By Royce Young
royceyoung41@gmail.com
Pete Maravich was a five-time All-Star for the Atlanta Hawks and New Orleans Jazz. It’s indisputable – he’s one of the greatest point guards ever. He was exciting, he was talented and he was flashy. He could pass and score. He was the total package. But only one of those teams finished the season with a winning record (46-36, 1972-73). He made the team in his third year because his numbers were so gaudy that there was no way you could say no. So a precedent has been set – a great player on a bad team can go to the All-Star game.
With All-Star reserves being announced Thursday, it seems the basketball world is split on Kevin Durant. Some think he’s a year or two off, mainly because he’s on a 10-win team. Some say he’s ready now, regardless of the team’s record. Well, you can put me in camp No. 2 – he’s an All-Star now.
Both Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were All-Stars in their second season. LeBron had ridiculous numbers: 27.2 ppg, 7.4 rpg, 7.2 apg. How can you say no to that? But Kobe made it more or less because or hype. His team was good (lost in the Western Finals to the Jazz) but he was just getting 26 minutes a game and averaging 15.4 ppg, 3.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists.
Now we all know Durant’s awesome numbers. (24.5 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 2.6 apg, in case you forgot.) He’s one of just nine players that are leading their team in both points and rebounds (Chris Bosh, LeBron, Dwight Howard, Antwan Jamison, Dirk Nowitzki, Yao, Tim Duncan, Al Jefferson, Carlos Boozer). He’s in pretty good company there. He does everything for his team. He’s improved every facet of his game and is putting together one of the best seasons ever for a 20-year-old.
Forget the fact his numbers are closer to 26 points and eight rebounds since the end of November. Forget that he’s shooting 47 percent, 42 percent and 86 percent from the field, three and the free throw line. Forget that he’s clearly the best player on his team and that opponents key on him like he Jimmy Chitwood. All that aside even, he’s still and All-Star. It’s the game for the league’s best players. And KD is clearly one of them.
Look at other players having outstanding seasons who are stuck on losing teams:
PG: Devin Harris
SG: Vince Carter or Jamal Crawford
SF: Danny Granger
PF: Chris Bosh
C: Al Jefferson
And probably four or five of those guys are going to get the invitation. But what’s the difference between KD and Danny Granger, other than one point per game? Their teams both stink, but they’re both having great seasons and have elevated themselves into Elite Player Status. The book says, “Well, if he was really a great player then his team wouldn’t be so bad.” Ahem, remember Pistol Pete Maravich. Four of those five seasons his team wasn’t just bad, but like 10 and 20 games under .500 bad.
In 1991, Brad Daugherty made the team despite his team finishing 33-49. Dikembe Mutombo made his first All-Star game with his team finishing 24-58 and four of his eight All-Star appearances he played on a losing team. Mitch Richmond made six All-Star teams with the Kings while never winning more than 39 games and finishing with records like 25-57, 23-59 and 24-58. Danny Manning made it while playing on a 27-55 Clippers team. And the list could go on and on. Plenty of players have made it despite playing on a bad team. Kevin Durant shouldn’t be treated any differently. Because otherwise, how do you keep him off?
We’re not talking about MVP here. That award has to go to someone that’s winning. But All-Star? The requirement there is just be one of the top 12 players in your conference that season. And can you rip off 12 players better in the West than KD right now? I’ll wait. Go ahead. Try.
You surely can’t name three better small forwards in the West. If you stretch and move Dirk to the three, you’ve got one. That’s it. Here’s the top five leading scorers in the West at SF: Kevin Durant (24.5), John Salmons (18.6), Rudy Gay (18.5), Al Thornton (17.4) and look out, Jeff Green (16.3). For the entire league at small forward, KD is third in PER and third in scoring. Amar’e Stoudemire is starting at the three for the West. And you’re going to tell me KD doesn’t deserve to be there.
Who cares if KD said he didn’t deserve it. Keep in mind, he made that statement when the team absolutely stunk. Now that they’re .500 in the new year and no longer in Worst Team Ever contention, maybe he’s reconsidering.
Honestly, he should really be a starter, but fan voting is bad. People that have never heard of Al Jefferson are casting ballots for Kurt Rambis and David Robinson. They don’t know. They’re just going off who they assume is doing good. That’s why the top 10 vote getters at guard in the West included Jason Kidd and Tracy McGrady. It’s the way it works, but that’s why they have the coaches to rectify the misses. And here’s a good opportunity.
