Quick Thoughts

It’s a little early to draw any conclusions yet but here are a few interesting tidbits for the new season to watch:

-Philly Phlying: The Philadelphia 76ers are arguably the best team in the NBA on paper right now.  After dismantling the Kings last night, Philly is 7-2 and outscoring foes by a ridiculous +16.0 points per game (Miami is second at +11.8 per game).  Also defying the odds, the Sixers are scoring quite well (101.6 points per game) and allowing only 85.6 points per game (the lowest in NBA).  The Sixers offensive has been efficient but the real key is that they have held opponents to a superb .391% from the field and .269% from three-point land going into the Kings game.  Doug Collins usually has his teams playing strong defense but those numbers are so tough you have to think they aren’t really sustainable.  Indeed, the schedule has been relatively easy so far and they are 1-2 against winning teams.  It is also highly unlikely that Spencer Hawes can continue to shoot over 60%.  Even so, this is a tough and well prepared team and blowing out even bad teams consistently is a good indicator for future success.  Perhaps the lockout has positioned Philly to make a run by being disciplined and moderately talented.  The Sixers aren’t better than the Bulls or the Heat but they have staked a strong claim for the Atlantic Division and the third seed pretty.

-Westphal Rightfully Falls: The firing of Paul Westphal was wholly deserved.  I’m sure DeMarcus Cousins is a pain in the ass but devaluing an asset publicly is not a good idea, particularly where management isn’t on board.  I understand the perspective that a coach wants to teach a young player how to behave properly and to stop the constant complaining.  Maybe Phil Jackson or Pat Riley can pull something like this but Westphal didn’t have the leverage to unilaterally bench Cousins and make him look bad the way he did.  I wonder why Westphal got tough, since he was so famously a players coach in both Phoenix and Seattle.  I remember Westhpal not laying down the law when whacky stuff happened in his previous stops.  You’ll recall the famous Vernon Maxwell-Gary Payton melee at practice in 2000 in Seattle that got so rowdy that the spillover injured teammates Horace Grant and Chuck Person.  Neither Maxwell nor Payton were suspended, when they clearly should have.  Rather, Westphal fined them and made the following public statement: “We’ve taken a lot steps to prove we’re a good team, and this is not the time to take steps backward.  This is the time to band together.”  Maybe, he should’ve told Cousins something similar this season.

-Early PER Numbers: LeBron James is off to another awesome start leading the NBA with a 36.9 PER (!).  A bigger surprise is that Kyle Lowry is currently number two in PER in the NBA of anyone playing more than 30 minutes per game.  It probably won’t last but the Houston has built an offense around him, which is helping his numbers, but maybe taking a toll defensively (Houston was last in defensive efficiency before the Kings were destroyed).

NBA Draft 2012: An Early Preview

The class of 2012 is better than the class of 2011. Right now that’s about the best thing I can say about it. I’ll add that there are enough intriguing prospects out there that I expect an interesting enough class to develop by draft day. But I still see this as a slightly below-average class once all is said and done. As it stands now I see 1 player who stands out, Anthony Davis. After that there are 3 others in the next tier. Beyond those 4 I put the prospects in groups for now. The groups are listed in the order of the value typically assigned to such players.

Consider this a very rough draft of the ranking of the 2012 draft prospects. Because of this, I included more than the usual 60 prospects. As the season progresses and the real prospects separate themselves from the fast starters, I’ll refine the rankings to reflect as much. With that in mind, don’t take these too seriously. There remains a lot of basketball to be played and prospect analysis to be done.

Continue reading NBA Draft 2012: An Early Preview…

NBA Preview 2011-12

As pretty much everyone has noted, the 2011-12 is the second abbreviated season and we are all trying to draw parallels to the first such season, 1998-99, to better understand what we might expect this time.  The lessons people have taken from good old 1998-99?

