If the Jazz have two All-Star caliber players, then how do they suck?jschip1 said:
The Jazz do stink, but I think it goes both ways - their suckage is partly the result of their stars not being All-Star quality.
NBA 2014-2015 Game Thread
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The Jazz do stink, but I think it goes both ways - their suckage is partly the result of their stars not being All-Star quality.
Just watched the Clippers-Pacers and boy did the Clippers look great with the starters on the floor and awful with the reserves. They miss Collison from last season (underrated signing by the Kings -- was surprised how they got ripped for that) but it would seem they should be decent. Maybe it'll just take time to integrate in guys like Farmar and Hawes, but they could sure use a back-up PG, a big, and a guy who puts Barnes on the bench.
On the flip -- tough to be critical of a team that has won 9 in a row. CP3 and Griffin and Jordan look great, and I don't know why people rip on Reddick -- he's a terrific complementary player. Shorter rotations in teh playoffs will help them.
As for the West's #8 playoff slot, I wouldn't hand it to OKC yet, but the idea of a GS-OKC first round match-up is too much fun.
On the flip -- tough to be critical of a team that has won 9 in a row. CP3 and Griffin and Jordan look great, and I don't know why people rip on Reddick -- he's a terrific complementary player. Shorter rotations in teh playoffs will help them.
As for the West's #8 playoff slot, I wouldn't hand it to OKC yet, but the idea of a GS-OKC first round match-up is too much fun.
Warriors 105, Rockets 93 as Golden State outscored Houston 32-17 in the fourth quarter. Yep, the Rockets didn't have Dwight Howard. But Golden State didn't have Andrew Bogut (knee). I won't say anything more about Golden State because they are, apparently, overrated here but they are now 19-2 and have won 14 in a row, beating the Bulls in Chicago this weekend and now beating the Rockets for the second time this season.
On another note, I liked jschip1 and Kliq's posts about the Western Conference. There is just so much talent there. That said, Rudy Gobert certainly does have length and athleticism. But man on man does he look completely lost on offense most of the time. Its also small sample size but his defensive numbers are down this year across the board. I think he will be a defensive force but he isn't quite there yet.
On another note, I liked jschip1 and Kliq's posts about the Western Conference. There is just so much talent there. That said, Rudy Gobert certainly does have length and athleticism. But man on man does he look completely lost on offense most of the time. Its also small sample size but his defensive numbers are down this year across the board. I think he will be a defensive force but he isn't quite there yet.
bowiac said:
Because it takes more than two players to make a good team. The rest of the roster is made of mostly young, raw talent that may or may not ever develop into something useful. Like most similar teams, they have nights like against the Spurs where they put it together and win an unlikely game, but mostly struggle with defensive rotations and mental lapses and suck.
Also, within the universe of All-Stars obviously some shine brighter than others. Just because Hayward and Favors are All-Star quality doesn't mean they are equivalent to Steph Curry or Lebron. They are All-Star quality without having the talent to carry an otherwise shitty team to the playoffs. The hope is that Exum is that guy in the future. Fingers crossed.
Edit: Agreed on Gobert. Given all that he is still light years ahead of Kanter defensively and should really be taking a bunch Kanter's minutes.
DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
Hope this wasn't a reference to my saying this..
Tony C said:
If it was, definitely didn't say or intend to say GS is overrated -- they're great. And while it's true there a lot of OMG sort of posts, it's a game thread so I should get over myself in that regard.
The question is if GS is the best team. Best record that is not at all flukey, that's for sure. As good as the West is, when you look at the 4 teams behind GS -- Houston, Portland, Memphis, and L.A. -- you see teams that have much more obvious flaws than any minor issues the Warriors have. It isn't until you get to San Antonio that I think you see a team that you can legitimately argue is better than GS. That said, what Houston is doing without Howard (and with a bunch of other guys in/out -- they've been hit hard by injuries) makes them pretty intriguing. Be interesting to see what they do when Howard and the others are back.
I guess the question for the Warriors is what do they do if Bogut is injured during the play-offs, as he often seems to be -- would that open up a playoff basketball vulnerability?
