From ean Deveney

[BDodgers at aol.com]

    The 'tween year




Posted: June 13, 2006

Three years ago last January, Jason Terry sat near  his locker at Philips 
Arena in Atlanta and shrugged his shoulders.  He was in the middle of his fourth 
season with the Hawks and doing  what he could to shed his image as a chucker 
point guard. (You know,  give him the ball, and he'll chuck it.) Terry ended 
up averaging 7.4  assists that season -- 2.5 more than his career average 
heading into  the year -- but the Hawks still stunk, so whispers about Terry's  
ability to run an offense persisted. That summer, Terry was a  restricted free 
agent and had to wait till September to get an  offer. "I don't know what else I 
can do," Terry said at the time.  "My assists are up, my scoring is down. 
I've tried to change."   
Aha! Maybe that was the problem: Terry was trying to  change. Of course, he 
was being prodded into it. See, Terry is a  classic 'tweener, that oddball 
species of NBA player whose body type  suggests one position while his skills 
suggest something entirely  different. Terry, for example, is a point guard with a 
shooting  guard's skills. For NBA personnel types, such players usually bring 
 furrowed brows and migraines -- the league, in general, treats  
'tweener-ness as a disease to be drubbed out of the afflicted.  That's what Atlanta was 
doing with Terry.  
Now, here's Terry, standing 6-2 and listed as  Dallas' starting point guard 
but barreling through the postseason  with numbers that only a shooting guard 
could love (18.4 points per  game and just 4.0 assists). He may still be a 
'tweener, but he is  looking like a championship-caliber 'tweener. He helped push 
the  Mavericks to a daunting 2-0 lead with a pair of double-digit home  wins 
to open The Finals. Terry almost single-handedly led Dallas to  a win in Game 1 
by shooting 13-for-18 and scoring 32 points on a  night when the combo of 
Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard was frigid  from the field. "We need this Jason 
Terry," Mavericks coach Avery  Johnson said. "This Jason Terry makes us a pretty 
special basketball  team because on a night like tonight, when Josh and Dirk 
go  7-for-28, you need to get some offense from somewhere."  
 
