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[T101]

It's easy to forget now, but a few years ago the Lakers were a one-man team. In 2005-06, Kobe Bryant averaged a league-leading 35.4 points per game, the league's second-highest scoring average in the past 40 years, and all that got the Lakers was a 45-37 record and a first-round exit courtesy of Phoenix.

Back then, L.A. depended on Bryant to have any chance to win. He missed two games that season, and the Lakers lost both of them; when he took an on-court DNP in the second half of Game 7 in Phoenix, the Suns outscored the Lakers by 16 points. For that season, opponents outscored the Lakers by 5.2 points per 100 possessions with Bryant off the court.

Fast-forward to 2010, and it's a completely different story in L.A. -- one that largely explains how the Lakers went from playoff speed bump to NBA champions. Bryant, who is expected to return Tuesday night for the Lakers' game in Memphis, missed the past five games with a sprained left ankle, but L.A. survived four battles against playoff teams and a scrimmage against Golden State with an impressive 4-1 mark. The lone defeat came by a single point, and all four wins were by double digits.

The Lakers still play worse with Bryant off the court -- they're being outscored by 3.0 points per 100 possessions without him on the hardwood -- but in this case the stat reflects the general failings of the bench rather than the Lakers' dependence on Bryant. Fellow starters Pau Gasol, Derek Fisher and Ron Artest have similar, though not quite as large, differentials between the team's performance with them on the court and off it. And watching the team thrive without Bryant is instructive in figuring out how it developed a championship-caliber supporting cast.

For starters, there's now an alternate Plan A. The oft-heard criticism of the Lakers offensively is that they tend to forget about Gasol. Between running plays for Bryant -- never a bad idea, mind you -- and trying to get Andrew Bynum involved, Gasol at times becomes the forgotten man in L.A.'s offense. Gasol's unselfishness is also a factor, as he'll pass even when the Lakers would prefer that he shoot -- the penultimate possession against Boston, for example. Regardless, I don't think it's a state secret that Gasol is unhappy with his volume of touches when the Lakers have their full complement of starters.

But in Bryant's absence, Gasol got at least a dozen shot attempts for five straight games -- the first time that's happened all season. You can also see the renewed emphasis on Gasol in his assist totals: He collected 22 dimes in the five games Bryant missed.

Equally important was that the point guards finally stepped up. L.A.'s production from the 1 spot has been nonexistent much of the season, with Derek Fisher's flailing attempt at the end of the Boston game reinforcing the idea that the Lakers need serious help at the point. But it was Fisher's late 3 in Game 4 in Orlando, and Jordan Farmar's ability to defend Aaron Brooks in the second round, that were contributing reasons to L.A.'s title a season ago; perhaps we're overthinking things here.

To support that point, let me offer one bit of evidence to counter the Lakers' tales of point guard woe: With Bryant's absence giving them the opportunity to create plays, the point guards held their own. L.A.'s duo of Fisher and Farmar combined for 94 points in the four victories. Farmar in particular played some of his best basketball in that stretch, putting together three straight double-figure games for the first time since March 2008.

The duo was able to score without turning the ball over, either. The two produced only 14 miscues in the five games, acceptable considering they averaged in the high teens in scoring and did the bulk of the ballhandling.

Those two were the main reasons L.A.'s offense didn't go in the tank without Bryant. The offense wasn't great, putting up 100.8 points per 100 possessions, but even with Bryant it hadn't been going gangbusters (106.2).

Which takes us to the biggest reason L.A. won without Bryant, and the biggest reason the Lakers might repeat as champions: the defense. For all the talk about the triangle and Kobe and the power of their post threats, the 2009-10 Lakers are, first and foremost, a defensive juggernaut.

This represents a wholesale change for the Kobe-era Lakers. For nine consecutive seasons, they rated higher in offensive efficiency than defensive efficiency, including a last-place finish in defensive efficiency in 2004-05. While L.A.'s defense improved the past two seasons, each time the Lakers made the Finals primarily as an offensive team.

This season, the tables have turned. Believe it or not, the Lakers aren't a terribly imposing offensive team even with Bryant. Currently, L.A. ranks 10th in offensive efficiency, with five potential playoff rivals in the West ranking higher. It's the defense -- ranked a close second behind Boston in efficiency -- that has L.A. alone atop the Western Conference standings.

Without Bryant these past five games, the D didn't miss a beat. In fact, the Lakers suffocated the five opponents, permitting just 93.4 points per 100 possessions.

In particular, they rebounded like crazy. L.A. permitted only 32 offensive rebounds in the five games without Bryant, while it grabbed 169 defensive caroms. That's an unheard-of 84.1 percent defensive rebound rate, with Lamar Odom (64 defensive boards in five games) warranting special mention for his Dennis Rodman impersonation.

All this is par for the course when looking at the Lakers' defensive results this season. It's impossible to get anything easy against them because they don't give up second shots, don't allow 3-pointers and don't put people on the line.

The Lakers are fifth in the NBA in defensive rebound rate at 74.9 percent. With their impressive size in the paint and the ability of most of their players (most notably Ron Artest) to defend one-on-one without help, the Lakers are also the NBA's best team at cutting off the 3-point line: L.A. opponents shoot only 31.7 percent from beyond the arc this season. Meanwhile, the free throw line is a no-go zone, as L.A. leads the league in fewest opponent free throw attempts per field goal attempt.

Because of its strong one-on-one defenders and team concept, L.A. can survive Bryant's absence on the defensive end virtually unscathed. While the offense can't quite say the same thing, players like Gasol and Bynum are certainly capable of having big nights in his absence.

As a result, the Lakers are miles beyond where they stood three or four seasons ago. Whereas the Lakers once were a one-man show, the resilient D and post attack now make the team an ensemble cast -- one that's strong enough to succeed even in the ringleader's absence.

[T101]

Behold, everyone, our new Western contender … but you might not want to look too closely.

With their eighth straight win Monday -- a streak that includes seven victories over playoff contenders -- the Dallas Mavericks eased past the Denver Nuggets into the No. 2 spot in the Western Conference. And the streak might not end any time soon. The Mavericks' next seven games look eminently winnable (home against Minnesota, Sacramento, New Jersey, New York and Chicago; at Chicago and Minnesota), which could have them riding a 15-game win streak when Boston visits March 20. Things will get significantly more difficult from there, but if Dallas takes care of business against the doormats, it should hang on to its second seed in the West.

Dallas' recent run coincides with a trade for Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood, leading one to wonder whether the Mavs have recast themselves as legitimate threats to win the conference.

Look a little deeper, however, and the Mavs' résumé isn't nearly as impressive. They have gone 8-1 since their trade with Washington on Feb. 13, but they have outscored their opposition by only 5.3 points per game during that time. In other words, during their best stretch of the season, they still haven't matched the scoring margin of elite teams such as the Cavs (plus-7.3), Lakers (plus-6.4) and Magic (plus-5., and they barely exceed the marks of the Celtics, Hawks, Nuggets, Jazz and Spurs.

The Mavs' winning streak has come against some difficult opposition, but some easy matchups -- home games against Indiana and a Dwyane Wade-less Miami team, for instance -- have produced close shaves. In fact, Dallas hasn't won a game by more than 10 points since Jan. 24.

Which takes us to the No. 1 item in my inbox at the moment: How do the Mavericks, who have the second-best record in the West and fourth-best in the league, rank a measly 12th in the Power Rankings?

Let's break down Dallas' body of work. Despite its impressive win-loss record, it has the league's 12th-best scoring margin at plus-2.25 points per game. Normally, a team with that margin would be 36-25; the Mavs are 40-21 thanks to freakishly good fortune in close games. (They're 15-5 in contests decided by five points or fewer.)

Dallas gets a boost in the daily Power Rankings from its schedule, which has been more difficult than league average, and its home-road differential (29 home games, 32 on the road) -- two factors that will even out in a hurry during the next seven games.

However, the other component factoring into the rankings is recent play. And in the most recent 25 percent of their schedule, the Mavs -- even with the win streak -- have an average scoring margin barely above par at plus-0.13.

That stretch includes a 36-point loss to Denver that could be relabeled as a loss to the schedule, as it came on the back end of a ridiculously unfair back-to-back after a game in Golden State. (I often wonder whether the NBA's schedule makers ever travel west of the Mississippi. Did they think that because Colorado was only two states away, it wouldn't be a long flight?)

But if you take the Denver debacle off the Mavericks' résumé, it still doesn't improve much. Dallas would have the league's 11th-best scoring margin on the season instead of the 12th, and its margin of victory in the past quarter of its schedule would be a still-unimpressive plus-2.13. Overall, the Mavs would be just 10th in the Power Rankings and still well behind the top nine teams. And, of course, this would be after giving them a major benefit of the doubt: They're not the only team to be victimized by unfortunate schedule arrangements.

Dig deeper, and still, nothing about the Mavs screams "contender." They rank 10th in offensive efficiency and 12th in defensive efficiency. Their offense is predicated on the lowest-percentage shot in the game, the long 2, and three Mavs (Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry and Butler) are among the league's leading practitioners of the shot. Sure, that trio converts from midrange more often than most, but it's still a difficult way to build a high-powered offense.

Thus, if the Mavs are to be legit, they will have to improve on defense. That's where the additions of Haywood and, to a lesser extent, DeShawn Stevenson, could help. But even if those two vault the Mavs all the way into the league's top five in defensive efficiency -- an unlikely occurrence -- they still would be on an even footing with only the West's other second-tier teams.

As a result, we're left to deal with one of the season's great paradoxes. With 40 wins in the bank and a favorable remaining schedule, Dallas is likely to attain the second seed in the West. Yet it has the statistical profile of a much lower contender, and even its post-trade win streak hasn't changed that outlook significantly.

I don't want to completely dismiss the Mavs' prospects because they could land home-court advantage for two playoff rounds, and I'd like to see them play a few more games with their new acquisitions. But despite the recent win streak, my outlook on Dallas really hasn't changed much. Until further notice, it's a pretty good team … but one that's unlikely to topple any of the three fantastic ones it may have to get past in the Western Conference playoffs.

[T101]

Chauncey Billups shoots 43.9 percent, and yet he's one of the most valuable offensive players in the league. That's a fact. But I've had an unusual difficulty explaining it to people concisely. Yes, he has a great True Shooting Percentage, but that's not quite the entire answer. Lots of players have great TS percentages, and Billups is pretty much the only one to do so while shooting such a low percentage from the floor.

I tend to say that "He shoots a lot of free throws and 3s," or, more precisely, "He makes a lot of free throws and 3s." But that, too, seems unwieldy. What we need is a single tool, a simple two-word explainer that shows how a player like Billups can be such a devastating weapon while missing nearly three-fifths of his field goal attempts.

It turns out we have it, and it's something called "secondary percentage." First mooted, as far as I can tell, by my Basketball Prospectus successor and occasional ESPN.com contributor Kevin Pelton 15 months ago, the idea is to simply take the difference between a player's TS% and his field goal percentage.

Billups, for example, has a 43.9 shooting percentage and a 63.0 TS%, giving him a secondary percentage of 19.1. On the other hand, somebody like DeAndre Jordan -- who shoots worse from the line than he does from the field and never makes 3-pointers -- actually has a negative secondary percentage. Jordan shoots 61.8 percent but his TS% is only 56.9, making his secondary percentage a league-worst negative-4.9.

Baseball fans will recognize this instantly as a knockoff of Bill James' "secondary average" formula, which in one number explains all the things a player does -- besides hit for average -- to contribute to his offensive value.

Secondary average worked neatly because it corresponded almost exactly with real batting average. For secondary shooting percentage, it's a bit messier. An average player will shoot in the mid-40s, but a middling secondary percentage might be only one-sixth of that. What secondary percentage does, however, is concisely explain why you'd rather have Billups and his 43.9 percent shooting than, say, Marquis Daniels and his 52.3 percent mark (and 3.0 secondary percentage).

So Billups adds a lot of 3s and made free throws. What's the big deal?

Well, it turns out he's doing this as effectively as any player in history. Billups' secondary percentage of 19.1 is tied for the best all-time among players with at least 1,500 minutes played in a season. Billups is no stranger to this list, having already rung up the second-best mark ever in 2005-06, and this will be his eighth straight season over 15.0.

How is Billups doing this? For starters, about two-fifths of his shots are 3-pointers, and he shoots 3s (43.5 percent) nearly as well as he shoots 2s. But the biggest reason is that Billups gets to the line so much. It's extremely rare for a player to shoot so many 3s and still average more than one free throw attempt per every two field goal attempts; only three perimeter players outrank him in this category -- an insane accomplishment when one considers he has virtually no chance of drawing a foul on 3-point tries.

The other part is that he makes his free throws. Billups is shooting 90.5 percent from the stripe this season, which would mark his third straight over 90 percent, if it holds up.

Taking a look at some of the other leaders in this category (see chart), we see a similar pattern: a high percentage of attempts from beyond the 3-point line and a higher free throw rate than you would expect just by looking at their shot charts. I don't think it's an accident that four of the five are sage, crafty vets who have mastered the art of getting to the free throw line.

Secondary percentage: 2009-10 leaders*
Player    Team    FG%    TS%    Secondary%
Chauncey Billups    DEN    43.9    63.0    19.1
Danilo Gallinari    NY    44.8    62.1    17.3
James Posey    NO    35.5    50.8    15.3
Jason Kidd    DAL    42.5    57.6    15.1
Paul Pierce    BOS    45.9    61.0    15.1
* Min. 1,500 minutes

That's the top of the list, but I thought it would be fun to take a look at a few other notable players and see where they rank as well.

Manu Ginobili, Spurs (15.1): Ginobili was 46 minutes shy of qualifying on my list above, but he remains among the best at milking extra points from his possessions. He's consistently been in the low teens his whole career, but this season's mark would be the best of his career because a bigger chunk of his shots are 3s … and because of his knack for embellishing contact to get to the line.

Jamal Crawford, Hawks (12.4): A poor man's Billups in that he has been able to score effectively despite shooting around 40 percent his whole career. Crawford does it with a lot of 3s and an unusual talent for getting fouled on jump shots. This season is more impressive, though, because his secondary average is right around his career norm, but his field goal percentage is a career-best 44.7.

Kevin Durant, Thunder (12.3): Durant's shooting percentage hasn't slipped this season. What's changed is his knack for getting to the line. The Darantula's sweep-under move has been particularly devastating in this respect, and you can see the evidence in his secondary percentages: from 8.9 as a rookie, to 10.1 last season, to this season's 12.3. The amazing part? It's almost all from free throws -- he's making fewer than two 3s a game.

On the other hand ...

Shaquille O'Neal, Cavs (0.0): Shaq is probably the prototype as far as a low secondary percentage player goes. He never makes 3s and he's a brutal foul shooter. Plus, his shooting percentage is high enough that he needs to pack a real punch in his other numbers to get above zero. So despite getting to the line a lot, zero is where he stands.

Andrew Bogut, Bucks (1.: This stat underscores why I'm more comfortable with Bogut as a second or third option than as a go-to guy. Bogut shoots a decent percentage (52.5), but he draws an unusually low number of fouls for a low-post player and he's a bad enough foul shooter (63.5 percent) that it doesn't help much when he does. Among players with a Usage Rate above 20, only Shaq's secondary percentage is worse.

Derrick Rose, Bulls (3.: A lot of frontcourt players have low secondary percentages because so much of their offense comes around the basket. But for a point guard to have a secondary percentage of just 3.8 is fairly amazing. Rose almost never shoots 3s (six makes all season) and doesn't get to the line particularly often; virtually every other high-scoring player accomplishes either one or the other. However, one presumes he'll eventually start drawing fouls. If not, it's tough to imagine Rose continuing on as a first option offensively.

[T101]

Normally when we think of improvement, we picture a player putting in extra work over the summer and coming back with an improved jump shot, a new move or the proverbial 15 pounds of muscle. The league even gives out a trophy, the Most Improved Player Award, to commemorate the league's greatest season-over-season improvement.

That's one type of improvement, but it's not the only kind. There's another way to get better, and it's perhaps more difficult -- via slow, inexorable progress over the course of the regular season. Some players have managed it, however, and are visibly better than they were five months ago.

Lopez

Take Suns sophomore Robin Lopez, for instance. For half the season he was a bust, a plodder who seemed lost in Phoenix's helter-skelter system and generated unflattering comparisons with his more successful twin brother in New Jersey.

Then, magically, it all changed. The Suns inserted him as their starting center on Jan. 15, and he's thrived, averaging nearly a point every two minutes while shooting a sizzling 61.7 percent from the On Friday against the Clippers he shocked the masses by erupting for 30 points and 12 rebounds; his team, meanwhile, has won 13 of its past 16 to stem a precipitous midseason slide.

Watching Lopez dive down the lane on pick-and-rolls with Steve Nash and aggressively finish at the rim, it's hard to believe this is the same player who looked so mechanical and awkward in December (or his entire rookie season, for that matter). As a result, Lopez is the captain of the 2009-10 In-Season All-Improved Team.

Here are nine other players whose improvement is worthy of note:

Blatche

Andray Blatche, Washington
With the trade of Antawn Jamison opening up the Wizards' starting power forward job, Blatche is finally cashing in on his considerable potential. His stat line for February is jaw-dropping impressive (21.1 points. 8.5 boards, 55.1 percent shooting) but actually undersells what a force he's become.

