MIAMI – They all waited and waited on LeBron James to call for his dislodged headband, retrieving it for the inevitable request that it be given to him. Here was James sent to his back after absorbing an elbow from Manu Ginobili, and a Miami Heat player, Norris Cole, sensed this was the opportunity to send the headband. From Cole to a ballboy, it had been delivered to James – and he refused.

Maybe teammates were so accustomed to James needing his headband, whether it’s for comfort or appearance. Fighting for his life in these NBA Finals, fighting for his basketball stature, this accessory was the last thing he had on his mind. Still, Cole threw the headband to the ballboy who held it in front of James late Tuesday, and LeBron knew it had come from the bench, shook his head, and it was tossed back to the sideline.

“We got a game to win,” James hollered toward the bench.

“The headband was the least of my worries,” James would say later, and he spoke honestly. All around him, the measure to which everyone counted out his team baffled him: The championship trophy descending upon the Finals, a yellow tape surrounding the court and fans swiftly filing out of American Airlines Arena. All this premature celebration for the San Antonio Spurs struck the Heat, and James admitted they were irked seeing it.

The Spurs were brilliant for so long in Game 6 on Tuesday night, with double-digit leads throughout the second half and Tim Duncan carrying them in a vintage performance of 30 points and 17 rebounds of post curls and turnaround jumpers, endless cuts and even a monster dunk. They took a 75-65 lead into the fourth quarter and soon had the Heat appearing defeated, dejected in their walks back to huddles.

Except James put forth a magnificent finish to turn a game the Spurs had been poised to steal into an epic end, and, as Erik Spoelstra marveled, LeBron “gave us that life when we were down.” Down five with 28 seconds left, first came a three-pointer out of James, a crucial free throw missed by Kawhi Leonard, and then a game-tying shot in the left corner from Ray Allen.

When it was over, James had accounted for 28 of the Heat’s 38 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, capping a triple-double of 32 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds. As the yellow tape and title board left before overtime, the Heat closed out a 103-100 win that had the Spurs questioning themselves, questioning how they’ll duplicate such a well-rounded effort on Thursday.

“I have no clue how we’re going to be re-energized,” Ginobili said. “I’m devastated. … We’re going to have to play our best game, even better than [Game 6].”

Yet, Ginobili understood the truth: For now, the Spurs very well might have squandered their best chance to seal this championship. For them, the challenge of restoring mentally and physically is daunting – never mind the fleeting long-range shooting left stranded in San Antonio. Ginobili, for his part, also missed a critical free throw late, and he had one less turnover (eight) than points (nine).

Before James placed his imprint on the game, Mario Chalmers was masterful in hitting floaters out of the pick and roll, four three-pointers punctuating his 20 points. There were moments in the regular season when Chalmers showed regression, but the Heat know: He’s proven himself on this enormous stage over and over. “We all know Mario’s a clutch player, and he’s always been that way,” Spoelstra says.

As close as James is with Wade, Allen has been the teammate constantly pushing him and staying in his ear about how much the Heat need him to stay aggressive. Our aura changes when you’re assertive, carefree of missing shots and decimating people in your path, Allen tells him. James lost that belief at times Thursday, but these aren’t the 2011 Finals.

James can fully grasp the magnitude of these moments now with resilience, and when everyone panics around him, when the momentum swings rattle some, he’s had calmness.

“It was by far the best game I’ve been a part of: Ups and downs, the roller coaster, the emotions – good and bad – throughout the game,” James said. “This is something you would never be able to recreate once you’re done playing the game.”

Cole never was able to get that headband back to James late Tuesday, late in the game after LeBron had it knocked off his head. The ballboy held the white headband out for James to put on, and LeBron sniffed there are more pressing worries than an accessory. He had ferociously lifted Miami to a Game 7 and everywhere, people wanted to anoint this James’ no-headband game. “The headband’s gone forever now,” one Heat staffer joked in the locker room.

Whatever, LeBron James had been too battered, too exhausted to consume himself over a headband. Out of Game 6 early Wednesday, James and Tim Duncan limped. Nine years separate them, and Duncan labored from the podium to the loading dock to the quiet of the team bus, as James was carted off comfortably into the night. Here comes Game 7, with Duncan figuring out how the Spurs slipped away a title and James still with a game, a second championship, to capture.

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This year the NBA mock drafts seem to have more of a consensus than is typical. So rather than just repeat where players are expected to be selected, let’s take a look at some of the college stats of the projected picks. In the following lists, I am mostly focusing on players projected to go in the first round of the draft. But I will throw in a few other names just to make things interesting.

