The Problem with Media People

Well Charley Rosen is up to his usual no analysis season projections. As a general rule, any person who offers his opinion and uses phrases such as "Grit" or "Willpower" will offer nothing in the way of objective analysis.

Anyway, what irks me about this article is this phrase

MVP: "Even the writers and broadcasters who vote for this award have come to realize that Kobe does what LeBron wants to do. In any event, votes will be split between LBJ and D-Wade."

If you actually think Kobe is going to be the MVP of league...fine. I disagree with you, but that is your own opinion. Why is it that whenever LeBron is involved people always want to talk Kobe? In the season opener LeBron made a brilliant move to the basket and put the ball in and Steve Kerr chimed in with something like, "A great move by LeBron...I think probably only Kobe Bryant is the other player in the league that could do that." Kobe has absolutely nothing to do with LeBron James at all.

Furthermore, whenever Kobe Bryant does something nobody ever mentions LeBron. Why is that? If Kobe had done the exact same move do you think Kerr would have said, "Wow, a great play by Kobe. I think LeBron could do that too, though."

Back to Charley Rosen, I would really like to ask him what he means by "Kobe does what LeBron wants to do." As I talked about earlier in one of my posts, Kobe does nothing, NOTHING better than LeBron...except have better teammates. That is why last year Kobe had a WP48 of .179 and LeBron's was .429 (average of .100).

Game 1

New York Knicks (+2) at
Toronto Raptors

Getting off to a good start in the NBA is crucial. If the Knicks win this game they will be on pace to set the best record of all time. If the lose, then it will be a long season. Therefore, this is the most important game of all time.

I'm interested to see who rebounds the ball for the Knicks because Amare isn't that great of a rebounder and in the pre-season Anthony Randolph and Ronny Turiaf didn't rebound particularly well either. I'm starting to miss David Lee already...

New Season - New Hopes

Although I personally believe every year the Knicks have a chance to win, this year I truly do believe it. I can say gleefully that my gut reaction is that the Knicks can go .500 this year! That is truly a major step for a franchise that has done nothing right for the last 10 years. But what can we really expect from this team? To answer this question we can turn to WP48 and Wins Produced to forecast where the Knicks will finish this year. To do this forecasting I am utilizing a weighting system of 3-4-5 corresponding to the most recent year of performance outward to the last 3 years. It is not a perfect system due to injuries, coaching decisions about minutes, but still it should give a fairly good estimate of what to expect. For all rookies I am assigning 500 minutes and a WP48 of .050. This will again not be entirely accurate but will not alter the team total by that much. For this forecast I removed Eddy Curry's 2008 season of 1530 minutes because there is no way Eddy Curry plays more than 100 minutes this year or else I am becoming a Nets fan.

2011 Knicks Forecast

Using the weighted averages the Knicks look to win 27 games. Using last years performances the Knicks figure to win 30 games. Although as a caveat to those numbers, I thank Arturo greatly for his Wins Produced numbers, but I do not think Wilson Chandler is primarily a power forward but rather he is more often a shooting guard. The Knicks acquired players in the David Lee deal who were all injured last year and none of them played more than 1000 minutes.
Getting those guys healthy is of major importance to this team because I do not want to see Eddy Curry on the floor at all.

With all that, for 2011 I expect to see more minutes than forecasted from Gallo, Azuibuike, and Anthony Randoplh. Due to the positional difference with Wilson Chandler, I would say that the forecasted numbers are a bit low.

Final Prediction:

36-46

Who would you take 1 on 1?

Such is the questioned posed by Rick Reilly in a fictional battle between LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5680638

The consensus among the "experts" is that in a game with a referee calling fouls Kobe would win. In a game with no fouls, LeBron would take it down. I'm not exactly sure why having a ref would matter, for the most part every pick-up game I have ever played - not having a referee has no bearing on the game at all. Furthermore, Kobe has averaged my personal fouls per game than LeBron has (2.66 vs. 1.95) I do not understand why anyone would want Kobe Bryant instead of LeBron James in anything whether it be 1 on 1, a team game, the bottom line is LeBron is just a better player than Kobe.

Without getting into Win Score, WP48, or Wins Produced (which all favor LeBron)
Since the question is asked right now who would you take, here are the 2010 stats for the contestants:

LeBron:
Points 29.7
Assists: 8.6- although this would not matter in 1 on 1
Rebounds: 7.3
Steals: 1.64
Blocks: 1.01
Turnovers: 3.53
Fouls (if there was a ref): 1.53
FG %: .503

Kobe:
Points: 27.0
Assists: 5.0
Rebounds: 5.4
Steals: 1.55
Blocks: .27
Turnovers: 3.19
Fouls: 2.56
FG%: .456

Essentially what we are seeing is that LeBron does everything better except he does turn the ball over slightly more. This difference would largely be overcome by the fact that LeBron would make more shots, score more points, steal the ball more, block more shots, and get more rebounds.

