From Distance: Breaststroke, Shooting, and Jazz

Four point play….

1. Back in my swimming days, I was a breaststroker. Most people who excel in the stroke do it relatively naturally. I don’t remember being taught how to do a breastsroke kick. I just did it correctly without any hint of a scissor kick (when one foot has a natural tendency to stay in pigeon-toed making it an illegal kick. It’s the bane of a coach’s existence when she is working with young swimmers). My pull never drifted too far to my hips. It seems to be a family thing for most swimmers. Both of my sisters swam for collegiate Division I teams as breastsrokers and my dad has used the stroke for hours on end in open water.

The funny thing is that breastsrokers are often terrible less successful in other events.  The body type best suited for other competitive stokes isn’t quite the same as it is for breastsroke. Most swimmers are very long torso-ed, have huge shoulders, long arms, hands and feet, and legs that are short and strong, or almost non-existent. I’m only half joking. I mean look at this dude.

The reason is that the actual drive force of freestyle (front-crawl), backstroke and butterfly are on average 75% pull vs 25% kick. Basically, the drive percentage between arms and legs heavily favors the arms. More over, because kicking is less efficient, it is a more tiring activity. Long distance swimmers usually let their legs dangle behind them until the very end of the race when they “kick it in“.

Breaststroke is a 50/50 endeavor. The kick drive is just as important as the arm pull. One could say that the kick isn’t much stronger than the kick for the other strokes, it’s just that the rules of a breaststroke pull preclude it from being as efficient. Regardless, the benefit of having a huge torso and long arms is somewhat less for a breaststroker than it is for the other disciplines.

On Olympic teams, one often sees a bunch of 6’5″ guys and a couple 6 foot dudes. Their waists are at the same height. You can almost be sure that the 6’0” folks are breaststrokers.

That shorter athlete usually has an incredibly strong chest to squeeze the more compacted pull, slightly longer legs in comparison to his body, and great timing. Yes, timing is more paramount to breaststroke than to other strokes. The pull/kick coordination is more difficult to exact. Swimmers constantly question how long their glides should be. It’s just more technical, thus requiring the natural talent as a base from which to start.

But like in all sports, there are those freaks who are amazing at everything. In swimming, there is a legit event specifically for these all-around swimmers. The Individual Medley or IM is an event for those swimmers who can do it all.

It can be incredibly fun to watch. The order is Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, and Freestyle. Technically, you can do whatever you want in Freestyle, as it is accurately named. It is just that front crawl is the fastest stroke, even for those who excel relative to their peers in other events.

Flyers will start with a huge lead only to lose it when they turn for backstroke. Almost every race changes drastically when the competitors switch to breaststroke. Most IMs are won and lost on the ability to do the rarest and most specialized stroke.

2. If being a complete NBA player in today’s position-less basketball is analogous to swimming the IM, shooting is basketball’s breaststroke. You have people all over the world who can shoot the lights out in a driveway, but couldn’t get their shot off in a real game. An IMer needs to do it all, AND shoot the breaststroke leg out of the gym.

The NBA doesn’t function like a normal relay anymore. The idea of specialized players is still true to a degree, but a guy can’t only live in his comfort zone role and be effective. A NBA player must be good at everything and great at two things now. It is a team of Individual Medleys.

That is the reason I am begging the Cavs to trade Isaiah Thomas and Tristan Thompson. Many took my column last week regarding my “don’t care” as an indication that I don’t think anything needs to be done for this team to compete for a championship. That’s not what I meant.

I simply don’t think anything about this particular losing stretch is all that relevant to the Cavs’ ultimate goals. It was very clear to me from the moment that the Cavs traded Irving that the team would not be able to beat the Warriors with Isaiah Thomas getting minutes. This recent stretch with IT and Thompson playing their way into shape has done nothing to change my longterm outlook.

