I read a lot about basketball. You read a lot about basketball. We all read a lot about basketball.  So we should all be familiar with the excess metaphors or slang words/phrases that make up a very large part of our ballin' diction.  Granted, I like many of these phrases.  "Hombre" is good.  "Three point land" has a nice whimsical feel to it. "Swish" is a high point in the annals of onomatopoeia. "Called for steps" is just about perfect, and "traveling" itself is great.  But many more of these words/phrases I do not particularly like. Put another way: I @#@%@#%@# hate them.  They are (in no particular order)

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So in the comments to the Top 20 thread, I found that apparently more than couple of BSoS frequenters believe that Chris Paul is not a franchise player.  Also, apparently at least part of this sentiment was based on this Fox article by Charley Rosen.  Since I think Chris Paul is one of the best players in the game, I tracked down the article to find out what exactly were his flaws.  

Unfortunately, all I found out was that apparently Charley Rosen doesn't care anymore and pretty much just says what he wants.  I don't really have any good way to explain other than to go through his claims one by one and talk about how astoundingly wrong or unimportant they are.

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So being that it's the OFFseason, I've been doing some idle basketball speculation.  Most recently, I've been trying to come up with a list of the Top 20 most valuable players (as in current + potential future value) in the NBA.  I've found that it's pretty much ridiculously difficult.  I mean, to me, it seems that there are 11 players that would be on almost everyone's list even if they're not necessarily the top 11.  They are (in no particular order):

1. Kobe
2. Lebron
3. Chris Paul
4. Dwight Howard
5. Kevin Garnett
6. Tim Duncan
7. Kevin Durant
8. Brandon Roy
9. Chris Bosh
10. Dwyane Wade
11. Derrick Rose

After these eleven though, I get pretty lost.  I mean, there's a number of candidates but that's why it's so hard to choose. They're not really that distinct. So I guess my question is if you had to choose the 10 most valuable players excluding the above eleven players, which players would you pick? Warning: it's much harder than picking the top 11.

My list looks like (once again in no particular order):

1. Danny Granger
2. Tony Parker
3. Blake Griffin
4. Manu Ginobili
5. Amare
6. Pau Gasol
7. Andre Iguodala
8. Rajon Rondo
9. Al Horford
10. Gerald Wallace

I know you can certainly disagree with some of those picks or the exclusion of others, and I'm not even sure that I agree with myself.  But it's hard, you know?

Anyone else want to try? It's a great way to kill time and make you look up stats for no reason.

So the Grizzlies didn't extend a qualifying offer to Hakeem Warrick, which means he's likely on the market and probably for cheap.  The Suns still have some exception money laying around.  I'd be all for them pursuing him, I think.

He's not really a great fit, but he does have a solid offensive game and he can dunk impressively.  When motivated he's a decent perimeter defender but he's too little to guard any real post players.  And he doesn't rebound too well. Remarkably, he's like a poor man's Travis Outlaw (and what a poor man that must be).  Alternatively, he's like a Bill Gates's version of Taylor Griffin.   Plus, he'd probably be ton of fun to watch in our revived SSOL offense in which we hope to win by scoring 154 ppg (and giving up 153 ppg). In a sense, he's an ideal Suns player: all offense, very fast, mediocre defense, no rebounding.

So what do you think? I'm all for embracing our true identity because if we're going to go down, I'd like to go down ridiculously.

I love DraftExpress. L-O-V-E it. So I don't want to sound ungrateful, but has anyone else noticed that DE has been completely dead since the draft? There's a brief blog entry on the "suprises" of the draft and then nothing. No detailed draft reviews, nothing on the Orlando Summer League, nothing on Las Vegas Summer League.There's only been a couple of articles about the Lebron skills academy (which were cool).

This strikes me as very strange, since they're normally so militant. I'm kind of going through withdrawal. I was just wondering if anyone knew anything about what's going on over there or at least had also recognized the silence.

And I guess to give this post reasonable length, I'll add an off-topic poll:

So now it looks like Oklahoma City may be furthering its quest to be the most hated team in the league by having a positively awful team name, "Thunder," that my wife so poignantly deemed as "something a guy would call his penis."

