Return of the Lines

HA, I guess the Suns didn't hear about my request for a close and competitive game. They were with the Lakers for all of 7 minutes. The Suns were able to keep it tied at 20-20 with a little under 5 minutes to go in the first... then Amundson came in for Shaq and it was all over. The Lakers go on a 10-2 run in the next 3 minutes. By the time Shaq reenters the game with 3 min. to go in the 1st quarter, the Suns are down 8 and the Lakers never look back. We're down 13 (26-39) by the end of the 1st, 25 (55-70) by halftime. The 4th quarter is all scrub time and we end up losing by 26 (106-132). Ah wells, a loss was expected. We just need to beat the teams that we *should* beat (i.e. tonight at home against the Raptors) and we can hopefully still squeak into the playoffs. We're home against the Lakers again this Sunday and there's a chance Nash will sit that one out too... if so, chalk up another game in the loss column. Damn... we're really scrapping it close this season. =(

Oh yeah and after almost a month hiatus... here's the return of Friday night lines, wish me luck ;-)

	Spread	Points
Milwaukee	9.5	+201.5
New Orleans	-9.5	-201.5
Detroit	9	+187.5
Orlando	-9	-187.5
Chicago	-5	+208
Washington	5	-208
Indiana	12	+205.5
Boston	-12	-205.5
Miami	5	+194.5
Atlanta	-5	-194.5
Phila.	2	+214
New York	-2	-214
Portland	-5	+204.5
Minnesota	5	-204.5
Oklahoma City	9	+209.5
Dallas	-9	-209.5
LA Lakers	-3	+219
Denver	3	-219
Toronto	5.5	+228.5
Phoenix	-5.5	-228.5
Cleveland	-1.5	+178
San Antonio	1.5	-178
LA Clippers	1.5	+214
Sacramento	-1.5	-214
Charolette	1.5	+207
Golden State	-1.5	-207

Post Analysis

You know looking back, since my ill-fated proclamations before the DEN game back in mid Jan, the Suns lost 10 games before firing Porter and recommitting to the run and gun offense under new interm-coach Alvin Gentry.

The losses were the following:

at DEN
vs MIN
at BOS
at NY
at CHA
vs SA
vs CHI
at GS
at PHI
at CLE

But what if we had changed coaches/philosophies before the losing streak? Here's what I think *could* have happened. Lets say we were going to lose to BOS and CLE no matterwhat. Then we're on the road against DEN and at home against SA. Lets say we split those on account of Melo still being out for that DEN game and we're at home against SA. That leaves 6 games, 4 on the road, 2 at home, but all against sub .500 teams. Say we split those too. That's 4 more wins altogether (3 sub .500 + either DEN or SA). IMHO, those results are completely reasonable and we'd have a 36-20 record instead and be sitting 4th in the west and nobody would think that we'd be lotto bound at all.

And no, I'm not bashing Porter. He had a really tough job given the circumstances and players. In fact, I put equal (if not more) blame on the players for not buying into the system. I mean, it's one thing to try something and have it fail. It's another to not try it at all. Just looking at the renewed engery/effort from the team these last few games under Gentry, you can totally tell they had quit on Porter. I mean, even with Shaq clogging the middle, that's never an excuse for Amare to grab 1 rebound. And even now in the half court, our guys (Barbosa, Barnes, J-Rich) are cutting a WHOLE lot more that before. There's flow and movement. People are getting open for 3s and layups, even in the halfcourt. I've seen LOTS of Shaq-centric games over the years with half court sets in LA and MIA, and the Suns earlier this season were about the worst I've ever seen. Shaq would get doubled but still none of the Suns were open... how can that be? I really doubt Porter ever told the rest of the team to STAY still, DON'T get open, clump together. I'm also seeing a lot more activity on the defensive end too, with Barbosa in particular racking up the steals. Where were those active hands before? Just because you throw it in the post in one end, doesn't mean you don't get in the lanes on the other end. And no, this is not Gentry's doing. These changes were almost immediate and obvious in his very first game agaisnt the Clippers. Naw, our players could have played like this all along and for whatever reason (hate Porter, hate system, not having fun, not getting touches, etc.) choose not too. At least they're getting it now, I just wish they had done so earlier, even if it was under Porter.

