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Speedburner on Sports

Growing up in Los Angeles during the 70’s, I became a huge USC football fan, and my love of sports and statistics just snowballed from there. I still live in L.A., and still love the Trojans, but hate the Dodgers and Lakers. I’m also a huge fan of tennis – both watching and playing - and hope to someday see a revival in its popularity.

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Thursday, May 08, 2008

Broken Legs, Celts/Cavs, and Boston’s Future

So yesterday my 3 year old breaks his leg (lower tibia) doing a 180 degree jump spin in Grandma’s kitchen. While that was quite an unfortunate event, there are two positives to pull from it: 1) He was practicing spinning jumps, very much a ‘dad’ trait he inherited. 2) He’s totally immobile now, so I sat on the couch with him and was able to watch the entire 2nd half of the Celtics/Cavs Game 1.

While the game itself was very tight and filled with drama, it was also a repulsive offensive performance, with 3 of the Big Four (KG, Pierce, Allen, Lebron) in the game having absolutely atrocious nights shooting/scoring. Look at the numbers, keeping in mind that of these 3 guys, we have a future Hall-of-Famer and two perennial All-Stars (at least in their prime). Lebron was 2-18 from the floor, with 10 turnovers and a multitude of missed layups, including a key one that would have tied the game with under 10 seconds left. Ray Allen only got off 4 shots in 37 minutes, missing all of them, and committing 4 turnovers to go with just one assist and 4 rebs. He never made it to the free throw line. Pierce missed 12 of his 14 shot attempts, also never made it to the charity stripe, and had 6 turnovers. So between these three, they shot 4-36 (11.1%), and had 20 turnovers against 14 assists – 9 for lebron.

While Lebron is a freak talent for his size, skill, and athleticism, he has had awful shooting nights in the playoffs before – just look at the NBA Finals last year, where he failed to shoot 50% in any of the 4 games, and shot just 41.6% overall in the playoffs last year. Also, this game was his 4th straight in these playoffs where he’s failed to achieve 50%. There’s still only one MJ, and Bron Bron ain’t close yet.

Ray Allen is fading fast; there’s no other way to put it. This is the end of his 12th season, and the numbers definitely reflect a player slowing down. He’s shooting just 40.4% in these playoffs, averaging just 14.1 pts a game. He has only attempted 11 free throws in 8 games, meaning he’s almost completely a stand still jump shooter these days. Sadly for Boston fans, the team has sold their future to win today, but that is not likely to happen – 7 games vs. Atlanta, a squeaker to open the Clev series, and Det & the West still on the horizon?? Here’s the really scary part – they owe Ray $17m next season and $18m in 2009-10…ouch!!

Finally, there’s Pierce’s dog performance. He also seems to be slowing down in his 10th year in the league. His free throw attempts per game dropped to 6.1 this regular season, and to 4.4 in the playoffs, off of a career average of 7.9, including the 07-08 season. Pierce has never been a freak athlete, but always just athletic enough to use his size to jump high enough, or dribble-drive quick enough to be more than effective. Now that he’s going to be 31 to open his 11th season next year, any step he loses will drop his effectiveness that much more. And his contract situation is even worse that Allen’s – he’s owed $18m next year, $19.9 in 2009-10, and then $21.8m the year after that!!!

The bottom line is, this whole KG to the Celts, Boston revival is going to end up as nothing but a blip on the radar – one tremendous regular season, followed by a disappointing playoff run that will NOT end up with rings for the Big 3. This will then be follwed by a prolonged period of salary cap hell, as KG, who is finishing up his 13th season and also slowing down, has 4 years and $81m left on his contract. Sorry Celtic fans, but this won’t turn out to be such a ‘dream team’ after all.


Posted by Todd R in NBA Read More | Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0) • | Permalink •

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