I'm at work. I check the score on ESPN, and I see that the Sixers have escaped with a one-point victory over the Cavaliers. Then I get home and check the boxscore and discover that the Sixers lost. Ouch.
I watched the video of the last play of the game. Dalembert clearly hit Brown before the buzzer...but I don't think it should have been a foul. And, no, I'm not crazy.
If you watch the video, Dalembert jumps to defend against Lebron's shot. When Dalembert lands, he suddenly lurches forward -- right into Brown. If you look behind Dalembert, you can see that Ilgauskas gave him a shove as he was landing, probably as an attempt to get better position for the potential rebound. At least that's what it looked like to me. Take a look and tell me what you think.
[note- I wanted to put a link in to both the game's boxscore and the video over at ESPN.com, but for some reason ESPN.com isn't loading on my computer right now so I can't get the URL. Sorry about that. Makes it a little harder for you to watch the video and give your thoughts.]
Regardless, it goes in the books as a tough loss for the Sixers. We'll have a hard time against the Pistons in the first round, but it's still good to be in the playoffs for the first time in awhile. Plus, a win in our last game will give us a .500 record on the year. Considering expectation coming into the year, I think that qualifies as a successful season.
[Update: apparently I'm not the only one who noticed the push from Ilgauskas]
Monday, April 14, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Shaq looks good
I'm an admitted Shaq "hater." I thought the Suns made a mistake in trading for him. But I'm sitting here watching the Suns-Spurs game on TV, and boy does he look good tonight.
In Miami, I thought he looked slow and old. Tonight, he's looking spry. He's making moves and getting some good lift. If he plays like this throughout the post-season, then I'm a believer.
[Update: I just looked at the box score for the game. Apparently I don't notice turnovers because Shaq had five in his 24 minutes of playing time. I really don't remember them at all. I thought he looked good all around.]
On the other side of the court, this game is the second time recently that I've watched the Spurs and in the second half just felt like they didn't have any desire. And that includes the whole team, from Duncan and Ginobili on down. Not sure if they're bored with the regular season, the whole "age" thing is actually catching up with them, or if I just caught them on bad nights (after all, they've still won more than 50 games). I think they've gotten a few bad calls against them in the last couple of minutes, but frustration with refs can't be the answer since they'd already dropped to more than 10 points behind (and looked lethargic) before I thought there were any bad calls worth noting.
[Update 2: John Hollinger over at ESPN has also noted that the Spurs have been looking lethargic in second halves recently. It's an "Insider" post, but is currently open to everyone.]
In Miami, I thought he looked slow and old. Tonight, he's looking spry. He's making moves and getting some good lift. If he plays like this throughout the post-season, then I'm a believer.
[Update: I just looked at the box score for the game. Apparently I don't notice turnovers because Shaq had five in his 24 minutes of playing time. I really don't remember them at all. I thought he looked good all around.]
On the other side of the court, this game is the second time recently that I've watched the Spurs and in the second half just felt like they didn't have any desire. And that includes the whole team, from Duncan and Ginobili on down. Not sure if they're bored with the regular season, the whole "age" thing is actually catching up with them, or if I just caught them on bad nights (after all, they've still won more than 50 games). I think they've gotten a few bad calls against them in the last couple of minutes, but frustration with refs can't be the answer since they'd already dropped to more than 10 points behind (and looked lethargic) before I thought there were any bad calls worth noting.
[Update 2: John Hollinger over at ESPN has also noted that the Spurs have been looking lethargic in second halves recently. It's an "Insider" post, but is currently open to everyone.]
Monday, April 7, 2008
I feel bad for Memphis
Not NBA related, but I enjoyed the NCAA championship game tonight. A little sloppy, but definitely fun to watch. I am curious to know if Derrick Rose was feeling under the weather, because he didn't seem to have quite as much zest the entire game as he seemed to have in previous games. He had moments where he seemed dominant, but other times he seemed to not have the same energy.
Congrats to Kansas, but I definitely feel bad for the players on Memphis. If Chalmers doesn't hit that last second three, they're going home champions.
(Mario Chalmers also happens to be from Alaska, so I'm sure all the papers here will be all over the story tomorrow morning....)
Congrats to Kansas, but I definitely feel bad for the players on Memphis. If Chalmers doesn't hit that last second three, they're going home champions.
(Mario Chalmers also happens to be from Alaska, so I'm sure all the papers here will be all over the story tomorrow morning....)
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Sixers and Wages of Wins
The Wages of Wins post on the Sixers is up. Professor Berri kindly linked to my post from the other day which was posted in response to the same comment that led to his post. Go read the whole thing.
The short version: Igoudala, Dalembert, and Miller are the primary win producers for the Sixers, and they've basically maintained their production from last year. Reggie Evans has not done as well this year as last year, but he's still been above average. Evans' decrease in production has been offset by having Thaddeus Young replace Korver in the rotation and by the improvement of Willie Green from terrible to bad. So taken all together, the Sixers are doing almost as well right now as they were predicted to do by Wins Produced at the beginning of the season.
Anyway, Professor Berri says it better, so go read the article here.
The short version: Igoudala, Dalembert, and Miller are the primary win producers for the Sixers, and they've basically maintained their production from last year. Reggie Evans has not done as well this year as last year, but he's still been above average. Evans' decrease in production has been offset by having Thaddeus Young replace Korver in the rotation and by the improvement of Willie Green from terrible to bad. So taken all together, the Sixers are doing almost as well right now as they were predicted to do by Wins Produced at the beginning of the season.
Anyway, Professor Berri says it better, so go read the article here.
Monday, March 31, 2008
No one saw this coming...but we did!
Apparently TrueHoop is going to be spending time this week covering the "surprising" Sixers.
