Stefanski Makes a GREAT Move

Philadelphia 76ers's new GM, Ed Stefanski, has started off his reign in impressive fashion making a GREAT move today. He traded Kyle Korver away for Gordan Giricek and a first round draft pick. Now Giricek sucks, so that part of the move is not what makes it a good move. The first round draft pick is not even what makes it a great as it'll most likely be a late first round pick considering Utah will most likely find a way to make the playoffs. (If I had to guess, Portland will probably slow down and Utah will overtake them.) What makes this a great trade is the amount of cap space and money Stefanski is saving the team over the next three years. While the two players have similar salaries this year, Korver is signed for three years after this season at 4.7 mil, 5.1 mil and 5.5 mil a piece where as Giricek is a free agent after the season. With Chris Webber's 19 mil and Aaron McKie's 7 mil coming off the books next year Philly has aprox 35 million on the books, a full 20 mil under the salary cap. Now if he can find a taker for Andre Miller who is willing to give them an expiring (Kwame Brown?) They'd be down to approximately 26 mil.

Now they'll most likely have to resign Andre Iguodala for somewhere around 10 mil, leaving them potentially 19 million dollars of cap space for trades or free agents. Without trading Miller they'll have somewhere around 10 mil to go after guys like Jermaine O'Neal, Elton Brand, or Gilbert Arenas who have ETO's or Emeka Okafor and Luol Deng who are restricted free agents.

Now it's quite possible none of those guys opt out and it's quite possible the teams with restricted free agents match offer sheets, but at least Philly is giving themselves a chance. As currently constituted Philly isn't going anywhere. Allen Iverson and Louis Williams are nice players, Samuel Dalembert gives them a great defensive presence up front, but stars win championships in the NBA not nice players.

This is not to say it's a bad move for Utah, they could use a good shooter, which Korver has been in the past (not as much this year), and as a team that needed to trade Giricek they didn't do an awful job. But for Philly this is a great move.

The Nets Effect: Finding the Worst Player in the NBA

There’s always debate when it comes to naming the top at something. Is Kobe the best player in the NBA? Is Peyton or Tom the best QB? Who’s the worst NBA GM Isaih, or Billy King? I think you’d be hard pressed to debate however that Jason Collins is not currently the worst player in the NBA.

I had been thinking of writing this column for about a week, but after seeing Collins foul Delonte West to setup a three point play with the Nets up 4 with 55 seconds to go it became apparent it needs to be said: Jason Collins is awful.

Consider this actual conversation with my friend (we'll call him John) after 7 games in the season.

Me: i think collins may only have a total of 1 field goal this season

John:is that an exageration or close to fact

Me: close to fact

John :that's funny

Me: he went about 4 games before he made his first

John :how is that possible though even if you dont' look for your offense being 7 feet, you have to accidently make a shot

Me: nope, not collins

John: he is a very good help defender, and sets good screens

Me:uh... yeah, something like that...

This conversation pretty much sums it up for Collins. You’d think being 7 foot he accidentally help out the offense, but nope he averages exactly 0.5 points a game. You’d think he would grab at least like 7-8 rebounds a game, haha try 2.2. So surely he must block some shots? Nope, 0.08 blocks per game.

So why does he play? Mainly because people, specifically his coach, thinks he sets good screens and plays good defense. Now I’ll give him this, despite not blocking any shots, he does provide pretty decent defense against a big man with size, say an Eddy Curry, Shaq or Dwight Howard. However if you put him against a guy like Bargnani or Stoudemire, in other words a quicker big man he’s got little to no chance. As for setting good screens though… it’s a bloody screen! That’s not a talent! If you combine the fact that he’s not all-league defensive, and his offense is epically bad, he should not play, especially not 18-20 minutes a night.

He makes Ben Wallace look like an offensive dynamo.

Admittedly like any stat John Hollingers PER (player efficiency rating) isn’t perfect, but I think it’s useful. So, consider this for a second, Jason Collins had a league low 3.02 PER last season. The runner up had a PER 2 points higher at 5.33. As bad as last season’s efficiency rating was his PER this season is NEGATIVE. That’s right, -2.66, the worst PER in the League. According to that, the Nets might actually be better on offense with no center on the floor then Collins.

