Hoopdarshan 95: Yash Matange on India's rising prospects + Bubble Playoff Preview

In Episode 95 of Hoopdarshan, we welcome NBA India editor and writer Yash Matange. Matange discusses the success of recent Indian prospects like Prince Pal Singh, Anna Mary Zachariah, Siya Deodhar and more with co-hosts Kaushik Lakshman and Karan Madhok. Then, we preview the unprecedented NBA Bubble Playoffs, from Dame Time and Lakers Questions to Giannis, Toronto, Nuggets, and more.

Hoopdarshan is the truest voice of Indian basketball, and since we're such hopeless fans of the game, it will become the voice of everything basketball related we love, from the NBA to international hoops, too. On every episode of Hoopdarshan, we will be inviting a special guest to interview or chat to about a variety of topics. With expert insight from some of the brightest and most-involved people in the world of Indian basketball, we hope to bring this conversation to a many more interested fans, players, and followers of the game.

Make sure to follow Hoopdarshan on Soundcloud or search for 'Hoopdarshan' on the iTunes Store! Auto-sync Hoopdarshan to your preferred podcast app NOW!

Hoopdarshan can be found on...

• - iTunes: Hoopdarshan 
• - Hoopdarshan on Soundcloud 
• - On Twitter: @Hoopdarshan 
• - Facebook.com/Hoopdarshan 

Game-changer

Stephen Curry and the NBA’s three-point explosion is evolving basketball across the globe

This feature was first published in my column for Ekalavyas.com on March 13, 2016. You can find the original article here.

Whenever I play basketball at my favourite court – the ‘Benares Club’ in my hometown Varanasi – my friends feature among them the usual gang of universal pick-up hoops personalities: the slow, lumbering, but effective post-player; the mid-range wizard; the pesky little ball-hawker; the fast-break specialist; the veteran who gives sage advice about passing first and shooting second; the one player only on court to intimidate and collect fouls; the fearless athlete driving into the basket; the indiscriminate chucker.

Now, anyone who has played basketball in India – especially in pick-up games – would’ve noticed how much the game relies on fast-breaks. Too often, one player of the defensive team doesn’t really play defence and instead, waits out on the wings. If a defensive rebound is secured, a teammate pitches the ball forward (Kevin Love / Wes Unseld inspired) to the player who sprints down the length of the court, making a beeline to be positioned right below the opposing basket for an easy layup before the opponents can catch up. This play is risky because it puts extra pressure on defensive possessions, but when it works, the faster/fitter team can pile up points in a hurry.

This ‘technique’ has been used by many in my friends circle, too, but recently, I let my imagination think ahead of itself, and imagine a slightly different, future scenario. In this imaginary scene, there’s a fast-break opportunity, but the player who had sprinted down to the other end of the floor didn’t wait for the ball below the opposing basket. Instead, he took a sharp left turn to the corner of the court to place himself an inch outside the three-point line. Milliseconds later, another teammate on offense turned right to position himself on the other end. The defensive players who made it back in time had to spread in two directions too, leaving the middle wide open. The ball moved around from one corner to a player in the middle to the other corner before it was shot.

Splash!

And just then, we were introduced to another important pick-up personality on the court, a character that hadn’t been valued or trusted too much in our parts in the past because, well, his speciality used to seem too damn unlikely to become a regular weapon in our offense. He was the three-point sniper.

He used to be just the shorter guy who had developed an outside shot as a survival instinct, his way of staying relevant on the court if he didn’t have the size, strength, or athleticism to bang down in the post or the handle to move with the ball and create his own shot. But now, he began to appear everywhere and was emulated by everyone else. The fearless athlete was shooting threes, the mid-range wizard was stepping out, the indiscriminate chucker didn’t need to be told twice, the foul-collector joined into the fun, and even the lumbering post-man got himself some range.

Basketball had changed. Outside had become the new inside. Threes were the new dunks.

And the root cause of this metamorphosis was this little, scrawny guard causing havoc thousands of kilometres away in California.

*

Basketball has a certain set of rules, and to a first-timer, remembering them all can seem tiresome. But the beauty of the game is that most of the rules are quite intuitive, and where basketball truly leaps into greatness is within the gaps between the rules. It is these gaps that bring in the creativity, the style, and the personality to the game. Everyone approaches the game differently, every unstoppable style is countered by a defence to stop it, and that defence evokes a new offensive style, calling the need for a new defence scheme, and so on and so forth. Basketball becomes a chess match, with each manoeuvre further evolving and developing the game.

And it is the NBA – the finest basketball league in the world – that is the forefront of the game’s evolution and its changing styles. Since it is the gold standard of basketball that young players aspire for, aesthetics and tactics adopted by the best players and teams in the NBA eventually trickle down to young players in NCAA Division 1, High School, and grassroots basketball around the world. Soon, it is not just the players, but many coaches and trainers who begin to adopt those tactics in their teaching of the game.

