If you read Ira Winderman's writing on the Miami "Heat," which you probably do not but which I do regularly, you realize that Ira is never going to come out and say so-and-so on the "Heat" is a stiff or that coach Erik Spoelstra needs to be choked really hard. As you do with New York Times writers you have to be familiar with Winderman’s style and you must read closely to get candid.
I do that and a couple of days ago in his write-up on one of the debacles this week, I forget which one, Ira wrote that it is almost as if Hassan Whiteside, league leader by the way in rebounds per game and in shots blocked per game, gets ignored by Spoelstra because his baskets only count for two points. That is as direct (and as sarcastic) as Ira gets, two points being the standard count for a made field goal. So obsessed to prove that his invented concept of positionless basketball will work with this team and the concept's reliance on the rarer (but by now standard) long distance three point shot is Spoelstra that he "forgets" that when Hassan Whiteside makes a basket it does count for two points and Spoelstra is convinced despite his lying eyes that he has dead-eye Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullen launching up threes instead of the reality of Goran Dragic, Josh Richardson and Rodney McGruder, Wayne Ellington (who has not played a minute so far this season), even encouraging Dwyane Wade to "evolve" his game in Wade's final season, and other interchangeable parts that are the requisite for positionless.
The day after the aforementioned article Winderman hosted his daily question and answer session with fans who write in. Now, you can't help what the fans write. But Winderman chooses which questions to spotlight in (virtual) print. In this one, Ira selected two questions. Two. The first made an analogy to Erik Spoelstra at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, the fan's point being that the Cheesecake Factory menu can be overwhelming, with options so that something like dining Stendhal Syndrome is the result. The fan wrote that he is not given to conspiracies but it almost seemed to him that upper “Heat” management was deliberately limiting Erik's choices to avoid that paralysis; in Erik's case it would be better put to suggest that management might be curbing Erik's penchant for tinkering. Ira did not confront head on the fan's point which the undersigned believes is a seminal one.
The second question was without imperfect analogies and more pointed.
Q: I know the NBA has changed, but jacking up 3-pointers doesn’t make the Heat into the Warriors. Out shooters are just not that good. I’m not seeing much of a coordinated effort on offense. In fact, each offensive play seems to be just a display of athleticism ending mostly with failed 3-pointers and a helter-skelter run back on defense. -- Paul, Fort Lauderdale.
This was Ira Winderman's answer:
A: The one thing I appreciate about Erik Spoelstra is that he runs all the numbers, the simulations, the historical analysis before adopting a system. But I don't get where good-to-better-to-best would give way to pull-up jumpers in transition. Yes, the 2018-19 NBA is a brave new world, but it could be that the Heat are attempting to brave it a bit too much. (obviously the emphasis is mine)
"The one thing I appreciate about Erik..." There is one, and only one, taking Ira's words literally, thing that Ira appreciates about Erik. That is sharp damning by the faintest praise. But even with that one desideratum of running simulations, etc. (really?) Ira Winderman writes "I don't get...pull-up jumpers in transition." That would be because Ira's eyes are not deceiving him, the box score does not lie and these positionless mutants for the most part can't throw a three-pointer into a lake. And yes indeed, "it could be that the Heat are attempting" to do too much to be like Run TMC or the Splash Brothers. Yes, indeed.
"Heat" management in fact has passively installed a powerful anti-tinkering device to deter Spoelstra. For the third straight year--unprecedented in today's NBA--he has been given the same player personnel. Why did Spoelstra not stop the tinkering, accept Hassan for who he is, and choose from among the myriad menu options a rotation and style of play that suited his personnel after the phenomenal 30-11 finish to 2016? Did he not see enough last season, in 2017, of the same players, to settle on rotation and play style? Through seven games in 2018 he has not seen enough of the same players to implement a consistent style of play to maximize his players potential. After five games he went all Stendahl and switched from patient offense and lock-down defense to "pull-up jumpers in transition"—too many, far too many of which went clank rather than swish.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In Spoelstra's
case the insanity is in the tinkering.
So let the word go forth from this time and place that Erik Spoelstra is on the clock. That the more his eyes deceive him and he countenances errant launches from range; the less he uses Hassan Whiteside, THE BEST CENTER IN THE NBA, because Hassan is not Kevin Love and can't wander to the three-point arc to launch ICBM's, and ignores and discounts Hassan's "mere" two-point baskets and doesn't trust THE BEST CENTER IN THE NBA and leader in rebounds and blocks to play the position on the basketball court that God intended him to play; the more Erik Spoelstra tinkers and obsesses with his positionless fetish in this easy part of the schedule that has seen three wins out of seven played, two losses to lottery team Charlotte and one apiece to lotterists Orlando and Sacramento, the hotter Spoelstra's collar should feel and the tighter it should feel as even those of us with 20/400 vision approach him with hands twitching and sweating to grab him by the neck and vigorously shake him while he gasps for air and his eyes bulge. Or, as my dad threatened with our dog Rusty, to “just take him out and shoot him."
