I’ve never been one of those guys who judges players by how many championships they’ve won. I’ve seen too many great players in all sports who have won one or none. Basketball is so much more of a team game than most people want to recognize — it’s way more than “How many rings has he won?”

But so many people want to break it down to that. Bill Russell, they say, was a better player than Wilt Chamberlain because he won many more championships. That’s ridiculous, though, because Russell, as great as he was, played in a stable lineup of all-stars coached by one of the greatest coaches who ever lived.

I don’t think Luc Longley was a better center than Kevin Duckworth, for example. But Luc won titles with the Bulls and the Duck never won one.

And even for the singular superstars — Jordan, Duncan, Bryant, O’Neal, Russell, Chamberlain, that breed — winning titles cannot be the only measure of greatness.

The point of this is to tell you that just because James hasn’t won an NBA title yet, I’m not going to allow that to affect my evaluation of him as a player. Jordan hadn’t won any yet, either, at LeBron’s age or experience level.

But I do think James has a ways to go.  Obviously, he’s capable of making great plays. Of doing great things. Of doing so many things that help you win games. Obviously, he’s a supreme talent.

But I’m not quite sure he’s totally harnessed his abilities yet. I don’t think he really understands all of what he can — and cannot — do. When your limitations are so much farther out there than everyone else’s, it’s difficult to know exactly where they are. And I do believe, no matter how good you are, you need to recognize what you can’t do.

LeBron, I think, is still struggling with that. Part of understanding his limitations will drive him to get better — as he’ll surely do. His outside shot still needs plenty of work and I would expect, as he gets older, it will continue to improve as it has over the last few seasons.

But his understanding of how to get teammates involved and how better to take care of the ball in critical situations will have to improve, too. That’s where he needs to be so careful of his limitations. I’m not sure that he’s quite the distributor he thinks he is. Not yet.

He’s going to have to better recognize opportunities, for himself and his teammates. For a great player, he seemed to turn the ball over in crucial situations too often. That can come from trying to do too much.

Lastly, I am not sure he’s quite the defender he’s billed to be. I’m not sure he ever will be, either, because so much is expected of him at the other end of the floor.

In summary, I think he’s going to get better. I know he’s going to get better.  But nothing is for sure. Nothing is guaranteed. Will he win championships? Probably. But as Orlando has taught us once again, it’s a team game. He could, quite frankly, use some better teammates.

Maybe that’s when he’ll improve the most.

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Tags: Cleveland Cavaliers, Dwight Jaynes, Lebron James, NBA playoffs, Orlando Magic

Oh, man. Gotta be a war, doesn’t it?

Normally, you’d say it’s like a Game 7 for the Magic, because they have to win this game — certainly they’re not going to win a Game 7 at Cleveland.

Or are they? I put nothing past Orlando. I mean, down 32-10 at Cleveland last night to come back and have an eight-point lead early in the third quarter — well, that’s some amazing stuff right there. But LeBron has come close to winning earlier in Orlando and he’s going to be in full-blown superstar mode this time (not sure sometimes if that’s a good thing or a bad thing — it’s certainly a bad thing if he’s having one of those games when he can’t buy an outside shot).

This game should be special.

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Tags: Cleveland Cavaliers, Dwight Jaynes, Lebron James, NBA playoffs, Orlando Magic

Really, the Lakers need to get this one and earn themselves some time off before the Finals. If they have to go to seven games again . . .

But they won’t. Denver finally implodes tonight.

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Tags: Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA playoffs

Shannon Brown was terrific in a reserve role last night for the Lakers. I tried to tell  you back in February that the deal that brought him to Los Angeles wasn’t the “Adam Morrison trade.” It was the Shannon Brown trade. Kid’s a good player.

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Tags: Adam Morrison, Dwight Jaynes, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA playoffs, Shannon Brown

Yes, Stan Van Gundy paces the sidelines with all the body language of a neurotic car salesman on the verge of losing a sale. But I’m telling you, the guy can coach — and if being neurotic means you can’t coach, well, Larry Brown should have been retired decades ago.

