Leferd

I'd blame the god damned government that thinks it has more right to your earnings than you do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM Yes.. the government.. Politiks aside, that's actually a really good video. But yeah, go Amerika!!!

So apparently, Floyd Mayweather had $10.4 million on Denver. Ouch.

Curry entering this year was second all time in 3pt fg% behind only Steve Kerr. Kerr of course, had the benefit during his peak with the Bulls, of a shorter three point arc. Curry' percentages were historic in the sense that not only was he shooting at such an accurate clip, but also accounting for his volume was unprecedented. Then you also have to factor in the sheer difficulty of his shots. He's not a spot up corner three shooter; he takes his shots in transition, off the dribble, and with elite perimeter defenders in his face from 28 feet out. So his dip to 40% makes him a mere mortal this year. Granted, it's still a better percentage than your typical volume shooter, but still...he's getting into that "chucker" gray area. ... RE: Lee's defense. Lee has always been a poor defender. He's actually pretty mediocre as a man defender, but elite 4's and 5's have a feasting mentality when they get matched up with him. The problem with Lee though is that he's a very poor help defender with slow lateral movement. He doesn't intimidate or scare off drives to the paint area and he's a non-shot blocker. That's just from the eye test. When you look at the metrics..it's even worst. Prof. Kirk Goldsberry (who also moonlights as a ball writer on Grantland) stole the show at last year's Sloan Conference at MIT when he presented a seminar on defensive metrics. His whipping boy was David Lee (who was rated in the bottom three for bigs). To his credit, Lee is much better this year (though still below average), but that's because he has a fully healthy Bogut watching his back and Andre Iguoudala out on the perimeter. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/courtvision-david-lees-interior-defense-a-k-a-the-golden-gate/ Don't get me wrong, I love D-Lee's game and he is an elite offensive player and strong rebounder, but the knock on his defense is legitimate.

My concerns about the Warriors: 1) Exceptional starting five, but least productive bench unit in the league 2) reliance on excessive isos and post ups for Klay and Harrison Barnes 3) when jump shots aren't falling =doom. 4) streaky team - on both macro and micro level. Their runs can be both epic and disastrous. 5) good enough to beat and scare any team in the league in a playoff series...but lack the machine like consistency of say...the Spurs. Weaknesses on individual key players Curry - high turnover rate. Only shooting 40% from three. Prior to this season, his career avg was .442. He's become a bit of a chucker. Klay - glorified 3 and D guy. Mediocre handles and passing ability. Avi Lee -No D. Bogut - loss full range of motion on his right arm. Effecting his shooting/scoring effectiveness. Iguoudala - glorified role player - too comfortable with his role, causing lack of aggression. Barnes - lack of decisiveness with the ball. No progression since last year. Draymond Green - love his game and attitude but his shots ain't dropping. If Boogie Cousins was a team, he'd be the Warriors.

Yep. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sources--pacers-to-sign-center-andrew-bynum-141508053-nba.html

Looks like it's going to be Oden vs Bynum for the Eastern Conference Championships.

Boogie Cousins is an intriguing player. He has a mercurial personality and is clearly polarizing. But he is also the most skilled true center in the league and is having a breakthrough year: 22.6ppg, 11.6 boards, and 3.0 dimes. His combination of on court dominance, theatrics, and susceptibility to have an on court nuclear meltdown make him one of the most entertaining players to watch, despite the Kings being 15-29. Does he deserve to be an All-Star? I'd say yes, based in talent, production, and the pure entertainment value of his WTF scowl when things don't go his way.

To be fair, KD's recent tear has really manifested itself after Westbrook went down.

Actually, the Chicago Bulls are defending their NBA Championship Belt against the Los Angeles Clippers Friday night. http://nbachampionshipbelt.com/

Avellone will be writing a novella for the setting, which was included in the $50+ tiers for the Kickstarter. I'd imagine It'll probably be released as an add-on as well.

All that is right with the NBA: http://www.brewhoop.com/2014/1/7/5283406/it-is-amazing-what-i-am-experiencing-gianniss-new-blog-entry Plus this tweet: https://twitter.com/g_ante34/status/425376868334727168

Nellie thought that Nash deferred to Nowitzki too much and was begging Nash to shoot more. When Cuban refused to match Phoenix's offersheet to Nash, both Nellie and Nash were heartbroken, and in Nellie's case, he lost his passion for coaching. When the Warriors drafted curry, Nelson gave Curry the keys to the team and tried to mold him into the Nash he wanted Nash to be.

Pretty close to my thoughts. Both have similar skill sets but with different focus. Nash is the better athlete and focuses on being a distributor while Curry has slightly better hand eye coordination and of course, is a scorer. Don Nelson, who coached both, instantly compared Curry to Nash upon drafting him. Everyone thought Nellie was being Nellie. Nellie also said that Nash was the best player he ever coached. And he coached a lot of Hall of Famers.

Man, I almost forgot about this one: Richard Sherman is a media goldmine. Only appropriate that it was with Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith: The McLaughlin Group of "expert" sports punditry. "I am better at life than you" Lols.

