The playoff race is all the way heated up and ready for our frying pans to be filled with trivial thoughts and genius suggestions about How to Fix the Playoffs! – egad. The NCAA Championship will be decided tonight and no doubt, one half of Kentucky’s dynastic/dynamic/dy-Nasty duo of Harrison twins will once again reign three-point fire from deep behind the kiddie pool depth of the NCAA’s three point line and save the day for the legionnaires from Lexington … unless Shabazz Napier and his mysterious NBA prospects have something to do or say about it. Viva la amateurism! … particularly when they’re generating gaggles of money for head coaches and University ADs, Presidents, and stretch Cadillacs full of other greedy capitalists making money of the one-percenter talent of college football and basketball.
How could I start anywhere other than the Pacers of Indiana? As Wu-Tang likes to remind us, “The saga continues.” The latest debacle took place in the Indianapolis arena formerly known as Conseco Fieldhouse. It was a night when the playoff-indifferent Atlanta Hawks came to town to face this floundering Pacers group that had won two of their previous eight games. And? And? Frank Vogel’s team scored 23 points in the first half. Twenty-three! This wasn’t some odd homage to the great Michael Jordan, it was offensive putridity as the team made a whopping seven of 35 shots and overpaid center and Lord of the Rule of Verticality, aka Roy Hibbert, was benched for fatigue: “He looks to me to be worn down” said Coach Frank Vogel. With four games remaining, the Pacers still have ample opportunity to rediscover whatever was lost over these past six weeks: at Milwaukee, at Miami, OKC at home, before wrapping the season in Orlando. The Pacers need not worry though, as Tony Parker reassures us all: “It’s hard to explain. Everybody goes through this. I’m not worried about them. They’ll still make it to the Eastern Conference finals and they’ll still play Miami.”
Tony Parker, soothsayer
Andris Biedrins was waived by the Utah Jazz on Saturday which marks an ending of sorts for the big man from Latvia. In case you don’t recall, Biedrins averaged close a double double for Golden State as a 21-year-old way back in 2008. The Warriors rewarded their future cornerstone with five-year/$54-million deal. Andris and his well-styled hair paid immediate dividends the following season as he went for 12pts and 11rebs/game, but then it all fell apart like a paper bag stuffed with heavy groceries stuck in a torrential downpour and you’re having to walk home with this soaking wet bag that’s barely holding together – yes, Golden State was the poor bastard carrying that bag, but no one ever considers the feeling of the bag, in this case represented by Biedrins. What happened? Well, he spent much of 2009-10 dealing with injuries and never regained whatever propelled him to double double heights. Biedrins and his huge contract are now a thing of the past. It shuts the door on one of the sadder, stranger descents in recent NBA history – possibly stranger than this year’s Pacers team. What happened to you, Andris?
To play off that sadly catchy “hide your kids, hide your wife” meme, when prospective NBA owner Chris Hansen starts talking, it’s best for NBA cities to hide your franchise (and maybe your wife too). If you recall, Hansen is the Seattle native who offered $625-million for the Kings last year and clearly operates off of Ted DiBiase’s motto: “Everybody’s got a price.” Unlike DiBiase, who was merely a character drawn up for pro wrestling, Hansen is a real person with real money. He made it into the Seattle Times last week for donating some of the space earmarked for a new Seattle arena to a nonprofit youth program. However, Hansen also used the opportunity remind us of the inevitability of Seattle getting an NBA franchise:
Does anybody really think that Seattle is not going to have an NBA team at some point in the future?” Hansen said. “I think everybody can get really impatient when things don’t happen on their own agenda. It’s inevitable Seattle will have a basketball team. It’s just a question of when.
Just a guy casually leaning on a light pole
Larry Sanders joined Arnett Moultrie in being suspended for a third positive test for reefer usage. There is a lot to discuss with Sanders’s statement, the league’s and NBPA’s stance on marijuana, and how their joint policies are both independent of and dependent on public perception, progressive policies, and the needs of league sponsors. This is not the forum for that discussion so I’ll leave it to Sanders who chose to defend his usage:
I know what it is if I’m going to use it. I study it and I know the benefits it has. In a lot of ways we’ve been deprived. You can’t really label it with so many other drugs that people can be addicted to and have so many negative effects on your body and your family and your relationships and impairment. This is not the same thing.
