Category: Fantasy Basketball (Page 27 of 274)

      Are the Nets better off without Carmelo?

      January 20, 2011 /

      If their first game after owner Mikhail Prokhorov announced the team was backing out of negotiations is any indication, the answer is a resounding yes. Devin Kharpertian of NetsAreScorching writes that last night’s Nets looked confident in an upset of the Utah Jazz.

      Now that the stink of the Melo saga has finally rolled off their shoulders, the Nets can focus on playing as a complete team instead of worrying about who might not be in practice the next day. It’s only one game, but the difference between the scurrying team on the floor during the previous 12 games and the confident one against Utah was staggering. Without Anthony, the Nets still have a young, solid core, which includes former All-Star point guard Devin Harris, cornerstone center Brook Lopez, 3-point machine Anthony Morrow and, of course, the prize of the no-deal, Derrick Favors.

      Kharpertian goes on to discuss Favors’ progress in his rookie season:

      Favors, the youngest player in the NBA, still has skyscraping upside and is playing surprisingly efficient basketball despite his inexperience and the swirling cloud of rumors. In just more than 18 minutes per game, he’s shooting 55.1 percent from the field while grabbing almost 16 percent of available rebounds. There has never been a teenage rookie in the history of the NBA who played up to that level. The closest? Some guy named Dwight Howard. Favors may never have the game-changing impact that Howard has, but that’s a pretty solid start to hang your hat on. I know the Nets are impressed.

      Favors is averaging 6.6 points and 5.0 rebounds in just 19.0 minutes of playing time, which results in a slightly-below-average PER of 13.99. Considering he’s just 19-years-old and has a very raw offensive game, there is a lot of upside here. Maybe the Nets are better off seeing how he develops alongside the more polished Brook Lopez. The two could make a formidable power forward/center core in a few years.

      This assumes, of course, that Carmelo was interested in joining the Nets in the first place. There have been mixed messages coming out of his camp and it sure seems like Anthony using the Nets offer as leverage to get the Knicks to make a move. If that’s the case, Prokhorov absolutely made the right move to pull out of the negotiations. He doesn’t want his team to be used that way.

      External Sports, Fantasy Basketball, NBA, News

      Nets pull out of Carmelo Anthony trade

      January 19, 2011 /

      Per ESPN…

      “I’m not happy with the way … this deal has gone until now,” [Mikhail] Prokhorov said. “It has taken too long. It has been played out in public and it certainly has taken a toll on the players and I believe that it has cost us several games. I think management did a great job, but there comes a time when the price is simply too expensive. I’m instructing our team to walk away from the deal.”

      It sounds like Prokhorov is frustrated with the pace of these negotiations and even went so far as to cancel a meeting with Anthony that was scheduled for Thursday.

      I doubt this is posturing, since a meeting was supposedly already on the books. I suspect if Carmelo and the Nuggets come back to the table quickly, the Nets would listen. Prokohorov clearly doesn’t want to be played the fool and probably believes (like the rest of us) that Anthony really wants to sign with the Knicks. I respect this move, though it is surprising that he’s canceling a scheduled meeting with Denver’s star.

      It will be interesting to see what kind of deal the Nuggets eventually get, and how it compares to the offer that the Nets just pulled from the table.

      External Sports, Fantasy Basketball, NBA, News, Rumors & Gossip

      One reason the Nuggets might be dragging their feet…

      January 18, 2011 /
      Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony warms up at the Pepsi Center in Denver on November 16, 2010. UPI/Gary C. Caskey

      I missed this tidbit from a TrueHoop post from about a week ago:

      The Nuggets have a great offer on the table now, but might see some merit in stalling, too. For one thing, it’s hard to see what could happen to make the Nets’ current offer disappear. Derrick Favors has spent much of the season playing behind Kris Humphries in New Jersey, and unlikely to increase his market value drastically. Then there’s some gamesmanship surrounding the Nets’ 2011 draft pick. Very high picks like that one, used skillfully, are nearly essential ingredients to winning titles, and they’re damned hard to find. As the Nuggets root for that pick to be as high as possible, they root, of course, for the Nets to lose. And every loss matters, as a heated battle is under way for the NBA’s worst record. The 10-27 Nets have the NBA’s fifth-worst record today, but they’re a mere two games out of the 8-29 Cavaliers’ first, or last — depending on your perspective — place. Of course, the Nuggets can’t do anything to make the Nets lose more … or can they? Giving them an All-Star like Anthony may well cause the Nets to rip off some wins. It sounds a little out there, but one thought is that the longer the Nuggets keep Anthony from the Nets, the better that Nets’ pick is likely to be.

      Gamesmanship, indeed.

      Let’s assume that on Jan. 7 the Nuggets decided that the offer of Derrick Favors, Devin Harris and a first round pick for Melo and bad contracts was an agreeable offer. The trade deadline isn’t until Feb. 24, so during that span, the Nets would play 20 games. If the Nuggets were to trade Carmelo on Jan. 7, it would almost certainly help New Jersey’s win/loss record during that span. The Nets are currently winning at a .244 clip. Let’s make another assumption: They start winning at a .500 rate once Carmelo is on board. So that means they would go 10-10 during the 1/7 to 2/24 span instead of 5-15.

