Showing posts with label NBA (non-celts). Show all posts
Showing posts with label NBA (non-celts). Show all posts

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

More NBA team previews than you can possibly imagine

Last month, I wrote a brief Celtics season preview as part of an NBA blog sharing program where everybody who contributes agrees to post each other's links.  Here they all are, in alphabetical order by team:


Atlanta Hawks
Boston Celtics
Brooklyn Nets
Charlotte Hornets
Chicago Bulls
Cleveland Cavaliers
Dallas Mavericks
Denver Nuggets
Detroit Pistons
Golden State Warriors
Houston Rockets
Indiana Pacers
LA Clippers
LA Lakers
Memphis Grizzlies
Miami Heat
Milwaukee Bucks
Minnesota Timberwolves
New Orleans Pelicans
New York Knicks
Oklahoma City Thunder
Orlando Magic
Philadelphia Sixers
Phoenix Suns
Portland Trail Blazers
Sacramento Kings
San Antonio Spurs
Toronto Raptors
Utah Jazz
Washington Wizards

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Thursday, October 6, 2016

Can this 16-year-old 7'2" basketball player be for real?

I saw this tweet from Bleacher Report yesterday, and if you're not already familiar with Chol Marial, it's definitely worth watching the 45-second video:


My first thought is, I can't even imagine what it must be like for the kids who have to take on Cheshire Academy--I'm pretty sure the starting center on my high school team was 6'3".  Here's another clip I found of Marial as a freshman last season:



I wouldn't be surprised if he's actually 19, but still...



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Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Doc Rivers wishes Celtics kept '08 title team completely intact, sounds skeptical of Warriors' Durant signing


On a recent CSNNE podcast with Kyle Draper, former Celtics coach and current Clippers boss Doc Rivers sounded less than convinced that signing Kevin Durant was a smart move for the 73-win Warriors:

"You only get 95 shots a game--that's what they took last year, they're gonna get 95 this year. ... Is [Stephen] Curry going to take less shots? Is Klay Thompson going to take less? ... They lost a lot of guys, they lost a lot of their bench which I thought was huge for them. If I've learned anything, even like when we won in 2008, if I could have a redo I don't think we should've touched that team the following year. We made changes. We let [James] Posey go, and chemistry is a very tentative thing. When you have it, you've gotta keep it and I think, ah, we'll see..."

Other than wanting to teach Doc the difference between "less" and "fewer," I wholeheartedly agree with his premise.  The Warriors may well win the title in 2016-17, but odds are they won't be as good as they were last season.

The same podcast also includes an interview with Brad Stevens.  Among other things, Stevens shared his thoughts on the Celtics opting not to re-sign Jared Sullinger:

"I really like Jared and I thought Jared had a great year last year. He started most of our games throughout the regular season and into the playoffs. [He] did a lot of great things and he's a heck of a young player. Obviously when we got Al Horford we had to make tough decisions. That was a really hard decision for everybody."

Stevens always chooses his words wisely and never says anything bad about anyone.  Clearly there's more to the story here--if the C's wanted to keep Sully around they could've, regardless of Horford's arrival.


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Monday, August 29, 2016

What if the NBA eliminated the short three-pointer in the corner?

Three-pointers are taking over the NBA.  Consider this: In 2014-15, Steph Curry set an all-time league record with 286.  A year later he hit 402, breaking his previous mark by over 40 percent.

There are those who think this sudden three-point barrage is ruining the game and that something must be done about it.  The obvious fix is to move back the three-point arc (suggested by Grantland in 2014 and again by FiveThirtyEight this year).  However, that'd be a drastic change which would forever alter the record books.

I'd like to propose an alternative idea:

Take away the closer line in the corner instead.  The NBA's three-point arc is 23'9" inches from the rim, except for by the sideline where it's is only 22 feet away.  I've never understood this.  Why did the league decide it was essential for players to be able shoot threes by the baseline in the first place?  What's wrong with having the arc continue at its regular distance until it hits the sideline?