(http://www.sportingnews.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/www.sportingnews.com/nba/viewtopic.php/2069836972/TopRight/OasDefault/AIU_ROS_300x250_060201/300x25
0_aiu_org_psych.jpg/63666338373434373433626666656530) In this  unexpected, 
oddball championship matchup between the Heat and the  Mavericks, maybe it's 
fitting that a 'tweener such as Terry becomes  a hero. These are two teams that 
have offered acceptance to the  oddball player, teams that have put aside the 
drubbing and, instead,  embraced the 'tweener. That mind-set has paid off. 
Dallas starts  three 'tweeners. Terry is at the point. Nowitzki, a 7-footer with a 
 shooting guard's stroke, starts at power forward. Howard, whose  'tweener 
status dropped him all the way to No. 29 in the 2003 draft,  is the small 
forward. Keith Van Horn and Marquis Daniels are the  Mavs' 'tweeners in reserve.  
Miami is similar. Though the Heat revolves around  non-'tweener Shaquille 
O'Neal -- you can't be a 350-pound 'tweener  -- it has had to turn to its stable 
of 'tweeners as O'Neal has  struggled. (He took 11 shots in Game 1 and just 
five in Game 2.) The  Heat plays 6-9 Antoine Walker, who has been a power 
forward for the  bulk of his career, at small forward. The power forward is Udonis  
Haslem, who injured his shoulder in Game 2. Haslem was a small (6-8)  big man 
coming out of college and got 'tweener-ed right out of the  draft before the 
Heat signed him in 2003. Miami also has the NBA's  ultimate 'tweener, Dwyane 
Wade, at shooting guard. Wade was the  fifth pick in 2003 but would have gone 
higher if not for the  'what-is-he?' question. On the eve of that draft, the 
Chicago  Sun-Times wrote: "The knock on Wade is that he's a 'tweener,  measuring 
in at the dreaded hoops height of 6-4. No one knows if  he's a shooting guard 
or a point guard."  
Dreaded hoops height? Not with these teams. "We have  players who maybe don't 
fit the traditional way of doing things,"  says Howard. "But we have a great 
coaching staff that can find out  what our strengths are and focus on bringing 
them out. Some people  might look at it like a negative, you know, talk about 
what you  can't do. But here, they talk about what you can do."  
That was especially evident in Terry's performance,  which is a credit to 
Johnson. Miami focused much of its defensive  energy on Nowitzki in Game 1. That 
strategy left Terry with his  choice of shots, and he employed the same quick 
trigger that once  was viewed as such a negative. Johnson spent much of last 
summer  stressing that to Terry -- when Terry struggled, Johnson noticed it  
was because of indecisiveness. It was as if Terry still was hearing  voices from 
Atlanta telling him to act like a traditional point  guard, and he made 
mistakes because of it. So Johnson put together  several pancake powwows with Terry 
over the summer and discussed his  play over breakfast. Terry visited Johnson 
in Houston and  accompanied him to Las Vegas for summer league games. It was, 
Terry  says, the most offseason time he ever spent with a coach.  
And the message from Johnson was the opposite of  what every other coach had 
told him: You're a 'tweener. That's not  going to change. Now go be the best 
'tweener you can be.  
"We tried to get him in the position of trying to  play like Jason Terry and 
not like a traditional point guard,"  Johnson says. "Be a point guard who uses 
your strengths that really  fit this team. He's come a long way. And we've 
only been together a  year and a half. I think there is another level for us to 
go up."   
The level Walker was trying to get to was down a few  notches -- belt 
notches, that is. As a power forward, Walker has  maintained some extra girth to help 
him deal with bigger players.  But when he was acquired by the Heat last 
summer in a sign-and-trade  with Boston, Riley made it clear that, though the Heat 
would use  Walker as a power forward, he primarily would be a small forward 
and  needed to be in small forward shape. So Walker hit the treadmill and  the 
salad bar and lost 15 pounds. "They told me right away that I  would have to 
be chasing around a lot of those small forwards,"  Walker says. "I knew I was 
not going to be able to do that with the  body I had."  
Walker made himself, physically, into the player  he'd always been mentally. 
Throughout his career, especially in  Boston (the Jim O'Brien years excluded), 
Walker was harangued for  eschewing his back-to-the-basket game in favor of 
quick and often  ill-advised 3-pointers. Now he is encouraged to be a perimeter 
 shooter, to replace the outside scoring Miami gave up when it traded  Eddie 
Jones and let Damon Jones leave as a free agent. It's a  'tweener's dream come 
true. "That's the good thing about it," says  Walker, who is averaging 6.7 
3-point attempts in the playoffs and  making 34.7 percent of them. "I came here 
and they want me to just  play my game and be myself."  
Of course, the 'tweener life has its pitfalls, as  Miami found out in The 
Finals' first two games. Walker shot 7-for-19  in the opener. Before Haslem's 
injury, it was clear his size  disadvantage against Nowitzki would be costly -- 
Nowitzki outscored  Haslem, 42-10, and outrebounded him, 26-10. Wade shot 38.6 
percent  in the two games, slowed by the combination of players who defended  
him -- Adrian Griffin, Howard, Jerry Stackhouse, Daniels and,  occasionally, 
Devin Harris. Only Harris (6-3) is shorter than Wade.   
Still, these Finals are 'tweener-heavy, and the rest  of the league takes 
notice of the Finalists' blueprints. This is how  trends are born. But the 
successful dalliances in 'tweener players  the Heat and Mavericks have had won't set 
off some new trend --  rather, they're the result of trends that already have 
arisen from  the NBA's tinkering with defensive rules over the past few 
years.  The league has added zone defenses to encourage ball movement and  limited 
defensive contact on the perimeter to enhance player  movement.  
"With the rules now being the way they are, there is  a bigger premium on 
versatility and players who maybe don't fit the  traditional mold," says 
Mavericks assistant Del Harris. "Now,  everyone would love to have a Shaq if there 
were 30 of them. But  there aren't, so more teams are finding ways to win by 
emphasizing  what their players do best rather than saying, 'Point guard,  
shooting guard, forward,' and so forth. You have to be much more  open-minded in how 
you see your players."  
This is not to say you can't teach an old 'tweener  new tricks. Terry, even 
with his shooting directive from Johnson,  still knows how to pass, as he 
showed in Game 2 when Miami was  determined to contest his shots. Stackhouse (19 
points) was Dallas'  surprise scorer in that game, and Terry fed him with 
assists on two  long jumpers. With 3:30 to play in the first half, Terry embarrassed 
 Miami's aggressive close-outs. He took a pass from Nowitzki, rose to  shoot, 
saw Haslem leave Nowitzki and changed his plans -- zipping a  pass to 
Nowitzki for an easy layup.  
"Coach wants me to be aggressive with my shooting,"  Terry says. "I know I 
can still set up the offense, get us into our  sets and make passes when I need 
to. But I have to maintain my  aggressiveness first. That's my game and I have 
to stick with it."   
Yes, stick with your game. Just as any good 'tweener  should.