SB Nation User Blog: sammy

The time-in and other ideas.

sammy — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:17:33 -0000

Filched off kottke.

Samuel Arbesman proposes the introduction of the time-in.

To quantify how powerful a tool the time-in would be, I ran this idea by Brian Burke, the head of the website Advanced NFL Stats. Burke has developed a computational model that outputs the win-probability for a team over the course of a game. Assuming that it would only be used by the leading team on defense near the end of the game when there’s a small point difference, he found the time-in could produce up to a one-third drop in win probability for the losing team.

Following a discussion in a OT LL thread, if you were God of Football for a day, what one rule change would you introduce?

Personally, I think it'd be interesting to see what the game would look like if you relaxed the rules about eligible receivers. I'd be pumped to see some desperate team try out the A-11.

Sign Leon Powe.

sammy — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:38:01 -0000

via Kevin Pelton

Leon Powe is a risk of a different kind, as the torn ACL he suffered in last year's postseason will cost him at least the start of the 2009-10 campaign and could render him ineffective until the following season. Nonetheless, a non-contending team would be wise to sign Powe to a cheap two- or three-year deal with heavy incentives and small guarantees, if possible. When healthy, Powe has been highly productive; on a per-minute basis, he belonged with Lee and Millsap last season. He's an extraordinarily efficient offensive player who can create for himself, who rebounds and who is more than passable defensively.

What's the risk here? I don't know exactly how much it would cost to sign Powe, but it wouldn't be much. Yes, I know it's not exactly sexy to sign yet another injury-rehabbing player with high potential. When healthy, however, he's basically everything I wanted out of Gortat except better and cheaper. The question if you're Presti: how much do you offer?

Musing on projected win totals, 2010 Playoffs

sammy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:03:48 -0000

I’m expecting 37 wins and wouldn’t be surprised with bubbling right around .500. 33 and under and I’m disappointed. Here's how I got there: If you accept that the Thunder were a true talent 20-30 team (as opposed to a 23-59 team), that’s a win percentage of .400. Meaning the team that took to the court in the second half would, over a full season, net 32.8 wins. I’m tacking 5 wins onto my expectations because of the addition of James Harden, full seasons from Livingston, Krstic, White, and Thabo, and improved play from Westbrook.

Now, say OKC gets lucky and reaches the upper end of my projection. How do the playoff chances look?

LA, Denver, Utah, Portland, Dallas, and San Antonio are all locks. These teams are all clearly better than OKC and only catastrophe would allow one of them to fall out of the playoffs. New Orleans is a team in trouble, but they still won 49 games last year, and if they can manage to not take on too much water, they should be fine for a 7th or 8th seed. Now, what has to happen for either Houston to bubble out?

I’ve learned to never underestimate the Houston Rockets. Honestly, there’s nothing this team can do that would really shock me. They could finish with the best record in the league and I’d shrug my shoulders and say “that’s Daryl Morey.” On the other hand, their top two scoring options are… Luis Scola and Trevor Ariza? Really? I know that team makes its cheddar on defense, but wow. And now with Yao out, who’s manning the middle? 6′8″ Joey Dorsey? 6′6″ Chuck Hayes? I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to say that Houston has a tough road back to the playoffs, and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see them scraping along the bottom of the lottery barrel.

To my mind, Phoenix, Golden State and OKC are the only teams in the West that can feasibly make a run at Houston’s spot. I don’t think it would take a huge amount of luck for OKC to have a better season than both Phoenix and Golden State. Some luck, yes, but it doesn’t seem all that far fetched.

Debate over; Gortat agrees to sign with Dallas

sammy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:18:58 -0000

via.

Seems like an odd move to me, especially if Dallas offered him less than the full MLE. Even if he was offered the full mid-level, seems like it'd be prudent to see if any other teams would be willing to offer the same or if OKC was willing to offer a bit more. I really really wanted Gortat for this team, but I wish him the best on the Mavs. Can't win every battle, blah blah blah; come on down Paul Millsap!

Trade Roundup

sammy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:10:42 -0000

Well, it's certainly been an eventful few days leading up to the draft. Lots of players and picks have been flying around, and I thought it might be useful to roundup the trades that have happened so far. I'll try to keep this updated as I hear more. This post can serve as a general reacts page. Also, please let me know if there's anything I missed.

*Nets deal Vince Carter to Magic for Rafer Alston, Tony Battie and Courtney Lee.

*Lakers sell 29th pick to Knicks for cash.

*Suns deal Shaquile O'Neal to Cavs for Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, 2010 second round pick and cash.

*Warriors deal Jamal Crawford to Hawks for Acie Law and Speedy Claxton.

