What you just experienced was a moving montage of each season since 1999-00, in terms of offensive efficiency and usage among active players. That was just for kicks. Now let me attempt to fully explain the power of this chart and describe its nearly limitless array of functions. Try not to jump ahead as I walk you through this. Come along for the ride.The color of the data points are not random. They actually represent each player’s minutes per game MPG for that season. You can see the colorful scale in the top right, beneath the MPG field. In this case, blue indicates a bench player and red indicates a player who rarely got any time on the pine. I weeded out all the seasons with less than 10 minutes of action per game to eliminate outliers.

So how is this useful? Take a look at Monta Ellis while in the year 2010 which you should be if you haven’t rushed ahead. You can find him all red-faced at the intersection of 30 USG% and 100 ORtg. He is the new Allen Iverson– the star Jack Russell terrier who racks up tons of points but does so inefficiently. Want another possession-waster? Look for a sunburnt circle west of 25 USG and south of 100 ORtg. That’s Trevor Ariza. Can’t see him? Click and on the intersection of 80 ORtg, 25 USG% and drag to create a box up to ORtg 100, 15 USG%. Bam! There he is in his orange glory. He’s still a valuable asset for the future even if he’s struggling in his new role.

via Hoopdata – NBA: Where Motion Happens.

I cannot tell you how amazing I consider this tool to be. Not just in terms of how pretty it is, but to be able to track, consider, and analyze players’ comparative performance across time in a visual format? It immediately brings a different perspective. Being able to see where precisely players’ growth spurt and decline begin is fascinating, and could allow us to keep those things in mind when looking at similar players. It puts things in context (try Bosh vs. Melo, PER vs. Time), and brings us to another level of understanding. It’s nothing that changes the way we look at the game, but it’s a phenomenally useful tool.

In short, GO CLICK NOW. KTHXBAI.

What CAA can provide its clients this summer is a synergy that perhaps other agencies can’t. Rose works with James, and Thomas helps guide Wade and Bosh, but they also will exchange information with each other about prospective suitors, as well as their own clients’ wishes.

“Being together, we can share that information and discuss all the various scenarios that are available,” Rose said. “It’s just going to be a benefit to all of our players. Ultimately, it’s going to be their decision. There won’t be any information that is left out or won’t be a part of the process.”

Said Thomas: “The most important thing to any negotiation process is having good information. Because we are together, our information will be as good as anyone out there representing free agents.”

Rival agents naturally see another side to the story: By spending so much time with James, Wade and Bosh, CAA will have a harder time handling the needs of its other free agents. “It just brings us back to the information flow,” Thomas said. “The access to information we have not only with ‘The Big Three,’ but all of our clients that we have in play this summer.”

via CAA stands at head of 2010 free-agent class – NBA – Yahoo! Sports.

Insane must-read by Spears at Yahoo!. At this point we’re looking at the only reason to doubt at least one combination of the big free agents is that is hasn’t happened before. Because we’ve got CAA managing multiple players, whatever Worldwide Wes’ involvement is, Jay-Z at the fringes, and the closeness of the players themselves.

It’s a fine line of abject conjecture and pointing out the inordinate number of connections that exist here. There are just as many connections to Cleveland, to Miami, so many ways we could be looking at a very similar league in six months.

Yes, the power of CAA exhibited in this article is not one that illustrates a master plan, it’s one built simply on this: all of the elements involved in this summer are open to greater possibilities. Nothing is off the table, and furthermore, everything will warrant a serious examination. This isn’t talk of passing fancy regarding a team-up of two or more of the major players, it’s serious discussion about the pros and cons of such a decision, what it would mean from a basketball, business, and personal level. There’s a lot of moving pieces, but most of those pieces fit in one manner or another.

This whole thing is just weird.

