TrueHoop Network Roundup and 3-on-3
Editor’s note: Each week, one ESPN TrueHoop team site will host a 3-on-3 conversation with writers and editors from around the network, and that will be accompanied by a handful of articles we think you’ll find interesting outside of your own team’s coverage. Hope you enjoy.
1. What was the best moment of the first “half” of the NBA season?
Eddy Rivera, Magic Basketball (@erivera7): Klay Thompson setting an NBA record for points in a quarter by scoring 37 points in the third quarter against the Sacramento Kings on January 23, which solidified his status as a star player. That will go down as one of the greatest shooting displays ever in league history.
Aaron McGuire, Gothic Ginobili (@docrostov): It’s hard to pick between the Hawks and the Warriors as the league’s biggest first half story. So I’ll pick February’s tilt between the two teams — the 124-116 Hawks win — as the biggest moment of the year. Nobody would’ve thought in the preseason that ATL/GSW would end up being a duel between two championship-caliber teams with a legitimate chance at high sixties win totals. The game also managed to live up to all expectations, something that doesn’t happen particularly often with marquee matchups like that one.
Kyle Weidie, Truth About It (@Truth_About_It): Passing and team basketball wins! Yes, this goes without saying in the current era — for the most part. Still, doesn’t make it any less refreshing that the two best teams in basketball — the Warriors and the Hawks — respectively lead the NBA in points created by assists per 48 minutes (63.7 and 60.9). In fact, the top 11 teams ranked in this category are playoff teams with one exception: Brad Stevens’ well-coached Celtics squad (that also benefited from Rajon Rondo early in the season).
The top seven teams from the West, except Memphis, make the list, and from the East, Washington, Milwaukee (another encouraging up-start), and Cleveland join Boston and Atlanta. The focus of the modern NBA might increasingly be on 3-point shots and drives to the basket, but the best moment from the first half of 2014-15 is the continued burial of a single, shot-jacking superstar being where team philosophies rest their laurels.
2. Which four teams will make up the conference finals come May?
Rivera: This is an impossible question to answer. For the first time in a long while, the title race is wide-open. In the West, you could make an argument for any team in the top eight (replacing the Suns with the Thunder) to appear in the conference finals. In the East, the smart money is on the Hawks and Cavaliers.
McGuire: The East is easy — I’m not 100% bought into the Bulls this year, and I think it likely that Cleveland still has some improving to do. So Cleveland vs Atlanta is my pick there. The West is trickier. All the way down to the eight seed, I see eight legitimate conference finals caliber teams. Each team has a few glaring weaknesses that could bite them back in the long run and a few big positives that override their issues. I suppose I’d go with the Warriors and the Blazers right now, with a big fat asterisk that it could really be any permutation of the west’s top 10.
Weidie: There’s something about the inside play of Toronto and Atlanta that I think might be exposed when ‘playoff basketball’ unavoidably takes over. Sure, certainly sounds cliché, and sure, new-fangled basketball that’s currently finding success in the regular season at some point has to bear out in the postseason. But, not necessarily this year. Cleveland will find its way, Chicago will appear solid, and if the playoff seeding falls in their favor, Washington will find itself owning the Bulls (as seems to be the case according to recent matchups) and the East will feature a Cavs-Wizards finals, rekindling a rivalry that never really was.
In the West, if Andrew Bogut’s health holds up, allowing Golden State’s defense to remain top-notch, then they will be a lock for the conference finals. As for their opponent, I’m tempted to peg Oklahoma City, but feel that self-created distractions and the hill to climb might be too much. The Memphis Grizzlies will meet the Warriors for the chance to go to the NBA Finals and it will be a classic series featuring contrasting styles.
3. We all write about the NBA, but let’s try and look at it from the player’s perspective: Was Kevin Durant’s “you guys really don’t know sh*t” comment unfounded, or can you get where he’s coming from?
Rivera: I can get where Durant is coming from. I’ve covered plenty of Magic and Bulls games (as well as All-Star Weekend in Orlando), and I’ve seen the stupid questions that players are asked so I have sympathy for KD’s stance on the media. As a player, it’s hard to trust reporters when most of them have an agenda.
McGuire: In some ways, the media is like the mailman — you don’t really notice when the mail’s on time, you only notice when it’s late or ripped up. While Durant’s blanket statement is pointedly false, it’s hard to really ding him for it. Durant doesn’t really have time to be a consumer of all the quality journalism produced by the NBA media. He doesn’t notice when the journalists are on-point, only when they’re horribly off. He’s coming from a place where almost every article he gets exposed to is the worst of the profession. If your only experience with mailmen were people who never delivered the mail on time, don’t you think you’d vocally hate the postal service?
Weidie: Durant’s comment was a bit unfounded, but also totally founded. I thought he could’ve done the same thing in a classier, funnier, and clearly more calculated way. Instead, he came across as sort of a prick, which is OK, too. His issue is likely with a particular topic (Nick Collison, Scott Brooks, whatever); my issue is with his blanket statements.
The facts(some of them): No one wants to rely on players or teams to tell the story of professional basketball; and media is now both corporation- and fan-driven (along with a combination of both).
Competition for fleeting attention spans is higher than ever, and that naturally leads to unsavory and uncomfortable sensationalizing. And with that, there’s no fix for human nature and the ability of Joe’s and Josephine’s of all ilk branching out from “average” to be tempted by lowest common denominator click-bait. Durant’s not mad at the media, he is mad at the unavoidable, for which it is perfectly acceptable to express frustration (and, as most athletes do well, create false slights as a form of motivation).
All’s well that end’s well? Hard to say, the end is nowhere in sight.
Three articles from around the TrueHoop Network
At Queen City Hoops: Pete Sousa from Hornets.com and WFNZ 610 The Fan joins Doug for some NBA All-Star Weekend thoughts before the big game, including Zeller’s performance in the Rising Stars Challenge and Steph’s and LaVine’s big night. Plus, what’s the one adjustment Pete looks for as the Hornets make their playoff push?
At Hoop76: Chances are, you haven’t paid much attention to the Sixers this season (with good reason, I’d say), but they’re actually quite fun. Click the hyperlink above for Xylon Dimoff’s piece on the 14 things to love about the 2014-15 Philadelphia 76ers.
At Gothic Ginobili: Aaron McGuire was his typically in-depth self in taking a look at three fixes for the NBA All-Star weekend.