If you can’t find a way to contribute at least a little bit offensively with Jason Kidd as your teammate, you know you’re garbage. With Sean Williams emerging to average 8.7 points, 4.3 boards and 2.1 blocks per game in the same 19 points a game and even Josh Boone providing mostly solid D and a per of 3 in VERY limited time, it’s time for Collins to take a seat.

Can We Get Rid of Batting Average?

Now I know the traditionalists among us (read those over the age over 45) will object, but I propose getting rid of batting average. In fantasy baseball and especially in real life. What prompts this… is it the books I’ve read on sabermetrics, or some profound breakthrough I’ve had? Nope, it’s just a stupid statement about Brad Lidge by Jayson Stark. He says in 2005 Lidge was considered the best closer in baseball and in 2007 he was a bust, but his stats aren’t all that different. He cites opponents batting average which was higher in 2005 than 2007. That’s great, but all that shows is that the stat itself it means nothing.

Here are Lidge’s stats for 2005 and 2007.

	ERA	SV	BLSV	K/9	K/BB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	HR
2005	2.29	42	4	13.12	4.48	.223	.293	.323	.612	5
2007	3.36	19	8	11.82	2.93	.219	.312	.409	.716	9

You’ll notice the only stat that was better for Lidge in 2005 was avg. and if we can all agree average is all but meaningless it’ll be easy to tell why Lidge was considered a bust in 2007. He struck out less people, he allowed more base runners, and he allowed a greater percentage of bases on those base hits. Now would he have been considered as big of a bust if his 2006 season wasn’t so awful (to the tune of an over 5 era)? Maybe not. However it’s clear that blowing 8 saves in 27 opportunities, almost 1/3 of your saves, is not good. Neither were any of his other stats compared to his 2005 season.

Lidge is just one case study on the pitching side of how little batting average matters. I could go on about how OBP and slugging are such better measures for hitters as well, but I think we’ve all heard those arguments. So isn’t it time we all agreed to get rid of batting average. After all we’ve got computers nowadays computing the other stats doesn’t need to be done with an abacus.

The Nets Effect: RJ Breaking Out

The Nets finished off their second and third games of the season this weekend. They were crushed by the Raptors on Friday and struggled to a victory against the Sixers on Saturday to move to 2-1.

So what did we learn from the weekend?

1) The Nets are going to struggle against athletic big men. Throw Shaq, Eddy Curry or Big Z against the Nets big men and they’ll defend them as well as any other team does or better. However you throw a big man like Barnani or Bosh their way they’re going to struggle. When you throw two of them their way like the Raptors do and they’re going to struggle a lot. Collins and Magloire are not quick at all, and before Malik Allen hit a few jumpers last night I wasn’t convinced he deserved to even play in the D league. There aren’t a lot of solutions to this issue as Krstic is slowed by his recovering from his knee injuries and the Nets don’t seem to have too much faith in Sean Williams, the one guy who has the quickness to guard guys like Bargnani. Not coincidentally the only time the Nets looked decent in the second half Friday night was when Williams was on the court with the starters.

2) RJ is the VERY good. This is not breaking news here, everyone knew he was good, but this season he is stepping up his game even further. He carried the Nets to their two victories with 29 points on opening night, 22 against Philly and threw in 27 in the lose to the Raptors (he could have scored close to 40 if it wasn’t a blow out by midway in the fourth. More than the scoring is the efficiency he scores with. So far this season he is shooting 51 percent from the floor, 62.5 percent from behind the arc and is a perfect 25 for 25 from the free throw line. Using John Hollingers PER, Jefferson has a PER of 30 so far, more than doubling his predicted PER. Will he shoot this well the rest of the season? Probably not, but if he continues to take quality shots like he has the first three games, he will have a great season.

3) Vince Carter is still vastly overpaid. In stark contrast to how Jefferson has played Carter has been just as bad. He’s shooting 30 percent so far. It’s very simple for him, if he lets the offense come to him he will do well, if he forces it he won’t… he often forces it. Everyone knows he’s going to decline with age, but I can’t imagine it would happen this fast. You have to imagine he’ll pick it up, but there’s very little doubt he will not live up to his contract signed this offseason.

4) Kidd is still Kidd. After putting in another triple double last night, Jason Kidd is still doin his thing.

5) Darrell Armstrong is not an NBA point guard. He’s old, can’t shoot, is nothing special when it comes to passing and isn’t thaaaat quick. He used to be very quick, but as I mentioned he’s now old and considering his speed was his only discernable skill, he is no longer an NBA point guard. Marcus Williams can’t get back soon enough.

