BasketballDisco Dirk is a Macho Man

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In memory of Macho Man Randy Savage, who passed away untimely last Friday, I have decided to apply the Savage Scale ranking system to a handful of players we've been watching in this year's conference finals.

To refresh, here's how the system breaks down:

*Late pro wrestler Macho Man Randy Savage (Excellent)

*Adult film star Herschel Savage (Good)

*Former NHLer Brian Savage (Fair)

*Former child star Fred Savage (Unsatisfactory)

*Former child actor Ben Savage (Poor)

BEN: Carlos Boozer, Bulls

Throughout his career you could never accuse Boozer of being a great defensive big man, but his sub-par offensive production in roughly half of Chicago's post-season games this year is one of the reasons Bulls fans are left yearning for more Taj Gibson and Omer Asik. He didn't help his own cause when he opined to media before the Miami-Chicago series that the Heat "have two great players in D-Wade and LeBron," not-so-subtly forgetting Chris Bosh.

You can pick apart Bosh's game all you want (and God knows it's been done ad nauseam in Toronto), but pro athletes should generally be wiser than to purposely motivate individual players -- especially ones who are better athletes than they are. Miami is having success against Chicago because their defence is clamping down on Derrick Rose and leaving him nowhere to go, and the absence of another producer is a glaring hole. But then consider Boozer played great offensively and on the glass in Game 4: Bosh still used him as a test-track pylon on occasion.

FRED: Russell Westbrook, Thunder

Westbrook must be feeling like a little like Donovan McNabb right now, in the sense that he's a great player who can't seem to do anything right. While a casual glance at his statistics doesn't show much difference between the regular season and playoffs, a closer look indicates Dallas has his number. His field goal percentage is down to 34 per cent in the series, as the Mavericks force him into bad shot selection. His assist-to-turnover ratio is 4.8-to-5.3 in this series, completely opposite his regular season numbers.

Westbrook's been taking a lot of heat, his Game 2 benching in the fourth quarter an example. But while it's been said to death, this is a huge learning curve for the Thunder. Blowing a 15-point lead with four minutes left on Monday -- in which time Westbrook missed two free throws -- is indicative of OKC's youth. When they are eliminated by the Mavs, they'll have all summer to think about how this veteran team played them in this series. And that will be a good thing for the future of the Thunder.

BRIAN: Kevin Durant, Thunder

Westbrook's teammate gets an even-steven ranking, despite scoring 40 in Game 1 against Dallas, averaging 29.3 points per contest through Game 4 and wearing that backpack in post-game news conferences.

At one point on Monday, you had to ask yourself why Durant kept jacking up threes late in the game (he's 4-for-25 from behind the arc in the series) -- including the pathetic one at the regulation buzzer that was Stove-Topped by Shawn Marion. The answer of course, was desperation. Durant said later he didn't have another option. As mentioned, the team is young. In a best case scenario, you can attribute that youth to Durant missing his last six shots of that game, or this statistic courtesy of ESPN: Durant is 2-of-14 this season on potential game-winning or tying shots in the final 10 seconds of games. He's too good a player to have this stick.

HERSCHEL: Udonis Haslem, Heat

Ok, so Haslem is not the caliber of the other players listed here, but his return to the Miami rotation after a near-six-month absence from a serious foot injury has had a significant impact. It's also no small task for an NBA role player to become a Canadian trending topic on Twitter. In Games 2 and 3 against Chicago, Haslem provided basically what the Heat missed from him all year, and more. In those two contests, he shot 9-of-17 from the floor and gave Miami much-needed energy off the bench.

MACHO MAN RANDY:  Dirk Nowitzki, Mavericks

What else can you say? Even when he played badly in Game 3 against OKC, he still stepped up in the clutch and won the game for Dallas. Then trailing by 15 in Game 4, keyed the comeback, scoring 12 points in the final five, finishing with 40. The zone Nowitzki was in the fourth quarter Monday was the same zone he was in during Game 1, when he scored at will, racking up 48. Serge Ibaka? No problem. Hits. Nick Collison? No worries at all. Hits. Help defence? Double team? Hits. To borrow a line from 2001, he's scoring like Dirk Diggler.

His scoring proficiency (33.8 per game in this series) has allowed the rest of the Mavericks to play their roles. Dallas looks very, very good right now.

(Photo courtesy Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

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