Commissioner’s Crumpets, Week 11

Well, this week I’ll go through and complete the keeper review by pointing out what I think was the worst keeper decision made by each team – down in the Game Capsules!  I know you can’t wait, so skip on down.  Use your scrollbar.  It’s easy!

The Slamson Memorial Virtual Round Robin

Team	VRR Record	VRR %	Actual Record	Actual %	Difference
Ball Shaggers	116-26-1	81.5 %	7-5-1	57.7 %	-23.8 %
Sweet Sassy Molassy	93-48-2	65.7 %	5-7-1	42.3 %	-23.4 %
The Very Bad Team	89-53-1	62.6 %	10-3-0	76.9 %	14.3 %
Lipsticked Pigs	83-57-3	59.1 %	7-5-1	57.7 %	-1.4 %
nutria on viagra	75-62-6	54.5 %	5-7-1	42.3 %	-12.2 %
The Bombay Runners	73-66-4	52.4 %	11-2-0	84.6 %	32.2 %
Baker’s Poop Makers	64-76-3	45.8 %	6-7-0	46.2 %	0.4 %
Slamson	61-79-3	43.7 %	7-6-0	53.8 %	10.1 %
Rhymenoceros	61-81-1	43.0 %	6-7-0	46.2 %	3.2 %
Bodacious D	52-89-2	37.1 %	7-6-0	53.8 %	16.7 %
Hoops! I didit again	41-100-2	29.4 %	2-11-0	15.4 %	-14.0 %
Dry Heat	35-106-2	25.2 %	3-10-0	23.1 %	-2.1 %

The Objective Stud

Stud	SDAAs	Min	FGM	FG%	FTM	FT%	3PTM	3PT%	OReb	DReb	Ast	St	Bl	A/T
LeBron James	21.45	145	44	53.0	26	78.8	6	60.0	8	27	28	9	6	2.00
John Wall	17.09	169	32	43.2	39	86.7	0	0.0	4	28	33	6	5	2.36
Mike Conley	15.35	147	32	69.6	4	66.7	6	50.0	2	13	35	12	1	2.92
Marc Gasol	13.91	145	33	67.3	11	73.3	1	100.0	6	33	18	2	10	2.57
Joe Johnson	13.27	135	30	46.2	11	91.7	13	50.0	2	17	16	4	4	2.67
Luol Deng	11.37	139	29	50.0	15	93.8	5	50.0	6	22	12	8	2	1.71
Ricky Rubio	10.85	147	10	24.4	21	87.5	3	30.0	4	20	33	15	1	2.75
Paul Pierce	10.67	136	26	48.1	22	88.0	4	30.8	2	18	24	6	4	2.00
Kobe Bryant	9.84	159	40	42.1	17	89.5	4	26.7	7	12	26	6	1	2.17
Ryan Anderson	9.76	132	23	41.8	14	93.3	13	38.2	12	17	1	9	0	0.50

The Objective Turd

Turd	SDAAs	Min	FGM	FG%	FTM	FT%	3PTM	3PT%	OReb	DReb	Ast	St	Bl	A/T
Jason Kidd	-5.93	137	4	16.0	1	50.0	1	5.0	2	22	28	2	1	1.87
Richard Jefferson	-5.88	116	8	25.0	3	42.9	4	23.5	2	10	8	3	1	2.67
DeMar DeRozan	-5.76	132	20	27.4	17	81.0	1	10.0	6	8	4	3	0	0.40
Jason Terry	-3.67	122	14	26.4	8	100.0	5	19.2	0	5	15	4	2	1.67
Landry Fields	-3.11	114	18	54.5	7	46.7	2	18.2	2	9	14	5	0	1.40
Nicolas Batum	-2.59	104	14	41.2	10	71.4	4	22.2	3	15	4	4	0	2.00
Arron Afflalo	-2.07	114	14	42.4	5	55.6	5	50.0	1	9	6	1	2	1.00
D.J. Augustin	-2.02	115	16	45.7	5	62.5	3	23.1	2	7	18	6	0	1.20
Caron Butler	-1.89	127	21	40.4	5	45.5	4	22.2	3	12	9	7	1	1.80
Brandon Bass	-1.78	112	16	41.0	9	81.8	0	NaN	6	19	2	1	3	0.29

Game Capsules

The Bombay Runners def. Hoops! I didit again, 11-2-0 – The Roaches didn’t have a great week in the VRR, but when you get to go against From The Bottom Of My Broken Team, you can still have a pretty good result.  Andre Iguodala recorded a Triple-20 for Mumbai (20 FGM, 24 DRebs, 22 assists), but his biggest contribution might have been from Samuel Dalembert, whose 8 blocks were big in a 3-block win.  As for the Keeper Hindsight, I don’t think David West at 240 KP was a great keep, but maybe that keep wasn’t as bad as the Jarrett Jack drop.  Jack was a relative bargain at 85 KP, and has done nothing but put up 6 FGs and 7.3 assists per game on a weak Hornets team.  On a team with only two legit PGs (CP3, Calderon) Jack would have been a great third guy.  Meanwhile, Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Draft has been working on locking up a lottery slot again this year.  Sure, LeBron James dropped a Quad-20 (44 FGM, 26 FTM, 27 DRebs, 28 assists) on his way to dominating the Stud List, but after that the team fell short yet again.  Kyrie Irving had a nice shooting week (29/50), but 17 assists to 18 turnovers ain’t so hot for a PG.  I can’t really fault the Britneys for any of the guys they dumped in the keeper portion, but nobody they did keep has really hit, either.  I’ve got to give Rip a pass as he was cheap (55 KP) and his lack of production stems from an injury, so instead I’ll single out Kevin Garnett.  195 KPs isn’t chump change, and Garnett is on the way down.  He’s not the 10 FG, 10 rebound, 2 block guy he used to be – he’s a 5.5 FG, 7 rebound, < 1 block guy.  Pick him up in the 6th/7th if he’s there, but don’t burn picks on him at this point.

The Very Bad Team def. Dry Heat, 10-3-0 – Not to take away from the second-place VBT, who had a solid week in the VRR, but what happened to the Dry Heat this week, down at 25%?  The VBT pulled down a Quad-20 form #2 Stud John Wall, who stepped it up to give 32 FGM, 39 FTM, 28 DRebs and 33 assists.  That’s 2 DRebs away from a Quad-30, folks, and that don’t happen too often.  In the Keeper Review, I’d have to say that keeping Channing Frye at 169 KPs was probably not quite defensible at the time (yeah, we know, he’s a center and he hits threes!) but given his current stats (3 FGs, 1.3 threes, 6 rebounds) he was definitely not worth it.  The Dry Heat’s woes this week may have just been due to some rough scheduling, with only Gay and Jrue Holiday breaking the 120-minute mark.  Gay had 35 FGs and Jennings added 33 (10 from deep) to anchor the Dry Heat.  Odd as it is to say, the Dry Heat’s worst keeper decision was letting Mike Conley go at 103 KPs.  Yeah, he’s got a PG-deep team (kept Westbrook and Holiday, picked up Jennings and Teague), but if nothing else, Conley would be a great trade piece to help fill out the team.

Lipsticked Pigs def. nutria on viagra, 7-5-1 – After the first two matchups, the rest of the week was quite close.  The Pigs and ABRs only had two terribly close categories (and one tied) but the end result was tight as they excelled in different things.  For the Pigs, it was rebounds, assists, and minutes.  The aformentioned Conley had 32 FGs, 35 assists, and 12 steals for the Pigs, and MarShon Brooks came on string with another 30 FGs.  There were probably a few mistakes made in the Pigs’ keeper phase, but holding on to Andray Bi-yatche at 108 KPs may have been the worst.  Not only has he been a poor locker room presence (granted, there’s no stat for that) but he’s coming through with 38% shooting and a somewhat disappointing 8 rebounds and 1 block per game.  Nutria got a big week from Carbos Loozer, who had 38 FGs and 36 total rebounds, but couldn’t have been happy with Boris Diaw’s 1-8 from three.  Beno Udrih was cheap enough (93 KP), but he’s been legitimately terrible this year (3 FGs, 2 assists per game) and probably wouldn’t make the cut if the keeper phase were redone.

Ball Shaggers def. Sweet Sassy Molassy, 7-5-1 – The top two VRR teams clashed this week and had a predictably close matchup.  The Shaggers had two Triple-20s, one from the Mayor of Lob City, Blake Griffin (33 FGM, 20 FTM, 45 DRebs), the other from the Most Reviled Man In Sports® Kris Kardashian (23 FGM, 22 ORebs, 26 DRebs).  The Shaggers’ biggest blunder in the keeper phase was holding on to Granger for 296 KP — that’s the price you pay for a top-five talent; Danny would have been available in the second or even third round.  SSM countered with a Triple-20 from DeMarcus Cousins (26 FGM, 21 ORebs, 25 DRebs) and another from Ricky Rubio (21 FTM, 20 DRebs, 33 assists, and 15 steals to boot).  Youth be served!  There were really no mistakes in SSM’s keeper phase – maybe if he had it to do over again he’d have kept Roy Hibbert (6 FGs, 10 rebs, 1.5 blocks) at 165 KP instead of drafting Nene (5 FGs, 9 rebs, 1 block) but even that’s not a surefire mulligan.

Bodacious D def. Rhymenoceros, 7-6-0 – Bo D squeaked out a win (by 15 minutes, no less) over a Rhymenoceros team that didn’t even change its lineup this week.  That’s how bad this Bo D team is turning out to be.  Dwight Howard (29 FGM, 20 FTM, 57 DRebs) and Tyreke Evans (20 FGM, 20 DRebs, 27 assists) both recorded Triple-20s this week (Howard with 75 total boards), but outside of that it was pretty much a bucket of nothing.  Bo D made any number of bad mistakes in the keeper round, from dumping Paul George at 72 KP only to draft him for 99, to keeping the disappointing Noah, but the cherry on top was definitely spending 110 KP on J.J. Hickson (yeah, those 2.4 FGs and 6.6 rebounds are really helping right now).  Rhyme-Time kept it close with not one, not two, but three Triple-20s from Chauncey (22 FGM, 20 FTM, 28 assists), Carmelo (35 FGM, 30 FTM, 22 DRebs) and Pierce (26 FGM, 22 FTM, 24 assists).  You can’t really complain about who Rhymenoceros kept (just Carmelo and Josh Smith), but Emeka Okafor at 96 KP (drafted at 103) might have been a decent keep.

Slamson def. Baker’s Poop Makers, 7-6-0 – Slamson won a close one with the White Wizard, where something between 5-7 categories were in play.  Still, the matchup, in VRR terms, was hardly more exciting than the Bo D/Rhyme matchup, and Slamson’s biggest contribution came from Ryan Anderson, who had 13 threes and 9 steals.  Slamson spent 244 keeper points on Jason Kidd in what is looking to be his worst decision this year.  Kidd is way down to 5.4 assists and 1.4 FGM (at 27%) – could have had a 6th and 7th round pick for that, and why wouldn’t you?  Baker got the expected Triple-20 from Kevin Love (28 FGM, 23 FTM, 37 DRebs) and the other expected Triple-20 from The Rooster (22 FGM, 27 FTM, 20 DRebs), and got 29 assists from Nash and 26 from Kobe to get solid wins in the passing categories.  Although Landry Fields was cheap enough (72 KP), he was probably Baker’s worst keeper move this year.  Fields is down in almost every category this year – he’s up an assist, but down three rebounds and shooting only 20% from three.  3.4 FGs, 3.6 rebounds, 3.1 assists isn’t really a line that you go crazy over, and if you let him go, Ryan Anderson’s available at that pick you kept.  Oh, well.

 

Commissioner’s Crumpets, Week 10

Sorry about the one-day delay in getting the Crumpets out, but Mom was visiting, and I couldn’t very well tell her on her last night that I’d rather sit around and blog than spend time with her, right?  Right!  Also, I’m going to follow that up with the perhaps not-so-sad announcement that I am discontinuing the not-so-venerable Weekly Roundup feature.  Yes, it only lasted two weeks before I realized that basically every story that I spent lots of time gathering up was also being reported (in more depth, and better) by the guys at Ball Don’t Lie, who actually get paid to do it (and therefore do it in more depth, and better).  It was just really redundant, so I let it go.

You guys want extra features?  Suggest them!  For Instance, Baker suggested the annual “Bo D’s Totally Subjective Draft and Keeper Phase Assessment”, which is still ongoing in the Game Capsules.  This week – Best Keeper Decisions.

The Slamson Memorial Virtual Round Robin

Team	VRR Record	VRR %	Actual Record	Actual %	Difference
Sweet Sassy Molassy	110-30-3	78.0 %	7-5-1	57.7 %	-20.3 %
The Bombay Runners	98-44-1	68.9 %	5-7-1	42.3 %	-26.6 %
Baker’s Poop Makers	86-55-2	60.8 %	11-2-0	84.6 %	23.8 %
Ball Shaggers	80-63-0	55.9 %	8-5-0	61.5 %	5.6 %
The Very Bad Team	77-65-1	54.2 %	11-2-0	84.6 %	30.4 %
Dry Heat	76-66-1	53.5 %	7-6-0	53.8 %	0.3 %
Lipsticked Pigs	75-66-2	53.1 %	6-7-0	46.2 %	-6.9 %
Slamson	63-79-1	44.4 %	5-8-0	38.5 %	-5.9 %
Bodacious D	61-81-1	43.0 %	7-6-0	53.8 %	10.8 %
nutria on viagra	57-83-3	40.9 %	6-7-0	46.2 %	5.3 %
Rhymenoceros	47-94-2	33.6 %	2-11-0	15.4 %	-18.2 %
Hoops! I didit again	19-123-1	13.6 %	2-11-0	15.4 %	1.8 %

The Objective Stud

Stud	SDAAs	Min	FGM	FG%	FTM	FT%	3PTM	3PT%	OReb	DReb	Ast	St	Bl	A/T
Kobe Bryant	19.45	167	61	50.4	43	89.6	7	38.9	4	21	14	9	2	1.08
Greg Monroe	16.90	173	36	57.1	27	90.0	0	NaN	14	36	16	6	3	1.78
David Lee	13.99	157	41	64.1	12	75.0	0	NaN	19	29	13	6	3	1.44
Deron Williams	13.15	153	26	40.6	19	86.4	11	50.0	0	9	46	2	1	2.56
Derrick Rose	12.63	155	36	45.6	15	83.3	9	34.6	3	9	37	4	2	4.11
Kyle Lowry	12.36	134	28	46.7	15	88.2	9	52.9	6	15	25	6	0	2.50
Ricky Rubio	11.88	145	18	42.9	14	82.4	3	37.5	2	16	39	15	0	3.00
LaMarcus Aldridge	11.54	153	37	46.8	17	89.5	1	100.0	13	19	12	5	4	3.00
Kevin Love	10.53	158	28	36.4	35	85.4	6	31.6	17	38	6	2	4	0.60
Chris Paul	10.20	115	27	51.9	13	100.0	4	57.1	3	11	20	8	0	5.00

The Objective Turd

Turd	SDAAs	Min	FGM	FG%	FTM	FT%	3PTM	3PT%	OReb	DReb	Ast	St	Bl	A/T
Nick Young	-4.63	125	24	42.9	7	87.5	3	20.0	1	10	3	2	0	0.43
Iman Shumpert	-3.72	130	20	34.5	3	100.0	1	7.7	0	15	13	10	2	0.87
Andrea Bargnani	-3.36	102	22	40.7	18	94.7	1	8.3	3	18	2	0	1	0.33
Carl Landry	-3.16	106	18	46.2	9	60.0	0	NaN	5	10	7	2	1	0.88
Ray Allen	-2.92	108	12	40.0	4	100.0	4	36.4	0	13	7	1	0	1.75
Kevin Garnett	-2.48	100	18	43.9	9	90.0	0	NaN	4	18	3	0	1	0.50
Jared Dudley	-2.44	101	10	43.5	3	75.0	3	50.0	3	13	1	3	1	0.50
Landry Fields	-2.26	130	8	34.8	4	66.7	1	25.0	2	14	11	7	0	1.38
Luis Scola	-2.09	130	25	39.7	6	66.7	0	0.0	10	23	10	1	0	0.67
Chris Bosh	-2.03	119	19	41.3	10	62.5	1	25.0	3	20	3	2	5	0.38

Game Capsules

The Very Bad Team def. Hoops! I didit again, 11-2-0 – Well, I suppose it’s true that if there’s one thing that is significantly worse than Very Bad, it’s a Britney pun.  The VBT got 36 FGM and 37 assists from D-Rose, but perhaps more surprising was another Bull – Luol Deng went for 31 FGM and 49 total rebounds in a big week.  The VBT’s best keeper decision was not in whom to keep but whom to let go.  While Evan Turner (expensive at 177 KP) would have seemed an obvious guy to let go, getting him back in the draft for 10 KP is a pretty big reinforcement of the VBT’s correct assessment of his value (and may turn out to be a real bargain by the end of the year).  Hoopsie is shaking up to be Slamson V2 – the team that gets a weekly defaul tmention of LeBron and wishes the #2 player on the team was any good.  LeBron, naturally, dropped a Quad-20 without blinking (30 FGM, 21 FTM, 25 DReb, 20 assists) and Gerald Wallace’s 9 steals looked nice, but four whole-week DNPs (three injured) sure don’t help the winning thing.  For Britney, the best keeper decision was probably also a deny-to-keep: Mike Miller at 119 KP might have been tempting as he’s got a history of putting up great numbers and could in principle get a ton of open three in the Miami offense.  Of course, then he gets hurt (again) and you realize what a good decision it was to let him go.

