1/4 Season Awards

As MEbenhoe pointed out, 25% of regular season games have now been played so it's a pretty good time to give a few players some recognition. As people post their awards, we can update this post to aggregate everyone's opinion. I'll start with my mine and give a little writeup.

Most Valuable Player: Chris Paul
Honorable Mentions: Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Pau Gasol

This early in the season, the top teams are all pretty close so no top player has really been that much more valuable than his peers. I give it to Paul because I think he has the least to work with AND has also been slightly the best. What he's doing on offense is just totally incredible. He's sporting a 61.2 TS% and setting up his teammates in a ridiculously efficient way. To put it in perspective, he has a higher AST% than Steven Nash while turning it over even less. Rajon Rondo is considered by pretty much everyone to be a top 5 PG in the NBA. Well Chris Paul is Rondo if Rondo could shoot and turn it over 10 less times per 100 plays.

Rookie of the Year: Blake Griffin
Honorable Mentions: Landry Fields, John Wall

This is probably as easy an award to give as any NBA award will ever be. I don't think I really have to say much here, so I'm just going to post this.



Defensive Player of the Year: Dwight Howard
Honorable Mentions: Kevin Garnett, LeBron James

I think Dwight and KG are really close, and to KG's credit, Boston has been the best defensive team in the league this year, but I think he has a decent amount more help than Dwight. This award is pretty much Dwight's to lose for the next few years and he hasn't done anything this year to give it away.

Most Improved Player: Russell Westbrook
Honorable Mentions: Al Horford, Roy Hibbert, Raymond Felton

All four of these guys have made some unexpectedly drastic improvements. I give the slight edge to Westbrook because he's playing at a superstar level while shouldering a superstar workload. His numbers speak for themselves and he's been vital to Oklahoma City staying relevant while Durant struggles with his jumper and with injuries. There is no question that Westbrook has been the best player on his team and given that his running mate is supposed to be a top five player, that's pretty impressive.

Coach of the Year: Stan Van Gundy

It's pretty dumb for people to speculate about this because they really have no clue what they're looking at. I'll just give it to Stan because he's the best coach in the league in my meaningless opinion.

6th Man of the Year: Wilson Chandler

This is another award that I don't really like so I don't feel like wasting any time on it either. It's dumb that the criteria is Games Started. You should have to be sixth or worse in minutes per game.


TZ's Awards:

TUt
MVP: Chris Paul
ROY: Blake Griffin
DPOY: Dwight Howard
MIP: Russell Westbrook
COY: Stan Van Gundy
6MAN: Wilson Chandler

MEbenhoe
MVP: Dwight Howard
ROY: Blake Griffin
DPOY: Dwight Howard
MIP: Roy Hibbert
COY: Gregg Popovich
6MAN: Brandon Bass

Five to Watch: Week 6

1. Passions - As Miami Turns: The new smash NBA daily soap roles on. This month has been a complete disaster for the Heat. If anyone was actually fanned up in Miami, they might be hearing some boos or calls to "Fi-re Spoe-lstra!" (clap-clap-clapclapclap). The schedule-makers have given them a decent shot at getting right, though with home games to Washington and Detroit before the Lebron Tar and Feathering Party and the Q on Thursday.

2. Ship Be Sinking Alerts: Tough schedule for the wobbling Bucks, at Utah and Denver, home to Orlando. On the other hand, aside from Wednesday's trip to Boston, Portland has a chance to get right against the likes of Washington (sensing a theme here) and Philadelphia. Phoenix doesn't have the toughest schedule in the world, (home to the 'Zards and Indy, away to GSW), but neither the Woyas nor the surprisingly frisky and possibly for real Pacers will be pushovers.

3. Hornets/Spurs the Rematch: After yesterday's VERY impressive win in New Orlenas, the two teams do it all over again this Sunday in San Antonio. Big big game for the Hornets, who have started to wobble a little after their blistering start. Jarrett Jack just loses games, obviously.

4. The Hot Seat: We're starting to get into the part of the season where teams might decide that coaches need to spend more time with their families. Favorite candidates are the aforementioned Spoelstra, the egregiously bad Paul Westphal, the almost as bad John Kuester in Detroit, Lionel Hollins of the underperforming Grizzlies, and my dark horse candidate, Doug Collins. His health problems provide the perfect cover for him to step away from a situation that's to be a much bigger mess than it originally seemed. My guess is he would trade places with Steve Kerr in a heartbeat right now.

5. Trade Time!: With the moratorium on trading players signed to contracts this summer being lifted soon, I expect the rumors to start flying fast and furious. My personal favorite: Francisco Elson, CJ Miles, Jeremy Evans and whatever sweeteners (cash/2d round picks) might be needed to Phoenix for Josh Childress. Phoenix gets to take on 2 expiring contracts to get out of paying their 4th string small forward $6.5 Mil for the next 5 years, plus they get another somewhat serviceable big in Elson and a jumping jack prospect in Evans. Not to mention they save $1 mil + this year in addition to whatever cash is received, which is not nothing to their penny pinching ownership. On the other side, Utah addresses their glaring need on the wing as Childress's defense and energy are a definite upgrade on Raja Bell and the departing Miles. Additionally, if they wanted to explore trading Kirilenko's expiring contract, Childress is capable of filling a very similar role. Win-Win!

I'm also desperately trying to figure out a way for Denver to ship Melo to New Orleans, but it probably can't happen until January when New Orleans can use Marcus Banks' Expiring Contract as part of a deal probably including Trevor Ariza, Marcus Thornton and picks/cash/other prospects.

What's everyone else looking forward to?

Black Friday Power Rankings: Part 2

Part 1: Teams 30-18 - remember these rankings are not intended to be scientific, nor a representation of where I think the teams will end up, more just a representation of how they are playing now combined with how they are building for the future if they are going nowhere this year.

We Can Rebuild Them

Not good yet, but there are pieces and perhaps a roadmap in place:

17. Indiana - Granger, Hibbert and Collison really is a nice core of complimentary young players. They are only on the hook for roughly $35 million in salary next season. They have $25 million or so in expiring contracts this year. And they are actually playing pretty decent basketball this season, though you wouldn't know it by the deserted island that is Conseco Fieldhouse on gamenights. All that said, good luck getting anyone who matters to come to Indianapolis.

16. New York - A few days ago, I probably put these guys in the "I didn't sign up for this shit" category, but they seem to have found a nice little rhythm, with Galinari in particular being far more aggressive since the rumors of him being traded for Melo faded a bit. Despite the huge, gaping, cavernous, enormous, echoing, visible-from-space hole in the middle of this team, a team with this much talent not making the playoffs as the 7/8 seed in the East would reflect very poorly on Amare, or on D'antoni or both.

15. Golden State - They've had a rough time of it since David Lee discovered that Wilson Chandler's mouth is a germ-ridden as that of a grizzly bear. But given the quality perimeter scoring and reasonable contributions of Biedrins, with Lee's interior scoring and rebounding back in the fold, I fully expect them to claim their rightful place as the 10th seed in the West who inspires columns wondering why do we have to have conference-based playoffs.

Welcome to the Real World

These five have all sent messages to their fans to enjoy the good times, but get real, this isn't going to end well

14. Phoenix - You are still tons of fun to watch, but the guys who have probably been your best two players are a combined 75 years old. With no real young talent being developed, no interior presence and not enough firepower to simply outgun teams a la the 05-08 versions of the Nash Express, shouldn't you be at least be exploring moving Steve at this point?

