The Desperate Situation In New Jersey

At RealGM, a look at why the Nets have nothing to lose in digging up reclamation projects like Gerald Green:

While Dwight Howard would change everything, if the Orlando Magic decide to deal their All-NBA center, the Nets potential trade chips pale in comparison to Andrew Bynum. If Orlando keeps Howard until the end of the season, Dallas, Williams’ hometown, is a much more attractive destination for both marquee free agents this summer. 

Without Howard, there’s no reason for Williams to remain with the Nets. Without Williams, the Nets will be trying to open their new arena in Brooklyn without a single marquee player. Mikhail Prokhorov was supposed to help attract free agents, but he seems to have lost interest in his NBA franchise, as he’s currently running against Vladimir Putin for the Russian Presidency. 

That’s what makes their mid-season signing of Gerald Green so interesting. A super-athletic 6’7, 195 shooting guard with a 6’10 wingspan, he was the No. 1 player in the country coming out of high school in 2005. As a 20-year-old rookie in Boston, he had a per-36 minute average of 16.1 points on 47.8% shooting. 

However, he was never able to integrate his talents into an offensive scheme or play with consistent effort defensively, washing out of the NBA at the age of 23. Now, three years later, he’s been humbled by stints in the D-League and Europe. An AAU star whose career fizzled due to off-the-court issues, he fits the profile of late-blooming players in the modern NBA.

Andrew Bynum: Orlando's Only Option

At RealGM, a look at why the Orlando Magic have to make the Andrew Bynum/Dwight Howard deal:

Howard, the first-team All-NBA center in each of the past four years and the Defensive Player of the Year during the last three, is irreplaceable. But if you have to replace the NBA’s best center, who is only 26, you’re not going to do better than the NBA’s second-best center, who is only 24. 

Three months after Howard first asked for a trade to either the Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas Mavericks or New Jersey Nets, a package built around Andrew Bynum is still the only deal that makes sense for the Orlando Magic. Building a franchise around around Bynum, whose been injured in each of the last four seasons, is a significant risk, but it’s a much smaller one than counting on Howard to stay. 

Opting to play in Orlando, the 26th biggest media market in the United States, would constitute a significant pay-cut for Howard, especially since this current Magic team has little chance of ever winning a championship. Choosing between teaming up with Deron Williams in either Brooklyn or Dallas, or playing in Orlando with a team unlikely to be better than Miami, Chicago or New York isn’t much of choice at all. 

Bynum is averaging 16.3 points, 12.8 rebounds and 2.0 blocks on 54% shooting for the Lakers and that’s without touching the ball for 4-5 minute stretches of games. In Orlando, where he would instantly become the primary option, he could conceivably score 24-25 points while shooting 50-51% from the floor.

NBA Mid-Season Power Rankings

At RealGM, a look at where all 30 NBA teams stand at the half-way point of the 2011-2012 season:

1. Miami Heat-- Last season, the Heat gave 73 starts to Erick Dampier and Zydrunas Ilgauskas and 52 to Mike Bibby and Carlos Arroyo. This year, Mario Chalmers, Joel Anthony, Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem, Shane Battier and Norris Cole are players 4-9 in their rotation. With LeBron James playing the best basketball of his career, averaging 27.7 points, 8.1 rebounds and 6.8 assists on 55% shooting (!!) from the field, Miami looks like a team capable of winning multiple titles. 

2. Chicago Bulls-- The Bulls have the league’s reigning MVP, three elite defensive-minded big men and three more players (Carlos Boozer, Luol Deng and Richard Hamilton) capable of scoring 20 points on a given night. They have a 27-8 record and a +9.5 point differential, the best in the NBA. There’s only thing between them and a title: an answer for when Miami puts LeBron on Derrick Rose. 

3. Oklahoma City Thunder-- The Thunder have taken another step forward this season, improving their point differential from +3.4 to +6.2. They were undone by a lack of frontcourt shooting last year; Scott Brooks will need to figure out whether Oklahoma City is better closing out games with Kevin Durant at the 3 or at the 4.

