Hoopus Archive

I've been following the "smoking gun" E-mail story out of Seattle as it relates the potential move of the Sonics from Seattle to Okla. City. Clay Bennett is the second sports owner I've been wondering about in recent months in addition to our own Mr. Taylor--how did these guys ever become wealthy? Can't Mr. Bennett afford decent tech support, or at least salient advice on how to use e-mail effectively? More than likely it won't affect the exodus out of Seattle, but it's pretty damming evidence, and will probably end up with the city extracting even more settlement money for Bennett to break the lease and skate on out of town. However, one can never predict outcomes when lawyers are involved, and I would imagine Commissioner Stern doesn't like being embarrassed and lied to, so the final chapters of this story may not be as obvious as everyone thinks.

What does this have to do with our team? Maybe nothing, but...

We've already dodged our bullet, with Stern blocking the Wolves move to New Orleans in 1994, right? Well, Target Center is one of the slew of arenas built in the late 80's; and as Sid Hartman continually loves to point out, competition between TC and the Xcel in St. Paul seems to be a losing proposition for the Minneapolis folks. There's really no comparison between the two buildings--the "X" is clearly superior. How long can Glen Taylor hemorrhage money before he identifies the arena as no longer suitable for professional basketball? Given the new Twins and Gophers stadium are now just being built, and the Vikings are continuing their multi-year quest to replace the aging Metrodome, it would take quite awhile for either the city of Minneapolis or the state to get their heads around either building a new arena or totally renovating the existing building. If the economy doesn't turn around within the next few years, how could a politician justify another expenditure of public funds for a fourth new arena? If it were even in the realm of possibility or feasibility, would Minneapolis allow a move of the Wolves to St. Paul?

Or, if Seattle does lose the Sonics, and it's proven that Bennett never had any real plan to keep the team there in the first place, will that soften Stern's attitude toward the city, and look for the first opportunity to rectify the situation, as he did with Charlotte? These are dynamics to watch, especially as the Wolves organization continues to lose audience share and money. Hey, for Wednesday's game they called me up and offered me free lower level tickets because I was a partial season ticket owner; they're trying everything to rebuild their fan base as well as their roster. Of course, winning will solve some of these problems, but never underestimate the power money has over loyalty, not in these times.

Again: I'm very happy to see the team ending the season on a winning note. However, for a second there right before the 1/2 I thought that they had found a new way to utilize Mark Madsen's amazing tanking abilities: the little-known you-can't-come-off-the-bench-with-your-shirt-untucked technical. At that point in the contest I started to prepare myself for a 4th quarter full of an unkempt Madsen making his way off the bench for 30 second increments, possibly jacking up a few 3s in the process.

Last night's game was the 3rd statistical oddity in a row. Here's how the 2 teams stacked up in the 4 Factors:

The Wolves::

• FG% (eFG): 51%
• TO: 13
• Offensive (and total) rebounds: 24-62
• FT: 11-16

The Grizz:

• FG% (eFG): 44%
• TO: 7
• Offensive (and total) rebounds: 17-45
• FT: 26-43

The approximate weight for FG% is 40%, TOs get 25%, rebounds = 20%, and free throws clock in at 15%. If you run these weights against each factor and add them up, the Wolves win 38.77 to 31.825...which just about matches their 9 point victory. Next year, one of my pet projects will be to test this measurement in each Wolves game. I'm also trying to develop an individual player stat that will seek to quantify the most important thing in all of basketball: recording how each player contributes to ending a possession in his team's favor. Hopefully I can work something out over the summer...although this project will be competing with warm weather, lawn work, trips to the dog park, camping, summer basketball league, and outdoor basketball. Anywho, back to the game:

The Wolves won because they went abso-frickin-lutely nuts on the boards and the Grizz couldn't shoot free throws for poo. Add in a benched Mike Miller and it was a recipe for disaster. Going forward, the Wolves simply cannot continue to give up this many free throws. It's not only insane, but embarrassing.

The Wolves now find themselves tied in the season series with Memphis at 2 games apiece. Memphis faces Portland and Denver to end the season, the Wolves get Detroit and Milwaukee. At this point in time, it would not be surprising if our Beloved Puppies took the last 2 games of the season. The game against Milwaukee should be very interesting. There are two teams in the league that are worse on the defensive end than the Wolves and the Bucks are one of them. Hopefully it won't turn into a Mad Dog 3 point fest for the ages.

Until later.

While I'm clearly not part of the "tank it" crowd, and I love to see the team do well and win, if anything is to be taken from last night's victory in Orlando, it is that we may have to change the name of the team to the Blind Minnesota Timberquirrels.

Last night, the team with the worst free throw shooting discrepancy, fewest FTMs, 2nd worst FTAs, 8th worst 3pFG%, 6th worst 3pFGM, and 6th worst 3pFGA went 17-20 (85%) from the line and 9-16 (56.3%) from beyond the arc.

Actually, I shouldn't get too caught up on the attempt side of things. The Wolves pretty much hit their attempt averages for both FTs and 3pFGs. What they did do was increase their makes by nearly 4 beyond the arc and by nearly 2 at the line. All in all, good shooting brought about 14 additional points with essentially the same number of total shots.

