title and hilarious cover art aside, this book has nothing to do with this post

Before we started The Sports Complex I spent roughly the same amount of time writing about sports as I do now, just most of those thoughts were contained to gchat conversations and long-winded emails.  A large portion of these emails went to my buddy Ruben (you might remember him from HERE), who is the anti-me on the court (he can shoot the ball but has no time for contact), as a fan (he hates loyalty and would trade Harry Kalas if he thought it would improve the Phillies on the field), and in life (he’s in med school). 

He also knows sports, and in a recent conversation laid out a theory of his: the Sixers and the Eagles’ fatal flaws are mirror images of each other, and as a Philly fan that’s infuriating.  They both conciously ignore an aspect of their sport, and it’s been killing both of them.  I asked him to write up his thoughts as a SC guest post. Here’s Ru:

Two nights ago, while intermittently looking up from my biochemistry notes, I kept noticing the same image on my muted tv: a Charlotte Bobcats shooter standing by himself at the 3-point line.  It might as well have been on repeat.  And this is nothing new.  In fact, if you randomly pause a Sixers game, there’s roughly a 140% (+/- 2%) chance that you’ll see an opposing player shooting an unguarded three.  Given that the Sixers have above average perimeter defenders, this really can only be due to a philosophy that de-values the 3-pointer.  The results are evident both in their offensive philosophy - which uses the shot only as a last resort (see the Sixers being last in team 3’s Made the past 2 seasons) - and their defensive philosophy, which emphasizes doubling screens and always helping off the perimeter when one guy gets beat.

This by itself may not seem so odd.  In most sports, there are teams that adhere to unique values which may stray from the league norm.  Take the oversized Vikings’ linebacker core, for example, who stay on the field in nearly every questionable run/pass situation in an attempt to discourage teams from even attempting the ground game; or the 7 seconds or less D’Antoni teams which eschews a defensive rebounding advantage in order to quickly get out on the break.  What is odd, though, is to see two Philadelphia teams being virtual clones of each other in their steadfast adherence to untraditional values.  And to see the results of these odd-ball philosophies being so consistently mediocre, with not even a hint of change.

In the Eagles case, their odd philosophy - ignoring the run offensively and defensively - is somewhat more understandable, only because they were able to produce decent results for years while playing that style, albeit with more balance than they have shown during the trainwreck that is this season.  However, as Greg Cosell recently pointed out, and even the most casual observer can see, their refusal to give a crap about the run in even a token manner just doesn’t make sense.  The Eagles run an offense that relies on timing and completing a high percentage of passes, yet they have a QB who - for all the great things he has done in his career - has NEVER been accurate, especially when his receivers are on the move.  On top of that, the Eagles feature the NFL’s biggest offensive line and a top-3 RB when healthy.  Save for the lack of a fullback and/or a blocking tight end, with the personnel they have, there is no reason for this team not to be running at least as often as they throw.

Unlike on offense, defensively their “run doesn’t matter” philosophy has dictated their personnel, to the point where no matter how much effort they put into stopping the run, they will never be great at it.  They feature 2 undersized DTs (and just drafted an even smaller one with their first pick this year), and small OLBs, although Stewart Bradley has to be considered big for his MLB position.  From Tom Heckert down to Jim Johnson, they believe that stopping the run is not vital, and they have composed their defense accordingly.  For a decade, we’ve seen the results of this belief, and it hasn’t been pretty.

As for the Sixers, they have also meddled in mediocrity for years, while bearing a similar disdain for an important part of the game.  To them, the 3-point line does not exist and they’ve built their team accordingly.  So nobody can blame the Sixers for de-emphasizing the 3-point shot on offense: I would happily take on anyone on the team besides Kareem Rush (and maybe Thad the way he’s progressing) in a 3-point shooting contest.  They can’t shoot the 3, so there’s no reason for them to be taking it.  My issue here is that it’s one thing if they don’t do it well, but it’s clearly more than just not having the personnel.  Mo Cheeks obviously believes that 3s are not an important part of the game - whether for his team or the opponent - so he doesn’t bother stopping other teams from shooting them, a philosophy which has reared its ugly head for a few years, but is becoming especially evident this season.

And given the Sixers players, they should actually be one of the league’s BEST at stopping the three (just as the Birds offensive personnel dictates that they should be a good running team).  They feature a decent defensive PG, an excellent defensive SG in AI2, an athletic three in Young and a Brand-Dalembert combination that has to be considered one of NBA’s best rim-protecting duos.  This is exactly the type of roster the Spurs have always tried to build, except with one major difference in philosophy.  Gregg Popovich is famous for encouraging his players to play good man defense, but also prohibiting his wing guys from helping.  Their goal is to funnel dribblers to the baseline, where they’ll run into weakside shot blockers, while never helping off 3-point shooters.  The Sixers, with an almost identical makeup, instead emphasize helping off the wing, doubling pick-and-rolls, and rotating.  The result is that they are pretty darn good at cutting off teams’ driving games, but they routinely give up wide open 3s.  Yet, with Brand and Sammy back there (and Theo and Speights off the bench to help out in case of foul trouble), one should ask, “Why even bother to help off the shooters?”  Watching guys consistently flip up floaters over Sammy, I know I ask this question often to anyone who will listen.

So what can be done about these issues with our favorite teams?  Unfortunately, not a whole lot.  Because these seem to be such deep-rooted beliefs held by the two head coaches.  If both do suddenly alter their philosophies, then a huge, run-stuffing DT (there’s a guy from Alabama who weighs 375 lbs, how bout him?) would be nice.  As would a fullback.  The Sixers don’t really have these personnel issues, unless you’d like to see them start shooting more 3s, in which case, well….there’s still not much they can do, since they just locked up their 2-guard for 6 years and $80 million.  Defensively, all they need to do is start letting guys challenge their big guys.  I would happily take my odds of Brand and Sammy vs. Anyone in the league but LeBron and Kobe.

Ultimately, a part of me does not want to make this argument.  I don’t want to advocate our teams changing their philosophies simply because they buck league trends.  In fact, I generally like creativity in the construction of a team: my favorite basketball team to watch is whoever John Beilein is coaching, I love watching Mike Leach’s football teams, and Moneyball is one of my favorite books (it even says so on the Facebook.com).  Beilein, Leach, and Billy Beane have all sustained success through innovation and thinking outside the box, and they should be commended for it.  What I do have a problem with, though, is a coach or GM refusing to alter a belief in the face of vast evidence proving its ineffectiveness.  As long as the Sixers keep thinking its ok to let other teams shoot uncontested 3s and the Eagles’ smug disdain for the run game continues, we will see a lot more losses like we’ve had the last 3 days.

And in the meantime, pause your DVR tonight.  I’ll bet you my biochemistry textbook that you’ll see an Orlando Magic player shooting an open 3.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Birds, Sixers, other people's thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.