Saturday report
One of the strangest things we've heard from Jerry Sloan in recent weeks is his claim that the Jazz should have wanted to play hard and improve their playoff position if for no other reason than that there's more money the higher you finish.
He's absolutely right, but the money in the NBA's playoff pool seems so insignificant to somebody like Andrei Kirilenko making more than $15 million this season or Carlos Boozer making more than $12 million.
Shouldn't they want to win because they're making all that money in the first place? In fact, the NBA's entire $11 million playoff pool - - that's for all 16 teams that make it - - is less than either Kirilenko or Boozer made this season individually.
The NBA's playoff guide has the breakdown, which I think is well worth sharing. Just for making the playoffs, the Jazz receive $164,168, which they then divide into shares starting with all 15 players. Assuming there are 20 shares, each player will receive . . . $8,208.40.
So you can pretty much rule out money as motivation in the playoffs. Kirilenko made more every minute he played during the regular season than he will make in total for the Jazz's first-round series against the Lakers.
The rest of the breakdown: Best record in the NBA ($317,263), Best record in Conference ($277,604 each), Second-best record in conference ($223,126 each), Third-best record in conference ($166,563), Fourth-best record in conference ($130,900), Fifth-best record in conference ($109,074), Sixth-best record in conference ($74,394).
Teams participating in first round ($164,168 each), Teams participating in conference semifinals ($195,337 each), Teams participating in conference finals ($322,792 each), Losing team NBA Finals ($1,290,821), Winning team NBA Finals ($1,948,042).
Should they go on to win the championship, the Cavaliers would claim more than $2.9 million from the NBA's playoff pool, but still only about $147,380 per player if you assume there are at least 20 shares to go around.
Now if Sloan's talking about the fact that teams are more likely to sign players as free agents who have been part of winning teams, he's got a better argument.
* * *
While writing my Ronnie Brewer/Kobe Bryant story for Sunday's paper, I spent some time trying to figure out Brewer's field-goal percentage on jumpers this season, since it's one of the weaknesses of his game. My initial thought was that Brewer's jumper was so much more consistent this season than last.
One of the features of NBA.com is that it has a hot spot database for each player - - basically a breakdown of how well they've shot from various spots on the floor. You can take away everything that's in and around the lane, for example, for Brewer and calculate how well he's shot jumpers.
The breakdown might actually surprise you. On everything from midrange jumpers to three-pointers, Brewer went 121-for-323 this season or 37.5 percent. He felt confident enough in his jumper to take 60 percent more of them this season, but Brewer actually shot a better percentage last season. He went 87-for-202 (43.1 percent) in 2007-08.
Brewer did improve his three-point percentage this year, going 22-for-85 or 25.9 percent, compared to 11-for-50 (22.0 percent) last year. I'm now going to invite David Locke to provide an even more in-depth statistical breakdown of Ronnie Brewer's jumper, if he's so inclined.
* * *
The Jazz will have at least one advantage this year against the Lakers compared to last year's series. They had to turn around barely 48 hours after closing out Houston in the first round last May and open their conference semifinals series in Los Angeles.
This year, the Jazz will have had four days to prepare for the Lakers, time for two full practices and a shootaround. It's as much practice time as they've had in the last three weeks combined thanks to a crazy closing schedule.
"I think more than anything it's three days to recover a little bit," Sloan said. "We've been in this situation before. The year that we went to the [Western Conference] finals, we had a terrible finish. It wasn't a great finish. Everybody panicked with the way the season went.
"That seems to be the way it is now. But our players, I think, will come together and give us a good effort, and that's how you have a chance to win."
* * *
It was telling when Lakers coach Phil Jackson was able to cite Mehmet Okur's exact three-point percentage (44.6 percent) in his comments the other day. The Lakers clearly see Okur as a threat who could draw Pau Gasol away from the basket with his shooting.
Now it looks as if the Lakers won't have to worry about Okur, at least for Sunday's Game 1. Okur was still complaining he couldn't run with the strained right hamstring he suffered Monday and is all but ruled out of the series opener.
Sloan sounded resigned to the fact at Saturday's shootaround, saying, "We're not going to get any bigger, regardless of what we do. They're a real long team. If we execute and play some defense, we'll see what happens."