Basketball is a team game, but NBA history has been defined by game-changing individuals who have crashed the party with their own unique style of dominance and nudged a shift in the game’s philosophy over the years. Last month, the 99% Invisible podcast went into great detail in explaining how the game shifted from the biggest men to the smallest ever since its inception. When basketball was grounded in the NBA’s earliest years, players like George Mikan used their size and passing ability to become the best and stand tall over their competitors. Soon, the likes of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain added a breath-taking athletic ability to that size, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar dominated college ball with his size so much that they had to ban dunking for a decade, and big men like Shaquille O’Neal became unstoppable all the way into the 90s because no one could match their combination of size, strength, and skill. Of course, mirroring the NBA, ‘taller’ was considered ‘better’ in basketball in the rest of the world, too. The ball went in to the big men first, who would scope out the defensive schemes and decide the best mode of offense for himself or his teammates.

But slowly, the perimeter player began to take over. It started in earnest with Magic and Bird, and then, the era of the swingman launched the NBA into a new direction with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and into the 2000s, LeBron James. Instead of playing inside-out, many of these teams centred around talented swingman used these perimeter stars to have the ball in their hands a lot and creating plays for themselves and for others. These players were faster than the big men and had a better ability to create their own shot and beat opponents off the dribble. Since they were smaller, more fans around the world related to these players, and the Jordanesque “Hero Ball” was born.

Which brings us to current day. The three-point shot was introduced in the ABA and later in the NBA in the 70s, and its ascent over the next few decades was slow and steady. But in the last few years, the numbers have skyrocketed. From 2.77 threes per attempted per game in 1980, NBA teams are now attempting nearly 24 threes a game. At the top of this revolution are players like Damian Lillard, James Harden, Klay Thompson, and Paul George.

And the three-point King – in every sense of the word – Stephen Curry.

*

Curry – the reigning MVP who is in line to become the MVP again – is having a season that is shattering NBA history. Apart from leading the league in scoring (30.7 ppg) and an All Time best Player Efficiency Rating (32.99), Curry has made more threes already in a season than anyone in history with over a month left in the season, (he’s number 2 and number 3 on that list), made 300 threes in a season, has broken the streak of most games with at least one three made, and is making over 5.1 threes per game, by far the best rate in NBA history. In a league that has featured Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, Ray Allen, and more, Curry is already the greatest shooter of All Time – and he’s still only 27!

More than the numbers however, are the emotions that Curry has evoked in the basketball world. He has made the three-pointer the sexiest thing in the game. Curry’s range continues to get farther and farther away from the basket. He is making 25 to 30 footers with ease, and that game-winning shot over the Thunder a few weeks ago – his casual confidence to even try that shot and then make it – disoriented the world’s understanding of how even to play defence against someone that skilled. Just like Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O’Neal in the past, he has become an offensive problem that will need a creative, evolved defensive solution.

Curry is also the most popular player in the NBA: his jersey sells more than any other and he would’ve been the leading All Star vote-getter had it not been Kobe Bryant’s last season. Many players have been compared to Michael Jordan over the last 15 years, but Curry’s level of night-to-night dominance and the circus that follows his greatness makes him in many ways the closest one (for a short term). The Warriors, gunning for Jordan’s Bulls record of 72 wins in a season, have become the league’s most fascinating traveling bandwagon. Decades from now, we’ll see young players in remote parts of Earth wearing ‘Warriors # 30’ jerseys the way we see ‘Bulls # 23’ today.

Curry isn’t the only one, but he has been the front-runner of the three-point revolution, and the NBA’s smartest analytic minds will tell you that if a good shooter takes (and makes) a high percentage of their threes, it is far more effective than the same shooter making a higher percentage of their twos (and particularly, the less effective long-twos). Even the maths is now telling us that if you can shoot above a certain percentage from behind the arc, then shoot away.

Of course, no revolution comes without its complaints. A few months ago, Curry’s former coach Mark Jackson mentioned that, despite his talents, Curry was ‘hurting the game’. “What I mean by that is that I go into these high school gyms, I watch these kids, and the first thing they do is they run to the 3-point line,” Jackson said, “You are not Steph Curry. Work on the other aspects of the game.”

Curry’s (and others’) penchant for the three-point line seems to have put the mid-range game on life-support, and even many of today’s talented bigger players (DeMarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis, Karl Towns) are moving further and further away from the basket on offense. No wonder Brian Shaw – former Laker player and Nuggets coach – in India last week complained that the Warriors’ success was only due to a lack of good Bigs in today’s game.

Some NBA circles are even considering tweaking with the three-point line and moving it back to make the shot tougher and bring back attention to mastering the inside game.

*

Mark Jackson is right in some ways, and wrong in many others. Sure, none of us are Steph Curry, but then again, none of us have been Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Kevin Garnett, Allen Iverson, or LeBron James either. Those athletic, talent, or size limitations haven’t stopped young players from around the world emulating their favourite stars. Big guys want to flex and bang inside like Shaq, bring some finesse to the game like Garnett, or copy Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s sky-hook. Wingmen want to dominate from the perimeter through scoring like Jordan or Kobe or by running the floor as All-Round players like Magic or LeBron. The smallest guys on the court relied on their speed like Iverson or Isiah Thomas. These models of excellence seem practically unachievable, but if we’re not going to try and be like the best, why even try?

