Monday, July 22, 2013

NFL Draft 2013

originally wrote this a few months ago, basically right after the NFL draft.  These are a couple of my random thoughts about some of the players drafted that I recognized. Not a ton of insight, but I figured that I could do it anyways.  For a decent portion of the players whom I have listed, I have thought that they were decent players in college and also have a decent chance to make it in the NFL. There were also a large handful of teams that did not draft players whom I really recognized.  

Arizona Cardinals I think Arizona had a fairly good draft, Jonathan Cooper, Tyrann Mathieu, Andre Ellington, and Ryan Swope.
Atlanta Falcons 
Baltimore Ravens 
Buffalo Bills Jeff Tuel and EJ Manuel.  Not really thrilled with this pick.. Manuel is a very tough guy, but I just don't think he's going to be as decent as most other QB's.  Very low potential to be a top 16 type quarterback, much less top 5.
Carolina Panthers A.J. Klein
Chicago Bears Michael Ford
Cincinnati Bengals Onterrio McCaleb, Tyler Eifert. For whatever reason they now have two very decent TE's.  
Cleveland Browns Barkevious Mingo
Dallas Cowboys Terrence Williams and Joseph Randolph
Denver Broncos Montee Ball
Detroit Lions 
Green Bay Packers A lot of good picks for the Packers: Eddie Lacy, Micah Hyde, and Jonathan Franklin.
Houston Texans Collin Kleind
Indianapolis Colts 
Jacksonville Jaguars Luke Joeckel, Denard Robinson, Jordan Rodgers, Matt Scott.  Any of those three rookie QB's would probably be a better option than Blaine Gabbert.
Kansas City Chiefs Tyler Bray
Miami Dolphins Caleb Sturgis
Minnesota Vikings Zach Line, James Vandenberg
New England Patriots 
New Orleans Saints 
New York Giants Ryan Nassib. He does a good job of taking care of the ball, although he was playing in a somewhat weak conference.
New York Jets Geno Smith. His college numbers last season were quite impressive.  I think Smith has a chance to be a Drew Brees Lite.
Oakland Raiders Tyler Wilson, I think that he could be a very decent QB 3 years from now.
Philadelphia Eagles Zach Ertz TE from Stanford and Matt Barkley. Interesting that the Eagles were drafting so many players that used to play against Coach Kelly and the Ducks when he was at Oregon. Stanford, Oregon State, USC.  So the Eagles were able to draft Barkley in the 4th round?  Haha, Barkley was a projected top 5 pick just a year ago.  Tremendous value pick  for the Eagles here.  His stats did go 'down' last season, but that was because he was asked to do a lot more, because the team was lacking a competent running game.  I think that Barkley will have a decent NFL career.
Pittsburgh Steelers Jarvis Jones, Le'Veon Bell and Markus Wheaton
Saint Louis Rams Barret Jones, Alec Ogletree and Tavon Austin
San Diego Chargers Manti Te'o
San Francisco 49ers MarQueis Gray, Eric Reid from LSU, and Marcus Lattimore. Decent draft for the 49er's.  I don't understand why Lattimore was drafted so lowly in the draft.  
Seattle Seahawks 
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 
Tennessee Titans Chance Warmack
Washington Redskins Jordan Reed

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Lakers vs Spurs game 2

Really late post alert.  This post has been in my drafts for about three months, so I figured I should either post it now or not post it at all.  The first part is basically only relevant in the context to that game.  But the rest is still vaguely relevant and has a couple of my thoughts on how and why the Spurs are so decent.

Gasol had a much more efficient game, and as such the Lakers only lost the TO battle by 5 in game 2.  The refs seemed to be calling a bad game against Howard the entire night.
Clark got all of 13 minutes..  Not sure what Coach D'antoni is doing there.  Another thing that didn't make sense..  Apparently Jordan Hill is finally semi-healthy and Coach D'antoni played him six minutes... In the last six minutes of the 4th quarter.. Just thinking out loud here (obviously).. But, if he is actually healthy, then I think he should have played the first six minutes of the 4th quarter.  The game was starting to get away, but wasn't totally out of hand at the end of the 4th.  Imho, Jordan Hill would be my sixth or 7th man, and (if he is healthy) should be playing.
Dwight Howard had an oddly ugly +-.  Since he was in the game when the subs made a mini run I was surprised that he was tied for the worst +- of the game at -14.

I don't want either of the PGs of the Lakers to guard Parker.. Frankly, they've stunk.  I say that he should mainly be guarded by Jamison and Clark.  Consistently the Lakers are way too close to Parker..  (The Lakers never ended up fixing either problem..)  Sure, you don't want him to gather a ton of momentum, but honestly that should be somewhat irrelevant.  I think that Jamison should play off Parker roughly an arm's length and a half.  So a bit less than twice that of the average perimeter player. Could Parker occasionally gather enough momentum to simply blow by Jamison?  Yes.  But..  It would happen fewer times than with the Laker's PGs.  

Also, so far in the series Green and Splitter have been vaguely irrelevant, so I think the players guarding those two players should be much more willing to help and that someone should take a charge.  Anyone.  Anyone at all.  D-Howard blocking shots is great and all, and can be vaguely intimidating to Parker, but something that would be even more intimidating (and effective) is if Parker would have to (attempt to) run over someone like Ron Artest and either get the and one, a blocking call, or it goes the other way.  Worst case scenario, Parker is getting tired and bruised while the Spurs continue to win.  Best case scenario, Parker gets a charge and is forced to become purely a facilitator.

How do the Spurs consistently make so many contested long range 2's?
A Zach Lowe article has also noted that somehow the Spurs, Parker and Duncan especially, have found some sort of prodigious way to make midrange low quality shots at a high volume..  I assume (effectively the same as he does) that it is through their hard work and impressive muscle memory, due to so many games and general practice time.

I wonder why there are not more examples of players who can make mid to long range contested twos.  Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony are the main players I can think of who like to attempt many mid to long range two's and make a fair portion of these shots.  (The problem is that even if  a person is great at making long range contested twos it is still almost always not an efficient shot to be taking at a high volume Long range twos are basically only useful in terms of helping to spread the defense, and also sometimes when there is no other shot to take with the shot clock winding down)

In terms of shot arc, I really like Parker's long range arc, if anything it might be too high, which is certainly a rarity. I don't really like Duncan's shot arc, generally it seems very flat.
I would say that Parker takes a few more contested shots, especially off of pick and rolls, while Duncan tends to shoot the open 18 foot (or however long) jumper.
To have a team shoot 50% (I don't know what the Spur's % is I'm just making a generalization) on contested long jumpers is very impressive and extremely devastating to opposing defenses.