From the random ass Did You Know file cabinet (which is conveniently stored in my head and accessed at random intervals), Al Horford has appeared in 114 of a possible 230 games since the 2011-12 season – that’s less than 50%! The source of these missed games has been tears to both the left and right pectoral muscles. Are these freak injuries or is there a little mutation in Horford’s DNA that leaves him prone to pectoral muscle tears? And does Danny Ferry plan to do anything about this? Horford’s under contract for $12-mill/year for the next two seasons and given Ferry’s present dismissive attitude about the playoffs, the Hawks are likely better off choosing to ride or die with the big man a couple more seasons.
How about that JR Smith? Over his last seven games, Smith has taken a whopping 12.7 3PAs/game and is hitting at a 46% clip. Bananas you say? Well, to put it in perspective, the league record for 3PA/game is 8.7 by the ever-chucking Baron Davis back in 2004. Of course, of course, of course Smith’s little seven-game flourish is less than a tenth of season, but damn, when we talk about prolific, JR’s unconscious ability to gun from deep is in a special class of its own. Yesterday against the Heat he set the league record for 3PAs in a single game with 22 and before you roll your eyes and decry Smith’s outlandish chucking, know that it was the only way the overmatched Knicks were able to keep the game somewhat competitive. Ahhh, we can all roll our collective eyes and sigh and shake our heads at Smith’s selfish antics, but let’s at least all agree that JR Smith is that unknown variable equally capable of lifting us out of our Sunday slumbers and making us doubt our own hopes in this great game called basketball. JR Smith, comedian indeed.
Choices, by JR Smith
Finally, the Spurs lost to Oklahoma City, thus ending their streak at 19 games. I’ve heard Popovich promptly celebrated with Manu over a couple bottles of Argentina’s finest Malbec.
The Bulls have won five games in a row and Joakim Noah’s dream season continues. His 12ppg, 11rpg, 5apg, 1spg and 1bpg put him in the rare company of Kevin Garnett, Charles Barkley and Kareem. What a polarizing group!
If a little blood and crushed hopes isn’t your thing, then stay away from the Western Conference playoff race where (realistically) three teams are battling for two spots: Dallas, Phoenix, and Memphis. The Mavs has to play both Phoenix and Memphis and the Suns/Grizzlies will also get a chance to face off next Monday. Supposedly TNT is where drama happens so let’s hope some of these games get national TV attention … after all, I think we can agree that there have been more than enough Laker games on ABC, ESPN and TNT.
Week #3 and the NCAA Tournament is still going wacky and wild. We know for sure now that Joel Embiid, Andrew Wiggins, Tyler Ennis, Zach LaVine (UCLA), and Kyle Anderson (UCLA) will all be joining the greatest pro basketball league in the known universe and we know they need to bulk up like most 18 and 19-year-olds who wish to duke it out with grown ass men like Blake Griffin and LeBron James. But the pros are still pro-ing it up, so enough with the talkin and let’s get on with the fightin!
On Saturday night, the league worst 26-game Philadelphia losing streak went by the wayside as they handed the hapless Pistons a Philadelphia thrashing. Elton John must’ve been proud because as we all know so well, Saturday night’s alright for fighting and something something Philadelphia freedom. Well, the Sixers have unshackled themselves of something though I’m uncertain of what or how long. As coach Brett Brown reminded us after the game: “Our judgment day isn’t today, and it won’t be tomorrow. We are on a three-to-five year plan.” There was something of a comical spectacle to this losing streak, but now that it’s over, it’s just a pathetic blight.
