2010-11 NBA Preview

Here’s my predictions of which teams will make the playoffs, in no particular order

East: Boston, Orlando, Miami, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Milwaukee, Charlotte

West: LA Lakers, Dallas, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Portland, Utah, Phoenix, Denver

Pretty tame predictions, but here’s some additional thoughts.

- Don’t think NY will be very good, but I can’t come up with a more reasonable choice in the East.

- Was thinking of dropping Phoenix or Denver and adding Houston, but I decided to stick with the boring decision. Turkoglu could derail Phoenix this year, or maybe not. Denver might trade Carmelo halfway and change things.

Whose Team Is It?

Some thoughts on the Miami Heat…

Let’s first get past the narrow minded, MJ-fueled notion of what it means to be ‘The Man’. Kobe Bryant isn’t the leader of the Lakers because he’s the one who gets to chuck up 18 foot jump shots at the end of regulation. Kobe isn’t handed the keys to the team simply because he’s been around the longest either. Leadership is always about the intangibles. Admittedly, the whole ‘Star player singlehandedly wins game’ storyline is so much more epic than the  ‘Star player passes to role player #3’ alternative. And yet, there’s no rule or reason, outside of highlight reel resume building and ego padding, that the team leader has to be the designated late game savior.

There have been premature proclamations as to who will be the leader of this star driven team. Columnists have to write columns, the Heat are the trendy topic right now, and there are only so many facts to follow before speculation becomes the easiest way to bang out a couple hundred more words about LeBron and Wade.

It’s not unreasonable to think that Dwyane Wade will be the face, legs, body and soul of the team. The man can flat out play and is right up there as a top 5 player in the league. LeBron is undoubtedly the better basketball player, but perhaps LeBron lacks that essential, or maybe imaginary, alpha male ‘tear your throat out’ mentality that American values dictates to be necessary in any great athlete.

However, it is, without question, unreasonable, and quite frankly ignorant, to say that this is Wade’s team if your reason simply consists of  ‘He was here first and he’s won a championship here before’. Pocahontas and the American Indians were ‘here first’ but the Pilgrims had something to say about that once they arrived didn’t they? In case the analogy isn’t clear, Dwyane Wade is Pocahontas, LeBron James is a turkey eating Pilgrim, and Chris Bosh is smallpox.

Flawed analogies aside, this Heat team is nothing like the Heat team of 2006. Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem are the only remainders. This is a brand new team with a sparkling new team dynamic. One could even take the angle that Dwyane has his buddy Udonis Haslem while LeBron James brought his playmate Big Z to this new team. Chris Bosh brought the ball boy that no one likes. It’s anyone’s team at this point, as long as anyone only consists of Wade and LeBron.

I want to see this guy do well but…

… can he please get rid of that moustache/goatee?

Von Wafer

Preseason is a good time to impress your coaches. Someone should tell Von Wafer this because in 12 minutes, all he accomplished was 2 turnovers, 3 fouls, and 1 technical. But hey, at least he didn’t miss any shots!

(Click to see a bigger picture)

Stoudemire needs new friends

With free agency looming, some big name free agents are talking about getting together and discussing their plans for league domination. The original group consisted of Lebron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Joe Johnson. Not wanting to be forgotten, Amare Stoudemire has expressed interest in joining this group.

"I'm friends with LeBron, Dwyane, Chris [Bosh] -- all those guys are friends of mine," Stoudemire told Fanhouse. "So I'm pretty sure they'll call me and we'll talk about a few things."

I can just picture Stoudemire sitting next to the phone waiting for his ‘friends’ to call him to hang out. And when they never call he’ll try to invite himself to their meetings and they’ll avoid him and it’ll be all awkward every time Stoudemire sees them. Then again, if Joe Johnson, the almost-but-not-quite superstar, is invited, Stoudemire will probably be too.

Reasons why Lebron should go to New York

Hedo Turkoglu Is Not That Good

Turkoglu was both beastly and awful in today’s game against the Chicago Bulls. He had half of his team’s total defensive rebounds, and 19 overall. However, his shooting was… off.

