From Distance: Witnessing Evolution

Four point play….

1. Caeleb Dressel just reminded every retired athlete that the new generation is far superior to theirs. Of course, most old heads won’t really bother to internalize that fact. They will go on and on about work ethic or grit, or any number of things that have nothing to do with numbers.

It’s much easier for an old timer to frame these conversations in a beneficial manner if stubborn things like “facts” are considered superfluous from the outset.

Fortunately, there are some sports that are simply unassailable. It doesn’t matter how great Jesse Owens was, it is a simple fact that Usain Bolt was faster. It forces an acceptable argument.

Who was the best sprinter of all time? 

“Jesse Owens was the greatest of his era, but obviously Bolt has the record”.

Fine. I’ll take it.

In this era or any other, Caeleb Dresser is the fastest sprinter in swimming history.

I’d take him in a race against Tarzan any day. It was only in 2007 that the American record for the 50 yard short course freestyle broke 19 seconds.

It is the shortest race possible in the sport. Only 50 yards, not meters. The short course (25 yard pool x2) aspect tosses in another wall that must be hit and left perfectly. The technicality and pure explosion required are rarely approached in other sports.

And now, a little over a decade after the 19 second barrier was broken, Dressel left us all dumbfounded with a time of 17.63. That, my friends, is March Madness.

Almost every longer distance timed event is getting straight up destroyed by this generation. People simply don’t get tired in the same way they did before sports science helped to train these incredibly talented humans to maximize their potential.

The fact that short distance records are also going down is more an indication of a craft being perfected. Where exactly does my foot need to be placed on the starting block? Where part of my stroke am I slipping? Just how long should I hold the underwater streamline before breaking out?

These were questions that were asked in years gone by, but they had different answers then. Conventional wisdom evolves. The new times clearly show that current conventional wisdom, i.e., that some things need to be purely based on the bio-mechanics of an individual’s body, is getting closer to ideal.

2. In a team sport, there are more variables to consider.  The more arbitrary a sport’s endgame, the more artfully people will attempt to reach said goal. Scoring one bucket might be a main goal in basketball, but it isn’t THE goal. It’s not the endgame. That, of course, is to have more points than the other team when the clock strikes zero.

How a team accomplishes that, within the rules of an era, drastically affects our adjudication of each individual player of that realm.

Some “Facts” why it was harder to dominate offensively in the 90s NBA.

1. Playing one-on-one defense was easier when handchecking was allowed.
2. The game was played at a slower pace, both on a possession to possession basis, and during a possession.
3. Many dudes on the floor couldn’t shoot, wrecking spacing.

Some “Facts” why it was easier to dominate offensively in the 90s NBA.

1. Playing team defense is harder without a legalized Zone D. In today’s game, it’s incredibly difficult to clear out and let a guy go one-on-one. He might not get handchecked, but he will have to go against a strongside loaded defense. In those days, the handcheck was all a dude could rely on.
2. The game is played now at a higher pace, both numerically and energetically. Guys can’t risk taking nights off for fear of getting slammed on social media. In the 90s, people often took those nights.
3. Everyone can shoot now, opening floor spacing, but eliminating the reliance on close range buckets. There were guys that feasted from the post that couldn’t get a shot off in today’s game against an overloaded strongside D.

There are players in this era that would have thrived in the 90s, and vice versa. But looking at any tape from that generation, my generation, clearly shows that fewer people on the basketball floor had the combination of skills, stamina, and strength that today’s players have.

Basketball is a far more complicated sport than any racing sport. However, it’s precisely that reason that we can use the 50 yard Freestyle as an example of just how much better people are at accomplishing athletic goals. With such a simple swimming goal, the very best somehow found a way to shave off more than a second from the shortest race possible.

With a more complicated goal, there are far more avenues to success. There are more minutiae to perfect. The more variables, the more room for improvement. A sport will evolve through those improvements.

