Nba 2009-2010

[Alex]

Actually Time Warner can feck off, it is ok on Directv

 

[Alex]

These refs have been some of the worst I have, wish karl was on the bench

 

[Alex]

Jesus is Melo good

 

[Alex]

Game OVER BIOTCH

 

[Anderson Searl]

First day of the playoffs and no posts ?

Cavs dominate Bulls as expected

Heat and Wade could slip up the Cavs. On top form, Wade is the most unstoppable player in the league.

NBA playoffs never actually grab my attention until the posers are filtered out, usually in the second round it grabs my attention, last year however it was the 3rd round.

 

[gbgary]

denver in a dogfight with utah as i type this. 78-76 utah after leading my 11 just a few minutes ago. bad mistake if denver let's this very wounded utah team take a denver home game. denver is a poor road team so they need all the home wins they can get. they don't want utah thinking they have a chance. utah 88 denver 82 at the end of three.

 

[Instant Karma]

@ Melo and the Nuggets for losing to a depleted Jazz side.

WTF is Mello doing fouling out on a full court press ? Did he also shoot something like 30 times for his 30 odd points ?

 

[Alex]

I think I could do a better job coaching than Dantley he looks lost, a sort of Benitez type

 

[Instant Karma]

Miami appears disinterested and Wade seems to have given up. Will he stay with Miami ?
They seem to be very poorly coached. A weaker Bulls team without a superstar like Wade took the Celtics to 7 games last season. Bulls also seem to be putting up a better fight against the Cavs than Heat is managing against Celtics.

 

[Alex]

THere is no way Wade will stay in Miami

 

[Instant Karma]

It was ridiculous - Miami left Ray Allen in space time and time again and he was burying 3 pointers from the same spot on every posession - 7 of 8 from outside before I switched channels.

Any team wouldn't allow that kinda space continually to a third rate player having a hot hand in a regular season game but to allow one of the all time top 3 point shooters that space in a playoff game was unbelievable.

 

[Alex]

They do say he has the sweetest release since Pistol Pete, but regardless He Got Game

 

[chewingkebabs]

THere is no way Wade will stay in Miami

I guess you haven't heard: the plan is that Jeezy will pay LeBron and Jay-Z will get Dwyane Wade.

In other rap basketball news, by Ice Cube's definition, today was a good day. The Lakers beat the (defunct) Supersonics.

 

[Anderson Searl]

Boring boring first round

 

[Instant Karma]

More shite coaching at Miami. They have a foul to give but don't use it, allowing Pierce to drain a buzzer beater

 

[Anderson Searl]

Wade Wade, go away...

They're not doing much to keep themselves in contention for free agents next season either

 

[Instant Karma]

Boring first round of the playoffs huh ?

Chicago are running the Cavs close
OKC is about to level with the Lakers with a blowout win
A depleted Jazz are leading the Nuggets
Spurs leading the Mavs
Portland tied with the Suns

 

[Anderson Searl]

Boring first round of the playoffs huh ?

Chicago are running the Cavs close
OKC is about to level with the Lakers with a blowout win
A depleted Jazz are leading the Nuggets
Spurs leading the Mavs
Portland tied with the Suns

Cert. livened up after the first few games

 

[Alex]

The sleeping giant has awoke, Lakers up 68-39 early in the 3rd

 

[Alex]

That two handed windmill by JR Smith was sick, just saw it on Sportscenter

 

[botond]

Yeah , lakeshow on again , really loved the paint movement , think they finish it off next game
the cavs celtics series will be fun to

 

[gbgary]

mavs out.

 

[jveezy]

Dallas kicking some Kings ass tonight.

Lights out shooting and a lot of forced turnovers.

Oh and a quiet triple double by Jason Kidd.

I'll go on record to say this team will win the West.

 

[Alex]

CUban must be sick to his stomach

 

[gbgary]

coaching decisions, poor shooting, and two no-shows (terry and kidd) did them in.

 

[jveezy]

On a happier note, look who's Rookie of the Year!

 

[chewingkebabs]

On a happier note, look who's Rookie of the Year!

Stat stuffer. Arguably Jennings had more of an impact on his team, and Curry is a better player in the long run.

Lakers prevail on a last-second Gasol rebound. I was feeling sympathy for Barca until I remembered this Catalan cnut.