Vexing this project with their incomplete college stats:

1. All the international players

2. Nerlens Noel - hideous knee injury

3. CJ McCollum - injured a year after upsetting Duke

4. Glen Rice Jr. - D-league last year

5. Ricardo Ledo - never eligible

6. Myck Kabongo - ineligible most of season

The story prior to the combine was that Cody Zeller had short arms that caused him to get his shot blocked more often than you might expect for a 7-footer. But his arms measured out to the same height as his frame. So maybe the story was that he was a below-the-rim player. But his vertical leap wasn’t terrible either when tested at the combine. Maybe the answer is just that Zeller does a good job of getting under players and drawing contact. Among first round picks, Zeller was the best at getting to the line last year: 

Best free throw rate, most FTA/FGA

1. Cody Zeller 0.73

2. Mason Plumlee 0.69

3. Nerlens Noel 0.63

4. Jeff Withey 0.60 

I’ll give Noel a bit of a pass because of the short season, but if he is going to live at the free throw line, he needs to start making a higher percentage of his free throws: 

Worst FT%

1. Steven Adams 44%

2. Nerlens Noel 53%

3. Gorgui Dieng 65%

4. Tony Mitchell 68%

Interestingly, all four of these bad free throw shooters were also elite shot-blockers: 

Best Block Pct

1. Jeff Withey 14%

2. Nerlens Noel 13%

3. Steven Adams 11%

4. Gorgui Dieng 9%

5. Tony Mitchell 8%

I think this says something about player development. If you have always been an explosive player in high school or college, you have never needed to put in major hours working on your shot. But the NBA game now emphasizes skill over physicality and if Noel, Adams and Dieng ever want to be stars, their scoring touch will have to evolve to match their elite defensive ability.

Withey’s shot-blocking is truly remarkable and someone is going to get a very nice defensive piece at the end of the first round.

Having looked at bad free throw shooters, here are some of the better free throw shooters: 

80%+ from the FT Line

1. Ben McLemore 87%

2. CJ McCollum 85%

3. Tony Snell 84%

4. Allen Crabbe 81%

5. Trey Burke 80%

6. Pierre Jackson 80%

7. Kentavious Caldwell Pope 80%

The real problem with college data is the small sample sizes. A player can get hot from three-point range for 15 games, declare for the draft, and it is hard to tell if his shooting skill is a mirage. That’s why some people view free throw shooting as the real shooter’s metric. If you put in the time and have a natural touch at the line, there is a better chance you will eventually become a quality perimeter shooter in the pros. Thus even though there is some variation in the three point shooting percentages for players like Pierre Jackson and CJ McCollum, the fact that all seven of the above players were good at the line suggests they are all natural shooters. 

College three-point percentages are less interesting for guys that rarely take them. (I am looking at you Victor Oladipo.) Thus in the next table, I am only showing the top three point shooters if they made a lot of threes. 

Over 70 made 3's on the year, best percentages

1. Erik Murphy 45%

2. Reggie Bullock 44%

3. Ben McLemore 42%

4. James Southerland 40%

5. Trey Burke 39%

Erik Murphy is projected as a second round pick right now and that is probably fair. But 6’10” guys who shoot over 40 percent from beyond the arc for three years in a row usually at least get a chance in the NBA. The same comment applies to Southerland.

I’m not convinced Victor Oladipo is really a natural outside shooter. But he is undoubtedly a hard-worker, and he was one of the most versatile defenders in college basketball. He had the second most steals among projected first-round picks: 

Most Steals

1. Michael Carter-Williams 109

2. Victor Oladipo 78

3. Shane Larkin 71

4. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope 65

Michael Carter-Williams and Victor Oladipo were both relatively tall guards at the college level which allowed them to get their hands on more passes. But I worry a little bit that Carter-Williams great steal numbers were a product of playing in a zone defense. In a zone, dipping into passing lanes and cheating off your man is more common. I’m also a little worried that Carter-Williams led all projected first round picks in DQs last year: 

Most likely to foul out

1. Michael Carter-Williams - 5 DQs on year

2. Alex Len - 4 DQs on year

Maybe Carter-Williams is a little too aggressive in some games, but he only averaged 2.3 fouls per game, so foul trouble wasn’t a common occurrence. In fact, none of the consensus first round picks looks particularly foul prone at all.