Blatche has made more than half his shots in 10 straight games, even though he's now the only credible go-to threat on the Wizards. It's no wonder: His combination of midrange shooting, size (6-foot-11), and off-the-dribble skills make him a matchup nightmare for most opposing 4s. Blatche had struggled with professionalism issues in the past, but at 23 he seems to have finally grown up.

Brewer

Corey Brewer, Minnesota
Brewer might be the most improved shooter in the league. Or the most improved shooter ever, for that matter. Here's a stat that will floor you: As of Jan. 7, he'd made 23 3-pointers his entire career. Since then, he's made a triple in 27 consecutive games -- breaking Minnesota's franchise record. As you might imagine, the improved stroke helps his other numbers, too: Brewer averaged 15.6 points on 47 percent shooting in February.

Timberwolves coach Kurt Rambis told me that Brewer's balance was the key: Brewer had been leaning back or to the side too often as he went up for his shot, and the Wolves had worked with him on going forward toward the rim as he launches. Apparently it's worked; he's made 43.1 percent of his 3s during the current streak, and a shot opponents once happily conceded to him now shows up on their scouting reports.

Millsap

Paul Millsap, Utah
OK, somebody want to tell me where this midrange jumper came from? Millsap got off to a bit of a sluggish start this season, but shot 60.5 percent in February -- mostly because he never misses from 15 feet anymore. Millsap is hitting 50.5 percent of his long 2s this season, a wholesale improvement on last season's 38.5 percent, and he's also taking the shot more frequently. Unlike a season ago, Millsap has come off the bench for all but five games this season and, after a slow start, has quietly moved into the Sixth Man race.

Jerebko

Jonas Jerebko, Detroit
The Swedish rookie showed enough promise to snag a starting gig right away, but originally he was just out there as an athletic hustler. Now that he's gained game experience, he's actually making plays: Jerebko was the improbable winner of the Eastern Conference rookie of the month award in February. The really impressive part was that he did it in fewer minutes -- Jerebko's playing time took a hit when Tayshaun Prince, Richard Hamilton and Ben Gordon returned from injury -- and while playing mostly at the 4 instead of the 3.

Jerebko has thrived, scoring 10.2 points and grabbing 6 boards in only 24 minutes a night in February, while shooting 56.4 percent from the field. In his first two games in March, he's posted back-to-back double-doubles. His shooting stroke has also come along more quickly than expected: He's made 9 of his past 17 3-pointers. Not bad for a second-round pick who played in a low-level Italian League a season ago.

Durant

Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City
Yes, he's getting better. Durant's 29-game streak of 25-plus-points games shows what a prolific scorer he's become, and that string was part of a January in which he averaged 32.1 points, shot 51.9 percent from the field and made 53.2 percent of his 3s.

While he was no slouch even at the start of the season, his November numbers (27.7/6.7/46.3 percent) pale next to what he's done since. So do his free throw numbers -- he averaged 9.1 and 9.3 freebies a game in November and December, but 11.1 and 10.5 in January and February. He's become increasingly adept at swinging his arms under crowding defenders to create contact, often earning three shots when he does it behind the arc, and it's one of many reasons he has a great shot at winning the scoring title. Ready for the really amazing part? He's still only 21.

Westbrook

Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City
The great news for Thunder fans continues; it seems like Westbrook has finally gotten the hang of this point guard thing. I was a little worried about him after watching him go 1-on-5 every trip in the Rookie-Sophomore game, but he's had six double-figure assist games in nine outings since the break.

In fact, the monthly progression in his assist numbers is pretty spectacular -- Westbrook earned only six dimes a game in November, but in the months since has improved to 7.5, 7.9 and then last month's 10.0. The best part? His scoring hasn't taken a hit, and his turnovers are actually down. Scary thought for future Thunder opponents: He, too, is only 21.

Jack

Jarrett Jack, Toronto
The Raptors' season turned around when Jack went into the starting lineup, with his progression as a shooter being particularly noteworthy. Jack entered the season as a 33.9 percent career 3-point shooter, improved to 39.4 percent in the first two months of this season, and simply exploded after the new year: He's made 29 of his past 60.

In the Raps' system he's not a traditional point guard as much as a spot-up scorer, but he's made it work by hitting more than half his shots for three straight months. As a result, he's poised to set career highs in shooting percentage, true shooting percentage and player efficiency rating, and make what seemed an overly generous four-year, $20 million free-agent deal look unimpeachably reasonable.

Collison

Darren Collison, New Orleans
The diminutive rookie for the Hornets wasn't expected to play much behind Chris Paul, but he's blown up with CP3 out of the lineup. The water bug from UCLA exploded for 21.6 points, 8.3 assists and 49.6 percent shooting in February, using his superior quickness and open-court speed to offset his small stature and shaky 3-point shot.

Although Collison has struggled with turnovers -- his triple-double against Indiana nearly became a quad thanks to eight miscues -- his electric performance already has observers wondering whether the Hornets should trade him to get more help at other positions. Paul's eventual return will move Collison to a backup role, and it's unlikely the two can coexist in the same backcourt.

Bogut

Andrew Bogut, Milwaukee
I chided Bogut on Wednesday for his poor secondary percentage, but he's come a long way. Now that he's finally been able to say healthy for a full season, he's developing his arsenal of low-post jump hooks and rounding out the rough edges in his game. He's averaging a double-double on 55 percent shooting since Jan. 1, and crushing his career-high in PER; if we could redo the vote today he would almost certainly make the All-Star team.

While Bogut's offensive development has been impressive, his defensive transformation has been downright shocking, and isn't getting nearly the attention it should. Always a fierce, physical defender, he's picked up a knack for shot-blocking from nowhere. Bogut has increased his blocks average every month; his five rejections Wednesday night pushed his average to 2.4 per game, second only to Orlando's Dwight Howard -- and more than double his mark from last season.

[T101]

ON A PLANE TO BOSTON -- Before we start, a little background: I'm headed to Beantown right now for the annual Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. The brainchild of Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey, this event is where some of the best minds in the sports analytics community gather for a weekend every year to renew acquaintances, share ideas and stay out far later than they should.

It's the fourth year for the event, which has grown every year and is now sponsored by the Worldwide Leader. But today's Per Diem hearkens back to the first conference, when it was a much smaller endeavor. There, in a creaky MIT classroom, Bill James -- the renowned baseball analyst who basically created this entire line of business out of thin air -- noted that analysts had become really good at evaluating players and teams and offering solutions, but had offered little on how to fix the game itself.

With that thought in the back of my mind, I'll fast-forward you to Wednesday night's Knicks-Pistons game. Neither team is going to the playoffs and neither team had any great motivation to play hard. Let's just say it showed.

And that's nothing new in the NBA. Now that the trade deadline has passed, we're in the dog days of March. Rather, the dead dog days. This is the time of year when all the NBA teams that are out of playoff position roll over and play dead, partly in an elaborate ruse to secure better draft position and partly because it's hard for players to go all-out when they know darn well these games no longer matter.

For me, dead dog days officially began in the first quarter of Wednesday's game. That was when Tracy McGrady stole a pass inside his own free-throw line and dribbled upcourt on a two-on-one break at a leisurely pace. Very leisurely. Bordering on catatonic, actually. Eventually, he dropped the ball off to David Lee for a dunk, but to call the play "slow-developing" doesn't do it justice. It was perilously close to becoming the first transition basket in league history waved off by a shot-clock violation.

Despite the rather casual pace of that particular play, not one of the other seven players on the court at the time got back into the picture ... in fact, nobody even threatened to get back into it. Watching the replay was telling -- everybody just kind of shrugged their shoulders and jogged upcourt behind the play. I don't say this to single out the Knicks and Pistons; it's just what happens when two bad teams with nothing to play for meet in March.

This is one of the league's less-obvious-but-nonetheless-troubling problems: The last month of the regular season is awful. The playoff teams raise their game at this time, and those are the ones we tend to see on TV. However, for the half of the league that isn't going to the postseason, March and April provide an endless procession of lackluster performances before half-empty arenas.

Fortunately, we have ways of fixing this, and in the spirit of James' critique it's something we should be discussing more enthusiastically. Of late, momentum has gathered for a "play-in" tournament at the end of the season. Championed by Denver Nuggets VP of basketball operations Mark Warkentien during the most recent competition committee meeting at the All-Star break, the idea is to have the league's bottom-feeders meet in a brief season-end extravaganza, with one survivor advancing to the "real" playoffs afterward.

I like this idea for three reasons. First, it greatly reduces the incentive for bad teams to tank games in order to increase their lottery odds. We aren't likely to see quite as blatant efforts this season as we have in others, since New Jersey and Minnesota are already pretty much assured the two best chances in the draft lottery. But it's an ongoing problem -- especially when teams start holding star players out of games with fake injuries, which has happened on several occasions in the past.

The second positive is that teams will do something more than just play out the string over the season's last six weeks. With the carrot of a potential playoff berth looming before them, the Knicks and Pistons might have played with a lot more zeal instead of turning the game into a glorified summer-league contest, especially since both teams would have a reasonable shot at getting the first two rounds at home (more on that below).

Finally, it would eliminate the buyouts. We would see far fewer teams buying out veterans late in the season, because these players would still be potentially useful for the playoff tournament. Washington, for instance, would have had difficulty explaining the Zydrunas Ilgauskas buyout to its fans when the Wizards could have used him for a potential play-in tournament.

Instead, we would have teams like New York and Detroit spending the last month of the season gearing up for the play-in tournament, a single-elimination extravaganza at the end of the regular season in which each conference determines its eighth playoff team.

How would it work? A couple of different variations are possible, but the basic idea is to guarantee the first seven playoff spots to the teams with the best records, and then leave spot No. 8 up for grabs among the remaining clubs. No. 8 would play No. 15; No. 9 would play No. 14; No. 10 would play No. 13; and No. 11 and would play No. 12. The winners would face off in the semis the next day and the losers would go home. Then the two semifinal winners would meet for a postseason slot.

As for locations, a number of options are on the table. One would be to gather all the teams from both conferences and hold it at a predetermined neutral site in the middle of the country. Alternately, it could be held at the site of each conference's top seed, that way the winner wouldn't have to travel again.

However, NBA owners are probably hungrier for revenue and would prefer to add dates for home games if they had their druthers. Thus, another variation is to provide home-court advantage and stick a day off in between the semis and the final. The first two rounds would be hosted by the Nos. 8 and 9 seeds, and the finale would be played at the home of the higher-seeded team.

I haven't seen the following discussed yet, but I would like to see one other alteration: Don't even invite the No. 15 team. Subjectively, I say this because I don't want a team like New Jersey to even sniff a playoff berth. But objectively, this provides multiple benefits.

First, there's an added layer of importance to the regular season for the league's bottom-feeders; if you come in last, you don't even get a shot at the postseason. And second, it provides some added reward for the No. 8 team, who in the past would have gained a playoff berth automatically. Now, at least, they only have to win twice to get in, while everybody else has to win three straight.

I should point out that the league has remained mum on whether it will adopt this particular proposal, but that's where we can help. If the NBA knows enough people are behind it, the idea should get a more serious hearing.

Obviously, there are some issues to work through, mostly relating to TV and how the league sets up its schedule each season (the NBA would need to carve out an extra five days or so in the spring for the play-in tournament). One suggestion is to eliminate two preseason games, which would get a hearty endorsement from these quarters but may upset owners who would lose revenue. Nonetheless, it's not an insurmountable obstacle if the league doesn't want it to be.

I've included a box showing the playoff pairings if the league tried the play-in tournament this year and followed my idea of eliminating the No. 15 seed and providing home-court advantage for the No. 8 and No. 9 seeds.

But the fact is, there are a lot of different ways that this can work. The most important thing is to get it started -- pronto -- because the last month of the regular season is dragging down the credibility of a wonderful league. I don't want to watch the Knicks and Pistons mail in March games any more than you do. With any luck, we won't have to much longer.

[T101]

BOSTON -- It was a big weekend here in Beantown, where some of the biggest minds in the business gathered at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference to discuss some of the exciting new research people are doing to further our understanding of the game ... and then the next night the Celtics failed to give a foul when up by three points in the final seconds against a player calmly dribbling in his own end of the court.

Yes, it does sometimes seem we're beating our heads against a wall, but in the big picture we're making progress. Sure, the Celtics unnecessarily gave Washington a free look at a game-tying shot, but the coaching staff freely admitted this was a mistake afterward. And the gaffe came about largely by not communicating quickly enough in a rare late-game situation when a timeout wasn't used.

Some teams still won't foul in this situation, but a consensus is steadily evolving that it's the right play when up three and less than five or six seconds remain, especially against an opponent that's out of timeouts. Analytics has played a big role in that.

You could also see the increased role in analytics around the NBA just by all the familiar faces in the crowd at the Sloan conference -- roughly half the teams sent representatives, and high-ranking ones at that. With more than 1,000 people attending, packed panels and a full day's slate of events, by any reasonable measure this was an enormous success. It's hard to believe that just three years ago we did the same thing in a half-full MIT classroom while sitting at those little old-school desks with a slot for the pencil.

As always, however, we must discuss the way forward. And the way forward for this event, and for basketball analytics in general, somehow needs to involve a lot more sharing and interaction than we've had to date.

This point was hammered home to me by a friend in the academic world who attended the conference and found it amazing ... yet mentioned to me that an academic conference would have had far more sharing of information, methods and learnings than many of the participants in this gathering could or would provide.

For instance, I participated in a panel on basketball analytics which consisted of me, moderator Marc Stein and four team-affiliated panelists -- Dallas' Mark Cuban, Portland's Kevin Pritchard, Denver's Dean Oliver and Boston's Michael Zarren. I think and hope everyone who saw it found it both entertaining and enlightening (full disclosure: Cuban carried us), but at the same time the giant elephant in the now-giant conference room was this: Nobody could talk about what they were doing.

Obviously, there are good reasons for this. Teams spend money on analytics research to gain a competitive advantage, an investment that's wasted if somebody goes to a conference like this and blabs their discoveries to the world. Academics have an incentive to share and learn; basketball teams have an equally strong incentive to hide and obfuscate.

For that reason, some of the moments at this year's conference didn't come in the headline presentations, but in small rooms where academics presented papers on topics like officiating bias, valuing blocked shots, adjusted plus/minus and Nash equilibriums in NBA offenses.

The last item was, to me, the most interesting, because it helps explain why a lot of NBA offenses aren't terribly successful in last-shot situations. (When we say Nash equilibrium, by the way, we're referring to John Nash, not Steve; and when we say John Nash, we're referring to the guy from "A Beautiful Mind," not the one who drafted Sebastian Telfair ahead of Al Jefferson. Also, the paper was presented by somebody named Brian Skinner, which had us taking bets beforehand on whether he'd be a backup center with a two-toned goatee.)

The mentality in the NBA is to have your best player shoot the big shot, and on an intuitive level this makes all kinds of sense: Why would you have Jordan Farmar take the big shot when you could have Kobe Bryant take it?

Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. Once you adjust for how the opponent will react, it turns out there are diminishing returns to this approach. An opponent who knows Bryant will shoot can adjust its defense to limit his effectiveness; this can be demonstrated by the simple fact that for virtually every player, efficiency decreases as usage rate increases.

The really interesting part is that Skinner compared this function to traffic networks, where there are multiple possible roads to the same destination. Theoretically, the fastest way from A to B is the highway, but if everybody takes the highway, it gets bogged down in traffic. In a similar fashion, the easiest path to a basket for the Lakers is to have Kobe shoot it, but if he shoots every time, the offense quickly becomes a predictable muddle.

The solution? Distributing the shots (or the traffic) to take advantage of all the possible avenues to Point B (or the basket) -- even if it involves erecting barriers to the path of least resistance (a shot by Kobe). By this theory, creating a few more shots for Farmar and a few less for Bryant seems suboptimal at first, but it will have such a positive impact on the remaining attempts by Bryant that the Lakers come out ahead on the bargain.

NBA offenses tend to do this, at least to some extent -- for the first 47 minutes of a game or so, shots are spread somewhat evenly among the five players. But in the final seconds, they aren't, and this also tends to be where NBA offenses are at their worst. I don't think that's an accident, and I think this conference showed me why.

That, hopefully, paints a road forward -- that academics can supplement what teams are doing (much as it does in, say, drug research) in such a way that the cutthroat competition between teams doesn't prevent those of us on the outside from absorbing new information and ideas about the game. It's still early here -- this was only the fourth year for the conference -- but if I have one hope for future events, it would be that the academic spirit of collegiality and sharing can somehow play a greater role in the basketball analytics world.

[T101]

You'll often hear casual basketball fans lament the lack of shooting in today's game, especially from the free throw line. But actually, we have the opposite problem: The current NBA is littered with great shooters. In fact, several of the best shooters of all time are currently on NBA rosters, and most of them are more or less in their prime.

Without leaving the top half of the Western Conference standings, for instance, I can point out names like Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Peja Stojakovic, Kevin Martin and Chauncey Billups, all of whom have put together multiple seasons that rank among the best shooting performances in history. That's to say nothing of the other great shooters in the league -- Ray Allen, Jason Kapono, free throw-record holder Jose Calderon, Ben Gordon, Kyle Korver … the list goes on and on.

But which one is the best of the best? Aye, there's the rub. We've never had a clear metric for ranking the game's best shooters … well, at least until today's ill-advised endeavor. That's right -- we're going to try ranking the best shooters in the game's history.

