What I mean by that is this: an empty possession is a possession in which your team doesn't score any points. They are created by missed shots on which the other team gets a rebound, and by turnovers. Players - even extraordinary talents like Allen Iverson - who take low percentage shots and have a tendency to give the ball to the other team - create empty possessions. They may accumulate good volume stats (points per game, assists per game, etc.), but those stats disguise the fact that they are hurting their team. The goal of an offensive possession is to get the team the best chance to score. A high volume, low percentage shooter, even if he scores 25 or 30 points per game, actually hurts your offensive, because he takes shots away from players who hit a higher rate of them. A player who turns the ball over at a high rate also hurts your offense, no matter how spectacular he may look in the process. That's because, simply put, if your team no longer has the ball, it can't score.
Brandon Roy is just the opposite of this. As Hollinger points out, he may not look spectacular to the naked eye, but he gets the job done. He scores efficiently, and he doesn't turn the ball over. So, when Roy is on your team, your chances of scoring on each possession have gone up.
But what most impressed me was this quote:
His game is pure craftiness -- changes of pace and direction, subtle fakes, midrange jumpers and cleanly executed finishes around the rim with either hand. It's jarring to see a player who is 24 years old play with such polish, something Roy credits to his older brother.
"He was faster, stronger, taller everything," Roy said. "The only thing I could do to beat him was to try to outsmart him. Now that I'm in the NBA, I use those same skills, because guys are bigger, faster, stronger. It's just my style. I could go up and dunk basketballs, but I just try to get to the point as fast as possible with as little energy as I have to."
There's a great deal of wisdom there. 82 games that last 48 minutes each - that's a lot of basketball. Learning how to move efficiently, how to conserve energy on each play without losing effectiveness, is crucial.
That's something I'm learning in martial arts. I have some strength, some speed, some quickness. I'm a pretty good athlete. When I first started studying kung fu, that was enough to produce some surprisingly good results sparring against people with more skill than me. But my compensating for a lack of skill by using all of my strength, all of my energy, trying to force things, came with a heavy price. First, it meant that I oversold my moves. If what I tried didn't work, I was too committed to that to have an effective counter-strategy.
That hurts in both martial arts and basketball, but not as much as this: I was wearing myself out. Working against myself. I hadn't learned how to move efficiently, how to trust my technique, my skill, rather than my strength and athleticism. (By the way, I still haven't really learned this. I'm getting better, but I'm not there yet, and may never get there.) So I would tire easily. I would also have a much greater risk of injury.
This also applies on the basketball court. In order to be effective, you obviously need to try the whole time, giving your best effort on each and every play. But your best effort is not maximum effort, if by effort you mean that which strains your muscles, burns your energy. Your best effort is your most skillful effort. It understands both that you have to be successful on this particular play, and that both the game and the season are very long.
Brandon Roy seems to have figured this out, and this bodes very well for both his future and the future of the Portland Trailblazers.
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