Recent content by William Blake

SOS refers to past games, not future ones*. Which means that, barring any dramatic changes, teams on top have the relatively easier schedule from that point forward. * It's a piece of the puzzle for calculating SRS, which has the Kings as the 8th team in the west even including that horrible...

Dallas and Memphis are not nearly as good as their record as well, they've been lucky and they've been functional, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them has a sudden falloff.

Kings record on back to backs this year: 0-8

I wouldn't call them absolute necessities, but you do need to have extra passing/creativity to carve a top 15 offense out of two non-shooting bigs. Point is, talent is scarce, and anyone taller than 6'8 and also able to knock down a three and move his feet will command big money (or a high draft...

First Kings game of the season for me, getting a job in Europe and NBA basketball do not go well together.

Belinelli is putting on a show

Datome and Gentile are very good at the European level. Aradori, Melli and Polonara have the talent to compete as well. Italy's problem is not, at least on offense, lack of individual talent bat rather lack of team play on offense. Everybody's standing around and even if they move the...

It sure made me glad the Kings didn't sign Bargnani. Dude is 30 and still doesn't have a clue on how to defend the pick'n'roll.

It's actually more common than one would think. My local team (Italian 3rd division) has played with some colleges over the last couple of years, every time around this period.

This keys for me are that this team is: 1)Versatile (and deep). It can go big, it can go small, it can go everything inbetween. We're not talented and well constructed enough to force most teams to play our preferred way*, but we can matchup with pretty much anybody while having a good lineup...

First missing part that comes to mind is frequency of contention, which is also something that is rarely taken into account when looking at similar stats for big men rim protection. If a player is lousy at fighting through screens or at recovering on the perimeter he doesn´t even get to contest...

Good insight from Chad Ford into why he didn´t make it in his first NBA try: A number of teams reported to me that their interviews with Whiteside were rocky. I can understand why. In the first 15 minutes or so I spent with him one-on-one he projected a confidence that bordered on naïve...

I love Green but he's getting a ton of easy looks, and opportunities to use his passing game, in that starting lineup. Plug him into an offensive system that is a question mark and i don't think he's worth the 10+ millions somebody is going to throw at him.

The Kings are currently 6th in the league for SRS, which takes into account strength of schedule and pace-adjusted point differential. They're also doing that by being the youngest team in the top 7 and the second youngest in the top 10. Good times.

I don't think there are many player in the league more annoying than Barea