Transactions

Transactions: 12/13-2/2

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Atlanta Hawks 

1/5    Waived Othello Hunter

1/12   Signed Mario West to a 10-day contract

1/22   Signed Mario West to a  second 10-day contract

2/1     Signed Mario West for the rest of the season 

West hasn’t done much this season for the Hawks to remedy their short bench but he is a good athlete and a local guy.  The Hawks have also used West to fill out the bench the last few years too.  West’s stats in college and in the pros show no indication that he’s really pro level (his career high in college is only 5.2 ppg).  Atlanta can likely get a little more upside in its bench but is content with a name they know.

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Franchise Best Non-All-Stars

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Last time, we looked at some the best players players never to make an All-Star game.  At the request of friend of the site and overall nice guy Aitan Spring, we are going to take a look at each team’s best player never to make an All-Star game. A few guidelines for our review:

-We choose players based upon their accomplishment solely with one franchise. For example, Rod Strickland is possibly the best non-All-Star ever but he had several cameos for franchises where he wasn’t great, which don’t count in my book.

-If the player made an All-Star ever even if with another team, he is exempted from this list. This may seem a bit inconsistent with the first guideline but the fact that a player ever made the All-Star game changes things to me. A future (or past) All-Star appearance takes the sting off–that same sting which we’re trying to capture here.

-If the choices are close, we will weight our pick more towards players with longer tenures with the franchise. This seems more appropriate for what we are looking for.

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All-Star Thoughts

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I typically do not watch or pay much attention to the NBA All-Star but I do get somewhat interested in who gets elected and chosen.  This year was particularly interesting.  According to ESPN.com, the starters are:

East

-G: Allen Iverson

-G: Dwyane Wade

-F: LeBron James

-F: Kevin Garnett

-C: Dwight Howard 

West

-G: Steve Nash

-G: Kobe Bryant

-F: Carmelo Anthony

-F: Tim Duncan

-C: Amare Stoudemire

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Quick Thoughts

Quick Thoughts

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1.    Memphis Surge Reviewed:    One of the more interesting stories of the season is the unexpected improvement of the Grizz, who are now 20-18 after going 24-58 all of last year.  Well, it’s not that improvement was unexpected it’s just that the extent of improvement is the surprising part.  When the Grizz grabbed Zach Randolph for nothing, we kind of figured there would be some improvement but the team is a fringe playoff team.  What’s going on here?  Well, the Grizz of 2008-09 were one of the worst offensive teams we’ve seen for a while.  Let’s take a look at the basic stats for the Grizz the last two years:

                                                        2008-09            2009-10

-Offensive Rating:         103.5 (28th)         110.2 (7th)

-Defensive Rating:        109.5 (21st)         110.5 (27th)

-PPG:                               93.9 (29th)         104.0 (4th)

-OPPG:                            99.3 (14th)         104.2 (25th)

-Pace Factor                    90.1 (20th)            93.6 (10th)

-Attendance Per Game:  12,680 (30th)      12,685 (30th)

The Grizz have changed their style drastically.  The putrid offense of 2008-09, which involved O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay chucking has become faster and more efficient (though the chucking hasn’t exactly stopped).  There has been sacrifice of in defense (from bad to terrible) but this is easily counter-balanced by the offensive improvement.  Mayo and Gay are both improved a little bit (though Mike Conley hasn’t been much better).  The real improvement has come from Marc Gasol (who went from good to very good) and newly acquired Zach Randolph, who is playing as well as any time since 2006-07 and is huge upgrade over Darko Milicic and Hakim Warrick.

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NBA Draft

NBA Draft Update

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Right now the 2010 draft class is a little tough to gauge. As with recent drafts the strength will be in the freshman class. My feeling is that this class is somewhat below-average. Other than Wall and Henry the guards are a very weak group. The big guys look OK now, but the conference games are starting and that always thins their ranks out. This list is a little scattershot and not exactly a top 60 that’s in a strict order of the ability and future of the players. After the first 15 or so I have players bunched in groups, because that’s where they are at this point in the season. While my guess is that Avery Bradley will move into the lottery and possibly the top 5 by season’s end, his numbers just aren’t quite there yet. I do it this way because the season is early and when the analysis is based mainly on statistics, like this one is, it takes a full season before things really come into focus. 

1. John Wall, PG Kentucky: This is a shakier vote than most. Wall has been impressive. He clearly can be dominant when he wants to be. There is one number that concerns me though. If you take out games against small college opponents his A/TO is 1.08, which is unacceptable for a PG. I’ll just throw that out there as something to think about as the conference season gets going. Wall seems good enough that this will get corrected, so it shouldn’t be a concern unless it continues to happen. 

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Agent Schmuck

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What more can we add to the Gilbert Arenas controversy?  Probably not a whole heck of a lot but let’s piece together the facts and see what we can learn here, separated from all the hype and emotions of this story: 

The Facts

-On December 21, 2009, Arenas places several unloaded guns in front of the locker of teammate Javaris Crittenton.  The guns were apparently put out because Arenas and Crittenton had a dispute about who should pay have to pay the pot in a poker game.  Arenas and Crittenton both lost the hand but Arenas had refused to pay, enraging Crittenton.  It’s not clear what the details of why Arenas wouldn’t pay or whether his refusal was legitimate but it’s hard not to notice that Arenas is set to make $16.2 million this season and has five more years left at about $20 million per year while Crittenton is on a one-year $1.5 million deal. 

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