thing is simply that his passing technique is awful.
He´s basically a 6´10 Aaaron Brooks and i often emphasized what a terrible passer that guy is.

That´s sth you have to work on over the summer. Get some pylons, get a trainer and work those angles. Recognition comes with time and better shooters present better angles, but you have got to be able to play all those passes.
As for Ibaka : I find his game to be more impressive than his numbers even, those are just icing on the cake considering his lack of past experience.

@ MrBug708 : You think ? Kobe has taken a step back this year, terrible shot selection the last 1 1/2 months or so, very little trust in his teammates.
There´s only 1 ball to go arround for Kobe, 3 potent big men and of course Artest.
Guess Kobe will adjust when coming back, at east that´s what common sense tells me.


- Raptors are 18-6 in their last 24 games, pretty impressive.

- Steph Curry with 36/10/13, that´s pretty sick even against the Clippers. Warriors had 4 guys play 45+ minutes :eek:

Although they still don't have a perimeter defender, Reggie Evans came back for an interior presence last night. First game of the season and the Raps fans went nuts for him. In 5 minutes he had 2 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and drew a charge.

Their offense can hang with a lot of other teams, but their defense is piss poor. If they can somehow add a good perimeter defender, I'd say they maybe could shock someone in the East, but realistically this is the best they can be as they are right now. Fifth in the East and just outside the top four big guns. I can't see them beating the Celts, Cavs, Hawks, or Magic.

I wasn't talking about chemistry on the floor really but the overall team attitude/chemistry. That might be code for Durant's happiness, though. Green, Durant and Westbrook are very tight off the court, by all accounts, and I think it would cause a problem in that regard to bench Green for an upgrade.

Personally, I think Green does a lot of things well. He has an outside shot, though inconsistent, and he's one of the higher effort guys on the court, not a bad defender at all but just one that gets overpowered by some of the bigger guys he has to face. At the same time, though, his athleticism against those bigger guys is at times an advantage for OKC.

All of that said, if I felt comfortable with it not impacting Durant's willingness to stay when that time comes, I'd absolutely be for bringing in someone like a Bosh.

Was it really a charge or did Reggie pull the flop a roo? Reggie played in Denver for a couple of years. Loved the guys hustle. You just cannot play him too much. In 15 minutes a night, he's great. 20+ and it gets scary. 30+ and he'll be abused. But one thing you'll always be able to count on him for is 1 good flop a night. I think my favorite Reggie moment was when one of the small PG's was cutting sideways on him and clipped his hip. Reggie flew into the standard, the refs called a charge and the PG was so stunned/surprised/pissed off that all he could do was fume.

Those were the days.

I agree with you whomario. I guess it all depends on what kind of a player he wants to be. If he wants to be Dirk, he's in good shape the way he is right now if he just stops turning the ball over. (dirk is not a good passer at all) If he wants to be an all around player, he needs to get the passing fixed.

Him being on the Olympic roster will not hurt in any of this stuff.

haha I'll have to look out for those. This was a full-on charge just outside of that interior circle.

Curry has been very good and getting better, and what he accomplished last night is certainly mostly his talent.

That said, the Clippers didn't even show up for this game, not in one way whatsoever. Pretty damn pathetic. So for all his amazing game, take Curry's stats with a slight grain of salt.

The way the Clippers are playing now, there's no such thing as "even against the Clippers".

Magic are on the second night of a b2b, but they just shelled the Bulls last night. 41-17 first quarter. Nobody played more than 28 minutes. Looking forward to both games tonight.

Look for the Jazz to fall off the table after the break. Lots of road games (and they are not a good road team) and a fall off to the norm. Ak's good, but he isn't shooting 65% for the year. (like he has from January 1 to now. Their interior D is bad. They've played lights out defense during January/February with on the ball pressure.

That's nice when you play 13 out of 19 games at home. 11 of their next 15 are on the road. If they sustain their play good for them. . . but I don't see it happening.

first off : To be fair to Durant : There haven´t been a whole lot of 6´9/6´10 perimeter players before that created things from the perimeter and were asked to score the ball like mad.
Maybe that can´t be done ? If he reverses his A/TO ratio to 4/3 instead of 3/4 that might be enough with the right pieces next to him. I don´t think a 6´9/6´10 perimeter guy will ever by a great facilitator while still looking to score a ton, just tough to do in terms of coordination and with the high dribble/slowish passing motion.

actually Dirk is a very good passer IMO. Doesn´t create a ton of angles because at the end of the day he´s a one-dribble-scorer facing the basket, but his passing ability/technique is pretty good.
Also has trouble getting the ball off against physichal double teams as he´s got a weak base on the floor (in contrast to other big guys. Great balance moving, weak balance standing still.) combined with a high dribble, but in terms of technique he´s right there with nearly everybody that´s 6´10+.

