DEEP THOUGHTS

A Tale of One City

Ok, so it's not the best of times for the Lakers (the 80s) or the worst of times for the Clippers (the entire history of the franchise before last year), but suddenly roles have reversed from last year and it's the Lakers who are among the league's elites and the Clippers wallowing in mediocrity.

I'm still not entirely sold on the Lakers--9 of their 13 games have been played at home, the 9 teams they've beaten have a collective record of 50-70, and they're only outscoring teams by 1.7 ppg, a tough way to put up 50+ wins--but they're winning, as Lamar Odom aptly put it, "ugly games" and beating team they should beat, something they struggled with even in the Shaq years.

Kobe is continuing to use sound judgement even as his game comes back to him. He's still clearly not 100% as his disappearing act in the fourth quarter of the Utah game showed, but he's generally being aggressive--going to the line 9.3 times per game (8th in the league and just one FTA below last year) --and still managing not to force a bunch of dumb shots. 16 shot attempts per game is perfect, IMO, especially with only 2.7 of them being threes (I'll ignore the 10 he's taken over the last 2 games as an anomaly).

Odom and Walton are continuing their hot starts, Lamar putting up 20/8/5 and Walton shooting an insane .684 from three. And Kwame Brown has shockingly continued his strong play from last year's playoffs, coming off injury to average 9 & 8 with a steal and a block in just 24 minutes per game. He was unstoppable in the Utah game, backing down Mehmet Okur at will. That's a real problem for the Jazz, by the way, their interior defense is pretty weak. Kwame is playing very well--for him--but he's not Duncan/Yao/Brand/Amare, if you know what I mean. They need Kirilenko to be 100% healthy come playoff time, because I don't think Boozer and Okur can get it done on the defensive end without help.

Anyway, the Lakers should be in prime position after the next couple of weeks because their next 7 games are at Staples Center (with one "road" game against the Clippers), with 5 of the 7 coming against mediocre teams.

As for the Clippers, they're reeling right now. They've dropped 4 straight, including losses to Minnesota and Seattle, and are 0-5 on the road. I think the biggest problem is Brand & Kaman, the two that led their solid playoff run last year. Kaman has just been godawful, averaging just 8 & 7 with a disastrous .400 FG%, after putting up 12/10/.523 last year. The good news is that he was showing some signs of life with 24 points and 24 boards in his last two games before recently spraining an ankle. We'll see what happens when he comes back, but this team needs the 2005-2006 Kaman desperately.

As for Elton Brand, I just don't know what his problem is. He's not the same player. He looks OK physically, but he's playing far more passively than he was last year. His per-game shot attempts have gone from 18.2 to 13.8, and his FTA have gone from 7.2 to 5.3. I just don't see him taking opposing big men off the dribble as much as he did in 2005-2006; he's just settling for that jumper way too much. This team can't win with Brand scoring 17 a game, they can't win with Cassell being the leading scorer on the team. Brand has to get his act together. As with Kaman, there are encouraging signs--his FGA are up to 16.0 per game over the last 5, but that's still not enough. The Clippers' perimeter players are solid, but not spectacular. This is a team that wins by getting the ball inside to Brand, and by controlling the boards and playing good defense. They're really getting away from that this year, and paying with a 6-6 record. I've never been a huge Mike Dunleavy fan, we'll see what he can do to get the team out of the quagmire it's in.

Carmelo

Ok, it's time to give it up for Carmelo Anthony. After finishing the 05-06 season on absolute fire, he's been even better to start this season. Leading the way on the #1 scoring team in the NBA, Melo is averaging 31/5/4, shooting .510 from the floor, .864 from the line (on almost 10 FTA per game) and getting over 2 steals per. It's amazing that you sometimes hear his athleticism questioned. I guess compared to Lebron and Wade, two of the all-time high-flyers in NBA history, maybe he is, but look:

1. He's a hell of a jumper. Maybe not on LBJ's level, but he's still in the upper echelon. And he's a "quick jumper", like Shawn Marion, a guy that just has such quick reflexes and such good anticipation that he's up on the offensive glass well before everyone else.

2. He has great strength. If you haven't seem him play for a while, check him out, he's just strong as hell. He takes contact at the rim and finishes better than anyone in the NBA, including Lebron.

3. He's very quick--for his size. That's the key. Carmelo probably only has average quickness for an NBA small forward, arguably the most athletic position in all of sports. But the thing is, if you put a smallish SF on Carmelo, he kills you around the rim with his size and strength. If you go with a bigger SF, those are the guys Melo can torch off the dribble.

If he can start shooting the three the way he did in the World Championships this summer, he'll be the entire offensive package, an unstoppable force (I realize the international line is closer, but Melo was really stroking the outside jumper).

I'm not sure Denver can compete in the West with Kenyon Martin out for the season (although their recent run where they beat Golden State twice and the Clippers may suggest otherwise), but at a minimum they're a hell of a lot of fun to watch. With a 5-game winning streak, JR Smith's recent emergence (22.7 ppg over his last 6, with 3.5 threes per game), Nene due back this week and Joe Smith giving them some solid play off the bench, things are looking pretty good in Denver.

Andris Biedrins

I swear to god, I call someone out, he goes on a tear and makes me look stupid. True story: early in the season, I changed my "smack" in my Yahoo Fantasy League to read "Words That Have Never Been Spoken: Oh shit, he has Andris Biedrins!" to taunt a fellow owner who had Biedrins on his roster. All Biedrins has done in the last 9 games is average 14 & 13 with 3+ blocks per game (he's 3rd in the league in blocks, ahead of Marcus Camby), and has shot .623 from the field. By the way, Biedrins is 20.

Say what you want about Chris Mullin and his giving Derek Fisher $37M, Adonal Foyle $42M, Mike Dunleavy Jr. $44M and Troy Murphy $58M--Ok, I will say what I want, those moves were all beyond retarded. But let's give the man some credit for a few brilliant recent moves.

1. He drafted Biedrins, who all of a sudden looks like a potential superstar.

2. He absolutely stole the rapidly arriving Monta Ellis in the second round of last year's draft. Ellis is averaging 18/3/4 and shooting .470 from the floor at age 21.

3. He swiped Baron Davis for peanuts, Davis being the guy who makes the entire Don Nelson system work.

4. And most importantly, he lured Don Nelson out of retirement, a move that not only made the team fun, exciting, and *good*, but also immediately helped in the development of Biedrins, Ellis, and Davis, along with their other young guys, Michael Pietrus, Dunleavy, Ike Diogu, Matt Barnes, et al. The thing about Nelson is that he's so good at putting his players in positions in which they can succeed. He knows how to adapt to the talent he has, how to ask his players to do what they can do and not make them do the stuff they can't. All this has added up to one of the best offenses in the league and a solid 9-6 start (despite injuries to Davis, Murphy, Pietrus and Diogu). Although they've only played 4 games on the road, they've also played a juggernaut of a schedule, their opponents collectively 125-81 on the season so far.