Tuesday Bolts – 7.21.15
Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight: “The addition of Lawson changes that, essentially pulling Houston even with Oklahoma City for third. Rated the ninth-best offensive player in the NBA by projected 2015-16 RPM, Lawson is a major upgrade over backup Patrick Beverley. His presence figures to give Houston one of the best projected offenses in the West — perhaps even equal to the firepower of the mighty (when healthy) Thunder.”
Zach Lowe of Grantland: “Harris is right. Four years into a strange career, he’s a classic ‘good numbers/bad team’ guy — an archetype that has long flustered general managers who must project how such players would fare in smaller roles on good teams. Those GMs are thinking more than usual about the question today. A ton of losing teams have been in rebuild mode, and they are now burping up free agents with gaudy numbers and dreams of earning big money under a salary cap rising to unprecedented levels. Are guys like Harris, Enes Kanter, Jordan Clarkson,2 and Michael Carter-Williams actually good?”
KD doing some on court working out with Russell Westbrook.
Justin Verrier of ESPN on Vegas Summer League: “D’Angelo Russell’s averageness. You see the videos of Russell throwing passes like breaking balls and instantly buy in, but the No. 2 overall pick was just OK in Vegas, and looked particularly lead-footed when playing next to the dynamic Jordan Clarkson. He’ll probably be fine, and his final line (11.8 PPG, 5.2 RPG, 3.2 APG) isn’t all that alarming, but, much to the chagrin of the Lakers fans that packed the house, it may take Russell longer than expected to bring glory back to the crestfallen franchise.”
Blake Griffin tells DeAndre Jordan’s story.
Andrew Sharp of Grantland: “I don’t know exactly why big men stopped owning the NBA. It’s not just a stylistic thing. For whatever reason, the greatest athletes stopped being 7 feet tall and stronger than everybody. I grew up watching David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Shaq. All of them were was as graceful as they were powerful, and they could take over games in 10 different ways. Since Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett, we haven’t seen any real heirs to their throne. Today’s 7-footers look more like Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Bosh, or Kevin Durant, or some alien hybrid of all three (Anthony Davis). Other potential stars have been slowed by injuries (Greg Oden, Yao Ming), or attitude (Boogie), or everything (Darko).”
How likely is a team to draft an All-Star in the first round?
