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And-Ones: Predictions, Discipline, Prospects

January 19th, 2018 at 8:02pm CST by Austin Kent

In a debut installment of a new feature, Marc Stein of the New York Times made a number of predictions for the upcoming year in basketball. The scribe ventures a guess that this is the year the Trail Blazers blow up their backcourt of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum.

Stein writes that dealing one of the star guards would be the easiest way for the Blazers to balance their roster, something that could come in handy if the organization seeks to go in a new direction. Bear in mind, however, that Stein’s prediction applies to this year and not necessarily to this season.

Stein also makes a series of arguments that a pair of big names stay with their current teams, despite ongoing speculation to the contrary. The Times journalist says that LeBron James to the Lakers is no guarantee and that Cleveland stands a legitimate chance of retaining the King.

On a similar note, Stein reasons that DeMarcus Cousins isn’t likely to find the market teeming with attractive salary offers this season and that he’ll end up staying put with the Pelicans.

There’s more from around the league:

  • One possible solution to curb the growing tension between NBA players and referees is to ramp up the discipline assigned to players who act hostile to officials. “The hammer has to drop from above,” one Western Conference team official told Ken Berger of Bleacher Report. “When you had David Stern and Rod Thorn there, none of this stuff was going on because they weren’t going to put up with it. I think we’ve gotten away from that. There’s something every night.“
  • Four active front offices have made a dozen or more trade deadline deals over the course of their tenures, Bobby Marks of ESPN weighed in on them and the rest of the league’s executives in his latest for ESPN Insiders.
  • There has been plenty of movement among the DraftExpress team’s list of the top 100 NBA prospects. Jonathan Givony of ESPN recently broke down a number of NCAA players who’ve recently seen their values rise dramatically.
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And-Ones: International Games, Basketball In The UK

January 11th, 2018 at 6:20pm CST by Austin Kent

The NBA is considering bringing additional games to Europe, but scheduling logistics represent the biggest challenge to making that happen, an Associated Press report states.

Prior to Thursday’s Celtics-Sixers tilt in the United Kingdom, commissioner Adam Silver was asked by journalists in other countries when the league would send games to their parts of the globe. The most significant issue is figuring out a way to schedule the trips without interrupting the participating teams’ season schedules.

In order to make Thursday’s game in London work, for example, the Celtics had to stuff 44 games into the first half of their season. The Sixers, in contrast, have played the fewest games in the league – 39 – and will have the busiest part of their season in the second half.

Given that the NBA lacks the established off days that the NFL has, there may never be an easy to way to implement international games. At a time when teams are adamant that the league needs to cut down on their stateside back-to-backs, finding an organic way to give a team four days off before and after an international game, as was the case today, is no small task.

There’s more news from around the NBA:

  • A report by ESPN’s Motez Bishara takes a deep dive into why Britain doesn’t have a larger presence in the NBA. For one, a 2016 survey revealed that just 175,000 Brits between 14-25 years old play basketball once a week. That contrasts with the 1,200,000 who play soccer. The feature also goes into the politics at play in a country where the majority of basketball is played in the inner cities.
  • Being a loyal NBA fan in the United Kingdom prior to the arrival of the international version of League Pass was difficult, Motez Bishara of ESPN writes. “It’s still a struggle, purely because of the time difference,” one British fan interviewed said, “but it was impossible back then.“
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League, Union Formally Discuss One-And-Done Rule

November 16th, 2017 at 10:48pm CST by Austin Kent

Draft eligibility rules have been a topic of conversation between the NBA and the Players Association, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN writes, and earlier today league commissioner Adam Silver and union executive director Michele Roberts went so far as to formally speak with the government’s Commission on College Basketball in Washington, D.C.

The commission – which includes executives, retired players and political figures – was formed in the wake of recent FBI investigations regarding corruption.

The meeting between the three parties is said to have been strictly informational in nature and, ultimately, what the NBA decides to do with regard to incoming players is up to the league and the player’s union.

