This Week in the NBA: 2/17-2/21

Trade Deadline: The trades that went down.

Sacramento send Marcus Thornton to Brooklyn for Jason Terry and Reggie Evans: Brooklyn has now taken on another horrendous contract for a player who contributes so little. Good job, good effort Brooklyn.

Golden State acquires Steve Blake from the Lakers for Kent Bazemore and Marshon Brooks: My favorite part of this trade is that Blake isn't happy about spending time away from his wife and kids. You know because Oakland is so far away from Los Angeles. He must really think Golden State is a real state he has to go to and it ain't anywhere near Los Angeles.

Sacrament acquires Roger Mason from the Heat for cash: The Maloofs may be gone, but their type of trades for cash is still alive and well in Sacramento.

Cleveland acquires Spencer Hawes from the Sixers for 2 second round draft picks and Earl Clark: The east is so crappy a team like the Cavaliers can go from sellers at the deadline to buyers over just one six game winning streak. Hawes becomes a free agent after this season so this deal does give the Cavs some cap space.

Milwaukee sent Luke Ridnour and Gary Neal to Charlotte for Ramon Sessions and Jeff Adrien: Charlotte improving their lineup for a sweep against Indiana in the playoffs. Milwaukee meanwhile begins their rebuild.

Nuggets ship Andre Miller to Washington, Nuggets get Jan Vesely, Philadelphia gets Eric Maynor and two 2nd round draft picks: The real winner of this deal is Jan Vesely's girlfriend who now gets to walk around Aspen. Oh and I guess Washington gets a backup point guard for John Wall.

San Antonio traded Nando De Colo to Toronto for Austin Daye: Knowing the Spurs, Daye will morph into a competent wing player for them.

Indiana traded Danny Granger to Philadelphia for Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen: Turner is in that Rudy Gay category where both advance stats and advance stats writers hate him. Like Gay though Turner has a chance to turn around his career with a different team. He won't be asked to do as much and will have better teammates around him. He could a huge difference maker for the Pacers in the playoffs.

Dwight Howard joins Laker fans in mocking Dwight Howard: Last night Dwight Howard returned with the Rockets to Los Angeles to give the Lakers a beating. He then joined the Lakers fans in chanting "Howard sucks".



Can Orlando Acquire a Superstar: Zach Lowe takes a look at if the Orlando Magic can acquire with their cap space or draft picks. The Magic already have nice pieces like Olidapo and Nikola Vucevic but they'll need more. The Magic will have plenty of draft picks (they have the Lakers, Sixers, and Knicks draft picks in upcoming drafts) but the Magic will have to make their own high draft pick this season count. They can't go the path of Cleveland and pick busts. The Magic also have cap space but who could they pick up? It's going to be fascinating watching Orlando rebuild in these coming years.

The Best of the Week: A look at the best upcoming games in the NBA.

Friday, February 21st, San Antonio at Phoenix: I would love nothing more than seeing these two teams battling in the playoffs again.
Sunday, February 23rd, Los Angeles Clippers at Oklahoma City: Both teams point guards are returning from injury and the exact right moment. I still like OKC to advance further than Los Angeles.
Tuesday, February 25th, Chicago at Atlanta: I had to pick another game to talk about.......
Wednesday, February 26th: Houston at Clippers: Houston is a fascinating team to watch because they play some nights like they're not even motivated. Will that carry over to the playoffs?

This Week in the NBA: 2/10-2/14

We Have Our First Coaching Casualty: On Sunday morning the world learned that the Detroit Pistons have once again fired another coach, this time Mo Cheeks after only a half of a season. Zach Lowe of Grantland breaks down the firing and states that it was going to take a special coach to coach a roster like that and sadly Mo Cheeks wasn't that guy. Joe Dumars should be the next one to go but because he's a Detroit legend and the media love the guy he'll probably continue his job as their GM.

Lebron Game-Winner: Miami almost blew a huge lead to the Warriors on Wednesday night but thankfully they have Lebron James who hit this game-winning 3 being guarded by Andre Iguodala out of all people.



Trade Deadline Primer: Back to Zach Lowe who is previewing the trade deadline and the conclusion is, the trade deadline just isn't what it used to be. Too many teams just don't have any trade assets like draft picks like the Warriors and Wizards to make a deal. There are some teams though that could make surprising deals like Denver, maybe Faried gets traded, or Atlanta because they're contending. Still though don't expect anything big before the deadline.

This Week in the NBA: 2/2-2/7

Prospects Ranked: My friend Justin at Liberty Ballers ranked the NBA prospects. I would have ranked Aaron Gordon and Julius Randle ahead of Australian prospect Dante Exum myself. I especially like Gordon. He's not much of an offensive player yet but his defense is excellent. I guess it all depends on where you qualify defense while the offense needs work.

