It's amazing to think about how little we know of the 2015-16 Miami Heat, despite the fact that the only additions are three bench rotators, two of whom will be making the league minimum salary. We haven't seen Chris Bosh play with Goran Dragic at all. They were ships passing in the night. Hassan Whiteside only barely started getting a serious look by the Heat before Bosh went out. Whiteside only got 25+ minutes in 9 games before Bosh went to the hospital. The Heat were only 4-5 in those games but Wade missed all or a significant part of all five of those losses, and one of the wins. Luol Deng also missed three of those losses, FWIW. In other words, when Whiteside was in the game 25+ minutes, Dwyane Wade was also in the game and not missing big portions of it injured, and when Chris Bosh was there as well...all three of them together before Goran Dragic got there...they were 3-0. Those were the big wins against the Chicago Bulls and LA Clippers, and then an 88-84 beat on the Brooklyn Nets. Deng played significant minutes in all three games too. Talk about a small sample. That's really it. You have three games where you've seen four of your five starters players play together like they will regularly in 2015-16, and zero games where all five of your starters played together. Add into that the total unknowns with Josh McRoberts having not played any games with the Heat yet, and now Gerald Green and Amar'e Stoudamire...and this team's fortunes in 2015-16 are a total guessing game.
Only clarification is that McBob did play a little for the Heat, and he was actually really good during that relatively short time, shot 41% from 3. i actually saw one of the few games he played live in person, here in Orlando, lol
Some more fun with the minutes. Let's exclude all players traded mid-year. That's a significant exclusion as traded players accounted for about 14% of the minutes played in 2014-15, but it's an exclusion of necessity. Let's take the cumulative number of minutes played by the top-5 minute hogs on each team and divide each by 82 games. Add up those top-5 for each team. The median for the league was 132 minutes. In other words most teams had five non-traded players that accounted for around 26 minutes per game each. Based on this you would expect to have a lot of games where your five starters account for 132+ minutes collectively in the game. I mean if that's pretty much the average, that's a lot of games. The Heat's five projected starters only accounted for 132+ minutes in 14 games last year. They were 8-5 in those games, with a +46 point differential.
That's nice perspective on just how injury riddled the Heat were last year. This year will be fun if we stay healthy for sure.
I think as far as X and Os.. SVG is a top five coach.. But this is also the same guy that gave Rashard 120 million.. He outbudded himself for Reggie, and let Monroe walk to Milwaukee, if he had no intentions of keeping the guy, why didnt he trade him last year.. Why did he give him a QO.. He fails hard as a GM..
More like, man they were virtually never healthy. Extremely small sample sizes for the major contributors all playing together.
The NBA is the only league that pays its "good" players the same as superstars, I would think its something that will come up in the next CBA fight. Then again if an owner will pay Reggie Jackson a max deal then I don't know if any new CBA agreement can fix stupid.
To an extent, baseball does as well. Yes there are the mega-deals (i.e. Stanton), but for example, James Shields is making essentially the same money as David Price. Teams looking to spend that can't lure the big names overpay for solid to good players. It's similar in basketball and that is one of the biggest reasons why guys that don't deserve the max get the max. I also don't see how you change that in the CBA, really. You can make the max a higher figure, but all that will do is allow solid players like Jackson to make even more because teams are going to still overpay for them. The only thing I can think of is giving each team one slot to spend over the cap (either luxury tax threshold or actual cap). That would allow teams to pay up for guys that are true superstars and might make them more hesitant to use that slot on lesser players.
At the end of the day, though, while it may not be fair that mediocre players are making as much as stars, those stars are still making a TON of money even compared to other professional athletes. John Wall, who isn't even a top 10 player in the NBA, will make more money than Tom Brady, Sidney Crosby, JJ Watt, Alex Ovechkin, and Mike Trout next year. So no one should really feel bad for him.
