Appreciating NBA Draft

      NBA Draft System causes moral hazard. Teams tank in purpose to obtain a high pick in upcoming  draft. Yet it can force parity in the league. America has unique sports system  that can't be found in other countries. NCAA leagues are as popular as professional leagues and produce high quality and nationally recognized players but they are not under contracts with any professional teams. While in European soccers, teams search and develop talents. These talents have to sign contracts with clubs that develop them .

      Without draft system, NCAA players would be able to choose their own destinations. These players naturally would choose rich big city club. People point out that as soon as they hit free agency,  star players will just leave their original drafting teams in free agency. 

      In my opinion, it all depends on teams' ability to handle star players and surround them with good players. When his rookie contact was up,Shaquille  O'neill quickly left Orlando Magic  for the glamor of Los Angeles Lakers. But Dwight Howard spent  8 seasons in Magic before he got frustrated with the supporting casts. Chris Paul spent 6 seasons in then New Orleans Hornets. Kevin Garnett loyally  stayed in Minnesota Timberwolves for 12 seasons. Kevin Durant, Russel Westbrook and Serge Ibaka are still OKC Thunders players. David Robinson and probably Tim Duncan areSpurs for life. Hakeem Olajuwon and Yao Ming are Houston Rockets legends.

        Salary Cap does help in preventing big market teams from signing any star players they want. In the end it's up to the teams to make the most of their fortune of having drafted star players.

It's Free Throws,not game minutes, that is the elephant in the room

    Brooklyn Nets' Coach Lionel Hollins  said it best, shortening  game minutes won't stop teams from riding their best players. Hollins also correctly analyze that shorter game means shorter minutes for bench players.

    In my opinion 44 game minutes  will have damaging effect on stars players. My reasoning is like this 

"in the past Coach B would sub out player D at 6 minutes mark, because the were 6 more minutes in the quarter. Now  at 6 minutes mark there will be only 5 minutes left, this will drive Coach B to keep Player D on the court for one more minutes. The reason is Coach B will want to maximize  his advantage  in a shorter quarter"

    The real issue that NBA has to  look at is free throws. A player can take more than 10 seconds  to do a free throws. If there is 30 free throws in a game, that means  the game is at least 5 minutes longer. Moreover  there is another upside that NBA can get.

    Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. The equivalent of free throw in soccer is penalty kick. Player  who purposely look for a contact in order to get a penalty is generally scorned at by a lot of fans,except of course his team's fans, and will get negative labels from the media.

  I believe NBA shouldn't sacrifice non-star players for the sake of fitting networks' time slots.

Time For Atlanta Hawks to Soar

    Hawks has always been a playoff team. Problem is they never make it through  to the second round of the playoff. For Hawks this worst thing to happen, because they have never been bad enough  to get a  high pick to draft impact player

    But this season will be a different one. I believe the Hawks will escape  mediocrity and advance to the second round. Maybe it's somewhat  self fulfilling  because the Indiana Pacers,that has defeated Hawks in the first round for the last two seasons, has been decimated by the injury of Paul George and the trade of Lance Stephenson.

    What makes me optimistic is the addition of Thabo Sefolosha.  Atlanta Hawks has alwaya been a good team.   They have all stars starting frontcourt Al Horford and Paul Millsap. Their third big Pero Antic has an erratic  shooting, but fight hard  in the low post. Jeff Teague is a good PG. Demarre carrol is a good defender that can knock down threes.   Kyle Korver is one of NBA's best shooter and very good team defender. 

    When I watch Hawks, i always worry that opposing teams would exploit Korver one on one defense.While  Korver's threat from 3pt line provide them with the neccessary offensive spacing,  his slow feet made him  the target of opponents ' attacks. This is where Sefolosha's  defense comes in. He will stop Hawk's bleeding and also provide rest for Korver. Sefolosha's weakness is his shooting,  but his rotation  with Korver  will gives Hawks a great combo at the sg. Together Korver and Sefolosha will form the perfect player.

     Hawks now  is a real threat in the eastern conference.  They can defeat any team they will face in the first round of playoff.

Will Kevin Love be a third Banana

It’s a valid Question  actually, especially if we paid attention to what happened to Chrish Bosh in Miami.  During his  four seasons playing with Dwayne Wade and Lebron James in Miami Heat,  Bosh saw his  numbers dropped across the board and he became sort of laughing stock. Despite of what all critics said about him,  Bosh was still a very good  defender.