*Blazers move up two spots to the Mav's 22nd for the 24th, 56th and the worse of their two second-rounders next year.

*T-Wolves send Randy Foye and Mike Miller to Wizards for the 5th pick, Etan Thomas, Darius Songaila, and Oleksiy Pecherov

*Bucks trade Richard Jefferson to Spurs for Bruce Bowen, Kurt Thomas, and Fabricio Oberto.

*Bucks trade Fabricio Oberto to Pistons for Amir Johnson.

John Bryant - Second round sleeper?

sammy — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:29:07 -0000

So I was playing around with this spreadsheet of draftee stats (by Brett of Hoopinion, h/t Truehoop), and one player leaped up at me. Senior John Bryant of Santa Clara.

Age: 22 / Height: 6'11" / Weight: 275 / Center

31min / .65 TS% / 23.6 PTS on 15.0 FGA / 5.5 ORB / 12.9 DRB / 18.5 TRB / 3.3 BLK / 3.2 TO / 3.3 PF

*All stats pace adjusted per 40min

Those stats aren't a one year fluke. Bryant will be graduating from Santa Clara with the team records in rebounds (1152), blocks (246) and points (1667). Now, obvious small-school caveats apply; Bryant's numbers are pretty spectacular – comparable and often favorable to Griffin's or Blair's or Hansborough's – but let's not forget that he was playing in the WCC.

On the other hand, he's shown a commitment to work ethic and fitness, dropping over 90 pounds since entering school as a freshman and doing a good job of keeping the weight off. In his only youtube highlight video, he shows a nice back-to-the-basket offensive game with decent footwork and an effective up-and-under move. He's no athletic beast, but he's got solid fundamentals and the size to make them work. He seems to have his head on straight.

Now, here's the thing I can't figure out: he's on no one's board. He wasn't invited to the combine. He's not on any mock drafts that I can find. It's pretty difficult to find any draft scouting reports on him. Honestly, I don't get it. Bryant's a super-productive, hard-working big man with the only knocks being his lack of athleticism and the fact that he didn't get to play regularly against stiffer competition. It occurred to me that maybe in the few games against bigger schools that he might have been exposed, but no; looking at his game log he held his own just fine.

So... anyone got the dirt on this guy? What am I missing? Or am I right in thinking that he could be a great second round pickup?

Mike Moreau on Thunder culture

sammy — Tue, 26 May 2009 22:19:38 -0000

Mike Moreau on Thunder culture

Trading the third.

sammy — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:12:57 -0000

I'm starting to believe that Presti trades the pick regardless of whether Rubio is there or not. What this team needs more than anything else is depth, depth, depth. Shooting, post-defense, rebounding: these are all things you can get from role players. If rumors are true, Presti's already in talks with the Wiz to exchange picks and pick up JaVale McGee in the process. JaVale McGee: a 7'0 project rookie who can block shots, get boards, run the floor and shoot the J. Sound like someone the Thunder could use? Pair him with Harden or DeRozen and I'd say you got a hell of a lot of value out of the third overall pick, especially in this draft where the difference between the 3rd and 12th best prospects is negligible. I don't think anyone can say with any certainty whether Thabeet will be a more productive player than Jordan Hill, Tyreke Evans, James Harden, DeMar DeRozen, or even DeJuan Blair. Not that McGee will be the trade, but there are interesting trades to be found on any team that's motivated to move up, the majority of which I would take over gambling on Thabeet or Rubio.

Question about fielding practice.

sammy — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:08:37 -0000

Why isn't there more of it, Japanese/Korean style? I would have to think that a really rigorous fielding practice schedule would reduce the number of errors on this team, which lately has gotten pretty ridiculous. Every once in a while, a team will play poor defense and take extended fielding practice, but my impression is that MLB fielding sessions are nothing compared to the Asian counterparts. I'd love to see Bobby Valentine manage a big league team again, just for curiosity's sake.

1995 ALDS Game 5 on iTunes. Also, a request.

sammy — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:07:54 -0000

Apologies if this is already well-known. I'd only just discovered it.

So I've held onto my vcr for the last decade, pretty much exclusively so that I could watch my crappy tape of Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS on drunk lonely nights. On a whim, I discovered that the game is archived and available on iTunes for $1.99. The quality's not much better than vhs, but at least I can toss my player finally.

A couple questions: does anyone know where I can find archives of the rest of the ALDS plus of the one-game playoff vs. the Angels? Also, does anyone know where I can find audio of Neihaus' call of the final game? If anyone has the audio of Neihaus' play by play, I'd be willing to edit the audio and video together as a sort of bootleg present to LLers.