And now, there’s Steph Curry, who is the Abdul-Jabbar of perimeter players, making a three-pointer look as easy as the big man’s traditional sky-hook. Because of Curry’s size – or lack thereof – he has further democratised basketball, making excellence look like a tangible, achievable goal, even for those without otherworldly genetic blessings.

But, hey, Mark Jackson is right: None of us are actually Steph Curry, who is a once-in-a-generational talent. He is blessed with speed, genius, and puts in more hard-work into perfecting his art than most beings on Earth. He is transforming the game as we speak, in real time, hitting his sixth and seventh three while we’re still tweeting about his third and fourth.

Curry’s exploits are changing the approach to the three-point-line, and thus, the entire approach to attacking and defending in the game of basketball. There will soon come a time among the younger generation of ballers where a three-point shot becomes a bigger weapon even in the arsenal of pick-up games than the humble two-pointer.

*

Out on our court in Varanasi, my imagination is suddenly crashed by reality. Sure, the players on offense are spreading wide instead of running into the basket, but their efforts are coming up short. None of us have close to the speed, release, accuracy, form, and perfection to our shot that Curry has.

Instead of expecting a splash, there is a whole lot more dry clangs off the rim.

The ball is rebounded by the defensive side, who throw it forward for a quick, fast-break possession, too. But this team stays within their limits, and goes for the easiest, most reliable scoring opportunity: a bee-line to the basket and an easy lay-up. Maths always wins, and until we can shoot threes with the accuracy of the NBA’s new greats, the easiest shot in the game is still the best shot in the game!

More wins, less hype: The consistent dominance of LaMarcus Aldridge

He may not get the hype that is showered on many of his peers, but LaMarcus Aldridge has long been one of the most dominant bigs in the league and his consistency has helped keep the ship steady for the contending Trail Blazers this season. Ultimately, like other players with greater ambitions, Aldridge will eventually be judged and remembered for what he does in the post-season: if he can lead his team to greater, consistent playoff success, casual fans are going to get to know him a whole lot better, too.

Click here to read full feature.

Most Wanted

Citizens of China are playing - and watching - basketball in record numbers, so it only makes sense and that the NBA and sneaker brands send star players over there all summer long to feed the growing demand.

I wrote this feature for SLAM Magazine's KICKS Issue and it was originally published in KICKS # 17 - 2014

“Kobe! Kobe! Kobe!”

The chant fanned out like fire-flames amidst the 17,000 NBA devotees packed inside the MasterCard Center in Beijing, China, watching the Lakers play the Warriors in the first of their two pre-season exhibition games in the country last October. Fans had flocked the arena, presumably with allegiances to both teams. When it came down to it, though, attendees in every colour jersey started chanting Kobe’s name.

Thing is, Bryant wasn’t in the game at the time. Matter of fact, he wasn’t dressed for the game at all. The future Hall of a Famer was on the bench in a business suit, still nursing his healing Achilles tendon. The chants continued nevertheless.

Outside the arena, following a 100-95 Warriors win, Beijing briefly turned into bizzaro version of Los Angeles. Kobe jerseys, T-shirts, hats, mouse pads, iPhone covers, bags, scarves, and other merchandise. The subways, especially, were full of fans of all ages in Kobe jerseys. The NBA may have held the game at a neutral venue, but with the Black Mamba on hand, the Lakers were always going to be the home team.

The love wasn’t a surprise for Bryant; he has been to China quite a few times over the past decade. In fact, so have the majority of the League’s biggest names. Every yaer, between the summer and late fall, apparel and sneaker companies send their stars on marketing runs to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, and other more remote Chinese locations.

Over the past few years two years alone, the likes of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade, Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Jeremy Lin, Rajon Rondo, Chandler Parsons and several other players, including Bryant, have seen the word CHINA stamped on their passport thanks, in part, to their sneaker affiliations.

“China is really our number two market,” said Yuron White, the VP/General Manager for Greater China, in a conversation with SLAM, “China has shown love to basketball and greeted NBA fans like local heroes, which is why it has made sense for us to keep bringing NBA players to the country.”

“The sport is growing in China,” adds All Star Damian Lillard, who was part of adidas’ fantastic foursome of point guards – along with John Wall, Jrue Holiday, and Ricky Rubio – to visit China last summer. “It’s a great opportunity for us to come over here and experience how passionate the fans here are. They are huge fans of us but they don’t have access to us the way the people in America do. For us to come over here, it’s an experience for us and for them. I see people wearing my jersey, or knowing my first name. It’s just mind-blowing.”

