Point Blank – December 22
What a “Bettor Better Know” – Weekend Starting Five
Item: Rondo Does Dallas (but has anything really changed?)
There was a tremendous buzz across the Sports Mediaverse when the Celtics dealt Rajon Rondo to Dallas. And there was quickly a major buzz across the NBA betting boards, with significant adjustments being made to the Mavericks Future’s prices. As it is written often here, the first can fuel the latter. When the Media overplay a story and get it wrong it opens up opportunities for the serious handicapper, and that is likely going to be the case with this transaction. The ultimate impact on Rondo joining Dallas this season? You might not notice it without a microscope. And going forward it could even be a negative for the franchise, losing some draft picks despite fielding an old roster that is going to need replenishment.
The state of the Mavericks pre-trade had been dealt with a couple of times on these pages, starting with “The Mavericks are not built for the post-season (nor some parts of the regular-season, either)” which discussed their flaws, but they were also “In the Sights” last Wednesday at Detroit, when they had a favorable matchup that could be exploited. Now let’s further set some perspectives.
At the time the Mavericks acquired Rondo, they were #1 in the NBA in offensive efficiency, #2 in assists, and #4 for fewest turnovers. Is that a sign that a change is needed at PG? Elsewhere yes, if they want to win a championship, but not necessarily at that spot. Yes, Rondo is better than Jameer Nelson overall, but the offense has terrific passers at several positions and was a well-functioning unit. So make note of the 113.6 points per 100 possessions they were averaging before the trade, because the most likely direction that will go is down. Here is why.
The ball moved well with Nelson on the court because the opposition had to respect his shooting (39.6 from 3-point range this season; career 37.4). That helped make the Dallas spacing so dynamic, making it difficult to double-team Dirk Nowiztki, and allowing Monta Ellis room to penetrate and find his shots. Rondo does not have to be guarded at all beyond the arc, off of his abysmal 25.2 career rate (he is right near that pace this season). And think about the end-games. If the Mavs stick with their starting lineup at crunch time, they will be among the rare teams to have two guys shooting less than 65 percent for their careers at the FT line, Rondo (61.4) and Tyson Chandler (64.1).
So Rondo is not going to make the offense better; it may actually decline. He is also not going to make the defense much better, which is what was desperately needed. He will be a better one-on-one matchup against all of those elite PGs in the Western Conference come playoff time, and there would be no counter against that. But it might be at a cost of lowering the team chemistry a bit. The Mavericks may not have improved anywhere near those weekend market reactions. They may not have improved at all.
Item: Understanding Portland’s Trail
Last Thursday’s column ended up flowing into a discussion of NBA Future’s, and one of the comments I made later in the thread was about Portland being “uninteresting” in that regard. So as the Trail Blazers take that scintillating 22-6 (60% ATS) opening into tonight’s showdown at Houston, the first encounter this season between teams that played one of the best playoff series in NBA history last spring (three of the seven games were tied at the end of regulation, Game #7 ended 99-98 Blazers) a deeper look can help to understand the reasons why.
The Portland chemistry is among the league’s best, the result of keeping some of the same pieces together for several years, and that chemistry has been taking advantage of less-polished opponents to win at that high early-season rate. But while the chemistry is strong, in terms of talent it is still LaMarcus Aldridge, Damon Lillard and a cast of role players. Which means that as the other teams show more polish later in the season there is less for the well-functioning Blazer machine to exploit, and come playoff time there is little to exploit at all, especially in the Western Conference. You have to win on your own abilities, and there just is not a lot of upside in Portland. What happened after the exhilarating first round win over the Rockets LY? A 1-4 vs. San Antonio, in which the closest loss came by 15 points.
Lillard is indeed getting better, especially in terms of late-game moxie. But an edge he has in the regular-season over opposing PGs largely goes away at playoff time. Much like the case made about Rajon Rondo with Dallas above, the West is loaded with talent at that position. Aldridge can’t get much better, because he has already established himself as being so damn good. And does the minute load for those two eventually take a toll that leaves them more worn down come late April than many of their opponents (3-8 ATS in the playoffs LY)?
As big of a confidence boost as that marathon win over San Antonio could have been on Friday, succeeding on a court where they were embarrassed last May, it showed exactly who they still are in that kind of matchup – Aldridge and Lillard had 75 of the 129 points, and there were only 18 assists out of 47 made baskets.
