Fun article, and probably the first time I've heard anyone say that Blake is underrated.

Neat article (from a Wins-produced-guy) about why tanking isn't a problem. Within the article you'll find tidbits from another article he wrote about why tanking just doesn't really work, which kind of makes sense considering how consistent the makeup of the top teams has always been---big markets seem to be the only factor, with a few exceptions by teams that are just plain savvy (San Antonio).

In light of Travis Leslie getting sent to the D-League, there's always the possibility the team hires a guy for the rest of the season, as a playoff-rental. I thought this might be a little interesting to look at, if only to speculate.

This could be interesting, assuming Oden plays again.

For those interested in using numbers to analyze basketball, but are also interested in all things magic, this article is for you!

For the rest of us, it's worth a good laugh. And I like how sometimes he splits up the birthdate's digits, or sometimes he keeps them together. Probably because it's the year of the dragon.

According to my own special magic, Blake Griffin appears to be special. Because 10 is a very magical number, and he was born on 3/16/1989:
3 + 1 + 6 + 1 + 9 + 8 + 9 = 37 --> 3 + 7 = 10
3 + 16 + 1 + 9 + 8 + 9 = 46 --> 4 + 6 = 10
3 + 1 + 6 + 19 + 89 = 118 --> 1 + 1 + 8 = 10
3 + 16 + 19 + 89 = 127 --> 1 + 2 + 7 = 10
3 + 16 + 1 + 98 + 9 = 127 --> 1 + 2 + 7 = 10
3 + 1 + 6 + 1 + 98 + 9 = 118 --> 1 + 2 + 7 = 10

This is so stupid.

This is just a typical game recap, so there's nothing new to see here, but one quote caught my eye:
"We defended and gave ourselves a chance to win, and that’s all you can ask for," James said. "So we can be satisfied. I mean, you don’t like to lose, but we’re not going to hang our heads about this one."

As we all know from watching post-game interviews, Chris Paul has constantly expressed how he cares only about the W, and not about anything else. Whether he has a good or a bad game, whether it's a nail-biter or a blowout, or whether it's against the Heat or the Wizards, Chris Paul doesn't really seem to vary his reactions: he's pissed when we lose (no matter how close it was), and he's pleased (not overly celebratory) when we win.

I don't know if this really means anything with regards to how LeBron plays (he's still playing the best basketball of his career), but I'm pretty happy our superstar doesn't ever seem content with a loss. And if it means anything, Michael Jordan never seemed content.

Time to get our guys voted in. Looks like DJ really doesn't have a ton of competition (Pau and TD are forwards, most notably), and if he can keep his name in the media, he'll have a fair shot at being a reserve. And of course I voted for EJ (sorry Chauncy) along with CP3 in the guard spots.

Ladies and gentlemen, get your vote on.

Woj is a conspiracy theorist now?

Heh.. I thought this line was funny:
"There remain 'many options' for the NBA-owned Hornets to pursue in trading their four-time All-Star point guard, Demps said, adding that the team and league will be diligent in 'looking for the best one.'"

He's got to be bluffing, right?

"I've been told any deal involving @CP3 is unlikely as long as the NBA is the de facto owner of the Hornets. They don't want that PR mess."

Good for New York, bad for New Orleans, and bad for the Clips.

This surprises me. After all of my huffing and puffing about the owners not making real concessions on the revenue-split, word on the yahoo-street is that the problem was with the cap system?

It's hard to argue with the League's point that the rich teams succeed and the poor teams fail. Of the top 15 teams with the highest payroll, 13 of them were in the playoffs, with the Jazz and Cavs being the exceptions, and both teams that were in the playoffs last year. Now, the Hornets, Grizzlies, Nuggets, Suns, and Rockets have managed to be relatively successful despite being in the bottom 15 (especially those Grizzlies), so being successful with a low payroll is certainly not impossible. But still, trends would point to the Owners being right in this case.

I'm not sure where Derek Fisher gets off saying, "As athletes we don’t believe that competitive balance is completely decided by an economic system or how much payroll exists on one team or another." Really Fish? The guy with a ton of rings on a team that's constantly on the top of the payroll list, regularly stomping on the low-payroll teams? Riiiight.

Oh, and there's no use pointing to OKC as an example of a successful team under the cap. Sooner or later, OKC isn't going to be able to afford their current squad. That's too much talent on rookie contracts to last for a small-market team.

That being said, the Union's stance that a hard cap threatens all but the top performers on a team is completely valid. A stiffer luxury tax should be imposed, but not one to the extent of $6 for every $1 over the tax. That's just insane, and making a cap system that looks and smells like a hard cap, and then calling it a soft cap, is just... dishonest.