There are many players who've become proficient at the corner three who can't hit from the normal distance.  Guys like Curry also make the shorter three at particularly absurd rates (sidebar--if the league had adopted my plan prior to the 2012-13 season Ray Allen never would've hit the shot that saved LeBron James' career).  Eliminating the 22-foot three-pointer could cut down on the skyrocketing number of threes made without fundamentally changing the rules of the game.


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Friday, August 26, 2016

Phil Jackson's quote about missing out on trading for Jae Crowder sounds like revisionist history

In an interview published Friday by Today's Fastbreak, Knicks GM Phil Jackson said his biggest mistake in New York was passing up the opportunity to trade for Jae Crowder back in 2014.  Here's the full quote:

"I think the biggest mistake I made was actually this…One of the first deals I engineered when I came back to New York was to trade Tyson Chandler and Raymond Felton to Dallas for Shane Larkin, Jose Calderon, Wayne Ellington, Samuel Dalembert, plus a second-round pick that the Mavs owed to the Celtics. In talking with Boston, I was given the option of taking that pick or else taking Jae Crowder. I liked Crowder but I thought he wouldn’t get much of a chance to play behind Carmelo [Anthony], so I took the pick which turned out to be Cleanthony Early. While Cleanthony has missed lots of time in the past two seasons with us, he still has the potential to be a valuable player. Even so, I should have taken Crowder."

Sorry Phil, but I'm calling shenanigans on this.  The Rajon Rondo deal that brought Jae Crowder to Boston happened in December of 2014--Jackson dealt Chandler and Felton to the Mavericks in June, six months earlier.  Assuming Phil just misspoke and actually meant to say Dallas instead of Boston, It's still hard to believe his line about liking Crowder but being afraid he'd never get to play behind Carmelo.

In June of 2014, Crowder (picked in the second round a year earlier) was coming off a rookie season in which he averaged 5.0 points and 2.4 rebounds in 17.3 minutes per game while shooting 38 percent from the floor.  Jackson had been out of the NBA since 2011 (when he retired from coaching the Lakers) before taking the Knicks job three months earlier.  My guess is Jackson had no idea who Crowder was when he made the trade with Dallas.

Regardless of the sincerity of Jackson's story, Crowder's response on Instagram was perfect:


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Thursday, August 18, 2016

Team USA basketball is failing to use it's obvious advantage, I blame coaching strategy

The United States men's basketball team got back on track in Rio yesterday with a 105-78 quarterfinal victory over Argentina.  However, after winning their previous three games by a combined total of just 16 points, the Americans fell behind Argentina 19-9 right out of the gates.

While some countries clearly play better as teams than the U.S. does, talent-wise our squad is astronomically better than everybody else.  The head coach, Mike Krzyzewksi, isn't taking advantage of this.  All of these games should be blowouts.  Krzyzewski has unparalleled depth that is going to waste--other nations have a few NBA players on their rosters, but nothing close at the end of their benches.

Here's what Team USA should do: Try to run as much as possible from the opening tip.  Full-court press on defense on the very first possession.  Substitute continuously and use all 12 guys on the roster.  A "no jumpers in the first five minutes" rule might be useful to promote getting to the rim.  Opponents will be exhausted after the first quarter, with the U.S. likely already way out in front.

There's also this:


I don't see myself getting the Team USA coaching gig any time soon, but Paul Westhead (who's 1990 Denver Nuggets averaged 120 points per game) would be the perfect guy.  Or Rick Pitino, in particular the 1997 version.




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Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Miami Heat shouldn't be allowed to re-sign Beno Udrih (it's tax evasion)

Back in February, the Nets bought out Joe Johnson's expensive contract, which enabled them to save some money and gave him a chance to sign a new deal with a better ballclub.  Brooklyn, a terrible team, had no use for the aging veteran and he didn't want to be there.  The scenario was win-win for both parties, which is the reason contract buyouts happen in the NBA.

Johnson joined the Heat (as apposed to the Celtics, who could've really used him in the playoffs), but his deal put them over the league's luxury tax line.  In order to avoid paying the tax, Miami turned around and bought out Beno Udrih.  Chances are the organization wouldn't have brought Johnson on board in the first place if it wasn't also able to dump Udrih's contract.

