| Thursday, December 2
By Mike Monroe
Special to ESPN.com |
|
First things first ... yes, Jeffrey (that's Mr. Denberg to most of you,
Jeffrey D. to me), I did notice where the Heat beat the Kings and the Pacers
beat the Trail Blazers in Portland. Doesn't change a thing. Just two games
in November that don't tilt the power shift in the NBA one little bit.
|  | | Garnett can do anything on the court, and can play three positions... |
Now ... on to this week's column.
Let's say the NBA decides, just for the sake of change, to start from
scratch. Re-draft every player in the league today, with a lottery-type
drawing for draft order.
OK, you got lucky and got the first pick.
Who do you take?
(And here is where we have some more fun with my esteemed Eastern
Conference colleague, the aforementioned Jeffrey Denberg, because the
answers are so obvious.)
If you believe you must build a team around a center, then the choice is
evident: Shaquille O'Neal.
If you believe you start with a point guard, then you take your pick among
Gary Payton, Jason Kidd and Jason Williams.
If you think a small forward is the way to go, then you choose Kevin
Garnett.
If you think you want to build around a power forward, you pick Tim Duncan.
Or, if you think you choose the best player, period, then you choose
between Garnett and Duncan.
Notice anything?
All these players play in the West.
Allen Iverson?
Puh-leeze. Have you noticed what the 76ers' record is when Iverson scores 40
or more points?
No? May I suggest you contact Larry Brown to find out. (Oh, all right ... it's 1-8, which tells you everything you really need to
know about Iverson.)
Grant Hill? Mr. Softie.
Alonzo Mourning? You're getting warmer, except he is not even the best player at his
position.
Vince Carter? Have you seen him play defense? Didn't think so.
No, the choice is clear: If you have first pick of any NBA player and
choose any player other than Duncan or Garnett, you must be Ted Stepien.
So, now that we have established that all the true franchise players are in
the West, including the two best, which is it: Duncan or Garnett?
The inspiration for this column, see, is the fact I have seen both players
at work in the last five days. So did the Nuggets, the team I happen to
cover.
How did Dan Issel answer my hypothetical, sort of a fantasy league question for NBA
GMs?
"That's a pretty tough call," the Nuggets' GM and head
coach said. "I can't pick one of them over the other. But I know one thing:
You couldn't go wrong taking either one of them, and the answer to your
question definitely is a choice between those two, an obvious choice.
They're both 7-footers who can run the floor."
Nuggets director of player personnel Kim Hughes, though, says the choice is
easy, even though there is the slightest of dropoffs, one to the other.
Hughes' choice: Garnett.
"That's because he can play three, four or five," Hughes said. "He plays
with enthusiasm unsurpassed by anybody except, perhaps, Duncan. But you can
double Duncan in the low post. Garnett you can't, and I think he can run the
floor better."
I'm with Hughes on this one. As much as I love Duncan's game, which
continues to get better and better, I still believe Garnett's potential is
greater. Besides, I'm not convinced he has quit growing.
Timberwolves backup center Danny Schayes, the oldest player in the NBA
and a veteran of eight different teams through a career that now spans a
remarkable 18 seasons, has played with or against most of the great players
of the last two decades.
No player, Schayes said, is any better than Garnett for building a team
around.
"I think Kevin's certainly among the best," Schayes said. "He's got a
great will to win, works hard every day in practice and in games and then on
the court he's just a whirlwind.
"Whether he's making shots or not, he's doing things on both ends all the
time. He finds the open man. He makes the players around him better and
that's the real signature of a great player. He has a long way to come, experience and maturity-wise, but he's got all
the right things to build on.
"As far as guys I've played with, he's really unique. I think his biggest
upside is the experience factor. He's only played a few years. Just now he's
learning what it takes to carry a team, be the man to really lift a team.
That's something that will just develop over time. But I think as far as
position in the league, he's unlimited."
Where does Garnett, himself, feel his game stands as he begins his fifth
season at the tender age of 23?
"Development is always opinionated," Garnett said. "Potential is always
probably higher than development, because so many people have potential but
don't necessarily reach it.
"I'm a curious person. I've always felt there is always something I don't
know out there. I've always tried to find out what it was. Whether I find
out or not is on me."
It is that curiosity, that striving, that has seen Garnett's game rise
above other young power forwards who came into the league at the same time,
notably his own teammate, Joe Smith, and Denver's Antonio McDyess.
