Line of the Night: Jason Kidd (6.42) pulled out the first 6+ I’ve seen in a while. Or at least that I remember seeing. And reality and what I remember can be two vastly different things. Kidd had 19 points on 6/11, 4/5 and 3 threes. He also has 15 assists, 4 rebounds (no triple-double??), 5 steals, and - ouch - 6 turnovers. It actually reminds me of this super old school post about Jason Kidd having 6 turnovers.
Honorable Mentions: Allen Iverson (5.41) had 31 points; and in what might be the most incredible Bronze Medal line I’ve ever seen, Baron Davis (5.35) had 12/5/7 with 4 steals and 2 blocks, but shot 4/12 from the field, including 1/5 from three. But, those 2 blocks were as much as anyone else had last night, and the 4 steals were pretty close (see: Jason Kidd, above). Carmelo Anthony (5.28) checked in just under those two, but had what seems to me to be a better game, with 32/10/8 and 2 steals.
Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Checking in at numero cinco is Steve Blake (4.96) with 22 points, and 6 assists on 8/12 shooting with 4 threes. The funny thing is, I’m seeing (not literally, of course) Steve Blake getting a lot of minutes in Portland, but I’m not seeing him do much. If you need assists, though, say, if you’re going up against a team next week that has Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, or Chris Paul… maybe it’s worth picking up Blake just for that.
The Biggest Loser: A day after his line of 28/9/6 (with 7 threes) Ricky Davis (2.02) played only 1 less minute, but scored 21 less points, shot nearly 40% worse, had 4 less rebounds, and 4 less assists. That’s 7/5/2 for those who can’t do word problems. Wow, Mad Libs and Word Problems. Patrick’s got his TMNT jammies… I think I might still have my She-Ra He-Man action figures somewhere. Maybe underneath my Batman underoos…
Friday’s Tiny Dancer: Wow. Remember how I said that part about my memory at the beginning? No? Don’t worry, neither do I. But I do remember how I just looked up new jersey nets dancers on Google to find a picture for today’s Tiny Dancer. Yeah, Jason Kidd… not so much on the Nets anymore. Too bad, too… because…
and
But both the Nets and Mavericks Dance Teams were eliminated in the first round of this year’s Dance Team Bracket. Probably because Dallas had some idiot pick this picture for them:
Mark, here’s a tip, next year, make them post one of these kinds of pictures:
The second in an ongoing series of randomly distributed Where Are They Now? posts.
Line of the Night: On a night when both Chris Paul and LeBron James played the game of basketball, neither of them had a performance that matched that of Half-Man Half-Retired Vince Carter (5.43). Carter has been sort of middling around in the regions of fantasy relevancy, and while his #45 rating for the season puts him in the early-middle rounds for next year, his 39 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, and 2 threes on 17/26 shooting made him #1 for a night.
Honorable Mentions: Yowza! Hedo Turkoglu (5.24) also had 39 points! Much of that came from his 7 threes, and 10/14 free throws. He also had 6 rebs, 3 asts, 1 stl, and 1 blk. Antawn Jamison (5.12) also decided to score a bunch of points, with 31 with 3 threes, and also pull down 11 rebounds and 4 steals. Steve Nash (4.79) had 23 and 11 (assists), with 5 threes; Troy Murphy (4.78) had 23 and 13 (rebounds) with 3 threes and 3 blocks; finally we get to LeBron (4.75) who had 30/7/6; Devin Harris (4.71) bounced back from a 4 point outing with 26 points, 9 assists, 3 threes, and 3 steals.
Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Bonzi Wells (4.22) has had 2 decent games in a row now, scoring 25 points with 2 steals and 3 blocks last night. We all know (or should know) that Bonzi can score when he gets the chance, but the steals and blocks are surprising.
The Biggest Loser: This was kind of a tough one, but I’m going to select Shaquille O’Neal (1.64) today for his 9 point, 8 rebound outing. That’s not terrible by itself, but the big fella only shot 4/9 from the field, and 1/5 from the free throw line. He had no assists, no steals, and no blocks, and 4 turnovers. Now those 9 points and 8 rebounds are looking a little hard to swallow.
