CB Draft '10 Playoffs Western Conference Semi-Finals

[StartOrien]

On Yao's health, I'll be giving him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise (on the court).

I expect Yao to have 2-4 good years left in him before he falls apart.

When Yao's own team doesn't even have confidence that he can survive the regular season, how much benefit of the doubt does he deserve?  And what level of play do you expect him at?  2009 production?  Better?  Worse?

Until proven otherwise ... I'm going to go with 2008/09 performance level.

I do not expect Yao to start the season at that level but he may finish the year there.

Isn't this backwards though? He missed an entire season. In the three seasons leading up  to the 08/09 season he played in 55, 48, 57 games. Given that track record mixed with his his massive size, don't you think he'd have to prove healthy as opposed to the other way around?

Yao Ming has returned from his past injuries and played a very high level ... so yes, given the number of seasons which ended prematurely, Yao has to prove that he can stay healthy but not necessarily his performance level while fit (which has been a constant).

In summary, I don't know whether Yao can last the year but if fit I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt performance wise until proven (on the floor) to the contrary.

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I expect Yao's to age badly as a combination of size + unfortunate injuries ... but I'm hopeful he can squeeze out another couple of years at a high level.

But is hope the reason you're giving him the benefit of the doubt when voting?

Sure -- I don't like penciling players out because of injuries which haven't happened yet. Same outlook for everyone.

But if I met you at a bar, and offered you a 20 dollar bet on if Yao would be healthy come playoff timie, would you take it?

I don't want to be grim either, but to be fair to both owners I have to vote on what I think the more likely situation is. And I think its more likely than not that Yao will not be able to finish the season healthy.

I wouldn't make the bet either way. Not for Yao staying healthy or Yao getting injured.

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You should vote on how view the situation and so should everyone else.

I was describing how I am treating the situation - I am giving Yao the benefit of the doubt. 

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The likelihood of Yao being injured versus not.

I agree, I think Yao is more likely than not to pick up an injury than make it through the season. I got two problems from here

(1) The injury -- if Yao does get injured, does that injury happen early in the season? middle of the season? Does it keep him out for a month or two

Or, is it another severe season ending injury which takes away the rest of his season? Or is it a smaller injury that happens late in the regular season or in the playoffs? That stops him from being in the playoffs.

That is a lot of unknowns ... and let's remember Yao is not a certainty (at least I don't think he is) to get injured in the first place ... nevermind the exact moment, the playoffs, that we are discussing here.

(2) On my treatment of player injuries ... for me to write someone off due to injury ... I need to view it as an overwhelmingly likely event, a near certainty (say 85%), rather than just more likely than not (say 55%). 

In Yao's case, I don't. I'm not there yet. I'm not at a place where I think it's a near certainty that he misses the playoffs.

I need to see on the court and evaluate his performance / health before I get anywhere near the view point.

Fair enough. Definitely a well thought out opinion.

[Roy H.]

Video of Dwight Howard straight WORKING Tim Duncan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNBVlc8eQBg

Well, if Duncan is attempting three pointers and forgets how to rebound, and if Howard develops a jump shot and grabs every available offensive board, I think you've got a good shot.

[StartOrien]

By my calculations Dwight Howard is averaging 97 rebounds per 36 minutes.

[Roy H.]

Man, between the two conferences, there is A LOT of information to process here (and it's only 2pm!).  There has got to be a more efficent way to do this, no?

Maybe next year we can institute a "final arguement" session where the last points are made and no more may be posted until after voting has ended.  You guys are all great at this (much better than i am), but it gets real tough trying to read through all of the arguements/debates/propaganda/stats/ect...

You guys mentioned that some people may just vote based on 'look of the teams' and i think that is right to a degree...but i'm not so sure that 20 pages of point/counter-point necessarily help things.

I'm doing my best to keep up with all this but when i leave my computer at 4pm and get back to vote at 8pm i'm not going to want to read through an extra 63 pages (although i'll give it my best shot).  I dunno, just saying maybe these rounds need a little more structure going forward, but maybe i'm in the minority?

Here's my argument, as concise as possible:

Randolph has killed Pau, both in terms of scoring and rebounding.  Boozer has played a healthy Yao even offensively, and has killed him on the boards (and let's remember, Yao *isn't* healthy, and he's 30 years old).  Rose is MUCH better than Jose Calderon or Willie Green.  At the wings, the starting lineups are about even.  Sacramento has much better depth at almost every position.

In other words, Sacramento should win, and fairly handily. 


In bullet point form:

• Yao isn't going to be 100%, not coming off an entire season that he missed due to injury.  He's had two foot surgeries, and was recently contemplating retirement. Today, Houston indicated they have concerns about him making it to April (i.e., the playoffs) so they're putting him on a hard cap of 24 minutes per game.  Yao = not healthy.
• Even when Yao has been healthy, Boozer has played him evenly offensively, and has destroyed him on the boards
• Zach Randolph owns Pau Gasol in head to head matchups.  Randolph has had more success than should have been expected in winning games against Pau, too.
• The wing positions are pretty even, but Casspi is playing out of position.
• Jose Calderon is the worst defensive PG in the NBA, and is a bench player in "real life".  He can't handle more than 30 minutes per game, and his backup is Willie Green.  Willie Green is not a point guard.
• Utah has no backup SG, either.  Danilo Gallinari is not a shooting guard.
• Derrick Rose has had playoff success against both the Boston and Cleveland defenses.  He's licking his chops looking at Jose Calderon.

