Sometimes you just know things.
I missed a post yesterday and given my current job situation (stressful, challenging, like trying to juggle three angry blind mountain lions who are on fire by their tails but strangely incredibly fun) I knew it was coming.
Strangely these are the times where I step up and go: "I got this" (Image courtesy of xkcd.com)
Lucky for you, the ideas keep coming and building up a nice queue.
Throw in my strange compulsion to post something every day and you’re getting two ideas for the price of one today. Even if saturday’s are the lowest trafficked day of the week at this blog.
I forgive you for having personal lives .
Let’s start by debunking the ongoing narrative that Lebron somehow choked against the Mavs. The story going around our friends in the media is that something must have been the matter with Lebron, That he choked and that if had been himself the Heat would have won.
This is funny but totally misleading. Dirk is not trowing the ring into a Lake of Fire.
Hmmm.
I know this is wrong.
How do I know?
That’s Lebron James’ Wins Produced per 48 for every opponent in the regular season. Please note that Lebron had by far his worst performances of the season against the Dallas Mavericks.
This is not about what Lebron did or didn’t do but rather about what Dallas consistently did to fluster him.
Their defense, put a small fast guy in front of him and take away his lanes to the basket with zone or help defense should be studied and copied by each an every team in the league. It reduces his options to:
- Shoot a bad percentage jumpshot
- Post someone up ( and we all know how well he does that)
- Pass to someone else for the shot (and that will also be a low percentage shot)
All in all bad times for the King.
Jordan looks at Barea/Kidd and thinks "And1"
The second thing I’m putting up is a nice,neat little poster followup to my last post (where all is explained). It’s a slightly different of presenting the data.
I knew I was going to miss it.
Arturo's Silly Little Stats v2.0 
marparker
06/18/2011
I’m wondering what the outcome would have been if MIami was able to get any kind of positive contribution from anyone in its front court. I’m convinced Joel Anthony must go.
Shawn Ryan
06/18/2011
I do agree that the Heat most need to replace Anthony, but actually, I think that if there’s anyone who must be traded who played in the finals, it’s Jose Barea for 3 reasons:
*his trade value sky-rocketed because he made some difficult shots in the finals (he also missed a lot of easy ones, but nobody remembers those)
*he’s a bad player in general
*he’s not as young as you probably think he is (at least I was surprised when I discovered that he’s 26)
*therefore, there is a huge difference between his perceived and actual value (at least for this summer)
*also, Roddy Beaubois is on my fantasy team, and I stupid Jose Barea better not f*** up his minutes! haha
RandomStrring
06/18/2011
Are you going to do anything with this year’s draft prospects? Like put them through your rookie projections?
arturogalletti
06/18/2011
🙂
Kyle
06/19/2011
What was the minimum minutes played to get on this list? What jumped out was stevensons finals numbers not being on here. he had a possibly alright, and not bottom feeding, series I thought.
Also, I love the puerto-rican, but I REALLY hope dallas doesnt pay him big bucks. His most valued asset is driving to the rim. SURELY Dallas can replace him without overpaying PLEASE CUBAN
winniepoo
06/20/2011
Hi Kyle,
I believe the limit for minutes was the top 6 minutes earners for each team in each series. If you follow the link referenced above the table it contains the full background. Stevenson wouldn’t have made the cut for the finals.
wiLQ
06/20/2011
“Their defense, put a small fast guy in front of him”
I don’t think that Marion can be described as such… but I couldn’t agree more with the main point: