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Is Tanking Worth It? A Study on The Correlation Between Lottery Picks and the NBA Finals Over the Past Two Decades

Hello fellow basketball fans and those of you who claim to be basketball fans. I have decided to do a project with the intent of finding empirical evidence to determine the degree in which tanking (attaining lottery picks) leads to success (reaching the NBA finals). If this seems extremely extra and motivated, that’s because it is. I am sick and tired of seeing spoiled/know-it-all fans of well-run organizations (this is pointed) whine about how they’d rather lose to get a high draft pick as opposed to win and attempt to maintain a culture of competence and consistency. Because I am petty I have put together this project and I will let the data do the talking because I am not even sure I can directly quantify what it is exactly what I am measuring, however, I will put a conclusion at the end to summarize my findings and create some sort of logical roadmap to the best of my abilities.
Before we get going I need to mention that I originally intended to measure the past 20 finals but I ended up doing the past 21 because I forgot that ‘00’ counts as a year when I started this and I only realized that was the case when I was working on the ‘Nerd Section’ so it is what it is.
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For this section of the project I have done the following research:
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L5Y = Was the team in the lottery 5 or fewer years prior to their finals appearance?
Bolded name = Indicates this player was drafted in the lottery by the finals team that their name is listed with
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Part 1: NBA Finals Match-ups Over the Past 21 Years
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2000: Lakers v. Pacers = Lakers W (4-2)
Lakers Lottery Picks: Shaq (1st by the Magic in 1992), Kobe (13th by Charlotte in 1996), Glen Rice (4th by Miami in 1989), and Ron Harper (8th by Cleveland in 1986)
Pacers Lottery Picks: Reggie Miller (11th in 1987 by Pacers), Jalen Rose (13th in 1994 by Denver), Dale Davis (13th 1991 by Pacers), and Rik Smits (2nd overall in 1988 by Pacers)
Lakers L5Y = Yes* (traded up to get Kobe at 13 in the 1996 draft but their record in ‘95 was 53-29)
Pacers L5Y = Yes (‘96 & ‘97 but only their 12th overall pick in ‘97 - Austin Croshere - came off then bench and played in these finals)
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2001: Lakers v. 76ers = Lakers W (4-1)
Lakers Lottery Picks: Shaq, Kobe, Horace Grant (10th by the Bulls in 1987), and I feel like I have to say Robert Horry (11th by Houston in 1992) because he played about as many minutes off the bench as Grant did starting
76ers Lottery Picks: Allen Iverson (1st in 1996 by 76ers), Dikembe Mutumbo (4th by Denver in 1991), and Tyrone Hill (11th in 1990 by Golden State)
Lakers L5Y = Yes* (see last finals)
76ers L5Y = Yes (‘96 they got Iverson 1st overall / however their ‘97 and ‘98 draft picks - Keith Van Horne - who they traded for Tim Thomas that same draft - and Larry Hughes were not on the roster for these finals)
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2002: Lakers v. Nets = Lakers W (4-0)
Lakers Lottery Picks: Shaq, Kobe, Horry
Nets Lottery Picks: Jason Kidd (2nd by Dallas in 1994), Kenyon Martin (1st by Nets in 2000), Keith Van Horne (2nd by 76ers in 1997 - traded to NJ immediately), and Kerry Kittles (8th by the Nets in 1996)
Lakers L5Y = No
Nets L5Y = Yes (‘97 they swapped their pick for Van Horne as part of a trade / ‘00 they drafted Kenyon Martin / ‘01 they drafted Eddie Griffin but he wasn’t on the roster for these finals - he was a part of a deal to get Richard Jefferson in that draft but Jefferson was very young at this point and came off the bench in the finals)
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2003: Spurs v. Nets = Spurs W (4-2)
Spurs Lottery Picks: Tim Duncan (1st by San Antonio in 1997) and David Robinson (1st overall by San Antonio in 1987)
Nets Lottery Picks: Jason Kidd, Kenyon Martin, Kerry Kittles, and Richard Jefferson (13th by Houston - immediately traded to the Nets and aforementioned Eddie Griffin was a part of that package - in 2001)
Spurs L5Y = No
Nets L5Y = Yes (see details on their lottery picks in ‘00 and ‘01 above)
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2004: Lakers v. Pistons = Pistons W (4-1)
Pistons Lottery Picks: Rip Hamilton (7th by Washington in 1999), Chauncey Billups (3rd by Boston in 1997), and Rasheed Wallace (4th by Washington in 1995)
Lakers Lottery Picks: Shaq, Kobe, Karl ‘Allegations’ Malone (13th in 1985 by Utah), and Gary Payton (2nd in 1990 by the Supersonics)
Pistons L5Y = Yes (‘00 they selected Mateen Cleaves 14th / ‘01 they selected Rodney White / in ‘03 they selected Darko / worth noting that Darko barely touched the court in these finals and the other two were not on the roster)
Lakers L5Y = No
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2005: Spurs v. Pistons = Spurs W (4-3)
Spurs Lottery Picks: Tim Duncan and another ‘Horry plays as much as a starter but he comes off the bench’ series
Pistons Lottery Picks: Billups, Hamilton, and Wallace
Spurs L5Y = No
Pistons L5Y = Yes (see details in previous finals matchup)
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2006: Mavericks v. Heat = Heat W (4-2)
Mavs Lottery Picks: Dirk (9th by Milwaukee in 1998 - traded immediately to Dallas), Jason Terry (10th by Atlanta in 1999), Jerry Stackhouse (3rd by the 76ers in 1995)*, and Erick Dampier (10th by the Pacers in 1996)*
Heat Lottery Picks: Dwayne Wade (5th by Miami in ‘03), Antoine Walker (6th by Boston in 1996), Shaq, and Jason Williams (7th by the Kings in 1998)
Mavs L5Y = No
Heat L5Y = Yes (‘02 they selected Caron Butler who wasn’t even on the finals roster / ‘03 they drafted Flash 5th overall and I need not qualify his impact in a mere sentence)
*Both Jerry and Erick played way more than another lottery pick by the name of Desagana Diop so I felt they were both far more qualified for the list than ‘Double D’
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2007: Spurs v. Cavs = Spurs W (4-0)
Spurs Lottery Picks: Tim Duncan and the inevitable Robert Horry (not as many minutes as previous finals but still a good chunk)
Cavs Lottery Picks: LeBron (1st by Cleveland in ‘03), Drew Gooden (4th by Memphis in 2002), and Larry Hughes (8th by 76ers in 1998)
Spurs L5Y = No
Cavs L5Y = Yes (‘02 they drafted Dajuan Wagner 6th and he wasn’t on this finals roster / ‘03 LeBron / ‘04 Luke Jackson at 10th - also not on this finals roster)
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2008: Lakers v. Celtics = Celtics W (4-2)
Lakers Lottery Picks: Kobe, Pau Gasol (3rd by Atlanta - immediately traded to Memphis - in 2001), Lamar Odom (4th by the Clippers in 1999), and Vladimir Radmanović (12th by the Supersonics in 2001)
Celtics Lottery Picks: Ray Allen (drafted 5th by Milwaukee in 1996), KG (drafted 5th by the T-wolves in 1995), and Paul Pierce (drafted 10th by the Celtics in 1998)
Lakers L5Y = Yes (2005 they drafted Andrew Bynum 10th overall but he was not on this finals roster)
Celtics L5Y = Yes (2004 they drafted Al Jefferson and in ‘06 they drafted Randy Foye - neither were on this finals roster / took they legendary Jeff Green in 2005 and he also wasn’t on the team)
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2009: Magic v. Lakers = Laker W (4-1)
Magic Lottery Picks: Dwight Howard (1st overall in 2004 by the Magic) and Mickaël Piétrus (11th by Golden State in ‘03)
Lakers Lottery Picks: Kobe, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, and **Andrew Bynum (**was on this roster but he was a bench guy)
Magic L5Y = Yes (Howard in 2004 / they took Fran Vázquez 11th in 2005 - never played in the NBA - and JJ Reddick 11th in 2006 - JJ was a bench lad)
Lakers L5Y = Yes (see details in previously listed finals above)
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2010: Lakers v. Celtics = Lakers W (4-3)
Lakers Lottery Picks: Kobe, Paul Gasol, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom (not as big of a contributor as he was last time)
Celtics Lottery Picks: Paul Pierce, KG, and Ray Allen
Lakers L5Y = Yes (Andrew Bynum)
Celtics L5Y = Yes (see details listed in 2008 matchup)
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2011: Mavs v. Heat = Mavs W (4-2)
Mavs Lottery Picks: Dirk, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion (9th by Phoenix in 1999), Tyson Chandler (2nd by the Clippers - traded to the Bulls immediately - in 2001), and Jason Terry (played considerable minutes off the bench)
Heat Lottery Picks: LeBron, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh (4th by the Raptors in 2003), and a dash of Mike Bibby (2nd by Vancouver in 1998)
Mavs L5Y = No
Heat L5Y = Yes (2008 they took Michael Beasley 2nd overall but he was not on this finals roster)
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2012: Thunder v. Heat = Heat W (4-1)
Thunder Lottery Picks: KD (2nd by the Supersonics in 2007), Russ (4th in 2008 by the Thunder), Thabo Sefolosha (13th by the 76ers in 2006), and a few appearances off the bench some guy named James Harden (3rd by the Thunder in 2009)
Heat Lottery Picks: LeBron, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and Shane Battier (6th by Memphis in 2001)
Thunder L5Y = Yes (in the three drafts from 2007-2009 they drafted KD 2nd, Russ 4th, and Harden 3rd in respective years)
Heat L5Y = Yes (see details in previously listed finals above)
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2013: Spurs v. Heat = Heat W (4-3)
Spurs Lottery Picks: Tim Duncan
Heat Lottery Picks: LeBron, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and Ray Allen (came off the bench but arguably may have hit an important shot or two)
Spurs L5Y = No
Heat L5Y = Yes (see details listed in previous finals above)
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2014: Spurs v. Heat = Spurs W (4-1)
Spurs Lottery Picks: Tim Duncan
Heat Lottery Picks: LeBron, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and Ray Allen
Spurs L5Y: No
Heat L5Y: No
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2015: Warriors v. Cavs = Warriors W (4-2)
Warriors Lottery Picks: Wardell Curry II (7th by Golden State in 2009), Harrison Barnes (7th by Golden State in 2012), Klay (11th by Golden State in 2011), Andrew Bogut (1st by Milwaukee in 2005), and considerable minutes from Igoudala (9th by 76ers in 2004)
Cavs Lottery Picks: LeBron\, *Tristan Thompson** (4th in 2011 by the Cavs), Kyrie (1st by the Cavs in 2011 - went out in game 1)
Warriors L5Y = Yes (2010 they took Ekpe Odoh - wasn’t on this finals roster / 2011 they got Klay 11th and in 2012 they got Harrison Barnes 7th)
Cavs L5Y = Yes (2001 they drafted Kyrie 1st and Thompson 4th / 2012 they drafted Dion Waiters - wasn’t on this finals roster / 2013 they took Anthony Bennet 1st overall - need I say more / 2014 they drafted Andrew Wiggins 1st overall and he was shipped off with Bennet when the Cavs decided to rob Minnesota blind)
*****came back as a free agent
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2016: Warriors v. Cavs = Cavs W (4-3)
Warriors Lottery Picks: Steph, Klay, Harrison Barnes, Iggy, and less of a role for Andrew Bogut
Cavs Lottery Picks: LeBron\, *Kyrie, **Tristan Thompson, and Kevin Love (5th by Memphis in 2008 - immediately traded to the T-wolves)
Warriors L5Y = Yes (see details in previously listed finals above)
Cavs L5Y = Yes (see details in previously listed finals above)
*****came back as a free agent
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2017: Warriors v. Cavs = Warriors W (4-1)
Warriors Lottery Picks: KD, Steph, Klay, and Iggy
Cavs Lottery Picks: LeBron\, *Kyrie, **Tristan Thompson, Kevin Love, and an elderly Richard Jefferson
Warriors L5Y = Yes (see details in previously listed finals above)
Cavs L5Y = Yes (see details in previously listed finals above)
*****came back as a free agent
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2018: Warriors v. Cavs = Warriors W (4-0)
Warriors Lottery Picks: Steph, Klay, and KD
Cavs Lottery Picks: LeBron\, *Tristan Thompson**, Kevin Love, and noticeable minutes from Jeff Green
Warriors L5Y = No
Cavs L5Y = Yes (see details in previously listed finals above)
*****came back as a free agent
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2019: Warriors v. Raptors = Raptors W (4-2)
Warriors Lottery Picks: Steph, Klay (went out in game 5), and Iggy
Raptors Lottery Picks:
Warriors L5Y = No
Raptors L5Y = Yes (2016 they took Jakob Poeltl 9th - later traded as part of a package with the beloved Demar Derozan for Mr. Leonard)
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2020: Lakers v. Heat = Lakers W (4-2)
Lakers Lottery Picks: LeBron James, Anthony Davis (1st by New Orleans in 2012), Kentavious Caldewell-Pope (8th by the Pistons in 2013), along with minutes sprinkled from former lottery picks Dwight Howard and Markieff Morris (13th by Phoenix in 2011)
Heat Lottery Picks: Bam Adebayo (14th overall in 2017) and Tyler Herro (13th overall in 2019)
Lakers L5Y = Yes (2015 they took D’Angelo Russel 2nd overall - wasn’t on this finals roster / 2016 they took Brandon Ingram 2nd overall, 2017 they took Lonzo Ball 2nd overall, and in 2019 they ‘drafted’ De’Andre Hunter 4th overall- they were all a part of a trade package to acquire Anothony Davis)
Heat L5Y = Yes (In 2015 they took Justise Winslow 10th overall - he wasn’t on this finals roster / Bam 14th in 2017 and Herro 13th in 2019)
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TLDR Tidbits:
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*has played in one or more finals for a team different from the one that drafted them
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Nerd Section:
Getting ‘The Guy’:
Equation > 25 x 15 = 375 / 29 ÷ 375 = 0.077 / 0.077 x 100 = roughly 8%
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*may not have been explained clearly enough but the number 7 represents the total number of teams that had their lottery pick(s) win at least one or more championships with them - there were 13 different players selected with 13 different lottery picks but those 13 picks were spread across just 7 different teams
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The Indisputable Value of ‘The Guy’
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Conclusion:
Look, do I think this data tells the full story? HEAVENS NO. But does it tell A story? Yes it does. At the end of the day, sports are hard. Building a winner is hard. Building a SUSTAINED winner is even harder. I believe this project has shown just how truly difficult it is to win the NBA draft lottery and end up with a player capable of helping your team make their way to the promised land. Having a lottery pick pan out the way they’re projected to is far from a guarantee and the odds that your team is going to land that player in the ~3.5% is obviously incredibly low. With that being said, I get it. I understand those of you that think losing is better than winning in certain instances because you feel as if it gives your team a chance at landing one of these guys but I hope now you can at least see how really truly ridiculously fortunate you have to be to end up with one of these dudes. The fact that a combination of 10 different teams with a combined 170 picks over the past 25 years managed to win 1/3 of the championships that 3 teams who had almost as many championships as they had lottery picks over the exact same span of time should say something to you.
Are the Lakers, Spurs, and Heat lucky? Yes, you need to be lucky to be good. However, the Lakers traded for Kobe at the back end of the lottery, the Spurs only needed one lottery pick total over the past 25 seasons to be successful, and Miami… ok Miami was fortunate to land LeBron and Bosh in the same offseason (to be fair they did win one with Wade prior to this) but the reason they were able to sign LeBron and Bosh should not be understated. All three of these teams have proven to maintain at least three things for an extended period of time; solid coaching, solid front office, and a competitive (winning) environment. So at this point in time, if your team is operating on all three of these levels with an average to above average level of competence you should appreciate it and understand that the chips will eventually fall in your favor if they continue to do so. I don’t have time to talk about ‘treadmill teams’ but I can assure you in virtually every single case they are not operating effectively on at least one of the levels I described.
As I conclude my research on this topic I’d like to summarize this it in one message that a good chunk of you likely grasped well before ever seeing this project. When it comes to the lottery, the success rates of teams spanning over the past quarter century clearly show that your team probably won’t win the big money just because they have a ticket in their hand… but boy can it be fun when that thang cashes out. So with all that being said - Raptors fans and those in similar situations - if you take a look around, I think you’ll be able to see that we’re going to be alright.
Thank you for reading.
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Source: https://www.basketball-reference.com
Corrections:
I have been rightly corrected and now know the lottery is only the first 14 teams and not the first 15 / with that being said I know that doesn't make a huge difference in a data set this large because I'd be removing only ~6% of the total picks made over the past 25 years (based off of my original criteria for what a 'lottery team' was) and that doesn't change the main message of this project
I also had to remove Mr. Leonard’s name where it was previously listed in certain instances due to the correction (twice with the Spurs and once with the Raptors)
Jason Kidd stans I have repented and corrected thank you for noticing
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February 12, 1934: Bill Russell was born. No one did more to ensure his team’s success & win championships. Russell won 11 NBA titles, 2 NCAA titles, and Olympic gold with his elite defense, athleticism, versatility, passing, rebounding, leadership, intelligence, clutch play, etc.

