2008-2009 NBA Futures Championship Odds
Monday, September 8, 2008 · 3:14 pm EST · Tippy
Odds are out on this season’s race to capture the title and the Lakers are the favorite to win it all with odds of 3:1. The Celtics are a close second at 7:2 indicating a rematch of the 2007-2008 Finals. The Grizzlies are the longshot of the league at 300:1. You can keep an eye on the current odds to win it all at www.VegasInsider.com.
| Team | Open | Current |
| Los Angeles Lakers | 5/2 | 3/1 |
| Boston Celtics | 7/2 | 7/2 |
| New Orleans Hornets | 7/1 | 6/1 |
| Detroit Pistons | 7/1 | 7/1 |
| Houston Rockets | 15/1 | 8/1 |
| San Antonio Spurs | 7/1 | 8/1 |
| Utah Jazz | 12/1 | 10/1 |
| Phoenix Suns | 10/1 | 10/1 |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | 15/1 | 10/1 |
| Orlando Magic | 15/1 | 15/1 |
| Philadelphia 76ers | 40/1 | 20/1 |
| Toronto Raptors | 25/1 | 20/1 |
| Dallas Mavericks | 15/1 | 20/1 |
| Denver Nuggets | 22/1 | 30/1 |
| Chicago Bulls | 40/1 | 30/1 |
| Washington Wizards | 30/1 | 35/1 |
| Portland Trail Blazers | 50/1 | 35/1 |
| Golden State Warriors | 30/1 | 45/1 |
| Indiana Pacers | 50/1 | 50/1 |
| Los Angeles Clippers | 75/1 | 50/1 |
| Miami Heat | 200/1 | 60/1 |
| Atlanta Hawks | 50/1 | 60/1 |
| Charlotte Bobcats | 75/1 | 60/1 |
| New Jersey Nets | 50/1 | 60/1 |
| Milwaukee Bucks | 150/1 | 75/1 |
| Minnesota Timberwolves | 100/1 | 75/1 |
| New York Knicks | 150/1 | 100/1 |
| Sacramento Kings | 75/1 | 125/1 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | 250/1 | 250/1 |
| Memphis Grizzlies | 250/1 | 300/1 |
Trade Speculation: Randolph to Memphis
Friday, September 5, 2008 · 4:42 pm EST · Tippy
ESPN reports that Memphis and New York have a deal on the table that would send Marko Jaric and Darko Milicic to New York in exchange for Zach Randolph. This rumor has been floating around for awhile and Donnie Walsh still has to sign off on it, so stay tuned.
UPDATE: Tommy Dee of TheKnicksBlog.com offers a good look at Donnie Walsh and the tough decisions he has to make about the Knicks roster.
Jamal Crawford’s New Blog
Friday, September 5, 2008 · 11:17 am EST · Tippy
Jamal Crawford has decided to start writing his own blog for newsday.com. I like Crawford and after reading his blog it is hard not to cheer for the guy. One thing I never realized about him is that while being in the league for 9 seasons, he has endured 9 different head coaches. I’m sure that I’ll have him again this year on more than one fantasy team and I look forward to reading his thoughts on the Knicks this season. Hopefully more players will follow his example and communicate with the fans through easily accessible blogs. Good luck this season Jamal.
NBA Shooting Performance: Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%)
Thursday, September 4, 2008 · 7:17 am EST · Tippy
Are you using Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%) to accurately assess shooting performance and productivity when handicapping your games? You should be. Most casual fans however still use the outdated simple Field Goal Percentage (FG%) as their primary metric for evaluating shooting ability. The old metric does a poor job of providing accurate information due to the fact that it was implemented before the introduction of the three point shot. Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%) has a built in variable to take the difficulty of the three point shot into consideration.
As an example, say you wanted to compare the shooting ability and production of Raja Bell (42.1 FG%) with Antonio Daniels (45.9 FG%). Based on the simple field goal percentage statistic, it would seem that Daniels is clearly the better shooter. But is this really true?
