Point Blank – October 27
Dribbling for Dollar$ begins (and yes, there is some Dylan that fits the madness of the Association)…Diving into the Pool from high in the Rockies…It is time to start liking the Thunder defense already…
There are 10 games on the NBA card tonight, to mark the full-scale opening of the most preposterous regular season of any spot on the betting boards. That means a lot of work ahead not only in terms of understanding the coaches and players, but also in getting our own handicapping rhythms into play. The season is a long one filled with absurdities, so one must be patient and nimble, accepting that there are many potholes along the way, and being prepared to drive around them.
Is it possible to continue the Bob Dylan tribute cycle across the traveling circus that is the NBA regular season? Of course. Not many understand the subtleties and idiosyncrasies of the human endeavor as well as the justly-reward Nobel Prize winner, and pairing Dylan’s words with the spirit of the Grateful Dead lifted so many of those songs to a special place. In one of the best interpretations there could be of the pro hoopsters roller coaster to come over the next five months, Bob Weir takes the lead on Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again, this one from Philadelphia’s old JFK Stadium in 1989 -
Item: San Antonio 129 Golden State 100
The NBA opening night actually made my job much easier by the Spurs and Warriors taking the lectern as a warning as to what is ahead. That allows me to go from the general to the specific from the get-go.
First the general – this is a long grind in which many of the outcomes are not going to make tangible sense. Learn to accept that and you have a chance for success; trying to make each outcome meaningful will have you going back to the jukebox to click today’s link over and over again for sanity. The season is far too long for the players to give it their all in many games, and for a lot of the teams the 82-game slate is merely a tuneup for the playoffs anyway, as they pick and choose when to go hard.
The starting point for now will be the weighting of the results, something that gets discussed here often across all sports. The good news in the NBA is that the scoreboard is the best statistic of all, something that is not true of many football games, so that the post mortems do not have to be as complicated in dealing with the various statistical categories. The bad news is that a significant percentage of the scoreboards won’t provide useful data in terms of going forward, and some will flat out screw things up. Hence a degree of caution that will be in play all season.
Patience is absolutely required in the early part of the campaign, and while that is not easy for all, it is for me. Because it all begins at a time when the NFL is not yet to mid-season, and the World Series has just begun, there is not enough time to get ahead of the curve on each team anyway. My goal is to have opening Power Ratings that don’t necessarily have to be good enough to jump head-first into the marketplace, but bring the strength to properly incorporate each game result as they come in. I am confident that is where they are as tonight’s board begins to flash colors across the screen, and there is a shot worth taking, which I will get to in a moment.
The general discussions of the Association will continue all season, but now time to get specific, because last night has already brought such a compelling result. One of the summer discussions here when the Warriors signed Kevin Durant was that it was anything but a rubber stamp that it was going to work. In this instance the sum is not necessarily more than an aggregate of the parts, largely because there is the potential for the sum to make some of the parts of lesser value. The gist is two-fold: Basketball Chemistry; and the Nature of the High-Volume Scorer.
I am not going to be redundant by going back into each of them, but let me deal with the second aspect first, and then last night’s game will detail much of the first.
One of the things that has made Steph Curry and Durant so explosive is volume. Add Klay Thompson’s game to a degree as well. These guys have very special skills and can be almost impossible to defend when they are on. Let them catch their rhythm on a given night and a defense become defenseless. But it does take volume to get into those rhythms – Curry can make brilliant step-back jumpers when he is in sync, but what happens when he goes 4-5 minutes without getting a shot? It is the same for Durant/Thompson – there just is not a way for all three players to be able to stay in a steady shooting rhythm because there are going to be times in which one, and sometimes two, of them go long stretches without the ball. It is just a fact of basketball.