Orlando executes and it’s fun to watch. Seriously, the Magic play the game together and with great purpose. Obviously, they are well prepared and stick with the game plan. They defend hard at one end, rebound the ball and on offense, play what’s going to become, I think, the new NBA prototype for basketball offense.

The Magic have a beast on the inside. A guy who still has miles to go before he’s totally polished at the low post, but Dwight Howard has so much strength and energy, he’s still just about impossible to stop. Then Orlando surrounds him with unselfish perimeter shooters, guys who will pass up a decent shot so a teammate can get an even better one.

With Howard inside demanding so much attention, the three-point shooters around the edges are getting wide-open looks. And then it becomes a numbers game. You know, that old stuff about shooting 40 percent from three-point range is like shooting 60 percent from two-point range.

The Magic run a lot of pick-and-roll and are also pretty good at getting people the ball heading to the basket. It’s not all Howard dunks. Orlando has players who can go to the basket hard and pull up for makeable short jumpers if necessary.

Hey, I’m an old-school guy. I’ve always preached the importance of getting the ball inside. I’ve always emphasized the value of getting the best big man. I think that’s all still true, but it has to be done in concert with solid three-point shooting.

We’ve witnessed the disappearance of the medium-range jumper and moaned about it a little. But the fact is, it’s justified. They give you three points for those shots behind the line, why shoot two feet in front of the line?

The new model of offense, I think, will not devalue the post player. You still have to find that guy who can command double-teams on the inside. But then the ball comes all the way out for open threes, which you simply have to make on a consistent basis. If you can’t make them, you better go find some players who can because it’s going to be hard to keep up without a sufficient number of three-point goals.

I’ve been one of those guys, for years, saying you can’t win championships with jump shots. With three-pointers. Now I’m not so sure. Getting points three at a time makes for some pretty efficient offense. And there are getting to be a lot of people — even BIG people — who can make those shots.

Now all you have to do is find the Dwight Howard part of the model. He guarantees you not just those three-pointers, but OPEN three-pointers.

By the way, who else has the best chance of developing an offense like that in the NBA? The Trail Blazers, I’d say. They’re pretty good from distance now and they have the beast inside in Greg Oden. And really, Howard isn’t that much more skilled one-on-one than Oden. He’s just more confident and stays out of foul trouble better. But it took him a few years to get there.

Can the Magic take it all the way? Sure they can. Will they? It’s still too early to tell. It may depend on whether whoever comes out of the West, probably the Lakers, has any energy left for another series.

It’s been so long since a team has come from out of nowhere — basically, not one of the chosen teams the league has marketed as a championship contender — to win it all that I can’t yet picture them doing it. And please, don’t think the Orlando defense isn’t a huge part of all this, it is terrific and the Magic wouldn’t be this far without it. But I’m fascinated by the offense.

I’ve seen the future of NBA offense and the future is Magical.

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Tags: Dwight Howard, Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, NBA playoffs, Orlando Magic, Portland Trail Blazers, Stan Van Gundy

Yes, LeBron was the hero. But appreciate Hedo Turkoglu, too. He hit two great shots to put the Magic in position to win.

Have a great holiday weekend.

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Tags: Cleveland Cavaliers, Dwight Jaynes, Hedo Turkoglu, Lebron James, NBA playoffs, Orlando Magic, TNT

ESPN poked its mic into the Houston huddle last night and caught Rick Adelman saying, “It’s not about them. It’s not about them. It’s about us.”

Later, on NBA TV during the post-game news conference, Adelman said, “It’s about us. It’s about playing our game. We just need to play our game and see what happens.”

Somewhere, Jack Ramsay was smiling, I bet. That’s was vintage Ramsay stuff. “Play our game,” was his credo — and I don’t know that people understand what that philosophy really does. It’s something that not only binds a team together but gives it confidence. It’s the glue that can give an underdog team the idea that it CAN win against any team playing with any style, as long as it sticks to the game plan.

