Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The Clippers Are Four Point Play Team of the Year

Chris Paul, despite his bullish personality, is a likable figure on this Clippers platoon. He sets the landmines, wires the dynamite and explodes into truculent lectures when team demands go unmet. He is the cliché floor general, but never has his mission been so clear, his weapons so potent. Essentially, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and DeAndre Jordan aim to change the way basketball is played from the pro level down. Much of TFPP philosophies, the scrolls handed down from visionaries and then inscribed on the gums of Kevin Durant, are an attempt to predict where basketball will be in ten years. When will point values change to meet the growing relevance of long high-value shots like the three pointer? (1, 2, 3 and 4-point lines) When will passes that precede assists be measured in the game tally? Charges taken? Possession swings that result in 8 point fluctuations? The Clippers, famously cheap as a franchise, will always challenge conventions in the name of squeezing production out of an inexpensive roster. And with the NBA pressed to protect its lowly and/or thrifty owners from its profligate spenders and/or maniacs, the cheapos, at their best, get creative about roster building. Perhaps the Clips would have liked to keep sharpshooter Eric Gordon, or even defensive (slow) scorer Chris Kaman, but the opportunity to swipe Chris Paul from the Hornets, with an optional buy-in after trial season, was undeniable. Mainly, the Lob City Experiment is an innovator's brainchild. Donald Sterling thought critically about the trends in basketball, and how to get a season turnaround in an abbreviated time, while still paying pennies on the dollar for his second bona fide star in Blake Griffin.

Could he have anticipated that the top-tier teams in the West would have as many problems matching up with the aerial onslaught that Mr. Paul and Mr. Griffin initiate when they arrive? For instance, the Clips have a league leader in steals, who also happens to dutifully set the table for his partners like a lonely, unemployed husband. What's more, the Clippers have 4 guards who shoot 35% or above from the 3 point line, with Paul leading the pack at a stunning 49%, now a quarter in to the shortened season. They've made the 6th most 3-point shots in the league with 166. The apparent outside threat is only anchored by the inside (upside?) rim-gunners, Jordan and Griffin. Last year, 36% of Jordan's shot attempts were dunks. This year it's half of his attempts. Although Griffin's rookie year signature shot was the dunk, it was mostly because his mushy outside shot makes Grandma frown, and his left hand dribble belongs in her bedpan. It was one of few shots he could convert. All the same, he attempted dunks only 11% of the time. This year, he's attempting to dunk on every third shot. In sum, the Other L.A. Team puts pressure on the ball with their diminutive guards, picks away possessions, and then plants seeds for either dunks or 3 point shots. Scoring in the mid-range seems both superfluous and contradictory. Keep teams guessing, eyes scanning for a floating ball, which may or may not be heaved full-force into the net. Caron Butler can shoot a three, or take his defender off of the dribble or set up Mo Williams or pick-and-roll with Blake Griffin. Chris Paul is infinite. DeAndre's vocabulary is ozone, Blake's is the cosmos. Limitless ways exist for the ball to move upward and across the court, but how many teams use gravity, physics, kinetics to their advantage? Despite a dull coach, and some incessant rock graveling by their star guard, Lob City's impending success will hinge on suspended flight like no other team's in history. Although the Showtime Lakers tore runways at unseen speeds, their fleet was small. James Worthy and Michael Cooper could elevate but relative to this kind of behavior, it registers like the flap of a single butterfly wing in a Saudi sand storm.

Many teams, in many forms, have had explosive dunkers and dead-eye three-point shooting guards. Some of them even had a capable point man to arrange it all. Few featured all three elements, and those who did made the Finals more often than not. A varied airborne attack includes passing, dunking and distance shots. And the Clippers weakest area, rebounding, will now be the job of glass czar Kenyon Martin. Even if they don't pass the semifinal round, they have won the Relevance Award for the season to the delight of any bench man who ever hit the four point play. 

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