Basketball Insiders Week in Review 2/1

There’s an Art Behind Tanking

By Moke Hamilton

It was 30 long years ago, way back in 1985, that Commissioner David Stern made the announcement that would help resurrect basketball in New York City.

In the NBA’s first ever draft lottery, the New York Knicks won the first overall pick. In other words, they won the right to draft Patrick Ewing—the consensus top talent available.

Over the course of his long, 15-year career in New York, Ewing would lead a revival and help the Knicks rise from the doldrums. And behind Ewing, they would eventually emerge as contenders.

From then, the rest of the league’s teams looked at the lottery not simply as a parade of losers celebrating their ineptitude, but as a light at the end of the tunnel—a sparkle of hope glistening far off in the distance.

Click Here For More

Getting The Clippers Over The Hump

After a surprisingly slow start to the year, the Los Angeles Clippers now find themselves right in the mix as the Western Conference playoff-bound teams continue to jockey for positions. Our Jesse Blancarte did an excellent job of breaking down how the Clippers may actually be underrated at this stage, and when you take a moment to look at the numbers, he definitely has a point.

Although much of the attention out West has been paid to teams like the high-flying Warriors, Grizzlies or even Thunder as they begin their predictable ascent among the standings now that they’re finally healthy, the Clippers have actually been flying somewhat under the radar and find themselves just two games out of what would be the second-seed. The Clippers are 16-6 vs. Western Conference foes, including a respectable tally of 7-4 against teams currently in playoff spots.

Click Here For More

2015 NBA Draft: The Best Guard in College Basketball

As Emmanuel Mudiay, the top ranked point guard prospect in the 2015 NBA Draft, nurses an ankle injury that has kept him out of action in the Chinese Basketball Association since late November, Ohio State freshman point guard D’Angelo Russell is quickly starting to gain ground on him. With Will Bynum taking Mudiay’s spot and the CBA season winding down, there’s a high probability that we’ve seen the last of him in true-game action before the draft. Meanwhile, Russell is getting better with each game and has ample opportunities to further improve his stock the rest of the season.

Russell, a Louisville, Kentucky native, came in with a surprisingly low profile despite being a top-20 recruit nationally. He didn’t have a long, drawn out recruitment process that garnered a lot of attention. He formed a strong bond with Thad Matta and committed to him the summer before his senior year over the likes of Louisville, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona. John Calipari and Kentucky showed a little bit of interest, but they never officially offered him a scholarship as they already had the Harrison Twins in tow and their sights set on Devin Booker and Tyler Ulis. Unlike some of the other top players in the 2014 recruiting class, Russell was not pinned as a likely one-and-done candidate. Because of his slight frame and the belief that he was solely a shooting guard, Russell was expected to need at least a year or two before being able to seriously consider a jump to the NBA.

Click Here For More

Pacers Have Choices To Make

By Steve Kyler

The Indiana Pacers have been hit hard with injuries this year; not just to star guard Paul George, who suffered one of the more gruesome injuries in the sport during Team USA training this past summer in Las Vegas, either. They have also had key cogs miss time as well.

The Pacers are finally getting healthy, with guard George Hill making his return last night in Orlando. For the first time this season the Pacers have something to build from. The problem is as the trade deadline approaches on February 19, the Pacers have to decide whether to hold or cut bait, specifically as it pertains to forward David West and big man Roy Hibbert. Both hold options to be free agents this summer and there is a risk that both could walk from Indiana in the offseason and leave the Pacers with nothing to show for their considerable worth as assets.

Let’s start with where the Pacers’ mindset is: The biggest thing to keep in mind is that that Pacers know this season was derailed because of George’s injury and that had they had George in the lineup they would be substantially better than their current 16-30 record.

Click Here For More

NBA Dunk Contest Field Already Essentially Set

With the All-Star starters chosen, the next areas where fans turn their anticipation in regards to All-Star weekend are the names of the reserves and the dunk contest candidates. Despite its occasional blasé output, the dunk contest has the potential to be an elite, heart-stopping display of athleticism that really is unlike anything in any other sport.

This year, though, before the reserves have been announced and long before the league has officially announced anything about the dunk contest, three of the four contestants in this year’s event have apparently already accepted league invitations,according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. They include Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Orlando’s Victor Oladipo and Brooklyn’s Mason Plumlee.

These selections are in tune with the NBA’s recent trend of tagging young, burgeoning stars to dunk, mostly because the more prestigious dunkers (and stars) haven’t been interested in doing the event for years.

Click Here For More

Rudy Gobert is Ahead of Schedule

By Alex Kennedy

The 2013 NBA Draft Combine in Chicago was supposed to provide NBA reporters their first opportunity to talk to French big man prospect Rudy Gobert. There was just one problem – they weren’t that interested. Gobert spent most of his media session sitting alone at his designated table.