First, a caveat: By "history," we're limiting ourselves to the 3-point era. There were plenty of great shooters who played prior to that point, but we have no way to verify their cases statistically. In particular, it appears Calvin Murphy and Rick Barry -- two players from the 1970s who were renowned for their shooting range and rank among the top six free throw shooters of all time -- are slighted by today's methodology. Bill Sharman, Mike Newlin and Fred Brown also get my apologies.

OK, now for the method. My first step is to require players pass through a couple of fairly low "gates:" shooting 85 percent from the line with at least a 45 percent mark on 3s, or shooting 87.5 percent from the line with at least 42.5 percent made on 3s, or shooting 90 percent from the stripe with at least 40 percent made on 3s.

The point at this stage isn't to determine the best shooter of all time but to eliminate all the players we know darn well aren't the best shooter of all time. This does an efficient job, narrowing our list to 44 players.

From there, I set about creating a formula to rank the best shooters. I thought I'd have to dream up something very complex to adjust for all the variables involved, but it turned out a simple formula worked far better than any of my more exotic concoctions. I simply added a player's 2-point, 3-point and free throw percentages. We'll call this "Combined Shooting Rating," or CSR for short.

CSR works for a few reasons. First, the free throw is a pretty fair arbiter of shooting ability. It's the only true apples-to-apples measurement we have, because it's always 15 feet from the hoop and unguarded, regardless of what system the team runs or how the player is used. It's only one shot among many that need to be in a player's arsenal, but it's an important one.

Second, the yin and yang of 2-point and 3-point ability balance each other out. Some players are more effective midrange shooters than long-range marksmen, while others are more comfortable bombing away. And using this method makes the system more fair to players from the 1980s and early '90s, when teams didn't utilize the 3 as often or as effectively.

The one thing I left out was frequency. Obviously, players who pick their spots get higher-percentage looks than those who are the focal point of the offense on play after play. On the other hand, it's extremely difficult for players in the former group to shoot well enough from the line to crack the elite on this list, simply because of the lack of in-game repetition. Several snipers with great numbers from the floor (Brent Barry, for instance, or Hubert Davis) couldn't get into the top 10 because of free throw percentage, and even the second-ranked player on our list (one of the all-time snipers) has the worst free throw percentage of anybody in the top 10.

Also, I did set two minimum standards: 10,000 career minutes and 250 made 3-pointers. I didn't want anybody getting onto the list with a lengthy career sparsely populated with 3-point attempts; that seemed counter to the point of the exercise. While arbitrary, 250 nicely separated the truly deadly long-range shooters from the guys who merely hit midrange J's and made their free throws.

So now that our rather simple CSR method is clear, let's get to our list of the top 10 shooters, which also apparently doubles as a great predictor of post-career broadcasting, coaching and front-office opportunities. According to CSR, they are:

Top All-Time Shooters By CSR
Player    2-Pt%    3-Pt%    FT%    CSR
Steve Nash    .515    .431    .903    1.849
Steve Kerr    .494    .454    .864    1.812
Reggie Miller    .525    .395    .888    1.807
Mark Price    .501    .402    .904    1.807
Jeff Hornacek    .515    .403    .877    1.795
Chris Mullin    .533    .384    .865    1.783
Peja Stojakovic    .485    .400    .895    1.779
Larry Bird    .509    .376    .886    1.770
Ray Allen    .482    .396    .893    1.770
Dana Barros    .488    .411    .858    1.757
Min. 10,000 career minutes

That's right: Steve Nash. By a mile.

I've always written that his shooting is his most underappreciated skill, but even so, this blows me away.

It makes sense, though -- run through the numbers, and Nash crushes every possible competitor. And it becomes even more impressive when one considers nearly all his shots from the field have come off the dribble. Nash and the fourth-ranked player on this list, Mark Price, are the only two players in history to shoot better than 50 percent on 2s, 40 percent on 3s and 90 percent from the line for their careers. And as it happens, Nash's general manager in Phoenix, Steve Kerr, is second on the list.

One strong point of this list is that it acknowledges a few of the game's great midrange shooters. Neither Chris Mullin nor Jeff Hornacek shot the 3 with great frequency, for instance, but both were deadly accurate when they did, and they were exceptional from 2-point range.

Fans of "Larry Legend" undoubtedly will be disappointed to see him ninth on this list and to see one player of his own size -- Peja Stojakovic -- rank just ahead of him. But Bird's greatest asset was his ability to make high-difficulty shots, which would need to be part of a different list entirely -- a list that would include different players. (Kobe Bryant, for one obvious example, is nowhere close on the above list but would have to rank high on any list of tough-shot makers.)

If you're wondering about Dirk Nowitzki, he is 13th, and easily the best among players 6-foot-10 or taller. Players 11 to 20 on this list are Barry, Hersey Hawkins, Nowitzki, Davis, Kyle Korver, Mo Williams, Danny Ainge, Allan Houston, Scott Skiles and Glen Rice.

Before I exit, some players who didn't make my list warrant mentioning.

The first is Drazen Petrovic, who just missed my minutes cut-off because of his untimely death in 1993. Petro's rating of 1.799 would have put him fifth on the list, a fact that becomes even more impressive when one considers he was only 28 when he died -- most players improve their numbers on the above criteria well into their 30s.

The second is Jose Calderon, who needs only 779 more minutes to crack the list; his 1.805 career mark would place him fifth. Calderon also has only 238 made 3s on his career and needs to make 12 more of those. You might think his free throw percentage carries him into the top 10, but actually it's his amazing 2-point field goal percentage that does it. Calderon has shot 53.4 percent for his career on 2-point shots, the best mark of any of the 44 players in this study.

Finally, two young players on the Golden State Warriors have established a great chance of finishing their careers near the top of this list. Rookie Stephen Curry is at 1.770 thus far in his brief career, and should that number hold up, he'll finish his career in the top 10. Since players' shooting often improves dramatically in their second through fifth seasons, he could finish as one of the top-ranked players of all time.

Then again, he also might finish second among current Warriors. Curry's teammate, Anthony Morrow, has played two NBA seasons as a part-time starter, and posted career marks of 48.8 percent on 2s, 45.9 percent on 3s and 87.6 percent from the line. That's good for a CSR of 1.822, which is better than every other player in history except Nash.

Obviously we're dealing with smaller sample sizes with those two, and it's possible they'll regress in future seasons. But when we discuss the great all-time shooters, those two are worth tracking in future seasons to see if they warrant a spot in the conversation.

[T101]

The word for today is "separation." We've had it in the Western Conference playoff chase for quite a while, and now we're finally getting it in the East, too.

We've been talking about five teams battling for four spots in the East for weeks, but Milwaukee's win over Boston on Tuesday essentially cemented a playoff berth for the Bucks. Milwaukee has 34 wins in the bank with 11 home games remaining, and it is the hottest team in the league right now (sorry, Dallas) with 10 wins in 11 games since acquiring John Salmons.

If that wasn't enough, the Bucks should own every tiebreaker with teams still fighting for playoff slots. They clinched the head-to-head series with Toronto and Miami, and their 25-15 conference record should give them an edge over Charlotte and Chicago, even if the Bucks lose their final meeting against each team. As an added bonus, the Bucks' final three games -- against Boston, Atlanta and Boston again -- could become gimmes if the playoff seedings of the Hawks and Celtics are locked in place.

As a result, Wednesday's Playoff Odds give the Bucks a 99.2 percent chance of making the postseason. Basically, they're in, and we're down to four other teams battling for three spots.

But that four could become three quickly. Although only a game and a half separates Toronto, Charlotte, Miami and Chicago, there are some major differences in schedules and recent quality of play. Charlotte is rolling, Chicago is slumping, and Miami and Toronto don't know whether they're coming or going.

Let's start with Chicago, because if the Bulls don't get their act together soon, the rest of this discussion will be moot. Chicago already has become the first of the East playoff contenders to see its Playoff Odds dip below 50 percent, as it fell to 41 percent after Tuesday night's disembowelment by Utah. For the first time in weeks, the Odds no longer project the Bulls' season finale in Charlotte to determine the East's final playoff spot. Rather, Chicago now is projected to finish two games out of the money.

Chicago has lost five straight, and its defense is in shambles without Joakim Noah; Tuesday night was the eighth straight game in which the opponent cleared the century mark. In that time, the Bulls have dropped from sixth to 11th in defensive efficiency, which is bad news since they need their D to win. Chicago is only 27th at the offensive end, and that number might plummet further if Luol Deng misses any time with the right calf strain he suffered Tuesday.

Fortunately for the Bulls, the competition isn't exactly running away from them. If you'll recall, the Playoff Odds weren't ready to pencil in the Raptors as a postseason team even when they were 31-24 because of a difficult late-season schedule. That outlook now seems prophetic, as the Raps' loss to the Lakers on Tuesday was their sixth in seven tries. It landed them just a game and a half ahead of Chicago, with several tough contests still on their slate.

This was partly attributable to not having Chris Bosh in the lineup for a few games because of an ankle injury, but the Raps struggled even upon his return. Toronto somehow lost at home to Philadelphia on Sunday in a game that wasn't terribly close, and while it competed more gamely in Los Angeles on Tuesday, the result was the same. Toronto still must visit Portland, New Orleans, Cleveland, Atlanta, Miami and Charlotte. Plus, the Raptors have five difficult home games remaining (Atlanta, Oklahoma City, Utah, Denver and Boston).

Despite the difficult schedule, Toronto has a 75 percent chance at the postseason, according to Wednesday morning's Playoff Odds. The Raps already own the tiebreaker against Chicago, which should provide some insulation if they lose a key late-season game against the Bulls on April 11. But at some point, Toronto will need to beat a few good teams. If the Raptors only take care of the bad teams and knock off Chicago at home, they'll finish 41-41, which is a bit too close for comfort.

Some might be puzzled that Miami -- 32-32 after Tuesday night's loss to Charlotte and looking out of sorts for much of the past month -- has such good odds at 95.8 percent. The Heat are only a half-game ahead of Chicago for the last spot and still play the Bulls twice, so the danger of a miss is clear. But it's going to be hard for them to avoid qualifying against this schedule.

Miami's remaining slate is laugh-out-loud easy -- of its 18 remaining opponents, 11 already have been knocked out of playoff contention. If the Heat are still in the top eight March 31, they'll definitely make it, because over the final two weeks, spanning eight games, the best team they play is Philadelphia. That's why Miami projects to finish with 44 wins and the No. 6 seed in the East at the moment.

That leaves us with Charlotte, which has quietly moved into much better position after briefly falling off the pace of the other contenders. After winning three straight, the Bobcats project to have an 88.3 percent chance of earning the franchise's first playoff berth, with their most likely position a No. 7 seed.

The Bobcats' biggest likely pitfall is two games in April against the Bulls -- a sweep by Chicago would both cost the Cats two games and give the Bulls the tiebreaker, putting Charlotte's hopes back in peril. Short of that, it's tough to see how the Bobcats miss. Charlotte has nine games left against noncontenders and only four against the league's top dozen teams; even if the Bobcats don't play impressively, they should finish at or just above .500.

As a result, the most likely scenario is a battle between Toronto and Chicago for the East's final playoff spot. It's not exactly a riveting race at the moment -- the two sides have combined to lose 11 of 12 -- but at least one of them should be at .500 by the time the music stops. The game between the two April 11 in Toronto now looms as the most likely to determine which of the East's playoff contenders lands in the lottery.

[T101]

This is the fourth season of the Power Rankings, and most of the time the world order is fairly straightforward. Generally, the teams at the top (and bottom) are there for a reason, and the rankings more or less follow the general consensus of NBA observers.

Every once in a while, however, the rankings deviate from the norm, and the e-mails pour in. For some reason, the Dallas Mavericks have been more involved in these controversies than most teams. In 2007, the Power Rankings had hardly debuted when I was excoriated for ranking a 58-win San Antonio team ahead of the 67-win Mavs. Columnists in both cities called me an idiot, marking possibly the first time the two Texas rivals agreed on something. Alas, the Spurs won the NBA title that season, and the episode was forgotten quickly.

This time around, we have another difference of opinion regarding the Mavs. Dallas has won 13 straight games, owns the fourth-best record in basketball, is tied for the NBA lead with 22 road wins and has most folks considering it a strong title contender in the wake of a deadline-week trade for Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood.

The Power Rankings? Not so much. They place the Mavs at a modest 13th in a 30-team league.

Why the disconnect? Well, I can pinpoint a couple of reasons. For starters, I've been writing for a while about how compressed the top of the league is this season relative to the middle and the bottom, and the Mavs provide an object lesson.

With a rating of 102.4, the Mavs are about as close to top-ranked Orlando (107.3) as they are to No. 18 Chicago (97.7). Only 3.4 points separate No. 4 Los Angeles from No. 14 Miami, implying that a meeting between nearly any of those 11 teams would hinge on home-court advantage. As if to prove that point, the Lakers and Heat went to overtime in Miami last week, and the Heat prevailed.

The other thing to keep in mind is that first and foremost, the Power Rankings are a predictive tool. The idea is to compare the rating to the left of each team's name, add three points to the team with home-court advantage, then make a prediction. Wednesday night, for instance, the Power Rankings had the Mavs as 13.6-point favorites at home against New Jersey; Dallas actually won by nine.

It may surprise people to learn that in building a predictive tool, scoring margin and schedule strength are more important than wins and losses. (Or maybe it's not a surprise, since I've railed about this for so long.) Dallas doesn't grade terribly well in these categories -- the Mavs' scoring margin is the league's 12th-best, for instance, against opposition that's a perfectly average .500 when not playing the Mavs.

The Power Rankings weigh a team's most recent 25 percent of games most heavily, which you'd think would favor the Mavs because they've won 13 straight. Actually, it doesn't. Included in the mix are a 36-point beatdown in Denver and an awful home loss to Minnesota, and no victories by more than 13 points. As a result, their scoring margin in their past 17 games, which have been against the league's fourth-weakest schedule (.458), is an unimpressive plus-3.1.

If you're curious, the Minnesota defeat will go off Dallas' recent-games résumé after Saturday's game against the Knicks, while the Denver fiasco won't disappear until March 21. (In a scheduling quirk, Dallas only plays three games in the next 10 days.) Barring any other meltdowns, the Mavs' power ranking should improve by about a point, which would move them to 10th -- still well short of their perceived place in the universe.

Let's get back to the predictive tool thing for a minute.

Believe it or not, the Power Rankings have predicted recent Mavericks games quite well. It installed Dallas as a favorite in all but three of the 13 games in the streak (at Atlanta, at Charlotte and at Orlando), with the Lakers game seen as a toss-up. In other words, 10 of Dallas' 13 wins didn't do much to change their standing in the world of the Power Rankings. Once you adjust for home-court advantage, Dallas' six previous games all were won by the higher-ranked team as well, meaning the Power Rankings have gone 16-3 with one push in the Mavs' 20 most recent games. Not too shabby.

I also should point out that my predictive model is not the only one that is dismissive of Dallas. The predictor of USA Today's Jeff Sagarin has it ranked 12th.

Nonetheless, most fans seem flabbergasted that I have Dallas just 13th. So let's take it team by team with the franchises ranked ahead of Dallas and ask two questions: 1. How are they ranked ahead of the Mavs? and 2. Would I pick the Mavs to beat them in a series? Walk through the exercise, and perhaps their positioning will become more understandable:


1. Orlando Magic

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
The Magic are only a half-game ahead of Dallas in win-loss record, but they are miles ahead in scoring margin both on the season (plus-6.4, second in the NBA) and in recent games (a league-leading plus-10.2), enabling the Magic to take the top spot in the Power Rankings.

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
No. Dallas' win in Orlando on Feb. 19 was the most impressive of the 13-game streak, but Orlando also shot 4-for-25 on 3s in that game -- an event unlikely to repeat itself in future meetings. The Magic are playing better than any other team in basketball right now, so the Mavs will have their hands full when the two clubs reconvene on April 1 in Dallas.


2. Utah Jazz

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
The Jazz are 23-5 in their past 28 games and have the best scoring margin in the West in the past 25 percent of their schedule. For the season, the Jazz' scoring margin is nearly equal to the conference-leading Lakers', and they've played the league's most difficult schedule to date. (Opponents have a .520 winning percentage when not facing the Jazz.)

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
No. The Jazz have won two of three meetings between the clubs and on paper appear to be a much better team this season. The two sides won't face each other the rest of the regular season but could very well meet in the second round of the playoffs.


3. Cleveland Cavaliers

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
The Cavaliers have the league's best scoring margin (plus-7.2) and, despite injuries to LeBron James and Shaquille O'Neal, have managed to improve on that margin in recent play (plus-8.5), including a win over San Antonio on Tuesday without either player.

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
No. The teams split their two meetings this season, but the Cavs sport the ultimate trump card in James. They also arguably improved themselves more than the Mavs at the trade deadline with the acquisition of Antawn Jamison, a deal that will have cost nothing after the return of Zydrunas Ilgauskas.


4. L.A. Lakers

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
The Lakers sport the best scoring margin in the West at plus-6.0 and have played a very difficult schedule (.516, even though they're the only team that doesn't have to face the Lakers). Although they've scuffled in recent games, the Lakers' plus-3.3 margin in the past 25 percent of their schedule is still stronger than Dallas' plus-3.1, and it has come against much stronger opposition.

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
No, but I'd think about it. The two teams split their four regular-season meetings, and the Mavericks appear to match up pretty well against L.A.'s size, especially in the wake of the Haywood trade. Dallas also has defended Kobe Bryant very effectively in their four meetings. The problem is the Mavs can't score on L.A., either.


5. Phoenix Suns

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
Thanks to a recent spurt after the insertion of Robin Lopez as the starting center, the Suns are 14-4 in their past 18 games with a plus-7.2 scoring margin -- against strong opposition, too. For the full season, the Suns' scoring margin isn't much better than the Mavs', however.

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
No. Dallas won two of the three regular-season meetings but also was home for two of them, and a single point decided the first one (a 102-101 Mavs win on Nov. . Basically, it's a wash on that front. I'd take Phoenix based on its vastly improved D in the wake of the Lopez move. These two teams could meet as the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds in the West, in which case Dallas' home-court advantage would be another factor to consider. But I'd still take Phoenix.


6. Denver Nuggets

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
The Nuggets haven't awed, but they've been consistently solid. They have a plus-5.1 scoring margin for the season, and although that's down to plus-4.0 in recent games, they've played the league's second-toughest schedule during that stretch. All those marks are superior to Dallas'.

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
You saw the playoffs last year, right? Although the Mavs have somewhat addressed the glaring athletic deficit that faced them in their second-round smackdown by the Nuggies in 2009, this probably would be the worst matchup for Dallas. I should note that the 127-91 beating by Denver in February came on a terrible back-to-back for the Mavs, so that's probably an unfair indicator. The two teams will meet March 29 in Dallas, and if the Mavs win, they'll take the season series 2-1 thanks in part to having two of the games at home. But home or away, I'd take Denver in a series.


7. San Antonio Spurs

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
Because the Spurs are great at beating the teams they're supposed to. San Antonio has struggled mightily against the big boys, but when Sacramento or the Knicks come to town, they take of business. As a result, they have a solid scoring margin (plus-4.4) despite a strong schedule overall (.506). Subjectively, though, I think the Power Rankings have overrated San Antonio for a while thanks to some early-season blowouts.

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
Yes, especially if it started today. Tony Parker is the one problem matchup for Dallas, and he's out for the next six weeks. Even with Parker, I'd be inclined to take Dallas because the Spurs don't match up well defensively against Dirk Nowitzki, and the Mavs beat San Antonio in five games last year. Dallas also has won two of three meetings this season, making it seven of nine going back to last March.


8. Oklahoma City Thunder

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
The Thunder's overall scoring margin (plus-3.5) doesn't beat the Mavs' by much, but they've picked it up lately -- OKC has outscored opponents by 5.8 points in the most recent quarter of its schedule. The Thunder also benefit from a relatively strong season schedule, so they have slight advantages on Dallas in the four main categories that the Power Rankings consider (home-road differential being the fifth, but that's rarely a factor this late in the season).

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
No. Oklahoma City was the last team to beat Dallas, 99-86 on Feb. 16; the Mavs won the first two meetings, but one was by a single point on Jan. 15. Since that game, the Thunder are 18-6, and youngsters Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant are still improving. The Thunder also have a lot of length to throw at Nowitzki defensively and are a tough cover for Dallas' wings with Durant. My theory will be tested on April 3, when the Mavs and Thunder meet again in Dallas.


9. Atlanta Hawks

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
The Hawks are a point ahead of Dallas in the Power Rankings based almost entirely on their superior scoring margin during the course of the season. Of late, the Hawks haven't played particularly well, but their scoring margin in recent games still isn't any worse than the Mavs'. Of note is that the Hawks came the closest to beating Dallas in the recent streak, leading by 14 in the fourth quarter before succumbing in overtime, thanks in part to the infamous Jason Kidd versus Mike Woodson encounter.

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
Honestly, I'd probably flip a coin. The Hawks outrate Dallas at the moment but also have benefited from being unusually, ridiculously healthy. Presuming the Mavs are at somewhere near full health, too, that advantage for the Hawks would go away in a series. Head-to-head, it's about as even between these teams as you could get: They've split six meetings during the past three years. This season, Atlanta won the first meeting in Dallas, and the Mavs won the second one in overtime. In a seven-game series, I'd go with whichever side had home-court advantage.


10. Portland Trail Blazers

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
The Blazers are only a half-point ahead of the Mavs in the Power Rankings and have virtually identical marks across the board. The lone difference is that Portland's recent games have come against relatively strong opposition (.508), while the Mavs' have come against some of the league's weakest (.458).

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
No. Not even with home-court advantage, which could prove interesting because they may face each other as the No. 2 and No. 7 seeds in the West. Portland beat the Mavs twice in Dallas already, once without Brandon Roy and twice with Juwan Howard manning the middle. The Blazers arguably also made more impactful deadline additions than the Mavs by trading for Marcus Camby and bringing Nicolas Batum back from injury. The state of Roy's hamstring is a lingering worry, but that would be the only reason to shift my choice to Dallas. The two sides will meet in Portland on March 25 and again on April 9.


11. Milwaukee Bucks

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
Of all the e-mails I get, the most common is, "How you can have MILWAUKEE ahead of the Mavs?!?!?!" This is unfair to the Bucks. Unbeknownst to most Mavs fans or the larger world in general, the Bucks may be the hottest team in the league right now. Since acquiring John Salmons, they've won nine of 10, with the lone defeat coming in overtime in Atlanta (immediately after Dallas went to overtime in Atlanta -- that was a heck of a basketball weekend in the Peach State).

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
No. Dallas won both meetings versus Milwaukee but by the smallest of margins (one in overtime, the other by a single point). Because both contests happened before the Bucks' recent rejuvenation, I'd lean toward Milwaukee in a neutral-site series. The Bucks are unquestionably the East's most dangerous low seed heading into the playoffs.


12. Boston Celtics

How are they ranked ahead of Dallas?
The Celtics land one-tenth of a point ahead of Dallas based almost entirely on their body of work the first two months of the season, when Boston was 23-5 and competing for the top spot in the Power Rankings. Since that point, it's 17-18 with a barely positive scoring margin and in the most recent 25 percent of their schedule, its margin is a scant plus-0.3 despite a schedule nearly as soft as the Mavericks' (.472).

Would I take Dallas to beat them in a series?
Yes. Emphatically so. We'll get a test of that view on March 20 when the Celtics visit Big D, but the C's aren't looking real strong right now. Boston's veterans are running on fumes, and there's not enough help on the bench to drag it past the finish line, as Wednesday night's home blowout loss to Memphis further showed. It's possible the Celts won't make it out of the first round.

[T101]

Say, didn't you used to be the Raptors?

Once upon a time, Toronto looked to be cruising to the No. 5 seed in the East. After a shaky start the Raps went 20-7 between mid-December and late February. While they compiled that mark against an easy schedule, nobody doubted they were a legit playoff team.

Perhaps we should have. Toronto may end up qualifying for the playoffs, but that has more to do with Chicago's struggles than anything good the Raptors have done. The two-dog race (and I do mean "dog") for the East's final playoff spot took another interesting turn Thursday night, when the Bulls dropped their sixth straight and lost All-Star guard Derrick Rose to a wrist sprain.

That just may have been the final straw in knocking the Bulls out of the playoffs; Friday's Playoff Odds put their chances at just 37.3 percent, while the Raptors, losers of seven of their past eight, are at 70.8 percent. The two "contenders" in this "race" have combined to drop 13 of their past 14 games.

Nonetheless, the plight of the Raptors, currently in a three-way tie for sixth in the East, is far more interesting to me because they've gone back to a bad habit from early in the season: They've stopped playing defense. Or defence. Or anything that involves making it difficult for opponents to score.

Toronto owns the league's fifth-best offense, which befits team president Bryan Colangelo's model of a sharpshooting, ballhandling juggernaut. Even with free agent Hedo Turkoglu underperforming, the Raptors have done more than enough to rack up a big win total at that end. If they merely had a league-average defense, they could be even with Atlanta, currently third in both real life and in the Playoffs Odds, in the standings.

Instead they're headed toward 40-42, according to Friday's projections, and lucky to even get that mark based on their minus-1.6 scoring margin. Unfortunately, their defense isn't anywhere near up to snuff. While the Raps aren't careening toward worst-of-all-time status, as it seemed earlier this season, they're still dead last in the NBA at 109.5 points per 100 opponent possessions -- a full point worse than No. 29 Golden State. The Warriors, mind you, are a team with no big men and a coach who has openly mailed in the season. Amazingly, it's possible to do worse.

The Raptors don't play at the breakneck pace of the Warriors, so opponent point totals don't blow up on them the way they do for Golden State. But make no mistake: The Raptors' defense is awful, and after a 30-game stretch of quasi-respectability, they're back to their sieve-like ways.

Starting with a 109-104 escape against a depleted Washington team on Feb. 20, Toronto's D the past nine games has been a brutal 113.7 in defensive efficiency (perhaps "defensive inefficiency" would be a better term in this case). Yes, the Raptors didn't have Chris Bosh for a few of those games. On the other hand, they won't have Bosh for all 82 next season if the team doesn't show some improvement at the defensive end, as the free-agent-to-be has little motivation to re-up with what appears to be a perennial first-round speed bump.

It was fun to read that the Raps were pleased by "holding" the Lakers to 45 percent shooting in a 109-107 loss on Tuesday. Yes, L.A. didn't shoot the lights out, but the Lakers took 44 free throws that night and had only nine turnovers. As a result, they scored their 109 points on just 96 possessions -- an offensive efficiency rating of 113.5, right at the low standard set by Toronto in its other eight games of this miserable stretch. Talk about setting the bar low for moral victories. (And the Lakers, by the way, have not been a particularly good offensive team this season; they're winning with defense).

The Raptors' defensive woes can't be blamed on Bosh's absence, either. They've shown they can play just as badly when he's in the lineup, as they did in the defeat in L.A. and the following night in a 113-90 meltdown in Sacramento.

Rather, Toronto's defensive struggles emanate from more simple considerations: The Raptors don't have good defensive players, and the coaching staff isn't getting much out of the players it has.

Consider Turkoglu, a lightning rod for Raptors fans this season because of his indifference. He's not a good defender, but he was still part of the league's top-ranked defense in Orlando last season. That's partly because Dwight Howard had his back, but it's also because Stan Van Gundy put in a scheme that works and held his players accountable when they didn't follow it.

In Toronto, there's no evidence that happens. Head coach Jay Triano was called out by his own players after a particularly egregious early-season effort in Atlanta and briefly seemed to get things under control. But his charges have regressed to old bad habits of late, and there's no indication that he's willing or able to squeeze anything better out of them.

The league's only Canadian coach, Triano has been a protected species in Hogtown since his hiring as an assistant in 2002. (Quick: Name me one other assistant who has survived three head-coaching changes with the same team.) He probably also seems delightfully reasonable after a series of, shall we say, entertaining head coaches from north of the border. No, Butch Carter he ain't. But maybe he should be, because his current method isn't getting it done.

Lots of questions jump out when watching Triano operate. Can he create defensive schemes? Can he get his players to execute them? Can he hold them accountable when they don't? Does he know Rasho Nesterovic is on the team? I'm not in the Raptors' huddle, but from afar those answers appear to be: not likely, no, no and no.

All those 12-step programs say admitting the problem is the first step, but I'm not sure the Raptors have reached that point yet. After the Sacramento debacle, Triano talked at length about his team's poor shot selection. That's known around these parts as ignoring the elephant in the room. Orlando takes bad shots too, but the Magic still try when the other team has the ball.

Perhaps Triano can get it all sorted out and the Raptors can rally to a more respectable playoff position. Management appears to still have his back; Colangelo offered an impassioned defense of his head coach to me at the All-Star break.

Nonetheless, if Triano is going to get this thing turned around, he'd better start soon. Chicago is likely to gift the Raptors a playoff berth regardless, but it won't help morale much if it's just to be a four-game sacrificial lamb for Cleveland. In the big picture, one has to wonder if the Raptors will look back on the defensive debacle of the past three weeks as the stretch that cost them the best player in franchise history … and wonder whether a different coach might have prevented it.

One more note before I sign off: Per Diem will be on hiatus for a few days while I recharge my batteries for the playoffs. The next Per Diem column will appear on Thursday, March 25.

[T101]

As predictable as this season has been so far, we might be in for a change as we head into the postseason. Oh, not in the East, where things couldn't be any chalkier: Orlando and Cleveland seem destined for a battle royale in the conference finals, and it's likely that the only drama between now and then will come when either the Hawks or Celtics meet Milwaukee in the first round.

Out West, however, it's a different story. The Lakers are running away with the top seed, leading No. 2 Dallas by six games. But that masks a new West reality: A postseason that once appeared to be the Laker Invitational now seems to be anyone's game.

That's partly because the Lakers have looked increasingly beatable. Aside from an Achilles injury to Andrew Bynum, L.A. has also been reasonably healthy -- at least, as healthy as their main competitors. Yet their play since the All-Star break has been a bit uninspired.

You don't believe me? Consider that the Lakers are 12-5 since the All-Star break despite playing a steady procession of bottom-feeders. In that span, L.A. has played Golden State twice, Sacramento, Indiana, Philadelphia, Minnesota and Washington. They won six of those seven games by more than 10 points. But in the 10 games against real teams, they're 5-5 with a negative scoring margin.

Over the most recent quarter of their schedule, the Lakers are only ninth in scoring margin, despite playing a fairly soft schedule. Similarly, they are only a hundredth of a point for the season ahead of Utah in scoring margin. L.A. once led the category handily, but the Jazz likely will overtake the Lakers this weekend when they play Indiana and Washington.

That's where we get to the other interesting part of this story. In the search for potential rivals for L.A., most folks have been looking in the wrong places. Denver, the presumptive No. 2 in the West, looks considerably weaker since Kenyon Martin's knee problems knocked him out of the lineup. Denver is just 8-6 in its past 14 games and has dropped three straight, and the health problems of coach George Karl provide another challenge heading into the playoffs.

As a result, the Nuggets are down to No. 7 in the Power Rankings, and they project to finish somewhere between second and fifth in the West. The "fifth" part is what should raise eyebrows in Denver. If the Nuggets lose at Phoenix in their last game of the season, both the Suns and Mavericks will own tiebreakers over Denver and could push the Nuggets down in the event of a tie. As of Thursday, they project to finish one game ahead -- an uncomfortably small margin given their current state.

The other Western hopeful to garner a lot of national attention has been Dallas. I won't belabor the point here, since I've made it repeatedly already, but suffice it to say that I remain skeptical of the Mavs' credentials in this department.

So if the Lakers are vulnerable, but the Nuggets and Mavs aren't playing well enough to beat them, then who will? Believe it or not, the best chances come from three teams long dismissed as legitimate contenders.

Let's start with San Antonio. Yes, San Antonio. I realize Wednesday night's second half didn't do wonders for the idea that the Spurs can make a run in the West, but check out the big picture. San Antonio has won 10 of its last 14 against a difficult schedule and did most of the damage without an injured Tony Parker. At full strength, the Spurs were good enough to the beat the Lakers by 20 in January; in fact, until Wednesday, they were ahead of the Lakers in the Power Rankings. The recent struggles of Tim Duncan are worrisome, but after 60 games of scuffling, San Antonio seems to be hitting its stride.

Another stronger-than-advertised hopeful is Phoenix. With Amare Stoudemire averaging almost 30 points and 10 rebounds in March, Robin Lopez providing an inside presence and the bench performing far better than expected, the Suns have been quietly rolling. Phoenix is 19-5 in its past 24 games even though Steve Nash has been battling back problems and has not played up to his usual standards (Nash hasn't scored more than 20 points since Feb. 5 and has only made eight 3-pointers in March). The 24-game stretch includes 11 double-figure wins and not a single double-figure loss.

The Suns are playing well enough that they may elbow their way to a top-four seed (although Dallas likely will have the tiebreaker if its wins the Southwest Division). While the Suns' credentials as "serious hopefuls" depend on Nash's reverting to form, they're playing too well of late to be ignored.

And then there's Utah. Why the Jazz continue to be dismissed as a serious contender is beyond me, because they're playing as well as any team in basketball and have been for three months.

The Jazz are 28-8 in their past 36 games and have done it despite numerous injuries. Carlos Boozer, Deron Williams, Andrei Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur have all missed time, but the Jazz haven't missed a beat. Utah has the West's best scoring margin over the last quarter of teams' schedules and will soon have the league's best margin.

Utah currently stands tied for third in the Western Conference, but with a fairly friendly closing schedule and just a half-game to make up on No. 2 Dallas, I'm projecting them to finish with 54 wins and the West's second seed.

Based on Thursday's Playoff Odds, I'm also projecting Phoenix to land the fifth seed and the Spurs to finish in the No. 8 spot because they lose the tiebreaker Portland.

This has to be of some concern if you're a Lakers fan, as the Lakers may have to run the gauntlet of the West's three best teams at the moment. All three can make a case they're playing better basketball than the Lakers right now (although San Antonio's claim was dented a bit Wednesday night), and each has had injury problems at least as bad as L.A.'s.

