Basketball Insiders Week in Review 4/10

Steve Kerr is Coach of the Year

By Moke Hamilton

He may have missed the first 43 games of the 2015-16 NBA season but, make no mistake about it, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr should still be the NBA’s 2015-16 Coach of the Year.

Earlier this week, the National Basketball Association confirmed to Basketball Insiders that Kerr is eligible to receive the award this season, despite the fact that he has missed more than half of it.

Traditionally, the Coach of the Year Award has been one of the more difficult to handicap. Just like All-Star berths, there is always a resulting controversy due to the abundance of candidates who can rightfully argue for votes.

Click Here For More

Willie Reed Enjoying His Opportunity with Brooklyn

By Cody Taylor

Over the past few seasons, the D-League has produced some of the NBA’s best up-and-coming players. As the NBA’s minor league system, the D-League has become a legitimate avenue for players trying to make it in the NBA.

Each year, teams are able to sign players to 10-day contracts beginning in January. Most of those 10-day contracts are used to sign players out of the D-League. Last season, a record 47 players received call-ups to the NBA, while 30 players have been called up this season.

It seems like each year we’re talking about which players should be called up. Most of the time, players who put together successful runs in the D-League will earn their way up to the NBA. Other times, we’re left wondering why some players haven’t yet received their opportunity.

Click Here For More

Should The Bulls Trade Jimmy Butler?

By Steve Kyler

The Chicago Bulls have five games remaining in the 2015-16 NBA season, and while no one expected the Bulls to be world beaters or challenging for the top seed in the East, they were expected to be better than their current 39-38 record. More importantly, even with a change at head coach, the Bulls believed they would be in the postseason hunt, not a game out of the dance with a handful left to play.

There is a lot of blame to go around. Injuries played a huge part of the Bulls’ struggles. The Bulls have lost more than 195 man-games to injury – that’s seventh-most in the NBA and the most among teams still in the playoff hunt. It’s hard to win games without key players. Bulls guards Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler have missed 16 and 15 games, respectively. Joakim Noah has missed 48 games. In fact, no Bulls player has been available for all 77 games the team has played this year.

Click Here For More

One on One With Myles Turner

By Alex Kennedy

With the 11th pick in this year’s draft, the Indiana Pacers selected a player with a ridiculous upside. There was a lot of talk about Myles Turner’s potential and how he could develop into the type of big men that NBA executives are in love with these days. However, what some pundits didn’t realize is that the 20-year-old was capable of making an immediate impact.
This season, Turner has averaged 10.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.4 blocks while shooting 49.4 percent from the field. And he has done all of this playing just 23.1 minutes per night. He missed some time due to injury, but he has been very productive in his 55 games. In his 29 games as a starter, he’s averaged 11.7 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.6 blocks in 28 minutes.

Click Here For More

Lopez Remains Brooklyn’s Building Block

By Lang Greene

Not long ago, the Brooklyn Nets swung for the championship fences by acquiring former All-Stars Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce via the trade market to pair alongside center Brook Lopez. In the process, the team mortgaged their future by sending out their crop of draft picks in those deals in order to compete at the highest level immediately.

But as we near the conclusion of the 2015-16 campaign, Garnett, Johnson, Pierce and Williams are now playing in different zip codes while Brooklyn has a long road of rebuilding ahead.

However, there is a bright spot for the Nets in a season filled with inconsistency and plenty of losses.

Brook Lopez.

Click Here For More

Middle Management: Utah’s Playoff Push Lays a Groundwork

By Ben Dowsett

For the most analytically inclined, the NBA’s “middle” is the least attractive ground to occupy. If you aren’t contending for the title, the thinking goes, it’s much more desirable to be at the very bottom with a chance to re-stock on the blue-chip talent at the top of the draft.

NBA basketball doesn’t exist in a quantifiable vacuum, though, and this season’s Utah Jazz are the perfect representation of why. To the coldest analytical mind, Utah’s passionate pursuit of a playoff spot that likely only earns them the right to face a behemoth as huge underdogs in the first round might seem counterproductive; with no realistic title aspirations this season, why not strategically “tank,” get out of the race and take the tiny chance that a late lottery slot could land them in the top three in the draft?

Click Here For More

How Did The Top Sophomores Fare?

By Jabari Davis

With the NBA’s regular season winding down, it’s time to acknowledge which promising second-year players stepped up in the 2015-16 campaign.

Just prior to the season, a panel of Basketball Insiders writers were asked to list the second-year player they were most intrigued by, which can be found here. ESPN.com’s Kevin Pelton and Chad Ford were also asked to chime in on the top sophomores about 20 games into the season and their rankings can be found here. Here’s a look at some of the top performing sophomores with the season coming to an end:

Click Here For More

The Best All-Time Regular Season Teams

By Joel Brigham

Based on their current winning percentages, both the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs (who faced off against one another last night, ironically) should technically be considered two of the top three regular season teams of all time.

That’s probably good news for at least one of those organizations because heading into this season, 23 of the top 50 all-time regular season teams did ultimately win the NBA championship later that year.

In other words, to say that Golden State’s quest for 73 wins or San Antonio’s quest for a perfect single-season home record could be wearing those organizations out emotionally to the point where a ring may prove elusive is unfair. Plenty of teams have weathered the grind of breaking massive records like this. Obviously the Chicago Bulls won the title the year they set the regular season record, as did the 1972 L.A. Lakers before them and the 1967 Philadelphia 76ers before them.

Click Here For More

Hinkie Should Get Credit for 76ers’ Future Success

By Jesse Blancarte

By now just about every NBA fan is well aware that earlier this week, Sam Hinkie stepped down as the general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers.

Hinkie’s tenure in Philadelphia has been controversial from the start. He set out a long term path to take the 76ers from a middle of the pack team (Philadelphia had not won more than 45 regular season games since the 2002-03 season) to contention by tanking for a few seasons, acquiring assets and preserving cap flexibility, among other things. It’s not a new strategy. The term “tanking” existed long before any casual NBA fan even knew who Sam Hinkie was. What made Hinkie’s tenure different was the fact that the tanking was so blatant, so hard to ignore and the fact that he and his front office chose to not speak publicly about it. In doing so, Hinkie left a vacuum for everyone else to explain the strategy, its merits, its flaws, whether it was hurting the NBA, whether it was fair to 76ers fans and whether it should even be allowed.

Click Here For More

Can the Celtics Make a Deep Playoff Run?

By Eric Saar

The star Cleveland Cavaliers, powered by LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love and the Toronto Raptors, led by Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, are the two favorites in the Eastern Conference. But could the Celtics be the sleeper, that dark horse that upsets either team and makes it to the conference finals?

For a team that prides itself on teamwork, equality, and defensive intensity, Boston relies heavily on All-Star point guard Isaiah Thomas. The last overall pick in the 2011 draft has proven his doubters wrong and has put together his best season yet. In doing so, he has managed to lead the Celtics to the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference.

Click Here For More