Ah wells, enough lamenting on the past and what could have been. On to the future. Big game tonight. Suns at Lakers. Nash isn't expected to play though, after rolling his ankle during the CHA game on Tuesday. I know I'm a bit of homer on Shaq/Suns, but I'm not crazy. I wasn't really expecting us to win tonight even with Nash... I'm just hoping for a competitive non-blowout game. Go Suns!

And for your daily funny (ha, more like bi-weekly if I'm on my game), here's a Shaq funny from the Diesel himself, courtesy of his twitterblog.

Those Damn Spurs

As much as I'm loathe to admit... the Spurs are looking DAMN scary. Everybody keeps talking about the big 3 (Lakers, Celts, Cavs), but I think the Spurs are right there and can beat just about anybody in the league in a 7 game series. They're sitting at 39-17 with the 2nd best record in the west and 5th overall (behind the big 3 + Orlando). This despite the fact that they lost Parker for 10 games earlier in the year, Manu for 18 games (currently still out and counting), and now Duncan has mised 3 games (and counting). Yeah the other big teams have suffered injuries as well (Bynum, Jameer, now KG), but not to the level/length of the Spurs.

It has to be disheartening to the rest of the league that without Duncan or Ginobili, Tony Parker still led the Spurs to blowout wins over the Mavs and the Blazers, on back to back nights too. Seriously, Mavs and Blazers are both looking like ~50 win teams and playoff bound in the tough west and they can't even manage to lose by single digits when the Spurs spot 'em Duncan and Ginobili. That's insane. And it's not like they got a Lamar Odom type stepping up. The chief benefactor of the increased minutes has been Kurt Thomas, who wouldn't be a starter on any team in the league. If healthy, the Spurs are going to be really dangerous in the playoffs and I would not be surprised at all if they were the ones to win it all. Remember, it is an odd year after all (see: 2007, 2005, 2003, 1999).

I can coach the Suns, GM it too

So, that's the 3rd straight 140 point game by the new run and gun Suns. I'm sure it's some kind of NBA record, but I'm loathe to celebrate too much, considering the competition were the Clippers twice and then then equally lowly Thunder. But a strong win is a strong win and at least everybody in PHX seems happy and rejuvenated. I can be honest in saying that as a PHX fan... the last month or so had been a real downer.

Still though, I'm not going to give interm head coach Alvin Gentry too much credit. Porter was fired last Sunday and we had a back-to-back on Tuesday and Wednesday. There's been no time for Gentry to do any real "coaching". Basically he just handed the whole offense (and maybe defense too) to Nash and let the Candian go wild. Hell, I can do that. Everybody can. And doesn't somehow invalidate all of D'Antoni's supposed genius? IMHO, all he ever did was relent control and pass the responsibilities off to Nash.

And of course a PHX post today would be incomplete without mentioning Amare Stoudemire... who will now be out for the rest of the season after undergoing surgery for a detached retina. Of course this news came at pretty much the worst time possible. After being circulated in trade rumors for the better part of the last three weeks, the Suns let the trade deadline expire last Thursday without making a single move. Now without Amare, we'll have to slide Grant Hill and Matt Barnes up to the 4 and even give Lou Amundson some extra minutes. Ugh. That's just bad. Against some teams (i.e. Thunder last night, a KG-less Celts tomorrow) that'll be okay, but against any of the real big teams (Lakers, Jazz, Spurs) we're absolutely going to get killed.

I hear Mikki Moore has been waived by the Kings though. If so, I really, REALLY hope Kerr and Co. put on the full court press to sign him for the stretch run. While he might want to sign with a contender (SAS or BOS always like to pick up some vets) it is a contract year for Mikki and I don't think any team can offer him 25+ minutes like the Suns can. And if Jason Kidd can make him a 10/5 guy, I'm sure Nash and the SSOL offense can make him a 10/5 guy in ~25 minutes of play as well.

Ah well, I'm going try and not worry too much. In the words of ex-coach D'Antoni...

“If we play our game we’ll be fine.”

“Steve Nash will figure it out.”

Fantasy Update

So, I haven't done one of these in a long while. Since I'm just sitting here, refreshing realgm, and waiting for some new trade rumors... I figured it would be a good time to catch up on my fantasy teams. So here we go...