Who stands to lose the most? That’s the compelling subplot. Where do the players give and where do they stand ground? The players most responsible for selling tickets, television ratings and merchandise – the Kobe Bryants, LeBron Jameses and Dwyane Wades – could be the ones taking the biggest hit. The nine-man executive committee of players has just one star: Chris Paulnotes. The days of the insufferable David Falk trying to control the union are long gone, his bellows of “Michael Jordan is the league,” a distant echo in union meetings.

The idea of raising superstar salaries and paying the middle- and lower-class players less won’t wash in a one-man, one-vote union. “If they cut the highest 25 or 30 salaries by, say, 35 percent, you’re not going to have to change that much more for [the owners] to get what they want financially,” another player agent said. “LeBron can scream and shout all he wants, but this is a one-man, one-vote union. Once guys figure out that 400 or so players will benefit by the top few taking a major cut, what do you think they’re going to do?”

via NBA aims to crush union in labor battle – NBA – Yahoo! Sports.

So, we’re going to have a lockout. Which sucks.

I came to this conclusion today, after the infamous opening to Woj’s article:

Here’s how an NBA front-office executive described the document the commissioner’s office delivered to the union to start labor negotiations: “It’s just a photocopy of Stern’s middle finger.”

via NBA aims to crush union in labor battle – NBA – Yahoo! Sports.

Well, then. Naturally, Adonal Foyal came out and laid the groundwork for the union’s first “Aw, hells naw” response. And we’re off. The message Stern is starting out with is apparently from all accounts a pretty unpleasant one. The owners are using the economy as the impetus to usher in a sweeping era of reforms to try and bust the union into NFLPA-like submission. We’re talking shorter, non-guaranteed contracts, and a hard cap. A HARD CAP.

While my little heart is aflutter at the thought of Dolan, Buss, or Cuban not being able to spend four times as much as a small market club, even I’m pulling at the reins on this one. The luxury tax needs to be made more aggressive, not abolished. We’re at a point where we’re finally looking at being able to have room for all the great players with potential that just need time. A hard cap is going to make development picks (and potentially the D-League) an untenable element. It goes hand in hand with the other thing being bandied about, contraction. Look, you can talk about Seattle and 40 years and how much it sucks, but at the end of the day, at least we got what is turning out to be a pretty great fanbase in Oklahoma City. Tearing apart a team and simply having it evaporate hurts the fans, the league, the game. It’s dripping acid on the fabric of the league, and I’d hate to see that happen. That’s at the heart of all my talk about small market teams. Kids that don’t live on a coast should be able to love the NBA, too. It’s a dangerous path we’re on.

That said, the quote that started this conversation was what I thought was most fascinating. A realignment from superstar elitism to control via the masses. Joe Smith and Chuck Hayes having as much if not more power in the financial future of the PA than the King. How bizarre is that concept? This story will be fascinating to watch, but I fear the only way this ends is with the start of 2011-2012 being in January.

But then, I hated business classes in college. I was usually drunk at the time. College night for the win.

Kobe Bryant has ignored his ever-thickening medical file, playing through a broken finger, strained elbow, back spasms and, most recently, a sprained left ankle.

But it might be time for him to sit a game or two, a thought that crossed Phil Jackson’s mind while the Lakers’ coach watched him hobble around the court Wednesday against the Charlotte Bobcats.

“It occurred to me yesterday during the course of that game,” Jackson said a day after Bryant had only five points, his lowest total since a January 2005 game against Cleveland in which he scored two points before being carried off the court because of a severely sprained ankle.

via Phil Jackson ponders resting Kobe Bryant because of injuries – latimes.com.

The hubris is stunning.What, the broken finger, back spasms, cold, flue, and other ailments weren’t enough? What’s it going to take to hold the man out?