13. Portland - Of your 4 most importantly players 2 are about 196 years old and the others have about .5 healthy knees between them. Still you guys play hard, have a really good coach and have more than enough talent to be a tough opponent for anyone on a night you can actually make some jump shots. Really, though, you know you just don't have enough to really compete in the playoffs.

12. Denver -

11. Atlanta - You have a big time bright spot in that Al Horford is balling his ass off. But Joe Johnson is starting to show all the hard miles you put on his tread during the Mike Woodson "Stand And Watch Joe Do It" offensive years. Josh Smith thinks he's a 3 point shooter again. Larry Drew might actually be a downgrade from Woody. In short, LOL Hawks.

10. Mavericks - Deshawn Stevenson. Caron "Tough JuiceThief" Butler, Brendan "Dampier 2.0" Haywood. Ghost of Shawm Marion. These are all key guys for you. Barring a huge trade, Roddy Beaubois riding into town like a french Wyatt Earp or Dirk going all Hockey Goalie on the playoffs, 2nd round and out is the best you can really expect at this point.

Stay On Target

These teams are in the conversation, but all of them are most likely either a move, or a player unexpectedly emerging from nowhere away from being true contenders.

9. Utah - With their string of huge comeback victories, the Jazz have showed they have balls. But they just don't have the horses, even once Okur comes back. They just desperately need some wing scoring. The problem, their main asset to acquire such a scorer, Andrei Kirilenko and his expiring contract is probably too much to give up terms of production for the SG/SF they'd likely receive in exchange. Maybe Gordon Hayward grows into the role, but for now they are stuck with Raja Bell and CJ Miles. Yech.

8. Bulls - Considering they've played the entire season without Boozer, they have to feel they are right where they want to be. That is assuming Boozer doesn't break up the solid defensive rhythm they seem to have established and that Taj Gibson, who's emerged as a quality NBA big early in the season, doesn't go into a funk.

7. Thunder - Like the Better Knicks, desperately need some size and rebounding. But with Durant and especially Westbrook, they still have a puncher's chance against anyone. They may have moves to make, but they've consistently stated and showed that they aren't going to do anything "rash". They really could have used a contribution from Cole Aldrich, but he's down in the Dl-league down, so he's clearly not ready.

6. Hornets - Have already made several moves, though results have not gone their way after the acquisition of Jarret Jack. They could probably use one more shooter, or for Marcus Thornton to step into the phone booth and emerge as the BucketsMan of the second half of last year. But really, as always, it's all about Chris Paul.

Omar Comin!

The real contenders.

5. Heat - This is the lowest I could in good conscience put them. Enough ink has been spilled about them already. Who knows what happens when/if etc etc etc.

4. Magic - Not at all a believer because Vince Carter is a wuss, Rashard Lewis is decomposing, HGH shooting fts etc etc etc. But they win games and blow out bad teams in the regular season. The one question I will ask is if they are starting shooters at the 1-3 spots, might they be better served by going bigger at the 4 with Bass or even Gortat?

3. Celtics - KG looks not "all the way back", but certainly much more mobile than last year. Shaq has been giving them great minutes and is a good fit, style-wise. The classic deep, talented veteran team built to beat the crap out of people in the playoffs like a body punching boxer.

2. Spurs - Boring boring Spurs. Death, taxes, and San Antonio Spurs basketball.

MEGATRON!

1. LA Lakers - As I said on Monday:

With all due respect to Chris Paul, Pau Gasol is the 1/8th Season MVP in my book. Shannon Brown is either still playing out of his mind or has just gotten lots lots better. Blake and Barnes combine with Shamwow to give them an extremely effective bench, and both Ebanks and Caracter have shown signs of being promising prospects. In short, I hate them.

I can't emphasize the last point enough.

Black Friday Power Rankings: Part 1

Watching last night's Blake GriffinClippers-Kings game, I was struck by one thing over all else: the Kings are currently the worst team in the league. And then I realized I needed to rank the teams 30-1 just to get a sense of where everyone stands. I don't particularly care about records at this point, more who is playing the best and, for bad teams, who is at least showing signs of a better future. So without further ado, my Roughly 1/6th season power rankings in two parts, 30-18 here and 17-1 in a bit.

Abandon All Hope

"Ship be sinkin'" - Michael Ray Richardson.

30 - Sacramento: Yes, they have more wins than the Clips and Sixers, but that doesn't accurately reflect the overwhelming sense of helplessness, hopeless and pure suck permeating their entire team. The bright spot this season, if you can call it that, is the surprisingly non-shitty play of Luther Head. That's basically it. I say fire the coach, who's doing no one on the team any favors by yo-yo'ing minutes, not settling on any sort of meaningful rotation and doing all he can to ensure Tyreke Evans regressed and Demarcus Cousins is put in situations to demonstrate all the worst aspects of his game and personality. On the verge of being a completely wasted season, 15 game in.

29 - Detroit: Can't even tank competently. This is a team that if it ran perfectly could sneak into the playoffs as an 8-seed before losing in four straight to Miami/Orlando/Boston in a series in which they'd be lucky to keep the total point differential under 3 figures. "Running perfectly" includes not having a coach who is either clueless or getting extremely mixed signals from the front office or both.

At this point, it's patently obvious that the Pistons are going absolutely nowhere with this "core" so they need to either try and sell off the "veteran pieces" for whatever it can get, or simply bury them and let the young guys learn through there mistakes. What they should NOT do is play Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun prince just enough so they are key pieces yet put up extremely underwhelming bulk numbers so as to depress their trade values well into the negative while limiting the opportunity of Monroe and Daye to progress by trotting out Jason Maxiell and Chris Wilcox, all while the coach does his best to piss off the one youngish piece (Stuckey) who might actually fetch a nice return so that he goes into a funk including taking multiple games off. So basically, exactly what they are doing. All while managing to win just enough games to minimize their chances in the Harrison Barnes sweepstakes.

28 - Philadelphia: Doug Collins has missed games due to symptoms of vertigo, and I can't think of a more perfect metaphor for the 76ers season. Previously indestructible Andre Iguodala has been in and out; Evan Turner at first confounded the depressed expectations for him by demonstrating a surprisingly mature floor game off the bench, before finding ways to disappear and/or choke games away as a starter. Elton Brand has gone from rejuvenated to thuggish. Lou Williams has either been a dynamic scorer off the bench or a poor man's Monta Ellis (09-10 edition). Somehow have managed to accumulate 2 of the 5 worst losses of the young season in more or less the same manner away to the same opponent in the Wizards. At the very least the team appears to be getting along and competing minimally hard on a nightly basis, which is far more than I can say for the first two squads.

27. Houston - Hope pinned on Yao's health. Whoops. Also, suffered a little bit of runbad (a Yao injury doesn't really count as runbad at this point) with injuries keeping Martin, Brooks and Lowry out for stretches. The injury to Brooks was particularly a killer since not only did they lose him and Yao in quick succession, but the timing of his injury meant they couldn't clear the roster spot occupied by Ish Smith to sign Erick Dampier, who probably would have helped hold down the fort for Yao. He would certainly have weighed it down...

WE CAN BUILD ON THIS

None of these teams are good, but all have some degree of hope for the future.

