Posts Tagged → Hedo Turkoglu
MBN Roundtable Discussion: Previewing the 2010 NBA Playoffs for the Orlando Magic
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And the grand finale.
I gathered writers, the best of the best in the blogosphere, to participate in a roundtable discussion and answer some of the most pertinent questions concerning the Orlando Magic as the 2010 NBA Playoffs are set to begin.
So, without further ado, here are the participants:
Kevin Arnovitz, TrueHoop
Tom Haberstroh, Hoopdata
Kurt Helin, ProBasketballTalk
Matt Moore, Hardwood Paroxysm
Kevin Pelton, Basketball Prospectus
Each individual provided his opinion on Vince Carter‘s potential impact in the playoffs, how things may shake out if the Magic and the Cleveland Cavaliers meet in the Eastern Conference Finals, and more.
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Who is the x-factor for the Orlando Magic in the playoffs?
Kevin Arnovitz: The x-factor, as he’s long been for Orlando, is Rashard Lewis. If Lewis is accurate from the perimeter, effective at exploiting slower defenders with improved dribble game and able to use his size to post up smaller defenders, then he gives the Magic even more flexibility in the half court.
Tom Haberstroh: Matt Barnes. They’ll need him to do the dirty work. Can he neutralize the opponent’s top scorers?
Kurt Helin: I wanted to go with someone a little more exotic here — Matt Barnes, Rashard Lewis, and those guys will need to have key moments and games — but in the end it’s about Jameer Nelson to me. Dwight is going to be Dwight. But nobody else in the East has a second option as good as a healthy Nelson. Maybe nobody outside the Lakers does (Gasol behind Kobe). And in the playoffs, when things get tight, that second guy comes up huge. Nelson is a shooting guard who can score when the offense breaks down and there are 6 seconds left on the shot clock, and you need that in the playoffs.
If Nelson can come up huge in the playoffs. That’ll be the test. When it comes down to Cleveland in the conference finals — and it will — the Magic will need to pick-and-roll them to death because neither Shaq nor Big Z can defend it well consistently. If Nelson is All-Star Nelson, running the P&R as god intended… well, the Great Cleveland LeBron Freak Out will begin earlier than expected.
Matt Moore: The bench, quite honestly. I could drive it down to Matt Barnes or Brandon Bass or Marcin Gortat or Mickael Pietrus or J.J. Redick or Ryan Anderson but that’s the whole point. It could be any one of them. They’re all capable of producing at an insanely high level, and the 10-15 points they can put in (if SVG gives them time) could be the swing. Mickael Pietrus was the dagger in the ECF last year. In the semis, J.J. Redick’s defense on Ray Allen was the tip of the sword. It could be any one of those guys. That’s the trouble with the Magic. There’s simply no way to stop all of them.
Kevin Pelton: At the risk of copying Kelly Dwyer, this has to be Rashard Lewis. Lewis’ ability to stretch the floor was the difference-maker for the Magic in last year’s postseason, and you can trace Boston’s addition of Rasheed Wallace and Cleveland’s move for Antawn Jamison to wanting to have similar presences. Lewis has had a down regular season and Orlando could really use him to step up at both ends of the floor.
Thursday’s Magic Word
- Tania Ganguli of the Orlando Sentinel: “Vince Carter smiled, playfully. Matt Barnes started chuckling. Rashard Lewis called it a “once every blue moon” occurrence. It’s not often Magic coach Stan Van Gundy says nice things about the team he coaches. You know, the one with the second-best record in the NBA, that’s only lost five games since the all-star break and set an NBA record for three-pointers made while still being one of the best defensive teams in the league. At the end of a regular season in which the Magic (59-23) barreled through opponents to the finish, Van Gundy took some time to compliment his players.”
- John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com: “Van Gundy takes seriously the fact that the Magic are hitting the playoffs just as the team is seemingly peaking. The Magic not only beat foes down the stretch, but usually smashed them in resounding fashion. Orlando won a NBA-best 39 games by at least 10 points this season, something that shows the professionalism of the team and willingness to strive for greatness, Van Gundy said. “I appreciate what our team has done,” Van Gundy said. “Sometimes when everybody is just waiting for the playoffs there’s not enough appreciation for the grind of the regular season and how hard you have to work and play to be good every night. I mean, it’s not like our team was screwing around and winning by four or six points against these teams that we’re supposed to beat,” Van Gundy continued. “We pretty much drilled them all. That level of focus every night, I can really appreciate that. And it means a helluva lot to me.” Now, comes a different kind of grind for Van Gundy and the Magic. Whereas the marathon regular season is often a test of wills and energy, the playoffs boils down to which team is better four times in a seven-game window.”