Jazz win their series. I really like this edition of the Jazz. Deron Williams is so good to watch.

 

[jveezy]

Stat stuffer. Arguably Jennings had more of an impact on his team, and Curry is a better player in the long run.

How do you not expect a guy to put up stats when the rest of his team sucks? It's not like he jacked up shot after shot to do it. Considering only MJ, Lebron, and Oscar Robertson put up the same numbers as rookies as he did this year, I guess they were stat stuffers in their rookie years as well. Not saying Evans is better or even as good or ever will be that good, but if you're going to make judgments based on stats, there you go.

And of course he didn't have the impact Jennings did. They had some pieces on Milwaukee to work with. Sacramento traded all of theirs away the last few years (one of which is helping Milwaukee out right now). What kind of impact do you expect when you get drafted by the worst team in basketball who then trades away their best player? The next best players on the team now are Carl Landry and Beno Udrih. Evans reinvigorated a dead franchise and arguably saved basketball in Sacramento. Tyreke Evans isn't just making an impact on this team. He IS this team.

Of course all three players had fantastic years so we'll certainly see in the long run. It was a close race and that's good for all three teams involved. Call me a homer but I think I feel much better having Evans than either of the other two, but that's just me.

 

[Stobzilla]

Stat stuffer. Arguably Jennings had more of an impact on his team, and Curry is a better player in the long run.

Lakers prevail on a last-second Gasol rebound. I was feeling sympathy for Barca until I remembered this Catalan cnut.

Jazz win their series. I really like this edition of the Jazz. Deron Williams is so good to watch.

I think Tyreke deserves it, he's been a great player this season for (sorry Jveez) an absolute shower of shite. It would be easy for him to disappear for a couple years and claim he was "developing" but he's stood up and been counted.

 

[Nanderson]

Stat stuffer. Arguably Jennings had more of an impact on his team, and Curry is a better player in the long run.

Lakers prevail on a last-second Gasol rebound. I was feeling sympathy for Barca until I remembered this Catalan cnut.

Jazz win their series. I really like this edition of the Jazz. Deron Williams is so good to watch.

You're quite clueless, aren't you? The Warriors, who are absolutely notorious for inflating players stats in their shoot-first-think-second system, actively and openly inflated Curry's stats in garbage time. They left him in games til the end when there was no point, deferred to him completely if he was a few rebounds, assists or point off a triple double, it was a joke! Meanwhile, Westphal ignored the stats of Evans, taking him out of games with 6 minutes to go when triple doubles were possible. I mean, Evans was one rebound and one assist off three triple doubles in a week! Could have left him in the game and didn't. Because like any normal coach, it wasn't worth risking injury to inflate stats.

Curry better player down the road? Utter bullshit. Tyreke is the second youngest player in the entire league. His jumpshot is awful and teams still can't stop him getting wherever he wants on the floor. He's tied LeBron for most attempts at the rim (as a rookie for God's sake!). When Tyreke get's a jumper, it's over. Forget it. He has the build of a superstar, not a cutesie-wutesie guy like Curry who will never be the best player on a contending team. Tyreke is a bull. He is already a great defender (capable of guarding three positions on the floor - let's see Curry guarding a SF or even a SG and see what happens), Curry is an awful defender. Bring up steals all you want, but that's not defense (GS is one of the league leaders as a team in SPG I believe, but they have one of the worst defenses in the league). Tyreke has made many clutch plays on both defense and offense, significantly more than Curry.

Curry is a very good player whose had a great rookie season. I'm not taking anything away from him. But comparing them, and even going as far to say Curry will be better, is simply nonsensical. Curry is already polished; tell me, what can he significantly improve on? Shooting? Got it already. Defense? Too small, weak to be truly great. Ball handling? He's got it down. Passing? Ditto. Where can he improve? He doesn't have the leadership, clutchness or physical prowess to dominate the league the way guys like Wade, LeBron and 'Reke do. You'll find this out over the coming years if you don't believe me. Power and strength win in the NBA, not finesse. Reke has significant improvements to make on his game, and he was already better than Curry by quite some distance. Once he gets an outside shot you can forget it. Another point: Tyreke faced double and even triple teams all season long - teams focused solely on stopping him and still couldn't do it. Curry did not have to go up against double teams.

