I heart Mike Green

I know, I know. The draft happens on Thursday night. That's why I feel the need to make at least one draft-related post. Not really related to the Sixers...but possibly.

When I went to the Great Alaska Shootout this past year, I had a chance to watch Butler play. And after watching Butler play (and win the tournament), I tried to watch them whenever I noticed that they had a televised game.

The player who stood out to me every time I watched them play was their point guard, Mike Green. He didn't do anything flashy, but every time Butler needed a basket he seemed to find a way to get to the hole and score. He also seemed to come up with a ton of rebounds for a guard. I have no idea what the boxscore showed, but he definitely stood out to me.

As it turns out, he also stood out to a bunch of other people and was named the Horizon League Player of the Year. Still, not a player I expected to get much draft press, so I was pleasantly surprised to see him mentioned twice in the past week in a very positive fashion.

First, TrueHoop linked to an article about Green's workouts with the Pacers (and other teams), mentioning in particular that he had been shooting the three-pointer well (he hadn't been a big three point shooter in college from what I understand/remember, although Butler as a team relied heavily on the three-point shot).

Then I came across an even more pleasant surprise. In his article ranking the pro potential of college guards, John Hollinger ranked Green as the fifth best point guard prospect based on his statistical analysis, touting him as a fringe first round selection. Based on his comments, I think it's fair to say that Hollinger was surprised by this result, and also expected his readers to be surprised:

Mike Green, Butler (12.75)

Who? The four-year player from Butler is on the fence to even get drafted, but the numbers say he has a good chance at becoming a decent pro.

The Sixers don't have a second round choice this year (they traded it to the Jazz at some point) and the sixteenth pick in the draft is probably too early, but I really hope that the Sixers invite Green to summer league if he isn't drafted. Quite frankly, he reminds me a bunch of Andre Miller: unassuming, doesn't make moves that elicit "oohs" and "aahs," but scores important baskets and makes other big plays that help his team win. Louis Williams is the Sixers' heir apparent at point guard, but I think Green could become a solid pro and contributor to a winning team.

Or, at the very least, I hope he gets the chance to prove that he can. And that he gets that chance with the Sixers.

Give me one more chance, baby. I promise I'll do better.

Well, I'm not sure I'm going to make a promise, but I am going to try. I started this blog last year on June 15, more than a year ago. And through December, I managed to post multiple times a week. And, at times, I like to think some of those posts were even pretty good.

Obviously, I've slacked off a bit.

I'll probably never get back to posting as much as I did when I first started, but I'm going to try and start posting a little more frequently again. My goal- let's say two or three posts a week.

Oddly, I've discovered that I actually enjoy posting more during the offseason. I chalk this preference up to two factors. First, I like the speculation that goes on in the offseason. Anything is possible, and it's a chance to explore different scenarios. Second, and related, I just don't find it interesting to post about every game that goes on during the season, especially when I can't watch all of them. I don't think you can draw big conclusions from a single game (or even a few games), so writing about the games often just involves me regurgitating what happened and maybe highlighting a stat I found interesting. I just don't have it in me to write as if every game is the rapture or the apocalypse.

If you read my posts, I hope you've enjoyed them. And I hope you'll continue to enjoy them moving forward.

The second pick in the draft

The NBA Draft lottery was held tonight, and the Chicago Bulls ended up with the number one pick. The Miami Heat ended up with the second pick. From all accounts, this year's draft is dominated by power forward Michael Beasley (from Kansas State) and point guard Derrick Rose (from Memphis). So the big guessing game over the next month will be which of these two players Chicago will choose.

My question is: why settle for one?

The Miami Heat are looking to get back into contention quickly. With Dwayne Wade on the roster, they really can't afford to take a long-view (he becomes a free agent in 2010, and presumably he won't resign if they aren't competitive at that point). Either Rose or Beasley (or both) might become franchise players a few years down the road, but will they be game changers next year or the year after? Hard to say.

With that as the backdrop, what are the Heat's needs? Admittedly, I don't watch that many of their games, but I think it's safe to say that Wade, Marion, and Haslem form a solid shooting guard/small-forward/power-forward trifecta. Miami needs a quality center and point guard.

What about the Bulls? Coming into this season, many people (including myself) expected them to compete for the Eastern Conference championship. After this (disappointing) season, the sense I get from reading Blog-a-Bull is that Chicago fans would be willing to take a step backwards next season in order to create a "higher ceiling" for the team going forward. At the same time, the Bulls do have a number of solid players on their roster, even if they don't have a superstar. For big men, they have Drew Gooden, Tyrus Thomas, and Joakim Noah. Gooden has already proven that he can be an important contributor on a finals-worthy team (Cleveland, last season), Thomas is still viewed as having tremendous potential, and Noah had a very solid rookie season. At guard, the Bulls rotation is headed by Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, and Larry Hughes.

I think the Bulls should offer Gooden, Hinrich, and either Hughes or Thomas to the Heat for the second pick in the draft. The Bulls most likely get worse next year as Rose and Beasley both struggle as rookies, but they'll have a very talented nucleus of Rose, Gordon, Luol Deng, Beasley, and Noah. And they'll all be young with a chance to grow together.

Would the Heat make this trade? It depends. In theory, it would meet their needs for a point guard and center that could immediately step in and help them be competitive. However, while he's been highly regarded in the past and played on Team USA, Hinrich had a very disappointing season this past year (the administrator at Blog-a-Bull considers him to be average at best). Gooden, for his part, is more of a power forward than a center, although I don't think there are many centers in the NBA at the moment who he can't guard. If the Bulls sweeten the pot by adding Thomas or Hughes (or both, or any other player the Heat want that isn't part of the nucleus I mention above), then I'd think the Heat would at least need to think about it. But maybe my valuation of the players on the Bulls is still too influenced by last season rather than the season that actually just happened.

Lakers-Jazz and homecourt advantage

I commented on this post over at a Utah Jazz blog earlier today which touched on the always contentious issue of refereeing favoring the home team. It was originally supposed to be a brief comment, but it grew as I was writing it. I guess I just tend to be verbose... Anyway, since it ended up being more of a post than a comment, I decided I'd also post it here (with a few minor modifications).
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Assuming I’m reading the tables correctly (always a big assumption!), the link to basketball-reference shows that the Jazz’s opponents get 23.1 fouls called against them on the road (i.e., in SLC) and 23.0 called against them at home—in other words, no difference. The Jazz, on the other hand, get called for 24.8 fouls on the road and 23.3 fouls at home. That seems to indicate that either the refs do let the Jazz get away with a little more contact at home (1.5 fouls worth) or the Jazz simply move their feet better at home. In either case, the Jazz’s opponents do not seem to benefit from being at home in the same way.

More interesting to me is where on the court the fouls seem to occur. When the Jazz are at home, their opponents shoot 27.9 free throw attempts. When the Jazz are on the road, their opponents shoot 32.3 free throw attempts. That’s five additional free throw attempts, but only 1.5 additional fouls (from which I would expect 3 additional free throw attempts at most). So not only do the Jazz get called for less fouls at home (or more on the road, whichever way you prefer to look at it), but they also seem to commit those fouls further away from the basket (i.e. not in the act of shooting). A more energized, aggressive team (the way a team often plays at home) could certainly explain this difference, but I found it interesting.

So the Jazz seem to get some homecourt advantage related to the reffing (or at least the fouls called), but what about the Lakers?

Basketball-reference shows that the Lakers’ opponents get 23.3 fouls called against them on the road (i.e., in LA) and 21.8 called against them at home. The Lakers, on the other hand, get called for 20.6 fouls on the road and 20.7 fouls at home—in other words no difference. That seems to indicate that the refs do not let the Lakers get away with more contact at home. However, it does seem to indicate that the refs let the Lakers’ opponents get away with less contact in LA than at home (1.5 fouls worth). The Lakers’ opponents do not seem to benefit from being at home in the same way.

In terms of where the fouls are called, the Lakers shoot 29.2 free throw attempts at home and 26.1 free throw attempts on the road. This seems perfectly consistent with getting 1.5 additional fouls called against their opponents at home. The Lakers’ opponents shoot 24.3 free throw attempts in LA and 24.4 free throw attempts at home, again consistent with the number of fouls called. Now I’m even more curious about what changes in how the Jazz play defense at home vs. on the road.

Long story short: Both the Jazz and Lakers appear to benefit from the refs’ calls at home, but they benefit in very different ways. The Jazz appear to benefit because they are called differently in SLC. The Lakers appear to benefit because their opponents are called diffently in LA.

It would be interesting to know whether all so-called “physical” teams benefit in the same way as the Jazz while all so-called “finesse” teams benefit in the same way as the Lakers. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to go through the whole league sorting teams into these categories.

Anyone else want to do it?

Back to Earth (Sixers-Pistons Game 4)

Ouch.

The Sixers had a fairly substantial lead at halftime (46-36), but even at that point this game didn't have the same feel as the last one. The shots the Sixers were hitting seemed to have a much higher degree of difficulty, and the defensive rotations didn't seem to be as crisp.

Then, after halftime, the Pistons stepped up the defensive pressure a little bit more, and the Sixers' offense (which looked so good in game 3) ground completely to a halt. The Pistons had basically eliminated the halftime lead within the first two minutes of the second half, and the Sixers never managed to regain control. Rasheed Wallace draining threes (4-7 for the game, 3-3 in the third quarter), the Pistons asserting a huge advantage on the offensive glass (15 to 9), and Richard Hamilton getting hot in the fourth quarter (7-21 for the game, but 6-8 in the fourth quarter) didn't really help our chances.

Final score: Sixers 84, Pistons 93.

It also didn't help our chances that Igoudala was again completely overmatched by Tayshaun Prince. Quite frankly, it didn't really look like the other Pistons were giving Prince much help, and Igoudala still couldn't get anything going. He did have 6 rebounds and 5 assists, but he shot only 4-16 and had 5 turnovers. Not a very pretty boxscore line. Igoudala is a nice player, but I sure hope that his performance in this series convinces people not to overpay him this summer.

Oh well. At least Igoudala had a monster dunk early in the game that we can watch over and over again on youtube. (No one has posted the video to youtube yet, but I'm sure someone will post it soon...)

Go Sixers! (Sixers-Pistons Game 3)

Wow. Sure glad I got to watch that game. I got home mid-way through the second quarter. The Sixers were up two at the time (I think), and it just got better from there. Final score: Sixers 95, Pistons 75.

Even before the Sixers broke the game open, I was thinking that the Sixers looked like they were playing within themselves. On offense, they weren't relying on contested fadeaways or circus shots to score. They were running there offense and getting good looks out of it. On defense, they weren't getting lucky deflections or frantically recovering on penetration. They were staying in front of the Pistons and making solid rotations on passes.

In other words, they looked like a team that completely belonged.

Why do I mention this? When an underdog is beating a favorite, the upset is often the result of a team that is playing above its head -- getting every lucky break, getting every loose ball, hitting shots as the shot clock exires, etc. I often think those games are frantic, and in the end I'm still left with the distinct impression from watching the game that the better team (the favorite) didn't win. Watching the Sixers tonight, I never once got the sense that the better team wasn't winning. If I hadn't known that the Pistons were favored, I would never have guessed that fact based on what I saw. I didn't see the previous games in the series to compare them with this one, but after tonight's game I'm actually believing that the Sixers can win this series. Of course, the Pistons won't have 23 turnovers every game...

The one negative from tonight's game? Igoudala still can't seem to find his rhythm offensively. Quite frankly, he looked like the worst player on the floor tonight. I know that the Pistons are gearing their defense to stop him, but that doesn't explain how bad he looked. Still, I'm feeling pretty happy right now, so no more negative comments from me.

Added bonus: Henry Abbott (TrueHoop) liveblogged from the game tonight.

Will I finally get to watch the Sixers?

Game 3 of the Sixers-Pistons series is tomorrow. Because I'm in Alaska, tip-off is 3 pm local time. I played hooky on Wednesday (I took a vacation day, so hooky probably isn't the right term) to go skiing in the sunny, 50 degree weather, so I'm not sure that I'll be able to leave work early tomorrow. But I'm sure going to try to get stuff done so that I can!

Wish me luck!