- Click here to get to know more about Shannon Van Gundy, head coach Stan Van Gundy’s daughter. It’s certainly a different but more personable perspective on the ol’ coach.
- Dan Devine, Kelly Dwyer, and Trey Kerby of Ball Don’t Lie preview the first round series between the Orlando Magic and the Charlotte Bobcats. Here’s a snippet from Dwyer: “If you’re a fan of the Magic, you’re right chuffed that the Magic face the Bobcats first. That [Jameer] Nelson and Lewis will have to answer the bell early. That [Dwight] Howard will have to flex his muscles while trying to stay on the court for 35 minutes. This is absolutely what Orlando needs, and while Charlotte is nobody’s prefight sparring partner, I can’t help but think the Magic depth and talent will win out.”
- John Hollinger of ESPN Insider predicts how the 2010 NBA Playoffs will shape up from beginning to end. According to Hollinger, he sees the Magic losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals: “Welcome to the real NBA Finals. These have been the league’s two best teams all season, and the winner of this series will be an overwhelming favorite to claim its first championship. [...] My numbers like Orlando because of its dominance down the stretch of the season, but Cleveland was with the Magic step for step in the Power Rankings until Shaq and Anderson Varejao went out. We still haven’t seen what the Cavs are capable of with Antawn Jamison, Varejao and O’Neal on the court together, but I suspect the answer is ‘awesomeness.’ Most importantly, the Cavs have the best player in the league. A year ago, James’ 38-8-8 series averages weren’t enough because Cleveland couldn’t stop the Magic at the other end. This time around, he has more help, and I think he gets it done in a seven-game slugfest.”
- Austin Burton of Dime Magazine lists the top 10 players he thinks will get rich from the NBA postseason. J.J. Redick makes the cut for Orlando: “It wasn’t that long ago when J.J. looked like he’d be joining Trajan Langdon in Russia before he’d ever be an impact player in the NBA. It took four years, but now he’s finally getting enough minutes and shots to show what he can do. Granted, 9.6 points in 22 minutes a night doesn’t make J.J. the next Dan Majerle, but he’s proven he can be a valuable bench guy on a contender or even a starter on some teams.”
- As Emperor Palpatine once said to Luke Skywalker in the Return of the Jedi, “let the hate flow through you.” With that, J.A. Adande of ESPN.com thinks the Magic are the angriest team out of the 16 teams in the playoffs: “In 2010 you won’t find an angrier team than the Orlando Magic. Dwight Howard leads the league in technical fouls. He leads the league in rebounds and blocked shots — again — and can’t get any serious run for MVP. He had to watch the Lakers celebrate their championship last year in his house.”
- John Krolik of ProBasketballTalk explains why Orlando is capable of winning a championship this year.
- Howard is well represented on M. Haubs’ ballot at The Painted Area.
- Want to know what the offensive tendencies are for the Magic and the Bobcats head-to-head? Ben Q. Rock of Orlando Pinstriped Post has got you covered: “Indeed, three-pointers comprise a shade more than 40% of the Magic’s shot attempts against the Bobcats this season. Put another way, they averaged 32 three-point attempts per game against the Bobcats, compared to a season-long average of 27.4 per game, which led the league. Shooting the three plays into Charlotte’s strategy; it yields a league-high 20.7 triple-tries per game, while limiting teams to the second-lowest percentage in the league. Larry Brown has his team playing smart on D, as it forces its opponents to take shots that it defends well. There’s a trap here, though. The three-pointer is, historically, the league’s most efficient shot that isn’t a layup or dunk. The Bobcats tend to get away with letting people shoot it because they’re confident in their ability to guard that shot. But against Orlando? With guys with hair-trigger releases like Jason Williams, J.J. Redick, Ryan Anderson, and Mickael Pietrus? That’s what one might call playing with fire.”
- Check out The Basketball Jones’ preview of the matchup between Orlando and Charlotte.
- Lang Whitaker of SLAM ONLINE picks Howard as his Defensive Player of the Year.
