zach's been my favorite NBA writer for a while. he's got to be the best doing it right now. simmons pulled a real coup stealing him from SI. tons of good stuff here.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/48787/installing-the-nash-doctrine-a-new-plan-for-the-all-star-team-selections

Installing the Nash Doctrine: A New Plan for the All-Star Team Selections
By Zach Lowe on January 25, 2013 2:30 PM ET

It’s bad for your health to care about All-Star selections. The selection process is flawed in minor ways, and with only 12 spots, deserving players will be left home every year. Still: All-Star selections matter, perhaps more than they should, when it comes time to assess a player’s place in NBA history. Rajon Rondo just made his fourth All-Star team. Here is the total list of point guards who have made at least that many All-Star appearances since the league adopted the 3-point shot: Magic Johnson (12), Isiah Thomas (12), John Stockton (10), Jason Kidd (10), Gary Payton (9), Steve Nash (8), Chris Paul (6), Chauncey Billups (5), Tim Hardaway (5), Tony Parker (5), Maurice Cheeks (4), and Mark Price (4).

So with four All-Star selections, Rondo has now zoomed passed most of the “very good” point guard crop of the past 30 years, and is a couple of appearances away from jumping into the “certain Hall of Famer” group. As Rondo ages and folks debate his Hall of Fame credentials, his number of All-Star appearances will come up as evidence of his Springfield worthiness.

So while the All-Star Game is a silly exhibition with an imperfect selection process, it does have some historical significance. And that’s why it’s OK to get worked up at times about a silly exhibition game.

Case in point: It was shocking to see NBA insiders campaign for the All-Star candidacy of Jamal Crawford. Maybe “shocking” is the wrong word. Crawford plays for arguably the league’s best team and the biggest success story of the season so far. He is a very nice person, a highlight machine breaking ankles with the league’s best crossover as the top scorer on the league’s best bench. He’s exhilarating to watch when he’s on, and he’s been on during several nationally televised Clippers wins.

But, I’m sorry, he had no place on the All-Star team. I’d like to formally propose a rule, which I’ll call the Nash Doctrine: If your team has to go to tremendous and borderline hilarious lengths to hide you on one end of the floor, you are not an All-Star, unless you are elite on the other end of the floor. That the Clippers hide Crawford on defense is indisputable, and it makes sense, considering he’s long been one of the league’s worst perimeter defenders. Next time you watch the Clippers, pay attention to Crawford’s defensive assignments. You’ll see the Clippers constantly shifting him onto the least-threatening perimeter player on the opposing team. If the Clippers are playing Utah, for instance, Crawford might guard Randy Foye for a bit, but if DeMarre Carroll comes into the game, Crawford will have a new assignment on defense.

There’s nothing wrong with this. The Nuggets do it with Andre Miller, the Knicks with Steve Novak, the Thunder with Kevin Martin, etc. The NBA has room for offense-only players, especially at the guard/wing positions, since those players will at least do a lot of their defensive damage away from the rim.

Remember: I (fake) voted Crawford no. 2 on my midseason Sixth Man of the Year ballot, precisely because his ball-handling skills are so crucial to the Clippers’ thriving bench. Eric Bledsoe has been the only other reliable ball handler among that group (before Grant Hill’s return), and Bledsoe’s handle isn’t always reliable. Nor is his shooting range. Most of the Clippers’ bench centers on Crawford pick-and-rolls or Crawford running around the elbow area for handoffs. The rest of the L.A. bench guys find seams as the defenses bend toward that action.

The system has worked nicely. Crawford has shot acceptably from the floor, especially from 3-point range, and the rest of the Clips’ bench guys are generally good to very good defenders who can cover for Crawford’s limitations on that end. That’s enough to squash opposing second units, who are scoring at very low rates against the L.A. bench.

