Basketball

Most of the players who arrived at the Nets practice facility this week for the two-day draft combine the team hosted, along with the Rockets and Clippers, were players hoping to crack the second round of the draft, or potentially be signed as undrafted free agents. One exception to that...

It would be David Stern's worst Dwightmare.

Six franchises represent models for the Blazers to aspire to in upgrading its roster for the 2013/14 season: the four semifinalists (Miami, Indiana, Memphis, San Antonio), Oklahoma City and LAC. OKC gets a mention because without the injury to Westbrook, it could just as well be OKC in the West finals instead of Memphis. The Clippers were a productive team - rating higher than Memphis in net production. I included them in this analysis before they were knocked out - and I don't want to redo the data. Obviously, Miami and OKC are not models that can be duplicated by Portland. Each team has two stars that transcend the brightest star on Portland's team, so the question is really whether Portland can achieve success via the Indiana or Memphis model. I don't believe San Antonio is a good model because their roster and system is too unique. I didn't spend any real time looking at the LAC. The first step (Part 1) in the comparison analysis is to examine rosters using 82games.com's Net Production tables. Net Production is merely PER of the team's player vs. opponent PER (same position; on court). Part 2, coming later, will look at Basketballreference.com's Lineups - which display comprehensive stats for 5-,4-,3- and 2-man combinations for every team. This second approach emphasizes the most important statistic of all - the ability to outscore the opponent, although it does present very interesting tidbits - such as the fact that the Blazers had a better team TRB% with Aldridge than they did with Hickson. Remember Golliver's "empty rebounds" remarks? There's some merit to that. Ultimately, the Blazers are very unlikely to add a star (Chris Paul or Dwight Howard) that could elevate them into Miami or OKC status. More likely, they need to upgrade as many positions as effectively possible, including positions 6-10 on the bench. The potential for the Blazers to improve dramatically simply by fielding a competent bench is extremely high. Not high enough to contend for a championship - but probably high enough to make the playoffs. So - the data will show that upgrading Hickson and Matthews are the two priorities. Part 1 - Net Production Analysis (Net PER) This is the more superficial of the two approaches - but still illuminating. Making personnel decisions on this factor alone would not be appropriate. It does start to give us an idea of where the Blazers are weak, relative to playoff teams. Method I imported 82games.com regular season Net Production data into Excel for each of the sixteen playoff teams, plus Portland. I then graphed team net production and "Top 5" net production. I used Top 5 vs. nominal starters to give teams that relied heavily on a sixth man proper credit for contributions. I tried to use playing time as the governing criteria - but in some cases (such as Boston), I used an injured player's numbers in the Top 5 - even if the minutes played were less than the replacement's. However, in all cases, I prorated Net Production by using playing time % as a coefficient (playing time presented by 82games.com as a percentage of team's total minutes). This gives a result similar to Value Added (ESPN/Hollinger), which correlates PER to actual playing time. Results As expected, the better teams had higher net production overall, but graphing starter net production exposed stark differences in how teams accomplish the basic task of outperforming opponents. Denver, of all the playoff teams, had by far the deepest rotation - with the bench contributing nearly as much to wins as the starters. Miami, not surprisingly, had the largest difference between starters and bench players among playoff teams. A significant part of that difference is James who represents an extreme outlier in terms of net production. However, OKC also has an extreme outlier (Durant) - but a stronger bench - and therefore an overall superior team net production. Also as expected, Portland's bench was a complete disaster. Po

This went the extra five again but... #2 SAN ANTONIO SPURS 104 @ #5 MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES 93 (OT) WEST Finals * Game 3 * Spurs lead series, 3-0 Memphis got off to a sizzling start, being at home and all. The Spurs turned the ball over eight times in the first eight minutes. That gave Memphis, who led as many... Read more →