Thus, it's time to rethink our outlook on the Western Conference race. If you're expecting the West to be the Lakers' to win, or that the Nuggets and Mavs are the two teams with the best hopes of upsetting the apple cart in the West, think again. I still expect L.A. to be one of the last two teams left standing in the conference, but I'm not nearly as secure in this opinion as I was six weeks ago. So if it turns out that we get something like Utah-Phoenix in the conference finals instead, don't say you weren't warned.

[T101]

Yes, it's amazing that the Nets are 8-63. But even more amazing is that they might not be the league's worst team.

Minnesota has nearly twice as many wins as the Nets (14), but by almost any objective measure, the Timberwolves have been just as bad. The Nets are 30th in offensive efficiency; the Wolves are 29th. The Nets are 27th in defensive efficiency; the Wolves are 28th. The Nets are outscored by 10 points per game, the Wolves by 9.5.

Heading into Friday's contest against Orlando, Minnesota has lost 14 straight games and 20 of its past 21, and hasn't held an opponent under the century mark in more than a month. Thanks to that streak, the Wolves, not the Nets, occupy the bottom slot in the Power Rankings with a horrific 90.7 rating -- meaning even an average team would be nearly a double-digit favorite against them on a neutral court.

While the Nets chase one more win in hopes of avoiding the worst record in NBA history, Minnesota needs to win one of its final 10 contests to avoid a dubious record of its own. The Nets set the mark for the worst start in league history by dropping their first 18 games, but the Wolves might set a new standard for the worst finish. With 14 straight defeats in the books, Minnesota can tie the league record for the longest losing streak of 24, set by the Cavaliers over the 1981-82 and '82-83 seasons.

Breaking the skid won't be easy, as six of Minnesota's last 10 opponents are playoff teams. Realistically, the two best shots the Wolves have at a W are in home games against Sacramento on March 31 and Golden State a week later. If they falter in those, the season finale at home against Detroit on April 14 will be a battle to avoid finishing the season on a 24-game schneid.

That the Wolves are in such dire straights at this point gives rise to an interesting question: What exactly are these guys doing?

New GM David Kahn has taken plenty of abuse for his first draft day in 2009, when he selected Ricky Rubio (even though the point guard doesn't seem to want to play for Minnesota), followed it up by taking another point guard (Jonny Flynn) and signed a third one (Ramon Sessions) in free agency. Making matters worse, one point he unloaded (Ty Lawson, taken with the 18th pick and immediately dealt to Denver) appears to be the best of the bunch. Minnesota also passed on Stephen Curry, who seems to be headed to a better career than Flynn or Rubio, and drafted Nick Calathes before trading him as well.

Having done that, the Wolves entered the season with a misshapen roster loaded with small guards but desperately lacking talent on the wings. While third-year pro Corey Brewer has had a minibreakout as a spot-up shooter, the Wolves still don't have a single wing player capable of creating his own shot.

• EnlargeKevin Love

Kyle Terada/US PresswireKevin Love has been the Minny's most efficient player. So why can't he crack the starting five?

Up front, they have two big, slow, physical players in Al Jefferson and Kevin Love, who would make for a dominant rebounding duo were it not for the fact that they struggle to coexist on the court. Both are so slow that when they share the court, opponents routinely pick apart the Wolves in pick-and-roll and transition plays, offsetting a productive union between the two at the offensive end.

However, those two are Minnesota's only players with Player Efficiency Ratings above the league average, or even close to it. The other organizational resources were more or less squandered this offseason on the likes of Ryan Hollins, first-round bust Wayne Ellington and the not-arriving-anytime-soon Rubio.

Meanwhile, the offseason decision to bring in coach Kurt Rambis is looking shaky as well. Running the triangle with two pick-and-roll point guards and no off-the-dribble scoring raised some eyebrows early in the season, but things have become only weirder of late -- with Love checking Carmelo Anthony in a recent loss to Denver taking the cake.

Love, in fact, has played only 26.3 minutes a game in March and is coming off the bench. Let me say that again for emphasis: Love, the talented 21-year-old who leads the team in PER by a wide margin, is schlepping his way through second quarters with the scrubs like he's any old Juwan Howard or Darius Songaila.

Head-scratching player usage is par for the course, however. Take a look at Minnesota's lineup usage this season, and you'll see an almost perfectly inverse relationship between how effective a group has been and how often it has been used.

For a good visual, this table on Basketballvalue.com offers a fascinating damnation of the Wolves' lineup choices. The five-man unit they use the most has been amazingly ineffective, as it has been destroyed by 20.95 points per 40 minutes. But the team's top 10 lineups cascade in almost perfect descending order of awfulness. The best units feature Love and Sessions -- even though Sessions, a pick-and-roll point guard, has been horribly miscast in a triangle offense -- while the worst feature Flynn and Hollins. Guess which two players start.

You can go deeper and plumb for more questions, such as why the Wolves opted to rent Darko Milicic for the final third of the season rather than play Love … or what they learned in the 25 minutes they gave Alando Tucker before waiving him … or whom Sasha Pavlovic owns incriminating photographs of (he's played 748 minutes with a PER of 4.43).

It all takes you back to the big picture, though. The Wolves have a promising cap situation and a couple of good young players. But despite the ouster of blundering former GM Kevin McHale last season, they don't seem to have any better idea of where they're heading or how they might get there. So while the Nets get all the attention at the bottom of the standings, don't overlook Minnesota. This season's Timberwolves have been every bit as awful.

[T101]

Things change.

And when you get a conference like the current West, in which razor-thin margins separate teams both in the standings and in terms of their general competitiveness, things can change very quickly. Seemingly minor developments are enough to shift an advantage one team had over another to a disadvantage, caused by an injury, or a trade, or a rapidly developing player, or a hundred other reasons.

As a result, one of the landmines in any analytic approach to a basketball season is that we're using static numbers to explain what is a dynamic process. Things change. Most of the time the change is small enough to be basically irrelevant, but change is the only constant. To get real philosophical on you, the Denver Nuggets team that takes the floor in Dallas tonight won't be the exact same team I saw yesterday in Orlando, nor will that team be the same as the one that hosts Portland on Thursday.

Most of the differences are small enough to be irrelevant -- they'll all be a day older, for instance, and they might be a bit more experienced, or more tired, or have slightly more or less brotherly love in the locker room than 24 hours earlier.

However, seven of the eight playoff teams in the West (a group we can identify with virtually dead certainty after Memphis' loss in Milwaukee last night; while still mathematically alive, the Grizzlies' Playoff Odds stand at 0.1 percent as of today) have experienced a systemic jolt in the past several days large enough that it could cause us to re-evaluate their prospects going forward. While none are of the cataclysmic variety, I reiterate that we're dealing with miniscule differences heading into the Western Conference playoffs: Six teams stand within three points of each other in today's Power Rankings.

In that environment, a little change can lead to a lot of outcome. And it's especially true when nearly all the changes for the top teams have been negative, and nearly all the changes to the bottom teams have been positive. At times one wonders where we'd finish with an eight-way tie for first if the season lasted long enough.

And so today, we're going to take a field trip into unvarnished subjectivity. Let's take a look at what's been different lately for all eight Western Conference playoff teams, and why that's cause to re-evaluate their playoff hopes:


Utah: Andrei Kirilenko

Despite the fact that the Jazz have the best Power Ranking of any team in the West, Jazz fans are nervous. They keep looking over their shoulders for the locomotive that smashed into them a year ago (an 8-15 tailspin), and may have found an immediate cause for worry in Kirilenko's balky calf muscle.

I would argue AK-47 has been one of the key differences between this season's Jazz and last season's unit; he is shooting better, seems visibly more active at both ends of the floor, and is en route to his best PER mark since 2005-06.

Alas, he is battling not one but two calf strains in his left leg, and has missed seven of Utah's past nine games as a result. Both times he played he re-injured himself, setting a troubling precedent going forward. The Jazz can hang on these next two weeks without him and get home court for the first round and probably even the No. 2 seed in the West. (They own the tiebreakers with Dallas and Denver, which, as you'll soon read, have their own issues.) But in the playoffs, they aren't going anywhere important without a healthy Kirilenko.


Lakers: Andrew Bynum and Luke Walton

For L.A., it's one pro and one con. Obviously, Bynum's strained left Achilles is the big story. The Lakers say he'll be back soon, but since Bynum's previous two injuries lasted longer than originally expected, one has to worry the time frame will push into the postseason. This has to be a grave concern for Lakers fans; while there's a popular sentiment that the team is at least as effective with Lamar Odom on the court, that school of thought doesn't extend to a now-Odom-less second unit.

L.A.'s lack of depth has been a major issue all season and is being laid bare in Bynum's absence. It's tempting to say it doesn't matter, since Bynum should return by the start of the playoffs and L.A. is locked into the No.1 seed, but I would offer two counters.

First, the opening round of the playoffs won't be a walkover this year. The No. 8 seed is likely to be a 50-win team, perhaps the one that ran L.A. off the court in Oklahoma City a few days ago. Additionally, there's a larger goal worth considering: The Lakers haven't sewn up home-court advantage for a potential Finals rematch with Orlando, which could be hugely important come June.

Enter Walton. He's played only 24 games this season due to a pinched nerve in his back but could be an underrated X factor in the postseason. He's not a great player by any means, but he'd be replacing two who have been well below par (Sasha Vujacic and Josh Powell). Additionally, his ability to play both forward spots should be a big help to L.A. matchup-wise. If Bynum and Walton are both healthy and in the mix by the end of April, L.A. could be the West's top dog again; if not, I struggle to summon faith that they'll repeat as conference champs.


Portland: Marcus Camby and Nicolas Batum

With all the tumult over other trade-deadline upgrades, I'm amazed Portland's didn't get more attention. The Blazers traded a redundant backup point guard (Steve Blake) and a forward who had played 11 games (Travis Outlaw) for a quality starting center (Camby). Everyone understood that part, but the piece that was basically ignored was that Batum returned from injury at the same time.

Now that everyone has acclimated, Portland is gaining speed. The Blazers are 11-2 since the end of February, with one of the losses coming in a game Camby missed in Denver. Suffice it to say he's a bit of an upgrade over Juwan Howard and Dante Cunningham. Meanwhile, Batum has been even better than anticipated: He's eighth among small forwards in PER and notably more potent offensively than in his rookie year, upgrading another position in which the Blazers had been getting limited production.

Portland has pulled even with Oklahoma City and San Antonio as a result, and could go higher still. If the Blazers win their last four home games and road contests against the Clippers and Kings they'll finish with 51 wins, which could lift them as high as fifth in the Western playoff seedings.


Oklahoma City: Nothing

The Thunder are the one team that has barely strayed from its trend line over the past two months, and there's no reason to expect any different going forward. The one potential bugaboo, a hamstring injury to James Harden, was both minor in the grand scheme of things and already in the rearview mirror after he scored 23 points in his first game back last week. Let's move on.


San Antonio: Manu and Tony

There go the Spurs, playing possum again. They threw us off by making their run a month later than usual, but Sunday's beatdown of the Celtics in Boston confirmed that the Spurs are ready to take on all comers, eighth seed or not. A brutal closing schedule will likely condemn them to a low playoff seed, but the Spurs own the West's second-best Power Ranking despite missing Tony Parker for the past three weeks.

The million-dollar question for San Antonio is how healthy its starting point guard will be in April. Parker has battled foot problems all season in addition to his recent thumb injury and has seemed notably slower as a result. The Spurs are cruising anyway because Manu Ginobili has been absolutely ridonkulous since the All-Star break: 21.6 points and 5.5 assists, with 40.7 percent shooting on 3s.

But he is fragile too, especially given his full-contact playing style; a spate of physical problems caused him to average only 13.4 points and shoot 40.3 percent overall heading into the break. Right now the Spurs look awesome; Manu is shredding opponents to pieces and Tony is coming back in a week. But if today's theme is "things change," we should add that "things change often" when it comes to the health of the San Antonio backcourt.


Denver: Kenyon Martin and George Karl

For most of the season, Denver has been the default choice for the West's best threat to knock off the Lakers, but the Nuggets' Achilles' heel has always been frontcourt depth. With only three quality players for the rotation, any injury up front was bound to knock them sideways. Thus, Martin's knee injury (a partially torn patellar tendon) is a huge problem -- while they're cautiously optimistic he can come back before the playoffs, there's no certainty he'll have the same bounce that makes him such an effective finisher and defender.

Speaking of uncertainty, the Nuggets' coaching situation is all but unprecedented. Assistant Adrian Dantley has the reins for an indeterminate length of time while George Karl undergoes cancer treatment. As with Martin, they're holding out hope Karl can return for a playoff run, but there's no certainty he'll be able to do it. Dantley, meanwhile, is in an impossible situation as what amounts to a long-term substitute teacher: not permanent enough to crack heads and maintain discipline, but not transitory enough to just hold the tiller in one spot until the captain returns. Having a veteran team helps, but there are a lot of personalities to manage in Denver's locker room.

Minus Martin and their coach, the Nuggets have lost four out of five, with the lone win a buzzer-beater in Toronto. Given the difficulty of Denver's remaining schedule, the worry is that "slump" turns into "freefall" and costs them home-court advantage for the playoffs … making for a much more challenging first round just as they're trying -- they hope -- to re-integrate Martin and Karl.


Phoenix: Robin Lopez

The Suns have quietly been playing as well as any team in the West over the past two months, ripping off 21 wins in their past 26 games thanks to an explosive second half from Amare Stoudemire. However, one of the main catalysts for that turnaround is a health question heading into the playoffs.

Center Robin Lopez will miss at least five games with bulging disks in his back, and while he's not a big star it's still a major loss for Phoenix. Lopez's promotion as a starter keyed both the Suns' improvement at the defensive end and Stoudemire's eruption from the power forward spot (he was effectively playing center prior to that move). The Suns aren't a deep team, especially up front -- veteran retread Jason Collins started in Lopez's place Sunday -- and this is where it could come back to bite them.

I mentioned above how even minor changes could have a major effect since the margin between teams is so small, and this is a great example. Because the Suns are right on the cusp of the West's elite both in terms of the standings (one game out of second) and the Power Rankings (a close fourth), the implications could be huge. The state of Lopez's back two weeks from now could end up being the difference between an early exit and a deep playoff run.


Dallas: Rodrigue Beaubois

OK, I've saved the best for last. I was unmoved by the Mavs' raves over Beaubois early in the season, figuring if he couldn't beat out J.J. Barea he wasn't worth spilling much ink over. For four months that proved true, but he has completely blown up in March and spawned "Free Roddy" campaigns across the Metroplex.

Beaubois' exclamation point was his 40-point outburst against Golden State on Saturday; while the list of players who have torched the Warriors isn't exactly a select group, he's been providing spectacular offensive fireworks the entire month. Check out these March numbers: a Kobe-esque 31.1 points per 40 minutes, 58.9 percent shooting and 48.8 percent on 3s. He's been so good, in fact, that he now leads all rookies in PER.

We can't expect him to produce quite this bountifully going forward, but subjectively his strong play isn't difficult to explain. One of the best athletes to come out of Europe in recent years, he's best described as a hybrid of Tony Parker and Leandro Barbosa -- he's French, small and fast like Parker, but like Barbosa he is a good outside shooter with straight-line speed who has played dramatically better as a 2.

Beaubois has been under control, too, with only nine turnovers in 10 games in March, excluding last week's one-minute outings against Boston and Portland.

(Insert sound of needle scratching across record.)

Wait … one-minute outings? This guy? How?

Well, he's not the easiest guy for whom to find good matchups. He's basically a 6-foot-2 shooting guard, at least for the purposes of this season's Mavericks (the long-term plan is for him to play the point), so one can understand the reluctance to pair him in a small backcourt with Barea, or a small and passer-less one with Jason Terry.

Here's the thing: They might as well, because there's really nothing to lose here. Even the most avid Mavs Kool-Aid drinker would have to concede that a Beaubois-less Dallas rotation is winning one playoff round at best.

Beaubois does three things for Dallas: He mends a glaring defensive weakness against quick point guards, he solves the need for another player who can create his own shot and he fixes an athleticism deficit the Mavs still face against several Western powers.

After his breakout by the Bay, the instinct is to replace Barea with Beaubois and leave the rest of the rotation intact. Actually, I'd argue for stronger medicine: Start the guy, keep Terry coming off the bench and play Barea and Terry together against opposing second units.

Shifting the rest of the rotation isn't rocket science. Having Beaubois or Terry check 2s is a worry when they're in the game together, but Caron Butler isn't exactly contending for defensive player of the year either. Despite a superficially impressive scoring average, Butler also has the worst PER of the Mavs' revised eight-man rotation; if you're curious, that's true even of his post-trade numbers. Moving Butler into a 20-minute bench role would free Roddy, and there's really no reason not to try it -- freeing Roddy might be the only thing that can keep Dallas from freeing its golf clubs this spring.

[T101]

Normally at this time of year, we would be writing breathless articles about the MVP race, rallying our support behind one candidate or another and sifting through torrents of angry e-mails supporting that player's rivals.

Not this year.

The MVP race has been over since about mid-January. LeBron James has run so far away from the pack that he could shoot 0-for-100 from the field over his final eight games and still win the award going away. (For fun, I fact-checked this: Even with 100 straight misses, no assists and no rebounds in his next 200 minutes, he'd still lead the league in PER.)

Only two items of interest remain. First, will some sycophant homer screw up what should be a unanimous decision with a completely indefensible vote for his local guy? And second, is this the best individual season a player has ever had?