Taking into account the fact that the Wolves played against one of the league's best young centers and that they won (albeit against a team lacking complete motivation to win the game), the Orlando game provides decent insight into the should-they-draft-a-big-or-a-shooting-forward argument. By simply shooting an eFG of 50% (brought about by an increased proficiency from beyond the arc) and by making 2 more free throws per an equal amount of attempts, the Wolves won the game while exhibiting a fairly efficient offense (they also didn't make a ton of stupid fouls which would have put the Magic on the line a ton; it also didn't hurt that the Magic have the league's 4th worst FT%). Unfortunately, taking a broad look at the season, last night's proficiency was more the result of a team being hot for 48 minutes than actual improvement, solid coaching schemes, and consistency. Looking towards the positives, while this year's squad may have simply had a good night, the way in which they did so highlights the importance of the front office getting a few players who can both increase the squad's eFG (especially from the perimeter) and decrease the free throw disparity...which, along with the team's putrid defense, are the main reasons why they only have 20 wins.

That's about it. Until later.

With each team in the NBA having no more than three games remaining and the tanking talk hotter than ever, I thought it might be valuable to lay out the potential scenarios presented to the ping-pong ball chasers. For an explanation of how the lottery works see here. As of Saturday morning, April 12th the standings look thusly:

I show the top six because after running "best" and "worst" scenarios Milwaukee always stayed in 7th (in this post best and worst use the Wolves' lottery odds as a frame of reference). So even if the Clippers win their last three (all on the road, no less) and the Bucks lose their last three, the Bucks will still be 7th in the lottery rankings.

The other "known known," as McNamara Part Deux was fond of saying, is that Miami always comes out on top. In other words, if Miami wins their last three and Seattle loses their remaining two games, Miami still has a worse record.

From the Wolves' point-of-view, then, the lottery odds will rank between 2 and 6. In terms of draft picks, it means the best we could pick is #1 and the worst we could pick is #9 (the latter occurring if three teams with better records get the #1, #2 and #3 picks; the odds of that happening are less than 0.5%).

Here are said "Best" and "Worst" case scenarios for your perusal:

As you can see, the best lottery position Minnesota can hope for is 2nd. That doesn't mean that we can't get the #1 pick, of course; just that it's impossible for us to have the best odds. What's more is that the best we can hope for is also a tie for 2nd place, wherein we would have the same odds as Seattle (again, check out the explanation for more info).

Here is what those who hope to see Mad Dog chuck threes next Wednesday are terrified of.

While I personally remain anti-tanking and hope the Wolves rattle off three in a row (especially given the momentum of tonight's road win squeaker), we'll need a bit of luck on our side no matter how well or poorly we play these last three games.

As much as I enjoy criticizing Kevin McHale, this bit over at Draft Express on a couple pre-draft events caught my eye in a positive light:

As usual, Portsmouth will be competing with the Nike Hoop Summit (which we’ll also be covering) for the attention of NBA executives—but unlike previous years (when it was held in Memphis), it will be more difficult for everyone to try and cover both—which means that some will have a decision to make. Considering that most of the players here are well known and it would be surprising if any first-round prospects emerged, it’s understandable why some will decide to go and see the international prospects playing in the Nike Hoop Summit (particularly Serge Ibaka and Alexis Ajinca), as people’s comfort level with them may not be quite as strong.

Regardless, an unusually strong collection of high level NBA executives and General Managers did make the trek out here, including: Kevin McHale (Minnesota), Larry Bird (Indiana), Bryan Colangelo (Toronto), Danny Ainge (Boston), Daryl Morey (Houston), Rod Thorn (New Jersey), Randy Pfund (Miami) and Dave Babcock (Milwaukee), amongst the GMs, and to name just a handful of executives: Kiki Vandeweghe (New Jersey), Dennis Lindsay (San Antonio), Glen Grunwald (Toronto), Jeff Weltman (Detroit) ,Scott Perry (Seattle), Kenny Williamson (Memphis), Rob Babcock (Minnesota), John Gabriel (Portland), Rex Champan (Denver), Keith Grant (Dallas), Walt Perrin (Utah), John Hammond (Detroit), Dean Cooper (Houston) and probably many more that we did not see or are momentarily forgetting about.

Number one on the GM's spotted at Portsmouth huh? Not bad (Babcock was on the list too). I don't recall having heard about McHale scouting Portsmouth before, so if this is his first time in a while, I salute the man for hitting the beat. Even if he's been there every year and I just didn't hear about it, I'm glad the word is getting out to us fans that he's trying to scout away from his TV this year.

The thing about this article that made me do a double-take, however, was the comment about many people going to the Nike Hoops Summit to check out more unknown Euro-prospects. As you may have read, I recently questioned the Wolves' apparent focus on Europe as "behind the times," but I can't help but ride the pendulum swing the other way and wonder if McHale is missing the boat on not scouting the Nike Summit. Who knows, maybe other Wolves scouts are there.

Maybe McHale's that far ahead of the curve that he's actually two prospect-pool cycles ahead of everyone else by checking out Portsmouth. Maybe...