To help them then, I've come up with another team name for them that I think will fit the culture of OK and perhaps start a new trend in diversity.

I recommend the name: The Oklahoma City White People.

I figured since it's so popular to name teams after Native Americans, even when they use flagrant slurs like "Redskins," why not extend the fun to white people?

You know, they could have a guy in khaki shorts, loafers, and a pastel polo shirt as their mascot, and who wouldn't pay to see Chris Wilcox in a White People jersey?

I don't have Clay Bennett's e-mail but if any of you come across it, let me know. I'd love to run this idea by  him. And, of course, if any one else has a good idea, I'd love to hear it. We can send one long e-mail to Clay.

Slovenia opened up today's Olympic qualifiers in Athens with an 88-76 victory over Korea.

Our boy Goran had 11 pts on 3-3 shooting (plus 1-1 3pt. and 4-4 FTs), 4 ast., 3 reb., 1 stl., and 1 TO.

I don't think he's starting though, so his minutes will be around this amount for most games, but he was apparently on the court during crunch time when Korea made their comeback. I think he's backing up or playing the 2 alongside their starting PG, Lakovic.

Let's hope Slovenia can keep this up. They're one of the favorites here and the top 3 teams get a spot in the Olympics. And if he makes the Olympics, we can watch him on TV!

Woo! 

Looking back at the Gasol trade, I think it's become a lot more clear that this wasn't as horrible a trade as it was made out to be. In fact, I think you can make a case that the Grizzlies did well for themselves.

They gave up Gasol, but now have gotten:

• Javaris Crittenton - a promising PG prospect, even if they're loaded at that position
• Darrell Arthur - a promising PF prospect
• Marc Gasol - a promising C prospect, who was just MVP of the Spanish league (arguably the best league in Europe).
• 9M in Salary Cap relief between Kwame Brown and Aaron Mckie
• the Lakers 2010 first round pick.

That's really not a bad haul for a high-end complimentary player like Gasol. I mean, he's 20/8 guy, which is great, but he's not a Duncan or even Amare caliber star.

I think perhaps people jumped on this trade so aggressively because the Lakers didn't have to give up any rotation players except Brown. But, in retrospect, I think that may speak more to the fact that the Lakers had a lot of quality, expendable assets outside their rotation rather than Memphis made a bad deal.

Perhaps, there were better deals, but, to me, Darrell Arthur/Marc Gasol/Javaris Crittenton/9M in cap space/1st Round Pick is pretty good for a one-time all star.

Thoughts?

Since there's been some talk about trade ideas, here is this idea, which serves both the present and the future. Here we trade with the Nets.

The Suns trade:

• Leandro Barbosa 4 yr/27.4M
  
• Alando Tucker 1 yr/1M
  
• their 2009 1st Round Pick
• their 2009 2nd Round Pick

The Suns receive

• Trenton Hassell 2 yr/8.7M
• Josh Boone 1 yr/1.5M (team option in 2009-2010)
  
• Marcus Williams 1 yr/1.2M (team option in 2009-2010)
• the Nets 2010 1st Round Pick

Benefit for the Nets:

The Nets are now in a full rebuilding mode, aiming at signing Lebron in the off-season after 2009-2010. To sign him, they will need 1) cap space and 2) an attractive enough team. Barbosa does not hurt their future cap space very much, and in 2010 is a much more attractive asset in terms of age/contract/ego than their current SG, Vince Carter (who will be 33 at that point). Furthermore, Barbosa allows them to move Carter if they want (and can), giving them potentially the fastest backcourt in the league when you team him with Devin Harris. Unlike Harris, however, Barbosa can shoot. Additionally, the Nets get our 2009 1st pick so they can double up for the second straight year and accelerate their rebuilding process to be prepared for 2010. Tucker is just a final throw-in that adds SF depth and  might be nice, but can also be released after one year.

In terms of sacrifice, the Nets lose a fine prospect Boone, who is an impressive rebounder but has offensive limitations. With their new glut at the 4 and 5, however, (S. Williams, B. Lopez, R. Anderson, Y. Jianlian, S. Swift, and possibly N. Krstic), they  should not be overly opposed to moving one of their young bigs. Also, Marcus Williams is a nice backup PG, but considering the floor time Devin Harris is like to see and the fact that Barbosa can play PG in a pinch, I think the Nets would be willing to sacrifice him as well. Not to mention that whatever hit their team quality takes as a result of a lack of PG depth doesn't really hurt their draft position. Last, they also lose their 2010 pick, but since they have Dallas' pick as well, I believe they can tolerate this loss.