The horde of reporters surrounded the draft’s other big men prospects such as Nerlens Noel and Cody Zeller, who were far more recognizable since they had starred at top college programs and appeared on national television. Gobert entered the draft largely unknown after playing in France for the Cholet Basket club. When people spot Gobert, they often stare since he’s 7’2 with a 7’8.5 wingspan and 9’7 standing reach. This is understandable, as Gobert looks like an NBA 2K created player who was set to the maximum dimensions and then somehow found a way to escape the video game and enter the real world. Even still, the reporters barely seemed to notice him.

Click Here For More

NBA Trade Deadline Watch: Southeast Division

The NBA season is quickly headed toward the unofficial halfway point with the All-Star break just around the corner. As teams meet up at the midseason classic, trade talks could intensify with representatives from every team in New York for the All-Star festivities. By this point of the season, most teams have figured out if they’re looking to buy or sell at the deadline and will begin to work the phones accordingly.

Basketball Insiders will be running a new series this week that looks at each division and what those teams could do as the trade deadline looms. The Southeast Division is home to some teams that will likely be very active near the deadline, as well as a couple of teams could be staying relatively quiet. Listed under each team will be players on expiring deals, potential expiring deals and players that could be shopped.

Click Here For More

The Real NBA All-Star Team: The East

With the All-Star reserves to be announced on Thursday, the annual controversy over the rosters is about to be in full swing. But the game itself is an exhibition with little intensity until the final few minutes. All-Star selections serve their purpose of commemorating the best players of a given (half) season and allowing fans to see their favorite players. But what if there were something really at stake? What would the best possible real team assembled from each conference look like?

While it may seem overly simplistic, the philosophy of team-building can be summarized in a similar but more detailed version of the team ratings on a video game. A team should be constructed not merely to get as many of the best players on one squad, but so that the overall roster (and best lineups) get as close to the maximum on all the possible elements of team quality as possible.

Those key elements, in as much brevity as possible:

Click Here For More

Kendrick Perkins Addresses Trade Rumors

By Lang Greene

This is a critical time for the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise. The summer of 2016, when reigning league MVP Kevin Durant will become a free agent, has started to become a daily headline that leads to rumors and speculation. All-Star guard Russell Westbrook and defensive minded forward Serge Ibaka both hit the free agency market the following summer.

The Thunder’s core may be young in years, but the clock is undoubtedly ticking on the team’s championship window.

With pressure mounting, the Thunder’s front office has been extremely active in trying to make a push to get the team back among the league’s elite. The franchise acquired shooting guard Dion Waiters from Cleveland in a three-team deal in early January and were recently rumored to be in discussions to add former All-Star center Brook Lopez in a separate deal with Brooklyn, which fell apart for now. Our Alex Kennedy reports that the Thunder have been one of the most aggressive teams in trade talks lately, so don’t be surprised if more moves are coming

Click Here For More

NBA Trade Deadline Watch: Northwest Division

Today we continue our coverage of each NBA Division as the trade deadline approaches. On Monday, our Cody Taylor thoroughly covered the Southeast Division, which you can read here. Now we take a look at the Northwest Division, which features two teams looking to make a deep postseason run, two teams that may soon offload their veterans to secure young players and other assets, and another team with a young core that is more concerned with the internal player development of its young players and its long-term future than winning games this season.

Listed under each team will be players on expiring deals, potential expiring deals and players that could be shopped.

Click Here For More

Oladipo, a Tough Self-Critic, Turns to Wale for Advice

Victor Oladipo isn’t satisfied. Being selected with the second overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft was only the beginning of his quest to succeed, not the end result of his work to get to the pros.

Now that he is halfway through his sophomore season, he has shown improvements from his rookie year. His scoring has increased, his offensive rating has improved and he was named to the Slam Dunk Contest and Rising Stars Challenge for All-Star Weekend. But the Orlando Magic (15-33) are still in the losing column, and that doesn’t sit well with Oladipo when assessing his performance at this early stage of his career.

Click Here For More

Knicks’ Langston Galloway Determined to Prove he Belongs

It wasn’t supposed to play out this way…

Coming out of college, Langston Galloway was hoping he wouldn’t have to fight and claw for an NBA roster spot. He was hoping to be drafted. Even the second round would have been a blessing.

Galloway was coming off a phenomenal career at St. Joseph’s. He averaged 17.7 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.1 steals during his senior season. He left St. Joe’s as the school’s second all-time leading scorer (behind only Jameer Nelson) and the most prolific three-point shooter in SJU history.

Alas, Commissioner Adam Silver and Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum announced a grand total of 60 different names on draft night this past summer, but neither man called out the name “Langston Galloway.”

Click Here For More