Cavs: The Podcast
2012-03-04
I promised everyone something exciting, and here it is. Â I’m proud to unveil the first (and certainly not the last) Cavs: The Blog Podcast. Â Right now we’re not on iTunes (it takes some time to get it cleared by Apple) So you’ll have to download it off MediaFire for now. Â In the future I’ll just link it up so you guys can download it straight to your iPod. Â Here’s the link to the mediafire:
http://www.mediafire.com/?t9xv6qdx32d3egz
Unfortunately Colin couldn’t be with us today, so it’s just Me, John Krolik, Kevin Hetrick, and Ryan Braun. Â We cover a wide variety of topics such as last night’s name, the state of the current Cavs roster, potential trades, and Kyrie’s nickname. Â Do your best to listen to the end – it’s worth it. Â We realize it’s a little on the long side, but it’s our first foray into podcasting, so we’ll perfect the art next time.
The podcast drops a couple of times due to some recording issues, which I apologize for – we’ll do our best to fix those in the future. Â Otherwise, enjoy it guys – we had a lot of fun making it and hope that you guys have fun listening to it.
Enjoy!
EDIT: HERE IS OUR SOUNDCLOUD LINK: http://soundcloud.com/cavstheblog/cavs-the-podcast-03-04-2012
Funky Bananas.
Good stuff, hope it’s a regular thing.
Good to see Krolik talking about the Cavs again.
Did you guys butcher some names on purpose? It’s not HaranGODy it’s HaranGOADy and it’s not Hedo TurKOGlu, it’s Hedo TurkOHLU. Other than that, you guys dominated. Keep em comin.
I live in St. Louis. A non-NBA market which is very deprived of any NBA talk radio. As a life long Cavs fan, I thank you fellas for starting a Cavs podcast. This is tremendous!
R,
I just posted another comment that got spammed. I’ll get Mallory to unspam it, but send me an email if you want to discuss further.
Also I remember reading a paper that I will probably butcher by synopsis. The basic tenet was that the author correlated a catch-all stat they had developed (let’s say win shares) to adjusted / plus minus. They found there was good correlation between the two stats, with the exception that long range shooters almost always represented themselves better in adjusted plus / minus than in their stat. The conclusion they drew was that the benefit of spacing the floor was a real benefit to the players team, but that this benefit was not adequately picked up by box score statistics… Read more »
R, The reason I responded to your initial comment is that I didn’t think your initial conclusion was supported by the research as presented in the 7 page paper (i.e. a player shooting from a multitude of locations makes his team harder to defend). Your conclusion could have merit though, it just wasn’t the author’s purpose in writing the paper. The author’s conclusion was primarily that this sort of data appears to have all sorts of application, but that the data appears to be under-utilized. They’re probably correct, and as you describe, one possible lesson may be an offensive benefit… Read more »
Uh oh, I’ve been coming off as a Jamison apologist. Don’t worry, I hate his shot-chucking as much as anyone, and I can’t imagine any good excuse for his 22.5 foot jumpers.
The article made me think that his shooting eccentricities might provide small bump in value that we don’t otherwise perceive, It’s a great question for research to answer.
I’ll start working on a team Range% and Spread% analysis. I’ll also check what happened spatially/efficiency-wise with the Wizards after Jamison left and what the Cavs look like with/without him.
Kyrie “Dr. K” Irving.
Probably a tad early for the Dr. J spinoff, though
Also I mean having a team with players with large spreads results in higher team offensive ratings…not individual offensive ratings.
R, I don’t want to get in too much of a dispute over this the report on spatial shooting spreads. I am sure that you have thought about this more than me. The “spread” leaders are basically the perimeter players with the largest green light. Arguably, they have the green light and are shooting from many locations, because they’re the hardest to defend, not the opposite of that. This may be a chicken and egg thing. If there was a study that showed that having players with a large “spreads” correlated with higher offensive ratings, I think this would should… Read more »
R: That’s a really interesting argument. I think the qualms about Jamison are real…but that’s as good a defense for him as I’ve seen yet.
funkybananas
and i know it was only briefly mentioned, but i kinda like the shawn marion and lamar odom for antawn jamison trade. dallas is able to free up space to sign dwight and deron this summer, and cleveland adds 2 solid starters. who says no?
Alright Kevin, I had it coming after I posted that. Here’s the Spread% leaders not named Jamison: Bryant, James, Carter, Johnson, Gay, Iguodola, Allen, Durant, Granger. It’s a pretty impressive, if not elite, group. No, it doesn’t come out and say that it’s harder to defend these players, but the list itself is suggestive. Here’s the part of the article that I’ll make my stand on: “NBA reporter David Aldridge suggested it was Ray Allen because of his ability to shoot well from many different locations on the court.” Diversity of shot selection is half the battle. Probably the easy… Read more »
I’m surprised Austin Carr hasn’t started saying “And Kyrie is SWIRVING to the basket!” At least 10 times a game by now. That’s a good one, Matt
Nice Podcast guys, it was long but enjoyable. Never been much on podcasts before but I’ll probably be listening to all of these.
Although you covered pretty much every topic so I don’t know what you’ll talk about next time…
And kyrie does have decent hops, I just think he’s so good otherwise it goes unnoticed, which still renders Skyrie obsolete. How bout SwIrving with that sick handle? Ok, so maybe I’m not good at this.