Harden is stringing together an excellent season of basketball so far. He is averaging 25-6-6, and is as complete of an offensive player as you are going to find. He can shoot the three (although his percentage this season is slightly behind his career average), might be the best slasher in the game, lives at the FT line, can distribute and is equally good at playing off the ball, or by being the primary ball handler. And he is actually trying on defense. He isn't a shutdown defender and probably never be, but he is at least playing at a league average. Considering his team is 16-5, Dwight has missed half the games and his next best players are Terrence Jones and Trevor Ariza, he has to be at the forefront of the MVP discussion.
Tony C said:
Nah it wasn't you. Its a poke at me posting too much about them here. And you are right about Bogut being the key for the Warriors. To me, the best teams in the West besides Golden State are the Spurs, the Grizzlies, Dallas and Portland though the latter two have some warts.
Houston is another story. Harden is playing out of his mind but they seem to be missing Parsons more than I thought and I think Ariza is a decent replacement. I am not a buyer of Houston even with Howard because, aside from Harden, they don't have a lot of dependable scoring. Maybe that will change as the season moves along and if Beverly can sustain his level of play.
Meanwhile, the Kings and Houston are going to overtime in an ugly game. Rudy Gay is 3-16. Boogie, get well soon....
Yeah, if you fall ass backwards into a core of Durant-Harden-Westbrook and aren't willing to pay what's required to keep it together, you should really sink your $500mm into your own private island or something. Seriously, what's the point?Blacken said:
Good for Swaggy P. He is really difficult to dislike. And he essentially beat the Spurs tonight. He is so fancy!
Golden State 105, Dallas 98 in Dallas. Without Andrew Bogut. Dallas is the best offense in the league but the Warriors held them to 40.4% from the field vs their normal ~48% shooting. Golden State is now 20-2 and have won 15 in a row.
Golden State 128, New Orleans 122 in OT. The Warriors won their 16th straight game despite being down by eight points with six minutes left in the fourth. With Anthony Davis and Andrew Bogut out, this was a game of wings and the Pelicans guards Holiday and Evans were pretty spectacular, combining for 64 points on 25-48 shooting. That said, Curry and Thompson were no slouches as they combined for 63 points on 21-43 shooting.
The game of the early NBA season is on Tuesday as the Warriors take their 21-2 record into the Grind House to face the 19-4 Grizzlies.
The game of the early NBA season is on Tuesday as the Warriors take their 21-2 record into the Grind House to face the 19-4 Grizzlies.
Were they ever really out of the playoff picture do long as Durant and Westbrook were returning in December though?jon abbey said:
The West is gonna have a couple real good lottery teams this year. Too bad it wasn't the Clippers with some injuries.
The Kings fired Mike Malone last night. According to Woj, despite Cousins' injury, the team hadn't met ownership's expectations. Ty Corbin will takeover in an interim capacity. Pretty puzzling move.
There looked to be a pretty good chance of them missing the playoffs to be honest, yeah (Vegas was spreading -150 for instance). They look pretty safe to make it now, but that's mostly because the 8-seed in the West is surprisingly below .500.HomeRunBaker said:
WTF? That's insane. And Woj also tweeted that VDN was a possibility. The Kings owner thinks that's an upgrade?Grin&MartyBarret said:
ifmanis5 said:
The owner hired D'Allesandro to run the basketball operations. Malone was not a D'Allesandro hire and they have different philosophies/personalities. It's as simple as that.
Apparently the front office/ownership wanted them to play at a faster tempo. Cousins should love that.
I think their new owner sucks and wants to have his hands all over the team without really knowing anything about basketball. I think it was Grantland that did a in-the-war-room kind of deal with the Kings draft and Vivek was like "We should draft Nik Stauskas, he made 92-100 threes in practice once," and everyone else was like "Sure, that sounds great!" and it looked very awkward. Also, there is a story floating around that he wants to experiment with playing 4-5 on defense and leaving just one guy back to cherry pick on offense. It just sounds like a weird situation.
Zach Lowe on the Kings:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/sacramento-kings-mike-malone-fired/
His take basically- This makes little sense, if they had such deep philosophical differences they should have fired him this summer.
Also notes that the roster doesn't make a lot of sense for a run and gun style.
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/sacramento-kings-mike-malone-fired/
His take basically- This makes little sense, if they had such deep philosophical differences they should have fired him this summer.
