Comments on: ESPN’s Knee-Jerk NBA ‘Analyst,’ John Hollinger

By: sharky

sharky — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:31:14 +0000

The Lakers hate on the Big Lead is ridiculous. The Suns are such the pick for casual NBA fans that have no team.

The Lakers are CLEARLY the best team on paper (and will be the best team by the middle of next year if not the middle of this years playoffs). You can’t compare this Lakers team to the team last year. Bynum has made a QUANTUM leap from last year and become possibly the BEST CENTER IN THE GAME NOT NAMED DWIGHT HOWARD. Farmar is very much improved. And the Lakers are healthy (healthier anyway). Oh, and they got a Top-10 forward in the league. So, hate all you want, but objectively speaking they are clearly the best team on paper.

Whatever. The Big Lead has always been sub-par on it’s NBA analysis (though I do agree with some elements of the post above).

By: Dornoch

Dornoch — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:00:14 +0000

Yes “Hubie and Pau” were winning 50 games a few years ago. What they weren’t doing is winning play-off games. They got swept swept all 3 times they made the play-offs.

By: RD

RD — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:01:52 +0000

Hollanger is 0-2 in exact hindsight (maybe) on those 2 topics (which most of us also would have gotten wrong). He is as good as anyone probably on the thousands of predictions that get made overall. To find somebody that has gotten 2 predictions wrong is to find a born fetus.
And if Kobe Bryant is in the argument for “best player in the game” this team is clearly the best team on paper. You put Jordan or even LBJ w/ the “zenmaster” farmer, fisher, turiaf, walton, odom, bynum and gasol and its that ez.

By: futureman

futureman — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:05:43 +0000

Pau and Hubie Brown were winning 50 games a few years ago, getting Pau is a coup. I think Lakers, Phoenix, Dallas and San Antonio are the 4 favorites, and are pretty even.

By: CaseyLive

CaseyLive — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:53:26 +0000

I think Hollinger is alright, I just don’t like how he (and now many others) trot out a player’s PER as some kind of end-all-be-all of basketball statistics. What I wonder is: If Holligner sees a player and thinks he’s good, but goes back home to the computer which tells him said player sucks, does he defer to what he sees or what his formula tells him?

The thing that I think endears some people and pisses-off other visa-vi Hollinger is that he almost always uses his formula to shape his opinion. Some people find it refreshing that, in a world where sports punditry relies almost entirely on emotion and gut-feelings, some (in this case, Hollinger) are bringing rationality to the table. Flip the coin though, and others view the work of statisticians in sports (in this case, basketball) as nothing more than dudes with pocket protectors spouting figures with no practical knowledge of the sport they’re commenting on. As with almost everything, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

By: Nick Papageorgio

Nick Papageorgio — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:22:01 +0000

@TBL: In answer to A)

John Hollinger:

Ford is a backup-quality point guard who will cost more and has much greater odds of getting hurt.

It’s been 30 games…this year. Calderon played just as well last year. Toronto was just too stupid to play him. Check out his FG% and A/TO ratio. That’s what you want your point guard to offer.

TJ Ford is a nice little change of pace point guard off the bench, but I’d hate to be paying him starter’s money, which is exactly what they’ll be doing for the rest of that contract.

By: KD

KD — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:11:44 +0000

TBL, on ‘C’ …

… that’s fine, but just consider this:

From what I’ve read, Hollinger’s about 292-for-350 at this point.

By: TheBigLead

TheBigLead — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:05:11 +0000

a) who said Ford is going to be a backup? He’s hurt. Calderon is playing outstanding filling in right now. But it’s been 30 games.

b) if you want to look long term and say, ‘hey, the Hornets are going to be cash strapped, that’s fine. But Hollinger didn’t say that. He said in two years they’d be a crappy 38 win team capped to high hell. Well, that’s wrong. They are one of the league’s best teams, and his analysis of Chandler was way off the mark. If Peja stays healthy, great. If he goes down for a second straight year, maybe Hollinger’s statements earn some merit. But for a guy to CRUSH a team for FA signings, and then to watch them rise to the top of the league soonafter … well …

c) Not aware of Hollinger’s books/euro stuff. Most of the euro reports i read are from Chad Ford, and admittedly, i haven’t read much lately. I stand by what i wrote – Hollinger’s 0-for-3. (And yes, I’m well aware the Lakers have owned the Nuggers/Suns thus far this season. No shame in saying i was Lakers fan from when i started following hoops until the day they traded Shaq.)

By: chiefingilliniwek

chiefingilliniwek — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:50:22 +0000

I too disagree on every argument here. I still can’t wrap my head around TBL thinking that paying big money to TJ Ford to be a backup to Calderon is a solid move in the long run where cap flexibility is EVERYTHING in the NBA. Everything has to factor into that trade. Same with the flexibility New Orleans loses by paying Peja $11-14 million for 15 pts a game (with nothing else) in maybe 60 games a year, when they’ll have major Chris Paul and David West contracts to deal with soon. Again, that’s going to kill their cap flexibility in a low-revenue market – you can’t afford to make mistakes like that and play with the big boys. IMO Hollinger was spot on.

By: Wally's World

Wally's World — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:45:26 +0000

The triangle isn’t easy to learn and not everyone fits in. Great point above about where Gasol finds his shots. Does he fit into the chemistry to make the offense better or will he just be a stagnant participant? What happens when the Gun starts shooting at a 1.5x to 2x rate than he is today? Then the shots really drop for everyone, including Gasol. Will he accept that role?

Gasol is a very good rebvounder and will help make the Lakers the best on the boards in the Association. He is a negative on defense, which will not help on a team with several negative defenders.

I think this trade is very, very up-in-the-air for about a month. It won’t take long to see how Gasol fits into the Lakers style…