- Which player is on the spot to perform in the playoffs? According to Sean Deveney of The Baseline, it’s Vince Carter: “The Magic traded for Carter last year—letting Hedo Turkoglu go shortly thereafter—in hopes that Carter’s ability to slash to the basket and create his own shot would help the Magic keep the offense going on nights when their 3-point shots weren’t falling. At times, it has worked. At times, it’s been a disaster. Carter averaged 16.6 points but frequently had to be prodded to attack the basket throughout the year. Ultimately, though, Orlando was hoping that Carter could be a difference-maker in the playoffs, though Turkoglu did a very good job in playoff situations last year.”
How Did the Orlando Magic Get to This Point?
Photo by Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images
For Billy Donovan and Stan Van Gundy, it’s a tale of two stories for two head coaches that are in two different positions right now. While the Florida Gators are currently undergoing a rebuilding phase after winning back-to-back NCAA men’s basketball national championships in 2006 and 2007, the Orlando Magic are enjoying an era of prosperity not seen since the mid-’90s when Penny Hardaway and Shaquille O’Neal were household names. It’s no secret that Donovan and Van Gundy will forever be linked in Orlando lore after the drama that unfolded in the summer of 2007. Long story short, Donovan accepted then declined the Magic’s offer to become head coach after Brian Hill was fired and as a result, Van Gundy ended up with the job. The question is, how did we get here? How did Orlando become a powerhouse in the NBA?
Look no further than the man that “replaced” Donovan.
There’s no doubt that other people should be credited with returning the Magic to prominence, including the DeVos family (for paying the luxury tax), general manager Otis Smith, and others. But at the end of the day, Van Gundy is at the epicenter of this era. Van Gundy is defining the narrative that is unfolding in Orlando and it’s an interesting one, to say the least.
Wednesday’s Magic Word
- Adonal Foyle gives the Magic State of the Union address: “I’m here to report that with respect to the Orlando Magic team, the state of our union is strong. The team has been performing at an absolutely wonderful pace – obviously demonstrated by our victories. And the emergence of Vince [Carter] as the force we knew him to be has definitely started to pay dividends – he’s obviously much more aggressive going to the basket. These games gave him an opportunity to demonstrate why he is here and emerge as one of the best players these last few months.”
- Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: “Barring any unforeseen setbacks, the Orlando Magic should have their full roster available to play Thursday night against the Dallas Mavericks in Dallas. Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said Vince Carter (sprained right big toe), Mickael Pietrus (sprained left ankle) and (sprained right thumb) and everybody else on the roster practiced today at RDV Sportsplex.”
- Want to see video of Dwight Howard‘s impersonation of Charles Barkley? Click here.
- Trey Kerby of Ball Don’t Lie conducts an interview with Howard, asking him a variety of questions that range from serious to silly. When asked if the team finally being healthy for an extended period of time has been the main reason why the Orlando Magic have been playing well lately, Howard answers: “I think that’s one thing that’s gotten us to the level that we’re at today, but another thing is that all the work we’ve put in in the offseason, and all the things we do every day in practice to get better finally started to show up. We’re big believers in hard work, and how hard work can overshadow anything. We understand that. We work extremely hard in practice to get better, and I think that’s why we’re playing at the level we’ve been playing at as of late. We understood that early in the season we were going to have a lot of ups and downs because we have a new team and we all have to get used to playing with each other, and just playing with guys like Vince Carter, Brandon Bass, and Matt Barnes. It’s a new situation for our whole team, so we really just have to learn how to play together, and we’re gelling at the right time. And I’m happy. I don’t think we’ve reached our peak yet, but I think we’re on our way to being that team we’ve all hoped for.”
- Mark Milner of Hardwood Paroxysm thinks that Howard deserves a few votes for MVP, even though LeBron James will undoubtedly win the award for a second consecutive year.
- Head coach Stan Van Gundy stated yesterday that the MVP “is just an offensive award.” Pat McManamon of NBA FanHouse disagrees.
- Jonathan Abrams of Off the Dribble looks back at general manager Otis Smith‘s decision not to re-sign Hedo Turkoglu during the off-season.
- By the way, Turkoglu is now coming off the bench for the Toronto Raptors.
- A little over a week ago, Foyle told George Diaz of the Orlando Sentinel that he’d like to be a general manager in the NBA after he retires from playing basketball. Eric Freeman of The Baseline is surprised.
- John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com writes about Howard’s day on the job at Champs Sports at The Florida Mall.
Interview with Keith Boyarsky and Alex Rucker of the Toronto Raptors, Part II
Photo by Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images
Here’s Part II of my interview (click here to read Part I) with Keith Boyarsky and Alex Rucker, statistical consultants for the Toronto Raptors. In this segment, I go one-on-one with Alex about Hedo Turkoglu.