Item: Texas Southern was 1-8 before tipping off at Michigan State
It was not an entirely unknown sight to see Mike Davis walk away from a Big 10 venue with a win on Saturday, although beating Tom Izzo in East Lansing was elusive for him when he was coaching Indiana. But to do it with a Texas Southern team that was 1-8 when the game tipped off simply comes as a shocker. The kind of shocker that calls for some deeper digging.
Yes, the Tigers have opened with one of the nation’s toughest schedules, and eight of those nine games were on the road. But they also had not been competitive, falling by such counts as 40 at Gonzaga, 26 at Baylor, 25 at Florida, 24 at Eastern Washington and 19 at Davis’ former stomping grounds in Bloomington. And keep in mind that each of those scores could have likely been worse; in the last outing at Gonzaga the Bulldog starting five only played 55 percent of the game minutes. They just do not bring much to the table, although the tough slate could have them a step ahead when conference play begins. But not only did they gut it out as +24 over Michigan State, but they did what the weaker team is not supposed to do – they made plays down the stretch. If not for a missed FT at the end of regulation by freshman Javon Bess, playing in only his second game, it would not have gone to OT, and the Tigers never trailed in the extra period.
Naturally the win says something about their grit, and determination to play hard despite the losses mounting. But they real story is about the Spartans, who continue to look soft compared to a prototypical Izzo team. They allowed Texas Southern to make 21-35 2-point attempts, and a State offense that had led the nation in 3-point accuracy entering the game was only 4-21 from long range. Yes, they were without Brendan Dawson, but in the bigger picture, does Izzo really want to be heading into conference play leading the nation in shooting behind the arc? His take afterwards speaks volumes -
"As you get older, you start worrying about people liking you, and I did not work my team. I felt sorry for them. I did not work them like I normally do. We didn't practice as hard - too worried about my little guys getting tired. ... That was a coaching loss, and I take full responsibility for it, and I plan on rectifying it starting at 8:30 tomorrow morning."
It was the fourth loss for MSU in the pre-conference portion of the schedule, and while falling to Duke, Notre Dame and Kansas on neutral courts would ordinarily bring no cause for alarm, the nature of the defeats does say something about the particular nature of this Spartan team. Their presence in the paint is far from what we have come to except, allowing those three teams to make 56-109 of their two-point attempts, and not getting the ball to the basket themselves to draw fouls. They only had 36 FT attempts in the three games combined, while the three victors had 78, albeit some in forced end-game settings. And in what should have been a “home cooking” affair vs. Texas Southern, State only got to the line for 21 attempts over those 45 minutes.
This is still going to be a good Michigan State team, and Izzo can use Saturday’s stunner effectively as a wake-up call, but with perimeter shooting the strength so far, and interior play the weakness, it is a different Spartan style, and must be analyzed accordingly as Big 10 play approaches.
Item: An Eagle has landed (loudly)
There was an early take here on the difficult transition Steve Wojciechowski (could we just start calling him Coach W?) was going to have at Marquette, given the lack of roster players on hand, and the lack of size for those he did have. And a week later a poster brought up a good question about adjusting for players that become eligible after the end of the first semester. So we can combine both of them to discuss the quick impact the Luke Fischer has had since he hit the court for the Golden Eagles last week, while at the same time also noting an unfortunate reality of the current marketplace.
Fischer has a lot of upside, a guy not only with size (6-11/245), but real basketball skills. He exploded on the scene against Arizona State last Tuesday, with 19 points (9-11 shooting), nine rebounds and five blocked shots, and it led to a Marquette win-and-cover. So naturally the focus was to want to look that way when Alabama A&M came to town on Friday night. Isn’t it the prototypical setting we are hoping falls into our laps – a team gets a major boost from a player that fills a void, and the markets become bound by previous results to the point where they can not adjust quickly enough? But that did not happen. The marketplace was too smart.