Even if logic tells you that what the Rockets are throwing out there on the court against the powerful Lakers is a mismatch of gigantic proportions.

I’m not sure the world is ever going to wake up to what a great coach Rick Adelman has been for lo, these many seasons. He’s always had the underdogs. I could never quite convince Trail Blazer fans what a group of overachievers Adelman’s Blazers were. Some of the fans always felt Adelman was what was keeping those Blazers from beating Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars and those Pistons, from beating Michael and Scottie and those Bulls, Magic and those Lakers.

Nope. They forget Portland’s miraculous win over Larry Brown, David Robinson and the San Antonio Spurs in 1990. Beating the Jazz and Suns in years when those teams had every bit as much talent.

And then look at those overachieving Sacramento teams — coming within some very poor ref calls of jumping past the Shaq-and-Kobe Lakers with a bunch of guys who never had success before Adelman arrived or after he left.

Mostly Adelman has done it was a speed game and an intricate offensive setup, crafting a custom offense built on what his individual players do best. Nobody could ever have taken better advantage of Clyde Drexler’s unique talent for slashing and better hidden his lack of a dependable jump shot. Nobody better used Vlade Divac’s passing and leadership skills. Think about how well Terry Porter, Kevin Duckworth and Jerome Kersey were allowed to do what they did best — without exposing what they couldn’t do. Nobody else ever got Chris Webber, Rod Strickland, Ron Artest, Latrell Sprewell or Kevin Duckworth to play so well.

He’s never won it all, people say. But I’d submit he came real close to it — and with rosters that had no business, in many cases, competing at such a high level.

But this season in Houston is his crowning achievement. And with a team that is having to play at a pace and style that has never been what Adelman has liked. “We have no choice,” he told me during the first-round win over the Blazers. “It’s how we have to play.”

On offense, with Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming out of action, the Rockets are a grab bag. “In the fourth quarter of games, we are just never quite sure where the scoring is going to come from,” he said. “With Portland, they have a guy they can give the ball to and just get out of his way. We don’t have that with Tracy gone. How well we do in the playoffs will probably depend on getting contributions from everyone in the fourth quarter.”

Somehow, Adelman and his staff have cobbled together a game. And they’ve leaned on their players’ unique integrity — playing hard and being unselfish. They get every ounce of talent out of this bunch — and maybe even more. I could be wrong but I think that’s what coaching is all about.

I heard Jeff Van Gundy during Thursday night’s game say, “Rick Adelman is a Hall of Fame coach” and it was a classy thing to say by the man Adelman replaced in Houston. And I think Jeff’s correct. Adelman’s ability to meld a disparate group of personalities and talents into a winning team is unique.

Now I don’t in any way expect Houston to go into Los Angeles Sunday afternoon and beat the Lakers. That’s way beyond what his roster is capable of doing. But the Rockets have done enough to prove their character and heart — and Adelman’s greatness.

He’s one of those people who never calls attention to himself and doesn’t do all the media stuff that could make him more well known. He’s not an ego guy. But I’ll say this, he’s one of those rare coaches who you see across the floor and just know — he can beat you with his team or he could beat you with your team. Take your pick.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA playoffs, Portland Trail Blazers, Rick Adelman, Sacramento Kings

You’re the higher seeded team and you come out in a Game 6 and give that kind of effort? I don’t even know what to make of that. Losing is perfectly acceptable. No problem with that. But the effort … that’s going to be difficult to explain. Seriously — does getting older suddenly make you mentally tougher? Well, it can. But that mental makeup stuff is hard to change. Most of the time, you’re either mentally tough or you aren’t.

But that’s the last time I’m going to say anything about that part of it for a while. I’d rather talk about things a little easier to pinpoint. And before I do, let me say this, just so you understand where I’m coming from:

THIS IS NOT A “FAN SITE.” Do you understand what I’m saying to you? This isn’t the spot where 28-year-old guys wearing their replica jerseys come to say, “We had a great season” or “We lost” or even “I love this team.” Nothing against those sites at all. Many of them are great.

