Friday, January 22, 2016
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Brandon Ingram + Demetrius Jackson
At The Cauldron, my weekly draft breakdown looks at why Ingram has the chance to push Ben Simmons for that No. 1 spot.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Mavs vs. Wolves
1) The Chandler Parsons Take Over
This was his best game of the season, if not his entire time with the Mavs. He had 30 points, 8 rebounds and 2 assists and he was +13 in 46 minutes. Minutes played might have been the most impressive part of his performance - the Mavs could barely afford to take Parsons off the floor and they played him almost the entire 2nd half. He had to reach deep in the tank to pull this one off but I'm sure he doesn't mind after sitting so many 4Q's out over the last few months. This was an all Parsons all the time game and he finally looked like the player the Mavs gave a $15 million a year contract too.
Here's the underplayed storyline of this game - Parsons did most of his damage at the 4 position and that's really where he's at his best. The way the league is going, it's all about playing 4 wings at a time around one center and the PF position is rapidly going extinct. Even a stretch 4 doesn't add all that much when playing a 3 down a position opens up the floor, adds another ball-handler to the line-up and gives you an extra perimeter defender to switch the pick-and-roll. That goes double when the Mavs were going with the comedy duo of Charlie V and Dwight Powell at the position.
Here's the most telling set of stats of the night - Charlie V was -7 in in 27 minutes and Powell was -7 in 3 minutes and all of those minutes came when they were at the 4 position. What that means is that the Mavs were +26 when Parsons was at the 4 in this game and it didn't even matter whether he was playing with Zaza or McGee at the 5 position. Parsons at the 4 puts him in the best position to succeed and it completely threw off the Wolves rotations. They are a team that struggles to find minutes at the 4 and 5 positions and they were forced to go small with Tayshaun Prince at the 4 to close this one in order to match up with Parsons.
The unfortunate implication of all this is that there's no way to maximize Parsons game with Dirk out there. It's kind of the same dynamic as Love and LeBron in Cleveland - you have a 3 who can play well with a stretch 4 but who takes his game to the next level when he's playing as a small-ball 4 and the problem is the 4 can't really play at the 5. There's no easy answer to that problem but I'd play Parsons at the 4 as much as possible and I'd start staggering his minutes more, which would also have the added benefit of taking Charlie V and Dwight out of the rotation.
2) Karlito's Way
What you can even say about Karl Towns at this point? For as well as Parsons played tonight, the best player on the floor was the Wolves precocious rookie and it wasn't even close. The preposterous numbers - 27 points, 17 rebound, 3 assist and 6 blocks (!!) in 37 minutes - don't even do justice to how well he was playing. Towns dominated the game on both ends of the floor and he was doing whatever he wanted. It's absolutely insane how well-rounded his game is - he scored from the post, in the pick-and-roll and the pick-and-pop, he finished at the rim, he brought the ball up the floor and lead the break, he gobbled every available rebound, he distributed the ball from the high post and he stepped out and knocked down 3's. Forget Rookie of the Year. The question people should be asking themselves is where does Towns rank among the best big men in the game RIGHT NOW.
Maybe the most impressive part of watching him in person is just how easy he makes the game look. Because he can do everything so well, he has a counter for anything the other team tries to do against him. The basic rule of thumb when playing defense is that you can't take everything away from the other player - you always have to give him something. The thing with Towns is that it doesn't matter what the defense does because he can take whatever they give him. The only Mavs big man who even had a prayer of guarding him was JaVale McGee.
3) JaVale was doing JaVale things
You know people are hating on JaVale when no one Vine'd the ridiculous drop step dunk he threw down on Karl Towns on a move he started from the free throw line.
Yet let Andrew Wiggins throw one on JaVale and the whole word gets up and notices.
JaVale had 6 points, 8 rebound and 1 block in 16 minutes and he absolutely dominated Gorgui Dieng on both sides of the ball. He altered an untold number of shots and he really made his presence felt when he was out there. It would be nice if he could ever get in shape because the Mavs could really use him.
4) The Wolves lack of spacing killed them
This is the line-up the Wolves closed the game with - Rubio (who couldn't shoot to save his life tonight), Wiggins, Shabazz, Tayshaun (who scored 0 points in 29 minutes) and Towns. Towns is the best 3-point shooter in that group by a significant margin and he's playing by the rim. I can't even count the number of times that Wiggins drove the ball into the lane and the ball wound up going to a wide-open Shabazz on the 3-point line. He finished 2-7 from deep and that really isn't the best use of his skills or of the possessions the Wolves were using in crunch time. Minnesota went 5-23 from 3 tonight and that's the only reason this game was even close. They really need to find some 3-and-D players in order to maximize Wiggins, Towns and Rubio.
5) Sam Mitchell should think about staggering his line-ups more
One thing I've noticed with these 90's guards who became head coaches - Sam Mitchell, Mark Jackson - is they love running isolations and they love playing 5-man bench units. It was especially noticeable tonight in comparison with Rick Carlisle, who was shuffling through his entire rotation every 8-10 minutes. I'm really not sure why Mitchell would have both Rubio and Towns out of the game for a huge chunk of the first half and let the offense grind to a complete halt. I think I'd want one of those two out there at all times because they are the two of the only guys on that team who consistently move the ball. Let LaVine play off Rubio and/or Towns and don't force him to initiate the offense at.an.agonizingly.slow.pace.