26. Washington - Avoid the "complete trainwreck" category basically by virtue of John Wall being legit, Javael McGee looking like he has a chance, and Gilbert Arenas looking like he might have just enough left in the tank to convince some contender needing backcourt scoring (looking at you, Orlando, or even Utah just for sheer comedy's sake) to take a huge gamble on him. They still have my man Andray Blatche playing a prominent role though:

25. New Jersey - The hope hear is Derrick Favors. Full stop. Lopez is putting up some of the emptiest big numbers in the league

24. Minnesota - I mean with Ricky Rubio, suddenly a starting lineup of Rubio/Wes Johnson/Beasley/Love/Darko doesn't seem that bad, and would certainly be a strong playoff contender in the East. That said, Darko can't be for real NOW can he?

23. Toronto - Genuinely the toughest team for me to rank, because I'd like to see them do well for personal reasons. But they also are playing with a lot of passion and heart, especially at home. Reggie Evans and Amir Johnson are complementing Bargnani's aversion to touching the ball immediately after it has contacted the rim. Calderon seems to mesh much better with the young wings in Derozan and Weems, the latter of whom has been pretty impressive of late. If Derozan can develop just that little bit of consistency, they can give teams some mathcup problems with all their good perimeter scoring options. They aren't and won't be "good" but they'll give the fans their money's worth.

22. L.A. Clippers - The injuries to Kaman and Fat Diddy Davis might turn out to be a blessing. Probably not in terms of record, but in terms of forcing Eric Gordon and Blake Griffin to become the leaders of the team while allowing Aminu and Eric Bledsoe to get reps in an environment with very little pressure. We all know Blake has been great:

but Gordon has been almost more impressive by the fact that despite shooting wretchedly from 3 (14 of 67 on the year despite being a career 38% shooter from deep for his career) he's still playing at a near all-star level and has cataloged his own impressive list of highlights on the year.

Fuck All Y'all

21. Cleveland - Everyone knows what they lost, but they seem to have embraced life as the scrappy losers who occasionally come good and simply refused to be the doormats that most expected them to be. Have had a few very impressive wins already including the Celtics and the game vs. Milwaukee where you would expect a less professional and motivated team to have rolled over and died instead of coming all the way back from 20+ down to win on a buzzer beater. Big negative (aside from lack of top end talent) is Byron Scott's apparent desire to crush JJ Hickson's career. We've seen this movie before from Scott and his refusal to give young players any rope (Bass, Brandon. Thornton, Marcus.)

I didn't sign up for this shit

Pre-season high hopes already more or less dashed in depressingly familiar ways.

20. Charlotte - FREE TYRUS THOMAS. I am not a great admirer of Ray Felton's game, but he was at least serviceable. No matter what his gaudy assist:turnover stats might be, I don't feel the same way at all about DJ Augustin, and I would venture to guess that Gerald Wallace would agree. Here's guessing that when and if he thinks about it, Larry Brown is silently cursing MJ for putting the kibosh on this past summers Boris Diaw/Jose Calderon swap which would have A) given the team some real, non-terrible set up play; B) have Freed the aforementioned Tyrus Thomas; C) have allowed them to play Derrick Brown even more. As it is all their best players are 2-3-4 tweener types and simply can't be on the floor together that much. Additionally, Stephen Jackson seems to be especially...testy this year.

19. Memphis - Good thing they locked Conley up. Oh wait. I have a sinking sensation that they are going to end up using the constraints of that contract as an excuse to sell OJ Mayo (admittedly in a pretty horrid funk of late) for .35 cents on the dollar and then justify the deal by saying "hey, it wasn't as bad as the Gasol Trade!"

18. Milwaukee - Any time Bogut misses for them is just devastating, but the subtler loss has been Carlos Delfino, who hasn't played in weeks since basically playing through getting knocked the fuck out in a game a few weeks back. This team just can't score (last in ORtg) and Delfino provides a little scoring punch without the huge defensive liability that is Corey Maggette (though given the Bucks are first in DRtg at the moment, maybe sacrificing a little bit of D for some scoring wouldn't be the worst thing.) Jennings hasn't progressed quite enough yet, and Skiles, per his wont has relied too much on stiffs like Luc Richard Mbab a Moute and Jon Brockman at the expense of getting quality time for Larry Sanders, who could well turn into a difference maker down the line.

Five to Watch: Week 5

After missing last week, where nothing really happened...



erm, my bad.

Anyway, what's going down this week?

1. Spurs at Hornets, Sunday: Under the radar, Los Spurs are 11-1 without really getting a whole lot (by his standards) from Tim Duncan and vaunted addition Tiago Splitter still working his way into the rotation. The Hornets have made a little more noise while also jumping out to an 11-1 start, and we're about a week away from a raft of "Chris Paul is Back!" stories focusing on how he never really wanted to leave and so on. Predictable media narrative is predicable. In any event, this is a huge matchup between the teams vying for the position as "most likely sacrificial lamb for the Western Conference Finals."

2. This week in As The Heat Turn, Udonis Haslem is on the shelf for a bit with a very painful sounding injury (dislocated big toe? yech). Depending on Wade's health, the Heat are down to between 2 and 3.5 guys who qualify under my extremely unscientific and arbitrary "Actual NBA Player" rubric - I give Methuselah Ilgauskas between 1/2 and one on that scale. Time for Lebron James to go into his "get on, folks" routine, but also a big opportunity for the much maligned Bosh to get some of the critics off his back.

3. Relatedly, the travel across Florida for a rematch with Orlando. We all know what happened earlier in the season when Miami completely wood-shedded the seconf half. If they can repeat that feat with their current roster, in Orlando, this would be a huge huge statement win for Miami and probably a pretty crushing loss for Orlando. This would be a nice time for Dwight Howard to go nutty.

4. Thursday night on TNT, I probably won't be watching, nor will anyone else, but the over/under and Charles uttering a variation of "these are two turrible games" over the course of the night has to be around 13.5. I'm sure Sacto/LAC seemed like a good idea at the time to the NBA schedule makers.

5. Finally, the Lake Show in Utah on Friday. I'm basically looking for any sign of a challenge to the Laker's dominance this year. With all due respect to Chris Paul, Pau Gasol is the 1/8th Season MVP in my book. Shannon Brown is either still playing out of his mind or has just gotten lots lots better. Blake and Barnes combine with Shamwow to give them an extremely effective bench, and both Ebanks and Caracter have shown signs of being promising prospects. In short, I hate them. I really hope that the one time BTTITW can do what needs doing here.

What's everyone else looking for?

Why Is Brook Lopez Becoming Andrea Bargnani (Sans the 3s)

I've watched every single Nets game this year and I've been growing infuriated with Brook Lopez. In his third year, with arguably the best supporting cast he's had, he should be tearing it up given how promising he looked in the last two years. He's been off to a terrible start though (relative to expectation). I don't know what happened to him but he's afraid to grab a rebound for some reason. Luckily Kris Humphries has really stepped up and Favors has been a beast in his bench minutes. Humphries new found swag might very well be the result of the recent rumors that he's dating Kim Kardashian.

Brook has been touted as a legit Center of the future, but he hasn't played anything like it. His lines look eerily similar to Andrea Bargnani, only he's shooting long twos instead of threes.



http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=lopezbr01&y1=2011&p2=bargnan01&y2=2011

One possible turning point I noticed was when they played the Orlando Magic the second time. After getting crushed by Dwight in their first meeting, Brook hardly ventured near the rim the second time, instead opting for longer shots, that he happend to be hitting that night. Since then he's really fell in love with playing on the perimeter and I don't think he's a good enough shooter that it's okay. All his numbers are pretty much down and he's disappointed for a team that I think should really contend for a playoff spot (lol east).

