Basketball

By the Numbers: Spurs Western Conference Finals

Spurs vs. Grizzlies: Game 2 Preview: 5/21/13

The Spurs defeat the Warriors 129-127 in Game 1 of the 2nd round of Playoffs

The Spurs defeat the Grizzlies 93-89 in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals.

Your Portland Trailblazers have the 10th pick in the 2013 NBA draft. The Blazers want to "win now." All of the players in this draft are not very good. Let the pessimism begin. 1. Nerlens Noel Are you kidding me? A Center that ways 206 lbs! A torn ACL! All he does is block shots, you know who blocked a lot of shots? Jarvis Varnado, and no you don't know who that is because he is terrible. 2. Ben McLemore Are you kidding me? Potential to be an All Star? Yeah right, guy wasn't even the best player on his team. He has less aggression then a newborn kitten. All of the tools but none of the instincts, like you trying to build Ikea furniture. He has a couple good songs though. 3. Anthony Bennett Are you kidding me? He's a super tweener, who's not big enough to play PF (6'7", Luke Babbitt looks down at you) and not quick enough to play SF. He could be a great tight end though. 4. Victor Oladipo Are you kidding me? He's shorter then Jason Kidd and supposed to play SG? Also he only goes right. What with that? God gave you two hands for a reason Victor. 5. Otto Porter Are you kidding me? He does everything pretty well while doing nothing very well. Wait that's just like out favorite player Batum! Let's get him and then we can talk about how we have 2 guys who are almost like Lebron James, if only. 6. Alex Len Are you kidding me? He was by far the tallest guy on his team and couldn't even grab 8 rebounds a game. He also fouls more per game then he get's blocks and steals combined. And 1 assist a game? Does he not ever pass out of the post? 7. Trey Burke Are you kidding me? He was supposedly the "Player of the Year", but everyone knows Mitch McGary was the star of that team. Also he's a tiny little point guard and we all ready have a bigger, better point guard. 8. Shabazz Muhammed Are you kidding me? Lies about his age, tries to hide his acne with a beard. Guy had like 4 assist all year, and doesn't like winning unless he personally delivers the win. 9. Rudy Gobert Are you kidding me? Long is about all this guy has. 3 words: Hasheem Tha Beet. He is like a skinner version of Thabeet, except he didn't even put up good numbers in the Big East. Also JaVale McGee is about the same size except he actually has muscle and can run and jump and stuff. 10. Kelly Olynyk Are you kidding me? The T-rex from North of the Wall. He is slow, can't jump, and is afraid of getting his hair cut in the United States. At least he and Meyers could practice being 7' jump shooters together. 11. Cody Zeller Are you kidding me? He's a super athletic 7' that somehow get's over powered by 6'8" guys. He might be the "best" of the Zeller brother's, but that's kinda like being the "best" Star Wars prequel. 12. Steven Adams Are you kidding me? The most interesting thing about this guy is that he played against girls, in New Zealand. 7' and 260 lbs and he can only manage 6 rebounds a game? At least he really looks like he could be a good player. Except shave that mustache, you're not Adam Morrison. 13. Gorgui Dieng Are you kidding me? His legs are SO tiny. Also let's not forget he is a 6'10" center who can't jump well. At least he has long arms right? He might be 28, just saying what you all are thinking. 14. Dario Saric Are you kidding me? He is the shorter, skinnier, more euro version of Kelly Olynyk. Except not as skilled and with less experience. His own team thought he was good enough to play 1 game in the Eurocup this year. Best of luck trading that pick Olshey. Your Portland Trailblazers have the 10th pick in the 2013 NBA draft. The Blazers want to "win now." All of the players in this draft are not very good. Let the pessimism begin. 1. Nerlens Noel Are you kidding me? A Center that ways 206 lbs! A torn ACL! All he does is block shots, you know who blocked a lot of shots? Jarvis Varnado, and no you don't know who that is because he is terrible. 2. Ben McLemore Are you kidding me? Potential to

Looks like Kevin Love will not have to do any recruiting after all. After saying before, during and immediately after Team USA won the gold medal that the London Olympics would be his last as the head coach of the team, Mike Krzyzewski has had a change of mind. Coach K will be back to…