6) Rick Carlisle played Charlie V and Dwight Powell together
The only thing worse than playing one turnover prone big man with limited defensive awareness who struggles to score is playing two of them at the same time. They played together for 3 minutes in the first half and the Mavs were -7. The Mavs have a net rating of -14.1 in the 114 minutes they played together this season. There's being a mad genius whose willing to try anything and there's throwing out line-ups that have no prayer of working and should never be spoken of again. NBA games are won or lost in 3 or 4 minute stretches when you have the wrong personnel on the floor and Rick almost cost the Mavs the game with that decision.
7) JJ Barea was the player impacted the most by Dirk's absence
There's a reason that Barea has played over 50% of his minutes with Dirk this season. He's a one trick pony and his trick is to run the pick-and-roll with the greatest shooting big man of all-time. When Dirk isn't on the floor, there's not much he can (or should) be doing out there. he had 0 points and 2 assists on 5 shots in 18 minutes and he wasn't bringing much (or really anything) to the table. If Dirk isn't playing, Barea might as well stay home and help him around the house. Run some errands for him. Take his dogs out for a walk. Let him stay off his feet as much as possible.
8) A way forward without Dirk
Even if Dirk is able to play on Friday, the reality is that the Mavs are going to run him into the ground if they play him every night during the midst of a grueling stretch like this. I can't even say I'm surprised that he went down with a knee injury after the way he looked the last few games at home. He was really dragging out there and looking pretty hazard at times during the Celtics game.
When Dirk isn't playing, I'd have Parsons at the 4 and I'd give the minutes that would have gone to Charlie V and Dwight Powell to Justin Anderson, who played tonight and whom I can confirm is actually alive and capable of running up and down the floor and looking like a professional basketball player. McGee - Parsons - Anderson is an interesting line-up and it gives Anderson the benefit of having a 4 guard him instead of a 3 - he was able to go up against Nemanja Bjelica and that's the best way to get some value out of him. For the minutes behind Parsons at the 4, I'd want to try Jeremy Evans, whom I can't confirm is alive at the moment.
This was his best game of the season, if not his entire time with the Mavs. He had 30 points, 8 rebounds and 2 assists and he was +13 in 46 minutes. Minutes played might have been the most impressive part of his performance - the Mavs could barely afford to take Parsons off the floor and they played him almost the entire 2nd half. He had to reach deep in the tank to pull this one off but I'm sure he doesn't mind after sitting so many 4Q's out over the last few months. This was an all Parsons all the time game and he finally looked like the player the Mavs gave a $15 million a year contract too.
Here's the underplayed storyline of this game - Parsons did most of his damage at the 4 position and that's really where he's at his best. The way the league is going, it's all about playing 4 wings at a time around one center and the PF position is rapidly going extinct. Even a stretch 4 doesn't add all that much when playing a 3 down a position opens up the floor, adds another ball-handler to the line-up and gives you an extra perimeter defender to switch the pick-and-roll. That goes double when the Mavs were going with the comedy duo of Charlie V and Dwight Powell at the position.
Here's the most telling set of stats of the night - Charlie V was -7 in in 27 minutes and Powell was -7 in 3 minutes and all of those minutes came when they were at the 4 position. What that means is that the Mavs were +26 when Parsons was at the 4 in this game and it didn't even matter whether he was playing with Zaza or McGee at the 5 position. Parsons at the 4 puts him in the best position to succeed and it completely threw off the Wolves rotations. They are a team that struggles to find minutes at the 4 and 5 positions and they were forced to go small with Tayshaun Prince at the 4 to close this one in order to match up with Parsons.
The unfortunate implication of all this is that there's no way to maximize Parsons game with Dirk out there. It's kind of the same dynamic as Love and LeBron in Cleveland - you have a 3 who can play well with a stretch 4 but who takes his game to the next level when he's playing as a small-ball 4 and the problem is the 4 can't really play at the 5. There's no easy answer to that problem but I'd play Parsons at the 4 as much as possible and I'd start staggering his minutes more, which would also have the added benefit of taking Charlie V and Dwight out of the rotation.
2) Karlito's Way
What you can even say about Karl Towns at this point? For as well as Parsons played tonight, the best player on the floor was the Wolves precocious rookie and it wasn't even close. The preposterous numbers - 27 points, 17 rebound, 3 assist and 6 blocks (!!) in 37 minutes - don't even do justice to how well he was playing. Towns dominated the game on both ends of the floor and he was doing whatever he wanted. It's absolutely insane how well-rounded his game is - he scored from the post, in the pick-and-roll and the pick-and-pop, he finished at the rim, he brought the ball up the floor and lead the break, he gobbled every available rebound, he distributed the ball from the high post and he stepped out and knocked down 3's. Forget Rookie of the Year. The question people should be asking themselves is where does Towns rank among the best big men in the game RIGHT NOW.
Maybe the most impressive part of watching him in person is just how easy he makes the game look. Because he can do everything so well, he has a counter for anything the other team tries to do against him. The basic rule of thumb when playing defense is that you can't take everything away from the other player - you always have to give him something. The thing with Towns is that it doesn't matter what the defense does because he can take whatever they give him. The only Mavs big man who even had a prayer of guarding him was JaVale McGee.