As Wojnarowski writes, there’s a growing belief that Silver seeks to end the one-and-done rule implemented by his predecessor in 2005. In order for such a change to happen though, the union would potentially need to accept a mandate declaring that players who do choose to enter college would be obligated to stay for two years prior to declaring for the draft.

Silver has previously said publicly that the current one-and-done rule isn’t working for the college game.

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Adam Silver Discusses Playoff Re-Seeding

October 8th, 2017 at 9:01am CST by Arthur Hill

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver addressed the possibility of reformatting the playoffs without conference affiliations during a news conference today in Shanghai, China.

In a video posted on NBA.com, Silver said the main obstacle is the unbalanced schedule that the league currently has. All teams play 30 games against the opposing conference and 52 against their own, which the commissioner said would have to change to make an open playoff system equitable.

“Our feeling is if we are going to seed teams one through 16, we would need to play a balanced schedule to make it fair for everyone,” Silver said. “It may be as we continue to experiment with the number of days over which we can schedule 82 games that it will create more of an opportunity for a balanced schedule.”

Silver, who said earlier this week that “there’s nothing magical” about keeping an 82-game schedule, believes the league will eventually examine its entire format, from season length and playoff changes to possibly having teams located overseas.

Although nothing will likely happen soon, Silver indicated the league has a long-term goals of expanding international exposure and creating the fairest possible schedule and playoff system without overtaxing its players.

“Counterbalancing seeding the teams one through 16 is also the desire to create more rest for our players, and when possible reduce the amount of travel,” he said. “In adding the extra week to the regular season this year, we were able to eliminate completely four games out of five nights, which is I think the first time in the history of the league we were able to do that, plus we have back-to-backs at an all-time low. If we took the existing format and the additional schedule and seeded teams one through 16, we’ll be adding additional travel because you could have teams criss-crossing the country in the first round.”

Silver cited the WNBA playoffs, which are seeded without regard to conferences, as an example of the format working successfully. He also noted that the West has been a stronger conference for several years and promised that the the league will keep examining re-seeding possibilities.

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And-Ones: International Expansion, Season Length, Seeding

October 5th, 2017 at 10:48pm CST by Austin Kent

The limitations of existing air travel technology will prevent any major international expansion, Sam Amick of USA Today writes. While the league has enjoyed success hosting the occasional event in China, there’s just no logical way to incorporate such an ambitious expansion considering how long it would take, and how taxing it would be to send teams back and forth between North America and Asia.

Of course that hasn’t ruled out league commissioner Adam Silver from at least being open to the idea if, or perhaps when, existing airline technology changes. Currently a flight from the West Coast to China takes 14 hours. Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk are hard at work trying to innovate feasible ways of moving people across the globe quicker and more efficiently.

“We can play games in China and Europe, or occasional preseason games as a one-off,” Silver said. “But under existing airline technology, the planes aren’t fast enough to at least play in the current frame work of our regular season.”

A more realistic option for international expansion would involve Mexico City. Travelling to Mexico is far more practical, although political and financial hurdles remain. Silver cites the success of the league’s international expansion north into Canada as proof that such change is at least possible.

There’s more from around the league:

  • In the same article, Sam Amick of USA Today writes that NBA commissioner Adam Silver doesn’t necessarily consider the 82-game season to be set in stone. “There’s nothing magical about 82 games,” Silver said. “It’s been in place for 50 years, but for the long-term planning of the league, as we learn more about the human body and the wear and tear of travel and the competitive landscape … invariably we’ll look at the regular season.“
  • With the first season in the books, the Big3 has turned its attention to next year, bringing back a number of players from the inaugural campaign. A press release on the league’s official site mentions that a batch of players, including league MVP Rashard Lewis, have already signed on to return in 2018.
  • The NBA’s willingness to shake up the All-Star Game format could imply that they’d consider changing how seeding in the playoffs works, Nick Friedell of ESPN writes, although there’s no indication that any change is imminent.
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And-Ones: Diaw, Silver, Contract Years, Doncic

September 17th, 2017 at 7:52pm CST by Luke Adams

Having signed to play for a team in France, Boris Diaw explains in a YouTube video (French, with English subtitles) why he made the decision to join Levallois Metropolitans for the 2017/18 season after 14 years in the NBA.