Problem is  Love’s claim to fame lies in  his offensive game,  his defense is meh.  If it’s  Heat 2.0 and James  and Kyrie Irving  dominate  the ball, what will happen to Love ?  He is an awesome  rebounder bu it will for naught if  he can’t defend his man.  To compound the problem for Love, Irving is not  exactly known  for  his defense.

Last year, OKC  came close to eliminating  Spurs thanks to  Ibaka’s rim protection. If Love can’t step up his defense, Spurs will destroy Cavaliers just like it destroyed Heat in last year final 

Fear The Bird

     If you fear memphis Grizzlies for the last two seasons, you might   want to start to fear New Orleans Pelicans. Both team  have great rim protecting centers. Grizzlies  has Marc Gasol  while Pelicans  has Omer Asik and Anthony Davis. Difference is,  Gasol  is a proven two players  that has solid range beyond the paint.  Asik  is offensively limited  and Davis still has to show that his mid j and are post moves are for real now that other coaches have  another year to prepare a blueprint to stop him.

     Eventhough  not as reputable as Mike Conley,  Jrue Holiday is also a good defender.  The  only thing Pelicans lack is a player like  the grindfather Tony Allen. Pelicans more than makes up to it by having probably the best front court rotations.  Back up PF Ryan Anderson is a deadly 3pt shooter, something  that  Grizzlies lacked in the last two seasons.  Omer Asik  and Anthony Davis can double as power forward.  Asik’s size and surprisingly quick feet make him a nightmare for bully power forward like Blake griffin  and Zac Randolph. Davis’s incredible wingspan  will  haunt stretch fours like Lemarcus Aldridge and Kevin Love,

     What ‘s even scarier, if  you read this fine piece on bourbonstreetshots.com,  there will be times in which  Davis will be matched up against  back up centers.  Yup, you read that right. The future NBA superstar will feast on all back up centers in the NBA.

Detroit Pistons @ Houston Rockets

1.Terrence Jones is struggling a little bit opponents have been attacking him on defense and challenging him to shoot threes. he is very good at first quarter (mostly because opponent is not ready) before dissappearing afterwards.
2.Jeremy Lin is in awfull slump. He has missed some layups in the past few games
3. The bench has been figured out by opponents. They will extend rockets’ lead for a little bit before getting outscored. Kevin mchale hasn’t realized that he needs to run plays for Asik, otherwise opposing center will sag off him knowing he will never be given the ball.
4.Rockets are not as dominant as they look. The wins against Wizard and Suns came in the last second of the games and they were controversial (The fans of those two teams basically accuse harden of flopping).

Russel Wilson's inexperience can be Seahawks's undoing

Wilson is good no doubt about it, He, Collin Kaepernick and to some extent Andrew Luck are the examples of Quarterbacks who can make plays with their legs and still  able to throw accurate passes. However Wilson has not yet achieved the level in which he can read the defense and make an in-game  adjustments

What make Peyton  Manning an awesome quarterback is his ability to read defense. Here is Mark Sanchez from the postgame interview after Indianapolis Colts defeated  New York Jets in AFC Championship game 2010

In one pre-snap read, Manning identified a blitz from the middle safety and called an audible that adjusted their protection scheme. A middle-safety blitz? That's like picking out a needle in a haystack.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/indianapolis-colts-quarterback-peyton-manning-satchel-holds-key-success-greatness-article-1.194218#ixzz2qrDBJe4e

In  Seahawks 34-7 win against Arizona Cardinals on week 7,  there are plays in which Cardinals used  a quick player to  blitz through the middle of Seahawks' offensive line. One of the result is  Marshawn Lynch got sacked immediately after he got the ball.  Wilson failed to make any adjustment.

Wilson is a studious QB, if he stays diligent he will no doubt incorporate an ability to read defense and make adjustment to his game.

One more thing, all the talk about Seahawks's home field advantage reminds me of Denver Nuggets's home court advantage in NBA. Being in a very high altitude make it difficult for visitors to get a win in Denver. However came the playoff the  advantage disappear because opponents prepared themselves better and acclimate themselves to play in high altitude.

That said Seahawks defense  and Marshawn Lynch are very good. Unlike altitude, the noise in  CenturyLink is not sometihing that opponent can just easily adjust themselves to. But cardinals has proven that Seahawks is not indestructible there.