"I ask a lot of questions about things I don't know," Garnett said. "I'm
very eager to try to be the best. I know that the necessary parts of going
about that is having a good attitude, going out and working hard every
night. So as far as me developing and where I'm at, I don't really evaluate
it like that.
"I look at myself as a work in progress. Things I struggle with, things I
have problems with, I try to work on those. Things I do well, or do OK, I
try to even polish that up every now and then."
Both Garnett and Duncan are 23 years old. If you draft either of them in
this fantasy league, you're going to be set for a long, long time.
Of course, there is the little matter of paying them, a bridge the
Timberwolves crossed two summers ago and which made the path to financial
sanity a little easier to follow for the Spurs, who must do the same this
summer with Duncan.
Wandering the West
There is just no way to overstate the devastating
effect of the Grizzlies' loss to the SuperSonics back on Nov. 18. That was
the night the Griz led the SuperSonics by 10 with 1:39 left, only to lose in
a collapse so total they may never recover.
In Vancouver's locker room
afterwards, there was devastation and recrimination. Vancouver GM Stu
Jackson, clearly a man on a hot seat, completely lost his cool after his
team's utter collapse.
Jackson was behind a sliding metal door, but he could be heard clearly
and concisely. After kicking or punching the door twice, he screamed, "Every
(expletive) thing we could have done wrong, we did wrong. When are we going
to learn?"
He kicked the door.
"(Expletive)!"
He kicked the door again.
"(Expletive)!"
Vancouver officials rushed inside the room to advise Jackson that he
was displaying his anger in front of a gathering of media, but Jackson
apparently did not care. His rant went on even as Sonics coach Paul Westphal
stepped from the locker room to give his post-game commentary.
Word around the West is that the Grizzlies have quit on Brian Hill,
especially point guard Mike Bibby. They did manage to muster up some pride
Monday night in a futile attempt to show Steve Francis what they thought of
him, but they lost that game to the Rockets, without Hakeem Olajuwon, in
overtime, as well.
I'd be very surprised if Hill makes it to the new millennium on Vancouver's
bench ...
Be surprised if Glen Rice lasts out the season on the Lakers roster, too,
though trading him will be a tad more difficult than firing Hill. It is
evident new Lakes boss Phil Jackson doesn't believe Rice fits into any
corner of his triangle offense.
"He just doesn't move to the basketball, just doesn't seem to be able to
play without the ball," Jackson said after Rice was awful, lost in the
middle of the triangle, in the Lakers' loss to the Nuggets. "They overplayed
him, and he couldn't get to the basketball, even to catch it.
"Just reverse, just play without the ball. That's just plain basketball,
that's what it is. That's what we teach. He's having a hard time playing
without the ball in the course of the game. And we don't provide picks. I
think that's one of the focuses that he's probably had that he doesn't here,
that we don't have a play that's called 'the Glen Rice play.' "
Jackson also has taken to playing Shaquille O'Neal huge minutes. He went 43
and 45 in back-to-back games, Jackson pointing out that Wilt Chamberlain
once played all but two minutes of an entire season.
We think Jackson also was pointing something out to Jerry West: He needs a better
backup center ...
And speaking of Olajuwon, there may never be another player with 2,000
blocks and 2,000 steals, which Olajuwon now has. After all, the NBA has been
around for 52 years, and Olajuwon just became the first. Think about it: a
defensive giant with the agility and quickness to defend like a guard, which
is what the rest of the players on the top five steals list are.
"When I
look at the list, and I see the top 10, to at No. 6 see a center, it seems
out of place," Olajuwon said. "I like that."
Olajuwon found himself on a steals list filled with guards and quick forwards. He
trails only John Stockton, Maurice Cheeks, Michael Jordan, Clyde Drexler and
Alvin Robertson, guards all. And where does Olajuwon rank in blocks? No. 1,
baby.
Suns coach Danny Ainge has ordered starting guards Jason Kidd and Penny
Hardaway to move their lockers next to one another, rather than on opposite
sides of room. "As far as camaraderie is concerned, the Suns felt we needed
to be together," Hardaway said.
So coaching in the 1990s has come down to strategic locker placement?
Oh, well, whatever works.
Mike Monroe, who covers the NBA for the Denver Post, writes a Western Conference column for ESPN.com. You can e-mail him at monroe128@go.com |  |
NBA West: Rockets need to go East