China, of course, has a long and illustrious history with basketball, which reached its apex of sorts with Yao Mong’s remarkable stay in the NBA from 2002-11. The mania surrounding Yao only boosted a growing love of the game in the country. Nowadays, the sport is played by hundreds of millions across the world’s largest population, and the CBA – China’s own professional basketball league – will kick off its 19th season this year.

But most of the real interest lies in the NBA. NBA China sources say that regular season NBA games, which air early in the morning hours, rate way better than CBA games, which air during the primetime. In China, there are NBA fans in every nook and corner, in every high-end shopping mall and every local hutong.

During the season, starts like Bryant and Lillard help push the League in China. In the summer, naturally, they come to promote their own individual brands.

“I think that the growing interest of the game [in China] is great,” said Jeremy Lin, during his visit with adidas recently, “It’s great for basketball, and it’s great for the country as well. Basketball is such a fun sport and now it’s cool to see how much China has really adopted the game.”

With China’s summertime NBA excesses becoming a larger and more competitive field every year, the promotional approaches have taken on more and more creative forms, from Chris Paul ‘hand-delivering’ the new Jordan CP3.VIIs, as he walked through the old streets of Beijing or LeBron James and Kobe Bryant working with the Nike RISE campaign to help train selected Chinese youth throughout the country.

Meanwhile, adidas turned their store in Beijing’s Sanlitun branch – the biggest adi store in the world – into a Derrick Rose shrine this past year. Even though the former MVP was out of action for most of the season, Rose made a special trip last year to Beijing as part of his Asia tour, and interacted with fans, giving away pairs of the D Rose 773 II shoes and played table-tennis with the media and fans in the city.

While the big names like Nike, Jordan, or adidas boast their international credentials, bringing the West to the East, the East has their rising stars, too. Companies like Peak and Anta from China are slowly gaining clout, and well-known NBA names like Kevin Garnett, Tony Parker, Rajon Rondo, and more have committed to the Chinese brands.

The biggest trail-blazer in this respect has been Dwyane Wade and his relationship with Li Ning. In 2012, Wade became the biggest NBA superstar to join the Li Ning roster, leaving behind his previous American shoe deal for the Asian stalwart.

Sneakers aside, China has also become a hot pre-season destination, as large NBA entourage led by two teams, now head eastward every season to take part in the “China Games,” back-to-back matchups in Beijing and Shanghai between two teams. The Miami Heat, L.A. Clippers, Lakers, and Warriors have played in these games in China over the last two years, and this preseason, the Brooklyn Nets and the Sacramento Kings will make the long flight.

These games continue to be greeted with Playoff fervour – just ask the Lakers and the Warriors. But no matter how big other NBA names get worldwide, Kobe continues to garner China’s love like no other. After all, he has been coming annually every summer for almost a decade. The Chinese like to adopt catchy English nicknames, and of course, ‘Kobe’ is among the most popular ones. Grown men have cried in his presence. There is nothing but love.

And every offseason, Kobe, just like so many of the other top players in the League, returns to China to receive love and give some back. While the rest of the NBA takes a break, the summertime becomes the Playoffs in the NBA’s Far-Eastern Conference.

Welcome to the Jungle

The playoffs aren’t a stroll in the park. There are dangerous animals, unexpected changes of terrain, the possibility of getting lost in the gloom and the darkness, and a lot of annoying little insects (or the media) out there in the wild. In the playoffs, you either hunt or get hunted. Become the predator or the prey. Win four times in a series and survive, or lose and get left behind.

As we approach the end of the first week of the NBA postseason, we have seen four young perimeter players be let loose in the jungle for the first time. How are they handling it? And how many will have a chance to survive and keep venturing ahead?

Click here to read my full feature.

Points: The NBA All Star Weekend concluded with an outburst of offense

By the time the fun-filled weekend was over, it left a legacy that could be described in a single, mono-syllable word: Points. This year's All Star Game became the greatest celebration of offense that it has ever seen in its 63 year history. The West and the East combined to score 318 points together, shattering the previous combined total of 303 from 1987. The East, who came back from 18 down to win the game, set an All Star record with 163 points.

Check out my review of the weekend here.

A Weekend of Stars – and Damian Lillard: Predicting the 2014 All Star Weekend

Taking part in a record five events, Damian Lillard will by default become the most-mentioned name listed literally, everywhere, but will he be the most successful? With revamped energy (word to the new Commissioner) in all the All Star programmes – particularly for the Slam Dunk Contest – it’s promising to be a big year for the event all around. Here is my preview and some bold predictions looking forward to the NBA All Star Weekend.

Click here to read full feature.

Fantastic, Fast, Four – Holiday, Lillard, Rubio, & Wall are the breathtaking future of the NBA

This feature was first published as the cover story in the 110th edition (2013 - No. 13) of SLAM China Magazine. Here is my original English version of the story.

Bring together the ingredients of the perfect point guard. You can ask for floor vision, leadership, ability to take the outside shot, ability to drive in and create, the ability to score, the ability to dish, and oh, the speed. Lots and lots of speed. And when four of the most exciting young point guards assembled under one roof, all of the ingredients came together like a perfect mosaic to create the breathtaking future of the NBA.