What to take from all this: Hedo Turkey-glue is a balanced player, shooting from both the outside and the inside. However, he is also very bad at shooting, from both the outside and the inside. He kind of sucked today, and he did not even win the funny picture of the day award. That honor goes to Jarret Jack’s swan dance improv.

Richard Jefferson – Genius or Insane?

After reading that Richard Jefferson is considering opting out of his current contract (next year is the last year, worth $15 mil), I had several reactions.

Reaction 1: LOL

Reaction 2: Come on, Jefferson is useless, who would want to sign him to another large contract.

Reaction 3: He’s so dumb and useless and bald.

Reaction 4: This actually might make some sense for him. He knows that if he sucks again next year, his value will plummet to less than nothing, and he’ll have a hard time getting a new contract. Taking on a new contract that runs longer would provide him some financial security.

Reaction 5: Still, he’s so useless. I doubt he is worth more than $6 million a year unless he is placed in a perfect situation.

Reaction 6: I hope he opts out so the Spurs can get some real players next year.

Reaction 7: Lawl

After those reactions, I then stopped laughing long enough to actually read the article. Jefferson sees getting a new contract similar to signing an extension, which makes sense.

"So you figure it out. If you're able to get four years and 40 (million dollars by opting out) from someone, it's like, 'OK, I did lose out on 15 (million dollars). But I'm going to get basically a $25 million extension.' Those are things that you think of at the end of the season.''

I could see him getting 10 million a year from certain desperate teams *cough*Knicks*cough*, but even then I kind of doubt it. He makes it sound like his game is more suited to up tempo basketball and relies heavily on his athleticism, but he’s already getting old.

Self Promotion

I made a post about basketball on my other blog so I thought I should link to it here.

Your 2009-10 Lakers

Wise man Gasol and giddy, overexcited Kobe

Bynum: Are those glasses? You’re wearing glasses? I eat nerds like you for breakfast.

Artest: Whoah. Guys. Look. I’m not dribbling but the ball is still bouncing. Whoah.

Lamar Odom is too cool to do silly things like drive to the basket, so he has to have a bored face when doing so.

Derek Fisher, a player or a spectator? A little of both.

No one cares about Agent Zero anymore

Gilbert Arenas wants to change his number to 6. But wait you say, Lebron is doing that too. What a copycat! Or it could be something far more sinister.

At the beginning of this season, Arenas said that he was giving up the whole Agent Zero shtick and be more serious. Well, that phase ended faster than a speeding bullet(!) and it was back to Agent Zero status. Now the number 6 is interesting. If you recall the movie Goldeneye, James Bond (007) is betrayed by his partner Trevelyan (006). Gilbert obviously plans on playing with someone who wears number 7, and reenacting the movie. He’ll be a good teammate, score a bunch, get a couple of dimes, and get the team in position for a playoff run. Then at the last minute, he’ll try to have #7 shot by an army of Russians (with really bad aim). This is very scary!

Here’s a list of some notable players who are wearing the number 7 this season.

Ben Gordon, Al Harrington, Jermaine ‘The Drain’ O’neal, Lamar Odom, J.J. ‘Duke pretty boy’ Redick, Brandon Roy

Rasheed Wallace: Better or Worse?

Rasheed Wallace has taken 3 three-pointers combined in the last three games.

[…]

According to his game logs on Basketball Reference, the last instance of Sheed attempting three or fewer triples combined over a three-game span happened during the last three games of the…2005 season.

from CelticsHub

Sure, Rasheed Wallace may have taken a low amount of 3’s the past three games but maybe it’s not the good news that people seem to think it is. Jacking up 3’s is never a good thing, especially when Wallace has so much potential in the low post. But is this drought of 3’s really a product of Rasheed finally learning how to best utilize his talents, or is it merely a problem that you wouldn’t see in the simple box score? I myself have not watched any of the recent Celtics games, and I am far too busy at the moment to actually look at numbers. But I can imagine a handful of scenarios where this dropoff in 3’s is only a precursor to something far worse.

