Pound the Pavement

2016 was a crappy year, outside of basketball, and I don't want to relive or revisit it, by any means. So, let's look forward to 2017, and what it may hold for the NBA landscape. DeMarcus Cousins will be traded to the Boston Celtics, Rudy Gay to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Andrew Bogut to the Portland Trailblazers, Brook Lopez to the Dallas Mavericks, and Ricky Rubio to the Sacramento Kings. Giannis Antetokuonmpo and Marc Gasol will be All-Star game starters and Kemba Walker will make his first All-Star team, in a game that'll feature Russell Westbrook as MVP. The Milwaukee Bucks, Washington Wizards, and Denver Nuggets will make the playoffs. The Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, Portland Trailblazers, and Sacramento Kings will not make the playoffs. James Harden will be MVP, Rudy Gobert will be DPOY, and Joel Embiid will be ROY. The Houston Rockets and the Boston Celtics will make the conference finals in their respective conferences. The Finals will feature bot...

"I do not do cross-era comparisons." - David Jacoby That's how a lot of smart people view the NBA throughout history, as distinct eras, each with their most dominant players and most dominant teams - the 1960s with Russell's Celtics battling the individual greatness of Wilt, the coke-addled 70s with the rise of Kareem, the star power of the 1980s, featuring Magic's Lakers, Bird's Celtics, the Bad Boy Pistons, and Dr. J's Sixers, Jordan in the 90s, the barren wasteland of the early to mid-2000s with Shaq and Kobe, and then LeBron's world. Another way to distinguish these eras are through playing styles: The 1970s were all about gliding as close to the hoop and making smooth finishes near the rim. The 1980s were about pushing the pace and finding an open man in space. Jordan ushered in an era of hero ball with an emphasis on surrounding good post up players with cutting (i.e. MJ in Chicago, Hakeem in Houston, and Ewing in New York), something that c...

The whole point of the NBA is to get to the truth. For an NBA season, the truth is the answer to the question: "Who's the best team in the league?" You can probably look at the season as a series of binary experiments, comparing two teams. There are 1,230 such experiments during the regular season, and the playoffs consist of a maximum of 105 experiments. Based on the outcomes of these experiments, we're able to determine the best team in the league. Think about that - the NBA plays more than 1,300 games to get at this truth, and most, if not all, of these teams are entirely different at the end of the season as they are at the beginning. It's almost as if the first month and a half of the NBA regular season can be thrown out, kind of like a feeling out process. There's an algorithm used heavily in statistics called the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. Essentially, it's a way to find the answer to a difficult question by creatively re-sampling from diffic...

The Hall of Fame is an achievement, and it's a fun exercise, at least for me, to think about players who deserve to be in and those who don't. Among retired players, there are obvious shoo-ins - guys like Kobe Bryant and Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan. There's no point talking about those players. Let's talk about some controversial players. We did a little bit of this on Episode 12 of The Crevice. You can check that out right here: Chris Webber (1993-2008) Stats: 17,182 PTS; 8,124 REB; 3,526 AST; 1,200 BLK; 1,200 STL Accolades: ROY, 5x All-Star, 1 All-NBA 1st Team, 3 All-NBA 2nd Team, 1 All-NBA 3rd Team BasketballReference HOF Probability: 14.6% Let's do the first simple check - the "who's got these stats" check. There are 12 players in NBA history who have recorded more that 17,000 points, 8,000 rebounds, and 3,500 assists, 11 of whom are retired. All of those 11 are in the Hall of Fame. Granted, Webber is at the very bottom ...

On a recent TrueHoop Show episode with Kevin Arnovitz and Kevin Pelton, they played a little game that piqued my interests. After a discussion about how Sacramento and Vlade Divac have failed DeMarcus Cousins (I really don't want to rehash that; that would take nearly a thousand words and would be really depressing), they ended their conversation with drafting a fake team under the salary cap for Boogie. So, I'm unabashedly going to do that: a 13-man roster, under the salary cap, with the sole purpose of making Boogie happy and in the Finals contention. Starting Lineup PG: John Wall (Salary: $16.96 million) SG: Rodney Hood (Salary: $1.41 million) SF: Jae Crowder (Salary: $6.29 million) PF: Serge Ibaka (Salary: $12.25 million) C: DeMarcus Cousins (Salary: $15.85 million) Bench PG: Cory Joseph (Salary: $7.35 million) SG: Malcolm Brogdon (Salary: $925 thousand) SF: Tony Snell (Salary: $2.37 million) PF: Channing Frye (Salary: $7.81 million) C: Willie Cauley-Stein...

Here's a quick thought exercise: I'm going to describe a type of player in three or four words and think of the first player who comes to mind who fits that description. Pass-first point guard... Maybe someone like Chris Paul or Rajon Rondo? Catch-and-shoot wing... I'm going with Klay Thompson or J.J. Redick. Rim-running big... DeAndre Jordan feels about right. Let's add a wrinkle - is Chris Paul's playing style more like Rajon Rondo or Steph Curry? I'm not sure if it's surprising or not, but by any subset of their statistics and tendency measures, Paul's game is more like Curry's than Rondo's. Something I'm interested in developing is a way to characterize player roles. The 2K series has started adding these sort of roles for players, like 'Interior defender' for someone like Bismack Biyombo or 'All-around wing superstar' for LeBron James. But, after a certain point, calling a player an 'All-around superstar...

We live in an NBA landscape, where playoff success is the end-all, be-all metric of personal and team glory. Kevin Durant, by at least a few accounts, is one of the top three perimeter scorers of all time, in volume and definitely in efficiency. But, until he wins a championship, he's a bum. Add to it the almost misogynistic backlash that he received after joining the best regular season team of all time to achieve that required chip for his legacy, there's really no winning for Durant. The Los Angeles Clippers have been subjected to the same maniacally idiotic logic, especially in recent years. Imagine this (and suspend your disbelief for this because this analogy is going to be far-fetched): a tech company, that's been mired in putridity, gets a lucky break and their shareholders start to buy in a little. Then, they aggressively commit to one of their products, and when sales go up a little, they realized that their founder is an unabashedly adulterous, self-immolating...

I generally watch the NBA to follow individuals players and overarching storylines - LeBron's continued success, Giannis's rise to stardom, the beauty or futility of team building, depending on what team you're talking about. But, ever since Steve Clifford signed with the Hornets, Charlotte's been home to a watchable, playoff-contending team that's fun to follow. So periodically, I'm just going to talk about how I feel the Hornets are doing this year, just to check in on the one team, invariant of their roster (unless they sign someone like Darren Collison), that I support. As of today, the Hornets are 14-11, fifth in the East, coming off consecutive ass-kickings from the Cavaliers and Pacers, where the offense sputtered and was utterly incapable of interior defense. Kemba Walker is writing a narrative that will probably get him selected as an All-Star off the bench, putting up 22.8 points on 46.7/41.4/78.4 splits with a PER of 23.04.  Nic Batum is actually t...

We're a little past the quarter mark on the NBA season, so we have a decent feel of how this year's teams work and who's been able to distinguish themselves from the pack. This is probably a pointless exercise, but when you have finals, fluff pieces like these are imperative. Let's take a look at the front runners for some of the league's most prestigious awards. Most Valuable Player Russell Westbrook James Harden Kevin Durant Oh, if the top three finish out like this, the Thunder are going to be regretting their decisions. Westbrook's triple double average, Harden's renewed concentration for the game because of D'Antoni's offensive scheme, and Durant's efficiency have been documented ad nauseam. Imagine, if the Thunder had actually retained all three of these players and realized that Ibaka was nothing more than an above-average role player. The rationale behind the Harden trade was that they couldn't afford all four of Durant, Wes...

