… in front of unsympathetic friends (um, turn down your speakers at work):
That doesn’t look easy or fun. Neither does this.
Tag Archive for 'Amir Johnson'
Keith Langlois revealed a few interesting names that will be playing for the Pistons on the summer league:
Dee Brown, the former Illinois All-American who played with Utah as a rookie two years ago, will be on the Pistons’ roster. Sammy Mejia, last year’s second-round pick, was going to be but he sprained an ankle recently and won’t make it. Alex Acker will also be on the team and has a shot at sticking with the Pistons next year.
Because the Pistons will have three draft choices on the team – as well as Rodney Stuckey, Arron Afflalo, Cheikh Samb and Amir Johnson – they won’t be filling it up with a bunch of other notable players. That’s an unusual number of players for a Summer League team who have already cinched roster spots or have realistic NBA futures.
In case you missed it, here’s the schedule:
July 11 - Detroit vs. L.A. Lakers, 5:00 p.m. PST on NBA TV
July 13 - Detroit vs. L.A. Clippers, 7:00 p.m. PST
July 15 - Detroit vs. Milwaukee, 3:00 p.m. PST
July 17 - Detroit vs. Dallas, 1:00 p.m. PST on NBA TV
July 18 - Detroit vs. Charlotte, 3:00 p.m. PST
Unless noted, the games won’t be televised. Once upon a time it was possible to purchase some kind of video package to watch games (or at least highlights) online — no word yet if that will be an option again this year. I hope so, because that’s a stacked roster, at least as far as summer league rosters go.
It’s time to retire Amir Johnson’s jersey — his high school jersey, that is: “Celtics rookie guard Gabe Pruitt will be going back to Los Angeles this weekend to be honored with the retirement of his jersey number at Westchester High School (not far from LAX) during a charity all-star game at the school Sunday. Pruitt said Westchester is also retiring jerseys from Pistons center Amir Johnson and ex-Nets guard Hassan Adams.”
Keith Langlois has a lengthy Q&A with Michael Curry on Pistons.com. Some highlights:
Langlois: You also said the other day you had opportunities to be an assistant coach when you retired yet you decided to go the administrative route with the league office for two years. Just talk about why you decided to go that route if you knew you wanted to be a head coach.
Curry: It’s funny. As you sit around, you prepare and I’ve always thought at times it’s difficult to get to a point unless people really see you in that light. I’ve seen some guys I thought were really good coaches that everyone kind of saw as an assistant coach. I didn’t want to take a job as an assistant just to be an assistant coach. I wanted to be a head coach. I’m a leader, I have a strong personality and I crave leadership positions. So that wasn’t quite the offers that were there when I first came out, once I interviewed with the league office, with what I could do in basketball operations and what I would be able to do within the D-League, it would be the best of both worlds. It would quench my thirst as far as the actual and on-the-court aspect in the D-League and the business side of basketball working in basketball operations.
Langlois: But it was done with the thought of becoming a head coach in mind, not a general manager?
Curry: I’ve always liked that part of basketball as well, being a general manager or being a head coach. Either one of those leadership positions. I knew after my two years in the league office, just talking with guys and GMs around the league and some of the interaction I’ve had with players. A lot of guys outside where I’ve been, they didn’t know me as well. But in that same setting, they knew I possessed the qualities to lead. Halfway through my second year in the league office, I knew that right now I craved being on the court more so than being a general manager. If I was a general manager right now, I’d probably get in my own way – in the way of the coach I hire – because I still see a lot of things I want to do and being on the court actually coaching is one of those things.
One of the things that impresses me the most about Curry is how calmly confident he is. He knew he’d be a head coach but didn’t want to settle for taking the usual path to success. And reading his answer to the quest above, I get the feeling he knows he’ll eventually be a GM some day, as well. It’s rare to see a new coach speak so candidly about his ambition.
His thoughts on holding players accountable:
[Players] want playing time. When you go out here you have 15 players. If you preach certain things to the guys and this is what you are going to hold them accountable for, if you allow two or three guys to do what they want to do, then not only those two or three are gone but you lose the other 10 that are not playing at the time. The best thing to do is make sure you follow what you’re teaching the guys and what you’re saying are your points of emphasis and make sure you keep those other 12 that are doing right and the other two or three, they’ll conform and be the way you want them to be.
I said this before, but I hope he’s serious, and I hope he doesn’t change his mind come playoff time.