So my vote is this: Union, obviously there should be some leveling of the playing field, allowing poor teams to compete; and Owners, can we please try to find a way to level the playing field without completely flattening it with a sledgehammer? There's middle ground here, and no one's looking for it.

I'll probably never say this again, but MAN I wish I lived in Oklahoma City!

Gah... I saw DTS' ugly mug on the Yahoo Sports homepage. But at least there was an article behind it, instead of something more embarrassing.

Oh, and for Tom Gores' sake, I hope that's just a really old picture from the 80's and he doesn't actually have that haircut. I'm not even going to talk about Stanley Kroenke's 'stache.

I know this isn't Clipper-related at all, but for all the stat-heads in the Nation, this is mildly interesting.

While I appreciate the data-comparison, I can't really get behind the idea of this "creation ratio" being a necessarily positive measure. To me, for Westbrook, it's more of an indicator that he's constantly being depended on for the team to put up a shot. Does it indicate in any way that this offensive style results in good shots? I don't think so, given the ratio of Westbrook-assists-to-Westbrook-shots, and given his relatively low TS%.

Now, I can very much agree with the implications of a low creation ratio. I think it's perfectly reasonable to knock on KD for an inability to create shots for both himself and others. It's the same knock we can put on EJ. Yes, Westbrook may be far less efficient than Durant, but if he (and Harden and Maynor) are not passing the ball to KD, and if KD maintains the same creation ratio, he's not going to score as much. That's not to say that KD's creation ratio wouldn't naturally increase if he were to become a featured ball-handler in the offense under those circumstances, though. This is where I think there are holes in the creation ratio. It seems to measure who creates the offense on a particular team, not who should be creating the offense, or who has or hasn't got the ability to do so.

Also, this entire argument is based on the concept that creation is a good thing, and that assists are a large part of creation. But OKC is one of the worst passing teams in the league, and yet they've still been successful. They are 24th in assists. In fact, the finals matchup was between two polar-opposite teams in this respect, with Dallas coming in at #2 in assists and Miami at #26. So I'm not sure is there's much of a correlation between being getting a lot of assists and winning a lot of games. Of course, there does appear to be a correlation between efficiency and winning (Dallas and Miami being #3 and #4 in eFG% respectively), which is why I'd be inclined put more weight on the X-axis of Ziller's graph, rather than the Y-axis. Discuss away.

Thank goodness... Sacramento is a great town that deserves a team. Now get it together and build a new arena!

Since we're constantly on the topic of qualitative vs quantitative evaluation of players, Schuhmann's article seems particularly relevant.

For anyone who is an ESPN Insider, this is an extremely interesting read.

For those who aren't Insiders, I'm not entirely sure about the rules on posting information from Insider-articles, but in a nutshell, Hollinger discusses the theory that Rose shouldn't be MVP because any arguments for why he's had a breakout season are more applicable to the other candidates. Carrying the team on his back? Howard, Bryant > Rose. Invaluable to the team? Howard, Dirk, James, Bryant > Rose. You get the idea.

I'm not sure if I agree that it's as black and white as a +/- when they're on or off the court, since coaches might feel comfortable playing their worst players as long as their best star is still out there (see: Kevin Durant last year, or LeBron vs Varajao last year), but there's a lot here I do agree with. Such as Hollinger's point that guards seem to get more respect in the MVP race, only because they are the natural underdogs, which is why Howard would be a huge MVP snub this year, if Rose wins it.

I think one thing Hollinger ignores, but shouldn't necessarily be part of the MVP-race-equation, is the season in light of the players' other seasons. If Kobe is having a better year than Rose, but Kobe's stats are dropped off from prior seasons, while Rose's are vastly improved, how likely is Kobe to get the vote? And that's why the MVP voters are silly.

Maybe it wasn't the knee keeping him on the bench...?

Good for Stevie.

I don't know if this has already been posted, but it was new to me. From a coach I really respect, this is really nice to see.

"Tell me their weakness," Nuggets coach George Karl said of the surging Clippers. "Tell me their weakness right now. Their big guys are playing as well as anybody in the NBA. I think Baron [Davis] has kind of got into a groove of running the team and not worrying about scoring points, and you've got [Eric] Gordon at the two-guard position playing at a high level. And their bench is pretty productive. I think they're going to be a very difficult win on their home court. It's going to take time for them to learn how to win on the road, but they're building right now. They're an exciting team, their crowd kind of likes how they play, and they play with a lot of -- whatever the word is -- they love to dunk it. And they know how to dunk it."

It's really not that Sterling was wrong in his heckling---because how can you disagree that Baron should never shoot threes?---it's just that he, of all people, really hasn't earned the right to heckle anyone.

Surprise, surprise...