There will be some nights in which that trio explodes, and in those games we will witness some of the best basketball ever played. There will also be some nights in which it simply does not connect up. The question becomes whether or not the team chemistry can handle those off-nights, which takes us to…
Item: It was a basketball clinic for the Spurs
Even in the post-Tim Duncan era there won’t be many questions about San Antonio playing smart basketball – it is a well-developed group of players that will accept their roles, and watching Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge develop in a way that makes each player better will be intriguing to watch. Those two combined for 61 points, 19 rebounds, six assists and six steals in that rout.
Let’s put that directly into perspective in terms of what will be called the “Floor Game” here all season. San Antonio got 13 more FG attempts and eight more FT attempts than Golden State. That is a dominating floor game, essentially producing a win expectation of around 20 points even if the two teams shot the same percentage. You know where that gap comes from – Basketball Chemistry.
The Spurs won the battle of the boards by a resounding 55-35, while also having fewer turnovers and coming up with more steals. If you win those categories so decisively there is almost no degree of shooting that can overcome it, and the Spurs accentuated the result by scoring at a 125.9 PP100 (Points Per 100 Possessions, which will be a standard reference here), getting easy opportunities against what was a flat-out bad Warrior defense all night.
Steve Kerr laid out it so very well in terms of basketball smarts – “We’re going to be explosive and we’re going to score a lot of points, but we have to be sharp with our execution and help our defense by playing good offense, solid offense.”
The Warriors played bad basketball, not balancing Offense/Defense into a continual game flow. Kerr knew it, and the players will also know it. Those nights will be rare, but they will happen.
In terms of grading, naturally one has to be careful with that result. If Golden State plays to potential there is the chance to win 65 or more games, which will then leave the impression that San Antonio played one of the best games of all time last night. That is not a proper way to compute it, so right off the bat we are given a game that we can’t use for a full weight – that would end up over-rating the Spurs long into the season.
Now let’s fulfill a weekly football obligation for at least one more dive, before taking a dribble into the Wednesday NBA marketplace…
Survivor Pool Week #8
The Week #8 decision does not take long to firm up - although I do not have any inclination towards them at this week’s price, the DENVER BRONCOS are the strategic fit. The Broncos fit the “need to use” list, and this week’s matchup provides their best percentage of winning outright until a trip to Jacksonville five weeks from now. They did a solid job of defending Philip Rivers and the Chargers in that 21-13 road loss two weeks ago, allowing only 265 yards at 4.4 per play, but their own offense suffered in terms of preparation with Gary Kubiak not taking part in any team activities. The defense should once again do their part, and with the offense showing a better rhythm of Monday they bring enough to go to the lead of this week’s options.
Week #1 – Kansas City
Week #2 – Carolina
Week #3 – Miami
Week #4 – Washington
Week #5 – New England
Week #6 – Tennessee
Week #7 – Cincinnati
Week #8 – DENVER BRONCOS
In the Sights, NBA…
I will get into the early markets with one idea that I believe is not factored properly yet, the prospect of Oklahoma City having a solid defensive chemistry, and that sets up 714 Philadelphia Team Total Under (8:05 Eastern), with 98.5 available in the morning trading, and 98 or better the value point.
While losing Kevin Durant obviously alters the Thunder note that there are some intriguing aspects to this bunch – they were among the best rebounding teams in NBA history last season, and may be even better on that front, with Billy Donovan opting for a starting lineup that includes Domantas Sabonis at the #4. While Sabonis makes them even better on the boards he is not going to be much of a scoring option, and neither is Andre Roberson at #3. But the combination of Roberson, and Victor Oladipo at #2, means some terrific athleticism at defending the perimeter. This defense has a chance to be awfully good.
The 76ers have their usual chemistry mess to begin this season and I believe it shows most on offense, with Jerryd Bayless and Ben Simmons missing. Perimeter shooting is going to be a problem, and that is exacerbated tonight because there won’t be much of anything coming easy around the basket, the Thunder not just having size, but also depth. And their ability to clear the boards negates second-chance opportunities, so the Philly offense will have to score from their own merits, which are few.
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