Another annoying habit of his that I've noticed is that he constantly makes himself smaller. He often crouches down and plays below the rim and it's been leading to him getting blocked a concerning amount of the time for a man his size. He usually has the size advantage and they really need him to start using it. Avery Johnson has already questioned his toughness and played Humphries extended minutes over him in one of their games and I wouldn't shocked to see that trend continue.

What to Watch: Week 3.

Story lines to look for, ignoring the still simmering Rambis/Love apparent feud in Kahhhhn-land.

1. Ship be sinking in Los Angeles (Clippers version) and Washington. Two teams I kinda sorta thought might not be totally terrible this year. The takeaway is don't forget that guys who are on bad teams their whole careers are there for a reason. If Andray Blatche is your team leader...



2. What's going on in Houston? With Yao still limited in minutes (and the frankly bizarre decision to sit him vs. San Antonio so he could play 17 minutes of the mauling of the T-Wolves on the back end of the BTB), and Aaron Brooks out for 4-6 weeks, the Rockets might be in trouble in the loaded west. Though it's possible that giving Brooks' minutes to Kyle Lowry and the surprisingly spritely Ish Smith could help them as they get better defensively and start feeding Scola even more.



3. Atlanta vs. Orlando, tonight. Chance for the Hawks to bounce back from their first loss. Jameer Nelson is out for Orlando. Chance for both teams to make an early season "statement" but the game potentially means more to Atlanta who need a legit win after dropping their first real test of the season.



4. On the other side of the coin, Minny at the LakeShow on Tuesday. Do the Lakers double them up or merely win by 40. I think the crowd might start chanting for tacos at around the 3 minute mark of the first quarter.



5. Thursday Night: While the TNT slate of games is pretty huge (Celtics vs. SuperFriends; Lakers in Denver), the third game is perhaps the most interesting with the very frisky Warriors visiting the up and down Bulls. While it's a little early yet to start thinking in these terms, the Dubs are going to have to pick up a few of these types of games if they want to crash the playoff party. The Bulls are fairly fortunate to be playing in what looks the worst division in the NBA, but they still have to be very disappointed with starting 2-3.
   

What's everyone else looking for?

The Firm

Heisley & Kahn does sort of have that shyster law firm ring to it doesn't it? In any event, Monday's news of the jaw dropping 5 year, $40-$45 million extension (depending on the source) granted to Mike Conley assured Memphis owner Michael Heisley a partnership in said firm.

As bad as the contract was on the just the merits of Mike Conley, baller, (take it away, Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm), it's even worse in context:

As Matt Tweeted Monday night, a player like Mike Conley is the "perfect" restricted free agent. Had the Grizzlies just let him make it past Monday night without a contract extension, he would have hit the open market during one of the worst open markets in NBA history, stuck looking for a gig with another team with the knowledge that the Grizzlies (if they truly wanted to) could match any offer sheet he signed. Conley, a fringe starter at absolute best, would be forced into letting the market dictate his own terms.

And the market, in the NBA's case, probably won't even be open for business this summer because of a potential lockout.

So, as is the likeliest case, Conley was looking at having to shop his wares around the league next September after the labor standoff was resolved. And, at absolute best, he'd be looking for a gig and/or offer sheet throughout next summer under a slimmed-down NBA salary cap, with the Grizzlies in the catbird seat, allowed to match any offer they thought reasonable.

And the Grizz, for whatever reason, decided to chuck that seat into the mighty Mississippi.

Bidding against absolutely nobody, they signed Conley to a deal that will have him making eight figures over the last couple years of its existence. That alone should make your hair stand on end. And as Moore pointed out, there is absolutely nothing in Conley's game nor at-best potential that should allow for anyone to think that he should even approach an average salary, something that would pay him about half of what he's due to make in a few years.

Had Mike been an unrestricted free agent during the last offseason, with all that crazy money being tossed about, he still would have had a tough time making the sort of dough he's set to "earn" in Memphis. But that's Michael Heisley, perhaps the worst owner in NBA history, Non-Racist Division.

Also, in eight months? The NBA will put a hold on all transactions, they will stop paying the salaries they legally committed to paying their employees, and they will tell you that it is the players' fault they are losing money. That the system allows for players to be overpaid.

The system. Not the owners.

And it's up to you to remember that the system allows for a player like Mike Conley to go out next summer, and try to find a team to sign with that has cap space. And with so few teams with available cap space, it would be down to a team like Indiana (with two starter-level point guards in Darren Collison and T.J. Ford) and Minnesota (with Luke Ridnour, Jonny Flynn and Ricky Rubio's rights already on board) to spend money on Conley.

As a result, Conley would have few suitors, even if he was an unrestricted free agent. As a restricted free agent, Conley would have zero suitors, because what's the point of signing him to a three-year, $14 million deal that you know the Grizzlies would match in an instant?

This likely result, mind you, is a result of the system. The system the NBA and its players were smart to put into place. A system that, when utilized properly, lends no leverage to the sorts of players that deserve no leverage. And Mike, though I'm sure he's a swell guy, deserves no leverage.

And he certainly doesn't deserve a five-year, $40 million contract.

If the NBA wants to restore fiscal sanity, I'm all for it. But it has to start with restoring sane owners.

Ouch.

As alluded to in that quote, this signing touches on two timely issues. The first, which we discussed a few days ago, is the impending lockout. Though I think Moore was slightly hyperbolic in saying:

You're going to single handedly kill basketball in 2011 and your franchise for the next five years. All by yourself.

he's not that far wrong. To go Hubie Brown 2nd person for a moment:



Now if you're a member of the NBPA, you're saying to yourself "come on, I don't believe you guys are losing money for a moment. You just paid Mike Conley $8-$9million a year for 5 years." And you've played against Mike Conley, so you know. He DOES NOT have a game.

So maybe you take a little harder line than you think you should, which basically ensures the lockout, cue point 4 on the Etats schedule.

The second point is the already somewhat tiresome "I could be a better GM" discussion. First of all this kind of thing makes it harder for those of us who tend to think that no you couldn't. Though, I'll grant that being better than The Firm of Kahn & Heisley is setting the bar pretty low. Second, and more interestingly, I think this deal fairly perfectly illustrates a shortcoming of thinking that because some players are overpaid, NBA GMs as a whole are bad at "evaluation." I'd say that in Conley's case, 29 other teams have him value just about correctly (since the Grizzlies have tried and failed to move him for at least a year). It only takes 1 out of 30 teams to be a bit off on the high side (see also) and any number of the "bad" contracts in the league can be seen from this perspective. Thinking about all the teams that didn't overpay Darko Milicic and Charlie Villanueva may not be as exciting as laughing at the teams which did we shouldn't forget that not offering a bad contract is just as correct a decision as offering a good one.

TZ Roundup: 11/2/2010

NozeCandy was bringing truth to an ESPN chat, but Josh Reid of the Times-Picayune was having none of it:

[Comment From Free Buckets: ]
How long is it going to take Monty Williams to notice that Jason Smith should never, ever, ever be on the floor and that Belinelli and Greene getting comparable minutes to Marcus Thornton is horrible?

John Reid, T-P:
Hey Free Buckets, I disagree with you about Jason Smith, I think he is a better player than Darius Songaila, who played the same role with last year's team. I like Smith's hustle and his ability to extend the defense with his mid-range shot. Marco Belinelli is the starting shooting guard and I think Willie Green and Marcus Thornton's minutes are just about even.