Baker’s Poop Makers def. Rhymenoceros, 11-2-0 – There were three close categories, but Baker managed to win them all in the matchup against the Rhymin’ Rhino.  Kobe went all silly on everybody – he only had a Triple-20, but oh what a Triple-20! (61 FGM, 43 FTM, 21 DRebs)  Maybe it’s happened, but I don’t remember anybody breaking 60 FGM in a week before.  That made Kevin Love’s 28 FGM, 35 FTM, 38 DReb Triple-20 look pedestrian in comparison.  Baker’s best Keeper decision was to hold on to the possibly borderline Gallinari at 108 KP – right now Gallo looks like a clear-cut #3 player on the team behind Kobe and Love.  Rhyme Time had a down week, but managed to get 35 FGM from Josh Smith (at .565) and 30 assists from fantasy breakout Jarrett Jack.  Best Decision?  Well, Nene’s O-Rank of 29 sure looked like it was worth 203 KP, but Rhymenoceros passed – and now Nene’s actual rank of 172 is making that look like a good pass.

Ball Shaggers def. Slamson, 8-5-0 – The Shaggers got the best of Slamson this week helped by PG play, especially Tony Parker (38 FGM, 34 assists) and Monta Ellis (34 FGM, 27 assists).  The Shaggers best move was to hold on to the now-universally-hated Ex-Mr. Kardashian at 72 KP – essentially the cost of a ninth-round lick for a player whose rankings suggest he’s sixth-round talent, and who has turned it on in the past week (.719 FG%?!?).  Slamson was led by the perennially under-rated Paul Millsap, who refuses to give up the starting job to supposedly better talents behind him and went for 41 FGM and 36 rebounds this week.  Slamson’s best keeper decision this year was to avoid the Nick Young hype – he could have held on to Young for only 72 KP, and Nick ended up going for 134 KP in the draft, only to shoot .391 so far on the season and to bring practically nothing in rebounds, assists, steals, or blocks.

Sweet Sassy Molassy def. The Bombay Runners, 7-5-1 – Sweet Sassy got a very narrow win this week (5-2-1 in 8 contested categories), riding on the back of surprise #2 Stud Greg “Marilyn” Monroe and his measurement-laden Triple-20 (36 FGM, 27 FTM, 36 DRebs).  3 too many free throws, Marilyn!  SSM got 46 assists from Deron and another 39 from Rubio and still only won the category by 1.  SSM’s best keeper decision is easy – he held on to Kyle Lowry at 72 KP and got the current #5 player in fantasy after Lowry blew the hell up.  I don’t really believe in it, but it’s working.  I guess Lowry is kind of a half-converse of a placebo.  David Lee (19 ORebs) and Kevin Durant (19 FTM) both missed a Triple-20 by just one for the Roaches, and he needed every single one of Andre Iguodala’s 13 steals to tie the category.  The best keeper decision for Bombay was the 82 KP Jose Calderon, who is currently slotted at #18 in all of fantasy.  In a side note, I’m not quite sure how a team has players ranked at #1, 14, 18 , 20 and 23 and is under .500 for the year.

Bodacious D def. nutria on viagra, 7-6-0 – Bo D squeaked out a win against the ABRs, though it wasn’t exactly a squeaker with only one category closely contested.  Bo D’s week, like his year, was marred by the “but”.  Dwight Howard hit 24 FTs, but at a .471 clip; Tyreke Evans had 25 FGM, but on .391 shooting.  In fact, Bo D’s highest-ranked player is at 49 and he has only 4 under #100 – yet is only a half-game behind the Runners.  How’s that for fair?  There really aren’t a lot of good keeper decisions to be highlighted for Bo D.  Perhaps not falling for the temptation of a 72-KP Omri Casspi who was set to be the sharpshooting starting SF for the Cavaliers was the best there was.  Of course, the ABRs had perhaps even less to rejoice in this week.  Amir Johnson had 45 rebounds; Al Jefferson went for 35 FGM, 39 rebounds, and 10 blocks.  The ABRs were another twam without a whole lot of outstanding keeper decisions.  Shawn Marion at 82 KP wasn’t an obvious keeper, and he may only be worth about that much, but outside of that it would be letting either the decrepit Brad Miller or FIBA-not-cleared Kenyon Martin go, and a sea cucumber could have done that.

Dry Heat def. Lipsticked Pigs, 7-6-0 – In our last matchup, the Dry Heat managed to beat the Pigs despite being over 200 minutes behind.  A lot of that was due to some nice three-point shooting – Brandon Jennings went 7-9 (career .351), James Harden went 7-14 (career .361), and Jeff Teague went 6-11 (career .352).  Dry Heat’s best keeper decision was easily James Harden – 69 KP has gotten him the current #11 ranked player.  The Pigs were led by Andrew Bynum with 22 FGM, 44 rebounds, and 10 blocks.  Ty Lawson, kept at 72 KP was the best decision for the Palins, who got a possible top-20 fantasy player for a pittance.

 

Weekly Round-Up, Week 9

Item #1: Grizz-Hornets-76ers trade

This one’s pretty straightforward.  The 76ers send unused big man Marreese Speights to Memphis, the Grizzlies send injured and unused second-year wing Xavier Henry to New Orleans, and both the Grizz and the Hornets send second-round picks to Philly.

Memphis is hoping that Speights can be Z-Bo Lite for about 8 weeks while Randolph is out.  This hope has been somewhat pooh-poohed in the media, but Speights has put up decent numbers in the past, yet never broken out and gotten big minutes.  I’m not quite sure why.

Henry has a ton of potential but looks to be firmly stuck behind Trevor Ariza in New Orleans, possibly stuck behind Eric Gordon if they think he can be a 2-guard.  With newcomer Al-Farouq Aminu also on board at the 3 and Marco Belinelli currently backing up the 2, it looks like a 3-year dice roll for the Hornets (hoping that either Aminu or Henry breaks out) rather than a move for backup minutes now.

The 76ers get two relatively worthless picks.  Hey guys?  The draft is supposed to be deep, but not that deep.

Item #2: Someone Left A Cake Out In The Heat

The Hotel hosting LeBron James’ birthday/NYE party calls up a local cake business and asks for a free cake in exchange for publicity.  Cake business delivers free $3000 five-tier cake, which is rejected by LeBron’s “people”.  Cakemaker gets her own publicity by going to the media, unintentionally gets reputation as cakemaker whose $3000 cakes aren’t worth free.

Item #3: No Wonder Baron Davis Got Through Waivers

Just click on that one, no further comment.

Item #4: Delonte West Will Miss The White House NBA Championship Tour

You know, because he’s a felon.  Of course, he wasn’t actually on the championship Mavericks team, so it’s kind of karma.

Item #5:  My First NBA Free Throw – The Jan Vesely edition

Item #6: Back-To-Back-To-Back Woes

The lockout-induced short schedule has resulted in some quirks, including the fact that each team plays at least one back-to-back-to-back during the season.  Pundits everywhere expected this to be a bit difficult for teams – three games in three nights should make them  downright exhausted – but nobody would have predicted the results so far.  In the third game of back-to-back-to-backs this season, teams have compiled a record of 6-0 up to this point.  That’s right, the Hawks, Nuggets, Rockets, Lakers, Kings, and Thunder have all won the last game of their triple-header (and the Thunder swept theirs).

This week we’ve got three more chances to keep this record going: Minnesota hosts Chicago on Tuesday, and on Wednesday Philadelphia visits the Knicks while Toronto hosts Sacramento.  If all three teams hold serve, that’s bound to turn some heads.

Item #7: I Left My Pun In San Francisco

So, two weeks into the season and we’ve had a spate of players with actual or potential heart problems: Jeff Green, LaMarcus Aldridge, Aaron Gray, Chuck Hayes…am I missing anybody?

Item #8: Our American Cousin(s)

But aside from that, Mrs. Westphal, how did you like the play?

In case you missed it, things got kind of messy in Sacramento over the past week or so.  Last Saturday, after a dismal Kings loss to the Knicks, DeMarcus Cousins moped in front of the media and then called for a private meeting with hot-seated Head Coach Paul Westphal, with whom he has rarely gotten along.  Apparently things didn’t go particularly smoothly, and the next day Westphal sent a letter to the media claiming that Cousins had requested a trade and that he had been asked to stay home form the game for disciplinary purposes. In further interviews Westphal referred to the “trade request” as “the tip of the iceberg” and claimed that it was the second such request, the first coming 2 days before the start of the season.

The Kings beat the depleted Hornets on Sunday without Cousins while DeMarcus made the case (over Twitter and through his agent) that he had never requested a trade.  Team President of Basketball Operations Geoff Petrie traveled to Cousins’ home Monday morning and while the meeting was not reported to be a rousing success, it was apparently good enough for Cousins to be reinstated to the team, and he made the Kings’ charter flight that afternoon for their trip to Memphis.  Reports suggested that the “trade request” was apparently of the temper-tantrum “if you don’t like the way I’m playing then trade me” type, which most observers agreed didn’t really count as a “trade request”.  Cousins affirmed his desire to play in Sacramento while Westphal chided reporters for “splitting hairs” when they attempted to determine the exact nature of the “trade request”.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, with Cousins coming off of the bench both days, the Kings were slaughtered by the Grizzlies and the Nuggets, respectively.  The team had no offensive focus or defensive effort whatsoever, and vulture fans throughout the internet could talk of nothing but how the team had quit on Westphal and that he had to be fired immediately.

Amazingly to me, in the midst of the Kings’ only back-to-back-to-back of the season, Westphal was in fact fired and replaced in incredibly short order by assistant Keith Smart, only 7 games removed from being the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, leading them to a +10 in the wins column last year before being replaced by new ownership trying to put their own Mark Jackson-shaped stamp on the franchise.  The Kings denied that budding star DeMarcus Cousins’ repeated tiffs with Westphal were the reason for the firing, citing instead team performance, but the Maloofs did express extreme disapproval with Westphal taking in-house problems to the media.

Playing that Thursday night without any offensive scheme whatsoever, the Kings overcame a 21-point halftime deficit at home to the Bucks to win their third game of the season based on effort and some really animated sideline coaching from Smart.  Three days later, the Kings played the Orlando Magic close until the 3 minute mark of the fourth quarter, with Cousins getting Dwight Howard into serious foul trouble – Howard had no points and no rebounds until midway through the fourth quarter.  Meanwhile Keith Smart’s press conferences are rich in detail of how he plans to fix the team, in marked contrast to Westphal’s constant vaguenesses.

Smart promises to make the Kings an up-tempo team, but one that can defend in the halfcourt due to the presence of a decent frontline.  He plans to use the Kings’ youth, energy, and natural strengths as he develops his own offensive system, which emphasizes proper spacing, ball movement, and hard cuts, three things that were rarely seen in a Paul Westphal offense.

Meanwhile, Keith Smart goes over the Demarcus Cousins’ house for dinner and has “a mean gumbo” and a confidential discussion which he says went very well.

Keith Smart seems to have the players on his side, and he can talk the talk.  The remainder of the season will determine if he can walk the walk.

(By the way, if you didn’t laugh at the title and quote with this item, you whiffed on one of the best jokes I’ve ever made.)

 

Commissioner’s Crumpets, Week 9

Well, this week was a little more moderate as far as the Stud Calculator goes, with the top Studs registering in the 15s rather than the 20s.  Of course, top Stud Kevin Love could possibly be mine if I hadn’t told a waffling Poopmakers he’d be a fool to part with him in the keeper phase after his rookie year.  Stupid honesty.  Well, in the game capsules I’ll play at more honesty, this time pointing out my opinion of the worst draft decision made by each team based on the early returns.  On your way scrolling down to that, go ahead and digest the VRR, Studs, and Turds…

The Slamson Memorial Virtual Round Robin

Team	VRR Record	VRR %	Actual Record	Actual %	Difference
Dry Heat	108-32-3	76.6 %	10-3-0	76.9 %	0.3 %
Rhymenoceros	96-46-1	67.5 %	13-0-0	100.0 %	32.5 %
Hoops! I didit again	86-55-2	60.8 %	9-4-0	69.2 %	8.4 %
The Very Bad Team	86-55-2	60.8 %	7-6-0	53.8 %	-7.0 %
Ball Shaggers	79-62-2	55.9 %	8-4-1	65.4 %	9.5 %
Sweet Sassy Molassy	75-68-0	52.4 %	6-7-0	46.2 %	-6.2 %
Bodacious D	70-73-0	49.0 %	3-10-0	23.1 %	-25.9 %
Baker’s Poop Makers	66-75-2	46.9 %	4-8-1	34.6 %	-12.3 %
Lipsticked Pigs	62-80-1	43.7 %	4-9-0	30.8 %	-12.9 %
Slamson	47-95-1	33.2 %	7-6-0	53.8 %	20.6 %
The Bombay Runners	43-99-1	30.4 %	6-7-0	46.2 %	15.8 %
nutria on viagra	32-110-1	22.7 %	0-13-0	0.0 %	-22.7 %

The Objective Stud

Stud	SDAAs	Min	FGM	FG%	FTM	FT%	3PTM	3PT%	OReb	DReb	Ast	St	Bl	A/T
Kevin Love	15.72	164	34	47.9	22	78.6	10	38.5	17	42	4	6	4	0.29
Josh Smith	15.54	179	38	49.4	12	54.5	1	33.3	14	37	15	10	13	1.50
D.J. Augustin	15.47	151	29	43.3	13	81.2	10	52.6	5	14	35	3	1	5.00
James Harden	15.12	150	30	51.7	27	90.0	11	42.3	2	15	17	6	0	1.70
Carmelo Anthony	13.47	143	46	45.1	16	76.2	9	39.1	7	21	20	6	3	1.67
Monta Ellis	13.11	161	37	42.0	27	87.1	5	26.3	3	10	34	8	1	2.43
Al Horford	12.02	186	30	60.0	11	84.6	0	0.0	13	28	12	5	6	1.20
Danilo Gallinari	11.61	140	28	54.9	20	83.3	7	38.9	4	19	13	5	3	1.62
Jarrett Jack	11.29	156	28	47.5	15	93.8	3	33.3	6	14	33	2	2	3.00
LeBron James	10.39	114	34	60.7	25	78.1	0	0.0	4	18	28	4	1	2.00

The Objective Turd

Turd	SDAAs	Min	FGM	FG%	FTM	FT%	3PTM	3PT%	OReb	DReb	Ast	St	Bl	A/T
Michael Beasley	-2.65	107	17	39.5	2	40.0	3	60.0	6	21	4	0	2	0.36
Raymond Felton	-2.08	135	11	26.8	8	80.0	1	8.3	3	10	26	2	0	3.25
Jonas Jerebko	-1.83	117	13	38.2	4	50.0	2	25.0	12	17	4	3	0	1.33
Joakim Noah	-1.60	101	7	26.9	6	75.0	0	NaN	8	21	8	3	3	0.89
Glen Davis	-1.35	106	15	39.5	8	72.7	0	NaN	10	17	4	3	0	0.67
David Lee	-1.05	117	17	47.2	7	77.8	0	NaN	6	30	1	2	1	0.09
Chris Kaman	-0.14	106	18	58.1	4	100.0	0	NaN	4	28	7	0	1	0.64
Shawn Marion	-0.12	106	16	36.4	5	83.3	1	33.3	8	14	6	2	3	2.00
Jared Dudley	0.24	132	22	45.8	6	60.0	4	25.0	5	11	8	5	1	1.33
Luis Scola	0.35	126	33	45.8	4	80.0	0	NaN	6	11	6	2	1	1.00

Game Capsules

Rhymenoceros def. nutria on viagra, 13-0-0 – Rhyme Time clobbered the injured ABRs with really only one category (steals) being contested at the end.  Carmelo Anthony managed a Triple-20 with 46 FGM, 21 DRebs, and 20 assists, btut I really loved #2 Stud Josh Smith’s line (7 categories in double digits, missing only 3PTM).  As far as draft mistakes go, the autodrafter gave Rhymenoceros a couple of turkeys in Shane Battier and C.J. Miles.  I’d have a hard time deciding between the two, but with Miles taken significantly higher (72 keeper points vs. Battier’s 34 KP) C.J. and his .305 shooting and .625 A/T take the cake for now.  Coulda had Rubio.  The ABRs probably got their best week out of Al Jefferson (36 FGM, 33 rebounds), but there wasn’t much to be happy about this week.  Notably, the ABRs had zero players in double-digit assists and got more than doubled up in both assists and A/T.  I don’t want to knock Nutria’s autodrafter for selecting injured players like Ginobili (though the Chuck Hayes selection may have been questionable as I believe he was medically disqualified and unsigned at the time of the draft), so I’m going to say that Jodie Meeks (.353 FG%, .286 3PT%) at 33 KP was probably the worst selection.  Gerald Henderson, who came off the board 8 slots later, would have been a much nicer SG.

Dry Heat def. Bodacious D, 10-3-0 – The bossman took out Bo D in an all-out whooping as Bo D struggles to find players who can actually play minutes.  LaMarcus Aldridge (37 FGM, 26 FTM, 23 DRebs) and Russell Westbrook (37 FGM, 21 DRebs, 27 assists) both racked up Triple-20s for Dry Heat.  And while I know it was a calculated decision, I’m going to persist in my opinion that Dry Heat’s worst draft selection was spending 21 KPs on Wilson Chandler, who is stuck in China until presumably late March.  Though I guess that dead roster spot didn’t stop him from getting 1768 minutes this week.  Tyreke Evans squeaked in a Triple-20 for Bo D with 25 FGM, 20 FTM and 20 assists, but outside of that and Dwight Howard’s 31 FGM, 46 rebound week, there wasn’t much to cheer.  As far as the worst draft decision goes, it seems like there are so many…but Wes Johnson has done just about nothing at all for his 82 keeper points – Ryan Anderson would have been a far better selection.

Hoops! I didit again def. Lipsticked Pigs, 9-4-0 – Britney’s Boo-boos came out on top for the first time in his fantasy career at the expense of the “rebuilding” Pigs.  Britney’s Triple-20 machine LeBron James registered the standard 34 FGM, 25 FTM, and 28 assists and snuck onto the top-ten Studs even in a not-so-hot week.  I don’t see any terrible decisions in the draft here, but taking the injured Baron Davis (yet to play this year) at a whole 20 KP might have been the worst.  I don’t expect much out of Baron except a rash of injuries, so pretty much any warm body probably would have been better.  The Pigs put up a fight behind Andrew Bynum’s 25 FGM and 65 rebounds but in the end probably could only have made inroads on one other category – 3PTM.  The Pigs’ worst selection (as opposed to their worst player) has to be Arron Afflalo, who ate up 138 KP and really doesn’t bring much to the table fantasy-wise: .240 3PT%, 1.7 assists, 2.5 rebounds, and only 4.2 FGM to go with it.  Jarrett Jack would have made a big difference here.

Ball Shaggers def. Baker’s Poop Makers, 8-4-1 – Make Love, Not Poop!  The Shaggers wiped out the Poopmakers this week on the strength of Monta Ellis and his Textriple-20 (37 FGM, 27 FTM, 34 assists, 0 pictures of his Anthony Weiner) and certainly benefitted from Tony Parker’s 38 assists.  Did he make a mistake in the draft?  Sure, we all do!  We’ll ignore passing on Ryan Anderson (everybody but Slamson did that) and instead focus on the already-dropped Rashard Lewis, who seems to just be playing out his contract at this point.  Only 31 KPs but J.J. Redick would have looked a lot better.  The losing Poopmakers had some great performances, nabbing Triple-20s from #1 Stud Kevin Love (34 FGM, 22 FTM, 42 DRebs), the wreck of the Andrea Bargnani (32 FGM, 21 FTM, 23 DRebs) and wounded soldier Kobe Bryant (51 FGM, 26 FTM, 25 assists).  They just didn’t get a whole lot out of everybody else.  The bottom of the draft in general was simply not kind to Baker, with Grant Hill so far the only acceptable pick out of his last six.  But as little as Jimmer Fredette and Brandon Knight have contributed, at least they ought to get better with time.  Timofey Mozgov, Austin Daye, and Shawne Williams are looking like complete busts at this point.  I’ll label Mozgov the worst, not for production but for the simple fact that smart money on Mozgov was that we would actually be called on to contribute this year.  You know, the piece that made the Carmelo trade happen?  Apparently, not so much.

The Very Bad Team def. Sweet Sassy Molassy, 7-6-0 – The VBT had a good VRR and a very nice battle with SSM this week.  Derrick Rose naturally led the way with a Triple-20 of 25 FGM, 22 FTM, and 33 assists, though surprise #3 Stud D.J. Augustin surpassed him with 35 assists (and 10/19 shooting from three).  Like seemingly every other team, the bottom of the draft wasn’t very kind to the VBT, but in the end Omri Casspi was probably the worst pick.  The VBT was really looking at Omri to be his #2 SF at 46 KP (Joe Johnson eligible, but probably assigned to the SG) and it seemed a great pick as he was basically being handed the starting slot on a Cavs team with little behind him.  It’s worked out so well, he’s already been dropped.  Maybe the Playa From Judea will turn things around and make this look like a bad call, for now, it’s the call.  SSM has a lot of young talent this year, and it was Coachbane DeMarcus Cousins who probably put in the best week 24 FGM, 36 rebounds and 8 blocks.  Surprisingly, Lob City’s DeAndre Jordan at 151 KPs might have been the worst pickup for SSM in the draft.  Obviously he’s fantastic in blocked shots, but his 7 rebounds per game puts him only fifth on the team, his free throw shooting is atrocious at .472, and although he hits 64% of his FGs, that’s 2.3 per game (basically 2 dunks and then a .250 shooting percentage on 1.5 other shots).  Andrew Bynum at 148 is looking a lot more solid (if more injury-prone) right now.

Slamson def. The Bombay Runners, 7-6-0 – Our final matchup came from near the bottom of the VRR, wherein Slamson got the moral victory over the Runners.  Slamson netted 33 FGm from Scola and 35 total rebounds from Ryan Anderson, but injuries to Wade and Kidd stalled him out this week.  The big mistake here was clearly Lamar Odom – 143 KPs for 21 FGM on .292 shooting and a disgusting .172 from three so far.  Shoot, you might as well have drafted Khloe, though Wesley Matthews was available and probably would have been a bit better than a Kardashian.  The Roaches leaned on Kevin Durant’s Triple-20 this week (43 FGM, 27 FTM, 29 DRebs) given that Chris Paul brought practically nothing. (Can somebody please explain to me how a team can have only two games in one week in a “compressed” schedule?  So the Clippers are going to play 5 games a week for the rest of the year?)  And as much as I’d like to hate on the Kirilenko pick in the Roaches’ draft, there was at least a chance that he was going to sign with an NBA team.  On the other hand, Charlie Frankennueva was a known commodity – known to be awful.  How you can spend 38 KPs on a player who has six more minutes on the season than he has hairs on his entire body is beyond me.  (OK, normally that would be great, but not when you’re talking about Mr. Could-My-Missing-Eyebrows-Be-Alopecia?)  Fine, I’m sure he’s a nice guy, rescues drowning puppies and all that, so I shouldn’t make fun of something out of his control, but really, outside of his medical condition what has he got for me to talk about?  (Answer: no FGs this season.)

 

Week 8 – Weekly Round-Up

I think this year I may try to keep up a weekly roundup of the interesting stories coming through the NBA.  Obviously there will be plenty I’ll miss, but maybe this will be a bit of a fun item.  And maybe I’ll quit after one week and never do it again, who knows?

This week, since there were quite a few interesting stories to come out right before Christmas, we may have a pretty extensive one.  In no particular order…

Item 1: Monta Ellis Thinks He’s A Congressman

Yes, it looks like Monta Ellis has been accused of texting his Anthony Weiner to a former Warriors employee. (BTW, does anybody else think the concept of ‘texting’ a picture is ludicrous – unless it’s ASCII art?)  She’s now suing everybody whose name she can find in the phone book after being fired – which she alleges stems from complaints she made to the front office, who she claims is covering up Ellis’ camera-phone habits.  Doesn’t look like there’s been much word since the lawsuit was announced, but this one might be interesting, so stay tuned.

Item 2: What Do You Call A Center With No Arms And No Legs In The Ocean?

Apparently, new Lakers big man Josh McRoberts does not like the nouveau nickname “McBob” (item 7 – hate linking to a top-ten list, but so it goes).  He says that “some dumbass on a blog came up with it”.  And you know what, a bunch of other dumbasses on blogs are going to rib you for it, just because you don’t like it.  I’m pretty sure the accompanying image is Photoshopped, but I’m OK with that.

Item 3: Welcome To The New CBA, Same As The Old CBA

You may have read me complaining about Gilbert Arenas, Chauncey Billups, Dwight Howard, and Chris Paul trying to manipulate their landing places outside of the free agency process a few weeks ago.  If not, it’s right here – worth checking out if only for the Meet Me In St. Louis clip.  Well, so far two of the four (Paul, Billups) have managed to whine their way into the big-market, Blake-Griffin-having Clippers, and Arenas cleared the Amnesty Waivers process and is in the process of finding a big-market team that wants him.

On top of that, Baron Davis added himself to the manipulation list, by claiming he was out for 8-10 weeks, then suddenly being only 4-6 weeks away from playing once he cleared amnesty waivers and signed with the Knicks.  Clever one, there.  Almost slipped it past my column of wrath, you jerk.

Dwight Howard?  Well, he’s still available.  On Ebay, even.  This one you’ll have to zoom in on, but it’s worth reading every bit of fine text.

Item 4: Jeremy Evans – Dunk Of The Preseason

Jeremy Evans absolutely posterizes Gerald Wallace here.  Of course, the dunk doesn’t count because Wallace was in defensive position – and outside the circle.  You’re really not supposed to be able to dunk on somebody when they’re outside the circle, but Evans did it.

Item 5: Kenyon Martin Un-Leaves China

Well, we all knew that couldn’t last forever.  He’s using the old “family” excuse that has been effectively used to get waived by the Jazz (Derek Fisher) and somewhat less successfully used to justify not signing the best contract on the (dinner?) table (Latrell Sprewell).  Well, Martin may have left China, but he can’t sing in the U.S. because FIBA won’t give him a waiver to do so until the Chinese season is over.  So by “taking care of his family”, Kenyon really means “not making any money”.  OK.

Item 6: Barea Says Bynum “Didn’t Mean It”

J.J. Barea seems to be a reasonably nice guy, and he’s not even upset that Bynum’s suspension for clobbering him in the playoffs was reduced by one game by the league (due to the shortened season).  But he’s so nice, he says Bynum didn’t mean to do it.  Let’s revisit that one, shall we?

Yeah.  Didn’t mean it.  Right.  Bynum is a valuable basketball player, but he’s no humanitarian.

Item 7: Sean Williams “Leaves It All On The Floor”

Apparently Sean Williams had a big dinner because he didn’t think he’d be playing.  And after being in the game, he’s going to need another dinner.  Sadly, we don’t get to see it actually happen.

Item 8: Lou Williams Is Not Robbed Because He Is Lou Williams

So, dude was totally OK with robbing somebody he didn’t recognize, but not OK robbing a basketball player.  But hey, McDonalds!

Item 9: The Raptors Are Top Heavy In The Alphabet

Somehow, they have no players on their team with a last name starting after “M”.  Given that there are 15 men on their roster and the current distribution of NBA surnames, the odds of this happening are…calculating…still calculating…moving on to Item 10…less than 6 in 10,000.  Not astronomical, but really weird.

Item 10: Right Through The 5-Hole

I’m pretty sure this is not the first time this has ever happened, but it’s still pretty sweet, especially coming from a rookie in his first week of the NBA against a Hall-of-Famer.

Item 11: The Roger Mason Boo-Boo

The whole point of the Inactive List is that you’re not allowed to put players on the Inactive List into the game.  Somehow, there was a mix-up here.  I’ve never seen anything quite like that before.

Item 12: What’s That About Low Effort?

Up 20 with 40 seconds to go in the game, Tyreke Evans tells Greivis Vasquez “not in my house!”  This is a highlight block whenever it happens.  The game situation makes the effort all the more impressive.

Item 13: On The NCAA And Sham Amateur Status

Simply a great (if long) article in the New York Times Magazine about why (and HOW) the NCAA ought to pay its players in football and basketball.  A highly recommended read – I will say that I agree with nearly everything in the article, with the exception of the suggestion that universities should provide lifetime health insurance for every scholarship player – it just doesn’t seem financially feasible to do that, and the author doesn’t give any numbers.  Favorable numbers could sway me, of course.

 

Commissioner’s Crumpets – Week 8 (yes, 8)

Welcome back to the Unlost Year of the DST&CC!  I believed this one was a goner, but here we are, and so here are the Crumpets!  (Sorry, you’ve got to supply your own tea.)

Since sometimes folks forget and we’ve got a new addition, I’ll explain the Crumpet awards once again as I go through them this eighth (OK, technically first) week.  If you’re wondering, yes, I’ll be keeping the same numbering as the league does (i.e., this is week 8) because it saves me from the inevitable mental calculation error – there are files I need to create and analyze that have number-sensitive names, and subtraction, as you know, is tricky.

I will happily point out that for the first time in the last several years, I needed to make ZERO changes to my analysis files based on format tinkering from Yahoo – usually in the first week I have to spend several hours trying to track down why the damn scripts don’t work, but this year Glinda the Good Witch waved her sparkly wand and it all worked on the first try!

Since there will be plenty of verbiage later, let’s get right to the awards!

—–

The Slamson Memorial Virtual Round Robin

The VRR, as it is affectionately called, came about because Slamson complained that his team was much better than its record – it was just that he was playing the teams that tended to have the strongest week every week.  Well, I realized that this could easily be tested – simply run a virtual round robin against every team and compile the results.  I don’t recall anymore whether Slamson was right, but the feature remains, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can encourage yourself despite a bad week.

I tell this story every year.  I wonder if Slamson gets tired of it.

Team	VRR Record	VRR %	Actual Record	Actual %	Difference
Slamson	110-33-0	76.9 %	10-3-0	76.9 %	0.0 %
Sweet Sassy Molassy	103-38-2	72.7 %	11-2-0	84.6 %	11.9 %
Hoops! I didit again	82-60-1	57.7 %	6-7-0	46.2 %	-11.5 %
Ball Shaggers	81-60-2	57.3 %	12-1-0	92.3 %	35.0 %
Bodacious D	76-67-0	53.1 %	7-6-0	53.8 %	0.7 %
The Bombay Runners	76-67-0	53.1 %	6-7-0	46.2 %	-6.9 %
The Very Bad Team	73-67-3	52.1 %	3-10-0	23.1 %	-29.0 %
Baker’s Poop Makers	67-73-3	47.9 %	7-6-0	53.8 %	5.9 %
Dry Heat	59-81-3	42.3 %	8-5-0	61.5 %	19.2 %
Lipsticked Pigs	54-86-3	38.8 %	2-11-0	15.4 %	-23.4 %
nutria on viagra	38-105-0	26.6 %	5-8-0	38.5 %	11.9 %
Rhymenoceros	30-112-1	21.3 %	1-12-0	7.7 %	-13.6 %

If your +/- is in the red, you got screwed by the matchup.  For instance, the VBT came out about 3 wins low this week based on getting nailed by Slamson, while the Shaggers may not want to celebrate their league championship just yet…

Here’s maybe a first – I don’t ever recall anybody getting a +/- of 0.0% before, but this week Slamson was on top (with a dominating VRR, by the way) and would have gotten exactly the same percentage had he played the entire league.  Newcomer Dunk Me Baby One More Time actually finished ahead of Bo D in the VRR despite falling 6-7 in the actual standings.

—–

The Objective Stud

The Objective Stud is my oft-imitated, never-replicated, proprietary formula for determining who was the best (and worst) players of the week.  The key column is the SDAAs – the very catchy abbreviation for Standard Deviations Above Average.  Basically, the Objective Stud Calculator determines the cumulative number of standard deviations your player was in every category, relative to average.  Note that only games actually played in your team’s lineup count.  If you benched a guy for a monster game, those stats don’t count for you.

LeBron, as you can see, contributed strongly in almost every category – hitting 55 FGs at 60% is really valuable in two categories, for instance.  Accordingly, he totaled 23+ SDAAs across 13 categories, meaning he averaged almost two standard deviations above average in every category.  A killer week.

Normally the top Studs come in between 15-20 SDAAs on the week, but sometimes things do go a bit higher.  It’s not entirely clear what we should expect this year in terms of range, because of the compressed schedule.  However, I guess that this means more games for the top players and possibly fewer games for the bottom players (because there will be more benched players with fuller schedules) so the weekly SDAA champs may have slightly higher numbers this year.

Stud	SDAAs	Min	FGM	FG%	FTM	FT%	3PTM	3PT%	OReb	DReb	Ast	St	Bl	A/T
LeBron James	23.10	176	55	59.8	38	80.9	0	0.0	5	34	33	12	6	2.36
Kevin Durant	18.94	181	47	54.7	32	80.0	11	50.0	4	31	21	6	5	1.11
Pau Gasol	15.17	216	41	55.4	22	73.3	0	0.0	14	38	14	4	12	1.08
Derrick Rose	14.84	174	32	47.1	27	93.1	8	38.1	4	14	43	3	3	2.15
Ryan Anderson	14.76	160	36	48.6	9	90.0	21	46.7	14	17	6	2	3	3.00
Rajon Rondo	14.32	181	34	56.7	22	64.7	3	42.9	8	21	50	7	0	2.38
Kevin Love	13.64	152	31	46.3	34	77.3	7	43.8	25	36	11	4	1	0.85
Ray Allen	13.57	172	30	56.6	17	94.4	16	55.2	5	8	15	5	0	1.07
Ty Lawson	13.39	165	34	55.7	19	79.2	6	37.5	2	14	27	14	0	2.45
Dwight Howard	12.64	194	34	54.0	19	42.2	0	0.0	23	62	11	6	15	0.73

—–

The Objective Turd

The Objective Turd is the same thing as the Objective Stud, except it’s the worst players.  Still, we don’t want to call out a guy for sitting on your bench for all but one game a week – we really want to point out those guys who you expected to contribute, but didn’t.  So there’s a minutes limit, and in normal weeks a player has to garner 100 minutes on the week to be eligible for the Objective Turd.

Turds usually sit between -10 SDAAs and as high as +2 SDAAs, depending on the week.  I’d say this week’s values look pretty typical.  Steve Nash, as a first round pick, is not the guy you want to see on this list.  Hopefully he picks up his shooting and lives up to his expectations.

Turd	SDAAs	Min	FGM	FG%	FTM	FT%	3PTM	3PT%	OReb	DReb	Ast	St	Bl	A/T
Michael Beasley	-5.74	114	22	39.3	6	46.2	1	20.0	5	17	3	3	1	0.33
Metta World Peace	-5.19	123	13	35.1	9	75.0	2	18.2	1	11	9	3	1	0.90
Andray Blatche	-4.57	128	15	31.2	4	66.7	0	0.0	5	22	5	1	3	0.62
Jason Richardson	-4.01	153	20	38.5	6	50.0	3	16.7	4	13	9	4	2	1.29
Evan Turner	-3.25	102	13	39.4	5	55.6	0	0.0	1	19	10	4	1	2.50
Jameer Nelson	-3.19	110	12	41.4	4	100.0	1	16.7	1	7	21	1	0	2.33
Grant Hill	-2.99	103	12	30.8	12	100.0	0	0.0	1	12	6	1	3	3.00
Richard Hamilton	-2.79	114	23	43.4	1	100.0	1	16.7	5	9	10	4	0	1.43
Steve Nash	-2.46	105	12	30.8	4	100.0	5	31.2	2	5	31	0	0	1.94
Dorell Wright	-2.07	136	12	34.3	6	85.7	3	17.6	6	19	8	2	1	Inf

—–

And, finally, the Game Capsules.  I do stuff here.

This week, I’ll point out what I think was each team’s best draft decision, but it will vary from week to week.

Game Capsules

Ball Shaggers def. Rhymenoceros, 12-1-0 – Austin Powers’ Testicles, Baby! routed a weak RhinoPoet this week in a matchup where nothing was terribly close.  The Shaggers had two Triple-20s on the week, one from the ever-present Blake Griffin (40 FGM, 24 FTM, 24 DRebs) and the other from the former Mr. Kardashian, who had 21 FGM, 20 FTM, and 35 DRebs.  Carl Landry had 24 FGs this week, and notably, 31 total rebounds.  If he can keep it up on the boards (history says no) then at 41 Keeper Points (KP), Landry was the Shaggers’ best draft snag this year.  Rhymenoceros also had two Triple-20s, one from Carmelo (27 FGM, 40 FTM, 21 DRebs) and a pretty huge one from Pau Gasol (41 FGM, 22 FTM, 38 DRebs) with 12 blocks thrown in to boot.  But he may have been a bit better served to have played Jarrett Jack, whose 21 assists on the week would have been nice.  Gerald Henderson also sat the bench this week for the Rhinos, but his 14 PPG and 50% three point shooting looked pretty good – they do say that bad teams tend to breed good fantasy players out of average guys, and Gerald Henderson, overlooked in the draft (25 KP) was probably Rhymenoceros’ best grab in the draft.

Sweet Sassy Molassy def. Lipsticked Pigs, 11-2-0 – SSM took care of the Sarah Palins this week, without much of a fight in any category.  No Triple-20s for SSM, but DeAndre Jordan’s 15 blocks (only 12 FGM) were eye-popping.  After a surprisingly strong first week, it looks like Ricky Rubio (64 KP) might have been SSM’s steal of the draft.  The Pigs also got shorted on Triple-20s, but Ty Lawson’s 34 FGM and 27 assists were enough to slot him in at the #9 Stud.  Sadly, nobody from the draft looked really great this week but Andrew Bynum has been a 24/15 guy in his first two games back from suspension, and that’s a bargain at 148 KP.

Slamson def. The Very Bad Team, 10-3-0 – It’s fun to open the season with the Mentor/Mentee Grudge Match, and this one could have gone 7-6 with just three rebounds, four blocks, and a few assists (or a few fewer turnovers).  Still, Mentor got the best of it, helped along by Dwyane Wade’s 41 FGM, 29 assists, and 11 blocks.  Kind of makes you feel better about having to throw LeBron back in the draft.  Still, Ryan Anderson hit 36 FGs (21 of them from three!) and at 75 KP was a clear draft steal as the #5 Stud.  The VBT got two Triple-20s this week, one from Derrick Rose (32 FGM, 27 FTM, 43 assists) and the other from Dirk Nowitzki (38 FGM, 30 FTM, 24 DRebs) but didn’t get enough from their rank-and0file to bring them over the top.  Evan Turner had a quiet first week, but I think that at 10 KP, he’ll end up being the biggest draft steal for the VBT this year.

Dry Heat def. nutria on viagra, 8-5-0 – Dry Heat showed some weaknesses but overall had a strong week in their victory over the Aquatic Boner Rodents.  James Harden had an unusual Triple-20 with 36 FTM, 27 DRebs and 20 assists, but fell one short with only 19 FGM.  Derrick Favors at 51 KP turns out to be the steal here.  He’s working his way into the starter’s spot and is likely to grab 10+ rebounds and have 10-15 points a night on over 50% shooting for the next decade.  The ABRs had a great week from team favorite Manu Ginobili, who had 26 FGM (13 from three at 54%).  Someday we all know Ginobili will slow down, but for now he’s still getting it done.  Still, I think Boris Diaw may have been the sharpest pick here – he plays SF/PF/C, and gets great assists and A/T for any of those slots, while providing adequate rebounding, scoring, and blocks across the board.  Sure, he was 126 KP, but he’ll be well worth his draft slot by the end of the year (and then probably get sent back and drafted too low again next year – the French Rodney Dangerfield effect).

Bodacious D def. Hoops! I didit again, 7-6-0 – Bo D squeaked past the Britneys this week, but there weren’t a ton of categories in contention.  Bo D’s first two picks both came up big, Dwight Howard getting a Triple-20 (34 FGM, 23 OReb, 62 DReb) with 15 blocks on top of that, and Rajon Rondo dropped a nice Quad-20 (34 FGM, 22 FTM, 21 DRebs, 50 assists).  With Bo D’s late picks coming up pretty poorly this week, it’s hard to say who his steal of the draft was.  In the end it will probably end up being either Paul George at 99 KP or Derrick Williams at 74 KP but right now it’s hard to nominate anybody other than Rondo way up at 165 KP.  Hoops! For earrings again! can safely say they got the most out of their #1 overall pick with LeBron James’ super-rare Quad-30 (55 FGM, 38 FTM, 34 DRebs, 33 assists).  With such domination out of the gate, it’s really hard to look at anybody else as the newcomer’s best pick in the draft, even if LeBron was the obvious #1 overall.

Baker’s Poop Makers def. The Bombay Runners, 7-6-0 – The Poopmakers’ slogan is currently “None shall pass”, but he had 10 players with double-digit assists in his category win this week.  Poopy had some great performances this week – another Quad-30 from Kobe (51 FGM, 37 FTM, 32 DRebs, 36 assists) to go with a Quad-20 from Kevin Love (31 FGM, 34 FTM, 25 ORebs, 36 DRebs) and a Triple-20 from Danilo Gallinari (22 FGM, 22 FTM, 23 DRebs).  Baker’s steal of the draft will probably end up coming down to Jimmer Fredette at 42 KP and Brandon Knight at 32 KP.  This week Knight shot well while Fredette did not, but I can’t see Jimmer missing open shots in the NBA forever, so I’m going say the nod goes to Jimmer by the end of the season.  The Roaches got a Quad-20 (the fifth in the bottom two matchups) from Kevin Durant (47 FGM, 32 FTM, 31 DRebs, 21 assists) and another Triple-20 from Andre Iguodala (22 FGM, 24 DRebs, 20 assists) ina solid all-around performance.  Anderson Varejao at 60 KP probably turns out to be the Runners’ best pick – he put up a solid 17 FGM and 41 total rebounds this week, and it’s the kind of thing you can expect week in, week out.  No home run, but every team needs that glue guy, right?

 

Evidence that the players won the CBA battle, Exhibits A-D

In case you missed it, the NBA just spent almost five months embroiled in a lockout which centered around the negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA).  Ultimately, sixteen games were lopped off of the regular season before the players and the owners finally came to an agreement.  What was it about?  For the players, it was pretty simple.  They wanted the status quo.  For the owners, there was a two-headed goal.  First, they wanted to reduce player salaries, and second they wanted to change the system rules (salary cap rules, luxury tax, etc.) to improve competitive balance.

On the first point, the owners did win, bringing the player salary pool down to a band of 49-51% of basketball-related income (BRI) after the previous value of 57%.  But everybody knew the owners were going to win that fight – the owners, the media, the fans, and even the players.  57% of BRI going to the players was a number that was just unworkable with the league claiming losses of $300M annually.

On the second point, however, the owners lost out miserably.  Although there were minor changes to the system, none of them had much in the way of teeth, and the most aggressive (the new luxury tax brackets) don’t even take effect for two years.

Meanwhile, it’s business as usual for the star players of the NBA, who take advantage of the rules to force their way into major markets.  In fact, it has already been tried at least four times in the two days since teams were allowed to make transactions.  And rather than sit quietly, I’m going to call out the guilty.  But hey, I can be magnanimous.  I’ll do it in alphabetical order so nobody thinks I’m playing favorites.

Gilbert Arenas

Gilbert’s fall from grace has been sudden and unforgiving.  Signed to a six-year, $110M contract in Washington in 2008 despite a pre-existing knee injury, he played only two games in the first year of his contract, and only 32 games in the second year before getting suspended for the remainder of the season for the whole “guns in the locker room” thing.  You remember.  Although there was talk of the Wizards trying to use the “morals clause” in his contract to invalidate it and get out from under the huge monetary obligation they had to an injured player who was also a jerk, they did not, and eventually traded him to the Magic for another inflated contract in Rashard Lewis.

Prior to this season, the Orlando Magic decided to amnesty the remaining $62M on Arenas’ contract.  Due to the amnesty provision in the new CBA, teams who were under the salary cap had the first opportunity to “bid” on Arenas – to the best of our knowledge, if even one team under the cap had bid at least a minimum salary value on his contract, the highest bid would pick up him on the cheap.  Naturally, Arenas didn’t like the idea of playing for just any team, so he and his agent quietly discouraged teams from bidding on him:

Arenas’ agent Dan Fegan, sources said, successfully convinced teams that showed interest in lodging a bargain bid on the former All-Star that Arenas was determined to make his own choice about where he wants to resume his career.

The CBA, designed to help teams that follow the salary cap “rules” – read: not the Lakers, Heat, Knicks, etc. – utterly failed.  No team bid on Arenas and he is free to sign with anybody.  It’s thought he’s going to try to join Assistant GM Dwight Howard in Dwighthowardland.  Do you think that Arenas could have helped the (nearly playerless) New Orleans Hornets?  Of course!  But they didn’t get that chance due to Arenas’ threats, despite the owners’ intentions otherwise.

Chauncey Billups

You’ve almost got to feel for Chauncey Billups.  He was a reluctant cap-space piece in the deal that sent Allen Iverson from Denver to Detroit.  He had wanted to stay in Detroit, but he eventually warmed to Denver – just in time to be another throw-in in the deal that sent Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks.  He didn’t want to go to New York, but he eventually warmed to it just in time to be amnestied by the Knicks so that they could have the cap space to sign Tyson Chandler just this weekend.  Well, Billups is tired of being that guy.  But instead of taking it out on the Knicks, who actually did this to him, he takes it out on everybody else in a massive rant:

“I’m tired of being the glue guy, I’m tired of being viewed as the good guy. After a while, you just kind of get taken advantage of in these situations. I’ve been known as a leader, and I am a leader, but a leader can be as disruptive as he can be productive, especially when you carry a strong voice and people rally around you. This is about me now. This is about me, and teams should know that right now. I just don’t deserve the treatment that I’ve continually gotten.  Historically, these things never happen to the supposed great players and good guys. They continually happen to me, and it gets old. Listen, I feel I’ve been blessed in the game, and I’ve been given back, but these things start to wear on you. But there’s not another guy in history who keeps dealing with this, getting thrown into these things to make the money right. I really believe it’s because people take my kindness and professionalism for weakness. They think I’ll be OK with this. I won’t be OK with this. I’ve saved my money. I may just retire if I don’t get my freedom here.  I want my freedom. My goal is to control my own destiny. And as you’ve seen in my career, I’ve never been in a position to do that. I know some teams out there are saying, ‘Oh, Chauncey will be great in mentoring’ and I’m tired of that. I’ve got a few good years left to play, and I’m not trying to come in and sit on the bench, or be a mentor. I’m not going to be that guy. I want to go somewhere and win. I want to choose.”

Yep, professional good guy Chauncey Billups is now threatening to either be disruptive to a team that picks him up in the amnesty bidding, or retire outright.  A team like the Kings could really have used his leadership off the bench.  And he’d still be getting his money.  But no, it’s all “I, Me, Mine”.  Ass act, Billups, ass act.

Update: Despite his threats, several teams put in bids on Billups and the Los Angeles Clippers won (early reports said $3.5M, later reports have put the bid closer to $2M).  Now we’ll see just how badly Chauncey wants to disrupt a team in a major media market with Blake Griffin and possibly Chris Paul.  Bring it on, Tootie!

Dwight Howard

As you may have heard, Dwight Howard has requested a trade from the Magic.  And he has not only requested a trade, he has requested a trade to ONE team – the New Jersey Nets, soon the be the Brooklyn Nets.  I mean, there’s no real hubris in demanding a trade to a team just about to take on a new identity so that you can be the first great franchise center, right?

But of course, it’s not about Howard not liking Disneyworld.  It’s about being hamstrung by the management in performing his duties as Assistant GM to Otis Smith, as tweeted by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst (sorry, can’t figure out how to link to a permatweet):

Just finished talking with Dwight Howard. Said trade demand stemmed from team not acting on his personnel suggestions.  Howard said he made suggestions on trades/signings for years that were ignored. Said he currently has no relationship w/ GM Otis Smith.

Yep, Front Office Dwight knows how to run a team, or at least, how to run a team into the ground as he demands that he get traded for essentially the rebound-allergic Brook Lopez.  (Yet, somehow, I don’t think he’d be upset about being traded to the Lakers, either.)  Note that there are a lot of teams who could and likely would put together much better trade packages for SuperGM, but SuperGM is going to Brooklyn, or SuperGM is going to pout and leave in free agency for nothing.

Chris Paul

Enter the Whiniest of the Whiners, Chris Paul.  CP3, who must have incredible balance (based on the fact that he wears two – TWO – power balance bracelets…right?), has decided that he is going to use his star power to destroy the franchise in New Orleans.