3) JaVale was doing JaVale things
You know people are hating on JaVale when no one Vine'd the ridiculous drop step dunk he threw down on Karl Towns on a move he started from the free throw line.
Yet let Andrew Wiggins throw one on JaVale and the whole word gets up and notices.
Andrew Wiggins slams on JaVale McGee pic.twitter.com/J8ntFOmD2O
— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) January 21, 2016
Yea that was nice but check out the video of what JaVale did. And he did it on a much better defender!
JaVale had 6 points, 8 rebound and 1 block in 16 minutes and he absolutely dominated Gorgui Dieng on both sides of the ball. He altered an untold number of shots and he really made his presence felt when he was out there. It would be nice if he could ever get in shape because the Mavs could really use him.
4) The Wolves lack of spacing killed them
This is the line-up the Wolves closed the game with - Rubio (who couldn't shoot to save his life tonight), Wiggins, Shabazz, Tayshaun (who scored 0 points in 29 minutes) and Towns. Towns is the best 3-point shooter in that group by a significant margin and he's playing by the rim. I can't even count the number of times that Wiggins drove the ball into the lane and the ball wound up going to a wide-open Shabazz on the 3-point line. He finished 2-7 from deep and that really isn't the best use of his skills or of the possessions the Wolves were using in crunch time. Minnesota went 5-23 from 3 tonight and that's the only reason this game was even close. They really need to find some 3-and-D players in order to maximize Wiggins, Towns and Rubio.
5) Sam Mitchell should think about staggering his line-ups more
One thing I've noticed with these 90's guards who became head coaches - Sam Mitchell, Mark Jackson - is they love running isolations and they love playing 5-man bench units. It was especially noticeable tonight in comparison with Rick Carlisle, who was shuffling through his entire rotation every 8-10 minutes. I'm really not sure why Mitchell would have both Rubio and Towns out of the game for a huge chunk of the first half and let the offense grind to a complete halt. I think I'd want one of those two out there at all times because they are the two of the only guys on that team who consistently move the ball. Let LaVine play off Rubio and/or Towns and don't force him to initiate the offense at.an.agonizingly.slow.pace.
6) Rick Carlisle played Charlie V and Dwight Powell together
The only thing worse than playing one turnover prone big man with limited defensive awareness who struggles to score is playing two of them at the same time. They played together for 3 minutes in the first half and the Mavs were -7. The Mavs have a net rating of -14.1 in the 114 minutes they played together this season. There's being a mad genius whose willing to try anything and there's throwing out line-ups that have no prayer of working and should never be spoken of again. NBA games are won or lost in 3 or 4 minute stretches when you have the wrong personnel on the floor and Rick almost cost the Mavs the game with that decision.
7) JJ Barea was the player impacted the most by Dirk's absence
There's a reason that Barea has played over 50% of his minutes with Dirk this season. He's a one trick pony and his trick is to run the pick-and-roll with the greatest shooting big man of all-time. When Dirk isn't on the floor, there's not much he can (or should) be doing out there. he had 0 points and 2 assists on 5 shots in 18 minutes and he wasn't bringing much (or really anything) to the table. If Dirk isn't playing, Barea might as well stay home and help him around the house. Run some errands for him. Take his dogs out for a walk. Let him stay off his feet as much as possible.
Even if Dirk is able to play on Friday, the reality is that the Mavs are going to run him into the ground if they play him every night during the midst of a grueling stretch like this. I can't even say I'm surprised that he went down with a knee injury after the way he looked the last few games at home. He was really dragging out there and looking pretty hazard at times during the Celtics game.
When Dirk isn't playing, I'd have Parsons at the 4 and I'd give the minutes that would have gone to Charlie V and Dwight Powell to Justin Anderson, who played tonight and whom I can confirm is actually alive and capable of running up and down the floor and looking like a professional basketball player. McGee - Parsons - Anderson is an interesting line-up and it gives Anderson the benefit of having a 4 guard him instead of a 3 - he was able to go up against Nemanja Bjelica and that's the best way to get some value out of him. For the minutes behind Parsons at the 4, I'd want to try Jeremy Evans, whom I can't confirm is alive at the moment.
Damyean Dotson
Damyean Dotson put himself on the map in two seasons at Oregon, where he was an up-and-coming young starter on a Sweet 16 team. Then he got himself kicked out of school because he was one of three players accused of sexually assaulting a woman. No charges ever came of it but he wound up missing basketball for a year and taking classes at a community college in his hometown of Houston. He wound up getting a second chance playing for Kelvin Sampson at UH, where he is one of a number of retreads that Sampson has turned too to get his program up and running.
Dotson knows how to get buckets
Dotson is now a junior who will turn 22 in March and he definitely looks the part of an NBA player. At 6'5 210 with a 6'8 wingspan, he has prototypical size and speed for an NBA SG. It's very easy for him to create shots off the dribble, even against NBA-caliber defenders like Shake Milton and Sterling Brown of SMU:
There's no way to guard an athletic 6'5 guard who can knock down step-back jumpers off the dribble. Dotson makes tough shots look easy and he has the shooting percentages - 45.9% from the field, 62.8% from 2 - to where you can live with him taking these types of shots.