But Crawford isn’t an “elite” offensive player. He’s shooting 42 percent from the floor, and his assist numbers, once robust for a combo guard, have fallen off the cliff in L.A. The assist drop is probably due more to context and coaching than any ball-hogging on Crawford’s part, though he does lead the Clips in field goal attempts per minute. And the 42 percent shooting, well below the league’s average, also isn’t so bad, once you factor in Crawford’s 3s and foul shots.

But the offense isn’t enough to make him an All-Star. He’s not Kyrie Irving or Prime Steve Nash, minus defenders whose teams have sometimes hidden them on defense, but who have nonetheless deserved their All-Star nods.

Which brings me to my next proposal: the Stop Useless Noise (SUN) movement. The days leading up to the All-Star selections are always filled with shouting about how this or that player ABSOLUTELY DESERVES TO BE ON THE ALL-STAR TEAM, or at least “considered” for the All-Star team, whatever that means. WHY ISN’T ANYONE TALKING ABOUT J.R. SMITH????!!! PAUL GEORGE HAS TO BE THERE! HAS TO! SHOULDN’T WE AT LEAST MENTION O.J. MAYO!!!?? HEY, BRANDON JENNINGS IS PLAYING BETTER UNDER JIM BOYLAN!!!! CONSIDER HIM!!!

The SUN movement centers on this principle: Before anyone (writer, fan, talking head) declares that any player should be in the All-Star conversation, that person has to spend at least five minutes going through the exercise of picking the All-Star team using the actual rules. You get 12 roster spots, which you can give to four guards, six frontcourt players and two wild cards. That’s it. You don’t get 20 or 25 spots. You get 12.

Next step: Go through all 30 rosters and write down any semi-legitimate All-Star candidate.

With that work done, it will become clear that certain players (Mayo, Smith, Jennings, Monta Ellis, Crawford) really have no place in the All-Star discussion. The field is just too competitive for guys shooting 40 percent (Jennings, Smith, Ellis), putting up Player Efficiency Ratings barely over the league average (Smith, Joe Johnson) without compensating via elite defense (the reason behind Luol Deng’s only semi-justifiable inclusion this year), or playing miserable defense without making up for it on the other end of the floor.

(Also, please spare the world the “PER IS A GEEK STAT!” chatter that crops up whenever anyone cites it during any NBA-related debate. Thirty seconds of research will reveal PER is not really a geek stat, but rather a “new” metric that just takes all the familiar stats, mixes them together and bakes them into something better. And please recognize that most people citing it acknowledge it does not factor in individual defense, and have thus buttressed their analysis by looking at other available metrics and, you know, watching actual games.)

The SUN movement holds that touting anyone’s candidacy without going through this rudimentary exercise merely adds useless noise to our lives — tweets and television segments and blog posts that take up brain space and minutes we should be using for better things.

That rudimentary counting exercise will reveal there were really only a few “snubs” last night. Stephen Curry, Marc Gasol, and Brook Lopez jump out as the toughest omissions. Look at the final rosters, and it’s clear even adding one of these deserving guys would mean making a painful cut. That’s how tough the competition is, especially since the fan vote guaranteed a spot for at least one borderline candidate (Dwight Howard).

The most troubling selection is probably Deng over Lopez. And that’s not to single out Deng, really. He’s a very good player carrying too heavy a burden in Chicago’s offense, and that burden is dragging down his efficiency numbers. He’s one of the 10 best defenders in the league, a legitimate game-changer on that end, and his ability to do just about everything at a "B" level on offense — cut, pass, screen, dribble, catch-and-shoot, run the pick-and-roll — has helped keep Chicago’s offense afloat without Derrick Rose. He’s doing more than a “B” offensive player really should, but that isn’t his fault, given the lack of perimeter talent around him. Every Chicago perimeter guy is in the same boat; Marco Belinelli is a primary scorer on this team, and he’s shooting 39.9 percent.

But Lopez had to make the All-Star team. He’s fourth overall in PER, with a 25.4 rating that would be the second-highest ever for a player who did not make the All-Star team. (http://bkref.com/tiny/8BYHf : Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s monster 29.2 rating in 1977-78 tops the list, but he missed a huge chunk of the first half of that season due to injury. Many of the other guys on the list played in 1998-99, when the league canceled the All-Star game because of the lockout.)