The thing is, there was no logical reason for Udrih to take the buyout.  He was injured and out for the season, so another club wasn't going to sign him.  What possible motivation might he have to give back money Miami owed him?

The Udrih buyout sparked anger and suspicion around the league as other franchises likely wondered if there was some sort of under-the-table deal between the Heat and Udrih:

"Hey Beno, you're not playing right now anyway, if you let us cut you and get under the tax line we promise to take care of you in the future."

Today, Udrih, who's been a free agent since February, re-signed with Miami, seemingly confirming the suspicions.  League commissioner Adam Silver should void the deal and the Heat should be considered tax offenders for last season.


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Thursday, August 11, 2016

Even if Ray Allen comes back, he can't stop Stephen Curry from breaking his all-time 3-point record


Rumors of a Ray Allen return have never ceased since he played his last NBA game for the Miami Heat in 2014.  Most recently, Allen said he spoke about a potential comeback with two of his old ballclubs, the Celtics and Bucks.  According to Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe, the 41-year-old Allen is interested in adding to his all-time three-point record, which currently stands at 2,973.

I've got news for you Ray--unless you're planning to play into your fifties, Steph Curry is going to smash your record (that doesn't mean I don't think it'd be cool to see Allen on the C's again though).

A year ago, Curry was coming off a league-record 286 three-pointers in 2014-15.  I wrote an article for Hoops Habit called When Will Stephen Curry Become NBA All-Time Three-Point Leader? in which I conservatively estimated he might make 250 threes per season for the next several years.  At that pace, passing Allen was an inevitability.  But, then Steph when out and drained four hundred of them (402 to be exact) in 2015-16.  Last summer Curry was in 50th place on the all-time list with 1,191, now he's 19th at 1,593.

Curry is only 28 years old.  If he averages 300 per season for the next five years he'll pass Allen by his 33rd birthday (or 500 for the next thee years???).  Even if Ray adds another hundred or two to his total, he'd have to hope Curry is washed up at 34 in order to keep the record, and somehow I don't see that happening to the greatest shooter ever.



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Tuesday, July 19, 2016

I just read a great take on Deflategate I'd never heard before (shocking, at this point)


The following quote is from an unbiased NBC Sports writer named Joe Posnanski in a piece entitled TOM BRADY IS INNOCENT: Unequivocally, unambiguously, thoroughly and 100-percent innocent.

I underlined the portion of it that's the great point I hadn't heard before:

"Look, the NFL charged him with breaking a rule NO ONE cared about. The NFL cared so little about air pressure in football that they let teams bring their own footballs, which were barely checked. My guess is if Brady wanted the PSI level of football lowered, he simply could have petitioned the NFL and they would have just lowered it — they just wanted to make footballs comfortable for quarterbacks to throw. 
Then, there is no proof at all that Brady ever wanted footballs deflated BELOW the league minimum. We know only that he liked footballs AT the minimum (especially because, as we know, football naturally deflate in cold weather). Even the famed “Deflator” suggested his job was to make sure footballs were not OVERINFLATED."

Posnanksi is dead on with this.  It was a rule the league paid no attention to that guys broke all the time.  If anybody thought it actually mattered, Brady or another QB probably would've gotten the NFL to change it.  And, just because Brady prefers his footballs on the low side in terms of air pressure does not mean he wanted them below the limit--regardless of whether they actually were or not.

I'd like to see someone ask Roger Goodell point-blank "Do you honestly believe Tom Brady should be suspended 25 percent of a season for that?"  Imagine if Adam Silver suspended LeBron James 20 games, roughly the NBA equivalent, for an equipment violation?  (For the record, LeBron wasn't even fined when he ripped his jersey apart during a nationally televised game.)

Also, one thing that hasn't been widely discussed is that Goodell has the option to simply back down.  He's not obligated to uphold the original and absurdly over-the-top penalty decided upon just because the courts ruled it's within his rights to.


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