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4th March, 2010 - 4:27 pm
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| Current Features |
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SCOOP DU JOUR: 32 Fearless Predictions For The 2011 NFL Draft
The draft is less than a week away. Draft boards from teams are essentially set and are now being carefully guarded. Here are some predictions for what we'll see next week. Some are serious, some are fun, and less than five will probably come to fruition.
STANDING 10: Non-National Games Of The Week (1/17-1/23)
The Knicks make three appearances this week, along with several from Blake Griffin and the Clippers.
PLAYER RANKINGS: 2010-11 NBA Player Rankings Through Dec. 14th
Now that more than a quarter of the season is in the books, we don't have many aberrations in the player rankings as Pau Gasol, Kevin Love, Deron Williams, Chris Paul and LeBron James comprise the top-five.
MOCK DRAFT: 2010 NBA Mock Draft, Version 5.0
An interesting week of prevalent deception is nearly over and the actual picks are hours away. Hundreds of hours have been spent watching the 60 players that 30 teams hope will improve their club in the coming years.
LOCKER TALK: Nash, Cleveland, & Orlando
Steve Nash could draw trade interest this summer and Cleveland isn?t overlooking Orlando?
CLASSICS: Hakeem Vs. Ewing: Who Was The Better Center?
Born within six months of each other in opposite corners of the world, two seven footers who are finalists for the Basketball Hall of Fame this fall are two of the best ever to play the center position.
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By Christopher Reina
Certainly by now most of you are already familiar with my Floor Impact Counter and Reina Value. (Please click here to familiarize yourself with the systems.)
I also use the FIC to calculate team totals, both by game and for the season.
In order to determine my team rankings, I have calculated the difference between a team's own FIC per game and their opponents' FIC for the entire season.
Team: 09-10 FIC Differential
1. Cleveland Cavaliers : 17.3
Mike Brown took a not so veiled shot at Mike D?Antoni and the Knicks when he talked about how he?s not a fan of teams that play at a fast pace. He cited how the great Kings, Mavericks and Suns were unable to win a title.
All three of those teams were ?thisclose? to getting over the hump with Sacramento and Phoenix falling victim to controversial circumstances.
I tend to believe teams that play up-tempo tend to overachieve with their personnel and the teams that win titles simply have the best players.
Mike Brown has a very deep team of veterans and the best player on the planet, so he better show how he can win a title with a slow-paced team. Cleveland?s offense has been more efficient this season, but we still need to see if Brown lets things devolve into simply the LeBron show in the postseason.
As a sidebar, the Warriors, Pacers and Wolves are 1st, 2nd and 3rd in pace and will also be receiving lottery picks.
2. Utah Jazz : 13.5
Utah?s three leading scorers (Carlos Boozer, Deron Williams and Paul Millsap) all have TS% of 57.2% of better.
3. Boston Celtics : 12.7
Rajon Rondo has become a more dangerous offensive player this season due to his uptick in assist percentage, but he still hasn?t increased his scoring as significantly as I expected when the season began. Rondo is averaging 13.7 points per 36 minutes this season, up from 13.0 points per 36 minutes in 08-09. That trails point guards like Jordan Farmar and Beno Udrih, which seems feels like an underutilization of his abilities.
Depending on what kind of shake-up we see Danny Ainge complete in the summer and I expect a significant summer shake-up, we need to see Doc Rivers loosen up and let Rondo have more control of the offense.
4. Orlando Magic : 11.7
The Magic have improved from 11th in offensive efficency to 9th, but that should be significantly higher given the mismatch that is Dwight Howard. Howard?s points per 36 minutes has decreased this season from 20.7 to 19.2 despite an outstanding 63.2 TS%.
5. L.A. Lakers : 11.3
The Lakers are fifth here, but are second in Pythagorean W-L and are still my choice to win the Finals. Their number one ranked defense looks a lot more attractive to me than the 10th ranked offense. I expect them to get healthy by the middle of April with that offense trending upwards.
6. Dallas Mavericks : 8.4
Beyond Wednesday?s defensive effort against Minnesota in which they gave up 117.8 points per 100 possessions, Dallas has been excellent on that end of the floor since the Brendan Haywood/Caron Butler trade.
7. San Antonio Spurs : 7.6
The Spurs are 11th in defensive efficiency, a dramatic development given where the club has ranked since drafting Tim Duncan in 1997.
98: 2nd
99: 1st
00: 2nd
01: 1st
02: 2nd
03: 3rd
04: 1st
05: 1st
06: 1st
07: 2nd
08: 3rd
09: 5th
8. Atlanta Hawks : 7.2
Josh Smith ranks fourth in PER amongst power forwards, Joe Johnson is fifth at shooting guard, Al Horford is 12th at center, Marvin Williams is 20th at small forward and Mike Bibby is 46th at point guard.
9. Oklahoma City Thunder: 6.9
Even though Seattle is far from forgotten in my mind, I was relieved and enthused to hear Kevin Durant plans on signing an extension this summer with the Thunder.
10. Portland TrailBlazers: 6.8
It has been refreshing to see Nicolas Batum open things up offensively over the past few days and weeks with a highly efficient 31 at Minnesota and highly efficient 21 at Memphis. He has been a nice defensive player for the Blazers, but has had a limited role offensively. I saw a lot of Latrell Sprewell in his game when watching him at Le Mans.
Here is my scouting report on Batum ahead of his draft in 2008.
11. Denver Nuggets : 6.7
I believe the Nuggets are significantly better than this and their Pythagorean record says their the seventh best team in the NBA. They have a difficult schedule and while they?re third in offense, they are 15th in defense. They were eighth in defense last season and unless they can turn thing around on that side of the floor before they meet a Dallas or even an Oklahoma City in the playoffs, a WCF rematch against the Lakers is unlikely.
