are able to figure out ways to use every skill a player has. So to me, simply picking the guy with the biggest jump in stats, namely scoring, doesn't wash. The other way has its problems as well, namely access. We don't get to watch these in practice, so we don't see all the things they might display in practice that they're held back from doing during games. If a guy displays ballhandling skills that we didn't see last season, does that mean he picked them up over the offseason or that his coach was having other guys do the ballhandling so he could focus on being a finisher? We don't really know. On the other hand, if we see a guy do things this season that he tried unsuccessfully to do last season, then we do have some concrete evidence of real improvement, not just superficial stuff. OK, enough about that. So who's in the running and who do I think will win? Let's find out.
Andrew Bynum: OK, he's not going to win it. Any chance he had went away when he got hurt. Before then, I thought he was a shoo-in. The guy went from a tentative, still-learning part time player to a bona fide double double man at the center position. Before the season, we all thought Mitch Kupchak was stupid to not want to include him in any trades and I can guarantee you that no one thinks that now. But only playing in 35 games kills hs chances.
Hedo Turkoglu: This is the name I've heard thrown around more than any other. He's up in pretty much every category, and is on a winning team. He was a sixth man/rotation guy last season, and now is a full time starter and borderline All-Star. There was a lot of talk that he should have made the All-Star team this season, and this is an easy way to make up for it. Do I think he really got that much better? Not really. He showed flashes of being able to do this back when he was in Sacraemento, but was stuck behind Peja Stojakovic on the depth chart. Then in Orlando, he fell victim to the coaching awesomeness of Brian Hill, and wasn't given a real consistent role or opportunity to show all his skills. Now he's getting it. Now I won't be mad if wins it, like I was last year when they completely screwed over Deron Williams to give it to Monta Ellis, but I really don't think he improved that much. The guy has always been good, he's just getting a chance to show it more.
Rajon Rondo: He was thrown into a big role when most were skeptical about his ability to handle it, and proved the doubters wrong. His numbers pretty much doubled in the process, and he's on the best team in the league, so he will get some consdieration. The downside I see here is that like with coach Doc Rivers everything good that happens in Boston is being attributed to KG which will hurt him.
Rafer Alston: Last season he was a place holder, a guy who was just there until the Rockets got a "real" point guard. People have been hating on Skip to My Lou (See how cool I am? I even know his streetball nickname!) ever since he got to the League because of his And 1 Mixtape history (that's not real basketball!), and have been waiting for his career to end. And that goes for the Rockets as well. This summer they brought in Stave Francis and Mike James, with the unspoken belief that one of them would supplant Alston. It didn't happen; James never cracked the starting lineup and got traded at the deadline to New Orleans, and Francis was getting little to no run before he got hurt. Meanwhile, Alston proved his worth and was a major factor in the Rockets continued success after Yao Ming went down for the season. He's definitely earned a place in the league now and has to be taken seriously when taking about starting point guards. That should warrant some type of consideration.
That's it for this week. Next time it's all about playoffs!
