May 20, 2013

The Boots: NBA Draft lottery, Byron Scott’s tenure, playoffs

April 20, 2013 by 12 Comments

nerlens noelIn my usual half-rapid fire, half-prose form, I’m here today with another edition of The Boots. Again, for those unfamiliar with this feature, I assign loosely defined “Boot Up” or “Boot Down” votes to trending topics in the sports world. Let’s talk basketball again today.

Boot Up: Slotting in at No. 3 – That’s not necessarily what Cavs fans were hoping from the 2012-13 season. Kirk, Scott and Andrew all have written way more eloquently than I possibly could about the franchise’s current situation post-Byron Scott. But for now, I’d like to focus on what it means for the draft. Obviously, slotting in at No. 3 lines up the stars for a possible better pick than later in the lottery, as fans hoped before the year and maybe even as late as the end of February. [Read more...]

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2013 NBA Draft: Lakers receive 19th pick; will go to Cavs

April 19, 2013 by 10 Comments

While the Cleveland Cavaliers received initial good news with the Los Angeles Lakers officially making the playoffs Wednesday night (thus earning the right to swap with Miami’s No. 30 first-round pick), it was previously undetermined what pick that might be in the first round.

Per the NBA draft rules, playoff teams are sorted by regular season record alone. The Lakers, Houston Rockets and Chicago Bulls were all tied at 45-37 at the end of the season, thus tying for the 18-20 picks in the first.

Finally then, the NBA hosted a tiebreaking coin flip today. Per the Cavs’ Fred McLeod on Twitter:

Overall, the Houston Rockets were awarded pick No. 18 and the Bulls will receive No. 20.

Thus, along with the Lakers’ No. 19 pick, the Cavaliers also are in formal possession of the No. 3 lottery slot 1 and two other second-round picks: No. 31 (via Orlando) and No. 33 (CLE’s).

It’s potentially expected that the team might look into packaging multiple picks to move up in the draft, as they did in 2012. In order to acquire the rights to Tyler Zeller (No. 17 pick) from the Dallas Mavericks, the Cavaliers traded away picks No. 24 (Jared Cunningham), No. 33 (Bernard James) and No. 34 (Jae Crowder).

For folks with long enough memories as well, they might also remember that Cleveland was on the winning side of a couple other coin-flip tiebreakers in the 2012 draft as well. “What’s not to like,” eh?

[Related: Fair or not, it was time for the Cavaliers to move on]

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  1. Here are the exact lottery odds for that slot: 15.6% of No. 1; 15.7% of No. 2; 15.6% of No. 3; 22.6% of No. 4; 26.5% of No. 5; 4.0% of No. 6. [back]

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WFNY Stats & Info: Mavericks closing in on Lakers in West

March 28, 2013 by 2 Comments

The NBA regular season concludes in just 20 days on Wednesday, April 17. Between now and then, boy, there’s going to be a whole lot of exciting back-and-forth action.

Most notably as it relates to the Cavs besides their own draft position, fans should be paying attention to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference playoff race. Back on March 8, I shared an update about how the Lakers were closing in on Utah. But now, there’s a new competitor: Dallas.

Fitted with some gnarly motivational playoff beards, the Mavericks are on a 10-4 tear in March while the rest of the hopeful playoff teams continue their relatively mediocre play.

After a busy Wednesday night in the Association, here’s the most recent look at how the bottom of the West playoff standings play out right now:

Rk Team W L Pct GB Left SRS JH Rt JH Rk JH Odds
6 GSW 41 32 0.562 +3.5 9 0.75 100.8 12 98.8%
7 HOU 39 32 0.549 +2.5 11 3.90 104.1 7 98.4%
8 LAL 37 35 0.514 – 10 1.14 100.8 13 54.5%
9 UTA 36 36 0.500 -1.0 10 -0.17 99.8 18 26.1%
10 DAL 35 36 0.493 -1.5 11 -0.09 100.5 15 19.2%
11 POR 33 38 0.465 -3.5 11 -1.36 100.1 16 3.0%

 

Now, with data through Tuesday’s games, here is a look at these teams’ remaining schedules:

Rk Team Left P/L H/R P: H/R L: H/R W Pct JH Avg SRS Avg
6 GSW 9 3/6 6/3 2/1 4/2 0.497 100.4 0.5
7 HOU 11 5/6 5/6 2/3 3/3 0.480 99.2 -0.8
8 LAL 10 6/4 6/4 4/2 2/2 0.539 101.4 1.3
9 UTA 10 5/5 6/4 3/2 3/2 0.527 101.4 1.1
10 DAL 11 6/5 6/5 4/2 2/3 0.506 100.2 0.2
11 POR 11 8/3 7/4 5/3 2/1 0.586 103.0 2.8

 

Key: JH stands for John Hollinger’s ratings, rankings and playoff odds at ESPN. SRS is a standardized ranking system built around an average of 0.0. P/L is playoffs and lottery teams, while H/R is home and road games.