Washington's NBA Prospects And The Education Of A PG

At SB Nation, a look at Washington's NBA prospects and the transition ball-dominant PG's like Tony Wroten Jr. must make:

Terrence Ross -- Vince Carter (best case) / JR Smith (worst case)

CJ Wilcox -- Rip Hamilton / JJ Redick

Darnell Gant -- Anthony Tolliver / James Gist

Down-the-road possibilities: Tony Wroten Jr., Abdul Gaddy, Aziz N'Diaye and Shawn Kemp Jr. 

Jeremy Lin Is Replaceable And So Are You

At PolicyMic, a look at how "Linsanity" reflects the way American culture overemphasizes individual achievement:

Over the last decade, as the salaries of the top 1% have increasingly drifted away from the other 99%, an Ayn Rand-inspired school of thought has emerged, with the lucky few telling themselves that they “deserved” their salaries. But for every LeBron James or Steve Jobs, there are dozens of Jeremy Lin’s, people who took advantage of being in the right place and the right time. 

Lin has become one of the NBA’s biggest stars, but if Baron Davis had been healthy all season, he probably would have never gotten the chance to show it. Before injuries to Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire, the Knicks were considering cutting him, which would have made them the third team to let go of the point guard in less than a year, likely forcing Lin to play overseas. 

Jeremy Lin, like the vast majority of Americans making more than $500,000 annually, is replaceable, no matter what the media may try to tell you.

Vince Carter And T-Mac: Still Going Strong

At RealGM, a look at how Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter have re-invented themselves as role players long after most thought they were finished:

But instead of forming a dynasty in Toronto, McGrady and Carter bounced around the NBA, playing for nine different teams over the last 13 years. Yet, despite being written off by most of the basketball world, they are still productive players for playoff teams in 2012. 

Most elite players have either an All-NBA level skill-set or All-NBA level athleticism; they had both. That’s why, long after their athleticism has eroded, they’re still able to be effective contributors. 

Very few players last more than a decade in the NBA; even fewer can still be effective members of a playoff team’s rotation in their 14th (Carter) and 15th (McGrady) seasons. Nor is this necessarily their last go-round either, as they’ve transformed their games to become role players in the same way that Ron Harper did for the late-90’s Bulls and Jason Kidd has done for the Mavericks.

The Last Psychiatrist On Target's Data Mining

The Last Psychiatrist, one of the best writers on the internet, gives a thought-provoking take on the implications of Target's ability to use consumer's shopping history to deduce their personal information:

The Internet’s collective response to this is “just pay in cash and stay of the grid.”  

What the article does not point out is that it doesn’t actually matter whether you pay in cash or credit. 

They know more you than you realize. Cue Tyler Durden: You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all a part of the same compost pile. 

They have run endless models and correlations of products that are bought together for cash. They analyze this data on an hourly basis all the way to a seasonal basis. Do you shop at night, in the morning, on weekdays, or on weekends? There is a profile for each of those kinds of consumers. Do people who pay in cash have a higher propensity to buy certain cereals, or packaged goods, or soaps? 

You can say that you could shop anytime, or change what you buy, but you won’t. Habits are only habits to the person who has them. To everyone looking at that person, they are patterns. 

“But I pay in cash. I’m off the grid.” You shop at Target. You eat Kellogg’s cereal and drink a Coca-Cola soft-drink. You wash your clothes in a Procter & Gamble detergent, wash your hands, hair and body with a Unilever soap. You couldn’t be more on the grid. You’re practically standing at the origin.

The Cultural Importance Of Jeremy Lin

At RealGM, a look at why Jeremy Lin transcends the sport of basketball:

The Knicks, with a roster full of players -- Tyson Chandler, Jared Jeffries, Steve Novak, Landry Fields -- more comfortable finishing than creating their own shot, needed someone who could distribute the ball. And while Lin has excelled in that role, point guard is the most replaceable position in the NBA, and there are quite a few who could put up similar statistics if they were allowed to dominate the ball for 35-40 minutes. 

Yao Ming, who could have been an MVP if he had stayed healthy, preceded him in the NBA. However, as a 7’5 center, he didn’t capture the imagination of the average fan. 99% of the world’s population can’t picture themselves as a 6’10 250+ low post player, but everyone relates to the guards, the shortest players on the floor. After all, Gatorade didn’t make any ads saying “I want to be like Kareem”. 