Assani Fisher started a discussion on whether certain bigs would be better off extending their mid-range jump shots to threes (like KG or Blatche)

Assani: I have a very tough time believing that it wouldn't be better for a long 2 point jumpshooter to work all summer on expanding his range and turn those long 2s into 3s.

aejones: range is a product of strength and a feel for the distance/gauging it. you think there are players who just can drain 21 footers but can't figure out how to hit a 24 footer because of a hypothetical line? maybe i am misunderstanding what is being talked about here.

SethyPooh: For some it's a question of mechanics - Garnett for example was never going to likely be a good 3 pt shooter with his motion. He could certainly get better than he has been/is, but is it worth it? I think we're seeing a little of that with Rose so far this year, he seems to be trying to add 3pt range (he's already taken 14 this year after 72 and 60 his first 2 years), but it's not working as yet (lol sample size, but the shots certainly don't look especially good and he's a career .240 shooter from 3)

Irish Hand: I see NBA players who certainly do have exponential declines b/f the 3pt line (due to lack of fitness/strength, form, practice). You're stating that, as NBA athletes, they essentially all have the requisite fitness/strength and thus should have exponential declines beyond the 3pt line - assuming good form (what % of NBA players iyo?) and practice (again, what % of NBA players do you think do this in the offseason?)

ClarkNasty did some hating one aejones

My biggest issue is his attitude of "ok, I'm gonna come in and run things and clear the air for you noobs" when he's clearly completely out of touch with the actual NBA, the players in the league and recent history. Despite a pretty large amount of ignorance, it doesn't stop him from being condescending in most of his posts. Arrogant while ignorant is never an attractive trait, and it falls particularly flat when it's done in the middle of a thread with a ton of very sharp people who have followed the league far more closely and understand how to analyze it better than he, and who by and large are used to presenting and discussing ideas rather than pontificating from above.

But in the meantime, while he gets up to speed on things, I guess he's free to "settle the Derrick Rose debate" by watching 2 quarters of basketball.

Jetto asked about Brook Lopez vs Andrew Bogut. Irish Hand responded

[Lopez] had a strong rookie season for a C, then increased his USG and efficiency in his soph season. You don't think he could do that on a decent team? If so, I suspect you're wrong. Further, you don't think he'll continue to improve in his 3rd or subsequent years?

Bogut is 4 years older and is getting 12.5M/year for the next 4 while BLopez will get about 60% of that amount over the same time (2 years left on his rookie deal, then presumably similarish salary pending new CBA). I suspect that 30 of 30 NBA teams would (correctly) take Lopez over Bogut today.

dukemagic asked about the value of getting a team into foul trouble. kbfc responded

Fouls are complicated as a stat. Consider that when people have done regressions on the box-score, they've found that fouls correlate positively with winning. There are lots of balancing factors that go into each event that shows up as a foul in the box/PBP, and it's all really context-dependent. I'll try to say more about this when I get back to LA later tonight.

What to Watch For in Week 2

Only a week in and already a few storylines to watch for. The five I'm most interested in this week.

1. Tiago Splitter: He should make his long awaited debut sometime this week. He's a guy we've been hearing about for so long and had so much hype in the preseason (SI even claimed he was THE long term Tim Duncan replacement) that I just want to get a look at him. I fully expect him to be underwhelming early as Pop brings him along slowly, but by the end of the season could be a key cog in a potentially devastating front-court rotation with TD, Blair and McDyess.

2. Kurt Rambis vs. Kevin Love.

Love is averaging a double double in just over 25 mpg (including a faintly ludicrous 19.77 reb/36) and has bristled at the short leash he's gotten from Rambis in favor of such world beaters as Anthony Tolliver and Nikola Pekovic. With a brutal schedule this week (At Miami, at Orlando, home to Atlanta, at Houston), would not be surprised by the Wolves going 0-4 with a blow-up by Love. Kevin doesn't seem like a shrinking violet, so I fully expect a "get me the fuck out of this shithole" from him at some point this year. KAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHN.

edit: just a suggestion but: Turk, a couple young guys and a pick for Love?

3. Chicago at Boston on Friday: Simmering rivalry here with the Rondo/Rose feud brought front and center, not to mention the combustible mix of Noah and Garnett. Also, BullsFan is already taking shots at Paul Pierce.

4. Portland at Milwaukee on Tuesday: Two up and coming teams with rabid fanbases. Still early in the season, but this game could tell us a little something about where one or both of these teams are.

5. The new behavior rules: While there were fairly consistent complaints about the number of soft Technical fouls assessed during the first week, it also must be noted that the instances of vocal, demonstrative complaining over run of the mill calls has dropped way off. Will the officials stick with the rules in the face of the somewhat mild criticism? Will the relatively good behavior of the players last? This is one to watch for a while I think.

Paul Pierce Bitchface Compilation

Clark compiled all the greatest bitchfaces into one post! Now yours for only 3 payments of $9.99

The One Face of Paul Pierce

A Rose By Any Other Name...

Viewing Threadzilla from the outside gives me a different perspective and allows me more time to soak in some of the debates you guys are having without being too reactionary.

Some of the posts I've read about Derrick Rose lately have been really, really bad. It makes sense that a group of poker players, obsessed with making good decisions, would underrate dumb players while at the same time usually overrate smart ones. This is the only explanation I could think of for why guys are lauding Gordon Hayward already and Rose continually receives tons of hate. What's funny, is that most of you would probably call Rose a bad decision maker and you'd be completely wrong.

While Rose does have some frustrating flaws in his game, he correctly does a lot of great things for his team, mostly in the form of scoring (which tends to be pretty important). I'm no Rose fan myself, so I'm hoping I can maybe shed some light on his game and stop some of my respected TZ buddies from looking foolish and assigning him labels like "actively hurts his team."

The most common misconception with Rose's game is that he is wrongly taking 2-point jumpers and floaters. While correct that these shots are usually worse than threes and layups/dunks, a quick look of shot locations (via HoopData and assembled into a spreadsheet by Jack of Arcades) shows that Rose is actually fantastic on his floaters.

As someone named JalapenoBag asked in Threadzilla: "i think rose is pretty good. but the one thing i can't stand is his stupid floater. why doesn't he ever just take it all the way?"

The data shows that Rose's "<10 feet" shots are worth 1.15 points per shot. This category excludes shots at the rim, so most floaters definitely land here. For some context, Zach Randolph's "At Rim" shot and Chauncey Billup's threes were worth 1.16 points per shot last year. Given how good Rose's floater is and how difficult it is to prevent, I feel comfortable saying it is one of the best offensive weapons in the game.

Now I assume his haters will point to his weaker, longer jump shots as the problem. Rose took 540 jumpers from 16-23 feet last year. This is second most in the league behind Dirk Nowitzki. That sounds troubling from a guy most would classify as a poor jump shooter. However, Rose shot 44% on them, good for .88 points per shot. Want some comparisons? How about Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, and Carmelo Anthony? All three of these guys took more than 400 shots from this distance and they all shot worse than Rose (Durant .74, Kobe .82, and Carmelo .80). Now I'm not calling Rose as good as these guys, but he's being criminally underrated in the thread.

