All-Star “Weak”end
Posted February 17th, 2006 by Brian Windhorst
Houston — I’ve made it to the All-Star festivities, yee haw. This is my third All-Star Game and really the fun is off it. It is rather cool for about 15 minutes, but in all honestly I don’t see why this event is so popular. After a few dunks and steals in the game, it just seems somewhat boring to me. More about personalities and celebrities than the actual game. There will surely be some great fodder to come out of today’s media session.
Then there’s "All-Star Saturday" and whole production that has become. When I was a kid, I remember being excited about watching the 3-point and dunk contests. That was when Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins were going toe-to-toe and Larry Bird was winning the 3-point contest on the last shot. Honestly, now I can’t see why a viewer would want to watch All-Star Saturday night. I just can’t understand why so many people were upset when LeBron James declined doing the dunk contest again. I mean Brent Barry won this title a few years ago. Nothing against Brent Barry, but, heck, he’s not even close to Harold Miner on the excitement scale. Why would LeBron want to measure his dunks against Hakim Warrick? I mean, seriously, get over it. Now, I’ve never actually watched the Skills Challenge, so I’ll get back to you on that.
Anyway, at the break the Cavs are 31-21, which is the same record they had at this time last season. Of course, last season’s team folded. I don’t exactly see the same track for this team, but you never know. An injury in a key spot could devastate them in the current position they’re in. But they have an eight-game lead over the last playoff spot and 18 of their last 30 games are against teams with losing records so I think everything is lined up for them really. Plus on the George Karl scale (combining home losses with road wins) the Cavs are a pretty good +5. More on all that stuff later.
As for trade possibilities, right now I think this story sums up everything. I’d put their chances at making a deal before the Feb. 23 deadline at about 40 percent as of this moment. Also, cease with the Latrell Sprewell e-mails, it isn’t going to happen and if I have to expound why then I’m disappointed in this blog’s readership.
February 17th, 2006 at 11:26 am
I think they should lower the rim to 7-feet and have a media skills night. All the teams’ beat writers and broadcasters would be required to compete. Unfortunately, some team broadcasters would be immediately disqualified before the competition even starts. Media and skills. Without naming any names, an egregious contradiction in terms. Disqualified.
Just randomly pitching ideas here, but in the Beat Writers Slam Dunk Contest, as they soar majestically upwards (or, far more likely than not, horizontally and then plummeting like a rock), each beat writer would be required to signal in American Sign Language an analogy, a simile and a metaphor as they and their spaghetti-stained sartorial splendor slam the biscuit in the basket and royally rock the Houston house. My dream matchup in the finals would be a creative dual to the death between the Miami Herald’s Israel Gutierrez and the Akron Beacon Journal’s Brian Windhorst. No disrespect to the whimsical white scribe up north, but I must give a decisive edge to the youthful Hispanic wordsmith.
February 17th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
The only reason I watch All Star Saturday night is to watch Barkley and K. Smith make fun of everyone.
February 17th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Why in the world does George Karl get any credit for the “George Karl scale”? You get exactly the same numbers if you calculate other measures of home success and road success. He says home losses (-7) and road wins (+12) gives a +5 rating. Well so does home wins (+19) and road losses (-14). It’s how math works. For that matter, any team that is 10 games over .500 and has played equal numbers of games at home and on the road always comes out with a +5. So, at the end of the year Karl’s scale does nothing but take number of games a team finishes over .500 and divides it by 2.
What Karl is saying is that good teams have great success at home and they have decent success on the road. Yeah, and? And now he gets credit for inventing a scale? Totally bogus. At least NBA commentary improved since Denver hired him.
Rant over - and this is not meant as bashing you, Brian! Love your postings.
February 17th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
I disagree. If people actually knew how math works, then there would not be a scoreboard “diff” thing. That diff thing must have cost no less than 10 billion dollars. Coincidentally, 10 is also the combined IQ of the brains at Cavs Marketing Central that gave the green light to the scoreboard builder for including such an ingenius statistical innovation.
