The Hollins incident is really interesting and touches on the new emphasis a lot of teams are putting on analytics. The Grizzlies have a new owner who hired John Hollinger, the ESPN writer who brought analytics to a mainstream audience, and a few other math geeks. They pushed for the trade of Rudy Gay which a lot of people panned at the time but the analytics community thinks he's one of the most overrated players in the league. But what's really interesting -- you don't need spreadsheets to see this. You don't really need to see anything more than "This dude takes a TON of shots and shoots 40% and is an average defensive player at best. We have a bunch of really good offensive players who could use more shots who are also terrific defenders."
Hollins was really vocal against the Rudy trade. I think a lot of that does come from issues of chemistry and cohesiveness. The Grizzlies certainly do have that and taking out a key cog might screw that up. But they ended up a lot better w/o Gay taking 15 plus shots a game.
Daryl Morey and the Rockets get credit for being at the vanguard of this movement. But it's not as revolutionary as when Moneyball swept baseball. Red Auerbach might not have used algebraic formations when building a team but he was cagey enough to get Bill Russell (who a lot of teams didn't trust) and realized that the easiest way to get points at the time was via fast breaks, so he pushed the pace more than any team ever had in history.
The Spurs also have been doing this stuff for ages. They got the best player of his era, did a great job scouting overseas and nailed the Tony Parker and Manu picks, and filled in the rest with a neverending string of unhearlded bench players who fit needed roles.
That's sort of what basketball boils down to. You have to get a great player to build around, get one or two other good players, and fill out the rest at fair prices. The NBA's salary cap is so cruel that signing one player to a shitty contract (see: Sixers, Elton Brand) destroys your team, unless you're the Mavs and willing to go over the cap.
As far as George Karl goes -- I think that guy is super overrated. His track record speaks for itself. He got into one finals with a loaded Sonics team. And I'll give him credit for having that one Bucks team make the Eastern finals, but then they ran into Allen Iverson. Aside from that, he's had a bunch of bad playoff runs (including being the first 1 to lose to an
and also coached one of those dreadful US national teams to some horrible place that they should have dominated.