Rose certainly has his issues too, but I think they're solvable. The biggest improvement to his game could come from either finishing better at the rim, or getting to the line more. These two really go hand-in-hand in Rose's case. If you watch him play, you'll notice he attempts many acrobatic plays around the rim. While these will land him on SportsCenter a lot, they're not really all that helpful to him or his team. If he could learn to embrace contact in his finishing attempts instead of dodging it, he'll get to the line more and become a real nightmare to defend.

It's not fair to hold Rose's TS% against him (compared to guys like Nash and Deron) without crediting him for operating at a much higher usage while turning it over even less. Given how damaging turnovers are, it's annoying that guys that pass a lot (and thus turn it over a lot) get credited with being unselfish and smart with the ball. Just because he isn't a typical point and is very much scoring minded doesn't mean he doesn't belong in the top echelon. His scoring is more valuable than most other point guard's passing. I also do think his assist numbers will improve as he now has some better offensive teammates to work with. Hopefully this comes in the form of more of his passes converted into points and not more passes from him in general though.

Erebody PANIC!!!

Ok, don't panic yet. It's only 1 or 2 games in and two teams seem to stick out as "in trouble". Perhaps because they both got housed last night, but both the 'Zards and the Jazz have their fans in this position:

I'm going to try and talk you back onto the ledge.

Wizards - Much like the Heat on opening night, it's hard to imagine them starting out in a game which will make them look worse. As Assani pointed out, the Wizards were 13.5 point underdogs so them getting blown out is not exactly a surprise. Further, against a good defensive team (which the Magic surely are) the absence of Arenas is only more magnified as he's the only guy who's truly dangerous against a set defense. Wall isn't there yet, as seen by the Magic's willingness to give him every 18 footer he wanted. Blatche is Blatche and neither McGee nor Hinrich are creators. Further, Washington finishing the season with a "mediocre but not wretched" record won't be determined by their record at Orlando, Miami, Boston and the Lakers - those are games that aren't realistically winnable for the Non-Impressive Nine at the bottom end of the Eastern conference. So while the manner of the loss was certainly disheartening for the Wiz, it's still just one loss in a game they were never going to win anyway.

Jazz - Unfortunately for the Jazz, they've looked really bad, twice. And have done so against two of the Western teams many thought most primed for declines in Phoenix and Denver. However, it might not quite be that bad. Jefferson and Millsap have the makings of a nice pairing and if Okur can give anything (especially floor spacing) when he returns those three (along with whatever minutes Kirilenko gives them at the 4) comprise a pretty solid, if somewhat defensively deficient, big man rotation. No, Utah's problems lay on the perimeter. Deron was a little nicked up in the preseason, as well as missing some time with "personal issues" whatever that means, and it shows, as he is not making shots and not looking totally in sync. Raja Bell is somewhere between zombified and mummified at the moment, though one has to imagine that he won't shoot this badly for the entire season. CJ Miles is a trainwreck. Gordon Hayward is probably their lone bright spot on the wings thus far as he looks an actual NBA player. But he's raw and suspect defensively against quick players.

So where is the optimism? Well, Deron will get better. Hayward will get his legs and start to take Miles' minutes. Bell will either be better or out of the rotation, as Ronnie Price is probably a better option if Bell is as done as he looks. (In fact Price would provide the added benefit of allowing Deron to guard 2 guards which is a better matchup for him vs. most teams due to his size and strength.) And perhaps there might even be a move to be made for a quality wing player. Rip Hamilton's name has been mentioned, though his awful contract makes that less likely. Another possibility might be Lou Williams, as Philly has 2 too many wing players demanding minutes at the moment. Maybe even someone like Bill Walker, who appears to be out of favor in New York? Or, you know, keep $30million Man Wes Matthews...

The Hate List

I get accused of being a "hater" a lot. It's a fair enough charge. But, I have my reasons, man. So, in the interest of tracking my "hating" in the new season, I thought I'd list some of my "targets"

• David Kahn/Timberwolves future: I've been pretty open in my mockery of Kahn since his laughable handling of the Rubio situation, both immediately following the draft and since then. It's not exactly difficult to rip off a list of the substantive moves he's made that look, well, odd:
  

1. drafting Rubio apparently without a plan;
   
   
2. immediately following by taking a second PG who he had probably only seen play once who was self-evidently a terrible fit for the offense his newly picked coach wished to run;
   
   
3. sign yet a third point guard in Ramon Sessions to ensure the second point guard had as little trade value as possible;
   
   
4. talk down the ability of his two best players (Love and Jefferson) to play together;
   
   
5. sign Darko;
   
   
6. pass on DeMarcus Cousins to draft Wesley Johnson (which may have made sense if he wasn't about to acquire Michael Beasley in an admittedly decent move which showed he could help build a winner, in Miami, or if he wasn't hell-bent on trading Jefferson for pennies on the dollar); and
   
   
7. make said deal which sent Jefferson to Utah.

And that's before we even get to the fairly ludicrous figure he has cut in public at various times, which leads us nicely to today's dose of quality PR (h/t to TSC):

According to a league source, the Timberwolves have asked the NBA to look into whether Portland knowingly traded them an injured player when the Blazers dealt Martell Webster to Minnesota for the 16th overall pick in last summer's draft.

Webster on Monday underwent surgery to repair a disk in his back and is expected to miss about six weeks. He said the injury dates to last spring's playoffs, when he was undercut and fell hard in a game against Phoenix.

The Wolves are likely looking for a draft pick as compensation.

Because due diligence is hard. Yet for some reason, hope springs not quite eternal in Minny, but still it springs. Because they have a plan. All evidence to the contrary. Hate rating: A+

• Brandon Jennings: Ok, he's already better than I thought he would be. While that not be saying that much yet, I'll admit that I missed on this one a little (which may turn into "a lot" if he learns how to shoot). Hate Rating: C+
  
  
• Atlanta Hawks: I don't hate the Hawks, I really don't. I just look at their roster and see a not-quite superstar two guard getting paid as if he were, an undersized center who they don't seem sure what to do with, and an all-world talent in Josh Smith who is at least an all-continent knucklehead. Jamal Crawford is both not really that good, and not especially likely to duplicate his performance from last season. Mike Bibby is D-O-N-E. They are going to put up a decent record in a terrible Eastern conference and have no real shot at doing anything meaningful in the post season. Not hate, just real talk. Hate Rating: D+
  
  
• Tyeke Evans: I think he'll have a fine career as a stat whore on bad-to-mediocre teams. Which is perfectly fine, but some were comparing him to a young Dwyane Wade last season. Simmer down, now. Hate Rating: B+
  
  
• Andray Blatche: Similar to Tyreke, but with a much more demonstrable history of knuckleheadedness. Congratulations, you were the least awful option for the Wizards during the franchise's nuclear winter. That doesn't make you good. It makes you Cory Maggette minus the awesome nickname. Hate Rating: A-
  
  
• Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton: I don't think either are necessarily bad players, I just think that the explosion both experienced during the second half of last year doesn't really tell us much. The analogy I'd use is that they were pitchers called up by non-contenders in late August who blew through the league the fist time through. Now that people have seen their stuff, they might start to get knocked around a little bit. Hate Rating: C+
  
  
• LakerFan: Like I need an explanation for this. Hate Rating: A+++
  

Nets vs. Pistons Recap

Nets
In the historically bad 12-win season last year, Devin Harris looked like a shell of his former self. He was banged up all year long and it looked like he might have permanently lost a step on account of his injuries. He looked much better tonight though. He seemed to have all of his quickness back and was getting in the lane at will. In the first half he was a little too passive but he came out more determined to score in the second half and it really made a difference. There is no reason to think he can’t be a top ten PG this year.

