As the season wraps up in a few short days, the attention for evaluating many of the non-contending teams shift to what the teams will do in their offseason to come back stronger (or weaker, for #TeamTank). One of the primary ways front offices make their evaluations is coaching staffs and like every year, certain fanbases clamor for struggling teams to fire their head coaches. Before looking to this offseason, I thought it would be interesting to review coaching changes that have recently been made and evaluate their effectiveness. Obviously, many of these changes will accurately be assessed in the next coming years, so consider this a “short term” report card of some of the moves.
Likes and Dislikes from Apple’s “Loop You in” Event
While the March 21st Apple event didn’t generate, nor warrant, the hype of a WWDC (new software) or Fall event (new hardware) does – it still was a productive Monday morning for the company. Here is my “Likes and Dislikes” from the event, broken down by section. For Fall’s event that saw the launch of the iPhone 6s, iPad Pro and more, please click here.
Power Rankings for the Week of March 21st: Spurs Warriors Running Diary Edition
Having had so much fun having done one of these before, and having had so much fun watching the Spurs Warriors game from Saturday, why not do it again?
As they say, sequels are always WAY better than the originals. Right?
Power Rankings for the Week of March 14th
The team that has been most affected by the Warriors historic season is the Cleveland Cavaliers. Upon the arrival of LeBron James and the subsequent roster moves and despite LeBron himself cautioning patience towards a title, the expectation in Cleveland became “championship or bust” immediately. Last year started off choppy, but ultimately LeBron was able to will a team that had lost Kevin Love early and Kyrie Irving later to within 2 games of winning a championship.
Power Rankings for the Week of February 29th
[Programming note: I will not be posting a rankings next week due to some more traveling, sorry about that!]
Writing this on Sunday night, I still can’t believe the OKC-Golden State game from Saturday night.
Power Rankings for the Week of February 22nd: The No Trade Clause
This past week, I was given the immense honor of being brought on as a contributor to the best Lakers blog in the world, Silver Screen and Roll. It has already been a tremendous honor and I sincerely thank the team there, specifically Harrison Faigen and Drew Garrison. My first post can be found here. It is because of your continued support that this happened, and I can’t thank you enough.
This year’s “dud” of a trade deadline was not out of line of the recent trend, yet still a little surprising. Players like Ryan Anderson and Dwight Howard were assumed to be on their way out while players like Kevin Love, Blake Griffin, and Hassan Whiteside also gained traction in trade talks, with Carmelo Anthony’s no-trade clause also factoring into this year’s rumor mill.
Why was this the case?
Power Rankings: Trade Machine Edition (For The Week of February 8th)
Welcome to the Trade Machine game! The rules are simple, and it was really fun to do, even as some of the trades became a little difficult. I ranked the teams alphabetically, assigned them a corresponding number (1-30) and entered it into a number randomizer. The order of which the teams came up are as follows below.
Note: I did not involve any sort of intricate draft pick scenario and I tried to keep the team’s needs and overall intentions in mind.
Power Rankings For the Week of February 1st
When news came out that Jeff Van Gundy would only consider coming back to coach only if he is given the role of President AND the Head Coach, it got me thinking. Entering the season, the Clippers (Doc Rivers), Pistons (Stan Van Gundy), Timberwolves (RIP Flip), and Hawks (Mike Budenholzer) had that situation with some like Jason Kidd angling for that role. It is no coincidence that many of these are recent hires, often as a final bargaining chip to entice a coach to take the opportunity.
Power Rankings for the Week of January 25th: All Star Edition
Hi! I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the overall lack of complaints about Kobe being a starter in this year’s All Star Game. There will always be some writers/tweeters that speak out when the voters simply vote based on who they want to see rather than voting for the best players, which is ultimately the right of the fans (and of people to complain about, for that matter).
Power Rankings for the Week of January 18th
Power Rankings for the Week of January 18th
DISCLAIMER: This is one day late. I had a much more elaborate, but in hindsight completely impractical idea for this. I have kept the records as of Sunday night to maintain uniformity. I apologize, and will try to do better – this is not my best but I’ve committed to doing this weekly and will honor my commitment. Thank you, as always.
One of my favorite things about sports is pondering the what-if’s or other hypotheticals in sports because often little things can end up having ramifications for years to come involving many teams at the same time.
False Hypothesis 