It’s just that I spent too many years in the news business to operate that way. I’m here to try to analyze or break things down. I call it the way I see it and have all season. By now, you should understand that. But if you don’t like that, if you want some rah-rah “Oh, our poor kids had a great season, let’s all hold hands and serenade them” stuff, feel free to now quietly leave the room.

Yes, they had a good year. But yes, what we saw in the playoffs wasn’t pretty. And I want, over the next several days, to take a look at why this happened and what it means for the future. Where do they go from here?

I made a point on “Talkin’ Ball” last night and I really didn’t have much time to amplify it. I believe the Trail Blazers need to take a very hard look at their style of play during the regular season. I believe it led to many of the problems they had in the playoffs. Some of these things must change for the team to get to the next level.

Prior to the opening of this series, I had a chance to talk to a few NBA scouts who had prepared for the possibility of playing Portland in the first round. The only promise was that I couldn’t quote them directly or give any hints as to the teams they worked for. Most of them didn’t want their stuff printed until after the first-round series was finished.

I can tell you the one thing that stood out from what all of them told me – Portland is very easy to prepare for. The reason: “They run so many isolations.”

One scout said, “It’s really just about all they do — particularly in the fourth quarter. You know how they play, everybody does. They’re going to give Brandon Roy the ball at the top and just stand back and watch him play. They may run a little screen for him, but it’s window dressing — he’s going to try to take you.”

Well, he’s pretty good at that — what’s wrong with Brandon going one-on-one?

“Nothing, once in a while,” one scout said. “But he’s not going to go one-on-one against Houston in the playoffs. He’s going to go one-on-five. They just won’t let him get to the basket. They’re going to lock him up.”

Said another scout, “What he’s done a lot of this season is go left. That’s fine, but he tends to put his head down, head to the basket and jump into somebody, expecting a foul call. He isn’t going to pass, he’s going to go hard to the basket, looking for a whistle. In the playoffs, you don’t always get that call.”

I think those assessments were on the money, particularly in the Game 4 situation at the end of the game that may have decided this series. And it’s not unlike what we’ve been writing all season. The fact is, people talked all the time prior to the series about Houston having two players — Ron Artest and Shane Battier — who could defend Roy. Fact is, neither did much of a job. Artest, in particular, was easy meat for Roy all the time. Problem for Brandon, though, is that there were always two or three other guys standing there ready for him after he beat Artest off the dribble. That’s called “team defense” — a concept the Trail Blazers themselves have not entirely embraced yet.

I will say many other things in the future about the way the Blazers play but there’s one more thing that fits right in with what we’re talking about. Roy has the ball in his hands in one-on-one situations way too often. In fact, he has the ball in his hands, in general, way too much. He has the ball more often than Michael Jordan used to have it for the Bulls.

He’d profit from playing more often without it in his hands and so would his teammates. Much will be made about how little help Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge had in this series but a lot of that is a product of the team’s lack of offensive structure. Really, they don’t run a lot of team offense. Roy has the ball all the time, just looking to create stuff that’s mostly for himself. Others can go several trips up and down the floor without even touching it. Making no excuses for Rudy Fernandez last night, he was awful — but really, he didn’t get a lot of opportunities to get going in the first half, either.

It appeared Roy is just starting to go through what all the superstars go through. Kobe Bryant went through it, Larry Bird did and so did MJ. It’s all about learning to trust your teammates. Both Kobe and Jordan found out that scoring a whole bunch of points themselves didn’t really do anything to improve the team’s chances of winning. Only until they started turning responsibility over to their teammates did they begin to have meaningful success as a team and a team leader.

Roy appears to trust Aldridge. He trusts Outlaw because they’re buddies. But you don’t see him dishing much to anyone else. This is going to have to change.

So is the team’s tempo. It was unable to generate enough running game to get the Rockets out of their slow-paced waltz. But what do you expect? Portland itself played at an agonizingly slow pace all season. The team didn’t run much and didn’t get the ball inside much. In the second quarter Thursday night, Portland was missing jump shots with Yao Ming on the bench and Kyle Lowry, Carl Landry and Von Wafer out there killing them.

