National Basketball Association - Chasing perfection: a behind-the-scenes look at the high-stakes game of creating an NBA champion

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Copyright 2016 by Andy Glockner

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First Da Capo Press edition 2016

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To Bernard King, Chris Mullin, Walter Berry, countless nights in the Palestra, and everything and everyone else that made me fall in love with basketball, a perfect sport filled with imperfections

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

O ne of the most important moments of the 201415 NBA season happened three months before it even started. Amid the myriad practices, meetings, and team functions related to the tryout camp for the US national team that was being put together to compete in the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup in Spain, one small thought on shooting technique was passed along from one world-class player to another. That disclosure set in motion improvements that amplified the latter players impact on his whole team, and helped change the entire dynamic of the NBAs championship chase.

There was no way to know that at the time, though, as the focus of anyone who was observing the tryout camp at the University of Nevada-Las Vegass glittering Mendenhall Center practice facility that July was on the battles to make the tournament roster. For five days, a sizable contingent of local, national, and international media looked on along with dozens of invited basketball luminaries as the nineteen hopefuls went through drills and scrimmages under the watchful eyes of USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo, national team head coach Mike Krzyzewski, and his coaching staff. Despite a number of the NBAs elite players deciding to pass on trying out for the non-Olympics event, the roster still was loaded with young, world-class talent.

The headliner was Kevin Durant, the Oklahoma City Thunders newly minted NBA most valuable player, who seemed to flow around the courts in all of his long-limbed scoring glory. There was former teammate, James Harden, now an established superstar for the Houston Rockets after a landmark 2012 trade that redefined both of those teams. There was emerging Indiana Pacers small forward Paul George, who had helped lead his team to the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference in 2014 despite the presence of two-time defending NBA champions LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and others in Miami.

There also were the Golden State Warriors Splash Brothers, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson; blossoming point guard studs like the Portland Trail Blazers Damian Lillard, the Cleveland Cavaliers Kyrie Irving, and the Washington Wizards John Wall; prodigious post presences in the Detroit Pistons Andre Drummond and the Sacramento Kings DeMarcus Cousins; plus Chicago Bulls lead guard Derrick Rose, a former league MVP himself who was trying to get back from multiple knee injuries that had handcuffed a series of very good Bulls teams.

The energy levels during the scrimmages equaled the talent levels on the courts. Guys were going at each other hard. World-class players dont often get summer environments in which they can compete day after day against others of their caliber, and the opportunity to watch and learn from peers at the games highest level can mean as much to the furthering of a career as making the final roster actually does.

One of the highlights of the camp was a post-practice series of one-on-one games between Durant, Harden, and George. Each of the trio took turns starting with the ball, with one attempt to score on the defender. If the bucket was made, the scorer stayed on the court to face the player sitting out, who would come on as the defender. If he missed, the defender then got the ball and the chance to score against the player who had been resting. Even with dozens of people milling around on the sidelines and baseline, just a few feet away from the action, the games were pretty focused and intense, with each star testing his best moves against two of the few equals they have.

There were plenty of these kinds of on-court battles at the camp. The whole week was somewhat of a referendum on the pecking order of the new generation of scoring point guards that were fueling the NBAs surge in watchability. The same was true of the big men. Traditional post players like Cousins and Drummond were testing each other against a legit foe, and the Denver Nuggets hyperkinetic Kenneth Faried rebounded everything in sight. All the while, the specter of the NBAs Next Big Thingthe New Orleans Pelicans Anthony Davisloomed very large.

While all of these players battle for honors during the season, the communal goal of the national team setup makes the camps a lot less confrontational, and its a chance for the best of the best to crib good stuff from others. It may be the way a dribbler sets up his crossover, or how to come off a screen to provide the extra inches of room thats all world-class players need to catch a pass and bury a jumper. Players at this level will see something they like, ask about it, and then quietly incorporate it into their games, making them even deadlier going forward.

A good example of this came to light in an ESPN.com column in January 2015, where Ethan Sherwood Strauss broke down some of the new things Klay Thompson had added to his offensive game for the 201415 season. One of them was dubbed the Aussie-go-round, where Thompson cribbed from a USA Basketball teammate and learned to use his inside arm to grab big man Andrew Bogut around the waist when curling around a Bogut screen. The slingshot effect would propel Thompson forward too quickly for the trailing defender to recover. In the video clip embedded in the story, Thompson came up the right wing from the baseline and then tightly curled around Bogut, who was holding the ball. Defensive help wasnt able to rotate over quickly enough, and Bogut fed a simple pass to Thompson for a driving layup attempt, on which he was fouled.