Paul Westphal is a Hall of Famer, Boston Celtics champion, and no fan of where the NBA is right now

https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2019/09/paul-westphal-is-a-hall-of-famer-boston-celtics-champion-and-no-fan-of-where-the-nba-is-right-now.html



Paul Westphal is a Hall of Famer, Boston Celtics champion, and no fan of where the NBA is right now




Posted Sep 5, 9:40 PM





SACRAMENTO, CA - DECEMBER 29: Head coach Paul Westphal of the Sacramento Kings stands by the bench during their game against the Chicago Bulls at Power Balance Pavilion on December 29, 2011 in Sacramento, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)




By John Karalis | JKaralis@masslive.com




SPRINGFIELD -- Being enshrined as a member of any Hall of Fame is a tremendous honor. There is also an obligation associated with it.

Paul Westphal, the former Boston Celtics champion and Phoenix Suns great, was among the honorees standing in a new wing of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame answering question after question from the assembled media.

I, as one of those assembled, had questions for him. Some of those questions were the same as others, but he’s a gracious guy and a professional. He answered them all thoughtfully.


He also answered many of them similarly.

Hanging around Westphal’s orbit, one quickly got a sense that he is displeased with the NBA’s current direction.

Asked about fellow inductees Vlade Divac and Jack Sikma, and he included “you see the game now, everybody takes out their big guy in the fourth quarter because they can’t defend the 3. It’s not offensively, it’s defensively where the 3-point line has changed the role of the big man and I don’t particularly like it, but that’s still the way it is.”

I posited that Tommy Heinsohn, Westphal’s coach in the early 70′s with whom he won a championship, was an innovator of today’s uptempo style.

“He would pretty much spend the whole practice saying ‘run, run, run through, run.’ He absolutely believed in pushing the pace and that was the trademark of the Celtics,” he said. Then he added “Uptempo basketball was something he believed in. And I’m not even sure they play uptempo basketball now. If you run a fast break, they foul you at half court and tell you take it out. They do try to have a high-scoring game and shoot a lot of 3’s but I don’t think it has much relationship to what Tommy preached.”

Westphal, a five-time All-Star and four-time All-NBA guard who spent the late 70′s as one of the NBA’s most dynamic players, loves the game of basketball. He’s careful to make that point. He’s not trashing the game to make some grand point or pump up his own era. He just thinks things have gotten a bit... generic.


“The styles are all the same now,” he told me. “You spread out, you run a pick and roll with the slowest defender, and put a couple of shooters in the corner. You don’t have individual teams with an offense that’s different than somebody else’s offense. It’s become too cookie cutter and too reliant on the 3.”

Westphal’s argument is a stylistic one. It’s a clash of numbers versus art.

It is, in a way, comparable to the halcyon days of animation, where meticulously hand-drawn work was, perhaps, flawed but also beautiful. The cliche’ of perfect imperfection applies here, because there are certainly “better” ways to animate things in 2019. But in some ways they become so perfect, and the technology allows for so many people to replicate that perfection, that it becomes generic and boring.

To Westphal’s point, the full-scale embrace of the 3-pointer may have created a similar effect. The artistry of creating an offense has succumbed to the cold perfection of analytics. The formula is the same for everyone, it’s just a matter of who can execute it better.

“You don’t need a diverse offense, all you need is a high screen and roll and shooters everywhere,” Westphal said “I’d like to see more subtlety and make it harder to get a shot.”


The more difficulty involved in creating a shot means the more creativity it would take to score. Maybe giving Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots staff a crash course in NBA basketball would help. Or, as Westphal says, it would take tweaking a couple of rules.

“I think you have to be able to touch somebody on the perimeter so you can fight over the top of screens,” he said. “If you can fight over the screen then you wouldn’t force all the switches and you’d have a chance of more teams running diverse offenses.”

Maybe part of Westphal’s displeasure is a harkening back to his old days. Most of us pine for “the good ol’ days," so we can excuse an old baller’s affinity for the style that made him the Hall of Famer that he is.

Still, he has a point. Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder, and Westphal clearly misses the nuance that his pre-3-pointer days afforded (Westphal was in the NBA for six seasons before the league created the 3-point line). He’s also careful not to cross the line of bitterness. He’s not angry that the game has changed. He’s not stomping his feet about anything. He just doesn’t particularly enjoy things as much as he thinks he could.

“I love basketball, but I think the pendulum has swung too far to the three point line,” he said. "I’d like to see more of a blend of inside, outside, fastbreak, more styles.



bob


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I agree with everything Westphal is saying, so much emphasis on 3’s has taken a lot of the gritty pleasures out of the game, bunch of soft fags have taken over the game....kind of. Teams used to battle, now they chase on the perimeter and it’s a shooting contest. Fast break used to end with guys sprinting, finishing, you had to earn those 2 points, now they just chuck 3’s on a 3 on 1 or 2 fastbreak....pathetic!!

I was surprised that he didn't say anything about the extra step (or two) given to modern players, or the propensity for them to carry the ball (turn over the wrist) while dribbling.  Isaiah Thomas and Kyrie Irving (for instance) both have "great handles", but both of them would be called for violations every time down the floor in the '70's or 80's.