Lin is a masculine Asian role model, something lacking in modern American society. There are no big-time Asian football players or movie stars. Even though Jet Li and Jackie Chan were two of the baddest dudes to ever star in movies, their characters didn’t usually get the girl at the end. In the last scene of The Tuxedo, Chan’s character has coffee with Jennifer Love Hewitt’s. 

As Wesley Yang pointed out in a brilliant essay for New York Magazine last year, the widespread perception of Asian males as weak and timid is one of the main factors behind the “Bamboo Curtain”, the fact that Asians have trouble rising to positions of leadership in American society. In one telling example, 33% of Silicon Valley software engineers are Asian, yet only 6% of the board members and 10% of the corporate officers of the top 25 Bay Area firms are.

What Drake And Occupy Wall Street Have In Common

At PopMatters, a look at how the increasing economic insecurity of the American middle-class has fueled the rise of "emo rappers":

On their tumblr page, people have been posting stories of their struggles with student loan debt, inadequate medical coverage and a lack of job opportunities. Many of these young college graduates grew up listening to rap, and the changes in their economic situation mirror the changes in rap music over the last few years. 

While Rick Ross and Lil’ Wayne are still near the top of the charts, in the last five years, an eternity in hip-hop, there hasn’t been a single gangster rapper to emerge as a mainstream star. It’s too soon to say who from the latest generation of rappers—Drake, Kid Cudi, Wiz Khalifa, B.o.B., Big Sean and J.Cole—will remain relevant, but the themes of their music, much different than the violence and drug-dealing of their predecessors, reflect the same underlying social trends that created Occupy Wall Street. 

On 2004’s “Tough Luv”, the Young Gunz, two of Jay-Z’s artists at Roc-A-Fella Records, said “God forbid this rap s*** don’t even work out / Still know the coke route, still get our moms out.” In contrast, on “College Boy”, J.Cole, one of Jay-Z’s artists at his new label Roc Nation, said “Eligible bachelor, finna get my bachelor’s / And if this rap s*** don’t work out, I’m going for my Masters.” 

Rappers have always wrestled with the existential concern of how to make something of themselves in a society where the odds are stacked against them. The biggest difference now, as opposed to in the ‘90s, is that many of their listeners have the same worries. 

Occupy Wall Street has been criticized for a lack of a coherent message or spokesman. But if you wanted one statement that sums up their concerns, you could do worse then a Cam’ron rant from 2005: “My whole life I heard: ‘Go to school, get an education, go to college.’ What the f*** for? So I could get a job making $30,000 a year, pay back my f****** student loans? Plus, how the f*** am I gonna buy Lamborghini Ferraris and go to Miami 10 times a year doing that?”

Chris Paul: The NBA's Pound-For-Pound Champ

At RealGM, a look at Chris Paul's ability to dominate games despite his subpar athleticism:

You don’t need to be a sports fan to appreciate Griffin, a chiseled 6’9, 250 power forward with springs for legs. Griffin looked like he was playing Slamball at times against an aging Dallas Mavericks frontcourt, soaring 11 and 12 feet in the air with absolute ease. 

In contrast, Chris Paul, a 6’0, 175 point guard, doesn’t pass the eye test. Most players his size, guys like J.J. Barea and Ty Lawson, play at an incredibly fast pace to make up for their lack of stature, pin-balling around the court and using their lower center of gravity to blow by taller opponents. While Paul no longer wears the bulky knee brace he played with in his last season with New Orleans, the knee injury clearly robbed him of his explosiveness, and he plays almost as deliberately as Jason Kidd, his 38-year-old counterpart on the Mavericks. 

He doesn’t need to blow by people to create open shots for his teammates; he can find a tiny crack in the defense, let a help-side defender take one step towards him and then zip the ball through the lane to the open man. And while Griffin has video game athletic ability, Paul plays like the quintessential video game player, someone who intimately understands all the rules of the game, and as a result, almost never makes the wrong decision. 