When SMU ran him off the line, he busted out a beautiful floater:
He also knows how to use his size to put smaller defenders on his back and create contact and he has the strength to finish through it:
Just from an eye-test perspective, he moves like an NBA player. He's very smooth.
Dotson's decision-making needs to improve
He's never going to be a PG but an NBA team still needs to trust him to make the right play when he's driving the ball. The good news is that his assist-to-turnover ratio is in the positive for the first time in his career:
He's a scorer and a shooter but it's still important that he makes plays like this:
The problem is they still came with too many bad plays - he had 3 assists on 5 turnovers against SMU. If UH is going to take the next step, they need to be able to run offense through their best player and wind up with open shots and not this:
3P% is going to make or break Dotson at the next level
He's only shooting 31.9% from 3 and that's just not good enough for a guy whose going to have to be a 3-and-D player at the next level. The good news is that he's a career 80% free-throw shooter at the NCAA level and he clearly has a good-looking stroke. It's nice that he can make step-back 3's off the dribble but he's probably better off shelving that shot in order to boost his percentages.
The problem is that he's not playing with another big-time player at UH who can set him up for a lot of easy shots. Whatever he did at Oregon might end up costing him his chance at an NBA career. He's the 70th ranked junior at DraftExpress at the moment and he's a long way from making anyone's mock draft. He might come back and have a big senior year but he will be 23 years old and it will have to be a big year to get much notice in the American Athletic Conference.
The NBA needs to do a better job of developing guys like Dotson
The weird thing about the way the player market is set up at the moment is there's no shortage of potential 3-and-D guys coming out of college at the age of 22 and there's a glaring need for NBA-caliber starters on the wing at the age of 27. That's why a guy like Wesley Matthews went undrafted because there's a lot of athletic 6'5+ shooters floating around the college game who need to be molded into potential NBA players.
Jonathon Simmons, another UH product, is a good example of how the process should work. After bouncing around the junior college ranks, he had a good but not great season on a bad UH team as a senior - 14.7 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.0 assists on 51.2% shooting and 38.6% from 3 - and then went undrafted. That would normally be the end of his story but the Spurs ended up picking him and stashing him in the D-League for 2 seasons and now it looks like they have turned him into a productive NBA contributor at the age of 26.
The thing about it is that playing good perimeter defense at the NBA level is as much mental as physical. Very few young players are capable of earning playing time early in their career on the defensive side of the ball - they have to know the scouting report, they have to be locked in mentally all game long and they have to be able to read and anticipate what guys are going to do before they even do it. It's a hard transition for a scorer like Dotson to make whose spent his entire career playing with the ball in his hands and looking to get buckets. It's not easy to go from an NCAA star to an NBA role player and to learn how to be productive when you hardly ever get to touch the ball.
Most good defensive stoppers are going to be in their mid to late 20's but there's no room for guys like that on an NBA roster when they are in their early 20's. That's one reason the Spurs are the Spurs - they turned Danny Green from cast-off to high-level starter and who knows what they will be able to turn Jonathan Simmons into eventually. The point is that there's a lot of guys like Green and Simmons out there who need to be developed. Damyean Doston is one of them. If I had the time, I could probably find a half-dozen more guys like this around the country playing on teams going nowhere that aren't getting any draft publicity.
That's what makes things like the New Orleans Pelicans giving minutes to Toney Douglas so upsetting. There's just no reason for it - there's too much talent out there for NBA teams who are trying to be competitive to throw away minutes on guys who can't play. Every team in the league should have multiple 3-and-D wings in the pipeline because there's more than enough of them to go around coming out of the NCAA every season. Most of them just wind up slipping through the cracks. If you're paying $15 million a year for these guys when they are in their prime, you might want to think about forking over $50,000 to work with them in the D-League.
Dotson knows how to get buckets
Dotson is now a junior who will turn 22 in March and he definitely looks the part of an NBA player. At 6'5 210 with a 6'8 wingspan, he has prototypical size and speed for an NBA SG. It's very easy for him to create shots off the dribble, even against NBA-caliber defenders like Shake Milton and Sterling Brown of SMU:
There's no way to guard an athletic 6'5 guard who can knock down step-back jumpers off the dribble. Dotson makes tough shots look easy and he has the shooting percentages - 45.9% from the field, 62.8% from 2 - to where you can live with him taking these types of shots.
When SMU ran him off the line, he busted out a beautiful floater:
He also knows how to use his size to put smaller defenders on his back and create contact and he has the strength to finish through it:
Just from an eye-test perspective, he moves like an NBA player. He's very smooth.
Dotson's decision-making needs to improve
He's never going to be a PG but an NBA team still needs to trust him to make the right play when he's driving the ball. The good news is that his assist-to-turnover ratio is in the positive for the first time in his career:
Assists
|
Turnovers
|
Ratio
| |
Freshman
|
0.9
|
1.4
|
0.64
|
Sophomore
|
1.2
|
1.2
|
1
|
Junior
|
1.4
|
1.0
|
1.4
|
He's a scorer and a shooter but it's still important that he makes plays like this:
The problem is they still came with too many bad plays - he had 3 assists on 5 turnovers against SMU. If UH is going to take the next step, they need to be able to run offense through their best player and wind up with open shots and not this:
3P% is going to make or break Dotson at the next level
He's only shooting 31.9% from 3 and that's just not good enough for a guy whose going to have to be a 3-and-D player at the next level. The good news is that he's a career 80% free-throw shooter at the NCAA level and he clearly has a good-looking stroke. It's nice that he can make step-back 3's off the dribble but he's probably better off shelving that shot in order to boost his percentages.
