The Investigation of Sam Hauser — Part 2
I’m smoking a cigarette looking out the lone window of my small office. Or at least I would be looking out the window if the blinds weren’t pulled. I hardly notice, lost in thought until there’s a knock at my door. Anxiety, excitement, disappointment. She won’t be on the other side of that door, and my emotions regulate. Instead, I know exactly who it is, and I’m looking forward to sharing my new report with him. I crack the window and fan some smoke out of it with my hands. I’m not sure why I care whether this man catches me smoking or not, but I find myself strangely wanting to impress him.
“Come in Mr. President” I announce with what I hope is an overabundance of confidence.
The door opens. He’s dressed in his usual black pants, but this time dons a light gray polo with the Celtics’ three leaf clover alternate logo on the left breast. I imagine this counts for a daring fashion choice for my new client. His almost ritualistic commitment to dressing leaves me self-conscious about what I’m wearing. I absentmindedly glance down at my dark blue suit pants held up by loose suspenders and notice my too large white dress shirt proudly displaying a bit of this morning’s coffee. I self-consciously sit down in my desk chair as he opens the door.
“Greetings Mr. Magnum.” He stiffly announces his arrival.
“I thought we went over this Mr. President,” I playfully respond. “Call me Dick. Mr. Magnum was my dad, although his name was Jim. Of course, everyone called him by his nickname, Jumbo.”
“Your family certainly doesn’t shy away when it comes to naming conventions. How does your investigation fare?”
“Quite good Mr. President. Quite good. The man is Ron Artest reborn.” I say with a sly smile.
“I’m sorry, what?” he replies in a tone I would describe as dead serious. This man is allergic to levity.
“I’m kidding. There’s a lot to go over here, so I’m just going to jump into it. First, let’s start with the basics, his perimeter defense. On offense, Hauser is very clearly a perimeter-oriented player, so it would make things simple if he could guard like for like.”
I can tell he’s trying to read my tone and ends up questioning me. “You don’t look convinced he can.”
I anticipated the reaction and respond immediately. “I’m not. I’m also not not convinced he can’t not defend perimeter players.”
“I have no frying idea what you are trying to say.”
His continued refusal to swear allowed me to geo-locate this man as being from Indiana. “What I mean is that the results are mixed, and they aren’t all bad, which is a good thing.”
“So the results are good and bad, which is good?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re a strange man Dick Magnum.”
I continue. “Here’s what I mean, he clearly can get down in a defensive stance and slide his feet to some degree. Take a look at some of these from your most recent game. He gives up some space, and Beal especially generates a decent look on the two step-backs, but Hauser is right on his shooting hand in both isntances. It’s not amazing defense, but it’s also not bad defense. The middle clip is especially solid defending on that Wizards player whose name you aren’t paying me enough to learn and the announcer doesn’t say. He’s licking his chops to attack Hauser and is forced into an ugly 3. The more I watch him, the more I think he might be better off defending guys a bit smaller, giving them room, and then using his size to contest.
“There are clear downsides to this strategy, as sometimes guys are just going to hit the shot. And other times, even when giving some space, he’s just flat going to get blown by on straight-line drives. Make no mistake, getting blown by on a straight-line drive is really bad, and it happens too often to him, but the results are improving as he plays more. He won’t ever be a lock-down defender, but the Celtics don’t need him to be.”
The President steps in. “So, you are only showing me isolations here. To sum things up, he does a decent job keeping guys in front of him and contesting shots, but sometimes his athleticism lets him down and he gets blown by or shot over. This isn’t good, but it’s also not bad, which is good because it probably means he can play and we can make use of his shooting?”
“Exactly. I think.” He nods in confident agreement, which only increases my confusion. I don’t falter and move on. “Obviously another important piece will be his ability to guard the pick and roll. Like isos, he’s not prime Artest, but he also does enough to be a bother and not a liability. He really needs to get better at fighting over and through screens, and he seems to get cooked pretty bad when the ball handler rejects it Mitchell doesn’t score on that play, but man does he get into the paint easily. The same thing happens here except it’s a G-League ball-handler so he actually gets back and swats the thing.”
The President cuts in, “I’m not sure we can count on Sam blocking a lot of NBA ball handlers from behind.”
“That’s probably a fair statement Mr. President. I think it’s probably time we get to some of the bad news. It’s all well and good that he does an ok job of limiting players getting all the way to the rim. The issue is, once they are there, two things tend to happen.
“The first is that often players finish over or through him quite easily. Like on this play, someone named Crutcher finishes easily with Sam on his hip. Or like when this fella takes a small bump and finishes with the left. This limitation is especially obvious in transition and semi transition where his limited athleticism leads to easy finishes for opposing players too often.
“This weakness is compounded by the second problem. Smaller players can finish through or around him, while bigger players often get second (and third) chances because Sam just isn’t able to secure the rebound despite him holding his ground alright on the initial action. This wouldn’t be quite a big deal if he were a guard, but as a 6'7” forward, you expect he will guard bigger players at times. This happened again, and again, and again.”
The President interjects quickly, “I’m not a particularly emotional man, but those clips are infuriating to watch.” His demeanor had not changed.
“If anything sinks Sam, I think it will be the combination of these two weaknesses. He’s a bit of a man without a position on defense unless he either continues to improve defending ball-handlers or finds a way to contest and box out. He doesn’t even need to grab the rebound, he just needs to make sure his guy doesn’t. Otherwise, he’s compounding a clear weakness for the Cs, securing defensive rebounds. He’s not going to be an amazing help defender, but he can stick his hand in there sometimes and seems to understand your defensive scheme pretty well. He can track guys off screens alright, he gets stuck too much, but can use his size to get back and contest. All in all, he’s never going to be good on defense, but he doesn’t look unplayable either.”
“That’s excellent work Dick Magnum. Looks like we can wrap up the case of ‘Can Sam Hauser Do Anything Other than Shoot’ with a definitive sort of. I suggest you go home and enjoy some time with Ms. Magnum.” He points to the one picture I have of her. I haven’t been able to bring myself to get rid of everything, a part of me still holds on to a love never-lasting. The last band-aid over a wound that will never heal, and my new client has just ripped it off. He’s able to tell he hit a nerve, because he doesn’t let the silence linger. “What happened with her Dick?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I’m lying, for some reason I want nothing more than to tell this man I hardly know what happened with us. His demeanor, finally, softens and the words just start flowing out of me. “Her name was Erin, Erin Nesmith. I don’t know what it was, she wasn’t the prettiest or most talented, but we just had something special. I was convinced we’d work out despite our weaknesses, and even when things went south, we gave it a second chance. I really thought we were primed for a long happy life together, until. . .”
“Until what?”
“She had to move for work. She got a great job opportunity in Indianapolis that she couldn’t turn down. So she left. She chose her career over me. It still hurts, but I probably deserved it. We should have cherished what we had because it can all change so fast.”
“I’m sorry Dick. I really am, I don’t know why, but I feel weirdly responsible for this. I’m not sure this means much, but you’ve done great work here and I’ll be back. I hope you keep in touch.”
“I will Mr. President thank you.”
“Please, call me Brad.”
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