Despite his 25/9 game, Brook Lopez was not very good. He was bullied by Ben Wallace all game and was pretty harmful to his team outside of one really nice stretch in the third quarter. The broadcaster mentioned that he caught mononucleosis in the summer and lost 15 pounds. He was already a finesse (soft) big coming into the season and that type of weight loss certainly won't help.

Terrence Williams made a ton of mistakes, but he also is a really dynamic player who can make it just as hard on the defense as he makes it easy. If he can knockout even just 1-2 turnovers per game, it will help immensely. It was interesting that he pretty much ran the point even with Jordan Farmar out there. If T-Will can pass more selectively he's a pretty effective creator. These are all huge ifs though. Farmar had a pretty good game. This will sound cheesy, but I feel like there is value in playing championship minutes like Farmar has the last two years. It just brings a different type of culture into the team and it kind of radiated from Farmar as he played with a lot of confidence. He hit a really big three in the middle of the Nets 9-0 comeback run at the end. Anthony Morrow hit the game winner and was solid throughout while Travis Outlaw was terrible on both ends.

I was pleasantly surprised with Derrick Favors. He looked very raw in the preseason and I thought it would be a while before he could be effective. He made me look wrong last night though. He crushed on the offensive glass and really played well in his limited minutes. It seemed like the annoying case of coaches just hating rookies and keeping them on the bench just because they are rookies. It was crystal clear that Favors is much better than Joe Smith and Kris Humphries and it was foolish to not let him play more.

Pistons
They still don’t realize what they have in Ben Gordon. They used him better in the second half, but far too many possessions came and went without the ball touching Gordon’s hands. He looked healthy and should definitely bounce back after a down year last season. If they don’t use him better, they really aren’t going to win many games. They had a chance to tie the game with a three at the end and Charlie Villanueva took the shot instead of Gordon. The team seems poorly coached and too reliant on mediocre players like Rodney Stuckey to create offense. Ben Wallace really looked like he hasn’t lost much of his value. He played a fantastic game defensively.

Austin Daye looked stronger than last year (not saying much) but he was still in over his head as a starting PF. This team will miss Jerebko a decent amount. I don't know why Greg Monroe didn't play, but if he wasn't hurt then we have another case of irrational rookie hate from John Kuester. This team is going nowhere this year and they need to get Monroe some time to help his development.

Day 2 According to Dschmeidreu

Or, as we like to call him, Brittany's BF:

NBA Headlines Night 2

For the lazy donks who don't want to NBA or go on yahoo to read recaps

1. Rose sucks at defense
2. Monta Ellis loves to shoot the ball.......a lot......and play absurd minutes
3. lol boston
4. Brook Lopez all star for sure one time
5. CLEVELAND could make the playoffs?! Interesting
6. Horford blows
7. Poor houston........team has a ton of potential though, but like, how about some defense? Allowed average of 122 points in their first 2 games
8. Blake Griffin = all star Clippers = still going to suck
9. AARON AFFALO
10. Parker/Duncan/GINOBLIIIII/Jefferson looking like the Big 4?

That's about the size of it.

Greear10 vs Thayer Prop Bet

After boasting of Austin Daye's "unlimited range," Greear10 backed up his comments with a prop bet offer:


GREEAR10
thay3r i might be interested in a 3pt % bet daye vs gallo. u interested?

THAY3R 
Yes, must shoot 80 of them to qualify. $xxx?

GREEAR10
lets round those #s off a little. 100 to qualify for $x,xxx?

THAY3R
Deal/Booked etc.

You ****ing idiot

Random Day One Overreactions

1) The Celtics are who we thought they were. They are going to defend. They are going to knock people on their asses. Unfortunately, they are also going to keep teams in games especially if Doc continues to give us more of the "oh shit" lineups with which he opened the 4th quarter (Rondo/Nate/Queesy/FFD/JoN) - they were one Ilgauskas questionably moving screen away from only being up 3 in a game they had more or less dominated.

2) Relatedly, as bad as Miami played last night (and it was really, really, bad. Everybody point and laugh at Chris Bosh, "superstar"), they were still right there because Lebron is just that good, and once Wade gets his sea legs, even good teams are going to have to play better than the Celtics did last night to get it done.

3) That said, the Heat made the cromagnon offense Mike Brown ran in Cleveland look revolutionary. And their interior defense is...not good. Again, everyone laugh at Bosh as the "anchor" of a defense. This team has holes, and unfortunately for them, those holes play very much into the hands of the other top teams (Magic, Celtics, Lakers). It's very possible that they are good enough in other areas to overcome this, but a lot of the "crown their ass" type stuff from the preseason will hopefully subside a bit.

4) Moving on to other games, Nic Batum! My man. Also according to BlazerNation, Wes Matthews justified the entire $30 million of his contract in one night. He was that good! Blazers 82-0!!!!111one!1!1!

5) Adelman needs to do a better job of managing Yao's mythical 24 minutes so that he isn't done with 7 minutes to go. Though to be fair to Adelman, it's possible he did it that way because Yao was A) in foul trouble; B) a foulbox so he was just going to play him until the inevitable hackfest. Houston's gunner guards (Martin and Lee, looking at you) should also probably recognize that 19 foot pull-ups with 16 on the shot clock are pretty bad shots when Yao is on the floor.

6) LakerFan continues to make my head asplode. Let the overrating of Shannon Brown, superstar, commence. That said, Steve Blake was a truly massive pickup for them. Even aside from the game winner (that pass was 147% intended for Pau, btw), the viable "gee, let's just let our PG torch Derek Fisher's corpse" has been taken off the table for an end of game strategy. Even though Fisher is going to keep his starting job, Phil Jax has already signalled that Blake is probably his finisher against teams with dynamic PGs.

What did everyone else think?

Labor Issues, 7 Team League Pass, and LBJ's commercial

In the CastZilla linked below, JoA, Tarheels and I discussed some other topics which were apparently lost to technical difficulties. I thought the colloquies were worth summarizing as good points were made.

On the first front, the issues of the impending lockout, CBA restructuring, and contraction, we were all in agreement that contraction isn't really on the table - yet. If a work stoppage were to take longer than a full season (kill me now) then maybe the league comes back with fewer teams. But until then, contraction seems a poor way to redress the league's alleged economic woes - yes the league as a whole saves perhaps $75 million in player salaries per year per team contracted, but it also loses the revenues of 41 home games, plus local tv and radio rights a certain amount of jersey sales and so on.

Edit: TSC raises good points here:

Wouldn't the focus be on teams that are already losing tons of money and/or in markets that aren't generating large amounts of revenue. There is more than just losing revenue, these teams have expenses that are far exceeding revenues because they have to fund operations in stadiums that aren't close to capacity. Not to mention their stadium deals may not be ideal (not sure on specifics here). I really have no clue how much local TV/Radio revenue we are talking about here, but I doubt its that much in these two markets (Sac and NO). Jersey sales is meh since that can be transfered to another team since the big name stars on those teams would be playing elsewhere and selling jersey's elsewhere (I would assume).

To be clear, I don't disagree with any of this analysis - the league may wish to investigate whether some of these are viable markets for teams with current ownership in place. But, that's really a separate discussion from the context in which Stern raised the issue and that is the impending CBA. In that regard, it's nothing more than a big stick to swing at the players' union.