--Ross Siler
He's absolutely right, but the money in the NBA's playoff pool seems so insignificant to somebody like Andrei Kirilenko making more than $15 million this season or Carlos Boozer making more than $12 million.
Shouldn't they want to win because they're making all that money in the first place? In fact, the NBA's entire $11 million playoff pool - - that's for all 16 teams that make it - - is less than either Kirilenko or Boozer made this season individually.
The NBA's playoff guide has the breakdown, which I think is well worth sharing. Just for making the playoffs, the Jazz receive $164,168, which they then divide into shares starting with all 15 players. Assuming there are 20 shares, each player will receive . . . $8,208.40.
So you can pretty much rule out money as motivation in the playoffs. Kirilenko made more every minute he played during the regular season than he will make in total for the Jazz's first-round series against the Lakers.
The rest of the breakdown: Best record in the NBA ($317,263), Best record in Conference ($277,604 each), Second-best record in conference ($223,126 each), Third-best record in conference ($166,563), Fourth-best record in conference ($130,900), Fifth-best record in conference ($109,074), Sixth-best record in conference ($74,394).
Teams participating in first round ($164,168 each), Teams participating in conference semifinals ($195,337 each), Teams participating in conference finals ($322,792 each), Losing team NBA Finals ($1,290,821), Winning team NBA Finals ($1,948,042).
Should they go on to win the championship, the Cavaliers would claim more than $2.9 million from the NBA's playoff pool, but still only about $147,380 per player if you assume there are at least 20 shares to go around.
Now if Sloan's talking about the fact that teams are more likely to sign players as free agents who have been part of winning teams, he's got a better argument.
* * *
While writing my Ronnie Brewer/Kobe Bryant story for Sunday's paper, I spent some time trying to figure out Brewer's field-goal percentage on jumpers this season, since it's one of the weaknesses of his game. My initial thought was that Brewer's jumper was so much more consistent this season than last.
One of the features of NBA.com is that it has a hot spot database for each player - - basically a breakdown of how well they've shot from various spots on the floor. You can take away everything that's in and around the lane, for example, for Brewer and calculate how well he's shot jumpers.
The breakdown might actually surprise you. On everything from midrange jumpers to three-pointers, Brewer went 121-for-323 this season or 37.5 percent. He felt confident enough in his jumper to take 60 percent more of them this season, but Brewer actually shot a better percentage last season. He went 87-for-202 (43.1 percent) in 2007-08.
Brewer did improve his three-point percentage this year, going 22-for-85 or 25.9 percent, compared to 11-for-50 (22.0 percent) last year. I'm now going to invite David Locke to provide an even more in-depth statistical breakdown of Ronnie Brewer's jumper, if he's so inclined.
* * *
The Jazz will have at least one advantage this year against the Lakers compared to last year's series. They had to turn around barely 48 hours after closing out Houston in the first round last May and open their conference semifinals series in Los Angeles.
This year, the Jazz will have had four days to prepare for the Lakers, time for two full practices and a shootaround. It's as much practice time as they've had in the last three weeks combined thanks to a crazy closing schedule.
"I think more than anything it's three days to recover a little bit," Sloan said. "We've been in this situation before. The year that we went to the [Western Conference] finals, we had a terrible finish. It wasn't a great finish. Everybody panicked with the way the season went.
"That seems to be the way it is now. But our players, I think, will come together and give us a good effort, and that's how you have a chance to win."
* * *
It was telling when Lakers coach Phil Jackson was able to cite Mehmet Okur's exact three-point percentage (44.6 percent) in his comments the other day. The Lakers clearly see Okur as a threat who could draw Pau Gasol away from the basket with his shooting.
Now it looks as if the Lakers won't have to worry about Okur, at least for Sunday's Game 1. Okur was still complaining he couldn't run with the strained right hamstring he suffered Monday and is all but ruled out of the series opener.
Sloan sounded resigned to the fact at Saturday's shootaround, saying, "We're not going to get any bigger, regardless of what we do. They're a real long team. If we execute and play some defense, we'll see what happens."
--Ross Siler
4:06 PM
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1 Comments:
I'll pass on any further development but the other note of Brewer is the amount of his possessions that became turnovers is way up this year. Not great signs for Ronnie developing into more of a player than he is right now.
Last year the Lakers didn't guard him will they this year.
Great job on the AK piece, thought provoking and well written.
Locke
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