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Half-century heroics High scorers highlight different styles of play
Team scoring may be down across the league, but a few players have been doing their part to change that. Chris Webber, Allen Iverson, Tony Delk, Kobe Bryant and Antawn Jamison have scored 50 or more points in a game, and they deserve a lot of credit for doing it in the half-court game that's being played today. Iverson's 54 points against Cleveland were really sensational; in fact, all those performances were. I had 43 as a player a couple of times, and it took a lot of work. The problem is, with the exception of the Sixers' Iverson, the high scorers are all in the West, which shows the differences between the styles of play. I'd like to see a few more players in the East hit 50 against Eastern teams. It also shows what these great athletes -- the greatest athletes in the world -- can do if they're not playing a grind-out, slow-down game. Basketball was meant to be a game where you run the ball, you get it into the open floor and take advantage of the great athleticism these players have.
For example, Vince Carter is taking long, fade-away jumpshots because he's afraid to go to the basket -- he's gonna get killed. Even Michael Jordan wouldn't drive to the hole toward the end of his career. And Iverson is fearless, but he takes some terrible falls. He's gonna get hurt pretty good before it's over unless they change the rules. And Iverson isn't the only one who could get hurt by the physical, grind-it-out games. Part of the reason behind all the talk of fading popularity and empty seats could be that the East Coast media, which carries more weight than other regions, is being subjected to these ugly, slow, half-court games.
Players, not coaches, make the differenceRick Pitino left the Celtics because he obviously thought he was a big part of the problem with that club. But the top five teams in the league could switch coaches with the bottom five, and there probably wouldn't be a dramatic change. All the people who come to the NBA can coach -- it's the players who make the difference. Of course, there are situations where a star player doesn't get along well with a coach or certain coaches might not be able to coach certain players, but overall, it's the roster that matters. The cyclical nature of NBA hirings leads to a guess that Boston's next move will be toward an ex-player or an established pro coach. With the success that Doc Rivers had in Orlando last season, a lot of teams went to ex-players this year -- Vancouver's Sydney Lowe and New Jersey's Byron Scott, for example. Just as teams that have recently dismissed a player's coach before will bring in a disciplinarian, a team that's had a college coach will bring in an ex-player.
Kevin Loughery is a former NBA player and head coach. He appears each Sunday on CNN's This Week in the NBA.
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