Further, the teams contracted wouldn't just vanish - there is no way an owner is just going to walk away from his franchise like a homeowner upside-down on his mortgage when other franchises are still selling for hundreds of millions of dollars. So the remaining owners would almost certainly have to make large payments to the owners being contracted, which further eats away at the "savings".

Finally, the league doesn't really [b]need[/b] contraction from a competitive sense. Whereas in the late 90s and early 2000s there may have been a dearth of NBA ready talent to fill out the 8 or so rotation spots per team, due in part to teams spending draftpicks on raw highschoolers or large and largely unknown Eastern Euros, we are in something of a golden age with respect to talent as the overseas game (and more importantly, scouting of that game) continues to improve at the same time we have had several successive deep crops of rookie players. While the Jared Dudley's and Carlos Delfino's of the world are not superstars, they are professional basketball players. Where teams can't field full rotations of minimally competent NBA players, the reason is no longer a shortage of good players but rather a failure of management (KAHHHHHHHHN!) or purposefully bottoming out (the Knicks of recent seasons).

Realistically, contraction would present more of a competitive problem than it would solve. Of the first franchises on the chopping block, two would likely be New Orleans and Sacramento - how does the league go about reassigning the marquee assets of those teams (CP3, DMC, Tyreke)? All of a sudden the Clippers add Paul to Blake Griffin and Eric Gordon virtually for free? You think this ISN'T what the league would like to see happen?

In actuality, this is merely Stern-Bot 2k11 threatening the NBAPA with 30-60 fewer jobs if they don't cave to the owners demands. Similar to the claimed 33% reduction in salary, it's a bargaining position and likely nothing more. As to what actually happens to next season, I think Etats360 outlined the most likely scenario a few weeks ago:

Here's what will happen:

1. Owners hold off as long as possible to start negotiations, so that the min salary players start to panic

2. Around July-ish, the owners purposely bring unreasonable demands to the table so as to gain leverage in negotiations. At the same time, the NBAPA starts using the media to try and influence public opinion in their favor. This will come in the form of leaking false rumors and twitter sympathy.

3. NBAPA refuses to budge to the unreasonable demands. The owners call for a lockout.

4. All the players who are desperate for money (and comprise a majority of the NBAPA), beg the NBAPA to come to a resolution as fast as possible. This is expedited when the owners set a deadline to cancel the entire season.

5. The NBAPA and owners reach an agreement, which includes a hard cap, salary reductions on existing contracts, and raising the min salary. The shortened season begins around late January.

The only thing I'd add to point 4 is that the owners costs go down dramatically during a lockout, whereas the players (cars, houses, child support, entourages) likely do not.

---

Moving on to 7 team league pass, JOA grabbed the following list of "non League Pass Broadband games" (ABC, ESPN, TNT, NBATV) to demonstrate which teams are best value for money if one is choosing the "7 team" package for league pass broadband:

Boston: 33
Miami Heat: 29
Orlando: 29
LA Lakers: 27
Chicago: 27
Thunder: 25
Suns: 25
Dallas: 24
Spurs 23
Blazers: 21
Knicks: 18
Jazz: 17
Hawks: 14
Clipper: 12
Rockets: 11
Bucks 8
Hornets: 7
Kings: 7
Grizzlies: 6

with a few not listed. The best values in terms of entertainment + most games would be Clips, Bucks, Warriors, Kings, Wizards, Hornets and either Grizzlies or Jazz in my opinion.


---

Finally, we talked at some length about the LBJ commercial:



For me, this is a really good commercial and getting a little further in depth (hopefully for the last time), it does make sort of sideways glances at a few important points:

1) For all the hate he's gotten this summer, he didn't actually do anything. Yeah, "The Decision" was poor in conception and douchey in execution, but he's not an actual criminal, like Mike Vick, Big Ben* or Kobe* have been before him. Nor does he have obvious and severe issues a la Tiger (no way we know even close to the whole story on that, but that's a whole other topic). So, "what do you want me to do?" is a perfectly reasonable question for him to ask. I he had stayed in Cleveland, dollars to donuts, the same people ripping him for "ring chasing" would be ripping him for not caring about winning. Had he gone to New York, it would have been chasing "global icon" status. In short, ESPN is the GOAT LeBron troll.

* allegedly though we can't talk about it due to a sealed private settlement in a civil suit.

2) That said, there's a middle ground between "stop listening to my friends" and abdicating his decisions to the Nike marketing department. Assuming that his lifelong friends are real and absolutely have LeBron's best interests at heart, that loyalty is not a perfect substitute for experience and expertise. With some trusted professional guidance, "The Decision" could have come off a lot better. For example, if he really was making his announcement that way "for the kids," why not involve the kids? The optics of the whole situation change if it's one or a procession of 15 year-olds tossing him the same softball questions Jim Gray did. As noted above, haters were going to hate, but that doesn't mean he had to do things in a way sure to promote maximal ire.

3) Really, who the hell is anyone else to tell him he's wrong for deciding to play for championships with D-Wade, Bosh and the merry band of redshirts? While you or I or MJ or Bill Simmons or whoever may have done things differently, it's his choice to make, and until we've walked a mile in shoes, it's just like, our opinion, man.

4) Finally, speaking of MJ, the playful shot at Charles Barkley with the "not a role model" and the pink donut is pretty obvious. Less obvious and harder hitting was the shot at MJ's horrifically bitter Hall-of-Fame induction speech. A welcome reminder that Michael was no prince, but the media in his day was largely sycophantic, with the closest thing to being a hater was Sam Smith. Rereading The Jordan Rules it's like a Suzy Kolber puff piece compared to the lunatic ravings of Skip Bayless, et al that Lebron has to deal with. So again, LBJ probably has some grounds to ask of MJ "who the fuck do you think you are to tell me how to live?"

---

So that's what you missed, hopefully we get the technology better next time.

Castzilla #2: 2010-2011 Game Previews (10/26)

Castzilla #2: 2010-2011 - Game Previews (10/26)

In this episode, tarheeljks and I preview the three games for tonight - Rockets/Lakers, Suns/Blazers, and of course, Heat/Celtics. We discuss what we're looking for in the first game of the season out of these teams

As always, if you want to catch up on previous CZs you can check out the Castzilla Archive.

Castzilla Archive

Here's a link to every one of the CastZillas created. This will be updated as we go along, along with a new post for every upcoming CastZilla.

Unless we change webhosts, all CastZillas are hosted on archive.org. There you can stream them or download them and manually add them to your mp3 player if you want to listen in the car.

2010-2011
Episode 1
Episode 2

2009-2010
Episode 13
Episode 12
Episode 11
Episode 9
Episode 8.5 - Part 1 - Part 2 - these were hosted by Bobbo
Episode 8
Episode 7
Episode 6
Episode 5 (Long)
Episode 4
Episode 3
Episode 2
Episode 1

*Episode 10 is either lost, or never existed at all. C'est la vie.

SirOsis Photoshops 10/10 - 10/16

If you follow TZ regularly, you know SirOsis regularly posts some good photoshops. I've archived the three from this week. Click on the link in the caption and you'll be able to find the original post in context of the thread if you want to hunt around.

TZ Negotiated Over/Unders

A while back KBFC and Bobbofitos "negotiated" over/unders for teams. They kept increasing win bids until one person would decide to take the under. Later kidcolin and ClarkNasty did the same thing.

Edit: KidPClark did it first and now Clark is whining about it. So there.

Clark put together a handy table that kept track of them all. That post is found here, but I've reproduced the table after the jump.