Here are some highlights of Russell and here are his career stats.
1) WINNING (Part 1): The Celtics were ho-hum right before Russell joined the team, pretty bad right after he retired, and even worse when he missed games during his career, but when he was there they were the most dominant title-winning franchise in sports history, which proves how ludicrous the “He was simply the best player on a loaded team” comment is. DETAILS: a) Boston won 2 total playoff series in the 10 seasons before Russell arrived, and both were short best-of-3 series (‘53, ‘55), b) Boston went 34-48 and missed the playoffs in ‘70 right after winning the title in Russell’s final season, and c) when he missed games during his career, the Celtics were 10-18 (.357), and 18 of those 28 missed games were against teams with losing records, so there was no excuse for a “loaded” squad to be so bad. When Russell missed 3 or more games in a row --meaning his teammates really had to adjust & couldn’t just “get up” for one game without their leader-- the Celtics were a pitiful 1-12. They were horrible without him. There is NO evidence the Celtics were any good when Russell wasn’t on the floor, rather a ton of evidence to the contrary.
2) WINNING (Part 2): It's been commonly reported that Russell was 21-0 in winner-take-all games, but that’s incorrect …. he was 22-0. If Russell's team played even with an opponent throughout a series or got to the same place in a tournament, Russell's team was ALWAYS going to pull it out in the end.
3) WINNING (Part 3): The Celtics didn’t win the title only 2 times during Russell’s 13-year career, and both were (very likely) due to difficulties experienced by Russell.
4) WINNING (Part 4): Russell went to college at the University of San Francisco which had just suffered through 3 straight losing seasons before he joined the varsity team. He lead an unranked USF team to 2 consecutive NCAA titles during his junior and senior seasons, going 57-1 along the way, and he could have won a title all 3 seasons he played at USF if not for losing teammate K.C. Jones one game into their sophomore season; they smashed the #17 team 51-33 in game 1 with Jones who was hospitalized that night with a burst appendix, but Russell still lead them to a 14-7 record before going on to those 2 titles. Even at the college level, he could lead players who weren’t supposed to win to the ultimate heights; it wasn’t just in Boston. Also, he was the leading scorer, rebounder, and defender on the 1956 gold medal winning US Olympic team, which had an average margin of victory of +53, the highest ever (’92 Dream Team was +44).
5) CLUTCH: I already mentioned how dominant Russell’s teams were when it was all on the line, but I’ll add that his list of clutch games, series, and moments is ridiculously long, plus his ppg, rpg, and apg averages all rose in the playoffs. I’ll simply point out that he had the greatest Game 7 performance of all-time in the 1962 Finals, scoring 30 points & grabbing 40 rebounds to win the title in a super-tight Game 7. If you didn’t know, the NBA Finals MVP award is officially called the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Award.
6) INTELLIGENCE: Part of what made Russell so unbelievable in big games and moments was that his IQ and level of manipulating opponents is unparalleled historically. On defense, he’d often intentionally “just miss” blocking a particular star player’s shots earlier in a contest, but late in the game when the opponent was lulled into thinking they could get a certain shot off over Russell that night, he’d extend the extra inch and come up with clutch blocks & defensive plays they weren't expecting. I’ve never heard of another player doing stuff like this. The stories about his IQ are legendary & numerous; here are some clips about his hoops IQ. At least watch the 3rd one on that list ("Some more mindgames") to see a short interview with him talking about manipulation of a star opponent in a way I’ve never heard another player articulate; he truly was thinking on a whole different level to create advantages for his team.
7) VERSATILITY: Bill Russell was so versatile on the floor because he trained and played all 5 positions on offense. The only other players in history who could maybe do this are Maurice Stokes and Giannis Antetokounmpo, but Russell’s results were quite different, plus immediate & sustained. His value to the Celtics’ offense is WAY underrated, especially on the fast break where he arguably had a bigger influence than Steve Nash did for the Suns’ fast break due to how well he could start, run, and finish it.
8) PASSING & OFFENSIVE INFLUENCE: Speaking of his versatility on the fast break, Bill Russell was a great passer, both in the half-court & full-court, and put up insane assist numbers for a center, especially in the playoffs (averaged >5 apg in the playoffs during 7 different seasons, far more times than any other center).
John Havlicek, in his 1977 autobiography, said the following about Russell's effect on Boston's offense when specifically discussing their first post-Russell season ('70):
"You couldn't begin to count the ways we missed [him]. People think about him in terms of defense and rebounding, but he had been the key to our offense. He made the best pass more than anyone I have ever played with. That mattered to people like Nelson, Howell, Siegfried, Sanders, and myself. None of us were one on one players ... Russell made us better offensive players. His ability as a passer, pick-setter, and general surmiser of offense has always been over-looked.”
I’ll add that Bill Russell finished 4th in MVP voting with an 18% vote share in 1969, his final season (‘69 MVP voting). I believe this is the best MVP finish by any player in their final season.
9) MORE ABOUT HIS OFFENSE: Fans often knock Russell for not being a high scorer. He played on a team that spread around the scoring, so very few Celtics ever had big scoring numbers, and he often had the best FG% on the team. Russell was top-5 in FG% in the league 4 times, while more recent dominant-scoring centers Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Patrick Ewing all did it once. Russell understood what individual sacrifices to make and how to improve his teammates so they collectively would be winners, which is why he won the 1962 MVP (voting) over Wilt Chamberlain (his epic 50 ppg & 26 rpg season) and Oscar Robertson (his epic triple-double season). By the way, Russell holds the record for the most consecutive MVP awards (3), most consecutive top-2 MVP finishes (6), and has the 2nd most MVP’s of all-time (5). It was clear that Russell’s approach was far more valuable to his team’s success than that of other superstars with monster stats.
10) DEFENSIVE IMPACT: There is no hyperbole in saying Russell was unquestionably the most impactful defensive player ever. The Celtics consistently & regularly had the #1 defense in the NBA throughout his career, yet they were FAR worse before he joined the team, and they immediately dropped in the ‘70 season right after he retired. Here are Boston’s annual rankings in Defensive Rating, starting in the ‘54 season: 8, 8, 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 8 (the highlighted parts represent Russell’s career). He had an overwhelmingly positive influence on the entire team’s defense to a degree we’ve never seen from any other player.
11) ATHLETICISM: Watching film of Russell, it’s clear he was extremely fast and active, elite even by today’s standards. He also possessed Olympic-level leaping ability (7th ranked high jumper in the world in 1956). For the record, he was measured as 6-ft-9-and-⅝ without shoes, taller than both Dwight Howard and Alonzo Mourning. This incredible athleticism is what allowed his defense to be a cross between Tim Duncan & Kevin Garnett, covering everything everywhere with phenomenal explosiveness, plus impeccable timing & decision-making.
12) LEADERSHIP: Bill Russell had the best combination of elite on-court impact on team synergy plus elite locker-room unity & positivity. Very few guys are even in the discussion of having this type of elite combo: Tim Duncan, Jerry West, Larry Bird …. not many more, especially when you also consider a player’s impact on his team’s defensive synergy.
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(GAME THREAD) Toronto Raptors (5-8) vs. Miami Heat (5-7) @ 7:30 P.M. on SN1

Take your seats, everyone. Tonight we play the Miami Heat at 7:30 PM (EST) on SN1.
A friend of mine pointed out that the Raptors are 3-0 since I started writing the titles for Post Game Threads in advance as if the Raptors had already won. Am I single-handedly saving the Raptors season? It's certainly possible.
information current as of 6:06 p.m. est
HOW TO WATCH
PROJECTED STARTERS
Raptors Heat
G - Kyle Lowry 🍑 G - Goran Dragic
G - Fred VanVleet 💰 G - Duncan Robinson
F - OG Anunoby 👑 F - Andre Iguodala
F - Pascal Siakam 🌶 F - Kelly Olynyk
C - Aron Baynes ⏱ C - Bam Adebayo
Injuries (TOR)
Injuries (MIA)
TEAM BREAKDOWN
- TOR MIA
Pace 100.9 (10th) 100.8 (13th)
FG (%) 44.4 (23rd) 48.6 (4th)
3PT FG 16.1 (2nd) 🥈 13 (13th)
3PT FG (%) 37.3 (10th) 36.4 (16th)
FT (%) 80.5 (6th) 76.8 (12th)
Rebounds 43.4 (20th) 42.1 (29th)
Offensive Rebounds 9.6 (18th) 6.8 (30th)
Assists 24.6 (18th) 26.4 (6th)
Steals 8.5 (7th) 6.4 (27th)
Turnovers 14.7 (14th) 18.3 (30th)
True Shooting (%) 57 (15th) 60 (3rd) 🥉
Effective Field Goal (%) 53.4 (16th) 56.6 (4th)
Offensive Rating 110.8 (14th) 108.5 (19th)
Defensive Rating 109.7 (13th) 112 (22nd)
Streak W3 W1
BETTING ODDS
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Boston's 9 Prospects

Like so many Brad Stevens teams, Boston’s bench is stuffed with rookie contract guys looking for minutes. Every year Ainge goes into the draft with multiple picks with all eyes on Boston. We hear all the trade rumors from moving up to moving down to moving on to trading for a star to trading for a role player. Almost without fail though, Ainge ends up using most of the picks. Because of this, Boston’s bench is loaded with guys trying to figure out how to make it in this league. Even with veteran additions Tristan Thompson and Jeff Teague, the vast majority of Boston’s roster is made up of project players. 9 out of our 17 roster spots are considered project players with the rest of the roster being established talent.
 
Below I’ve ranked our prospects in how much I value them from least valuable to most valuable.
 
Note: I've included an "Upside" category, which essentially is saying "In his prime, there is a chance this guy could hit this level". Not all of them will hit the upside mark I have for them. It's not about where they are now, but how good they could be.
 
Tremont Waters PG 5’10’’
 
Stats: 2.8ppg, .8rpg, 2.8apg, on 29/37/100 shooting
 
Upside: Emergency Depth
 
At the end of last year Tremont Waters overtook Edwards for me personally, if the Celtics had to make a call between the two. Waters’ skillset is more versatile and he can run at least a simple Pick and Roll offense while he can also shoot off the ball. The reason he’s dropped below Edwards is his lack of playing time. An obvious need for PG minutes has appeared on the roster with Kemba just now coming off a minutes limit, Teague not really bringing it, Pritchard being injured, and now Smart being injured, and Waters’ still isn’t getting much burn. Even at his absolute best he feels like a player you play when you’re down to your 3rd string. It’s worth carrying him as a 2 way contract, but I don’t see him making the main roster next year.
 
Carsen Edwards SG 5’11’’
 
Stats: 5.3ppg, 1.1rpg, .4apg, on 48/31/75 shooting
 
Upside: Bench Scorer
 
Edwards’ rookie year wasn’t great. He came into the year as an expected part of the rotation and quickly lost his minutes, despite the fact that Boston desperately needed a guy to score off the bench last year. He’s an undersized scorer and the narrative was that he needed to become more of a playmaker due to his height. That's very true, at 5’11’’ the margin of error is tiny. Isaiah Thomas is a good example of what the bar is for a guy this size at the NBA level. Unless he’s scoring at high volume and/or on great efficiency there isn’t really room for a scorer of his size because he’s limited at what else he can do. Even IT scoring 12ppg on 41/40/81 shooting wasn’t enough for him not to just get waived and not find space on a roster. Edwards needs to be more efficient than taller players to justify PT. He can get hot like very few guys I’ve ever seen, but he’s not getting onto the floor unless he’s consistently good, not just occasionally great.
 
Tacko Fall C 7’5’’
 
Stats: 3ppb, 3.8rpg, 0apg, on 63/0/50 shooting
 
Upside: Specialist
 
In limited minutes Tacko Fall has shown he’s an absolute game changer when he’s on the floor. The only issue is if he’s in the game, you have to adjust to his presence on both sides of the ball. On offense it revolves around feeding Tacko in the paint, and on defense you’re forced to keep Tacko close to the basket to intimidate shots but can’t switch like most teams want to. Against bad teams this is fine, but it’s not winning basketball against elite teams. Despite the highly specialized role, there is a place for Tacko in the league, doing what he does well. He’s never going to be a high minutes guy, but it’s not unreasonable for him to be worth a real roster spot.
 
Semi Ojeleye SF 6’6’’
 
Stats: 5.3ppg, 3rpg, .7apg, on 41/36/71 shooting
 
Upside: Spot Starter
 
Semi Ojeleye has a particular skillset. He’s not particularly great at it, but it’s such a valuable skillset that there is value behind guys who do what he can do. Semi can defend, and he can shoot. Is he a great defender? No. Is he a great shooter? No. But he’s ok at both and that's enough in this league. He’s an UFA this offseason. I can’t imagine he’ll garner anything but a minimum deal but he WILL get a contract somewhere. Worst case scenario a team is missing a starter and they can slip Semi into the starting lineup to reasonably defend someone and sit beyond the 3 point line and spread the floor. I hope he’s in Boston next year because he seems well liked by his teammates, is a hard worker, and like I said there is real value in a guy like Semi, but I don’t expect him to be anything other than 5ppg hitting 1 3 pointer.
 
FUN FACT: Although Semi is slated as a good defender, he records remarkably low block and steal numbers. Semi has 1 STEAL and 0 BLOCKS so far this year. Not sure what to take from that, but 1 steal in even his limited time feels like he doesn’t have active hands. Grant, who has similar low minutes, has 7 steals and 5 blocks. Even Payton Pritchard has 5 blocks to his name. Semi has 0, and while this season it’s extreme he has noticeably low block and steal totals. In the 19’20’ season Ojeleye recorded 21 steals and 5 blocks in 69 games playing 14.7mpg. Comparing Grant again, who had an almost identical 69 games playing 15.1mpg tallied 30 blocks and 36 steals.
 
Grant Williams PF 6’6’’
 
Stats: 4.7ppg, 3.rpg, .7apg, on 42/41/43 shooting
 
Upside: Spot StarteUtility Bench Player
 
Grant Williams does a little bit of everything on both ends. On offense he sets mean screens, he doesn’t make bad passes, he’s shooting better than last year, and he gives good effort on the offensive glass. On defense he’s versatile, quick enough so he’s not getting destroyed by smaller players, and strong enough so he’s not getting backed down by bigger guys. Other than the absolute elite there is not a defensive mismatch for Grant. So why is Grant not playing? A great complimentary piece in Grant on a top heavy team like Boston should get minutes, but he’s averaging 17mpg and even an occasional DNP-CD. My guess is Stevens has Thompson, who is bought and paid for, Theis, who is a FA next year, and Rob Williams, who is potentially more talented and fills more of a niche role, on the roster already and balancing their minutes is a challenge. None of the 4 big men make a case over Tatum playing significant time at PF so essentially 4 guys are fighting for the right to play C with Grant being the odd man out as he is only a 2nd year player. That being said I wouldn’t be shocked to see Grant in the lineup late in games when teams go super small. He closed out the Toronto series and I just tonight watched him close out the GSW game.
 
Aaron Nesmith SG 6’5’’
 
Stats: 3.2ppg, 1.7rpg, .4apg
 
Upside: Quality Starter
 
The jury is out on Nesmith. He’s who I wanted Ainge to take. I have a horrible history being wrong on draft picks admittedly, having wanted Dunn over Brown and Fultz at #1 over trading for #3 at the time. So obviously my draft logic is fucked. Maybe it's troubling we took Nesmith. He has shown flashes of shooting but he’s on the outside looking in for wing minutes with Tatum and Brown eating the majority. He is one of the guys who could get more run if Stevens decides Tatum at PF is the way to go and we shut down playing 2 bigs. He’s pretty lost on defense early and would still probably be on the bench unless we get hit with the injury bug even harder. You don’t give up on a lottery pick in their rookie season though, which is something we need to remind ourselves. This isn’t the King’s front office. With his potentially elite 3 point shooting ability Nesmith has the potential to round out starting lineups.
 
Romeo Langford SG 6’4’’
 
Stats: N/A
 
Upside: 6th man (Starter on a bad team)
 
Boy oh boy sometimes I forget this guy is even on the roster. Not only has he been plagued by injuries,they’ve been at the absolute worst timing. Missing training camp his rookie year, and then needing surgery his first offseason. A lot of guys didn’t expect the season to pick up so quickly after the Finals but here we are in February and Langford hasn’t suited up due to his surgery. He thought he’d have more recovery time with the season being shortened and delayed until January, maybe even February, but here we are February 2nd and we’re a quarter of the way through the season. When Romeo finally got on the court he showcased he has the potential to be a HIGH level defender, making defenders dribble into him without fouling. He’s still coasting off his college reputation as a scorer and wasn’t really able to show it his rookie year. I’m going to rest on my defense of Nesmith and say we can’t judge a lottery pick for his rookie year.
 
Payton Pritchard PG 6’1’’
 
Stats: 7.7ppg, 2.4rpg, 2.6apg, on 49/43/90 shooting
 
Upside: Quality Starter
 
I’m not as high on Payton Pritchard as a lot of us on the sub are. His 6’1’’ stature I think is going to limit his impact. That being said, I’m sitting here watching the 6’1’’ Fred VanVleet put up 54 points so what the hell do I know? Pritchard just does everything right when he’s on the floor. He defends hard, he hits open shots, and he plays with his head up. That gets you really far in this league and when Pritchard hits his prime he may find himself the starting PG of an NBA team. I think more realistically Pritchard will be a really good bench player with a long career, but I can’t say he doesn’t have the potential to be a starter. PG is one of the most overwhelmingly stacked positions in the league, though, and in 5 years you’re running into Ja Morant, Trae Young, Luka Doncic, SGA, and maybe LaMelo Ball will get there, you better have something on the floor to challenge it, and idk if Pritchard will ever be that guy. Amazing rookie year so far though, his future is bright. The odds are against him hitting this level. For every Fred Vanvleet there are countless guys in this archetype that don’t hit that level.
 
Rob Williams C 6’9’’
 
Stats: 6.2pph, 6.2rpg, .8apg, on 75/0/90 shooting
 
Upside: Quality Starter
 
Rob Williams is in his 3rd year and it’s not hard to see him as a team’s starting Center. He checks all the boxes, high efficiency offense, good rebounding percentages, and highlight blocks. He’s improved his rebounding, on court awareness, and although he rarely pulls the trigger, he looks very comfortable making a jumper when the situation calls for it. Even in his rookie year he showed offensive awareness, making simple but decisive passes and not letting the ball stick in his hands. If it's not in Boston I expect Rob Williams to have a Terry Rozier kind of leap where he goes from prospect to high level bench player, to quality starter once he hits his prime.
submitted by Warlandoboom to bostonceltics [link] [comments]

February 12, 1934: Bill Russell was born. No one did more to ensure his team’s success & win championships. Russell won 11 NBA titles, 2 NCAA titles, and Olympic gold with his elite defense, athleticism, versatility, passing, rebounding, leadership, intelligence, clutch play, etc.

Here are some highlights of Russell and here are his career stats.
1) WINNING (Part 1): The Celtics were ho-hum right before Russell joined the team, pretty bad right after he retired, and even worse when he missed games during his career, but when he was there they were the most dominant title-winning franchise in sports history, which proves how ludicrous the “He was simply the best player on a loaded team” comment is. DETAILS: a) Boston won 2 total playoff series in the 10 seasons before Russell arrived (he was a rookie in '57), and both were short best-of-3 series (‘53, ‘55), b) Boston went 34-48 and missed the playoffs in ‘70 right after winning the title in Russell’s final season, and c) when he missed games during his career, the Celtics were 10-18 (.357), and 18 of those 28 missed games were against teams with losing records, so there was no excuse for a “loaded” squad to be so bad. When Russell missed 3 or more games in a row --meaning his teammates really had to adjust & couldn’t just “get up” for one game without their leader-- the Celtics were a pitiful 1-12. They were horrible without him. There is NO evidence the Celtics were any good when Russell wasn’t on the floor, rather a ton of evidence to the contrary.
2) WINNING (Part 2): It's been commonly reported that Russell was 21-0 in winner-take-all games, but that’s incorrect …. he was 22-0. If Russell's team played even with an opponent throughout a series or got to the same place in a tournament, Russell's team was ALWAYS going to pull it out in the end.
3) WINNING (Part 3): The Celtics didn’t win the title only 2 times during Russell’s 13-year career, and both were (very likely) due to difficulties experienced by Russell.
Two giant asterisks have to go beside the only two championships Boston didn’t win during Russell’s career.
4) WINNING (Part 4): Russell went to college at the University of San Francisco which had just suffered through 3 straight losing seasons before he joined the varsity team. He lead an unranked USF team to 2 consecutive NCAA titles during his junior and senior seasons, going 57-1 along the way, and he could have won a title all 3 seasons he played at USF if not for losing teammate K.C. Jones one game into their sophomore season; they smashed the #17 team 51-33 in game 1 with Jones playing who was then hospitalized that night with a burst appendix, but 1st-year Russell still lead them to a 14-7 record without the HOF PG before going on to those 2 titles. Even at the college level, he could lead players who weren’t supposed to win to the ultimate heights; it wasn’t just in Boston. Also, he was the leading scorer, rebounder, and defender on the 1956 gold medal winning US Olympic team, which had an average margin of victory of +53, the highest ever (’92 Dream Team was +44).
5) CLUTCH: I already mentioned how dominant Russell’s teams were when it was all on the line, but I’ll add that his list of clutch games, series, and moments is ridiculously long, plus his ppg, rpg, and apg averages all rose in the playoffs. I’ll simply point out that he had the greatest Game 7 performance of all-time in the 1962 Finals, scoring 30 points & grabbing 40 rebounds to win the title in a super-tight Game 7. If you didn’t know, the NBA Finals MVP award is officially called the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Award.
6) INTELLIGENCE: Part of what made Russell so unbelievable in big games and moments was that his IQ and level of manipulating opponents is unparalleled historically. On defense, he’d often intentionally “just miss” blocking a particular star player’s shots earlier in a contest, but late in the game when the opponent was lulled into thinking they could get a certain shot off over Russell that night, he’d extend the extra inch and come up with clutch blocks & defensive plays they weren't expecting. I’ve never heard of another player doing stuff like this. The stories about his IQ are legendary & numerous; here are some clips about his hoops IQ. At least watch the 3rd one on that list ("Some more mindgames") to see a short interview with him talking about manipulation of a star opponent in a way I’ve never heard another player articulate; he truly was thinking on a whole different level to create advantages for his team.
7) VERSATILITY: Bill Russell was so versatile on the floor because he trained and played all 5 positions on offense. The only other players in history who could maybe do this are Maurice Stokes and Giannis Antetokounmpo, but Russell’s results were quite different, plus immediate & sustained. His value to the Celtics’ offense is WAY underrated, especially on the fast break where he arguably had a bigger influence than Steve Nash did for the Suns’ fast break due to how well he could start, run, and finish it.
8) PASSING & OFFENSIVE INFLUENCE: Speaking of his versatility on the fast break, Bill Russell was a great passer, both in the half-court & full-court, and put up insane assist numbers for a center, especially in the playoffs (averaged >5 apg in the playoffs during 7 different seasons, far more times than any other center).
John Havlicek, in his 1977 autobiography, said the following about Russell's effect on Boston's offense when specifically discussing their first post-Russell season ('70):
"You couldn't begin to count the ways we missed [him]. People think about him in terms of defense and rebounding, but he had been the key to our offense. He made the best pass more than anyone I have ever played with. That mattered to people like Nelson, Howell, Siegfried, Sanders, and myself. None of us were one on one players ... Russell made us better offensive players. His ability as a passer, pick-setter, and general surmiser of offense has always been over-looked.”
I’ll add that Bill Russell finished 4th in MVP voting with an 18% vote share in 1969, his final season (‘69 MVP voting). I believe this is the best MVP finish by any player in their final season.
9) MORE ABOUT HIS OFFENSE: Fans often knock Russell for not being a high scorer. He played on a team that spread around the scoring, so very few Celtics ever had big scoring numbers, and he often had the best FG% on the team. Russell was top-5 in FG% in the league 4 times, while more recent dominant-scoring centers Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Patrick Ewing all did it once. Russell understood what individual sacrifices to make and how to improve his teammates so they collectively would be winners, which is why he won the 1962 MVP (voting) over Wilt Chamberlain (his epic 50 ppg & 26 rpg season) and Oscar Robertson (his epic triple-double season). By the way, Russell holds the record for the most consecutive MVP awards (3), most consecutive top-2 MVP finishes (6), and has the 2nd most MVP’s of all-time (5). It was clear that Russell’s approach was far more valuable to his team’s success than that of other superstars with monster stats.
10) DEFENSIVE IMPACT: There is no hyperbole in saying Russell was unquestionably the most impactful defensive player ever. The Celtics consistently & regularly had the #1 defense in the NBA throughout his career, yet they were FAR worse before he joined the team, and they immediately dropped in the ‘70 season right after he retired. Here are Boston’s annual rankings in Defensive Rating, starting in the ‘54 season: 8, 8, 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 8 (the highlighted parts represent Russell’s career). He had an overwhelmingly positive influence on the entire team’s defense to a degree we’ve never seen from any other player.
11) ATHLETICISM: Watching film of Russell, it’s clear he was extremely fast and active, elite even by today’s standards. He also possessed Olympic-level leaping ability (7th ranked high jumper in the world in 1956). For the record, he was measured as 6-ft-9-and-⅝ without shoes, taller than both Dwight Howard and Alonzo Mourning. This incredible athleticism is what allowed his defense to be a cross between Tim Duncan & Kevin Garnett, covering everything everywhere with phenomenal explosiveness, plus impeccable timing & decision-making.
12) LEADERSHIP: Bill Russell had the best combination of elite on-court impact on team synergy plus elite locker-room unity & positivity. Very few guys are even in the discussion of having this type of elite combo: Tim Duncan, Jerry West, Larry Bird …. not many more, especially when you also consider a player’s impact on his team’s defensive synergy.
submitted by WinesburgOhio to VintageNBA [link] [comments]

New Analytics Platform. What do you guys think?

Hey all. I know a lot of people spam here so I want to keep it real with you all. Me and a buddy have spent the last 8 months working on a super powerful sports analytics platform that we think blows all the other guys away. We built what is essentially a hedge fund level analytics engine in a really simple to use user interface, and then pumped in a ridiculous amount of current and historical NBA team, game, player, and fantasy data. I personally used it the other day to analyze point spread arbitrage for upcoming games.
We have five years of NBA data, including lines and oveunders to better help you analyze games. You can take a look and how some of our beta testers used these analytics here: Free Money
And here is a video that shows how to share your insights with the click of a few buttons: How to Build and Share Data Insights
Is this something you think you guys would find useful?
UPDATE (2/12/2021 10:24 a.m. ET) Beta Codes for Automatic Data Access:
I know many of you have been reaching out DM'ing me your username. I'm doing my best to keep up with all the requests, and I will get to you. If you're seeing this and have not yet signed up, you can use one of the beta codes below when you register for automatic access to data, which we call "Explore." Upvote if you like what you see, and enjoy!
Beta Codes:
submitted by notTypical11 to sportsbetting [link] [comments]

Scarce Stats Strategy: Exploiting the Metagame in a Competitive League

Introduction

If you're a good fantasy player, you're probably punting a few categories. It's the only way to win in a competitive league where most managers, if not all, are punting some categories. This post seeks to help managers exploit leagues that are rife with punting if the conditions of the league are right. I will be using my current 14-team, 12-cat league and team as an example.

What is a scarce stat?

To start this post, we need to first understand what I mean by a scarce stat: These are stats that generally have a low total by the end of the week and don't have many players who provide a high amount of the stats. These stats would include blocks, assists, double-doubles (if you're in a custom league or standard 12-cat), and to a lesser extent, steals. Of these stats, blocks and double-doubles are the easiest categories to exploit.

Scouting the potential for use of this strategy

In order for this strategy to work, you need a statistical bottleneck in your league. What this means is that the strategy exploits leagues where there are a few dominating teams at the top of a certain category.
For example, in my current league, where, as far as I can tell, most of the managers are punting categories, blocks are dominated by 2 managers that together are 12-1-1 on the season in that category and own 4 of the top 10 blocks per game players, with only two other managers, myself included, owning even 2 of the top 25.
This means that there are 10 teams in my league only have 1 of their players in the top 25 of bpg. By total blocks, the difference between 2nd place and 3rd place is greater than the difference between 3rd place and 7th place.
This is a bottleneck, and is the right environment to employ this strategy.

Determining how to exploit the bottleneck

Once you've recognized a bottleneck, observe the spread of the remaining teams. Going back to my previous example, this would be finding the average difference in blocks per game/per week of the non-dominant teams. Because of a bottleneck, most of the top shot blockers are already on the elite teams, making the remaining teams relatively even with 1 or 2 outliers.
As I mentioned earlier, the difference between 3rd place and 7th place really isn't that much. What does this mean exactly for the person who is in 7th place? It means that marginally improving your daily average in that category means improving your weekly win rate in the category tremendously. This is where exploiting the meta game comes into play.
With the non-dominant teams all close together, marginal improvement can mean a large ladder climb. In my current league, gaining just 0.8bpg could improve your rank 4 spots. What this means practically is that trading for a similarly ranked player or two who gets you slightly more blocks can help you win the category nearly 1/3 of the time.
Improve just a tad more and you immediately become the 3rd best in the league at blocking shots, which in my league would translate to winning that category 6 out of every 7 weeks on average. This is incredible win improvement based only on a slight increase in one category.

The math behind the strategy

Blocks and assists are inherently different from the other stat categories. While they're obviously lower in volume than other categories like points and rebounds, they're also stats that are largely unaffected by luck, and therefore create a dichotomy between players who impact the stat a lot and players who hardly impact the stat at all.
For example, even the shortest point guard can get you 3-4 rebounds a game if he's playing enough minutes just based on how the ball bounces. In a modern spaced out offense, even a 20mpg 3 point specialist can easily get you 8-9ppg. Steals can be gained by just getting minutes, as teams will inevitably have unforced turnovers that count as steals.
This is entirely untrue for blocks and mostly untrue for assists, which are generally only gained with player involvement in shot creation and rim protection. Player's will never accidentally have a shot attempt hit their hand, nor will they accidentally pass to the open man in the corner. These stats are only gained by active participation in the precursor - passing and rim protection - with rim protection being significantly less affected by luck.
What this means, mathematically, is that someone who is elite with blocks can be 10 to 20 times more impactful in that category than someone who is below average. For example, Ja Morant currently averages 0.3bpg, Kyle Lowry is averaging 0.2bpg, and Stephen Curry averages 0.1bpg. These are great to elite players, but the best shot blockers in the league will easily get you 10x that many blocks on average.
Comparatively, the top scorers in the NBA will get you 25-35 points, which would at best be about 5 times more than what the worst rosterable player will get you. An elite shot blocker, therefore, can influence that stat more than other elite players can impact their stats. This math generally will check out for assists and double doubles as well.
For further evidence of this, we'll once again look at my team as an example. The leading scorer on my team is Nikola Jokic, averaging 26.9ppg, good for 10th in the league. Porzingis is my team's bpg leader, currently averaging 1.7bpg, which is also good for 10th in the league.
However, Nikola Jokic's total point contribution in any given week for my team is about 13.7%, while Porzingis' total blocks contribution in any given week for my team is about 18.3%. This is because the worst scorer on my team still offers nearly 1/3rd of what Jokic does, but the worst shot blocker on my team only offers less than 1/5th of what Porzingis does.
What this means in practicality is that Porzingis influences my chances of winning blocks on any given week more than Jokic influences my chances of winning points, despite both being comparably dominant in their respective categories. Elite players in assists and blocks inherently have more influence on those categories than elite players in other categories, and that is what makes those categories particularly exploitable when a bottleneck occurs.
To be clear, this strategy could theoretically work for any category that's bottlenecked, but blocks, assists, and double doubles are by far the easiest to exploit as well as the most common opportunity given the nature of the math.

When and how to take advantage

So you've identified a bottleneck and you've also determined the average differences between the non-dominant teams in that category. What now? Do what you always do in fantasy: find a trade that gives you disproportionate value. If you can make a trade that makes you go from 6th to 7th in points, but also makes you go from 8th to 4th in assists, then that is incredible value. An easy way to do this is to trade for players who are in the top 20-25 of these stats but aren't elite players: Mitchell Robinson, Naz Reid, James Wiseman, Marcus Smart, Draymond Green, James Wiseman, etc.
Another great way to take advantage of this is to pick up a player who would otherwise be non-rosterable without realizing the difference he makes for your team. If you knew there was a player who raises you 5 ranks in points sitting untouched on the waiver wire, would you pick him up? Probably! Some good options here are guys like Nerlens Noel, Jakob Poetl, or DeAndre Jordan. In deep leagues this kind of a waiver pickup can change your entire season's outcome.

TL;DR, 4 Steps

  1. Identify statistical bottlenecks
  2. Determine the variation in the non-dominant teams
  3. Identify how much you gain with marginal improvement in the category
  4. Create a trade or waiver pickup that provides disproportionate value

Conclusion

I want to be clear that this is a very niche strategy. This strategy is probably wholly inapplicable for 70% of you, and for the rest it still requires the right pieces and moves to pull off. However, if your league and team build does fit this strategy, it can help you gain immense value seemingly out of thin air. I've been able to pull it off twice in my 9 years of playing fantasy basketball and the rewards are very worth the time it takes to implement.
Check your leagues and look for bottlenecks, especially now that we're about a third of the way through the season and player stats are beginning to average out to their norms. Put the time and effort in to finding the player(s) you need to exploit the metagame of punting and you'll reap the benefits.
If anyone has any specific questions about the strategy, just comment and I'll respond. Good luck!
submitted by ohgosh_thejosh to fantasybball [link] [comments]

An Updated Definitive List of the Bodega Boy's Aliases — Part 4!

Shout out to u/Misanthropia for the original post — the hive needed more updated art!
This list is current as of episode 234 (2/10/21)
Desus goes by numerous aliases on the Bodega Boys Podcast. These aliases are based on references to pop culture, sports, and hip-hop. The long and ever-changing list of aliases or "AKAs" are one of the many running gags on the show. During an interview with Method Man on Desus and Mero, Desus explained that the idea for aliases was based on the alter-egos of the rappers in the song "Wu-Gambinos" on the album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... by Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon. (info via Wikipedia)
Desus & Mero no longer record from Milk Studios (moved indefinitely) and have been recording the podcast remotely from home due to the pandemic. Most of the AKA’s now mention social distancing, hot takes on covid and store closures.

Desus

Desus is extremely consistent with his aliases, almost always presenting them in the exact same order and without any exclusions:
Desus Nice — In a Hot 97 interview on April 13th 2017, Desus explains that people started calling him Desus as a play on his government name, "Daniel", and "Jesus", because he worked miracles with people's computers
Young Chipotle — Desus’ original alias, he explains in one podcast that it originates from when he was broke and buying Chipotle was a genuine treat
Pockets stay fat like Terio (Pockets stay fat like 'here we go') — A reference to viral star Terio, a young, obese African American boy whose videos of him dancing launched him to very brief viral fame. Recently, Desus added the more politically correct and kid friendly “here we go”
Eli Litby — A play on Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin
Boutros Boutros Gully — A play on Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former Secretary-General of the UN, “Gully” being Jamaican Patois for an impoverished area
Slobodan Might-know-ya-bitch — A play on Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Serbia and important player in the Bosnian War
Young Day Party — I believe this was adopted in the summer of 2016 after Desus recounted the story of a day party in D.C., which seemed to invigorate his love for partying during the day
Young Hot Take — He has hot takes, pretty obvious here
Desus H. Fuego — Another moniker to describe his hot (“fuego”) takes on topics
Mr. Nandos with a rando — Nandos is a portuguese chicken restaurant chain which originated in South Africa and is big in the UK and Australia. Rando is slang for random person. Having Nandos with a rando is eating chicken with a random person (credit to u/deweez)
Mr. Mil Novecientos Noventa Y Cuatro en Nueva York — In later episodes Desus rarely adds the “en Nueva York” bit, but it translates to “Mr. 1994 in New York”. "The Knicks team in 1994 made the finals and is a legendary team amongst all Knicks fans who were around at the time. That team got to game 7 of the finals against the Rockets. NYC rallied around that team hard body because that team absolutely embodied NYC to a T with guys like Ewing, Charles Oakley, Mason, Starks, and Derek Harper." (credit to u/Okieant33)
Mikhail Goin-off — derived from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (credit to u/GhettoFob) converged with an allusion to losing ones temper in an act of random violence.
The Jouvert Boss — “Jouvert” is a carnival held in Caribbean/West Indian culture, involving a lot of partying
MC Likkle Gungo Pea — Gungo pea is a type of peas (also known as pigeon peas) often used in Jamaican dishes. Reference to his Jamaican heritage (credit to u/hopelessromcom)
"Pullin' up from 40 with your shorty" — Desus will “pull up”, or make a pass at, your girl even when the odds are slim or unlikely, much like a 40 foot shot in basketball
"Don’t talk to me in the Uber Pool, I don’t know you" — Uber introduced a service where you can share rides with other Uber users for a discounted rate. Desus has expressed his reluctance to engage with strangers when he is using it
The original “my plus one got a plus one so don’t make a fuss son” — When Desus shows up to an event with a girl, he brings two, and he's intimating that the host shouldn’t have a problem with that
Desus Rothstein, the Jamaican Jew — Originated around when Mero began his house search in Bergen County, NJ where a number of wealthy people of Jewish descent live. Desus envisions a version of himself who would fit in there
Jermaine Avocado Toast — Desus has gotten more cultured as a result of their success, and as such he has been able to indulge in things usually enjoyed by privileged white people, a stereotypical example of that being avocado toast. This is Desus’ gentrified, hipster persona
Young PA — Possible reference to the sound of small amount of air being expelled from a loose butthole, which is an impression Mero occasionally does (credit to u/jimsternub). This is also a reference to Brooklyn rapper Young MA.
The Ghost of Mufasa — A reference to Lion King, but beyond that I have no idea why he adopted it. Still hilarious though, and the nickname that most often makes Mero laugh
Young Charcuterie without the coonery — Charcuterie is considered very hip and trendy right now, and Desus is again saying he has a taste for the finer things, but is no longer interested in “coonery”, a derogatory term used to describe stereotypical African American behavior
Chile Limon, the left handed reliever for the Yankee’s (Que lo que?) — A fictional persona that seems to be a Latino version of Dock Ellis, who famously threw a no hitter while high on Acid. Chile Limon is also a popular seasoning/flavor with the Latino community
3 Phone Jones — Desus originally adopted "2 Phone Jones" after he reluctantly bought an iPhone to go with his Samsung Galaxy. He then received a Google Pixel, making it 3 Phone Jones (credit to u/ArtSorr0w)
Desus Ex Machina — A play on the common plot device “deus ex machina”, or “god from the machine” in which an unsolvable problem is suddenly resolved by some unexpected intervention. Desus also used to have a tumblr entitled "Desus Ex Machina" (credit to u/hardcore9)
Jay Chuckles — Revealed in episode 55 to be a reference to a now-defunct shoe store in NYC. Did Desus read this thread?
Stanley Cups — Desus' former rap alias, as revealed in episode 53.
The Human Dr. Bronner’s Label (Dilute! Dilute! Dilute!) — A reference to the concentrated soap Dr. Bronner’s Castile soap, which needs to be diluted. I didn’t quite understand how Desus applied this to himself, but it came from a joke in Episode 51 or 52 about Sean Spicer trying to defray controversy surrounding President Trump's decisions
Dionardo DiTrappio — A play on “Leonardo DiCaprio”, the actor, but referencing “trapping”, a slang for selling drugs.
Mr. 240p because I like my Pino blurry — Desus longs for the days of very low resolution pornography. 240p refers to the resolution, which is extremely low by modern standards
DJ Woolite AKA You're listening to Washed FM up next we got 24 hours of — The host of the fictional station “Washed FM”, a fictional radio station that is sometimes referenced along with “WSMK, Smack City Radio”. Woolite is a brand of fabric softener. Desus said multiple times on the podcast that now that he's single and living alone, he washes his clothes with extra fabric softener. As a kid, his clothes would get washed and be hard as nails. Again, he's got a taste for the finer things in life. (credit to u/Okieant33)
The Curried G.O.A.T. — A double reference to Desus’s Jamaican heritage, where Curried Goat is a popular culinary item, as well as referencing the phrase “G.O.A.T”, short for “greatest of all time”
Desus Spicer — A play on the former White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, who is often referenced on Desus & Mero as “spicing up” or “adding spice” to his takes
Jamal Hashburn — A play on Jamal Mashburn, a former NBA player, about Hash
The Bronx Celine Dion — Refers to the fact that Celine Dion is very popular in the Jamaican community, and so Desus is like Celine, but from the Bronx. (credit to u/chefboyardu) This is especially present with foreign and immigrant culture which means he is of mogul or iconic status for the Bronx (credit to u/courtofdacrimsonking)
Wray and Nephew's Nephew — A play on J. Wray and Nephew rum, which has its origins in Jamaica like Desus. Also, Desus drinks a lot, which you probably should have figured out by now. Introduced in episode 58
The Moreno you can't contain-o — A play on "moreno", a Spanish term for someone with dark skin
The Human Meme, Word to Ja — A play on Ja Rule's infamous mistake of believing that the word "meme" is pronounced "may-may"
Young Erewhon — A reference to a bourgeois health food store in LA, which makes this nickname in the vein of "Jermaine Avocado Toast", demonstrating Desus' taste for finer things now. (credit to u/a-1-since-day-1)
The Racist Provocateur — Desus flipped an angry tweet from April 28th 2017, in which someone called him a "racist provocateur" into a new alias
Henrik Bud-qvist — A play on NHL goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who currently plays for the New York Rangers
Nelson Bang-dela — An old alias resurrected in episode 65, a play on South African civil right's icon Nelson Mandela
Sergio Can't-see-me — A play on Sergio Tacchini, an Italian fashion designer and former Tennis player
Vladimir Boofin' — A play on Russian president Vladimir Putin, "boofin" being a reference to smuggling something by sticking it inside one's rectum
The Human Werther's, melting in your mouth — A reference to Werther's Originals, a brand of caramel hard candies favored by old people. Not really sure what this one means otherwise.
Mr. Becks on Deckington — The first time Desus introduced this one, he accidentally said "Mr. Becky's on Deckington" which was an incredible Freudian slip since Desus has been accused of not being into black women, and "Becky" is the stereotypical white woman name in pop culture. This is a reference to Desus always drinking Beck's, a cheap beer he favors along with Heineken. Adding "-ington" to words is New York slang, as Mero explains at some point.
Rikki-Tikki-Squad-bi — A play on Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a character from the Jungle Book
Greg "Paaa"-povitch — A very meta play on San Antonio Spur's head coach Greg Popovich and the onomatopoeia of spreading butt cheeks apart (according to Mero)
Morris "Say it with your chest"-nut — A play on actor Morris Chestnut
Mahatma Gone-B — A play on famed pacifist Mahatma Gandi
Not Macka B but I got the cucumber — A reference to a viral video in which Reggae artist Macka B raps about healthy food in his "medical monday" series, Desus is unsurprisingly referencing his penis
The juices are pressed but your boy never is — Being "pressed" means someone is applying pressure to you, and no one would do that to Desus. The juices he is talking about are probably the morning drink he has with lemongrass and cayenne pepper that he makes reference to many times in recent episodes of the podcast.
I am the Art, dammit! — Not sure if this is a reference to anything specific or just a Kanye-esque line a crazed creative might yell out at some point
The Don Dada Ganoush — I believe this is a reference to the Meditteranean dish Baba Ganoush, "Don Dada" is Jamaican Patois slang (I believe) for “top pimp” or “big player” and a sort-of homophone for "baba"
No more Cup of Noodles — I don't know if this is a reference beyond the fact that Cup of Noodles is a struggle meal and Desus is no longer struggling
The Prince of Peckham — A reference to Peckham, a diverse neighborhood in London
The Fashion Nova Casanova — Fashion Nova is an online clothing retailer that specifically targets curvy women that Desus and Mero reference pejoratively (saying it's for bottle waitresses), Desus is saying here that he excels at seducing these kind of women ("Casanova" is a term of a man who excels at seducing women derived from the name of Italian Giacomo Casanova)
"William H. 5 Cent, 10 Cent, Dolla... Forget the small change, give me the the big money wine" — A reference to Soca Boys song "Dollar Wine (one cent, five cent, ten cent, dollar)" which apparently was super popular in the West Indies. "William H Holla is something Jay-Z used to call himself back in his hey day. It comes from the fact that Bill Gates' full name is William Henry Gates. Jay-Z used to give himself nicknames back in the day. J-Hova caught on but he used the term William H Holla because Jay-Z also coined the phrase "Holla At Me" and "Holla Back" and just shortened it to "Holla". So put the two together and you have William H Holla. He first said it on the song "Stick to the Script" off the Dynasty album. So Desus took it and made it his own." (credit to u/Okieant33)
The only anthem I salute is Dipset — A reference to the ongoing national anthem protests in the NFL, Desus is saying the only anthem he salutes is "Dipset Anthem" by Harlem rap legends The Diplomats
Mister Sauga, Catch me at Square One Top Left. Mans is marved. (Dont cheese me bro) — Finally a Canadian-centric reference, which makes sense given that the Bodega Boys have performed there multiple times. This is a reference to the Square One Shopping Center in Mississauga, Canada (where Desus alleges his mysterious wife and kids live), and "top left" is Greater Toronto Area slang for "truthful" or "seriously". "Mans is marved", means "I'm hungry" in Toronto slang (credit to u/Fortehlulz33)
Trill Rizzuto, holy cow! — A reference to former Yankees player Phil Rizzuto who would later go on to be a commentator, where his trademark expression was "holy cow!"
Mister Soft Palms because all I do is count checks and jerk off — I don't know if this is a reference to anything except Desus bragging about his lifestyle
"We got OJ, uh purple stuff, soda, and it's me! Sunny D!" — A reference to an old Sunny D commercial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQE3jWYuGiw), and a play on the fact that people likely used to called Desus by the nickname "D", so "it's me! Sunny D" would be like saying "it's me, Desus!". Also kind of ironic since Desus is not a particularly sunny person (cue Dark Desus).
David Yerp-man — A play on David Yurman, an expensive jewelry company, and NYC slang exclamation "yerp"
Desus-expensive, Desus-Red Bottoms, Desus-bloody shoes — A play on a lyric from fellow Bronx native Cardi B taken from her song "Bodak Yellow"
Smo-a-kim Noah — A play on NBA player Joaquim Noah who played for the Knicks
Andrew Coooooool-nanan — A reference to serial killer (most notable for killing Gianni Versace) Andrew Cunanan
The Junior Energy God, come sit down 'pon me charger — Originally just the "Energy God" until Desus realized that that was fellow Jamaican Elephant Man's aliases. I thiiiink this is referring to the phrase "bring the same energy", the idea that if one is saying something behind someone's back, when confronted by the individual they should stick to their original statements. This alias started after the infamous Desus & Mero visit to the Breakfast Club, in which DJ Envy accosted the boys about a joke they made about his wife. Desus & Mero didn't punk out and therefore "brought the same energy". Someone tell me if I'm reaching here.
Call me PetCo cause I got your bitch-on-freeze — A play on words for the dog breed Bichon Frise
The Topic of Gossip in Syosset (Shout out to 11791 ah ah ah) — Syosset (zip code 11791) is a town in Long Island, NY. it's real bougie and suburban so Desus is saying basically he's got reach and is known not just in the hood but in the wealthy burbs too (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Grandpa Joe, When you see Charlie you see me don't touch that golden ticket — A direct reference to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Grandpa Joe) and Desus's cats name (Charlie)
Dead Eye Desus (Mornin’ Sherrif) — Dead Eye Desus refers to the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. The game features a gameplay mechanic called "Dead Eye" that allows the player to slow time to achieve easy head shots and kills. The game is also set in the late 1800's, early 1900's in the old West, which is why Desus typically references a Sheriff after saying Dead Eye Desus. (credit to u/biggak)
Mr. Shopping at StreetEasy with a bad breezy like I'm Yeezy, please believe me — Another one of Desus' tongue twisters, this one is in reference to shopping at StreetEasy, a NYC real estate website with an attractive woman like Kanye West might do
The Black Asiatic who will crack your back like an automatic craftmatic — Added in episode 54 after Desus' continuing gag about "big Black Asiatic men" (often referencing their penises). Here Desus is implying that sex with him (a Black Asiatic man) is very vigorous by saying he will change your posture like a Craftmatic mattress, which is a brand of mattress whose shape and orientation can be controlled electronically
Mr. La Marina in a mesh Merina with a fresh misdemeanor and a cold demeanor — This one is a doozy, but was adopted after Desus mentioned his frequent trips to La Marina (a bar on the water in Manhattan) in episodes released in the summer of 2016. A mesh Merina is a a mesh tank top (I think). The other two parts are self explanatory. Not sure how he always gets this one right without mixing up the words.
The Sheet-Mask Killer (No one could be iller) — A reference to Sheet Masks, a skin care routine some might find to be bougie. "No one could be iller" is a reference to how ODB introduces Ghostface Killah on "Da Mystery of Chessboxin" by Wu Tang Clan (credit to u/atorMMM)
The Black Zack Morris of Port Morris — A take on Zack Morris for his problematic schemes on Saved by the Bell. (credit to u/justic3bon3r) Port Morris is a neighborhood in the Bronx (credit to u/m9rockstar) home of The Bronx Brewery and Bodega Boys Beer
Young KPI — More than likely a reference to the various random office jobs Desus had (KPI = key performance indicator) (credit to u/atorMMM)
Your Personal Desus — Desus sometimes will recite lyrics by Depeche Mode “Personal Jesus” (1989) More than likely this is a play off his main alias (credit to u/justic3bon3r)
The Pelé of Peleton — Pelé (Edson Arantes do Nascimento) was a former Brazilian soccer player and considered one of the greats. Desus is an avid Peleton user so much he deems himself the greatest of all time
Your problematic bae — Desus occasionally says problematic things, but you still love him, hence him being your “bae”. He always ends with this one, followed by an exaggerated kissing sound.
*After Desus's last aka he gives some sort of problematic advice sometimes followed by explosions*

Mero

Mero (u/THE_KID_MERO) is far less consistent with his aliases. Depending upon how smacked he is, he will often exclude or repeat some of his aliases. He also adds them far less frequently than Desus.
The Kid Mero — In a Hot 97 interview on April 13th 2017, Mero explained that this alias comes from the fact that his father and uncle wanted to name him "Ramiro", but his mother vetoed it and named him "Joel". His father and uncle continued to call him "Ramiro", which was shortened to "Miro" as a nickname. When Mero started tagging, he changed Miro to Mero because he found E to be a nicer letter to write (credit to u/atorMMM) as well as he just didn't like how the "i" looked. Also tagging the name "Ramiro" that long would get you arrested
The Human Durag Flap — Mero’s original nickname, and a reference to how hood he is and his uncircumcised status, something that gets referenced very often (credit u/ZeddyG2 and u/chandlersokay)
Curve Gotti — A play on “Irv Gotti”, former boss of Murder, Inc. records
Donovan Mcdabb — A play on former NFL player Donovan Mcnabb, in reference to dabbing, which could have two meanings (smoking THC oil or the dance move created by the Migos)
Trizz Khalifa — A play on “Wiz Khalifa”, but substituting the first part of the name with the slang “Trizz”. Usually said in a fake patois, imitating Popcaan's cry of "Fuck Wiz Khalifa!" at a Mixpak event
SKKRRRT Loder — A play on “Kurt Loder” former host on MTV News and editor at Rolling Stone
James St. Fatdick, I'll Ghost on you shorty — Originated right around the premiere of season 4 of Starz hit show "Power", here referencing the main character James St. Patrick, whose street alias is "Ghost"
Tiger Backwoods — A reference to pro golfer Tiger Woods and Mero’s love for smoking backwoods
“I no fucking baby, I fucking man!” — A reference to the viral video that sent friend of the brand Pioladitingancia to fame
“Check the guest list again because my name is definitely on it, and no I’m not stepping to the side while you check! ” — Not so much a nickname but something Mero might have said back in the day when he was broke and had to lie about being on guest lists to get into clubs
CC Dab-bathia — A play on Yankees Starting Pitchers name, CC Sabathia (and close friend of the brand)
Goldman Shm-achs — A variation of the phrase made popular by Bobby Shmurda and a reference to Goldman Sachs.
Mensch Montana — An alias borrowed from French Montana (who is from South Bronx) and popular artist with the Bodega Boys. They have mentioned his classic Mac and Cheese mixtapes numerous times on the podcast. Also this is a nod to his Jewish family connection; Mensch is Yiddish for "good guy." (credit to u/chefboyardu)
The Da-da-da Dad of the year — A play on a lyric from ScHoolboy Qs song "Man of The Year" (credit u/ZeddyG2). Mero already has three Mero Jr’s and the bodega princess, and as far as we can tell is an awesome dad, thus earning such a title. Confirmed to be a ScHoolboy Q reference in episode 56
Been-Smacked Biyombo — A play on “Bismack Biyombo”, a professional basketball player on the Charlotte Hornets
Di-Yayo Maradona — Reference to Argentinean soccer legend Diego Maradona and slang for coke (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Dick-in-ya-bae Mutombo — A play on Dikembe Mutombo, former NBA player. Mero now respects the woman’s agency and asks for permission first before entering
Barlos Santana — A play on famed guitarist Carlos Santana and Xanax bars
The Dominican Don Dada — Jamaican Patois slang (I believe) for “top pimp” or “big player”, and as we know Mero is of Dominican descent, hence “Dominican Don Dada”. The phrase "Jamaican Don Dada" is used by the character Lennox in the movie "Belly", which is a classic in hip hop culture (credit to u/a-1-since-day-1) He follows this up with "catch me at Locksmith throwing up on myself". Locksmith is a bar on 192nd & Broadway in Inwood, which is a REALLY Dominican NYC neighborhood (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Some variation of "swipe my card again, put the bag over it, there's definitely money on it!" — A reference to a familiar experience for anyone who has been broke, in which you lie and act like it's the store's fault when your card gets declined
Romeo Xantos — A reference to famed Bachata artist and Xanax, Bachata being a dance and music style originating in the Dominican Republic. Also the added "Sooo xanny, lemme black out" is a play on Romeo's adlib "sooo nasty, lemme find out" (credit to u/terminal-chillness)
Light-an-L Dutchie "Hello? Is it weed you're looking for?" — Another weed double entendre referencing Lionel Richie and his famous song "Hello"
Papa Sushi, The Dyckman Don — A reference to often-referenced MamaSushi, a fusion sushi restaurant on Dyckman Street in Manhattan
Tom Brazy, your girl got my balls deflated — A boastful play on the Deflategate controversy surrounding Tom Brady and the New England Patriots after the 2014-2015 AFL Championship game
Feel-da-ass Tyson (CONSENSUALLY WITH YOUR PERMISSION) — A play on “Neil DeGrasse Tyson”, a well known physicist
Lil’ Snoozie Vert— A play on the name Lil Uzi Vert. This is also in reference for when Mero actually ‘tapped out’ on Instagram Live
Fry-an-L Messi — A play on Lionel Messi, a famous Argentinian soccer player of Italian descent, and smoking an "L", slang for blunt
Joe Hookah "I dare you! To smoke with me! At MamaSushi!" — A reference to rapper Black Rob's song "I Dare You" that features Joe Hooker on the hook. MamaSushi is a high-end restaurant chain located in New York
Ben Barson my hands are gifted — During the 2016 election cycle, famed neurosurgeon Ben Carson engaged in a brief campaign for the Republican nomination. Mero took to doing impressions of him, exaggerating Carson’s urban upbringing by saying he was “Ben Barson”, in which the “C” was replaced with a “B”, as a Blood gang member would. Unlike Desus, who almost never fumbles his nicknames, Mero has maybe said this one correctly one time
Xaniel Bedingfield — A play on Daniel Bedingfield followed by Mero playing "I Gotta Get Through This" a popular song by the artist Daniel Bedingfield with lyrics that are about Xanax (credit to u/KTTeal)
Some variation of “I’ll open your medicine cabinet and take all of your Benzos” — This is self-referential in two ways: 1. The earlier reference here is to when Mero admitted to Desus that he will unashamedly go through people’s medicine cabinets in order to snoop on their lives and 2. After the boat party story in which Mero got drunk and took some Xanax’s, he added “I’ll take all of your benzos” bit to express how much he enjoys the feeling Benzodiazepines create
The Xandman — This is a play on the musical artist “Scatman John” who was most known for his song “Scatman’s World”, the chorus of which Mero imitates with this name and the accompanying vocalization
Rico Sabroso — Spanish for “Rich Tasty”, but I’m not sure what the reference here is beyond that
Baby Newport — I assume a reference to Newport brand cigarettes, stereotypically popular in urban areas
Niño Brown — A reference to the main character of the film “New Jack City”, in which Wesley Snipes plays a crack dealer named Nino Brown, but pronounced like the Spanish word for "kid", giving it some Latino flavor (credit to u/Okieant33)
The East Tremont Stevie B — East Tremont is a predominately Hispanic area of the Bronx, while Stevie B was a recording artist from the 80’s with some incredible Jheri Curls. Sometimes sings "I want to be the one your Titi is fucking" after
I met Mike Francesca im never gon’ fail — A direct reference from when the Bodega Boys actually met Mike on the last episode on Desus & Mero on Viceland. In translation, this means after finally meeting with the iconic Sports Pope this makes him unstoppable. This is also a reference to Kanye West's song 'Ultralight Beam' where Chance the Rapper says "I met Kanye West, I'm never gonna fail" (credit to u/RemyDWD)
The Plantain Supernova in the Sky — A reference to the Oasis hit “Champagne Supernova”, but changed to reflect Mero’s Dominican heritage, which often uses plantains in its cuisine. Occasionally he will sing an extended version, which goes “One day you will find me, smoking weed on Tremont/in the Plantain Supernova in the sky”. How does he hit these melodies so perfectly every time?
Tom Petty and the Ball Breakers — A play on the rock band name ‘Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’. Mero sings the chorus from Tom Petty’s solo project “Free Fallin’” as “Free Ballin’” suggesting that he feels free doing his Zoom calls without pants
Barmelo Xanthony — An incredible play on the Bodega Boy’s favorite NBA player, Carmelo Xanthony, and Mero’s beloved Xanax’s. (credit to u/terminal-chillness) Most recently, Mero has changed his references to him making sound financial decisions and balancing his portfolio since the interview with Carmelo himself on Desus & Mero on Showtime
Some variation of “If you see me in Target approach me like a bear” — Originates from Mero’s love of getting really high and hanging out in Target. Being high sometimes makes him paranoid, so he doesn’t like people just running up on him. Desus suggested people “approach him diagonally, like you would a bear”. Mero interchanges “bear”, “Ursine Mammal”, and “Oso” (Spanish for “bear”) at random
Benzo the Clown — A problematic clown for kids that ruins birthday parties and not refunding your $50 deposit. Originated on Episode 96, Desus starts talking about rolling up to Mero Jr’s bar mitzvah smacked. (credit to u/outtaspite) Benzo’s antics are normally cut short by Mr. Fun Fun (voiced by Desus) normally ending with the problematic light
I sold fake Lean to your favorite SoundCloud rapper — Not sure this is a specific reference other than the fact that Lean is pretty much a guaranteed accessory for any SoundCloud rapper and Actavis discontinued their codeine/promethazine cough syrup in 2014 due to abuse, so a lot of people are drinking fake Lean.
"Llego el hijo de Tito y Fifa papi"/"The son of Tito and Fifa has arrived, papi — In later episodes, Mero began to include some Spanish phrases at the end of his list of aliases, usually beginning with this phrase and building off of it. When Mero does this he also says "Hassan tira me lo pita" which is slang for "Hassan drop me a beat". Mero is making pretend that he's a DJ on NY's Spanish Radio Station 97.9 La Mega. Mero from here goes on to talk all kinds of shit about how hard and gangster he is. (credit to u/bobbuddha and u/Okieant33)
Please correct me if you have ideas or see mistakes!
​
Discontinued aliases:
Desus
Mero
submitted by veeno__ to bodegaboys [link] [comments]

The coaching decisions and adjustments were championship calibre last night. Amazing job by Doc and his crew!

Last week, I wrote a long piece about our lack of adjustments, and how it was the only thing I'm nervous about at this point in the season. Well? Last night was the perfect elixir for my ailments. Absolutely phenomenal job by our coaching staff, in what looked like a lost game and another imminent fold-job.
I want to go through a few things piece by piece and give praise where it's due...
With Jojo out, we simply cannot command our usual paint presence:
Through the first 20 games, it was obvious that as a team and as a coaching staff, we were struggling to admit or face up to it. We consistently tried to stick to our 1-in-4-out offensive scheme. But with Dwight, Tony, or even the few minutes of Poirier we've seen, we simply couldn't get it done.
Last night, we finally played a different offense. Yes, it was brutal to watch in the first 3 quarters, but they eventually got the flow and it looked really solid. Instead of relying on our MVP to handle the entire inner floor while we space 4 guys around the perimeter, we were bringing our outside guys in quite a bit. Ben was closer to the basket, even hovering right underneath it quite a few times. Tobi was playing at 14 feet and rarely looked for his 3's (which lead to success when he eventually did). Shake and Maxey were consistently driving. Kork and Seth were the only guys consistently spreading, and even they had more than a few drives.
When we have Joel in the middle, we can play an offense that only 1% of all teams in NBA history could even dream of pulling off. He's so fucking dominant that that is our current reality. But it has also been our Achilles' Heel for the first quarter of the year. We get so used to it, that when he sits, we look lost out there.
Changing our patented double-screen offense:
Again, this was severly impacted with Joel sitting. Since we usually have 4 guys on the perimeter, we can use 2 bodies to set a nice, wide, double screen for our ball handler to get open. It's been crazy effective all season, and it's a beautiful offensive scheme. BUT, it leaves the inside wide open, and requires someone extraordinarily talented to handle the assignment, aka, MVP candidate Joel Embiid.
Instead, Doc & Co switched things up and ran single screens most of the night. Single screens lead to a lot more quick inside cuts, and that's why we had so many 12 and 14 foot shots. Seth, Shake, Maxey, and Kork were all cutting in to the basket because the lack of Jojo had the Pacers pressing at the 3point line all game long. Hell, even Danny got his first bucket from a cut, and he almost never plays inside.
Of course, in the beginning, none of our shots were falling and things looked ugly. But they stuck with it, which is the important thing. A lot of coaches would try something different, give it a quarter, and then revert back to what they knew. In this case, sticking it out and forcing it to work was the right call. We all knew the shots had to fall at some point. It was just a matter of statistical probability.
High-tempo offense:
We also relied far more heavily on high-tempo, which was a joy and a revelation for all the Ben haters and equally all the Ben lovers out there. Typically, we only use our speed on obvious fast-break opportunities or on quick-turnaround inbounds passes. But last night, we pushed hard early and often. Ben was an "option A" scorer far more than usual.
I really like this modification, because it highlights Shake's and Maxey's natural abilities to be speed-demons. They are far more successful moving at high speed. Shake is a funny one, because his cool and calm style makes it look like he's a slowdown player, but it's the deception that makes his game so effective. In fact, I think a lot of Shake's recent issues can be attributed to us running way more set plays this season. He's better on the fly, making it up as he goes. He's a true shot creator - something we always talk about needing more of - but our new offensive style for this season inhibits that more than embraces it. Last night was a different story. He only went 4-for-9, but he looked so much more in his flow.
Leaving guys in who earned it:
Again, something we've done all season so far, is to stick to line-up switches and routines, even when things look terrible. It's been very frustrating to watch at times. Yelling at my computer screen, get this guy out, or get this guy in. I know it's early in the season and we need to work through pain and problems to figure out what works and what doesn't.
But last night we saw another huge change when Doc left Kork and Tisse in for almost the entire 4th quarter, and even let them finish out the game. They absolutely earned the chance, and he gave it to them. It turns out that it paid off wonderfully, as Tisse came up with what seemed like every steal and every block, and Kork just crushed it with his shooting and even with his handles(?!).
It was a joy to see how much everyone was smiling. You could literally see the confidence building up as they were putting together the comeback. I knew we were going to win when we cut the score down to 10 and the Pacers called a timeout. They were in trouble and they were getting nervous. It was fucking awesome.
And lastly, the ZONE:
Wow, what an amazing adjustment. Just completely changed the game in every conceivable way. The Pacers rely on team offense and aren't a modern 3-pt squad. For the first 3 quarters, we played them man-to-man and allowed their quick passes and team flow to kill us. They kept finding inside looks with Jojo on the sidelines.
The second we switched to zone defense, they couldn't run their circles and they couldn't find their spots. Ben and Tisse at the top of the 2-3 zone is a fucking cheat code. It was like running into a brick wall for the Pacers, and they were so completely dumbfounded by it. TJ, Brogdan, Lamb, and Holiday couldn't get their first steps to start a play, and no one could properly feed the ball into Sabonis, McDermott, or Turner (before he fouled out).
All in all, it was just a great thing to witness. It was near 3am in Ireland, and I was sitting in the spare room grinning like the Joker and trying really hard not to wake up my in-laws by cheering.
Great game, Doc. Great game, coaching staff. While Ben, Tobi, Kork, and Tisse deserve credit for the sweat, you guys deserve credit for the brains. I'm so relieved as a fan knowing that we have a coaching staff that isn't affraid to make huge changes mid-game.
Bravo. Trust the process.
submitted by EroniusJoe to sixers [link] [comments]

