Official NBA 2012-2013 Season Thread

[mjshoefanatic]

OK WE GET IT THE CLIPPERS AND THE LAKERS ARE BOTH SUBPAR TEAMS.

TAKE THIS TO THE REGIONAL THREAD

 

[big j 33]

In Defense of Vince Carter
The case for Vinsanity, Hall of Famer.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id...mess-nba-loudest-arena-jeremy-lin-doing-right

 

[mgrand15]

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's been shooting normally his whole life and it's gotten him to 50%. I REALLY doubt he gets to that number using a routine he's never practiced especially when you think about how nervous he's going to be using that weak form on national TV I know Rick Barry shot well using underhand but I'd love to see what a 7 footer with absolutely no shooting touch does.

What makes no sense to me is that Dwight used to shoot jumpers in high school, even in the NBA, he'd always start the year using a pretty effective bank shot. How did he get so bad at shooting? Is it all the lifting? Is he not in shape yet?

 

[651akathepaul]

Well...There is so much more control involved when you "shoot" it underhand. I've never really practiced it like that before, but can kill it consistenly when I play horse. I'm not 8 fee tall though. Can't hurt, but yeah...He won't try.

 

[essential1]

Well...There is so much more control involved when you "shoot" it underhand. I've never really practiced it like that before, but can kill it consistenly when I play horse. I'm not 8 fee tall though. Can't hurt, but yeah...He won't try.

Old Guy shoots every morning at the gym. Shoots them underhand... Dude is a machine...

I watched him once for 20 minutes.. He missed twice.

 

[dman14]

^ you get a more friendlier bounce, too. i remember rick barry talkin about it saying he offered to help shaq, but dude was worried about his image.

 

[addict4sneakers]

Dwight shoots with his hand on top of the ball which stymies its rotation.

 

[Bert.]

True wasn't his old sn, Mateen Cleeves a while back? And then Rex Ryan after that? 

rex ryan? LMAOOOO

nah

yes my SN which most of you know was Mateen

im a Pistons fan, no im not a laker fan. Im a Kobe fan tho

 

[young thundercat]

Great read, a must if your a fan.

great read...


still somehow someway Chris Bosh finds a way to come off as either very suspect or just trolling at this point.

when asked about Lebron game 4 vs Pacers down 2-1...hes response.


"CHRIS BOSH: He took the game by the balls and squeezed."

 

[tonelow]

Great read, a must if your a fan.

great read...


still somehow someway Chris Bosh finds a way to come off as either very suspect or just trolling at this point.

when asked about Lebron game 4 vs Pacers down 2-1...hes response.


"CHRIS BOSH: He took the game by the balls and squeezed."

Naw seriously, did dude really say that?

 

[pmatic]

@GwashNBAGlobe Rajon Rondo said he did not learn any lessons from his suspension but missed his teammates and is ready to play

 

[sooperhooper]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the game that Tim and Tony sat out was a secret suspension enforced by Pop. That's totally out of character for both of them and a bad representation of the Spurs organization and the city of San Antonio.

 

[sooperhooper]

Rondo is an idiot. In his mind he's probably keeping it real but he just looks real dumb. His suspension was partially KGs fault. Had he not flopped/ rondo wouldn't have over reacted and got his collar stretched by Kris.

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

@GwashNBAGlobe Rajon Rondo said he did not learn any lessons from his suspension but missed his teammates and is ready to play

 

[senorroboto2k5]

great read...
still somehow someway Chris Bosh finds a way to come off as either very suspect or just trolling at this point.
when asked about Lebron game 4 vs Pacers down 2-1...hes response.
"CHRIS BOSH: He took the game by the balls and squeezed."

Bosh is just that guy who likes to be overly suspect for the humor

 

[CP1708]

It's ridiculous that articles are popping up now wanting a shorter regular season because of Pop crying and sending his players home.

Just cuz he wants to do something, and has the right to with his own team, doesn't mean the whole league has to adjust. That's pathetic.

