This time on those Israeli heat-seeking cameras that Ted has blogged about a few times.
The article is dense, but it provides some insight into how these cameras are useful. And a wiz mention (oy).
Hilarious confirmation of the eye test: If Kevin Seraphin gets the ball in the post, he’s shooting — 66 percent of the time, to be exact. He’s dished only six assists from the post in recorded games, and almost never draws fouls.
Tom Ziller gave the article this shout-out this morning:
Most interesting to me were two items. The first is that there are still only 15 teams using the service. And something tells me the other 15 franchises don't have their own rig and staff doing the same thing. I'm not sure it's a huge advantage for the teams that subscribe, but it's certainly an advantage. Yet so many of the worst teams in the league (Charlotte, Sacramento, Detroit, the Lakers) don't utilize it. It's not cheap. But when you're dropping $50 million on a set of players at the low end, any other investment pales. The second interesting point: teams are on average more efficient on drives (defined as when a player dribbles a ball from at least 20 feet from the rim to within 10 feet) than on non-drives, even when not including transition possessions. Having watched the Kings so closely, I would have thought the exact opposite!
The Lowe piece talks about how drives really seem to help even with the turnover factor (hi John Wall). The Ziller piece actually initially focus on the Wiz, sure to enrage many here given the ages of Okafor and Nene:
good things happen when Nene, Emeka Okafor and John Wall play together. The crew has 200 minutes under its belt now, and is outscoring opponents by five points per 100 possessions in that time. Particularly important for Okafor has been Nene's presence: Emeka is a +3 overall but a +7 with Nene. The Brazilian has an off-the-charts plus-minus (+15), thanks largely to how stunningly awful (-10) the Wizards have been when Nene sits. Wall is a +14 after 400 minutes, including a +6 when playing.
Forget about Beal for a second. Just those three core Wizards -- with the shot creation and scoring of Wall, the efficient scoring and defense of Nene and the defense of Okafor -- are making a big difference for the team. Based on the numbers, which are admittedly limited due to Wall's long injury recovery, the Wizards can be a good team with this three-man core, barring injury.
Lots to discuss!