And of course what makes Carter-Williams' size all the more special is that he is a PG with elite passing skills: 

Best Assist Rate

1. Pierre Jackson 41%

2. Michael Carter-Williams 40%

3. Trey Burke 37%

4. Shane Larkin 26% 

No one can match Trey Burke’s assist-to-turnover ratio however: 

Best Assist to Turnover Ratio (PGs)

1. Trey Burke 3.0

2. Pierre Jackson 2.1

3. Michael-Carter Williams 2.1

4. Shane Larkin 2.0

Burke’s performance is even more impressive given how many freshmen he played with last year. He turned a team of young players into a Final Four team with his outstanding decision making. 

And don’t overlook the passing of some of these non-PGs too: 

Best Assist to Turnover Ratio (non-PGs)

1. Reggie Bullock 2.3

2. Otto Porter 1.8

Porter’s strength is his shooting and passing, not his play-making and driving. On the flip side, these guys are black holes: 

Worst Assist to Turnover Ratio

1. Tony Mitchell 0.3

2. Shabazz Muhammad 0.5

3. Jeff Withey 0.5

4. Anthony Bennett 0.5

At least Tony Mitchell had the excuse that he was playing in a non-power conference and he was almost always the best player on the floor. But Shabazz Muhammad might have helped his team by passing once in a while. There is an interesting correlation in the fact that Shabazz Muhammad selfishly lied about his age for all those years and selfishly never passes the ball to teammates. 

Having looked at the great three point shooters earlier, here are the bad ones: 

Wait, why was he taking a three? Over 70 misses, worst percentages

1. Jamaal Franklin 27%

2. Michael Carter-Williams 29% 

I’m not sure how Franklin’s game translates to the NBA. A guard who struggles with his outside shot is going to be exposed pretty early. But Franklin was a dominant player at San Diego St. in a lot of ways. At 6’5” Franklin had the best defensive rebounding rate of any of the projected first round picks. Franklin’s defensive rebounding rate was even better than the forwards and centers. 

Best Defensive Rebounding Percentage

1. Jamaal Franklin 26%

2. Mason Plumlee 23%

3. Gorgui Dieng 22%

4. Anthony Bennett 22%

Gorgui Dieng was dominant on the glass on both ends of the floor.

Best Offensive Rebounding Percentage

1. Steven Adams 15%

2. Alex Len 13%

3. Gorgui Dieng 13%

4. Cody Zeller 12%

Offensive rebounding was Adams best offensive skill, but the rest of his offensive game needs a lot of work. And Adams didn’t play nearly as minutes as some of the other elite players. It is pretty baffling why some of these players declared given that they hadn’t even earned major minutes at the college level yet: 

Fewest Minutes Per Game

1. Grant Jerrett 18 MPG

2. Dewayne Dedmon 22 MPG

3. Steven Adams 23 MPG

4. Amath M'Baye 25 MPG 

On the flip side, Shane Larkin absolutely was an iron man for Miami, playing the most minutes per game of any projected first round pick. And the reason for all those minutes is that Larkin was one of the most improved players in college basketball this season. (For those of you less familiar with college data, ORtg is a measure of points scored per 100 possessions.) 

Big improvements in efficiency

1. Shane Larkin ORtg improved from 99 to 117 while using 3% more possessions

2. Alex Len ORtg improved from 99 to 113 while using 6% more possessions

3. Trey Burke ORtg improved from 106 to 121 while using 2% more possessions

4. Victor Oladipo ORtg improved from 107 to 122 while using 1% fewer possessions

5. Reggie Bullock ORtg improved from 118 to 128 while using 3% more possessions

6. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope ORtg improved from 104 to 113 while using 4% more possessions

There are so many more names I could include on this list. Murray St.’s Isaiah Canaan deserves a lot more praise. Even though his team did worse, Canaan had a brilliant season personally. On the flip side…

Not improving

1. Andre Roberson ORtg fell from 109 to 100 while using 2% fewer possessions

2. Phil Pressey ORtg fell from 114 to 101 while using 3% more possessions

3. Cody Zeller ORtg fell from 127 to 119 while using 2% more possessions

None of these guys was terrible. Roberson was still a dominant defender. But when you tread water in college basketball, NBA scouts start to downgrade your potential. Zeller treaded water and didn’t improve and his draft stock has fallen quite a bit. From Z to Z, from Zeller’s free throw rate, to his declining ORtg, that’s a quick look inside the college stats.

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 There's no magic to it.  It's basketball.  It's not that complicated. -- Gregg Popovich

Over the course of the NBA Finals, the lineups on the floor have become progressively smaller. In Game 1, Udonis Haslem and Tiago Splitter started while Matt Bonner and Chris “Birdman” Andersen came off the bench. In Game 4, Erik Spoelstra took out Haslem for Mike Miller. In Game 5, Gregg Popovich responded in kind, taking Splitter out for Manu Ginobili. Bonner and Birdman, meanwhile, are nowhere to be found. The result has been beautiful basketball: two skilled teams playing 4-out for 48 minutes.