League been playin 82 games for decades and now all of a sudden folks wanna change up cuz some dude wants healthier players when they lose in the playoffs. That don't make no damn sense.

 

[pmatic]

You got paid, so what happened?

One of the more cutting phrases you'll hear around the league is "sign-and-retire" -- a reference to a player mailing it in after signing a big contract, knowing that he's getting paid no matter what.

That's always the unspoken risk in signing a player to a long-term deal, especially one who hasn't been paid yet -- will he still put in the same kind of effort when he's getting guaranteed big bucks that he did when he was trying to get the big bucks? Additionally, there's a more rational risk factor. A lot of players, no matter how motivated, don't work out as hard in their free-agent offseason for fear of an injury nixing their big payday. Not everybody is able to make up for the lost time.

It depends on how the player is wired, obviously, and what his motivations are, but correlations have shown the contract-year effect is real for players seeking their first big payday (particularly a study at last year's Sloan Conference). And we've seen some good examples already in the early part of this season.

I don't mean to tar all these guys with the sign-and-retire brush. There could be lots of reasons they're struggling, and many of them have nothing to do with motivation. But as a class, players in their first season post-payday can often produce substantial buyer's remorse. Let's just say this season has been no exception.

There have been successes, too, of course -- Nic Batum has proven worth Portland's investment, Goran Dragic is holding up his end of the bargain in Phoenix, George Hill has justified Indiana's faith in him and Jrue Holiday's hefty extension is paying dividends.

Nonetheless, we have quite a few cautionary tales as well. Let's start at the top.

Any survey of 2012 free-agent failures has to begin in Milwaukee, where a year ago the big buzzword was "Ersanity" after Ersan Ilyasova averaged a double-double in February, won conference player of the week, shot 45.5 percent on 3s for the season and finished with a 20.55 PER.

Now? It's more like "Ilya-coma." After signing a five-year, $40 million free-agent deal this summer ($32 million guaranteed), he has been perhaps the league's most disappointing player. Ilyasova's Odom-esque decline includes a 9.69 PER, a 35.3 percent mark from the floor and some shockingly bad defense. He already has lost his starting job, and in a humiliating 21-point loss to the Hornets Monday night, he was without a doubt the worst player on the court.

It's a mystery how he could fall this far this fast. But for whatever reason, the same guy who knocked down everything and fought like crazy under the basket a year ago now can't shoot, can't move and won't touch anybody.

He'll be trade-eligible on Jan. 15, and if he doesn't show dramatic improvement over the next month, well, let's just say the Bucks will be making some phone calls.

Alas, Ilyasova has some company. Several other players are working on their first big paydays and have produced underwhelming results thus far. Here are a few others whose newfound wealth has been accompanied by disappointing production:

Roy Hibbert, Pacers
Last year he made the All-Star team. This season he's shooting 39 percent. Yes, that's 39, like with a 3 at the beginning. He's a 7-foot-2 center. Enough said, obviously, but let's say some more. One can fairly wonder if Hibbert's shooting and rebounding numbers from a year ago were outliers, and the real Hibbert is a guy who will shoot in the mid-40s with modest free-throw rates and won't be anything like a go-to guy offensively.

There are positives here if you look hard enough -- defensively, he's really figured out how to use his size as a weapon and use positioning to mask his lack of mobility, and it's one reason Indy has been so good at that end. Still, Hibbert got a max contract in free agency over the summer, and the Portland Trail Blazers have to be breathing a sigh of relief that Indiana decided to match their offer. (Although technically Portland never tendered an offer sheet, it was because Indiana pre-emptively told Hibbert they'd match it.)

Jeff Green, Celtics
The reaction to his four-year, $34 million deal this summer was one of nearly universal bafflement, and that hasn't gone away in the wake of his modest start.