Despite Philadelphia’s handcrafted sculpture constructed of the finest feces and the shiniest garbage, the Bucks of Milwaukee still languish behind in the standings winning just 19% of their games. The Bucks are a franchise lost at sea on planet made of water with GM John Hammond peering through the wrong end of a telescope desperately hoping for sight of land. Zaza’s cooking in the galley and Larry Sanders is trying to organize a mutiny, but in the end no one really cares so they eat and sail. There’s no message, no bottle and besides, no one but the sharks to read it. Anyways, while that clump of 26 losses caught all of our attentions with its concentration, the Bucks are still the most destitute with no semblance of a future plan. This is what suckitude looks like and the only positive I can take away is the fans voting with their wallets and shunning these terrifically crusty franchises:
Rank out of 30
Py-wins
Win%
Margin Victory
Simple Rating
ORtg
DRtg
Off. eFG%
Def. eFG%
Attendance
Milwaukee rank
29
30
29
29
26
30
26
29
29
Philadelphia rank
30
29
30
30
30
25
29
30
27
Enough with pointing judgmental fingers. The writers and poets have poured enough digital ink in the name of Kevin Durant like he’s an advanced analytics good guy god-guy accepted by most. Royce Young shows us just how great this young scorer is:
KD's last two games: 60 points on 18-24 shooting, 7-10 from 3, 17-17 from the free throw line, 58 minutes.
Does it matter that his opponents were the lowly Jazz and lowlier Kings (or does it matter that perhaps the Jazz are the lowlier?)? If we want to qualify and contextualize it sure, but 60 points in 58 minutes while shooting 75% from the field is admirable regardless of the opposition. So unless you’re a bitter Sonics fan or prone to spiteful hating of anyone better than you, join me in a shared appreciation of Durant. After all, he may be the only thing keeping us all together.
The buddy flick is its own sub-genre, but a sub-genre of the buddy flick is the interracial buddy flick where we’ve got a black guy and a white teaming up to win our affections, going on a rollicking rip-roarious adventure that leaves awkward white guy high-fiving and smooth black guy handshaking which of course encapsulates racial differences. Yes, there’s a lot of stereotypes and generalizations to the interracial buddy flick and because we’re nothing if not the obviousness of our skin colors, I’m clamoring for the evolution of the Goran Dragic/Eric Bledsoe relationship. Based on large sample size and statistical lift above the average, both Dragic and Bledsoe appear in the Suns’ best five-man combination. But it’s likely that’s not enough to sate the appetite because the cultural (Dragic the Slovenian-born 27-year-old and Bledsoe the 24-year-old Birmingham native) and racial dissimilarities are too powerful for a mind like mine that’s been saturated by Hollywood tales of buddies overcoming racial and cultural differences to achieve mutually beneficial goals. I’m talking Crockett & Tubbs (Miami Vice), Sidney Dean and Billy Hoyle (White Men Can’t Jump), and Murtaugh & Riggs (Lethal Weapon). For a further, more serious reading on the topic of the interracial buddy flick, check out Melvin Donaldson’s book Masculinity in the Interracial Buddy Film and a corresponding list that someone has created on Amazon.
A few more blurbs:
Arnett Moultrie (Philly second-year player who’s been unable to crack this miserable rotation) was suspended five games for violating the league’s drug policy. Five games is the penalty for a third positive test for the herbs. Still waiting to see if and how the league updates its drug policies to reflect the progressive decriminalization and legalization in Washington and Colorado.
Chris Kaman’s on a playing time roller coaster in Los Angeles and Mike D’Antoni’s the mad hatter who won’t let Kaman off … no matter how much the giant expresses his nausea at the twisted never ending ride. Kaman played six minutes on Friday followed by a 28 and 17 performance on Sunday which was followed by strange comments from Mustachioed Mike about “It’s tough because Robert Sacre plays.” Ok, sure. I’ll be over here with my PCP trying to make sense of it all.
Don’t look now, but Amare Stoudemire’s scored in double digits in 14 straight games with three double doubles. In that time, the Knicks are 9-5 and in 9th place, just a game behind the free-falling Tom Petty and the Atlanta Hawks. Not to get all weird and headline grabby, but what if we ended up with a Knicks-Pacers first round?
