ATL - Bledsoe signs with the Suns for 5/$70

[Badgerlander]

[HurricaneKid]

@WojYahooNBA 4 minutes ago
K.J. McDaniels, 32nd pick in draft, makes fascinating move: Signs 1-year, non-guarantee w/ 76ers, becomes RFA in '15, sources tell Yahoo.

Why would Philly do this? Thats just giving away 2 years control at a small wage...

[raferfenix]

Interesting context on Simmons' suspension:

http://thebiglead.com/2014/09/26/bill-s ... ving-espn/

Tension has continued to rise on multiple fronts between Simmons — the network’s most visible talent — and the old guard in Bristol, longtime executives who have been at ESPN for decades.

A confluence of events led to the blow up by Simmons on his podcast: His genuine outrage against NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, his desire to crowbar his way into the national conversation on Goodell, and then there are these two rumors floating around ESPN:

* Inside ESPN, there has been a lot of talk about the struggles of Nate Silver’s 538 website. It hasn’t even been online for a year yet, but from lack of revenue to lack of traffic to lack of advertising, it is already being billed as a “disaster” by some at the network. [An ESPN spokesman said Friday about 538: "Traffic is ahead of where it was with the New York Times."] More than a couple ESPN suits have been trying to pin these failures on Bill Simmons, I’m told. Their reasoning: Simmons wanted him, he got him, and the site is not delivering. You’re giving Simmons too much freedom, ESPN President John Skipper’s underlings complain. [Silver, you may recall, ran into these problems at the New York Times, another large media entity plagued by bureaucratic problems, partially stemming from a generation gap.]

* Multiple sources have told The Big Lead that Simmons has been attempting to get his pal of successful 30-for-30 fame, Connor Schell, into Skipper’s executive inner circle. Schell, a young executive on-the-rise, could add a completely different perspective to a team led by John Wildhack, the Executive VP/Production, who has been with the company since 1994. Ed Durso, one of the men who helped determine the Simmons suspension, has been at the network since 1989.

President John Skipper is actually faced with a challenging decision, given that Simmons’ contract is up next year.

Yes, it’s dangerous when you let the agenda from on-air talent outweigh the network’s agenda. And make no mistake, ESPN has one agenda: to make a handsome profit for Disney shareholders.

The formula is working.

But for how long? With all the important sports TV rights locked up, and Fox/CBS/NBC far from being a competitor (a Time Warner merger notwithstanding), how long do you let the old guard make pivotal decisions without input from the younger generation, before you run the risk of letting FOX/CBS/NBC gain ground?

The old guard has its fingers crossed they can pester and annoy Simmons to the point that he pulls the trigger on a plan they claim he’s been mulling after spending so much time in Hollywood: decamp from ESPN to a venture capital-backed solo operation with contributions from his West Coast buddies Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla.

[crkone]

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... ine-enough

Around last season’s All-Star break, preliminary chatter began among the league’s basketball operations folks and rule geeks about the prospect of reducing all trips to the free-throw line to a single foul shot. D-League president Dan Reed and Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey were the closest thing to co-sponsors of a bill. Nobody was proposing anything to be fast-tracked, but an imperative to figure out ways to shorten pro basketball games gave the idea some life as something to consider implementing in the D-League.

The concept was this: A player fouled in the act of shooting or in a penalty situation would attempt only a single free throw. If that player was shooting a 2-point shot or in a penalty situation at the time of the foul, the free throw attempt would be worth two points. If that player was fouled in the act of launching a 3-point shot, he’d go to the line for a single shot worth three points.

By doing so, those 47 attempts per game would be whittled down to about 26. There’s no hard data on the average length of time it takes to shoot a pair of free throws, but my stopwatch clocks it at approximately 45 seconds from the sound of the whistle to the second shot reaching the rim. A trip to the line for a single technical or an and-1 situation, though, takes about 30 seconds. These numbers vary wildly. (Walking from one end of the floor to the other after a loose-ball foul takes an eternity, whereas a shooting foul in the paint is a short commute. You also have a fair share of Dwight Howards who can be timed with a calendar.) But we can fairly approximate a second or third free throw as a 15-second exercise. Using that estimate, scrapping 21 free throws from a game would shave more than five minutes of stoppage from the average NBA or D-League game.
...

“It’s an interesting concept,” said Chris Alpert, the D-League’s vice president of basketball operations. “But as we discussed it further with the basketball guys, we just felt it would be compromising the integrity of the game and players’ statistics. We didn’t want to skew a player’s free-throw shooting percentage and we didn’t want to compromise the purity of the game.”