1) Yahoo Keeper - 8 teams, standard 9 stats, h2h league. By far my best performance in fantasy this year. I'm sitting comfortably in 1st place and 9 games ahead of 2nd place. Credit mostly due to my keepers Chris Paul and Danny Granger. Also I made some timely pickups of David Lee and Al Harrington right before the Crawford trade (both picked up on 11/21) and they've been excellent ever since. I've also been fairly lucky with injuries. The only guy that's been consistently out for me has been Chris Kaman and I actually just gave up on him this week. I've also held Greg Oden all season too but I've been winning DESPITE drafting him in our 2nd round (after 3 keepers). Actually the keeper format is what really saved me (from myself). While holdovers Paul and Granger were nice, the keeper system really prevented me from going with my original draft strategy of Jazz and 76ers. No Boozer, no Brand, no Deron. They were all kept by others. I did take Igudala with my first pick but that's about it. So their disaster seasons have impacted me minimally.

2) Yahoo Public - 12 teams, standard 9 stats, h2h league. I'm currently in 6th but 9 games ahead of 7th place, so I'm looking good for the playoffs. Drafting Boozer in the 2nd round hurt me quite a bit. Having Oden and AK doesn't help either. I was also jittery enough to drop Jameer Nelson in the 2nd week and missed out on all his good stats. At least he's out for the season now so I don't feel too bad about it. Going forward, assuming Boozer and AK both come back relatively the same (and soon), I should be able to make some real noise in the playoffs. Pickup wise, my highlights were Rodney Stucky earlier in the season (though he's cooled somewhat) and Ramon Sessions two weeks ago. Sessions has averaged 20 pts, 3.75 rebs, and 7.5 asts in his last 8 starts and his numbers are actually IMPROVING from game to game. Insane. The guy can seriously ball. I saw his 44 pt game against AI and the Pistons and he was just straight dominating. He just go to the rim at will... and not like a super fast Parker/Barbosa way. Naw, it just looked smooth and controlled... kinda like Roy where he just lulls you into complacency. I don't know about the interest from Milwaukee fans and front office, but I'd totally be interested in a Charlie V, Sessions, and Jefferson Deal for Amare + filler in real life.

3) Yahoo Expert - 12 teams, 13 stats, h2h league. This league adds FGM, FTM, 3PT%, and OREB as competitive stats and expands the roster to 16 (+3 bench). I played with these guys for the first time last year after finding a challenge on the Yahoo message boards. On top of the settings this year, last year they also tracked DREB for 14 stats total and it was CRAZY active. 9 of us had over 70 moves, 6 of us had over 130 moves, and the top guy had 330 moves! It was just insane. I was tied for 6th highest with 134 moves by the way and ended up taking 2nd place overall. Anyway, this year it's been a lot tamer though still lots of vets and fairly active.

This is my disaster league by far and I'm doing about as poorly as possible. I'm currently 9th and 12 games out of the playoffs. I'm scrapping by week by week. My draft was a disaster in that I picked Boozer, Deron, Kaman, G.Wallace, and Bogut in that order. I know, I know, Cave Man in round 3? WTF was I thinking. On top of that, I also took Ellis and Hinirch in rounds 9 and 10, respectively and made zero good sleeper picks in the last rounds (going Tyrus, Ridnour, and Q-Rich in rounds 14-16). Bah!

To say that I had a bad start to the season was an understatment. After the first 7 weeks, I was a woeful 0.367 winning percentage and dead last in the league. I made a small trade of Bogut for Terry earlier but with my injuries mounting, I made a desperation trade of Rose, Ellis, and Kaman for N. Robinson, Brewer, and Bogut. The reasoning was to trade away slightly better talent for more games played. I even dumped Boozer for DJ Augstin right after Boozer announced he was going to get surgery only for Augstin to go down on the SAME day the trade went through. What luck, right? But the "games played" strategy was working for a while and I was active on the add/drops and the following 7 weeks I managed a respectable .549 record (.458 overall) and crept up to 7th place. But then the injury bug came around again and I lost Bogut and G. Wallace and have now fallen back to 9th place. If you notice my first trade, that means I've now lost Jason Terry as well. I think I haven't had a single week with less than two injured on my bench and my highest was 6 injured in a week. All in all, I've made 5 trades and 59 moves and I have just TWO of my original 16 draftees left. If I make the playoffs (and that's a BIG if), I think I would have proven that there is some skill in fantasy and that there's never a reason for anyone to quit. Keep playing and keep trying!

