Fox Doucette | Pace and Space

2000: Possibly the Worst NBA Draft Ever

November 19, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

As the 2020 NBA Draft wraps up and people who actually follow the college game because they mistakenly believe it provides insight into an NBA player’s potential go nuts over their team’s selections, it’s time to take a moment and look back into the past when great players stepped up to the podium as the beginning of their Hall of Fame journey to greatness… …nah, forget all that. It’s time to go ahead and dig a prime example out of the vault of why the college game is stupid, the NBA Draft is stupid, and you can’t tell a single …

Editorial

Remembering the 1986 NBA Draft: Coke Is It!

November 17, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

What do you get when you cross Rasheed Wallace with Eric Clapton? You get the 1986 NBA draft. Because ball don’t lie, ball don’t lie, ball don’t lie…cocaine. The ’86 draft represents a low point in what was otherwise a seemingly uninterrupted 19-year run of awesome for the league, from the 1979 draft (where Magic Johnson went first overall and, after Larry Bird finished his senior season at Indiana State, he finally took up the mantle of having been the sixth overall pick a year earlier and joined the Celtics as a rookie) through “The Last Shot” at the end …

Editorial

Anatomy of a Fleecing: How NBA Teams Make Bad Trades

November 16, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

As this goes to press, Twitter is exploding with news that the Milwaukee Bucks traded Eric Bledsoe, George Hill, and (get ready, folks) three first-round picks and two future pick swaps to the New Orleans Pelicans for Jrue Holiday. The Bucks are in blatant win-now mode trying to put a Big Three together (and saying in no uncertain terms that Bledsoe is not a Big Three third guy) alongside two-time reigning MVP and 2020 Defensive Player of the Year Giannis Antetokounmpo and two-time All-Star Khris Middleton. But in the process, they’ve pretty much told their fans “if Giannis leaves in …

Editorial

The Incredible Longevity of John Havlicek

November 15, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

John Havlicek played for 16 NBA seasons, entering the league in 1962-63 in time to win six championships with Bill Russell, then adding two more titles in 1974 and 1976 as the sidekick to Dave Cowens for which he’s remembered by Celtics fans younger than about 60. He made his first All-Star team in his fourth pro season in 1966, then never missed another until he retired. What’s more, “Hondo” wasn’t coasting on reputation in the mid-to-late ’70s; he averaged 16.1 points per game and still managed 5.1 Win Shares in 1977-78, a year after he was still effective enough …

Analysis

Russell Westbrook’s Nonexistent Trade Value

November 14, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

When an NBA front office decides whether to trade for a player, there are a few questions that need to be answered before either pulling the trigger or calling the other team back to say “no dice.” The first and most obvious is “is the guy we’re trading for any good?” There are plenty of reasons to trade for a guy who sucks, and we’ll get into why as we go down this list of questions, but as a good rule of thumb, you don’t trade for players who suck. The second is “how much money does he make and …

Editorial

The Greatest Draft Day Trade In NBA History

November 13, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

On April 30, 1956, an NBA draft day trade went down that would change the course of basketball history in a way that has rarely been matched since. Sure, there was the Greatest Fleecing in NBA History—when the Boston Celtics snookered the Golden State Warriors out of Robert Parish and Kevin McHale for Joe Barry Carroll in 1980, still the most one-sided draft day trade if not the most one-sided trade, full stop, in NBA history—but a great trade should benefit both teams in either the short or the long term to truly be considered a masterwork of a player …

Editorial

What’s the Worst Way to Lose an NBA Game?

November 12, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

The Stockton Kings, G-League affiliate of Sacramento’s NBA team, posed an interesting question on Twitter on Tuesday. This is tough. A or B? 👀 pic.twitter.com/PvJcfB0dEA — Stockton Kings (@StocktonKings) November 11, 2020 Would you rather get crossed over on the game winning play and lose, or miss the game winning free throws? In the red corner, you have guys like Bryon Russell and Craig Ehlo, who will forever be known for getting shook by Michael Jordan on two of His Airness’ most famous plays from a whole career of famous plays. In the blue corner, you have Nick Anderson, a …

Analysis

72 Games? Starting on Dec. 22? What’s the NBA’s Plan Here?

November 11, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

The NBA and its union have agreed upon a 72-game season to begin on December 22, ensuring not only that the league fulfills its obligations to the networks under its television contracts but also that statistically speaking, the texture of overall stat totals will look a lot like 2020 and provide about 85 percent of the stats of a true 82-game season. This is important for, say, LeBron James‘ pursuit of NBA history—72 games puts him in range to accomplish the “career triple-double” of 10,000 rebounds and assists to go with his roughly 34,000 and counting career points—and it also …

Editorial

RIP, Tommy Heinsohn

November 10, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

Tom Heinsohn, 8-time championship-winning player, two-time champion coach, and 40-year legend of the broadcast booth, has died. He was 86. Reports say that Heinsohn, upon seeing the Grim Reaper come to take him to the afterlife, said “THIS IS RIDICULOUS! TERRIBLE CALL! GET OUTTA HERE!” The man was a civic icon for 64 years, from his Rookie of the Year season in 1956-57, where he beat out teammate Bill Russell, all the way to the cantankerous blatant homer beloved by TV viewers in Boston and always affectionately mocked by non-Celtics fans. Even if you’re a believer in the notion that …

Editorial

LaMelo Ball’s Insanely Low Floor Will Kill the Timberwolves

November 9, 2020 - by Fox Doucette

LaMelo Ball has been a curious prospect ever since his idiot father LaVar pulled him out of high school for a barnstorming tour of Europe and Australia in lieu of a proper basketball education either in the NCAA or in a legitimate Euroleague team’s youth program. That’s not to say Ball can’t…well, ball, but like his brother Lonzo Ball there are serious questions that remain unanswered about whether the bad habits he learned from his father during the formative years when his raw basketball talent turned into an NBA contract justify spending a high-lottery pick on him. After all, Lonzo …