What would happen to fans if they didn't have the stats or the analysts. What if they just saw the game for what it is, and not have their opinions swayed by the majority?
It's never gonna happen. Although stats and analysts are a great part of the game, they also mislead fans on many levels.
As Plato once said, "there is opinion, and then there is wrong opinion." Wrong opinion is an opinion that has no good evidence to support it, such as if I were to say Michael Jordan sucks.
Here are the top five wrong opinions about basketball:
5. The Spurs are boring.
This is a matter of opinion really, but I feel this opinion derives mostly from jealousy. It's as though playing defense is illegal in the NBA.
Tim Duncan is kind of boring, but look at the other stars on that team.
Tony Parker is one of the fastest players in the league, and he blows through big men like it's nothing. Manu Ginobili is no more boring than any other shooting guard. He drains shots as well as anyone.
Show some respect to the 2007 champs. So what if their players don't take questionable shots or make various facial expressions. They're playing the game the right way.
4. David Stern sucks because he's rigging NBA games.
First off, I usually don't like to talk about cheating or rigging games. I feel it takes the fun out of sports. I have no problem with other people talking about it, but people these days are always so quick to accuse.
Basketball is an easy game to rig. Many calls could go either way. But how can you be sure that refs are rigging games? And how do you know that David Stern is involved?
David Stern has been a great commissioner. What other commissioner in American sports has done a better job of marketing his sport and globalizing it?
Stern has imposed necessary rule changes that sports like baseball are always afraid to impose.
You're not gonna agree with everything he does, but look at it this way: You're not gonna agree with everything a politician does. It doesn't necessarily make them bad at what they do, you just have differing views.
3. More big men should be able to shoot like Dirk Nowitzki.
Range is useful in a big man. But when they're a regular in the three point content, there's a problem.
Big men are there to have an inside game. The sad thing about Dirk is that he's a good ball-handler and could easily post up on most big men. The problem is that he's soft.
The Mavericks are lacking a true inside presence on offense right now and they would be winning more games if Dirk played closer to the hoop.
2. Steals and blocks are a good way of measuring defense.
Yes, and Allen Iverson is a better defender than Raja Bell. Steals are a statistic that calls for defending with your hands over-aggressively. Blocks are a stat that relies on the opponent to shoot the ball and not decide to dribble by the defender.
The most important thing you can do on defense is not let your opponent get between you and the hoop. If you just keep them in front of you and keep your hands up, you have a much better chance of not letting them score than you do if you're trying to swat the ball away.
I'm not saying steals and blocks are bad. It's just not the best way to measure a defender.
There are some guys who rack up the steals and are great defenders, like Ron Artest. But consider Artest great because he's made the Rockets into an elite defensive team and because it's hard to score over 15 points on him, not because of the steals.
1. Kobe can't win a championship by himself. Let's whine about how LeBron James doesn't have a supporting cast.
It wasn't until last year when Kobe Bryant had anything close to a championship caliber supporting cast. From 2004-2007, Kobe's second scoring option was Lamar Odom.
Meanwhile, Shaq went on to win it all in his second year with the Heat. Let's look at the talent around him that year: Dwyane Wade, Jason Williams, Antoine Walker, Gary Payton, James Posey, and other key players.
LeBron James got the Cavaliers to the finals in 2007 with a washed-up Larry Hughes and an aging Zyndrunas Ilgauskas. Yet everyone excuses LeBron for doing nothing in the finals.
Yet Kobe is given the expectation to win a championship by himself. You know who else couldn't win by themselves?
Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Bill Russell, John Havlicek, Larry Bird, Julius Erving, Hakeem Olajuwon...You get the point.
19 comments Last one added 7 months ago — Leave a Comment
Hoops4life 7 months ago
Excellent article, couldn't agree more with all five points
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Samuel Bell Jr 7 months ago
This is all good stuff right here...I agree with every point, especially the one about Kobe winning championships alone...it's unfair to say that when he's alone he can't win one, look what he did with Gasol last year, and the start he's off to with Bynum back in the lineup
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Josh B 7 months ago
Yeah, Gasol isn't even a star, let alone the second option on a championship team. I'm not a fan of Kobe, but people are way too hard on him with their expectations.
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Steven Jarjees 7 months ago
This is a great article. You made alot of great points. You are absolutely right saying that steals and blocks arent a good way of measuring defense. It also gets on my nerves when people say Kobe couldnt win without Shaq. Kobe will prove all his doubters wrong when the Lakers win 70+ wins and win a NBA championship without Shaq.
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No Way 7 months ago
Nice to see Wade's supporting cast get some credit.
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Marcel Mansour 7 months ago
Fantastic Article. Kobe is going to end up with 6-7 rings and I totally agree with you about steals and blocks being overrated. Chris Paul is a descent defender, but not a great one, but because he is a great thief everyone makes it look like he is a great defender.
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Steven Resnick 7 months ago
Definitely a solid article. I do believe that it's hard to determine if a steal or a block is a good defensive play. The reason being is that it could definitely be a momentum changer, but yeah there's times that defenders will go for the steal or a block and the help defense is nowhere near.
I do think you could add a 6th misconeption though. Teams need a point guard who can defend. Think of the Suns and why they have not been able to get by the Spurs. It's rather simple really if a player is going right by Steve Nash it means that the big men will have to help out leaving someone wide open or an easy layup.
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Kevin Baker 7 months ago
Jason Williams, Antoine Walker, Gary Payton are all garbage!!!! Wow you were desperate.
