Knickerblogger.net is a site that I like a whole lot since it has a lot of good statistical information along with some sensible explanations of how statistics work, and some opinions about the Knicks that aren’t completely insane. Their recent recap of Isaiah Thomas’ tenure as coach of the Knicks does a much needed job of putting things in some sort of perspective.
The point to be taken from their recap is that the team that Thomas took over was not only awful, but also old. In that situation, one thing to do is let the contracts expire and try and build from the draft, with the hopes of becoming relevant in the future. Had Thomas gone that route four years ago, the Knicks might, right now, be approaching semi-serious contention. Thomas, however, proceeded to make trades with the goal of winning immediately, some of them with draft picks, and assemble what has finally revealed itself as one of the worst rosters known to man.
It’s not as if Thomas’ employers or the Knicks fans would have had much patience for re-building at any point during Thomas’ tenure. Possibly they could have been won over by it, but the temptation of immediate wins and playoff appearances was not something felt by Thomas alone. The people concerned with the Knicks all honestly believed that making the Knicks immediately relevant could and should be attempted.
The route that Thomas went thus involved taking a number of chances, and, unfortunately, none of them paid off. This can, in part, be attributed to bad judgment by Thomas, but one has to keep in mind that, as a GM charged with turning a bad team into a winning team, while suspended over the piranha-tank that is the New York Press, it was pretty much Thomas’ job to take those chances. The Dolans gave him a handful of chips, and we all looked nervously over his shoulder as he walked to the crap table.
Thomas’ first move was the trade for Marbury. Marbury has had serious flashes of brilliance throughout his career, and there was reason to believe that he could carry a team. There was also, even then, a good case to be made that Marubury was bad for teams and threatening to chemistry, but it wasn’t as if there were dozens of super-star point guards for Thomas to choose from. Thomas’ gamble didn’t pay off, but, given the overly ambitious goal of the Knicks, it wasn’t one that Thomas was necessarily unwise in taking. Given the short-term (and ultimately more important) goal of generating buzz around the team, it was practically inevitable.
Only someone with a serious problem with depression could have anticipated how badly the Curry trade worked out. When Thomas got him, Curry was very young and had led the league in field goal percentage one year. He was seven feet tall: it defies reason that someone seven feet tall could be so incapable of rebounding. It was almost impossible not to see potential in Curry and it seems unfair to expect Thomas to have anticipated Curry’s miserablness.
Furthermore, it is not as if the Bulls, who should seem to be on the winning end of the Curry deal, are much better, right now, than the Knicks, but, at the time that Thomas took over the Knicks, the Bulls had a far more interesting and talented young roster than the Knicks have had at any point in recent history. Despite that, the Bulls are so bad this season that they lost a game to the Knicks. The Bulls are so bad that they would probably be better if they had hung on to Eddy Curry.
So why aren’t people assembling with gigantic pink-slips to demand the ousting of the Bulls management? If the Mitchell report has taught me anything, it is to be less hesitant in calling out the sports establishment for ridiculous racism. Thomas was given an extremely difficult task, and he proceeded to do it badly. Looking back over the league’s last few years, it is not exactly as if there were many sure-fire ways of catapulting the Knicks into contention that Thomas passed on. Top notch talent is extremely hard to come by—particularly when you don’t have much to offer in return. With the benefit of hindsight, Thomas’ biggest mistake was probably not mortgaging the farm to get Kevin Garnett from Minnesota—but even that would have been a risk that he would understandably have shied away from. The series of more minor moves that he did undertake worked out badly, but any move that he could have made would have been a gamble with a significant chance of failure. The Knicks roster is a mixture of bad luck and bad judgment, for which Thomas deserves a significant amount of responsibility, but in no way warrants the bitterness of the anti-Isaiah campaigns, which are very revealingly deconstructed by Basketbawful’s Evil Ted.
There is something about successful, outspoken black men who disappoint expectations that brings out an ugly edge of hatred in American sports fans. It makes what happens on the floor at Madison square garden seem relatively pretty.