12. Phoenix Suns : 6.3
Amare Stoudemire?s numbers over the past few weeks is such an appropriate indicator for why he is deemed untrustworthy by so many GMs across this league. His minutes per game have remained relatively flat at around 35 per night, but below are his monthly splits:
Nov: 20.0 and 7.1
Dec: 21.2 and 10.2
Jan: 21.9 and 7.9
Feb: 25.3 and 10.1
13. Miami Heat : 3.6
Joel Anthony has an impressive, NBA-best 7.2 BLK%, but does very little beyond that, whether it is on the glass or as a scorer.
14. Milwaukee Bucks : 0.7
The only other rookie to average at least six assists per game with a turnover percentage under 13% and assist percentage over 30% beyond Brandon Jennings? Pooh Richardson in 89-90 and his career high was 20 short of 55.
15. Charlotte Bobcats : -0.5
The Bobcats began the first part of the season leading the NBA in defensive efficency, but have now fallen to sixth.
16. Chicago Bulls : -1.0
The Bulls lead the NBA in total blocked shots with the balance of now-gone Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson, along with even solid outputs from Luol Deng and Brad Miller in this category.
17. Houston Rockets : -2.6
Aaron Brooks leads the NBA in 3-point field goals and attempts while ranking 18th in points per game at 19.8. Who had Durant, followed by Brooks as the two leading scorers from their draft class in their office pool back in 2007?
18. Memphis Grizzlies : -3.3
A few people out there haven?t noticed apparently, but Mike Conley has begun to play excellent basketball in the second half. He?s shooting an excellent percentage from distance on a healthy amount of shots, which has set him up to become the drive and dish point guard everyone expected him to be when he was the fourth overall choice in 2007.
19. Philadelphia 76ers : -3.5
The Sixers hosted ?Elton Brand Night? this week and fittingly, the power forward sat out with an Achilles. To be fair, Brand has missed just five games this season.
20. Toronto Raptors : -3.8
The Raptors are 31-28, but should be 27-32 according to their Pythagorean record. I think some of that has to be chalked to early season blowouts. Their defensive rating is still the worst in basketball, but it has improved significantly since bottoming out in December.
21. New Orleans Hornets : -4.0
A lot of credit must be given to Jeff Bower for keeping the Hornets afloat without Chris Paul, but the playoffs now appear out of reach. They at least now know they have two very good rookie guards in Marcus Thornton (20 points per 36 minutes) and Darren Collison (WC Rookie of the Month in February).
22. New York Knicks : -5.7
Who would have imagined the 'At least we're not the Nets' answer would have come back into vogue before the Knicks were good again?
Things began nicely this season for Danilo Gallinari and the fact that he hasn?t been hurt is a huge plus, but he hasn?t developed as a ballhandler and an assist man the way I saw he was capable of when he in Italy. The Jason Kapono comparisons are beginning to become fair.
Below is an excerpt of what I wrote ahead of his draft in 2008. We really haven?t seen much of this with the Knicks and the hope has to be that it is a confidence and comfort issue.
He has a superb handle and plays the game like he?s 6-3 instead of his listed 6-9; similar to Kevin Durant, it is incredibly easy to forget he is so tall. Gallinari is great in the open court with a quick, confident dribble and excellent floor vision. He will get a defensive rebound and bring the ball up himself in transition and then look to setup his own shot or create for teammates.
He has nice athleticism and will dunk on people, but he labors a little bit in the air although his hang time is decent. He also doesn?t have the quickest first step off the dribble, which will make beating NBA defenders to the bucket difficult.
One point which cannot be stressed enough is that Gallinari?s ability to beat his man off the dribble will be almost entirely predicated on the threat of his jumper.
23. L.A. Clippers : -5.7
If the NBA doesn?t want people betting on their sport, they should use a frustratingly inconsistent team like the Clippers on billboards.
24. Sacramento Kings : -7.6
If it wasn?t common knowledge before, Shane Battier provided the rules on Tyreke Evans and that?s to prevent dribble penetration. Evans was held to a 4-for-22 night on Wednesday by Houston, yet the Kings still were victorious. Sacramento is 2-2 when Evans scores in single-digits, but are 1-7 when he scores 28 or more. I don?t know what to make of that 2-2, but I do trust at least a little bit of that 1-7.
25. Washington Wizards : -8.9
Andray Blatche, ladies and gentlemen. I even noticed Raptors fans on the boards fake trading away Andrea Bargnani for Blatche.
26. GSWarriors -10.2
The Warriors big men (Ronny Turiaf, Andris Biedrins and the gone but not forgotten Mikki Moore) interestingly have inordinately high assist rates.
27. IndianaPacers -10.6
I read Ben Golliver from BlazersEdge.com opine that there isn?t a ?less talented, les promising roster in the entire league than the Pacers.?
Back before the season started, I ranked them 30th in my Five-Year Window article, so it makes me feel less guilty towards Perna to hear a similar sentiment come from someone like Golliver.
28. DetroitPistons -11.3
The Pistons could be worse than the Pacers, however, as at least one of those two teams has Danny Granger. Detroit has no player with a PER over 16.0 this season.
29. Minnesota Timberwolves -20.2
Who would have ever guessed that the Darko trade would ignite national interest in the Wolves the way it has? It has been revealing and interesting and if David Kahn?s first summer was fun, wait until this one.
30. NJNets -23.0
The New Jersey Win-O-Meter is a rather fun tool that doesn?t demand a doctorate in mechanical engineering let alone, bells or whistles.
Oct: 0
Nov: 0
Dec: 3
Jan: 1
Feb: 2
Mar: 0, but we?re just getting started.
Click on @CR_Reina to follow Chris Reina's Twitter feed. |