Benefit for the Suns:

The Suns get depth and back into the 2010 draft. Josh Boone is a relatively similar player to R. Lopez, but if what we're trying to do is find a) front court depth and b) a future defensive counterpart for Amare then I see no reason not to double down and make signing Skinner unnecessary. Plus, I have much more faith in Boone than in Lopez. Marcus Williams gives us a solid backup PG with 3pt range who, should Dragic be available next year, can be released after this season. Trenton Hassell is likely primed for the 11th or 12th spot on the bench, but his contract runs out after 2009-2010 i.e. at the same time as Shaq's and Nash's. Also, it is not a bad thing to have a good perimeter defender at the end of the bench. Last, we receive the 2010 pick, which gets us back into the 2010 draft at a likely decent spot.

The Suns sacrifice, primarily, Barbosa. We will miss his scoring and shooting, but with backup PG and front court depth settled, we can focus our attention on Giricek who can replace some of LB's contributions. Hassell can also give us minutes in a pinch. We also lose our picks next year, which is tough (it was so exciting to draft this year), but we do gain a better pick (the Nets in 2010) in a hopefully a better draft (2009 is no 2008). Plus, not having any picks after next season will leave us with that much more cap room after 09-10. Last, I see the loss of Tucker as minimal.

Conclusion:

It's a trade for a possible future starter (Boone) and present depth. I do worry that the Nets might be hesitant to lose Boone, in which case S.Williams seems a fine option as well. The key is the switching of picks. Without that, I don't know if I see enough motivation to make this deal.

Anyone else think this is a good idea or am I talking stupid? Either is possible.

A snippet from the new DraftExpress interview with Joe Alexander:

DraftExpress: What is the one thing you think you need to learn as a basketball player?

Alexander: The only thing you need to learn is how to win.

The whole interview is here

Needless to say, my man-crush is only growing. I mean, the guy slept in the gym for a semester, so he could practice more. And he can head butt the rim.

Alexander '08!

So I don't know how many of you are into Dave Berri and his Win Score/Wins Produced crusade, but I loved this little bit of analysis he came up with:

Apparently, because of his WP48 drop, Leon Powe is more responsible for the Celtics' decline in the playoffs than Kevin Garnett. 

Of course, he doesn't quite explain how Powe, who's played only 10 mpg in the C's losses, contributes more to the losses than Garnett, who has played 40 mpg in those losses and has a worse win score per minute in those losses than he did in regular season losses (.269 vs .300).

Sweet analysis.

As per Pliny request: ; the link ;

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San Antonio's only 20-18 when they don't hit 7 3's. But this means if they do hit 7 they're 36-8.

But that's not all.

San Antonio is 40-7 when they get 21 assists. If they get less than 21, they're 16-19.

But there's more.

If San Antonio gets their optimal game and have both 7 3s and 21 assists they're 30-4. If they get neither 7 3s nor 21 assists, they're 10-15. If they get 21 assists but not 7 3's they're 10-3. If they get 7 3's but not 21 assists, they're 6-4.

Just a little more.

So they break down is like this.

1. 41.4% of the time, SA gets 21 ast. and 7 3s and they win 88.2% of those games.
2. 15.9% of the time, SA gets 21 ast but not 7 3s. They still win 76.9% of these games.
3. 12.2% of the time, SA gets 7 3's but not 21. They win 60% of these games.
4. 30.4% of the time, SA gets neither. They win 40% of these games.
5. Of all games when SA does not get both 21 and 7
   

And a little bit more

1. SA can only get 21 assists 57.3% of all games . And they can only 21 assists without 7 3s in 27.7% of those games.
2. SA can only 7 3s in 53.6% of all games. It can only get 7 3s without 21 assists in 22.7% of those games.

