Some NBA owners have a tendency to hold grudges when the star players on their team decide that it’s time to abandon ship, so it was no surprise when Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor provided a pretty good example of having some bad feelings towards Kevin Love when asked to speak about his former franchise player. To summarize, Taylor more or less said the following about Love: he’s the third best player on the Cleveland Cavaliers, he is injury prone, doesn’t
The growth of analytics in the NBA has been nothing short of phenomenal. It started with a deeper look at numbers that already were available and produced new and useful statistics such as true shooting percentage, defensive rebound percentage, offensive rating and win shares. With the use of a grid or a matrix, we now have the ability to determine a player’s offensive tendencies and hot spots. For some players, it is quite revealing. For others, such as DeAndre Jordan, it pretty
NBA writers have been speaking with anonymous scouts as of late, and you have to wonder if some of those scouts are paying as much attention as they really should, based on some of their questionable analysis. For example, saying you don’t like the Golden State Warriors’ chances in the playoffs because they’re not good enough defensively simply makes no sense, given that they are the third best defensive team in the league – the very best if you only count
February’s buyout season is becoming more interesting than the trade deadline itself. There’s a case to be made that the goings-on surrounding Danny Granger, Caron Butler, Jimmer Fredette and others could make a bigger impact than all those moves made one week ago. With Granger, Butler and now Jimmer Fredette (as the Kings announced) officially bought out and ancillary players like Beno Udrih, Earl Clark and Shannon Brown finding new teams, it’s time to really ramp up the races for players who
Metta World Peace has been largely silent about everything that has been going on with the New York Knicks this season. He has been cooperative and never once had anything bad to say or complain about the situation he was in. He still doesn’t have any ill-feelings towards anyone, but now that he is no longer with the team, many things on his mind – including Carmelo Anthony’s leadership, James Dolan’s impact and Mike Woodson’s coaching ability – were finally shared with Frank
Does anyone want Danny Granger? How about Jimmer Fredette? Perhaps Caron Butler? And how about this: Someone — the Memphis Grizzlies — wanted Beno Udrih so badly they claimed him off waivers. This is the last week for contenders to shore up their playoff rosters with NBA players for a run they hope will last into June. It is becoming known as February Free Agency. The official NBA rule is that teams have until 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday, March 1 to waive a
The season has not yet begun and teams have started making moves. News broke Friday afternoon that the Phoenix Suns and the Washington Wizards have struck a deal. [Read more…]
The upcoming season is an evaluation campaign for the Phoenix Suns in every respect. They will introduce a new offense designed by former Sun Jeff Hornacek, a new defense spearheaded by Mike Longabardi and at least six new rotation players acquired via the draft and trades by new general manager Ryan McDonough. With the recent trade of Caron Butler – who never played a game for the team – the Suns have only one player in his 30s: Channing Frye, who