Basketball Articles

The Unfortunate Obscurity Of Nic Moore

by Jonathan Tjarks

Mar 1, 2016 2:56 PM

A player with Nic Moore's size had better be extremely fast (which he is), have an extremely high basketball IQ (which he has) and not have any holes in his game (which he doesn't). Read more »

Tags: Nic Moore, Southern Methodist Mustangs, NCAA, NBA, NBA NBA Draft, NBA Draft General

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Denzel Valentine And His Perfect Supporting Cast

by Jonathan Tjarks

Feb 24, 2016 4:46 PM

Denzel Valentine is the rare combination of a ball dominant superstar who doubles as a glue guy, a guy with an incredibly high basketball IQ who knows exactly what Michigan State needs on a given night and can always give it to them. Read more »

Tags: Denzel Valentine, Michigan State Spartans, NCAA, NBA, NBA NBA Draft, NBA Draft General

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Jahlil Okafor, Myles Turner And The Futility Of The Process

by Jonathan Tjarks

Feb 23, 2016 11:51 AM

Jahlil Okafor was the better scorer and passer while Myles Turner was the better shooter and shot-blocker. If you were picking a big man for the modern NBA, which skill-set would you prefer? Most big men played like Okafor in 1995. Most big men will play like Turner in 2025. Read more »

Tags: Myles Turner, Jahlil Okafor, Indiana Pacers, Philadelphia Sixers, Duke Blue Devils, Texas Longhorns, NCAA, NBA, NBA NBA Draft, NBA Draft General

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Ten Questions Following The NBA Trade Deadline

by Jonathan Tjarks

What to expect from Channing Frye, Donatas Motiejunas, Markieff Morris, Jeff Green, Randy Foye, Courtney Lee, Jarnell Stokes, plus the future of Mike Conley and whether Orlando kept the right players. Read more »
Pistons Getting Foundational Under-25 Pieces For Spare Parts

by Jonathan Tjarks

Instead of drafting guys younger than Andre Drummond and painstakingly going through the process of grooming them from the ground up, they have let other teams do the developing for them and identified talented 22 and 23 year olds who are waiting for a chance to show what they can do. Read more »
Jaylen Brown, Henry Ellenson And The Benefits, Perils Of Sliding Positions

by Jonathan Tjarks

If either Jaylen Brown or Henry Ellenson is going to be worthy of being a high lottery pick, it's probably going to come from them sliding down a position and giving their teams an edge in speed and skill. It's easier to do that at PF than C and that might end up being the difference between the two in the NBA. Read more »
The Best College Basketball Games During The NBA All-Star Break

by Jonathan Tjarks

Even for those who have no interest in following the NCAA Tournament, this week represents a good time to start catching up on some of the top prospects in this year's draft and some of the guys their favorite teams will be linked too in the draft over the next few months. Read more »
Too Much Talent At The End Of The 2015 Lottery

by Jonathan Tjarks

In terms of the strength of the 2015 NBA Draft, maybe the most impressive part comes from the end of the lottery, where Myles Turner, Devin Booker and Trey Lyles look like future stars. Read more »
Thunder Caught In NBA's Transition From Big To Small

by Jonathan Tjarks

The Thunder have kept building around Durant and Westbrook for yesterday's wars when you needed bigs, but now they're a liability when you need to go small to beat the Warriors. Read more »
The Heat Could Be Much Better Than This

by Jonathan Tjarks

Miami has a great collection of individual talent - they just need to figure out how to make them better than the sum of their parts and they are running out of time to do it. Read more »
The Big 12's Final Four Problem

by Jonathan Tjarks

When you look at the Big 12 as a whole, you see guard-heavy teams without great big men and teams with great big men whose style of play can be exploited by well-coached teams. Read more »
Brooklyn And The Usefulness Of Pursuing Restricted Free Agents

by Jonathan Tjarks

Restricted free agents who change teams are young guys looking to prove their worth and wanting more shots and minutes than they can receive if they stay put. Here are five the Nets should pursue. Read more »
North Carolina's New Reality Without Future Lottery Picks

by Jonathan Tjarks

Roy Williams has had to take a different tack when it comes to recruiting. He's still bringing in McDonald's All-Americans but he's no longer getting the guys whom NBA scouts have been salivating over since high school. This year's team is the perfect example. Read more »
Beating The Warriors

by Jonathan Tjarks

The Spurs might be playing right into the Warriors hands by trying to out-execute them and beat them with ball movement. The best chance anyone might have is to ugly up the game, muck up the action and play a Brutalist style of 1-on-1 offense for seven games. Read more »
Finding The Right Combination For The NBA's Best Big 3

by Jonathan Tjarks

If the NBA was a 3-on-3 league, the Thunder would be the favorites to win it all. The question is whether they can get the right combo of players to complement them. Read more »
The World Of Possibilities Of Karl-Anthony Towns

by Jonathan Tjarks

Karl-Anthony Towns is the first player since LeBron who could theoretically do all five things from all five positions. His ceiling is KG with the ability to play center full-time and knock down 3's at a high volume. He has no ceiling. Read more »
College Basketball Finding Parity Without Elite Big Men

by Jonathan Tjarks

There's a reason there's less excitement about the draft in NBA front offices than there has been in some time and it's tied directly to parity. There aren't any great big men out there and the returns on this year's lottery don'tt project to be nearly as high as they were a year ago. Read more »
Thankfully Boston Has The Brooklyn Lifeline

by Jonathan Tjarks

The Celtics are trying to make the jump from good to great - the hardest leap to make in the NBA - without any of the pieces on the roster necessary to make that possible. You can't follow the Hawks' blueprint without having the Hawks' big men. Read more »
The Mystery Boxes Of Highly Rated Draft Prospects With Limited Minutes

by Jonathan Tjarks

At this point, NBA people would probably prefer if Cheikh Diallo and Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk go back to school, but a weak draft means they might still be able to secure first-round contracts worth millions of dollars without ever getting much playing time at Kansas. Read more »
Rolling Back The Kevin Love Trade For Cleveland

by Jonathan Tjarks

There's just not a lot of room for what Kevin Love brings to the table when the Cavs are playing the best teams in the league and what they could really use is another 6'7+ wing defender who could slide between the 3 and 4 positions and push LeBron down to the 4 and the 5 more often. Read more »