Game of the night features James Harden $10400 and the Rockets, locked in a three-way tie for the final two playoff spots out West, against Pau Gasol $7300 and the desperate Bulls, who will miss the postseason unless they make up two games over their final eight. [Read more…]
Just six NBA teams have played at a .600 pace this season. A seventh briefly reached the threshold last week, and you have to wonder how in the world they got there. Consider that this team: Is in the bottom five in 3-point makes, attempts and percentage in the most prolific season for 3-pointers in league history. Has been without its best player for over a month. Responded to losing its best player by dealing two more of its top five remaining rotation players
In the brave new world of basketball analytics, trends and modules, a simpler stat surfaced this week that was utterly inexplicable. Two teams have lost 10 games this season in which they led after three quarters. One is the league-worst Philadelphia 76ers, who have no one on their roster who knows how to win a game. The other is the Oklahoma City Thunder, who have two of the supposed best closers in the game in Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. [Read more…]
Age has finally caught up to Dwyane Wade, to an extent. The longtime Miami Heat superstar is putting up career lows in field goal percentage, effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage, while his scoring average and PER are at their lowest rates since his rookie season 12 years ago. However, that doesn’t mean Wade is still not a really good player— just one slowly in decline, now 10 days after his 34th birthday. That’s natural for someone who’s played over 35,000
Sunday features two matinees at 3:30 Eastern. The Cavaliers are favored to make it six straight wins as the Pacers visit, though LeBron James $10200 is probably not 100% after taking a knee to the thigh on Friday. [Read more…]
The youth movement at power forward has arrived in the form of Anthony Davis and Blake Griffin. Derrick Favors, a fellow rising talent who has improved across the board over the past five seasons, missed the cut in our top 10 rankings. However, don’t be surprised if Favors joins the rankings in a year or so from now. At 23, his best basketball is ahead of him and he is just scratching the surface of his ceiling as a player for
In Part 1, we looked at some players who couldn’t finish last season but appear to be healthy again. Today, we will focus on players who are still getting up to full speed. [Read more…]
One couldn’t have imagined a worse outcome for the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2014-15 season. A massive plague of injuries kept the team below full strength for the entire campaign. Specifically, Kevin Durant missed 55 games, Serge Ibaka missed 18 games and Russell Westbrook missed 15 games. The other four rotation players who started and finished the season with OKC – Anthony Morrow, Steven Adams, Andre Roberson and Nick Collison – missed between eight and 16 games each. All those missed