Showing posts with label Isiah Thomans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Isiah Thomans. Show all posts
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Coaches vs. Managers
The start of the NBA season has provided the opportunity for certain reflections on the differences between the role of baseball manager and basketball coach, which, when considered practically, cause recent happenings amongst the management of various New York teams to be appear bizarre.
The advent of Sabermetric thinking in baseball has led to many new conclusions, some of them controversial and difficult to accept (such as the non-existence of clutch, and the fact that weather a ball put in play is caught or falls for a hit is a piece of luck that has absolutely nothing to do with the pitcher) and others that are fairly intuitive—in this latter category I would place the revelation that the manager has a minor effect, if any, on the outcome of a baseball season. This is intuitive, because all that a manager in baseball really does is determine the batting order, set the rotation and decide on which relievers to use; occasionally they will put on the hit-and-run, or have a hitter bunt, but these situations come up relatively rarely. Success or failure in baseball has almost entirely to do with the individual battle between pitcher and batter. Having good or bad pitchers or hitters will outweigh good or bad management; there is no statistical evidence that certain managers, by virtue of their presence, leadership, or teaching are able to get their hitters to hit more and their pitchers to throw more strikes. If the Mets were able to obtain Johan Santana at the expense of being managed by the 9th caller on the Mike and the Mad Dog show, they would be idiots not to accept.
The basketball coach, however, would seem to have a more significant role in determining his team’s fortunes. Different coaches employ different scoring and defensive strategies; the coach determines which five players will be on the floor at any given time, and they will occasionally stop play to give their players very specific instructions about where to run, who to guard, and what to do in response to specific, possible actions on the part of the opposing team—and all of these things could have an effect on the outcome of the game that was more or less independent of the skill of the players. Furthermore since basketball involves players working closely together, precisely timing passes, rebounds and shot attempts, it might not be wrong to consider the impact of “intangibles” like “chemistry” and “teamwork”—and again it seems that the coach could have some effect, by either creating or failing to create an environment that leads his players to work well together; in baseball, whenever someone is talking about chemistry or teamwork it is a generally a sign that you can stop paying attention.
As a result, the commotion surrounding Torre’s departure from the Yankees struck people with a serious statistical interest as a little bit weird. Torre had the distinction of being the highest paid guy ever at a job that was fairly irrelevant, so good for him. He had shown himself to be reasonably be good at it and has some ability to deal with Steinbrners and A-Rods and the New York media—all good accomplishments, but perhaps not seven million dollars worth of accomplishments. You can definitely argue that seven million dollars is too much money to pay a guy for a job that is fairly unimportant; you could also argue that the Yankees have all the money in the world, and that there was no good reason to not bring back Torre, since he had clearly shown himself to not be horrible—mainly you can argue that a new manager is WAY less important to the Yankees (and every other baseball team ever) than a new starter and maybe another arm or two out of the bullpen.
However, it is particularly interesting to contemplate the irrelevance of the departed Torre, and contrast it with the possible relevance of the contract-extended Isaiah Thomas. Every year that Torre managed, the Yankees made the playoffs—and even if the manager is irrelevant, it is impossible to say the Torre’s teams were not successful. Thomas has turned the Knicks into a disaster on pretty much every imaginable level—not only has he coached the mediocre players that he himself assembled (and mortgaged the franchises’ future to assemble) to a loosing record last year, but he then managed to drag the franchise name through the mud of a really embarrassing lawsuit.
So, Torre had an unimportant job and was kind of good at it, and got fired/given an offer he had to refuse. And Isaiah Thomas has a job that probably does matter, and is measurably awful at it, and got a contract extension.
Weird, right?