      Those five wins could be very important come lottery time for the Nets’ 2011 first rounder that will no doubt be included in the Anthony trade. As an example, at the end of last season only four games separated the team with the third-worst record (Kings) from the team with the ninth-worst record (Knicks). As a result, the Kings had a 15.6% chance of landing the first overall pick while the Jazz (who had the Knicks’ pick) had just a 1.7% chance of winning the #1 pick.

      So assuming that the Nets aren’t going to pull the offer from the table (and that Carmelo is agreeable to signing an extension with the Nets), Denver stands to benefit by dragging its feet as long as possible.

      External Sports, Fantasy Basketball, NBA, News, Rumors & Gossip

      Why isn’t NBATV running Red Zone Channel-like coverage of the 13 MLK Day games?

      January 17, 2011 /

      Early last year, I wrote a post about how I’d fix the NBA. Looking at the slate of MLK Day games (13 in all), I assumed NBATV would be running buzzer to buzzer coverage, looking in on the competitive games and tight finishes. But right now they’re running a documentary about Dikembe Mutombo. Go figure. Anyway, here’s an excerpt of that post:

      The lottery idea was actually the way the NBA used to do things, and they should go back to it. Tanking at the end of the season is one of the biggest problems with today’s NBA.

      As for the length of the season, I wouldn’t stop at cutting just four games. I’d go with a 66-game season. Every team would play each of its division rivals four times (16 games) and all the other teams twice, once at home and once away (50 games). Cutting back on the regular season would make it matter again. Right now, it’s rare for a regular season game to hold much significance.

      Fewer games would also mean more schedule flexibility, so I’d set it up so that NBA teams would only play on certain days, say Tuesday (to avoid Mondays during football season), Friday and Saturday. That means there would be 15 games on each night, so NBATV could bounce around from game to game like the Red Zone Channel catching the best action and furious finishes. This would generate interest in the league and make fantasy basketball more appealing. Fantasy football is something that has really helped the NFL increase its popularity over the last decade.

      Lastly, I’d cut guaranteed contracts down to a max of four years to re-sign a team’s own players and three years for free agents. This would limit the impact of mistakes, and while I agree with Houston GM Daryl Morey that it’s not a system that favors the prepared, it would increase parity by allowing teams to recover from mistakes more quickly, which is another thing that makes the NFL so popular. (Mediocre teams would benefit from a lottery system that would give equal opportunity to win the #1 pick to all of the non-playoff teams, so you win some and you lose some.)

      Of course, this is all a pipe dream. David Stern exudes confidence and whenever someone asks him about something that’s wrong about the NBA, he spins it the other way. They aren’t going to cut the regular season back because it would mean less revenue at the box office for the owners. That means that my idea of “NBA Nights” will never happen, and that means that fantasy basketball will continue to flounder.

      The league is doing well enough that Stern and the owners will be reluctant to make any significant changes to the structure. The four-year max contract is a possibility, however, as the owners and players have to agree on a new CBA and shorter contracts are one of the things that the owners are pushing.

      External Sports, Fantasy Basketball, NBA

      Bill Simmons argues that Carmelo should join the Clippers

      January 13, 2011 /

      Keep in mind that Simmons, a Clippers season ticket holder, made a similar case last year that LeBron should come to L.A. and look how that turned out.

      Anyway, here’s his case:

      Griffin is the most meaningful in-the-air player since Shawn Kemp. Throw in his competitive streak and he did the impossible — he made Baron Davis care about basketball again. As my friend Tollin said last week, “It’s amazing; it’s like Baron has a purpose again.” He’s Blake’s dunk muse. Now the Clips have the foundation of something special: Griffin, Davis, Eric Gordon (a future All-Star) and enough left to make a legitimate offer for Denver: lottery pick Al-Farouq Aminu, Chris Kaman, expiring contracts and the rights to Minnesota’s unprotected 2012 pick (nearly as valuable a trade chip as Favors) for Carmelo and Al Harrington’s horrendous contract that’s the Carmelo Trade Tax. Mrs. Anthony could live in Hollywood and make her next unwatchable reality show. And her husband could play with Griffin, Gordon, Davis, Eric Bledsoe and DeAndre Jordan … a situation that’s between five and 20 times more appealing than New Jersey. Even when you include Donald Sterling.

      From a basketball/quality of living standpoint, you couldn’t do much better than the situation with the Clippers. Anthony-Griffin-Gordon would make an excellent trio to build around and I’ll agree that the building blocks the Clippers could offer (Aminu, Kaman and Minnesota’s unprotected 2012 pick) are almost as good as what the Nets can offer.

      But there’s one thing that stands in the way: Donald Sterling. The Nets’ owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, a.k.a. the Russian Mark Cuban, is infinitely more impressive and Simmons notes that LeBron thought that the Nets meeting was right up there with the Heat’s last summer.

      It will be nice for Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton land in New Jersey with Melo, but only for a year or two, as both players are past their respective primes. It’s really about Brook Lopez and Mikhail Prokhorov versus Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon and Donald Sterling.

      External Sports, Fantasy Basketball, NBA, Rumors & Gossip

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 The Scores Report – The National Sports Blog

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