[Hov's Cats]

[kibaxx7]

Somebody, please get him out of GS!

[The X]

I thought Randolph did have some handles.

Anyways, nice player feature. Keep this one rolling. It reeks of greatness already

[Valor]

loving the article on Anthony Randolph, and even more, loving the fact that you have Ty Lawson at 10th!

[Lamrock]

Great feature on Randolph. This dynasty is awesome. Sit's is my favorite due to its story and longevity, but (no offense to other dynasty-ers, yours are good too), this is easily my second favorite. You have a great thing going here. Keep it up.

[dare]

Nice write-up on the Meal-Ticket, trade for him he really got lots of potential

[Fresh8]

Great feature on Randolph. This dynasty is awesome. Sit's is my favorite due to its story and longevity, but (no offense to other dynasty-ers, yours are good too), this is easily my second favorite. You have a great thing going here. Keep it up.

Hova puts me to shame. His association is definitely number 1.

[3PK]

Awesome write-up on Randolph, now thats someone you wouldn't mind adding in the offseason!

[The X]

Great feature on Randolph. This dynasty is awesome. Sit's is my favorite due to its story and longevity, but (no offense to other dynasty-ers, yours are good too), this is easily my second favorite. You have a great thing going here. Keep it up.

Hova puts me to shame. His association is definitely number 1.

Agreed. Must have something to do with the lure of the Bobcats

[Fresh8]

Great feature on Randolph. This dynasty is awesome. Sit's is my favorite due to its story and longevity, but (no offense to other dynasty-ers, yours are good too), this is easily my second favorite. You have a great thing going here. Keep it up.

Hova puts me to shame. His association is definitely number 1.

Agreed. Must have something to do with the lure of the Bobcats

Nah I find the Bobcats quite boring, it's more about the fancy images and photoshop skills. I'm too old for that shit.

[Valor]

t's more about the fancy images and photoshop skills. I'm too old for that shit.

I'm too shit for that shit

[The X]

Great feature on Randolph. This dynasty is awesome. Sit's is my favorite due to its story and longevity, but (no offense to other dynasty-ers, yours are good too), this is easily my second favorite. You have a great thing going here. Keep it up.

Hova puts me to shame. His association is definitely number 1.

Agreed. Must have something to do with the lure of the Bobcats

Nah I find the Bobcats quite boring, it's more about the fancy images and photoshop skills. I'm too old for that shit.

You find anybody but the Lakers boring

[hova-]

Thanks for the kind words and many replies!! I really thought the writing on the Randolph article sucked a bit ... just did not found a real leitmotiv (the same word in english and german, that's nice )

I don't think I will trade for a guy like Randolph. He is raw and when he gets his minutes now @GSW I think there's no reason for a deal.

I will try to keep this one up as best as possible. Actually I'm learning a lot but it's nice to chill after a learning session and come over here and write sumthing.
I might shorten some stuff here and there like the weekly previews which I did not put in lately because I don't think they are really necessary. Maybe I will add more articles like Randolph etc instead.

[hova-]

Monthly Recap: December
I divided the monthly recap into five parts: Team Standing & Statistics, Race 2 the MVP,Rookie Rankings, Player Focus and Team Focus (shut outs to Sit!)

Team Focus


The plan to have Sheed coming off the bench has not yet worked for the Cs due to injury

Last time on team focus we were checking out the high and low lights of the season. This time I thought about getting into touch with maybe the biggest low light of the season so far. Or who would have thought that the Boston Celtics would only be one and a half game in front of the 10th seeded New York Knicks at the end of 2009?
Who would have thought that the Nets would one and a half game in front of the Cs to lead the Atlantic Division?
I don't think many thought that the likes of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, the so called "big three", who got even enhanced to being the "fantastic four" with the addition of Rasheed Wallace, would seriously have to fight for their playoff spot.
But it just hasn't been so easy for the seventeen time champion. If there was one thing critics often decried than it was the lack of depth in a roster which is already over the salary cap with three of it's five starters (Allen/Pierce 19.7M$, KG 16.4M$). Critics often admonished the fact that if one of their "superstars" suffered a serious injury, the Celtics' game would already take a huge blow. That was the case in last year's playoffs when Kevin Garnett had to sit out with a tough knee injury and the Cs chances of winning went to zero, shown by the seven game struggle against the Bulls and the end against the Magic.

This year, things went into another direction. It have not been the "big three" or sry ... the "fantastic four" who got injured and left the team standing still.
It were the other two pieces which are more important than you might think. Namely Rajon Rondo and Kedrick Perkins.
Perkins sat out for four weeks with another should injury reminding of his problems in the Finals against the Lakers. Despite not drawing much attention other than one technical foul after another, "Perk" plays a big role in the Cs system. Not only that he averages 8 points and 7 boards as well as a block per game.
He also does not take away shots from the three main scorers. When Rasheed Wallace stepped in as PF and Kevin Garnett went to C, Boston's offense went down by a good margin. Why? First of all, Perkins is a better offensive rebounder than Wallace, who is parking beyond the arc a lot. Second, Wallace takes too many difficult shots, three pointers and thus uses way more possesions than Perkins, who cleans up the glass and only shoots when he sees a chance to touch the rim on that play. This led to a regression of the scoring of Pierce and Allen, who are definitely better scorers than Wallace nowadays.

Another problems was the injury of upcoming star point guard Rajon Rondo, who missed two weeks with a strained muscle. The Celtics cannot compensate a loss of Rondo in any way. I mean, no offense, Eddie House, but can you live up for 11 points, 6 rebounds and 9 assists as well as 2 steals. Yeah? I mean per game. Not per week.
Without Rondo, Ray Allen and Marquis Daniels found themselves at the PG spot a lot. That's definitely not what you like to match up with a Derrick Rose or Devin Harris. The whole defensive rotation suffered from the PG getting beaten way too often on the drive which led to open threes as well as more fouls for the bigs down low.
On offense Rondo is just as indispensable as on D. He gets the ball to Pierce and Co where they want it. Adding his and Perkins' loss together means that the Cs not only have a big man who does not grab boards and chucks up threes, it also means these threes are also way more difficult and contested.



With these both guys getting back and Glen Davis also returning from wrist injury, the Cs should be back on track and able to clinch the lead in the Atlantic Division. Especially when the rest of the team is playing like they did before. Ray Allen is experiencing spring in late autumn of his career as he is the best scorer and gets the ball late in the game instead of Paul Pierce.
Maybe the Cs can punish their critics by striking back and have a shot at the title, but the clock is definitely running ...

[kibaxx7]

That's really good stats for the Fantastic Four, but it's a shame the almost .500 record.

[Martti.]

Boston are surprisingly underachieving. The article is very, very good. Sheed should come off the bench to be the second units scorer. He's messing up the C's right now with his shooting.

[Fresh8]

Martti, stop paying out on my man Sheed.

[Mark.]

Top reporting there on the Celtics dude. Looking forward to the offseason to be honest Can't wait to see what moves you will make.

[C-77]

Sheed doesn't look like he's that bad or maybe because you only posted his Good Stats

[hova-]

Thierry., yeah, the Cs also rank in the middle in almost every category or sometimes even higher, but it seems like they cannot close out games.

Martti., that's what I also think and noticed when they were playing against me. He just shoots too much and is lazy as hell down low.

Mark., thanks, will take some time though, I'm just in January now.

C-77, His stats are okay, but I did not post his percentage etc. I should look it up.

[hova-]

It was just another ice cold January day that I decided to spend at office. After seeing the team playing better recently I decided to take a look at the stats so far to have a chance to evaluate what every player did in 2009 so far.
I checked NBA.com for the Bobcats stats.



First of all I noticed two big bugs. The minutes were way off but at least they displayed the ratio. I knew that Jax was around 35 minutes per game and that was my measure. Second, they said "rebound" where it should be "defensive rebound", so I had to add these numbers for complete rebounding.
I parted players into guys I did like so far, guys who should step up and guys I definitely did not need.

I did like:

Stephen Jackson: He's the heart of the team. Without him we would have been way worse than we actually are. 22.3 points, almost 4 boards and 3 assists as well as shooting a solid .35% from downtown. It's not like he was my favourite player and hey, if someone made a good offer I would certainly think about it, but his mentality to be a scorer has helped this team so far.

Tyson Chandler: Tyson's kind of like untouchable. He is the team's best rebounder with 10.4 boards and blocks 1.8 shots per game. He should try to get the ball more though. He's surely limited on offense, but I think we could use his height better down low.

DJ Augustin: Why I like this guy? Because he's somewhat the typical sixth man. He knows how to shoot the ball, is fast and can give you points in a hurry. I hope he gets better on the playmaking stuff. That would also make him untouchable, a status he does not have right now.

Gerald Henderson: The numbers would not tell you. But he is our second best defender behind Wallace on the perimetre. If he improves on offense he can be a star. I know, the numbers just don't tell but that's because he's a rookie. He does not shoot the ball often. And right now that's better since he is a .009% shooter from behind the arc.


Nazr Mohammed: It's kind of funny how good the old guy is. He is only getting about 12 minutes per game but in this time he's so solid grabbing boards and scoring inside.

Should step up

Gerald Wallace: He is somewhat my favorite player, but just did not deliver the way he could. While his percentages are okay, I don't like his rebounding as well as his steal and block numbers. He just has been better before. He is the captain and I see no reason to give him less PT or even trade him away. But he has to step up in order to have success with this team.

Raymond Felton: This guy is playing for a new contract. I don't see it really. I like his quickness and his playmaking, but I hate his shot. I'm pretty excited to find out what money he demands because right now I feel like he's already overpaid at 5M$.

Eddy Curry: Hell, what have I've been criticized for trading for him. So far he showed some good and some bad play. If he finds his consistency and we can develop him a bit, his rebounding and his stamina, maybe he can turn out to be a steal.

I don't need

Flip Murray: It's not like he's so bad. He's a good spark off the bench. But from a sixth man I just expect more. He's moaning and bitching because of his playing time and other than that he is just not delivering enough.


DeSagana Diop: He is just so raw on offense that it's a pain in the ass. I mean, he can rebound and block shots but for 6M$?? That's a tough task to get rid of him.

For Acie Law, Derrick Brown, Stephen Graham, Alexis Ajinca, I just think they did not have enough chances to prove themselves. The latter's contract is expiring, so I am not sure wether I'd like to keep him or not. For the first three, they still got potential and will get their chances in the D-league.



Next up I read another scouting report e-mail from Ron Harper, this time about Evan Turner.

Hey Chris, I got another draft prospect for you. This time it's Evan Turner, a 6-6, 205 lbs. swing man out of Ohio State. He turned 21 in October last year and comes from Chicago. That's what I think about his skills:

Strenghts:
- has great ball handling, point guard like
- a good athlete who can blow past most guards
- has a lot of tricks offensively, just knows how to play the game
- solid pull up jumper
- works hard on both ends of the floor
- very good at finishing in traffic and with contact
- excellent body control

Weaknesses:
- not a freak athlete
- as he handles the ball very well, he might fall in love with it every now and then
- still has to work on his jumpshot
- is sometimes not physical enough

I my opinion he could be the best guy available. Let's wait how the college season turns out but he has everything to be a Brandon Roy in this league. I know we have a lot of guys on the wing, but if we might end up with a top tier pick we should definitely think about him. Superstars always fit in your team, don't they?
Good luck in 2010, Chris.
Harper

The last thing I thought I should have a look at was our programme for January. Taking another shot of coffee I went to Bobcats.com schedule and checked out our next games.



For me personally, January was the decisive month. If we could get out of the cellar and start a run, then I thought that personal decisions would be delayed until the end of the season. But if we lost all our chances for Playoffs after January, I thought about giving my best to get this team in shape for the next season at the trading deadline. I'm not the guy to blow up things, but I also know that I don't have much time as long as we are not successfull.

[Martti.]

I had a Bobcats dynasty and I liked Diop a a lot. Only him and Wallace remained from the original roster.

Getting back on topic, Turner is my favorite prospect and I'd like to see him play for you, but I don't know how he'll fit in.

Wall-Jackson-Wallace-Curry-Chandler
Felton-Turner-Jackson-Wallace-Chandler (Or Turner as 6th man and start Curry)

Hope you get a good pick.

[kibaxx7]

Jax averaging 22 points in 1 minute What up with that?

[hova-]

Martti., Diop's not bad. But I guess 2k10 is the first game were guys who do not have any offense (even inside) just don't score a lot of easy points. (and that is good and realistic). For 6M$ he's just not delivering.
You're right about Turner, he's a top prospect, but right now does not fit very well. We'll see.

Thierry., I wrote it in the sentence below. That's what the 2k site gave me, but at least you get some ratio of how long every players is playing. I just don't have the time to change it right now.

[kibaxx7]

Thierry., I wrote it in the sentence below. That's what the 2k site gave me, but at least you get some ratio of how long every players is playing. I just don't have the time to change it right now.

Yeah I know. Just wanted to post the SNL pic

[Fresh8]

You really need a star player.