I said this the other day but I’ll repeat for what I’m sure is far from the last time: When every commentator on every television game, when every person you know who knows anything about basketball, when people you know who don’t know much about basketball, ALL say, “They take too many jump shots” — why do they keep taking all those jump shots???

It’s all way too overwhelming for a one-day conversation. Feel free to weigh in on today’s post — but try to confine your comments to just today’s stuff. There’s a lot more to come and we’d like to try to do this in an organized fashion. Eventually, we’ll get into some player evaluations and an off-season wish list. But not yet.

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Tags: Brandon Roy, Dwight Jaynes, Houston Rockets, LaMarcus Aldridge, NBA playoffs, Portland Trail Blazers, Rudy Fernandez, Yao Ming

First thing about this game: The Trail Blazers are going to have to find out right away how the game is going to be officiated in the post area. Each officiating crew is different. I don’t think you need to automatically assume it will be called tighter than the last game — that’s not necessarily true. The farther we get in series, the more lax the officiating often gets.

All I’m saying is that it’s the job of the post players to adjust to whatever way it’s called. That’s what professionals do — they don’t keep doing the things that referees are calling as fouls. It’s simple — stay out of foul trouble, no matter what it takes. No excuses. This one’s not on the referees, or the fact the game is on the road, fatigue — anything.

By now, each team knows what it takes to win and if it doesn’t do that, well, see you next season.

I’m convinced Houston is going to get Yao Ming more touches tonight than he’s been getting. His frustration, not only on the court during the game but in comments afterward, was apparent. The Rockets must get him the ball more frequently.

In a way, that’s fine. The Blazer centers need to be patient. He’s going to get it a few times. He’s going to get some dunks. What Joel Przybilla and Greg Oden need to recognize is that Yao is not a volume shooter and he’s not used to playing long minutes. Rather than give up a cheap foul to keep him from getting the ball, it’s OK once in a while to allow the basket. In the big picture, Portland’s bigs must stay out of foul trouble.

That’s because the longer the game goes, the more tired Yao is going to get. He’s working on back-to-back 40-minute games and he’s having to play this time with only one day’s rest and a long plane flight. The commute in this series with only one day off is brutal, by the way. I believe you can work a little rope-a-dope with Yao. Let him have shots but make him work — and I think he might just punch himself out after a couple of quarters.

I should also mention that I expect Ron Artest to be a factor. He’s not played well for most of the series and probably has his mind made up he’s going to impact this game. Whether that’s a positive or negative impact remains to be seen.

I’ve said from the start the Blazers will get better as the series drags on. They’re adjusting to playing the Rockets. They’re getting better, Houston is starting to sputter. Portland’s young legs have an advantage — as long as Nate McMillan uses his bench enough to keep the starters fresh.

I fully expect Portland to break through tonight. This is a big game for both franchises but Houston’s recent history of playoff flameouts will be a heavy burden if the Rockets fall behind. The Blazers have a very big opportunity here to make a statement about themselves and where they’re headed in the future.

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Tags: Dwight Jaynes, Houston Rockets, NBA playoffs, Portland Trail Blazers, Ron Artest, Yao Ming

You’ve heard about Howard’s one-game suspension by now. But there were three referees on the court at that game and none of them, for whatever reason, stepped up and called that play correctly at the time — which would have meant bouncing Howard out of the game right then and there. That’s a pretty bad officiating mistake, I’d say. (Not as bad as not having the guts to call a flagrant foul on Rondo against Miller with a game on the line in Chicago, but that’s another story).

So shouldn’t Joey Crawford, Marc Davis and Derrick Stafford — the trio working the Orlando-Philly contest — be suspended, too?

Of course, they could be and we’d never know because the NBA usually doesn’t announce such things.

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Tags: Derrick Stafford, Dwight Howard, Dwight Jaynes, Joey Crawford, Marc Davis, NBA playoffs, one-game suspension