Name Height Inches no Shoes Height Inches w/shoes Weight Body Fat Hand Length Hand Width Wingspan Inches Reach in Inches No Step Vert Reach in Inches Max Vert Reach in inches No Step Vert Max Vert Bench Agility Sprint Rudy Gobert 84.5 86 238 4.4% 9.75 10 93.25 115 140 144 25 29 12.85 3.57 Name Weight > than standard (in lbs) Body Fat Reach > than standard (in inches) Wingspan > than standard (in inches) Vertical > than standard (in inches) Speed > than standard (in sec) Agility > than standard (in sec) # additional bench reps than expected Rudy Gobert -16 -1.20% 2.84 4.95 -2.29 0.02 -0.52 Rudy Gobert weighs 16 pounds less than average, and his body fat is 1.2% lower than the average. His reach and wingspan are very long, his wingspan is nearly 5 inches longer than average. He is a poor leaper, and not very agile, with average speed. He is thus very long, but but below average athletically. Below are the top 20 Comp seasons to Rudy Gobert at age 20. The 4th column is only statistical similarity, and does not include any combine measurements. Rudy Gobert Age 20 Player Age Conference Statistical Similarity Jim McIlvaine 19 Big East 92.4% Jim McIlvaine 18 Big East 93.5% Cherokee Parks 20 Atlantic Coast 93.8% Dikembe Mutombo 22 Big East 92.0% Matt Geiger 22 Atlantic Coast 93.0% Luke Schenscher 21 Atlantic Coast 94.3% Eric Riley 22 Big Ten 93.7% Jim McIlvaine 20 Big East 90.4% Primoz Brezec 21 Euro 95.0% Mikki Moore 20 Big Ten 94.6% Jake Voskuhl 22 Big East 94.3% Brad Daugherty 18 Atlantic Coast 93.1% Travis Knight 20 Big East 91.3% Patrick Ewing (Sr) 19 Big East 91.2% Jason Collins 20 Pacific 12 93.9% Jonas Valanciunas 19 Euro Cup 92.5% Semih Erden 21 Euro 92.0% Nikola Pekovic 20 Adriatic 92.3% Earl Barron 20 Conference USA 91.2% Duane Causwell 20 Atlantic 10 89.8% Rudy Gobert Age 19 Player Age Conference Statistical Similarity Dikembe Mutombo 22 Big East 95.2% Will Perdue 20 Southeastern 92.8% Eric Riley 19 Big Ten 93.4% Eric Riley 22 Big Ten 93.2% Larry Sanders 19 Atlantic 10 91.2% Jim McIlvaine 18 Big East 90.2% Roy Rogers 21 Southeastern 93.3% Francisco Elson 22 Pacific 12 92.4% Roy Rogers 20 Southeastern 92.8% Michael Olowokandi 20 Big West 92.5% Loren Woods 18 Atlantic Coast 90.5% Duane Causwell 19 Atlantic 10 90.8% Eric Riley 21 Big Ten 91.3% Cole Aldrich 19 Big-12 92.5% DeAndre Jordan 19 Southeastern 91.8% Roy Rogers 19 Southeastern 92.3% Luke Schenscher 20 Atlantic Coast 92.6% Travis Knight 19 Big East 91.1% Marc Gasol 19 ACB 93.7% Cherokee Parks 19 Atlantic Coast 92.0% Very Best Case Comps Dikembe Mutumbo, Brad Daugherty, Patrick Ewing 10% Likely Best Case Matt Geiger, Marc Gasol, Larry Sanders 10% Most Likely Loren Woods, Duane Causwell, Jim McIlvaine, Will Purdue, DeAndre Jordan 38% Likely Worst Case Roy Rogers, Michael Olowokandi, Eric Riley, Jason Collins 35% Absolute Worst Case Luke Schenscher 8% Rudy Gobert has some very impressive best case comps. Mutumbo, Daugherty, and Ewing were regular all stars. Geiger, Gasol and Sanders are all very good NBA big men, who really don't get much press. That group though is only 20% of his comps. The list of likely and likely worst case is a very large list (nearly 3/4's of his comps), and frankly this group is a very large group of very pedestrian or worse big guys, not at all a particularly impressive group. At the bottom end is Luke Schenscher, and that's it. In short Gobert has a tremendous upside, but frankly the odds are