R, I read the paper you linked; stuff like that is fascinating to me. Let me know additional information about the dataset. I do not however, see where the paper indicates that Jamison uses the whole floor efficiently or that using the whole floor makes a team more tricky to defend. Jamison shows up in the “spread” table, meaning he shoots from the most locations. He does not show up in the “range” table, which would have indicated he was efficient from many areas. The conclusions of the paper were primarily that spatial relations are largely non-understood in the NBA,… Read more »
funky bananas. Great stuff guys. Half the length would have been perfect.
Funky bananas.
Really enjoyed that podcast. If it was half the length it would have been near to perfect. As mentioned above, pretty funny and insightful.
The 2012 free agent pool is so dire. No decent moves for the Cavs at all.
Funky Bananas is silly and awesome, but people are gonna think it’s racist.
I think it should be something related to the meaning of his name, maybe something like “The Word”
Iso –
We’ll likely do them every few weeks.
Thanks so much, everyone, for all the positive feedback! It’s because of you guys that we even have a platform to try cool stuff our, so we really appreciate your support!
Funky Bananas guys. only because i’m a geek and love greek words i would say Kýrie, eléison (greek transliteration lord have mercy). lord have mercy on his career trajectory because without him we dont even have a prayer
Great podcast! How often are you guys gunna do these?
@Mallory, yeah it’s an iPod. Soundcloud works though. I’ll listen a bit later. Thanks!
Marcus,
Having researched further, you are correct about the effect of amnestied contracts on the minimum salary requirements.
This certainly does impact my view on trading Jamison. I still don’t think it’s a bad idea to have a decent sized 2014 expiring contract, too; but it is good to know that the Cavs won’t need to spend $25 – $30 this offseason if Jamison and Sessions walk.
Thanks.
Funky bananas. You guys did a very good job for the first podcast. Some good insight and humor along the way that made it worth listening to until the end.
In regards to the minimum salary required by the new CBA – I believe Baron Davis’s amnestied contract still counts towards the minimum for the length of his contract (through next year?) So I don’t think the Cavs will have to splurge just to meet the minimum next year.
The new CBA definitely puts us in a bind when deciding what to do with Jamison. I guess all the front office can do is take offers and see if they can get something decent for him. If not, he’s playing well enough to help keep the team competitive. A trade with Orlando would make sense, though. They definitely want to clear up cap room to make a run at Dwight and whatever star he wants to pair up with, and Jamison’s expiring contract could be switched with whatever long-term deadweight they have on their roster (Turk, Nelson, Duhon, etc).… Read more »
Funky Bananas.
Crocodile Kyrie is an amazing nickname. Plays quiet in the first three quarters and then just attacks in the fourth quarter and down the stretch and devours his prey. Or at least comes close.
Funky Bananas. Nice podcast guys, it’s always nice to hear fellow diehard Cavs fans’ opinions.
Rebuttal to Jamison knocking: http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Goldsberry_Sloan_Submission.pdf The sloan conference article highlights Jamison as somewhat of a rare asset. He uses the entire floor for his shot attempts, and is reasonably efficient. The spatial analysis article suggests that players who do this make their team more tricky to defend. Estimating the value (in wins) this brings to the table would be the subject of a much more extensive paper. I’m lucky enough to have the dataset used for the paper (which I encourage you to ask me about), but anyone who’s watched the season notices that Jamison is responsible for quite a… Read more »
I don’t know how you guys can be jealous of Kanter over Tristan. I saw him play in person against THE WARRIORS who are so goddamn soft inside and he was invisible out there. A lot of solid commentary but the cynicism of this blog gets to me sometimes. The grass isn’t ALWAYS greener, just most of the time when it comes to the Cavs.
Thanks for this, great cast. Pretty much died (first from laughter, then from emotions remembering the 2010 playoffs) at the comment that “Kevin Garnett tore off his armS and started beating Antwan with them.” You guys should get on Stitcher when you get the time.
Great idea starting up a podcast.
And I’m personally fond of “Captain Crunch Time!”
Andy –
Send me an email (malloryfactorii@gmail.com) – I’d like a little help setting this stuff up.
I’m not sure we have the capacity on here to host – eventually we need to stick it on iTunes but in order to do that we need to get it approved by Apple.
If this is going to be a regular thing, you need to have an RSS feed to be able to import into podcast players and host it yourself/on a non-commercial site. Excited for the new addition. If help is needed, just ask.
Pat,
Good call on Kardiac Kyrie; I got the hard part, but missed the easy half.
Great job guys. You should try starting a soundcloud account to make the pod available for streaming purposes
Jon –
Is your mobile device an apple device? If not I’ll need to figure out an alternative.
Ha Ha funky bananas. Good job with the podcast guys. I’ve been wanting for this blog to do a podcast for a while and I hope you guys do some more in the near future. Also I like Kardiac Kyrie as a nickname quite a bit.
Funky Bananas, thanks for going above and beyond with writing quality and now a podcast.
funky bananas!! That was long, skyrie doesnt work haha.
Having trouble playing this on my mobile device.
Ryan sounds sorta like a young Greg Brinda, and he’s been on the radio awhile…
Funky Bananas!! An hour and twelve minutes, whose got that sort of time!!!
Sound quality turned out really well. I’ll rank quality of radio voice as: 1) Mallory, 2) Ryan, 3) John, 4) me. Thanks for setting this up, Mallory.