2020 Preview | Pace and Space

2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 Golden State Warriors Good?

October 22, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

The Golden State Warriors fell short of winning their fourth title in five years in June, with injuries to Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson acting as a decisive Gotterdammerung at the hands of the Toronto Raptors. This year…hoo boy. Some prognosticators have suggested they won’t even make the playoffs, as Durant is gone to Brooklyn, Thompson will miss a substantial portion of the 2019-20 season, and Stephen Curry isn’t getting any younger and has had his own battles with injuries throughout his career since getting hurt in the 2016 playoffs. Vegas, for its part, remains optimistic, pegging Golden State for …

2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 Los Angeles Clippers Good?

October 21, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

They’ve got a ready-made nickname for a superstar tandem (“The 213”, both the area code for Los Angeles and the uniform numbers of Kawhi Leonard (2) and Paul George (13) respectively). They’ve got two of the biggest bench superstars on great contracts in the league (Lou Williams at $8 million and Montrezl Harrell at $6M) and a sophomore player who has a chance to make a huge leap with the national spotlight on him (Landry Shamet). And they’ve got a coach in Doc Rivers with a championship to his name from the 2008 Celtics, The Los Angeles Clippers look like …

2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 Sacramento Kings Good?

October 20, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

As this goes to press, rumors are flying all around NBA Twitter of Buddy Hield seeking a max extension after his rookie deal expires this year. De’Aaron Fox, meanwhile, will surely be in the same camp if he has another season like his breakout year in 2018-19. So it looks like the Sacramento Kings have big aspirations, but they’re going to have to prove it on the court this year if they’re really going to be able to say—with their wallets as well as their words—that they have the next big superstar backcourt on the West Coast to rival the …

2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers Good?

October 18, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

The Los Angeles Lakers are LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and a G-League team. In other words, Davis, besides having possibly the GOAT on his team, doesn’t have a supporting cast any better than what he had in New Orleans when he ran himself out of town. But if you’ve got two top-5 players in the whole league on your team, does it matter what the other 10 guys do? (don’t answer that, Warriors fans.) Look. We know LeBron and AD will excel, provided they stay healthy. What we’re really trying to answer here is if the Lakers have anywhere near …

2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 Phoenix Suns Good?

October 17, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

With the possible exception of the New York Knicks, is there a bigger Dumpster fire of a franchise in the NBA or indeed all of sports than the Phoenix Suns? As the Pacific Division is last up on the docket before the season starts, we get the benefit of having watched the preseason come and go as these previews go live, and the Suns in particular have had their disaster-movie status confirmed not by their own play on the court (these games are meaningless and have no predictive value for the regular season) but by three guys who aren’t even …

2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 Houston Rockets Good?

October 16, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

No team in all of sports confounds expectations quite like the Houston Rockets with the possible exception of the discussed-Monday San Antonio Spurs. They are the ultimate dichotomy, the Spurs a testament to the power of brutalist old-school efficiency on two-point shots and fundamentally sound play that left them sixth in eFG% despite being dead last in 3PAR. The Rockets are the polar opposite, freewheeling with an astounding 51.7 percent of their overall attempts on the floor coming from long range and the fourth-highest eFG% despite the seventh-worst raw FG%—that’s right folks, in case you needed reminding, three is more …

2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 San Antonio Spurs Good?

October 14, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

Of all the teams in all of professional sports, no team confounds analysis like the San Antonio Spurs. This is a team that won 48 games in the Western Conference and nearly upset the 2 seed Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs despite a coach whose offensive philosophy is so mired in the Dark Ages that if he weren’t a legend walking, he’d have been fired as the team said “we need to modernize and look toward the future.” The Spurs were dead last in 3-point attempt rate. Their two best players, LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan, …

2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 Dallas Mavericks Good?

October 12, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

The 2018-19 Dallas Mavericks were ironclad proof that unless you’ve got one of those players who can put up seasons like a top-5 in the entire league player, you’re not getting to the mountaintop—or, in the Western Conference, even the playoffs—with just one star. Luka Doncic put up a 3.6 VORP in 2018-19. That’s 0.5 VORP better than LeBron James managed in his rookie season in Cleveland back in 2003-04. Those 2004 Cavaliers went 35-47. The 2019 Mavericks went 33-39. This year, however, Doncic is entering the build-on-his-talents year, Kristaps Porzingis is coming back from injury, and the Mavs have …

2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 New Orleans Pelicans Good?

October 11, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

The New Orleans Pelicans are one giant full-of-promise question mark away from being a G-League team full of castoffs and discards who weren’t good enough for a 35-win Lakers team. But when the question mark is Zion Williamson, whose ceiling is LeBron James and whose floor is Aaron Gordon (big, athletic guy who doesn’t translate dunk contest excellence into superstar performance in actual games), everyone wants to anoint New Orleans as the next Golden State Warriors. Vegas seems to be splitting the difference, pegging the Pellies for 39 wins, 10th in the Western Conference, expecting them to miss the playoffs …

2020 Preview

Are the 2019-20 Memphis Grizzlies Good?

October 10, 2019 - by Fox Doucette

It’s hard to draw an accurate bead on the Memphis Grizzlies as they proceed to try and move past the Grit N’ Grind Era and into a newer, more modern approach to the game. On the one hand, they have a good combination of promising youth and savvy veterans that you need for a team on the rise. On the other hand, they have an absolutely awful coach in J.B. Bickerstaff, a complete moron of a GM in Chris Wallace, and an approach to analytics powered by John Hollinger, a guy whose statistical analyses have been passed by thanks to …