Hornet.com’s 1-on-1: Seattle’s Damien Wilkins, Kevin Pelton

February 23, 2007

Hornets.com and Hoop Magazine writer Jim Eichenhofer interviewed Seattle forward Damien Wilkins and Seattle website writer Kevin Pelton in conjunction with the SuperSonics’ visit to New Orleans Arena on Friday.

Wilkins is a third-year forward who has carved out a role as a key reserve for the SuperSonics. He is also known among basketball fans for his unique pedigree, as the son of longtime NBA guard Gerald Wilkins and the nephew of Hall of Fame forward Dominique Wilkins.

Pelton is one of pro basketball’s most prominent statistical analysts and the beat writer for SuperSonics.com. He is among a group of basketball minds who have pioneered the increased usage of stats to more accurately compare and evaluate players. Pelton and the Sonics also recently published an interesting article on their site ranking the NBA’s top 100 players.

Wilkins

Seattle forward Damien Wilkins
Q: What were some of the best pieces of advice you received about the NBA from your father, former NBA guard Gerald Wilkins, and your uncle, Hall of Fame forward Dominique Wilkins?
A: The best advice was to work hard and be humble. This opportunity to play in the league only comes to a (small) number of guys, as you know. You’ve got to approach it with appreciation, because it’s the kind of thing that can be over quickly. I think that was the best advice I got from either one of them.

Q: Over your three NBA seasons, you have proven that you should’ve been drafted when you came out of college in 2004. What do you think were the reasons why you weren’t selected and has that motivated you?
A: It’s always motivating. I think anyone who has any type of competitive spirit would be motivated by that. As far as me trying to prove that I belong, that’s something that goes through my mind every day.
I can only control what I can control. I don’t really know the reasons why I wasn’t drafted, but I wouldn’t trade what happened. If I had been in another situation where I was drafted by another team, who knows? I might not have gotten a chance to play at all, and I would’ve been fighting for a contract. It looked unfortunate at the time (that I wasn’t drafted), but it turned out to be a great situation and the best possible thing for me.

Q: In your opinion, is your uncle the greatest dunker in NBA history?
A: [laughs] You know I’m going to say yes. Of course he is! He’s the best dunker in the NBA, he should’ve been (named to the NBA’s) all-time top 50 (player list), all of that. But you know, he has gotten his due as a player. He had a great career and was just inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer. You can’t ask for anything more than that.

Q: Do you think Dominique was robbed of the title in the famous 1988 slam dunk contest, the one that Michael Jordan won in Chicago, even though many observers said Dominique’s slams were more impressive?
A: Well, it was in Chicago. [laughs] If it was in Atlanta, it probably would’ve been a different result. To me, that was one of the best dunk contests of all time. Both of them put on a show. I would’ve hated to be a judge during that competition.

Q: It probably would’ve been tough for a judge to NOT pick Jordan being that it was in the Bulls’ home arena, right?
A: Exactly. I would hate to have been a judge in that one.

Q: What about in 1986, when Dominique lost in the finals against Spud Webb?
A: Well, that dunk contest was in Dallas, which is Spud Webb’s hometown. [grins] I think timing more than anything was what hurt (Dominique). If it wasn’t for the cities that they held those dunk contests, he might have won both of them.
But the other thing was that everyone roots for the underdog, and that was Spud Webb [at 5-foot-7, Webb is the shortest entrant in dunk contest history]. He was the underdog, and the dunk contest was in his hometown, so it was only right that he won that one.

Pelton

Seattle website writer Kevin Pelton
Q: Even though the SuperSonics are 11 games under .500, they’ve played better basketball since the return of Rashard Lewis to the lineup and are only a few games out of eighth place in the West. Few people are talking about them as a potential playoff team right now, but is it realistic to think they can make a run at reaching the postseason over the last 29 games of the season?
A: Hornets fans should know better than anyone what getting injured stars back in the lineup can mean to a team. The distance separating the Sonics from the eighth seed isn't insurmountable if the Sonics can build some momentum and confidence over the next two weeks, when they face only one team with a winning record.
The bigger issue for the Sonics is going to be the five teams ahead of them in the race for the eighth seed. If any one of those teams matches them over the last two months of the season, what the Sonics do ultimately won’t matter. There’s only so much the Sonics can control. The Hornets are probably the most dangerous team in the group now that they are (mostly) healthy.

Q: What direction do you see the Sonics taking with their roster in the near future? Do you expect them to continue to stay the course and develop young talent, or do you see them trying to make a major change in the offseason by virtue of a trade or free agency?
A: This summer could play out like 2004, when the Sonics wanted to give essentially the same group a chance to play an entire season after a year where they faced injuries. When that happened, they ended up confounding the experts by winning the division the next year. The complicating factor is that new Sonics & Storm Chairman Clayton Bennett has focused his energy almost entirely on the effort to secure funding for a new multipurpose arena and hasn’t had much of a chance to focus on basketball. That could change over the summer.

Q: Seattle was second-guessed by many analysts for picking Mouhamed Sene in the lottery, partly because the Sonics had also used first-round picks on centers Robert Swift and Johan Petro in recent drafts. Do you believe that any of those three big men are the long-term answer in the pivot?
A: Petro is the only one of the three currently playing rotation minutes for the Sonics, but his future might ultimately be at power forward. Swift demonstrated enough last season to indicate he could be that player, but obviously the torn ACL he suffered during the preseason has added some uncertainty to his future. The upside is that Swift has attacked rehab with the necessary attitude to come back strong. Sene is still very, very raw, but his shot-blocking potential is undeniable and his rebounding work in the D-League (he’s amongst the league’s leading per-minute rebounders) has been very encouraging. He might have the most potential of any of the three centers.

Q: What is your assessment of the progress of two other former Sonics first-round picks, Luke Ridnour and Nick Collison? Have they developed at a rate that is satisfactory to the team and Sonics fans?
A: The twin extensions Collison and Ridnour signed before the season say a lot about how the team feels about their development. Ridnour’s season started off very strong, in large part the product of work he put in with assistant coach Gordon Chiesa developing his midrange game. When Ray Allen and then Lewis were out of the lineup, Ridnour struggled, but he’s picked up his play since moving back into the starting lineup. It looks like Ridnour is at his best playing alongside guys who space the floor for him to run pick-and-rolls in the middle of the court.
Collison has had two seasons. He couldn’t make a shot in November and December, strange for a guy who’s always been a high-percentage shooter. Since moving into the starting lineup in January, he’s been incredible, recording nine double-doubles in the last 17 games. Collison still has to keep up his play over a longer stretch, but we’re already talking about nearly a quarter of a season where he has been a very strong center. He’s the type of player you find on winning teams.

Q: Switching subjects, you are one of the NBA’s most well-known statistical analysts. From your perspective, do you believe that statistical analysis is becoming more widely accepted throughout the league? Is there still resistance to some of the ideas and concepts from some NBA executives or scouts that the information is worthwhile?
A: Well, I don’t know if I would say that. I think there’s been a progressive increase in acceptance. There hasn’t been anything like the publication of Moneyball in baseball, which served to accelerate the progress, but pretty much every team in the league is using some form of advanced statistical analysis, and a number of the leaders in the field like Dean Oliver and Dan Rosenbaum are now working for teams.
There hasn’t been a great deal of resistance that I have encountered; there are people who aren’t interested, but they don’t generally work against statistical analysis. I think it’s easier for traditionalists and statistical analysts to work together in basketball because basically everyone involved understands that you can’t quantify everything in basketball. Scouting is always going to play a role because so much of what goes on in a game isn’t counted – and would be very difficult to count, except with the use of plus-minus statistics.

Q: In your opinion, what is basketball’s most underrated stat?
A: I would say True Shooting Percentage, which measures a player’s efficiency in scoring. There are guys with low field-goal percentages who hit a bunch of three-pointers and/or get to the free-throw line often and this isn’t necessarily obvious without using a measure that includes these two ways of scoring (as True Shooting Percentage does). For example, a couple of years ago people would criticize Chauncey Billups as a low-percentage shooter even though his True Shooting Percentage was excellent, because he gets a lot of threes and free throws.

Q: What about most overrated?
A: Per-game statistics, led by points per game. Obviously the ability to score is important, but it’s easy to be seduced by that number in the points per game column and miss the weaknesses in a player’s game.