Point Blank – February 23
Cleveland started losing to Detroit on Sunday (The Lue Chronicles continue)…Denzel Valentine has been Magic Johnson this month…Visions of a Palm Tree in the sun, as MLB 2016 begins (welcome back Mr. Strasser)…The Tide does not have to Roll in Lexington, just hang around…
There are a lot of topics to sort through today, including the first salvo of the 2016 MLB season, so let’s get straight to it…
Item: The Piston/Cavaliers game actually began on Sunday
Ordinarily it is a bit of a surprise when a 9-point NBA favorite loses outright, but perhaps we should become accustomed to that with Tyronn Lue and the Cavaliers – through his first 14 games they have already lost three times outright as favorites of -8 or more, something that had only happened once in their first 41 games. But mark this one down as less than being a shock – despite what on the surface was one of Cleveland’s best games of the season on Sunday, it was in that 115-92 road rout of Oklahoma City that the seeds were planted.
Lue’s game management in that one was a mess, not just for the first game of a back-to-back sequence, but for any team that plans to be playing into the middle of June. At no time in the fourth quarter did the lead vs. the Thunder ever fall below 17 points, so there was ample opportunity to get the key cogs off the court early. It didn’t happen –
Cavalier Sunday minutes
James 37:10
Thompson 35:57
Love 37:39
Smith 39:02
It wasn’t until 2:39 remained, with the Cavaliers ahead 111-90, that James/Thompson/Love were removed, while Smith remained on the court to the very end. It was coaching malpractice.
So what was the follow-up? Cleveland lacked energy vs. Detroit, falling behind by as many as 18 points, and never cutting the lead to less than six in the second half. In particular James was worn down, going just 5-18 from the field, with more turnovers than assists, his worst shooting performance since December 28 of 2014. Yet James was still out there for 37:30, the seventh time in Lue’s 14 games that he has reached that time mark, after only 13 such occasions in the previous 41 games. Making it even worse was that he played 20:04 of the possible 24 second-half minutes, not leaving the game for good until there were 27 seconds remaining.
This bears watching closely as the playoffs approach, because it may not just be the lack of high level X’s and O’s savvy that is a natural issue for an inexperienced coach, but rather the fact that Lue is also showing a potential weakness at one of the more basic components of the sport.
Item: Denzel Valentine has been Magic Johnson, or better, this month
There is a lot of on-going debate as to who the front-runner should be for national Player of the Year honors, and while the full-season numbers are pretty close, if current form is the guide Valentine wins going away. In particular, let’s focus on a February run that should grade out as one of the best months of play you are going to see in this era. That is not hyperbole.
First factor in the quality of competition, Michigan State having road games at Michigan and Purdue, and battles vs. Indiana and Wisconsin in East Lansing. Then take a look at how good, and versatile, Valentine has been -
Valentine’s February
Valentine National #1 Magic’s Final Season
PPG: 25.4 27.7 17.1
REBOUNDS: 7.3 13.8 7.3
ASSISTS: 10.3 9.2 8.4
The comparisons to Magic Johnson are a little unfair (the reference is to his final college season), because there was not a shot clock or 3-point line, but why not have fun with them anyway. But look at Valentine compared to the national leaders for the full season – his showing this month would have him tied for #2 in scoring, and he would lead in assists by nearly one full dish per game. It is almost unheard-of for a player to be so high in each of those categories, and truly unheard-of when that player is at forward in his team’s lineup.
For the full season Valentine has 19.7 points, 7.7 rebounds and 7.3 assists per game, and you can be sure that there will be a lot of Elias Sports Bureau types out there looking for the last time a player had a 20-7-7 campaign. This may be the first - Bill Walton and Oscar Robertson might have been around those plateaus, but assists did not become an official record until the 1983-84 season.
Not surprisingly, Michigan State is on a 4-0 ATS February run, as Tom Izzo tweaked his offense to have Valentine running the show even more than had been the earlier plan. Adjustments had to be made after an injury sidelined starting PG Lourawls Nairn, and Valentine has been so effective in the role of playmaker that there is no real place for Nairn in the rotation, even though he is healthy again (he appeared for 6:00 over the last two games, with no points or rebounds, and one assist).
Valentine creates matchup headaches for just about any defense, being too quick for forwards to stay with on the perimeter, too tall and strong for guards, with unselfishness that has the entire offense clicking. If he keeps up this form the Spartans will not just be playing into March, but likely April as well.