• Rasheed Wallace is losing his vision, so he has had a foot on the line when he has been attempting a 3, nullifying it into the longest two possible.
• Rasheed Wallace has lost all confidence in shooting 3’s. Even when wide open he opts to pass it to the unopen man, or even worse, pretend to fumble it away.
• He has a gambling problem, and he is trying to win a bet that he won’t shoot more than 10 3’s the rest of the season.
• His arms are too weak now, so he doesn’t have the range anymore.
• That white spot on his head is a tumor and he is dying.

Portland Trailblazers Cursed

First you have Gregory Oden injure himself every single season. Then you have your backup center get injured too. And then you have your own coach sustain a leg injury. Worst of all, you have 80 year old Juwan Howard as your center. And now, your injured center gets injured again.

Portland Trail Blazers center Joel Przybilla, already out for the season with a ruptured tendon in his right knee, re-injured the knee while slipping in the shower Saturday and will require surgery again this week, the team said.

Being a Trailblazers fan now is almost as bad as being a Knicks fan.

The Return of Maggette

Maggette is back. Look how happy he is! Yay!

Unfortunately he forgot how to shoot a basketball. At first I thought they were fighting for a rebound, but nope. This is a Josh Smith block on a Corey Maggette “shot”.

Lakers at Heat Thoughts

Disclaimer: I didn’t actually watch the game. The only thing I’ve seen is a picture of Dwyane Wade smiling, and the box score. And from that, I can’t be too worried about this one game as a Lakers fan.

Two things immediately jump out in the box score. Lakers free throw woes, and the blazing accuracy of Miami’s three point shot. The Lakers shot 15-25 from the charity stripe, good for 60%.  If they had shot their season average of 77%, they would have scored 4 more points, which isn’t insignificant in a 3 point game. On Miami’s side, Quentin “every team keeps trading me” Richardson shot 7-11 from 3 point range. Fire.

Just based on box score alone, I’d just chalk this up as a disappointing loss.

An Adventure in Advanced Statistics: Free Throws

All numbers from Hoopdata and www.nba.com . And when I say adventure, I mean I look at numbers and copy and paste interesting ones.

League Free Throw Average: 75.8%

Best team: Dallas Mavericks (81.5%)

2nd Worst  team: Orlando Magic (72.3%)

Absolute worst: Detroit Pistons (71.4%)

Dallas being up there makes some sense. Dirk Nowitzki shoots a sizable chunk of his team’s free throws, and he’s a great free throw shooter (no need to fade away/be soft when no one is guarding you!). Orlando being low makes sense too. Dwight Howard gets the most free throws in the league, and he’s not that great at them. For a long time, Orlando was the worst in the league percentage wise.

But wow, Detroit. Their low % can be traced to one thing. The Ben Wallace free throw. 2-20 in the past 5 games. Even scarier is that Detroit shoots 71.5% on free throws at home, and 77.3% on the road. In fact, they seem to shoot a lot better in general while away.

29.6% vs 36.7% for 3’s.

44% vs 46.6% overall.

Their two best players, Rip Hammie and Tayshaun Prince, were injured for some games so I took a look to see if they had played more road games than home games. Results of a quick glance? No they haven’t. Talk about home court disadvantage. Oh, and talk about sucking too.

Yao Ming is tall

Almost looks like a normal couple in the rain, until you realize Yao Ming is like a thousand million feet tall and his wife Mrs. Ming is like a thousand million feet minus a “Yao head”™ tall.

They’re both basketball players. One has to wonder if they talk ball during breakfast. Perhaps they talk about how to defend the pick and roll, or how to set a proper screen, or how Yao becomes useless when he is fronted. Only soon to come  baby Yao will know.

The Baby Eater

 

Jason Maxiell eats babies. Jason Maxiell meets Big Baby aka Uno Uno aka Glen Davis aka Ronald Glen Davis. Jason Maxiell the baby eater is reaching for the ketchup.

Rejection

A little late on this but here goes. I had heard about T-Mac sending Lebron a message about how great it is to play in New York (if you like losing) but I hadn’t heard about Lebron’s response.

From the NYPost:

T-Mac and LeBron have been in communication. "He's a good friend,'' McGrady said at the morning shootaround at Quicken Loans Arena. "He wanted to see me back on the basketball court and congratulate me on being back. I sent him an email that said: "I'm in the Big Apple. I'll see you here next season.''