Good night.
I do that and a couple of days ago in his write-up on one of the debacles this week, I forget which one, Ira wrote that it is almost as if Hassan Whiteside, league leader by the way in rebounds per game and in shots blocked per game, gets ignored by Spoelstra because his baskets only count for two points. That is as direct (and as sarcastic) as Ira gets, two points being the standard count for a made field goal. So obsessed to prove that his invented concept of positionless basketball will work with this team and the concept's reliance on the rarer (but by now standard) long distance three point shot is Spoelstra that he "forgets" that when Hassan Whiteside makes a basket it does count for two points and Spoelstra is convinced despite his lying eyes that he has dead-eye Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullen launching up threes instead of the reality of Goran Dragic, Josh Richardson and Rodney McGruder, Wayne Ellington (who has not played a minute so far this season), even encouraging Dwyane Wade to "evolve" his game in Wade's final season, and other interchangeable parts that are the requisite for positionless.
The day after the aforementioned article Winderman hosted his daily question and answer session with fans who write in. Now, you can't help what the fans write. But Winderman chooses which questions to spotlight in (virtual) print. In this one, Ira selected two questions. Two. The first made an analogy to Erik Spoelstra at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, the fan's point being that the Cheesecake Factory menu can be overwhelming, with options so that something like dining Stendhal Syndrome is the result. The fan wrote that he is not given to conspiracies but it almost seemed to him that upper “Heat” management was deliberately limiting Erik's choices to avoid that paralysis; in Erik's case it would be better put to suggest that management might be curbing Erik's penchant for tinkering. Ira did not confront head on the fan's point which the undersigned believes is a seminal one.
The second question was without imperfect analogies and more pointed.
Q: I know the NBA has changed, but jacking up 3-pointers doesn’t make the Heat into the Warriors. Out shooters are just not that good. I’m not seeing much of a coordinated effort on offense. In fact, each offensive play seems to be just a display of athleticism ending mostly with failed 3-pointers and a helter-skelter run back on defense. -- Paul, Fort Lauderdale.
This was Ira Winderman's answer:
A: The one thing I appreciate about Erik Spoelstra is that he runs all the numbers, the simulations, the historical analysis before adopting a system. But I don't get where good-to-better-to-best would give way to pull-up jumpers in transition. Yes, the 2018-19 NBA is a brave new world, but it could be that the Heat are attempting to brave it a bit too much. (obviously the emphasis is mine)
"The one thing I appreciate about Erik..." There is one, and only one, taking Ira's words literally, thing that Ira appreciates about Erik. That is sharp damning by the faintest praise. But even with that one desideratum of running simulations, etc. (really?) Ira Winderman writes "I don't get...pull-up jumpers in transition." That would be because Ira's eyes are not deceiving him, the box score does not lie and these positionless mutants for the most part can't throw a three-pointer into a lake. And yes indeed, "it could be that the Heat are attempting" to do too much to be like Run TMC or the Splash Brothers. Yes, indeed.
"Heat" management in fact has passively installed a powerful anti-tinkering device to deter Spoelstra. For the third straight year--unprecedented in today's NBA--he has been given the same player personnel. Why did Spoelstra not stop the tinkering, accept Hassan for who he is, and choose from among the myriad menu options a rotation and style of play that suited his personnel after the phenomenal 30-11 finish to 2016? Did he not see enough last season, in 2017, of the same players, to settle on rotation and play style? Through seven games in 2018 he has not seen enough of the same players to implement a consistent style of play to maximize his players potential. After five games he went all Stendahl and switched from patient offense and lock-down defense to "pull-up jumpers in transition"—too many, far too many of which went clank rather than swish.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In Spoelstra's
case the insanity is in the tinkering.
So let the word go forth from this time and place that Erik Spoelstra is on the clock. That the more his eyes deceive him and he countenances errant launches from range; the less he uses Hassan Whiteside, THE BEST CENTER IN THE NBA, because Hassan is not Kevin Love and can't wander to the three-point arc to launch ICBM's, and ignores and discounts Hassan's "mere" two-point baskets and doesn't trust THE BEST CENTER IN THE NBA and leader in rebounds and blocks to play the position on the basketball court that God intended him to play; the more Erik Spoelstra tinkers and obsesses with his positionless fetish in this easy part of the schedule that has seen three wins out of seven played, two losses to lottery team Charlotte and one apiece to lotterists Orlando and Sacramento, the hotter Spoelstra's collar should feel and the tighter it should feel as even those of us with 20/400 vision approach him with hands twitching and sweating to grab him by the neck and vigorously shake him while he gasps for air and his eyes bulge. Or, as my dad threatened with our dog Rusty, to “just take him out and shoot him."
Good night.