As you might suspect, today's topic deals with the second of those questions. Some of this may sound familiar, as this time a year ago I mentioned that James was en route to one of the best statistical seasons in history.

Here's the thing: This season, he's been better.

Once again, a hallowed record (at least in my world) is in play for James as we enter the final eight games: He could surpass Michael Jordan's 1987-88 campaign for the greatest single-season PER in the modern era. I have to add the "modern" qualifier because the league didn't keep track of things like blocks and individual turnovers before 1973-74, rendering the PER exercise a guessing game for players from previous eras.

James' current PER of 31.81 is second best in "modern" history, and with eight games left (of which he'll probably play only five or six), he retains an outside shot at breaking Jordan's all-time mark of 31.89. At the very least, he's going to be within hailing distance.

Regardless, James will almost certainly set another record: The best two-year PER stretch of any player in history. James was no slouch last season, finishing at 31.76 for the third-best PER ever (well, until he bumped it down to fourth this season); combined, that gives him a two-year average of 31.78. The best Jordan mustered was 31.55.

Obviously, the larger James versus Jordan argument won't be much of a debate until LeBron picks up some hardware in the postseason. Nonetheless, I can't emphasize enough what an extraordinary accomplishment James' past two seasons represent. We've flinched at comparing current players to Jordan after several previous "next Jordans" were found wanting. But that has put up a mental barrier to a declaration that the numbers see as obvious: In terms of regular-season performance, we're watching the next Jordan.

I'd argue that we can extend that comparison further. When Jordan was at the same stage of his career as LeBron, the press treated him almost exactly the same. Like James, he was a wondrous regular-season performer who had never won anything important and thus couldn't be compared with the likes of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

Looking back, that whole notion seems laughable, if not downright quaint … yet we're falling in the exact same trap. Jordan, remember, didn't win a title until his seventh season. As luck would have it, James is in his seventh season, and his odds of winning a crown have never looked better. With the Lakers faltering down the stretch and the Celtics succumbing to age, only James' nemesis from a year ago -- Orlando -- would rate as an even-money proposition to stop him from winning the trophy.

That part of the James-Jordan comparison won't be settled for another two months, his regular-season one in a little more than two weeks.

James leads the league in scoring, at least for the moment (Kevin Durant is only 0.2 behind, and if James rests the final couple of games, Durant will have a number to shoot for, David Robinson-style, in the season finale). But LeBron is not just scoring. He's getting his 29.8 points per game with incredibly high-percentage shots. James' true shooting percentage of 60.4 ranks in the league's top 25, and most of the players ahead of him are snipers with much smaller offensive roles.

Yet for me, his passing is the most amazing part. In fact, for a wing player, it's eye-popping: James has cracked the league's top 15 in pure point rating even though he plays small forward. (Except for James and San Antonio's Manu Ginobili, every player in the top 40 plays the point).

Or try this one on for size: No forward in league history has ever averaged more than eight assists per game until this season; Larry Bird's 7.6 assists per game in 1986-87 came the closest. James is averaging 8.6, even though he's playing in one of the slow-paced eras in league annals and averages a relatively modest 39.0 minutes per game. Put him at Bird's pace in 1986-87, and he'd be averaging a whopping 9.3.

The same applies to most of James' numbers. On a per possession basis, his triple-crown stats of 29.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 8.6 assists crush Oscar Robertson's triple-double season in 1961-62 … or Jordan's 32.5-8.0-8.0 season in 1988-89 … or just about any statistical season in history.

All except one, that is. James' output still trails Jordan's peak campaign in 1987-88 by a whisker. He has a chance to glide past him in the final two weeks but, with Cleveland throttling down to coast into the postseason, probably won't.

Nonetheless, it's a season for the ages -- and his second of the like in a row. We've held off on comparing James to Jordan for some good reasons, especially since he hasn't won a title yet. But at this point, there's nobody else left to whom we can compare him.

[T101]

The question brought up to me in conversations with a few different media members Wednesday night says all you need to know about the state of the Lakers right now.

"Who do they want in the first round?" they asked, and they asked because, unlike last year, it actually matters.

Last year, Laker observers didn't care if their team played Utah, New Orleans or Dallas to kick off the postseason. The Lakers' first-round foe was merely a speed bump before more challenging opponents that lay in later rounds.

This year? Not so much. The gap between L.A. and its potential Round 1 opponents isn't nearly as large as the No. 1 vs. No. 8 seeding would have you think, especially once one considers recent performance.

Of the three teams the defending champs are likely to face to open the playoffs -- Oklahoma City, Portland or San Antonio -- none looks particularly appetizing.

For instance, here's a quick peek at how L.A. and its potential first-round rivals have fared since the All-Star break:

Portland: 15-5
Oklahoma City: 16-7
San Antonio: 15-8
L.A. Lakers: 13-8

Kind of jarring, ain't it?

Thursday's Power Rankings offer similarly humbling news for the defending champs:

San Antonio: 106.19 (fourth overall)
L.A. Lakers: 104.99 (sixth)
Portland: 104.52 (eighth)
Oklahoma City: 103.96 (10th)

Want more? L.A.'s edge in the Power Rankings over Portland and Oklahoma City was built entirely between November and early February. In the last quarter of each team's schedule, the margin of victory difference is shocking:

San Antonio: +7.0 (fifth)
Portland: +6.6 (sixth)
Oklahoma City: +5.3 (eighth)
L.A. Lakers: +1.2 (15th)

in other words, regardless of the opponent, the Lakers will be facing a team that is playing dramatically better than they are in the first round.

If that isn't enough, flip it over and consider things from the other side of the equation. Both Portland and San Antonio lost all four matchups with Utah this season, but each feels like it has a great shot if it can draw the Lakers. (A columnist in Portland already opined as much a few weeks ago.)

Can you imagine both Portland and Oklahoma City trying to tank on purpose when they meet in both teams' second-to-last game of the season on April 12 in order to avoid Utah and play the Lakers?

Such a scenario was unthinkable last year, or even a month ago. But both teams have reason to feel confident against L.A.. The Blazers own the Lakers in Portland, having won nine of the past 10; in fact, Brandon Roy has never lost to L.A. in the Rose Garden. Meanwhile, the Thunder are coming off a 91-75 rout of L.A. earlier this week and had two early-season games with the Lakers -- when L.A. was playing much better than it is now -- go down to the wire.

The real answer to the question "whom would the Lakers prefer to face?" is probably either Dallas or Denver … like L.A., both teams have limped along with weak scoring margins of late. Alas, those are about the two least likely teams for the Lakers to draw based on how the bracket shapes up. Denver, which owns tiebreakers with San Antonio and Oklahoma City, would have to stage a monumental collapse to drop to No. 8, while Dallas is currently in the No. 2 position.

If you're scripting an ideal opponent for the Lakers, you're looking for three things: a lack of guard quickness, since the Lakers' defense struggles to contain speedy guards; a short front line, since Pau Gasol abuses defenders who can't match his length; and a lack of a wing stopper to check Kobe Bryant.

This is the part where a Lakers fan has to look at the matchups and think "uh-oh."

Quick guards? How about Brandon Roy, Jerryd Bayless and Andre Miller in Portland … or Tony Parker in San Antonio … or Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City? This is going to be a problem for L.A. in Round 1, regardless of opponent. I suppose the Lakers would prefer Portland in this analysis since Miller doesn't quite have the jets of the other two guys, but any way you slice it, it's not good.

Length up front? The Blazers' LaMarcus Aldridge and Marcus Camby stack up inch for inch with the Lakers' Gasol-Bynum pairing. The Spurs, of course, have Tim Duncan, one of the longest players in the league; however, they lack another rotation player with comparable size. Oklahoma City probably rates worst in this category, although secret bench weapon Serge Ibaka makes up for inches with his timing and leaping ability.

Kobe stoppers? The Blazers can throw Nicolas Batum and Martell Webster at Bryant and bother him with length -- the most reliable way to guard him since he's become so dependent on shooting post-up jumpers. The Thunder own one of the best individual defenders in the league in Thabo Sefolosha. The Spurs don't have quite as good an arsenal, with Keith Bogans the most qualified candidate. So San Antonio would be the preferred opponent in this situation.

Size up the three categories, and I think it's clear the Lakers don't want anything to do with Portland, and wouldn't be real excited to face Oklahoma City either. San Antonio is playing the best of the three teams right now, and the Spurs are always a scary proposition in the postseason … but matchup-wise, this looks like the one L.A. can handle most ably.

It's also the most probable pairing, according to Thursday's Playoff Odds -- Portland and San Antonio both project to finish with 50 wins, but Portland's tiebreaker drops the Spurs to eighth. Conveniently enough, the Spurs also visit Staples Center on Sunday to offer us a potential preview. Take a good look, because what you see might surprise you.

The Lakers may very well avoid joining the 1994 Sonics, 1999 Heat and 2007 Mavs in the infamous group of top-seeded first-round losers, but it won't be an easy ride. That in itself is quite a statement about how the defending champs' play has fallen over the past two months. We're no longer granting them a bye into the Finals and debating whether they can repeat. Instead, we're arguing over whether they can even win a series.

[T101]

Here are two things I didn't expect to be saying heading into Friday's Jazz-Lakers game (10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN):

1) The Jazz and Lakers are meeting in a potential Western Conference finals preview; and

2) The Lakers enter the game with a lot more to prove than the Jazz.

I've dumped on the Lakers enough in the past few days (such as here and here, for instance), so today I want to look at their opponent. Despite undeniably impressive results in the past several weeks, I sense an unusual reticence from the masses to take Utah seriously as a contender.

To an extent, I get it. For starters, geography isn't helping them -- witness how long it took everyone to get on the Denver bandwagon last year. Salt Lake City is in the same time zone and half the size (more or less), so it may take the Jazz a little longer than usual to elbow their way into the national consciousness.

Second, they didn't exactly leave a positive impression last season, at a time when most were more willing to accept the possibility of Utah ascending to contender status. The Jazz flamed out with a 2-7 regular-season finish that included an embarrassing home loss to a seven-man Golden State team with four undrafted players (they let Rob Kurz score 21 points; Rob Kurz!!), and were summarily dismissed by the Lakers in five games in the first round.

Finally, Utah's personnel is essentially the same as last season, so there was no new shiny object to get our attention. The presumption has been that with the same players, they would get more or less the same result.

Well, they haven't, and it's long past time people woke up. Utah rose to the top of the Power Rankings more than two months ago and hasn't left the top three.

Since late January, the Jazz have done little to deter the Power Rankings' faith in them, winning 31 of their past 40 games, and if they beat L.A. on Friday, they'll have played a half-season at a 64-win pace. They've also overtaken the Lakers as the top scoring margin in the Western Conference, and charged up the West standings in the process. Utah was 19-17 on Jan. 11, but as of Friday it appears Utah will own the West's No. 2 seed in the playoffs.

So what's different? How is a Utah team that was so bad at the end of last season so good this time around, with essentially the same players?

Dig deeper, and four big reasons emerge:

1. Carlos Boozer is back
Boozer had his worst season as a pro in 2008-09, his numbers dipping across the board. He missed 45 games with injuries, and when he played he didn't play well -- 16.2 points per game, 49.0 percent shooting and some of the league's most permissive defense.

This season, his numbers have bounced back to his 2007-08 levels, when the Jazz were in a similar position. That season, they nearly had the West's top scoring margin, and played six tough games against the Lakers in the second round of the playoffs before succumbing.

Boozer is scoring less and rebounding more than he did in that campaign, but quality-wise it's nearly identical; the eight-year vet currently has a 21.46 player efficiency rating (PER) compared to 21.83 two seasons ago. In fact, if you look at his past five seasons, the 2008-09 campaign is the outlier. Every other season he's shot in the mid-50s, averaged about 22 points and a dozen boards per 40 minutes and posted a PER in the low 20s.

2. Paul Millsap and Boozer are both healthy at the same time
Here's another underrated factor in Utah's success. Millsap had a huge season in '08-09. For a while he was playing so well as Boozer's replacement that he garnered consideration for the All-Star team. Unfortunately, the minutes overwhelmed him and he completely ran out of gas late in the season. By year-end, both Millsap and Boozer were struggling and an on-paper strength at power forward became a liability.

This season, Millsap isn't having as good a campaign statistically (11.7 points and 6.5 rebounds per game) … but he's still chugging along heading into the playoffs because he's averaging 27 minutes a game. And because he's subbing for a healthy Boozer or teaming with him in relief of Mehmet Okur, Utah's three-man frontcourt rotation is back to being a major strength.

3. Andrei Kirilenko is re-engaged
I've mentioned this before so I won't dwell on it now, but Kirilenko has been a much more active, enthusiastic participant than he was last season. This is particularly noticeable on the defensive end, but his offense has taken a boost, too. Kirilenko is making fewer crazy passes and taking more sensible shots. As a result, his field goal percentage is back up to 50.6, just like he shot in 2007-08 … and not the miserable 44.9 percent he clanged up in 2008-09.

He's regained his starting small forward spot, too, and while a recent calf problem is cause for concern entering the playoffs, he's another player who is performing much better than at this time a year ago.

4. Wes Matthews finally gives them an on-ball defender
To say the Jazz have all the same players as last season isn't entirely accurate. They've made one important change: Undrafted rookie Matthews has replaced the departed Ronnie Brewer at shooting guard. And what a find he's turned out to be.

The Jazz have struggled to defend good wing players for years, but Matthews -- despite standing just 6-foot-4 -- is strong and tough enough to get the job done on most nights.

Superficially, Utah's standing in defensive efficiency hasn't changed much (they're 10th now after finishing 12th last season). But relative to the league, they've gained about 1.2 points per game … which is worth about four wins over the course of a season. Matthews has been a big part of that change.

Yet he's not taking things off the table offensively. Brewer was a more effective offensive player because of his ability to score at the basket or in transition. But on this team, Matthews might be a better fit because of his shooting ability. Utah has been desperate for perimeter threats for some time, but Matthews is shooting 38.0 percent on 3s and growing increasingly comfortable with the NBA distance. At the very least, opponents have to acknowledge him on the perimeter and think twice about doubling Boozer.

Sum it all up and this year's Jazz look a lot more potent than the team that limped into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed last year. Their small market and disappointing recent history have made it hard for them to get into the national spotlight, but if this isn't a serious contender then I don't know what is. Our inability to take the Jazz seriously is on us, not them.

[T101]

As a general rule, we don't pay nearly enough attention to defense. Pick a game, any game, and the first player mentioned in the wrap-up will be the high scorer from the winning team. The game's statistical revolution, to this point, hasn't been particularly helpful in that regard. While we can show you in very precise terms how effective somebody like Kevin Martin is at the offensive end, we have very little ammunition to make similar arguments for his teammates like Chuck Hayes or Shane Battier.

But there are ways to try to rectify such oversights, and with that, it's once again time for me to name my All-Defense team.

Despite all that's been done with numbers over the past decade or so, this remains an inherently subjective exercise. So let me lay down some ground rules.

First, I named players at the position they guard, not the position they play on offense. For one player below in particular, this is a very important distinction. Second, minutes matter: Somebody who plays great in 1,000 minutes can't match the value of somebody who plays 2,000.

From there, I used three techniques to choose the team. First, I looked at the player's on-court versus off-court point differential at the defensive end, measured per 100 possessions (hat-tip to BasketballValue.com for that one). I've included that measure for every player listed below -- the more negative the number, the better. Second, I looked at a team's defensive efficiency; having an average point differential for the top-ranked defense (Charlotte) is a very different feat than doing the same for the worst defense (Toronto).

And, as always, then there's the subjective component. On this front, I'll at least mention that I've put in the legwork. I saw all these teams play start-to-finish on the tube at least 10 times, and saw all but one of the top 17 defensive teams in person, most of them more than once. (Sorry, Bobcats, the schedule didn't work out for us this season. Maybe in the playoffs.)

At each position, I have three teams and a few honorable mention candidates. You can argue differently in several cases and it would be tough for me to offer a convincing retort; as I said, this is an inherently subjective exercise. Regardless, here's one man's opinion on how they should rank:

Point guard

Point guard is always the toughest position to fill, and it's even tougher without one of the usual mainstays in New Orleans' Chris Paul, who missed time with injuries and came back hobbling. We can cobble a decent list of candidates anyway, but we've had better seasons at this spot.

Honorable mention: Indiana has had a rough season, but the Pacers have improved quite a bit at the defensive end. The ability of Earl Watson (+2.35) to defend at the point of attack has been a big reason, because Troy Murphy and Roy Hibbert sure as heck aren't stopping anybody who gets past Watson. In fact, those two largely explain why Watson's on-court versus off-court number is so mediocre.

Two rookies also stood out. Jrue Holiday of Philadelphia (+0.92) could be positively awesome in another year or two; for now we just need to flag him as one to watch for the future. While splitting his season between two teams, Eric Maynor had monstrously good +minus numbers (-5.55) playing behind two pretty decent defenders in Deron Williams and Russell Westbrook. I'm a little skeptical because he didn't do anything that particularly stood out, but I'll be watching him a lot more closely going forward.