[CanadaBucks]

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/70581/hoopidea-is-one-trip-to-the-free-throw-line-enough

Around last season’s All-Star break, preliminary chatter began among the league’s basketball operations folks and rule geeks about the prospect of reducing all trips to the free-throw line to a single foul shot. D-League president Dan Reed and Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey were the closest thing to co-sponsors of a bill. Nobody was proposing anything to be fast-tracked, but an imperative to figure out ways to shorten pro basketball games gave the idea some life as something to consider implementing in the D-League.

The concept was this: A player fouled in the act of shooting or in a penalty situation would attempt only a single free throw. If that player was shooting a 2-point shot or in a penalty situation at the time of the foul, the free throw attempt would be worth two points. If that player was fouled in the act of launching a 3-point shot, he’d go to the line for a single shot worth three points.

By doing so, those 47 attempts per game would be whittled down to about 26. There’s no hard data on the average length of time it takes to shoot a pair of free throws, but my stopwatch clocks it at approximately 45 seconds from the sound of the whistle to the second shot reaching the rim. A trip to the line for a single technical or an and-1 situation, though, takes about 30 seconds. These numbers vary wildly. (Walking from one end of the floor to the other after a loose-ball foul takes an eternity, whereas a shooting foul in the paint is a short commute. You also have a fair share of Dwight Howards who can be timed with a calendar.) But we can fairly approximate a second or third free throw as a 15-second exercise. Using that estimate, scrapping 21 free throws from a game would shave more than five minutes of stoppage from the average NBA or D-League game.
...

“It’s an interesting concept,” said Chris Alpert, the D-League’s vice president of basketball operations. “But as we discussed it further with the basketball guys, we just felt it would be compromising the integrity of the game and players’ statistics. We didn’t want to skew a player’s free-throw shooting percentage and we didn’t want to compromise the purity of the game.”

This has to be one of the stupider ideas I have ever heard, just cut out the high 5s and handshakes after every make or miss and you would be ahead. But hoops games aren't really too long anyway, football and baseball need the speeding up imo

[raferfenix]

Alex Kennedy has a new chat up:

http://www.basketballinsiders.com/chat/ ... edy-10114/

He talks a bit about how he sees Rondo getting traded before the deadline. But I haven't seen many scenarios that seem likely.

Thinking about the Pelicans as a potential destination. Jrue Holiday is younger but had an injury last season, and his best case potential is not as high as prime Rondo.

If Rondo shows that he is healthy enough to team up with Davis to get them close to championship contention, maybe New Orleans goes for it -- for better or worse.

[emunney]

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/70581/hoopidea-is-one-trip-to-the-free-throw-line-enough

Around last season’s All-Star break, preliminary chatter began among the league’s basketball operations folks and rule geeks about the prospect of reducing all trips to the free-throw line to a single foul shot. D-League president Dan Reed and Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey were the closest thing to co-sponsors of a bill. Nobody was proposing anything to be fast-tracked, but an imperative to figure out ways to shorten pro basketball games gave the idea some life as something to consider implementing in the D-League.

The concept was this: A player fouled in the act of shooting or in a penalty situation would attempt only a single free throw. If that player was shooting a 2-point shot or in a penalty situation at the time of the foul, the free throw attempt would be worth two points. If that player was fouled in the act of launching a 3-point shot, he’d go to the line for a single shot worth three points.

By doing so, those 47 attempts per game would be whittled down to about 26. There’s no hard data on the average length of time it takes to shoot a pair of free throws, but my stopwatch clocks it at approximately 45 seconds from the sound of the whistle to the second shot reaching the rim. A trip to the line for a single technical or an and-1 situation, though, takes about 30 seconds. These numbers vary wildly. (Walking from one end of the floor to the other after a loose-ball foul takes an eternity, whereas a shooting foul in the paint is a short commute. You also have a fair share of Dwight Howards who can be timed with a calendar.) But we can fairly approximate a second or third free throw as a 15-second exercise. Using that estimate, scrapping 21 free throws from a game would shave more than five minutes of stoppage from the average NBA or D-League game.
...

“It’s an interesting concept,” said Chris Alpert, the D-League’s vice president of basketball operations. “But as we discussed it further with the basketball guys, we just felt it would be compromising the integrity of the game and players’ statistics. We didn’t want to skew a player’s free-throw shooting percentage and we didn’t want to compromise the purity of the game.”

This has to be one of the stupider ideas I have ever heard, just cut out the high 5s and handshakes after every make or miss and you would be ahead. But hoops games aren't really too long anyway, football and baseball need the speeding up imo

Yeah, why not just try out a 5 second clock on FTs? Some guys have super elaborate FT routines. Just take a couple dribbles, shoot the **** shot, and play ball. 10 seconds is ridiculous. And some guys blatantly ignore even that. Maybe just enforcing the 10 second clock is the first step.