Effective field goal percentage is defined as: eFG% = FGM + (3PM x .5) / FGA. When we plug in the stats for Bell and Daniels we get a completely different story as to who the best shooter is. Bell bumps up to 53.8 % while Daniels bumps to only 47.8 %. Who looks like the better shooter now? Just looking at a simple FG% doesn’t tell you where the player shot the ball from on the floor. We all know that Raja loves the three ball, while Daniels doesn’t have much of a shot from that distance. Say Raja was true to form and took 12 shots in a game and walked away with 5 three pointers for a 41.7% shooting night, which is pretty close to his actual FG%. Now say Daniels took all 12 of his shots from inside the arc and hit 6 shots or 50%, which is much better than his actual talent of shooting 45.9%. Who had the better night, Raja scoring 15 or Daniels scoring 12? Who shot the higher simple FG%? Just looking at the simple FG% doesn’t give you a clear picture of the better shooter or the more productive player.
Simple FG% is a very misleading statistic that no longer provides useful handicapping information. It is clear that handicappers are much better off using effective field goal percentage (eFG%) when it comes to predicting the actual score of an NBA game.
Chalmers and Arthur caught with pot, women
Wednesday, September 3, 2008 · 6:59 pm EST · Tippy
Looks like Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur are bored with waiting for the NBA season to start but they seem to have found a way to puff and pass the dead offseason time. ESPN reports the two KU stars were busted by hotel security with marijuana and women in their room and were tossed out of the NBA’s rookie transition program. I hate the dead summer too, but come on guys, at the NBA transition program? Of course if I was 22, had a couple of million dollars and was an NBA star…
Fantasy Basketball Reports
Wednesday, September 3, 2008 · 10:35 am EST · Tippy
Looks like the fantasy basketball reports are starting to roll out for the upcoming season and everyone has their favorites. One you may not be familiar with comes from www.GiveMetheRock.com. Take a second and go check them out and hit them up for a copy of their new draft guide. You can get a free copy if you have a website and give them a shout out link. Give them a look.
The NBA’s Olympic Hangover
Tuesday, September 2, 2008 · 1:36 pm EST · Tippy
I ran across an interesting article today that got me thinking about some handicapping angles for the early season games, mostly whether teams with recent Olympic players do better or worse against the spread and total. The Olympics were a six week grind of travel, publicity appearances, workouts and actual games that will undoubtably take its toll on star players, which also has an effect on their NBA teams. LeBron had some knee problems, Ginobili is looking at surgery and Kobe put off surgery on the ligament in his pinky. Most of the public may not fully appreciate the recovery time necessary for an NBA player over the summer, especially for those guys who went deep in the playoffs and surely not for those stars that played well into August for the Olympics.
This can show up in several areas, mainly that they just aren’t at their peak physically for the upcoming season, which tips off in a mere 57 days. A secondary factor which may be overlooked is that these stars may be given some camp time off to recover, which can hurt the chemistry of their team. Practicing without your star player can cause some problems and those teams who have to do so may not be fully up to speed for the first couple of weeks.
Astute players should be aware of these possibilities and keep an eye on the lines that might provide opportunities based on this angle, we certainly will.
UPDATE, September 5, 2008. USA Today offers this rebuttle as to why the ‘Hangover effect’ may not be useful. Nice points on the actual players, but I think they fail to grasp the secondary effects that occur to the overall team chemistry which can sometimes be slow to develop while the olympic stars rest during camp.
Donyell Marshall lands in Philly
Tuesday, September 2, 2008 · 9:42 am EST · Tippy
The 76ers are set to sign sharpshooter Donyell Marshall to a league minimum salary. Marshall should offer some additional bench offense and solid rebounding from the forward spot on those nights when Thaddeus Young can’t get the job done.
According to USA Today, Greg Oden participated in 5 on 5 drills and looked pretty good which is great news for Portland. The Blazers need to get all their young guns on the court from day one and start building chemistry.
Mike D’Antoni and the NY Knicks
Monday, September 1, 2008 · 7:57 pm EST · Tippy
If you are one of the mass of bettors who love to play on the Knicks then you know there have been some changes in the offseason, the biggest of which was the hiring of Mike D’Antoni. There was a great article today describing how D’Antoni will reform the Knicks and what we can expect handicapping wise. Anyone who watched him in Phoenix knows that his system runs at a much higher pace than the league average which should provide some profitable totals plays. It should also provide some nice underdog plays since the public has such a low opinion of the Knicks due to the horrible managment and coaching of Isiah Thomas. Keep an eye on the early Knicks lines for some great possibilities.