Philly Phlying: Refusing to Tank?

by Harlan Schreiber

One of the bigger potential ironies of this season is that the Philadelphia 76ers look like a pretty solid playoff team whereas the Denver Nuggets, who took Allen Iverson from Philly because the Sixers were mired in the lottery, are likely going to miss the playoffs.  Of course, that’s a bit of a superficial observation as ironies go.  The Nuggets are significantly better team than Philly but the Sixers have the fortune in being a far less deep conference.  Still, Philly’s run has been impressive.  They continue to beat their competitors for the lower seeds on a regular basis and they have many impressive wins over good teams (San Antonio, Phoenix on the road, and last night against Boston)  Contrary to what many (including myself) believed, the Sixers have not tapered off at all but in fact have played better and better as the season has progressed. Continue reading Philly Phlying: Refusing to Tank?…

NCAA Tourney Preview

by Ed Weiland

Last season when I did the tournament preview, one of the theories I suggested for picking the winner was to look for a team with a strong point guard. The idea being that a good PG is the most essential player to NCAA tournament success. Last year things didn’t turn out that way, as a team without a true PG won their 2^nd title in-a-row. After actually researching this theory, I discovered I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not that it’s better to have a bad PG, but teams with strong frontcourts have traditionally been a little better at advancing to the final four. Continue reading NCAA Tourney Preview…

by Harlan Schreiber

It’s really hard to explain and contextualize this amazing Rocket run.  The Rockets are a good team and have been in the 50-win range for the last few years but this 22-game winning streak makes no sense.  As we noted last season, almost any team that ever strung together an 18-game winning streak won a title.  In fact, before 2006-07, only one team with at least a 16-game winning streak didn’t make it to the conference finals (the Mavs and Suns proceeded to get bounced in the first and second round respectively).   Houston is a good team but they do not seem to fit in the company of all these other winners.  The Rockets have one star with T-Mac (and two if Yao Ming was still healthy) and some depth but this is not the roster that you’d associate with a title contender.  This raises all sorts of questions that I’d thought we’d take a little close at this streak and see if we learn anything deeper: 

Is this streak a fluke?  Continue reading …

Quick Thoughts

by Harlan Schreiber

1.    Trade Progress Report:    The recent trades of Pau Gasol, Shaquille O’Neal, and Jason Kidd have all been pretty well examined and re-examined to date but I thought we could take a look a little closer and see what else the trades have yielded to date and beyond: 

-Pau Gasol:  This trade was obviously was a no-brainer for the Lakers.  They were willing to spend the cash and they got a huge asset, without giving up anything.  Since the deal, the Lakers are 14-3.  Even more impressive, the Gasol Lakers are outscoring opponents at a +12.2 ppg clip, well above the team’s +7.5 ppg margin for the season as a whole (and even atop Boston’s season point margin of +10.4 ppg).  While the Lakers 17-game stretch with Gasol hasn’t been it’s toughest, they were on the road most of the time (11 of the 17 games on the road).  Clearly, the Lakers look as likely as any team to win the title at this point. Continue reading Quick Thoughts…

NBA Draft Update

by Ed Weiland

Another update on the prospect rankings I’ve been doing each month. For many of these players this will be fairly close to their final ranking, as they will play in only a few more games. Others, especially players who have missed significant time due to injury, could improve or decline fairly dramatically. Right now the draft is shaping up as a fairly mediocre one. There are only a few players who I would call solid choices, in the sense that I’m pretty certain at this point that they’ll make a strong positive impact at the next level. There are also some talented freshmen and sophs who don’t appear to be great prospects at this point in their careers, but clearly have the tools and time to get to that point. I included small college players for the first time this month. Basically I added up their numbers like I would the major college players and deducted 10 points. I know, real scientific. I think it gives a good idea of where they stand though and I didn’t want to ignore these players completely. Next update will be after the tournament and will be followed by a complete draft analysis in June. Continue reading NBA Draft Update…

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