Here's a good article demonstrating Rekes dominance versus Curry. There's also some references to Deron Williams in there, who Tyreke is trumping in some categories:

WARNING: Lots of numbers ahead, including references to PER, rebounding percentages, and even per 48 minute stats. Abandon all hope ye who read past here.

Scoring: Not a lot to say on this first category. Tyreke is better at creating his own shot, by a huge margin. 24% of his shots are assisted, while a full 40% of Curry's are. I don't that this is a huge surprise to anyone. I think it's also important to note that Curry is overwhelmingly a jump shooter. 80% of Stephen's shots are jump shots, while Tyreke is more balanced. 47% of Tyreke's shots are jumpers and 51% are at the rim.

Passing:
I've seen some Warrior fans talk about Curry being the much better passer, or the much better 'point guard' as a whole. The stats don't bear this out. I'll say this, I'm not sure how 82games comes up with their 'passing rating' (and I'm sure it's listed on their site somewhere, I just didn't go look), but they do rate Curry an 8.9 (.1 higher than Tyreke's 8.8).

Looking at Turnovers, Tyreke's Assist/TO ratio was 1.91. Curry's was 1.93, so slightly better, but when the type of TO is figured in, Tyreke's Assist/Bad Pass Turnover ratio is 5.6, while Curry's is significantly worse at 3.5. Tyreke is statistically at his best at the PG position, posting a PER of 22.6 (.4 less than Deron Williams, at the same position). Curry, on the other hand, is statistically best at SG, posting a PER of 19.4, and only 17.6 at the point.

Defense:
I'm not sure that this is really up for debate, GS basically plays gimmick defense, just like their offense, but I've seen some people trot out the fact that Curry is 4th in the league in steals as somehow proving he's the better defender (never mind the fact that his teammate, Monta Ellis was 2nd in the league in the same stat). Looking at the stats, both seem more well suited defending shooting guards. Against Curry, points average a per of 20.7, and shooting guards average 15.9. Against Tyreke, points average 17.7, and 2 guards average 16.1. The problem with the above stats, though, is that it only takes in to account which position the opposing player is playing, and not necessarily who's guarding who. If anybody has links to better defensive stats, I'd be very interesting to look into this in more detail.

The 'Clutch':
It gets bad for Curry here. The Kings as a whole performed better than the GS in the clutch, and Tyreke is especially better than Curry.

Per 48 clutch minutes (last 5 minutes of the 4th or overtime, neither team ahead by more than 5 points), Tyreke scores 36 points (his overall average is 26pts/48minutes) while Curry scores 26 points (his overall average is 23.2pts/48minutes). Also, only 15% of Tyreke's clutch buckets were assisted, while 29% of Curry's were (though, you should take into account the fact that Curry is primarily a jump shooter, that however has its own implications with regards to winning). Again, for reference, Williams averages 23.1 points in the clutch.

With regards to passing, we have a very small sample size for both players, which should be a factor, but Curry has a total of 6 assists in the clutch all season (despite playing in 32 clutch situations), while Tyreke has 18 (playing in 38 clutch situations). In said situations, Evan's had 3 bad pass turnovers (pretty low, actually, Deron had 7 in 26 clutch situations), Curry also had 3. This gives a clutch assist/bad pass ratio of 6.0(!) for Tyreke and 2.0 for Curry (Deron was 3.4). Suffice it to say that, at the end of games, Tyreke is much better with the ball in his hands than Curry...and as ridiculous as it sounds, maybe even Deron Williams.

Both are solid rebounders in the clutch. Curry has offensive rebound percentage (amount of offensive rebounds he snagged vs. how many were available to his team) of 1.6% (what can you say, he's a skinny 6'3"). Tyreke grabbed 5.6% for the Kings. Stephen had a 12.6% defensive rebound percentage while Tyreke had 12.4%. Pretty close overall, maybe a nod to Tyreke for the significantly better offensive rebounding (let's not talk about Deron's rebounding...Thompson for reference is a 11.7% offensive and 10.4% defensive rebounder in the clutch). As an aside, both Tyreke and Stephen are good rebounders in non-clutch situations as well. Tyreke is about twice as good as Curry grabbing offensive boards, and 2% better than him grabbing defensive boards.