First, he demanded a trade to the New York Knicks to be with his buddies Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony.  Then, when it became obvious that the Knicks had no assets outside of Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony (and, you know, he’s just not good enough to win a championship on his own) he changed his mind and decided he wanted to be traded to the Lakers to play alongside Kobe Bryant and either Andrew Bynum, or with any luck, SuperGM.  But the NBA, who currently owns the Hornets, nixed a trade proposed by interim GM Dell Demps that would have done just that.  Now, Paul has decided that he guesses he could be convinced to play in the bright lights of L.A. if it’s beside reigning Rookie of the Year Blake Griffin:

ESPN.com reported late Saturday that the Clippers had emerged as the “early front-runner” in the race to land Paul after the frustrated Lakers finally withdrew from three-team talks with the Hornets and Houston Rockets.  The Hornets remain under pressure to find a palatable deal for Paul, who can become a free agent in July 2012 and has already told the franchise that he does not intend to sign an extension.  Paul spoke extensively with the union on Thursday, after Stern squashed the original three-team trade, about what legal options were available.

Hey, what a perfect patriotic American!  If he doesn’t get his way, Chris Plaintiff is going to sue!

So there you have it – only two days into the new CBA, and we’ve already got four stars trying to either force their way into the New York or L.A. markets, or trying to prevent anybody who is not an L.A. or New York market from picking them up.  Now, can you remind me what the whole fuss on the CBA was about?  Competitive balance?  The opportunity for small-market franchises to acquire and keep star players?

Yeah right.  Not from LeBron’s Generation Entitlement.  Maybe, just maybe, the next generation of stars (which we Kings fans hope includes Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins) might have a bit more integrity, show some loyalty to the teams that drafted them, and find a way to stay with their teams when their teams are desperately trying to stick with them.

Here’s hoping.

 

2011 NBA Draft Grades, The Epic!

I was drinking when I wrote this so forgive me if it goes astray

But when I woke up yesterday morning could have sworn it was NBA draft day

The Kings were wearing purple, there’s reporters Tweetin’ everywhere

Trying to nail the top ten picks down, can’t pretend I didn’t even care

‘Cuz there’s five minutes on the clock, make a decision, oops, out of time

So tonight I’m gonna draft grade like it’s 1999

OK, so I’m really not sure what that was.  But I have been drinking a bit, so at least the first line is true.  Oh, and this is my first semi-annual draft grade party thread, so the last line is true, too.  Except I never graded any drafts in 1999.  Speaking of which, doesn’t it suck to write a hit song about a year in the future, and then realize that that year is now 12 years in the past?  Prince?  Anybody?

Anyway, unlike the pansies who normally do draft grades, who sit around giving the same damn grade to everybody (oh, that’s an “A”, and that’s an “A”…) I’m going to grade the fricking thing on a hard, hard curve.  30 teams, that means 6 As, 6 Bs, 6 Cs, 6 Ds, and 6 Fs.  Two plusses and two minuses for each grade except F, because what asshole gives out an F+?  YOU FAILED.  NO CONSOLATION PLUS FOR YOU.  And rather than rip apart a team for having only second round picks, I’m going to grade based on what the team had going into the draft, and what they had going out of it.  Ready?  Because I am.  I don’t know if this glass of scotch next to me is ready, but we can get him a friend before the grading is over, right?  Right.  Let’s go!

(Please ignore the pause while I copy-and-paste over all of my color-coded team names.  Thx.  Also, please ignore the fact that I’ve apparently stayed up until three o’clock writing over 5000 words on the NBA draft.  What is WRONG with me?)

The Grades:

Dallas Mavericks

Grade: A+

Assets Coming In: #26, #57

Assets At The End Of The Day: Rudy Fernandez (1/$2M), Rights to Petteri Koponen, Cash

Obligatory Commentary: Umm, let’s see. You take the NBA champions, you let them dump a late first-rounder and give them a very solid shooting guard, the rights to a Euro PG, and some money? Where do they sign up? Oh wait, they already did. Winner.

Detroit Pistons

Grade: A+

Assets Coming In: #8, #33, #52

Assets At The End Of The Day: Brandon Knight, Kyle Singler, Vernon Macklin

Obligatory Commentary: You know what? The Pistons rocked this one. Knight fell, and they took him. Singler fell, and they took him. Macklin…doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy, mixed-up world, but so what? It was the #52 pick. Let other people screw up and clean up after their mistakes. Nice draft, Pistons.

Memphis Grizzlies

Grade: A

Assets Coming In: #49

Assets At The End Of The Day: Josh Selby

Obligatory Commentary: So let’s see. You’ve got basically nothing to work with, and you end up with a kid who was a consensus top-five recruit coming into college last year. Sure, he had some injuries, and sure, the NCAA suspended him 9 games, and sure, he didn’t seem to ever mesh with the Kansas team. Still, Top Five High School Player At #49. Winner.

Sacramento Kings

Grade: A

Assets Coming In: #7, #35, #60, Beno Udrih (2/$14M)

Assets At The End Of The Day: Jimmer Fredette, Tyler Honeycutt, Isaiah Thomas, John Salmons (3/$25M)

Obligatory Commentary: I’m unexpectedly warming to yesterday’s events in Kings land. The whole problem – the entire problem – revolved around trading out Beno to get a bigger, longer contract in John Salmons, a player we had already traded away.

Upon further reflection: Is Salmons overpaid? Yes. But he provides a solid defensive SF presence, and if we can at least condition him out of dribbling on the other side of the floor he’s not a disaster. He’s a bit more expensive than Beno was, but when you consider that the Kings were after Jimmer Fredette the whole time (apparently, they didn’t think so highly of Knight and were likely after Fredette at #7 had they kept it) things come into focus a bit. Evans is here. Thornton will be back as an RFA. Jimmer steps into the #3 guard slot from day one, leaving Beno out in the cold. We could hold on to him and see what we can get for him, but once he’s obviously in the doghouse his trade value goes way down. Perhaps – PERHAPS – we could get a SF of Salmons’ defensive ability on the FA market this offseason, but this hypothetical SF + Benchy Beno would cost more than Salmons, inflated though his contract is. And we’re not guaranteed to find such a player willing to sign with us. If you look at this one as “cut Beno, sign Salmons for $11M over 3 years” it looks a hell of a lot better. And that’s essentially what it is.

The draft picks are much easier to swallow. I’d have preferred Brandon Knight, but the team didn’t like him so much. Jimmer has a lot of awesome qualities. Besides virginity, he’s can shoot from anywhere on the floor, get his own shot, pass, run an offense, handle the ball, get to the rack, and draw fouls, after which he shoots basically 90% from the line. Oh, and he’s apparently one of the sharpest kids to come out in the draft since {insert smartypants basketball player like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or The Big Aristotle here}. Literally his only weakness is defense. And Salmons helps fix that.

Tyler Honeycutt was simply a steal at #35. He’s young and he’s skinny and he tries to make the fancy pass too often, but he’s a long, athletic SF who has good shot mechanics, great rebounding instincts, led the PAC-10 in blocked shots, and makes one or two jaw-dropping passes a game. (Those passes are counteracted by one or two jaw-dropping turnovers, but that should improve in time.) He’ll be in the league a long time.

Isaiah Thomas is not nearly as good as his namesake, but he’s a small, tough, bowling-ball guard with a lot of skill. Getting a guy like that at #60 is like inviting him to camp with an offer he can’t refuse (I mean literally, since he was drafted he can’t refuse it – I’m not suggesting a horse head or anything).

All-in-all another big win for the Kings, with the one negative move (Udrih for Salmons) looking only iffy, not bad upon sober reflection.

Houston Rockets

Grade: A-

Assets Coming In: #14, #23, #38, Brad Miller (1/$5.5M)

Assets At The End Of The Day: Marcus Morris, Donatas Motiejunas, Chandler Parsons, Jonny Flynn (2/$8M)

Obligatory Commentary: This one’s a mixed bag. The Rockets already have Marcus Morris. His name is Patrick Patterson, and they drafted him at #14 last year. I can’t imagine what they were thinking doing it again. On the other hand, Donatas and Flynn for the #23 and Miller (who, as you might recall just had microfracture surgery) is a steal and a half. Not that I like Flynn, I’m not a big fan, but the Rockets need to figure out SOMETHING for their PG situation and Motiejunas might be the best pick outside the top ten in the whole draft.

The Rockets also already have Chandler Parsons.  His name is Chase Budinger, except Chandler Parsons is a crappy version of Chase Budinger. Amazing how the #38 pick is about as useless as the #14 pick, and I still kind of like the Rockets’ draft. Boy will this look stupid if Donatas flops. Will it ever.

San Antonio Spurs

Grade: A-

Assets Coming In: #29, #59, George Hill (1/$1.4M)

Assets At The End Of The Day: Kawhi Leonard, Cory Joseph, Davis Bertans, Adam Hanga

Obligatory Commentary: The Spurs took a surprise first-round PG (George Hill), used him for three years, then sent him home (I mean, IUPUI is IN Indianapolis) in exchange for the #15 pick and a stashable (but skinny) Euro. Then they drafted Cory Joseph as a surprise first-round PG. It’s the fricking Circle of Life, I’m telling you! Damn you San Antonio and your drafting prowess! No, seriously. Nobody liked Cory Joseph until the Spurs took him. Now everybody figures he’s going to be a star. Nobody gave a crap about a Hungarian named Adam Hanga. Wait, they still don’t. But he’ll probably be the second coming of Manu Ginobili. Oh well. By the way, George Hill for Kawhi Leonard and Davis Bertans is a WAY better trade than the previously proposed Tony Parker and Richard Jefferson for the #7. With which they probably would have taken Kawhi Leonard. The Spurs win again. As always. Hill won’t be missed nearly as much as Parker would (this coming from a guy who was teased with the idea of getting Parker just two days before the draft. Bummer.) And now with Kawhi, they’ll be able to clear the room with their jazz hands routine.

Los Angeles Lakers

Grade: B+

Assets Coming In: #41, #46, #56, #58

Assets At The End Of The Day: Darius Morris, Andrew Goudelock, Ater Majok, Cash

Obligatory Commentary: The Lakers had a bunch of junk, and they went out and grabbed two PG prospects in the 40s. The rest, who cares? Doesn’t matter. Both Morris (passer) and Goudelock (shooter) have a good chance to step up and replace Derek Fisher. (Now if they’d only replace him in the CBA meetings, I’m sure something would get done. Rooks want to get real paid!) What more can you ask for from a bunch of late picks?

Atlanta Hawks

Grade: B+

Assets Coming In: #48

Assets At The End Of The Day: Keith Benson

Obligatory Commentary: It’s just me. I’m the only guy in the entire country who thinks that Keith Benson has potential. People cry about him not being able to play defense and somehow ignore that he blocked 4.5 shots per-40 minutes last year. He’s got good size. He’s got a decent offensive repertoire, both in the post and a credible jumper. I give him a 1 in 3 chance of being better than Jonas Valanciunas. Nobody fricking likes this guy. I don’t get it. But I’m calling this one a steal. You can’t get more out of a #48 pick that that.

Orlando Magic

Grade: B

Assets Coming In: #53, two future second round picks

Assets At The End Of The Day: Justin Harper, DeAndre Liggins

Obligatory Commentary: You know, I like this. The Magic sent away two future worthless picks for a stretch-four and then grabbed an athletic guy with a lot of defensive potential on the perimeter, and a decent shot to boot. A total of three worthless second rounders for potentially two decent players? Winner!

Philadelphia 76ers

Grade: B

Assets Coming In: #16, #50

Assets At The End Of The Day: Nikola Vucevic, Lavoy Allen

Obligatory Commentary: I would like to congratulate the Philadelphia 76ers on grabbing a second round pick even I hadn’t heard of. But Nikola Vucevic was (somewhat surprisingly) apparently in the mix at #7 with Sacramento’s pick. He can rebound, he can shoot, and he measured out much taller at the combine than people seemed to think. You know, folks on the east coast really ought to watch a bit more PAC-10 (-12 now?) basketball. That way Vucevic would be in the mid-first round on everybody’s board, not just on the board of the smart teams.

Utah Jazz

Grade: B-

Assets Coming In: #3, #12

Assets At The End Of The Day: Enes Kanter, Alec Burks

Obligatory Commentary: It was a quiet day for the Jazz. They nabbed a solid center prospect at #3, and a wing prospect that I don’t like at #12 (but hey, David Locke, Jazz play-by-play announcer loves him – as in would have his children loves him) and then went home and cried over losing Jimmer Fredette like they knew they would. Or maybe not, they’re hard-hearted souls. I’ll be honest, they’d get a better grade if I liked Alec Burks.

Toronto Raptors

Grade: B-

Assets Coming In: #5

Assets At The End Of The Day: Jonas Valanciunas

Obligatory Commentary: Talk about ambivalence. Your team sucks, you have nothing but the #5 pick in the draft, and you select…a guy who likely won’t be able to escape his buyout in Europe until next year. And I’m not even sure he’s that good. He’s tall, I’ll give him that, but his confession at the draft (that people compare him to Bosh because “my body is not so strong”) isn’t really reassuring. We can hope that he’s more valuable than Baltic Avenue in Monopoly, but what I’ve seen looks way too much like Spencer Hawes for my liking. On the other hand, the 2012 draft is supposed to be freaking GANGBUSTERS and Toronto has set themselves up for it beautifully!

Washington Wizards

Grade: C+

Assets Coming In: #6, #18, #34

Assets At The End Of The Day: Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton, Shelvin Mack

Obligatory Commentary: I’ve got to give the Wizards credit – they had three picks in this draft and didn’t execute a single trade. I think that’s a record this year. (I think it was tied. By somebody. I might come back and fix this, or I might just leave it. Ha!) But seriously, Jan Vesely’s girlfriend alone is worth bumping this draft a half-grade. Did you SEE her? Her name is Eva Koduoskova, she’s like 6’3″ and she is smoking hot. She makes the team, OK? Sorry Trevor Booker, gotta clear a roster spot for Eva. Vesely himself I’m lukewarm on. He’s athletic, sure, but he’s not terribly skilled and I worry that his Euro-dunks won’t really translate to a league where the level of play is higher. (Euro-fans will scoff. Who am I kidding? Euro-fans aren’t reading this. Nobody is.) He’ll do well on the fast break, but until he can get his shot working (and his horrid free throws fixed) he’ll be mostly a defensive player. And not of the Biyombo mold, exactly.

Singleton is another defensive SF. A nice pick, but maybe not the biggest need given that the Wizards already picked a defensive SF at #6. Shelvin Mack I’m not high on at all. The Wizards could have done better.

Charlotte Bobcats

Grade: C+

Assets Coming In: #9, #19, #39, Stephen Jackson (2/$19M), Shaun Livingston (1/$4.5M)

Assets At The End Of The Day: Bismack Biyombo, Kemba Walker, Corey Maggette (2/$21M), Cash

Obligatory Commentary: The Bobcats pulled a miracle out there. They saved a little money and simultaneously moved up 12 picks in the draft. That’s worth two grades right there. But I’m not thrilled about the players they picked in the draft. Biyombo is a defense-defense-defense guy that will have you playing 4-on-5 on the other end. I’m not really sure Charlotte can afford to play 4-on-5 on offense. They suck. Quick, name the best scorer on the Bobcats! Gerald Wallace? Bzzt! Traded at the deadline last year. Stephen Jackson? Bzzt! Traded on draft day. Rookie Kemba Walker? Uh-oh. Walker is a better-scoring version of D.J. Augustin, who the Bobcats already have. They can’t play on the floor together. They can’t. You can’t put two sub-6-footers out there in the backcourt and hope that Bismack Biyombo will save you. Everybody is going to just shoot over the top of you. Charlotte is a long, long way from contending, and unfortunately an even longer way from getting out from under the sad reign of Michael Jordan. Enjoy the lottery next year, Bobcats, I hear it’s going to be a doozy!

Golden State Warriors

Grade: C

Assets Coming In: #11, #44, Cash

Assets At The End Of The Day: Klay Thompson, Jeremy Tyler, Charles Jenkins

Obligatory Commentary: Not a bad haul for the Clippers, who grabbed a wing, a backup point, and a half-headcase post guy with potential with little more than the #11. I worry that Klay, Tyler, and Monta may become a Three Puffsketeers combo, but it’s hard to criticize this draft too much. Klay went a little high, Tyler went a little low, Jenkins got bought. ‘Salright.

Chicago Bulls

Grade: C

Assets Coming In: #28, #30, #43

Assets At The End Of The Day: Nikola Mirotic, Jimmy Butler

Obligatory Commentary: It’s hard to say how this one went. The Bulls had some late first round picks, and turned them into a very nice looking Euro player who won’t come over for four years at the least (his new contract does not have favorable NBA buyout terms) and a SF that would be hard to pick out of a crowd. I’ll reserve the right to change my mind if Mirotic is the 2016 rookie of the year, but right now this one ain’t looking so hot.

