Darnell Mayberry says a rotation change is coming: “The idea is to sub out Kevin Durant earlier. It’s a strategy Brooks told me following practice today that the coaching staff began kicking around earlier in the day. By sitting Durant earlier, the Thunder can accomplish three things: most importantly a more sensible rotation that relies less on only Eric Maynor and Kevin Martin to create, secondly, an opportunity for Westbrook to run as wild as his heart desires for longer stretches and, lastly, more rest for Durant. Early in games this year Brooks has trusted his second team as much as he did a year ago, playing that unit consistent minutes without either Durant or Westbrook. But the bench has only been marginally successful without the help of one of its All-Star teammates. That’s now about to change, Brooks said, starting with Friday’s game at New Orleans and likely continuing back inside The Peake on Sunday against Golden State.”
Interesting from Elias: “It was the third time in eight games this season that Harden scored at least 30 points. Harden is the third player in Rockets history to have at least three 30-point games in his first eight games with the team. Elvin Hayes did it in 1968 and one of the players Harden was traded for, Kevin Martin, did it in 2010.” Kind of puts some things in perspective.
Spacing talk from Kirk Goldsberry.
Berry Tramel: “I don’t know if Martin wasn’t being assertive, or if the Grizzlies had Westbrook and Co. in such a frenzy, Martin was forgotten. Doesn’t matter. Either way, it’s got to change. The Thunder is not built for one of its stars to veg out. And like it or not, Martin has star status on this team. He has to produce for the Thunder to excel. That’s why Westbrook has to stay in attack mode, even if he’s not making shots. The Thunder does not have the parity of offensive talent to allow one of its scorers to step aside. Martin has to understand that. And the Thunder has to understand that about Martin.”
Perk told Z-Bo, “I’ll meet you by the bus!”
Dan Devine of BDL on the Perk dustup: “Exactly what form of discipline could result from such an investigation remains unclear — the NBA rulebook gives the commissioner’s office leeway to levy “a fine not exceeding $50,000 and/or suspension” against players who are involved in physical altercations and/or judged to have thrown a punch on the court, but the lines are a bit blurrier when it comes to things that take place off the court; the situation only gets blurrier, one would presume, when police and security on the scene ostensibly say there was nothing to get exercised about here. Then again, the NBA’s fresh off forcing DeMarcus Cousins to take a two-game siesta for allegedly acting hostile toward a color commentator, so maybe “people in the postgame interview area [hearing] something being slammed against the door” is enough of a smoking gun to keep Z-Bo and Perk in suits for the rest of their natural-born lives, irrespective of what Johnny Law thinks.”
According to a league spokesman, the league is investigating the incident.
Is Andrew Bynum wearing a costume or not?
Programming note: I’m going out of town for a few days but don’t worry, DT isn’t going dormant. There will still be the regular things for the most part, but just know that I’ll be a little less active for the next couple days.
http://www.rotoworld.com/articles/nba/41905/45/fightin-words-wednesday?pg=2
http://www.dailythunder.com/2012/11/thunder-vs-hornets-pregame-primer/
the NBA needs some afternoon games during the week.
no one is going to watch Orlando vs Detroit or Atlanta vs Sacramento, but they might if they were on at 4 PM
@OBoy Jones III as long as they don't have Thunder vs anybody during that time.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/nate-robinson-drives-literally-defender-legs-way-score-202920926--nba.html
miss you nate
where has ou_sas been lately....he used to post a lot more.
@BallSoHard baby_sas can be time consuming. O.o
@ou_sas brand new baby_sas? Congrats.
@BallSoHard @ou_sas He's 7 and a half months old now, but fridays/weekends I've got him by myself and he's getting more and more mobile, so I can't just sit at the computer like I used to.
@BallSoHard I dunno about ou_sas, but it's hard to be heard or taken seriously when you try to post in the middle of 1,700 comments in a 3 hour span. Especially when 90% of those comments are reactionary nonsense.
@Jax Raging Bile Duct I'm not sure I like where this (once) small town is headed.
@Jax Raging Bile Duct @cemitten
ooooooooooh . . . Jax has candy.
@cemitten @Jax Raging Bile Duct I've been rereading Transmetropolitan and listening to Spotify when I've not been busy getting flu and TDAP shots.
@Jax Raging Bile Duct just gonna tell him where ou_sas has been
@cemitten plentyocandy@whitevannowindows.com
Why?
@BallSoHard whats your email address?
@Jax Raging Bile Duct Don't worry jax I carefully read and consider all of your comments.
@Jax Raging Bile Duct @BallSoHard
We do love our reactionary nonsense around here. :)
Thats true.
@ou_sas Where have you been? Please come out and play!
@ou_sas http://goo.gl/PCaeJ
The wire should do a prequel spin off that focuses on Avon stringer and the barksdale crew growing up
@RRRWHATEVER created a livefyre account just to like that comment
@ThunderGunner relevant avatar pic. Awesome
@ThunderGunner also definitely turn off email alerts from livefrye. Just trust us on this one.