I say this in all honesty: I am stunned at Bryant’s performance this season. He’s not just “banged up.” The man is basically a car crash victim. And he’s pouring in points, still! Yes, he’s shooting too much, but can you blame him with the way Pau’s turned back into Dairy Queen Sunday Special, Odom’s MIA, and Bynum still has days he doesn’t know where he’s at? He’s the offense. So he’s taking shots. He needs to recognize when to go to his teammates and say “You need to take the ball and score, because my FINGER IS BROKEN. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? FINGER! BROKEN! YOU! SCORE!” But I can’t fault the guy. Who I can fault? The guy everyone’s falling over to anoint as he runs the second best player in the league into the ground.

Jackson always takes the long-view, the “none of this matters until the playoffs” approach. This team can win without the top seed, they don’t need homecourt. So why on Earth is he not going to his star player, who he knows so well, and saying “You’re sitting. You’re sitting now, and the All-Star game, and that’s it.” I’m sure the league would be very upset if Kobe didn’t play. But they’d be more upset if his body ends up having more severe problems and it impacts him in May.

Besides, wouldn’t shutting him down force the rest of the Lakers to step up? Wouldn’t it make it so Pau’s got to man-up, Odom’s got to wake-up, Bynum’s got to get up, and Artest has to… well, Artest is doing okay and not eating people, so I think he’s fine. Taking Kobe out isn’t going to develop a new alpha dog. It’s just going to teach the rest of the pack to hunt without him. Then when he’s health, he’ll be ready to take over and do what’s important: win the title. If there’s anything we learned from last season, it’s that LeBron can have February as long as Kobe gets June.

Shut him down.

But what he says next popped out at me. It wasn’t that salaries must decrease, or that the arena financing system is broken. He said in upcoming league reforms — negotiating through the CBA — he’ll seek to “compress the difference” between the teams which make the most money and those who lose it.

That’s either code for “better revenue sharing,” or it’s willful misdirection on the salary issue. (Because, technically, crushing payrolls would serve to boost the net revenue of the low-end teams, which might actually “compress the difference.”) I choose to believe it’s the former, because I roll with Rousseau, and revenue sharing is the right thing to do, so long as James Dolan and Donald Sterling get fat and happy because of their zip code rather than their teams’; competitiveness.

via Stern: NBA to ‘Compress the Difference’ Between Rich and Poor Teams — NBA FanHouse.

I firmly believe we’re at a critical point for the NBA. We could be looking at a talent realignment the likes of which we’ve never seen in the next six months, and even if we don’t, we’ll still at least have a pretty good look at the future. We have more stars than we’ve had since Showtime, many with crossover appeal. Sports is becoming, somehow, incredibly, more of our daily life with new media than it ever has been. And the CBA represents a golden opportunity for Stern to shape the future of the league in such a way as to allow a boom to put them in competition for the 2nd most popular sport in the country. A revenue sharing deal that puts smaller communities in contention and breeds the idea that your team, no matter who you are, really has a chance at a championship would change everything.

Even with owners that would take advantage of such rules like the Royals and Pirates do, it would still open up for smaller teams to become household names. As it stands, there are really still only about four household name of teams, teams that really cross over into the mainstream. Lakers, Knicks, Bulls, Celtics. Do you have any idea how many people have asked me in the last two weeks, “Wait, Charlotte has an NBA team? When did that happen?” And when I reply “It’s their second, they had the Hornets, too” their minds are blown.

Stern taking that initiative to bring a system where the smaller teams are rewarded is in everyone’s best interest except those four teams. And those four teams will never be at a disadvantage. This isn’t about punishing any one team. It’s about raising up the rest. I’m hoping Tom’s right and Stern’s ready to take this on.

A study designed for The Wall Street Journal by sports-reference.com, an Internet sports database, looked at NBA teams’ attendance for the past 10 seasons. It then weighed certain factors like city population, arena capacity, prior winning percentage and whether there are other, competing teams in the same market. By those measures, Clippers fans are the most devoted, while Golden State Warriors fans are in second place. Presumably those teams get extra credit for continuing to post relatively strong attendance figures while sporting a combined winning percentage of .399 since the 2000-01 season.

The Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers and Dallas Mavericks, who lead the league in fans per game, round out the study’s top five, while the Lakers come in sixth. In last place are the Philadelphia 76ers, just ahead of the Minnesota Timberwolves and New Jersey Nets.

via Los Angeles Clippers Fans: NBA’s Most Loyal – WSJ.com.

It would be easy to just slough this off as the big market advantage, but then you’ve got Philly and New Jersey. If the Nets fail to land LeBron or another big free agent, the move to Brooklyn will be pretty interesting to track.

That said, what in God’s name is wrong with Philly? Sure, they’re terrible this season, but what about the last two when the were  a playoff team, that added Elton Brand? This is one of those teams with all that history that everyone freaked out about with the Sonics. So what’s going on? I understand the impact of the other teams in town and their devotees followers, but really, no love for the Sixers? This team made the Finals within the last decade, for crying out loud!

There were four small market teams in the top ten (five if you count Toronto), with the Magic and Bucks at 11th and 12th. This from two franchises that have been horrible for much of the decade. And yet, the league continues to push big markets as the decisive course of action. Small market success leads to increased fan loyalty. Their ceiling is much higher than a major market because once fans are hooked, it becomes a central part of their culture. In LA, once the Lakers are terrible again, people will just switch to the Dodgers or USC, or go to the beach. But fans in other cities will keep coming.

The lack of Minnesota loyalty is kind of a perfect storm. Bad team, that has low loyalty ratings even though they had several years of contention and one of the best players in the league, multiple teams to contend with, and a low overall winning percentage. And you have to look at where the Cavs are in this study and be afraid. It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again. If LeBron leaves Cleveland, it may press that franchise into oblivion.

People ask what Coach Brown is like when he’s not talking basketball and he’s a great dude, but the thing is, he’s talking basketball 24/7.

There are not too many conversations that you’ll have with him that aren’t about basketball. He’s a very concerned person, but he’s 100 percent into basketball.

His impact has been huge. One thing about coach is he’s going to bring it and be the same every single day. He will never stop coaching. I don’t know if I’ve ever been around anyone who loves basketball as much as he does and has the passion for it that he does.

It never stops and he’ll breakdown everything in footage. He’ll breakdown a mistake that a rookie made at the end of the game as if it was the first play of the game that a starter would make. That’s one thing I appreciate about him is that he coaches every single player the same.

If you make a mistake, he will correct you. He doesn’t care if you’re in your 12th year or your first. That attitude trickles down to our team and gives us our character.

Coach Brown has shown me the dedication every day that it takes to be great. It’s about understanding the passion and knowledge that you have to have to be great. The way he talks about the game is totally different from anybody I’ve ever heard talk about it.

The way he breaks things down, the way he looks at mechanics, the way he understands why guys are great scorers or great rebounders. Everything he does is from studying and that’s something I have learned from him.

…

You have to have a team that’s receptive to his coaching and his coaching style. Guys have to be willing to learn every day because he’s not going to stop teaching. If you’re the type of person that at some point wants that voice to go away, it’s not.

Every player I’ve talked to that has ever played for him says: “You’re going to understand how great he is when you don’t have him.”

It can be tough for guys being coached non-stop because a lot of players have never had that in their career. But when you’re on a different team and away from him, you look back and realize that he was just an incredible coach. Every guy I’ve talked to has said I’ll learn more than I’ve ever learned just playing for him and it’s true.

From Tyson Chandler’s Blog.

Gilbert Arenas and Rod Benson are the Basketblog All-Stars, but I feel like Tyson Chandler’s blog is humanizing in a way that Gil and Boom Tho’s never were.

Gil offered us a glimpse into his life, but it was so absurd and cartoonish that it was almost impossible to believe. It didn’t bring Arenas closer to us, but put his life in a glass box for all of us to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ at, to laugh along with his jokes, to be impressed with his candor. An awesome experience, make no mistake, but can we really say we know Gilbert Arenas the man that much more because of the internet exposure he offered us?

