Week 8 recap and Roze's 5 Things

Eastern Conference Standings 

1. Cleveland Cavaliers 22-4
2. Boston Celtics 20-5
3. Orlando Magic 17-10
4. New York Knicks 15-10
5. Miami Heat 13-10
6. Milwaukee Bucks 14-11
7. Atlanta Hawks 14-13
8. Indiana Pacers 11-15
9. Chicago Bulls 11-15
10. Brooklyn Nets 10-15
11. Detroit Pistons 10-16
12. Philadelphia 76ers 7-16
13. Charlotte Hornets 7-18
14. Toronto Raptors 7-19
15. Washington Wizards 3-20

Western Conference Standings

1. Oklahoma City Thunder 20-5
2. Memphis Grizzlies 18-8
3. Houston Rockets 17-9
4. Dallas Mavericks 16-9
5. Golden State Warriors 14-10
6. Denver Nuggets 13-10
7. Minnesota Timberwolves 13-11
8. Phoenix Suns 13-11
9. LA Clippers 14-12
10. Los Angeles Lakers 13-12
11. San Antonio Spurs 13-12
12. Sacramento Kings 13-13
13. Portland Trail Blazers 8-17
14. Utah Jazz 5-19
15. New Orleans Pelicans 5-21

Reaction 

The Cavaliers and Celtics have held the top two spots in the East for essentially the entire season so far. If you're the Pacers you have to feel pretty lucky given how bad the East is with where you are positioned. If they're able to win together a couple wins and one of the Heat, Hawks, or Bucks is able to come back to the pack it'll help the Pacers get out of the play-in. The Heat have sneakily gotten into the fifth spot. However, the Jimmy Butler trade rumors are heating up. Tyler Herro has been able to guide them with his play. The 76ers are now 7-16, Embiid and McCain are expected to be out for a series of time and just super unlucky for Philadelphia. The 10th spot for the East play-in looks like it'll be whoever doesn't tank soon enough, while the Raptors, Hornets, and Wizards are waiting for this season to be over already.

The Thunder finally seem to have some separation from the Grizzlies, who have moved into solo 2nd after wins against the Celtics and Nets this week. The Mavs drop to 3rd after a NBA Cup knockout loss to OKC. Denver and Minnesota look to get out of the play-in after seeming to find some traction as the role payers around their superstars have played much better in recent weeks. The Clippers have dropped 2 in a row moving them into the play-in and the Lakers are spiraling with reported absences of Lebron and no contact with the team. I think the Spurs and Kings will eventually caught the L.A teams for the play-in and the Blazers, Jazz, and Pelicans have already pulled the plug on their seasons. Still pretty crazy that being above .500 means you're not even guaranteed a play-in spot. 

News Recap 

Wednesday December 11th

Scottie Barnes suffered a sprained ankle and will be out for at least 3-4 weeks. 

Friday December 13th 

Thomas Bryant has been traded to the Indiana Pacers and the Miami Heat will receive a second round swap. 

Paul Reed was waived by the Detroit Pistons. The move will free up a roster spot and some cap space for the start of trade season on December 15th. 

Saturday December 14th

Denis Schroder has been traded to the Golden State Warriors for three second round picks. The Brooklyn Nets are also sending a second round pick to the Warriors. 

Roze's 5 Things 

1. The NBA Cup is great 

I absolutely love the NBA cup solely for the reason it creates competitive games that have playoff like stakes. All NBA Cup games have been competitive and set a level of intensity that has been missing from the NBA for a while early on. I think the only adjustment I would make it maybe shift if like 2-3 weeks later because it does feel like after it is over there's a little dead period that says some lacking competitiveness in games. I also like to aspect of it that it gives recognition to smaller teams and up and coming teams as well. Last year we saw the Pacers really gain national recognition and Tyrese Haliburton gained national attention as well. This year we have the Hawks and the Rockets in the semi-finals for the NBA Cup. It gives a younger team or team that is off to a fast start to gain some type of play-off like experience while also giving then some national recognition that they might not receive otherwise. 