[Who]

What present point guards in the NBA do you think are worse defenders than Calderon?

I rate Calderon as a poor defensive PG and have done every season since his rookie year.

I also agree that Calderon played worse defense last season than in previous years ... which was due to the poor management of the Toronto Raptors which insisted on him losing weight last summer in an effort to increase quickness / mobility.

Not only did Calderon not gain quickness or mobility but he lost his advantage as a big PG who had a strength advantage over smaller guards and was more able to switch onto other positions. Which hurt him defensively (and offensively, he couldn't hold guys on his hip on dribble penetration as well he did before). All of which was entirely the fault of Toronto's management (who insisted Calderon do this). 

When Calderon gets back to his normal weight, he'll be back to where he was in the previous seasons.

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As for where Calderon ranks defensively, I consider him in the bottom 30% of PGs defensively (20 to 30 percentage range).

In terms of names, I'm doing this off the top of my head so I apologize if I leave anyone out ... but it'll give a ball-park estimation anyway.

Starters

Worse -- Mo Williams, Mike Bibby, Jonny Flynn, Gilbert Arenas

Comparable to Jose -- Aaron Brooks, Derek Fisher, Steve Nash and maybe Jameer Nelson

In the 21st-26th range defensively of starting PGs.

Main Backup PGs

Worse -- Teague, Livingston, D.Gibson, Barea, Maynor

Comparable to Jose -- Nate, Lawson (worse?), W.Bynum, R.Foye, Ridnour, Bayless, Udrih and maybe TJ Ford

In the 40th to 50th range of PGs receiving regular rotation minutes.

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I'd also note that any PG who can be described has very good quickness relative to his position + offensive skills will have a matchup advantage against Jose's lack of pace and weak defense. 

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I would also note that Jose Calderon's defense won't be nearly as large an issue as it is today when playing on a quality defensive team.

And he has that in this fantasy game with the Utah Jazz.

[Who]

I think Who was pretty right on when he said 30-32 minutes.  I think, on occasion, he [Jose Calderon] can up it a bit more.  He's just two seasons removed from averaging 34.3 mpg althogh I certainly don't want that on a nightly basis.  Ideally, probably around 30ish.

I thought Jose burnt out after about two months of playing 34 minutes a night.

You can get through a series or two with him at that level but probably not the whole playoffs + after playing a full regular season of 30-32 minutes a night.

I think he'd finish weakly (in the final round or two) if playing 34mpg throughout the entire playoffs.

[Roy H.]

I think you've overrated Calderon's defense quite a bit, and I think you've underrated the defense of some of the guys you mentioned as being comparable.  Regardless, though, we can all admit that it's quite poor, which is really what matters.

[StartOrien]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LQJzvs5gcs

Submitted w/o comment

[StartOrien]

I submitted my votes:

Phoenix
Sacramento

Chicago
Milwakay (I actually had ORL as my #1 seed)

[Roy H.]

I submitted my votes:

Phoenix
Sacramento

Chicago
Milwakay (I actually had ORL as my #1 seed)

Wahoo!  I won't be shut out!  (Well, other than my own vote.)

[Roy H.]

Every time I think of Derrick Rose vs. Jose Calderon, I picture Rose rapping Ice Cube's lines from Natural Born Killaz at him.  Calderon may as well fake one of his famous injuries now.

[indeedproceed]

Lets see those bullet points, Phoenix.

[StartOrien]

I really wanna harp on this one, so Imma go with 2 points

-Denver can't score

Taj Gibson: 12 points in 27 minutes, backed up by Darrell Arthur who missed 4 months and even before wasn't all the efficient

Trevor Ariza: When the scoring burden is put on him, he's terrible Shooting .394, 2 to's per game. Careeer averages below 9 points per game. Backed up by a player who's been out of the league and defensive specialist Ronnie Brewer.

Marcus Thornton: Show he can score, questions about him doing it soph year. He'll also be covered by an excellent defensive player in Wesley Matthews

That leaves a lot of the scoring burden on a PG who shot just over .400 (with limited range, we're going to pack it in on him), and an aging Tim Duncan, who will be coverd by Dwight Howard

-Offensively, it's going to be a full assault of different types of Dwight Howard pick and roll combinations. Their defense is strong, but not where they most need it against the Gorillaz


EDIT: I went into a little further detail (still a relatively easy read) here http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=41677.msg844638#msg844638

[indeedproceed]

What do you got, Denver?

[StartOrien]

OK guys, I'm leaving soon. I've answered a few questions about my team, mostly on pages 3 and 4 of this thread. But I'll be honest, not much there.

If you don't vote for me it's because you are a hater, and you're probably overrated.