Benson, on the other hand, is a writer. He’s not a basketball player clumsily plugging away at a keyboard, but a natural writer trapped in a 6’10” frame with hops and STILL impressive scoring and rebounding numbers (I hope my check’s in the mail, Boom). I’m not saying that his tales weren’t incredibly enjoyable or tremendously authentic, but there was still a disconnect there. They were episodes of a sitcom, or scenes from a movie; something almost too scripted and too structured to even be recognizable as the whirlwind that is real life.

But Tyson Chandler? His blog really should be ordinary. It should be an athlete talking about practice (practice?), family life, and living the dream. And in so many words, that’s exactly what it is. But he’s not bland, and he’s not outspoken. He’s not boring, and he’s not over-the-top. He’s just Tyson Chandler, a completely personable and likable NBA player, a multimillionaire hiding a person underneath. In this case, not only does Chandler come off as a completely humble, hard-working chap, but he actually manages to do the impossible for me: transform the caricature of Larry Brown I have stashed away in my head into something much more lifelike and much more endearing.

Ya see, LB represents much of what I hate about the league. Or, at least I thought he did. He comes across as a completely uncompromising, more than a bit self-righteous, and an avid hater of any and every player HP has ever stood for. Inexperienced rookie? Lock ‘em up and throw away the key. Freak athlete with an atypical skill set? A public flogging! Deserving, but completely limited and lackluster journeyman with no offensive game to speak of? Get this man 15 shots a game!

I don’t think that reading a Chandler blog post has totally changed my perspective on the guy, but it’s definitely added another dimension to Brown. He may still be the crotchety old coach telling the kids to get off his lawn, but he’ll tell you to get off his lawn before three seconds is up, and set up in the post in the yard next door ready to receive the entry pass.

2. Jamison’s contract is abysmal for a rebuilding team

In a world where the Wizards are a solid playoff team poised to take the next step toward contention, Jamison’s four year, 50+ million dollar contract is at least somewhat defensible. Good teams have a core and try to augment it, and Jamison’s certainly capable enough to be a part of some good team’s core (though perhaps not at his salary). However, in a world where you’re not making the playoffs, the goal should be to keep long-term contracts to a minimum, develop your young players and keep stockpiling. Having a 33-year old Antawn Jamison around for that is counterproductive to long-term goals. Leading by example only goes so far. At a certain point, young players have to play and learn by playing. Jamison’s presence is currently preventing Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee from getting that court time. (Now, whether they deserve it or not … oh let’s not deal with this tug of war again).

via Six reasons Antawn Jamison absolutely needs to be traded before the deadline – Bullets Forever.

Here’s the deal with Bullets Forever. They’re as fin a barometer for decisions as a team is going to have. They’re partial towards the hometown crew, and passionate. But they don’t hold on to ideas out of some misguided sense of nostalgia, don’t overvalue their players, and are willing to say what must be said.

Prada lays out the case in stunning detail, and buries the Wizards-Cavs rivalry that was never much of a rivalry anyway. It was one, and it had potential, but it died on the vine.  And that should have no impact on where Jamison goes. The Cavs can offer Hickson, potentially Danny Green, and a pick to go along with Z. The deal’s there. Jamison hasn’t openly said “I don’t want to be traded”, he’s just saying all the things you want your players to say. And since you’ve managed to surround him with so many guys who wouldn’t say things like that, maybe it’s best to let him go. You can’t rebuild around a 31 year old.

Pull the freaking trigger…er…so to speak.

It is kind of a big but – it thinks the Bobcats would be worse with LeBron James than Gerald Wallace this season. And as big of a Crash fan as I am, that is preposterous. Now, it is not the tool’s fault: It just does not know any better. It was designed to say that if a new player comes in, the rest of the team will continue to perform at the same efficiency they have previously. But when you add a player like LeBron James, things are a little different – for one, he uses about 15 more possessions per 100 team possessions than Gerald. All of a sudden the rest of the Bobcats are responsible for splitting just 65 possessions, instead of 80 – hmm, wonder if that may make their jobs a little bit easier?

