Going Upstairs: Quick Reactions to Christmas Day

I spent Christmas with the (future) in-laws, so I wasn't able to watch the early games and had only one eye on the Bulls game. I'll offer my quick thoughts on the Bulls win here...

Positives:

Obviously, Derrick Rose's clutchness. I love his confidence, taking it in for a score as soon as he saw Derek Fisher was guarding him. He was composed, took his time, and delivered another memorable moment. It's great that in his first game back, Derrick reminds us why we love him and gives us something to talk about already.

Going Upstairs: Western Conference previews next week

It's starting to become a tradition that I post my Western Conference previews after the season starts. Anyways, I will be traveling over the weekend and haven't finished all of them. I will post them next week. Meanwhile, check out my Atlantic, Central, and Southeast Division previews.


Merry Christmas everyone! And Happy Opening Day! 

Going Upstairs: Southeast Division Preview

This is the third of six division previews that I’ll be posting before the season starts. I understand that divisions themselves are mostly meaningless, but it offers a convenient way to split up my preview series. Below I’ve listed teams by predicted order of finish, alongside their projected playoff seed in their conference.

If you were going to create a team of players from each division and have a tournament, the Southeast would likely take home the crown. Even with Charlotte, who would have a hard time placing a player on any division’s All-Star team. The NBA’s two best players, LeBron James and Dwight Howard, reside here, and as a result their teams are perennial contenders. Atlanta brings three All-Star level players to the table, and Washington has assembled a host of young talent, one in particular who is a star in the making.

Going Upstairs: Central Division Preview

This is the first of six division previews that I’ll be posting before the season starts. I understand that divisions themselves are mostly meaningless, but it offers a convenient way to split up my preview series. Below I’ve listed teams by predicted order of finish, alongside their projected playoff seed in their conference.


This looks to be the most lop-sided division in all of basketball, one that the Chicago Bulls almost swept through last season, save for an overtime loss to the Pacers in late March. However, Indiana has emerged as a solid playoff team, and one that will give it's first round opponent fits. The bottom of the division will help the division claim the most ping-pong balls in next year's lottery.

Going Upstairs: Atlantic Division Preview

This is the first of six division previews that I’ll be posting before the season starts. I understand that divisions themselves are mostly meaningless, but it offers a convenient way to split up my preview series. Below I’ve listed teams by predicted order of finish, alongside their projected playoff seed in their conference.

The division that the Boston Celtics have dominated for the last half-decade may be up for grabs this season. They no longer boast the most talented team in the division, and will likely pace themselves for the playoffs, sacrificing wins in the process. Expect the Knicks to attempt to prove themselves as true contenders during the regular season and try to grab a top three seed in the East. Meanwhile, in the bottom of the division rests perhaps the worst team in basketball, the Toronto Raptors.

On The Backburner: Evaluating Players (cont'd)

Hello, it is great to be back for another season of Pro Basket-blog!

So, the Becker-Gorman NBA Evaluation Model is going public. From here on I will refer to it as BGEM (pronounced Bee-Gem); sounds catchy enough. Before we release the initial BGEM player ratings, I want to discuss my definition of each tier. As Matt Becker stated, they are subjective rankings. If you want statistical evaluations, there are plenty of smarter, more disciplined analysts that can provide you statistical breakdowns. What’s important, though, is being able to dissect the information we provide to tell a larger story. Throughout the year, I will be using the composite BGEM rankings to predict which teams I believe have the best chance to win a title. I am sure Matt has many good ideas on how to interpret the information as well. Ultimately, my classification of each tier falls closely in line with Becker’s, but to give you insight to my unique thought process, here are my definitions of the five tiers.

Going Upstairs: Evaluating Players

Several years ago, Shawn Gorman and I developed a system for evaluating NBA players where we essentially grouped them into different tiers. What’s unique about this system isn’t that we grouped them this way, but rather how specifically we defined each tier. Although the rankings are based purely on our own opinions, this system is helpful in describing what conditions we believe a player must meet in order to be in a certain tier. We group players before each season starts, projecting what we expect their value to be in the only upcoming season, and we assume full health. After each season, we would refine our system to be a more accurate model of how we value certain players. We are now ready to introduce our system to the world through Pro Basket-blog, and hopefully spark debate among our readers. You won’t see our evaluations in this post (those come soon), rather you’ll just see the rubric we created to distinguish each level. Without further ado, here is the Becker-Gorman NBA Evaluation Model: