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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
I estimate only 10-12 Primates care about the NBA, none of whom can be bothered to curate their own thread to avoid detracting from what this site is really about: complaints about mayonnaise.

EDIT: image is shrunken. Mouse over to show full size. -vi
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How good do you think those guys will be? Fringe All-Stars? All-NBA players? The Bulls are locking themselves into too many other mediocrities, so it'll take a lot of luck to jump from where they are now to contender status. They're not bad enough to expect to add another top talent in the draft, and they've shown no real competencies in attracting significant FAs.
Wanamaker: I normally view returning ex-pats like this as pretty good value buys, underrated by the market, but I'm not keen on him as an offensive player.
They've locked themselves into one mediocrity, LaVine. Parker is only a 1-year contract with team option.
(and they've locked themselves into one totally useless player, Felicio)
DeJuan Blair, right?
This is true for like 25 teams (take a lot of luck to jump from where they are to contender status within a few years). 3-4 of those teams will get the lot of luck and become contenders. There are only 5ish true contenders at any one time even under normal circumstances, being a contender is hard.
I'd probably put the Bulls fourth in the EC terms of contention odds in 5 years, albeit in a pack of teams that all need a lot of luck to really get there:
Teams that you'd expect to be contenders unless something weird happens:
Philadelphia
Boston
1-2 of these will contend, but not sure which:
Milwaukee
Chicago
New York
Indiana
Orlando
Toronto
Atlanta
Washington
I don't see it, but maybe you do:
Miami
Brooklyn
Detroit
Charlotte
Comic Sans division:
Cleveland
Let's see, Pitt NBA careers:
Jamel Artis: 2017-18
Lamar Patterson: 2015-17 (Hawks bench, then Italy, now signed with a team in Tibet)
DeJuan Blair: 2009-16
Aaron Gray: 2007-14
Sam Young: 2009-13
Mark Blount: 2001-09
Blair hung on with the Wizards longer than I thought! And I had no idea Jamel Artis signed with the Magic, the graveyard of forgotten players.
I swear I thought he was dead.
The Bulls are trying to sell the Parker deal as more substantive than that. IOW, look how quickly they matched the LaVine offer sheet, they're pot committing to him. If he's halfway decent, they're not turning down that option and they'll be a lot of pressure to extend and/or resign him. Because they have a history of acting a certain way, I can't rationally treat it purely as a 1 year deal. Similarly, I"m already mentally counting Dunn's inevitable extension against them.
I go back to my initial question though on Markannen and Carter - how good you consider them/how good you think they can be is going to inform how much you can buy into them having a bright future.
The Bulls won 27 games last year. Being mediocre would be a significant upgrade.
They spent 25% of last year as a really good team, and last year was their only *bad* year they've had in a while. They're destined to be a perfectly mediocre team - with the occasional positive or negative blip - as long as this FO runs the team.
This is true for like 25 teams (take a lot of luck to jump from where they are to contender status within a few years). 3-4 of those teams will get the lot of luck and become contenders. There are only 5ish true contenders at any one time even under normal circumstances, being a contender is hard.
I'd probably put the Bulls fourth in the EC terms of contention odds in 5 years, albeit in a pack of teams that all need a lot of luck to really get there:
Sure, but that (mediocrity and a dose of luck) is also the Bulls' true goal. They may talk a big game of contending, but they're perfectly happy being just decent with a whiff of really good if thing break just right, and then happy to harp on their bad luck while continuing to tout flexibility and the next plan around the corner.
---
tl,dr; I'm not buying into any of this positive spin. I'm going to enjoy this season for what it is, and what the end result of this group will obviously be. If I'm wrong, I'm happy to be pleasantly surprised like the last time. My optimism is fully invested in the Cubs, not this bunch.
The year of the actual Dream Team, 1992, was pretty damn strong. But maybe it gets stronger if you back up a few years to when Magic and Bird were still Magic and Bird; not sure.
The 2018 team seems pretty damn strong, too; we can quibble about the exact setup, but something like a starting five of Harden/Curry/LeBron/Durant/Davis supported by some combination of Giannis, Westbrook, Paul, Draymond, Embiid, etc. would be pretty awesome, even historically, I think. (And actually, though Durant is better than Giannis, switching Giannis into the starting five with his explicit job being to play hellacious defense, crash the boards and run in transition, while Durant provides elite bench scoring/defense, might make the team stronger.)
Dunno if it's interesting to anyone but me.
Swapping Draymond for Curry would give you a true death lineup on defense.
Before that, I'd probably go back to the mid-80s. I'm not well versed enough to know how the depth would be, but getting the prime of Jordan/Bird/Magic is key. You lose Robinson which hurts a lot, but you still get early-prime Hakeem since it's not a USA team. Also you get more-prime Barkley now and more in the athletic prime of Ewing.
Going roughly off of Win Shares for 1987, you could put together this depth chart:
PG- Magic, Zeke (Stockton would become what we remember the next year)
SG- Jordan, Drexler
SF- Bird, Nique
PF- Barkley, Malone
C- Olajuwon, McHale
Others to consider: Dantley, Vandeweghe, Laimbeer, Moses, Doc Rivers
That leaves 6'7" Draymond Green as the shortest guy on the floor. In general, I'm a fan of putting together teams with lengthy switch-anything defenders, which this team has. I'd love to watch them on D.
bucks signed pat connaughton to a 2 year deal for a bit over the minimum, yr 1 is guaranteed
Yeah I'd favor this line of thinking, too. It's not that the list of all time greats isn't still populated with a lot of guys from the 70s-early 2000s, it's just the versatility and range of skills that the current stars have would, I think, make for a better overall team.
Will do, honkey.
I caught some of the Shaq vs Kobe game on NBA TV the other day. It's striking how much the game has changed and I would love if we could transport Shaq in his prime to see how he would fare. I feel like he would be the monster of monsters on the offensive end but he wouldn't be as effective on the defensive end and he might not be able to play as many minutes. Shaq was not, um, a long distance runner, let's say.
I want to say you'd have some shooting issues with that group, but I suppose when you're talking about putting those five guys together, going on about spacing is a little precious.
It would be a battle of wills, though, unstoppable points in the paint followed by the opposing team putting him in the pick and roll on the other end.
I think Steph belongs in the lineup of any kind of historical team. His ability to shoot from outside off the bounce warps play and makes other people on the court better without him having to touch the ball.
Backpicks has some good stuff about this.
PG- Oscar 62, Walt Frazier 72
SG- West 70, Sam Jones 65
SF- Arizin 52, Ricky Barry 67, Baylor 61
PF- Pettit 59, Neil Johnston 54
C- Wilt 62, Kareem 72, Russell 64
I mean, fat Shaq was a defensive liability, but young Shaq was amazing on defense.
Further, Shaq enables you to play small at the other positions because he was basically a 1 man rebounding machine on both ends. That's super valuable because it allows you to create these monstrous mismatches like putting Kobe at the 4 if you wanted to.
The Rockets are all in for the next 4 years at least, so they couldn't risk letting him walk.
The question is whether Capela thinks he'll get a max offer next year. He'd be at a 25 mm max, and a 4 million QO.
That's 104 million. Seems like he's selling low to me.
You have to discount that a bit since he is getting 16m more in year 1. He's also staying in a tax-free market.
Indeed. BTF's extremely narrow demographics are, at times, problematic.
Thank you for doing the math.
90mm seems like too much of a discount. If he takes the 4.7 mm QO, that means he's valuing the other 4 years at just 21 million.
So he's taking a 20% haircut in exchange for certainty. That seems like too much to give up to me. I'd value myself higher than that if I were Capela. I think the next two years are going to be a cap bonanza. This cap environment is a historical anomaly, and you shouldn't sign long term deals in that kind of environment.
Are you referring to OTP? That place has always been a cesspool.
Capela max: I don't think it's clear cut, nor do I think we can guarantee that he'd remain healthy/equally productive over the next year.
Speaking of, I can't seem to post in the football thread any more. Perhaps somebody should post a new one. It's about time for a new season thread anyway, I would think.
