an article about hollinger's insider article.
not sure where to put this, so i made a new thread. there are a few discussion worthy statements in the article.
Alas, Phoenix has a much bigger problem on Tuesday in Utah. The Suns will likely be withoutGrant Hill and Channing Frye, while Utah has the opposite situation: Their injuries have actually helped them. The Jazz spent half the season sabotaging themselves by giving heavy minutes to veteran deadwood like Raja Bell and Josh Howard before injuries to both cleared the way for Gordon Hayward, Alec Burks and C.J. Miles to play the wings.
Also, he talks about the possibility of the Jazz moving up to 7th spot:
As with New York, the Nuggets can land sixth, seventh or eighth. Denver will be No. 8 if it drops its final two games (at Oklahoma City and at Minnesota) while Utah wins its final two. However, I imagine Utah will opt for rest if it beats Phoenix and might lose the finale to Portland, although the Blazers’ current disinterest may trump any tanking by an opponent.
Several teams that are out of the money nonetheless have draft picks at stake in these final games. Most notable among them is Golden State, which owes Utah a first-round pick unless it lands in the top seven. The Warriors are currently No. 8 from the bottom in the win column, but will end up in a tie for No. 7 because somebody has to win the Toronto-New Jersey game on Thursday. If the lottery goes to form, that means the status of the Warriors’ pick will come down to a random draw at the league office, which I believe would be held on Friday.
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While we’re at it, here’s a memo to the league: Stop including conditional protections on draft choices like this. What the Warriors have done this past month is an abomination and needs to be stopped. The only protection that should be allowed are outside the top 14 or inside the top three. We’ve seen too many teams make a mockery of the game in the final month of the season because they were trying to keep their draft pick (most notably in the infamous Mark Madsen 3-pointer game a few years back), and it’s one of the big reasons that so many of the games in March and April stink.