Fail: Derrick Williams made an ass out of himself with this epic dunk fail in a Kings blowout against the Chicago Bulls.



Lebron's Disappearing Defense: In Zach Lowe's weekly column he talked about Lebron's disappearing defense this season. While Lowe thinks, correctly I believe, it will even out in the playoffs he has noticed that Lebron isn't defending dribble drives like he used to with evidence being that Thunder game last week. I would contend that Lebron has worn down. He's played approximately 300 games the past three seasons including playing for the Olympic team. That's a lot of wear and tear and could be showing this season.

This Week in the NBA: 1/26-1/31

The Weird and Goofy Dallas Mavericks: Zach Lowe this week points out just how goofy and inexplicable the Dallas Mavericks are. Just look at the players they have: Dirk, Monta Ellis, Dejuan Blair, Shawn Marion, Jose Calderon, and Vince Carter. They're only as successful though when Dirk is on his game. And he is usually on his game. Lowe also points out that with this current group, Dallas will have cap space in the future to go after some key free agents at the end of Dirk's career.

Durant Breaks more Hearts: Kevin Durant is on a roll right now that is simply unbelievable. Durant has scored at least 30 points in 11 straight games by Monday night. He dropped 41 points on a good Atlanta Hawks team including 13 in the final quarter and the last 7 Thunder points including this game winner.



The Worst Draft Pick Ever?: That's what Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey said about his selection of Royce White from last year. White of course has anxiety issues that have prevented him from playing in the NBA with the Rockets and now the 76ers. I know Morey was being sarcastic, especially when Anthony Bennett night after night is proving himself to be the worst pick ever, but man that's just mean to call someone with anxiety problems the worst draft pick ever.

This Week in Basketball: 1/19-1/24

Breaking Down Houston's Pick-and-Roll: One of the coolest part of new technologies is the ability for people to break down offensive plays in the NFL or NBA. Take for example this breakdown of the Houston Rockets pick-and-roll offense by Scott Rafferty. In this breakdown you see how easily the Rockets run the pick-and-roll and how creative they are at that play to make points. This is going to be huge for the Rockets, especially if they go 0-for-19 or whatever they went from behind the arc against OKC last Thursday.

Paul George is Great: You probably missed this dunk this past weekend so I need to post it here. Check out this in-game dunk by George against the Los Angeles Clippers. Eat your heart out, Blake Griffin.



OJ Mayo Is Not Happy With the Bucks: The Milwaukee Bucks are horrible. They're worst than the Sixers or the Jazz. And this isn't making OJ Mayo happy. Mayo signed a 3-year deal with Milwaukee this season and he isn't happy with the inconsistency of the overall team play or his own minutes. Check out this piece at Eye on Basketball.

This Week in the NBA: 1/12-1/17

Why Not the Warriors: Zach Lowe of Grantland asks why couldn't the Warriors be championship contenders? They have defense in Bogut and Iggy. Offense with Thompson and Curry. So why couldn't they compete? Well as Zach states the Warriors two best players, Curry and Bogut, are injury prone. The offense does stall at times and has too many ISO plays (only the Knicks have more, of course). Curry and Bogut being injury prone is why I can't quite take them seriously, especially with Curry. He's always an ankle roll away from being injured for a while and the Warriors offense is really bad without Curry.

Ty Lawson All-Star Video: Believe it or not but we're not that far away from the NBA All-Star game. And because of that you're going to see teams pushing and politicking for their players to be voted into the game. The Nuggets came up with a pretty good video for Ty Lawson.



Who Gets To the FT Line The Most?: Statcenter made a fancy chart illustrating who gets to the free throw line the most and who makes the most free throws. I couldn't believe it when I seen it but Demarcus Cousins reaches the FT Line the most. Now if he could make 75% of his free throws his offensive game would be more complete. In the least surprising news, Dwight Howard reaches the FT line a lot and misses a lot of free throws.

This Week in Basketball: 1/5-1/10

Curry and Thompson as The Best Backcourt Ever?: I'll read David Aldridge's Monday morning column any day of the week over Peter King's. King's column is too bloated with his anecdotes and travel logs. Aldridge brings real information even though he does take a swipe at sabermetric writers every now and then. This Monday, Aldridge shot down the idea that Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are the best backcourt ever. As Aldridge points out there have been several great backcourts over the years. I was surprised Aldridge didn't mention the Bob Cousey/Sam Jones/Bill Sharman backcourt as one of the greatest ever even though it was. But hey, a Craig Ehlo mention!