Both San Antonio and Miami are built to exploit the geometry of the floor. They attack defenses all 94 feet. If you let up on either team for a second, the ball can find its way to someone spotting up for an open corner three, the most dangerous shot in the game. When their offenses are clicking, all five players are moving in unison to create an open shot for a good shooter. The ball flows freely around the court. This is what coaches mean when they talk about The Way The Game Was Meant To Be Played.

While there hasn’t been a close finish since Game 1, it hasn’t been for any lack of dramatic back-and-forth action. In the playoffs, every stretch of the game is crunch time. And with both teams going small, any lack of offensive execution can snowball quickly. When either misses shots or turns the ball over for 4-5 minutes, it gives the other too many chances for run-outs and transition 3’s. It’s two boxers in the middle of the ring trading wild overhand punches. Eventually, someone connects.

In Game 5, the Spurs landed the first blow, with a 12-0 run in a 3-minute stretch at the end of the first quarter. The floor spacing of the Heat was terrible: Haslem, Norris Cole and Ray Allen around Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. Allen is the only guy San Antonio doesn’t feel comfortable leaving open outside of 15+ feet. LeBron and Wade started missing long two-point shots because there was no room on the floor, while Parker treated Cole like a turnstile on defense.

Miami was able to make a comeback, but they had expended too much of their energy getting back into the game. You could see it by the end of the third quarter, when LeBron and Wade were missing a number of easy shots at the rim in transition. The Spurs didn’t win the game in that 3-minute stretch at the end of the first, but they did remove almost any margin of error for the Heat. In this series, it only takes one false move to dig yourself into a pretty deep hole.

San Antonio essentially played flawless offense on Sunday. They scored 114 points on 60 percent shooting, with an offensive rating of 119.4 per 100 possessions. All five of their starters had at least 16 points. That’s hard to do against a bad team in the middle of December playing the second night of a back-to-back, much less against the defending champions on the biggest stage of the sport. Were it not for their 18 turnovers, the Spurs might have had some truly jaw-dropping point totals.

Much of the credit for that will go to Popovich and his offensive system, but as he’s said in a million times, there’s nothing all that complicated to what he’s doing. The Spurs run pick-and-rolls with a lot of movement on the weakside of the floor. A good portion of their game is played in semi-transition, which is probably the “purest” form of basketball, with players reading and reacting in space and flowing into open shots rather than running set plays.

At a really basic level, it’s just having a lot of shooting on the floor. If defenses have to defend four players all over the three-point line, they are too spread out to effectively help each other. If they don’t respect a player’s outside shot, they can pack the paint. There are ways to score when there’s traffic around the basket, but it’s much easier to make plays when there is space in the middle of the floor. Any coach can look like a genius with LeBron or Tony Parker operating in space.

With enough space, even a marginal player can look like a superstar. Danny Green was the No. 46 pick in the 2009 draft and he was cut three times in his first two years in the NBA. Now, he’s averaging 18 points on 66 percent shooting from three in the Finals and is one of the front-runners for series MVP. It’s no slight on Green to say there are players just as talented as him in Europe. How would Wayne Ellington, his more celebrated teammate at UNC, have done in Green’s role in San Antonio?

If a player can’t consistently stretch the floor, he can become a liability quickly. There just aren’t many places you can hide a player who can’t shoot against modern defenses. In four-out basketball, either you are a center or a three-point shooter. As a result, anyone can look mortal without a jumper. The Spurs realized they didn’t have to play guys who could run with LeBron and Wade; they could just play shooters who could give them three feet of cushion.

In the modern NBA, a non-center who can’t shoot is becoming an endangered species. The old cliche was that the game slowed down in the playoffs, but the reverse is happening these days. Neither team could afford to play this small in the regular season. With floor spacing so crucial in the Finals, defensive liabilities like Gary Neal and Miller can be hidden in ways that offensive liabilities cannot. In the nine minutes Haslem played in Game 5, the Heat were -20.

The lesson for young basketball players is clear. If you want to play basketball at the highest level, you had better be able to shoot the ball. It doesn’t take a ton of athletic ability to be a good shooter. It just takes good mechanics and a strong work ethic. Shooting is as important to basketball as hitting is to baseball. No one’s calling up minor leaguers to the show who can’t hit. If you’re in the D-League and you’re not shooting three-pointers, you’re doing it wrong.

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