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Around SBN: Hornets Win NBA Draft Lottery, Will Pick No. 1

Clippers

Erik O

Nov 12, 2009 May 31, 2012 36 9028

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

about 1 month ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 12 comments

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).

about 1 month ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 0 comments

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.

2 months ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 30 comments

Clips Nation MEGASTAT

MEGASTAT is here.

MEGASTAT is an amalgamated statistic that I threw together, which basically takes 3 of the foremost advanced stats and gives each of them an equal weight, in an attempt to remove some of the biases between the stats.

I gathered data from two websites, www.basketball-reference.com and www.thenbageek.com, and I included every player (for the last 3 seasons) who played more than 100 minutes over that period. For each of these players, I included their Player Efficiency Rating (PER), Win Shares per 48 minutes (WS/48), and Wins Produced per 48 minutes (WP48). I also included the True Shooting % and Minutes Played for fun, though they were not included in the creation of MEGASTAT, except to the extent that they are already included in the calculations of PER, WS/48, and WP48. Last, I weighted each year's MEGASTAT calculation by the percentage of that player's minutes over the 3 years.

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68 comments  |  4 recs | 

This could be interesting, assuming Oden plays again.

3 months ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 0 comments

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.

3 months ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 1 comment 1 recs

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.

5 months ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 31 comments 1 recs

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.

5 months ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 43 comments

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?

6 months ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 1 comment

"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.

6 months ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 23 comments

Clips Nation The Chart(s) of Destiny: Operating Income AND Win%

Okay, so I had to re-do this because the Sonics becoming the Thunder totally screwed up the chart for several teams (see comments below).  But I also took the liberty of adding in a win% column.  I took out the 11-12 season from the payroll calculation because it didn't really belong.

Without further ado, I give you... the Chart of Destiny:

Salaryrevincwin_medium

With the new and improved chart, you'll notice the Spurs and Wolves are at the top and bottom of the Win% list, and as John R points out in his comment below, they aren't extremes on the Revenue list.  But I think these are perfect examples of management outweighing spending power.  The Spurs are a nearly perfectly managed team, while the Wolves are the exact opposite.  The Spurs are making money and winning, while the Wolves are losing money and losing.  But if you go to the 2nd best and 2nd worst teams, the Mavs and the Clips, it's a more typical story that I think is more telling of the overall picture.  The Mavs have a ton of money, the Mavs spend a ton of money, and the Mavs win.  The Clippers don't have much money, the Clippers don't spend much money, and the Clippers lose.

As I said, I think this is the overall trend, so to first show the correlation between Revenue and Payroll, I made a scatter chart by sorting by Revenue, and then charting Payroll amounts.  Revenue drops as you go from left to right:

Payrollscatterrev_medium

It's not hugely pronounced, but if you have more money, you usually spend more on payroll.  The Magic stick out as spending a lot for a poor team.  

But the real question here is, do you win more by spending a lot?  Not surprisingly, when I sorted by Win% and charted Payroll, it looked awfully familiar:

Payrollscatterwin_medium

Obviously, the Knicks are a mismanaged outlier, spending money at will and getting no results at all.  Overall, though, it seems that spending has a positive correlation with winning.  Obviously it's not the only factor, but this would indicate that there could be some competitive imbalances related to how much money a team spends.

22 comments  | 

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.

8 months ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 6 comments

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

8 months ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 6 comments

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.

8 months ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 1 comment

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.

9 months ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 23 comments

Clips Nation Former Draft Picks and What Happened to Them - 2006

In continuation of the series that Citizen peterghost started with the 2007 NBA Draft, I’ve been tasked with breaking down the 2006 Draft.  (I apologize in advance for the monster post.)

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42 comments  | 

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

about 1 year ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 13 comments

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

about 1 year ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 0 comments

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.

about 1 year ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 26 comments

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

over 1 year ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 43 comments

Mostexciting

How 'bout them apples?

As much as I hate the term, thanks to Blake, we're quickly becoming the "darlings" (blahh) of the NBA. Move over, OKC!

over 1 year ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 1 comment

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."

over 1 year ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 18 comments

Loldo

If that's not a landslide of non-Clipper fan support, I don't know what is...

The world loves Blake.

over 1 year ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 8 comments

Clips Nation Better than our record shows? Well, lately we have been.

On the whole of the season, as far as total points scored vs total points allowed, we have been one of the worst teams in the league.  However, we are the only team in this group that is actually on an upward trend.  I have included all of the worst teams in each division (except I picked 2 from Pacific and 0 from Southwest, because they are way better than our division is).  I have also included Orlando, just to show a team trending the other way lately, putting our situation in perspective a bit.  

                    SCORED      ALLOWED      +/-

LAC

Preseason      776            837                 -61

Oct                 262            306                  -44

Nov                1496          1586                 -90

Dec                837            843                    -6  

Total (excl pre)      2595           2735                 -140

MIN

Preseason     881           841                     40

Oct                301           311                     -10

Nov               1417        1562                   -145

Dec              1047         1089                    -42

Total (excl pre)      2765         2962                   -197

WAS

Preseason   667            662                       5

Oct              178            211                     -33

Nov            1384          1465                     -81

Dec             771             863                     -92

Total (excl pre)    2333          2539                    -206

CLE

Preseason  654            593                       61

Oct             280            295                      -15

Nov           1328          1404                     -76

Dec            823           979                      -156

Total (excl pre)   2431          2678                    -247

NJN

Preseason  654            691                       -37

Oct             285            299                       -14

Nov           1394           1448                      -54

Dec            827             900                       -73

Total (excl pre)   2506           2647                     -141

SAC

Preseason  661             681                      -20

Oct             324             326                        -2

Nov           1185           1287                     -102

Dec            756             825                       -69

Total (excl pre)   2265           2438                     -173

ORL

Preseason  719             544                       175

Oct             182             179                          3

Nov            1494           1383                      111

Dec             746             755                        -9

Total (excl pre)    2422           2317                     105

So as you can see, we really shot ourselves in the foot with our no-show against Golden State in October, and we were pretty below-average (in this sample) in November.  However, so far in this first half of December, we've been by far the best team of these weaker teams, and even better than the slumping Orlando.  I mean, we still suck because we lose more than we win, but we're not completely hopeless.  

Make what you will of the rest of the information, keeping in mind that +/- as a statistic can be misleading since blowouts can either expand into ridiculousness (like that Golden State game) or it can get pulled into single digits, simply because Team 1's C-squad is better than Team 2's C-squad.

7 comments  | 

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.

over 1 year ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 5 comments

Blakepoll

Did they really need to ask?

...and I'm going to go ahead and assume Amare is one of those 7,264 votes for Blake.

over 1 year ago Clippers_tiny Erik O 2 comments