Knicks Update: Ah the team and player that keeps on giving. The Knicks actually won on Sunday night against Dallas but that didn't stop JR Smith from entering the game during a free throw and immediately untying Shawn Marion's shoelaces. Keep on being yourself, JR.



Trading for the idea of Courtney Lee: The Memphis Grizzlies are broken. They're out of the playoff picture and injured. The grit and grind days are on hold right now as the Grizzlies give up more points than they can score. So the Grizzlies are trying to fix this by trading for Courtney Lee but as Noam Schiller points out the Grizzlies are trading for the idea of Courtney Lee. Lee appears to be a good three-point shooter and perimeter defender. As Schiller points out though Lee is neither a good shooter nor is he that great of a defender. He just appears that way.

This Week in Basketball: 12/29-1/3

Toronto Is Better Without Rudy Gay: In not shocking news the Toronto Raptors are better without Rudy Gay. Zach Lowe looks at the numbers and sees that the Raptors actually pass the ball more per possession and this has lead an improvement in Toronto including the Raps leading the pathetic Atlantic Division. Lowe was fair to Gay saying he's been much better in Sacramento. My theory is that Gay was just a bad fit in Toronto and he expected to do too much there. Rudy is better when he realizes he's just another scoring option on a team instead of the star like he thought in Toronto.

Now This is Anger: At the end of the Timberwolves-Mavericks game it appeared that Kevin Love was fouled at the end of the game on a last second 3-point attempt. When you see the replay you will see Love was fouled but the ref swallowed his whistle. When the Timberwolves saw that the refs swallowed their whistle he kinda lost his shit. Listen:



BRUTAL!

Knicks Update: Your Knicks update this week is that the Knicks released Chris Smith, brother to JR. If you don't know Chris Smith's back story he was signed to sweeten a deal to bring back JR Smith because the Knicks are the Knicks. Chris Smith isn't very good so the Knicks had to release him to make some depth on their bench. Well that made JR send out this cryptic tweet that pretty much everyone is sure is a shot at the Knicks. If this guarantees JR to shoot more 3's then the Knicks should sign and release Chris Smith more often.

This Week in the NBA 12/15-12/20

Life Beyond The Arc: The great Zach Lowe of Grantland takes a look at the current and future of the 3-point shot in the NBA. Is this shot the end of the NBA or will defenses catch up? And Lowe concludes that the 3-point shot is definitely the future of the NBA but defenses are already becoming more sophisticated in stopping the corner 3. This story won't go away because analytics are here to stay in the NBA like they are in baseball.

Knicks Gonna Knick: I'm guessing this will become a regular feature every week. The Knicks are a train wreck and find more creative ways to shoot themselves in the foot. I already this week went over their horrendous loss on Monday night. Then on Wednesday night Andrea Bargnani did this instead of just killing clock.



In that same game JR Smith jacked up 17 3-point attempts and came away with only 19 points on the night. And he'll shoot that many 3's again if he gets the chance.

But trust me give me that chance again I'll shoot it again!
— JR Smith (@TheRealJRSmith) December 19, 2013

Love you Knicks.

Could The Blazers Win The Championship From The Outside?: One of the complaints about the Portland Trailblazers great start is that they are a jump shooting team and that those shots aren't always going to fall. Their coach Terry Stotts wonders why a jump shooting team couldn't win the championship? And he brings up a good point about how the Spurs have become more of a jump shooting team along with the Heat and their slash-and-kick game.

This Week in Basketball: 12/8-12/13

Like I did in Baseball, I'm doing a weekly recap of news in the NBA on every Friday. 

Rudy Gay Traded to Sacramento: Rudy Gay was traded from the Raptors to Sacramento on Sunday night in a salary dump for Toronto. To say Raports fans are excited to move on from Gay is a understatement. Just check out the headline in this post. Kings screwed up their potential cap space with this trade while opening up some room on their depth chart. I would give you my thoughts on this trade, but I'm still sobbing over it. BTW, the Kings aren't done dealing yet.

Crazy Uncle Kobe is Back: Kobe Bryant came back from his injury on Sunday night against the aforementioned Raptors. He was pretty "meh" in the game but it will take a few weeks for him to adjust to the lineups around him. One thing Kobe gets to look forward to in the future is more crap like this from Nick Young.



Michael Beasley Has Improved????: John Schuhmann of the Hang Time blog looks at the most improved shooters in the NBA this year and Michael Beasley comes in as the 2nd most improved shooter. What???? Marco Belinelli comes in at first. Beasley and Belinelli play for the Heat and Spurs now. So maybe it's true that some guys need to find the right team/coach? Tyreke Evans continues to regress. His shooting numbers have regressed even from last year. His regression from his rookie season will never not amaze me. I thought he was going to be something special, yet he's turned into a regression machine.