“This decision wasn’t about the money,” Diaw said. “It was about joining a club that could benefit from my presence, where I could help guide and teach the younger players. It was about bringing them my experience, my advice. It was also about staying fit. It provided me with an opportunity to play at a high level and stay physically fit while waiting for a potential offer from an NBA team that might need me during the season.”

As we wait to see if Diaw makes his way back to the NBA at some point in 2017/18, let’s round up a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world…

  • While commissioner Adam Silver hoped NBA owners could reach on gentlemen’s agreement on policing the rest of healthy players, team owners – led by Robert Sarver of the Suns – encouraged Silver to institute concrete rules and potential punishments in order to curb the issue, writes ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. Wojnarowski’s piece examines Silver’s role in addressing the DNP-Rest problem, and looks at the commissioner’s push for lottery reform.
  • In a piece for HoopsHype, Bryan Kalbrosky identifies a number of players who may end up exceeding expectations in contract years. Of course, many of the players on Kalbrosky’s list – including Gary Harris, Rodney Hood, and Jusuf Nurkic – are eligible for extensions until opening night, so 2017/18 may not end up being a contract year for some of them.
  • Sasa Doncic, the father of young Real Madrid star Luka Doncic, called his son a unique talent who “plays in a magical way,” but acknowledged that he’d like to see him improve his shot a little (link via AS.com; translation via Emiliano Carchia of Sportando). Doncic is expected to be one of the first players to come off the board in the 2018 draft.
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Latest On Seattle’s Quest For An NBA Franchise

September 9th, 2017 at 8:35pm CST by Austin Kent

For much of the past half decade, a group of investors led by Chris Hansen has sought ways to build an arena in Seattle that could house an NBA team and possibly an NHL club as well. The group, however, has faced resistance, most recently from a city council that refused to grant it access to a city street necessary for construction in the Sodo District.

On Thursday, an Associated Press report broke news that Hansen’s group would also be willing to help rebuild and modernize KeyArena as a venue for concerts, after the construction on the new Sodo facility had been completed, that is.

From 1967 until 2008, KeyArena was home to the NBA’s SuperSonics and the building currently remains on a 74-acre plot in downtown as a multipurpose facility and the home of Seattle’s WNBA club.

Despite the fact that Hansen’s group is aggressively pursuing a franchise – they’ve already pivoted from seeking to use public money to privately financing the project – their plans of building a facility near those of the Seahawks’ and Mariners’ facilities would require the purchase of a portion of Occidental Avenue South.

As recently as May of 2016, however, Seattle city council voted against such an acquisition 5-4, some councilmembers steadfast against the idea of vacating a prominent, industrial city street in the name of supposed “gentrification.”

If the proposal to rebuild KeyArena was intended as an olive branch for city officials, it wasn’t taken as such. Almost immediately after issuing their proposal, Seattle’s Office of Economic Development shot them down, referring to a formal request for proposals that was held earlier in 2017.

If Hansen’s group wanted to modernize KeyArena, the office suggested, they should have formally proposed their plans when the city was requesting them. As things stand, a Los Angeles-based company already has a finalized draft to renovate KeyArena for $564MM with the intention of housing NBA and NHL teams there.

What does this mean for hoops fans hoping for another basketball franchise in the Pacific Northwest? Not much, directly at least.

In April of 2016, NBA commissioner Adam Silver told Baker that a “shovel ready arena” wouldn’t hasten the league’s meticulous expansion process. More recently though, Silver told C.J. McCollum of the Players Tribune (yes, that one) in July 2017 that the league would inevitably start looking at growth of franchises.

“Seattle will no doubt be on a short list of cities we’ll look at,” Silver told him.

Whether that hypothetical franchise suits up in a renovated version of KeyArena or somewhere in the middle of an industrial district slowly enveloped by sports facilities remains to be seen.

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NBA Contemplates Draft Lottery Reform

September 7th, 2017 at 3:43pm CST by Austin Kent

3:43pm: An update to Wojnarowski’s original article details the currently proposed legislation and we have the highlights here:

  • Teams would be able to drop four spots in the lottery. Currently teams can drop no more than three spots.
  • The three worst teams would have equal probabilities of landing the first pick.
  • The odds for those three worst teams would be flattened, closing the gap between their odds of landing the top pick and the subsequent teams’ odds of landing the top pick.

Another idea that the Competition Committee came up with is to prohibit teams from picking in the top three in consecutive years.

2:37pm: The NBA’s Competition Committee could potentially vote on draft lottery reform prior to the 2017/18 season, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN writes.

Commissioner Adam Silver is a strong advocate of discouraging tanking and could do so by lowering the odds that basement-dwelling teams have of snagging the top picks.

While legislation for reform could be voted on and put in place prior to the season, that doesn’t mean that any changes would necessarily affect next year’s draft. More realistically, Wojnarowski writes, modifications to the lottery process would be phased in over time.

The NBA’s Competition Committee is expected to vote on the idea of sending a formal recommendation to the league’s Board of Governors next week. If the vote goes through, the committee will be able to decide whether to pass the league office’s recommendations on to the next stage of the process or modify them and send them along.

Ultimately it will be team owners with the final say when they, if necessary, hold their own vote on whether or not to implement the recommendations at the Board of Governors meeting in September.

Currently the draft process gives the team with the fewest wins a 25% chance of landing the first pick and a 64.3% chance of staying in the top three.

The team with the second fewest wins has a 55.8% chance of staying in the top three while the third-worst team in the league has a 46.9% chance of staying there.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the five best lottery teams have only a 1.8% to 4% chance of landing in the top three.

Modifications to the weighting system could tip the scales in favor of teams who finished with better records, lessening the temptations of blatant futility.

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And-Ones: Dream Teams, Sports Betting, Roberts

July 21st, 2017 at 7:27pm CST by Austin Kent

Eight of the 12 players who played with Team USA during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London have since changed teams, Tom Haberstroh of ESPN writes. Seven of them either immediately or eventually reunited with a teammate from the same Dream Team squad.

The scribe has published a full feature detailing the impact that international teams have on superteams in the NBA, referring to playing internationally as a form of modern team-building.

The article, of course, touches on the fact that yet another player from that same team – Carmelo Anthony – could be on the move to reunite with Olympic teammates before the end of the summer.

Additionally, Haberstroh points out that five of the players from the 2016 Olympic squad can be free agents next summer. Could more reunions be in the cards?

That’s not all from around the NBA:

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NBA Adopts New Rules To Speed Up Play

July 12th, 2017 at 10:08pm CST by Arthur Hill

In addition to the earlier trade deadline that Luke Adams wrote about this morning, the NBA approved several other significant rules changes today. Reducing the number of timeouts per game and moving the mandatory stopping points are among the alterations outlined by Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post.

To speed up the pace of play, especially in the final few minutes, the league’s Board of Governors has cut the maximum number of timeouts from 18 to 14. Also, mandatory TV timeouts have been moved to the seven- and three-minute marks of each quarter, and overtime timeouts have been reduced from three to two for each team.

The 20-second timeout has been eliminated, as Bontemps notes that they actually lasted 60 seconds while regular timeouts stretched to 90 seconds. The new rules consider all timeouts to be “team timeouts” that will last 75 seconds.

Other moves to speed up the game include enforcing the 15-minute limit for halftime and imposing delay-of-game penalties on shooters who walk behind the 3-point line between free throws.

“I would say, in this case, we’re pretty happy with the length of our game,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said at a news conference today. “We were more focused here on the pace and flow of the game. What we heard from our fans and heard from many of our teams was that the end of the games in particular were too choppy. I think since I was a kid, that’s an issue people have been talking about, the last two minutes of our game. . . . We think these new changes will have a significant impact, especially at the end of the game.”

Silver also announced an earlier start date to the season to cut down on back-to-back games. This year’s opening night will be October 17th.And although several stars moved from the Eastern to the Western Conference this summer, there are no immediate plans to shift the conference alignment or change the playoff format, relays Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.com.

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