The problem is that he's not playing with another big-time player at UH who can set him up for a lot of easy shots. Whatever he did at Oregon might end up costing him his chance at an NBA career. He's the 70th ranked junior at DraftExpress at the moment and he's a long way from making anyone's mock draft. He might come back and have a big senior year but he will be 23 years old and it will have to be a big year to get much notice in the American Athletic Conference.
The NBA needs to do a better job of developing guys like Dotson
The weird thing about the way the player market is set up at the moment is there's no shortage of potential 3-and-D guys coming out of college at the age of 22 and there's a glaring need for NBA-caliber starters on the wing at the age of 27. That's why a guy like Wesley Matthews went undrafted because there's a lot of athletic 6'5+ shooters floating around the college game who need to be molded into potential NBA players.
Jonathon Simmons, another UH product, is a good example of how the process should work. After bouncing around the junior college ranks, he had a good but not great season on a bad UH team as a senior - 14.7 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.0 assists on 51.2% shooting and 38.6% from 3 - and then went undrafted. That would normally be the end of his story but the Spurs ended up picking him and stashing him in the D-League for 2 seasons and now it looks like they have turned him into a productive NBA contributor at the age of 26.
The thing about it is that playing good perimeter defense at the NBA level is as much mental as physical. Very few young players are capable of earning playing time early in their career on the defensive side of the ball - they have to know the scouting report, they have to be locked in mentally all game long and they have to be able to read and anticipate what guys are going to do before they even do it. It's a hard transition for a scorer like Dotson to make whose spent his entire career playing with the ball in his hands and looking to get buckets. It's not easy to go from an NCAA star to an NBA role player and to learn how to be productive when you hardly ever get to touch the ball.
Most good defensive stoppers are going to be in their mid to late 20's but there's no room for guys like that on an NBA roster when they are in their early 20's. That's one reason the Spurs are the Spurs - they turned Danny Green from cast-off to high-level starter and who knows what they will be able to turn Jonathan Simmons into eventually. The point is that there's a lot of guys like Green and Simmons out there who need to be developed. Damyean Doston is one of them. If I had the time, I could probably find a half-dozen more guys like this around the country playing on teams going nowhere that aren't getting any draft publicity.
That's what makes things like the New Orleans Pelicans giving minutes to Toney Douglas so upsetting. There's just no reason for it - there's too much talent out there for NBA teams who are trying to be competitive to throw away minutes on guys who can't play. Every team in the league should have multiple 3-and-D wings in the pipeline because there's more than enough of them to go around coming out of the NCAA every season. Most of them just wind up slipping through the cracks. If you're paying $15 million a year for these guys when they are in their prime, you might want to think about forking over $50,000 to work with them in the D-League.
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
SMU vs. UH
1) This game was an advertisement for college basketball
The obvious question when watching him dominate at the NCAA level is whether he could translate it to the NBA. Moore has definitely maxed out his physical abilities but I'm not quite sure he's as fast as JJ Barea and Isaiah Thomas. He had a lot of trouble with Bryce Alford in their loss to UCLA in last year's Tourney and I'd want to see him matched up 1-on-1 with an elite PG this season to have a better idea. Unfortunately, there really aren't any other NBA prospects at the position in the AAC this season. The closest is probably Sterling Gibbs at UConn and Troy Caupain at Cincy. Moore's probably going to have to play his way onto a roster at summer league and that will be a fun storyline to track in Vegas.
4) Damyean Dotson looks like an NBA player
Dotson, who spent his first two seasons at Oregon, was the best player on the floor for UH and he definitely looked the part of an NBA player. He had 16 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists on 12 shots and he bailed out the UH offense a lot by generating shots off the dribble at the end of the clock. At 6'5 210 with a 6'8 wingspan, he has prototype size for a SG, he's lightning quick and he can shoot off the dribble. I'll have much more on him in a film breakdown later in the week.
5) UH is becoming Transfer U under Kelvin Sampson
Sampson has made the program respectable by taking chances on guys like Dotson (who was dismissed from Oregon as part of a sexual assault investigation) and Devonta Pollard (a McDonald's All-American who left Mississippi State after being involved in a federal crime that defies description - Google it because I can't do justice to it). There's also LJ Rose, a big-time recruit who washed out at Baylor and is out for the season with an injured foot. The result is they have the athleticism and talent of a high-major program and they should be able to compete with most teams on the country on a given night. They beat LSU at home and they pushed SMU to the limit at Moody. They get SMU at home on Feb. 1 and they will have a chance to end SMU's unbeaten season.
