Instead of going in detail, let’s just turn it over

April 11, 2013 Leave a comment

There’s nothing advanced about the Mavs’ 2012-13 season. Really.

Instead of writing a complex think piece full of wonderful stats and very small numbers, I’ll just do what the Mavs did this year: talk about turnovers.

Dallas will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2001, and unless the Mavs can win two out of their last four games, which seems unlikely after their terrible performance last night against Phoenix, Dallas will lose more games this season than in any since 1997-98. Ouch.

It’s been a story of underwhelming performances, bad crunch-time play and bad attempts at playing defense. Fundamentally speaking, this year’s Dallas team was the worst I’ve seen since the pre-Dirk Mavs rolled out starting lineups featuring Robert Pack and Erick Strickland, when beating the Bulls in 1998 (coincidentally the last time Dallas lost this many games and also the team’s last season without Dirk) was considered the franchise’s greatest accomplishment in nearly a decade. I was at that game, and I remember Cedric Ceballos’ fadeaway miracle. I didn’t understand why everyone was so excited, but the Mavericks were that terrible. It was a milestone, for sure.

(Seriously, it was. They made a video about it. And when I was a kid, I watched this over and over again. That game really was my Super Bowl growing up. I also didn’t know the difference between the Super Bowl and the NBA Finals. I was seven.)


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Filed under Mavericks, Reactions

Carmelo’s recent run is un-sus-tain-able

April 9, 2013 Leave a comment


Energy continuously flows from being concentrated, to becoming dispersed, spread out, wasted and useless.
New energy cannot be created and high grade energy is being destroyed. An economy based on endless growth is…
Un-sus-tain-able!

Muse’s The 2nd Law is a politically charged album that has absolutely nothing to do with basketball or any other sport. But boy, does it apply to what’s going on right now in the NBA.

We are currently seeing the best of Carmelo Anthony. The Knicks forward has put together a recent run for the ages. LeBron’s rampage through the league was impressive. It still is. LeBron is the best player I’ve ever seen (and remembered) in my lifetime, and it’s not even close. Carmelo has terrorized just about everybody in his last four games, though, and he’s done something LeBron has never been able to do: He’s scoring at will from outside the paint.

But there’s a problem.
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Filed under History, What they're saying

Dirk is back, but he wasn’t gone for long

April 2, 2013 Leave a comment

Dirk is still the man.

Dirk is still the man.

The Mavs and Lakers play tonight in what’s basically a must-win for Dallas. The Mavs are two games behind the Jazz for the 8th seed in the West, and Utah has the tiebreaker (Dallas has two games in hand on Utah and one on L.A.). If Dallas loses tonight, its chances are grim.

If the Mavs lose any night, their chances are grim. But with Dirk, there’s always hope.
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Filed under Mavericks

Mike James is a really, really weird player

March 28, 2013 Leave a comment

The Mavericks are inexplicably 1.5 games out of the 8th and final playoff spot in the West with 11 games to go.

A healthy and effective Dirk is easily the biggest reason for the Mavs’ resurgence and 9-3 record during the past 12 games, but Mike James’ emergence as a reliable perimeter option has also played a huge role. James, who took over the starting job from Darren Collison 12 games ago (not a coincidence), hasn’t shot lights out this season or even specifically during this 12-game run, but he’s shooting very well from certain areas on the floor that align with where Dirk likes his shooters to go. Ironically, James’ most effective areas are as odd as the ones Dirk dominates. The two players who make up what’s probably the most unlikely tandem in the league have actually brought out the best in each other.

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Metta World Peace’s injury doesn’t bode well for Lakers

March 27, 2013 Leave a comment

Who would've guessed an injury to Metta World Peace could be the nail in the coffin for the Lakers' playoff hopes? Courtesy of bridgetds' Flickr.

Who would’ve guessed an injury to Metta World Peace could be the nail in the coffin for the Lakers’ playoff hopes? Courtesy of bridgetds’ Flickr.

Metta World Peace has torn his meniscus and will miss the rest of the season, according to several reports. The Lakers’ small forward has started 64 of the 70 games in which he’s played this season, and although Kobe is generally considered an elite defender, World Peace is the club’s primary perimeter stopper.

Without World Peace, the Lakers’ hopes look fairly grim. Even if L.A. can hold off the Mavericks and Jazz during the last 11 games of the season, it’s somewhere between challenging and impossible to envision Kobe, Jodie Meeks and Antawn Jamison defending Westbrook, Durant, Tony Parker or any other superior perimeter player once the playoffs come around. And that’s a big if.
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Filed under Reactions, What they're saying

Shawn Marion is back (and it’s about time)

March 22, 2013 Leave a comment

Shawn Marion will play tonight after missing eight games due to a calf injury, ESPN reports.

Marion’s return could not have come at a better time for the Mavericks. Although Dallas was 5-3 without him, the wins came against teams like Cleveland and Minnesota, while the Mavs suffered close defeats to San Antonio and Oklahoma City. Marion could have, and likely would have, made a huge difference in the games.

His temporary replacement in the starting lineup, Jae Crowder, hasn’t exactly made up for Marion’s production. The Mavs’ current starting lineup of Crowder, Mike James, OJ Mayo, Dirk and Chris Kaman has been outscored by more than 10 points per 100 possessions in the 73 minutes the unit has been used, and is being outrebounded by around 10 boards per 100 possessions in the same time frame. The problem is much more complex than simply substituting Marion in for Crowder (Dirk and Kaman, for example, do not have a positive plus/minus on average with any other combination of three players on the team), but the numbers indicate Marion is arguably Dallas’ most valuable player (something I’ve written about before), especially on the glass.
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Filed under Mavericks

SportVU and advanced analytics

March 20, 2013 Leave a comment

Grantland’s Zach Lowe wrote a piece yesterday in which he took a look at the way advances in analytic technology in the NBA are influencing how half the league’s teams are continuing to change the way they scout other teams and grade their own players’ performance level.

SportVU, a camera-tracking system that records and then digitizes on-court player movement, is used by 15 teams, including the Mavericks and Toronto Raptors, whose system Lowe primarily sourced. The program charts where each player is on the floor at every moment during each play, and in the video embedded below, “ghost” Raptors defenders are positioned where the coaching staff, team system, specific play and basketball strategy in general would demand. Check it out.


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Filed under What they're saying

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