Ethan J. Skolnick SKOLNICK: Bonds, O'Neal stake their claim in numbers game Published June 5, 2004 For Smarty Jones, the dirt track to dominance is straightforward. Win today's Belmont to complete the Triple Crown, and he earns that label forever. Humans are more complicated. Particularly for the team sport athlete, dominance is more subjective. Does the athlete force a change, not only in how well an opponent plays its game, but in how the game itself is customarily played? Does the athlete force coaches, those forever preaching about the sanctity of their sports, to scrub their precious X's and O's for gimmickry? Does the athlete force the consideration of rule changes, as Wilt Chamberlain did? By these definitions, there are only two dominators today in the four major team sports. Shaquille O'Neal. Barry Bonds. Each taking his own hard hacks this weekend. O'Neal probably will take more than he would prefer on the hardwood Sunday during Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Bonds likely will take less than he'd like in the batter's box, with the Rockies likely to let the thick slugger only walk to first, should they let him walk into thin-aired Coors Field at all. Maybe there are a few players in the specialized NFL who must be schemed into less success on a given Sunday. Maybe goalies in general are dominant in the post-Gretzky/Lemieux NHL. Maybe other active baseball and basketball players are more complete than Bonds, more consistently inspired than O'Neal. But as far as challenging strategists and statisticians, while driving so-called sports geniuses to game-altering gimmicks, Bonds and O'Neal are it. For Bonds, that means ritually throwing him four balls (the BB-for-BB strategy), even if a Duke statistics professor deems that a mistake. Jerry Reiter studied every Bonds plate appearance from 2001 to 2003. He found that, in innings Bonds led off, the Giants averaged 0.9 runs when he walked compared to 0.6 when he did anything else. Reiter also found it was slightly less damaging to pitch to Bonds with runners on, no matter the out count. The only time it pays to walk him? With the bases empty, and at least one out. Still, Bonds' dominance has caused such an overreaction that some seek to further overreact to counter the overreaction, proposing that players be allowed to decline intentional walks. Reiter scoffs, saying such radical changes are "not founded, not needed." To handle a motivated O'Neal, many have felt the need to use a different ploy, giving him two foul shots instead of two easy points. Don Nelson, Pat Riley, Larry Bird, Gregg Popovich and Flip Saunders all have stooped to the Hack-A-Shaq with spotty results. So did Larry Brown, finally, in the 2001 Finals. After promising "I'm not going to make a farce out of this game," Brown had his Sixers go A-Hacking in Game 5. Too late. O'Neal, who averaged 33 in the series, closed out his second championship anyway. On Sunday, the Big Mumbler goes for his fourth, again against Brown. Should the Pistons try Hack-a-Shaq, however undignified Brown deems it? If the coach thinks it will work, sure. I criticized then-Pacers coach Bird for demeaning himself with the practice in the 2000 Finals. But now I see it differently. Bonds is walked because of his greatness, and teammates' failure to make foes pay, so he has more reason to protest. O'Neal is fouled because of his weakness. The better question, one Reiter calls "a tough one" because basketball is "more continuous" than baseball and harder to analyze, is whether Hack-A-Shaq is wise. O'Neal shoots 41 percent from the line, and 58 percent from the field. That comes to .8 points per two foul shots, vs. 1.2 if O'Neal takes the Lakers' single shot from the field. Yet there's no guarantee Shaq will shoot every possession. So one must compare the .8 to the Lakers' overall average, an equation requiring either a knowledge of the number of possessions, or a lot of time. Nor is that enough to decide whether or not to hack Shaq. Brown must consider variables, from O'Neal's energy level, to the risk of key Pistons fouling out, to other Laker foul shooters benefiting from being in the penalty. Finally, Brown must ponder the peripheral effects of stopping the clock, interrupting the flow, and inspiring the Lakers should O'Neal sink a few more free throws than usual. So while today Smarty Jones can prove his dominance, and Bonds might get at least a couple of swings to keep proving his, Sunday at Staples Center should be at least as interesting. It will take some Smarty Coach to keep O'Neal and his Lakers from again proving theirs. Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel