This Week's Show
We give our thoughts on the Rajon Rondo trade. We get to follow up on Josh Smith's progress in Houston. Finally, Patrick checks in on his NBA bets.
Hosts
- Andres Alvarez(@nerdnumbers)
- Patrick Minton(@nbageek)
- Produced by Brian Foster(@boxscorebrian)
Sources
Video Show
This Week's Poll
In honor of this week's topics, we do a repeat on our poll!
Show Notes
The Rajon Rondo Trade
In theory, the Rajon Rondo trade should be a win-win for both teams.
Remember the last time the Mavericks made a trade for a top guard from an Eastern team a few years out of the finals?
Reminder, both Rajon Rondo, and Brandan Wright have expiring contracts this season. The Mavericks will likely keep Rondo. Do the Celtics know what they have?
Wright oddly doesn't seem to get the respect his performance deserves. It's odd to see the hype around players like Andrew Wiggins propel them to major minutes while great players get ignored.
Player performance tends to be consistent. That's true even when a player sees an increase in minutes. That said, I do argue Wright is likely to drop a little (but still be great) from his 70% True Shooting Percentage.
If you are going to trade an asset like Wright, you need to get value back. You don't trade an underrated asset like Kenneth Faried for Iman Shumpert!
This looks like an ideal trade for both sides. Of course, we thought the Eric Bledsoe trade looked like that too.
Josh Smith on the Rockets
Trying to win with Josh Smith is like a poker player trying to win with a rag hand like Jack-Eight. It's great for bragging rights, but not necessarily ideal play.
For the poker fans out there, tune in to hear the difference in Patrick and my play styles. It's worth noting Patrick has played professionally!
The risk in the Josh Smith trade isn't the cost. It's mucking up a top four seed, which the Rockets had. Also, as I said on last week's show, there have to be younger, underrated assets to get instead. You know, like "Tarik Black.
The problem with this move is that no one will say picking up Josh Smith was a bad play. If he works out it looks "brilliant." If he doesn't, people will say the Rockets had to try something. It reminds me of the Marion for Shaq trade, which is one of the worst in NBA history.
Josh Smith took the most shots of any player on the Rockets his first game. And he shot terribly! Somehow the Rockets still won.
Josh Smith on Houston isn't a completely terrible idea, which I said on Quora. We're just not fans of it.
Josh Smith has been rewarded for shooting, despite being poor at it. It's almost as if he understands "Yay! Points!" Patrick equates it to learning to get a soda from a vending machine.
The Boxscore Geek's Vegas Update
Patrick heads to Vegas once a year and bets on the upcoming NBA season. He checks in on this year's bets.
Read Patrick's piece on his bets and tune in to hear him elaborate on how things are going.
Who gets viral meningitis? Really?
Patrick is bad luck for the Timberwolves; I said it.
We're fans of the Hawks and Kyle Korver.
The Spurs are likely going to miss 58 wins. They've been unlucky, which I said on Quora. Also, if you like our answers on Quora, upvote them!
Miscellaneous
Patrick has a penchant for naming logical fallacies in professional sports. One of my favorites is the "Ryan Anderson Fallacy."
Players off-court antics sometimes hurt their on-court roles. We talk Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, and Chris Andersen.
Reminder, George Karl had a plethora of great bigs and chose to play Al Harrington!!
I argue Patrick is bad luck. Right after he wrote about Jabari Parker being the rookie of year front-runner, he got injured!
To the people on the internet that say "You couldn't make a team of all Kenneth Farieds and win!"...I know...please stop messaging me.
We talk how the NBA is not like a normal job. The idea of taking a day off for sickness or mental health is seen as weak. We like the Spurs for being different.
Shout Outs
Brian's shoutout are the Boxscore Geeks and the amazing commenters! Thanks for a great year.
Patrick shouts out Jonathan Weiler (@jonweiler) of the ESPN Watch. Also, David Berri(@wagesofwins), who is a great twitter follow. Also, Steven McPherson (@steventurous), a fantastic writer and Timberwolves fan.
My first shout out goes to commenter Kevin on last week's show for nailing the "Josh Smith could shoot better if...." myth.
@SnottieDrippen wins my final shoutout of the year for being the ultimate Kobe troll. It's something I thought I was near the top of, but he's transcended to a new level!
More Thanks
We put a fair bit of "pre-work" into this show, including behind the scenes discussions/emails with other people. Thanks so much to Arturo Galletti, Ben Gulker, Chris Yeh, Dave Berri, and Shawn Furyan.