Links To The Present: March 10, 2010
2010-03-10
Brian Windhorst talks Mo Williams, Leon Powe, and the Cavs playoff matchups in his weekly podcast.
Lots of injuries for the Cavs – fortunately, only Shaq’s is serious.
“The Clippers, according to another source within the organization, are hoping to persuade James to come if he also can pick his coach, and possibly his general manager.” [Tim Povtak – Fanhouse]
“Hey LeBron, come out to L.A. You can pick your GM, your coach, your teammates. Anything you want to be a Clipper – you can do anything but rent from me.” [Adrian Wojnarowski]
“Almost as good as when Clips were going to let Kobe pick his arena RT @benmaller: Source: Clippers will let LeBron pick his coach & GM.” [Brian Windhorst – Twitter]
“I was watching the Larry Bird-Magic Johnson documentary the other day,” Durant said. “I’m similar to Bird. I like being at home. I like staying at my mom’s house and her cooking. That’s the kind of person I am. I’m not into the big city lights and the paparazzi, that type of stuff. I just love playing basketball and chillin’ out.” [NewsOK] “DOES. NOT. COMPUTE.” [New York Media]
“As a result, the most likely scenario is a battle between Toronto and Chicago for the East’s final playoff spot. It’s not exactly a riveting race at the moment — the two sides have combined to lose 11 of 12 — but at least one of them should be at .500 by the time the music stops.” [John Hollinger]
Check out the Cavs 3 point shooting at NBA Hot Spots. Here’s what I noticed:
1.) Z is 0-5 from the left corner and 10-16 from the right corner.
2.) Boobie shoots well above 50% on 3s from the wings.
3.) Jamison has been awful from the corners and money from the wings.
4.) AP loves both corners equally.
5.) D West is money from the wings and has not made a 3 from the top of the key yet.
6.) Mo is the only Cav comfortable hitting 3s from the top of the key.
7.) The Cavs as a team are dominant on corner 3s, wing 3s, and scoring in the paint.
Tom,
im a daily reader of this blog, but i never post on here. i’m breaking this trend to let you know that your ‘links to the present’ are outstanding and (no offense JK, cuz you’re the man) noticeably better than before. keep up the good work.
You missed the best part of the post on Durant:
“I like going outside and seeing the neighbors and they say, ‘Hello.’ They make me cookies and give me Skittles.”
That’s just adorable
“Oh hey, 6ft10, 220lbs multimillionaire Kevin Durant, (switch to talk-to-small-child-voice) would you like some skittles?”
I’ll like Matt Barnes a lot more when he unglues his hair from his head.
I really hope we see Sheed again in the playoffs this year.
Matt Barnes is scrappy but I don’t think he’s a hot-headed player. Things are going to be ugly if the Magic and Cavs face off. Lots of chirpin, lots of SVG’s “gamesmanship”, lots of everything.
Tom- I think we are saying the same thing. Analysts were so busy trashing the Andy deal, and now the guy makes it onto all of these DPOY lists and none of those fools has the integrity to even mention how wrong they were… Definitely our 2nd most important player.
The fact that he is going to get Matt Barnes, Dwight Howard, or Rasheed thrown out of a playoff game is just icing on the cake.
It’s no coincidence that the hottest spots are the corners and the coldest are the 2 that they are. The corners tend to be wide open 3’s set up by LeBron’s penetration, and the guards’ ability to find their way into the corner. The two cold spots are LeBron, end of the shot clock, fade away areas. Show this chart to LeBron please because he needs to start going to his hot spot (the rim), and stop chucking up contested, 30% shots (higher for LeBron, but still unfortunately low)
Dr. Z – just the opposite! Everyone laughed at Ferry for that signing. He’s our 2nd most important player.
Yeah no doubt about that, Tom. I’m still waiting for that response on the Anderson signing. Unless Lebron leaves, that signing is going to look brilliant down the road. Can’t remember a single talking head predicting that.
Remember when Shaq was going to hurt our offense and Rasheed Wallace was the best signing of the off-season?
there should be a cedar-point like line of people waiting to say “ooops, we got that one wrong…”
There is nothing like watching Boston get waxed. Better not let them escape on Sunday with anything less than a 25pt thrashing.
Not to mention that the Grizzlies are mauling Boston and the Wolves are clinging to a 5 point lead against Denver.
How bout the celtics losing by 20 at the half!
Also, Nets currently leading mavs by quite a bit. Serious schadenfreude if the nets break their streak?
@Nathan: Yeah, Lebron’s up from .68 to .72 at the rim, which is awesome. Shaq’s .58 seems almost pedestrian in comparison : )
@Isaac, I was making that point because I assumed people would connect the improvement in that area with Shaq…Instead it seems that it is largely due to Lebron shooting better around the basket than ever before.
lol Mike
90 (4\/$!
The Cavs have made more baskets (1337)
lol
1337
@Nathan: Totally readable, cheers man. Why shaq in particular, or is that just the only big change you think could have that effect?
Spacing FAIL, but hopefully still readable.
Category————-08-09—-09-10
Corner 3’s———–41.3%—-41.3%
Wing 3’s————-39.2%—-40.1%
Top Key 3’s———-35.4%—-33.3%
Straight on deep 2’s–40.9%—-32.9%
Wing deep 2’s——–41.5%—-36.4%
Baseline deep 2’s—-42.2%—-40.2%
Middle short 2’s——43.0%—-45.0%
Baseline short 2’s—-36.4%—-37.0%
Around the rim——-59.3%—-62.8%
Total (weighted) change for 3-pointers: +0.1%
Total (weighted) change for deep 2’s: -4.3%
Total (weighted) change for short 2’s and around the rim: +4.2
I won’t go into any analysis, but here are a couple of things worth mentioning:
Shaq is actually hurting the Cav’s short range field goal percentage.
The Cavs have made more baskets (1337) around the rim this season than all of last season (1312).
All this talk about LeBron choosing his coach, I find it interesting that Chris Jent is LeBron’s personal everything. not exactly a high profile guy that everyone seems to think LeBron wants. LeBron wants trust and comfort.
All part of LeBron’s master plan. Granted the Nets, Knicks, and Clippers weren’t going to be much of a threat anyway, but if you can completely take away 1/10th of the league, it mathematically improves your chances.
I’m not a conspiracy theory guy by any means, but by my count, there are now 3 teams (NY, NJ, LAC) that have decided to put their eggs in LeBron’s basket. That’s a lot of money (hundreds of millions of dollars) riding on one man’s decision. Seems the potential for foul-play would be at an all-time high, no?