The NETS Effect: Nets v Bulls Running Diary

Note: this is my first and probably last running diary of the nets game. I figured if Bill Simmons could do it why not me? i prefer not to sit at a computer during games, and no ones paying me to do so, so unless i get a positive response it'll be back to normal analysis and opinions after tonight.

Tonight marks the opening of the NBA season for the Nets with their matchup against the Bulls in the newly named Izod Center. Marv Albert and Jim Spanarkle will be broadcasting tonights game, if ever there was a mismatch in talent in the broadcast booth greater then this, I think you’d be hard pressed to find it. You have one of the all-time great NBA play-by-play guys sitting next to a little known former player.

7:39 Nets are introduced as Stronger by Kanye West plays… I feel like I’ve heard this song once or twice in the last couple months… not sure though. The players come in from different sections in the crowd. I’ve never seen this before, it’s ok though cause there aren’t too many fans in the stands so they’ll be ok

7:42 Richard Jefferson addresses the crowd. Thanks the crowd for coming out then pulls his best Ron Burgandy and finishes by telling them “stay classy NJ”

7:46 Kidd gets his first steal of the season and fast breaks down the court. Bet Kobe wishes he was running along side of him.

7:51 Carter with his first turnover of the season on a patented drive then throw a bullet a pass to someone who never had a chance to catch the ball

7:53 man can still make some damn fine layups though

7:57 Ben Wallace drive to the hoop and scores… what did I just type?

8:00 Ben Wallace hits a turn around jumper to give the bulls a 15-14 advantage… so this is why the bulls didn’t get a big time post threat. Who needs one when you have Wallace!

8:01 Ben Gordon gets blocked for his about 50^th missed shot tonight… why do people think he’s so good?

(friend calls asking for fantasy basketball advice. The concept of a games limit is hard to understand for the novice fantasy player.)

8:25 Antoine Wright hits a 3 to take the Nets up 10. I told you he wasn’t a bust!

8:32 Malik Allen airballs a hook shot, forcing one to ask why is he taking that shot in the first place… followed by a lengthy sigh

8:38 Richard Jefferson strides beautifully into the paint and gets fouled. Josh Boone checks in with 4 minutes remaining in the second quarter marking the 11^th of the Nets 12 available players to check in

8:40 Nocioni whines as he gets called for his third foul. It’s shocking really that he would whine, I’ve never seen him do that before.

8:43 Josh Boone airballs a free throw, those are always fun to see… he then of course swishes the next one. Defining why he is a 50% free throw shooter.

8:47 Nets pick off a pass, Kidd gets it and passes it to a trailing Jefferson who slams it down. Simply put a thing of beauty

8:50 Nets have the final shot of the half, give the ball to carter, iso, set a screen carter steps back and shots a three… no where close to making it. This is one guy who’s not shocked.

Nets end a very good half up 56-41 largely on the strength of Richard Jeffersons 17 points. He shot 4-6 from the field and 8-8 from the field. The nets as a whole dominated from the free throw line shooting 21-24 from the stripe compared to 10-12 for the Bulls. Loul Deng had a quite 13 points for the Bulls while Ben Gordon had 7 on 2-8 shooting. Bet Kobe is looking real good right now if you’re a Bulls fan.

9:07 Kidd finds Jefferson cutting to the hoop who gets fouled and hits to more three throws. I’m just gonna put this out there, but as a passer I don’t think there’s ever been a better one than Kidd. That’s not to say he’s the best, but he’s equal to the best that have ever played this game when it comes to that facet of the game.

9:13 Kirk Hinrich has to sit down with 9:30 remaining in the 3^rd quaster with his 4^th foul. He’s basically been the bulls best player tonight so clearly that will not help.

9:16 Gordon hits his third shot in a row including 2 threes. To quote Marv, “he’s heating up”

9:20 Gordon apparently heard me talking shit about him cause he’s made 5-6 in the third quarter including 3-3 from behind the arc. Pulling the bulls within 3 after having been down as many as 17.

9:31 The Bulls pull even on a high arcing pullup shot by Gordon. Nets answer with a nice midrange jumper by Antoine Wright. We got ourselves a game here folks.

9:35 the quarter ends with a 1 point lead for the Nets. Not a great quarter for them, Gordon dominated while the Nets looked out of sync on offense. VC is 2 for 12 and 8-8 from the free throw line for a grand total of 12 points. Have I mentioned I don’t like him?

9:49 Nets fight and scrap for offensive rebounds, ending in an Antoine Wright falling layup as he gets fouled. Chris Duhon is down in a heap cameras didn’t seem to catch why.

9:51 Chris Rock, Jay-z and Donald Trump are in the house. When the Nets can get these guys out there you know the Knicks are in trouble. (jay-z excluded since he does partially own the team.)

9:54 Kidd tweeks his ankle… Nets season hangs in the balance.

9:56 Kidd returns after the timeout and RJ hits a three… season goes on

9:59 Deng takes it away from Carter and for an easy fastbreak slam. (writer bangs head against wall)

10:02 After Wright misses a three Kidd gets the rebound feeds Wright for another try and he nails it. Then Kidd leads a fastbreak where he feeds Carter for the layup. The Nets take a 89-87 lead and Chicago as the saying goes… wants to talk it over.

10:06 Antoine Wright puts the nets up 7 with 2 minutes to go with a big 3.

10:07 Carter airballs a three…

10:10 Kidd airball a three and nocioni ties it. Carter airballs ANOTHER jumper and the bulls call a time out with 19.4 seconds to go. Carter has again proven he is not a money player. He’ll help your team out, and he’ll put up points, but he doesn’t have that killer instinct. Unfortunately the Nets didn’t get the memo before they threw a boatload of money at him.

10:13 Ben Gordon gets his shot blocked on his last second attempt. Not something uncommon for the 6’1 shooting guard. We’re going to bonus basketball!

10:17 Ben Wallace shoots his first free throw of the night and it lands about 3 feet short of the rim.

10:18 Wright hits his fourth three of the game! Nets up 3

10:19 Wright reaches his career high with a layup for his 21^st point.

10:23 Carter with a steal! He posts up backs down passes to Jefferson for a wide open 3! Carter is great when he’s not shooting the ball! Nets up 6 with 37 seconds to go.

10:31 Nets up 5 32 seconds to go, the free throw procession starts

10:33 Nets win!

Nets get the 112-103 victory playing a very good game overall. If they play this way they will be very successful this season. Richard Jefferson with a double double 29 points and 10 boards was big for the Nets as was Antoine Wright with 21 points in 27 minutes of play. It’s just one game, so you don’t want to go overboard, but he looked like a player who could take the leap… into becoming a legitimate NBA player.

Some things I think you should know:

I think Ben Gordon is a good player, but that he’s overvalued by the Bulls and overrated by fans. He’s a 6’1 shooting guard who is more likely to get his shot blocked in a key spot then to actually make it.

I think Vince Carter is also a good player, but vastly overrated. I would write more on that but I already have.

The Nets Effect: Interminable Preseason Continues

The Nets Effect will be the name i will be using for a series of Nets articles I will be writing. The first article was my season preview written before i decided to title the series. Now, on with the article...

The Nets got an 82-71 against the Celtics u-21 team on Tuesday. Ok fine it was the Celtics senior squad, but without any of the “big three” of Allen, Garnett and Pierce it might as well have been their D-league team. The Nets were playing without Jason Kidd who is out with a back. That’s right he has a back… oh I forgot to mention, it’s also injured. (but that’s an issue for an entirely different article)

Tonight game for me was just another example to me of why the preseason is interminable. Some fans might love training camp and the preseason; it gives you a chance to see the young guys, it means the regular season is right around the corner etc. I’m not one of those fans. Whether it’s baseball, football, or basketball the only important things are getting the starters enough AB’s, reps or minutes to get ready for the regular season and make sure they don’t get hurt. Otherwise as a fan it’s almost unwatchable. It’s sloppy, it’s people who won’t make the team because quite frankly they’re just not good enough and the players don’t really care who wins or loses. It’s practice…not a game, not a game… practice.

So what do you need to know from the game?

Richard Jefferson showed extended range. Everyone knows he’s an explosive slasher and an improving shooter. If he can make his jumper more consistent from long range he will be very hard to stop.

Nenad Krstic coming off a torn ACL went out and played, and finished the game without incident. That’s the important thing, but he also showed mobility which was nice to see. Not great mobility, but enough…he was never going to be David Robinson. He did hit a couple decent outside jumpers which would be a valuable skill as they’ll likely run plenty of pick and roles and will need someone who can make a pick and pop.