4) CBS leagues... not much to report. 3 leagues, all public, all fantasy point based, h2h. Remeber "fantasy points" is a single composite stat (pts, rebs, stls, blks = +1, asts = +2, to = -1) and averaged over games played per week. Rosters are also weekly, so really, there's not much to do except set your rosters on Mondays and that's it. Maybe a pickup during the week, but like roto, because there's 3 bench spots... it's pretty hard to find anybody to crack your rotation on the FA wire. Esp. with the fantasy points, there's no reason to try and focus/balance certain stats, it's either one player has a higher fantasy point or not.

Result wise, I'm doing okay. Each league is 12 teams broken up into 3 divisions of 4 teams. Each division leader and a wildcard (best record that's not a div leader) makes the playoffs. A bit tougher than yahoo and a bit arbitrary because it's not necessarily the 4 best records that make the playoffs (also you play your division more), but I guess that reflects the reality. I'm currently a division leader in one league (10-6 record, next guy is right behind at 9-7), 2nd place in division in another league (8-8 record, right behind 1st guy who's at 9-7), and totally out of it in the third league. All in all though, I find the whole setup/leagues at CBS to be fairly boring and I would NOT recommend it. Stick to Yahoo people!

Go Away Amare

So, Phoenix finally fired Terry Porter. Assistant coach Alvin Gentry will be named interm head coach and rumor says that he will be reinstalling D'Antoni's famed "seven second or less" offense. His first game will be a cushy home game against the Clippers, so it should good times in PHX, at least for another night.

Despite that, there's still heavy rumors that Amare will be traded by Thursday's trade deadline. The biggest rumor is to Chicago for Drew Gooden (expiring), Tyrus Thomas, and Thabo Sefolosha. The Suns front office has always been very high on Sefolosha and obviously they're thinking that Nash and SSOL will turn Tyrus into Amare-lite. Chicago is also (rumored) to be willing to do a secondary trade where they take back some contracts with a $4+ million trade exception. I'm guessing that would be Dudley and Tucker. While the talent might not be that great... overall, the deals represent a $4.4 million savings THIS season. If you factor in the lux tax, that's over $8 million saved for cheap ass PHX owner Robert Sarver. Add in the cash reimbursements from teams over the lux (~$3 mil) and it's probably closer to $11 million in savings THIS year. Then next year we would be at $66 million with 11 players (assuming a late 1st rookie and a minimum contract as well as picking up options on Nash and Amundson). Even if we use the MLE on a free agent (YAY!) we'd still save around ~$8 million in lux tax payments + reimbursement. Overall, we're looking at $16-20 million in savings over two years for Sarver... depending on the size of the reimbursements and if we spend the full MLE next year. Anyhoo, with that much money saved and his history of penny pinching, I'm betting he bites. For a look at my math, see here, contract numbers courtesy of hoopshype.

Normally I would be angry at Sarver for being cheap, but in this case, I have to agree with him. If you couldn't tell already, I'm staunchly anti-Amare. For all of his gaudy stats, the Suns have proven that they can win WITHOUT him (see: '05-06 Suns). If Nash can get Boris Diaw and a 1/2 season of Tim Thomas to replace Amare's production, he can do the same with Tyrus Thomas and a 1/2 season of Drew Gooden. I know Amare's having a down year, but you can't blame Shaq for that. Nobody is telling Amare not to rebound or play defense. I don't care who's playing next to you, there's no reason for Amare to grab just 1 rebound in a game and it's happened twice this season! (@OKC and @BOS). That's just a lack of heart and effort. If that's how Amare is gonna play when he doesn't get to be "the man" then I say good riddance because that means you can never pair Amare with a non-pg superstar player. Better get what value you can from him now and keep the boat afloat then rebuild properly in 2010.

Friday Postings... Or not.

Man, the injury bug is just recking the NBA (and my fantasy teams) this season. For those that don't know, here's a quick rundown/highlight of some the more prominent injuries....