You flew . You soared . You glided . You didn't really play defense, but that's  kind of okay. But hey, at least, you valued  your education . You didn't win all that much either. Even though  you played with  your cousin, a kid and Corey Booker's doppelg ä nger , an actual  velociraptor, a giant man-child, and David's only fan, but I guess he was still probably a little hungover. But wait... Tracy was a child, Chris just couldn't help you, Jermaine wasn't your assignment, that man-child turned into a pouty baby, and your knees were gone soon after. Wait, you're doing what ? You're how old? Where's Mamba? Where's Ray? And the Answer? And the Truth? Where's  little cousin Tracy? How about the Big Ticket? And you're doing  what now ? You still fly . You still soar . You still glide . Maybe not as high or as far. Sure, y...

These are the types of pointless thoughts I have, and now that I have an outlet to talk about them, I can. So yes, I am going to talk about a fringe NBA rotation player on the franchise with the bleakest future. When I have more time to talk about real NBA topics, I promise this'll be more interesting. Sean Kilpatrick - an undersized 6'4'' shooting guard, who can't play point and can't play the other wing position. At Cincinnati, he reached first team All-American status as a gritty, slashing Big East guard. But undrafted out of college, he bounced around the D-League and bad teams until finally getting his break with the Nets this year. Through 19 games, 9 of which he's started, he's averaging 16.2 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 2.6 assists on 41.4/33.0/81.3 shooting splits. He's holding guys he's guarding to 40.7% shooting and has shown the ability to pester ball handlers. He even had 38 point outburst against the Clippers, where he willed his te...

I've seen exactly one game of Jayson Tatum, but there's nothing like overly premature scouting reports for the NBA Draft: He already has a strong body and a will to rebound, both offensively and defensively. His first defensive position, he had a solid box-out, defensive rebound, and quick lead pass. He still needs to learn where to position for rebounds, often times committing to a box-out directly underneath the basket. He seems a little raw around the rim. He didn't go up strong on a dump off, and his shot got swatted. He also threw up a couple floaters that lacked touch. This is irrelevant, but Frank Jackson looks like Bruno Mars, if he were in that one Fresh Prince episode in the country club. His post game is very refined for his age, especially his footwork, which allows him take advantage of his athleticism. He may be a little too reliant on his speed against bigger defenders in the post, which he'll need to work on for the NBA, where he'll be defende...

Anyone who's friends with me knows that I love trashy TV shows; one of those shows is the CW Network's Arrow . Yes, yes, I know, you started reading this piece, hoping for some basketball geekiness. But I swear, I'll pull this back to relevance in a few sentences. Anyways, in the first season of Arrow , the eponymous Green Arrow runs around Starling City at night, delivering vigilante justice to the evil businessmen illegally and often violently exploiting the workers of the city for their own financial gain. He busts into their offices on the top of high-rises and accuses them, "You have failed this city." I wish I could do that to the fourteen GMs that passed on Giannis Antetokuonmpo in the 2013 NBA Draft. Another thing that anyone who's friends with me knows about me is that I have an unhealthy obsession with Giannis's playing style, ability, and general persona. For God's sake, he's basically a seven-foot point guard on offense and a rangy, ...

Oklahoma City Thunder Additions: Victor Oladipo, Domatas Sabonis, Ersan Ilyasova Losses: Kevin Durant, Serge Ibaka, Randy Foye This is such a hot take that it might burn my ass - the Oklahoma City Thunder will finish with one of the top four seed in the Western Conference. Why? Because of this . And little bit of this . When the Thunder made their draft night trade of Ibaka, I questioned their judgment. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that the Thunder are going to be one helluva of a fun team. Westbrook and Oladipo are going to create havoc for opposing backcourts, breaking several ankles during the years, taking turns running interesting pick-and-roll schemes with a top-three center in the NBA. I'm banking on Cameron Payne and Waiters contributing as the third and fourth guards, in some order, in a team that will play as up tempo as any team in the NBA. But why am I so unconcerned for the Thunder losing Durant? Westbrook will get free reign of this team and ...