Tag Archives: nba

The San Antonio Spurs do a smart thing, lock up Tiago Splitter

In news that will surprise no one, the San Antonio Spurs just made a smart decision. The Spurs locked up free agent big man Tiago Splitter to a 4 year deal, worth $36 million, according to Adrian Wojnarowski. The big Brazilian won’t make many headlines or sell many jerseys, but what he does do is defend expertly, score quite efficiently, make the right pass almost always, and just generally make the Spurs better when he’s on the floor.

Splitter struggled a bit against the Heat in the finals due to the lack of a traditional big man for Splitter to match up with. Tiago, also rather famously, got obliterated at the rim by, the world’s best player, LeBron James. In case you forgot, it looked like this:

Yiiiikes. Gif via SBNation.com

What’s not immediately apparent from that quick look on the gif is that the reason LeBron is in position to crush Tiago so badly is that Kawhi Leonard was too close to the paint, allowing LeBron to protect the rim. Kawhi should have been in the corner, forcing LeBron to guard him. If Kawhi does his job, Tiago, having done everything right to this point, gets an easy dunk. Instead, Tiago ends up on the wrong end of a SportsCenter highlight. Poor guy. But this play shows you two things about Splitter. He knows where to be offensively and is unafraid of challenging shot-blockers at the rim with a strong finish. Against just about anyone else, save a LARRY SANDERS!, a healthy Dwight Howard, or in this case, an engaged LeBron freaking James, Splitter finishes that dunk through contact. That finishing ability and knowledge of where to be is a big reason why Splitter has a career True Shooting Percentage of 61% and sports a nifty 18.7 PER along with a pretty great .188 WS per 48 minutes. Splitter also will turn just 29 early this coming season and will be on a solid contract until he is 33. As a result, the Spurs can expect Splitter’s excellent production to continue relatively unabated for the duration of the deal. Just another solid, smart move from the team that makes them seemingly always.

The Indiana Pacers will, unsurprisingly, keep David West

Here’s hoping there’s less of this

The Indiana Pacers signed free agent power foward David West to a 3 year, $36 million deal today, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski. The soon-to-be 33 year old power forward was never considered a serious threat to leave Indiana but that lack of surprise doesn’t make this signing any less important for the Pacers, coming off a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals.

West was, arguably, the Pacers most important player this season, both from an on the floor perspective and, perhaps more importantly, as a leader in the locker room and beacon of professionalism for a relatively young playoff team making its deepest playoff run since the days of Reggie Miller. The Pacers were significantly better with West on the floor versus when he was on the bench – an eye-popping 8.9 points per 48 minutes better. It’s no wonder, then, that the Pacers were eager to hold onto the veteran 4-man, whose mid-range shooting opens things up for Roy Hibbert’s emerging post-game and Paul George’s slashing attacks towards the rim. It will be interesting to see if West will be able to live up to his contract towards its end, as he will be 36 years old in its final year.

As it stands now, West has shown no signs of decline. Last year, he posted a Player Efficiency Rating and WinShares per 48 minutes which outpaced his career averages, while at the same time playing more than his career average in minutes for the year. West’s jump shooting should keep him from losing too much of his effectiveness as his athleticism wanes but its worth keeping an eye on as West is a player who was never terribly explosive to begin with and is undersized at his position. Fortunately for Pacers’ fans, the Pacers are competing to win this year and West should be well equipped to keep them in the mix near the East’s top tier, nipping at Miami’s heels. Additionally comforting for the Indiana faithful should be the fact that Andrea Bargnani’s albatross contract was able to be moved, and given the short duration of this deal, it’s exceedingly unlikely West’s deal will become a millstone, should his play somehow careen off a cliff.

The New York Knicks trade for Andrea Bargnani because they’re the Knicks

The New York Knicks completed a trade over the weekend for former number 1 pick and all-around terrible basketball player, Andrea Bargnani from the Toronto Raptors. Not only did the Knicks trade for Bargnani’s hefty $10 million per year contract, but they paid 3 draft picks (1 first rounder and 2 second rounders) for the privilege. Bargnani is a 7 footer who plays like a (bad) shooting guard.  He doesn’t rebound the basketball, he shoots poorly from distance, despite a reputation for being a “stretch” big man, and he plays poor team defense (he’s actually a solid man-to-man post defender, despite his overall terrible impact on the defensive end).

This feels like a huge overreaction from the Knicks to the Nets blockbuster trade on draft night. But it’s not a reaction that really makes the Knicks any better on the floor. In many ways, Steve Novak and Marcus Camby, the players New York surrendered for the Italian big man, are better players than Bargnani. Camby is a better defensive presence and scores more efficiently, while taking many fewer shots. Novak is a specialist shooter, but he’s actually, you know, good at shooting the basketball, which is not true of our man Andrea. Even still, this trade, were it just a swap of on-court players, might be justifiable. Bargnani is a former first overall pick, with size, who has shown flashes of the potential that lead him to be drafted so high. Maybe a change of scenery is what he needs and he will finally come close to living up to his contract. But the Knicks needn’t have surrendered the draft picks they did in order to grab him.

Giving up the rights to future first round draft picks under the new collective bargaining agreement is the height of foolishness, unless you’re getting a proven star player in return. Andrea Bargnani could hardly be further from a star player. This is a bad, bad deal for the Knicks and they will almost certainly regret it in the future. This is now the second time that Masai Ujiri, the head man in Toronto and former head man in Denver, has fleeced the Knicks of valuable assets for a “name” player. At least last time the Knicks got Carmelo Anthony, a star player who falls short of being a superstar. This time they’ve sacrificed future assets for a player whose contract was thought by many to be such an albatross that it would necessitate the trading of assets for the Raptors to be rid of it. A word of advice to Glen Grunwald: the next time Masai Ujiri calls you, don’t answer the phone.