Links to the Present: Rockets/Mental Health Edition

Each week there is a ton of NBA media pertaining to the Cavs and the league in general that deserves recognition. A lot of it goes unread because there just isn’t enough time to keep up with it. Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered notable reads/videos from the past seven days to get you through the day feeling entertained, caught up, and much smarter. I’ll throw in Earl’s Pearl of the Week and some other features to add to the entertainment.

The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference ended over the weekend, and Grantland writer/Harvard professor Kirk Goldsberry received first place honors for his paper. His analytics study redefined how NBA players can be evaluated on the defensive end of the floor. It shows how certain players’ defense affects other players’ shooting efficiency and habits (see chart below). A non-math-inclined person version of the paper can be found here. The academic one for people who really understand stats is here.

And, the Rockets beat the Cavs in overtime, 105-103. Houston’s general manager, Daryl Morey, is officially in a good mood. He attended the Sloan conference, which he co-founded, and watched his team take out another top tier organization.

I don’t mean to bring up a sore spot for Cavs fans though, so I’ll offer two facts to bring Morey back down to Medina, Ohio, his birthplace. LeBron James only missed his final two free throws on Sunday because he got kicked in the groin by James Harden and was experiencing delayed pain. The NBA has verified the crotch shot by suspending Harden for one game. Adding to Harden’s issues, Goldsberry’s paper says that Harden is a poor defender who people shoot well against.

Ian Jacoby at TheDreamShake.com countered in January that this year, Harden isn’t necessarily better, but he is defending differently. “To say The Beard has had some kind of defensive renaissance would be misleading. He’s very clearly making a concerted effort to defend better on the perimeter, though it would appear that on the low-block he’s become a significantly worse defender than he was last year.”

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Now, on to the conference this shot chart was meant for.  FiveThirtyEight live blogged the Sloan gathering, and summarized the different sports panels. Here’s a highlight.

Anthony and Bryant, though, were depicted as the anti-Battiers, in a question by moderator [Jackie] MacMullan (who, like Battier, works for ESPN, which owns this website and sponsors Sloan). MacMullan noted their selfishness and focus on scoring over other ways of contributing to their teams. (To which my boss, Nate Silver, would respond that Anthony’s shooting makes his teammates better.) Battier made clear how much he relished having those two stars as foils, learning their tendencies so that he could neutralize their strengths when playing defense. MacMullan pointed out that Battier blocked more of their shots than any other player’s. Anthony also topped the Battier leaderboards for balls stolen and offensive fouls drawn.

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While the FiveThirtyEight coverage was straightforward, Matt Dollinger of Sports Illustrated did a piece with fifty anecdotes from the conference.

-Can the triangle offense work in the NBA? Kevin McHale once told Morey: “If you have the best players, you can run the square.”

-Someone asked D’Antoni if coaching Carmelo Anthony was his worst nightmare. The former Knicks coach, and big advocate of ball movement, quipped: “They are doing great things with therapy, I’m good.”

“I’m sorry Phil Jackson” is all I can come up with in response to those statements.

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Kevin Arnovitz did a fantastic piece about Larry Sanders a few days ago. It’s a profile about Sanders’ personal state of mind as much as it’s a profile about the idea of mental health in the NBA.

“I want to open that door for guys,” Sanders said. “It’s hard for people in my field to respect mental health. We say that the game is 90 percent mental, but yet mental health doesn’t get the respect of, like, an ACL. The game is 90 percent mental, but we’re going to ignore your mental health.”

This piece made me go back and reread Chuck Klosterman’s profile of Royce White. White is a former NBA player who suffers from extreme anxiety. This anxiety ultimately derailed his career before it really even started. He isn’t even on a D-league team or playing overseas now.

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William Bohl of Fear The Sword has the definitive Matthew Dellavedova breakdown. It’s fair. It brings up his poor shooting at the rim and every where on the floor outside of the right hand side of the three line. Matty doesn’t generate shots for other players either. Bohl also points out that Delly isn’t a great overall defender when looking at defensive RPM (he notes that he excels at pick and roll defense and closing out though). He actually ranks 409th out of 496 players. The only thing I find issue with is this:

The issue with Dellavedova has never been, and will never be, his hustle. It’s his other limitations. For example, when he stands in transition to foul a player streaking down the floor, it can be mistaken for a smart play. He isn’t fast and can’t jump, so sinking back and defending the paint by stopping the ball or contesting at the rim aren’t options for him.

Fouling a guy in transition is always a good idea. If your team isn’t in the bonus and the player doing it has fouls to use, why not do it? First off, how often does one man stop a ball handler in transition? Furthermore, if you stop a guy near mid-court instead of chasing him all the way down the floor, you are conserving your energy. There should be a stat for these types of fouls, because they do say something about a player. I need fellow Cavs:The Blog bloggers Nate and Tom to do good by Matty and write another, even more, definitive breakdown.

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If you like mediocre basketball, Chris Bernucca’s column for Sheridan Hoops broke down the race for the final playoff spots in the Eastern conference. It’s the battle of the 23-26 win teams.

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And, to end these links look at the shot Alexey Shved took this past week during a rare Knicks win.

Earl’s Pearl of the Week

Nick Young defended his girlfriend via social media yesterday. Young had to defend Iggy Azaleza after ESPN reporter Robert Flores took a shot at her on national television. He said she’s actively trying to harm the notion of hip-hop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBJvnr8GizQ

The Tweets are now deleted, but thanks to Nate Scott at USA Today we have screenshots.

Nick Young should have responded with something along the lines of: “And, Robert Flores is trying to kill the idea of a late night TV monologue by doing it in the morning and on ESPN.”

Bottom Lines of the Week

-Ricky Rubio had a triple-double last night in a lose against the Clippers. He scored 18 points and had 11 assists and 12 rebounds. He’s Russell Westbrook light.

-If you listened to nationally syndicated sports radio yesterday morning, a lot of the broadcasters were talking about the Cavs-Rockets game on Sunday being the game of the year. I watched the game after it was over, and I saw a lot of isolation basketball between James Harden and LeBron James. I witnessed a lot of bricked threes, and I gagged from too much hero ball. I also saw one MVP candidate kick a former MVP in the groin. I didn’t see basketball that made me say, “Wow.” There was little ball movement, and the Cavs style of LeBronffense reminded me of five years ago. What am I missing? And, don’t say playoff intensity.

–Kyrie Irving will be active for the game against the Celtics tonight.