My uncle was a statistics professor in the mathematics department at the University of Buffalo for 35 years, and even he could never have devised such a revolutionary formula as the “diff.”
Yes, the Karl Scale is absolutely brilliant. The Greeks never thought of it, and the great mathematician Euclid would be in complete awe. Far more importantly, what would NBA assistant coaches do without a Karl Scale and room service to occupy their valuable time? But that diff thing puts both the brilliant Karl Scale and Euclid’s stylish Armani toga to utter retardation shame.
February 17th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
Actually, the Karl Scale is meant to give an evaluation projection. Not all NBA teams have played the same amount of road games and sometimes the number is quite askew, it is a way to better judge just where a team ranks.
Forget about dropping it to 7 feet, make it like a high jump and have the players keep raising it to see how high they can go.
February 17th, 2006 at 10:37 pm
Fair enough on the use of home/road differential as an evaluative mechanism when teams haven’t played the same number of home and road games. But home wins - road losses gives us the exact same number as the “Karl Scale”. And, most of all, why in the world should he get credit for it? Because it was his only contribution as an announcer. Bah, humbug.
Admittedly, I would have less of a problem if it was called the Wooden Scale. Or even the Wilkens Scale. (or the Windhorst Scale!)
February 18th, 2006 at 3:31 am
Brian,
I’m glad you’ve noted recently the weak strength of schedule the Cavs have left after the break. Last year, I tracked SOS all year, and the Cavs had a remarkably easy schedule until the break. It is reasonable to expect that they’ll finish much more strongly this year with this schedule. (As a corollary, it was reasonable to conclude that they were overvalued at this point last season.)
Also, don’t you think the improved depth this year has helped alleviate the kinds of problems that hurt last year’s team? Injuries totalled that team. Thus far, they haven’t badly damaged this one.
February 19th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Lord, did anybody see that exercise in wretched excess formerly known as the NBA All-Star game “player introductions?” Holy cow. Literally a freakin’ entire symphony orchestra playing while they’re being introduced against a background that resembled something from Cirque du Soleil of the 24th century. I can just imagine Ilgauskas having to stand up there with his seven-rebound average as a God-like representative of a spectacular civilization of pasty white Cyborgs sent from the future to destroy all that might one day oppose them. Siegfried & Roy had their over-the-top production with fireworks and explosions and white tigers flying high in the sky, the NBA has their over-the-top production with LeBron James and Dirk Nowitzki shooting fireworks and firing explosions out of their ass. LITERALLY. And to think next year’s event will be in Las Vegas. I can’t wait.
If anybody with any semblance of a business IQ does not believe the NBA and its powerful corporate partners are not going to do everything in their power behind the scenes to manuever James to the blinding bright lights of the center of the marketing universe, then I *strongly* urge you to find somebody who recorded this game’s player introductions. It was absolutely obscene and was an amazing indicator of the direction where they want the NBA to go. Only a fool would say James is not a part of that business plan.
February 20th, 2006 at 6:56 am
Alan who are you arguing with exactly?
February 20th, 2006 at 7:44 am
I’m not arguing with anybody. I was just a bit sickened by the entire display. The NBA has turned into a marketing Caligula. And in that light, anybody with any common sense knows it’s going to take a helluva lot more than Gilbert buying Maverick Carter a new badass Rottweiler puppy on his birthday to keep James from going to New York when the time comes. That’s where the NBA wants him, that’s where the NBA’s billionaire corporate partners want him. And you thought there was peer pressure in high school?
A literal STAGE to introduce players at an all-star game? Normally a “stage” is merely a figurative term. Not anymore. Just for comedy relief, I was half-expecting David Stern and Elton John to circle the introduced players like missiles, powered only by the jet packs strapped onto their backs. Rocket Man, indeed.