Speaking of the Pacers, their post All-Star break swoon continues as a victory over the Heat was sandwiched on one side by a pair of double digit losses to Memphis and Chicago and on the other side with double digit defeats to the Wizards and Cavs. Their post All-Star splits are real shitty. I wouldn’t start using that $120 Paul George jersey to clean up baby slobber, but maybe take a breath, build a little shrine dedicated to Chuck Person, Vern Fleming, and LaSalle Thompson and dabble in some of those medibles your buddy gave you.
Patrick Beverly was out with a meniscus tear, but now it sounds like he won’t require surgery and will return this season. Can’t say I’m surprised given his guttery griminess. I could see him having an ear hanging off the side of his head from a freak run-in with David West and Beverly going all Ronnie Lott, demanding that the trainer cut it off. Digressions aside, I hope this doesn’t have a lasting impact. I’m not a Beverly fan, but I’d encourage all players sacrifice one today for a thousand tomorrows.
Finally, the Spurs are on that, “And we won’t stop, cause we can’t stop” like Diddy. This past week saw wins over Philly (22pts), Denver (5pts), Denver again (31pts), and New Orleans (16pts). As if a 17-game win streak wasn’t enough to make a statement, San Antonio’s leading scorers ran the gamut from the recently acquired and still malnourished Austin Daye to all-timer Tim Duncan to Italian Stallion Marco Belinelli (2x). The Spurs genuinely don’t seem to care what happens in that 48 minutes as long as they walk out with the victory. This week the schedule makers are throwing some major obstacles in their way: at Indiana tonight, Golden State on Wednesday, at OKC on Thursday and at home Sunday against the Grizzlies. If I’m still writing about this streak next Monday, then we should all be very afraid … well, that’s probably excessive, but let’s just agree they’ve got their work cut out for themselves this week. (Side idea, Popovich seems like he’d throw a game just to keep his group grounded. After all, I’m guessing he has little use for frivolous distractions that come along with a 17-game win streak.)
Week number two of the Sunday to Monday notes and the NCAA marches through its first week of mediocre, but riveting basketball. The NBA knows no breaks, unless you’re suffering through the spring swoons of Indiana (7-6 in March) and Miami (6-7). So while the “amateur” darlings (Jabari, Wiggins, Smart, McDermott) take March Madness dives, the NBA’s not ready to go fishing just yet.
The triple double was immortalized by Magic or Oscar or maybe Ice Cube. LeBron’s the youngest to triple double, Karl Malone’s the oldest. Wilt had triple doubles in nine straight games once and is the only player to ever get a triple double with at least 20 of each category – 22 points, 25 rebounds, 21 assists. The Big O averaged a triple double for an entire season and had 41 triple doubles in the same year. Grant Hill finished his career with 29 triple doubles, 10th most all time. For all the triple doubles the league has seen (a little over 34/season for the past 20+ years), Isaiah Thomas, the 5’9” Tacoma-born dynamo and starting PG for the Kings, became the shortest man in league history to record one on March 18th when he went for 24 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists against the Wizards. Just another example that this young man, the last pick of the 2011 draft, is here to stay.
Following up on Pearl Washington after last week’s Requiem for a League on the Big East is a story about the former Syracuse great written in-time (1990) when Pearl was an overweight point guard in the CBA. Hat tip to my buddy Bug for the link there which tells us that basically Pearl was prone to weight-gain and couldn’t find a good fit in his three-year NBA career.
Jason Collins has now appeared in 11 games for the Nets so he’s not qualifying for any rate stats this season and that’s probably a good thing, because his area of excellence is committing fouls. Over this short sample size, he’s prolifically fouling people: 8.0 fouls/36-min. That’s a foul about every 4:30 and would have him fouling out in about 27-minutes, but we don’t have to worry about that going down since no one in their right or wrong mind would consider keeping him on the court that long. That 8 fouls/36 is impressive, but it pales in comparison to 6’7”, weight unknown, Danny Fortson of Sonics and Warriors infamy/fame (depending on who you ask). It’s entirely likely that Fortson’s tracking Collins’s fouling frequency and laughing while double fisting club sandwiches and sliders. In his heyday, Fortson had a four-year stretch where he committed 8.5, 9.1, 9.9, and 8.7 fouls/36-min. Step up your game, Collins.
Al Jefferson’s been a viceroy of the post recently. His ppg is up nearly 20% since the All-Star break and it’s shown up in the win column as the Bobcats have won 65% of their post-AS break games compared to 43% before the break. To dig deeper into Charlotte’s dependency on the big man from Mississippi, he averages 25.3ppg with a 32.8% usage rate and a 95 DRtg in wins against 17.8ppg with 27% usage rate and 107 DRtg in losses. In short, as Al goes, the Bobcats go. SI’s Lee Jenkins profiled Big Al in the latest Sports Illustrated and as has become commonplace, Jenkins did a masterful job. But amid all this rich Jefferson content, one anecdote stood out:
Jefferson was the Celtics teenager who asked Gary Payton why Lakers banners hung in the Clippers’ arena — “You really don’t know they play in the same place!” Payton howled.
Anthony Davis’s torrid play continues to amaze much more than his non-conformist unibrow. Elias Sports Bureau tells us that he’s just the third player to average over 32 and 13 in an eight-game span since 1994-95. The other two are Kevin Love and Shaq. But that’s not enough. He’s the youngest player in league history to average at least 21, 10 and 2.5 blocks and in the spirit of the NCAA Tournament, Davis would be a junior this year:
Davis’s true shooting is ~59% which places him just outside of the league’s top-20. I wanted to compare his shooting range to other players on that 21-10-2.5 list, but the only comparable player whose shooting stats were available on BBR was Tim Duncan. I looked at Duncan’s career distance shooting and where Duncan, with all his touch, has shot ~83% of his FGAs since 2000-01 between 0-16 feet, just 15% have come beyond that range – with a significant uptick in his later years. Davis, in his 2nd year in the league, is shooting ~20% of his shots from 16-ft or deeper, but is shooting ~38% this season compared to Duncan’s career mark of ~41%. In addition to his around the rim savvy, Davis has a range that even in this era of stretch fours is enviable. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson … we greet you at the beginning of a great career …..
I’m highly partial to geographic loyalties. I’m from Iowa and live in Seattle and sometimes fail to keep my biases out of my fandom and writing. Sometimes though, the truth is impossible to ignore and I’m wondering if that’s what is happening with Harrison Barnes. The 6’8” swingman has a body that was sculpted to play basketball. He’s a graduate of Ames High School in Ames, Iowa and was teammates with Creighton’s Doug McDermott. His post-high school hype was unfair and he fell below pre-season All-American expectations as a freshman. It’s fair to say Barnes has been falling below expectations ever since and whether or not that’s his fault or just poor scouting is another topic. But we’re not 148 games into Barnes’s pro career and my I can’t figure out if I’m looking at a plateau or a slight decline. I’m uncertain what’s happening to be honest. We expect to see improvement from our second-year players, but Barnes is backsliding. His March splits have descended into an East Bay abyss and it’s gotten to the point the passionate Warriors fans on Twitter would swap him for another dance with Anthony Randolph …. Ok, it’s not that bad, but what’s up, Barnes? (Before tossing him limb by limb into a pack of snarling wolves, let’s remember Barnes is just 21 and would be a senior at UNC this year.)
Blame Harrison, blame the scouts, blame yourself … just exercise your right to blame.
While we’re talking about Ames, former Iowa State Cyclone, Royce White, made his first and second appearances for the Kings this week. They were rather uneventful from a statistical point of view, but the act of appearing is more than a lot of folks thought we’d see. On 3/18, Sacramento signed him to a second 10-day contract. The league allows teams to sign the same player to a pair of 10-day contracts and after that, they have to sign him for the rest of the season if they want to keep him. White’s deal wraps up on Friday, March 28th and the Kings play at home on Wednesday, then in Oklahoma City on Friday. If I was a gambling man, I’d guess they don’t extend him the remainder of the season based on the novelty minutes he’s been afforded so far. Hopefully, I’m wrong.
The Spurs have now won 13 straight and while cultural debates still rage around asinine statements like, “If you don’t like the Spurs, you don’t basketball,” the most discussed Spurs topic is Pop’s behavior during in-game interviews. (Worth noting that by keeping the focus on himself, Pop keeps the emphasis off his players which is probably part of some grand strategy that he devised over bottles from his own winery.) However you feel about this group from San Antonio, just know that in some form, it’s likely that their far-reaching tentacles have tickled or touched your own squad as evidenced by the Illuminati-like reaches of Spurs personnel throughout the league. If Malcolm Gladwell really wants to blow my mind, tell me how the fuck the Spurs have become the most successful franchise in American sports and give me more than Tim Duncan + Popovich = greatness. This week’s games include Philly (see more below), Denver, @ Denver, and New Orleans. Circle that game in Denver on Friday night. Home and aways often end in splits – I have no data to back up that statement.
Speaking of the Spurs reach, Philly’s coach Brett Brown is a Popovich acolyte, but apparently he didn’t pack up success when he left the Lone Star state. Philly’s now lost 24 games in a row. They won’t end up with the worst record in league history and while there have been lesser teams, something stinks about GM Sam Hinkie’s master planning. I’m excited about their future, but it feels like they’re making a deal with the devil to get there – perhaps this is just me moralizing on ugliness of scraping rock bottom to reach the top. Or maybe it’s just me directing my dislike of Daryl Morey on Hinkie. Whatever the case, losing 24 games in a row sucks and instead of pointing fingers at Brown and Philly’s semi-pro team, any criticisms need to be send to the Philly front office, C/O: Sam Hinkie.
More random tidbits from intelligent people:
Kevin Durant's 32.2 PPG and 50.7% FG would make him the first player since Michael Jordan in 1992 to average 30+ PPG while shooting over 50%
I’ve never had any regular segments on DWN and 2/3 of the way through the NBA season during a week when the crown jewel of NCAA basketball season kicks off is probably the worst time to try something new, but here we are with a weekly look at comings and goings, statistical achievements, half thoughts, observations, and an indication in written form that basketball is likely taking up a wee bit too much of my life.
Sunday night against the Celtics of Boston, 21-year-old wunderkind Anthony Davisput on a performance the likes of which hasn’t been seen since before he was born:
40 points, 21 rebounds, 12-12 from the free throw line with three blocks
Individual career highs in points and rebounds
Youngest player since Shaq in 1993 to go for 40/20
Cautionary note for all the teams striving to rebuild through a lottery pick: New Orleans had the fourth best odds to win the 2012 lottery and Anthony Davis.
Royce White was signed to a 10-day contract with the Kings on March 6th. The contract ended Sunday night which coincided with the end of Sacramento’s seven-game road trip. Over four games with the Kings’ D-League team, the Reno Bighorns, White played 25minutes/game, shot 37% from the field, and went for roughly 9pts, 4rebs and 3asts/game. With the Kings set to be home from March 17th thru March 27th, it’s fair to assume any audition with the big club is going to take place in the next week and a half. At this point, I get the feeling there’s general fatigue with White’s story/saga, but there’s still relevance to his story. ESPN’s Amin Alhassan had some insightful comments on the Kings plans with White.
Watching ESPN’s 30 for 30, Requiem for the Big East, I had no idea how good of a player Pearl Washington (Syracuse) was. He was before my time and since he didn’t have an impact as a pro, I never read up on his game. By all accounts here, he was a legend in New York before Syracuse and the game film shows a herky jerky, occasionally unstoppable guard that calls to mind another Pearl, that of Monroe – hence the nickname? Dude looks like he could dribble through a minefield, come out unscathed, then flip a little lay-in between the outstretched, broom wielding arms of Ewing, Mutombo, and Mourning. That he struggled as a pro doesn’t seem to impact how he’s remembered. Maybe it’s because I primarily follow the pro game, but it’d be cool if more players were remembered for their successes at any level than ripped apart for their failures or struggles.