3. The team cannot win with Isaiah Thomas. He is simply too limited of a player. Sure, he will continue to get a bit better on the offensive end as he finds his rhythm and stamina, but IT at his absolute best still completely and irrevocably destroys any defensive possession. His effort has been regular season Kyrie Irving-esque so far, but that’s not really the problem.

The problem is that even if IT is in the perfect position, he can’t alter a shot. I can shoot over his closeout on the weak-side. There is no defensive gameplan that can prevent middle penetration on a Pick and Roll without allowing a ball swing and weak-side shot attempt. A coach just hopes that the defensive player can get back out of the paint in time to make a decent shot contest. Thomas physically cannot do that with this size. Game over against the Warriors offense.

Okay, maybe the Cavs can just score with the Warriors? Not with Tristan Thompson killing all spacing. Tristan, historically anyway, has been a great offensive rebounder, a good bigman switch defender, and average to horrible at everything else. He’s not a good defensive rebounder. He can’t handle the rock enough to make teams pay for straying too far off his shot. Tristan doesn’t see open off ball cuts to the rim like Dwyane Wade does. His roll timing is more practiced than instinctive, and his rim protection has consistently been near the bottom of the league.

I have enjoyed Tristan’s mentality as a player. The idea of being a star role player was a nice thought in a previous version of the NBA. Unfortunately, that league is done. In this NBA world, role players need to be great at two things and good enough at everything else. Maybe Tristan is a great Butterflier, but his breaststroke kick is straight up illegal. Without any shooting whatsoever, it’s game over.

Okay, so what is a solution? I have already voiced my displeasure for anything involving Kent Bazemore. Lipstick on a pig isn’t getting this team anywhere. I’m hoping part of the reason Tyronn Lue has insisted on playing Tristan and IT is for those guys to show the league that they are returning to health, and thus tradable assets.

I doubt that that is really what Lue is doing. While I mostly agree with Evil Genius’s podcast take on the limitations any coach has when attempting to lead a LeBron James squad, I find minute distribution to be the one thing that any LeBron coach must control. Sure, LeBron will play as much or as little as he wants to, but the rest of the lineup has to up to the coach. James doesn’t have enough time during games to really dictate that distribution.

Lue has shown time and time again that he values a player’s individual skill-set more than his team play. It is quite likely Iman Shumpert could beat Cedi Osman in one-on-one, but who cares? If Lue is playing Tristan and IT into shape, fine, but let’s not ignore what has been a consistent issue throughout his tenure.

4. Back to trade possibilities. There have been rumors floating around there about Derrick Favors. Favors is on the last year of his deal, would provide some legit rim-protection and has a passable mid-range pick and pop/roll game. The deal included in the linked article ships J.R. Smith and the Brooklyn pick out for Favors and Rodney Hood. I don’t think so.

I think I would give up the Brooklyn pick for this one.

On the face of it, Favors, Joe Ingles, and Rodney Hood are hardly worth the Nets pick. Dig a little deeper and it looks a lot better. The Cavs would free themselves from of the contracts of Thompson and Shumpert, while adding two-way players that match up well against the Warriors. Rodney Hood has been injury prone, but he is a huge shooting guard that can defend two to three positions. He’s relatively miserable there at the moment and is also in the last year of his deal.

Swapping Hood out for Joe Johnson would also work. Ya know, if you prefer 87 year-old guys who can still torture defenders in a variety of ways. Though, Johnson can’t chase around the quicker wings these days.

Joe Ingles would be the primary get. He is 30 years-old, but one of the best all around players in basketball. He played fantastic off-ball defense on J.J. Redick in last year’s playoffs showing his ability to chase shooters like Klay Thompson. Joe always makes the extra skip pass, and re-spaces to the corner three expertly. He is a complete player.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5VFgIgTrZE

Those three would compliment LeBron’s game beautifully. It’s not always about how good a player is in a vacuum. For any James team, it more about how good a player compliments and maximizes the King’s immense talents. Is this trade a recipe for long term success? Maybe not, but the Cavs would have a much better shot at taking down the Warriors this season. I say go all in.