at that pic of Duncan and Parker . How did no one not post this after Halloween?
(even if they dont make the playoffs, they will definitely beat some good playoff teams)
They have and play too many solid vets to be a really, really bad team like many predicted.
I know its different expectations, but the Pacers have been absolutely disgusting this season. George Hill is a pretty good scorer, but can not run an offense. DJ Augustine looks incompetent in this system.
Paul George is definitely a do it all type of player who can fill up the stat sheet, but he needs to be used sort of like Richard Jefferson in New Jersey, instead of making him your go to scorer.
Lance Stephenson has been a really pleasant surprise, he can score, handle the ball and create, but with Paul George and George Hill taking so many shots, he never really gets to ball out
Roy Hibbert
David West has been the only one playing well with any consistency, but at his age I hope he can sustain it around playoff teams.......if they make the playoffs.
The East is going to be much more tight this year because alot of teams that people expected to suck, are actually pretty good.
The Knicks (maybe not suck, but not huge expectations)
The Bobcats
The Magic (same as above. Who thought they would be a pretty effective team right now?)
Great read, a must if your a fan.
LinkGraphing the NBA
A few weeks ago, I organized NBA teams graphically to take a look at how they were playing early in the season. I've decided to make this a regular feature and something I consider on a monthly basis until the ratings settle down. Here's this month's update, through Sunday's games.
The X axis has Offensive Rating and the Y axis has Defensive Rating. There are four quadrants, separated by league average (105.9). The upper left is the league's worst teams, those that are below average in both categories. The upper right has high-scoring teams with better offenses than defenses. The bottom right is the league's best teams, those with above-average performances in both categories. And the bottom left has defensive-minded teams. You can also track overall team performance based on the distance from the diagonal line, which represents identical play on both ends of the floor.
One interesting observation is that there is much more spread in terms of Offensive Rating thus far. Three teams--the Miami Heat, New York Knicks and Oklahoma City Thunder--have separated themselves from the pack. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Washington Wizards have been far worse at scoring than anyone else in the league. By contrast, there is not nearly as much separation in terms of Defensive Rating. I'm not sure how much of this is a product of the early season. Surely the Wizards will get better with Nene healthy and John Wall due back to the lineup at some point. In general, the standard deviation for Offensive Rating is slightly higher than for Defensive Rating, though this tends to vary from season to season.
Thirteen teams--nearly half the league--have changed quadrants from the last time we looked at this chart. These changes almost exclusively involve teams average or worse. Just one team--the Brooklyn Nets--has moved into Quadrant III (good offense, good defense), and no team has left this group. The most common changes are teams slipping from above average to below average on offense while staying below average on defense (Charlotte, Dallas and Portland), slipping on defense while staying bad on offense (New Orleans, Sacramento and Washington) going from defensive-minded to offensive-minded (Denver, Houston and Utah).
i thought he said Indy was an elite team
Dwight Howard shooting 46% from the FTL worse than Wilt and Shaq
I suppose it would be out of the question that Dwight goes with the 'ol underhand free throw. Why not try? He's gonna kill the Lakers in the playoffs.
. He almost lost his career cause of Drake & CB
