What Makes Good Basketball?

Okay, so this is my first entry, and I have a question for all of you here: What is your favorite form of basketball to watch? Do you prefer the NBA, NCAA, WNBA, or another league? Do you abstain from watching the professionals, instead keeping it amateur? Or are you a die-hard NBA fan? Let me know either through email, or in the guest book, I'm curious to know which way people would like this lens to lean, or if going with an all-around approach will actually fly.

Today though, I do have a topic I'd like to address. The NBA and the way players move around. There has been a rumor making the rounds that Sam Cassell might be bought out and join the Boston Celtics, who if you're up to date with the NBA this season, are playing very well with their new additions of Kevin "The Big Ticket" Garnett, and Ray "Jesus Shuttlesworth" Allen. This wouldn't be a bad fit, as Sam I Am has gas left in the tank, and he's played with Garnett in Minnesota and Ray Allen in Milwaukee, and he can provide yet another veteran influence in their locker room and a solid guy coming off the bench (he's not going to start over Rajon Rondo, the way Rondo is playing this year). But my issue isn't coming from the rumor, or the idea that Cassell might end up in Boston. My issue is that the whole of the rumor is starting with Cassell! He wants to go to Boston...I don't blame him, I'd like to play for the Celtics too, they have a good shot at winning a ring. But Sam Cassell plays for the Los Angeles Clippers, in other words, is not a free agent, and should not be speaking in such frank terms about his desires to play for other franchises in the National Basketball Association. He has a job. It's like tampering, because if it were Doc Rivers (the coach of the Boston Celtics for those uninformed) then David Stern and the discipline committee of the NBA would have tossed a large fine in their direction. Sure, in this case, it's a player, but the sentiment is still the same. When you factor in that the Clippers have got to be looking to make a move, maybe offloading Sam I Am and Corey Maggette to pick up some help for that team until they get Elton Brand back...this weakens the team's ability to bargain and overall hurts the team. Just a bad move on Sam Cassell's part.

This is something that I hope doesn't become a trend. Players are already vetoing trades that send them to teams that they don't want to play for (see Boston pre-KG and Ray Allen) or to a city that has weather they don't like (see Milwaukee), and players used in trades as the expiring contracts (expiring contracts are valuable to teams because they'll come off the salary cap at the end of the season, which frees up space to make moves) are sometimes deciding that they'll not show up to the new team to force a buyout of their contract. It's sad how much influence one player has on multiple teams, and usually the team getting hurt in the deal is the one the player is under contract to.

That about sums it up for today, I think, but before I leave, I'd like to break down today's Play of the Day, a segment where I examine a piece of an offense, or the responsibilities of a player within a certain offense, and explain the play or the player in a way that clarifies the game (here's to hoping that made sense haha).

For today, the Play of the Day is going to revolve around the spacing needed for effective use of the triangle offense. To run the triangle offense, players need to not be bunched up, because the triangle offense, when executed well, does not see a whole lot of dribbling. There are a lot of cuts, a lot of players moving into better positions to get easy baskets, but bunching together will go a long way towards ruining the effectiveness. To avoid that, players should be at least 12 to 15 feet apart, just long enough that dribbling the ball to another spot will draw defenders, and not so long that a pass is in danger of cutting across too many arms or legs. The spacing is important, because if used against a man-to-man defense, space will either make a defender come out to guard their man, or cause a defender to sag off their man, which may provide an open look.

Hopefully this was entertaining to read, and if not, send a comment or leave a note in the guest book, or email me at loganam@gmail.com, I'd be glad to talk to you about nearly anything basketball related and I'm always up for suggestions on how to make this lens better.

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