His thoughts on some of the team’s young players:
Amir Johnson has to be more consistent every day and I think we have to coach him more consistent. What I mean by that is, he’s not a guy who can take two days away from the gym and come back and still be playing at the same level. As you saw when he played, he played four games in a row and he played really good. If you don’t play him for two games, he doesn’t go all the way back down but he takes a step backward. We have to find a way to make sure we give him consistent minutes and a consistent role so he can grow. Hopefully, once he starts to grow and get that consistency, he’ll realize how valuable he can be for us as a team.
Stuckey can take a big leap. With increased minutes, we want to put things in place to make sure he can stay aggressive when he’s out on the court. The biggest thing for him this year was trying to figure out when to be aggressive and when not to be aggressive. Sometimes he erred on not being aggressive. We want him to err on the side of being aggressive. Be overly aggressive and let us calm you down. That’s sort of our thought process with Stuckey.
Arron is great. He’s one of the few guys that I just thought never had a bad game. The way he prepares every day, he’s going to be a model where he doesn’t stand out so much by the way he prepares – we have to get everyone else preparing that same way every day. The way he prepares, the way he competes every day, every day in practice, he is the poster boy for the way we have to be.
Afflalo definitely gets overlooked when most people talk about Detroit’s young players, but that’s exceptionally high praise. If you’ve been paying attention, though, it’s also not surprising — I’ve heard Dumars and Flip Saunders say as much all year. No matter what your impressions are of Afflalo’s game right now, don’t underestimate him — with that kind of drive, anything is possible.
Real life is keeping me away from the computer, but the internet doesn’t stop! A few topics worthy of discussion:
- All this Tim Donaghy stuff. I don’t really know what to think anymore. For the most part, I have a hard time believing there’s been some kind of league-wide conspiracy — Mark Heisler of the LA Times agrees (via Nate Jones) — but the evidence does seem to be mounting.
- Then again, bad calls have existed for a long time.
- It’s important for a head coach to be flexible — games are won and lost on in-game adjustments — but Michael Curry is taking this literally. From Coach’s Network:
A few years ago he would visit Michigan State and play pick up ball with some of the MSU players in the off-season. A few things I noticed about the professional player before, during and after the games with the young, eager Spartans.
1-He would stretch before the games. I don’t mean your typical touch your toes type stuff. I mean this guy really stretched! All parts of his body - he was focused on stretching! You’re probably saying what does stretching have to do with anything? I will tell you - when you stretch, it shows you care about your body and most of all your preparation. I see players who just walk into the gym and want to start playing. Stretching is preparation, a vital trait for the coaching business
There’s some other good tidbits in that — read the whole thing. (hat-tip: Henry Abbott)
- Dan Reed, president of the D-League, reflects on Curry’s contributions from his time as VP of the NBDL. (hat-tip: Matt Moore)
Last but certainly not least, Keith Langlois has another monster Q&A with Joe Dumars at Pistons.com. If I had more time I’d devote an entire post to this, so do yourself a favor and read the whole thing. Selected highlights:
Langlois: Veteran coaches, and I think we can cite a few recent examples, are usually leery about playing young guys. But even going back to Rick Carlisle, a first-time coach, he only went to Tayshaun Prince when it was kind of a desperate situation and it paid off. Do you expect Michael to be more or less leery about playing young guys?
Dumars: Coaching is a lot about personality. It’s your personality as a coach. Just as to sit in the seat that I sit in is a lot of my personality. Either you have the propensity to take risks and do the unconventional, or you don’t and you’re going to go the conservative standard way that everybody else does things. I like to think I came in and never worried aobut how everybody else was doing things. I was going to do things the way I saw it. You can expect the same thing from Michael.
Langlois: What do you think the odds are that Amir is a permanent part of the rotation next year?
Dumars: I think there’s a good chance you’re going to see him as part of that. We’ve always been high on him. We didn’t just become high on him. He’s a guy we have a lot of confidence in as a young player, just as we have confidence in Afflalo and Stuckey, we have the same kind of confidence in Amir Johnson.
Langlois: Is the plan for Cheikh Samb more of the same – some D-League time and back here as well?
Dumars: I think you’ll see a lot of the same stuff with Cheikh Samb next year – some D-League, some here, kind of back and forth. We want him to get some game-time experience and where he’s going to get that the most from is the D-League. But we also want him competing here at this level against these guys, too, because that’s going to help him get better. So just to keep him here year-round, only practicing, doesn’t make the most of him. And just to send him to the D-League and not having to go up against our guys is probably not best for him, so we’re going to give him a mixture of both, for sure.
Langlois: The Nazr Mohammed trade put the mid-level exception in play for you. You can use it without exceeding the tax threshold. What are you looking at with that – do you think you’ll use it on one player or split it over more than one? Any ideas?