2. The NBA Viewership problem

There's been a lot of recent talk going on throughout social media about the drop in ratings for the NBA on ESPN and NBC Cup viewership. Since 2012 the NBA ratings have dropped 48% and at the start of the season have dropped 28%. If you want to understand why they have dropped look at the NBA Christmas day schedule. There is zero reason why the Thunder should not be playing on December 25th. Also I will not understand why the NBA continues to put the Warriors and Lakers on national T.V  games as well. Shai is arguably the MVP this season and everyone knew they were going to be good too. I don't think people want to watch Lebron vs Steph for the 6th consecutive Christmas. The NBA needs to start doing a better job of their younger stars and stop putting on the play-in teams for its big events. Another reason is the cost of watching for your favorite team or team in your local area has because increasingly expensive and challenging to watch. NBA league pass allows fans to watch every game for $109 a year, but does not allow fans to watch their local teams due to blackout. Also local cable doesn't exactly give access to watch your local or favorite teams either. I think the product overall in the NBA is good. Sure people can be upset about the increased 3pt attempts and how the Celtics just launch up 3s the whole game, but the skill level of the NBA has never been higher, the pace of the guys is fast, and the athletic ability of NBA players is at an all-time high. I personally love watching the NBA, but making it more accessible along with marketing the actually good players and teams would make the product better. 

3. RJ Barrett is the Raptors point guard and he's actually solid at it. 

Scottie Barnes and Emanual Quickly have yet to play a game on the floor with each other and have both been out of the lineup this season with various injuries. This has allowed RJ Barrett to play more on the ball and point guard, spoiler its a lot better than you think. sure you're probably not watching the Raptors because they're bad, but RJ Barrett is really passing the rock well. Averaging a career-high in assists and doubling his previous career-high with 6 a game this year. Yes, the turnovers are high at 3.3, but for the pieces around him and how he has operated in pick and roll and in handoffs he's been super solid this season. The assists percentage has him at 29.8% for the year on 29% usage, extremely high for him compared in years past. Yes, his turnover percentage is 20% in Pick and roll, but it's still less than some of high-level handlers and it's his first year playing the position. He's smart in when to pass to teammates for kick-outs, probably needs to do a little better job of drawing the defender, but that's the next progression. He's done a solid job of hitting cross-court man and knowing when to hit the roll in the pick and roll setting. His progression has been good so far and it's something I didn't necessarily see in Barrett's player development. 

4. The Kings/Pacers Struggles 

While the Pacers and Kings won on Friday this week they beat the 76ers and the Pelicans, not exactly signature wins. Both these teams were expected to keep pace after they made splashes in the offseason and trade deadline this past year. Now I wasn't critical of the Kings getting DeRozan, he's on a cheap deal and they can pivot pretty easily off that contract. Plus they needed to move a in order to keep De'Aaron Fox happy, even though I think it's not going to matter. The Pacers acquired Pascal Siakam at the trade deadline and paired him next to Tyrese Haliburton. While the Pacers made the conference finals last year in the East Conference I still think it was a fluke and it's looked that way so far this season. I will cut them some slack because Ben Sheppard, Aaron Nesmith, and Andrew Nembhard have all missed extended time, and Johnny Furphy looks good too in their absences. Tyrese Haliburton has not been good enough though this season. The offensive rating for the Pacers is 15th in the NBA at 112 and the defensive rating is 23rd at 115.8. The defense has not improved, the offense has slowed down compared to last year, and they're pace and speed is down. The fastbreak points aren't there last year and overall the offense has dropped from 120 rating to 112. They need to figure how to get some stops on defense and improve the offense if they want to have a chance at winning in the East. For the Kings it's a similar problem. The defense has improved very little and offense is little stagnant. The DeRozan trade came with an obvious weakness in his three point shooting. Harrison Barnes leaving and swapping DeRozan has shown to drop the 3 point shooting for the Kings down from 36% last year to 34% this year, bottom 10 in the league. Both these teams made commitments to their stars in Haliburton and Fox, but for the Kings Fox turned down a contract extension, which I think was by design and the Pacers signed Siakam to a 5 year 200 million+ deal this offseason. Overall, both need to figure out the defense and ultimately need to figure out solutions to their weaknesses because it could cost both in the future. 

5. Payton Pritchard is an absolute flamethrower

Payton Pritchard is throwing 3s left and right this season and it is so fun to watch. He had 27 points and 10 assists against the Pistons Friday night, yes I know big deal, but that has been the case for the entire season. He's connecting on 43% of this threes while taking 9 a game all in 28 minutes OFF THE BENCH. He's the clear front runner for 6th man of the year right now and is so much better than people think. I legitimately think he would average 25 and 7 if he started and played 36 minutes a night. He's first in the NBA in points per possession in the pick and roll at an absurd 1.43 and an effective fiel goal percentage of 76.8%. He's excellent in the pick and roll, he shots 48% on catch and shoot 3s on 5 attempts a game. He shoots 69& at 10 feet or less. The dude is an absolute stud off the bench and super fun to watch. He's a dawg on defense and has an edge to him that very few in the league do. He ahs an effective field goal percentage of 59% on spot ups as well. He takes a 3 almost as soon as he gets into the game and on any given night can go for 8 threes made. Super fun to watch and another reason why the Celtics are so good this season.