Friday Bullets

• Important: not all turnovers have the same impact.
• Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant, LaMarcus Aldridge. Tall guys who can shoot are, really, really hard to guard.
• So what if Kyrie Irving may never be an MVP candidate. Some consistently strong play at the point guard position sounds well-worth the top pick in Toronto.
• Take heart, Nets fans. Deron Williams likes where things are going...on FaceBook, anyways.
• A bittersweet ending to a college course on the culture of basketball.
• Outsourcing is affecting everyone. Excel's Jeff Schwartz, who represents Jason Kidd, Paul Pierce and other NBA cash cows, also represents five of this year's top international prospects.
• Anthony Macri on the Grizzlies' potent front line: "On any post touch Randolph gets now, there is a looping dive from Gasol toward the rim, but outside the lane.� A traditional cut here would be directly down the center of the lane, but Gasol moves outside the painted area to both give Randolph more room on his initial move and also to force his defender to define their defensive plan.� Most of these types of dives are meant to produce scores, but this is not the primary purpose of Gasol's cut.� It's a smart adjustment given the kind of bucket-getter Randolph is."
• On HoopSpeak, Ethan Sherwood Strauss takes an unlikely position against the league's instant replay rules. Strauss is concerned with the fan experience, one that is not improved by halting for three minutes of standing around to determine what happened in the most exciting moments of the game. Instead of the cathartic release of victory or defeat, we're left with an awkward outro of announcers cautiously narrating short guys looking at a monitor. But I'd bet the players in these tense situations appreciate that their efforts are authentically rewarded. Doug Collins, for one, probably wishes there would have been some replay review rules in place at the 1972 Munich Olympics. A compromise: designate an official to monitor the replays full time and make quick rulings instead of relying on a referee huddle to sort it out at mid court.
• Even without playing, Rashard Lewis was a major upgrade over Gilbert Arenas.
• A Storm Trooper gets posterized.
• Man, John Kuester had a rough year with the Pistons. But at least no one tried to strangle him.
• Rondo takes it to another level in the playoffs.
• Not everyone is on board with advanced statistics. After all, the emotion of the game, what really connects with fans, doesn't always come through in PER. Then again, these statistics teach us new ways to appreciate the game. So what's the right way to watch basketball, anyways?
• These playoffs have been awesome, in no small part because superstars like LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Durant have been as advertised. So why does David Thorpe pick Marc Gasol as his Postseason MVP? A hint: he's outplaying a legend.
• Josh Smith cracks me up, on purpose!

Source: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/28270/friday-bullets-178

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