If Durant were on a 25-20 team, he’d be a no-doubter. Age isn’t the issue because we’ve seen plenty of 19-year-olds go. He’s not getting the attention he deserves simply because of his team. And that’s not right. Again, if we were talking Most Valuable Player, put KD at the bottom of the list with Andris Biedrins. But as for being one of the top 10 or 12 players in his conference, are you kidding me? Who really wants to see Paul Millsap grab boards and play tough defense instead of Durant shooting silky threes and coming off screens?
The coaches get to pick the reserves. Coaches are supposed to be able to evaluate talent. So by that logic, KD is a no-brainer. But then again, such coaches as Mike Dunleavy will be casting a ballot and if Dunleavy walked in a gym and saw me make three straight treys he’d probably sign me to a two-year deal. But regardless, KD is an All-Star this year. We all know he’ll have a career full of these and seven years from now and we’ll laugh when we think back to how there was even a debate. But why wait when he earned it now? He may say he doesn’t deserve it, but I guarantee you he wants it. If you take out the reason of “He plays on a bad team!” then what other reason could you hold him out for? His age? His numbers? Everything lines up. Look at the numbers, look at the players and you’ll see – Kevin Durant is an All-Star.
Oh, and Bernard King was a stud (58 FG%, are you kidding?) but he was playing in New York when he was on All-Star teams, which is a slightly bigger market than OKC.
Next year when the Thunder are 20-25 at the break and Durant's stats are All-Star worthy for the whole first half instead of just the last 7 weeks, he'll be on the team. And then he probably won't be off it for 8-10 years.
Another good example Joe. The whole "He plays on a bad team!" argument really shouldn't apply to KD because it hasn't been applied to a lot of other great players. I think it may be more of a case like Bill Simmons said - KD is is horribly underrated and just not on many people's scope. And if the team were good, more people would be taking notice.
Check out Bernard King's career numbers: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/k/kingbe01.html
He averaged 32 ppg one year. He made 5 all stgar games, and only one in a year where the team made the playoffs. Dude was the bomb.
Are there +/- stats that only take into account games since Scott Brooks took over as coach? Durant made for a very bad SG on almost every level.
But Durant won't be good on defense until he works harder to close out 3PT shooters. In the few games I've actually been able to watch this year, opposing teams make tons of 3s over Durant because he's lazy getting around screens and is late getting to shooters. Other than that, he's not terrible, but I bet stats measuring opposing players' 3PT percentages when guarded by Durant vs. guarded by other players would bear this out and it's probably a big influence on his +/-.
As best I can tell Durant does nothing to raise the offensive performance of his teammates. He just adds his own above average for team contribution and net that is only worth a few points, comparing his TS% to rest of team it works out at about 2-3 points contribution per game. Overwhelmed to date by his apparent defensive impact.
Green is a better substitute at Sf than Watson at PG is a large part of this. So if you avoid on/off and just look at Durant on they are still losing by close to 10 and this is after a dozen game surge. Hard for them to go anywhere big longterm unless that changes.
Tracking his raw +/- game to game with gameflows would help some in deciding if things have changed on total team impact. I don't have the time to do so fully right now. But 3 of 4 recent games checked were among the better ones on team. Maybe it is changing, but I'd want proof and for longer than a dozen games and ultimately in the adjusted too.
Actually, Westbrook is down to 2 truly positive player pairs but he has 10 -5 or better. Durant just one.
Westbrook estimated at +9 on adjusted. Now he probably is rated too high and Durant too low on this but there is almost surely a legitimate, real gap on team impact among these 2. Most of this related to impact on team defense but Westbrook improves the offense on /off by 8 whereas Durant by just 2 points.
How is it that a very bad team isn't even close to as bad without its star as with? It isn't all garbage time.
Now is it that Westbrook can demonstrative positive impact, positive player pairs and Durant hasn't?
When Durant is on the court they lose by an average of 10. When he is off the court they win almost 2. It isn't as simple as just that but it is hard to explain it all away either.
Durant has gone from being in worst 5 in the league on what happens to team defense while on court to only 38th worst so he has improved.
The only main all-star candidates in the bottom 50 are D Harris and V Carter and Deon Williams. You can make exceptions for the all-star game for that.
But not if you are truly talking about the best players. Their complete impact defense and team impact on offense too not just individual offense. Until team defense or even team offense can be average with Durant on the court I can't call him one of the very best players.
Until his adjusted +?- rises considerably from -7.6 (second worst on team) I can't even call him very good overall. Players are more than than their boxscore stats. To date he doesn't have a very good teammate impact.Every player to play with him in last 2 seasons has a negative player pair on +/-. Every single one. Now he is on a bad team but he probably isn't completely blameless for this pattern.