Don’t expect Kidd’s Fantasy value to change significantly in Dallas. He is still worth starting as a No. 1 guard, and his points and rebounds should remain the same. There is a chance his assist total could decline because of Dallas’ offense — Harris was the team’s leader in assists at 5.3 per game — but adding Kidd will likely alter what the Mavericks do, so have no fear.
You can also expect Nowitzki, Howard and Terry to improve playing alongside Kidd, and Erick Dampier will probably see more minutes with Diop gone.
Yes, Kidd will still be good as your PG. Passing to Dirk Nowitzki, Josh Howard, and Jason Terry is at least as good as passing to Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson. Probably better. The rebounds might be harder to come by though, since Erick Dampier, Dirk, and Howard actually like to rebound. The 11 points should stay the same since Devin Harris was averaging 14 before his injury. It’s possible that Kidd could pick up those extra 3 points, but I would rate it as not likely, since Dirk, Howard, and JET are all high volume scorers on the team, and Kidd will probably be focused on running the offense.
With Malik Allen coming over to replace Diop, I don’t really agree with CBS’ assessment that Dampier will get more minutes. Allen was averaging 15 in NJ, while Diop had 17 in Dallas. If Dampier does get those extra 2 minutes, it’s not going to dramatically change his fantasy value.
For Dallas, nothing is really going to change. Dirk and JET are down in FG% this season, so maybe Kidd will be able to help them get back those 3 percentage points. No reason to try to trade for them now, though, and I don’t see any potential Free Agent Mavericks (maverick Mavericks?) gaining enough value to be worth picking up.
In New Jersey, Harris will have a lot to live up to as the Nets start rebuilding. He isn’t going to start averaging a triple-double, but he is capable of being a quality point guard.
Harris, who has missed the past eight games with an ankle injury, is averaging a career-high 14.4 points. He should do well paired with Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson, and consider Harris a No. 3 Fantasy guard going forward.
Don’t worry about Carter or Jefferson losing Fantasy value. They will continue to score, and their assist total could also rise.
The rest of the players involved in the trade have minimal Fantasy value. Allen will be a bench player in Dallas, as will George and Ager in New Jersey. Diop also joins a crowded frontcourt with the Nets with Josh Boone, Sean Williams, Nenad Krstic and Stromile Swift.
Hopefully Harris will be back from his injury soon (he’s on my GMTR Readers League team), because I’m predicting an increase in value for him on the Nets. Again, though, I wouldn’t go trading for him because he is still injured, and it could be that Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson decide to hog the ball for the Nets. But Harris is a quality player, and Nenad Krstic and Josh Boone are not as good offensively as Dirk Nowitzki, which will allow Harris the opportunity to up his already-career-high scoring.
CBS is right that Diop is headed into a crowded frontcourt, and I’d say Boone, Williams, and Krstic are all better players, which means if you’ve got Diop, it’s probably time to drop. You can wait a couple games, but if he’s not getting the minutes, they’re not going to come.
A lot of Carter and Jefferson’s value will depend on how well Harris can run the backcourt. He’s more of a scoring PG with his career high in assists coming this year at only 5.3 per game. It will be interesting to see if he is a good enough passer to up that number; even if he does, there’s no way he’s going to reach Jason Kidd levels, though. With the 5 rebound drop going from Kidd to Harris, there is some room for Jefferson, Krstic, and Boone to up their totals a bit. Boone is ranked 182 by Yahoo over the past month, but jumps to 54 if you look at only the last week. He’s probably been picked up if your league is competitive, but in shallower leagues, he might still be available.
Krstic’s minutes are supposed to go up after the All-Star break (according to Nets coach Lawrence Frank via Stats.com), so if he’s available, now might be a good time to take a flier on him. He’s been playing only 15-17 minutes a game since returning from injury, and has been fairly productive in that time. He did only play 26 games last season, though, so the injury bug looks like it might be a recurring character in The Story of Nenad.
If New Jersey can hang on in the playoff race (they’re currently in 7th) all of the Nets should be good because they’ll be playing hard to stay in the fight. If the loss of Kidd sends them down as a team, then I can easily see Vince Carter getting “injured” later in the season.
And finally, since people always like to put players in their new uniforms via Photoshop, I did that for ya:
With Ray Allen and KG joining the Celtics this season, tickets to home games will no doubt be impossible or very expensive to get. I felt it important to document the pre Allen/KG game attending experience, so we can see how much things are about to change.
Or, in other words, I had these pictures sitting on my computer for a while and now is a good time to break them out.
I believe these pictures are from a Celtics game in 2005 against the Nets, although I’m not completely sure about the date. Our tickets for the game were on the floor level, probably about 10-15 rows deep behind the visitors’ hoop. Pre Allen/KG, these tickets had a face value of $100 each, but we were able to get ours for $50 due to less than stellar demand. We got down to the Fleet Center (now the TD Banknorth Garden) two hours before the start of the game because the Celtics opened their doors to premium ticket buyers (of which we were included) at that time. All the “regular”ť people had to wait until an hour before the game. During this two hour period, you could walk around an empty arena, watch players do their pre-game warm-ups, and of course, hound players walking on and off the court for autographs.
I was at the game with my beautiful wife, her sister, and two of my brother-in-laws (my wife comes from a family with 7 children, so I have a total of 5 brother-in-laws and 5 sister-in-laws. Holidays are interesting). Anyway at the time, one of my brother-in-laws was in love with Marcus Banks. He was absolutely sure that Banks was going to be the next great Celtics point guard. And when Banks came over to our side of the court, he was all over him and was able to get him to autograph his ticket. That autograph didn’t quite turn out as he expected, but Marcus to his credit, was incredibly nice to the fans and signed autographs for everyone who asked for one.
My other brother-in-law was equally excited about Kerry Kittles. I think he followed him going back to his Villanova days. He actually ran around to another section of the arena just so he could get Kittles’ autograph as he was leaving the court. I was only able to get a back shot of Kittles, but notice how he is handing the autograph back without even looking at my brother-in-law. I guess that’s what happens when you ask for Kittles’ autograph while wearing a Celtics shirt. Kittles didn’t sign many autographs that day.
Finally, a guy who I wouldn’t mind getting an autograph from, if I did that kind of thing. There were children stacked 5 deep within a second of Pierce appearing from the locker room. I could have probably taken 3-4 kids out on my way to Pierce, but 5 would have been a challenge.
Here is a view of the Celtics warming up from our seats.
There are a lot of great things going on with this picture (tough to see in this small version). Pierce and Ricky Davis are warming up, but:
1. Who is that third Celtics player with them? Is it Vin Baker? (UPDATE - it’s actually Jumaine Jones)
2. The Celtics warm-up did mainly consist of Pierce, Davis, and player number 3 standing around and making jokes to each other.
3. Deep in the background, there is Rodney Rogers standing at the three point line practicing his shot. That sweet three point touch apparently took some practice.
4. Notice the balding white men standing around Rogers, surely imparting him with all their pick-up basketball wisdom.
5. Ricky Davis appears to be undressing my wife with his eyes.
So, there you go. Attending a Celtics basketball game pre Allen/KG consisted of buying floor tickets at half their face value, casually walking players to get their autograph, and having Ricky Davis molest your wife with his eyes.
It’s not often that one gets selected to host a Carnival. It’s certainly less often when Matt wants that Carnival to happen right around when your blog is celebrating it’s Blogiversary. So, without further Ado, Happy 3rd Blogiversary to Give Me The Rock!
