Weekly Wrap-Up

After a month-long hiatus, I’m back! (eh, I won’t kid myself, nobody noticed that I was gone. In fact, you’re probably asking yourself “who is this guy?” I will now go beat my head repeatedly against a wall)

Anyway, as usual, welcome to the Weekly Wrap-Up, your source for all the happenings and tidbits from the previous week (month?) in the NBA, all in rambling bullet-point form.

- First of all, I have to bring up something I read on ESPN.com’s Weekend Dime last week. Marc Stein asked a Western Conference scout about Denver’s play this year, and he responded with this gem of a quote:

“The biggest change I’ve seen from any team this [season] is Denver. They’re No. 2 in steals and No. 3 in blocks. They dump [Marcus] Camby in a salary move and all of a sudden they’re in the top five in two major categories.”

Now, we’re going to overlook the fact that the scout was talking about total blocks and steals, not blocks/steals per possession (which is the better measure). Even disregarding that, lets take a look at last year, when Denver was…oh yeah, FIRST IN BLOCKS AND STEALS! I also feel compelled to point out that, in the world of statistics that actually matter, Denver is averaging 9.149 steals per 100 possessions this season versus 9.117 last year, and 6.68 blocks versus 6.268 last year. They’re also 11th in the league this year with a defensive rating of 106.5, vs 10th and 106.3 last year. The moral of the story is that even those close to the game are not necessarily authorities on it. There’s a lot of BS out there that comes from “credible sources.”

- The top 8 Western Conference playoff teams are essentially set now, with Phoenix dropping a full 6 games behind Dallas for the 8th spot, but the jockeying for home-court advantage continues. Two teams in particular, Utah and Portland, are desperate to be higher than the 4th seed. They sport matching 13-18 road records, but have been elite-caliber at home. LA has run away with the top seed, but there’s only a 3.5 game difference separating 2nd place San Antonio and 8th place Dallas. It’s anyone’s game, but if I had to guess right now I’d say that San Antonio, Denver and Utah are most likely to grab the other 3 top seeds.

- One of my favorite things so far to come out of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (or “Dorkapalooza”, according to Bill Simmons) was this quote from TrueHoop’s Henry Abbott, when he was talking about the hot hand study presented at the conference:

“Huizinga and Sandy Weil were responsible for the hot hand research that I still promise will be on TrueHoop in more detail at some point. It was a huge research project. It shook out a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with hot hands, too. For instance, how you get the ball matters tremendously to how likely you are to score with it. If you get the ball in a liveball turnover (a steal for instance) your shooting percentage is 12% higher than normal. If you get the ball from an offensive rebound, it’s 8% higher. Home teams, meanwhile, shoot 1.5% better — so you can see these advantages are major. This is part of the reason players who force turnovers are more valuable than they might first appear. Another special thing about steals is that (I can’t remember who told me this) it may well be a marker for players with great hands, which can have great benefits beyond steals.”

This is one of the many reasons why basketball is so hard to quantify statistically. When you’re looking at a steal in a boxscore, you’re not just looking at a change in possession. You’re looking at all those things Abbot talks about. It’s potentially a predictor of a player with good hands, it might make the next basket easier, it might indicate a player who gambles more than playing solid defense. There are a whole lot of things possibly wrapped up in one number. That’s one of the reasons I value blocks as a defensive assessment of big men. An elite shot blocker might block 2-3 shots a game, which isn’t really a huge number in the grand scheme of things. However, blocked shots also indicate a big man who alters shots at the rim. That’s why great defenses are almost always anchored by big men who block a lot of shots.