6) UH has the talent to be an NCAA Tournament team
They have a lot of length and athleticism upfront with Danrad "Chicken" Knowles (6'10 200) and Bertrand Nkali (6'8 240), they have four guys who can shoot 3's at 34% or higher, including two who are above 40%, and they have a great 1-on-1 scorer in Dotson. Kelvin Sampson has the program going in the right direction - he was 13-19 in Year 1 and they are 13-5 in Year 2 - and he has everyone coming back next season except Pollard. UH should have a real chance at making the Tourney next season.
They have the chops to make it this year but Sampson didn't really schedule that well in non-conference, which is a must when you are playing in a conference like the AAC. They have wins over LSU and Wyoming and losses to Rhode Island and Grand Canyon and none of the other teams they played in November and December are notable at all. They are likely an NIT team this season and they should be able to build momentum for next season with a post-season run. They remind me a bit of where SMU was in Year 2 under Larry Brown, when a weak non-conference schedule kept them out of the Tourney and they wound up making it all the way to the NIT championship game.
7) The Moment
This is a subjective thing but it was pretty obvious that the pressure of the undefeated season is starting to get to some of the SMU players. Some guys thrive in the moment and some guys shrink a bit and it has been fascinating to watch as the moment starts to get bigger and bigger for them as the year goes on. The two guys who play bigger when the spotlight is on them are Nic Moore and Sterling Brown and they kind of took over the game in the last few minutes. I'm not trying to call these other guys out but Markus Kennedy looked a bit overwhelmed tonight while this is the first time all season that Shake Milton looked like a freshman. Nevertheless, the two did combine for the game-clinching assist in the final minute and it was the kind of play where you could see a freshman like Milton growing up in front of your eyes. That's one of the cool things about watching college basketball.
As Larry Brown said in the post-game press conference, if you ask most players what the most fun they ever had was playing basketball they will say high school or college. He said that before the game Dean Smith would always write on the chalkboard something along the lines of "Play Smart. Play Together. Have Fun" (Though Brown said he would ask Smith to add Play Defense and Rebound as well). These guys are really having fun out there and it is really fun to watch. The older I get and the more responsibilities start to pile on my life, the more I appreciate that type of thing.
I go to most of the Mavs games at the AAC and you can't even compare the atmosphere for your average regular season game in the NBA and what was happening at Moody Coliseum on Tuesday. The gym was jam-packed, the fans were right on the court and you could feel the electricity in the air from the jump. Grown men were dog-cussing the referees right to their face - it was pretty nuts. I'm not sure SMU wins that game without the energy their home crowd gave them because that place was rocking tonight and it really lifted a team that came out a little flat and didn't match UH's energy early.
To be sure, there are some fairly unique circumstances to what's going on at SMU but it's a real treat to watch games that "really" matter where the teams are desperate to win. That's what people mean when they say college kids "want it more" - SMU is playing for history while UH knew that a win at SMU would go a long way towards getting them into the NCAA Tournament and possibly validating their entire careers and making these guys a lot of money when it comes to their pro future. These individual regular season games just mean a lot more at the NCAA level and when you have teams that can actually play (which doesn't always happen obviously) the end result is a magnificent product. If you are a basketball in the Metroplex, you owe it to yourself to catch a game at Moody. If you are a college basketball fan at all, I'd recommend tuning in to these games. It has been a hell of a ride already.
2) UH was the aggressor for most of the night
UH is a big and physical team with high-level athletes at almost every position and they made the most out of their athletic advantage on Tuesday. They came into the game looking to be physical with SMU and it was almost enough to pull off the upset - they were up for most of the night and they controlled the tempo of the game for most of it. You can just tell how they were playing from these two numbers - 23 offensive rebounds and 21 personal fouls. With SMU down to 7 scholarship players and no one on their front-line above 6'9, that's definitely the formula for attacking them going forward. Not only can they be pounded on the offensive glass but doing that also keeps them out of transition, where they are absolutely deadly.
3) Nic Moore was the difference
"I love the Moore kid. He's a guy who really should be appreciated. He really knows how to play the game." - Kelvin Sampson
Games like this are where you really see the value of having a senior PG. Moore kept SMU within striking distance all night and he took over the game in the final minutes. He's a great shooter, a great ball-handler and a great passer and he can score from anywhere on the floor at any time in the clock. He puts pressure on the opposing defense constantly and he's about as good a player as anyone whose 5'9 175 can possibly be. He's already won the American Conference Player of the Year Award once and he looks almost certain to repeat. He's one of the great NCAA PG's in the country and it's a real shame that he won't get a chance to show what he can do in the NCAA Tourney because he's the type of player who could easily get on a roll in March and become a national star.
Games like this are where you really see the value of having a senior PG. Moore kept SMU within striking distance all night and he took over the game in the final minutes. He's a great shooter, a great ball-handler and a great passer and he can score from anywhere on the floor at any time in the clock. He puts pressure on the opposing defense constantly and he's about as good a player as anyone whose 5'9 175 can possibly be. He's already won the American Conference Player of the Year Award once and he looks almost certain to repeat. He's one of the great NCAA PG's in the country and it's a real shame that he won't get a chance to show what he can do in the NCAA Tourney because he's the type of player who could easily get on a roll in March and become a national star.
