Thursday, June 24, 2010

'Tis the Season

With the NBA Draft impending and free agency coming up, I was thinking of some scenarios I'd like to see play out, either for entertainment or practical purposes. So here we go.

I'd like to see the Indiana Pacers draft Butler's Gordon Hayward with the #10 overall pick tonight. GM Larry Bird has a reputation (deserved or not) of favoring/picking up white players, an idea only solidified when he picked UNC's Tyler Hansbrough last year. Hayward is easily the best white player in this draft and both wouldn't be a reach and could realistically fall to the 10 spot. The Pacers are also his hometown team, so it would be a feel-good story all around. Maybe the most realistic scenario I'm going to list so I'm crossing my fingers.

I'd like to see the Los Angeles Clippers trade the #8 overall pick to Chicago for Luol Deng and the #17 overall pick. This trade was floating around last night but was pretty much killed today. It's unfortunate, because the Clips' most glaring hole is at the SF position and Davis-Gordon-Deng-Griffin-Kaman would be a solid starting five for the other LA team. The #17 pick would be good enough to add a rotation player (despite the Clippers' horrific draft history), but for now, it looks like they'll try to fill their need by picking up a swingman at #8 (likely Wake Forest's Al-Farouq Aminu but also possibly Hayward or Nevada's Luke Babbitt).

I'd like to see the Clippers sign LeBron James. This would be by far the funniest possible outcome (on par with the Minnesota Timberwolves drafting more point guards) and actually would make a lot of sense on all sides if not for the ownership of Donald Sterling.

I'd like to see the Lakers shore up their bench. Aside from sixth man Lamar Odom, the champions had very little depth. I'm pretty excited about the rumors floating around, namely that they're looking to add another guard (possibly Raja Bell or Steve Blake) and a big man (Drew Gooden and Brad Miller among others) in free agency. That would definitely be an improvement over the two-headed monster (for opponents at Staples, for the Lakers on the road) of Shannon Brown and Jordan Farmer as well as the bigs Josh Powell and DJ Mbenga.

I'd like to see the Lakers land the dream combination of Byron Scott and Chris Paul. This might be more unrealistic than James going to the Clippers, but honestly it's too much of a game-changer for me not to entertain it. An idea was kicked around with Phil Jackson retiring, Scott taking over as head coach and Paul and Emeka Okafor coming over in a trade for Odom, Andrew Bynum, and Sasha Vujacic. Actually nearly any scenario that gets Vujacic off the Lakers would be nice.

Should be an interesting night and few more days leading up to the fabled Summer of '10.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Team USA and You-Know-Who

I've never shied away from making comparisons between people's appearances. Previously in this blog, I've already touched on a similarity I saw between a sports figure (loosely used in that example) and a character from a fantasy series for tweens.

Anyway I was watching the USA vs Algeria soccer match today and boy was it entertaining. The Yanks had plenty of scoring chances before Landon "Captain America" Donovan finally scored in stoppage time to send the US to the next round. Among those chances were also some tense moments as well as questionable calls. We got to see a lot of US coach Bob Bradley on the sidelines and he got quite animated at times. Seeing him staring and yelling made me thinking that he looked like someone but I just couldn't put a finger on it.

However, now that I'm seeing a replay of the game, I think I finally realized who he looks like. Take a look.

Eh? Anybody?

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Trendy Trending Topics

One of the most interesting things on Twitter is its Trending Topics. It's basically a feature that gives users an idea of what topics are popular among recent tweets. For example "world cup" and "E3" have been popular lately with the big soccer tournament and gaming convention taking center stage the past couple days.

Of course, with Game 6 of the NBA Finals tonight, many of them were basketball related. Examples include "Kobe Bryant," "Rasheed Wallace," "Lamar Odom," and..."Candace Parker." Pretty odd. I wondered what the tweeples would have to say about her.

Aaronstampler @thehawk38 Believe it or not, but Shelden Williams (#13) is married to Candace Parker, the hottest WNBA player

KrysLynn23 Shelden Williams: Candace Parker's unathletic husband....haha, wow! Poor guy!

AlwaysLegitGirl I'm thinking the Celtics should trade Shelden Williams for Candace Parker

Byrdman_jr Sheldon Williams just needs to be a stay at home dad. Candace Parker clearly has all the game in that family

freddiebtv I think candace parker lost a bet and had to marry sheldon williams cuz she lost

DjTj513 And the #Celtics Should REALLY TRADE sheldon williams for CANDACE PARKER! @least she can dunk unlike her dude #cosign #pathetic!

Poor Sheldon.

Shannon Brown: Huge Vertical and...not much

Shannon Brown's been with the Lakers for a couple years now, and there's no doubt he's a super athletic bench player who can electrify any crowd with his high flying dunks.

I made a random comment on Facebook saying I thought he was more of a waste than Sasha Vujacic. It's been something I've been observing throughout the playoffs, but I was wondering if I was right. I'm not talking about his fit in the triangle or how he doesn't really fit as a point guard, but just looking at his stats, I was looking for some vindication.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/LAL/2010.html

Taking a look at his playoff stats is...interesting. I don't pretend to be a statistician or even good at statistics, but still I think a basic look can tell us something.

Of the 13 players on the roster, eight have played over 200 minutes. Of those players, Brown has the lowest PER (a decent enough measure of per-minute production) and effective field goal percentage (which adjusts for 3-pointers being worth more than a 2-pointer). His total rebound rate and true shooting percentage are both second worst (in front of Derek Fisher and Ron Artest, respectively). He also has the lowest offensive rating of all 13 players except Luke Walton. There's also WS/48, which is an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player per 48 minutes. The league average is 0.1000. Once again, Shannon is behind everyone except Luke Walton with a WS/48 of 0.031. To put that in perspective, he is far behind everyone on the Boston Celtics, including Marquis Daniels (0.066), Tony Allen (0.098), and Glen "Big Baby" Davis (0.156).

Simply put, I feel vindicated. I really think that, in this case, the numbers do confirm what the naked eye observes. Which is a slightly less harsh version of my assertion that Shannon Brown is a waste of flesh, bone and fast twitch muscle.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The Rapid Descent

Basketball fans, notably fans of the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics, know that in Game 2 of the current NBA Finals, Ray Allen broke a record for most three pointers made in a Finals game. His line was ridiculous as he carried his team early on, finishing with 32 points on 11-20 shooting (8-11 from downtown). The previous record was seven, held by himself, Kenny Smith and Scottie Pippen. To break away from that group is an impressive accomplishment.

However, Allen followed it up by taking a massive dump on the court in Game 3 shooting 0-13 (0-8 from downtown) and finishing with a paltry two points in 42 minutes of play. He went from a complete stud to a total non-factor in one game. How does something like that happen? Who knows, but our small sample size suggests that it might not really be that uncommon.

Ray Allen (Game 2, 2010 Finals): 43 min, 32 pts, 11-20 FGM-A, 8-11 3PM-A, 2-2 FTM-A, 3 reb, 2 ast,
Ray Allen (Game 3, 2010 Finals): 42 min, 2 pts, 0-13 FGM-A, 0-8 3PM-A, 2-2 FTM-A, 4 reb, 2 ast

Kenny Smith (Game 1, 1995 Finals): 42 min, 23 pts, 8-13 FGM-A, 7-11 3PM-A, 0-0 FTM-A, 3 reb, 9 ast
Kenny Smith (Game 2, 1995 Finals): 19 min, 0 pts, 0-2 FGM-A, 0-1 3PM-A, 0-0 FTM-A, 0 reb, 1 ast

Scottie Pippen (Game 3, 1997 Finals): 40 min, 27 pts, 7-13 FGM-A, 7-11 3PM-A, 6-9 FTM-A, 4 reb, 4 ast
Scottie Pippen (Game 4, 1997 Finals): 47 min, 16 pts, 7-16 FGM-A, 1-4 3PM-A, 1-2 FTM-A, 12 reb, 4 ast

(Note: Ray Allen's previous seven three pointer game was in the series clincher in 2008 so there was no game following it)

Interestingly, all three players cooled off significantly from three point range. That may have been the case of tighter defense, although not Allen's as he had sufficient room to shoot last night and just missed. In fact, Pippen was the only one to hit a single three in the game following his record setting night as well as the only one to put up a respectable stat line overall.

Of course, it's Scottie Pippen, one of the greatest ever to play the game so that's to be expected. Honestly I don't really know if there's anything to this data, maybe they have too much belief in the hot hand and are too consumed with looking for three point shots? Who knows. But after the horrific game Ray Allen played tonight, I wanted to see how the other guys followed up their rain-making nights. More pressing is how he'll follow up this stink bomb in a pivotal Game 4.

Stats courtesty of Basketball-Reference.com