Conclusions:
What does it all mean? I don't know. Maybe I'm not smart enough to draw conclusions from these numbers, but with some of the stats that the Warrior's are throwing around regarding shooting percentages and single game numbers (Curry joined a group of like 6 rookies to have posted triple doubles with 35 points or higher and is the first rookie with his particular set of shooting percentages, I believe (hooray for arbitrary benchmarks), I thought I'd take a look at the advanced stats at 82games. It's important to note that Curry did have a better overall +/- than Tyreke, but that stat is hopelessly flawed (as are some of the one's I posted above, I'm sure). I know most here are a much bigger fan of the 'eyeball test' (which player appears to be better when actually watching them play and ignoring the numbers), and I think Tyreke wins here too. How many game winners did Curry have? I honestly don't know. I Googled it, and I didn't find anything. Tyreke had 2 game winners and one game winning steal that I recall. Anyways, I know what player I'd rather have, and it's not the 6'3" skinny 2-guard, although I think he's going to be a pretty darned good player himself. My concern regarding jump shooting players is universal. How many championships teams have featured a jump-shooter as their number one option (maybe last year's Lakers with Kobe, though that team was/is stacked)? A few, I'm sure, but I can think of many, many counter-examples.

Now on to Jennings. The argument that he had a bigger impact on his team is baloney. It was media hype to make the rookie race more exciting. The real race was between Curry and Evans, and even that wasn't as close as the media were making it out. The Bucks improved by 12 games from last year (34-48 to 46-36); the Kings improved by 8 (league worst 17-65 to 25-57). Now, if you want to be pedantic and ignorant you can say that Bucks improved more therefore Jennings had a bigger impact. However, if you want to look at the reality of the situation you will see that this is bullshit. The improvement of the Bucks can be put down to three main things: The emergence of Bogut as a legitimate center in the league, in fact one of the best ; John Salmons providing scoring and defense ; and the steady play of Jennings at the PG spot. I am not saying Jennings didn't have an impact - he clearly did. He is a talented player with a questionable character and alot of maturity issues. His shooting percentages after the first month or so went way down. You can argue that Jennings made Bogut better but that's a very weak argument - the only place Bogut significantly improved on from other seasons is his shotblocking. That's statistically. It's his presence which made him such an important player this season. You only get that by playing in the league and gaining experience. Jennings did not help him with this. Everybody knows big men take longer to develop.

Meanwhile, the Kings were a team in turmoil. Evans has put them back on the road to significance. Kings traded away Martin, hired a new coach, inserted Landry and Udrih into the starting line-up. It was a team with many changes and it's only natural for a bedding in period for players to become accustombed to playing with eachother. Add to this that Evans missed ten games due to injury - the Kings record could have been better.

If you want to put Evans and Jennings head-to-head: when the Kings and Bucks played eachother, Evans hit the game winner with a second left.


In summary, there is no way that anybody but Evans deserved this award. He was the clear winner, and the only reason it was being debated was due to media hype and perhaps people not seeing the Kings play due to lack of national TV exposure and time-differences due to being on the West coast. I would have to question the knowledge of any NBA fan who legitimately believed that Evans did not deserve this award.

Sorry for the long post, but some myths had to be put to rest.

 

[Nanderson]

I think Tyreke deserves it, he's been a great player this season for (sorry Jveez) an absolute shower of shite. It would be easy for him to disappear for a couple years and claim he was "developing" but he's stood up and been counted.

I won't go off on one like last time, but the Kings aren't that bad. They're one of the youngest teams in the league and now have their leader and superstar in Evans. Add to that a top draft pick this year and the Kings have an extremely bright future. A core of Evans/Greene/Casspi/Thompson/Hawes/Landry along with one of Wall/Turner/Favors/Cousins, makes for a very exciting young group. That's not even taking into account the cap space the Kings have in the Off-season. Like it or not, the future is bright in Sactown!

 

[jveezy]

I won't go off on one like last time, but the Kings aren't that bad. They're one of the youngest teams in the league and now have their leader and superstar in Evans. Add to that a top draft pick this year and the Kings have an extremely bright future. A core of Evans/Greene/Casspi/Thompson/Hawes/Landry along with one of Wall/Turner/Favors/Cousins, makes for a very exciting young group. That's not even taking into account the cap space the Kings have in the Off-season. Like it or not, the future is bright in Sactown!