Interpretation:

The Spurs 3's, assists, and wins are all tied together. When they are passing the ball well to their three point shooters (thus 21 and 7), they're pretty much unstoppable. They're also good (though not as good) when they can just do one of the two, but it's rare that they do only one of the two (a little less than 3 out of ten games). This means that if you can stop one, you can likely stop the other.

Last

Conclusion:

Our perimeter players have to stay at home on the Spurs 3 pt. shooters. The Spurs offense heavily depends on the three pointer. In fact, only a few teams take more threes per FGA than the Spurs. The Suns do. But unlike the Spurs, when they Suns don't get their median assists (27) and their median threes (9), they still play well (15-8). This is because we have several players who can score without the three (Nash, STAT, Shaq, Diaw, Barbosa, Hill, Giricek) but the Spurs have only their big three.

Thus the Spurs are extremely vulnerable if they lose the three point shot. And judging by their individual stats, it seems they likely get many of their three's from Duncan double teams and Parker/Ginobili kick outs, since those three players give out almost all of the Spurs assists.

So as long as we do not double team and only rotate our big men to a driving Parker/Ginobili, Udoka, Bowen, and Finley (and Barry or Horry if they play) will be useless (all three depend almost entirely on threes for points).

Thus not only will Parker, Duncan, and Ginobili all have to have solid games, at least two of them will need outstanding games. This is unlikely, and that is why the Spurs lose most games in which they cannot dish out to their spot up shooters.

Arriba Soles!

I've never been happier (watching a live sporting event, at least). I don't need to go into any details about the game since Chboddis and Stan are already all over that, but I would like to throw in a couple of live details that, I think, could enhance the victory for everyone.

1. The Spurs fans started filing out with six(!) minutes left in the 4th. We were only up by thirteen. It was so awesome to watch on so many levels. Lines of little Duncans and overweight Parkers dragging long foam fingers and deflated egos to their cars. Apparently the Spurs' fans are also sore losers. I mean, that's so weak. There were six minutes left!
2. The Spurs fans are pretty adamant about disputing every call against them with various swear words in multiple languages, which isn't unusual. Most fans are that way. And they get encouragement from the jumbotron, since it replays  every foul.

3) Unrelated, an exceptionally large man offered to buy my Barkley jersey for first one then two then three hundred dollars. He actually presented me with the cash on the spot. But being a good fan, I said hell no.

But if he had gone up to five...well, there's always eBay.

 Go Suns!

Suns fans in Tejas,

Who's going to be at the game tonight?

Anyone? Just me and my wife?

Well, if you are and see a hispanic couple sitting way up near the roof and wearing a Barkley (me) and a Nash (she) jersey, give a shout out. Even if it's not us, they're still on your side.

We will be few. But we will be obnoxious or at least I will.

And I am determined to make fun of Spot's er...Manu's baldness no matter the score.

(Sorry. I know this is more or less pointless. I'm just stupid excited, because I've never seen Shaq before. And I really do wish the Spurs still had James White. That man made pregame shootarounds very special)

Go Suns!

You know now that we're in the midst of political "silly season" and endorsements are being thrown all around (by papers, blogs, politicians, and celebrities), I was thinking that BSoS should endorse as well.

Not a presidential candidate, of course: politics isn't fun. But we should be using these MVP poll votes  to make an official endorsement of a player for MVP (and for ROY and so on...).

C'mon. Let's stop riding the fence and take a stance on the issues.

"BSoS endorses Antoine Walker for MVP and D.J. Strawberry for ROY."

Or something like that.

I generally think MVP is a silly award for two reasons.

1. The standard is unclear. How much should wins count? What about pure statistical dominance? Late game heroics? Injured teammates? Excellent teammates? Crappy teammates? Character? Everyone  uses his own criteria it seems.
2. Even if there were a clear standard, it's still based on regular season performance, which, to be honest, is relatively unimportant. I mean, a No.1 seed hasn't won the title since 99-00 (the Lakers) and only three of the last ten MVPs won a title the same season. Who really cares if you were the best player on a team with a great record if you didn't win anything?

And that also means that the award should have probably looked like this for the past ten years. Jordan, Duncan, O'Neal, O'Neal, O'Neal, Duncan, Billups, Duncan, Wade, Duncan.

And I would agree with that.

