Point Blank – February 10
On using the Brake, before the Break…A coach takes a stand (and some falls) at Mizzou…That Clipper scoreboard was not as good as it looked…Will the Padres, or those that back them, get their money’s worth?
There is danger lurking on both tonight’s short NBA board, and Wednesday’s fuller card. You have you power ratings, matchup stats, schedule/fatigue charts, injury reports and all other key factors all set to go, but before putting your bankroll behind any of them, be ready to pump the brakes at least a little. The last game before the All Star break can lead to some head-scratching results.
Here is the problem – the NBA season starts too early, and what should be a break around the mid-point gets extended well past that because the league wants to distance the All Star game from the Super Bowl, in order to attract more attention. As such all of the teams will have played more than 50 games before the mini-vacation, and in fact Orlando will be more than two-thirds of the way through the schedule. That makes for a particularly long grind, and for many of the players the chance to take some time off brings a lot of appeal, especially those players on teams that are not involved in the playoff chase (about one fourth of the league).
So how do you approach these next two days? Unless you have particular insights about a non-contender, it is best to avoid them, or make it play-against-or-pass. You do not want your money on a guy that already has his luggage packed for a trip to a beach on St. Somewhere (keep in mind what winters are like for those that play in the northern cities). Over time, you will see more lethargic efforts from the bad teams than the “let it all hang out” focus in going after a single win.
Tonight the vulnerable teams are Brooklyn and Denver, each playing for the last time until next week, and both on the road. But the settings do not allow for exploitation. Memphis will not be margin conscious against the Nets, with the Grizzlies only wanting to win and move ahead to Wednesday’s showdown at Oklahoma City, although you can note that David Joerger has charted a 14-8 to the Under when favored by -8 or more in his two seasons at Memphis, which makes some sense here. And while Denver has been an automatic play-against of late, and the Nuggets are in the tough setting of 10 straight court changes, including playing in their third time zone in five days, do you want to be wagering money that the Lakers are going to win a game?
Wednesday brings another of those “thud” settings, with the Knicks in Orlando to face the Magic in a matchup of true non-contenders, but if you really wanted some genuine insight into the NBA mentality, you could search out how many Knicks were heading back to New York afterwards, or instead using the Orlando airport as their departure for a sunnier clime. Sacramento looks vulnerable at Milwaukee, having to travel after playing at Chicago tonight, but that setting will not fool anyone behind the counter. There may be one team that defies the profile a bit – Utah will head to Dallas off of back-to-back wins, and could be facing an extremely short-handed Maverick squad (more on that in a moment). There will not be many Lakers that have much desire at all to head to Portland on Wednesday.
As always, there is the caveat here of not just being careful about these games, but also in the way they are graded, since the automation across statistical platforms treats them all the same. Which leads to a pair of topics on that latter theme this morning…
The mess at Missouri…
Missouri enters tonight’s game at South Carolina having lost nine in a row, in a most difficult transition to alum Kim Anderson’s first year as HC. And the Tigers have also been one of the most difficult teams to grade because of the rotating door of the roster – only four scholarship players have not been suspended for at least one game this season, as Anderson makes clear the stamp he wants on the program.
Johnat Williams III and Keith Shamburger are the only Missouri players to have started every game, and reserve D’Angelo Allen is the only one to have played in each contest. Note that Allen did make the trip with the team for tonight’s game, despite being scheduled for a court appearance this morning (the expectation is that his attorney will ask for a continuance). The Tigers were drubbed 83-61 at home vs. Texas A&M on Saturday with the trio of Tramaine Isabell, Montaque Gill-Caesar and Namon Wright all suspended, and while Isabell will not play tonight, the status of the other two, who happen to be roommates, has not been made official yet.
The issues for the handicapper are both of adjusting for all of the personnel issues, and also of whether or not this team is showing a genuine will to compete. Anderson is trying to create a work ethic, but the defensive effort vs. Texas A&M was shockingly bad – the Tigers allowed 58.9 percent shooting, with 22 assists vs. only seven turnovers, a horrific 1.34 PP100 against an offense that is nothing special. While it is difficult to write down the Missouri power rating in anything more than pencil, you should also be sure to not give A&M as much credit as the box score will – one of the keys to handicapping erratic teams is not just weighting them properly in their own regard, but also in weighing those results in terms of how you reward their opponents.
About Last Night…
So how to grade the Clippers now, after dealing with their issues in Monday’s column (link below)? There is not much more that you can do with that 115-98 rout of Dallas but either reduce the weighting in the data-base, or put an * next to the score and not chart it at all. It was not so much what L.A. did right, but rather Monta Ellis and Tyson Chandler only playing a combined 5:21 for the Mavericks, both leaving early with injuries and not returning. That made it rather easy pickings, but note that even in a comfortable scoreboard win there had to be long tours of duty for Chris Paul (40:17) and DeAndre Jordan (38:58). Jordan made the best of his, grabbing 27 rebounds. By the way, in 13:52 of court time, Spencer Hawes had a missed shot end up in his hands once.
Rounding the Bases…
OK, a little baseball time, because there has been a lot of attention in the Sports Mediaverse, and through adjustments in the NL and World Series futures, after San Diego signed James Shields (also keep in mind that Jay Kornegay and his crew at the Westgate will be posting the Team Over/Under futures in a couple of days). As so often happens, the buzz may be more than the reality, a concept discussed here when the Mavericks traded for Rajon Rondo not that long ago. Yes, heading to Petco Park, and those other pitchers-friendly stadiums on the West Coast (Shields should get a few road starts against the Dodgers and Giants each season), may look like a positive for a veteran that has proven to be a tough competitor. And perhaps a bit of a career extender, as he enters 2015 on eight straight seasons of over 200 IP, including reach at least 227 during the regular season over the past four campaigns.
But what is the reality? One of the guys you will hear from often in this space when the MLB Diamonds need polishing is Eric Strasser, who not only knows the players, managers and ballparks at a unique level, but also the betting landscape as well. And a significant part of his edge comes from the fact that while many of us are listening to the bouncing of the ball right now, his focus stays on the crack of the bat. As such, his take on the Shields signing may be savvier than what you will read from other sources –
“I can see the attraction to them. They got him for a nice price and they have Kennedy, Morrow and Josh Johnson all free agents in November. So he's a nice hedge for the future. But they already had Cashner, Ross, Kennedy, Johnson, Morrow and Cory Luebke as six slots for the rotation this year. Johnson supposedly is healthy and I like Luebke (each off of Tommy John surgery). So if Shields is a 3.7 WAR like he was in 2014, they're paying $18MM in 2015 for maybe one win. Johnson would probably be a 2.5-3 WAR if he's healthy and was the 5th starter.”
“He's also going from a harder park in 2014 to hit HR (weird but true when he's going to Petco), and the defense is much weaker … It solidifies the rotation, but they now have to get rid of someone or park Leubke at AAA for a year. They signed one too many pitchers with JJ, Morrow and Shields. All in all, I don't like it.”
There may be a rush to buy San Diego futures right now, but you may not want to join that crowd, and certainly not at the rapidly declining rate of return that is out there this morning.
This Week at Point Blank
Monday – What a “Bettor Better Know” – Weekend Starting Five