In the oldies but goodies category, Andre Miller (-3.50), Deron Williams (+1.18) and Raymond Felton (+2.07) continue to warrant mention as tough, no-nonsense guards who keep their man in front and follow the game plan. Miller is the most vulnerable of the three to penetration but also the best at playing off the ball and reading opponents' plays, helping explain yet another sterling on-court versus off-court differential. Williams' size is his greatest asset, letting him deny physical point guards their preferred positions in the paint and allowing him to switch onto wings if needed. As for Felton, his numbers would be better if he didn't moonlight periodically at the 2, where he gives up too many inches. As the starting point guard for the league's No. 1 defense, he's been as steady as they come.

Lowry

Third team: Kyle Lowry, Houston (-3.88)
I had him ranked higher, but his play dropped off toward the end -- he mailed in the Indiana game Sunday, for instance. In spite of the slump, I'm a big fan of Lowry because of his toughness, knack for taking charges and exceptional lateral quickness.

His numbers look awesome because he shares minutes with a poor defender (Aaron Brooks), but he's a stud defender regardless.

Hill

Second team: George Hill, San Antonio (+0.92)
He's a combo guard who owns freakishly long arms that he's learning to use to great effect at the defensive end, but Hill's numbers suffer a bit because he was so often used as a stopper at the 2. He can defend that spot capably but at 6-3 gives up some inches.

It's at the 1 where Hill is a real defensive force, which is one reason San Antonio has held up so well in Tony Parker's absence.

Rondo

First team: Rajon Rondo, Boston (-2.20)
Rondo remains the cream of the crop when it comes to defending the point guard position in spite of a propensity for gambling that sometimes drives Boston coach Doc Rivers crazy. He's the main reason the Celtics are so good at forcing turnovers, leading the league in steals and using his young legs to save Boston's aging core from a serious speed disadvantage. As an added plus, his arms are so long that he can switch to face bigger guards with relative ease.

Shooting guard

I wasn't really crazy about this season's candidates, to be honest. Shooting guards are mostly offensive players. While there are exceptions, we had a lot of good defenders but no great ones and ended up making some compromises. It didn't help that two of the best, Shane Battier (-0.34) and Raja Bell, fell off our list due to age and injuries.

Honorable mention: Thabo Sefolosha of Oklahoma City is an emerging force as a defensive stopper. But as much as I wanted to put my Swiss compadre in the top three to reward the Thunder's overall defensive strength, his on-court versus off-court numbers and opponent PER didn't warrant such consideration and I didn't see enough subjectively to overrule the numbers.

Arron Afflalo (minu-0.14) was flat-out stolen from the Pistons and, like Sefolosha, may be a fixture on my All-Defensive team over the next few years, with his strength against post-ups being a particularly useful asset. But Denver was just a middling defensive team, and -- as with Sefolosha -- Afflalo's stats weren't overwhelming enough to put him in the top three.

Delonte West (-2.02) is a top-notch defender at the 2 when he's locked in, which was more the case the second half of the season than the first half. If he keeps it up for a full season he's in the top three, but not this time.

Kirk Hinrich (+0.60) missed time with injuries and gives up inches to nearly every opponent, which leads him to foul more than most other elite defenders. Nonetheless, he's a very effective stopper for one of the league's better defensive teams.

Kidd

Third team: Jason Kidd, Dallas (-3.87)
Kidd guarded shooting guards almost exclusively for much of the season, although he's done it a bit less since the Caron Butler trade. While Kidd is a traffic cone against fast point guards, he defends bigger players extremely well: He is strong, has enough size to check 2s and still moves well through screens.

Believe it or not, at age 37 he's also fourth in the league in steals per game and tied for second in total steals. (Also, he's fourth all-time in total steals and likely to pass No. 3 Gary Payton and No. 2 Michael Jordan to finish second behind John Stockton.) Throw in his high hoops IQ and ability to pester post players and still get back to his man, and Kidd is a high-impact defensive player despite his glaring vulnerability to speed.

Bryant

Second team: Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers (-4.29)
Bryant still turns it on and off at this end, but the past couple years the "on" switch has been illuminated more consistently.

Like a lot of top offensive players he doesn't spend a lot of time checking the opponents' top scoring threat, but when he's committed, he's still as good as they come at this end thanks to his legendary competitiveness and underrated muscle.

Wade

First team: Dwyane Wade, Miami (+1.19)
Miami is fourth in defensive efficiency this season. Fourth. Look at that roster and give me one good reason the Heat rank that highly. I'll give you the answer: Because they have a 6-4 guard who can block shots at the rim, snuff out opposing plays from the weak side and generally wreak havoc off the ball.

Wade used to cancel out his prolific play by gambling too much, but now he is picking his spots and as a result has become the league's best freelancer. Wade is good on the ball, too, but his best work comes when he can defend a secondary option and roam.

Small forward

In contrast to shooting guard, the small forward position gave us an unusually strong field of candidates. The 3 is traditionally a spot where we're scrounging for a full set of candidates, but this season I had to exclude several players who seemed worthy of at least third-team consideration.

Honorable mention: Two young Blazers are working their way up this list. Martell Webster handled stopper responsibilities for much of the season and did solid work, especially when matched against bigger players who didn't rely on quickness. He's not quite a natural, but he's put in a lot of effort. Late in the season, after an injury, Nicolas Batum came on and provided an impact. He's likely to be a regular on this list in coming years but doesn't have enough minutes to get more than honorable mention this season.

It pains me to exclude these next three players in particular from the squad. Utah's Andrei Kirilenko (-4.78) was a huge force, playing some of his best D since his All-Star season. Thanks to his incredibly long arms, few are better at coming from behind an opposing big man for the block; additionally, Kirilenko tightened up his previously somewhat lax perimeter defense and, as always, got his mitts on the ball tons of times thanks to his superior length.

Boston's Paul Pierce (-1.91) remains vastly underrated for his D, as he's one of the league's few stars who routinely checks the opponent's best scoring threat. While Pierce gets a lot of help from all the quality surrounding him in Boston, he's still the one doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

Finally, Dallas' Shawn Marion (-3.27) is part of the reason I could include Jason Kidd at shooting guard -- Marion often checks quick point guards and does a reasonable job of it, plus he's been extremely effective in guarding more traditional 3s like Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James.

Artest

Third team: Ron Artest, L.A. Lakers (-4.32)
Artest isn't as quick as he used to be and struggles chasing players through screens, but he is impossible to post up against, has incredibly quick hands and plays as hard as anyone in the league. His arrival has made L.A. a better defensive team despite the implosion of its bench and the decline of point guard Derek Fisher, with the Lakers leading the league in defense for a big chunk of the season before a late-season slump sent them to their current sixth position.

James

Second team: LeBron James, Cleveland (+0.46)
James' on-court versus off-court numbers suffer in part because Cleveland's other two aces, Delonte West and Anderson Varejao, are usually on the court when he isn't. But he's been an equally big reason the Cavs are eighth in defensive efficiency despite working in the plodding Shaquille O'Neal and suffering several injuries along the way. His half-court help defense still could use improvement, but he's become a very good on-ball defender and a veritable human eraser against opponent fast breaks because of his chase-down speed. And as for posting him up, forget about it. You'll have better luck trying to back down an 18-wheeler.

Wallace

First team: Gerald Wallace, Charlotte (+0.19)
Sorry, LeBron. Wallace was the best defensive player on (at the moment) the best defensive team. One of the big changes under Larry Brown has been the conversion of Wallace from a gambling rover into a solid stay-at-home defender.

He still impacts the game with his athleticism as sort of a poor man's Wade, playing passing lanes when opportunities strike and surprising bigger players with his shot-blocking, but now it's done in the confines of one of the league's most disciplined defenses. Additionally, few are better switching onto smaller players, and Wallace's versatility defending 2s, 3s and 4s gives Brown a lot of leeway in matchups.

Wallace's +minus isn't great, but partly that's because of how the Bobcats play: All of Charlotte's starters have unimpressive +minus numbers, but as a group they play the vast majority of the minutes for the league's top-ranked club in defensive efficiency.

Power forward

The competition gets tighter as the players get bigger, and power forward is the most interesting position in that sense because of the versatility it requires. Depending on whether the matchup is somebody like Rashard Lewis or an opponent more like Carlos Boozer, the players on this list have to defend post players on one night and guard the 3-point line the next. The best of them do it seamlessly.

Honorable mention: Lamar Odom (-3.94) doesn't get enough credit for his D. He can guard anybody 1 through 4, he never gets overpowered despite lacking a muscular frame, and he's never out of position. For a player who struggled with focus earlier in his career, he's made an amazing transformation into a reliable little-things guy.

Kevin Garnett, Boston (-5.42) drags his leg around and has clearly lost a step -- most notably when he switches onto the perimeter -- but his smarts, unparalleled length and legendary tenacity still make him one of the game's most effective defensive players.

Kenyon Martin (-0.96) doesn't have the numbers of some of the other players on this list, and neither does his team, but his mettle and ability to check smaller players on switches make him a key piece in Denver's arsenal -- and one that's been sorely missed as the Nuggets limp through the homestretch.

Oklahoma City's Serge Ibaka (-1.99) didn't play a lot of minutes, but he's a terror in the making because of his length, quickness and shot-blocking ability. Of particular note was the fourth quarter of the game in Portland this season, when he basically eradicated LaMarcus Aldridge from the box score -- Aldridge didn't get a shot attempt the entire quarter, and it wasn't from lack of trying.

Mbah a Moute

Third team: Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Milwaukee (-2.90)
He can check 3s or 4s, inside or out, and remains the league's most underrated defensive player. Right now the only thing preventing him from ranking higher is his offense; he's played only 1,681 minutes this season because his inability to shoot, score or pass makes it difficult to justify keeping him on the floor.

If he ever becomes competent offensively he'll be an All-Defense fixture for the next decade. He's that good.

Smith

Second team: Josh Smith, Atlanta (-3.79)
According to HoopData.com, Smith leads the league in "defensive plays" (blocks plus steals plus charges) per game. He's rediscovered his shot-blocking knack after a mysterious decline last season, and he has a unique position in the league leader charts: He's the shortest player in the top 10 in blocks and the tallest player in the top 10 in steals. Smith has become smarter about taking his gambles, staying on the floor more often, while the ability of Smith and Al Horford to switch onto smaller guards is the key to Atlanta's entire defensive strategy, one that can best be summed up as "Switch everything."

The only negative is that the Hawks are just 14th overall in defensive efficiency. Swiss-cheese guards and horrific transition defense are the main culprits, but it's tough to rate Smith first when he hasn't had enough impact to keep the team's overall defense from being mediocre.

Varejao

First team: Anderson Varejao, Cleveland (-5.34)
Raggedy Andy was my midseason choice for NBA Defensive Player of the Year, and while I can no longer go quite that far, I remain convinced that he's the best defensive power forward in the business. No big man in basketball is better at switching out onto smaller players, and Varejao combines that skill with toughness in the post and solid work on the boards. In fact, he's one of the most frustrating opponents in the league for good post players because he's so active, progressing far beyond the flopping vaudeville act of years past into a truly elite defensive performer.

Center

Center is always the toughest position at which to rank players because an inordinate number of topflight defensive players man the position. This season is no exception, as you'll see from our extensive honorable mention list. Nonetheless, a few players stood out even among this outstanding group, and we'll detail their exploits below.

Honorable mention: Two players -- Marcus Camby (-5.00) and Brendan Haywood (-3.26) -- changed teams during the course of the season, making their on-court versus off-court numbers even less reliable than normal. But both players have posted sparkling numbers in this category in other seasons, and in each case their reputations back up the numbers. Each has one weakness that keeps him out of the top three, though: For Camby it's his unwillingness to show against a pick-and-roll, and for Haywood it's his tendency to take nights off.

Kendrick Perkins (-3.28) isn't a great shot-blocker, but he's a mean, physical SOB who plays incredibly tough post defense. If you're going up against Dwight Howard, then Perk is the player you want guarding him. A couple other centers, however, outrank him as help defenders, especially when it comes to picking up guards on the perimeter.

Chicago's Joakim Noah (+0.86) is one of them; in fact he might be the best pick-and-roll defender among the league's centers. Plus, he put up much stronger rebounding numbers this season. His unimpressive on-court versus off-court numbers seem to be misleading when one considers how badly the team went in the tank as soon as he was hurt, but his one-on-one post defense still could use improvement.

Tim Duncan (-4.30) has been a mainstay of previous teams and can still affect games with his length, timing and smarts. But he doesn't move nearly as well as he used to and is no longer a game-changer from the weak side.

Finally, Houston's Chuck Hayes (-2.77) might be the best inch-for-inch defender in basketball. But at 6-6 on a list of 7-footers, he'll need a few more inches to crack this list.

But the hardest player to leave off my top three wasn't any of those guys -- it was Oklahoma City's Nick Collison (-7.22). You heard that correctly: Nick Collison. Every metric says Collison was one of the league's most effective defensive players this season, leading the league in drawing charges despite coming off the bench and posting a phenomenal on-court versus off-court differential for the league's seventh-ranked defensive squad. Unfortunately for Collison, three other players were a bit better.

Bogut

Third team: Andrew Bogut, Milwaukee (-4.47)
Bogut was the unifying force behind the league's fifth-ranked defensive team, combing his longstanding knack for taking charges with a newfound talent for blocking shots at the rim. Combined with his toughness in post D and his control of the boards, he'd been one of the season's underrated stories. He's become an offensive force too, but his stout defense is the bigger reason that his unfortunate fall against Phoenix on Saturday was so damaging to the Bucks' playoff upset hopes.

Wallace

Second team: Ben Wallace, Detroit (-9.35)
Detroit was only 27th in defensive efficiency, but don't blame Big Ben. He was positively awesome in the first half of the season, bringing back memories of his dominating days of yore with the Pistons, and the team's defense immediately went in the tank once he was hurt. Wallace's ridiculous on-court versus off-court numbers are helped by his weak counterparts in the Pistons' frontcourt, but observation backs up the numbers in this case: Big Ben was freakishly good.

Howard

First team and Defensive POY: Dwight Howard, Orlando (-2.27)
I was down on Howard earlier this season, as I didn't think he was moving particularly well in the first half of the season. All that's changed since about Christmas, however, and Howard is back to his dominating ways. So are the Magic, who rank a close second to Charlotte in defensive efficiency despite a roster laden mostly with offensive players.

The reason, of course, is Howard, who patrols the middle with his breathtaking shot-blocking ability, dominates the defensive glass, helps his guards on the perimeter and nullifies opposing breaks with his speed back down the court. It would be nice if he'd block a few more shots to his teammates rather than going for volleyball spikes into the 10th row, but as long as we're comparing him to current players rather than Bill Russell, Howard is easily the cream of the crop.

[T101]

Chucker. Gunner. Ball hog. Shot-seeker. Whatever term you want to use, there's a certain type of player out there that everyone is familiar with: Somebody who takes a lot of shots and makes, well, not a lot of them.

There's a fine line between this type of player and genuine superstars. Nobody begrudges LeBron James or Kobe Bryant using a quarter of his team's possessions, because they use those possessions so effectively. It's when you get to the players who shoot indiscriminately, especially low-percentage shots early in the clock, that fans (and coaches) get upset.

With that in mind, it's time to introduce a new annual award here at Hollinger HQ: The All-Gunner Team. We've combined visual, subjective observation with a comb through the stats for which players shoot most often with least effect.

Before we start, a few caveats: First of all, I didn't pick on players who are having unusually poor shooting seasons taking the shots they normally take (Rodney Stuckey and Kirk Hinrich, for instance) -- that's not the idea here. Second, I cut some slack for players on bad offensive teams. Stuckey and Richard Hamilton have ridiculously high usage rates, for instance, but that's in part because they play with three non-scorers around them most of the time -- somebody has to shoot the thing.

While many of the names should be obvious, a few have escaped attention this season. Without further ado, here are 15 players we'd like to see show a whole lot more discretion offensively:

Beasley

Michael Beasley, Heat
Beasley still packs some amazing offensive potential, but the results just haven't been there this season. The shots are, however.

He averages 13.4 shots per game in only 29.8 minutes per game, but has a true shooting percentage of just 50.1 -- even with Dwyane Wade commanding most of the opponent's attention -- and assists on just 7.2 percent of his possessions, putting him in the bottom third of power forwards. Beasley has by far the highest usage rate (23.3) of any frontcourt player with a TS% under 51.

Nocioni

Andres Nocioni, Kings
The classic case of a jaded veteran on a bad team; you can practically hear him screaming "get me out of here" every time he catches and shoots a contested 22-footer in the first seven seconds of the shot clock. Known as "Red Bull" for his superior effort level in Chicago, his color is more blue these days -- check out all those cold zones on his NBA.com shot chart. Nocioni shoots 46 percent or less from every spot except the left corner and 39.6 percent overall. Does "El Rey Azul" work for anyone?

Humphries

Kris Humphries, Nets
When a team trades you for Eduardo Najera and feels good about it, you know there might be a problem.

Humphries is a good athlete who can rebound, yet has never adjusted his worldview of his role in an offense to match the reality of his life as a 10th man in the NBA. Humphries has a TS% of just 48.9 but has matched Nocioni hoist for hoist; only five power forwards have a worse assist ratio.

Hughes

Larry Hughes, Bobcats
Cleveland's superb beat writer Brian Windhorst had a trademark phrase for Hughes called "all roads lead to 40 percent." He only wishes he could shoot that well these days -- he still takes the same questionable shots he did as a Cav but is converting at just 34.5 percent.

He has the worst TS% of any player with at least 800 minutes and a usage rate over 19.