The Pomeroy rating was 18 for that matchup, but despite the fact that Fischer had only played in one game, and the Golden Eagles were going to be down to eight scholarship players, after Deonte Burton (16.1 minutes per game) and John Dawson (a non-factor in games, but a guy that at least helped to allow for scrimmages in practice) opted to transfer out, the first opener was -21. By tipoff, it was -23.5. There were already many anticipating Fischer’s impact, and any hope of taking advantage of stale mathematical ratings quickly went out the window.
So what happened? The oddsmakers tried to adjust, but did not go far enough. The guys that got there first got the money, easily. Fischer was a major factor again, scoring 22 points on 8-8 from the field, with six rebounds and a blocked shot in only 22 minutes, leading to an 83-49 rout. The window to take advantage was only cracked open enough to let a slight breeze through it. But at least in terms of your own ratings, make sure that any Marquette games played before Fischer became eligible carry a lesser weighting. And for such settings going forward, be ready to move fast. Very fast.
Item: Wingspans, Pacing, and Lorenzo Romar (Washington is 10-0)…
Tulane and Washington bring a combined 19-1 record into their Monday clash in Seattle, and if someone had to post a price on that being the “Win” plateau at tipoff it would have been an easy Over. The Green Wave can go off to the side now because it has largely been about the schedule (only four lined games), which also helps to explain the high Monday line. But for Lorenzo Romar’s Huskies it has been a +48 over nine lined affairs, showing that expectations have been greatly exceeded. The question is how to re-set those sights going forward; not much was expected from this bunch, and what has been happening so far has been out of character for the program. It will also help us to introduce a Game Pace concept for the first time this season that will be brought into play often.
This is Romar’s 13th season as Washington HC, and while there has been success (264-144 and six NCAA tourney appearances), this season began with a lack of momentum, and rumblings about his job status. The Huskies did not make any post-season tourney LY, and were bounced in the first round of the NIT by double-figures at Brigham Young two back. But now comes that 10-0 opening, which includes three underdog wins, the latest being Saturday’s 69-67 decision over Oklahoma at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas.
Note that score, because it matters. There will a phrase “French 75” used when it comes to college basketball tempo, and it is a simple formula – how does a coach fare in a game in which neither his team nor the opposition topped 75 points. It is a way of measuring how coaches and teams perform in “grinders”, as opposed to quicker tempos. And it avoids the silly back-fit that you will hear and read too often across the Sports Mediaverse of “So and so is X-0 when they score less than 70, etc.” Yes, teams do better when they score more points, and not so well when they score less. Duh. But this model gets right to the heart of the tempo issue, and it has been a negative for Romar through the years. He has had athletic teams that played their best in the open floor, but not good decision-making squads, who had to execute and show patience when possessions mattered more. This season has been different. It is already a 3-0 ATS run through the category, and the reason for the focus today is that parts of it are legitimate.
Two of the major keys to being successful at half-court play are having a defensive interior presence, and a PG that can run the show. Romar has them. 7-0 Robert Upshaw has been a force around the basket, leading the nation in blocked shots and altering countless more. And taking care of the rock and making the offense go has been Nigel Williams-Goss, who is #8 in the nation in assists, while also being the second-fastest Husky to 500 points (37 games) in the Romar era. When you have talent at both C and PG it becomes a strong base to build a team around, and it really was a “team” win over Oklahoma on Saturday – no one scored more than 12 points, but eight had at least six. For the season four players are scoring between 13.9 and 10.8 per outing. And there is an aspect of this team that really does show beyond the box scores, and needs to be a part of your processes. Let’s talk “wingspan”.
It is a rather unusual quirk, but the starting lineup boasts an average wingspan of 4.5 inches longer than their actual height. As imposing as Upshaw’s 7-0 would appear, he stretches to nearly 7.6. Mike Anderson is 6-4, but has the reach of someone that is 6-11, while Jernard Jarreau is 6-10, but nearly matches Upshaw at 7.5. With that understood, the 33.8 percent shooting they are allowing takes an entirely different perspective, and even if you take Upshaw’s 45 blocks away, the remaining Huskies still have more blocks (32) than their opponents (26). This may well be one of the best defenses in the nation. It has been enough to overcome some erratic shooting so far (only 32.3 percent beyond the arc and 64.4 at the FT line), and it is a defense that can be believed in. For once, Romar does not have a team that has to run to win, although his abilities to master the playbook of a slower affair may remain an ATS issue across the Pac 12 schedule.