76ers – Brand (shoulder, out for the season)
Raptors – Bosh (knee, out until AS Break)
Bucks – Redd (ACL, out for the season)
Bucks – Bogut (Back, out for the season)
Bucks – Ridnour (finger, out 4 weeks)
Bobcats - Wallace (lung, ribs, out 2-4 weeks)
Magic – Nelson (shoulder, out for the season)
Hornets – Paul (groin, out until AS Break)
Blazers – Black (shoulder, out until AS Break)
Jazz – Kirilenko (ankle, out 2-4 more weeks)
Jazz – Boozer (quads, out 2-4 more weeks)
Clippers – Kaman (foot, out until AS Break)
Lakers – Bynum (knee, out 8-12 weeks)

And that's not including the flu bug that's been wrecking havoc this week... 2-3 games at a time for players such as Caron Butler, Joe Johnson, and Kevin Garnett. Also worth mentioning are the prolonged injuries that occurred earlier this season. Players like Baron Davis, Marcus Camby, Zach Randolph, Jermaine O'Neal, Jose Calderon, Tracy McGrady, Ron Artest, Kevin Martin, Mike Dunleavy, TJ Ford, Monte Ellis, etc. They have all missed significant amount of games this year and many are still rusty and/or just getting back into shape.

So anyhoo, in light of that... I'm taking a break from my Friday postings until after the AS break too. I haven't been doing to well with my predictions and last Friday's "opposites" experiment was a big disaster. 11 games, 22 outcomes. I get 5 right, push 1. That's just sad. In fact, I've only hit 50% once in all these weeks and haven't gone over yet. Considering these bets are supposed to be 50/50 chances in Vegas's eyes (they make money on the difference between the bet and payout), I think that's rather pathetic of me to do so poorly.

I'll still be posting my other usual gibberish on a semi-daily basis... just no Friday Postings. And now for you daily funny, here's the full cut of Gatorade's new "Quest for G" commercial. 9 minutes long.

The Change Up

Hey, big win against the Kings. Almost by 50 points! See? Maybe we are following the Celtic's patttern. They had an embarrassing loss to a bottom feeder team (GSW) and then routed the Kings. Maybe that's us?

Yeah, right, hopeful thinking. I'd like to say that I am still on the record in favor of trading Amare. If we keep this momentum at all, it's only going to be for 2-3 games before we revert to our bad ways. It's not that this team or players are actually bad. On paper I think we're actually one of the most talented teams. It just seems that they're not really trying (esp. Amare) out there. I don't see our concentration/chemistry being fixed on its own... not without a serious trade or staff (fire Porter) change.

But then, how about a total change in philosophy? Word out of Dallas is that after their lopsided loss to the Celtics, coach Rick Carlisle has given up control of the offense almost entirely to Jason Kidd. Kidd now gets to call the vast majority of plays and Carlise will just orchestrate the big plays coming out of timeouts and such. Points, assists, FG%, 3PT%... all offensive stats have been on the upswing and the results have been pretty good so far. The sample size is small at just 3, but it includes a good 15 pt win on the road against MIA and a great 10 pt win on the road against ORL. With POR, UTH, and BOS in 3 of their next 5, if they rattle off like a 4-1 record in that stretch, it'd say this would be a smashing success.

See, this is something the Suns should have been trying all along. Just give Nash control of the offense and Porter can preach his defense all he wants. I don't see why one HAVE to conflict with the other. I know naturally, sometimes these do conflict... i.e. long jumpshots lead to long rebounds, more fast breaks for the opponents, etc. But all we keep hearing out of the Suns camp is that they have "things" to work out. If they're gonna work on some "things" why not a direct merger of Nash's offense and Porter's defense? Not some half assed retarded mix of both.

By the way, I give credit to Carlise for attempting this change. I think it akes a pretty good coach to change when necessary instead of being stubborn and sticking to his guns. Avery Johnson would never have relinquished that much control to Kidd and maybe that's why he left. On the flipside, D'Antoni's refusal to focus more on D or play the bench more eventually got him fired too. I mean if you're Pop or Phil and you have a steady team/system with a fairly consistent championship level results, fine, do what you like. Obviously, your thing works. But everyone else... you gotta be able to see when things aren't working and admit to your faults. Whether that's relinquishing the offense (Carlise this year, Maurice Cheeks last year) or hiring a defensive assistant (Doc Rivers), change things up! Doing the same thing over and over is just going to get you the same results over and over, and if you're a loser, you're gonna lose!

And for your funnies today... courtesy of BDL and GTAS Comics.