As for flopping, I don’t think the national conversation has yet shown much nuance. Is establishing position and then falling on contact flopping? In a way it surely is. I’m actually embarrassed for Battier watching him hit the deck on almost every possession. Nonetheless, Battier, when he’s not being a douche, takes charges in the same way JJ does. Establishing position, to me, is something quite different than simply collapsing into a heap with or without contact. Nevertheless, when you think of Battier or JJ taking charges, you think of them as not even raising their hands to defend. I’d change the rule to say that you must be making a reasonable effort to defend. If your hands aren’t up, you’re just a dangerous obstacle and should not get the call. What do y’all think of that detail?

Frank:
From Tommy Beer at Hoopsworld – list of PG’s on the market:
Unrestricted:
Nash
Dragic
Felton
Jason Terry
Billups
Andre Miller
Kirk Hinrich
Deron Williams most likely
Possibly Jameer Nelson too
Also- Ramon Sessions just opted out of his option year and is UFA
And others (Kidd, D.West, CJ Watson, Randy Foye)

Restricted
Aaron Brooks
DJ Augustin
Jeremy Lin of course

The guy I’d love from this list as a backup is Andre Miller, but I don’t think he will play that cheap. I fear we may have to welcome back Ray Felton, which really might not be that bad a deal.

jon abbey:
Harden is really overrated, no way is he a max player. he is in the perfect situation right now as one of the top few sixth guys in the league behind Durant and yes, Westbrook, and hopefully won’t leave for more money to a situation which will almost certainly be a worse fit.

offensive efficiency and rebounds continue to be overrated by the number brigade, amount of energy one forces the other team to expend a la Westbrook and Melo, underrated (‘usage’ gets at this but not nuanced enough, I don’t think).

Some of what we’re seeing with Harden is that he is not getting the same calls as he was getting in the regular season, and for whatever reason, he’s lost his confidence shooting the ball. His overall playoff numbers are great – TS 60%, shooting 41.4% from 3 – but in this series, he is 13 for 37 from the field (35%) and 28.6% from 3 point range. He has only 18 FTA in 4 games, and has missed 5 of them (72%) — all equaling a TS of 47.9%. He is absolutely killing the Thunder in this series.

Last night was the worst, because I would wager that at least 4 out of 5 3 point attempts were wide open shots — like no one even really contesting him. You can chalk up this performance to “randomness” but it doesn’t change the fact that he (so far) has come up extremely small in the biggest spot. RW and KD have done their part.

Last thought – I must admit I hadn’t seen Ibaka play much, but no way is he a max player or worthy of a top 2 or 3 DPOY vote. What makes Tyson and DH12 so great is that they play great D without biting on pump fakes and drawing stupid fouls. Ibaka is very young of course, and might get it together, but he’s out of position seemingly all the time. As he gets older and more experienced, his positioning might get better – but then maybe his hops will go away.

Westbrook was sensarional last night, no two ways about it. Compare his performance to any LeBron performance in last year’s finals. Yeah, he screwed up at the end, but this is a 20+ pt blowout without him. I agree that Harden is not a max player yet, and that he has stunk in this series…even in game 2 he had two very dumb charges..but he is just a kid and will definitely get better, as will Westbrook and Durant. Ibaka is very good too. Maybe they need to find a pass-first PG and move Westbrook to the 2?

jon abbey:
Harden is really overrated, no way is he a max player. he is in the perfect situation right now as one of the top few sixth guys in the league behind Durant and yes, Westbrook, and hopefully won’t leave for more money to a situation which will almost certainly be a worse fit.

offensive efficiency and rebounds continue to be overrated by the number brigade, amount of energy one forces the other team to expend a la Westbrook and Melo, underrated (‘usage’ gets at this but not nuanced enough, I don’t think).

You must have missed the post a few days ago where Westbrook was shown to be standing around, doing almost nothing while Ibaka and Harden were lighting up playoff teams. Westbrook may be athletic, but he doesn’t make teams “expend” more energy than any other driving, shoot-first point guard. Almost all NBA players require guarding. All playoff starters require defensive energy to be “expended.” Why don’t you make the same argument for the endless curls of Ray Allen and Richard Hamilton? How is Westbrook’s game different from any player who penetrates or runs motion sets?

offensive efficiency and rebounds continue to be overrated by the number brigade, amount of energy one forces the other team to expend a la Westbrook and Melo, underrated (‘usage’ gets at this but not nuanced enough, I don’t think).

BigBlueAL:
I know this is a Jared Jeffries thread but have to talk about Game 4 right now.I love Harden as much as anybody but holy shit has he been awful this series especially tonight.He aint getting a max contract after this series lol

Game 2 was good for him. And 8 points on 10 FGA isn’t abysmal, but it sure isn’t good. He also led the team in rebounding, two of which were offensive.