What do players and coaches do when things go in the wrong direction? Take a shot, for one. And I’m not talking about a shot of Jack Daniels. Be it a coaching decision or a player’s poor play, the natural reaction is to take a shot at someone – directly or subtly – when the results are negative. Some will even take a shot at themselves at times, if it’s called for. The blame game is the theme of the stories around
I’m filling in for our peerless, fearless editor-in-chief for this week’s edition – – which means these will be our Most Improved Rankings in more ways than one. This is perhaps the most difficult award for media members, because every season there are dozens of candidates and almost as many parameters for what constitutes improved. A case in point came last season, when the media clearly voted for the wrong guy. [Read more…]
Yes, we are rankings-crazy here at the home office, where we are now up to five sets of rankings — MVP, Rookies, NBA Power Rankings, Euroleague Rankings … and now Most Improved. We are so rankings crazy we just used the same word four times in the same sentence. Later in the season, we’ll do the same for Coach of the Year and Sixth Man, which Jamal Crawford has probably already won, right? [Read more…]
As we do every Saturday afternoon, we’ll examine the lessons from the Week That Was, review our Depth Chart Updates, the Upcoming Schedule and make our picks of Sits and Starts for the upcoming week. This week we take a deeper look into some of the players that are frequently mentioned by our Twitter followers. If they are on their minds, they should probably be on yours, too. [Read more…]
Harden has been unavailable twice in 3 days; Asik for 3 straight weeks. This on a team in which Hakeem did every interview for 17 years. — Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) November 11, 2012 I expect the folks at NBA Communications are going to raise a little fuss with the Rockets. The league actually has media access rules, and although they are openly flaunted by a majority of the 30 teams, a crackdown can happen if it gets out of control. Harden isn’t doing
In the game of the night, Gary Neal scored a career-high 27 points to lead a furious Spurs comeback. Manu Ginobili (17) had his best game yet, and even without Tony Parker (illness) they scored 39 fourth-quarter points to prevail. For the Blazers, Nicolas Batum (33) and LaMarcus Aldridge (29) were terrific in defeat and rookie Damian Lillard added 20 points, but the Portland bench is really, really bad — they were outscored 63-4 by the San Antonio reserves. Other November 10 Games WAS @ IND:
ATLANTA — James Harden is warming up to this whole ‘foundational player’ thing. The Rockets’ new $80 million man spoiled Atlanta’s home opener by dropping a career-high 45 points on the Hawks in Houston’s 109-102 win on Friday night. Not a bad encore to his 37-point Rocket debut on Halloween. Working those mammoth stat lines into wins should be even more encouraging to Kevin McHale, Daryl Morey and everyone else (outside of Oklahoma City) who had a hand in making Harden so
(This is another in a series of 30 guest columns that will run in October, when optimism reigns supreme across the NBA. The theme will be “Five Reasons to Feel Positive About … ” We encourage you to follow the authors on Twitter and visit their sites. – CS) Basketball analytics in their current state have become quite hypocritical, and while that’s a bit of a random statement off the top, it works hand-in-hand with the present perception of the Houston Rockets. The