Farewell to the Excellent Spurs, and OKC Plays Like Dutch Footballers

As a disclaimer before I start calling the Spurs “old” and “part of the old guard” and “a holdover from pre-rules changes NBA,” let me just say how amazing they’ve been this season. And I’m not talking about their records. It’s their style. They constantly move without the ball, seem to intuitively know when to run a pick-and-roll vs. a pick-and-pop, and play fast while still being tough.

Ethan Sherwood Strauss had an interesting piece on Hoopspeak yesterday about the draft cliché of “if you make a mistake, make it big.” Specifically, he was talking about Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. After just one year in college, here’s how the two stacked up: “One player is 6′ 11” without shoes, with a 7′ 4.25” wingspan. One player is 6′ 9” without shoes, with a 7′ 4.25” wingspan…the slightly taller guy averaged 15.7 points, 9.6 rebounds. The slightly shorter guy averaged 25.8 points, 11.1 rebounds.” On that assessment alone, it’s actually hard to believe Oden was selected over Durant, and it comes back to this pre-jump shot idea that you need a dominant big man to win games. But, as Strauss points out, this is a narrow idea of dominance. It doesn’t allow for versatility or skill**. What NBA GMs want is Wilt Chamberlain or young Shaq—a guy who can stand on the post, catch the ball, and drop it into the hoop because everyone else is four inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter.

It’s a rather American idea of “bigger is better,” and it takes prescience over basketball IQ, athleticism, and distance shooting. Now, we’ve obviously seen that the European model of “have your center stand out on the perimeter and never get a rebound or block shots” doesn’t work. You do need to be able to protect the rim—Tyson Chandler’s inflated value after the 2011 Mavericks’ championship proves that. The point I’m trying to make is this: traditional Center-Power Forward-Small Forward-Shooting Guard-Point Guard positions aren’t what’s important anymore. Muthu Alagappan has just introduced an idea that there are actually 13 positions in basketball, and I’ll get to what I think about that in a later column. The line of thinking isn’t bad, though: stop focusing about how a player looks and focus on what he does.

Kevin Durant and the Thunder are proof of this. The Thunder almost play a basketball version of TotalFootball. Durant, at 6’10”, can play all five positions. James Harden can play either wing position and run the offense. Russell Westbrook is an explosion. Serge Ibaka, 6’10” with leaping ability and a 200-foot wingspan, can knock down a 15-footer. So can Nick Collison. Thabo Sefolosha can defend 1-4. They can go conventional with Perkins-Ibaka-Durant-Thabo/Harden-Westbrook, defensive small with Perkins-Durant-Thabo-Harden-Westbrook, offensive small with Ibaka-Durant-Harden-Derek Fisher-Westbrook, or suffocatingly big with Perkins-Collison-Ibaka-Durant-Harden (they haven’t done the last one, but are you scoring on that lineup?).

Late in last night’s Game 6, OKC took Kendrick Perkins out because he wasn’t athletic enough to handle the Spurs and their smallball lineup. The Spurs then went old school, with Tim Duncan attacking Serge Ibaka on the post. He made two shots and barely missed another, completely dominating a guy whose defensive reputation is probably inflated because of his help instincts and athleticism. The Thunder put Perkins back in to defend Duncan…then had him set high picks for Durant and Harden and hang out on the perimeter, taking Duncan away from the rim.

It was a message to basketball world: we can do anything and you can’t stop it or score on it. The Spurs have been sending the same message with their depth and variety of lineups. The difference last night was that OKC is younger and more talented.

The most fitting image was this: after Tony Parker four quick points by slicing up the Thunder defense and hitting acrobatic-but-not-impossible layups, an old-and-tired-looking Tim Duncan got no lift on a layup and was blocked by Perkins. The Spurs then missed about 100 threes, and in between it all, Durant found a rolling Perkins for an easy dunk to clinch the game. Then he got the last rebound with 8.8 seconds left and had the smarts to dribble to the 8-second line. That’s how locked-in he is. Final line: 34-14-5.

Maybe what’s been really misleading is all these 90s guys as announcers. Yes, you need toughness and “guys who do the dirty work” to win games, but that means tight defense and rebounding, not thugging out. Ibaka, Collison, and Perkins don’t have to start fights once a quarter. Hell, look at the Bulls and Tom Thibodeau’s “defense on a string” philosophy. It’s tight and it’s tough, but there’s no fouling or forearm shivers. Just flat-out basketball skill.

The Thunder have who could be the most talented player of his generation in Durant (he’ll spend his whole career fighting LeBron for it). What’s terrifying is that he’s 23. What’s exciting is he either has a chance to further eviscerate the old guard or properly begin the Bird/Magic rivalry with the Heatles. The NBA rules.

**Centers have been taken #1 or #2 in all but three of the last eleven drafts: Hasheem Thabeet (#2, 2009), Greg Oden (#1, 2007), Andrea Bargnani (#1, 2006), Andrew Bogut (#1, 2005) Dwight Howard and Emeka Okafor (1/2, 2004), Darko Milic (#2, 2003), Yao Ming (#1, 2002), and Kwame Brown (2001). Wouldn’t you rather have James Harden, Ricky Rubio, or Stephen Curry in 2009? Or Durant, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, or even Arron Afflalo in 2007? Or LaMarcus Adridge or Rudy Gay in 2006? Deron Williams or Chris Paul in 2005? Luol Deng or Andre Iguodala instead of Okafor in 2004? Wade, Bosh, Carmelo, or Kirk Hinrich instead of Darko in 2003? Literally anyone over Kwame Brown? Only Yao and Dwight Howard get a pass on this—but Yao retired after seven seasons and Dwight’s proven he needs a guy who can create his own shot.