On the other hand, I'm sure someone like Mark Jackson or Skip Bayless would argue that Kobe has more heart than LeBron, or he is a closer, or that he has the killer instinct that LeBron doesn't possess.

Seriously, in a one on one game this would not even be close. ESPN did this awhile ago when comparing Jeter to A-Rod. I forget the exact quote but Buster Olney said, "A-Rod would have the better jump-shot, better dribble, better defense, and have better overall skills, but Jeter would win 75% of the time." What is it with sportspeople and wanting to tear down the number 1 guys in the sport (Peyton Manning, LeBron James, A-Rod) and then prop up some other really good guy who isn't as good as the other guy on the basis of them being clutch, or just being a winner? (Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, Derek Jeter)

David Berri's underrated list of Big Men

at #3- David Lee...and Berri had this to say.

Years in top 10 Big Men: 07-10

Minutes Played: 9930

Wins Produced: 60.5

WP48: 0.292

David Lee I’m so glad you left the terrible franchise that is the Knicks. Hopefully new ownership and a new coach will make people notice how great you actually are in Golden State. It’s still a travesty that Walsh let you go, but their loss is the Warriors gain.

....Hey Dave, this is the Knicks....what did you expect? A good move?

The Way To Early Look at the Knicks

For this way to early look at the Knicks, I will not weight player performance based on the last three years of a player. Rather this post will only focus on the WP48s and wins produced from the last season. I will also not forecast minutes or take a guess at starters/reserves yet (that will come closer to the start of the regular season.

Kelenna Azubuike (2009 numbers due to injury) WP48: .104 Wins 5.15
Wilson Chandler- WP48: -.032 Wins -1.55
Eddy Curry- WP48: -.249 Wins -.75
Toney Douglas- WP48: .076 Wins 1.72
Patrick Ewing Jr. (did not play)
Raymond Felton- WP48: .163 Wins 8.97
Landry Fields (Rookie)
Danilo Galinari- WP48: .101 Wins 5.78
Roger Mason- WP48: .051 Wins 1.61
Timofey Mozgov (Rookie)
Anthony Randolph- WP48: .095 Wins 1.48
Andy Rautins (Rookie)
Amare Stoudemire- WP48: .154 Wins 9.11
Ronny Turiaf- WP48: .067 Wins 1.22
Bill Walker- WP48: .135 Wins 2.08

Without projecting the rookies at this time, the biggest strength that the Knicks have with this team is that they are a young team. Knowing that players generally get better until the age of 25 in which the peak, the Knicks have a slew of players under 25 who have been around average players and could out-perform last year's numbers.

So the way to early look at the Knicks sees them winning 34 games. I think that this number has an excellent chance of being far below what will actually happen seeing as rookies have not been factored in. Also, Gallo, Toney Douglas, Bill Walker, Anthony Randolph, among others should improve on the performance they put together last year. Hopefully the Knicks can make a charge for a winning record for the first time since I think Nixon went on trial for Watergate.

Actually a Nets post about Carmelo

Let me start by saying I agree with everything Jeff Pearlman says...about everything but sports. He and I have battled before about the Yankees and the greatness of A-Rod. But hey, that is what makes sports so great, you can go back anf forth all day with both people thinking the other one is completely clueless. This time I have to disagree with his proposal for the New Jersey/Brooklyn/Jay-Z/Prokarov Nets. Via his facebook since we are friends....

"If the New Jersey Nets can snag Carmelo Anthony from Denver for No. 3 overall pick Derrick Favors, the expiring deals of Troy Murphy and Kris Humphries plus at least one future first-round pick, they’re money. Real money. Carmelo is a Top-five talent; a guy I’d want on my roster were I moving to a new location in the coming years. He’d be an ideal face of the Brooklyn [FILL IN THE BLANK WITH THEIR NEW NAME], and the thought of teaming Anthony with Brook Lopez and Devin Harris is pretty damn appealing."

While true he may be an appealing face of the franchise when the team moves to Brooklyn, the bottom line is this trade is disastrous for the Nets. Troy Murphy has posted the following WP48s in the last three years: .281, .331, .149. and produced this amount of wins: 13.7, 17.1, 6.5.

Carmelo on the other hand has done the following: .109, .100, .131. wins of 6.0, 4.7, 7.6.

The other thing I don't understand is how are Brook Lopez and Devin Harris considered a good core group of players? The Nets won 12 games last year. Troy Murphy himself produced more wins than the Nets actually won. If those two were true "cornerstones", than the Nets would not have won 12 games last year. Earlier on the Wages of Wins site a post was offered how this years Wizards might be the worst team ever. A trade of Carmelo for Troy Murphy and the no.3 pick Derrick Favors may push the Nets over the top for worst team ever.

In other news: A-Rod hit one of his patented meaningless homeruns the other night to beat Baltimore.