Antoine Wright played very welling shooting 6 for 8 from the field, including 2-2 from the three point stripe. Labeled as a bust by some I’m not ready to call him that. Granted he hasn’t been very good, but this is his third year in the league and he hasn’t been asked to do all that much in the first two. Much like the rest of the team his game will depend heavily on his ability to knock down a consistent jumper. He’s good enough defensively and off the dribble, that a jumper will open up his game and make him a useful player off the bench.

Being a hot blond female must be nice. The Nets have a sideline reporter who, while she’s not bad, I do have no wonder if she would have a job if she was not a hot blond female. To be honest though, I’m not going to complain. In fact I look forward to turning in to see err… hear her more this season.

Nets Season Preview

The Nets come off a 41-41 season with optimism that this year’s team will be healthier and more successful. Last year the Nets team was to be kind inconsistent, to be more realistic not very good. The season was beset by injuries to key players, like Nenad Krstic who missed most of the season and Richard Jefferson who played a good portion of the season hurt before finally having to sit out about a month with that injury. When your third best player for a large stretch of the season is Miki Moore inconsistency is not to be unexpected. This is not to say Moore didn’t do a great job, but let’s be honest who’d ever really heard of Miki Moore before last season? Luckily the Nets were playing in a very weak eastern conference and were able to relatively comfortably make the playoffs. The east figures to be much more competitive this year so the question is can the Nets be good enough to make the playoff or even compete for a championship?

Well the answer to the second question is clearly no, but the first question should be a yes.

Why won’t the Nets compete for a title? Well there are several reasons, but the elephant in the room is that Vince carter is just not a championship player. He’s never really won anything in his career and in crunch time he’s more likely to turn the ball over then actually score. I would have loved for the Nets to get rid of him and if you want to know why, read this article I wrote in June.

So why will the Nets make the playoffs? Despite what John Hollinger thinks and despite the team aging at key positions (Carter and Kidd) they still have Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson. Jason Kidd is, at least on the basketball court, quite simply the anti-Stephon Marbury. He is a true point guard and a winner, when he’s on your team you simply have a better chance to win. He has made the playoffs each of the last 12 years. The Nets instantly turned into winners when he came to the team and haven’t looked back since.

Richard Jefferson, IMHO is one of the best players in the league. He hasn’t really had the chance to show whether he could be a true number one option, but it seems he’s more suited for a Scotty Pippen type role. Unfortunately there’s no Michael Jordan on this team. The nets should get a good year out of him and I see no reason he won’t average at least 18 points and 5.5 boards up from the 16 and 4.4 he hobbled to last season.

The X factors?

I’ll give you three.

1) Will the Nets actually run an offense? When Vince Carter is off the floor they tend to run a fluid offense with movement and running and passing. However when Carter is on the court they often set high picks for him with the three other guys standing around doing nothing. This will not work this year as Miki Moore, a very good pick-and-roll guy is gone and it didn’t even work all that well last year. If the Nets run a true offense and move the ball they will be much more successful.

2) How good is Nenad? Nenad Krstic statistically is the Nets best big man and was last year as well. However even before he got hurt the Nets were struggling. Can he get back to top form and/or improve? Can the Nets integrate him into their fluid offense of which I was speaking of in x factor one? Solid contributions from Nenad will be crucial to a successful season.

3) Can the Nets get anything from their bench? Assuming a starting lineup of Collins, Kristic, Jefferson, Carter and Kidd, what will they get from the bench? One assumes Marcus Williams and Josh Boone will continue to progress and hopefully the Nets can count on them for some solid minutes. Boggie Nochbar was a solid contributor off the bench but came out of nowhere to do it. Was he a one year wonder? I say no. Those three will have to carry the bench as jamal magloire, malik allen and Antoine Wright can’t be counted on for much. Shawn Williams could be an x factor of his own, but if he can stay drug free, (a huge IF) he should eventually be able to steal a good amount of minutes from Collins based on his defensive ability and athleticism.

Prediction? The Nets are a slightly better than .500 team winning around 43 games and getting whatever playoff spot that garners which is probably somewhere around the 6th-7^th seed. From there I give them a 40% chance to make the second round obviously varying based on the opponent.