So what more can you ask for? An All Star, a Rookie of the Year, a number one draft pick, and perhaps the most exciting European player of All Time. Over the past week, Jrue Holiday (newly traded to the New Orleans Pelicans), Damian Lillard (Portland Trailblazers), Ricky Rubio (Minnesota Timberwolves) and John Wall (Washington Wizards) were all in Beijing and all together under one roof. At an average of less than 23 years, these four point maestros are the fast and furious future of the league.

SLAM caught up with all four with quick-fire questions to see how each one completes the puzzle and develops into the perfect point guard.

SLAM: Jrue: How much of a challenge is it to move on to a new team in the off-season and be leader in the backcourt, with new coaches and new teammates?

Holiday: I have had a lot of different coaches in my life already, and I have faith that the coaching staff will help in making the transition easy.

SLAM: Jrue, How do you see yourself fitting into the Pelicans offense?

Holiday: I think it’s gonna be easy. Need to study their game, watch them play, and I’ll take what they have, that’s my style of game. I think everyone’s gonna be happy in the system, we’ll use many screen-and-rolls, a lot of pick and rolls, I can hit the threes going around the big men and going around the guards.

SLAM: Damian, Congrats on the Rookie of the Year award. Did you start off last season actively aiming to be the league’s ROY?

Lillard: It was definitely a goal of mine. Like I always said, I always set out to be productive. I played a lot of minutes, so the opportunity was already given to me. I just wanted to take advantage of it as much as I could.

SLAM: Damian, What is going to be the challenge ahead to get into the playoff picture for the Trailblazers?

Lillard: I think we need to improve defensively. Now we have a year under our belt playing together. We know each other a little bit better so we should be better because of that. As long as we make the improvements we need to defensively, I think we’ll be a better team. Hopefully, we can find a way to get into the playoffs.

SLAM: Ricky, It was a tough finish for you guys with all the injuries at the end of last season. How good can the Timberwolves be at full health in the upcoming year?

Ricky Rubio: We’re still working and we’re still building a team, but I think we have something going on. I’ve very excited for the next season to see if everybody can be healthy and we can get to the playoffs. That was our goal for the last two years. We couldn’t reach it for many reasons, and one of them was too many injuries. I’m working hard this summer to improve my game.

SLAM: Ricky, What goal do you choose of achieving first – An Olympic Gold or an NBA championship?

Rubio: I can’t pick between those two. I’m a winner and I want to win, so I’ll choose both.

SLAM: John, Your Wizards started the last season slow, but once you got back, you became one of the top teams in the East. What are your expectations going forward for the next season?

Wall: I personally feel that to be a great point guard in this league, you just gonna win, so my goal is to make the playoffs.

SLAM: John, What was the biggest challenge coming from an injury like you had early last season?

Wall: The biggest challenge is being mentally prepared, being mentally strong, just fighting through it when you know you can’t play. I wanted to do a good job being a leader for my team, to be like a coach on the sidelines.

SLAM: Personally, how do you plan to improve your own game over this off-season to get to the next level?

Holiday: I’d like to see myself in the All Star Game again and hopefully make it to the playoffs. I think that’s the ultimate goal: to get to the playoffs and win championships.

Lillard: I think I just have to expect more for myself. I of course have to work on my game. I have to get my percentages up, work on finishing better, on new ways to score, and find a way to make my teammates better. If I can do those things and everybody else also improves their game, then we should be a playoff team.

Rubio: It’s a very important off-season for me. Last year I was hurt and I couldn’t get good workout for my knee. This year, I’m really focused on working on my body, and in getting stronger, and after that, improve my jump-shot and get ready for the next season.

Wall: Just be working every day in the summer to improve my jump-shot, and finishing on floaters to make myself a better player.

SLAM: So who is the fastest out of all four of you?

Holiday: I think John’s probably the fastest. John’s an incredible athlete; you have to play against him to see it. And then, it’s probably me.

Lillard: Probably me and John Wall.

Rubio: I have to go with… Me! [Laughs]… I dunno, we have to compete and see who is better.

Wall: I’m the quickest, I’m not the fastest!

SLAM: And who in the group is the toughest for you to defend?

Holiday: They all bring something really different. John is fast, strong, gets to the basket. Ricky Rubio, obviously is very deceptive: he can throw the ball behind your back and all of a sudden, somebody’s open! And Damian can score from just anywhere on the court.

Lillard: John is pretty good, but Jrue Holiday is probably the toughest, because he’s the biggest.

Rubio: All three are tough! I can’t pick one, but if I had to say, I’ll say… Jrue!

Wall: I’ll probably say Dame [Lillard]. Dame is a very good young player and probably one of the toughest to play against.

SLAM: Who is the best point guard in the NBA right now?  

Lillard: Before he got hurt I think it was Derrick Rose, but right now it’s probably Chris Paul.

