SB Nation User Blog: matthewcc

AWESOME: Flopping To Be Fined Next Season

matthewcc — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:07:30 -0000

I know this is a subject that gets Blazer fans - and NBA fans everywhere outside of San Antonio - foaming at the mouth. Looks like the L is FINALLY going to do something about it.

Link: ESPN.com

NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson confirmed the new policy Wednesday night saying: "What was clearly expressed to the committee is that we would begin imposing fines next season for the most egregious type of flops. When players are taking a dive, for lack of a better term."

Rasheed Wallace has some colorful comments about flopping in the article, and there are some other newsworthy items such as the NBA seemingly to reject outlawing Hack-a-Shack techniques and the issue of reseeding the playoffs.

Owners Vote: 28 - 2 For Move

matthewcc — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:57:25 -0000

So the owners voted on the Sonics, and overwhelmingly for letting them move. No big shock.

Mark Cuban voted against it like he said he would, and for good financial reasons (which I find to be by far the most convincing argument against the move; its just bad for the league to add another poor, small market team). Paul Allen also voted against, as obviously the owner of the Seattle Seahawks does not want to permanently piss off the entire Washington state sports fan population.

I'd been holding out hope for them, but at this point it looks like all Seattle is going to be able to do is make Bennett squirm a bit, and maybe blow lots of money on lawyers. Good for them.

Again, I think this is just such a dumb move for the NBA. The Sonics are going to become another team that just does not have the resources to keep up. I pity Durant. He does not deserve this.

The Final Stretch

matthewcc — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:17:26 -0000

Road (298W - 369L)
Timberwolves (12-48)
Supersonics (16-45)
Knicks (18-43)
Clippers (20-39)
Bucks (23-38)
Kings (27-34)
Kings (27-34)
Cavs (35-26)
Warriors (37-23)
Suns (40 - 21)
Lakers (43-18)

Home (302-261)
Timberwolves (12-48)
Grizzlies (15-46)
Clippers (20-39)
Bobcats (22-39)
Wizards (29-31)
Mavericks (39-22)
Suns (40 - 21)
Rockets (40-20)
Spurs (42-17)
Lakers (43-18)

Total 600W 630L
(feel free to double check my math, thems a lot of numbers)

One of the more striking things that pop out is the lack of 'average' teams; the polarization of really good and really bad teams with few teams in the middle. This is a reflection of the reality of the NBA this year where there's only two teams, Portland and Washington, that are within four games (plus or minus) of .500. Of the remaining 28 teams, 12 have won more than 60% of their games, and two (Cleveland and Toronto) are withing a few wins of that mark. This is offset by a huge number of bad teams, including 11 teams at or below the 40% mark, and a pathetic five teams with wins still in the teens and winning percentage under .300. I haven't looked back, but this dichotomy seems pretty extreme to me.

Portland plays nine games against teams that have won less than 40% of their games, including 5 games against teams that have won less than 30%.

On the flip side, they play 8 games against teams who have won more than 60%.

The Blazers play only two teams between those extremes, the Wizards and the Cavaliers (who are very close to 60%).

If we start by giving the Blazers a win against all the sub-40 teams, and a loss to all the over-60 teams, and split the Cavs (road) and Wizards (home) games, we get a finishing run of 10-9. However, they simply aren't playing as good as they did when they racked up all those wins in Decemeber and January. My guess is they get in one or two upsets, but give back two to four against the bad teams.

The bulk of the difficult games are at home, which is a double edged sword. On one hand, its better this way if the Blazers are to make a real run at the playoffs. They'll need both road and home wins, so its better to play bad teams on the road, good teams at home. However, if the playoffs are out anyway, it might have been better to just play all the good teams on the road and cede those losses, but rack up wins at home against bad teams to build confidence going into the offseason. In short, this schedule is probably going to either lead a homerun or a strikeout; no base hits.

(One of the unfortunate things about the 'strikeout' scenario is it probably wouldn't even improve their draft position as the teams below them are waaaay below.)

7 out of the 11 road games are against teams with worse records than the Blazers (and with the excption of the 27-34 Kings, MUCH worse), whereas half the home games (5 of 10) are against those teams at .600 or better. If the Blazers do get hot at home again, its possible they could go 7-3 at home and say 7-4 on the road. If Golden State (6.5 games ahead) and Denver (5.5) both go flat and play .500 ball, that would be good enough to squeak into the playoffs with a 1 game lead over the Warriors.

Unless they get really, really hot to the point they can beat veteran, peaking teams like the Spurs, Lakers, and Rockets, I just don't see them closing out better than 8-11, giving the Blazers a final record of 40-42. While disappointing based on the inflating expectations of January, this would have been considered a wildly optimistic number back in October.

What do you guys and gals think? What are your predictions given this schedule?

League Pass is ON FREE RIGHT NOW (at least in NY)

matthewcc — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:08:00 -0000

I live in New York City and I have Time Warner cable. I do not have League Pass (the misses wouldn't go for it) but I check those blocked channels every Blazer game just in case.

Well, it finally paid off because the Hornets v. Blazers game is coming through. Fluke? Promotion? No idea.

