Editorial
Editorial

Pace And Space 2018-19 Predictions Revisited: How’d I Do?

- by Fox Doucette

There are two types of people, broadly speaking, who read my work. There are the people who arrive here via Google search or Basketball Reference or some random social media link and who tend to read what they came for and move on. Then there are the fans, those of you who come here every day, say nice things about the Breakfast Special on Twitter, livetweet with me during Pacers games. This column is for you. Because it’s the people who read me regularly and put some stock in what I say that are going to have the most fun …

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Editorial

The New Orleans Pelicans Should Hire Dave Joerger

- by Fox Doucette

Because the Sacramento Kings are a Roland Emmerich movie of a franchise and because Vlade Divac is as power-hungry as he is incompetent—and why do those things always seem to go together like ketchup and french fries?—Dave Joerger is set to get his walking papers in a face-to-face meeting that was leaked on Twitter way in advance. This leaves Joerger as a free agent a year after taking a Kings team that was languishing in NBA hell and leading them to 39 wins, a legitimate playoff run that ended only when the insane West got away from them (if Sacramento …

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Editorial

Every NBA Team’s Greatest Player Ever

- by Fox Doucette

The debate over who is the greatest player in NBA history involves a very short list. For some people, that list is Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan, and Michael Jordan. For others (me, for example), the top three goes LeBron James and MJ followed by some either fan bias or stat superlative (again, my guy’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but plenty of Lakers fans too young to remember the sky hook or the passing wizardry of Magic Johnson would put Kobe Bryant in at the 3 spot.) Point is, it’s not a very interesting list. LeBron or MJ, MJ or LeBron, like Catholics …

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Editorial

LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and “Making Teammates Better”

- by Fox Doucette

The Lakers are a burning Dumpster fire of a franchise, and it looks like for the first time since 2005, the NBA playoffs will happen with no LeBron James present. Despite this, LeBron is having another top-notch season statistically, posting 27.4 points per game (above his career average of 27.2) and, considering his 35.3 minutes per game are a career low, he’s actually posting the highest scoring rate on a per-minute basis in 16 seasons in the league. He’s posting a 26.0 PER, .595 True Shooting, .186 WS/48, and 4.5 VORP, all despite playing in just 50 of the Lakers’ …

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Editorial / Highlights

Breakfast Special: Featuring Actual Breakfast! (2019)

- by Fox Doucette

The NBA doesn’t return until tomorrow, there haven’t been highlights since the All-Star Game, and this is the second-saddest time of the year for basketball fans (the saddest is the first week after the Finals for everyone except fans of the team that won, because for the rest of us it just means no basketball until October and the fun parts of free agency haven’t started yet.) It is that horrible time when we must contemplate our own sports-fan mortality as we are cruelly reminded that basketball does not happen 365 days a year (well, unless you’re into the WNBA …

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Editorial

What if Colin Kaepernick Played in the NBA?

- by Fox Doucette

NBA Twitter’s been in a bit of a tizzy today after former commissioner David Stern said that embattled quarterback Colin Kaepernick “would still have a job” if he played basketball instead of football or, along the same lines, if the NFL were as progressive as the NBA. Former NBA commissioner David Stern singes the NFL, saying that Kaepernick would still have a job if he played basketball instead of football. https://t.co/H4vNxHg50o via @novy_williams @soshnick — Nick Turner (@NewsyNick) February 14, 2019 Which…well, Stern is right…and Stern is wrong. I’m going to do my best here to try and make the …

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Editorial

Dell Dumpster Fire: Pelicans Finally Unload Dell Demps

- by Fox Doucette

The New Orleans Pelicans finally, like a woman going to divorce court after a bad marriage where the love was gone ages ago, parted ways with embattled general manager Dell Demps. And across the Big Easy, someone’s bound to set “Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is Dead” to a Louis Armstrong trumpet. Let’s have something clearly understood. Demps was one of the biggest reasons the Pelicans were completely unable to build a positive environment around superstar Anthony Davis, and it doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots to the massive Demps-ter fire that resulted when Davis, LeBron James, agent …

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Editorial

The NBA Has a Drama Problem

- by Fox Doucette

by Zach d’Arbeloff On January 28th, Anthony Davis informed the New Orleans Pelicans that he would not sign his Designated Veteran Player Extension – also known as the supermax – and his agent, Rich Paul from Klutch Sports, officially informed the team that Davis “wanted to be traded to a team that allows him a chance to win consistently and compete for a championship.” This marked the biggest fish to land in the trade market since Kevin Garnett in 2007, and arguably, in terms of player value due to Davis’ age, the biggest player to hit the trade market since …

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Editorial

National NBA Media Are Idiots, But It’s Not Our Fault

- by Fox Doucette

As an Indiana Pacers fan, I’ve had the pleasure of watching the national NBA media cover Indiana basketball with such complete lack of foreknowledge about the team that you’d be forgiven for thinking that nobody on national television was aware that Indiana even had a team until about Game 5 of last year’s first round of the playoffs. Hastily assembled hot takes rooted mainly in “quick scan of Basketball Reference or NBA.com in order to find out who’s kinda sorta good” were and are de rigueur, and if anyone who wasn’t already a Magic or Thunder fan before 2017 knew …

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Editorial

No, the Indiana Pacers Are Not Lost Without Victor Oladipo

- by Fox Doucette

Throughout the 2018-19 season, the Indiana Pacers have built a 31-15 record largely on the strength of having the deepest team in the league. It’s not just that the Pacers can’t find space in the rotation for the likes of Aaron Holiday, Edmond Sumner, and Alize Johnson. Rookies have never fared well under “veterans’ coach” guys like Nate McMillan and Gregg Popovich no matter where in the league they’ve played. No, it’s that the Pacers can’t find space in the rotation for a legit NBA backup center like Kyle O’Quinn. Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis are so good that O’Quinn …

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