Also notes that the roster doesn't make a lot of sense for a run and gun style.
Kliq said:
Yeah he seems to want a Paul Westhead or Dave Arseneaul to lead the team with their system/philosophy. At least the 76ers-Kings series can be a new type of NBA rivalry.
I'd be curious as to the role Cousins played, if any, in the Malone firing. I can't believe that they would have done it (a) without consulting Cousins or (b) if he had serious objections.
Kliq said:
Their new owner has been portrayed by Malcom Gladwell in an article as a head coach of an untalented high school girls team that won the league thanks to new tactics imposed by him, namely suffocating defense.
As for the idea to play 4 on 5, let's do a thought experiment.
Let's say that you have two evenly matched teams. Each gets 100 possessions per game. There are no fouls, no 3 pointers, no offensive rebounds, no steals and no turnovers.
Let's assume that because they are evenly matched, they each shoot 45% from the field against each other. With each shooting 100 times the ball, the final score should be 90 each.
Now let's change that equation and say that one team adopts the Sac's owner's suggestion. As a result, the team that goes 5 against 4 shoots a significantly higher percentage against the team defending with 4. However, the team which defends with 4 will score an even higher percentage of shots when the other team loses, let's say at a clip of 95%.
The question is what is the shooting percentage that the 5 on 4 team gets that will make this a good strategy for the defend-with-4 team.
If it shoots 65%, then this means that it gets to score 130 points per game.
This means that the defend-with-4 team gets to score 52 (65x0.45x2) + 66.5 (35x0.95x2) for a grand total of 118 points.
In this case, this is a losing strategy.
But if the 5 on 4 team shoots 60%, then it scores 120 points a game. But the defend-with-4 team gets to score 54 (60x0.45x2) + 76 (40x0.95x2) for a grand total of 130 points.
So, in our thought experiment, for this strategy to be at least break even, the defend-with-4 team should hold the opposing team to around 62-63% of shooting.
I don't know if it's feasible, but there.
That equation doesn't work in a practical manner as you simply need to retreat one perimeter player to halfcourt once the offensive player attacks the paint with numbers. The man cherry picking would rarely have an uncontested scoring opportunity as it is simple to game plan against. This already occurs much of the time naturally in defensive transition.
That Idea is all one needs to know about this owners understanding of the NBA game.
That Idea is all one needs to know about this owners understanding of the NBA game.
It also doesn't work at all after a made basket, possessions with foul shots, and assumes that one can complete 85 foot passes at a high rate. Also assumes that your opponents offensive rebounding rate won't increase substantially.HomeRunBaker said:
The problem is the 95% part. You won't get all that many real clear breakaways, because it is difficult to get off full court passes. Also you will likely be at a massive disadvantage rebounding 4v5 against a decent team.Nick Kaufman said:
It's a batshit crazy theory by a guy who really doesn't understand how high level basketball works. Any NBA team would just tire out the defense with movement, get wide open shots (probably 3s and dunks only), and score at an unbelievably high rate. They might give up a few layups off misses, but they would trounce the team playing 4v5.
The more thought I put into this (and I can't believe I'm putting any into it this is such a bizarre and flawed idea) you literally should NEVER be scored against off a shot attempt as you already have a guard retreating on any aggressive dribble penetration to the basket or on the catch of a catch-and-shoot 3-point attempt prior to the shot even going up in most cases.
The only breakaway opportunities would be off a turnover with a steal but those odds are greatly reduced by defending in the halfcourt with 4 players.
Ok I must stop even thinking about this. I just got dumber writing these posts.
The only breakaway opportunities would be off a turnover with a steal but those odds are greatly reduced by defending in the halfcourt with 4 players.
Ok I must stop even thinking about this. I just got dumber writing these posts.
Nick Kaufman said:
Yeah, this could never happen realistically as the posters above have pointed out. The rebounding advantage would be obviously dramatic as GMB pointed out, and the aspects of the NBA game are so vastly different than anything else that it is impossible to work it out on a spreadsheet. For one thing, getting off that clear, clean pass to an easy layup is a lot harder than it seems. NBA athletes can cover a lot of ground, only in precise situations would you be able to get off a perfect pass for they easy layup. Any number of strategies as others have pointed out would help reduce that rate of a successful pass being delivered even further. In addition, any halfway decent NBA offense would pick apart a four man defense. With offenses using corner threes, unconventional pick-and-rolls and all sorts of wacky things to space the floor, a team needs all hands on deck to hang in there on defense. It would also make double-teaming a player impossible.