Green can score at a decent clip and is doing so again, averaging 16.5 points per 40 minutes, but his PER would be his lowest since his rookie year. Even playing with Rajon Rondo as a set-up man, he hasn't been particularly efficient because he's a weak long-range shooter and doesn't generate a ton of foul shots. Meanwhile, he doesn't bring a whole lot else to the table. In theory, he was supposed to provide a big wing who could help guard the LeBrons of the world, but it hasn't worked out that way yet in practice.

Courtney Lee, Celtics
Lee got a full midlevel exception deal for four years, $22 million, and has become an interesting player in league circles because he has fallen out of favor and is trade-eligible Dec. 15. Lee lost his starting gig with lightning speed, posting an anemic 7.45 PER while hardly ever shooting -- he's averaging only 9.5 points per 40 minutes and has made only six 3-pointers, his alleged specialty, the entire season.

Perhaps worse, he hasn't made an impact on games at the defensive end the way Boston hoped. Lee is good on the ball but doesn't like contact at either end and is often waylaid by screens. As a result, he has fallen behind Jason Terry and Leandro Barbosa in Boston's guard hierarchy, and once Avery Bradley returns he may be out of the rotation entirely.

Ty Lawson, Nuggets
Lawson got a four-year, $44 million extension before the season, with the expectation that he'd be the engine of the Nuggets' fast-paced attack. But it appears this engine could use a tune-up. His usage rate is a career high, but he's just not creating the quality of shots that he did a year ago. Lawson's turnover rate is a career high while his TS% is a nasty 45.7.

He's at 28.3 percent on 3s and 40.3% overall, and if you dig deeper you can see his jump shot is the problem. Lawson is actually shooting more often at the basket than a year earlier and converting at nearly the same rate, but from beyond three feet he has been brutal, making only 29.5 percent of his shots outside the charge circle. The result? A 13.20 PER, a Denver offense that has yet to kick into a high gear, and a 9-9 start for a dark horse contender.

Gerald Green, Pacers
Green's three-year, $9 million payday wasn't as big as some of the others on this list, except that $9 million is still a boatload of money to anybody who isn't a professional basketball player, and it dwarfs what he had been making previously as a D-League vagabond.

Green was supposed to be an explosive sixth man for Indiana. Instead his season has been, as one scout put it, a lot of 2-for-7 nights. He's shooting 37 percent for the season with a single-digit PER, with the real shocker being his inability to get easy baskets. Green is a phenomenal leaper who explodes off the floor, but he isn't getting in range nearly enough -- in 17 games he has only 16 shots at the rim. And if you take those shots away, he's a really ordinary player.

Landry Fields, Raptors
Fields signed a three-year, $19 million deal with the Raptors that most considered wildly optimistic at the time. He has exceeded the lowest expectations, playing five games and playing them quite badly (20.8 percent shooting, 1.37 PER) before exiting with an elbow injury. The jury is still out given the small sample size of games, but this was not an encouraging start.

Michael Beasley, Suns
Beasley signed a three-year, $18 million deal with Phoenix and remains a starter despite having the worst PER of any Phoenix rotation player and, by acclamation, the worst defense. It's such a jolt to see P.J. Tucker come in for Beasley and play his rear off for 10 minutes every half, only for Phoenix to return Beasley to the game because they have a financial commitment to him.

Beasley has legitimately improved as a passer, doubling his assist rate from a year ago, but he still uses a ton of possessions on low-percentage shots. He doesn't make many 3s or draw many fouls because he loves to take long pull-up 2s off the dribble; this tendency has earned him a 39 percent shooting mark and a ghastly 45.0 TS% in the early going. And again, he's shooting a lot.

The overall impact couldn't be more seismic. The Suns have been outscored by more than four points per game this season, but are handily beating opponents (+5 in the minutes Beasley doesn't play. Only one other Sun (Marcin Gortat) can make that statement, and they're only +16 without Gortat … a difference that wouldn't exist at all except that so many of his minutes have been tainted by Beasley's presence.

About the only bright spot for the Suns is that their offer sheet for this next guy was matched by the Hornets:

Eric Gordon, Hornets
I mean, at least the guys above have shown up for the games. Gordon got a max deal from the Hornets and has vanished from sight with a nebulous knee injury that may or may not really be a case of advanced Odomitis. Gordon has yet to play a single minute after appearing in only nine games a year ago. He'll be trade eligible Dec. 15, but it's not clear why anyone would trade for him until they've at least see him run around on the court a few times.

Even then, who wants to take a flier on a 6-3 guard who has never been healthy? He was hurt his one season in college, missed 46 games in his first two seasons with the Clippers, and has scarcely been seen since. On a max contract, to boot. While things generally are looking very bright for the Hornets, this one could sting.

 

[mjshoefanatic]

"Odomitis"

Gordon just hasn't been the same since he got shipped off to N-O.

All those other dudes should be ashamed of themselves. All that money and nothing to show for it. :x

 

[mjshoefanatic]

im a Pistons fan, no im not a laker fan. Im a Kobe fan tho

That would explain the BK Nets player in your avy.

 

[shoeking2101]

Man I didn't think Austin Rivers would be bad, let alone this bad to start the season, yikes :x

What gives?

 

[CP1708]

im a Pistons fan, no im not a laker fan. Im a Kobe fan tho

That would explain the BK Nets player in your avy.

 

[lawdog1]

^^^ Its amazing that, despite there being stories like that going back as long as I can remember, teams still get suckered by players having a big year in the year before free agency. Its like they just look at the one good year and ignore the numerous fair to marginal years. I kind of get some of the signings referenced in that article, like Lawson and Hibbert for example. Both of those guys seemed to be improving with each year and each played really well last season. But some of the other ones, I don't get.

 

[651akathepaul]

Man I didn't think Austin Rivers would be bad, let alone this bad to start the season, yikes :x
What gives?

He sucks.

 

[shoeking2101]

He sucks.

He doesn't "suck." You saw him in HS and in college, he doesn't "Suck." He can play. If you are going into the draft, and look at what he did for Duke last year, you don't come away with "He sucks."

Anyways...

I do think however his flaws have been put on full display in the league. What looked to be a tight handle that he showcased in HS and in College has been anything but that. He looks extremely shaky with the handle, and he has no left to speak of. (Never did in HS or College either)

He's an extremely streaky shooter with a low release point, making it hard for him to get off quality shots off the dribble, and he has never been a good spot up guy. Combine this with the fact that he's average athletically with a thin frame,then you have someone who is struggling.

Yet with all of those deficiencies against him, homie's confidence is shot. Idc how "not ready" for the league he appears to be, I believe he's better than this 2-10, 0-5, (come on ) nonsense that he's showing so far. His pedigree says he's better than that at least. You know how bad you have to be to do what he's doing offensively? he can't be that bad.

On the bright side he's been a revelation of sorts with his playmaking ability, and he's 20 years old. Hopefully he'll get it together.

 

[pmatic]

It's ridiculous that articles are popping up now wanting a shorter regular season because of Pop crying and sending his players home.
Just cuz he wants to do something, and has the right to with his own team, doesn't mean the whole league has to adjust. That's pathetic.
League been playin 82 games for decades and now all of a sudden folks wanna change up cuz some dude wants healthier players when they lose in the playoffs. That don't make no damn sense.

Why is there an 82-game schedule?

Nobody can really tell you -- not the NBA scheduler, those who work in the NBA offices in New York, nor historians of the game.

Stuck on 82
NBA teams played 80 games each beginning in 1961-62. The league added a game in 1966-67, bringing the total to 81, then ultimately settled on 82 games for the 1967-68 season, when the San Diego Rockets and Seattle SuperSonics joined the league. Now a 12-team league, the NBA had each team play its conference rivals eight times and its inter-conference foes seven times. As the league continued to expand, the NBA maintained its 82-game schedule -- the only exception being the 1998-99 season, when a lockout produced an abbreviated -- and compressed -- 50-game schedule.

Too often, we allow tradition to govern the way we do things, and that holds true in the NBA. Rules and laws that were drawn up ages ago become entrenched and are rarely reexamined to see if they're working to their intended effect or whether we can improve upon them.

A couple of weeks ago in the New York Times, Richard Sandomir made the case for a shortened NBA schedule, noting that fewer games might save some wear and tear on NBA players. He consults with Jeff Van Gundy (who advocates for fewer games, but over the same duration) and Bill Simmons, who each support trimming a handful of games from the NBA schedule, while David Thorpe counters not so fast. At TrueHoop last week, J.A. Adande filed a concurring opinion in support of a 76-game schedule.

The wear-and-tear argument for fewer games certainly has merit, but the best reason to play fewer games is to create more compelling basketball, an NBA where there are more meaningful games and a greater number of fans who make appointments to watch.

March Madness and the NFL
Eighteen months ago, CBS and TNT agreed to pay the NCAA $10.8 billion for the rights to broadcast the 67 games that compose March Madness over a span of 14 years. That's more than $771 per year. Throw in the digital rights (including the ingenious boss button) and that figure crosses $11 billion.

The NBA currently receives approximately $930 million deal from its broadcast partners, ESPN/ABC and TNT, in a deal that will run through the 2015-16 season. The two networks combine to televise 142 regular-season games. TNT gets the All-Star Game and a slew of playoff games, while ABC airs The Finals and a handful of weekend postseason games.

In other words, the NCAA sells the 11 broadcast dates of March Madness for just a smidgen less per year than the NBA earns for the rights to eight months of NBA basketball. It's important to note that March Madness has a lot of things going for it. Seemingly every office in America hosts a bracket pool, and the sudden-death nature of the tournament produces a level of drama that's tough to replicate in any sport.

The NFL, whose broadcast contracts are staggering, provides another measuring stick. Pro football is the ultimate appointment-viewing sport in North America and rakes in an obscene amount of money. ESPN pays $1.8 billion per season for the rights to Monday Night Football, streaming rights, expanded highlight packages and the draft. That's nearly twice what the NBA earns from its partners for nearly its entire national package, and doesn't include the enormous amount of cash the league generates from Sunday broadcasts on Fox, CBS and NBC. The NBA, of course, generates significant revenue from local television rights, though few of those numbers are publicly available -- and few of those deals likely come close to the $150 million per season the Lakers will reportedly earn from their new agreement with Time Warner.

Finding the sweet spot
How can the NBA tap into some of magic of the NCAA tournament or the NFL?

Many skeptics insist that the NBA product just isn't as telegenic or engaging as March Madness or the NFL. NBA enthusiasts would argue that's not the case -- it's just that the league hasn't cracked the code on how to translate all the virtues of the pro game into something people really, really, really want to watch, even in January.

If the NCAA and NFL have taught us one thing, it's that scarcity matters. Simply put, the fewer the games, the more eventful they feel. When games have greater consequences, they're imbued with a special brand of relevance. We congregate with friends, families and sometimes people we merely tolerate to create a community gathering around a game.

But how much does scarcity matter? How would we determine the ideal length of the NBA schedule?

In Economics 101, students learn about the utility or indifference curve, and how to find the sweet spot on the graph where a product's availability matches market demand.

Right now, there are 82 games. Why? Because it's been that way for decades. But "been that way for decades" -- or tradition -- is generally a lousy way to make decisions or to determine utility. Your local grocery doesn't buy inventory for the frozen food aisle based on purchasing and sales figures from 1972. The smart retailer constantly evaluates and re-evaluates consumer demand. People's habits change and a product that was a good loss leader 10 years ago might not be one now.