Just watch how smooth and easy he makes the game look. It's a highlight tape but it's not at all deceptive. He always looks like this:
The obvious question when watching him dominate at the NCAA level is whether he could translate it to the NBA. Moore has definitely maxed out his physical abilities but I'm not quite sure he's as fast as JJ Barea and Isaiah Thomas. He had a lot of trouble with Bryce Alford in their loss to UCLA in last year's Tourney and I'd want to see him matched up 1-on-1 with an elite PG this season to have a better idea. Unfortunately, there really aren't any other NBA prospects at the position in the AAC this season. The closest is probably Sterling Gibbs at UConn and Troy Caupain at Cincy. Moore's probably going to have to play his way onto a roster at summer league and that will be a fun storyline to track in Vegas.
4) Damyean Dotson looks like an NBA player
Dotson, who spent his first two seasons at Oregon, was the best player on the floor for UH and he definitely looked the part of an NBA player. He had 16 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists on 12 shots and he bailed out the UH offense a lot by generating shots off the dribble at the end of the clock. At 6'5 210 with a 6'8 wingspan, he has prototype size for a SG, he's lightning quick and he can shoot off the dribble. I'll have much more on him in a film breakdown later in the week.
5) UH is becoming Transfer U under Kelvin Sampson
Sampson has made the program respectable by taking chances on guys like Dotson (who was dismissed from Oregon as part of a sexual assault investigation) and Devonta Pollard (a McDonald's All-American who left Mississippi State after being involved in a federal crime that defies description - Google it because I can't do justice to it). There's also LJ Rose, a big-time recruit who washed out at Baylor and is out for the season with an injured foot. The result is they have the athleticism and talent of a high-major program and they should be able to compete with most teams on the country on a given night. They beat LSU at home and they pushed SMU to the limit at Moody. They get SMU at home on Feb. 1 and they will have a chance to end SMU's unbeaten season.
6) UH has the talent to be an NCAA Tournament team
They have a lot of length and athleticism upfront with Danrad "Chicken" Knowles (6'10 200) and Bertrand Nkali (6'8 240), they have four guys who can shoot 3's at 34% or higher, including two who are above 40%, and they have a great 1-on-1 scorer in Dotson. Kelvin Sampson has the program going in the right direction - he was 13-19 in Year 1 and they are 13-5 in Year 2 - and he has everyone coming back next season except Pollard. UH should have a real chance at making the Tourney next season.
They have the chops to make it this year but Sampson didn't really schedule that well in non-conference, which is a must when you are playing in a conference like the AAC. They have wins over LSU and Wyoming and losses to Rhode Island and Grand Canyon and none of the other teams they played in November and December are notable at all. They are likely an NIT team this season and they should be able to build momentum for next season with a post-season run. They remind me a bit of where SMU was in Year 2 under Larry Brown, when a weak non-conference schedule kept them out of the Tourney and they wound up making it all the way to the NIT championship game.
7) The Moment
This is a subjective thing but it was pretty obvious that the pressure of the undefeated season is starting to get to some of the SMU players. Some guys thrive in the moment and some guys shrink a bit and it has been fascinating to watch as the moment starts to get bigger and bigger for them as the year goes on. The two guys who play bigger when the spotlight is on them are Nic Moore and Sterling Brown and they kind of took over the game in the last few minutes. I'm not trying to call these other guys out but Markus Kennedy looked a bit overwhelmed tonight while this is the first time all season that Shake Milton looked like a freshman. Nevertheless, the two did combine for the game-clinching assist in the final minute and it was the kind of play where you could see a freshman like Milton growing up in front of your eyes. That's one of the cool things about watching college basketball.
As Larry Brown said in the post-game press conference, if you ask most players what the most fun they ever had was playing basketball they will say high school or college. He said that before the game Dean Smith would always write on the chalkboard something along the lines of "Play Smart. Play Together. Have Fun" (Though Brown said he would ask Smith to add Play Defense and Rebound as well). These guys are really having fun out there and it is really fun to watch. The older I get and the more responsibilities start to pile on my life, the more I appreciate that type of thing.
Kevin Love Trades
I was going to write about the Cavs vs. Warriors game last night, but in the words of Dave Chappelle, what can be said about that game that hasn't already been said about Afghanistan? There's only so much you can take away from any one regular season game but the way the Cavs lost that game (and the way they lost to the Spurs) reveals a few basic problems with the way the team has been constructed. Let's follow the logic:
1) LeBron James and Kyrie Irving are going to dominate the ball on any team they are on. LeBron's career usage rating is 32.1 and it has been below 29 once (his first season in Miami) while Kyrie's career usage rating is 28.2 and it has been below 28 once (last season). They bring the ball up the floor and they like to play with the ball in their hands so that's never going to change.
2) Kevin Love is bad on defense. He doesn't have quick feet and he doesn't have long arms so the only way to maximize his game is to feature him on offense.
3) There's no way to feature Love when he's playing with Kyrie and LeBron. There just aren't enough basketballs to go around.
4) Love has to be on a team that features him on offense and protects him on defense but the Cavs need the third member of their Big Three to be someone who can be minimized on offense and featured on defense.
5) The role that Love has on this team - three-point shooting, rebounding and post defense - doesn't require a max contract. The Cavs are paying him to do things they don't need him to do.