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As Hedo Turkoglu gets older, do you anticipate that his role will change with the Toronto Raptors? Do you see an evolution in his responsibilities over time?
Honestly, I think a lot of the reasons that we were okay with the contract length that we gave him was the fact that his game isn’t really predicated on athleticism. It relies, kind of, heavily on the fact that he’s successful in a lot of things. He plays very intelligently, at least on the offensive end, especially. So, will his role change? I’m sure it will. I don’t think it will erode, if you will, like normal players that rely more on athleticism because the fact is that he’s a long 6’10” small forward who is pretty much always in a [favorable] matchup situation at that position. So, the things that he’s able to do I don’t think depend on quickness, speed, and, kind of, inherited abilities as much as they do with his basketball talent. I think that his decline … obviously everybody declines at some point in their 30′s and I’m sure he will, but I would guess that his decline will be slower in ways that we care about.
Tuesday’s Magic Word
- Tania Ganguli of the Orlando Sentinel: Vince Carter sat out Tuesday’s Orlando Magic practice with a sprained right big toe. He remains listed as day-to-day and Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said he doesn’t know whether Carter will be available to play on Thursday against the Dallas Mavericks. [...] Carter is aiming to be back by Thursday. He was shooting after practice at RDV Sportsplex, but couldn’t wear his normal basketball shoes. Carter had on some low-tops and said those shoes and sandals are about all he can wear without causing his toe additional pain.
- Ben Q. Rock of Orlando Pinstriped Post chimes in on Hedo Turkoglu’s malaise with the Toronto Raptors: ”As someone whose email box occasionally contains tips about Turk’s party habits, I can’t say that his nightlife surprises me. But the poor attitude? The mailing-in of a season? Doesn’t seem like Turk to me. I’m happy that he had a productive career with Orlando, and utterly disappointed that he seems content to play out the string on a bloated contract for a middling team that can’t do much to improve due to, in part, Turk’s monster deal. I’m not faulting the guy for cashing in–that’d be hypocritical, frankly–but dude really ought to try harder.”
- Dikembe Mutombo thinks that Dwight Howard can be the Defensive Player of the Year, every year, until he gets old. Lofty praise from one of the best defenders in NBA history.
- For championship contenders, it’s good to be balanced. Bradford Doolittle of Basketball Prospectus explains: “How do we define balanced? Since this is a jumping-off point for a navel-gazing exercise, let’s keep it simple. Using my post-ABA/NBA merger database of 870 teams through the end of last season, let’s divide teams whose league ranks in offense and defense are less than seven places apart. Why seven? Making that the dividing line gives us 425 balanced teams and 445 unbalanced. That’s as close to an even split as we’re going to get. Let’s look at some characteristics of these two groups. As a general rule, teams that are less balanced have won more in the regular season, but the balanced squads have done better in the playoffs. In the regular season, if a team has that big of a gap between its offense and defense, it means that they probably were competent at least one or the other. However, a good number of the teams we’re defining as “balanced” may simply have sucked at both ends of the court. With more regular season success, the unbalanced teams have accounted for more playoff spots. But with the “suck at both” teams filtered out, the balanced teams have won more titles.”
- It appears that Mickael Pietrus, who has been recovering from an ankle injury, will be ready to play on Thursday against the Dallas Mavericks.
- Rashard Lewis, a former SuperSonics player, wants to participate in Ray Allen’s charity game in Seattle that’s currently in the works and would take place in the summer.
- There’s a lot of things that Howard excels in, like his ability to impersonate Charles Barkley. Tim Povtak of NBA FanHouse transcribes some of Howard’s “rants” as Barkley. Lost in the shuffle, though, is head coach Stan Van Gundy’s thoughts on the MVP award: “It is just an offensive award. People who vote just don’t factor in defense, rebounding and how effective Dwight is defensively. I think it’s unfortunate. If the criteria was how many possessions are you affecting at both ends, if that’s what people thought about, then Dwight would be at the top of the league.”
- Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel conducts a light-hearted interview with Van Gundy, asking him a variety of questions that don’t pertain to basketball.