That's nice, have you ever seen a high school girls basketball game? Are you serious? How is that relevant at all to the NBA game?
Vivek Ranadive' is a pretty smart businessman who has taken the theoretical and put it into practice. That said, his successes have come via eliminating gross inefficiencies in how information is disseminated by digitizing and streaming data. While he may see the inefficiencies in the NBA game - and there most certainly are - there are no easy ways to eliminate them. Four on five might work against poorly coached teams but teams like San Antonio and Chicago would feast on that scheme. I almost want to see this in practice if only for the entertainment value.
The closest thing is what Dave Arseneault has been doing at Grinnell College for over 20 years. There is a reason it hasn't picked up steam.DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
Well, I'd love playing in that system if I were the guy hanging the basket who didn't have to exert himself on defense.
On another front, there were some significant injuries last night. Robin Lopez is out indefinitely with a broken hand, and Jabari Parker hurt his knee and had to be carried off the floor. They are calling it a sprain.
On another front, there were some significant injuries last night. Robin Lopez is out indefinitely with a broken hand, and Jabari Parker hurt his knee and had to be carried off the floor. They are calling it a sprain.
Yep, that's my understanding, too. And they were 9-7 (or 9-6) with Cousins this year, surpassing expectations -- seems awfully weird to dump him at that point, particularly given that Cousins is your cornerstone, and a rather unstable one at that.
The flip side is idiocy about 4-5 aside (and more likely than not it was just floating an idea) the Kings' have made decisions going against NBA wisdom that seem to ahve worked out. The Rudy Gay trade was widely mocked, but I think has turned out solid. Similarly, losing I. Thomas and getting Collison over the past off-season was widely derided by the Zach Lowes of the world, but so far seems like a really smart move. So maybe they get a bit of slack: I assume they figured Malone isn't our guy, won't be able to dump him once Boogie is back and they get back to .500 or better, so move fast and bring in George Karl who runs the style they want.
Be interesting to see if Karl does get the job. He and Boogie might be a combustible combo.
The flip side is idiocy about 4-5 aside (and more likely than not it was just floating an idea) the Kings' have made decisions going against NBA wisdom that seem to ahve worked out. The Rudy Gay trade was widely mocked, but I think has turned out solid. Similarly, losing I. Thomas and getting Collison over the past off-season was widely derided by the Zach Lowes of the world, but so far seems like a really smart move. So maybe they get a bit of slack: I assume they figured Malone isn't our guy, won't be able to dump him once Boogie is back and they get back to .500 or better, so move fast and bring in George Karl who runs the style they want.
Be interesting to see if Karl does get the job. He and Boogie might be a combustible combo.
Amusingly one of the reasons Gay has been so good is Malone's system based on patience and avoiding midrange jumpers and 3s from Gay. If they go to a fast paced jumper gunning offense he'll likely fall way off again.Tony C said:
Funniest part of that game, 4 minutes left Conley blatantly travels. Refs miss it. Iggy makes the travel call hand gesture to the refs and they T up Iggy. The NBA!BigSoxFan said:
That game was good - I thought that Draymond Green did a pretty good job of stopping slowing Z-Bo and the Dubs double teaming of Gasol worked well too. That said, they missed Bogut and Lee in this game though their small line-up kept things close. And Curry was simply off tonight 9-25 overall, 1-10 from beyond the arc and his passing wasn't great.
On the flip side, Conley played well and Carter's buckets were huge in the first half.
I think its a fair bet that, assuming both teams key parts stay healthy, these two teams will meet to see who goes to the championship. My guess is that a series between these two might go seven games and I think most people would take the Grizzlies. Not me though - they don't have enough offense imho.
On the flip side, Conley played well and Carter's buckets were huge in the first half.
I think its a fair bet that, assuming both teams key parts stay healthy, these two teams will meet to see who goes to the championship. My guess is that a series between these two might go seven games and I think most people would take the Grizzlies. Not me though - they don't have enough offense imho.