Denver Nuggets

Grade: C-

Assets Coming In: #22, Raymond Felton (1/$7.6M)

Assets At The End Of The Day: Kenneth Faried, Jordan Hamilton, Chuckwudiebere Maduabum, Andre Miller (1/$7.8M)

Obligatory Commentary: The Felton/Miller swap is bizarre. Why trade young for old? I don’t get it. The contracts are almost identical. I mean, the Nuggets got Jordan Hamilton out of it in the end, but with Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler and Arron Afflalo already on board, I’m not sure they really need him. Faried, on the other hand, is a great pick for the Nuggets. Sure, he’s small, but the Nuggets’ front line (Nene could opt out, Martin is a free agent, Harrington sucks, Mozgov will only ever be known as the piece that almost held up the Carmelo Anthony deal) has more question marks than Matthew Lesko’s jacket. I didn’t even have to look that up. (OK, I lied. I originally wrote “Andrew” but that was the wrong “Ew”). Faried should at least be able to contribute if they need him, and in a draft very short of big men, I think Denver did well to grab him.

The alphabet soup guy apparently played a whole three games in the D-league last year, tallying 2 points and one rebound. Sorry, Denver, that pick alone cost you a half-grade. I mean, you might as well have drafted Jerry Seinfeld’s mother. And she’s not even eligible. My point stands.

Milwaukee Bucks

Grade: C-

Assets Coming In: #10, #40, John Salmons (3/$25M), Corey Maggette (2/$21M)

Assets At The End Of The Day: Tobias Harris, Jon Leuer, Stephen Jackson (2/$19M), Shaun Livingston (1/$4.5M), Beno Udrih (2/$14M)

Obligatory Commentary: With all of the players bouncing around the Bucks saved about $8M dollars on draft day (though the majority of that came from the third year on Salmons’s deal). But did they get better? Do you really want to trade the #10 pick for Tobias Harris and the opportunity to turn a Salmons/Maggette logjam into a Jackson/Harris one? (Credit where credit is due – I thought that the Bucks would be stuck with the terrible Maggette and Salmons contracts until they expired. I never dreamed that they could rid themselves of both in one trade!) I guess the latter is better, because Harris is still really raw. Maybe Beno Udrih lights a fire under Brandon Jennings. Maybe local boy Jon Leuer’s mom makes a really great hot dish for the team potluck. This grade is all “maybes”.

New Jersey Nets

Grade: D+

Assets Coming In: #27, #36, 2014 2nd round pick, Cash

Assets At The End Of The Day: Marshon Brooks, Bojan Bogdanovic, Jordan Williams

Obligatory Commentary: I’m kind of surprised at how little it actually took to get Marshon Brooks in this draft. After his stock had allegedly risen into the low-lottery, a #27 and a 2014 second rounder nabbed him. Not bad for Kobe Bryant v2. Or maybe, he’s just not that good, and that’s why he spent four years at a mid-major college. I’m pessimistic about Williams sticking in the league. Too much bad weight, not enough of a rebounder to make a difference. Maybe Bogdanovic will be useful someday, but for now, I’m not excited.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Grade: D+

Assets Coming In: #1, #4, #32, #54

Assets At The End Of The Day: Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson, Milan Macvan, two future Orlando 2nd round picks

Obligatory Commentary: We all knew Irving was coming at #1.

We didn’t know that the #4 was going to be spent on Tristan Thompson. The Cavaliers really do look to be taking the long, long road to recovery here. Maybe they’re looking at the stacked 2012 draft and already salivating. But by picking the raw-as-dining-commons-potatoes Thompson way, way above his projected draft slot, the Cavs are basically committing themselves to an unready J.J. Hickson (hey, they already have one of those!) Fine. All the best players available were either foreign or point guards. So be it. If you can’t handle that, trade the pick for something useful. It’s not a fatal pick; it’s more the comic sans the tragic, but the Cavs need as much help as they can get right now, and Tristan Thompson doesn’t really fit the bill. Can’t say I love the #32 and #54 turning into Milan Macvan and some worthless Orlando picks, either. I mean, Tyler Honeycutt was there at #32. Tyler Honeycutt might have been a STARTER for the Cavs next year. (Shockingly, this is not hyperbole. I honestly believe that Tyler Honeycutt could have beaten out Christian Eyenga and Joey Graham for the starting SF slot next year.) The grade sucks because you don’t get credit for taking the best player with the #1 pick. Sorry, Cavs fans!

Phoenix Suns

Grade: D

Assets Coming In: #13

Assets At The End Of The Day: Markieff Morris

Obligatory Commentary: This pick was worth it simply for the opportunity to see Marcus Morris crying in the green room and being able to wonder whether it was because he was happy his brother got picked or upset his brother got picked before him. As for the Suns pick itself? Uninspired. Fills a need. Meh.

Indiana Pacers

Grade: D

Assets Coming In: #15, #42

Assets At The End Of The Day: George Hill (1/$1.4M)

Obligatory Commentary: I’d have liked the Pacers trading for George Hill a lot more if they didn’t already have Darren Collison. Right? Right? Vucevic would have been OK at #15 here. Or Motiejunas. Or Faried, even. But now George Hill and Darren Collison get to fight for backcourt PT. Whatever.

Oklahoma City Thunder

Grade: D-

Assets Coming In: #24

Assets At The End Of The Day: Reggie Jackson

Obligatory Commentary: It was widely inferred that Reggie Jackson (along with Isaiah Thomas, the second player with Hall-of-Fame eponymy in this draft) had a promise in the draft somewhere. It turns out it was Oklahoma City. The decision is kind of curious from the Thunder’s side, as they already have Russell Westbrook and Eric Maynor, but it’s hard to question Sam Presti right now. Oh, and Nate Robinson too. I’m not feeling it. Sorry, Thunder, bad grade.

Boston Celtics

Grade: D-

Assets Coming In: #25, #55

Assets At The End Of The Day: JaJuan Johnson, E’Twaun Moore, 2014 New Jersey 2nd round pick

Obligatory Commentary: The Celtics traded their #25 down two picks to grab JaJuan Johnson, who is about the most exciting post prospect since Ricecakes Plainoatmealson.  It will take Boston’s accountants so long to figure out how to spell E’Twaun’s name that the team will have cut him before they get it right.  And I’m NOT looking it up, but when was the last time a team had two picks in a draft and spent them BOTH on players from Purdue?  It’s kind of weird.  Maybe they’ve got a problem with the boiler down in the TD Garden basement. I can’t give this draft anything resembling a good grade.

Miami Heat

Grade: F

Assets Coming In: #31, Unknown future second round pick, Cash

Assets At The End Of The Day: Norris Cole

Obligatory Commentary: Oddly enough, the #28 pick was originally Miami’s, had been dealt away, and via the magic of about four trades came back to Miami so they could select Norris Cole. I’d give them a fantastic grade for pulling off the miraculous reacquisition of their own pick, but they selected Norris Cole. They already have Mario Chalmers. Why not go get somebody with some potential? But oh, no. They already raped Cleveland of LeBron James, time to rape Cleveland State of Norris Cole!

Again, the Miami Heat (a team whose salary cap finances dictate they must find the best talent possible) traded up 3 picks with cash and a future second to get their own pick they had already traded away just so they could draft Norris Cole. Don’t expect me to be lenient.

Los Angeles Clippers

Grade: F

Assets Coming In: #37, #47

Assets At The End Of The Day: Trey Thompkins, Travis Leslie

Obligatory Commentary: I hadn’t noticed before, but basically the Los Angeles Clippers just drafted the Georgia Bulldogs. Hey, Donald Sterling? This isn’t football. There isn’t even a football team in Los Angeles.  Dumbass.

New Orleans Hornets

Grade: F

Assets Coming In: #45

Assets At The End Of The Day: Cash (Reportedly $750K)

Obligatory Commentary: Don’t ever say that the NBA isn’t a money-making business. I mean, they own the Hornets, and they turned that mid second-rounder into cold, hard, nothing. Basically, one year of minimum salary. Come on, NBA (I mean, Hornets) take a fricking chance on somebody. Ya losers.

New York Knicks

Grade: F

Assets Coming In: #17, Cash

Assets At The End Of The Day: Iman Shumpert, Josh Harrellson

Obligatory Commentary: The Knicks are in the #1 media market in the country, an ideal location to select a very popular and talented European player like Donatas Motiejunas, and milk that cow.  Danilo Gallinari all over again, essentially.  So naturally, the Knicks go and grab Iman Shumpert, who has the the distinction of being a 6’6″ athletic PG.  Well, except for the fact that he can’t shoot and he can’t run a team.  Remember how last year everybody said “It’s not that Derrick Favors isn’t a good player, it’s just that his guards are retarded and can’t get him the ball”?  You remember who the culprit here was?  That’s right!  Iman Shumpert was the ID-10-T who couldn’t figure out to dump the ball down to the dominant post player.  But hey, Shumpert measured out really tall at the combine, and he could really jump!

I swear, this is like Renaldo Balkman all over again, except this time everybody already knows that Shumpert sucks.  There are allegations that he can play defense.  For Mike D’Antoni.  The saving grace in this draft is that the Knicks went and bought the rights to Josh Harrellson, who is underrated a bit.  I mean, he carried that Kentucky team this year after Enes Kanter was (shocked, shocked!) declared ineligible. He’s kind of slow, but I think the guy can carve himself a niche in the league on any team that doesn’t rely on the fast break.  Oh. That’s right, fast-paced offense there in NY.   That’s OK.  I love giving Fs.

Minnesota Timberwolves

(Oh, shit.)

Grade: F for FAAAANtastic

Assets Coming In: #2, #20, Jonny Flynn (2/$8M), Cash

Assets At The End Of The Day: Derrick Williams, Malcolm Lee, Brad Miller (1/$5.5M), future second round Miami pick, Cash, More Cash, Tanguy Ngombo (maybe)

Obligatory Commentary: It only took like three trades, but Minnesota parlayed their #20 pick into Malcolm Lee, a worthless future second round pick from Miami, some cash, some more cash, a micro-fractured Brad Miller, and a one-way ticket for Jonny Flynn to leave town.  Plus, they bought the #57 pick to draft this super-secret sleeper Congolese guy really ripping it up the Qatar leagues.  (No, seriously, I’m not kidding.  At least about the Qatar leagues.  He may not in fact have been ripping it up there.)  Except for the minor problem that the Congolese apparently lied about his age to the NBA and wasn’t eligible for the draft.  And shockingly, nobody knew this!  (Or more likely, every other GM in the league knew this, and had measured out just the right length of rope for David Kahn to hang himself with.)  Dear David Kahn: I love you.  Don’t ever change.  Don’t ever get fired.  And trade all your good players to the Kings.  Love, Me.

So, anyway, there appears to be a good chance that the NBA will just void the pick, in which case Tanguy Mgombo will be eligible to sign a free agent contract with anybody in the NBA.  (Read: Minnesota.)  Anyway.  Derrick Williams with the #2 pick seems to be par for the course.  (Well, maybe not.  It’s been common knowledge that Minnesota has been trying to deal this pick since they got it.  And couldn’t.  I mean, you can’t find value for Derrick Williams, who you don’t even want?  It’s not like you don’t enjoy making bad trades!  What is WRONG with you, Kahn?!?)

So, um, Derrick Williams was kind of an OK pick even if they didn’t trade for something they actually WANTED.  But as much as I like Malcolm Lee (I have to, contractually obligated as a UCLA fan) Donatas Motiejunas and Jonny Flynn are better than Lee and Brad Miller and a bit of money and a guy from the Congo who was playing in a warehouse in Qatar who is like 8 years older than he claimed.

Listen: do you remember that guy who traded up a paper clip for a house by making small, incremental trades?  Neat story, if a bit unsettling and way too media-contrived once they got wind of it halfway through.  David Kahn is like all the dudes that got bled, tiny cut by tiny cut as some other guy traded a paper clip into a house.  And he keeps making deals.  God bless you, David Kahn.

Portland Trailblazers

Grade: Lowest F Possible

Assets Coming In: #21, #26, #51, Rudy Fernandez (1/$2M), Andre Miller (1/$7.8M)

Assets At The End Of The Day: Nolan Smith, Jon Diebler, Raymond Felton (1/$7.6M)

Obligatory Commentary: Just one year ago, the Portland Trailblazers had a great GM who was insubordinate and got himself fired (though the organization allowed him to conduct the 2010 draft).  Now, one year later, they’ve already fired his replacement.

It shows.

Swapping Miller for Felton is excusable in and of itself, even if it’s not really a great move.  Both are free agents at the end of the year, and with Felton quite a bit younger, if he can be convinced to stay around he could be a nice piece for the future.  But that’s only a small positive.  Heck, Diebler at #51 sucks, but nobody is really going to knock you for it.  But the rest of the day saw them burning one pick in the 20s to get Nolan Smith, and another pick in the 20s AND Rudy Fernandez to get the privilege to make the 50/50 swap of Miller for Felton.  That is so bad that Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged would break alphabetic order just to move Portland to the front of the insult list. Portland fans should be storming the Rose Garden at this very minute.  Bring torches, guys, it’s dark out there.

 

2011 NBA Draft – Ceil() and Floor()

As the two regular readers of this blog may know, I’ve done “mock drafts” for the past several years, probably as unsuccessfully as anybody else out there (and by “anybody else” I mean anyone who has internet access and has watched an NBA game or a portion thereof in the past 7 years).  This year I thought I’d do something different and instead of running through the draft and pretending to make picks, I thought I’d just put out a list of my feel for where players are going to go – identifying their floors and ceilings so to speak.  This draft seems a bit rough – I have a good feel for the top 8-10 players and it gets really fuzzy from there – but I’m not really sure if that’s any different than any other year.  Sure, there’s a lot of talk that the middle of the draft is wide open, but isn’t it always?  Anyway, why don’t I just get right to it: your 2011 NBA Draft Ceil() and Floor() functions, guaranteed to be wrong as soon as a big trade is made shaking up the board.

And now that the draf tis done, some green-light/red-light just for fun.