His statistics this season speak for themselves: he averages 18.5 points per game on 50.5% shooting while handing out nine assists on only 2.1 turnovers. Only seven of the NBA’s top 20 scorers shoot better than 50% from the field; the other six -- LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Dwight Howard, LaMarcus Aldridge, David Lee and Griffin -- are all at least 6’9. And while players like Howard and Griffin do most of their damage at and above the rim, where it’s fairly easy to score, 80%of Paul’s shots come from outside the lane.

Kentucky's NBA Prospects And A Defense Of John Calipari

 

At SB Nation, a look at the plethora of NBA prospects at Kentucky and what it says about John Calipari:

Anthony Davis -- Black Swan (best case) / Marcus Camby (worst case) 

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist -- Shawn Marion / Trevor Ariza 

Terrence Jones -- Josh Smith / Earl Clark 

Doron Lamb -- Ben Gordon / Beno Udrih 

Darius Miller -- Jared Dudley / David Noel 

Down-the-road possibilities: Marquis Teague, Kyle Wiltjer

Tim Duncan, KG And The End Of An Era

At RealGM, a look at the legacies of Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett, as neither is in the All-Star Game for the first time since 1996:

Before Duncan and Garnett, seven-footers were automatically relegated to the center position while the best power forwards were anywhere from 6’6 (Charles Barkley) to 6’9 (Karl Malone). With the athleticism and skill-set to play the power forward position and the size of a center, the two revolutionized the game. Their teams could play two seven-footers at once, a huge advantage considering most NBA franchises struggle to find one talented big man that size. 

Garnett/Duncan should have been the NBA’s answer to Nadal/Federer and Brady/Manning. Drafted two years apart, they were polar opposites in many ways: Garnett, one of the league’s most fiery and emotional players, was the first player in over a generation to jump directly from high school to the NBA; Duncan, a legendary stoic, was the last transcendent player to stay in college all four seasons. 

With Garnett’s supporting cast consisting mainly of has beens and never weres, there was no one standing in Duncan’s way from 2003-2007. The Spurs won three out of five championships while falling inches short the other two times: losing on Derek Fisher’s 0.4 second buzzer in 2004 and Dirk Nowitzki’s and-1 in the final seconds of a Game 7 in 2006.

Texas Basketball's Bright Future

Over at SB Nation Dallas, a look at why Rick Barnes has the Texas program pointed in the right direction:

On Saturday, Brown was at his best, scoring from every part of the floor and ably running the team for huge stretches. For the season, he is averaging 19.9 points on 42% shooting with a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio. As a senior, he should be able to increase his offensive efficiency and put together an All-American type season, which would give him a chance to make an NBA roster despite his inability to jump over anything thicker than a credit card. 

Brown's ceiling as a collegian will depend in large part on whether freshman PG Myck Kabongo, one of the most talented PG's in the country, returns as a sophomore. Barnes has been burned by underclassmen jumping before they're ready, but Kabongo, who could be a lottery pick in 2013, should have a much easier decision than fellow Canadian Cory Joseph, a 6'3 combo guard who couldn't afford to return to school and jeopardize a guaranteed first-round contract in 2011. 

So while Kabongo, the only McDonald's All-American in Barnes' 2011 recruiting class, has drawn significant interest from the NBA already, four of his fellow freshmen -- 6'4 guards Julien Lewis and Sheldon McClellan, 6'7 forwards Jonathan Holmes and Jaylen Bond -- will form the nucleus of Top 25 teams for the next three years.

Losing Chauncey Billups: No Big Deal

At RealGM, a look at why losing Chauncey Billups for the season is actually a good thing for LA:

However, not only will the Clippers survive Billups’ loss, they will probably end up being a better team for it. It’s a situation similar to the one the Dallas Mavericks faced last year when they lost Caron Butler for the season. Butler was still valuable, but his presence on the floor kept the ball out of the hands of more talented players. 

The Clippers have a dominant scorer on the interior (Blake Griffin) and the perimeter (Chris Paul); like the early 2000 Lakers, they need the other players on the floor playing excellent defense and knocking down open shots. The four players in the Clippers' rotation with usage ratings higher than 21 are Griffin, Paul, Billups and Mo Williams. Billups shoots 36.4% from the floor; the other three all shoot at least 48%. 

