Breaking -- The human race has waived Josh Smith: 2014-15 regular season thread part 2

apologies, honestly. was not thinking.

no worries

i can no longer keep track of when durant is playing and when he isn't

man the thunder look bad

i think reggie just called brandon knight brandon jennings

lol he would

he has never let thoughts or team roster sheets in front of him get in the way of speaking

kinda surprised russ leads the league in technicals, would've figured it was CP3 or blake (blake is only 5th)

rip earl lloyd, nba's first black player

the bledsoe trade was a monumental robbery for the suns

reggie miller cliff paul commercial death to america

bledsoe is good like every three games tbf

still getting that guy for only jared dudley, washed up caron butler and two seconds is crazy. they got a really good young point player for essentially nothing.

bledsoe has been the best player on the floor tonight

yeah but then they had to pay him

hasn't lived up to his contract yet

i believe in soe

the waiters otoh trade looks................

bledsoe is fine but just really inconsistent this year. see if he can take the team on his back now w out dragon

literally where did the idea that waiters is good come from even

the knight contract wasn't ideal but he looks like a guy who could really lead a team soon

er bledsoe

we'll see the knight contract

waiters had some moments in his first few seasons where you could pretty easily see his jamal crawford potential

he's basically marcus thornton with a worse attitude

he has always been bad even in college

man do the suns badly need a wing who can hit an open 3

they just needed to keep frye

ya he was croosh

pj tucker traditionally hits that corner three tho

good god tucker has been brutal

hes a good backup, shouldn't be starting

the morris twins have mostly fallen into that top of the key spacer role, they need anthony morrow basically

lol nice final play bledsoe

man alive that bledsoe block

kinda dig these suns grey alt jerseys

bledsoe playing with 5 fouls too

lmao wiaters

dang he turned his ankle on that final drive

huge win for the suns

literally where did the idea that waiters is good come from even
--lag∞n

idk where it came from but the idea that he is worth anyone's attention is being maintained by NBA writers who are more into the soap opera aspect of the league than, y'know, the actual games

he's playing major minutes on one of the most compelling teams in the league

right, i guess a better way to put it is, it sorta baffles me (although maybe it shouldn't) that various nba writers spend a lot of time talking about him beyond "he is bad" and try to pitch this "he is bad but also compelling" argument, because all things being equal we should not be interested in a player who exemplifies constant mediocrity and frequent shittiness coupled with a complete and utter denial of said shittiness

like remember when a not insignificant number of people were saying that JR would prob be more damaging to cleveland than waiters would be to OKC, and that JR was the shit sandwich cleve needed to eat to get iman shumpert? i didn't understand that and it ended up being markedly not true

it's not that waiters is "bad but compelling" -- he's bad but important. he has been a pivotal role player on two of the most important teams in the nba this season!

think about why no one ever talks about derrick williams

i talk abt derrick williams nearly constantly

While working out this week, I joined an interesting conversation about analytics with some other applied mathematicians and statisticians. It mostly concerned Kirk Goldsberry’s presentation during the 2014 Joint Statistical Meetings about advances in basketball analytics. Everyone agreed it was embarrassing. He didn’t show recorded observations (“proprietary”) or predictive models (“proprietary”). Moreover, he couldn’t identify one accurate prediction. Why do basketball bloggers give people shit about being skeptical about the recent analytics trend? It’s a completely reasonable view. Ergh.

proprietary work is a problem across sports analytics i think

e.g. this tweet doesn’t even make sense:

https://twitter.com/billoram/status/570764951578488832

(However, he does set himself up for a joke about imaginary numbers.)

proprietary work is a problem across sports analytics i think

Fine. But not showing predictions? Finance is secretive too, but it’s easy to know when a model works and when it doesn’t.

Here’s some related trivia that I love that few people know: Donald Knuth started modeling Case Institute of Technology basketball games in the fifties (thirty years before Bill James’ Abstract).