Item: You can start Betting Baseball now
Any week that starts off with me hearing from all-around good guy Eric Strasser, author of “Betting Baseball for Profit” and better known as “Palmtree” around these parts, is a good week. The timing yesterday was spot on, with the Westgate releasing their various full-season MLB offerings over the weekend, and as expected Palmtree was more than ready to go. So let’s throw out the first pitch of the 2016 season, Eric taking the mound -
Marlins over 78.5 -110
The Marlins won 71 games last year, but the season was a circus from beginning to end. José Fernandez only made 11 starts after not coming back from Tommy John surgery until July, and then straining a bicep. Giancarlo Stanton only played in 74 games. The front office was so dysfunctional that the general manager actually came down on the field and became the field manager. The front office (ownership) were making personnel decisions, including sending Marcel Ozuna to the minors for half the season. For my purposes I’m going to forget the 2015 season completely.
I believe that front office situation has been rectified. They hired Don Mattingly as their new manager. Many believe that Mattingly failed as he was never able to get to a World Series with the Dodgers, but he made the playoffs every year and his teams were prepared to play every day. I think the professionalism that Mattingly will bring to the park every day is going to be a big plus for this franchise.
Additionally they made what might turn out to be the best off the field move of the winter. I’ve been on record for several years now with my opinion that Ray Searage of the Pirates is the best pitching coach in the major leagues. Searage’s right-hand man was Jim Benedict. This winter the Marlins went and got Benedict from the Pirates to oversee pitching development throughout the system. I think it’s a net positive that will have an immediate impact in 2016 pay dividends for years.
The rotation is top-heavy with Fernandez followed by Wei-Yin Chen. Jared Cosart will have to earn the 3rd spot and then the competition is wide-open for the last couple starters. Tom Koehler has proven he can pitch in a big-league rotation. The back of the rotation will work itself out in March, but it’s not a major concern since the bullpen is well above average. When people talk about “power arms” coming out of the bullpen there should be a picture of the Marlins logo. There are five guys who all average greater than 95 mph on the fastball, and that doesn’t include the closer AJ Ramos. Ramos had over 30 saves last year on a 70 win team, but will probably lose his job to Carter Capps this season. Capps has electric stuff and it is certainly going to be a closer in the near future. There is a lot of youth in the pen, and only one lefty at this point in Mike Dunn, but the collection of power arms here is really impressive.
The lineup has the potential to be in the top half of the league. Dee Gordon and Christian Yelich are both capable of .375 OBP. They’ll be on base all day for Stanton. There are no more at-bats in this lineup for the Donovan Solano’s and Jared Saltalamacchia’s of the world. It’s a deep lineup without any real weak spots. I’m not particularly interested in Barry Bonds as the hitting coach but he should help cut down on strikeouts. The defense is well above average and the schedule is very reasonable with two terrible teams in the division. That’s a chance to get some cheap wins, though the interleague schedule is tough, facing the AL Central, the best division in baseball.
Way back in December before the winter meetings I finished my preliminary work on the National League I thought the Marlins were a tremendous value at 100 – 1. Not that much happened over the winter, but they are now being projected as an almost .500 team. I’m sitting with a tiny bit (a three-topping large pizza) of 100 – 1 in pocket, but that’s not influencing me; I think this team has been undervalued by the marketplace. There should be stability in the organization for the first time in years, arguably the best player and the best pitcher in the National League are both on the Marlins, and the secondary players like Yelich and Hechavaria are borderline All-Stars in my opinion.
In the Sights…
In last Monday’s Weekend Review column there was a take that set the stage for an opportunity that brings value this evening – “It is OK to like Avery Johnson already (a season ahead of schedule)”. It noted the savvy that was being brought to the Crimson Tide game plans, with a team that only has average talent elevating itself to the NCAA tournament Bubble territory, via underdog wins away from home vs. the likes of LSU, Florida, Clemson, Notre Dame and Wichita State, and overall it has been a 12-4 ATS run in the underdog roll for Johnson in his first season in Tuscaloosa. I believe the value and the setting offer another tonight, so #723 Alabama (7:00 Eastern) will be in play.
The key is that it is not so much a play-on, as a setting in which Kentucky can be played against. Already without Alex Poythress, the Wildcats lost Derek Willis to an ankle injury at Texas A&M Saturday, and the fact that he was on crutches while the team practiced yesterday means that there is little chance of him taking the floor tonight. It leaves John Calipari’s rotation paper-thin, not only in the front-court, but with that guard tandem of Tyler Ulis and Jamal Murray getting little respite these days – Ulis went the full 45 minutes on Saturday, and Murray 42, so in a three games in six days setting, the Wildcats do not shape up as a dominating team.
A particular advantage for an underdog in this price range is a slow tempo, and that is what I expect to see – Kentucky is-next-to-last (#13) and Alabama is last (#14) in the SEC in offensive possession length. That becomes magnified here, because both Calipari and Johnson may be even more interested in keeping this one slow, through different paths to that motivation. It should turn this into a grinder, with the Wildcats lacking the depth and punch to break it open, and the Crimson Tide showing the tenacity to scrap and compete for the full 40 minutes, in a rare setting in which it is the double-figure underdog that actually has more depth.
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