I´m not saying you don´t, but that is sth a lot of people don´t recognize when judging passing ability. You can´t so much work on your natural (athletic) ability of creating better angles (speed/quickness in one dimension, long arms/heigh in the other)
Steve Nash f.e. has average height/arm length and speed/quickness and has less angles available by nature than a ton of other PGs, but he can use every pass in the book with either hand and keep his dribble alive until he finds a seam.

A guy like Tony Parker on the other hand creates a ton of angles due to his amazing quickness, but isn´t half the passer Nash is. Same goes for guys like Brooks, Ellis or even guys like Wade and Baron Davis.
Wade gets propably 50% of his assists by simply drawing 3 people and doing an easy kick out. If he gets played 1:1 and forced to pass with a guy guarding the passing angles (which Thabo Sefolosha or Battier excel in or guys like Bowen did) or has to set up the offense in the halfcourt he becomes pedestrian as a passer.

Damn, i think i may have taken a kinda confusing detour here, sorry about that :D

What i meant : If Durant had Nowitzki´s passing ability with the space and angles he creates due to his athleticism and long arms and height, he´d be in pretty good shape :)

whomario,

Believe me, it's not just looking at assists. A lot of guys have tons of assists just because they dominate the ball. Wade is a great example of that. Arenas, Marbury, AI are others.

There are also plenty of good passers who don't rack up high assist totals for various reasons. Any SF who isn't a point forward is going to have trouble racking up assists. Look at Paul Pierce for an example. Before Rondo and when Rondo was young, Paul ran the point forward role a lot He averaged in the high 4's in assists. When Rondo took over the PG role, Paul's assists dropped. Now he's at 3.3. Melo deals with the same thing. He has CB running the point. He's not going to create himself a lot.


Durant has more bad passes than Dirk this year, but a better passer rating. (59 bad passes to Dirk's 34) Durant as 2.4 assists per bad pass. Dirk is at 3.4.

Essentially, I look at it this way: When Dirk gets the ball, he's shooting it a high percentage of the time. Your goal is to keep the ball away from him. He isn't creating shots for others. When he gets the ball, he's frightening. He doesn't turn it over a lot and gets quality shots off. But he isn't creating for others. If that's what Durant wants to be, he's close to there. But I think he has the talent and the desire to be a 28-8-4 type of player. And to do that, he's going to have to get better, no doubt.

He needs to get better regardless, but the amount of improvement really depends on what OKC will want him to be.

Oh, one more thing: the Dallas defense is in serious, serious disarray right now. They are horrible. 8 straight games of opponents over 49% from the floor. They really need to figure out what is going on there or they will be headed for a 5-8 seed in the west.

stats, pats , meh ... ;) Dirk does have bad passes because the oposition baits him and because he´s passing out of the stand-still instead of on the move and not with his back to the basket in the low post (and thus isn´t facing the defensive rotation at the top, 3/4 of the rotations happen behind him). But if a guy like Durant had his passing, he´d be in good shape.
For himself Nowitzki is just effective enough as a passer to not be double teamed every position, but that isn´t because he´s a bad passer but because the way he plays doesn´t allow for good passing angles.

But now we are splitting hairs, i´ll admit :)

What´s nice is seeing how few of those types you mentioned are relevant. I was looking for a good counter-example for Nash looking at the assist leaders and it´s a pleasant thing to see how few of those ball-dominating little guards there´s left and how good the quality of PGs has gotten in that regard.



definitely. If i´m Carlisle i´ll start Beaubois and play him 20-25 minutes, move Kidd over to offguard and drop Barea from the rotation. I also would try to package Barea and Howard for a solid defensive minded 2/3 that can shoot from the outside and a backup center. Yeah, i know those are hard to come by ...

Right now they have to play Terry at offguard to have any sort of shooting ability and the guy gets abused, especially in combination with Barea. You can´t have both those guys playing big minutes in combination with Kidd and his declining speed and expect to amount to anything defensively... Just doesn´t work. Especially not with Dampier seemingly sitting out every other game.

And even if it sounds crazy : They are a much, much better team with Dampier on the floor. Or a much worse with Gooden. Take your pick. Both play roughly the same percentage of the Center minutes and both play basically exclusively at the 5.