Rubio: Before the injury, I think Derrick Rose was on another level. When I played against him, he was the toughest one to guard. Now we’ll see how he’ll recover. It was good for him to take a year off and be ready. I suffered the same injury and I know that it’s very tough. So yes, I’ll say, number one is still Derrick Rose.

Wall: It’s very tough, depends on what you need from what point guard. Every other point guard gives you something different.

SLAM: What do you need to do in your game to get to number one?

Lillard: I think I can be a better floor general, make the game easier for my teammates, control the pace of the game better. The top point guards are an extension of the coach on the floor and I think I can do a good job of playing the point guard position, but it takes experience to grow into the ‘coach on the floor’ role.

Wall: Just keep improving, like I said earlier, on my jump-shots, floaters. Just watch every aspect of my game and work every day.

SLAM: Which player as a youngster did you idolize or model or game after?

Lillard: When I was younger I really like Allen Iverson, so if there was anyone that did model my game after, it was him.

Rubio: [Long Pause] I like basketball and I like to watch all kind of players. But especially if I had to name one, I’d name Steve Nash. There’s a lot of Magic Johnson. There’s a lot of great point guards in this league!

Wall: My favourite player was Allen Iverson growing up. But I want leave behind my own legacy so people remember John Wall.

SLAM: If you could pick any player in the NBA to throw a lob up to, who would it be?

Holiday: Probably Blake Griffin

Lillard: LeBron.

Rubio: Um… [Long Pause]… I would say… I’m think about a lot of names… Vince Carter… In his prime, Vince Carter.

Wall: Blake Griffin.

SLAM: What is your secret weapon?

Holiday: It might be my jump-shot.

Lillard: My athleticism.

Rubio: It’s a secret, I can’t tell you!

Wall: Can’t tell you, it’s undercover.

SLAM: And what is your kryptonite?

Holiday: That’s kinda tough: I’m trying to model my game so I don’t really have one.

Lillard: I’m not even sure man. I probably don’t have one.

Rubio: I can’t tell you that either. If I tell you my kryptonite then they’re gonna stop me!

Wall: If there’s one thing that can hold me back, it’s myself. I’m the only person that can hold myself back.

SLAM: With so many NBA events happening in China over the summer, it seems that the off-season is the ‘in-season’ in China. What do you think about the growing interest of the game here?

Holiday: I think it’s awesome. I think basketball is definitely a world sport, and the NBA is kind of the hierarchy of that. So just being able to come here and to interact with fans who will probably never get to see us in person, it’s awesome. They’re excited for us to come over here and it makes me personally feel good and makes me wanna come back!

Lillard: The sport is growing here and it’s a great opportunity for us to come over here and experience how passionate the fans here are. They are huge fans of us and they don’t have access to us the way the people in America do. For us to come over here, it’s an experience for us and the fans. It’s amazing to see how much they know about us here. I see people wearing my jersey, knowing my first name. It’s just mind-blowing.

Rubio: It’s awesome. That’s why I was really excited to come here. I came here in 2008 (Olympics): I knew basketball was huge here, and I think it’s even bigger now. I love basketball and I like when people are excited about it. Fans of China are the best ones at that – they’re excited to watch basketball and we feel that, so we too are excited to be here. 

Wall: This is my first time to China and it’s great to be here in this tour as China Basketball also gets bigger and bigger. There’s no better time to be here.

Evolving Points: Say hello to the Point Guards of the Future

This feature was first published in the 108th edition (2013 - No. 11) of SLAM China Magazine. Here is my original English version of the story.

The rule was to get Big Men. From Russell to Wilt to Kareem to Hakeem to Shaq and a dozen more in the middle. Get a big man, get success.

And then the smaller guys started to take over. Magic and Bird were bigger guys who could do it small. Jordan made it a perimeter game and Kobe and LeBron took it from there. By the mid-2000s, Steve Nash had won back to back MVP awards. And so we knew that there were some exceptions to every rule.

By 2011, three of the previous four number one draft picks had been point guards (Derrick Rose, John Wall, Kyrie Irving). Six of the last eight Rookie of the Years were guards (Chris Paul, Brandon Roy, Rose, Tyreke Evans, Irving, Damian Lillard). Nearly every team in the NBA had a decent guard manning the point. And big men began to get mostly limited as defensive, shot-altering presences, existing mostly to make life easier for the smaller guys.

The exception became the rule.

While the absolute best players in the NBA currently rove around the Small Forward position – LeBron, Durant, and Carmelo – there is no doubt now that the NBA is morphing towards becoming a point guard’s league. But these aren’t your point guards of the past, the fundamental-first, slow-but-steady floor generals like Stockton, Kidd, or Cousy, who make the right pass at the right time to more explosive finishers. The Point Guard of today is the right passer and the explosive finisher, all rolled into one. He does everything required of him and then some. He can outrun opponents like Ty Lawson. Out-pass them like Rajon Rondo. Out-jump them like Russell Westbrook. Out-craft them like Ricky Rubio. And out-shoot them like Stephen Curry.

