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Jun. 13th, 2011 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretGo Mavs! Take that to South Beach, LeBron!!!!
I'm sorry. I want to talk more intelligently about the series.
First, let's stop comparing Dirk to Larry Bird. And let's stop with the blather about how he's such a good shooter because he practices so much. Nobody ever praises Kobe for taking so many jump shots in practice, and there's no question in my mind that Kobe works as hard or harder than Dirk. For that matter, remember that summer when LeBron suddenly learned how to shoot three-pointers? Do you think he did that without a hell of a lot of shooting repetition?
No, what makes Dirk special isn't that he practices shooting a lot. It's that he's driven and gifted with incredible basketball instincts- instincts that again put him in the same category as Kobe. He knows what his best move is in any situation, he's a lethal shot from almost anywhere on the court, and he's big and athletic and knows what to do with that. He's not the dribbler Kobe is, and Kobe's a better defensive player, and hell, I'm not arguing that Dirk is better than Kobe, but the comparisons to Kobe make a lot more sense than the comparisons to Bird.
All this talk about experience against youth is similar bullshit. What makes these Mavs transcendent, so able to outperform their athletic ability, isn't their experience, it's their intelligence. In Kidd, Marion, and Dirk the Mavs have three of the highest basketball IQs in the league. They have three players that, if you asked me to project which All-Stars would make the best coaches, I would put near the top of my list (along with Nash, again Kobe, Tim Duncan, Brandon Roy, Paul Pierce...) In Marion you have a player whose game consists almost entirely of exceeding his athletic gifts through intelligence. He can't shoot well enough to be a wing forward and isn't tall enough to be a power forward, yet he's figured out how to score from the wings and figured out how to play the offensive glass by mastering positioning, footwork, and out-thinking your opponent. In Kidd you have a player who's too slow to be the player he once was, who can't shoot all that well, can't defend well, can't get dribble penetration. He's still a star because he passes better than anyone ever and has such court vision and intelligence that he can make up for being 38. And in Dirk you have a guy who really does seem to understand where all the defenders are at all times, so he can exploit the merest mistake with a careful pass or a clever drive. He's too slow to be as good at penetration as he is. It's all intelligence, not experience.
So yeah, that was a team it was fun to root for, as an athlete who has always valued intelligence as the key to outperforming faster, stronger, taller players. Go Mavs!
I'm sorry. I want to talk more intelligently about the series.
First, let's stop comparing Dirk to Larry Bird. And let's stop with the blather about how he's such a good shooter because he practices so much. Nobody ever praises Kobe for taking so many jump shots in practice, and there's no question in my mind that Kobe works as hard or harder than Dirk. For that matter, remember that summer when LeBron suddenly learned how to shoot three-pointers? Do you think he did that without a hell of a lot of shooting repetition?
No, what makes Dirk special isn't that he practices shooting a lot. It's that he's driven and gifted with incredible basketball instincts- instincts that again put him in the same category as Kobe. He knows what his best move is in any situation, he's a lethal shot from almost anywhere on the court, and he's big and athletic and knows what to do with that. He's not the dribbler Kobe is, and Kobe's a better defensive player, and hell, I'm not arguing that Dirk is better than Kobe, but the comparisons to Kobe make a lot more sense than the comparisons to Bird.
All this talk about experience against youth is similar bullshit. What makes these Mavs transcendent, so able to outperform their athletic ability, isn't their experience, it's their intelligence. In Kidd, Marion, and Dirk the Mavs have three of the highest basketball IQs in the league. They have three players that, if you asked me to project which All-Stars would make the best coaches, I would put near the top of my list (along with Nash, again Kobe, Tim Duncan, Brandon Roy, Paul Pierce...) In Marion you have a player whose game consists almost entirely of exceeding his athletic gifts through intelligence. He can't shoot well enough to be a wing forward and isn't tall enough to be a power forward, yet he's figured out how to score from the wings and figured out how to play the offensive glass by mastering positioning, footwork, and out-thinking your opponent. In Kidd you have a player who's too slow to be the player he once was, who can't shoot all that well, can't defend well, can't get dribble penetration. He's still a star because he passes better than anyone ever and has such court vision and intelligence that he can make up for being 38. And in Dirk you have a guy who really does seem to understand where all the defenders are at all times, so he can exploit the merest mistake with a careful pass or a clever drive. He's too slow to be as good at penetration as he is. It's all intelligence, not experience.
So yeah, that was a team it was fun to root for, as an athlete who has always valued intelligence as the key to outperforming faster, stronger, taller players. Go Mavs!