I'm actually pretty excited to see what sort of information Henry digs up this week and shares with us, but I did want to take exception to one comment in his post from this morning.
Last season, the Sixers were 26-21 after the Iverson trade and waiving Chris Webber. Considering the lack of roster turnover from last year to this year, a prediction of a .500 record seems like a perfectly reasonable prediction to have made for this season. And guess what? I actually did make that prediction at the start of the season.
Not good enough? Well, you could always have tried making a prediction based on some of the advanced stats that are hanging around the internet, like Win Score. Oh wait. I did that, too, and my WP48-based prediction was for the Sixers to be a slightly better than .500 team. That prediction was probably a tad optimistic (as Professor Berri pointed out in the comments to this post), but apparently not by too much.
So somehow I managed to come up with two completely independent methods for predicting the Sixers performance for the year, and they both give reasons for thinking that a .500 record for the Sixers was a perfectly reasonable prediction for this season.
Good thing no one saw this coming.
[Just to be clear, the Sixers are currently at 37-37 on the season.]
I'm actually pretty excited to see what sort of information Henry digs up this week and shares with us, but I did want to take exception to one comment in his post from this morning.
A veteran Philadelphia beat writer just said to me that "if anyone tells you they saw this coming, they're lying."I enjoy reading the Sixers coverage on-line every day at philly.com, so I don't want to come off as too critical of the "veteran beat writer." To the extent that he's saying that most pundits and experts predicted the Sixers to be bad this year, then he's certainly correct. That said, I think the idea that no one could have seen a .500 season coming is a bit absurd.
Last season, the Sixers were 26-21 after the Iverson trade and waiving Chris Webber. Considering the lack of roster turnover from last year to this year, a prediction of a .500 record seems like a perfectly reasonable prediction to have made for this season. And guess what? I actually did make that prediction at the start of the season.
Not good enough? Well, you could always have tried making a prediction based on some of the advanced stats that are hanging around the internet, like Win Score. Oh wait. I did that, too, and my WP48-based prediction was for the Sixers to be a slightly better than .500 team. That prediction was probably a tad optimistic (as Professor Berri pointed out in the comments to this post), but apparently not by too much.
So somehow I managed to come up with two completely independent methods for predicting the Sixers performance for the year, and they both give reasons for thinking that a .500 record for the Sixers was a perfectly reasonable prediction for this season.
Good thing no one saw this coming.
[Just to be clear, the Sixers are currently at 37-37 on the season.]
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Salary cap hogs and consequences
In one of the articles about the war of words between Shaquille O'Neal and Pat Riley last week, there was a quote from Stan Van Gundy that I thought was particularly insightful:
In general, I wonder whether giving out max contracts is really the best strategy for teams looking to compete for the title. My guess is that it all depends on if you've correctly identified the players who are worth a max contract, and not paying players max money when they're no longer max players. From the looks of it, I'd say teams aren't so good at identifying the correct players.
In particular, SVG's quote makes me wonder about his current team, the Orlando Magic. The Magic signed Rashard Lewis to a max contract this past off-season. Combined with the money they're paying to Dwight Howard (the big money from his extension starts next season), the Magic don't really have much cap room available going forward. At the same time, I think the general consensus (as well as my opinion) is that they're in need of a power forward to complement Howard (and allow Lewis to slide back to his preferred small forward position).
So I'm curious: Does SVG's comment reflect a conversation that he's been having with his two stars this season? Seems possible.
"I think it is very unfortunate anytime a player leaves a team and sees fit to trash former teammates," Van Gundy said. "I am also always puzzled when a great player takes up a large part of the salary cap and then complains about the talent around him."Stan Van Gundy probably isn't Shaq's biggest fan (since many people think Shaq's desire to have Riley as his coach led to SVG's "resignation" from the Heat), but his comment about the salary cap seems right on target to me. Shaq, Kobe, Jason Kidd, and Kevin Garnett are all players that in the last couple of years have complained in some way about the quality of the players around them. They're also all players with max contracts taking up significant salary cap space. It isn't that easy to bring in additional talent when you don't have the available cap room.
In general, I wonder whether giving out max contracts is really the best strategy for teams looking to compete for the title. My guess is that it all depends on if you've correctly identified the players who are worth a max contract, and not paying players max money when they're no longer max players. From the looks of it, I'd say teams aren't so good at identifying the correct players.
In particular, SVG's quote makes me wonder about his current team, the Orlando Magic. The Magic signed Rashard Lewis to a max contract this past off-season. Combined with the money they're paying to Dwight Howard (the big money from his extension starts next season), the Magic don't really have much cap room available going forward. At the same time, I think the general consensus (as well as my opinion) is that they're in need of a power forward to complement Howard (and allow Lewis to slide back to his preferred small forward position).
So I'm curious: Does SVG's comment reflect a conversation that he's been having with his two stars this season? Seems possible.
Don't ignore your teammates at the foul line
Wow. Just watch the video. (I came across this awhile ago, but hadn't gotten around to posting it.)
I used to think the whole "slap hands with the free throw shooter" thing was a little odd, but over the years I've started to come around to the notion that the way its done (naturally, seeming forced, or not at all) seems to reflect larger issues of team cohesiveness. I don't know why I have that impression, but it developed at some point over the years from watching lots of basketball games.
That being the case, what does it mean about a team when the free throw shooter needs to make up imaginary people with whom to slap hands? Ouch.
I used to think the whole "slap hands with the free throw shooter" thing was a little odd, but over the years I've started to come around to the notion that the way its done (naturally, seeming forced, or not at all) seems to reflect larger issues of team cohesiveness. I don't know why I have that impression, but it developed at some point over the years from watching lots of basketball games.
That being the case, what does it mean about a team when the free throw shooter needs to make up imaginary people with whom to slap hands? Ouch.
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