He has to be whatever his team needs him to be. And he has to win.

Following the evolution of the point guard position through changing times in the NBA’s history can be an intriguing, eye-opening journey. When the league was first established back in 1947, success depended almost exclusively on big men. The man who led the way was Center George Mikan of the Minneapolis Lakers, helping his team win five titles in six years. Every team hoped to stop Mikan, and so everyone wanted a Mikan. There was no set ‘point guard’ position, as two or three perimeter players played fluidly as shot-creators or outside shooters to help open up space for the big man inside. Great guards of the 50s like Bob Cousy, Paul Arizin, and Bill Sharman were high scorers but rarely settled into a strict ‘point’ position.

In came Oscar Robertson to blur the lines even further. Robertson was the definition of a complete basketball player, messing about and getting triple doubles and easing between any of the three perimeter position. He was a pass-first point guard when needed, a shoot-first shooting guard when the situation changed, and attacked the basket like a forward. Over in LA, Jerry West was the complete scoring guard. In New York, Walt Fraizer began to morph the lines between the guard positions clearer, becoming an unstoppable two-way threat for the Knicks.

Still, it was a league of bigs. After a decade of Russell and Chamberlain fighting for supremacy, in came Lew Alcindor – soon to be known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – to make dominant bigs even bigger. Between 1965-1980, a post-player won the MVP award every season, including Russell, Chamberlain, Wes Unseld, Willis Reed, Abdul-Jabbar, Bob McAdoo, Bill Walton, and Moses Malone.

And then came Magic, and just like Oscar Robertson did nearly two decades ago, he made it essential to start paying attention to the floor-general again.

Magic Johnson – at 6’9” – was a wonder. A genius with the size of a post-player and the vision of a point guard. It was in Magic’s domination of the 80s that we finally understood the qualities that we wish to see in a true offensive point guard. A player who is single-handedly responsible for running the team’s offense and creating scoring opportunities – for himself or for others – as required. While Magic worked his magic, the decade also spawned two more of the greatest point guards of All Time. One was John Stockon, the consummate team player who always saw pass first. And the other was Isiah Thomas, who formed a tough backcourt in Detroit with his ability to be a scoring sparkplug and the blueprint for a generation of young small high-scoring players ahead, from Allen Iverson to Derrick Rose.

By now, the Michael Jordan phenomenon had struck pro basketball, and along with Magic and Larry Bird, Jordan had given more power than ever to the perimeter player. Jordan was a swingman, and although the offense ran through him, he rarely played the role of a traditional PG. In Jordan, we had seen the perimeter player win scoring titles, MVPs, and championships. But in all those years with the Bulls, the point guards were usually an afterthought, kept merely as spot-up shooters to support Jordan and Pippen. Still, there were many other great point guards that manned the position in the 90s, including Stockton, Gary Payton, Penny Hardaway and Kevin Johnson.

Near the end of Jordan’s tenure with the Bulls, Allen Iverson entered the league as an explosive and unapologetic shoot-first point guard. But it wasn’t until Iverson was played in the 2-guard position next to a more stable point man did his explosive abilities result into consistent success. The likes of Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis made high-scoring an art form for the small player.

It’s been in the turn of the century that the point guard position has revved up to a higher gear, and now offers the deepest pool of talent in the league. And in large numbers there comes great variety. Jason Kidd and Steve Nash dominated most of the large decade; Kidd as a complete triple-double threat floor general and Nash as the ultimate offensive weapon who led the league in assists multiple times and was one of the league’s deadliest shooters. Tony Parker weaved his way to multiple championships with the Spurs. Chris Paul and Deron Williams arrived midway through the last decade to further solidify the position; both of them evolving as ‘complete’ point guards in their different ways, and both become great leaders on both ends of the court.

The change of the hand-check rules further emancipated the point guards, who were free to attack the basket at breakneck pace and help result in high-energy, exciting basketball. In 2008, Derrick Rose became the first pure guard since Allen Iverson to go number one in the draft. An army of point men in the same mold – from John Wall to Russell Westbrook – soon followed.

Now, depending on the team’s needs, there is a point guard for each system, for each mentality, and to mesh with each type of teammate. Parker is there to beat screens and attack the basket, playing in perfect harmony with the bigs in his team. Paul and Williams are there to make plays and improve their squad, and take over in games whenever needed. Kyrie Irving and Damian Lillard may be following in their footsteps too. Rose, Westbrook, Wall, and Ty Lawson are the type of high-scoring point guards who are athletic monsters, unstoppable in a race down the court and unstoppable when they lift off the floor. Rajon Rondo and Ricky Rubio are of a similar design; two pass first creators who can fill up the stat-sheet and affect the game from every angle. Stephen Curry has elite range and ball-handling skills to match. Jrue Holiday, Brandon Jennings, Kemba Walker, Luo Williams, Mike Conley, and George Hill are all great talents capable of putting points on the board and be the right type of offensive mastermind as their team requires. And don’t forget Jeremy Lin, who lit up the world with his explosive point play in New York last year and is now bringing more consistency into his attack-mode style.