Drew Gooden and Chris Andersen: Saturday night I was watching the Brooklyn/Washington game and saw Drew Gooden in a Wizards jersey with his head cleanly shaved, a headband on, no wild facial hair or ducktail. Just Drew, wearing #90, getting shit done. Before Washington signed him in late February, he hadn’t played an NBA game since April of last season with the Bucks and now, on Saturday night, he’s in the nation’s capital pumping mid-range jumpers, getting fourth quarter minutes, and generally contributing positivity to the Wiz. On Sunday, it was Chris Andersen giving Miami the same type of effort and energy that he’s been giving since they signed him to his first 10-day contract last January. The question I keep coming back to: How were these guys available? I get that players need to be able to blend in with existing philosophies and personalities and maybe other teams didn’t see the same opportunity, but it’s difficult to watch Birdman and Gooden thriving in supporting roles and wonder why it took so long for them to find employment. Then I wonder how many other potentially impactful players are out there waiting for a phone call.
Nicolas Batum’s March rebounding splits are ridiculous:
By Month
GP
MIN
OR
DR
REB
Per36
October
1
37
2
11
13
12.6
November
15
35.8
2
4.3
5.8
5.8
December
16
36.3
1
5.1
6.4
6.3
January
14
35.1
1
5.9
7.3
7.5
February
12
35.8
1
4.9
5.7
5.7
March
8
38.3
3
11
13
12.5
But how? His career average is 4.8. His season average is 7.2, yet eight games into March and he’s rebounding like a French Dennis Rodman (sure, that’s excessive and a frightening amalgamation to boot, but you get me). Last he grabbed 14 more against Golden State.
The Spurs are on a 10-game win streak which has included wins against Dallas, Miami and Portland at home, and the Bulls on the road. Their next three games are on the road for a California swing against the Lakers, Kings, and Warriors. They were an impressive 38-15 before the break, but with a healthy post-All Star group, they’ve gone 13-1.
The Clippers have won 11 straight with signature victories in OKC and Phoenix and home wins against Houston, Phoenix and Golden State. The Blake Griffin movement continues to pick up momentum with him wresting away the mythical, non-existent title of Best Power Forward in the World from the sweaty slipping grips of LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Love, Tim Duncan, and Dirk. And somewhere in there, DeAndre Jordan has developed into a perfectly utilized beast of sorts. And finally, you’ve got to pay to read it, but ESPN’s Kevin Pelton writes about why these Clippers are more legit than last year’s. (Unfortunately, it’s on Insider so you’ve got to pay unless you already have an account.)
Writer Derek Bodner put things into perspective when he tweeted: “The Seattle Seahawks have won more recently than the Philadelphia 76ers. We’re in mid-March. 20 in a row.” That was after Saturday night’s 26-point loss to Memphis which, as Derek points out, was Philly’s 20th straight loss. The margin of defeat over this terrible streak of failure has stretched from 5 points (Jazz) all the way on up to 45 points (Clips). The games aren’t even close and the schedule is not kind. Upcoming games: @ Indiana, Chicago, New York, @ Chicago, @ San Antonio, @ Houston, Detroit. Oh, it can get worse this deconstructed bunch. But save your pity for someone who’s trying.
Margin of victory is typically a good indicator of where a team falls in the league’s good-to-bad hierarchy. Unless you’re the Minnesota Timberwolves. Record-wise, the Wolves are the 16th best team in the league with a 33-32 record. Based on margin of victory, they’re 9th overall with a +3.6 which places them ahead of Dallas, Memphis, and Phoenix – three teams that enjoy a significant lead over Minnesota in the standings. You can look back through each year dating back to the 2001-02 season and you won’t find a team with a differential as high as Minnesota’s that missed the playoffs. There were only a handful of teams with a positive differential that managed to miss and none were near +3.6. Their 32 losses are by an average of ~8 points while 33 wins are by ~15 points. And in games decided by 5 points or less, they’re unbearably bad at 3-13.
Finally … Kyrie Irving may be out for the season with a biceps injury. If that’s the case, he’ll wrap up his 3rd season in the league having played in 174 of a possible 230 games – or roughly 75% of all possible games.
RT @Andrew__Slater: A) Ian is free to do whatever he wants
B “Steal” would be a harsh term in recruiting
C) If a fan thinks that a coach wa… 12 hours ago
“He is the fourth Ricky council and he wants you to know he’s the best on and off the court.” 3 days ago
Dancing With Noah 