(I actually sort of like Zeke, but that’s just because I know that I wouldn’t find the Knicks more amusing if they won...and because I also don't give a fuck about all those white people)
The advent of Sabermetric thinking in baseball has led to many new conclusions, some of them controversial and difficult to accept (such as the non-existence of clutch, and the fact that weather a ball put in play is caught or falls for a hit is a piece of luck that has absolutely nothing to do with the pitcher) and others that are fairly intuitive—in this latter category I would place the revelation that the manager has a minor effect, if any, on the outcome of a baseball season. This is intuitive, because all that a manager in baseball really does is determine the batting order, set the rotation and decide on which relievers to use; occasionally they will put on the hit-and-run, or have a hitter bunt, but these situations come up relatively rarely. Success or failure in baseball has almost entirely to do with the individual battle between pitcher and batter. Having good or bad pitchers or hitters will outweigh good or bad management; there is no statistical evidence that certain managers, by virtue of their presence, leadership, or teaching are able to get their hitters to hit more and their pitchers to throw more strikes. If the Mets were able to obtain Johan Santana at the expense of being managed by the 9th caller on the Mike and the Mad Dog show, they would be idiots not to accept.
The basketball coach, however, would seem to have a more significant role in determining his team’s fortunes. Different coaches employ different scoring and defensive strategies; the coach determines which five players will be on the floor at any given time, and they will occasionally stop play to give their players very specific instructions about where to run, who to guard, and what to do in response to specific, possible actions on the part of the opposing team—and all of these things could have an effect on the outcome of the game that was more or less independent of the skill of the players. Furthermore since basketball involves players working closely together, precisely timing passes, rebounds and shot attempts, it might not be wrong to consider the impact of “intangibles” like “chemistry” and “teamwork”—and again it seems that the coach could have some effect, by either creating or failing to create an environment that leads his players to work well together; in baseball, whenever someone is talking about chemistry or teamwork it is a generally a sign that you can stop paying attention.
As a result, the commotion surrounding Torre’s departure from the Yankees struck people with a serious statistical interest as a little bit weird. Torre had the distinction of being the highest paid guy ever at a job that was fairly irrelevant, so good for him. He had shown himself to be reasonably be good at it and has some ability to deal with Steinbrners and A-Rods and the New York media—all good accomplishments, but perhaps not seven million dollars worth of accomplishments. You can definitely argue that seven million dollars is too much money to pay a guy for a job that is fairly unimportant; you could also argue that the Yankees have all the money in the world, and that there was no good reason to not bring back Torre, since he had clearly shown himself to not be horrible—mainly you can argue that a new manager is WAY less important to the Yankees (and every other baseball team ever) than a new starter and maybe another arm or two out of the bullpen.
However, it is particularly interesting to contemplate the irrelevance of the departed Torre, and contrast it with the possible relevance of the contract-extended Isaiah Thomas. Every year that Torre managed, the Yankees made the playoffs—and even if the manager is irrelevant, it is impossible to say the Torre’s teams were not successful. Thomas has turned the Knicks into a disaster on pretty much every imaginable level—not only has he coached the mediocre players that he himself assembled (and mortgaged the franchises’ future to assemble) to a loosing record last year, but he then managed to drag the franchise name through the mud of a really embarrassing lawsuit.
So, Torre had an unimportant job and was kind of good at it, and got fired/given an offer he had to refuse. And Isaiah Thomas has a job that probably does matter, and is measurably awful at it, and got a contract extension.
Weird, right?
(I actually sort of like Zeke, but that’s just because I know that I wouldn’t find the Knicks more amusing if they won...and because I also don't give a fuck about all those white people)
Monday, April 23, 2007
Some Thoughts
The problem with the Mets right now, is not so much the starting pitching, the bullpen, or the defense but that they aren’t getting the key hit with runners in scoring position. Several Mets have said as much themselves, but sports writers seem to love blaming Aaron Hielman.
