Lakers Hire D'Antoni

The Lakers have fired Mike Brown, then after a dalliance with Phil Jackson, hired Mike D'Antoni. What do you think of the hire? Let us know.

Mike Brown Has Been Fired

Sam Amick of USA Today has been first to report that the LA Lakers have fired head coach Mike Brown today, a surprise move just 5 games into the season.

At #Sources, we believe this is a rash move. Looking back on Brown's five years coaching LeBron in Cleveland, his "give it to LeBron and hope" offenses were spotty, but the Cavaliers had some of the leagues best defenses during his tenure. That's the end of the court where Brown's teams have excelled.

The narrative has been that Brown's Princeton offense has hurt the team, but the statistics say otherwise. The Lakers currently rank 6th in offense and 22nd in defense. Translation: the offense has not caused the Lakers to go 1-4, and the team has been scoring. That's pretty efficient offensively for new personnel, yet to come together, under a coach not known for his offensive acumen.

The reality is the Lakers have been losing because they haven't guarded anybody yet this season. And that has occurred because Dwight Howard does not look healthy. Looking at the Lakers personnel, their success on defense hinges on their interior play. Steve Nash has been a poor defender his entire career, and Kobe Bryant is not the defender he was. In fact, the Lakers since 2005 have been worse defensively since 2005 when Kobe plays, a point artfully reached by Neil Paine in this ESPN Insider article. Ron Artest is not what he was either. Essentially, the Lakers are going to struggle guarding the perimeter this season, but should be able to rely on a Dwight-Pau Gasol interior to man the fort.

Dwight is yet to impose his will on the Lakers defense, but there's still plenty of time. Dwight lacks explosiveness, but will have that back once fully recovered from back surgery. While team chemistry is often cited for issues on offense, it matters on defense too. Different players defend different players and situations in varying ways, and do not have the same strengths, weaknesses, or tendencies. For a team defense to truly excel against the world's greatest players, guys need to know one another and how to communicate and work in unison on that end of the floor. The Lakers are not there. Yet. They also have a DPOY playing at 75% and have just had 5 games together.

Rumor has it Mike D'Antoni has been pondered as Brown's replacement. When the Lakers defense improves under the man fans tend to call "Antoni" (where's the D!), and the team begins winning, let's just remember it's not because they fired Brown.

Knick Formula: Keep it Melo and Fun

The Carmelo Anthony led NY Knicks have struggled because of their stagnant offense. Last year, the Knicks finished 5th in the league in defensive efficiency, but were an easy round 1 out because their offense finished 19th in the league: only Boston won a playoff series with a worse offense. A lot of their struggles came because Melo choked movement out of the Knicks offense. Melo has a 17-37 playoff record for a reason. He likes to get the ball and hold it, often finishing possessions by shooting inefficient long 2 pointers (the most inefficient shot in the game is the 2 between the foul line and 3 point line, a shot good defenses give you and a shot that Melo loves to take). 

These screenshots from a game in January of last year represent the problems. Melo here faced a doubleteam, and chose to take it head on, rather than use his teammates. The result, a forced shot, which Marc Gasol blocked and then rebounded.

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LA Lakers: The Heat of Two Years Ago

Two years ago, the Miami Heat were a .500 team through 20 games and everyone said LeBron and Wade didn't fit on the same team. This year's 2010-2011 Heat: the Lakers.

It is obvious that the Lakers have championship talent. LA has 2 titles with Pau Gasol as their #2 guy, and he's the #4 guy. And yet, it's no surprise that they were dominated at home in a loss to the Mavericks playing without Dirk Nowitzki.

Why? Because Nash and Kobe do not know how to play together yet.

Nash wass at his best in Phoenix orchestrating some of the best high octane offenses in NBA history. Ball and man movement were crisp, and spacing was superb, creating holes in defenses resulting in open shots. Kobe orchestrated Laker offenses throughout his career in his own right, having the ball in his hands every bit as often as Nash. But now, both guys can't dominate the ball: there is only one.

So like LeBron and Wade before them, Nash and Kobe will need to learn how to play off of another player that dominates the ball. Kobe turned Nash into a spot up shooter tonight, and Nash got Kobe nothing except the same forced shots that Ramon Sessions got him last year.

The end result: a team that should easily be top 5 in offense this year barely posted 91 points, and looked lost on the court.

Hope is not lost. The 2010-11 Heat became champions in their second season together, as LeBron and Wade learned how to play through one another. Nash and Kobe now face the same hurdle those two guys faced. Time will tell if they clear it.

A Thunderous Mistake

Saturday night brought us an extremely surprising move. Unable to agree on contract terms with James Harden, the Thunder shipped him to the Rockets for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, two first rounders, and a second rounder. It's clear what OKC was trying to do here: signing Harden to the max deal he wanted would see OKC's payroll balloon way above the tax threshold. This is why I speculated in a previous column if OKC would be able to keep their team together.

Choosing not to bite the tax bullet, OKC  dealt Harden in what was a poor deal for multiple reasons.

Boston Celtics: Gotta Do It TOGETHER

In the 2010 playoffs, Doc Rivers said that his team could beat LeBron' 61-21 Cavaliers, but that they had to do it "TOGETHER!" 3 years later, that's still true.

Despite Rondo running the show, the Celtics ranked 24th in the NBA in offensive efficiency last season. That's lower than every other playoff team, and the Celtics must improve on that number if they want to get back to the finals.

And to improve, they must "do it together" just like Doc said. The Celtics don't have a Durant or Carmelo like player to just give the ball to and clear out. But too often, the Celtics offense stagnates because that's what they try to do.

This clip is a microcosm of the Celtics struggles on offense in the big 3 era.

NBA Season Preview

Finally, the NBA season is just 10 days away. After an offseason full of roster shuffling, #Sources previews the coming season. We have broken the NBA into 4 tiers. An explanation of how tiers were created is at the bottom of the post.

TIER 1:  The Championship Contenders

The poster child for the positionless revolution, the Heat defense is a terror built around LeBron and Wade's athleticism and ability to guard multiple positions. LeBron took a leap last season mentally, ditching the 3 pointer and becoming the hybrid point-forward we all knew he could become. The Heat rolled in the playoffs when Bosh played, and are set to repeat because of defense like this.

• potential fatal flaw: Dwight Howard, if he grows up and forces them to abandon going small

Dwight to the Lakers: "Competitive Balance."

 

 By now, everyone knows the deal. The Heat formed a superteam, and teams outside of the destination cities said they could not compete  So the NBA locked out, citing 2 core positions:
                 1) We need to change the CBA to foster competitive balance
                 2) We need to alter the basketball related income (BRI) split to boost profitability for teams

As for the second position, the lockout got the job done. The BRI split for players dropped from 57% to 50%. After just 8 teams were profitable before the lockout, 20 were profitable this season, and that figure is expected to rise to 25 next year, and all 30 teams in 2 years.

But as for that first position, the NBA has made up no ground.

What About the Agents?

Free agency has come and gone, so it's that time of year where you hear things like "he's overpaid," or "wow, how does he get that contract.". Media outlets tend to analyze free agency from the view of the team and whether they overpaid. Here? We're looking at how the agents did.