I haven't been watching the past few Suns games, so when I saw the Spurs game this afternoon I noticed that we had some new offensive plays going. And I don't just mean the obvious efforts to get Shaq the ball down low.

I'm talking about:

1) This pick and roll play where Shaq and Amare both come up to each elbow and then Steve decides which pick to use. I hadn't seen that before.

and, related,

2) Where Steve runs the pick and roll with Shaq, Shaq rolls to the basket but at the same time Amare fades to the top of the circle from the high post. Then Steve passes past Shaq to Amare. It's like a decoy pick and roll to open up Amare for his new improved jumper. The first time I saw it, I thought Steve might just have been using his great vision, but it happened three times. Seems like a play or at least a way to open up the lane that had been clogging since we acquired an actual center.

So what's up? Has this been going on for the past week while I've been tuning out or is it new or am I just fabulously dense and it's something we've been doing for weeks (or years).

And, of course, what a freakin win today! I hope they repeat on April 9th in San Antonio. I'll be there in my Barkley throwback, representin.

So I trust that after the Suns (and I guess now maybe the Heat), we're all keeping track of the Hawks, right? We do have their first round pick.

Well, in case you haven't been keeping track, I just thought I'd let you know that the Hawks have just fallen to 9th in the East and thus into the LOTTERY! Woo! This means that if the season ended today the Suns would be slotted in the eleventh place for the No. 1 pick. Woo!

The Hawks also play the Lakers on Tuesday, so let's hope they lose while Philly wins in Minnesota, so they can continue to plummet in the standings. With Suns struggling a bit, this is the kind of good news I look for to keep me happy with the NBA.

Danilo Gallinari, here we come!

So the Lakers give up an overpaid big man who doesn't produce, a very promising prospect who's still a few years away, and two first round picks to get one of the most established low post scorer's in the league? That's a very nice trade for them.

And it's awful for the Suns. The Lakers with a starting lineup of Bryant, Fisher, Odom, Bynum, and Gasol with Walton, Turiaf, Vujacic, Farmar, and Vujacic is just downright scary for the next few years. The only plus is that they'll be way over the luxury tax next season, so I would say look for Odom to be moved this summer.

This looks pretty good for Memphis too though. They get 9M of cap relief this summer, a solid prospect in Crittenton, two more picks (though they'll like be late first rounders), and what looks like a large trade exception.

I'm not really sure what they're going to do with Crittenton, since now they have three prospects at PG (Conley and Lowry plus Crittenton). I wouldn't be surprised to see them sell out for Michael Beasley by trading two first rounders and Crittenton this summer for the number one pick (if they don't just get it anyway). The trade exception will help. They'll have to make some kind of a move within the next year though if they did get the exception.

But with their cap space, and the picks, and the exception, they might improve very quickly by next year (especially if they offer all they've got for Iguodala. I mean, Iguodala, Gay and Conley? That's ridiculous at the 1, 2, and 3).

So moral of the story: The West keeps on getting much better while the East and the Suns are standing pat.

Bummer. Update [2008-2-1 16:19:25 by rosewood]: Apparently, the Lakers are adding a sign and trade with Mckie to make the salaries work, so it is a simultaneous trade with no exceptions. Doesn't change much though. Still a sad, sad day.

[Editor's Note: Some light-hearted humor from Rosewood while I'm working on some administrative stuff for the site]

So I'm studying for my law finals, and I see a picture of Steve Nash's uncle. Well, it's not really his uncle, but it is Supreme Court Justice David Souter, and he really looks like Steve Nash. It made me laugh enough that I decided to find look alikes for a lot of the Suns. Here's what I found.

Steve Nash and David Souter.

Shawn Marion and Norwegian striker John Carew

Leandro  and Usher

Raja and Barack Obama

And last, Amare and his little brother Ludacris

What do you think? Got any better ones?

This just makes me sad. I've always known that Nash flopped but I didn't think that he did stuff like this. I don't think there's any question though. Nash tripped Felton.

Maybe it's a good thing though. Maybe we need to start getting a little dirty. I guess that was playoff basketball in November. But if I'm going to say that Bowen tripped Amare, I have to admit what Nash did. Too bad.

Any thoughts?

Fun, fun, fun.

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Will we keep him?

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