Yeah it's a good core with a lot of heart but, for now, devoid of a lot of skill. But it's a team that will definitely make waves once guys start developing. That said I predicted exactly 25 wins at the beginning of this season so I was happy. No offense taken, Stob, although shower of shit is a little harsh considering they nearly beat the Cavs, nearly beat the Lakers twice, and beat the Jazz twice (I think twice. I know they did it once at Utah).

Nanderson, you sound like a Sactown Royalty reader.

 

[chewingkebabs]

You're quite clueless, aren't you? The Warriors, who are absolutely notorious for inflating players stats in their shoot-first-think-second system, actively and openly inflated Curry's stats in garbage time. They left him in games til the end when there was no point, deferred to him completely if he was a few rebounds, assists or point off a triple double, it was a joke! Meanwhile, Westphal ignored the stats of Evans, taking him out of games with 6 minutes to go when triple doubles were possible. I mean, Evans was one rebound and one assist off three triple doubles in a week! Could have left him in the game and didn't. Because like any normal coach, it wasn't worth risking injury to inflate stats.

Curry better player down the road? Utter bullshit.

<snip>

Do you feel better now?

First off, I don't really care. I was being a bit facetious. Obviously Tyreke deserves his accolades. The Kings have a hell of a player, and so do the Warriors.

Second, Curry playing in garbage time/games. Of course that was horrible, because it was counterproductive to try to win those games. I count at least 10 games in which the Warriors could have got a precious loss, but Curry or a scrub player with too much heart and hustle won it for them. fecking hell.

Third, this internecine warfare between fans of shit gaytard clubs is embarrassing. The whole world reads this site. Thanks for outing me. Now I'll have to leave and start supporting Tottenham. See you everyone, hope you win the league against Chelsea.

 

[jveezy]

Do you feel better now?

First off, I don't really care. I was being a bit facetious. Obviously Tyreke deserves his accolades. The Kings have a hell of a player, and so do the Warriors.

Second, Curry playing in garbage time/games. Of course that was horrible, because it was counterproductive to try to win those games. I count at least 10 games in which the Warriors could have got a precious loss, but Curry or a scrub player with too much heart and hustle won it for them. fecking hell.

Third, this internecine warfare between fans of shit gaytard clubs is embarrassing. The whole world reads this site. Thanks for outing me. Now I'll have to leave and start supporting Tottenham. See you everyone, hope you win the league against Chelsea.

All fun and games.

I quite like having a rivalry between the Kings and Warriors even though both teams are shit. Besides what else do we have when we have nothing else to play for? Isn't that why all derby's are important no matter whether both teams are shit or not? I think there's quite too many people in Northern California who jumped ship when the Kings stopped making the playoffs and put on We Believe t shirts when the Warriors made their first round upset a couple years ago.

 

[Nanderson]

Do you feel better now?

Yes, I feel better after proving you wrong.

First off, I don't really care. I was being a bit facetious. Obviously Tyreke deserves his accolades. The Kings have a hell of a player, and so do the Warriors.

Spot on.

Second, Curry playing in garbage time/games. Of course that was horrible, because it was counterproductive to try to win those games. I count at least 10 games in which the Warriors could have got a precious loss, but Curry or a scrub player with too much heart and hustle won it for them. fecking hell.

You're being retarded again. Garbage time is the time at the end of games when the outcome is already decided. Ie a blowout. You don't come back from a blowout in garbage time (Unless you want to count the time Evans led the Kings back against the Bulls when they were down 35).

Third, this internecine warfare between fans of shit gaytard clubs is embarrassing. The whole world reads this site. Thanks for outing me. Now I'll have to leave and start supporting Tottenham. See you everyone, hope you win the league against Chelsea.

Shit gaytard clubs? What are you, 13? I'm sorry, I forgot that we should just support the best clubs (I suppose that's why you're here, you big utter mongoid). Yeah, feck off and go support City or whoever wins the CL this year.

BTW, we'll see who's a "shit, gaytard club" in 5 years. You're obviously too ignorant to know about the general life cycle of NBA teams.

All fun and games.

I quite like having a rivalry between the Kings and Warriors even though both teams are shit. Besides what else do we have when we have nothing else to play for? Isn't that why all derby's are important no matter whether both teams are shit or not? I think there's quite too many people in Northern California who jumped ship when the Kings stopped making the playoffs and put on We Believe t shirts when the Warriors made their first round upset a couple years ago.

jvezzy, you need to have more faith. Don't listen to the idiots who think current record = talent and/or future. The Kings have one of the brightest futures in the league. A bonafide star, a top pick in a strong draft, FA money, a good coach and a solid GM. Not to mention a very young team overall. This team will be competing for a playoff spot in 2-3 years. To dismiss the Kings as shit is a bit silly. It's not all about record. We have plenty to play for.

Warriors are stuck in their own mess. They have sucked for eternity and have an awful coach who still seems to believe that if he tries it enough, small ball will eventually win. Until they figure out how to play real basketball, they won't be going anywhere.

 

[jveezy]

jvezzy, you need to have more faith. Don't listen to the idiots who think current record = talent and/or future. The Kings have one of the brightest futures in the league. A bonafide star, a top pick in a strong draft, FA money, a good coach and a solid GM. Not to mention a very young team overall. This team will be competing for a playoff spot in 2-3 years. To dismiss the Kings as shit is a bit silly. It's not all about record. We have plenty to play for.

Woah, back up from the mic, buddy. I have plenty of faith in this squad. I'm just talking about how this team has nearly completely cleaned house and rebuilt from the ground up. Obviously you haven't read through this entire thread (nor do I expect you to) because I've been excited about this team since the draft (probably to everyone else's annoyance). I don't see how you could think I said or implied this team doesn't have much to play for considering I alluded to how the team's future in Sacramento is in the balance. I started watching this team when Garry St. Jean was the head coach so I think I know when a team is shit and when it's not. Maybe I'm joking when I call them shit, but shit fertilizes and leads to better things so don't take me too seriously from my language.

Like I said, 25 wins was exactly what I expected this year out of this team, and the fact they did it after trading their best player away is even more encouraging (and nobody here implied that record = future). It's a realistic sign of progression after hitting rock bottom. And the fact that a few bounces of the ball in our favor against some of the best teams in the league would've made this team a 30+ win team is even more encouraging. I honestly think this team will be competing for a playoff spot next year and not in 2-3 years. Probably the very last spot but still, it'll be nice to see a full 17,317 at Arco a little more often next year.

Edit: Forgot that fecker St. Jean had two Rs in his name.

 

[chewingkebabs]

Nanderson, you are trying to hurt me, but I am already dead inside. I know full well the Warriors are a incompetent organization full of jokers and snake oil salesmen. It's just that we shouldn't talk about losers on the forum of champions. I respect Manchester United too much to defile virtual Old Trafford like that.

And how dare you insinuate that I'm jumping to City when I clearly said I'm throwing in my hat with Spurs, the feeder team of MUFC. They have a proud history of choking and sucking that is more my level. So really, I'm anti-gloryhunting.

Let's not fight. As a peace offering, I give you gay Kobe pictures.

 

[Stobzilla]

I won't go off on one like last time, but the Kings aren't that bad. They're one of the youngest teams in the league and now have their leader and superstar in Evans. Add to that a top draft pick this year and the Kings have an extremely bright future. A core of Evans/Greene/Casspi/Thompson/Hawes/Landry along with one of Wall/Turner/Favors/Cousins, makes for a very exciting young group. That's not even taking into account the cap space the Kings have in the Off-season. Like it or not, the future is bright in Sactown!

I was kinda joking.

In fact i'm thinking of becoming a Sac fan, just because SacTown sounds like an awesome euphemism for errmmm well you know.

I am Lakers fan by default because I was nick named Baby Shaq at the Channel 4 basketball camps way back in the days of yay yonder.

 

[RedDevil [NC]]

I was kinda joking.

In fact i'm thinking of becoming a Sac fan, just because SacTown sounds like an awesome euphemism for errmmm well you know.

I am Lakers fan by default because I was nick named Baby Shaq at the Channel 4 basketball camps way back in the days of yay yonder.

So you like to throw your big ass into guys while your backing them down on the post?

 

[jveezy]

I was kinda joking.

In fact i'm thinking of becoming a Sac fan, just because SacTown sounds like an awesome euphemism for errmmm well you know.

I am Lakers fan by default because I was nick named Baby Shaq at the Channel 4 basketball camps way back in the days of yay yonder.

You could still pick Orlando, Miami, Phoenix, or Cleveland.