It’s go time. The NBA season finally opens up tonight and it has snuck up on me more than any season I can remember. Anyway, here are my over/under picks for the win totals for each team based on the numbers set at Pinnacle Sports. Atlanta Hawks, 49.5 wins: UNDER This team was simply lights out against the spread last season, and they’ll be a solid team again, but I’m projecting them to fall slightly under 49 wins. Boston Celtics, 45.5 wins: UNDER I love Brad
In his essay in Sports Illustrated last summer, LeBron James famously wrote, “I’m not promising a championship. I know how hard that is to deliver. We’re not ready right now. No way.” His prediction turned out to be correct – the Cleveland Cavaliers did not win the championship. Objectively, 2014-15 was still the best season in the history of the franchise. They made it to the NBA Finals for just the second time, won a Finals game for the first time,
LeBron James is the best player of this generation. If I was on the opposing bench, this would be my game plan to try and stop him (or at least slow him down). [Read more…]
What would it take for Kobe Bryant to win the 2015-2016 NBA MVP award? As we handicap the MVP race for the 2015-2016 season, we’ll take a look at last season’s top five finishers— Stephen Curry, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis and LeBron James— along with Kevin Durant. But a question many Angelenos and basketball fans around the world have is what kind of numbers would Bryant have to put up in his age-37 season to take home the crown? To
LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love started 60 games together. They were 46-14 in those games, a .766 win pct. That is a 63-win pace over the course of 82 games. They played 1,441 minutes together and the team’s net rating was +12.6. That ranked as the 35th best trio on the team (min. 50 min played). [Read more…]
It pays to be patient. That is the financial lesson of the NBA’s offseason, which saw the biggest pay raises go to players who turned down contract extensions and gambled on themselves. Among the top 11 pay increases this summer, five went to players who felt like they were being lowballed by their teams — and proved it when they cashed in with bigger deals as restricted free agents this summer. Chicago’s Jimmy Butler, Orlando’s Tobias Harris, Detroit’s Reggie Jackson, Oklahoma City’s Enes
TOO MANY THREE-POINTERS: Love has shot more and more three-pointers in every season. Last season, 41.2% of his shots were three-pointers. His percentage of three-pointers has dramatically increased in every season. A corresponding statistic is that his average shot distance has increased in every season as well, and his more than doubled what it was in his rookie season. [Read more…]
There are rumblings from several NBA executives agent Rich Paul could deliver another client to his hometown team next summer as I wrote in my latest piece for SheridanHoops. Paul has publicly stated his client Tristan Thompson won’t return to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the summer of 2016 if he signs his one-year, $6.8 million qualifying offer. That would make Thompson an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2016 where he would be one of the youngest players on the market