That's precisely why I was shaking my head when Detroit acquired him. How do you run an offense when in your core 5, you have three front court players: Monroe, Drummond, and Smith who can only score near the paint and two chuckers (Jennings and Stuckey) in the backcourt?? ... I don't think there is a star-level player who has to rely more on guile, craftiness, and pure basketball skill to dominate than Curry. Accounting for and with all due respect to (healthy) CP3 and (healthy) Steve Nash.

I love the Simmons/Lowe/Goldsberry triumvirate on Grantland. Must read for any serious basketball fan. Plus anytime Simmons and Jalen Rose get together to shoot some videos is pure gold.

Nope. It's already established and published that Stephen Curry is the alien: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/warriors/2013/10/30/stephen-curry-alien-three-pointers-record-golden-state/3307171/ Charts and graphs to prove it.

Sherman's response: http://mmqb.si.com/2014/01/20/richard-sherman-interview-michael-crabtree/ To be fair to Crabtree, I think it was quite disingenuous to portray Sherman's attempt to shake Crabtree's hand as anything but condescending. He played for Harbaugh at Stanford too.

So there were reports and witnesses (Gre Rosenthal of NFL.com) saying Seattle fans were throwing food at Navarro Bowman as he was being carted off thee field int the locker room. https://twitter.com/greggrosenthal/status/425091656350580736

Richard Sherman gives spectacular interviews.

Definite classic.

At the time as an outside observer looking in, I actually found the whole Hollins vs Hollinger situation both predictable and hilarious. And to be honest I took some enjoyment out of it. I was at a game a few years ago where the Warriors blew a 20+ point lead in the fourth to the Grizzlies, and have hated them since. Lols.

Pera bought the team right before the start of last season. Pera and Hollinger essentially cleaned house on a 56 win team. Much like the Nuggets.

True enough. But Hollins never gave the statistical approach a shot. He criticized it on multiple occasions from day 1. So yeah Hollinger crossed the line once, and Hollins over-reacted. It was clear that Hollins was NEVER going to buy in to the approach that Owner Robert Pera wanted to install. Hollins vocal criticism in the media made his departure inevitable. As for Rudy Gay - he was traded with 37M$ left on the last two years of his contract and every statistical analysis showed that he simply wasn't worth that type of money anymore. Plus Memphis is a small market city that had invested 55M$ in long term contracts to Gasol, Conley, Z-Bo and Gay and they were pushing the cap limit hard. Gay was a cap casualty. Harsh reality but true. Don't get me wrong, Hollins is a good coach but he was a bad fit with Pera's approach and he went out of his way to make sure everyone knew about it. I find it a little surprising that you seem to be criticizing Hollinger's analytics when you seem to be a supporter of them elsewhere. Maybe it's just the particulars of Hollinger's PER? I actually did think, as was mentioned by me (much) earlier in this thread that the Rudy Gay trade was a good long term move by Memphis. However it is hubris and disrespect on Hollinger's part to take immediate steps to alienate your players, coaching staff and fan base to disrupt a team - and a damn good one, just so he can put his immediate stamp on his team. What made things worse with the unauthorized "coaching" was that it happened during the playoffs! Seriously man, what the hell was he thinking? Look, he's well within his rights to trade whoever he wants and to hire/fire his coaching staff, but the dude needs some serious people skills and to utterly disrespect a coach with Hollins' credentials a few months in his first basketball job in front of his players is disgraceful. I'd love to see Hollinger pull that stunt with Popovich. I'm all into advanced metrics and own Bill James' baseball abstracts since the 1985 edition, but they are tools and should be used to paint part of the picture in conjunction with traditional methods. Advanced metrics say that there really are only three shots a team should only take: inside the paint, or the corner three. Good luck trying to up get that against a good defense. The third shot? Isolate your best scorer for a one on one matchup. All cases lead to unwatchable basketball: see Rockets, Houston. *****edit**** I'm not sure I'm completely sold on PER as a catch-all stat. It's decent enough but It's not nearly as robust as how as WAR is in baseball. I do like offensive rating and defensive rating, though not so much for individual players, but as a whole for teams or more specifically per 5-man units. Win Shares tries to measure how impactful a player is to a team's win total, a basketball conversion to Bill James' baseball stat. I do like how Sports-VU cameras have been installed in arenas through the league. Lots of good and measurable raw data that is going to come out of it and will really advance the amount of knowledge and metrics that can be derived from its analysis. Many of the more data centric teams will take full advantage of this.

Don't be absurd. Lebron wouldn't have won those championships without Allen and Battier knocking down corner treys. Not without Bosh hitting 20 footers from top of the key. And especially not without D-Wade sacrificing his game to be Lebron's sidekick. And also not without a flexible coach who designed their unorthodox offensive and defensive schemes specifically catered for Lebron. Without Lebron, the Heat would still have a shot at going to the Conference Finals. (That's a dig on how weak the East is) C'mon Volo, you're being especially obtuse. Did anyone in this thread say Lebron is not the best player in the game. Hell, by the time he's done, he'll be the greatest basketball player of all time. I think he's already better than that prick, Michael Jordan, ever was.