Fictional Basketball Trade of the Day: LAL, BOS, MIN

I'm writing a paper for Ethics today and I'm desperately looking for ways to procrastinate. Here's my list:

1. Make some fictional trades on ESPN's NBA Trade Machine
2. Think of a nickname for myself, similar to how Bill Simmons calls himself "Trade Machine Picasso"

For the trade, I went with the quick mention Michael Wilbon made in his post today (link here) about the Lakers going after Michael Beasley. Here's how it played out:

Lakers receive: F Michael Beasley, PG Luke Ridnour, C Jermaine O'Neal

Timberwolves receive: F/C Pau Gasol

Celtics receive: SG Wesley Johnson

For the Lakers:

• They can finally get some closure on the whole Pau Gasol situation. And they can also remove a second center from their roster since they already have the best center in the West. 
• The add another scoring threat in Beasley, who would then be able to pair with Bynum to be the future of the Lakers. Gasol's been upset with his role away from the basket this season. Beasley fits that role perfectly. He's much more equipped to shoot jumpers and slash his way to the rim than Gasol. 
• They upgrade the point guard position. Luke Ridnour isn't a great point guard, but he's one hundred million gajillion times better than Fisher. Plus he's a white American, and you know how the Lakers feel about white Americans. 

Fictional Trade of the Day: Getting Rid of Rondo

If you've been living under a rock, you know that Rajon Rondo is a nutjob. An extremely talented point guard, yes, but also mentally unstable. As Boston has taken offers for trades involving him, he's become even more crazy. His most recent incident? He's suspended two games for throwing the ball at a referee. It's time for Boston to move him. Take a look at a few options, and keep in mind that all trades at this point in the season also have expiring contract/free agency implications: 

I Fixed The Dwight Howard Problem. Again.

So Dwight still has yet to make up his mind. Or maybe the Magic have yet to make up their minds. Or maybe they just haven't gotten a serious offer for the best center in the NBA. Well, no worries - I have another solution to the problem. It involves trading Dwight to a team that desperately needs a new identity.

Washington Receives: C Dwight Howard
Orlando Receives: G Jordan Crawford, F Jan Vesely, F Andray Blatche, C Ronny Turiaf, C JaVale McGee


Let's break that down a little in Bullet form (see what I did there?):

If Pau Gasol Wants A Trade, I'll Give Him A Trade!

Pau Gasol has made it really clear that he doesn't like his role on the Lakers this season. He doesn't get enough shots, and the shots he does get are long range. There are two problems for Pau staying in LA: Kobe takes a million shots and Andrew Bynum gets the majority of the Lakers' low-post touches. Pau is left playing facilitator at the elbow or the perimeter. And while the facilitator role has allowed Pau to get a lot of assists, he obviously doesn't follow the same mentality of Ricky Rubio (the classic Magic Johnson "an assist makes two guys happy" quote) toward passing. He wants the ball down low, and he's upset that his team isn't using him to the best of his ability - and after all, he is one of the best low post players in the NBA.

Rumors are swirling that Pau wants a trade to improve his situation. But the Lakers are in a very good spot with this possible development. If you read JA Adande's post on ESPN.com today (link here) he listed several problems with the Lakers so far this season:

• They haven't had enough time to mesh with their new teammates. 
• They haven't had enough time to learn new coach Mike Brown's system.
• They have struggled to score when anyone besides Kobe has the ball.
• Their 3-point shooting is the worst in the league.
• They don't score a lot of fastbreak points.
• They're average.
• They're boring. 
• They have inconsistent point guard play. 
• They don't get easy shots from close range. This is mainly because...
• Nobody but Kobe has the ability to create their own shot. 
• They don't get steals and thus don't get easy transition layups. 
• They are old. 

Good News, Bullets Blog Fans: The JPoint is Relevant

To be honest, the night I made the JPoint I was just looking for a numerical way to prove Kobe's overratedness. However, I was fairly unbiased and we've adjusted the JPoint calculation method slightly to reflect offensive efficiency. I meant it to be an individual thing, but in last night's post I expanded it to entire teams as an explanation of why the Heat won.

Well in class today I was thinking. What if offensive efficiency is the single most important determinant of the winner of an NBA? Sounds absurd right, because I mean it's only a part of the game - there's assists, rebounds, defense, steals, substitutions, momentum, and the occasional brawl between players and fans.

But chew on this: I crunched some numbers from the games yesterday (there were only 3 - a small sample size, for sure) and look at my findings:

Game 1: Houston Rockets 90, New Orleans Hornets 88 (Final/OT)
To summarize this game in one ESPN headline, "Rockets survive awful 4th to top Hornets in OT." The fact that neither team scored more than 90 points in 53 minutes of play should reiterate that. But if you were looking for a statistical measure of offensive effectiveness, I have just the thing (see where I'm going with this?):
Houston: 30.5 JPoint (that's horrendous, in relation to averages)
New Orleans: 28.2 JPoint (and that would be even worse)

For those of you keeping track, that's 1/1 on JPoint reflecting final score.

Heat Beat Lakers.. But Why?

So tonight the Heat beat the Lakers convincingly - by 11 points - and (as usual) Lebron and Kobe were the two best players on the court.

The basic stats, which are impressive for both players:

James: 31 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, 4 steals, 3 blocks
Bryant: 24 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals

The more advanced stats, which show that neither player really had a spectacular night:

James: 0.444 FG%, 0.714 FT%, 37.1 JPoint
Bryant: 0.381 FG%, 1.000 FT%, 37.5 JPoint

So, as Kobe fans may point out, Bryant was slightly more efficient than James. And, in a strange role reversal, James fans would respond by saying that the only stat that counts is a win. I disagree with that notion, as you probably know, and I love the statistical reasons for why teams win games. Let's look at the rest of the players (skipping every stat besides points and JPoint because what else do you really need?).