Ranking Sunday's games by watchability

I seem to remember someone doing this a few years back and really enjoying it, so I thought I'd give it a shot with the condensed schedule leaving so many games on the schedule each night. I'm ranking each game in three categories: competitiveness, importance, and style points/storylines (which includes star power, the style of basketball, and any intriguing stories to watch). I'll include a survey at the end where you can predict the winners of each game!
Let me know if this is something you'd like to see again!
10) Milwaukee Bucks (1-1) vs. New York Knicks (0-2) at 7:30 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Milwaukee -11
Last Meeting: January 14th, 2020. RJ Barrett drained five threes and Bobby Portis scored 20 off the bench, but the Bucks dominated the Knicks at Fiserv Forum 128-102. The two teams combined for a whopping 79 points in the third quarter.
The Bucks have won their last five meetings with the Knicks, with the last New York win coming in an overtime thriller at the Garden in December of 2018.
Competitiveness: A championship contender that dismantled the Warriors by 40 facing the Knicks on the tail end of a back-to-back. Not much else to say here. 1.5/10
Importance: This game is essentially a scheduled win for the Bucks, and a chance for the Knicks to test their young guys and let them grow up a little. Unfortunate that Obi Toppin will be on the sidelines for this one. 2/10
Style Points: The high-flying Bucks offense has been off to another hot start, topping the 120 point mark in both of their games. The Knicks' young guns have shown promise and made so flashy plays, but they also turn the ball over a lot. Neither team tends to foul a lot or shoot a ton of free throws, which will help game flow.
Some might keep an eye on Giannis' free throw shooting, but the real story to watch is RJ Barrett's three point accuracy. He lit it up from distance against Indiana, but struggled mightily against Philly. Can he take a step forward in that department this season?
Bonus points for the MSG crew calling this game. 6/10
Overall Rating: 3/10
9) Brooklyn Nets (2-0) vs. Charlotte Hornets (0-2) at 7:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: NBA TV
Spread: Brooklyn -7.5
Last Meeting: February 22nd, 2020. The Nets used a third quarter explosion to turn a comfortable win into a rout as they won 115-86. Luwawu-Cabarrot led the team in scoring with 21, while Garrett Temple of all people snagged eleven boards.
Competitiveness: The Nets have steamrolled over their competition so far, blowing out the Warriors and Celtics by 20+ points. The Hornets have struggled with two losses to non-contenders, and come into this game on the wrong end of a back-to-back. 1.5/10
Importance: A contending Nets team cannot afford to drop games like this one, especially in the early part of the season when there are so many eyeballs on KD and Kyrie. The Hornets could really use a positive performance to get their season headed in the right direction. 4/10
Style Points: The Nets have stars all over the court and have looked like a juggernaut early this season, making them one of the most intriguing teams to watch, and a fun one too, as they've played fast and made lots of threes. Charlotte ranked last in pace of play last season but seems to be trying to pick things up. You'll get the Charlotte crew for this game on NBA TV, and they call a fun game.
Terry Rozier and Gordon Hayward are two guys to pay attention to- Rozier dropped 42 on a Cavs team that sucks at defending point guards. Is he headed for a breakout season? Hayward was shut down by the Thunder last night and will look to get things going. Plus LaMelo Ball! 8/10
Overall: 4.4/10
8) Golden State Warriors (0-2) vs. Chicago Bulls (0-2) at 8:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Golden State -2.5
Last Meeting: December 6th, 2019. Glenn Robinson III made the go-ahead layup with a minute left and a very different looking Warriors team beat the Bulls 100-98 in Chicago. Denzel Valentine was ejected in the third quarter for yelling at the Warriors' bench.
Competitiveness: The Warriors have been blown out by two great teams so far. The Bulls have been blown out by two mediocre teams and just played a deflating contest against the Pacers last night. 4.5/10
Importance: Both teams could really use their first win of the season. The Warriors cannot afford to lose to teams like the Bulls if they're going to contend for the playoffs. This probably still figures as a matchup of two non-contenders, though. 5.5/10
Style Points: The Bulls have lots of exciting young players, but they seem turnover-prone and have struggled to score. Neither team has been able to stop literally anyone on defense so far (lol thanks Golden State for taking Wiggins), so there's a chance this turns into one of those ridiculous shootouts where both teams top 70 in the first half.
Patrick Williams looked good in his first game against the Hawks, but the Pacers were able to shut him down. Watching him adjust to the breakneck pace of games and the new level of competition will be interesting. The Warriors will need to find other sources of offense besides Curry and Wiseman, and this game is a perfect chance for them to do so. Definitely opt for the Chicago broadcast if you tune in. 4.5/10
Overall: 4.8/10
** 7)Philadelphia 76ers (2-0) vs. Cleveland Cavaliers (2-0) at 7:30 pm EST**
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Philadelphia -6
Last Meeting: February 26th, 2020. The Sixers had to play most of the game without their two best players as Joel Embiid left in the first quarter with a sprained shoulder. The Cavs, then the worst team in the East, led the entire way and won 108-94.
Competitiveness: The Cavs look like a much better team this year as Sexton has another year under his belt and they have Drummond underneath. There's a long way to go to challenge the Sixers, though, and they played an exhausting two-overtime trench war with the Pistons last night while Philly coasted to an easy win over the Knicks. 5/10
Importance: Definitely a litmus test game for the Cavs- can they hang with Philly and prove that they can be that dangerous team no one wants to face in the east play-in tournament? The 76ers might be looking past this game as they have a big clash with Tampa Bay coming up on Tuesday. 4/10
Style Points: This game gives us two matchups between stars. Joel Embiid has been on a mission to start this season, following up his 29/14 against Washington with a 27/10 against the Knicks. His matchup with Andre Drummond will be one to watch. At point guard, Simmons-Sexton could be an even more exciting face-off. The Cavs have played a more fun style of basketball this season, using Sexton to ignite a high pressure defense that stole a win in Detroit. That double-overtime win might prove costly tonight, though, when they run out of gas against a deeper and more talented Sixers team. Bonus points for the Cavs having that really fun color guy, I guess. 6.75/10
Overall: 5.25/10
6) Minnesota Timberwolves (2-0) vs. Los Angeles Lakers (1-1) at 10:00 pm EST
Where to watch: NBA TV
Spread: Los Angeles -11
Last Meeting: December 8th, 2019. AD dropped half a hundred and LeBron put up 32 and thirteen assists as the Lakers won a 142-125 slugfest. The Wolves hung around and trailed by only seven after three quarters before LA pulled away.
Competitiveness: The Wolves are off to a surprising 2-0 start, including an impressive win in Utah last night. Most would write this off as a scheduled loss, though, with a back-to-back against the defending champs and KAT getting dinged up at the end of the Jazz game. Still, it will be interesting to see how this new-look Wolves team trades punches with AD and Bron in the first half. 6/10
Importance: The Lakers seem to finally be settling into the new season after a disappointing showing on opening night, and will be looking for another statement win. Some Wolves fans have speculated that they will rest KAT after his injury scare tonight. I'd expect him to play, but no one in Minnesota thinks they will win this game. 3/10
Style Points: Anthony Edwards going up against two of the best in the game? DLo back in LA? Upstarts against the defending champs? Top notch storylines for this game, where the first half will be a good litmus test for Minnesota, before fatigue probably sets in for guys like Edwards and Culver and the game gets pretty ugly.
Minnesota's defense looks much improved this season, and their explosive bench can keep this game fun. And you know what you're getting with the Lakers' stars. Unfortunately the NBA TV rights to this game mean most fans will get the LA crew and miss out on the top notch Fox Sports North announcers. 8/10
Overall: 5.6/10
5) San Antonio Spurs (2-0) vs. New Orleans Pelicans (1-1) at 7:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: New Orleans -5
Last Meeting: August 9th, 2020. The Spurs and Pels faced off for a high-scoring showdown in the bubble that saw the two teams combined for 77 fourth quarter points. JJ Redick went off and hit eight threes and Zion chipped in 25, but the rest of their teammates shit the bed and the Spurs won 122-113.
Competitiveness: The Spurs are off to a fast start, most recently squeaking out an impressive win over the Raptors last night. The Pelicans have produced mixed results, but beat Tampa by a more impressive margin and have an extra day of rest. Expect a close one early, with New Orleans having a sizeable edge late. 6.5/10
Importance: Both teams figure to be in the hunt for the final playoff spots and will see each other plenty this season as they are both in the same division. I doubt the Spurs would sweat this B2B loss too much, though. 7/10
Style Points: Zion put up a highlight-worthy 32 and 14 on Christmas Day against the Heat, and the Pels look like a new team on defense, making them one of the most interesting squads to watch this year. Ingram, Redick, Hart, and Lonzo can combine for an offensive explosion at any time. The Spurs can play kind of a bland style sometimes, especially with 35 year old LaMarcus Aldridge playing on a back-to-back. Dejounte Murray, who just posted his first career triple double and looks much improved this season, will be an interesting to player to watch today. This one feels like it could be a snooze-fest or a barn-burner, with nothing in between. 6.75/10
Overall: 6.7/10
4) Boston Celtics (1-1) vs. Indiana Pacers (2-0) at 8:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Boston -2.5
Last Meeting: Tuesday March 10th, 2020. The Celtics were the last team the Pacers faced before Miss Rona stepped in and put a stop to the basketball for awhile. Marcus Smart made the go-ahead layup to rescue Boston in the final minute after they blew a 19 point lead, and they held on to win 114-111. Sabonis posted a 28-9-8 night for Indiana.
Competitiveness: The Celtics have the rest advantage, as they got the night off to lick their wounds after a Christmas Night Stomping at the hands of KD and Kyrie, while the Pacers had to take the floor last night and beat up on the Bulls. The Pacers figure to be in the middle of the playoff pack, while the Celtics would like to challenge the Bucks and Nets at the top, and this game will be a huge early measuring stick for both teams. The Pacers will have home floor, which makes this anyone's game. 8/10
Importance: It's never too early to have a big game for playoff seeding! The Celtics will be anxious to prove that their opening game win against Milwaukee was no fluke, while the Pacers need to show us that they can beat someone better than the Knicks and Bulls. 7.5/10
Style Points: This is where this game kind of falls short. Tatum, Kemba, Sabonis, Brown, and others all provide lots of star power, but aren't the big names featured elsewhere on this list, and both teams tend to play slower, more defensive-oriented basketball. The Celtics' thumping at the hands of the Nets is more of a story for Brooklyn than for Boston, and Indiana has maybe been the playoff team that jumped off the page less than anyone else so far. Add in a game that's only broadcast locally and that overlaps with every other game but two and this game takes a bump in a packed Sunday night slate.
Still, this should be a very good game between two playoff teams, and a fun one to tune in for down the stretch if the Pacers keep it close. 5.5/10
Overall: 7/10
T-2) Orlando Magic (2-0) vs. Washington Wizards (0-2) at 7:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Washington -1.5
Last Meeting: Last night! The Magic and Wizards squared off for their first of back-to-back games, which was an exciting back-and-forth contest. The Magic had the edge on the glass for much of the game, which only intensified late as they pulled away and the Wizards started pressing and taking bad shots. Beal went off for 39 points while Westbrook posted a triple-double, proving that they can in fact play together just fine.
Competitiveness: Last night's game was a see-sawing battle for most of the evening. Orlando looks like the better team and one of the more improved squads in the East, if their win against Miami is any indication. Still, beating a team on their home floor twice in a row is extraordinarily difficult, and the Wizards get to regroup and see if they can fix their rebounding woes against the same team. Expect another entertaining toss-up!9/10
Importance: Both teams are in roughly the same boat: improved squads who will likely find themselves sitting on the edge of the Eastern Conference playoff field. They won't see each other again in the first half of the season, and to pick up a quick two games on their competition would be an enormous boost for Orlando. 7.5/10
Style Points: The Wizards have been playing a fun new style with Russ and Bradley Beal sharing the load on offense, and early speculation about how the pair will get along on the court has been promising. The Magic get the job done with comparatively little star power, but Vucevic has always been one of the more underrated players in the league and deserves some recognition. Terrence Ross and Davis Bertans will be other players to keep an eye on- Ross has been extremely hot offensively in his first two games, while Bertans is a streaky shooter who can be the key to Washington winning or losing.
Perhaps the most interesting storyline, though, is the back-to-back baseball-style two game series. College leagues are trying this out across the country and we've seen in leagues like the MAAC, Mountain West, and others how hard it is for superior teams to beat the same team on consecutive nights. We've also gotten a glimpse of this in the NBA preseason. This time, the teams are very evenly matched. How will the Wizards adjust tonight? What effect will the wonky scheduling have? 8/10
Overall: 8.2/10
T-2) Dallas Mavericks (0-2) vs. Los Angeles Clippers (2-0) at 3:30 pm EST
Where to Watch: NBA TV
Spread: Los Angeles -5
Last Meeting: August 30th, 2020. The Clippers knocked the Mavs out of the first round of the playoffs, winning Game 6 after the game was moved back due to the player strike. Doncic dropped 38 and Dorian Finney-Smith chipped in 16, but only one other Dallas played cracked double digits. L.A. moved on to the next round where they cruised through the first four games against the Nuggets and...oh wait hahahahahahahahahaha.
Competitiveness: The Mavs need to get their shit together. They posted a close opening night loss against the Suns and then got their doors kicked in by the Lakers... neither of those are alarming results, but they're not the mark of a playoff team. The Clippers are angry at the way last season ended, ready to take it out on the league, and they've looked like a juggernaut with Nic Batum in their lineup, putting up convincing wins over the other top two teams in the West. Doncic can keep any game close, but he needs his teammates to carry some of the load, and the Clippers are still the clear favourites here. 6.5/10
Importance: Dallas needs to show that they can beat playoff teams, as their schedule for the next few weeks doesn't get any easier after tonight. They'll face the Heat, Rockets, Magic, Nuggets, and Pelicans. They'll have to figure out who their second and third best scoring options are in the process. Both teams will be looking for a statement win on a national stage- they're the only teams playing in the afternoon tomorrow and get a national broadcast on NBA TV. 8/10
Style Points: Kawhi... Luka... PG13.... could you really get any more star power? The Mavs looking for revenge on the team that knocked them out of the playoffs by beating them in a Sunday Showcase game (albeit on NBA TV) in their house provides a great story to go along with the stars. The Clippers have been red hot from three point range to start the season, and a Mavs defense that allowed 138 points to the Lakers will probably provide plenty of opportunities for more fireworks. If not for the potential of a lopsided final score, this would be the #1 game of the day. Tune into this instead of football on a relatively light NFL day. 10/10
Overall: 8.2/10
1) Phoenix Suns (1-1) vs. Sacramento Kings (2-0) at 9:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Phoenix -3.5
Last Meeting: Last night! Sacramento jumped out to a 15-2 lead, but the Suns almost immediately cut that in half, and tied the game early in the third quarter. The teams traded baskets for much of the second half, with DeAaron Fox and Buddy Hield carrying the offensive load for the Kings, who held on to win thanks to some timely offensive rebounding from Richaun Holmes.
Competitiveness: Aside from the early flurry from the Kings, these teams were as evenly matched as they come, trading punches for the entire second half. The Suns probably won't shoot 11-44 from three point range again tonight, and the Kings will probably take better care of the basketball. Regardless, we're in for a fascinating rematch of two Western Conference playoff hopefuls. 10/10
Importance: Both the Suns and the Kings are exciting young teams with opportunities to improve on last season, and both figure to end up in that 7-10 seed range in the Western Conference. These two teams won't see each other again in the first half of the season, and the Suns cannot afford to drop back-to-back contests against one of their competitors for the last couple of playoff spots. The Kings, meanwhile, were largely overlooked by fans and writers heading into the season and look poised to outperform expectations. Going 3-0 to start the season would do a lot to quiet the doubters. Regardless, this two game series will likely end up mattering down the road. 8/10
Style Points: The Suns were the talk of the NBA Bubble in August and have continued turning heads with their opening night win against the Mavs. Chris Paul's presence at point guard allows them to run a better offense than "just let Devin Booker chuck as many threes as he wants and hope Ayton rebounds enough to let us eke out a close win". They're still a fun, up-tempo team that shoots lots of threes, and finally play some good defense if that's your thing too. Sacramento announced themselves as a team not to be slept on with their opening night win against the Nuggets (thanks Will Barton), and the trend continued last night. They've attempted the fewest threes of any team through two games this year, and their game plan of Fox driving and everyone crashing the glass gives us an intriguing contrast of styles.
Like I mentioned for the Wizards game, the baseball-style series also presents us with interesting questions to answer in this game (how will the Suns adjust on the glass? can the Kings beat the same team twice in a row?), and a nerve-wracking two games between two teams who are very close in talent level and playoff hopes. Perhaps most importantly, Phoenix's broadcast is the only one on League Pass so far that has figured out their on-court audio and actually sounds normal. Keep that one in mind! 8/10
Overall: 8.7/10
I also made a Google Form where you can pick all the winners of today's games... I'll link that below. Thought it would be cool to see how Reddit does predicting the winners. I'll close the form at 3:30 when the Mavs and Clips tip off. I'll try to pare this down length-wise if and when I do this again. Thanks for reading!
Pick the winners here!
submitted by rally_parakeet to nba [link] [comments]

Projected NBA Score 2-7

I wrote a python script using KNN algo to project points scored for every team on the NBA slate today. It takes Money Line, Spread, Total, and Team Total as its parameters. Basically what it does is goes through the entire training set of past NBA games and takes the current game and looks to see which games matches the current game and then returns the score from those games.
Projections:
MIA @ NYK 99-93
UTA @ IND 118-108
WAS @ CHA 115-108
BOS @ PHO 104-102
SAC @ LAC 111-120
I'll continue to update these up until 10 min before tip and I'm working on one right now for the Super Bowl.
submitted by au510 to dfsports [link] [comments]