Player	Ceil()	Floor()	Comments
Kyrie Irving	1 – CLE	1 – CLE	Cleveland continues to insist that they haven’t made up their mind at the #1 pick.  They’re either lying or mistaken.  I mean, I know who they’re going to pick.  Kyrie Irving.  Next!  The only player I gave a range of only one pick, and I got him!  Of course, so did everybody else.
Derrick Williams	2 – MIN	4 – CLE	As long as Minnesota holds on to the #2 pick, I believe that Derrick Williams will be their guy, but a trade could move Kanter up to #2.  Utah would probably gladly take Williams at #3, but there’s simply no way he falls past Cleveland at #4 (the Cavs are rumored to be trying to move up to #2 to pair Williams with Irving).
Enes Kanter	2 – ???	4 – CLE	Kanter likely won’t go #2 to Minnesota, but a trade bringing Washington or another interested party into the #2 slot could bump him here.  Like Williams he simply can’t fall past Cleveland’s #4.  Oh, remember the morning of the draft when all of a sudden Minnesota started saying that they were taking Kanter at #2?  Yeah, they were lying.  And I knew it before they even tried.  (Can’t fool me!  I’ve got ears on the back of my butt!)
Brandon Knight	3 – UTA	5 -TOR	Utah is said to be pretty high on Knight, and while I have a hard time believing they would want to grab him with Devin Harris in the fold (trade rumors around Harris are relatively quiet) there are enough voices saying it to have me sold.  If Knight falls past Utah he is probably BPA at #4, but Cleveland will have already burned the #1 on a PG and would either trade the #4 to whoever wants Knight or take another player.  If he gets to #5, I can’t see the Raptors not snatching him up.  Knight dropped due to the “Tristan Thompson effect”.  On top of that there was the “Wow, Sacramento Doesn’t Like Him effect” but that wouldn’t have changed the fact that my range was off.  Knight dropped three picks farther than I thought, an eternity at the top of the board.  (And did you see him when he went up on stage.  Dude was PISSED.)
Jonas Valanciunas	4 – CLE	9 – CHA	If push comes to shove (meaning no Williams, no Kanter, and no trade partner who wants Knight) I think Valanciunas is probably the best bet at Cleveland’s #4 – a better bet than Leonard.  Still, I think there’s a decent chance he gets passed over by some of the lower teams, particularly because he may need to skip a year (in fact, it does appear that is the case) due to an unresolved buyout situation.  Toronto, Washington and Detroit would at least show interest, Sacramento may well not.  Still, I have a hard time believing that he could fall past the Bobcats, whose best option at center this year is probably to re-sign Kwame Brown.  Even if he’s a year out, it’s probably a risk that can’t be passed up for a team with one of the weakest frontcourts in the league.
Kawhi Leonard	5 – TOR	7 – SAC	Every once in a while you run into a guy with a remarkably small draft range, and Kawhi is one of those guys.  I don’t think Cleveland is going to consider him, which means his first shot at getting taken is at #5, if Brandon Knight is off the board.  Washington is certainly considering him at #6. And Sacramento?  Not only is he is a very good fit with his defense and energy from the SF slot, he had a great workout and subsequently cancelled a workout with the Jazz, suggesting a possible promise in place at #7.  Wow.  Just bad juju all over on this prediction.  Apparently not only did Sacramento not promise him, they didn’t even LIKE him.  You mean big hands don’t make a great basketball player?  Well, we’ll see.
Kemba Walker	5 – TOR	8 – DET	If Brandon Knight is not available for the Raptors, Walker may well be the first player on their board.  The Kings could also be intrigued, but reports conflict as to whether they would prefer to take Walker or Fredette.  I’m going to boldly claim that Detroit, with only Rodney Stuckey to man the PG this year, will not be able to pass on the kid who led the Huskies to the national championship this year, putting Walker’s floor a step above a few of the players who might go before him.  A small miss because he went at #9, though he very well could have gone at #8 if it weren’t for the fallen Knight.
Jan Vesely	5 – TOR	11 – GSW	Another Euro that has attracted a great deal of attention, Vesely could find several homes before his eventual floor. Toronto seems open to him, and Washington is known to be very intrigued. It could well stop right there. The Kings have scouted him multiple times as well. I think he can fall past Milwaukee, who needs to look for more scoring, but Golden State could definitely use a wing and would probably have a hard time letting an energy guy like Vesely get past them.
Tristan Thompson	6 – WAS	14 – HOU	Tristan Thompson is one of many guys who is getting a look at #6.  With a serious shortage of big men who can score in the post in this draft, Thompson’s value may be a bit inflated relative to what I see his NBA ceiling to be.  Detroit, Charlotte, and Phoenix all seem like possible slots, but Houston probably is the safety.  Thompson may not be a center, but with Yao probably done for good and Brad Miller coming off of microfracture (!!) the Rockets need all the help in the middle they can get, and Thompson may be all the help in the middle there is.  Didn’t see that one coming.  Well, at least, not when I wrote this.  The funny thing is, amongst the plausible blather coming out on the morning of the draft was the tidbit that the Cavs liked Thompson at #4.  I did a spit-take and realized it HAD to be true, because it was so far out of left field nobody would have believed it as a smokescreen.  I was right on that count, at least.
Bismack Biyombo	6 – WAS	16 – PHI	Biyombo is a tough nut to crack.  He’s a game-changer defensively but an absolute seeping wound on the offensive end.  His free throw shooting is dismal enough to inspire the easy-to-call sequel “Hack-a-Bismack”.  So he may go pretty high (though 6 is a bit of a stretch), he may fall.  Detroit is a logical place with the comparisons to Big Ben, but I imagine he could keep dropping all the way to Philly, who has basically nothing in the way of interior defense (and may, may be trading their best perimeter defender in Iggy for Monta Ellis).  Biyombo is crazy athletic and just can’t be passed up by a team that needs defense at #16, however red his flags may be.
Chris Singleton	6 – WAS	18 – WAS	The Wizards are said to have given Singleton a look at #6.  I’m not sure he goes that high, but there’s no doubt his brand of defense and length would be welcome on at least half the teams between #6 and #18, when Washington picks again.  Singleton can’t fall past there.  I could just green-light the whole paragraph.  Bam.
Jimmer Fredette	7 – SAC	15 – IND	The Kings are said (by some) to be pretty high on Jimmer, and he has a skill that will work out well with Tyreke’s to-the-basket game – a killer deep shot.  Pick your poison – you either space out the floor and give ‘Reke a lane or let Jimmer rain three-balls on you.  I do think that Sacramento is a bit worried about his athleticism and defense and is more inclined to take Leonard if available, but if not I think Jimmer is almost a safe bet in the “reach” position of #7.  Failing that, his next suitor might well be the Jazz at #12 (if they don’t take Knight #3), and failing that or another team trading up to get him, it’s a dogfight between Phoenix at #13 and Indiana at #15.  The Pacers loved him, and he won’t get by them.  The Kings apparently targeted Jimmer, traded down (though the “return” was questionable) and nabbed him at #10.  I called the Kings’ interest despite numerous media rumors otherwise.  (pat, pat)
Markieff Morris	8 – DET	19 – CHA	Call me crazy, but I’m going to put Markieff’s ceiling above Marcus’s here.  Detroit already has post play with Greg Monroe, so the “better” Morris’s biggest skill is a bit redundant.  Markieff is the better defender and interestingly enough the better outside shooter – he just needs to develop that edge that his brother has.  I think most teams on the way down here will at least give him a sniff, but Washington at #18 is probably a floor for him if Singleton is off the board, and in the unlikely event that Singleton is there, Markieff gets nabbed at #19 by Charlotte, who at least thought about him at #9.  I put Markieff’s ceiling one pick above Marcus.  He went one pick above Marcus.  Cool.
Donatas Motiejunas	8 – DET	21 – POR	Too high?  Maybe, but Donatas is quite a specimen, a 7-foot tall gifted shooter who has yet to learn to play defense.  A guy with that description (OK, he has the defense down now) just led the Dallas Mavericks to a title, so you know that Motiejunas is on people’s minds.  Utah, Phoenix, Houston, New York all seem reasonable, but I just can’t see his slide going past the Trailblazers.  If there’s a team that’s not shy about internationals, it’s Portland.  I don’t think he should have fallen so much, and Houston has a steal, but at least I got the bottom of his range close.
Marcus Morris	9 – CHA	17 – NYK	In all likelihood, Marcus will be drafted before his brother, I just think that Detroit’s situation puts Markieff’s ceiling one step higher.  You can see that I think Marcus’s floor is higher, with no chance that the Knicks let him slip by at #17.  Utah, Houston, and Indiana are probably in the mix as well.
Tobias Harris	9 – CHA	22 – DEN	Harris is a guy that’s a bit tough to rate – he’s pretty raw and a bit out of shape, but there’s a lot of buzz about his potential.  He’s on the small side (but not too small) for an NBA power forward, which is why he isn’t getting consideration any higher, but I think that he and Marcus Morris should be strongly under consideration at #9, with a lot of the same teams looking at them going down the board.  The Knicks would likely take him if Marcus is gone, but I can’t see him slipping past Denver, especially with their frontcourt up in the air right now.
Alec Burks	10 – MIL	20 – MIN?	A lot of scouts are high on Burks.  I haven’t quite figured out why – part of it may be that he’s a SG in a class largely devoid of them – but that’s the way it is.  Even so, I can’t see him going any higher than 10, which is where Milwaukee is said to have their eye on him.  The Jazz may like him at #12 as well.  If he slides, the bottom of the barrel is probably Minnesota (or their trade partner) at #20.  Wesley Johnson or no, Kahn would have a hard time skipping on a guy that people keep comparing to Kobe Bryant for some reason, and even if he did, there would definitely be a trade offer good enough to get the #20 pick (which Minny is dangling) to snatch him up.
Klay Thompson	10 – MIL	24 – OKC	Thompson is another wing guy, and in his case at least he can already shoot the lights out (unlike Burks).  Not as athletic, I guess, but in general a better all-around player right now.  The reason he might fall is that rumors are still going around that his pot bust at the end of his college season wasn’t his last encounter with the wacky weed.  Still, I don’t think in the worst case scenario he can slip past OKC, where the value of a role-playing shooter is not going to go unnoticed, marijuana or no.  At the same time, Golden State may actually be his best bet – yes, I’m saying he could fall, but I would be more inclined to guess that he’s gone at #11.
Jordan Hamilton	11 – GSW	23 – HOU	Hamilton is probably not in play for the Warriors unless Thompson goes at #10, and even then I’m not sure he’s going to be the #1 guy.  He’ll probably get moderate interest from that point through the mid-20s and I’ll give him a higher floor than Klay – Honestly I think Klay will be off the board first, but, you know, pot.  Houston, of course, will know his game a bit better than other teams because he’s been in Austin the past two years, so it’s a logical floor.  Would that be the Law of Conservation of Longhorn Draft Position?  Thompson went two higher than the “ceiling” and Hamilton went three lower than the “floor”.
Tyler Honeycutt	11 – GSW	25 – BOS	I don’t know if Honeycutt is really in play for the Warriors, but he should be, especially if Klay Thompson and Vesely are off the board.  Honeycutt has been a bit derided for leaving a year too early, and it’s clear that while his defense and long frame are ideal for the 3-spot in the NBA, his shooting an decision-making are still a bit below par.  Boston won’t let him slide past them, because his ability to defend the perimeter will stand out for them.  I wouldn’t even be surprised if they tried to trade up to get him.  I’m still shocked at Honeycutt’s fall.  Judging from the smirk on Geoff Petrie’s face during the presser when asked about Honeycutt, so was he.  Pleasantly.  I’ll gladly take him at #35.  Shoot, I was begging for it, just as I was begging for Whiteside to fall to #33 last year.  Guess what?  Two solid roleplayers in the second round, baby!
Marshon Brooks	13 – PHO	27 – NJN	Brooks is a guy who has skyrocketed up the draft boards late in the season due to his scoring talent.  Then again, he’s a bit of a me-first gunner who doesn’t play great D, and that’s always going to hold you back.  Except maybe in Phoenix.  At the low end, New Jersey can use plenty of help right now and despite Anthony Morrow doesn’t have the entire wing rotation figured out.  I think that if Brooks got down to them, they’d see it as serendipity and snatch him up.  New Jersey did end up with Brooks, though they traded up two picks to get him at #25.
Nikola Vucevic	14 – HOU	26 – DAL	Nobody helped their stock more at the Chicago predraft camp than Nikola Vucevic, who measured out as the tallest player present and showed off a sweet, sweet jumper.  The camp convinced people that he was for real, and with Houston’s frontcourt situation, I can’t imagine they don’t give him a look at #14 and a very, very strong look at #23 if he’s still there.  There could be several strong suitors in between, including New York and Denver, and I can’t see the Mavericks letting him slide by at #26.  Maybe he’s not the next Dirk, but there are aspects of his game that do look a bit similar.  Now here’s a “hit” I would not have called the specific team for: Vucevic to Philly.  He seems too much like Hawes to me.  A not-so-skinny Hawes who rebounds.  Take that back, I would not have called Philly making Hawes a qualifying offer.  Which they did.
Darius Morris	14 – HOU	28 – CHI?	As the highest-rated “true” point guard in the draft, Morris is almost certainly guaranteed a first-round slot.  Houston will likely give him a look at #14 for the simple reason that Kyle Lowry is not the future.  And however you slice it, the #28 pick, which Chicago is willing to deal, is probably about as low as he can go – another one of those points where he’ll have so much value that a trade – or hey, even a backup slot to Derrick Rose – seems inevitable.  Lakers.  Steal.  Ugh.  At least he can’t shoot.  Then again, with Mike Brown installed, the Triangle offense is probably out, so you don’t need a PG that can shoot.  Double ugh.
Kenneth Faried	14 – HOU	29 – SAS	Houston will also probably give a look to the undersized rebounder Kenneth Faried at #14, though I think the slot is a bit high for him.  Houston will have another shot at him at #23, and if he’s what they want, that’s more likely where they’ll get him.  I think Faried will be a very useful bench piece for just about any team in the mid-20s and on, but I have a hard time believing that he falls past San Antonio.  The Spurs just don’t miss on talent with their late picks, and Faried has a skill.  He’s a rebounder, and probably the best one in the draft (perhaps Biyombo will outpace him).  He plays with energy.  Like DeJuan Blair, San Antonio will not be afraid to bring him off of their bench.
Reggie Jackson	17 – NYK	31 – MIA	With Billups only under contract for one more year, the Knicks will want to at least get a look at guys who could be their next point guard.  Reggie Jackson could be that guy, and imagine the cheer in New York if the Knicks drafted REGGIE JACKSON.  It’s like they already know him!  It’s widely speculated that Jackson has a promise at #31 with the Heat, so he won’t fall past there. We figured it out together: the promise was at #24 to OKC.
Davis Bertans	21 – POR	30 -CHI?	The key to figuring where Bertans is going to go in this draft is in noticing that he didn’t pull out of it after all.  That’s got to indicate that he’s got some interest in the first round, and that interest almost certainly comes from teams who are ready and willing to let him develop in Europe for a year or two before even thinking about bringing him over.  Portland, with their history of drafting Euroleague players (and a stash of guys they hold the rights to now) is a decent starting place, with Boston, Dallas, Chicago, and San Antonio all likely suitors.  Since Chicago’s #28 and #30 picks are supposedly on the block, any other team who wanted to pick him up and stash him with the guaranteed first-round contract would find #30 the last, best spot to deal for and take him.  I think he floors out there.
Josh Selby	22 – DEN	32 – CLE	Selby had a disappointing (and injured) freshman year at Kansas after a vaunted high-school career, and it has definitely hurt his stock.  So, instead of going top-ten, he’ll probably have to settle for the end of the first round.  He’ll be sold as a PG, but he’s probably going to be more of a gunning combo in the league.  If he can be Ben Gordon-lite with some defense, he’ll be a big success at the end of the first round.  I don’t see great landing place for Selby before #22 to Denver, where he could fill out a guard rotation that J.R. Smith may be exiting.  At the bottom end, I don’t see how Cleveland, who can use all the talent they can get, even combo guards, being able to let a big name go by.  From a consensus top-5 national recruit to the 49th pick in the draft a year later.  I think the G-forces from the drop have snapped Selby’s neck, and he may never walk again.
Trey Thompkins	22 – DEN	34 – WAS	Well, we’ve started the clear through the sludge of the mid-first rounders and we’re finally on to guys that are definitely late first-rounders at best.  Trey Thompkins has the advantage of being one of the few big guys in the draft, and with Denver in need of some size, I think he’ll at least get a look here.  He’s no dream scenario – in fact he’s probably inferior to the next guy I’m putting on the board, but he’s a more-or-less known commodity.  Early second round should be his floor, and right now I’ll put it at Washington, though if they nab Kanter in a trade he may look less appealing as a need pick.  Eh.  I never liked him, but I thought somebody else would screw it up.
Jeremy Tyler	22 – DEN	37 – LAC	Tyler hurt himself very badly by skipping his senior year of high school to not play in Israel, and then spend last year kind of playing in Japan.  Still, he’s got a great body, great athleticism, seems to be a fantastic interview, and most importantly was universally seen as a top-5 pick in this draft until he skipped out on school.  Denver probably likes him better than Thompkins, but he’s a bit of a risk and will need some extra coaching attention.  Still, I can’t see him slipping much further than the Clippers, and Cleveland might do very well to take a chance on him at #32.  Only missed it by two.  Two.  No more than two.
Justin Harper	23 – HOU	33 – DET	Harper isn’t super-flashy, but he’s a solid 6’9″ PF who can face up all the way out to the college three line.  This makes him an asset off of the bench, and with their frontcourt situation, the Rockets may have to consider him at #23 if the board doesn’t go their way.  He does seem to me to be another one of the types that would work well in San Antonio, and Chicago could pick him up as well.  I don’t figure on him lasting past Detroit at #33, where he’d have a chance to crack the rotation (playing next to Monroe’s post game at times) by the end of the season.
Iman Shumpert	23 – HOU	36 – NJN	I’m not a big fan of Shumpert, but apparently his size and jumping ability have made a bunch of normally staid NBA teams go gaga over him.  The problem is that he’s not a very good basketball player.  He’s sold as a big point guard, but he can’t run a team, and on top of that he can’t shoot.  He’s a pretty good defender, but that’s not how he’s being sold right now.  I’m not buying, but my guess is that somebody will.  Houston at #24 may be the top of his range, and given that he’s now perceived as a legitimate first-round pick, he’ll likely fall no further than New Jersey at #36.  I do believe that the New York Knicks were placed on this Earth solely to entertain me with their foolishness.  I laughed.  It wasn’t as great as last year when the draft cameras caught a Knicks fans mouthing “I don’t even know who that is!” after the Landry Fields pick, but then again, the Landry Fields pick turned out OK.
Kyle Singler	24 – OKC	34 – WAS	Singler stayed in school an extra year, and probably dropped his draft stock 10 slots in a draft thought to be weaker.  Oklahoma City should be looking for fundamentally solid pieces that they can fit into their already playoff-bound squad, and Singler certainly fits the bill.  Boston, Dallas, and Chicago would be logical destinations as well, and the wing-weak Wizards probably represent the bottom of Singler’s range at #34.
Travis Leslie	25 – BOS	33 – DET	Leslie was kind of a big deal when he put his name into the draft, even though most people looked at him as a late first-round pick.  Well, not much has changed except for the fact that you haven’t heard much about Leslie in the last few weeks.  That doesn’t mean he’s not getting picked.  His athletic potential is enough to bring him off the bench anywhere, including Boston at #25 and Detroit at #33.  In the middle, I love Leslie-to-Chicago as well, and he’s the kind of guy that might find a team buying a pick to get him.  Athleticism ain’t what it used to be.  Ask Terrico White.  (I had to look his name up, and he was drafted just last year.  See?  See, Athleticism?)
Malcolm Lee	25 – BOS	35 – SAC	There’s not a lot of love for Malcolm Lee in this draft, but I think that Lee may end up pulling off the same trick that most of Ben Howland’s recent departures have done – outperforming their draft slot.  Boston is savvy enough to know that his skills will work in the NBA as a defensive role player who has respectable handles and isn’t hopeless on the offensive end.  At the same time, even though they’ve been mum about it, I don’t imagine that the Sacramento Kings and Geoff Petrie could let Lee go by.  A disappointing slide for Lee.  I guess he really should have stayed in school, but on the other hand, he’ll probably turn out OK.  One of the few second rounders I’m confident will actually stick in the league for a while.  It’s the Ben Howland effect, really.
Nikola Mirotic	26 – DAL	41 – LAL	Mirotic is another tough case.  He’s potentially one of the more talented Euros in the draft, but he’s years away from coming over to the NBA due to signing a new contract overseas with difficult buyout conditions.  Most seemed to think that he would pull his name out of the draft so that he might get a better slot when he’s closer to coming over, but oddly enough he did not.  Dallas is probably the first team that can afford to blow a pick on him and let him simmer across the pond.  At the other end, the Lakers would be wise to grab him if he’s available, because they’re going to be hurting to add cheap talent once the NBA’s new hard cap (anticipated) kicks in.  Nabbed by the Bulls a few picks early.  I’m actually not that shocked.
JaJuan Johnson	27 – NJN	38 – HOU	At this point, it’s getting hard, but I’ll try to get in a final five, even if it’s a lot shorter on explanation.  Johnson has experience and good size, and as such will likely make his way to a team trying to get some help in the frontcourt.
Chandler Parsons	27 – NJN	44 – GSW	Parsons isn’t exciting, but he’s tall and can kind of shoot.  Not a bad gamble – do the Warriors see a (much) cheaper, non-lottery version Mike Dunleavy, Jr.?
Norris Cole	28 – CHI	34 – WAS	Cole just pulled out of a workout in Sacramento due to injury – does this mean a promise before the #35?  I wouldn’t be surprised, and that’s why I’m giving the small range.  No word on a promise, but here the small range panned out.
Nolan Smith	28 – CHI	40 – MIL	Smith had a solid but unspectacular career in college, and should be a solid but unspectacular backup.  Neither Rose nor Jennings could ever see him as a threat to their starting position, but he might contribute behind a great point.  Portland fires two GMs in less than a calendar year and all of a sudden they suck at drafting.  Who knew?
Keith Benson	29 – SAS	45 – NOH	Who’s the last guy that might make the first round?  I don’t know, but I’ll say Benson.  The Spurs might just think they can beat some defense into him.  I think I’m really the only person in America who believes in Keith Benson.  I don’t even have a reason to.  I’m just waiting for the cold, cruel world to set me straight, and Benson falling three pick below my 17 pick window is an auspicious start.