Maybe this is a national deal, like when you get HBO for a week, a tease. Just FYI for those of you like me used to following the game online, check your League Pass channel it may be coming through.

GO BLAZERS

Barkley Hearts Roy

matthewcc — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 02:43:48 -0000

The TNT crew was just discussing the All-Star voting, and the Round Mound expressed his disgust McGrady was #2 in the West, and said something about fan voters knowing as much about basketball as his dogs do.

He said Kobe should be #1 in the West (he is), then Steve Nash, then Brandon Roy.

(they were talking about guards).

Barkley, even before backing Roy, was my favorite television basketball commentator, and this just solidifies it.

Blazers on National TV - Wrong priorities for the NBA?

matthewcc — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 17:16:40 -0000

This may seem sacrilegious, but is giving the Blazers so many televised games reflective of one of the bigger problems with the NBA? The Sonics and Blazers are both going to get significant national coverage for the first time in forever, but do they really deserve it? Its doubtful either team will be very good at all this year. The NBA is clearly putting star promotion way ahead of good basketball. Should we be happy about it just because they're promoting our stars?

Here is a pretty good critique of the NBA schedule that True Hoop linked to, one I find myself agreeing with. I love that the Blazers are getting more exposure, but the larger issue of the NBA relying on stars instead of the excellence of the teams is annoying. I do not want to watch the Lakers or Heat (who are going to be be terrible) 7,000 times a year. I'd much rather watch Utah and Toronto.

What do you guys think? Do the Blazers really deserve to be on national TV? Would you support a new scheduling priority if for 2007-08 it meant less Lakers and Heat, but also less Blazers?

Portland: Off-season losers?

matthewcc — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:35:36 -0000

ESPN.com Insider's John Hollinger has listed his '15 winners' of the off-season (i.e., teams that have improved) and the Blazers failed to make the list.

A note at the top of the article says "Coming Thursday: Hollinger's offseason losers". If there's 15 winners, I assume there's 15 losers, and he counts the Blazers among them (unless there's a third, smaller group that... what exactly?)

Here's his rankings, though I'm leaving out his comments:

Rockets
Bobcats
Suns
Knicks
Hawks
Celtics
Grizzlies
Wizards
Hornets
Kings
Lakers
Bulls
Raptors
Pistons
76ers

I just cannot come up with a criteria that keep the Blazers off that list. We'll be better next year than last, and we've added more talent than any team in the league. By any measure Portland had a fantastic off-season. My only thought is Hollinger just forgot about the Blazers.

Trade Idea: Darius Miles for Adonal Foyle

matthewcc — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:05:23 -0000

The Warriors fan post got me thinking about a way to create even more cap room for summer 2010. Check out Darius Miles contract compared to Foyle's:

Miles
2007/08: $8.2m 2008/09: $9m 2009/10: $9m

Foyle
2007/08: $8.9m 2008/09: $9.2m 2009/10: $10.6m

The biggest difference is that Foyle's last year is a team option. That is the summer the Blazers are targeting for their free agent blitz.

We were already looking at the Blazers realistically being $15-20m under the cap that year. Clearing Miles contract would put us close to $24-29m after signing Outlaw, etc...

The Blazers could add not one, but two max players if they wanted. Granted, it would send their payroll into the stratosphere once the Big 3 signed extentions in the following two years, but I'm just putting it out there.

Would it be worth shipping off, say, Webster and/or Jack to get the Warriors to swap Foyle's contract for Miles equally bad but 1-year longer contract?

Blazers GET $2m from luxury tax

matthewcc — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 22:27:25 -0000

espn.com breaks down the luxury cap situation. Only five teams are over the $65.4m threshold: New York, Dallas, Denver, Minnesota, and San Antonio.

New York owes the League $45m, about six and half times the 2nd highest, Dallas' $7.2m. Every other NBA team, including the Blazers, get to split all that money. It ends up being a little under $2m each.

I'm a little confused though, because various sources (for example here and here) have Phoenix way over the tax threshold. Did the trade with the Blazers help get them under?

Shorter Abbott: Roy Booted Zach

matthewcc — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 19:59:47 -0000

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-26-2/Monday-Bullets.html

Henry Abbot today in his bullets today basically confirms what most of us suspected:

quote:

I have heard this story a couple of times before, but not in a way I could report. I'm sure you're wondering who that player is, right? I bet you can figure it out. I did, using this simple process: did the Blazers have any prominent players last year, especially when you rule out Zach Randolph himself? Maybe just one ... Or another way of thinking about it: Hmm ... if Jamaal Magloire asked Kevin Pritchard to trade somebody, would he? No. How about Ime Udoka? Go through the whole roster. I think you'll get 100% "no" except for possibly one "maybe" (and he wasn't prominent last year) and only one clear "yes."

That first sentence sounds like he had been told about it off-the-record, though he does walk us through a chain of logic that doesn't require any inside information.

One point I haven't seen anyone make (maybe they did and I missed it) is that Roy didn't necessarily have to dislike Randolph in order for him to believe this was something he had to do. He may have even considered him a friend, but maybe he considered this as the sort of thing that goes along with being a team leader. Maybe he was a representative of multiple players, as well.