Ball V.1.41

Is Matt Barnes coming? Isn't he? I don't care. Just like Brett Favre, the Phoenix Coyotes situation, Jim Balsillie, & Scott Niedermayer.... I just don't care about these things anymore. I don't want to keep up to the minute with various "tweets." Just call me when a decision is made one way or the other.

Here's two things we do know:

1. Leandro Barbosa will be a Raptor next season.

2. Linas Kleiza will be a Raptor next season.

Based on that, let's do a bit of analysis:

LEANDRO BARBOSA

On the surface, Leandro Barbosa had his least successful season as a pro in 2009-10. He struggled with injuries, and when he was in the lineup, he found his minutes eaten away in the backcourt by Goran Dragic, Jason Richardson, and Jared Dudley.

He averaged 18 mpg (lowest since 04-05), shot a career-low 42% from the field (prev. low - 45%), 32% from 3-point land (prev. low - 37%), and therefore averaged under 10 pts per game for the first time in five seasons.

There's the bad.

Here's the good: When Barbosa was on the court, the Suns tended to be pretty good. Barbosa frequently pops up in Phoenix's best lineups, and his net plus/minus of +1.7 was 4th best on the team (behind Nash, Stoudemire, and Richardson).

Here's the best: Barbosa knows how to get to the rim. He's averaged over 5 attempts at the rim per 40 minutes in every NBA season he's played in, including averaging 6 per 40 minutes this past season.

To put that number in context, let's show where current Raptors rank in terms of attempts at the rim per 40 minutes last season:

Evans 6.4
Barbosa 6.0
Johnson 5.8
DeRozan 5.2
Jack 3.6
Weems 3.6
Banks 3.5
Bargnani 3.4
Calderon 3.4
Belinelli 3.1

So, in other words, the Raptors finally have a player capable of penetrating from the perimeter and getting to the hoop.

Finally, in listening to Bryan Colangelo, it sounds as if Barbosa will back up at both the point & shooting guard positions. This seems like a valid idea. I'm sure he can handle the ball (as the attempts at the rim show), but he hasn't exactly run an offence over the past few seasons. Consider his proportion of minutes played by position over the past few seasons

2009-10: 4% at PG, 96% at SG
2008-9: 56% at PG, 44% at SG
2007-8: 35% at PG, 65% at SG
2006-7: 33% at PG, 67% at SG
2005-6: 5% at PG, 95% at SG

So, Barbosa played the majority of his minutes at the point in just one season since 2005-6. All I'm saying is, if Colangelo is planning to have his two point guards be Jarrett Jack and Barbosa, I think the offence (and especially Andrea Bargnani) could suffer to get good open looks.

LINAS KLEIZA

The first thing about Kleiza that should be pointed out right away is that despite being known mainly as a small forward (and expected to compete for the starting spot in Toronto), the majority of his playing time as a Nugget in 2008-09 came as a Power Forward.

Granted, he was more effective in his time as a Small Forward (especially on the defensive side of the ball), but still, I think you actually might see a repeat of 08-09 in this upcoming season. I'm not sold that Amir Johnson will be able to stay on the floor (re: foul trouble), and I'm not sure Ed Davis or Solomon Alabi is ready for prime time. Also, if you read between the lines of what Bryan Colangelo is saying in the press, it sounds as if he wants his team to go small a fair bit, and I think the only way that happens is with Kleiza at the 4.

STAT OF THE DAY

Kleiza is not shy. He's a chucker of Belinelli-like proportions. Among the 2008-9 Nuggets, only Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith took more shots per minute than Kleiza, and only Smith took more 3-pointers than Kleiza's 6 per 40 minutes. Consider where that number would rank among last season's Raptors:

3pt FG per 40 mins

Kleiza 6.0
Belinelli 5.6
Turkoglu 5.1
Wright 5.0
Bargnani 4.6
Calderon 3.8
Jack 3.5

(FYI: Barbosa 6.9 per 40 mins last season)

Maybe that's the thing to take from today's read: Barbosa and Kleiza both aren't going to be shy about putting the ball up towards the rim, and that's probably a good thing, considering the team is losing about 3000 field goal attempts in Bosh, Turkoglu, Calderon, Wright, & Nesterovic.

Ball v.1.40

A change in philosophy... that's the term that keeps popping in my head when I think about what Bryan Colangelo is trying to accomplish this off-season. He's abandoning the idea that you can out-finesse or out-offence teams in the NBA, and he's going to a more traditional way of building a roster. Athletes on the wings, and size on the blocks... gone (or soon to be gone in the case of Jose Calderon) are players who rely on savvy and basketball IQ, and to a lesser extent, who rely on shooting. Consider the career outside shooting numbers of the current point guards and swingmen on the Raptors:

CAREER 3PT FG%

Barbosa - 40%

Calderon - 39%

Bargnani - 38%

Jack - 36%

Kleiza - 34%

Barnes - 33%

DeRozan - 25%

Weems - 11%

No one over 40% and with Calderon likely not on the roster come October, only one guard above 36%.

But just how smart of a shift is this? Colangelo is abandoning his Euro-based philosophy at a time when it seems to be catching on in the NBA. The two most lethal offences in the NBA (arguably) are those of Phoenix and Orlando. And a big part of those arsenals is the three-point shot. Consider: The Suns had 6 players who shot better than 39% from beyond the arc last season, while the Magic featured 7 players that made at least one three per game. With the likely loss of Calderon, the Raptors will have just two players who drained at least one three-point shot per game last season (Jack & Bargnani).

So as I said (and as John Hollinger has written about extensively), the three-point shot is increasingly becoming an integral part of the best offences in the NBA. Here is an excerpt from one of Hollinger's articles:

"Teams that take lots of 3s tend to win, and the more 3s they jack up, the more successful they are. The idea that "real" teams don't depend on the 3 is based in the old-school mentality that the 3 is a novelty shot, a circus trick that has little to do with real basketball.

The truth is the exact opposite, though. The Celtics and Lakers both shoot the 3 far more than the league average... and nearly every other quality team from the past several years -- the only low-3 teams to break through were Larry Brown's Pistons teams and the '06 Mavs."

Hollinger expanded on this again later in the 2008-9 season:

"Few stats correlate better with winning than 3-point attempts... Check this out: The teams in the top 10 in 3-point attempts per field goal attempt have a combined win % of .593 and those in the bottom 10 have a combined win % of .400. That's no accident. Three-point attempts have correlated highly with winning for the past several years."

So, as you can see, I question Colangelo's strategy for revamping the roster. I understand what he's trying to do, he's trying to improve on the defensive side of the ball, especially on the perimeter, and that makes sense. As good as the Raptors have been hitting shots from outside the past few seasons (think Parker, Calderon, Kapono, etc...), they've been just as bad at giving up the three ball. The team was a -91 in terms of 3pt FGM - Opponent 3pt FGM last season, that ranked 21st in the NBA.

But, as Hollinger continued, preventing 3-point makes or attempts, isn't nearly as important as what you do on the offensive end:

"Here's the really weird part: Preventing 3-point attempts does not convey any similar advantage. The bottom 10 teams in this category are a combined .501, while the top are .509 -- an insignificant difference, especially considering teams in the middle 10 are wore than both the top and bottom groups."

So long story short... I'm a bit skeptical of the changes. Though I know how important defence is, I'm not sure you can totally neglect the offensive side of the ball, despite what the Charlotte Bobcats & Larry Brown might have to say about that.

STATS OF THE DAY

So, we don't know yet if Matt Barnes will be a Raptor, but here's a quick synopsis of what he will bring to the team: Among SF, he ranked in the top 10 in True Shooting % last season. That figure is encouraging because he didn't shoot the three all that well last season, meaning his shot selection inside the three-point line must be pretty good.

Next, Barnes had a net plus/minus of +6.2, which was 3rd best on the Magic.

But one stat about Barnes stands out above the rest, and I think this probably had a lot to do with the Raptors bringing him in after the departure of Chris Bosh:

Barnes' rebounding percentage was 2nd best among NBA SF last season. Only the crazy-freakish-ball-hawk Gerald Wallace was better. And this wasn't an aberration. Barnes has ranked among the top 5 SF in rebounding percentage in each of the past 3 seasons.

Listen, when you lose 11 boards a game, you need to make them up in some way, and Amir Johnson won't grab all 11 of those rebounds. You need guys to grab boards all over the floor and Barnes will do that, and that's why I expect he'd win the starting spot at the 3 if he does end up being a Raptor.

Ball v.1.39

My break is over. I'm off work from TSN for 6 more weeks, so I thought it's time to revive the blog.

Anything big happening in Raptor-land these days???

Here's my top 10 thoughts about Bosh-to-Miami:

10. I'm sick of Twitter - At least the way athletes use it. From Bosh's "Should I stay or should I go" back in May to his "Got a bunch of calls & texts today, what's going on" type message today, it's become a joke. Players who you expect to be leaders and championship-winners shouldn't feel the need to be fawned over by faceless fans.

9. Without LeBron in for sure, Miami is not a title favourite by any stretch - Laid out quite nicely by John Hollinger here (insider), getting Bosh doesn't guarantee anything for the Heat, at least next season. I'd still put them behind Orlando and Boston in the East, depending on what else they do this off-season.

8. To those who say Bosh is overrated and won't be good in Miami: You're wrong. I've used this stat before, but here's the list of 24/10 guys over the last 20 years: Barkley, Bosh, Brand, Duncan, Ewing, Garnett, Malone, Shaq, Hakeem, Robinson, Webber. Granted, he's closer to Webber & Brand than he is to Duncan & Shaq, but that's still quite the list. The people who are questioning his talent are the people who have probably seen him play once over the past 4 years.

7. Boo Bosh? Don't think so - I don't think Chris handled this situation very gracefully (see #10 & #2), but having said that, I won't be booing him when he plays at the ACC this season. He honoured his contract, and played (relatively) hard every game. Needless to say, he's no Vince.

6. Not about Bosh, but best LeBron article I've read so far this summer can be found here.

5. Why I don't think LeBron is joining Bosh & Wade - The 3 players combined to take 4,197 FGA and 2,065 FTA last season. There's simply not enough possessions to go around for all 3 of them.

4. I nearly had a heart attack when I remembered Miami owns Toronto's 1st round pick in 2011. Good god, will they pull a Seguin-to-the-Bruins type of moment? But then I looked it up and realized it's lotto-protected 'til 2015.... so sleep easy, restless Toronto fans.

3. Bosh-less & Turkoglu-less Raptor analysis - So let's assume Bosh & Turkoglu are gone next season. Obviously, there will be new players in the fold, but what was the best Raptor lineup last season that didn't feature either of those two players? Jack-Belinelli-Weems-Johnson-Bargnani was actually the best performing unit on the entire team last season (min. 30 minutes played)

2. Bosh didn't keep his word to the Raptors - On April 21, Bosh said the following: "No matter what happens, me and Bryan (Colangelo) agreed to work together. I think that's important. I respect him as a GM and he respects me as a player. No matter what you do, you always want to do good business in this league. We're always going to talk."

1. Stan Van Gundy is my new hero - SVG already was quite entertaining for me with his sideline antics and crazy voice and awful wardrobe. But this article takes it to a whole new level for me... here are just some highlights:

Re: Bosh joining Wade in Miami - "Well, he's been following him around for two weeks like his lapdog. So that doesn't really surprise me."

Re: LeBron's hour-long special - "Come on, an hour long? It takes 15 seconds to say I've decided to say in Cleveland but we've got another 59 minutes and 45 seconds to, what? Promote LeBron James? As if we don't do that enough."

Re: Kobe/Durant vs Bosh/Wade/LeBron - "You don't hear Kobe and certainly not Kevin talking about their brand. I hear that from the other guys. They're simply basketball players who want to be great players and win games. It's not what I like."

Re: 2010 free agency - "I think these guys did a masterful job of creating suspense and carrying out a great charade."