[emunney]

Check out how shocked everybody is when they actually call it on Dwight, who used to routinely take 15 seconds or more to shoot FTs, and who isn't even close to shooting the ball when they call it.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T8uRmwP1jE[/youtube]

[Badgerlander]

@ZachLowe_NBA
Now that photos of the real thing have surfaced, here's the mock-up of the new Pelicans court design:

[Badgerlander]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/SBNation/status/517665452676640768[/tweet]

[lilfishi22]

Uncle Drew and Lebron would be fun to watch

[drew881]

Those new FT rules would also affect the end of game scenarios, where a team would try to make the first FT and then intentionally miss the second. Suppose you could institute an under 1 minute rule or something to shoot 2 if your team is down?

[WEFFPIM]

Ah, the iconic Cleveland skyline

[trwi7]

Ah, the iconic Cleveland skyline

At least it sort of makes sense from a where the buildings are kind of way. Compare it to this.



Let's take the tallest/most famous buildings and just randomly line them up to create a logo!

[emunney]

I see the Membleman Building. And there's Brud's Spire!

[bigkurty]

Interesting context on Simmons' suspension:

http://thebiglead.com/2014/09/26/bill-s ... ving-espn/

Tension has continued to rise on multiple fronts between Simmons — the network’s most visible talent — and the old guard in Bristol, longtime executives who have been at ESPN for decades.

A confluence of events led to the blow up by Simmons on his podcast: His genuine outrage against NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, his desire to crowbar his way into the national conversation on Goodell, and then there are these two rumors floating around ESPN:

* Inside ESPN, there has been a lot of talk about the struggles of Nate Silver’s 538 website. It hasn’t even been online for a year yet, but from lack of revenue to lack of traffic to lack of advertising, it is already being billed as a “disaster” by some at the network. [An ESPN spokesman said Friday about 538: "Traffic is ahead of where it was with the New York Times."] More than a couple ESPN suits have been trying to pin these failures on Bill Simmons, I’m told. Their reasoning: Simmons wanted him, he got him, and the site is not delivering. You’re giving Simmons too much freedom, ESPN President John Skipper’s underlings complain. [Silver, you may recall, ran into these problems at the New York Times, another large media entity plagued by bureaucratic problems, partially stemming from a generation gap.]

* Multiple sources have told The Big Lead that Simmons has been attempting to get his pal of successful 30-for-30 fame, Connor Schell, into Skipper’s executive inner circle. Schell, a young executive on-the-rise, could add a completely different perspective to a team led by John Wildhack, the Executive VP/Production, who has been with the company since 1994. Ed Durso, one of the men who helped determine the Simmons suspension, has been at the network since 1989.

President John Skipper is actually faced with a challenging decision, given that Simmons’ contract is up next year.

Yes, it’s dangerous when you let the agenda from on-air talent outweigh the network’s agenda. And make no mistake, ESPN has one agenda: to make a handsome profit for Disney shareholders.

The formula is working.

But for how long? With all the important sports TV rights locked up, and Fox/CBS/NBC far from being a competitor (a Time Warner merger notwithstanding), how long do you let the old guard make pivotal decisions without input from the younger generation, before you run the risk of letting FOX/CBS/NBC gain ground?

The old guard has its fingers crossed they can pester and annoy Simmons to the point that he pulls the trigger on a plan they claim he’s been mulling after spending so much time in Hollywood: decamp from ESPN to a venture capital-backed solo operation with contributions from his West Coast buddies Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla.

Wow, I honestly don't think he would have any problem getting funded. He is the Aaron Rodgers of ESPN employees and he has personally head up the development of Grantland and the 30 for 30 series. The guy has talent, connections, an engaging personality, and great ideas. He also must have an eye for talent. I think this will probably happen eventually just due to ego and it would make for an interesting story to follow. I wonder what happens when he gets back. Do they act like it never happened? Is he forced to make a formal on air apology?

[stellation]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/SBNation/status/517665452676640768[/tweet]

If that's not a team scrimmage Delly takes the charge and dies right there.

[FrieAaron]

I don't hate the free throw idea. It would change things pretty radically, for sure, but I don't think necessarily for the worst. The overall effectiveness of hack a Shaq strategies shouldn't really change much, because you know...averages...but definitely makes it more risky. It would make free throws a lot more suspenseful.

[lilfishi22]

They should do it so all FT's are worth two until two minutes left in the game when it's back to two free throws. Speeds up the majority of the game and but also keeps the suspense down the line.

[Nebula1]

The FT idea is terrible. 1) the game speed is fine and 2) the problem is with the fouls called, not the shooting process


All we're going to get is lower FT% across the board. Simply allowing a team to decline the attempts in favor of a new possession makes more sense.