The obvious conclusion is that Cleveland needs to redistribute Love's salary to guys who fit better around their best two players. To redistribute salaries and roles in a way that makes more sense, you'd want to turn Love into a stretch 4 who doesn't have as much shot-creating ability and another 6'7+ wing defender who could slide LeBron down to the PF position.
It's hard to find trades that would make sense for Kevin Love given that he's not being allowed to fully showcase his game in Cleveland even though he's still being paid like he's a first option. No matter how you slice it, the Cavs would not be getting 100 cents on the dollar but team in their position rarely do. It's all about putting a team together that is better than the sum of their parts and the way they are using Love means they will always be less than theirs.
1) Love to Portland for Al-Farouq Aminu, Meyers Leonard and Allen Crabbe
2) Love to Boston for Jae Crowder, Kelly Olynyk and Avery Bradley
3) Love to Houston for Trevor Ariza, Donatas Motiejunas and Corey Brewer
4) Love to Orlando for Aaron Gordon, Channing Frye and Jason Smith
All four of those trades would give Cleveland a stretch 4 that would allow them to save some wear and tear on LeBron's body in the regular season and a versatile defender at the 3/4 positions that would allow them to play smaller and faster in the playoffs. Leonard, Motiejunas and Frye are also more capable of sliding down to the 5 position and providing more of a defensive presence when LeBron is at the 4. It's not to say that any of them are as good at Kevin Love but they can all stand behind a big man in the post and stretch out the defense on the other end of the floor - which is all that Love does for Cleveland anyway! - while making less money which allows Cleveland to have another big 3-and-D player on the perimeter.
LeBron is best at the 4 at this point in his career so the skill-sets that make the most sense next to him are a rim-protecting 5 who can stretch the floor and a three-point shooting wing who can slide between the 3 and the 4 positions. The Cavs don't have either one of those players at the moment so they might as well turn their primary option at the 4 position who doesn't play any defense into them. They'll run out the string in this year's playoffs and hope the Royal Rumble out West wears out their competition and maybe gives them some injury luck in the Finals. If that doesn't work, though, and they have to play Love 15-20 minutes a game when the season is on the line, they might as well go to Plan B.
1) LeBron James and Kyrie Irving are going to dominate the ball on any team they are on. LeBron's career usage rating is 32.1 and it has been below 29 once (his first season in Miami) while Kyrie's career usage rating is 28.2 and it has been below 28 once (last season). They bring the ball up the floor and they like to play with the ball in their hands so that's never going to change.
2) Kevin Love is bad on defense. He doesn't have quick feet and he doesn't have long arms so the only way to maximize his game is to feature him on offense.
3) There's no way to feature Love when he's playing with Kyrie and LeBron. There just aren't enough basketballs to go around.
4) Love has to be on a team that features him on offense and protects him on defense but the Cavs need the third member of their Big Three to be someone who can be minimized on offense and featured on defense.
5) The role that Love has on this team - three-point shooting, rebounding and post defense - doesn't require a max contract. The Cavs are paying him to do things they don't need him to do.
The obvious conclusion is that Cleveland needs to redistribute Love's salary to guys who fit better around their best two players. To redistribute salaries and roles in a way that makes more sense, you'd want to turn Love into a stretch 4 who doesn't have as much shot-creating ability and another 6'7+ wing defender who could slide LeBron down to the PF position.
It's hard to find trades that would make sense for Kevin Love given that he's not being allowed to fully showcase his game in Cleveland even though he's still being paid like he's a first option. No matter how you slice it, the Cavs would not be getting 100 cents on the dollar but team in their position rarely do. It's all about putting a team together that is better than the sum of their parts and the way they are using Love means they will always be less than theirs.
1) Love to Portland for Al-Farouq Aminu, Meyers Leonard and Allen Crabbe
2) Love to Boston for Jae Crowder, Kelly Olynyk and Avery Bradley
3) Love to Houston for Trevor Ariza, Donatas Motiejunas and Corey Brewer
4) Love to Orlando for Aaron Gordon, Channing Frye and Jason Smith
All four of those trades would give Cleveland a stretch 4 that would allow them to save some wear and tear on LeBron's body in the regular season and a versatile defender at the 3/4 positions that would allow them to play smaller and faster in the playoffs. Leonard, Motiejunas and Frye are also more capable of sliding down to the 5 position and providing more of a defensive presence when LeBron is at the 4. It's not to say that any of them are as good at Kevin Love but they can all stand behind a big man in the post and stretch out the defense on the other end of the floor - which is all that Love does for Cleveland anyway! - while making less money which allows Cleveland to have another big 3-and-D player on the perimeter.
LeBron is best at the 4 at this point in his career so the skill-sets that make the most sense next to him are a rim-protecting 5 who can stretch the floor and a three-point shooting wing who can slide between the 3 and the 4 positions. The Cavs don't have either one of those players at the moment so they might as well turn their primary option at the 4 position who doesn't play any defense into them. They'll run out the string in this year's playoffs and hope the Royal Rumble out West wears out their competition and maybe gives them some injury luck in the Finals. If that doesn't work, though, and they have to play Love 15-20 minutes a game when the season is on the line, they might as well go to Plan B.
Said on pod 2 weeks ago: if Finals rematch, CLE may have to view Love as 15-20 min player. Not gonna win if GSW can put him in infinite PNR
— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) January 19, 2016
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