Oh, and a Carnival too… Let’s see what we gots…
I have voluntarily submitted for Matt his post regarding BlogABull’s 4th Blogiversary. Yeah, he beat me out by just over a year. In the comments on that post, he points out that Desipio has been around in one form or another for 10 years. I’m tempted to argue that if it’s not called the same thing it doesn’t count, but I was over at Blogspot for a good 8 months, and I’m not going to easily give that up, so here’s to GMTR making it to 10 years!
Next up, from NBA Glue, something that fantasy heads can appreciate: Starting 5s for teams for which you might not know the starting 5s. Or if you’ve been taking the summer off like the guys at Fantasy Basketblog, this is an easy way to catch up on what’s been going on. The NBA Glue is also holding things together with a preview of the Atlantic Division teams. Another good way to catch up in case you’ve been frozen in carbonite.
Kind of looks like he got hit with the NBA Glue.
Speaking of NBA Glue, Ryan McNeill from HoopsAddict brings together Matt Kolsky from the Chicago Sports Review (holla!) and D-Wil from The Starting Five for a Podcast about the Eastern Conference teams at the Vegas Summer League. For those of you that aren’t podcastingly inclined, you can also read a summary of the audio file. I, myself, listen to several podcasts, but I have been holding out from making one for at least 2 of GMTR’s 3 years on the web. Everyone says I’m a bit of a low-talker and/or I mumble when I’m not really making a point, so I don’t think I’d make the best podcaster unless I pretended to be someone I’m not.
Speaking of someone I’m not, I’m not a Sports Agent. Nor do I want to be one. But Paul Shackman and Darren Heitner and a bunch of other guys do. In their submissions, they talk about what to do with Yi Jianlian now and Kevin Durant’s shoe deal with Nike, which is evidently the second largest endorsement deal ever [citation needed].
Speaking of endorsement deals, Give Me The Rock recently signed Rachel for $1 to tell people “If you like basketball, it’s pretty good. It’s really not that dorky or anything.” I think we might have overpaid for that one.
Speaking of Rachel, I’m sure that many visitors here wish she was the one running this Carnival, even though I’m sure those same visitors don’t actually realize they wish she was the one running the Carnival. If you can imagine the referrals to this site, the majority of which come from Google Images, then you can come to some understanding of what I mean.
Speaking of ways to sneak in posts with cool segues out of 8th grade, here’s Steve - with no experience with the Carnival - taking it to the rack strong! By rack, I was going for something related to Nenad’s girl or something attached to a dancer, but I’m not sure that it came across clearly enough for those of you who don’t have your mind in the gutter. So, just so you know, I was going for “taking it to the rack.”
Speaking of other things the NBA shouldn’t do is: allow players to make more rap albums. Of course, the WolvesWatch says that Troy Hudson’s new album isn’t too bad. I got a little hyped up for Ron Artest’s album, but T-Hud isn’t going to even get me to think about going to iTunes, let alone Amazon or something.
Speaking of holding out, I am holding out on posting a review of the book authored by a guy who is interview here because I haven’t had time to finish it. But since I grew up in Portland, and now live in Chicago, I am 100% sure that the 1984 draft was the most important draft in my personal NBA history. Read an interview with the guy who wrote a whole book about it, and you’ll see how it changed not just Portland and Chicago, but the entire NBA forever.
NOTE: This was written before I heard about the Garnett trade. So, now I guess it’s the Twolves’ fans who will have to wait for their young stars to bud, while the Celtics dominate the East.
So there’s your Carnival of the NBA #47, aka stealing everyone’s thunder to celebrate GMTR’s 3rd Blogiversary. Want to celebrate your own blogiversary by hosting the Carnival? Or maybe you don’t have an upcoming blogiversary, but want to host the Carnival anyway? Just click on over the the Carnival of the NBA group on BallHype and you can have your cake and eat it too.
Not everyone can be the greatest. Sometimes it’s important to celebrate lesser achievements, like the Golden Globes or the time you got a gold star for not eating paste in kindergarten. So I present to you, the Eddie House All-Stars, a collection of talent that does the most with the least. What does it take to be an Eddie House All-Star?