 

NBA 2011 Summer Preview – Pacific Division

In time for the lottery, here’s the final installation of the 2011 NBA Summer Previews!  But first, dinner!  Don’t worry, that dinner bit will pretty much be invisible to you.

Golden State Warriors

Players under contract (years, t = team option, p = player option, u = unguaranteed):

Posts(3+1p+1u): David Lee (5), Andris Biedrins (2+1p), Ekpe Udoh (1+2t), Louis Amundson (1p), Jeff Adrien (1u)
Wings(1+1p): Dorell Wright (2), Charlie Bell (1p)
Guards(2+1u): Monta Ellis (2+1p), Stephen Curry (1+1t), Jeremy Lin (1u)

Total players under contract next year: 6 + 2 Player Option + 2 Unguaranteed + 1 RFA

Major Free Agents: Reggie Williams (RFA), Al Thornton, Vladimir Radmanovic, Acie Law

2011 Cap Situation: About $50M, only the MLE to work with

2011 Draft Picks: First round: #11; Second round: #44

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tephen Curry and Monta Ellis are beginning to look like a legit backcourt pair, at least scoring-wise, which is something I don’t think I was ready to believe this time last year.  The Warriors’ sign-and-trade for David Lee and smart acquisition of Dorell Wright have started the turnaround in Oakland, and they’re probably a dump-Biedrins-for-a-good-center move from making the playoffs.  Unfortunately, with 3/$27M left on his deal, Andris may not be the easiest guy to shop around.  Charlie Bell will definitely exercise his $4M player option, and I kinda figure Louis Amundson will be happy to guarantee himself another $2.4M, because who else will pay him that to be a backup?  That leaves the Warriors with 8 players, and a primary need at the wing with a bit of a desire to get better at center.  They can keep Lin around on the cheap as a third guard if they want, and given his popularity in the Bay Area, it would make sense simply as a PR move.  Looking at their likely draft position, the Warriors are probably in better position to upgrade the SF than the C in the draft, so I assume they’ll look for a big man with their MLE.  MLE-wise, that probably means somebody like Nazr Mohammed to come off the bench – not the sexiest move, but it would at least give them some muscle down low.  In the draft, I can pretty much guarantee that Kawhi Leonard would not fall past them, though it’s beginning to look like he won’t get that far.  The more I think about it, the better a fit that Alec Burks seems, though his eventual role might only be as a sixth man to spell Ellis and Curry.  Still, I can see the Warriors getting clever hare and trying to fit a fleet Tyler Honeycutt into an already wide-open offense.

Los Angeles Clippers

Players under contract (years, t = team option, p = player option, u = unguaranteed):

Posts(2+1p): Blake Griffin (1+1t), Chris Kaman (1), Brian Cook (1p)
Wings(3): Eric Gordon (1), Ryan Gomes (2), Al-Farouq Aminu (1+2t)
Guards(2+1p+1u): Mo Williams (2p), Randy Foye (1), Eric Bledsoe (1+2t), Willie Warren (2u)

Total players under contract next year: 7 + 1 Unguaranteed + 2 Player Option + 1 RFA

Major Free Agents: DeAndre Jordan (RFA), Jamario Moon, Craig Smith, Ike Diogu

2011 Cap Situation: About $45M, about $8M in cap room

2011 Draft Picks: Second round: #37, #47

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sually the Rookie of the Year comes from the current draft class, but it appears that the 2009 draft had two (Evans and Griffin) and the 2010 class will have none.  The one thing we can be certain about is that the Clippers are going to be building around Blake Griffin, and to some extent, Eric Gordon.  They managed to get out from under the Baron Davis contract for the considerably lighter Mo Williams contract (though it cost them their first round pick this year), which gives them some money to play with, and they’d be smart to address the SF with that money with the obvious caveat that they have make a qualifying offer to DeAndre Jordan.  After that QO, they’ll have maybe $7M to throw around before somebody signs Jordan to an offer sheet and they have to match it (which they will).  I think Tayshaun Prince would be a good way to spend that money, as he’ll bring some perimeter defense to a team that doesn’t really have any.  I think they’ll keep their eyes open for options to eventually replace Mo Williams because Eric Bledsoe is probably not the answer, but for now I think they’ll be sticking with their guards.  [Edit: I came up with an interesting Harris/Aminu trade in the Jazz preview - worth a thought as a good way to upgrade the PG.] The draft isn’t likely to help much this year, but I can see them taking a shot at Jordan Williams with one of their late picks, as it’s always nice to bring some rebounding off the bench when Griffin has to sit.

Edit: Q: How much money did the Baron Davis/Mo Williams trade save the Clippers?  Show your work.

A: Williams is owed $17M over the next two years with a prorated cost of $2.79M (estimating 30% after trade occurred), Jamario Moon cost a prorated $0.9M.  Davis is owed $28.65M over the next two years, and cost a prorated $4.2M this year and the unprotected draft pick that the Clippers gave up turned into the #1 pick, whose salary will be $24.8M over the first four years of his contract.  So, 28.65+4.2+24.8-17-2.79-0.9 = $36.96 million.

It’s downright amazing how much money the Clippers saved.  Extra credit problem: Was it worth it?

Los Angeles Lakers

Players under contract (years, t = team option, p = player option, u = unguaranteed):

Posts(3+1u): Pau Gasol (3), Lamar Odom (2), Andrew Bynum (1+1t), Derrick Caracter (1u)
Wings(3+2p+1u): Kobe Bryant (3), Ron Artest (2+1p), Luke Walton (2), Shannon Brown (1p), Matt Barnes (1p), Devin Ebanks (1u)
Guards(2): Steve Blake (3), Derek Fisher (1+1p)

Total players under contract next year: 8 + 2 Player Option + 2 Unguaranteed + 1 RFA

Major Free Agents: Trey Johnson (RFA), Theo Ratliff, Joe Smith

2011 Cap Situation: About $93M.  Umm.  That’s a lot.

2011 Draft Picks: Second round: #41, #46, #56, #58

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rushed in the second round of the playoffs by the ancient Mavericks, the Lakers aren’t terribly likely to change much next year due to their immense cap space issues.  Plus, Kobe said they’re not going to panic and like trade Pau Gasol or anything, so that’s good enough for me.  Obviously, you’re going to hear about the Lakers imminently landing Dwight Howard or Chris Paul, but those moves are unlikely even with Gasol on the table.  (And for Bynum?  Yuck.)  So I’m saying that another star is not in the cards.  What you are likely to see is both Brown and Barnes opting out of their contracts because both can probably do better.  The Lakers would probably prefer Brown, but the question is how much a competitor is willing to pay him.  I think it will take most of their MLE to get Brown back, so the Lakers will likely say so long to Barnes (assuming he does opt out).  They probably bring Caracter back, they likely bring Ebanks back, and then they probably sign a post to a vet minimum contract.  Why don’t we pull a name out of a hat and say Darius Songaila?  Still, it doesn’t really matter.  They’ll be basically the same team, but one year older and one year more pissed off.  We’ll see which of the two factors weighs more.

Edit: You know what?  The Lakers have FOUR second round draft picks.  I think that makes Derrick Caracter (who has always had a bit of a character problem and made it official with some late-night drunken waitress shoving at an IHOP in late April) a bit expendable.  They’ll find a way to fill out their roster with minimum players without him.

Phoenix Suns

Players under contract (years, t = team option, p = player option, u = unguaranteed):

Posts(3+2u): Marcin Gortat (2+1p), Robin Lopez (1), Channing Frye (3+1p), Gani Lawal (2u), Garrett Siler (1u)
Wings(3+1u+1p): Josh Childress (3+1p), Jared Dudley (4+1p), Hakim Warrick (2+1t), Vince Carter (1u), Mickael Pietrus (1p)
Guards(1): Steve Nash (1)

Total players under contract next year: 7 + 1 Player Option + 3 Unguaranteed + 2 RFA

Major Free Agents: Aaron Brooks (RFA), Zabian Dowdell (RFA), Grant Hill

2011 Cap Situation: About $52M, because they’re not bringing back Carter at $18M

2011 Draft Picks: First round: #13

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eep Vince Carter at $18M, or send him home for $4M?  What to do, what to do?  Oh, uh, how about send him home?  That’ll leave them with nothing more than an MLE, which is what they would have had otherwise, but that $14M ain’t chump change even if they can’t exactly spend it.  But if ever it was time to blow it up in Phoenix, that time would be now.  Nash has one year left on his contract, they’re stuck paying Childress, Warrick, and Frye a ton of money…outside of Gortat and I guess Dudley, there’s not really a lot to like here.  If they could pull off a Nash-Gay trade, that would at least be something, and they might even be able to get out from under the Childress contract to do it.  But I’d imagine they won’t be terribly active in free agency, because there aren’t any “future” pieces out there available for their MLE.  They will need to bring a point guard in, and that may as well be Aaron Brooks, even if his QO is $3M.  The one thing they do have going for them is a late lotto pick, one that should probably be spent on a post unless…unless they go for Jimmer Fredette.  And wouldn’t that make perfect sense, to have Fredette come in as Nash’s eventual replacement?  I’m warming to that idea already.  OK, put it down in pen.  Fredette to the Suns, and start saving money for when it can be used a few years down the road.

Sacramento Kings

Players under contract (years, t = team option, p = player option, u = unguaranteed):

Posts(3): DeMarcus Cousins (1+2t), Jason Thompson (1), Hassan Whiteside (1+2u)
Wings(3+1u): Francisco Garcia (2+1t), Omri Casspi (1+1t), Donté Greene (1), Jermaine Taylor (1u)
Guards(2+1t): Tyreke Evans (1+1t), Beno Udrih (1+1p), Pooh Jeter (1t)

Total players under contract next year: 8 + 1 Team Option + 1 Unguaranteed + 2 RFA

Major Free Agents: Marcus Thornton (RFA), Darnell Jackson (RFA), Samuel Dalembert, Marquis Daniels

2011 Cap Situation: About $29M, the most cap space in the league

2011 Draft Picks: First round: #7; Second round: #35

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‘m a Kings fan, which means that as little as I might know about any of the other teams, I know that much about the team that has (at least) one more year in Sacramento.  The Kings are quite happy with their last two lotto picks (Evans and Cousins) and are determined to build around them sooner rather than later.  The general feeling is that with a decent contribution from a lotto pick this year, they’ll be able to ride the momentum they had late in the season into a possible playoff push next year.  Of course, two big parts of that momentum were Sam Dalembert and the deadline acquisition of Marcus Thornton.  Both are free agents this offseason, Dalembert unrestricted and Thornton restricted.  The Kings will do all they can to bring both of them back, and they definitely have the money to do it.  Thornton is the easy part, as he’s unrestricted, but Dalembert is a bit trickier.  Luckily, he has expressed interest in staying in Sacramento, so they can hope to retain him in the $10M dollar range (a bit of a discount from last year), depending on what the new CBA does to the salary structure of the league.

Once Thornton and Dalembert are on board, the Kings will look to upgrade the SF and PG positions.  It’s not that Evans “isn’t a PG”, it’s more that a rotation that has more ballhandling in the backcourt (not Thornton’s forte) is always a Petrie favorite.  The way things look now, the free agent market is not terribly flush with great points, and the draft isn’t terribly flush with great SFs, so the most likely route is for the Kings to look to sign a SF in the Prince/Kirilenko/Battier mold and to grab a point in the draft, which probably means Brandon Knight or Kemba Walker (or, less likely, to trade for a Granger/Iguodala/Gay type SF, which might well cost them their first round pick) .  Of course, the lotto could throw a wrench in that plan by putting the Kings in a position to draft Derrick Williams, or it’s possible that Petrie finds Kawhi Leonard to be more desirable than Knight/Walker.  if so, the PG position will probably need to wait to be addressed, though Petrie has always had eyes for Aaron Brooks even if his acquisition is a Kings fan’s worst nightmare.

With their second round pick, the Kings could well take a long look at DeAndre Liggins, who has the size, the length, the athleticism, and the defense to potentially become the next Doug Christie for this franchise.  Last year my mantra was that I wanted Chris Webber and Doug Christie in the draft, and while Cousins has a lot of Webber characteristics, Hassan Whiteside (as much hope as I have for his potential) didn’t really fit the other bill.  Of course, there wasn’t a Christie available in the draft, either, whereas this year…it could happen.

As for the “little guys”, Jermaine Taylor and Pooh Jeter and probably competing for a single spot, and the winner is likely to be determined by the draft – if a PG is selected, Taylor probably stays.  If not, Jeter has the upper hand.  Darnell Jackson, on the other hand, has had nothing but praise from the coaching staff and played good minutes when he was called off the bench.  I’d say that the Kings would probably prefer to have him back as a 4th/5th big man rather than taking a stab in the dark on somebody else on a similar-valued contract.  Jackson will work hard and not complain coming off the bench, so I’d count on him being back next year on the QO.

Edit: And for the third year in the row the Kings drop at least two slots in the lottery.  In fact, since the 1991 draft when the Kings held on to the third spot by getting their ping-pong balls picked, the Kings have been involved in eleven lotteries and never again had their numbers picked.  That’s right – the Kings have participated in the weighted lottery system 13 times and NEVER moved up.  And they’ve only held serve in the top-three once.  Gotta love luck.  So for the third year in a row the Kings are going to have to rely on the teams ahead of them letting the best talent fall.  And how long can that reasonably hold up?  My early guess is that at least one of the Walker/Knight/Leonard target group will be available at #7, two if Valanciunas goes in the top 6, and possibly all three if Biyombo goes up there too.  (OK, let’s not ask for too much.)  But I think Irving, Williams, Kanter, and Vesely will go ahead of #7, so at least one of the aforementioned trio drops to the Kings.  Right now I’d say Walker is most likely and Knight is least likely.

If the Kings do take Leonard (which seems likely if he’s available) it kind of puts a damper on the get-a-veteran-SF-in-free-agency thoughts.  Maybe they still do (Battier maybe the #1 target at that point) but that would pretty much close the book on Omri Casspi (and maybe Donté Greene as well).  Thinking about it, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Casspi dangled for Devin Harris in a similar deal that I proposed for Aminu if the Jazz take Knight.