The 3 major lineups with Dampier at Center are a +215, the 3 major lineups with Gooden are a -26
Dampier has an average +8.5
Gooden ? -6.1

offense with Dampier 111
offense with Gooden 104.5

defense with Dampier 101
defense with Gooden 109.5

opponents shoot a 6% better efg% with Gooden on the floor oposed to when Dampier plays.

Erick Dampier of the Dallas Mavericks, NBA player stats
Drew Gooden of the Dallas Mavericks, NBA player stats

It´s one of the most blatant fall-offs from starter to backup in the league.

Dampier´s opponents PER is bad (and he gets picked on a lot by Fans when other big men score on him), but the Mavs are a clearly better team with him on the floor.
Not surprising considering none of their PGs can guard anyone.

btw : Steve Nash is pretty hilarious :

Drew Gooden is awesome.

I've always thought they were better off with Dampier out there than on the bench. Size changes shots. it's a basic tenant of basketball. Long, lanky teams are better than skilled, short teams.

Dallas is slow anyway, add in the lack of length at C and there are problems.

That said, the last couple of weeks has to be as bad of defensive basketball as I've seen in awhile. Look at what teams are doing to them:

Bucks - 53.3%, 9 three pointers - 50% on threes
Suns - 54.8%, 9 three pointers - 60% on threes
Blazers - 53.5%, 3 three pointers - 30% on threes
Jazz - 49.4%, 4 three pointers, 28% on threes
Warriors - 49.4%, 6 three pointers, 38%
TWolves - 53%, 12 three pointers, 54.5% on threes
Warriors - 49.4%, 8 three pointers, 40% on threes
Nuggets - 61%, 11 three pointers, 61% on threes

That's about as bad of defense as you'll see a "top tier" team play for that length of time. FWIW, I agree with all of your fixes. I think they are no brainers.

Gooden sucks. Watched him on the Bulls for around a year and the minute they traded him is the minute they started going on a nice run to make the playoffs. The guy just doesn't understand defense and is a black hole offensively.

Not a great night from Carter and Nelson offensively. It was close for 46 minutes even with that being the case at least.

Getting rid of Hughes and Gooden on the same day seriously was one of the happiest sports days of my life

For reference sake

1. Steelers win XL
2. Steelers win other bowl
3. Cavs win lottery to draft LeBron James
4. Steelers draft big Ben
5. Possibly the day Hughes/gooden got traded.

More All Star replacements :

Bryant and Iverson (go, figure ... :) ) out, Kidd and Lee in.

Lebron James is having an amazing season so far, you almost don´t recognize it because you expect it. Since the start of January he´s averaging about 32 points and 9+ assists a night while shooting over 50%.

The Magic´s power forward were pathetic tonight, Vareja/Hickson : 36 points on 17/25 shooting.
Oh wait, that´s right : They don´t even have a true power forward in the rotation... Why´d they sign Bass again ? :confused:

most hilarious nba related thing i´ve seen this week :



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljq59M9xXjA

Gold :)

Unfortunately, I've been saying this since there was a hint he might go into the draft the year before he actually did. Drew Gooden did not improve one iota from the time he stepped on campus at Kansas to when he left. He's an amazing physical specimen and whether it's that he's lazy or doesn't have basketball smarts or what- he didn't get at all better in his time there. When he tried harder, he could get 20 in college based just on talent but he never really improved his game. It really showed next to Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich who graduated the next year and even some of their freshman and sophomores like Wayne Simien who just kept getting better the longer they stayed.

SI

Done deal.

Washington Wizards:
Josh Howard
Drew Gooden
James Singleton
Quinton Ross

Dallas Mavericks:
Caron Butler
Brendan Haywood
DeShawn Stevenson

RealGM: Basketball Wiretap Archives: Wizards Acquire Josh Howard

The dunk contest just isn't the same without Dwight.

Dwight did manage to set a Guiness World Record for longest basketball shot while sitting down. During warm-ups for the HORSE contest he hit one from 52 feet. Even when he doesn't participate in any of the contests he still steals the show during All-Star Saturday :cool:

Wow did that suck. I'm glad Barkley and Miller poked fun at the crappy dunk contest. Wallace and Brown seemed to not even try.

yea, was a pretty bad show tonite.

that´s a nice one for the Mavs. Now they have 2 legit Cs. Seriously, people will laugh, but that´s 2 absolutely rock solid Cs and one of the better combos in the league. And the Mavs showed they need a Big Guy behind to play defense.
Haywood is a monumental upgrade over Gooden at the C spot.
Butler could be a huge upgrade over Josh Howard who just can´t get going for a while now in between injuries, listlesnes and lack of skills for Carlisle´s offense.