No surprises: It does. A great example is Raymond Felton’s performance from last year to this year. Last season, his usage ([fga+0.4*fta+turnovers]/100 team possessions) was 24.7 and his efficiency on those possessions (points per 100 possessions used) was just 82.0. This year, with the addition of Stephen Jackson, Ray’s usage is down to 20.7 and his efficiency up to 95.0. Looking across the league, this relationship holds true – as usage goes up, efficiency goes down. This is not to say that high usage players are the lowest efficiency players – that is not the case. No, what I mean is that as an individual player is called on to shoulder an increased burden, his efficiency drops. The chart below shows the usage versus efficiency on a per game basis for every player who played at least 8 minutes in a given game.

via Queen City Hoops – You mean Gerald isn’t better than LeBron?.

Brett’s updated the Player Swap Tool and I suggest you go take a gander.

Click on that for a look at Jamison for Z and the impact on the Cavs. Now, the win differential is null, but take a look at the possessions used. If you’re looking at the Cavs, you want someone who can absorb more possessions to take the burden off James and prevent the dreaded “everyone stand around and watch James dribble” offense. From Brett’s tool, it certainly looks like it.

Brett’s tool is also groundbreaking in that it’s the first tool to start moving to a conceptual analysis of the impact of players on teams, not just from a “let’s subtract this guy’s stats and add that guy’s” but from a look at the impact on elements that are dynamic, that is, they interact with the other team. You’re never going to be able to get everything covered in terms of chemistry, and defense will take a while to get a more accurate look at, but we’re headed in that direction. Take a look at what Brett’s doing. Pretty awesome stuff.

Obviously, with a limited sample size, White looked like an offensive juggernaut. Behind 52% field goal shooting (including 7 for 8 in his career debut), White scored 8.9 points an outing. Projected out to starters minutes (36 per game), it would equate to 17.2 points per game. The 6′9″ 250 pounder looked like the type of scoring big man who could come off the bench to give the Thunder a great boost when the first team caught their breath.

In his sophomore season, that has not been the case. Caught in a logjam at power forward, White has spent far more games in suits than out of his warmup. Through 49 games, White has checked into the game a grand total of eight times. There are some theories about why he has lacked playing time, but none have to do with lack of effectiveness. In those eight games, White has scored a point in every two minutes he plays and has done so on a whopping 68% from the floor.

One of those theories is that White needs to work on his rebounding. Except the numbers suggest that isn’t the case. Project his rebounds to starter minutes and he’d be pulling in 7.5 per game–which is actually slightly better than the 7.4 Durant grabs per game to lead the team.

Another theory is that he isn’t athletic enough to play defense. That has some more credibility. Serge Ibaka, while statistically inferior, has rocketed past D.J. in the depth chart. On the other hand, White’s Defensive Rating of 108 is not significantly worse than Serge’s 100, at least not enough that White’s offensive prowess shouldn’t earn him some spot minutes when the team is struggling to get on the scoreboard.

via Peace, Love and Thunderstanding: He’s the D.J… | Daily Thunder.com.

The Thunder will likely not be movers at the deadline, though I’d expect them to make a move of some type before the draft (you can’t have a 28 man roster and they’ve got too many picks). But if they were to make a move, moving for D.J. White and Weaver (injured) might not be a bad plan.

Look, I get that White’s played eight whole games this year, averaging 8.9 minutes. But a 21.4 pp40, with 8.5 REB, and 1.1 Blocks is worth a look. OKC has cap room, a few expirings ($18 mil worth), picks, and White and Weaver are young, talented, with good per minute numbers and upside. The more you think about it, OKC has the ability to acquire pretty much anyone they want. But then, they don’t need to, don’t want to, and don’t have to.

Paupers to princes, so to speak.