If we assume that 82 games is too many to achieve our goal of increasing interest, it's safe to say that 16 games are too few. A 76-game schedule would eliminate many of the "schedule losses" that come when exhausted teams roll into a far-off city at the tail end of a road trip, but what about something more radical -- say a 44-game schedule:

Let's play 44
An NBA team would play twice a week:

• One mid-week game: National doubleheaders on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with the remaining 22 teams playing on Wednesday night -- which would also feature a the current nationally televised double-header, with the remaining 18 teams playing on local television outlets. Mondays and Fridays are essentially travel days.
• One weekend game: Teams playing on Saturday and Sunday. Following the NFL season, the NBA's Sunday schedule would feature a quintuple-header, with the remaining teams playing on Saturday.

Teams would play conference rivals twice -- home and away -- and inter-conference opponents just once. Since that equals an awkwardly-numbered 43 games, the extra contest would be an additional matchup with an inter-conference opponent. The team that finished No. 1 the previous season in the Western Conference would play its counterpart in the East a second time; No. 2 would play No. 2, etc. This doesn't offer the balancing act the NFL performs to give lesser teams an easier schedule while planting land mines for the juggernauts, but it's something.

Take into account the All-Star break and you have a 23-week season that would extend from approximately Nov. 1 through the first week in April, virtually identical to what we have now.

In the current scheme, it's difficult to answer the question, "When does your NBA team play?"

Tuesdays? Sometimes. Every other day? Occasionally it works out that way. Sundays? It depends.

A twice-a-week format (once during the week/once over the weekend) would provide the NBA with the comfy consistency we see in the NFL schedule (once a week) and Major League Baseball schedule (every day). In the process, the NBA would have at least 88 nationally televised dates prior to the postseason -- dates that feature games of far greater magnitude. Inter-conference matchups become real novelties. The days of the dreaded second-night-of-a-back-to-back would be history.

Revenue costs up front, but a better product
Clearly, a 44-game schedule wouldn't come without a cost. The hit would be especially hard for teams like the Lakers, Knicks and Celtics who have lucrative television deals. Both local broadcast revenues and gate receipts (and associated game-night revenue) would be drastically reduced, but some of that revenue would be recaptured with increased ticket prices tighter and healthier national ratings right off the bat.

That's still a tough sell to the owners -- and it might be a tougher sell to the players if fewer games meant smaller paychecks, even if less wear-and-tear could translate into longer, healthier careers. And try telling a small-market owner that the Lakers or Heat will appear in their building only once every other year.

But fewer games would introduce the kind of randomness that makes the NCAA Tournament and the NFL so tantalizing. When you play fewer games with higher stakes, a couple of bounces here and there over the course of a season can vault Cinderella to the ball. A greater number of teams would hang around the playoff chase later into the season. For a league that insists an NFL-like "competitive balance" is a priority, a shorter schedule that encourages parity is the place to start.

In an era when the league's fortunes are driven by broadcast revenues, a 44-game schedule during which rested athletes are playing their best basketball in front of more vested fans would create a superior product the NBA could televise to a global audience with more capacity than ever to tune in. A nod toward a made-for-broadcast schedule would go a long way toward evenly distributing the NBA's dominant income stream, because local television rights would be secondary to the global reach of a superior product.

The Lakers aren't playing the majority of their games for the Los Angeles and San Diego markets at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on a weeknight. Instead, they're playing half their games (each of which is twice as meaningful) as the showcase event at 12:30 p.m. Pacific, 3:30 p.m. Eastern and 8:30 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time on a Saturday or Sunday. Everyone watches, and everyone profits. If the NBA wants that NFL feel -- "competitive balance" driven by non-local broadcast revenue -- this is a far better blueprint than redistribution.

Would 44 games enhance fan interest in the NBA? If so, would that interest translate into greater revenues that would compensate for fewer games? We simply can't say and it's virtually impossible to conduct an experiment.

For all we know, the best way to maximize profits for the NBA, its owners, players, coaches landlords and ushers might be to increase the number of games to 94 -- start in mid-October and host Game 7 of the Finals the weekend before the Major League All-Star Game. More games equal more money, yes?

Ninety-four is just an arbitrary number. And so is 44.

But so is 82.

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