With the rise of all these point guards, what we have started to see is that big players – formerly the anchors around whom every team was centered – now have their roles redefined. It is now the point guard who dictates the way ahead, and the big player who has to adjust to cater for the explosive PG.

The evolution of point guards has reached its apex where there is no more single answer for a point guard, but multiple, excellent choices.

And now, the revolution begins.

He who controls the past, controls the future: End of Season Awards and a playoffs preview

So now we stand at the crossroads between what we know about the past and what we can predict about the future. As the great George Orwell wrote through the slogan of Ingsoc in Ninety Eighty-Four: “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” The past and the present has been controlled by LeBron and Miami. Will the same hold true for the future?

Here are my end-of-season awards for 2012-13 and a preview of the upcoming playoffs.

Click here to read full article!

Rise & Fall: A midway review of the NBA season

This feature was first published on Court Side News on January 19, 2013.

Let’s clink our beverages together and declare ‘cheers!’ to an incredible first half of the 2012-13 NBA season, for by the time that you read this, most NBA teams would have played around 41 games each and the NBA calendar would be hovering right around it’s hallway point. Through November to January, we’ve seen great Basketball, fantastic individual accomplishments, surprising highs and some shocking lows.

If NBA teams and players were on the stock market, they would have seen some serious fluctuations in their value over the past three months. We take a look back at those rises and those falls in our mid-season review of the stories that shaped the first half of the season.

Rising: The Los Angeles Clippers. In a half-season to remember, the Clippers have already played the best Basketball in the cursed history of this franchise, even going back to the days of the Buffalo Braves or the San Diego Clippers.

Rising: Chris Paul. Until this year, Paul used to be a frontrunner in arguments of the league’s best point guard. There’s no one arguing anymore.

Falling: The Los Angeles Lakers. Recent turnaround notwithstanding, the Lakers have had a terrible three months. With what was assembled and dignified as one of the greatest starting fives of all time – Kobe, Howard, Nash, Gasol, World Peace – they have achieved little and find themselves outside the playoff picture. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, as a healthy return to their crucial pieces has produced positive results.

Rising: New York Knicks. For a team that hasn’t been past the first round of the playoffs for over a decade, a top two place in the Eastern Conference is looking assured this season. Thanks largely to the brilliant play of Carmelo Anthony, but also to the defence and leadership provided by Tyson Chandler, Jason Kidd, and the rest.

Falling: The stocks of a whole bunch of injured players, from Andrew Bynum and Derrick Rose to Kevin Love and Danny Granger. Many of them will return in the second half of the year, but their form will be questionable. And a few who have returned of late – Dirk Nowitzki, Eric Gordon, John Wall, and Amar’e Stoudemire – the pressure is on them to acclimatize themselves as soon as possible.

Rising: The Golden State Warriors. David Lee and Stephen Curry are playing like All Stars, and this team is winning. A lot. But the Warriors will need the return of Andrew Bogut to be their defensive stalwart in the middle if they have greater ambitions of playoffs success.

Falling: The job prospects of the Minnesota Timberwolves medical staff, who have lost Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio, Brandon Roy, Chase Budinger, JJ Barea, Josh Howard, and Malcolm Lee to a various slew of injuries. Somehow, the team remains in the playoff hunt!

Rising: Damian Lillard who? The rookie point guard who took the now unheard-of path to the NBA with four years in college has exploded on the scene, leading all rookies in points, assists, steals, and minutes and has provided fresh hope for the Trailblazers.

Rising: James Harden. From sixth man of the year in Oklahoma City to sure fire All Star in Houston. Harden has developed into one of the best all round players in the league, and has improved his scoring average by nearly 10 points from the past season to rank fourth in the NBA this year (26.3 ppg). He’s only 23, so expect him in the ‘rising’ column a lot more.

Falling: The value of Harden’s Houston teammate Jeremy Lin, who was an unstoppable force of nature on and off the court for a few weeks last year, but now finds himself comfortably shelved playing average Basketball for an average team. Judging by his All Star votes, he’s still immensely popular; and judging by his salary and endorsements, he’s still going to be immensely rich.

Rising: Kevin Durant and the Thunder. No doubt that Durant – who is on pace to have one of the greatest shooting seasons of all time and has led the Thunder to the NBA’s top record – is my pick for the mid-season MVP. Durant has drastically added to his game and as a result, the Thunder sit pretty on top as the favourites to steal the NBA championship.

And finally… Stocks are Even for LeBron James and the Miami Heat. What can a three-time MVP, reigning champion, and Finals MVP do to get better? Just keep doing what he’s always done at a historic pace. The path to the title must still go through James and the Heat, and you can be sure that they’ll be standing in the way of any challengers. They haven’t been perfect this season, but Miami will surely up the ante defensively once the playoffs begin to rise again.