They’re also still in the position to improve, as the new CBA has greatly enhanced the roster flexibility of big-market contenders. With heightened luxury tax penalties lowering the market value of veteran role players, they’re free to make decisions based on location and winning. The Clippers (Kenyon Martin), as well as the New York Knicks (Baron Davis) and Miami Heat (Shane Battier), have already received a significant asset for nearly nothing this year.

Scott Drew's Poor Coaching Job At Baylor

At SB Nation Dallas, a look at why Scott Drew's coaching is holding back Baylor:

One of the most talented teams in the country, Baylor raced out to a 17-0 start and a No. 3 ranking nationally. However, they are now 0-3 against Top 10 competition, losing home games to both Kansas and Missouri. A team that should be thinking about positioning for a top seed and a run to the Final Four is now in crisis.  

The problem starts with the 1-3-1 zone, which Scott Drew finally abandoned midway through the second half, when his team was already down by more than 20 points. While running a 1-3-1, which is rarely seen in college basketball, is an interesting contrarian idea for the type of up-and-coming program like Baylor was four or five years ago, it's a junk defense with easily exploitable holes, which is why few other top teams ever use it.

Nor are Baylor's problems limited to the defensive side of the floor. Drew brought in three back-court transfers this year -- Pierre Jackson (Southern Idaho JC), Brady Heislip (Boston College) and Gary Franklin (California) -- but still couldn't find a point guard. Jackson and AJ Walton average 5.9 turnovers a game and don't have any real feel for running an offense.

NCAA Wager: Duke/UNC

UNC (-6) over Duke

Pros: Duke doesn't have the talent of a top 10 team and they've been significantly overrated all season. The Blue Devils big men can't handle John Henson or Tyler Zeller, while Duke starts three guards and doesn't have a swing-man who can match up with Harrison Barnes.

Cons: UNC has been far too inconsistent this season considering the overwhelming talent advantage they have on most nights. Dexter Strickland's injury also leaves a glaring hole at the back-up PG position; the Tar Heels really can't afford to have Kendall Marshall in foul trouble.

Result: Duke 85, UNC 84 (loss)

NCAA ATS: 2-6-0

Ryan Boatright And The Absurdity of The NCAA

At RealGM, a look at how the treatment of UConn's Ryan Boatright highlights the moral injustice of the NCAA:

As Times columnist Joe Nocera outlined in a series of devastating columns, Boatright was suspended because his mother received "impermissible benefits" from a "third party" during his recruitment.

Translated into English, Tanesha Boatright, a struggling single mom with four young children, received some money from Reggie Rose, the older brother of Derrick Rose, the Chicago Bulls MVP and one of her son's AAU coaches. She used that money to make some payments on her car as well as accompany Ryan on college recruiting trips.

Taking that idea to its logical conclusion, the NCAA reserves the absolute right to dictate who the parents of its "student-athletes" associate with personally and professionally. After all, an agent or a school cour use any third party to funnel money to Tanesha Boatright, therefore, in theory, no one should be able to give her money for any reason while her son is playing college basketball.

The only people allowed to make money off her son are the schools themselves, who signed a 15-year $11 billion deal for the TV rights to March Madness in 2010. The NCAA is making over a billion dollars a year televising the exploits of players like Boatright, yet they nearly ruined his career, and his family's once-in-a-lifetime chance to break out a cycle of poverty that goes back generations, over a couple thousand dollars.

Book Review: "Sleights Of Mind"

At PopMatters, a review of the book "Sleights Of Mind":

Sleights of Mind isn’t the type of book that demands a reader tear through it front to back. It’s more informative than entertaining, full of little stories and slices of life that can change your perspective on everyday situations. 

The underlying principle behind most successful magic is what neuroscientists call “the narrative bias”: the fact that our brains unconsciously search for explanations for what’s going on in the world. Because our capacity for attention is narrow, the brain relies on past experience to make assumptions about the world around us. That’s how movie projectors work: seeing hundreds of images flash by every second creates the illusion of motion, with the brain filling in the blanks. 

Similarly, if you see a coin in a magician’s hand, see him open his hand as if he were dropping it into a bucket and then hear the sound of a coin hitting the bucket, your visual attention system is going to connect the dots for you. You will “see” the coin fall into the bucket even if it has never actually left the magician’s hand. 

