Links To The Present: Monday, February 1st
2010-02-01
-Windhorst says that Shaq’s fantastic play of late is forcing teams to double-team him.
-Damon Jones’ coat now has company in the annals of legend.
-How the Cavs acquired every player on the current roster, in map format.
-Anthony Parker and Daniel Gibson don’t expect invites to the three-point contest. Personally, I don’t think Boobie’s gotten enough playing time to guarantee himself an invite. Also, I think AP’s stroke is too deliberate for him to have a great shot at winning the shootout. Mo could’ve done well, but I always get scared that the contest can mess up your stroke.
-Durvasa of Red94 applies Neil Payne’s +/- model based on box-score statistics to the league today. It says that LeBron James is the best player in the league. By a lot.
Alright, that’s all for now. See you later.
People SHOULD start talking about Wade leaving. That team is on the verge of missing the playoffs and if they do the chances of him leaving compared to LeBron are much higher imo.
Watch LeBron sign another 3 year deal with the Cavs. And immediately after, we’ll be talking about the summer of 2013. You watch.
Seriously. He could sign a ten year contract and Bill Simmons would have him playing for the Washington Wizards in 2020. Which is why I try to mostly ignore it. Anytime someone not named LeBron (I make exceptions for people like Windhorst) starts trying to talk about where they know he will go, I stop listening immediately.
Rich – exactly. That is why Sheridan is just being an idiot.
He signed a 90 million dollar nike contract while he was still in high school! Nike didn’t wait to see if he would land in a big market or not.
ESPN is asinine when it comes to these stories. Has been since 2004. Watch LeBron sign another 3 year deal with the Cavs. And immediately after, we’ll be talking about the summer of 2013. You watch.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fortune/0711/gallery.endorsements.fortune/3.html
That is just to further my point. LeBron rated as the third highest paid athlete (from endorsements) in the U.S behind Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. He earns 10 mil. more a year than Kobe and this is 2007. That number has grown substantially. Kobe is in LA, LeBron is in Cleveland. Show me where the big market helps Kobe and the small market hurts LeBron……Sheridan and other people who just love New York and want to see them have a revelant team again just make that stuff up.
@Tsunami. The endorsement thing people bring up makes NO sense. He signed the largest contract for an NBA player ever with Nike, the largest shoe company in the world. He has a deal with State Farm, the largest insurance company in the U.S. He now has a deal with McDonalds, the largest everything when it comes to fast food. I mean, these aren’t local Ohio companies. These are two worldwide and one nationwide company that are the same size no matter the city. Does New York have other shoe companies and fast food companies that I’ve never heard of that… Read more »
I don’t understand the big market thing. I mean, I do. But is this 1950? We have the internet, right? How is LeBron already not a megastar? He doesn’t have to be on the 2 teams that get play on national TV or else you never see him. LeBron needs a big market like New York so he can have electricity.
John, exactly. If the Cavs didn’t have LeBron, they wouldn’t fill their roster with specialty players. To say, this team would be better than that team is pointless.
Now, to say, if you swapped our SF for your SF who would be better is a better exercise.
I took exception to Sheridan saying that LeBron needs to go to a big market to have an explosive upgrade in endorsement deals.
And eventually people will realize David Lee isn’t all that great. Another big stats guy, who has a minimal impact on a game. It’s as if we totally forget that there are two sides of the court to play on. Today, I’d take Anderson Varejao over David Lee because David Lee is that bad defensively. With Mike D’antoni there it isn’t changing either.
Saw the Sheridan chat, and it looks like Cavs fans got on him pretty good. In his defense, it looks like he said earlier that it would be very important for the Knicks to move Jeffries’ contract if they wanted to get LeBron and keep Lee/get Bosh this summer. I would disagree that the Knicks without LeBron are better than the Cavs without LeBron, though. Even if you say the Knicks have more pure talent, the Cavs have been specifically built around LeBron.
Sorry, durvasa. Editing as we speak.
John, just wanted to be clear that its not my model. Neil Paine of basketball-reference came up with it using 7 years of APM and boxscore data. I just used his formula.
Chris Sherridan had a really, really dumb comment about why he thinks LeBron will play for the Knicks next hear, saying that the Knicks without LeBron are better than the Cavs without LeBron. Which may be true. However, if the Knicks were to clear the cap space to get LeBron, it would mean they’d have to let David Lee, Al Harrington, and Nate Robinson go. So in reality, the team he’d be going to would be headlined by Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, and Jordan Hill, which would be a team that would likely rival the 09-10 Nets in horribleness, and would… Read more »
Re: the new +/- rating.
The distribution chart on the bottom is simply hilarious. Lebron is on his own island.