I heard something about an Amar'e/Richardson for Z/wally/hickson.

Dunno if it will happen.

just to emphasize the prior "this is a good deal" post ... whoa... They kept Barea as insurance at the Point and guy who can change the pace. And moved useless Gooden instead and got a starting SG and a starting C back. Yeah, i´d take that as well if i were the Mavs :D
Why did the Wizz do that, just Butlers contract ? Cause Haywood is expiring.

edit : Can´t delete the video from the quote ;)

I request Shakira in that outfit at next year's Super Bowl.

i'll have to keep a eye out for that

Mavs easy winners in that deal, unless Josh Howard suddenly reverts back to his form from a few years ago and Drew Gooden learns to play basketball. As good as the Mavs were to start this season, I never really considered them contenders. I think maybe now they are in the conversation, even if not as the favourites.

Interested to see what happens with the rumoured Amar'e-Cavs trade. I tend to side with Arlie in that I consider Amar'e one of the great "empty numbers" guys in the league - right up there with Chris Bosh - though I think as a support guy to a clear cut #1 player he could be the piece the Cavs need to add to get them to that next level. Though it could also be very interesting to see what Mike Brown thinks of Amar'e's D...

108,713 in attendance for the 2010 NBA All Star Game.

Wow.

if the cavs/suns deal comes off it's just going to lead to me (and a lot more people) in here bitching about how the nba trade system is stupid. especially if/when the suns waive big z and he resigns with the cavs. that'd just be...ridiculous

Getting Haywood is a very nice addition for the Mavs. Im sure the Mavs were more than happy to finally get Josh Howard off their team as well. The Mavs improved their team quite a bit with this trade but they still arent in the "elite" class of the NBA.

I sure hope Howard has a contract that will soon be over or I have no clue what they'd(Wizards) be doing.

Chris Tucker got fat.

WTF Deron.

OT would be cool.

or not. entertaining game though. I enjoyed it :) Lebron for MVP. but it very well could be Wade.

Wade it is ... on another note, I'm not sure if I've ever seen a speech by David Stern that wasn't screwed up one way or another, he sure does suck at public speaking.

McGrady to Knicks?

"The Knicks and Rockets have designed the framework of a deal that would unload New York’s Jared Jeffries(notes), Jordan Hill(notes) and either Al Harrington(notes) or Larry Hughes(notes) for McGrady, Joey Dorsey(notes) and Brian Cook(notes)."

Draft picks will also be exchanged. If it happens the Rockets will get more for McGrady than I expected they would.

I also keep forgetting that the Jazz hold the Knicks 2010 1st rounder. Youch. It's looking to me like it's going to be a pretty deep draft, and the Jazz aren't going to have much trouble replacing Boozer considering there are like 5 or 6 PF/C type guys expected to go in the lottery at this stage. Well done New York!

Nice job on the Hill pick, Donnie.

I'd trade Austin Daye for Hill.

Take that for what it is worth.

So I still see LBJ going to the Knicks. Question is now do they resign D-Lee with this move and still go after another good FA or do they still let him walk?

If the Cavs land Amar'e/Jamison/someone else I'd say the odds of LeBron leaving are far less. I still don't think he will regardless, because the Knicks/Nets whoever are going to be worse than the Cavs anyway. If the Knicks keep Lee, they probably won't get a Wade/Bosh.

RealGM: Basketball Wiretap Archives: Source: Amar'e Does Not Want To Play In Cleveland

Ok, you're a good player would could be traded from a team on the decline to a team with one of the 2 best players in the league, an aging HOF center who still commands attention, and a decent cast around them? Ummm, why wouldn't you want to make that move and have a good shot at a ring?

Well Shaq and Amare was a disaster with the Suns last year, but it's even easier then that: Most NBA players don't give a shit about winning.

Detroit has the same issues as Cleveland outside of hockey. If they don't draft or trade for someone and then give them a ton of cash to stay, they will leave. Likewise, they cannot sign stud FA's without overpaying.

Perception is reality sadly. People think towns like Cleveland and Detroit are not good to live in, their media market isn't that big and it isn't warm.

Even if they had problems, it's for 2 months and a great shot at a ring. Bite the bullet, take Shaq's mess, win a ring and possibly increase your perceived value to the other owners, sign a big contract somewhere else.

If he plays his cards right, he can become a waste of talent next year with a fat contract.

Well he is probably not going to opt out because no one will pay him what he is making next year. So if he doesn't want to be in Cleveland for 2 months he won't want to be there for another year.

It's stupid but it's how it is.

Fixed

SI