Chris Towers@CTowersCBSTim Duncan is impossible. Here's Kevin Garnett: Chris Towers @CTowersCBS 16 mins16 minutes ago KG had a much more typical aging curve/career path than Duncan.
I think professional basketball is to blame for Tim Duncan not having discovered cures for at least three types of cancer by now.
Dan McCarney @danmccarneySAEN Piggy-backing on that "Duncan is impossible" re-tweet... 1997-98: 22.6 PER, .192 WS/48, All-Star 2014-15: 22.6 PER, .207 WS/48, All-Star
He carried William & Mary for 4 years in the CAA. Guy can create his own shots and is a knockdown shooter. I think Boston got a steal in him, but I'm biased. He was literally the only good player on those teams for his 4 years in college, was constantly doubled, and still produced.
John Wall is a max player in the NBA though, its not really fair to compare athletes in other sports to each other, we are talking about different roster sizes, cbas, etc. Wall wasn't making a really big deal about anything, I didn't take anything he said as complaining that he isn't paid enough. I do think you hit on something that might come up in a new CBA where teams can have maybe one slot or two that they can pay stars a bigger deal. The star players make a lot more in endorsements. Lebron is certainly among the top paid athletes in the world with all of his endorsements, etc. But he still should make more than any other player in the NBA salary wise.
Huge blow for the Rockets losing Smith.. He was just starting to click with Deight and Harden in the playoffs.
Exactly. There's 80 different exceptions, ways to get trade exceptions to trade money without actually trading players, and you can be over the cap to sign rookies and minimum Salary players
Not to mention luxury taxes that teams with the richest owners(therefore, big market teams which equal higher ratings and merchandise sales) obviously can afford if itll help sell tickets. Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk
Chris Broussard: My sources are confirming; Pat Riley & Micky Arison sealed the deal; Rob Gronkowski will be a Miami Dolphin in 2015. Contract details to follow.
No way. That's what keeps American sports more interesting than European football. Take a look at the Premiership, a few super rich owners, and big markets, and that's that. Super-rosters.
This hurt Marcus Smart a lot: http://screengrabber.deadspin.com/marcus-smart-leaves-game-with-hand-injury-1718431288
I hate the baseball product so much because of the lack of a cap. Sports are fun when teams are on relatively even playing fields and teams have to out-maneuver each other and make hard decisions. Letting a handful of teams have a massive advantage over the rest of the league is boring.
There is more parity in baseball than basketball. That really is the truth. Just look at the standings, there arent any teams that are much worse than the rest except the Phillies.
Yeah, that's pretty interesting. And there are only 10 teams that make the playoffs in baseball compared to 16 so you would think there would be less parity. That being said, there are 25 people on a baseball team and they don't get nearly as impacted by having one or two stars like they do in basketball. The haves and the have-nots would probably be more contrasted and more reflected in the standings in basketball. The more I think about it, the more I like my previous idea of giving each team one slot to fill with a contract that doesn't count against the cap. That would essentially fix the problem of it being unfair to superstars who should be making more, while still not allowing mediocre players to make ridiculous deals at that same level. I believe they have something similar in the MLS, actually.
Ennis might have played himself out of the team with a terrible Summer League. Nightmarish dribbling. I think Napier, Richardson and Zoran Dragic will be the final 3 spots. Ennis, Billiam and Tyler Johnson cut. Perhaps the team does one of their options to retain Richardson's rights, and keep Tyler Johnson instead, but Richardson has played well enough to earn a spot outright.
Tyler will get picked up by some team im sure.. Henry Walker and Ennis though might be teammates in some chinese team with Beasley..
Yeah purely speculating. I too feel bad for TJ, but this team is deep now and there are only 3 spots up for grabs, 2 only realistically speaking because IMO Napier is a lock for one of the 3.
Guys..remember...this was just summer league...the equivalent of OTA's.... Training camp and Preseason is coming. Things can change drastically. My guess is that ALL OF THESE guys made the training camp roster.