Tim Duncan delivered a victory in overtime for the second straight game. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) The Spurs defeated the Grizzlies 104-93 in overtime to take Game 3 of the Western Conference finals on Saturday. San Antonio now holds a 3-0 series lead. •  Still old, still dominant. Here are the ages of the 10 players who took the court at the start of overtime once the Spurs and Grizzlies finished regulation with 86 points apiece: 21, 25, 28, 28, 31, 31, 31, 33, 35 and 37. The last two numbers in that sequence, of course, belong to the ageless Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan, who helped San Antonio overcome a dreadful start and outlast a Memphis team that was in make-or-break mode. The second-oldest on the list, Ginobili, scored the Spurs’ final four points in regulation, craftily beating a great defense to create points out of thin air. The oldest, Duncan, owned the extra period for the second straight game, scoring seven of his 24 points in overtime after scoring six of his 17 points in Game 2′s overtime period. Playing 44 minutes, the most time he’s logged in a game since April 2010, Duncan added 10 rebounds, five assists and two blocks and shot 58 percent from the field (his second-best mark this postseason) against a younger, hungry, desperate, talented front line that’s among the league’s best. He was the last man standing for the second time in this series and for about the 60-billionth time of his career. “We’ve been ‘old’ probably for eight years now,” Ginobili joked to reporters after the game. “I remember in 2007, our last championship, they were saying that we were old.” In a series defined by an insanely high level of defensive intensity and execution and the long stretches of offensive struggles the quality defense has produced, Duncan again looked like the freshest player on the court in the game’s biggest moments. His and-one basket, achieved by going straight through Marc Gasol, launched a 12-3 overtime run that essentially buried the Grizzlies’ hopes in this series. If that wasn’t splendid enough, he followed it up with a no-look touch pass to Tiago Splitter for a layup moments later. Finally, a patented soft-touch finish at the rim to gently plunge the dagger. “He was huge the other night in overtime and got it done for us and he did it again tonight,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “That’s why he is considered as great as he has been for the last 17 years. He’s been unbelievable, he feels the responsibility to carry us.” Then, like the rest of us, Popovich ran out of words to describe Duncan’s reliable, commanding excellence. ”I don’t know what else to say,” he shrugged. Although both Game 2 and Game 3 ended with San Antonio dominating in overtime, the two games had inverted plots. In Game 2, the Spurs’ offense went dead in the fourth quarter; in Game 3, the Spurs committed eight turnovers and managed just four baskets in a 13-point first-quarter. Popovich actually pulled all five of his starters simultaneously in apparent disgust at a flat start that followed three off days since Game 2. “It looked like those five guys had been asleep since Tuesday,” Popovich said. “We might as well get five guys out there to start to compete. … It was one of the worst starts I’ve ever seen.” Memphis will regret its inability to pull away then and there, as the Spurs closed the deficit from 18 points to just four by halftime, before taking their first lead of the game early in the fourth quarter. The Grizzlies’ predicament here was much the same as it has been: all the effort, heart and guts in the world isn’t translating to efficient scoring. Memphis shot below 44 percent for the third straight game in the series; a team-high 20 points from an aggressive Mike Conley, 14 points and 15 rebounds from a re-engaged Zach Ra

Top 5 Plays of the Night: May 25th Check out the five best plays from the overtime thriller in Memphis with our latest postseason edition of the Top 5 Plays of the Night! About the NBA: The NB... From: NBA Views: 301 177 ratings Time: 01:34 More in Sports

The Memphis Grizzlies have made a habit of falling behind in series this postseason.

Amnesty- lets talk about it... Something nobody has talked about much on here- which players are possibly getting amnestied this season? Well, first we must look at the players that are eligible. Now this does not mean these player WILL BE amnestied, it just means they are ELIGIBLE for it. But, it gives us a good list to work with. There are a TON of interesting names on this list, some of which WILL BE amnestied. I was put on this train of thought when I saw a Kevin Pelton ESPN tweet regarding this very subject. Heres the link to the eligible players: http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/info/amnesty_eligible So who on this list do you think will get amnestied and who do you think we might want to bid on? For example, Dallas picked up Elton Brand on a bid of $2.1 million! Thats what im talking about! We need talent we can get as cheap as we can possibly get it. Bidding can land us some talent for cheap. It all depends on who becomes available, who we bid on, and how much we risk bidding. This could be a good way to add talent to our roster, especially for the bench. 1, 2, 3---GO! Amnesty- lets talk about it... Something nobody has talked about much on here- which players are possibly getting amnestied this season? Well, first we must look at the players that are eligible. Now this does not mean these player WILL BE amnestied, it just means they are ELIGIBLE for it. But, it gives us a good list to work with. There are a TON of interesting names on this list, some of which WILL BE amnestied. I was put on this train of thought when I saw a Kevin Pelton ESPN tweet regarding this very subject. Heres the link to the eligible players: http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/info/amnesty_eligible So who on this list do you think will get amnestied and who do you think we might want to bid on? For example, Dallas picked up Elton Brand on a bid of $2.1 million! Thats what im talking about! We need talent we can get as cheap as we can possibly get it. Bidding can land us some talent for cheap. It all depends on who becomes available, who we bid on, and how much we risk bidding. This could be a good way to add talent to our roster, especially for the bench. 1, 2, 3---GO!

Jalen Rose, Magic Johnson, Michael Wilbon and Bill Simmons break down the Grizzlies surrendering an 18-point lead in the second quarter and letting the Spurs back in the game.