LeBron's response was a "LOL.''

Now I don’t know how legitimate this is. Maybe it’s just a joke and I’m not seeing it. Only way Lebron is in the Big Apple next season is when he’s there to drop a triple double against the Knicks. Also, who’s to say T-Mac won’t be playing in China by then anyway?

Pacers at Lakers

Today the Indiana Pacers take on the Los Angeles Lakers. What’s that you say? What is a Pacer and what is a Laker? Well, I don’t know either. Maybe their team logos will help us solve this mystery.

Nope.

Celtics interested in Michael Finley

The San Antonio Spurs waived Michael Finley today per his request to be released. The deadline to be a free agent still eligible for the playoffs was today. Right off the bat, the Boston Celtics have expressed interest in signing him.

Finley is 36 years old, and has played in 25 games this season, averaging 15.8 minutes and 3.7 points on 38.1% shooting. Despite that, I can see how this might work out for the Celtics. Ray Allen is 34 years old, KG is 33, Paul Pierce 32, Scalabrine 31 (not that he really matters), Rasheed Wallace is 35.

These players are getting up there in terms of their basketball life, and they’re not going to get younger. So why not try to make them *feel* younger by bringing in an old dude? They might look at Finley and realize that they have to try extra hard this year because in a year or two they’ll become useless too. Fear as motivation? Why not.

Michael Jordan’s Ownership Starts Out Poorly

As you may have heard, Michael Jordan has bought the Charlotte Bobcats and will officially take over by the end of March. To celebrate, Jordan decided to pick on a rookie in a game of Horse.

One of Michael Jordan's first acts since reaching a deal to buy the Charlotte Bobcats: losing two games of H-O-R-S-E to guard Gerald Henderson.

A trash-talking Jordan attended the Bobcats' shootaround Monday morning before their game against Dallas, challenging the rookie Henderson to a shooting competition after the workout.

While Jordan made a free throw with his eyes closed and relentlessly needled Henderson, he couldn't hold him off in either game.

Gerald Hender-who? Henderson is a rookie guard who has played in 29 games this year and has shot 33.8%, albeit in limited minutes. And Michael Jordan still lost. At least he chose to compete against a guard though. MJ may end up challenging Tyson ‘I can only score when Chris Paul sends me an alley-oop, oh and I’m injured’ Chandler during the next shootaround to regain his pride.

Milk is bad.

Considering that Vince Carter is now a sad excuse for a basketball player and can barely dunk jump, I'd say stay away from milk.

Vince Carter

I originally intended to write out 5 observations from Thursday night's basketball match between the Boston Celtics and the Orlando Magic. The above picture is the only thing I came up with. Sure, I can talk about how great it is that I traded for Rashard Lewis in my fantasy league, or how Garnett doesn't look 100%, but Vince Carter's suckitude was just too enormous.

There wasn't a single play that he looked comfortable handling the ball. His first play? Traveling. His last play? Not being able to get open 30 feet away from the basket, forcing Redick to abandon the drawn up play and pass to Lewis instead. In fact, if I was Doc Rivers I would have let Vince Carter handle the ball on the last play.

VC is so washed up now. His offensive repertoire consists of 3 things now.

1. Shooting 3 pointers 5 feet out from the line because he can't get any closer
2. Shoot a off balance shot, even when open (one of his two made shots were of this variety)
3. Drive into the lane and get smothered because defenders know that 90% of the time he's not going to pass

He is the reason why the Magic are struggling. He's been bad this season, and yet he has a usage rate of 26.9%. In yesterday's game, he decided that he should suck some more and and had a usage rate of 31.8, second only to Dwight Howard.

I don't want to seem like an overly negative person so I don't think it'd be a bad idea to list a few things that he did well in yesterday's game.

Paul Pierce tried to post him up and Carter defended Pierce very well, drawing an offensive foul. (The next time Pierce posted up, Carter fouled him)

He dived to the ground for a loose ball. (He didn't get it.)

Carter did not get open for the last shot so someone more capable, aka anyone else, was able to take the last shot. (This wasn't really done on purpose so he only gets half credit.)

I actually kind of like the Magic so I hope VC can start sucking less soon.