Not afraid, but I do loathe them and their self-congratulatory bullshit "culture."
Spiro is kind of the worst for me.
Maybe worth remembering that John Hollinger, the noted hoops genius who gave us PER, had the Grizz as the #1 seed going into the season.
His argument from the Hollinger and Duncan pod was: this team takes the regular season seriously and their bench beats up on other benches, which is why they don't see much of a drop-off when Ja doesn't play in the regular season (playoffs very different). PER saw the West as very bunched up (which he was right about, though many saw that) and a deeper team like them could eke out a one seed if they played like last year (while teams like the Suns and Lakers would struggle due to lack of depth).
Hollinger openly admits he feels an affinity towards the Grizz on the podcast. I don't blame him at all for it...he knows the people. Most reports were that he was demoted and then later left, rather than being fired - YMMV whether that's a distinction without a difference or not.
"short Memphis" after the Adams injury announcement was HRB's favorite forward bet (if my memory is correct)
Under 45.5 Wins was my only preseason season long wager this year. I’m pretty sure there isn’t anyone in the world who had Adams rated as high as I did last season. He defined what an impact player looked like on both ends of the floor.
Both Hollinger and Pelton had the Wolves as a top 3 seed. I believe Pelton had them as the 2. For whatever reason, they were a very popular team in the models (and it has been proven correct thus far)
If I remember correctly Pelton had Charlotte as going way over their 30 win total. It is hard to predict NBA over/unders
I'll be honest, I don't find Hollinger that valuable. When The Athletic hired him, I was really excited because I thought he was going to incorporate the stuff that he learned or that he was exposed to while being a part of the Grizzlies FO. I listened to a few pods with him and read his columns....and basically nothing changed from his old stuff.
Trust me, I am not saying Pelton is infallible and it's definitely very hard. Just pointing out that the T'Wolves were a favorite amongst the statistical models of Pelton and Hollinger
interesting that you think Hollinger comes off as a know-it-all but Redick doesn’t. JJ strikes me as one of the biggest assholes in media. I mean, we’re coming off a week in which he called his own audience stupid. Not saying anything either way, just perspectives of the same thing can be so different person-to person-(which speaks to why it’s special to have mass appeal).
That's a good point and could have been part of my initial reaction to him. I was hoping that he would reveal at least part of the "special sauce" or what teams looked at, etc. In the time that I listened to him, and I'll be honest it was only a couple of weeks when he first got hired, he didn't really bring up Memphis at all.
I think the special sauce is that there is no special sauce and most orgs are beset by the same bureaucratic and administrative bullshit that you and I are in our jobs
View: https://twitter.com/NBA_University/status/1762589692174680100
I think the officiating in particular has become way too favorable to the offense.
If they reffed everyone the same way Tatum gets reffed, what, about 10 less free throws a game?
Some other reasons for the lack of drop-off (at the team’s ‘21-22 peak) were Dillon Brooks, Tyus Jones, DeAnthony Melton, and Kyle Anderson, who were all gone when Hollinger made his prediction.
I don’t think anyone’s asking him to have picked OKC or MIN at #1. All I’m personally asking is for him not to have picked Memphis minus a bunch of their peak core rotation guys, minus 25 games of Ja, and coming off a season when they were +0.4 per 100 possessions without Ja. Especially not over the defending champs with Jokic and all the core smack in their primes and everyone except Bruce Brown and Jeff Green returning.
They were the 2 seed last year without Melton or Anderson, and they added Smart (who, though he has quite a few faults, has been better than Brooks and Jones in his career). Considering Memphis' track record of developing their own talent, it's reasonable to think that Smart in for Jones, plus improvement from Roddy/Williams/Aldama to make up for the loss of Brooks would keep them winning at close to last year's pace.
Meh. Jimmy Butler was probably as deserving as Jaylen and Scottie Barnes. FYI Jimmy Butler is currently 26th in EPM
If Butler had played 50/55 games (like Jaylen), I'd be fine with the selection. When you don't take the regular season seriously (like Jimmy has openly talked about) and it shows in how often you play and how well your team is doing, you don't deserve regular season honors.
19-14 with Draymond. I don't know if they can get on enough of a roll to get out of the play in (3.5 games behind Phoenix in 6th), but they've got a real shot at getting out of 9/10, which is huge. They need Curry to stay healthy.
Since Draymond returned, one game prior to the coaches death, I’m pretty sure the Warriors have the leagues best Net Rating or at worst right at the top. A bunch of 1-2 possession losses skew their W/L record.
DAL was up 110-100 with 3:57 left when Strus hit four 3Ps in 1:22. After that, Mitchell hit two more 3Ps and then Strus hit the game winner. I.e.:
It's an odd coincidence that in less than four minutes of game time Strus hit as many threes as the Celtics did in 48 minutes last night.
When I was looking at the CLE-DAL game, out of curiosity I looked back at the 3Ps that Strus and Mitchell made down the stretch. It was amazing to me how little Luka actually, you know, moves on defense. Then I thought - they must track these things, right?
It feels impossible to judge the Heat and what they can/will be able to do in the Playoffs because they don't seem to care much about the regular season and had quite some injuries on top.