1. Play less than 20 minutes a game
2. Rack up mad stats during that limited playing time.
It’s as simple as that. Bonus points for playing in a lot of games. No bonus points for intangibles. Intangibles are something one does when not in the act of shooting. The Eddie House All-Stars does need to waste it’s time with intangibles. Onto the team.
The Namesake
Starters
Marcus Williams (PG): Easily the best point guard for the Eddie House All-Stars. He averaged close to 10 assists per 48 minutes and still found time to shoot the ball, averaging 20 points (per 48). It’s too bad he’s stuck behind Jason Kidd on the Nets, as he’s got the ability to be more than just an EH All-Star.
Eddie House (SG): How about that. An entire Nets’ backcourt! House gets grandfathered onto the team as long as he plays less than 20 minutes a game, which unfortunately should be the rest of his career. He provides this team with much needed firepower - which is kinda his thing - averaging close to 9 threes per 48 minutes. That was good for 12th in the league last season (former EH All-Star JR Smith was first at 12.5).
You Can Be My Wingman Anytime
Tyrus Thomas (SF): He’s more of a power forward, but this is an all-star team, so who really cares what position he plays. If he did play 48 minutes a game, his defensive stats would be off the charts, although he’d also average over 8 fouls a game. So, he’s a little excitable, but the Eddie House All-Stars encourages that kind of balls-out effort. Fouls are a stat, right?
Paul Millsap (PF): Bonus points for being the only EH All-Star to play in all 82 games last season. Millsap actually had some real fantasy value for a couple weeks last season due to Jazz injuries at various times. But ultimately, he’s stuck behind Carlos Boozer on the Jazz for now, so he’ll just have to keep on making the most of his 18 minutes a game.
Etan Thomas (C): Every good all-star team needs a published poet. The Eddie House All-Stars are no different. Thomas slides under the threshold by playing 19.2 minutes a game, but on a 48 minute basis, he would lead the all-star team with close to 15 rebounds and 4 blocks a game.
The Bench
This team can play some lockdown defense in the paint, but they’re going to need some offense off the bench. Carlos Arroyo (PG) and Brian Cook (F) will have to take the shots when Eddie House is on the bench. Arroyo also brings some assists (7.4 per 48) with him and Cook will hit some threes (2.1 per 48).
Although they don’t provide quite the same defense as the starters, both Ronny Turiaf (F) and Stromile Swift (C) are going to block their fair share of shots and grab some rebounds. And since the team already has a poet, they really could use a dancer.
Those are the Eddie House All-Stars for 2006/2007. And it’s not all fun and games. I’ve learned two things over the course of writing this post. First, it’s apparently a lot easier to come of the bench for 15-20 minutes a game and contribute defensively than it is to contribute offensively. While there were a boatload of guys whose per 48 minute rebounds were over 10 and per 48 minute blocks were over 3, Marcus Williams and Carlos Arroyo were pretty much the only guys contributing a significant amount of assists. If Etan Thomas magically played 48 minutes a game, he would league the league in rebounds by about 2 a game over Kevin Garnett. On the other hand, the 48 minute a game Eddie House would be 15th in the league in scoring, right ahead of Zach Randolph. Remember that for your fantasy leagues.
Second, the team actually contains some guys to keep a watch on fantasy wise. With more minutes, Marcus Williams, Tyrus Thomas, Paul Millsap, and even Stromile Swift could be in for breakout seasons. Thomas is especially likely to get more minutes as he impressed at the end of last season and was a beast in the summer league. Tyrus Thomas - don’t get to comfortable on the Eddie House All-Stars, there’s another all-star team that may want you in a couple years.
I’ve put Rasual Butler into my lineup this week. So, if you picked him up from free agency like I did, be warned. He’s probably only got 1 or 2 more good games. It was going well for Linus, JR, Bostjan, and Brian Skinner. But if you look last night’s box scores, you can see the “Nels Free Agent Curse” in action.
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