Points in the Paint 01.30.09: The Ice Storm Edition

Posted by Rob Bonnette on 01.30.2009

Goodbye Zo!

Hello everyone and welcome to a late January, ice storm edition of Points in the Paint. This week we bid adieu to Alonzo Mourning, talk All-Star game, and I go on a rant about Brandon Jennings. Let's do it!

Happy Trails, Alonzo!

Alonzo Mourning called it a career last week, after attempting to come back one last time from a blown out knee. I'm glad he called it quits; he's got nothing to prove to anyone, and he should be a Hall of Famer based off of what he did in his career. Look at the numbers: an average of 17 points and 8 rebounds per game, and that's when you include seven seasons that were significantly worse statistically than his first eight. Before his kidney issues began in 2000 he was averaging 21.1 points, 10.1 rebounds, and 3.1 blocks for his career. He spent the second half of his career as a sometime starter and sometime reserve; he was never a guy just holding down the end of the bench, though. In his lone NBA Finals appearance he was a crucial factor in the Heat's victory over Dallas, often outplaying starter Shaquille O'Neal during the series. He was also a seven time All-Star, two-time Defensive Player of the Year, two-time first team All Defense, was the first team All NBA center in 1998-99, and is eleventh all time in blocked shots. And he was able to do all of that despite being 6-foot-9 and having to go against guys three inches taller and as big as O'Neal. When you throw in his Georgetown career, where he was a three time All-American , the he should be a lock for the Hall. (Remember that there's only one basketball hall of fame, for both college and pros.) Zo had way more fire in him than most seven footers playing today; if Dirk Nowitzki played with Zo's intensity, he'd be unstoppable. I know, I know. Yet another shot at Dirk. When he retires, I promise I won't rip him. But one of the things that makes it difficult for me to be a Dirk fan is that we have guys like Zo, who looked across the court at guys bigger than him like Shaq and opted to dig in and fight in the paint, while Dirk looks at James Posey, Stephen Jackson, and Udonis Haslem and decides to stay on the perimeter. I just can't get over that. Sorry. Anyway, I digress. Here's to Alonzo Mourning, hands down the most courageous player (on the court, I don't do the off the court stuff since I don't know any of these guys) I've watched.

All Star voting finished!

Thankfully, the crisis I mentioned a few weeks ago was averted. Your East starters are guards Dwyane Wade and Allen Iverson, forwards Kevin Garnett and Lebron James, and center Dwight Howard. Howard, Lebron, Wade, and KG are no brainers; the only question mark is Iverson, who is having his worst statistical season as a pro. Based on numbers alone, he shouldn't start but I'm guessing that he'd be putting the same points we've gotten used to from him if he were in a featured role. Devin Harris or Jameer Nelson are both better choices right now. They should both be reserve guards on the actual team, along with Joe Johnson and maybe Vince Carter For reserve forwards I'm looking at Chris Bosh, Danny Granger, and Paul Pierce. There really isn't a backup center worth taking; I would just call Bosh the backup center and be done with it.

The West starters are guards Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant, forwards Tim Duncan and Amare Stoudemire, and center Yao Ming. Nothing really to argue about in the West; you could swap Dirk Nowitzki for Amare, but I don't think there's any crime by it being the way it is. Kevin Durant is the only other forward putting up any kind of numbers, and he may make the team as a reserve, but I don't think firing away on a losing team warrants an All-Star starting spot. So for me the starters are fine, along with reserve forwards Dirk and Durant, reserve guards Chauncey Billups and Brandon Roy, and reserve center Al Jefferson. I got no picks for their wild card spots; injuries have racked the West so badly that a lot of the usual guys have missed significant time and suffered statistically. Tony Parker, Manu Ginobli, Tracy McGrady, Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer have all missed major time; surely two of them would be in the mix. Parker's number are in line with what he normally does and his team is first in its division, so he'll get one. The other one….I have no idea. Shoot just give it to Shaq and call it a day.


Rant time!