Interview with Keith Boyarsky and Alex Rucker of the Toronto Raptors, Part I
Photo by Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images
Hedo Turkoglu has been dominating the headlines the past few days around the blogosphere and not for the right reasons. Whether it’s been his inability to produce at a satisfactory rate vis-à-vis his hefty contract, his indifference to show up and do his best on the job, and a myriad of other things, Turkoglu has gone from being a darling with the Orlando Magic to being a vagabond with the Toronto Raptors in less than a span of 12 months. Ouch.
Rather than try to decipher what makes Turkoglu tick from a psychological standpoint, I wanted to check up on him and see how he’s been performing for the Raptors on the court, not off it. To do that, I interviewed Keith Boyarsky and Alex Rucker, two individuals that work as consultants for Toronto and perform quantitative data analysis. They’re the guys that operate behind the scenes and crunch the numbers for, most notably, Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo and head coach Jay Triano.
Keith and Alex dish the goods on Turkoglu for me, providing a unique perspective on a player that has impacted two franchises in different ways.
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It’s ironic that, a few weeks after the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference took place, I’m conducting an interview with you and Keith. The casual NBA fan may not be aware of this but more statistical analysts — the diverse representation at the Sloan Conference, which included front office personnel from a bevy of NBA teams confirmed this — are being hired to serve a role with their respective franchises. Usually it’s a consulting gig but it differs from team to team, of course. Could you briefly explain how both of you joined the Toronto Raptors as consultants?
Alex: I’ve known Jay Triano for many years, having worked with him briefly at Simon Fraser University. When he became the head coach of the Toronto Raptors, he was eager to take advantage of the quantitative analysis that was becoming increasingly prevalent at the pro level. He talked to more than one analyst last summer to see what was out there and get a sense of how it could help him and his coaching staff. He asked me to put together a presentation for his coaching staff and I was thrilled to be in a position to help him out. I’d been working closely with a colleague, Keith Boyarsky, doing what I felt was some really useful and actionable basketball analysis. We took a close look at what Toronto did last year. The Raptors brought us up to Toronto for a series of meetings with coaches and management and it took off from there.
Keith: As a big NBA fan with a background in engineering and computer science, I had been working for 4 or 5 years on the side, developing a suite of software tools to take advantage of new data sources. I met Alex through a friend of a friend at Summer League a few years ago, and we started discussing the various things we had worked on, or were working on, in terms of NBA analysis. It was clear that, while we were approaching things from different angles, we had a similar overall view of the game. When Alex talked with Jay last summer, we learned that the Raptors were interested in the sort of stuff we were doing, and our relationship with the team developed from there.
Monday’s Magic Word
- Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel: “Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said after Sunday’s game that he didn’t expect Mickael Pietrus or Vince Carter to be out too long with injuries. The Magic’s next game is Thursday in Dallas, and Carter might be able to return from a sprained right toe he sustained in Sunday’s win against Denver. The team said that x-rays revealed no serious damage. Joel Glass, the Magic’s vice president of communications, said Monday that Carter is day-to-day.”
- Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel states that the Orlando Magic played some of their best basketball in the month of March: “The Magic displayed the feisty swagger of a contender in March. Van Gundy was relentless as usual. [Matt] Barnes agitated Kobe Bryant in a nationally televised win. Carter howled after hitting some big shots. [Dwight] Howard floored Derrick Rose again. He kept collecting technical fouls and wondering out loud why the Magic are overlooked. Confidence has spread through a team that carries a sizeable chip on their shoulders.”
- Ben Q. Rock of Orlando Pinstriped Post wonders how much J.J. Redick is worth?
- Looks like things have soured with Hedo Turkoglu in Toronto. Kelly Dwyer of Ball Don’t Lie doesn’t mince words when he explains why the Raptors made a mistake by signing Turkoglu to a long-term contract that doesn’t expire until 2014. Yikes.
- News flash. Redick can still shoot.
- Are divisions in the NBA relevant anymore? Henry Abbott of TrueHoop attempts to answer the question: ”[...] through it all — do you care? How much bragging can you do if your team wins its division? Are Denver and Utah locked in a contest for a better playoff spot, or a division crown? I could be wrong, but I put it to you that division crown means almost nothing, and if you ignore it entirely, you miss almost nothing.”
- Tom Haberstroh of Hoopdata explains how the Magic excel on defense: “[...] As opposed to the steal-centric Celtics who own the second highest opponent turnover rate, the Magic alter shots (lowest opp. eFG%), don’t allow offensive rebounds (lowest opp. rebound rate), and keep their opponents away from the charity stripe (seventh lowest free throw rate). While it helps to have Dwight Howard on the floor, this is a collective effort.”
