Amidst the Knicks’ playoff woes lies J.R. Smith’s terrible shooting percentage. Mike Woodson, the Knicks coach, remains stubborn in his efforts to start J.R. Smith and have him break his shooting slump. Woodson still gives J.R. Smith a majority of the minutes in spite of their 3-1 deficit in the series, and also in spite of sitting shooters with more reliable and consistent numbers like Novak being available.
The Knicks have very little chance of winning this series, but ideas like this are why they are absolutely doomed:
Magic… you a dummy.
The 76ers have hired this guy, Sam Hinkie, as the new President and General Manager of Sixers’ operations. Hinkie is a welcomed outsider that replaces Tony DiLeo for overseeing a majority of the decisions on behalf of the 76ers going forward. He has spent the last 6 years in the Houston Rockets organization, going from Vice President of Basketball Operations to Executive Vice President in 2010.
This is a great move for restoring some certainty in the Sixers future. Hinkie has been a well-sought after executive and is tagged as being one of the pioneers of “analytics” in basketball. This, is being compared to the movie ‘Moneyball’ for basketball, where cap-space and efficiency percentages are taken into consideration with much more regard than say, individual points-per-game.
An interesting example of that is this year’s 2012-13 Houston Rockets team, which intentionally stacked their roster to make 3-point attempts, so that even if only a 3rd of them were made, the opposing team would have to make at least 50% of their field goal attempts to break even. That was something Hinkie was responsible for engineering, and in the case of the Houston Rockets, it worked.
The point is, Hinkie is much better at restructuring a team from the inside-out. Someone of his notoriety allows for better coaching prospects, as well. The turn-around time for success under a system like that is much quicker and bodes well for cultivating draft picks and salary space.
With all the speculation about whom the 76ers will hire as head coach, they have not actively interviewed anyone yet. Tony DiLeo intends on resigning publicly this week, and I imagine the interview process will carry on from there.
It turns out that even when we don’t try to Jinx the Phillies, we end up Jinxing them. So….maybe we should just stop mentioning them and jinxes altogether?
I was glad to see that my Miami Heat prediction turned out to be correct, however, the free throws…not so much. Man, that was a beat down of the highest order.
Predictions for tonight? Gotta go with the Grizzlies and the Pacers. Both home. Both more complete teams.
Also, check out this tweet from MettaWorldPeace commenting on last night’s Warriors game: “I think Steve Curry is Top 10 in the NBA. If he works on his defense, he will be MVP next year.”
Gotta love the response from Steph (aka Steve) Curry’s response as well: “Back to Oakland. Ready to get back to work already. Steve Curry…out!”
Good stuff.
05/15/13 4:48 PM
05/9/13 10:58 AM