NBA Free Agency and a lot of Kevin Love talk.
Hosts
- Andres Alvarez (@nerdnumbers)
- Produced by Brian Foster (@boxscorebrian)
Sources
You can watch us live at twitch.tv/nerdnumbers; we usually go Tuesday or Wednesday at 9:30 pm EST. Follow us on Twitter and we'll keep you posted!
Please subscribe to Channel NerdNumbers on YouTube and like us on iTunes!
Video Show
Show Notes
NBA Free Agency is in full swing I wrote two articles this week on it. First, I analyzed most of the signings pre-Durant. Second, I gave some thoughts (mostly on Durant) about Free Agency.
Basketball Insiders is a super useful stop for quickly updated salary data.
RealGM is great if you want specifics of player contracts.
We play a fun game Brian came up with. We decided to rate NBA Free Agency signings. This is a hard thing to do well, but we do our best. Since it was off the top of my head, please don't take any of these grades as scientific calculations. Rather, view it as a "bar conversation:.
The units of measure we used were "Lightyears" for "good" signings and "Crying Jordans" for "bad" signings. And we were allowed go up to four for each. Of course, I immediately made things difficult by awarding five Lightyears to the Warriors signing Kevin Durant and the Heat for signing Hassan Whiteside. I'm not going to list the grades to other players in the notes, you'll have to tune in to see what grades we give:
- Jared Dudley
- Luol Deng
- Al Horford
- Jeff Green
- Austin Rivers
- Darrell Arthur
- David West
- Zaza Pachulia
- Brad Beal
- DeMar DeRozan
- Ryan Anderson
- Eric Gordon
- Timofey Mozgov
- Rajon Rondo
- Harrison Barnes
Rajon Rondo
I have a lot to say on the very cheap and low-risk deal Rondo signed with the Bulls this season. numberFire had some arguments that it was a huge mistake. I'm a bit trepidatious about their reasoning, especially since I don't know how their nERD metric is calculated.
We discuss Rondo's time on the Mavericks, which somehow leads to a "make analytics great again" discussion.
Kevin Durant
Lmao pic.twitter.com/LzGMdq40q4
— rock burgundy (@notRockB) July 4, 2016
Tune in if you want to see Brian stream even funnier animated Gifs about Kevin Durant leaving OKC.
Durant thinking about shoe money for his deal just seems like smart business.
For Nike, this is a coup: It wanted to slow UnderArmour's momentum with Steph Curry and Warriors. Now, KD promises to impact Curry's star.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojVerticalNBA) July 4, 2016
The weird mentality about NBA players making sound business decision feels a bit off. Marc Isenberg summed it up nicely.
On Independence Day, let's celebrate all our freedoms...except athletes who are treated like chattel...even if they are legally free. 🇺🇸
— Marc Isenberg (@marcisenberg) July 4, 2016
Some terrifying fans lit Durant's jersey on fire using rifles to shoot it. Not the best argument to why Durant should have stayed.
Fantastic piece from Dave Zirin on the odd mentality behind disliking Durant's moves.
Andre Iguodala is the best. He's just the best.
David Eugene Chappelle... Start planning the next Player Haters Ball
— Andre Iguodala (@andre) July 4, 2016
In 2013 I was writing articles about how Kevin Durant was the greatest contemporary scorer. Of course, this season I've been writing about how Steph Curry is the greatest modern scorer. They're now on a team together!!!
Shout Outs
Brian preemptively shouts out Tim Duncan, who may be done.
Brian shouts out Games Done Quick for raising over $250,000 for Doctors without Borders.
Brian shouts out Joey Chestnut for shattering the hotdog eating record. Brian has a fun story about how Joey ate at pizza place Brian would visit in San Jose.
I shout out the amazing Nick Sciria (@Nick_Sciria) for work on examining three-point shooters in 2015-2016 based on their shot selection. Full set of Tweets here.