The 2004 Pistons was a bigger upset than the 2011 Mavs

I feel this gets spread around a lot because there's a lot of negative anti-Lebron stuff spreading on social media all the time, but I think the 2011 Mavericks need to be re-evaluated. They were a lot better than people think.
2011 Mavericks:
-Had a great coach in Rick Carlisle
-Had one all star on the team that year (Dirk)
-Won 57 games in the stronger Western conference (compared to 58 for the Heat in the weaker conference)
-Beat the Trail Blazers in 6 in the first round
-Swept the defending Laker champions in the second round
-Beat the OKC big 3 in 5 games in the Semifinals
-Led by HoFer Dirk Nowitzki, but had solid players like HoFer Jason Kidd, Jason Terry (part of the 18k point club), former all star Shawn Marion, future DPOY Tyson Chandler, and former all star Peja Stojakovich coming off the bench. All these guys were still solid, they might have been "old" but that didn't mean they were washed up, because as we know different players age differently (Steve Nash and Kyle Lowry for example didn't start their prime until they were 29). Old does not automatically mean less productive.
And of course, beat the Miami Heat Big 3 in 6 games.
2011 Heat had an inexperienced coach in Eric Spoelstra (he would get better of course as we saw in last years Finals, but back then he was inexperienced), had a roster that was playing together for the first time and was top heavy consisting of Bron, Wade and Bosh but their bench wasn't as deep as the Mavs bench.
Of course it was still an upset, and everyone talks about Lebron choking when he 'only' averaged 18 / 7 / 7 in the Finals on 48% shooting. But everyone thinks this was one of the biggest upsets in NBA history, which it really wasn't, when you look at the 2011 Mavs, which had a bunch of veteran guys playing in a stronger conference with stronger chemistry with each other, up against a younger inexperienced 'superteam'. The Mavs were a very solid team, and the key piece btw was Tyson Chandler, it was a prime example of all the pieces fitting well, which is why the Mavs never reached those heights since.
No one really talks about the 2004 Pistons beating the 2004 Lakers as a huge upset anymore, and it really was a bigger upset than the 2011 Mavs beating the Heat. Let's take a look:
2004 Pistons:
-Had a great coach in Larry Brown
-Had one all star on the team that year (Ben Wallace)
-Won 54 games in the weaker Eastern conference (compared to 56 for the Lakers in the stronger Western conference)
-Beat the Bucks in 5 games in the first round
-Beat the Nets in 7 games in the second round
-Beat the Pacers in 6 games in the Semifinals
-Led by a group of solid players who were all stars - Chauncey Billups, Ben Wallace, Rip Hamilton and Rasheed Wallace, but none of them were surefire HoF level players and indeed, none of them are in the HoF right now.
And of course, beat the Lakers newly formed 'superteam' in 5 games.
The 2004 Lakers, like the 2011 Heat, was also kind of a newly formed team, but Shaq and Kobe had won championships together already, and Derek Fisher himself has said that this was the most humiliating defeat of his career. Malone was injured in the Finals sure, but Shaq was still putting up 27/11 on 63% shooting in the Finals. Ben Wallace wasn't stopping him. The reason why the Lakers lost that year is because of one Kobe Bryant, who put up 23 / 3 / 4 on a horrible 38% shooting that series. He tried forcing himself to be the main player when he should have been deferring to Shaq. But, no one talks about Kobe choking in this series at all, and instead talk about how great the Pistons were, especially their defense. And they had a Hall of Fame coach in Phil Jackson.
The 2004 Pistons had a tougher time getting past their opponents in the weaker conference (the entire 2000s had a weak East with teams like the 76ers, Nets and Magic reaching the Finals) compared to the 2011 Mavs cruising through the playoffs in the stronger conference. They didn't have any players who we would consider Hall of Famer level compared to the 2 HoFers who were on the 2011 Mavs. They beat supposedly the greatest duo ever in Kobe and Shaq both in their primes, along with two other HoFers (Malone and Payton) in less games (Mavs needed 6 to beat the Heat). They did this with no player averaging more than 22 points a game. They beat a team with a better coach, whereas the Mavs had the stronger coach in 2011.
Why don't people consider the 2004 Pistons to be the bigger upset? Why does everyone talk about the 2011 Mavs? Why do people always say that Lebron choked in the 2011 Finals but don't say a word about Kobe choking in the 2004 Finals? All the evidence points to the 2011 Mavericks being a better team than the 2004 Pistons and the 2004 Lakers being a better team than the 2011 Heat. And yet the Mavs beating the Heat is constantly talked about and Lebron's performance constantly criticized when by any other player's standards, averaging 18/7/7 in the Finals on 48% FG% is hardly 'choking'.
submitted by gofishus to nba [link] [comments]

[OC] Which U.S. President could field the best NBA team (based on players that were drafted during his time in office?)

We have an important election coming up, but I promise NOT to talk about that. Instead, we wanted to divert into full offseason shit post territory with the age-old (?) question: which president saw the best influx of talent into the NBA? Each president will coach up a team consisting of players that entered the draft during their administration.
I've given my own power rankings here, but feel free to submit your own. Although note: we acknowledge that modern athletes have gotten more athletic and skilled, so we have to adjust for eras accordingly. So if you were the most athletic player in 1960, you should be treated like one of the most athletic players now. If you were the best three-point shooter in 1980, you should be viewed as an excellent three-point shooter now (even if the stats have changed over time.)
Without further ado, here are the BEST PRESIDENTIAL TEAMS.
(13) TEAM HARRY TRUMAN (1947-1952)
PG: Bob Cousy (1950)
SG: Paul Arizin (1950)
SF: Harry Gallatin (1947)
PF: Dolph Schayes (1948)
C: Clyde Lovellette (1952)
team strategy: Fittingly, underdog president Harry Truman will oversee a team of underdogs here. PG Bob Cousy will be the steadying force for a team that features underrated stars like Paul Arizin and Dolph Schayes. Still, limited depth and balance may doom this team over the course of the tournament.
(12) TEAM DONALD TRUMP (2017-2019)
PG: Trae Young (2018)
SG: Donovan Mitchell (2017)
SF: Luka Doncic (2018)
PF: Jayson Tatum (2017)
C: Bam Adebayo (2017)
team strategy: President Donald Trump may be accused of being xenophobic, but he's always had an affinity for young Eastern Europeans. Given that, it makes sense that this team would be built around the talents of Luka Doncic. Still, the lack of experience for this team may be too much to overcome.
(11) TEAM JOHN F. KENNEDY (1961-1963)
PG: John Havlicek (1962)
SG: Dave DeBusschere (1962)
SF: Chet Walker (1962)
PF: Jerry Lucas (1963)
C: Nate Thurmond (1963)
team strategy: JFK's tragic assassination cut his presidency short, and consequently limited the amount of depth his team could acquire here. They'd have to ground and pound their way to victories, utilizing their size and strength with Jerry Lucas, Nate Thurmond, and Walt Bellamy off the bench. Of course, that doesn't tend to be a winning recipe in today's game.
(10) TEAM GERALD FORD (1975-1976)
PG: World B. Free (1975)
SG: David Thompson (1975)
SF: Adrian Dantley (1975)
PF: Alex English (1976)
C: Robert Parish (1976)
team strategy: Team Ford wouldn't be the most well-rounded in the tournament, but they'd have a clear identity. They'd load up on exciting scorers and try to run and gun teams off the floor. It may not lead to a boatload of victories in this crowded field, but it'd lead to some fun shootouts.
(9) TEAM GEORGE H.W. BUSH (1989-1992)
PG: Gary Payton (1990)
SG: Steve Smith (1991)
SF: Glen Rice (1989)
PF: Toni Kukoc (1990)
C: Shaquille O'Neal (1992)
team strategy: While the one-term President Bush doesn't have an overwhelming amount of talent to chose from, he does have a clear strategy here. The team can be built around the talents of Shaq, with shooters spreading the floor all around him. That logic helped Toni Kukoc get a starting nod over the more physical stars Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson.
(8) TEAM LYNDON B. JOHNSON (1964-1968)
PG: Walt Frazier (1967)
SG: Earl Monroe (1967)
SF: Rick Barry (1965)
PF: Wes Unseld (1968)
C: Elvin Hayes (1968)
team strategy: Forward-thinking LBJ would have more of a traditional lineup, with two guards, two bigs, and one shooting specialist in Rick Barry. The fact that Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe played together with the Knicks would help the chemistry of this team, although you'd like to see them have some more dynamic talent in the frontcourt. In theory, they could play Dave Bing and shift Barry down as an undersized stretch PF.
(7) TEAM JIMMY CARTER (1977-1980)
PG: Magic Johnson (1979)
SG: Sidney Moncrief (1979)
SF: Larry Bird (1978)
PF: Kevin McHale (1980)
C: Jack Sikma (1977)
team strategy: Nice guy Jimmy Carter had some unfortunate timing in real life, but he has some good timing here in this exercise, as two of the all-time greats fall into his single term with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. The depth of the team would be limited, but they'd have Bernard King as a sparkplug scorer off the bench.
(6) TEAM BARACK OBAMA (2009-2016)
PG: Stephen Curry (2009)
SG: James Harden (2009)
SF: Kawhi Leonard (2011)
PF: Giannis Antetokounmpo (2013)
C: Anthony Davis (2012)
team strategy: Based on efficiency and advanced stats, Team Obama would be a scoring machine that may be impossible to slow down. The only question mark with them would be a matter of size and strength. The backcourt doesn't feature lockdown defenders, and center Anthony Davis prefers not to bang with physical centers. That could be a problem in a field that features so many historically great and rugged big men. Of course, Coach Obama could always pivot to a more traditional lineup with big bodies like Joel Embiid or Rudy Gobert. Other stud bench players would include: Damian Lillard, Klay Thompson, Paul George, and Nikola Jokic.
(5) TEAM BILL CLINTON (1993-2000)
PG: Steve Nash (1996)
SG: Kobe Bryant (1996)
SF: Paul Pierce (1998)
PF: Kevin Garnett (1995)
C: Tim Duncan (1997)
team strategy: Coach Bill Clinton has a long history of "scoring," but his team would pride themselves on preventing others from doing the same. The defensive frontcourt of KG and Tim Duncan would be beastly. Given that, we thought the team could cover for the defensive limitations of PG Steve Nash. But if you want to triple down on defense, Jason Kidd is also eligible to join this team.
(4) TEAM RICHARD NIXON (1969-1974)
PG: Tiny Archibald (1970)
SG: George Gervin (1974)
SF: Julius Erving (1972)
PF: Bill Walton (1974)
C: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1969)
team strategy: Tiny Archibald may be on this team, but there's nothing small about the rest of the squad. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar would lead the team that would showcase several big names and several big bodies. Almost too many big bodies. We're going to try and jam Bill Walton in at the PF spot (feasible given his versatile game). The backups also skew "big" though, including Bob McAdoo, Artis Gilmore, and Bob Lanier. Heck, even the wings would be tall (with George Gervin and Dr. J both standing 6'7".) Overall, this towering team would make for a very difficult opponent, especially if Coach Nixon pulls out a few dirty tricks.
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(3) TEAM GEORGE W. BUSH (2001-2008)
PG: Chris Paul (2005)
SG: Dwyane Wade (2003)
SF: Kevin Durant (2007)
PF: LeBron James (2003)
C: Dwight Howard (2004)
team strategy: Headlined by LeBron James, this team would have overwhelming talent as well as natural chemistry. We'd feature the Banana Boat crew (with Carmelo Anthony eligible off the bench) along with James' current teammate in Dwight Howard. He may have a rivalry with Kevin Durant in real life, but as a pair they'd be a devastating 1-2 punch.
(2) TEAM DWIGHT EISENHOWER (1953-1960)
PG: Oscar Robertson (1960)
SG: Jerry West (1960)
SF: Elgin Baylor (1956)
PF: Bill Russell (1956)
C: Wilt Chamberlain (1959)
team strategy: This team would be exceptional, with the only question mark regarding whether rivals Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain could play together in the same frontcourt. If not, Bob Pettit looms as a potential replacement; he had good shooting ability for his day and could adapt to be a stretch four. Better yet, this team would have the benefit of a tactician coach in Eisenhower, the former general.
(1) TEAM RONALD REAGAN (1981-1988)
PG: John Stockton (1984)
SG: Michael Jordan (1984)
SF: Scottie Pippen (1987)
PF: Karl Malone (1985)
C: Hakeem Olajuwon (1984)
team strategy: In exercises like this, we tend to default to the "team that has Michael Jordan." We may be guilty of some of that here, but I genuinely think this team would gel very well together. We'd have two long-time Jazz teammates, two long-time Bulls teams, and Hakeem Olajuwon locking down the paint inside. The team would have balance, chemistry, and perhaps the only starting lineup that excels defensively from 1 to 5. For them, the only question mark would be the lack of elite three-point shooting. If we'd include benches, Reggie Miller would help solve that issue. The team would have a stacked bench that would also include Isiah Thomas, Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and David Robinson.
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Betting analysis for the 2020-2021 NBA season matchup between Orlando and Golden State. Includes ats, over/under and straight up odds analysis. Point Spread: Commonly called the line or spread, it is the number chosen by Las Vegas and overseas oddsmakers that they feel will get an equal number of people to wager on the underdog as on the NBA Picks (Today's Predictions, Tips, Parlays) Here you will find the best NBA picks as well as parlays for all of today's games. All of our expert NBA predictions are against the spread. The favorite in a game is listed as being minus (-) the point spread. The worse of the teams playing in the game is called the underdog. The bettor wins if this team wins the game outright or loses by an amount smaller than the point spread. The underdog in a game is listed as being plus (+) the point spread. Our experts offer picks on all the big NBA games. Check out our 2020 NBA Playoff Predictions or our NBA game picks to see what our handicappers are saying. What type of bets can I make on NBA games? Betting the point spread, straight up winner, and over/under point total are the three popular NBA bets. The team like Atlanta did better against the spread, going 443-439-19 (50.2% ATS) and covering the spread by an average of 0.4 points. Historical Results of Games with Similar Line Movement. Since the start of the 2017-2018 NBA season there have been 3 games where the closing line favored the initial favorite by 1.5 points more than the opening Point Spread. The point spread is commonly known as just the “spread,” and is the number chosen by sportsbooks that they believe will encourage an equal number of people to wager on the underdog and the favorite. The negative value (-7.5) means the team is favored by 7.5 points. NBA Point Spread. Ball Don't Lie 2014-12-04 Winning 54 games with Pete Myers as your shooting guard and Michael Jordan shagging flies ranks up there. As does sustaining three different three-peat winners in spite of fatigue, in-fighting, or championship-level competition on the opposing side of the floor. Free NBA Picks Against The Spread and Expert NBA Predictions For Today’s Games NBA S chedule 2020/21 The NBA and the NBAPA announced they’ve agreed upon the rules for the upcoming 2020/21 NBA season, following the Covid-19 stricken 2019-20 season that saw the Los Angeles Lakers crowned champions back in October. Pacers vs. Bucks odds, line, spread: 2021 NBA picks, Feb. 3 predictions from model on 73-44 roll The SportsLine Projection Model simulated Bucks vs. Pacers 10,000 times

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point spread for nba games

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