Or, “See, this blog’s mission is not over because ESPN haters still exist!”
The other day, Chris Broussard listed the top Big Threes in the league. The Hornets came in at #5 with Chris Paul, David West, and Tyson Chandler. “These three have tremendous chemistry,” is how he leads off, citing CP’s general amazingness, D West’s versatility, and TC’s defense. The ordering of the rest of the list, though, is sort of wacky to my mind, not just because I’m a Hornets fan. And, since it’s been awhile since I pointed out why someone on ESPN was wrong (waahhh, the offseason is no fun), I’m going to point out my biggest issue with two of the “Big Threes” ranked ahead of the Hornets.
#1 Boston: Garnett, Pierce, Allen. OK, moving on.
#2 San Antonio: Duncan, Parker, Ginobili. Old, but good. They have great past success together, so I’ll agree.
#3 Los Angeles: Bryant, Gasol, Bynum. See, OK, I’m aware that he got the idea for this article from the fact that, with the Ron Artest trade, Houston now has a three and the NBA is currently stacked with Big Threes rather than great duos. But. This three has never played together. If I was making this list, I wouldn’t be putting “paper” threes in there. I mean, we could just have a paper season if you want to do it that way.
#4 Houston: Yao, Artest, McGrady. Big fat ditto. If you’re going to say chemistry is one of the main reasons NO is so good, how can you rank totally untested trios higher?
#5 New Orleans. Move us the hell up until these dudes above have proved they can play together.
#6 Phoenix: Nash, Stoudemire, O’Neal. Not buying it. Just on rep? Past individual success? Phoenix got worse in the second half of the season. No way should they be above…
#7 Detroit: Billups, Hamilton, Wallace. Right? How many successive deep playoff runs have they had together?
#8 Dallas: Nowitzki, Howard, Kidd. Broussard: “Man, I’m giving the old trios lots of credit.” Yeah. Ya are. And this is why you are wrong. In fact everyone but Dirk sucks. Did he watch our series?
#9 Washington: Arenas, Butler, Jamison. Provided they’re healthy, higher.
OK, now that I’ve had my fun telling ESPN why they’re wrong– I feel refreshed, really– let’s step back for a sec and realized that I’m not really offended by this list. Why? Well, the Hornets don’t actually have a Big Three, do they? If that’s our Big Three, we’ve also got a nasty extra 16 points per game coming from Peja, who is definitely not the fourth offensive option. We could swap him and Tyson in that list and still have a pretty decent Big Three. So it’s pretty much the Lakers and us alone at the top of the Big Four list, huh? Bryant-Gasol-Bynum-Odom vs. Paul-West-Chandler-Stojakovic. Who else has as good a Big Four?
Fun year coming up in the West.
P.S. Totally off topic, but I have NBATV on and they have NBA Stories: Rookie Life on, and it’s rather funny. They filled someone’s entire car with popcorn. Interestingly enough, they had Kobe on and he was just raving about how lucky he was to have Byron Scott his rookie year telling him what to do. And there’s a clip of Byron directing little Kobe.
I still don’t see the lakers as having a big four, odom chokes a lot and bynum was playing well for a short time before his injury, lets see if he’s jumping for rebounds and blocked shots as much once he gets back. Also Boston has a big four possibly a big five because Perkins while occasionally in foul trouble shut down gasol in the finals and rondo can really create some chaos with his speed. Course I still think if the Hornets resign Pargo and Wells that we’ll do a lot better with Armstrong getting better over the summer and the addition of Posey.
I think everyone’s down on Odom because he didn’t show up for the playoffs, but their 4 could turn out pretty good. But on the flip side everyone’s high on Bynum when really he just had a few months of good play. Ever.
Regarding Odom, my friends (who are Lake…err, Kobe fans) mentioned that Odom plays extraordinarily when no pressure is placed on him. Which realistically means he’s always going to be beyond a 2nd option, but a great one at that.
I felt like dicking around because I got some time and came up with some approximate salaries (courtesy Hoopshype), with a few new notable contracts incorporated (i.e. CP, Gilbert Arenas). Here’s the approximated results in millions, respectfully:
BOS: 60
SA: 41.9
LAX: 38.9
NOLA: 37.7
HOU: 44.5
PHX: 47.2
DET: 35.1
DFW: 49.2
WAS: 39.9
A few notes about the list:
- Bynum hasn’t renegotiated with a new contract
- Dallas, Detroit and Washington do not have a true center (likewise of Boston)
- Boston, Los Angeles, Houston, and Washington do not have a true point guard.
- As a Dallas fan, I’d beg to differ on Josh Howard. While he has yet to prove to be a consistent All*Star caliber player, he’s shown signs of ability (not potential). Jason Kidd is definitely declining, but he still puts up numbers.
I think your commentary for the rest are fairly accurate, except Washington. I am one of those who has believed that they are a comparable team even without him (and 6 yr, 111 mil could go to something more beneficial. Maybe NBA Cares!).
With Houston, I’m hoping for a whole Jailblazers or Nuggets situation. Stacked with talent and likewise with losses. I’m not a big fan of the city, nor the basketball team.
Now I’m curious about 4th options. Let’s consider the following: Boston/Rondo, San Antonio/Bowen, Lakers/Odom, Houston/Alston, Nola/Peja, Phoenix/Bell, Detroit/Prince, Dallas/Terry, Washington/Stevenson.
Wow. Lakers and Pistons look good, but I’d put Nola above any of them in terms of top 4. I like Jason Terry, but I think Kidd is overrated, so that knocks them down. Likewise, I’m impressed with Rondo, but he needs to work on his consistency. The rest? Eh.
Looking at those numbers… Hornets are getting some good quality for their dollars! But they still are missing half a bench, so there are a few more lower end contracts to add. Is Boston paying the luxury tax with that roster?
I was going to use the Nuggets as an example of why you can’t stick high caliber players on that list without seeing how they go together, but then I forgot. No way Denver should have underperformed with that roster. And yet they did.
Funny, after the playoffs I kind of thought Josh Howard (and his playoff party) was on his way out of there. Guess not. (EDIT: As I was typing this, I read that he was arrested for drag racing today… snort.) My reasoning for both Phoenix and Dallas was A) I have to admit, shaded by the 1st round bouncings in this year’s playoffs, and B) neither of THOSE threes have had a full season together either. And I always thought of them more as Dirk + Bunch of good pieces and Nash/Stoud + Bunch of good pieces, before that.
And also, I’ve remembered that Detroit has Tayshaun Prince, so they too have a four.
mW~ I remember NBA.com having a little article early on in the season regarding how NOLA was the best team in terms of distributing responsibilities, or in other words, having the best starting lineup. It was a pretty big disparity between the ‘Bees and the second team. Unfortunately, I didn’t save the article, but it was there because I remember thinking ‘Damn straight. It’s about time for recognition’, despite not receiving recognition even until now. But about the 4th option, I noted a trend of the player specializing, like Bruce ‘Good-defense-involves-kicking-Sczerbiack-Allen-Stoudemire-Paul-Nash-on-defense’ Bowen or Rafer ‘Riding-Tracy-McGrady-Coattail’ Alston. Predrag not withstanding, his incredible shooting abilities and all.
and ticktock, I heard about the drag racing thing too (ugh!). While this doesn’t necessarily affect his playing (see: Kobe and rape), it doesn’t bode well for his intelligence. Maybe to revise my comment, JHo maybe won’t become a bona fide all*star, but he’ll be a good 2nd/3rd option. And nice little interjection of ’snort’, deliberate drug-reference or not… *cough cough*