- If we’re being realistic, there are only 4 real contenders this year (LA, San Antonio, Boston and Cleveland). Three of them made veteran waiver wire pickups for the homestretch. Boston picked up Stephon Marbury and Mikki Moore, and if you see either of them being a significant help in the playoffs, you’re delusional. Mikki Moore isn’t near the veteran defensive presence that P.J. Brown was last year, and Marbury wasn’t all that good when he was playing consistently, much less after sitting on the sidelines all year. They’ve gotten some minutes with KG and Rondo injured, but Boston isn’t getting the same kind of late-season playoff boost that they got last year. On the other hand, Cleveland and San Antonio picked up guys who could play 15-20 mpg down the stretch. San Antonio’s pickup of Drew Gooden is important because they’ve essentially been playing the entire year with a frontcourt of Duncan, Matt Bonner, Kurt Thomas, and the reanimated corpse of Fabricio Oberto. Bonner and Thomas have worked decently as a platoon to compliment Duncan, but Gooden offers them an athletic frontcourt option that they haven’t had the past few years. Gooden is also an excellent offensive rebounder, a category that the Spurs routinely finish near the bottom of the league in. The acquisition of Gooden, combined with the emergence of Roger Mason and George Hill in the backcourt, gives the Spurs quality depth that we didn’t think they’d have at the beginning of the season. For Cleveland, they bring in Joe Smith for the second time in the last year (they brought him over last season in a trade). Smith played well for them last year, and he plays well off LeBron because he does a good job drifting to open spots and knocking down mid-range jumpers. He gives them temporary relief while Ben Wallace is out, and in the playoffs the Cavs won’t have to rely on rookie J.J. Hickson as their 4th big man. If Cleveland enters the playoffs healthy, they have a very deep roster of role players who know and accept their role. As for the one contender who didn’t add a piece, frankly LA didn’t need any of the guys who were available. They’re deep enough, especially once Bynum comes back, that they don’t really need a guy like Smith or Gooden.

- It’s getting to be March Madness time, and that means it’s a good time to get a look at some prospects you may not have watched before, and see them in pressure situations against good competition. So, get ready to fill out your bracket, but remember to keep an eye on these guys:

Eric Maynor, PG, VCU – You may remember Maynor from a few years ago, when he did this to Duke. Well, since then he’s grown into one of the nation’s top point guards, and a guy who should be a late first-round pick this year. He’s made huge strides in his game every year, continually improving as a finisher in the lane, a shooter, and a playmaker for his teammates. He’s got good size and average athleticism, but what really sets him apart is his fantastic court sense. He just knows the game, and I think he’ll end up being, at worst, a solid backup point guard.

James Harden, SG, ASU – Since he plays on the West coast, a lot of people don’t properly appreciate just how good this guy is. He does a great job of letting the game come to him, looking to either get layups, spot-up threes, or get to the free-throw line. He doesn’t have otherworldly athleticism, he doesn’t have a fantastic first step, and defenders know he wants to go left all the time. Nonetheless, watch him play and see just how many times he gets to the rim going left anyway. He’s just an extremely smart player and a very gifted offensive player. He’ll be a top 5 pick in the next draft.

Devin Ebanks, SF/PF, WVU – He probably won’t be in the draft this year, but keep an eye on this kid for future reference. Then you can look all smart next year when you predict that this kid will end up being a lottery pick. Ebanks is 6′8, and has absolute jump-out-of-the-building hops. He’s really improved quite a bit from the start of the year, and recently has been putting up some very strong double-doubles in the last few weeks. In the Big East tournament so far, Ebanks has had 18 rebounds against Notre Dame, and then set a career high in points scored in consecutive games.

Chief Kickingstallionsims, C, Alabama State – He’s not actually an NBA prospect, but I just wanted to mention this guy’s name. If he hits a game-winning shot in a massive upset with Gus Johnson yelling “KICKINGSTALLIONSIMS, FOR THE WIN……YES!!!!” at the top of his lungs, I might just shed tears of happiness.

Jason Richardson got embarassed by LeBron James the other night, and then had the audacity to whine about it afterwards. Now, there was definitely a foul on that play, there’s not really any doubt about it. However, if you’re a big enough idiot to attempt a 360 dunk and you get it blocked, then you need to just clam up and take it. It’s not the official’s fault that you were being an idiot and hotdogging it. It’s not the official’s fault that nobody covered Sasha Pavlovic on the other end and he canned a 3, and it’s not the official’s fault that you compounded your idiocy by woofing about the foul and got yourself T-ed up. If you want to beat a team like Cleveland, you can’t afford to be an idiot, and it cost Phoenix.

Maestro Award

The Maestro Award is my recognition of the best performance from the previous week

And the award goes to…Dwyane Wade, for what might be the most memorable performance of the year. Against Chicago last monday, he scored 48 points on only 21 shots, dished out 12 assists, had 6 rebounds, 4 steals, 3 blocks, and at the end of the game…well, you just have to see it.

Honorable Mention: The Oklahoma City Thunder, for going 5-3 over the last few weeks without Kevin Durant in the lineup. There haven’t been a lot of positives in OKC this year, but this has been a nice stretch for them. Also, I wanted to link you to this ridiculous Jeff Green posterization of Robin Lopez.

xphoenix87 is a contributing writer for BallerBlogger.com. x is a college student who dreams of one day writing about sports for a living. Since that’s not gonna happen, he’ll do this instead.