@ThunderGunner nah just leave, you've peaked ;)
@cemitten two likes on my first comment and a response, i might just stick around
@RRRWHATEVER wasn't that what the storyline of season 4 supposed to represent
@MD4Okc @RRRWHATEVER yeah season 4 basically did that.
@ThunderGunner @OBoy Jones III @MD4Okc @RRRWHATEVER Every discussion of the Wire on the internet requires me to post this youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sgj78QG9Bg
@OBoy Jones III @MD4Okc @RRRWHATEVER well season 4 was the best anyway so i wouldn't mind them making it again.
If Brooks is considering lineup changes #whynot start kevin martin and have Lamb and PJ3 get cosistant mins?
@PerkPunt Why? Looked pretty good last night.
@PerkPunt he might try that if this doesn't work, this is a last drastic first option
@PerkPunt because we might not be better?
@OBoy Jones III
just thinking out the box. I doubt PJ3 or Lamb becomse anything more than solid bench players in a year or two
Mike Woodson has taken a page out of the Thunders book leaving JR Smith as 6th man
http://bkref.com/tiny/c8mRw
Best lineups in league used 50+ minutes. OKC's most used lineup comes in 17th place on performance.
@Crow How much faith can you put in this if 2 of the top 3 lineups are from Cleveland and Charlotte?
@Its Raining 3's not a lot right now, but after 20-30 games I'd put more faith in this than most stats or feelings.
@Its Raining 3's Average for last 8 champs is just better than 4th place for lineups that played over 250 minutes. Spurs in 2006-7 were the worst with an 8th place lineup.
So 8th best big minute lineup might win you a title but recent history has the winner with a top 4 performer almost all the time.
11th or 17th very likely won't cut it.
Miami had the 4th best regular season lineup that played over 250 minutes last season. Thunder starters with harden were 8th best. all starter 11th best. @Its Raining 3's
http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/plus/lineup_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id=&match=single&output=per_min&year_min=2012&year_max=2012&is_playoffs=N&team_id=&opp_id=&game_num_min=0&game_num_max=99&game_month=&game_location=&game_result=&c1stat=mp&c1comp=ge&c1val=250&c2stat=&c2comp=ge&c2val=&c3stat=&c3comp=ge&c3val=&c4stat=&c4comp=ge&c4val=&order_by=diff_pts
@Its Raining 3's i doubt any team wins the title without a top performing big minute lineup.
@Its Raining 3's so do NYK and Brooklyn
@Its Raining 3's CHI. MIA, SAS.LAK all have top performing big minute lineups at this point.
@Its Raining 3's Charlotte lineups with 52 minutes played is more questionable than the Cavs' lineup with 145.
OKC starting lineup is 4th most used lineup in league.
"insiders know what they are doing / know best"
5 of 7 most used lineups in league are negative right now.
best lineup used 100+ minutes has Varejao in it.
OKC starters 3rd worst performing lineup used over 100 minutes.
@Crow While you are on here, if you had access to the raw, pre-accumulated lineups for every game of 1 team what are the top 5-10 things you would want to do with that data.
@senseandsenescence umm...
definitely would want to know who is shooting / scoring / passing in each lineup
who is getting scored on
@Crow Definitely would like to see if SandS can incorporate height and wingspans.
Would be nice to have the opponent numbers as well to figure out affects of differentials but you can only ask so much of one person ;)
@cemitten a recent regression study at apbrmetrics showed player height to be the factor most correlated leaguewide to positive defensive impact by a large margin.
I don't recall computing average lineup size and checking performance before but I did once check the top performing big minute lineups in the league and found that they were almost all conventional PG SG SF PF C and not usually big or small from a perceived position perspective.
@cemitten I had to re-read your two posts, but at first I thought you meant you wanted a wingspan +/-. KD at 7'4 and Rudy Gay at 7'3" is KD +1. That could actually be a decent correlation for opponent FG%.
I think it would actually be a really cool metric to have. +/- and offens eand defensive ratings as compared to the size of the lineup. Not osmething i've seen before. Might be worth a look to see if any viable information comes out.
The worst result you could see as that size doesn't really affect the outcome.
@Crow @senseandsenescence this might sound a little weird but size of the lineups would be interesting
Height & wingspan
@senseandsenescence what other ideas do you have, whether you feel doing them or not?
@senseandsenescence characterizing lineups faced in one or more ways and comparing the distribution of what lineups faced would be interesting. # of starters, bigs, scorers, passers, defenders, etc.
@senseandsenescence yeah i started out pretty conventional
@senseandsenescence average time elapsed from entry to game to first shot by player might be interesting, but some work
@Crow I was asking more about things to do beyond 82 games style aggregation.
@senseandsenescence ok
@Crow I like your ideas and have considered some of that, but all I have right now is +/- and minutes. Am strongly considering adding points scored and points scored against. Anything beyond that would probably be more work than I'm interested in right now.
@senseandsenescence turnovers, pace,
i'll have to think more
@senseandsenescence overall lineup shot charts