JAMES .367
KUZMA .366
INGRAM .390
KCP .383
HART .396
BALL .305..he was trending up
RONDO .333..had been over .350 the three years prior
BEASLEY.395
STEPHENSON .289
----------
CLARKSON .324 LAL/.407 CLE
RANDLE .222
NANCE JR. .250
LOPEZ .345
Didn't include McGee, who has attempted 15 3Ps in his career, making 1.
So, spinning it positively, there is already talk of James + the Young Guys "Baby Death Lineup" and we see that they have some young guys who look like they are decent from the arc, and I think there is some data to support James having "gravity."
On the other hand, the bottom line is that the Lakers do not have a second guy who projects at ASG or near-ASG level, and this metric makes the Stephenson signing even more bizarre. They have Hart and KCP, and there are reasons to have Ball on the floor even though he can't shoot.
If they really do play LeBron at center, that puts Lonzo, KCP, Kuzma/Hart and Ingram around him. It's not clear whether the rebounding would hold up--KCP and Lonzo were good rebounders last year, Hart, Ingram and Kuzma were bad ones. LeBron was a good rebounder, but at a different position.
I'm not sure if it will work or not. It seems like it could, but it depends on the rebounding.
Sorry, I prefer to look at on/off numbers for defensive rebounding.
There is some noise there, but there's a ton of noise in rebounding numbers full stop. If a guy is a good rebounder/box out guy, the team should be better with him on the court. That is true for Ball and KCP (+1.8% and +2.0% respectively), but not true for Ingram, Kuzma and Hart (-1.0%, -2.3% and -1.6%, respectively).
I have the most confidence in Kuzma being a bad rebounder, and the least in Hart being a bad rebounder.
I don't remember where I first read it but there's evidence that Brook rebounds like his brother or Steven Adams-- he boxes out hard and lets other guys get the board. Don't have the ability to look it up right now but I recall that his team's rebounding rate is significantly higher with him on the floor.
That may be, but he does not rebound like Adams on O:
CAREER ORB/DRB
ADAMS: 13.8/16.1
LOPEZ: 8.9/16.0
LAST YEAR:
ADAMS: 16.6/13.9
LOPEZ: 4.6/13.4
So, they are the same on the D glass, but not on the O glass. Overall results may be the same. As to Hart, fair point, but he does grab a lot of caroms for a guard.
On the whole, a perfectly good role player whose skill set is well-suited to being a complementary wing, and at $12m, he makes about market rate without tying up the cap moving forward. If the Celtics didn't have an embarrassment of talent at the wing, I'd be perfectly happy to have him.
John his meds Collins
Collinsanity
This works. The "John his meds" thing not so much. Must match "Vinsanity" and "Linsanity," for obvious reasons. Work on Trae Young next, please.
link
The Master of Ballin'Trae
This seems very on brand for both guys, especially Thompson, who did absolutely nothing of note on the court all year.
Tristan has a very weird combination of having an attention-seeking personality (dating a Kardashian, being on their TV show, the strip club video, this fight, contract hold-out) and a very subtle playing style (good team defender, sets screens, boxes out well, offensive rebounds). For someone who seems to want a lot of credit, the things he does well are things that don't get a lot of credit.
IOW, a Canadian.
I agree this was true at times in the past, but he was just fully bad this year.
Nwaba to sign with CLE
Next up, Dewayne Dedmond!
In the regular season, yes. I thought the Cavs played better when they reintegrated him in the playoffs.
Yeah that's fair, I think I remember advocating for playing him more, too.
Nwaba to sign with CLE
sigh
I liked him when he entered the league as a guy who can roll to the hoop and create for others, but he stagnated last year and turnovers and fouls have been a problem in the G league.
LeBron, uh, seems not to have been the issue:
2018: Wizards lost to Raptors, who went on to play LeBron's team
2017: Wizards lost to Celtics, who went on to play LeBron's team
2016: Wizards didn't make playoffs
2015: Wizards lost to Hawks, who went on to play LeBron's team
2014: Wizards lost to Pacers, who went on to play LeBron's team
2011-2013: Wizards didn't make playoffs
2010: Wizards draft John Wall
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