Dumars: That’s once you find out what your roster is like. But the fact we have the ability to use the entire mid-level is a great chip for us going into this free agency. If we had gone into this summer without the ability to use the full mid-level, like we want to, that just limits what you can do. I like the fact we’re in position – doesn’t mean we’ll use it – but the fact we can is a huge chip for me when I’m sitting here putting a team together.
Dumars also said that Rodney Stuckey, Arron Afflalo, Amir and Samb are all playing in the Vegas Summer League.
There are a half dozen more questions I’d like to post, too. Dumars is always an interesting guy, but I think Langlois consistently does a good job asking the right questions. Kudos to both.
Remember that “Stat geeks love Amir Johnson” post from a couple of weeks ago? I’ve been sitting on this for a while, but before Game 6 of the Celtics series I asked Amir if he realized he was near universally regarded as one of the most productive players in the league.
Not surprisingly, he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about but seemed amused at his lofty ranking. If we can assume that a new coaching regime means more playing time for Amir, is it too early to put his name on the 2008-09 Most Improved Player of the Year trophy?
The season ended much earlier than I thought it would, so I’m going to let this marinate a little bit and try to enjoy the rest of the weekend before posting some kind of grand finale. But first, some brief reactions:
- Congratulations to the Celtics, who convinced me they’re the better team. Even when Detroit got going on all cylinders, the Celtics always found a way to hang around until the very end (Game 4), keep the Pistons at bay (Game 5) or weather the storm and seal the deal (Game 6). There’s no quit on that team from top to bottom. I don’t appreciate the way the team came together in just one summer, but you can’t argue with the results.
- Antonio McDyess is taking this hard. Really hard. I implore you to read this.
- This was easily Flip Saunders’ best year on the sidelines, and Tayshaun Prince did his best to deflect criticism from Flip after the game, but I think he’s probably gone — even if for no other reason than the fact that he’ll be entering the last year of his contract next season. I don’t think Dumars/Davidson wants to can him before his contract is up, but I don’t think they want to extend him, either, and bringing back a lame duck coach who’s allegedly struggled to earn the respect of everybody in the locker room doesn’t make sense.
- Who do I think will replace him? Michael Curry or Avery Johnson are my guesses. Plus, Curry would be dirt cheap as a first-time coach, which would offset the expense of paying Flip to leave.
- Did Rasheed Wallace play his last game as a Piston? I’m leaning toward yes. He can still produce and is an underrated defender, but he’s not consistent and (most importantly) will be entering the final year of his contract. That said, I don’t think Dumars will give him away — it’d have to be the right package, and it’s difficult to get full value on one of the most misunderstood players in the league.
- Another guy who might be moved: Rip Hamilton. Not because he doesn’t fit this team, but because his trade value is still sky-high and the Pistons could probably enter next year with Rodney Stuckey playing next to Chauncey Billups and still expect to compete for a title.
- If the Pistons do start making trades, they better not block Amir Johnson. I know it’s easy to scoff at the hype (though even I laugh at the “Amir LeKobe” nickname one of you came up with), but he’s absolutely the team’s best rebounder and shot-blocker. Even if that’s all he ever will be — and there’s no reason to think it is — that’s worth 25-30 minutes a game.
- I’ll weigh in more on all of this later this weekend and throughout the summer, I just wanted to get some quick thoughts up lest you think I’ve abandoned ship.
Last but not least, thank you.
This site exists because you guys read it, and I never expected in my wildest expectations that it would draw such an intelligent, loyal and respectful community of readers. It’s extremely humbling to see so many of you guys to claim this little corner of the internet as your preferred destination to talk hoops and watch games. I hope you all stick around this summer — things should get really interesting.
Count the Basket compares and contrasts the results of several advanced player rating systems, (including some I’ve never even heard of) …
I took a look at seven popular player ratings. Two basic linear weights metrics based on boxscore stats - John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating (PER), and Dave Berri’s Wins Produced (WP). Two metrics built on Dean Oliver’s individual offensive and defensive ratings - Justin Kubatko’s Win Shares (WS), and Davis21wylie’s Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP). And three plus/minus metrics based on team point differential while the player is on the court - Roland Beech’s Net Plus/Minus (Net +/-), Dan Rosenbaum’s Adjusted Plus/Minus (Adj +/-), and Dan Rosenbaum’s Statistical Plus/Minus (Stat +/-). For the purposes of comparison I looked at the per-minute (or per-possession) versions of all these metrics (e.g. WP48 instead of WP, WSAA/48 instead of WSAA, WARPr instead of WARP).