While hanging out at the beer garden, and keeping half an eye on the Red Sox-Yankees game, my friend Andrew, a New Englander, became increasingly afraid that the Sox would come away with a win. He is not a sports person, but, having grown up in the company of Red Sox fans, his only desire from sports is that it bring those people misery. There is a basic similarity between this and my feelings about the Yankees- but the consensus is that Red Sox fans really do leave something to be desired. My boss, a Californian who attended Harvard, became a Yankee fan as a result of indignities that he suffered while attending a game at Fenway in an A’s hat.
Perhaps what Beantown really needs is a scrappy, yet historically incompetent, National League team, to distract them somewhat from their overbearing, history-rich AL franchise; to remind them that it is just a game, played at different levels of competence- and that charm, eccentricity, and heart can be nearly as rewarding as success. It’s a pity that the Expos didn’t end up in Boston.
I think it was nice of Major League Baseball to schedule rivalry series for both New York teams for the weekend Basketball playoffs started; it was as if they knew (and, lets face it everyone did) how miserably the Knicks would do, and that, come playoff time, New Yorkers could use some cheering up.
Apropos of the Knickerbockers, I would like to make it known that ‘Sam’s Mets Blog’ supports Coach Thomas. Basketball is definitely a second favorite sport, and I don’t have any particular team loyalties- especially since the Pistons lost Big Ben Wallace. But for a dilettante fan, the Knicks were a great team to be able to watch on cable during the crappy months where there is no baseball and seasonal affect disorder sinks its teeth in: they were amusing, scrappy, and it was easy to cultivate a low-intensity, love-hate relationship with them. I think Isiah Thomas did a nice job coaching the dubious players that he had- the irony, of course, being that he assembled these dubious players himself. Also, in Clyde Frazier they got by far the best of the “Just For Men” color commentators (sorry, Keith). I wish them luck, and hope they make the playoffs next year: but if the Mets are playing the Braves again when the games start, don’t count on me to be watching.
One last word about hoops: I predict that at least one of the three most heavily favored teams, the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns, and San Antonio Spurs, won’t make it out of the first round.
While hanging out at the beer garden, and keeping half an eye on the Red Sox-Yankees game, my friend Andrew, a New Englander, became increasingly afraid that the Sox would come away with a win. He is not a sports person, but, having grown up in the company of Red Sox fans, his only desire from sports is that it bring those people misery. There is a basic similarity between this and my feelings about the Yankees- but the consensus is that Red Sox fans really do leave something to be desired. My boss, a Californian who attended Harvard, became a Yankee fan as a result of indignities that he suffered while attending a game at Fenway in an A’s hat.
Perhaps what Beantown really needs is a scrappy, yet historically incompetent, National League team, to distract them somewhat from their overbearing, history-rich AL franchise; to remind them that it is just a game, played at different levels of competence- and that charm, eccentricity, and heart can be nearly as rewarding as success. It’s a pity that the Expos didn’t end up in Boston.
I think it was nice of Major League Baseball to schedule rivalry series for both New York teams for the weekend Basketball playoffs started; it was as if they knew (and, lets face it everyone did) how miserably the Knicks would do, and that, come playoff time, New Yorkers could use some cheering up.
Apropos of the Knickerbockers, I would like to make it known that ‘Sam’s Mets Blog’ supports Coach Thomas. Basketball is definitely a second favorite sport, and I don’t have any particular team loyalties- especially since the Pistons lost Big Ben Wallace. But for a dilettante fan, the Knicks were a great team to be able to watch on cable during the crappy months where there is no baseball and seasonal affect disorder sinks its teeth in: they were amusing, scrappy, and it was easy to cultivate a low-intensity, love-hate relationship with them. I think Isiah Thomas did a nice job coaching the dubious players that he had- the irony, of course, being that he assembled these dubious players himself. Also, in Clyde Frazier they got by far the best of the “Just For Men” color commentators (sorry, Keith). I wish them luck, and hope they make the playoffs next year: but if the Mets are playing the Braves again when the games start, don’t count on me to be watching.
One last word about hoops: I predict that at least one of the three most heavily favored teams, the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns, and San Antonio Spurs, won’t make it out of the first round.
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