-Older teams will struggle in the compressed schedule with fewer days off but youth will abide

-Teams that have played together before could possibly hit the ground running, while teams with lots of new parts might struggle

-Depth is really important

Before turning to 2011-12 we should test how true all of the above statements actually were back in 1998-99.  Sure, most of these things are true in the abstract but can we attribute the happenings of 1998-99 directly to older teams/thin teams/new teammates struggling?  I’m not so sure.  Let’s look at some of teams that fell or rose dramatically in the fateful 1998-99 season and see why the jump/dip happened:

-Orlando Magic: The Magic missed the playoffs in 1997-98 at 41-41 but jumped out to an nice 33-17 record thanks to a deep team and great coach Chuck Daly, who realized how good Darrell Armstrong was and gave a lot of run to players who were untested rookies (Michael Doleac and Matt Harpring) or previously taken for granted role players (Armstrong, Bo Outlaw, Derek Strong).  It wasn’t an offensive gem but the great depth and coaching created a boring but effective slow-paced defensive unit.  Indeed, the depth allowed defense to remain effective even when the scorers Hardaway and Nick Anderson left the floor. Continue reading NBA Preview 2011-12…

Transactions 12/9-12/10 (Part 2)

New York Knicks

12/10    Waived Chauncey Billups

12/10    In a sign-and-trade three-team, Dallas sent Tyson Chandler, the rights to Giorgos Printezis, and Ahmad Nivins to New York for Andry Rautins and a conditional 2012 second-round pick from Washington; Washington received Ronny Turiaf, a 2013 second-round pick and cash from New York, and a 2012 second-round pick from Dallas

12/11    Re-signed Jared Jeffries and signed Mike Bibby

Chandler is exactly the kind of athletic, quality, defensive big man that the Knicks have been desperate for since they had Marcus Camby (no…Ronny Turiaf doesn’t count).  Assuming he stays healthy, Chandler fits into the team perfectly.  He can run and he doesn’t need shots to be effective. Chandler, however, is far from risk free.  Before last year, he missed almost half of the previous two seasons and was at diminished capacity when he did play (averaging a PER of 13.0 those years).  The question is whether Chandler’s career high PER in 2011-11 was flukish and whether he can stay healthy.

In addition, the Knicks had to cut their point guard in Billups to fit Billups under the cap.  So, if you throw in the Chandler’s injury history and the loss of Billups, this is still a deal the Knicks had to do but it tempers my enthusiasm a little.   One thing to watch on the injury front is that Mike D’Antoni tended ride his best players really hard last year:

Raymond Felton, 38.4 mpg

Amare Stoudemire, 36.8 mpg

Carmelo Anthony, 36.2 mpg

Danilo Gallinari, 34.8 mpg

Wilson Chandler, 34.5 mpg Continue reading Transactions 12/9-12/10 (Part 2)…

Transactions 12/9-12/10 (Part 1)

Atlanta Hawks

12/9    Signed Tracy McGrady, Vladimir Radmanovic, and re-signed Jason Collins

Did you know that T-Mac is only 32?  In a part-time role, McGrady wasn’t actually that bad for the Pistons either.  The problem is that one of the most exciting players of the 2000s is now, at best, an average bench guy who can’t really get to the line and is a decent shooter.  On a playoff-level team, T-Mac’s presence as a cheap filler will have value, assuming the knees hold up well enough.  The hope, though, is that McGrady can replace Jamal Crawford off the bench.  At first blush this seems silly.  McGrady can’t move very well these days and Crawford got ridiculously hot at times.  Looking at the advanced metrics, though, T-Mac actually had a slightly higher PER than Crawford (14.9 to 14.2) and shot exactly the same from three (.341%).  Does this mean that McGrady is a more valuable player?   Well…no.  Part of Crawford’s value was the ability to generate tons of shots (13.7 shots and 4.1 free throws per-36 versus 11.0 and 2.8 for McGrady).  The Hawks are downgrading on 2010-11 stats (though not by as much as you would think).  Still when you combine the volume with the possibility that McGrady might get hurt again or continue his steep decline from his peak, there is plenty of risk that the Hawks will have a big hole at backup sixth man.

As for Radmanovic, he has demonstrated that he will never be a regular but is also useful in a bench role.  While Vlad still can’t play any defense and is thus not a viable starter, he will help the Hawks replace the tons of threes lost when Crawford doesn’t come back.  In short, the Hawks’ filler is useful but has some holes.  Continue reading Transactions 12/9-12/10 (Part 1)…

About Hoops Analyst:

Hoops Analyst is the premier destination for in-depth basketball analysis, insight, and commentary.