… and found some pretty interesting results, including this:
Another eye-popper is seeing Amir Johnson, the 21-year-old Detroit power forward who’s been riding the pine in the playoffs, ranked first in the league in Adjusted Plus/Minus. This actually isn’t as great an anomaly as might be expected - Johnson rated rather well across the board. His consensus ranking was 15th. He was rated lowest by PER (64th), but he ranked 11th in Win Shares and 20th in Statistical Plus/Minus. Obviously one has to use some caution considering he played under 800 minutes on the season, but the fact that he rated well in several metrics could be a good sign for the future.
Consider him Detroit’s secret weapon. So secret, in fact, the coaching staff hasn’t even figured out how valuable he is. Oh well, there’s always next year.
Muchas gracias to Shoals for both alerting me and spreading the word.
Flip Saunders claims he’s thinking about using Amir Johnson in Game 4. From A. Sherrod Blakely:
Pistons coach Flip Saunders talked some about Rashard Lewis who has given them fits throughout this series. Lewis’ play is one of the reasons why Jarvis Hayes is out of the rotation, and replaced by Walter Herrmann. Saunders said he’s also giving some thought to putting Amir Johnson on Lewis tomorrow night.
“Just because of his (Johnson’s) quickness and his length and his ability to defend people out on the floor, but also if he gets beat off the dribble, he can make it up and contest at the rim,” Saunders said.
A.S.B. also has the latest Chauncey Billups update in the same article; not much has changed, though it seems Chauncey and Arnie Kander are getting to know each other quite well:
“I’m feeling a little better,” Billups said. “Y’all probably have a better chance of asking my roommate Arnie.”
As in Arnie Kander, the team’s strength and conditioning coach. Billups was up to about 1 a.m. this morning doing stuff with Kander, with treatments resuming about eight hours later.
“He doesn’t need a room,” Kander said. “He’s been in my room. We were up to 1 in the morning and started back at 9 this morning.”
No matter what Saunders says, I’m quite confident we’ll see a dinged up Billups before a perfectly healthy Johnson, which is actually pretty sad.
From Keith Langlois of Pistons.com:
McDyess broke his nose midway through the third quarter of Friday’s nightmarish Game 3 loss at Wachovia Center and returned to Detroit where he underwent successful surgery Saturday at Royal Oak Beaumont Hospital as performed by Dr. Gene Rontal. McDyess’ status for Game 4 is listed as questionable.
If McDyess is unable to go, the Pistons likely would replace him in the starting lineup with third-year forward Jason Maxiell. They would still have plenty of depth available to them with Theo Ratliff and Amir Johnson coming off the bench, as well as Walter Herrmann, who has been on the inactive list through the first three games of the first-round series.
[…] McDyess has been matched up defensively to start games against Philadelphia rookie Thaddeus Young, who has gotten off to fast offensive starts in all three games. Young has scored 10, 11 and 10 points in the first three games of the series. Long and athletic, Young might be a better physical matchup for Johnson, though it’s unlikely the Pistons would thrust (sic — trust?) the inexperienced Johnson enough to start him.
I’d love to see it happen, but I don’t think it will, and sadly for all the wrong reasons. Starting Amir Johnson would be admitting that DNP-ing him in Game 1 and sitting him until the game was well out of hand in Game 3 was a mistake, and coaches rarely do that until they’re facing an elimination game. To be honest, I haven’t seen a coach so reluctant to give a guy a chance since Rick Carlisle finally relented and put Tayshaun Prince on Tracy McGrady in 2003.
But unlike McGrady, Young isn’t one of the league’s truly extraordinary talents — he’s one of the very small handful of players in this league who’s actually younger than Amir Johnson. Why in the world would you keep throwing veterans who are 10-15 years older than Young and continue to be surprised when the Pistons look slow? If McDyess can’t play, I’m all for matching up Maxiell with Reggie Evans and Johnson with Young; who actually gets the start or plays more minutes is irrelevant.
Update: The “wait a minute, maybe the Pistons should play Amir” meme is catching on. A. Sherrod Blakely weighs in and got a quote from Amir:
Saunders said if McDyess doesn’t play, he would be replaced by Jason Maxiell, Theo Ratliff or possibly Amir Johnson.
Of the three, Johnson might be the most intriguing possibility.
With Philadelphia going with a smaller lineup that includes Thaddeus Young at power forward — he’s really a long small forward — Johnson might be a better match up for Detroit.
“We are kind of the same with our quickness,” Johnson said. “I just have to stay ready and wait to be called on. And when I get a chance to play, don’t make mistakes and just try and help the team win.”
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