Face it Kobe had a incredible team last year but chocked in the finals and got outplayed by Paul Pierce.
If you don't believe me look up his stats in the finals.
Now Kobe has arguably one of the best teams ever and we'll see if he'll choke again.
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Josh B 7 months ago
"Jason Williams, Antoine Walker, Gary Payton are all garbage!!!! Wow you were desperate."
Jason Williams was still one of the fastest PG's in the league, especially compared to the other ones in the East. He was still an amazing shooter and he was an amazing ballhandler who took a lot of pressure off Wade, who currently has to set up every play on offense.
Gary Payton back then was even better than Derek Fisher last year. Payton was a pass-first guy who can run an offense much better than Fisher. Fisher has done nothing to take coverage off Kobe. He's a good shooter, but not that great at passing. He was a below average point guard with the Warriors and Jazz.
Antoine Walker was one of the best 6th men in the NBA, not to mention he was probably the third best player on the Heat bench.
"Face it Kobe had a incredible team last year"
Define incredible. A team lead by Gasol and Odom wouldn't have a chance of getting past the first round and they would probably win 35 games at most.
And lets compare the benches. Would you rather have:
Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic, Luke Walton, and Ronny Turiaf or
Gary Payton, Antoine Walker, Alonzo Mourning, and Jason Kapono.
"chocked in the finals and got outplayed by Paul Pierce."
True. But so did Odom and Gasol. Phil Jackson deserves the most blame. He used to be so animated during the Bulls and Lakers dynasties. Now it just seems he's only in it to have more championships than Auerbach. His timing for timeouts was questionable and he never got the team focused when they were losing.
And Pierce still has to win a couple more rings. He had a much better supporting cast than Kobe.
"Now Kobe has arguably one of the best teams ever"
Ummm. It's November. But we'll see what he can do with a healthy Bynum. Kobe still has many years until he's done.
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Michael Inglis 7 months ago
You must be a Kobe hater or a Shaq lover.
Antoine Walker averaged 13 and 5.5 in the playoffs and stretch the defense with his 3s. Jason Williams ran the show along with Dwayne Wade. You must have forgot that Gary Payton hit the biggest shot in the whole Finals. Along with those 3 "garbage" players he had D-Wade who I hear isn't that bad and Haslem is a solid second option down low. Lets not leave out one of the best defensive players in the league James Posey.
And exactley who are you talking about when you say Kobe had an incredible team last year. Gasol? He's soft. Lamar Odom is either really good or really bad. Derek Fisher is solid.
It's pretty obvious that the role players for the heat were better than the Lakers.
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Kevin Baker 7 months ago
They were back than at least. Payton was amazing in his day and Walker and Williams were good in their prime. But for the Heat they sucked. I watched almost every game and they were awful.
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Steven Resnick 7 months ago
The worst part of your list is number 3 David Stern is a horrible commissioner. I'm not talking about the fact that there was a ref convicted for gambling on games.
The rule changes defensive 3 second and to allowing zone defenses. So it would suit teams that would like to run up and down instead of playing defense. Guess what? The teams that have won the last few championships since the rule changes have played defense and don't score 100 points a night.
Also, for Stern allowing players to flop like crazy. You would never see the Bulls in the 90's flopping, the Bad Boys, etc.....Now it's flop city and it has to stop. It's ruined the game of basketball, instead of teams playing defense they just try to have a player get in front of somebody and act like they got barreled over. The NBA has become a joke because of Stern,.
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Josh B 7 months ago
Zone defense is a great rule. If a team wants to not play defense, then that's their stupid decision. Defensive three second is sort of a bad rule and the flopping is not Stern's fault. It is mostly because of inconsistency in the refs. You'll see some plays called as fouls and others where the player fails to draw a foul.
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Steven Resnick 7 months ago
Yet, it was on the agenda this year in Owners meetings to get rid of it. Nothing happened and now it's just getting ridiculous.
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Steven Resnick 7 months ago
Lastly, for allowing Stern to move Seattle to Oklahoma City. If Oklahoma City wanted a team so badly then he should have thought of expansion, but to steal away a franchise is an absolute joke.
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Josh B 7 months ago
It was certainly a dick move but it's far from the first time it's happened before.
And to your previous comment, I agree. It's kind of stupid how little the owners can get done. One of the best things Stern has done as commissioner is to settle a disagreement among players and the owners that many thought could result in a lockout, like the NHL. And now the NFL is having the same sort of problem.
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Amanda Robertson 7 months ago
really, really excellent article.
agreed with all of them 100%,
its about time someone posted this.
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Jimmy Lawrence 7 months ago
yes!!! finnally someone that understands that steals and blocks prove NOTHING about how good of a defender you are...just a few examples
-Allen Iverson as you mentioned gets tons of steals which is all well and good until you watch a game and see him diving after balls that he has no chance of getting to and then being so far out of position that his team is forced to give up an easy lay up
-Marcus Camby always averages a ridiculous amount of blocks and is in defensive player of the year conversations annually but then he leaves Denver and Denver actually gets BETTER defensively, can someone please explain this???
-Shane Battier never averages all that many steals or blocks but is in my mind with out a doubt the top defender in the leauge these days...have you seen him guard Kobe Bryant?? He doesn't block any of his shots but he gets his hand in Kobe's eyes (and everyone else's for that matter) and harasses him to know end
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Michael Inglis 7 months ago
Well Denver is better on defense this year because it hard to get any worse than they were last year. They've just decided to stay commited to playing defense and Billups is there now who comes from a strong defensive minded team.
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