That surprsing outcome to the Bulls in Game 1 of the second round wasn't a complete waste, according to LeBron James. James said the Heat’s unexpected loss in the opener of the Eastern Conference semifinals provided an important experience going into Wednesday’s Game 1. “It set us up the right way,” James said. “We were off for a while and Chicago came in off a seven-game series and they were just on top of their game still and we weren’t. We had eight days off, so I think that gave us a good wake up call and we needed it.” SMALL MARKET OR LARGE MARKET? —One interesting subplot of the conference finals is the rise of the little guy. Indiana, San Antonio and Memphis are considers small-market franchises, while the Heat is generally consider a large-market team. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra noted on Monday that perception regarding the Heat has changed since the Big 3 arrived in Miami. “You know what’s interesting…and Micky [Arison] has always talked about this, Miami was never considered a big-market team until we put together this team, so it shows you can change perspective by the personnel you have and the type of team you put together,” Spoelstra said. “If you build it, they will come.” Is the Heat a large-market team? In terms of perception, I'd say, yes, the Heat is large-market team. In terms of cold-hard numbers, Arison would still argue that the Heat is small-market. Of course, Arison doesn't want to share his profits with other owners around the league, so his position on the subject is understandable.

As Lance Stephenson enters the Eastern Conference finals three years into his NBA career, finally proving that he may have been "born to play this sport," there is a heavy mixture of hope and doubt surrounding what is about to happen next.

I've read time and again that the 2013 is going to be a weak draft, many point to it as justification for the Mavericks trading potentially trading their lottery pick this year. I think that is a horrible idea, and by the end of this article I hope you'll agree with me. First off, let's discuss what the very definition of a weak draft is. Often the term weak draft is misinterpreted to mean there are no good players in the draft. What it really refers to is the number of protected stars which will come out of the Top 10, or the reverse perspective would be how many Top 10 picks see little to no NBA minutes. The success of picks is extremely hard to determine in the first year as many rookies simply will not see solid minutes their first year. So while the 2011 draft at the moment does appear to have a great many more misses than hits across the board, it's nearly impossible to predict which players may blossom with another year or two under their belt. So let's look at the 2006 draft which is often referred to as the weakest draft in modern history. Looking at the how few of the Top 10 players have risen to any level of stardom with five players never really playing any significant minutes, it's hard to argue the draft was largely a bust. However, let's set a bar of averaging 18 minutes a game as being considering contributing to an NBA team. Looking at that very simplified metric, there are 12 players out of 60 who meet the criteria six of which were picked at 13 or later. Here are players who went at 13 or later in 2006: PHI Thabo Sefolosha 13th pickUTA Ronnie Brewer14th pickPHO Rajon Rondo 21st pickMEM Kyle Lowry 24th pickCLE Daniel Gibson 42nd pickUTA Paul Millsap 47th pick Nearly half the "impact" players from the 2006 draft came after the 13th pick. Hard to imagine a few of those players went so late, isn't it? Let's also remember that Jose Barea was picked up un-drafted by the Dallas Mavericks that year. Now, scouting isn't an exact science. Trying to judge a young player's upside is a huge gamble. However, some teams seems to have the magic touch. It can't just be dumb luck, teams who value the draft focus more on scouting and do better overall. So, let's look at the Dallas Maverick's biggest division rival, the San Antonio Spurs, and compare draft outcomes. Let's first just compare how each team values picks. The easiest way to compare this is perhaps to look at how many times each team gave away their first round picks. Dallas has gone seven years since 1999 without a first round pick versus San Antonio's four. Dallas did get some value out of those trades, most notably Jason Kidd, but when we start looking at each teams draft performance over that period. While San Antontio didn't ultimately retain all these players take a look at their best picks since 1999: Manu Ginobili 1999 57th pickTony Parker 2001 28th pickLouis Scola 2002 55th pickLeandro Barbosa 2003 28th pickTiago Splitter 2007 28th pickGoran Dragic 2008 45th pickGeorge Hill 2008 26th pickDeJuan Blair 2009 37th pick And how Dallas has done: Wang Zhizhi 1999 36th pickPicks traded in 2000, 2001Mladen Sekularac in 2002 54th, never played in the NBAJosh Howard 2003 29thDevin Harris 2004 5th pick via tradeJJ Barea 2006 (undrafted)Roddy B 2009 24th via tradeDominique Jones 2010 25th (via trade)Pick traded 2011Crowder/Sarge/Cunningham 2012 17th (traded down) Framed this way you can really see the differences between a franchise who has a front office philosophy of valuing the draft versus one which sees picks more as trade assets. Many have argued that Dallas' late draft position over in recent years made their pick worthless. But digging even a bit deeper, we can see in recent years, high impact players have been drafted fairly late by teams. Knicks David Lee at 30th in 2005Lakers Marc Gasol (then traded him) at 48th in 2007Celtics Tony Allen 25th in 2004Chicago via Portland Omer Asik 36th in 2008 (traded) and Jimmy Butler 30th in 2011GS Monte Ellis 40