Harrington

Al Harrington, Knicks
Just call him Seven Milliseconds or Less -- Harrington is shooting off the catch unless there's a darned good reason not to. Like if he's on his own side of half court, for instance, or if he's trapped under something heavy. Otherwise, it's time to hit the boards.

While Harrington's decent percentages make him one of the more innocuous gunners, his tunnel vision (7.8 assist ratio) is shocking. Only two players with a usage rate higher than 24 have a worse assist ratio, and those two (Amare Stoudemire and Chris Kaman) are interior players; Harrington is doing this from the perimeter.

Ilyasova

Ersan Ilyasova, Bucks
Everyone likes Ilyasova because he's tough, he rebounds and he's been a pleasant surprise in his return from Europe. Nonetheless, if we had a special category called Bad Jacks Late in Close Games, Ilyasova would be pushing for the league lead. While he's slightly less brazen than his brethren on this list in other situations, he offers most of the same traits -- a high usage rate, a low assist ratio and a below-average TS% for his position.

Evans

Tyreke Evans, Kings
Evans plays point guard much of the time and thus has a decent assist ratio, but that masks his major weakness as a playmaker: He thinks sequentially. As in, "First, I'll look for my shot; only when I am cut off, I'll look to see what's going on around me." As a result he might be one of the most frustrating teammates in the league.

He's one of a handful of players with a TS% under 53 and a usage rate above 25, but the visual is what really puts him over the top -- the idea of involving people just for the sake of their participation in the offense seems completely foreign to him. Too many times he's passing only as a last resort.

Ariza

Trevor Ariza, Rockets
Ariza is the league leader in a type of shot I call the "Contract Justifier" -- at least once a game, especially early in the season, he takes a ridiculous one-on-one heave for absolutely no reason ... except, one wonders, to justify his full midlevel deal and newfound "star" status with the Rockets. The irony is that this has had the exact opposite effect: Ariza's TS% is a brutal 47.5, the fourth-worst of any player with a usage rate above 20.0, and as a result his PER is well south of the mark he posted as a role player in Los Angeles.

Ellis

Monta Ellis, Warriors
The unquestioned captain of our all-gunner team, Ellis plays like the "2" on the shot clock isn't there and is seemingly oblivious to the fact most of his teammates are better shooters. If not all of them, actually ... Ellis actually has the worst TS% of any Warriors rotation payer, including the three D-League call-ups, yet is far and away the team leader in usage rate. He has the highest usage rate of any guard with a negative pure point rating, and the seventh-highest of any player in the league ... yet Golden State has the league's 21st-best offense when he's on the court and the second-best when he's not.

Wallace

Rasheed Wallace, Celtics
The Sports Guy's new favorite player is theoretically unselfish, except for the part about him being infected by the ghost of Antoine Walker and jacking up every 3 he can possibly get his hands on. Only Baron Davis has taken so many 3s to so little effect, and Davis has played nearly 50 percent more minutes.

What makes Wallace even more maddening is that there are plenty of shots you want him to take and he won't take them -- getting him to post up has proved frustratingly difficult ever since Mike Dunleavy was ripping out his few remaining hairs trying to get him to do it in Portland.

(Side note: Since Dunleavy's name has been disparaged for his performance with the Clips, I want to remind everyone that he coached a team with Isaiah Rider, Rasheed Wallace, Stacey Augmon and Bonzi Wells to the Western Conference finals in 1999, beating a Utah team with John Stockton and Karl Malone in the process. Just saying.)

Arenas

Gilbert Arenas, Wizards
No, it's not that kind of all-gunner team, but Arenas still belongs. Actually he rivals Ellis for the captain's spot. Arenas ranks third in the league in usage rate despite a TS% below the league norm at 51.1 percent; he seemed particularly fond of quick 3s off the dribble, attempting nearly six triples a game but hitting only 34.8 percent from long range.

Arenas' 7.2 assists per game were a new career high, but that's damning with faint praise -- he should have been sharing it more given his reduced effectiveness as a scorer.

Jefferson

Al Jefferson, Timberwolves
I realize it's the Wolves and somebody has to shoot on this gawdawful team, so I'd be willing to overlook the combination of subpar TS% (52.4) and high usage rate (22.5). But c'mon big fella, would it kill you to pass out of a double-team once in a while?

Jefferson is the unofficial league leader in post-ups that begin with him thinking "Let me just see if I can split this double before I try to kick it out" and end with him trapped by two men against the baseline. He's making progress of a sort -- his abysmal assist ratio (8.9) is a new career high -- but it's going much, much slower than hoped.

Ford

T.J. Ford, Pacers
Ford's numbers are deceiving because his assist ratio (24.1) is halfway decent, but the long-running complaint about him is that he'll pound the ball until he either scores or can make a pass that produces an assist -- there's no interest in moving the ball for movement's sake. Instead of "All for one and one for all," it's more like "All for one as long as that one is me."

In a related story, he's lost his starting job each of the past two seasons and has been relegated to third-string while the Pacers play their best ball of the season.

Smith

J.R. Smith, Nuggets
The league leader in "wow" shots. As in, "Wow, I can't believe he just took that shot." Or, "Wow, I can't believe he just pulled up from there." Or, "Wow, they're leaving him in the game after that?" Smith's shot selection was merely a curiosity in past seasons, but given the fact (A) it isn't getting any better, and (B) he's actually upped his gunning considerably, it's a far greater issue than in previous seasons.

Smith is the only player besides Monta Ellis with a usage rate above 24 and a negative pure point rating. In fact he's on pace for both a career-high usage rate and a career-low TS% -- never a good combination. The biggest reason is that he's taking six 3-pointers a game while making just 33.1 percent.

Pargo

Jannero Pargo, Bulls
People don't lump Pargo into conversations like this because he's a deep reserve, and because he's generally a good dude. But when it comes to jacking indiscriminately he has few peers, despite a jumper that's somewhere south of deadly. Pargo's TS% is a shockingly bad 43.4, the seventh-worst mark in basketball this season, but he's still firing away. Only one other player in the TS% bottom 25 (Bobby Brown) fires this indiscriminately, and Brown hardly plays; Pargo is a rotation player for a playoff contender. Let's hope he tones it down a little with the long J's off the dribble.

[ccook32691]

Could you post yesterday's per diem about the suns? thanks!

[T101]

Only six shopping days left before the playoffs start, and yet we still have about a zillion different possibilities for how the matchups could play out. Our Playoff Odds spit out the most likely combination, but that's just one of the abundant possibilities left on the table. So, let's investigate further with a look at all the key races and the realistic permutations that might result.

Before we begin, it's probably advisable to do a quick refresher on tiebreakers. Remember, the first tiebreak this season is whether a team is a division champion or not; that trumps anything else. The second is head-to-head record. After that, it's either division record (for teams in the same division) or conference record (for teams in the same conference).

Now, here's the lowdown:

East No. 8: Chicago vs. Toronto

 

This race seemed like it was done before Chris Bosh broke his face and the Cavs decided to play God by using LeBron James against Toronto but not Chicago. As a result, the Bulls and Raptors are now tied at 38-40 heading into their showdown in Toronto on Sunday.

That game is essentially for the last playoff spot in the East because I can't see the remaining schedules for these teams swinging the outcome by two games. Toronto is at Atlanta on Friday while the Bulls visit New Jersey, which could leave the Raps a game behind heading into Sunday. But the Raps close with Detroit and New York, and it's tough to see them dropping one of those, especially since Toronto is a combined 6-0 against both this season.

Similarly, Chicago has games against Boston and Charlotte left on the schedule. But the Bulls will almost certainly face Charlotte's scrubs in the season finale since the Bobcats seem locked into the No. 7 position (the Cats are two games behind Miami and Milwaukee and lose the tiebreak to the Bucks). It's possible the Bulls will play Boston's subs Tuesday as well.

East No. 3: Atlanta vs. Boston

 

Atlanta's loss in Detroit on Wednesday could not have been more damaging, as the Celtics now have caught the Hawks in the standings (both are 49-29), own the tiebreak as the Atlantic Division winner and don't have an obvious loss remaining on the schedule.

That said, Boston isn't out of the woods. The Celtics still have to visit Milwaukee and Chicago and could very well lose one of those games. The Hawks also visit Milwaukee but host Toronto and visit Washington before Wednesday.

That's where the Playoff Odds mislead us, because it sees Atlanta's finale against Cleveland as a likely loss. In reality, the Hawks are certain to win if it matters to them because the Cavs will play their scrubs. Thus, if Boston stumbles, the Hawks can still grab the No. 3 seed. I still like the Celtics' odds better and think they'll prevail in a tie at 52 wins.

East No. 5: Miami vs. Milwaukee

 

This is the easiest race to call. Miami's remaining schedule includes home against Detroit and New Jersey, and road matchups with Philadelphia and New York. The Heat will probably win all four to finish the season on a 13-game winning streak.

Milwaukee owns the tiebreak, but the Bucks have lost center Andrew Bogut and must play Atlanta once and Boston twice. The fact that the race for No. 3 isn't settled is a huge bummer for Milwaukee. The Bucks won't fall any lower than No. 6 since they own the tiebreak against Charlotte, but it's hard to see them getting the No. 5 position given the Heat's creampuff schedule.

Overall No. 2 seed: L.A. Lakers vs. Orlando

 

There has been some confusion about how a tie would be settled in the event of a Lakers-Magic Finals rematch. The league office confirmed for me this morning that since the two teams split their regular-season series, the tie would be decided by record against the opposite conference. That tiebreaker would favor the Lakers, who are 22-8 against the East, while the Magic are 20-10 versus the West.

Thus, even though L.A. and Orlando are tied right now at 55-23, the Lakers will maintain the upper hand if they can beat Portland on Sunday and avoid screwups against Minnesota, the Clippers and Sacramento.

Orlando has one theoretically tough game left at Cleveland on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, ABC) but we don't know if the Magic will face Cleveland's A-team. And visiting a pesky Indiana team on a back-to-back on Monday could give them problems. My expectation is that both teams will win out and land at 59-23, meaning L.A. will maintain the edge. Knowing that, the Magic may concede and play their scrubs in the season finale against Philadelphia.

One final interesting twist is that the Lakers can see the result of the Magic-Cavs game Sunday before deciding whether to play Kobe Bryant. If Orlando loses, the Lakers may decide to keep him on ice for another game.

West No. 2: Denver vs. the field

 

The Lakers' decision to rest Kobe on Thursday night handed the Nuggets the inside track to the West's No. 2 seed, but they may not have it for long. Denver must still win either at home against San Antonio or on the road against Phoenix to have a realistic shot at No. 2.

What the L.A. game really helped was the Nuggets' quest for home-court advantage, because Denver is a game up on Utah and owns the tiebreak. The Nuggets' magic number is now two, and while the Jazz could very well sweep their final three games (at New Orleans, at Golden State, home versus Phoenix), Denver needs only to beat Memphis at home and win one of the two games above to own the division, locking up home-court advantage and a probable No. 2 seed.

Denver's main rival for No. 2 is Dallas, which is also a likely division winner. Even if the Mavs lose Friday in Portland, their remaining schedule (at Sacramento, at Clippers, and home against San Antonio in the season finale) gives Dallas a good shot at the second seed. San Antonio is formidable at full strength, but may be locked into the No. 7 seed by then and opt to play its scrubs.

So even though the Playoff Odds project the Mavs at 53 wins, there's a good chance they'll land on 54. Since Dallas wins the tiebreaks with Denver (based on a 2-1 head-to-head record) and Phoenix (based on the fact the Mavs will likely win the Southwest Division), the Mavs have a great shot at usurping the No. 2 slot from the Nuggets … especially if the Spurs help them out Wednesday.

But Dallas fans shouldn't root too hard against the Nuggets -- a three-way tie with Denver and Utah gives the Mavs the No. 2 seed, but a direct tie with Utah favors the Jazz. Utah and Dallas may both land at 54 wins, and the Nuggets can join them by winning two of their final three. Lastly, Phoenix is still in the picture for the No. 2 seed but would have to win out against a difficult schedule. In fact …

West home court: Denver, Dallas and Utah vs. Phoenix


There are three big problems for the Suns right now, and when one adds them all up, Phoenix will probably open the playoffs on the road. The first problem is that Denver is probably going to win the Northwest Division instead of Utah. Phoenix can own the tiebreak with the Nuggets by beating them Tuesday, but it won't matter if the Nuggets are division champs.

The second problem is that San Antonio might not have any reason to compete in its season finale against Dallas, because the Spurs could very well be locked into the No. 7 seed by then. That would eliminate the Suns' slim possibility of passing Dallas, 54 wins to 53, but it could earn Phoenix home court despite technically being seeded fifth.

The Suns, of course, can get to 55 wins by sweeping their final four games, but that takes us to our last problem: their schedule. They play Friday in Oklahoma City and close the season in Utah. They need to win at least one of those games and sweep two home games against Denver and Houston to have a shot at home court.

Since the Suns will lose potential ties with Denver and Dallas because they aren't a division champ and they are unlikely to pass either with less than 54 wins, the Suns basically need to win the season finale at Utah in order to emerge with home-court advantage. A win would give the Suns the tiebreak over the Jazz and stick Utah with another loss … which would max out Utah at 53 wins and mean Phoenix could lose two of the other three games and still earn home-court advantage.

So for the Suns, it's basically about beating Utah (32-8 in Energy Solutions Arena) on the road. Good luck with that. Even if they sweep the other three games, it may not be enough to get them home court.

West No. 6: Portland vs. San Antonio and Oklahoma City

 

Oklahoma City suffered heartbreaking losses to Portland and San Antonio last week that, combined, will likely relegate the Thunder to the West's No. 8 seed. Oklahoma City would need to win at Portland on Monday to have a realistic shot at sidestepping that fate because the Thunder would lose the tiebreaker to both San Antonio and Portland. A loss, however, would make it virtually impossible to catch the Blazers.

While games at Golden State and at home against Memphis should be Thunder wins, Oklahoma City hosts the Suns on Friday, putting its likely outcome at 51 wins.

The Blazers, meanwhile, host Dallas on Friday and visit the Lakers on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC) before the Thunder's Monday visit, giving Portland three straight tough opponents before a season-ender against the Warriors. The interesting dilemma is if the Lakers play Bryant on Sunday or if they decide they'd rather not see Portland in the first round of the playoffs and gift wrap a win for the Blazers. However, even if one pencils in a loss in L.A., then the Blazers would need to win the Oklahoma City game to avoid the No. 8 seed and would need to beat Dallas to have a realistic shot at No. 6.

Which takes us to San Antonio. The Spurs have two near-automatic wins (home games against Memphis and Minnesota) and one probable loss (at Denver on a back-to-back) remaining on their schedule. If it plays out that way, San Antonio would be 50-31 heading into its season finale against Dallas. If the Blazers beat Oklahoma City and Dallas but lose to the Lakers, they'll also be at 50.

But the location of Friday's Thunder-Suns game is important. Why?

If the Thunder win that one but lose to Portland, then the three teams are likely to be tied at 50 wins, and the Spurs would play their best payers in the season finale against Dallas. If not, however, the Thunder will be locked into No. 8 by then, and the Spurs -- figuring there's no way Portland would drop a home game to Golden State -- will be content with No. 7 and punt the Dallas game.

The other wild card is if Oklahoma City wins at Portland. That would put the Blazers in a precarious spot, because they would max out at 50 wins while Oklahoma City would have at least 51. In that event, the Spurs would try very hard to win the finale in Dallas and avoid dropping to No. 8 in the West because the Blazers would hold the tiebreak.

The Crystal Ball

So how do I see it playing out?

The East is the easy one, so let's start there: I see Boston and Miami hanging on to their seeding advantages and the Bulls beating the Bosh-less Raptors on Sunday to claim the No. 8 spot. If so, our playoff matchups would look like this: No. 1 Cavs versus No. 8 Bulls; No. 2 Magic versus No. 7 Bobcats; No. 3 Celtics versus No. 6 Bucks; and No. 4 Hawks in a 2009 first-round rematch with No. 5 Heat.

In the West, I see Denver beating San Antonio and Memphis but losing to Phoenix and finishing with 54 wins; Utah winning out to also land at 54; and the Suns losing to the Jazz and to the Thunder to finish with 53, forcing them to start the first round on the road.

At the bottom half, I see Portland and Oklahoma City both finishing with 51 wins, which means San Antonio will play its A-team and beat Dallas in the season finale. Combined with a loss to Portland on Friday, that would drop the Mavs to 53 wins, while the Spurs would finish with 51.

If it plays out that way, it's … No. 1 Lakers versus No. 8 Thunder; No. 2 Denver versus No. 7 San Antonio; No. 3 Utah versus No 6 Portland; and No. 4 Dallas versus No. 5 Phoenix.

The other outcome to consider is a Phoenix win in Oklahoma City on Friday night, which would also swing the Dallas-San Antonio season finale because it wouldn't matter to the Spurs. In that even it's No. 1 Lakers versus No. 8 Thunder, No. 2 Dallas versus No. 7 San Antonio, No. 3 Denver versus No. 6 Portland, and No. 4 Utah versus No. 5 Phoenix.

Of course, it will likely play out differently in the real world -- there's going to be at least one surprise in there somewhere -- and that's the fun of it. This is a road map, but I'm sure some of the street names will change between now and Wednesday night.