And, no, PER isn’t everything. But Lopez’s other stats are quite nice. He’s shooting 52 percent, getting to the line a ton, and scoring in a variety of ways for Brooklyn’s top-10 offense — an offense that has produced very well despite down seasons for the Max Contract Backcourt. He’s rebounding better, though still not very well on the defensive end for his position, and he’s playing the best defense of his life. He’s still just so-so on that end, and flat-out bad on some possessions, but he’s been a legitimate presence in the lane this season in ways he just wasn’t before. (Ditto for David Lee, who would have had to have been a Nash Doctrine exception before this season. He's improved his defense from "horrific" to "plain old below average" in Mark Jackson's revamped system, and "below average" is perfectly fine given his top-notch offensive skills.) The Nets are playing league-average defense when Lopez is on the floor and league-worst defense without him, per NBA.com, and while other variables go into explaining that gap, Lopez’s size and improved savvy are two of them.

He should have made the team, and he didn’t need the Nash Doctrine to get there.

All-NBA selections, yes. All-defense selections, less so. All-Star appearances? Absolutely zero importance.

legacy for those that weren't around to see him play

I think it was said he made 24 all-star appearances

which, for someone like me, who isn't old enough to have seen him play

would imply that for 24 years

fans and/or coaches considered him one of the best players at his position

Baseball all-star appearances and NHL ones are particularly lame IMO. Every team has to be represented and shit. That was not an issue in his day and he would have made them anyway, I'm just saying.

that's enough of a resume

24 all-star appearances

just off the top, that's as many as Willie Mays? (I might be thinking of Hank, but anyway)

24 would mean you were an all-star from the minute you got here

until the day you left

which is what the article was intimating with the Rondo illustration

regardless of your opinion, you think they're lame, got it

regardless

when you can say that only 10 PGs in the modern era have made the all-star team more than Rondo

that IS something that is a reflection of his career to date

of course it's not the complete resume

but it is a reflection of it

The Echo Chamber Doctrine is: If you're going to write an article that is almost solely based on/is a reaction to what other reporters/"insiders" have written or said, STOP. Walk away from the computer. Go outside and come up with a real article. Better yet, pick up a phone and try to ask coaches to explain (even anonymously) why they voted for Deng over Lopez or how they would explain it. You know, actual journalism.

It's ironic that Lowe wants to ban useless noise before All-Star selections when all this is is useless noise after the All-Star selections.

Jamal Crawford's All-Star candidacy was mainly homers and people looking to fill pages with "Should top sixth men be considered All-Stars?" discussion.
There is no need for a long article arguing against filler articles regarding a meaningless exhibition game. I mean, has anyone ever been kept out of the Hall of Fame for not being in enough All-Star games? Who even mentions it besides something to fill up a resume?

and he uses PER as the basis of that argument

when he already stated why PER doesn't really take the whole game into account

Andray Blatche at 12th in PER is kinda all I need to know about that stat

and he contradicts himself with his Brook banter

who is he saying shouldn't be an all-star

Deng?

C'mon

he shoulda stuck with the initial premise

the guys that don't make it don't deserve it because there is somebody better in their spot

.

if Steph Curry expects to make an all-star team

be better than CP3 and Russy

if Brooks expects to make an all-star team

be better than Chandler and Noah

.

a spot

because he doesn't

and with the new selection rules

it's frontcourt and backcourt

Brook >>> KG

Sort of expected better

I mean, J Craw doesn't deserve it without
the Nash rule

He doesn't via the eye test

He doesn't via the PER test

He just doesn't

I think we need a better example

He really didn't deserve to be there. Matt Barnes was more deserving that him.

which means he's due for a 30 point game sometime in February, but still, it's so easy to forget how cold he can get



~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." © Jay Bilas
"I don't read pages of rap lyrics, I listen to rap music." © Bombastic
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

in that Sixer game. And it wasn't like he stopped shooting.

Yeah, those guys are bench scorers for a reason.

I know a bunch of dumb people who say it,
but nobody takes them seriously


----------------------------

Young Broadway Star Urgently Needs a Bone Marrow Donor. Is it you? http://MatchShannon.com/







O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

Probably a gd transplant

and he had 2 game winners...but he went ice cold shortly after that.

but I did hear his name come up more than a few times & not just here or blogs.

Maybe because he actually started yapping about it himself a few weeks ago so they ran with it a bit.

>zach's been my favorite NBA writer for a while. he's got to
>be the best doing it right now. simmons pulled a real coup
>stealing him from SI. tons of good stuff here.

But the article that followed was a massive letdown after reading this first. I thought I was getting tons of good stuff. Instead I got a guy writing a meaningless article about meaningless arguments.

Simmons has received threats from GMs and former/prospective that they'd "Hollinger him" and such if they were ever back in the office.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." © Jay Bilas
"I don't read pages of rap lyrics, I listen to rap music." © Bombastic
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

Introduces "The Nash Doctrine," like he's some genius, then goes
on to make an argument that 95% of basketball fans over 12 y/o
could make.

Not only is his central argument boring, the actual Nash
Doctrine isn't even the correct term, since Steve Nash has, before
this season, always been good enough to justify a place based on
his offensive wizardry. So its really not much of a "Nash Doctrine"
after all. You have to find a relevant example. Nash has always
belonged.


End of discussion.

Let's say he brought out a credible formula.

Does it really matter? It's the All Star game.

I got guys I would rather watch play than the next guy, and that guy has a list of his own. The end.

That's literally the only conversation needed. It's one thing to come on a message board or hit the barber shop and talk shit about such menial subjects, but to write a full blown article attempting to break it down to a science- and PUBLISH it for something purported to be a serious journalistic publication? Well that's just plain silly. May as well write for Bleacher Report.

Is he saying Rondo didn't deserve to make the All-Star game? Or that he's made it to games he shouldn't have? If anything, the opening example proves how stupid it is to look at All-Star games when comparing players, not that it makes sense to give a shit about them.

His argument sounded like: Look at how many All-Star games Rondo has gone to compared to other top point guards, that's why we should make sure Jamal Crawford isn't considered for the team but Brook Lopez, now there's a guy who deserves All-Star credentials on his resume.

This article was basically three different All-Star related blog posts poorly mashed together.

brook might be added as an alternate

yeah y'all niggas are right... that was definitely a cyse lol

i been meaning to start a lowe thread for a minute tho. in retrospect i prolly should've made it more abt dude's writing in general, and not made it seem like this article in particular was pulitzer worthy or something.

but yeah, dude is the best out IMO. his shit is that good. if you're a hoop head give his shit a spin.

The writer of Rounders kept tweeting how SImmons was the best hoops writer out there and I told him that he should read more writers, and one of the people I recommended was Lowe, who then proceeded to dump two turds onto the internet right afterwards.

Being able to make up solid articles when the well is dry and the deadline is coming is a key talent for top sportswriters and Lowe struggles mightily when it comes to those articles. And I feel like that's going to be even more pronounced on Grantland where they expect longer pieces.

That's my rule for sports writers

They don't work on anything important enough
for me to be be giving writers 3 and 4 chances


----------------------------

Young Broadway Star Urgently Needs a Bone Marrow Donor. Is it you? http://MatchShannon.com/







O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

being applied incorrectly as it relates to the player it's named after

it should apply when writers/basketball historians reflect upon Nash's (inflated, overrated) place as an all time great which he isn't. I've always maintained that you can't be as bad on defense as Nash has ALWAYS BEEN and be regarded amonst the All time great point guards notwithstanding his two (undeserved) MVPs.

As far as Crawford being an All Star and the other stuff he wrote abt, it (Crawford being an All Star) had some merit early in the season when he was leading the team in scoring as the 6th man, but now there's other players who have emerged as more deserving.