OK, anyone who reads this column knows how I am about guys whose most redeeming qualities as players are their physical attributes and their potential, not any real basketball skills. For those who haven't read me before, let me explain in brief. I hate them. OK, not so much the players themselves but the way that scouts and GMs rush to acquire them then regret it most of the time shortly afterward. Every time one of these guys is picked over someone who can actually play, it hurts the league. You need as many guys as possible who can play, period. That goes for any sport, really. It's one advantage that individual sports have over team sports; if you can't play, you won't achieve any real prominence save for an initial hype fest by advertises who think they may have a media star on their hands. But even that fades pretty quick if you're no good. Team sports, on the other hand, are plagued by executives who decide to draft athletes and physical specimens instead of players, who more often than not take up roster spots for three to five years out of fear that they'll go somewhere else and blossom. It also hurts the guys who get drafted, because a lot of them could have become good players with some more time to work on their skills before turning pro. Instead of fifteen year careers with $70 to $100 million in salary, they get five to ten year careers (and that's only for first round guys with guaranteed money) and significantly less cash. Someone please show me one player who came in as a raw (translation: no real skills) prospect and turned into an All-Star. And don't say Kobe, or Kevin Garnett, or Lebron. Those guys, and others like T-Mac and Amare, displayed some basketball skills before they got drafted. Jumping out of the gym and being named a Mickey D's All American doesn't mean you can actually play.

So why am I going back into these waters? Brandon Jennings, who went overseas to play after finishing high school, gave some words of warning to other kids who may think about going his route. His playing time is miniscule and his paychecks don't come on time. Yikes. In essence, he let it be known that going to Europe to either avoid playing in college or circumvent the NBA age limit rule isn't a slam dunk of a strategy. Hopefully this will serve as a wake up of sorts to the crowd who think playing college ball is for suckers. (In Jennings defense, he's not one of that crowd. His test scores came into question and that derailed his intent to play for the University of Arizona.) If you don't remember, Jennings decision to play overseas was treated like a call to arms for the ‘no college ball!' crowd. This will be the beginning of a revolution, they shouted, where talented kids will break the shackles of the NCAA and take their destinies into their own hands! Down with the NCAA and their fascist ways! Within ten years, they'll be obsolete because no one who is any good will bother to play there! Take that, millionaire coaches, you exploiters of talented innocent children! Have fun trying to coach up scrubs who couldn't start for their high school teams until their senior years! Hahahaha! Seriously, the rhetoric was that ridiculous. And on the other side you have the extreme naysayers shouting that Jennings and his ilk will soon be coming off the bench for the Timbuktu Seahorses, desperately trying to get to the NBA. How dare they not bow to the masters and play college ball! They should be burned at the stake for their treachery! But first, they should be disappeared and sent off to the gulag! And again, the rhetoric is really that ridiculous.

Now I try really hard not to fall into the latter group; I've gotten really close a few times to joining their team, but my better judgment has always managed to prevail. My beef is not with the players, it's with the uninformed idiots who go around telling the world how awesome the latest number one high school player is and how he could start for twenty teams right now and how he's a higher rated prospect than Lebron was back in 2003. And with the media types who tell us that Darko! is going to be a stud, or that Marvin Williams was a better choice than Chris Paul because he has more upside. And now, when their predictions have been rendered about as fraudulent as a credit default swap, they continue to say these stupid things. Jennings is supposed to be this great talent, but he's not getting much run for his Euro team at all. Now a lot of that is because he has two strikes against him in that he's young and American; the coaches there don't play that potential stuff. If you have to learn, you're doing it on the bench. But that's always the problem if you don't already know how to play. There are always older guys who do, and the coach is always going to want to play them instead. And if you don't have a good teacher to work with you and a superhuman work ethic, then the endless cycle of not learning and not playing much begins. We don't know if that will happen with Jennings, but it could. The problem is that his only alternatives here in the states were going to prep school for a year or going to a junior college, which means he'd be playing for free for at least a year, which I'm sure the people around him just couldn't handle. In all honesty, I hope he turns out OK and ends up at least good enough to come back to the states, get in the league, and play. But I also hope that there aren't a legion of guys who aren't as good as he's supposed to be who aren't already plotting their European excursion.

OK that's it for this time. Next time more All Star stuff, and who knows what else. Until then.