3. Speaking of evolution, there has been a lot of buzz about the Portland Trailblazers evolution as a team. Favorite, Zach Lowe, posted a great piece going into the intricacies of the Blazers’ improved regular season play.

Lowe hits all the points, but I still think people are focusing too much on the great play of Damian Lillard over this stretch.

Now before you accuse me of hating on Lillard in an homage to my past, let me offer this moment of contrition. Dame has been fantastic this season. His defense went from being my go-to target of all that is wrong in basketball evaluation to something approaching “fine”. A team defense can’t be top five all season with a complete train wreck at the one guard. He’s held his own on that end for the first time in his career.

Still, this is the real reason the Blazers are balling out.

“Maurice Harkless, Al-Farouq-Aminu and Evan Turner — yes, Evan Turner — are feasting on drive-and-kick 3s. Aminu, long the team’s bellwether, is up to 40 percent from deep. Turner is 24-of-60 since mid-December. Harkless has been even hotter.”

-Lowe

Watching the Rockets beat the Blazers the other day felt like watching two brothers beat each other up. They aren’t quite twins, but they look so darn alike, people frequently get the wrong idea.

The backcourt comparison is obvious, but the thing that made me laugh was watching Al-Farouq Aminu and Maurice Harkless go against Luc Mbah a Moute and Trevor Ariza. Are there four players that look and play more alike than that quartet?

Sure, Ariza has been featured more at times during his career, and Harkless is a bit more advanced as a post player, but other than that, those four guys feel like basketball clones.

Even P.J. Tucker guarding Jusuf Nurkic warranted a chuckle. They clearly have different positions and games, but they feel like kindred spirits in a lot of ways. They are both ridiculously strong guys who actually are lighter on their feet than they are given credit. Their defensive talents unlock lineup options that wouldn’t be possible without them. And they would be in Jalen Rose’s all-dark alley team (or whatever he called that group of NBA guys that you’d want to have your back in a brawl).

4. Listen, I love all those guys. The four clones are absolutely essential players defensively. The are fun role players who win games when they are hitting their open shots. Unfortunately for the Rockets and Blazers, they are also all inconsistent enough throughout their careers to easily torpedo a playoff series.

Every season, we reach this time of the year and the media decide that regular season basketball is similar enough to playoffs that we can extrapolate the season’s data to May and June. Maybe in the old days. The game has evolved.

In the regular season, the Rockets have either James Harden and/or Chris Paul on the floor at all times. Great. That means they don’t have a huge drop off when Harden hits the pine. The bench is propped up by an All-Star ball-handler in Paul.

In the playoffs, that doesn’t mean as much. All teams play their best guys more. The question is no longer “Paul versus backup PG”. It’s how well do Harden and Paul play together?

How does a defense shut down an offense with two great playmakers surrounded by wing defenders with questionable three ball accuracy?

The Rockets won’t beat the Warriors unless two of Durant, Curry, or Green are out with injury. The Warriors are too diverse on both ends to be beaten by a one trick pony.

A playoff defense can gameplan against an offense that is essentially ISO/PnR ball with shooters. Every year we see that happen. Chris Paul is an all-time great regular season player with limited postseason uptick.

Pro-Paul guys will point to some big numbers he has had in the playoffs. I’m not a pro-Paul guy. I think he maximizes his potential on a night to night basis. In the playoffs, it is easy to gameplan against his defensive limitations. It is true that he is a quick handed one-on-one defender and sturdier in the post than people think.

However, he has lost some athleticism and is only six foot. He’s legit small. In the playoffs, teams stop being lazy with the rock limiting Paul’s steals. A team hopes the Rocket’s switch happy defense will get Paul matched up against a big allowing offensive rebounds to reign supreme.

The Rockets, and more recently the Blazers are great over 48 and during the regular season. In a series however, their role players are going to have to hit shots, because their team schemes on both sides of the ball are going to be tested. They will need to evolve. Playoff time is always the “new” generation.