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As great as the Warriors have been this season, nipping at their heels are the Spurs.  The Spurs aren’t going to catch Golden State for the best record but the Spurs have consistently been rated higher in SRS (though the Warriors are narrowing this gap and may overtake them due to the Spurs stated plan to rest the starters often, while the Warriors want to finish strong to catch the 1995-96 Bulls).  Don’t forget, however, that the Spurs are in the position to be among the top winning teams ever … [Read more...] about The Unique 2015-16 Spurs

Somehow, the Warriors were taken to the woodshed last night by the lowly Lakers.  It was mentioned that this was the first time a team with a winning percentage below .200 beat a time with over .900 winning percentage this late in a season.  Was this the worst upset of a historically great team?  Let’s take a look at the worst losses of other teams that ended up with 67 or more wins: 1995-96 Bulls, 72-20:   The great Bulls had only one “bad” loss, when they fell to the expansion Raptors … [Read more...] about Warriors v. Lakers and the Worst Losses by Dynastic Teams

For the billionth time, some of the venerable NBA players of the past insist that the world was better in their day.  This sentiment is now coalescing around the argument that the 2015-16 Warriors couldn’t beat their old teams.  Here’s the current rundown of wet blankets and how much of a point they each make on a 0-to-10 scale (with 0 being pointless and 10 being irrefutable truth): -Oscar Robertson:  The Big O complained that the modern coaches don’t play tight enough defense on Stephen … [Read more...] about Do They Have A Point? The Old Guys Shade the Warriors

This week, the Clippers revealed that Blake Griffin broke his hand fighting with the team’s assistant strength coach.  The details are sketchy but, according to a Los Angeles Times report, Griffin and the coach are good friends and that the two got into an argument over teasing while out to dinner in Toronto.  Griffin is expected to be out somewhere in the neighborhood of six weeks. It is hard to give any sharp insight into this incident.  Griffin was wrong to pound on a smaller man and is … [Read more...] about Blake Griffin and other NBA Punchers

What to make of the short tenure of David Blatt with the Cavs?  The team was 30-11 and leading the East but had struggled against the best of the best, having been waxed by the Warriors and Spurs.  Was Blatt’s abrupt firing the usual overreaction of management or was there something below the surface that justified this seemingly weird decision?  We can’t know the answer for sure but let’s take a look at the facts, as we know them, and see if we can draw some conclusions. Before even turning … [Read more...] about Did Blatt deserve to be fired?

Putting aside the Warriors, the biggest surprise success stories of 2014-15 were the Milwaukee Bucks and the Atlanta Hawks.  The Bucks morphed from deep Lottery team to a bona fide playoff team, while Atlanta went from fringe playoff team to number one seed in the East.  Both teams were considered strong candidates to decline this year based upon Bill James’ Plexiglass Principle, which states that teams that tend to have huge improvements regress the following season.  The assumption is that a … [Read more...] about Plexiglass Review: Milwaukee and Atlanta