No matter how realistic they may make it seem, magicians can’t make things disappear or conjure objects out of thin air. Instead, they take advantage of the magician inside of all us—the brain.

Decision Time In San Antonio

At RealGM, a look at why the Spurs are standing on a precipice:

San Antonio hasn’t won a second-round playoff game since 2008: in 2009, they lost 4-1 in the first round to the Mavericks. In 2010, they were unceremoniously swept out of the second round by the Phoenix Suns. Last year, despite having the league’s best regular season record, they were bull-dozed in the paint by the duo of Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph in a first-round upset. 

There’s little reason to expect the team as currently constructed, even when Manu Ginobili returns from a hand injury, to be much of a threat in the playoffs this year. 

After this season, their payroll drops to $47 million, as Duncan becomes a free agent. It drops to $27 million in 2013 when Ginobili’s contract expires. 

If San Antonio isn’t going to upgrade around this team, there’s no reason to bring it back. But if the Spurs aren’t willing to cut ties with franchise icons like Duncan and Ginobili, they need to acquire an athletic shot-blocker who can protect the interior of the lane.

UConn's NBA Prospects: Andre Drummond Says "Hello World"

At SB Nation, a look at UConn's NBA prospects, in particular Andre Drummond, the potential No. 1 overall pick in 2012:

Andre Drummond -- Black Swan (best case) / Andray Blatche (worst case) 

Jeremy Lamb -- Brandon Roy / Francisco Garcia 

Down-the-road possibilities: DeAndre Daniels, Ryan Boatright, Roscoe Smith, Alex Oriakhi, Tyler Olander and Shabazz Napier.

NBA Wagers: 02/02

Portland (-3) at Sacramento:

Pros: Sacramento is one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA, and they have no shot-blocking in the lane. There should be plenty of room for LaMarcus Aldridge, Gerald Wallace and Jamal Crawford to operate. Portland was able to rest their starters when they blew out Charlotte last night, and they have defensive match-ups for the Kings main two scorers, Tyreke Evans (Wallace) and DeMarcus Cousins (Marcus Camby).

Cons: The Trail Blazers are still playing on the second night of a back-to-back. They could overlook Sacramento and not come out with a lot of effort, especially to cover.

Result: Sacramento 95, Portland 92



Utah (+4.5) at Golden State:

Pros: The Jazz have one of the best interior scoring units in the NBA, with Al Jefferson, Paul Millsapp, Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter all capable of getting buckets at the rim. They're playing a Golden State team that's very thin up-front, with Kwame Brown out and David Lee and Andris Biedrins starting.

Cons: Utah is coming off a tough 107-105 home loss to the LA Clippers on Wednesday night, and if they come out flat, they could get shot out of the gym by the Warriors guards. The Jazz don't have the firepower to get into a shoot-out with Golden State; they need to control the tempo of the game.

Result: Golden State 119, Utah 101

NBA ATS: 2-5-0

Mike Huckabee: The One That Got Away

At PolicyMic, a look at why Mike Huckabee would have been the strongest Republican nominee:

While names like Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), and former Florida governor Jeb Bush have been discussed, the one truly-formidable candidate out there is former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. And if President Barack Obama wins in November, Republicans will regret overlooking the candidate who finished with the second-highest number of delegates in 2008, far ahead of Romney. 

The 2012 election is likely to be exceedingly negative, as the Obama campaign will blame poor economic performance on Republican obstruction and viciously attack his opponent in much the same way that George W. Bush did to John Kerry in 2004. Neither Romney, a wealthy plutocrat, nor Gingrich, a long-time Washington operative with a closet full of skeletons, are as charismatic or personable as Huckabee. More importantly, neither are positioned as well to attack Obama on his biggest electoral liability: His close association with people like Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner and the status quo in Washington, D.C. 

In 2008, Huckabee ran as “a Main Street, not a Wall Street, Republican.” A politician of relatively modest means who went to Ouachita Baptist University and spent his entire career in Arkansas, he has the ability to connect with blue-collar voters that both Obama and Romney lack. Interestingly enough, he comes from the same small-town in Arkansas, Hope, as another impossibly cheerful and down-to-earth former governor who made a name for himself in national politics.