Both Golden State and Houston appear to be playoff locks with only a few weeks left. Thus, after all the positioning thus far, it appears these next four teams are battling only for the No. 8 spot.

With Wednesday’s win, the Lakers actually jumped from about 42% playoff odds to over 54%. That’s also because every other team besides Utah (win) and Dallas (didn’t play) lost last night. But it shows how the Lakers’ progress had been stagnant over the last few weeks.

In terms of remaining schedules, Dallas and Utah are both at a slight advantage over the Lakers. The Jazz play the fewest remaining playoff teams (5), while the Mavericks have the easiest opponent winning percentage, Hollinger rating and SRS rating by a slight margin.

Portland’s blowout loss Wednesday against Brooklyn (they trailed 46-17 just 14 minutes into the game) probably ended its playoff hopes. The Trail Blazers also have a brutal schedule left — facing eight playoff teams in their 11 remaining games.

[Related: The Boots: NBA Draft Lottery, John Wall and winning streaks]

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The Boots: NBA Draft Lottery, John Wall and winning streaks

March 26, 2013 by 20 Comments

byron scott disappointmentIn my usual half-rapid fire, half-prose form, I’m here today with another edition of The Boots. Again, for those unfamiliar with this feature, I assign loosely defined “Boot Up” or “Boot Down” votes to trending topics in the sports world. I’m feeling some Tuesday basketball talk today.

Boot Up: #TankStrong — Stop me if you’ve heard this in the past few weeks: There’s an incredible logjam in the No. 3-11 spots in the NBA Draft Lottery positioning right now. With the abysmal Charlotte Bobcats and Orlando Magic clearly landing the No. 1 and No. 2 best odds, in some order, the bulk of the rest of the lottery is still very much up in the air with three weeks to go.

In an effort to break down the end-of-season standings that will determine the probabilistic odds related to the NBA Draft Lottery, here’s a quick-ish look at these intriguing nine teams: [Read more...]

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2013 NBA Draft: Second tier fits for the Cavaliers

March 2, 2013 by 53 Comments

victor oladipoThe Cavaliers have been a much improved team over the past two months. And while that’s fantastic news and great for the long-term development of this franchise, it presents an intriguing new scenario for 2013 NBA Draft analysis.

With the team’s current 15-16 run since Dec. 22, Cleveland now sits at No. 5 in the NBA Draft order (up from No. 7 on Wednesday night). That’s inching closer to what many fans expected in the offseason, but not necessarily what they thought just two months ago.

Last time I looked at the draft class on Jan. 6, I featured the top five guys contending for the top spot. There has been plenty of shake-ups since that point. But ultimately, with the Cavs trending toward the middle of the lottery, I thought it would be most helpful to now feature a group of “second tier” players. [Read more...]

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Silver lining on the Varejao injury, the rebuild moves forward

January 10, 2013 by 22 Comments

Anderson VarejaoIt’s hard not to feel some pain for Anderson Varejao after hearing the news that his knee contusion was in fact a torn muscle in his leg. Memories of Andy winning the game with a buzzer beating 3-pointer against Atlanta, and giving Ray Allen the business during a national televised game against the Celtics are two of my favorite moments I’ve enjoyed at the Q. I’ve really never enjoyed watching basketball more than watching Andy and LeBron fly around the court together.

That being said, Andy’s injury increases the Cavs’ chances of completing a successful rebuild.

The longer Andy is off the court, the worse this team is.

The worse this team is, the more ping pong balls they have in the lottery. 1

The more ping pong balls in the lottery, the better chance of landing a superstar.

[Read more...]

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  1. The lottery is won with a winning four ball combination. For simplicity’s sake let’s use ping pong balls as the example instead of how many four ball combinations a team has. [back]

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2013 NBA Draft: Five players emerging at the top

January 6, 2013 by 6 Comments

It’s become an annual tradition in Cleveland to begin talking quite early in all sports about the upcoming draft.

For the Browns in the NFL, I did my first 2013 NFL Draft outlook post back in mid-November, when the Browns were 2-7. They finished at 5-11 and will have the No. 6 pick in April’s draft.

For the Cavaliers in the NBA, who selected No. 1 and No. 4 in 2011, then No. 4 and No. 17 in 2012, they again should be in the top-end of the Lottery this coming June. After an offseason of hype and intrigue that many fans thought could lead to the team potentially competing for the final playoff spot, the Cavs got off to a very slow start.

After Saturday night’s loss to Houston, Cleveland has the second-worst record in the NBA at 8-27. That’s eerily similar to their 35-game starts in each of the past two seasons: 8-27 in 2010-11 and 13-22 in 2011-12. So even if the team finishes strong (as opposed to #tankstrong), it’s likely they’ll finish somewhere in the top 8. [Read more...]

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