I seem to remember someone doing this a few years back and really enjoying it, so I thought I'd give it a shot with the condensed schedule leaving so many games on the schedule each night. I'm ranking each game in three categories: competitiveness, importance, and style points/storylines (which includes star power, the style of basketball, and any intriguing stories to watch). I'll include a survey at the end where you can predict the winners of each game!
Let me know if this is something you'd like to see again!
10) Milwaukee Bucks (1-1) vs. New York Knicks (0-2) at 7:30 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Milwaukee -11
Last Meeting: January 14th, 2020. RJ Barrett drained five threes and Bobby Portis scored 20 off the bench, but the Bucks dominated the Knicks at Fiserv Forum 128-102. The two teams combined for a whopping 79 points in the third quarter.
The Bucks have won their last five meetings with the Knicks, with the last New York win coming in an overtime thriller at the Garden in December of 2018.
Competitiveness: A championship contender that dismantled the Warriors by 40 facing the Knicks on the tail end of a back-to-back. Not much else to say here. 1.5/10
Importance: This game is essentially a scheduled win for the Bucks, and a chance for the Knicks to test their young guys and let them grow up a little. Unfortunate that Obi Toppin will be on the sidelines for this one. 2/10
Style Points: The high-flying Bucks offense has been off to another hot start, topping the 120 point mark in both of their games. The Knicks' young guns have shown promise and made so flashy plays, but they also turn the ball over a lot. Neither team tends to foul a lot or shoot a ton of free throws, which will help game flow.
Some might keep an eye on Giannis' free throw shooting, but the real story to watch is RJ Barrett's three point accuracy. He lit it up from distance against Indiana, but struggled mightily against Philly. Can he take a step forward in that department this season?
Bonus points for the MSG crew calling this game. 6/10
Overall Rating: 3/10
9) Brooklyn Nets (2-0) vs. Charlotte Hornets (0-2) at 7:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: NBA TV
Spread: Brooklyn -7.5
Last Meeting: February 22nd, 2020. The Nets used a third quarter explosion to turn a comfortable win into a rout as they won 115-86. Luwawu-Cabarrot led the team in scoring with 21, while Garrett Temple of all people snagged eleven boards.
Competitiveness: The Nets have steamrolled over their competition so far, blowing out the Warriors and Celtics by 20+ points. The Hornets have struggled with two losses to non-contenders, and come into this game on the wrong end of a back-to-back. 1.5/10
Importance: A contending Nets team cannot afford to drop games like this one, especially in the early part of the season when there are so many eyeballs on KD and Kyrie. The Hornets could really use a positive performance to get their season headed in the right direction. 4/10
Style Points: The Nets have stars all over the court and have looked like a juggernaut early this season, making them one of the most intriguing teams to watch, and a fun one too, as they've played fast and made lots of threes. Charlotte ranked last in pace of play last season but seems to be trying to pick things up. You'll get the Charlotte crew for this game on NBA TV, and they call a fun game.
Terry Rozier and Gordon Hayward are two guys to pay attention to- Rozier dropped 42 on a Cavs team that sucks at defending point guards. Is he headed for a breakout season? Hayward was shut down by the Thunder last night and will look to get things going. Plus LaMelo Ball! 8/10
Overall: 4.4/10
8) Golden State Warriors (0-2) vs. Chicago Bulls (0-2) at 8:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Golden State -2.5
Last Meeting: December 6th, 2019. Glenn Robinson III made the go-ahead layup with a minute left and a very different looking Warriors team beat the Bulls 100-98 in Chicago. Denzel Valentine was ejected in the third quarter for yelling at the Warriors' bench.
Competitiveness: The Warriors have been blown out by two great teams so far. The Bulls have been blown out by two mediocre teams and just played a deflating contest against the Pacers last night. 4.5/10
Importance: Both teams could really use their first win of the season. The Warriors cannot afford to lose to teams like the Bulls if they're going to contend for the playoffs. This probably still figures as a matchup of two non-contenders, though. 5.5/10
Style Points: The Bulls have lots of exciting young players, but they seem turnover-prone and have struggled to score. Neither team has been able to stop literally anyone on defense so far (lol thanks Golden State for taking Wiggins), so there's a chance this turns into one of those ridiculous shootouts where both teams top 70 in the first half.
Patrick Williams looked good in his first game against the Hawks, but the Pacers were able to shut him down. Watching him adjust to the breakneck pace of games and the new level of competition will be interesting. The Warriors will need to find other sources of offense besides Curry and Wiseman, and this game is a perfect chance for them to do so. Definitely opt for the Chicago broadcast if you tune in. 4.5/10
Overall: 4.8/10
** 7)Philadelphia 76ers (2-0) vs. Cleveland Cavaliers (2-0) at 7:30 pm EST**
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Philadelphia -6
Last Meeting: February 26th, 2020. The Sixers had to play most of the game without their two best players as Joel Embiid left in the first quarter with a sprained shoulder. The Cavs, then the worst team in the East, led the entire way and won 108-94.
Competitiveness: The Cavs look like a much better team this year as Sexton has another year under his belt and they have Drummond underneath. There's a long way to go to challenge the Sixers, though, and they played an exhausting two-overtime trench war with the Pistons last night while Philly coasted to an easy win over the Knicks. 5/10
Importance: Definitely a litmus test game for the Cavs- can they hang with Philly and prove that they can be that dangerous team no one wants to face in the east play-in tournament? The 76ers might be looking past this game as they have a big clash with Tampa Bay coming up on Tuesday. 4/10
Style Points: This game gives us two matchups between stars. Joel Embiid has been on a mission to start this season, following up his 29/14 against Washington with a 27/10 against the Knicks. His matchup with Andre Drummond will be one to watch. At point guard, Simmons-Sexton could be an even more exciting face-off. The Cavs have played a more fun style of basketball this season, using Sexton to ignite a high pressure defense that stole a win in Detroit. That double-overtime win might prove costly tonight, though, when they run out of gas against a deeper and more talented Sixers team. Bonus points for the Cavs having that really fun color guy, I guess. 6.75/10
Overall: 5.25/10
6) Minnesota Timberwolves (2-0) vs. Los Angeles Lakers (1-1) at 10:00 pm EST
Where to watch: NBA TV
Spread: Los Angeles -11
Last Meeting: December 8th, 2019. AD dropped half a hundred and LeBron put up 32 and thirteen assists as the Lakers won a 142-125 slugfest. The Wolves hung around and trailed by only seven after three quarters before LA pulled away.
Competitiveness: The Wolves are off to a surprising 2-0 start, including an impressive win in Utah last night. Most would write this off as a scheduled loss, though, with a back-to-back against the defending champs and KAT getting dinged up at the end of the Jazz game. Still, it will be interesting to see how this new-look Wolves team trades punches with AD and Bron in the first half. 6/10
Importance: The Lakers seem to finally be settling into the new season after a disappointing showing on opening night, and will be looking for another statement win. Some Wolves fans have speculated that they will rest KAT after his injury scare tonight. I'd expect him to play, but no one in Minnesota thinks they will win this game. 3/10
Style Points: Anthony Edwards going up against two of the best in the game? DLo back in LA? Upstarts against the defending champs? Top notch storylines for this game, where the first half will be a good litmus test for Minnesota, before fatigue probably sets in for guys like Edwards and Culver and the game gets pretty ugly.
Minnesota's defense looks much improved this season, and their explosive bench can keep this game fun. And you know what you're getting with the Lakers' stars. Unfortunately the NBA TV rights to this game mean most fans will get the LA crew and miss out on the top notch Fox Sports North announcers. 8/10
Overall: 5.6/10
5) San Antonio Spurs (2-0) vs. New Orleans Pelicans (1-1) at 7:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: New Orleans -5
Last Meeting: August 9th, 2020. The Spurs and Pels faced off for a high-scoring showdown in the bubble that saw the two teams combined for 77 fourth quarter points. JJ Redick went off and hit eight threes and Zion chipped in 25, but the rest of their teammates shit the bed and the Spurs won 122-113.
Competitiveness: The Spurs are off to a fast start, most recently squeaking out an impressive win over the Raptors last night. The Pelicans have produced mixed results, but beat Tampa by a more impressive margin and have an extra day of rest. Expect a close one early, with New Orleans having a sizeable edge late. 6.5/10
Importance: Both teams figure to be in the hunt for the final playoff spots and will see each other plenty this season as they are both in the same division. I doubt the Spurs would sweat this B2B loss too much, though. 7/10
Style Points: Zion put up a highlight-worthy 32 and 14 on Christmas Day against the Heat, and the Pels look like a new team on defense, making them one of the most interesting squads to watch this year. Ingram, Redick, Hart, and Lonzo can combine for an offensive explosion at any time. The Spurs can play kind of a bland style sometimes, especially with 35 year old LaMarcus Aldridge playing on a back-to-back. Dejounte Murray, who just posted his first career triple double and looks much improved this season, will be an interesting to player to watch today. This one feels like it could be a snooze-fest or a barn-burner, with nothing in between. 6.75/10
Overall: 6.7/10
4) Boston Celtics (1-1) vs. Indiana Pacers (2-0) at 8:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Boston -2.5
Last Meeting: Tuesday March 10th, 2020. The Celtics were the last team the Pacers faced before Miss Rona stepped in and put a stop to the basketball for awhile. Marcus Smart made the go-ahead layup to rescue Boston in the final minute after they blew a 19 point lead, and they held on to win 114-111. Sabonis posted a 28-9-8 night for Indiana.
Competitiveness: The Celtics have the rest advantage, as they got the night off to lick their wounds after a Christmas Night Stomping at the hands of KD and Kyrie, while the Pacers had to take the floor last night and beat up on the Bulls. The Pacers figure to be in the middle of the playoff pack, while the Celtics would like to challenge the Bucks and Nets at the top, and this game will be a huge early measuring stick for both teams. The Pacers will have home floor, which makes this anyone's game. 8/10
Importance: It's never too early to have a big game for playoff seeding! The Celtics will be anxious to prove that their opening game win against Milwaukee was no fluke, while the Pacers need to show us that they can beat someone better than the Knicks and Bulls. 7.5/10
Style Points: This is where this game kind of falls short. Tatum, Kemba, Sabonis, Brown, and others all provide lots of star power, but aren't the big names featured elsewhere on this list, and both teams tend to play slower, more defensive-oriented basketball. The Celtics' thumping at the hands of the Nets is more of a story for Brooklyn than for Boston, and Indiana has maybe been the playoff team that jumped off the page less than anyone else so far. Add in a game that's only broadcast locally and that overlaps with every other game but two and this game takes a bump in a packed Sunday night slate.
Still, this should be a very good game between two playoff teams, and a fun one to tune in for down the stretch if the Pacers keep it close. 5.5/10
Overall: 7/10
T-2) Orlando Magic (2-0) vs. Washington Wizards (0-2) at 7:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Washington -1.5
Last Meeting: Last night! The Magic and Wizards squared off for their first of back-to-back games, which was an exciting back-and-forth contest. The Magic had the edge on the glass for much of the game, which only intensified late as they pulled away and the Wizards started pressing and taking bad shots. Beal went off for 39 points while Westbrook posted a triple-double, proving that they can in fact play together just fine.
Competitiveness: Last night's game was a see-sawing battle for most of the evening. Orlando looks like the better team and one of the more improved squads in the East, if their win against Miami is any indication. Still, beating a team on their home floor twice in a row is extraordinarily difficult, and the Wizards get to regroup and see if they can fix their rebounding woes against the same team. Expect another entertaining toss-up!9/10
Importance: Both teams are in roughly the same boat: improved squads who will likely find themselves sitting on the edge of the Eastern Conference playoff field. They won't see each other again in the first half of the season, and to pick up a quick two games on their competition would be an enormous boost for Orlando. 7.5/10
Style Points: The Wizards have been playing a fun new style with Russ and Bradley Beal sharing the load on offense, and early speculation about how the pair will get along on the court has been promising. The Magic get the job done with comparatively little star power, but Vucevic has always been one of the more underrated players in the league and deserves some recognition. Terrence Ross and Davis Bertans will be other players to keep an eye on- Ross has been extremely hot offensively in his first two games, while Bertans is a streaky shooter who can be the key to Washington winning or losing.
Perhaps the most interesting storyline, though, is the back-to-back baseball-style two game series. College leagues are trying this out across the country and we've seen in leagues like the MAAC, Mountain West, and others how hard it is for superior teams to beat the same team on consecutive nights. We've also gotten a glimpse of this in the NBA preseason. This time, the teams are very evenly matched. How will the Wizards adjust tonight? What effect will the wonky scheduling have? 8/10
Overall: 8.2/10
T-2) Dallas Mavericks (0-2) vs. Los Angeles Clippers (2-0) at 3:30 pm EST
Where to Watch: NBA TV
Spread: Los Angeles -5
Last Meeting: August 30th, 2020. The Clippers knocked the Mavs out of the first round of the playoffs, winning Game 6 after the game was moved back due to the player strike. Doncic dropped 38 and Dorian Finney-Smith chipped in 16, but only one other Dallas played cracked double digits. L.A. moved on to the next round where they cruised through the first four games against the Nuggets and...oh wait hahahahahahahahahaha.
Competitiveness: The Mavs need to get their shit together. They posted a close opening night loss against the Suns and then got their doors kicked in by the Lakers... neither of those are alarming results, but they're not the mark of a playoff team. The Clippers are angry at the way last season ended, ready to take it out on the league, and they've looked like a juggernaut with Nic Batum in their lineup, putting up convincing wins over the other top two teams in the West. Doncic can keep any game close, but he needs his teammates to carry some of the load, and the Clippers are still the clear favourites here. 6.5/10
Importance: Dallas needs to show that they can beat playoff teams, as their schedule for the next few weeks doesn't get any easier after tonight. They'll face the Heat, Rockets, Magic, Nuggets, and Pelicans. They'll have to figure out who their second and third best scoring options are in the process. Both teams will be looking for a statement win on a national stage- they're the only teams playing in the afternoon tomorrow and get a national broadcast on NBA TV. 8/10
Style Points: Kawhi... Luka... PG13.... could you really get any more star power? The Mavs looking for revenge on the team that knocked them out of the playoffs by beating them in a Sunday Showcase game (albeit on NBA TV) in their house provides a great story to go along with the stars. The Clippers have been red hot from three point range to start the season, and a Mavs defense that allowed 138 points to the Lakers will probably provide plenty of opportunities for more fireworks. If not for the potential of a lopsided final score, this would be the #1 game of the day. Tune into this instead of football on a relatively light NFL day. 10/10
Overall: 8.2/10
1) Phoenix Suns (1-1) vs. Sacramento Kings (2-0) at 9:00 pm EST
Where to Watch: League Pass
Spread: Phoenix -3.5
Last Meeting: Last night! Sacramento jumped out to a 15-2 lead, but the Suns almost immediately cut that in half, and tied the game early in the third quarter. The teams traded baskets for much of the second half, with DeAaron Fox and Buddy Hield carrying the offensive load for the Kings, who held on to win thanks to some timely offensive rebounding from Richaun Holmes.
Competitiveness: Aside from the early flurry from the Kings, these teams were as evenly matched as they come, trading punches for the entire second half. The Suns probably won't shoot 11-44 from three point range again tonight, and the Kings will probably take better care of the basketball. Regardless, we're in for a fascinating rematch of two Western Conference playoff hopefuls. 10/10
Importance: Both the Suns and the Kings are exciting young teams with opportunities to improve on last season, and both figure to end up in that 7-10 seed range in the Western Conference. These two teams won't see each other again in the first half of the season, and the Suns cannot afford to drop back-to-back contests against one of their competitors for the last couple of playoff spots. The Kings, meanwhile, were largely overlooked by fans and writers heading into the season and look poised to outperform expectations. Going 3-0 to start the season would do a lot to quiet the doubters. Regardless, this two game series will likely end up mattering down the road. 8/10
Style Points: The Suns were the talk of the NBA Bubble in August and have continued turning heads with their opening night win against the Mavs. Chris Paul's presence at point guard allows them to run a better offense than "just let Devin Booker chuck as many threes as he wants and hope Ayton rebounds enough to let us eke out a close win". They're still a fun, up-tempo team that shoots lots of threes, and finally play some good defense if that's your thing too. Sacramento announced themselves as a team not to be slept on with their opening night win against the Nuggets (thanks Will Barton), and the trend continued last night. They've attempted the fewest threes of any team through two games this year, and their game plan of Fox driving and everyone crashing the glass gives us an intriguing contrast of styles.
Like I mentioned for the Wizards game, the baseball-style series also presents us with interesting questions to answer in this game (how will the Suns adjust on the glass? can the Kings beat the same team twice in a row?), and a nerve-wracking two games between two teams who are very close in talent level and playoff hopes. Perhaps most importantly, Phoenix's broadcast is the only one on League Pass so far that has figured out their on-court audio and actually sounds normal. Keep that one in mind! 8/10
Overall: 8.7/10
I also made a Google Form where you can pick all the winners of today's games... I'll link that below. Thought it would be cool to see how Reddit does predicting the winners. I'll close the form at 3:30 when the Mavs and Clips tip off. I'll try to pare this down length-wise if and when I do this again. Thanks for reading!
Pick the winners here!

[OC] Attempting to find the most "underpaid" and "overpaid" players in the history of the salary cap

A couple of days ago, u/ZandrickEllison attempted to quantify how much LeBron has been underpaid throughout his career. The concept intrigued me and I wanted to see if it could be expanded to all known salaries (the salary cap was instituted in the 1984-1985 season).

Obtaining the Salary Info

First off, I had to get all the historical salaries. As usual with these types of projects, I turned to Basketball-Reference. At the bottom of each team's page is a salaries table (for example, here's the 1993 Celtics!) I ended up scraping 15700 salaries. The problems I ran into:

the 1990 season only has information for players who made over a million dollars (only Indiana and the two expansion teams of Minnesota and Orlando had no players over that threshold)
the 1987 also has incomplete information (no data from Golden State, Clippers, Lakers, Milwaukee, Portland, Sacramento or Seattle)
for some reason, some player names on the salaries don't match the rest of the website. Latin and Eastern European names were stripped of their diacritics, players had suffixes like III and Jr. dropped, and name changes weren't consistent (Taurean Waller-Prince and Taurean Prince are the same player)
- in total, I had to change around 150 player names

Methodology

With the data now cleaned, it was time to apply the methodology. I'll quote Zandrick's post here.

[...] If talent was spread out equally throughout the NBA, we would presume that each team would finish somewhere near 41-41 over an 82-game season. It stands to reason that if you could provide 10 of those wins (versus a replacement level player), then you should be paid 10/41 of the salary cap in that year. That's how valuable you are (in dollars and cents) to the average team. [...]

To summarize, the steps are:

Take a player's VORP (value over replacement player) and multiply by 2.7 to get "wins added"
Divide wins added by 41 to get the player's contribution to an average team
Multiply this fraction by the year's salary cap to get a "predicted salary"

The quest for a perfect statistic continues, and VORP isn't the end of that journey. VORP can't take into account usage and role. In addition, we're only considering regular season numbers to kind of "level the playing field", as well as the salary cap as an upper threshold.

Most "Underpaid" Seasons

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	act_minus_predict
Giannis Antetokounmpo	MIL	2017	6.7	18.09	$2,995,421.00	$41,537,728.54	-$38,542,307.54
Nikola Jokić	DEN	2018	5.5	14.85	$1,471,382.00	$35,891,001.22	-$34,419,619.22
Chris Paul	NOH	2009	9.9	26.73	$4,574,189.00	$38,256,497.56	-$33,682,308.56
Stephen Curry	GSW	2016	9.5	25.65	$11,370,786.00	$43,792,682.93	-$32,421,896.93
James Harden	HOU	2019	9.3	25.11	$30,421,854.00	$62,388,550.98	-$31,966,696.98
LeBron James	CLE	2009	11.8	31.86	$14,410,581.00	$45,598,653.66	-$31,188,072.66
Luka Dončić	DAL	2020	5.4	14.58	$7,683,360.00	$38,811,248.78	-$31,127,888.78
Russell Westbrook	OKC	2017	9.3	25.11	$26,540,100.00	$57,656,847.07	-$31,116,747.07
Chris Paul	NOH	2008	9.3	25.11	$3,615,960.00	$34,069,982.93	-$30,454,022.93
Nikola Jokić	DEN	2017	4.8	12.96	$1,358,500.00	$29,758,372.68	-$28,399,872.68

Giannis's 2017 season rates as the most underpaid season of all-time. This top 10 reinforces the idea that a star on a rookie contract is the most valuable asset in sports, as 6 of the top 10 seasons were achieved by a player with less than 5 years of experience.

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	act_minus_predict
Stephen Curry	GSW	2016	9.5	25.65	$11,370,786.00	$43,792,682.93	-$32,421,896.93
James Harden	HOU	2019	9.3	25.11	$30,421,854.00	$62,388,550.98	-$31,966,696.98
LeBron James	CLE	2009	11.8	31.86	$14,410,581.00	$45,598,653.66	-$31,188,072.66
Russell Westbrook	OKC	2017	9.3	25.11	$26,540,100.00	$57,656,847.07	-$31,116,747.07
Isaiah Thomas	BOS	2017	5.6	15.12	$6,587,132.00	$34,718,101.46	-$28,130,969.46
Kawhi Leonard	SAS	2017	7.1	19.17	$17,638,063.00	$44,017,592.93	-$26,379,529.93
Giannis Antetokounmpo	MIL	2019	7.4	19.98	$24,157,304.00	$49,642,502.93	-$25,485,198.93
Stephen Curry	GSW	2017	5.9	15.93	$12,112,359.00	$36,577,999.76	-$24,465,640.76
Nikola Vučević	ORL	2019	5.5	14.85	$12,750,000.00	$36,896,454.88	-$24,146,454.88
Jimmy Butler	CHI	2017	6.6	17.82	$17,552,209.00	$40,917,762.44	-$23,365,553.44

Excluding players on rookie contracts, this is the underpaid top 10. IT's magical 2017 season (King in the Fourth!) and Giannis's first MVP season in 2019 have surfaced. However, this top 10 is still dominated by players from the last 4 seasons, with 2009 LeBron the sole exception.

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	diff_as_%_cap
Michael Jordan	CHI	1988	12.5	33.75	$845,000.00	$5,074,024.39	-68.61%
Chris Paul	NOH	2009	9.9	26.73	$4,574,189.00	$38,256,497.56	-57.40%
Chris Paul	NOH	2008	9.3	25.11	$3,615,960.00	$34,069,982.93	-54.74%
LeBron James	CLE	2009	11.8	31.86	$14,410,581.00	$45,598,653.66	-53.15%
LeBron James	CLE	2006	9.4	25.38	$4,621,800.00	$30,641,707.32	-52.57%
John Stockton	UTA	1989	8.3	22.41	$300,000.00	$3,952,905.37	-50.51%
LeBron James	CLE	2005	9.1	24.57	$4,320,360.00	$26,289,900.00	-50.08%
Michael Jordan	CHI	1991	10.8	29.16	$2,500,000.00	$8,442,886.83	-50.06%
Michael Jordan	CHI	1996	9.8	26.46	$3,850,000.00	$14,843,414.63	-47.80%
Michael Jordan	CHI	1989	11.4	30.78	$2,000,000.00	$5,429,291.71	-47.42%

To normalize for the explosion in the salary cap in recent years, here's the top 10 in terms of the difference between actual and predicted as a percentage of the cap. Jordan and LeBron take 7 spots between them. Stockton's 1989 season (17.1 points, 13.6 assists, 3.2 steals, and 2nd-team selections for both All-NBA and All-Defense) honestly surprised me.

Most "Overpaid" Seasons

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	act_minus_predict
Stephen Curry	GSW	2020	0.2	0.54	$40,231,758.00	$1,437,453.66	$38,794,304.34
Blake Griffin	DET	2020	-0.3	-0.81	$34,234,964.00	-$2,156,180.49	$36,391,144.49
Kobe Bryant	LAL	2014	-0.1	-0.27	$30,453,805.00	-$386,422.68	$30,840,227.68
Gordon Hayward	BOS	2018	0	0	$29,727,900.00	$0.00	$29,727,900.00
Andrew Wiggins	MIN	2019	-0.6	-1.62	$25,467,250.00	-$4,025,067.80	$29,492,317.80
Mike Conley	MEM	2018	0.2	0.54	$28,530,608.00	$1,305,127.32	$27,225,480.68
Mike Conley	UTA	2020	0.8	2.16	$32,511,623.00	$5,749,814.63	$26,761,808.37
Paul Millsap	DEN	2018	0.7	1.89	$31,269,231.00	$4,567,945.61	$26,701,285.39
Andre Drummond	CLE	2020	0.1	0.27	$27,093,019.00	$718,726.83	$26,374,292.17
Joe Johnson	BRK	2016	-0.3	-0.81	$24,894,863.00	-$1,382,926.83	$26,277,789.83

The top 10 overpaid seasons are chock full of recent star players who missed almost entire seasons. The one thing that I was unable to correct (read: too lazy to do) was check trades, which is how Andre Drummond's 2020 Cavaliers season ends up here. Let's set a games played threshold at 41 games.

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	act_minus_predict
Andrew Wiggins	MIN	2019	-0.6	-1.62	$25,467,250.00	-$4,025,067.80	$29,492,317.80
Mike Conley	UTA	2020	0.8	2.16	$32,511,623.00	$5,749,814.63	$26,761,808.37
Joe Johnson	BRK	2016	-0.3	-0.81	$24,894,863.00	-$1,382,926.83	$26,277,789.83
Carmelo Anthony	OKC	2018	0	0	$26,243,760.00	$0.00	$26,243,760.00
Russell Westbrook	HOU	2020	1.8	4.86	$38,506,482.00	$12,937,082.93	$25,569,399.07
Paul Millsap	DEN	2020	0.7	1.89	$30,500,000.00	$5,031,087.80	$25,468,912.20
Kobe Bryant	LAL	2016	0.2	0.54	$25,000,000.00	$921,951.22	$24,078,048.78
Gordon Hayward	BOS	2019	1.3	3.51	$31,214,295.00	$8,720,980.24	$22,493,314.76
Derrick Rose	CHI	2016	-0.3	-0.81	$20,093,063.00	-$1,382,926.83	$21,475,989.83
Ian Mahinmi	WAS	2018	-0.7	-1.89	$16,661,641.00	-$4,567,945.61	$21,229,586.61

This is mostly older players, except for the big name at the top: the 2019 season of Andrew Wiggins. The OKC Melo experiment pops up, and so do 3 players from this past season: Mike Conley, Paul Millsap and Russell Westbrook (!!!).

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	diff_as_%_cap
Michael Jordan	CHI	1998	7.1	19.17	$33,140,000.00	$12,577,390.24	76.44%
Patrick Ewing	NYK	1998	1.3	3.51	$20,500,000.00	$2,302,902.44	67.65%
Michael Jordan	CHI	1997	8.6	23.22	$30,140,000.00	$13,797,777.07	67.08%
Patrick Ewing	NYK	1996	2.5	6.75	$18,724,000.00	$3,786,585.37	64.95%
Patrick Ewing	NYK	1999	1.3	3.51	$18,500,000.00	$2,568,292.68	53.11%
Kobe Bryant	LAL	2014	-0.1	-0.27	$30,453,805.00	-$386,422.68	52.56%
Juwan Howard	WAS	2000	-0.6	-1.62	$15,000,000.00	-$1,343,414.63	48.07%
Juwan Howard	WAS	2001	0.2	0.54	$16,875,000.00	$467,560.98	46.22%
Alonzo Mourning	MIA	2001	0.4	1.08	$16,880,000.00	$935,121.95	44.92%
Juwan Howard	DAL	2002	0.1	0.27	$18,750,000.00	$279,878.05	43.46%

This is the top 10 by difference as percentage of cap. Michael Jordan made more than the salary cap ($26.9 million) in 1998. Patrick Ewing and Juwan Howard each take three spots on this ignominious list. Howard signed a 7-year, $105 million dollar contract with the Washington Bullets in 1996, which was the first contract greater than $100 million.

Most "Underpaid" Players

player	tot_sal	tot_vorp	tot_wins_added	tot_predict	tot_diff
LeBron James	$310,111,480.00	133.7	360.99	$571,526,457.80	-$261,414,977.80
James Harden	$186,430,742.00	64.7	174.69	$346,775,316.59	-$160,344,574.59
Kevin Durant	$190,209,018.00	69.1	186.57	$314,516,539.76	-$124,307,521.76
Chris Paul	$259,149,109.00	85.9	231.93	$373,895,104.39	-$114,745,995.39
Giannis Antetokounmpo	$81,087,052.00	30.3	81.81	$193,391,451.22	-$112,304,399.22
Nikola Jokić	$55,308,658.00	25.4	68.58	$164,123,839.76	-$108,815,181.76
Damian Lillard	$122,106,659.00	37.9	102.33	$215,648,216.34	-$93,541,557.34
Anthony Davis	$121,617,547.00	38	102.6	$212,406,135.37	-$90,788,588.37
Karl-Anthony Towns	$53,005,035.00	21.1	56.97	$133,674,043.17	-$80,669,008.17
Kawhi Leonard	$117,238,534.00	36.2	97.74	$194,374,053.66	-$77,135,519.66

LeBron, as expected, tops the list of most "underpaid" players, a full $100 million past the next most underpaid player in James Harden. The difference between LeBron and 2nd-placed Harden is more than the difference between Harden and 12th-placed Kemba Walker (-$62,450,125.83). The top 5 most underpaid retired players are Stockton, Wade, Duncan, Ginobili and Billups.

Most "Overpaid" Players

player	tot_sal	tot_vorp	tot_wins_added	tot_predict	tot_diff
Juwan Howard	$137,206,333.00	3.2	8.64	$2,438,356.83	$134,767,976.17
Shaquille O'Neal	$292,198,327.00	75.3	203.31	$160,544,811.95	$131,653,515.05
Tyson Chandler	$189,930,046.00	16.8	45.36	$64,279,848.29	$125,650,197.71
Jermaine O'Neal	$168,794,021.00	15.5	41.85	$46,395,805.61	$122,398,215.39
Zach Randolph	$187,432,457.00	18.8	50.76	$72,826,085.85	$114,606,371.15
Joe Johnson	$210,535,806.00	26.5	71.55	$97,600,396.83	$112,935,409.17
Carmelo Anthony	$234,160,444.00	34.1	92.07	$130,139,835.37	$104,020,608.63
Bismack Biyombo	$83,729,278.00	-2	-5.4	-$9,499,469.27	$93,228,747.27
Amar'e Stoudemire	$167,683,566.00	22.2	59.94	$77,903,172.44	$89,780,393.56
Tristan Thompson	$98,933,110.00	1.7	4.59	$10,521,807.80	$88,411,302.20

Shaq's inclusion somewhat surprised me, but I knew from previous projects that VORP doesn't look too kindly on him past the 2004 season. He made $153 million from 2004-2010, while the formula pegs him for $47 million over that same stretch. If Chandler is deemed to be retired, then Carmelo Anthony stands to be the most "overpaid" active player. Other notables: Eric Gordon at 13, Harrison Barnes at 16, Andrew Wiggins at 17 and Patrick Ewing at 19.
Here's the link to the Google Sheets!

[OC] Attempting to find the most "underpaid" and "overpaid" players in the history of the salary cap

Obtaining the Salary Info

the 1990 season only has information for players who made over a million dollars (only Indiana and the two expansion teams of Minnesota and Orlando had no players over that threshold)
the 1987 also has incomplete information (no data from Golden State, Clippers, Lakers, Milwaukee, Portland, Sacramento or Seattle)
for some reason, some player names on the salaries don't match the rest of the website. Latin and Eastern European names were stripped of their diacritics, players had suffixes like III and Jr. dropped, and name changes weren't consistent (Taurean Waller-Prince and Taurean Prince are the same player)
- in total, I had to change around 150 player names

Methodology

With the data now cleaned, it was time to apply the methodology. I'll quote Zandrick's post here.

[...] If talent was spread out equally throughout the NBA, we would presume that each team would finish somewhere near 41-41 over an 82-game season. It stands to reason that if you could provide 10 of those wins (versus a replacement level player), then you should be paid 10/41 of the salary cap in that year. That's how valuable you are (in dollars and cents) to the average team. [...]

To summarize, the steps are:

Take a player's VORP (value over replacement player) and multiply by 2.7 to get "wins added"
Divide wins added by 41 to get the player's contribution to an average team
Multiply this fraction by the year's salary cap to get a "predicted salary"

Most "Underpaid" Seasons

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	act_minus_predict
Giannis Antetokounmpo	MIL	2017	6.7	18.09	$2,995,421.00	$41,537,728.54	-$38,542,307.54
Nikola Jokić	DEN	2018	5.5	14.85	$1,471,382.00	$35,891,001.22	-$34,419,619.22
Chris Paul	NOH	2009	9.9	26.73	$4,574,189.00	$38,256,497.56	-$33,682,308.56
Stephen Curry	GSW	2016	9.5	25.65	$11,370,786.00	$43,792,682.93	-$32,421,896.93
James Harden	HOU	2019	9.3	25.11	$30,421,854.00	$62,388,550.98	-$31,966,696.98
LeBron James	CLE	2009	11.8	31.86	$14,410,581.00	$45,598,653.66	-$31,188,072.66
Luka Dončić	DAL	2020	5.4	14.58	$7,683,360.00	$38,811,248.78	-$31,127,888.78
Russell Westbrook	OKC	2017	9.3	25.11	$26,540,100.00	$57,656,847.07	-$31,116,747.07
Chris Paul	NOH	2008	9.3	25.11	$3,615,960.00	$34,069,982.93	-$30,454,022.93
Nikola Jokić	DEN	2017	4.8	12.96	$1,358,500.00	$29,758,372.68	-$28,399,872.68

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	act_minus_predict
Stephen Curry	GSW	2016	9.5	25.65	$11,370,786.00	$43,792,682.93	-$32,421,896.93
James Harden	HOU	2019	9.3	25.11	$30,421,854.00	$62,388,550.98	-$31,966,696.98
LeBron James	CLE	2009	11.8	31.86	$14,410,581.00	$45,598,653.66	-$31,188,072.66
Russell Westbrook	OKC	2017	9.3	25.11	$26,540,100.00	$57,656,847.07	-$31,116,747.07
Isaiah Thomas	BOS	2017	5.6	15.12	$6,587,132.00	$34,718,101.46	-$28,130,969.46
Kawhi Leonard	SAS	2017	7.1	19.17	$17,638,063.00	$44,017,592.93	-$26,379,529.93
Giannis Antetokounmpo	MIL	2019	7.4	19.98	$24,157,304.00	$49,642,502.93	-$25,485,198.93
Stephen Curry	GSW	2017	5.9	15.93	$12,112,359.00	$36,577,999.76	-$24,465,640.76
Nikola Vučević	ORL	2019	5.5	14.85	$12,750,000.00	$36,896,454.88	-$24,146,454.88
Jimmy Butler	CHI	2017	6.6	17.82	$17,552,209.00	$40,917,762.44	-$23,365,553.44

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	diff_as_%_cap
Michael Jordan	CHI	1988	12.5	33.75	$845,000.00	$5,074,024.39	-68.61%
Chris Paul	NOH	2009	9.9	26.73	$4,574,189.00	$38,256,497.56	-57.40%
Chris Paul	NOH	2008	9.3	25.11	$3,615,960.00	$34,069,982.93	-54.74%
LeBron James	CLE	2009	11.8	31.86	$14,410,581.00	$45,598,653.66	-53.15%
LeBron James	CLE	2006	9.4	25.38	$4,621,800.00	$30,641,707.32	-52.57%
John Stockton	UTA	1989	8.3	22.41	$300,000.00	$3,952,905.37	-50.51%
LeBron James	CLE	2005	9.1	24.57	$4,320,360.00	$26,289,900.00	-50.08%
Michael Jordan	CHI	1991	10.8	29.16	$2,500,000.00	$8,442,886.83	-50.06%
Michael Jordan	CHI	1996	9.8	26.46	$3,850,000.00	$14,843,414.63	-47.80%
Michael Jordan	CHI	1989	11.4	30.78	$2,000,000.00	$5,429,291.71	-47.42%

Most "Overpaid" Seasons

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	act_minus_predict
Stephen Curry	GSW	2020	0.2	0.54	$40,231,758.00	$1,437,453.66	$38,794,304.34
Blake Griffin	DET	2020	-0.3	-0.81	$34,234,964.00	-$2,156,180.49	$36,391,144.49
Kobe Bryant	LAL	2014	-0.1	-0.27	$30,453,805.00	-$386,422.68	$30,840,227.68
Gordon Hayward	BOS	2018	0	0	$29,727,900.00	$0.00	$29,727,900.00
Andrew Wiggins	MIN	2019	-0.6	-1.62	$25,467,250.00	-$4,025,067.80	$29,492,317.80
Mike Conley	MEM	2018	0.2	0.54	$28,530,608.00	$1,305,127.32	$27,225,480.68
Mike Conley	UTA	2020	0.8	2.16	$32,511,623.00	$5,749,814.63	$26,761,808.37
Paul Millsap	DEN	2018	0.7	1.89	$31,269,231.00	$4,567,945.61	$26,701,285.39
Andre Drummond	CLE	2020	0.1	0.27	$27,093,019.00	$718,726.83	$26,374,292.17
Joe Johnson	BRK	2016	-0.3	-0.81	$24,894,863.00	-$1,382,926.83	$26,277,789.83

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	act_minus_predict
Andrew Wiggins	MIN	2019	-0.6	-1.62	$25,467,250.00	-$4,025,067.80	$29,492,317.80
Mike Conley	UTA	2020	0.8	2.16	$32,511,623.00	$5,749,814.63	$26,761,808.37
Joe Johnson	BRK	2016	-0.3	-0.81	$24,894,863.00	-$1,382,926.83	$26,277,789.83
Carmelo Anthony	OKC	2018	0	0	$26,243,760.00	$0.00	$26,243,760.00
Russell Westbrook	HOU	2020	1.8	4.86	$38,506,482.00	$12,937,082.93	$25,569,399.07
Paul Millsap	DEN	2020	0.7	1.89	$30,500,000.00	$5,031,087.80	$25,468,912.20
Kobe Bryant	LAL	2016	0.2	0.54	$25,000,000.00	$921,951.22	$24,078,048.78
Gordon Hayward	BOS	2019	1.3	3.51	$31,214,295.00	$8,720,980.24	$22,493,314.76
Derrick Rose	CHI	2016	-0.3	-0.81	$20,093,063.00	-$1,382,926.83	$21,475,989.83
Ian Mahinmi	WAS	2018	-0.7	-1.89	$16,661,641.00	-$4,567,945.61	$21,229,586.61

player	tm	season	vorp	wins_added	salary	predicted_sal	diff_as_%_cap
Michael Jordan	CHI	1998	7.1	19.17	$33,140,000.00	$12,577,390.24	76.44%
Patrick Ewing	NYK	1998	1.3	3.51	$20,500,000.00	$2,302,902.44	67.65%
Michael Jordan	CHI	1997	8.6	23.22	$30,140,000.00	$13,797,777.07	67.08%
Patrick Ewing	NYK	1996	2.5	6.75	$18,724,000.00	$3,786,585.37	64.95%
Patrick Ewing	NYK	1999	1.3	3.51	$18,500,000.00	$2,568,292.68	53.11%
Kobe Bryant	LAL	2014	-0.1	-0.27	$30,453,805.00	-$386,422.68	52.56%
Juwan Howard	WAS	2000	-0.6	-1.62	$15,000,000.00	-$1,343,414.63	48.07%
Juwan Howard	WAS	2001	0.2	0.54	$16,875,000.00	$467,560.98	46.22%
Alonzo Mourning	MIA	2001	0.4	1.08	$16,880,000.00	$935,121.95	44.92%
Juwan Howard	DAL	2002	0.1	0.27	$18,750,000.00	$279,878.05	43.46%

Most "Underpaid" Players

player	tot_sal	tot_vorp	tot_wins_added	tot_predict	tot_diff
LeBron James	$310,111,480.00	133.7	360.99	$571,526,457.80	-$261,414,977.80
James Harden	$186,430,742.00	64.7	174.69	$346,775,316.59	-$160,344,574.59
Kevin Durant	$190,209,018.00	69.1	186.57	$314,516,539.76	-$124,307,521.76
Chris Paul	$259,149,109.00	85.9	231.93	$373,895,104.39	-$114,745,995.39
Giannis Antetokounmpo	$81,087,052.00	30.3	81.81	$193,391,451.22	-$112,304,399.22
Nikola Jokić	$55,308,658.00	25.4	68.58	$164,123,839.76	-$108,815,181.76
Damian Lillard	$122,106,659.00	37.9	102.33	$215,648,216.34	-$93,541,557.34
Anthony Davis	$121,617,547.00	38	102.6	$212,406,135.37	-$90,788,588.37
Karl-Anthony Towns	$53,005,035.00	21.1	56.97	$133,674,043.17	-$80,669,008.17
Kawhi Leonard	$117,238,534.00	36.2	97.74	$194,374,053.66	-$77,135,519.66

Most "Overpaid" Players

player	tot_sal	tot_vorp	tot_wins_added	tot_predict	tot_diff
Juwan Howard	$137,206,333.00	3.2	8.64	$2,438,356.83	$134,767,976.17
Shaquille O'Neal	$292,198,327.00	75.3	203.31	$160,544,811.95	$131,653,515.05
Tyson Chandler	$189,930,046.00	16.8	45.36	$64,279,848.29	$125,650,197.71
Jermaine O'Neal	$168,794,021.00	15.5	41.85	$46,395,805.61	$122,398,215.39
Zach Randolph	$187,432,457.00	18.8	50.76	$72,826,085.85	$114,606,371.15
Joe Johnson	$210,535,806.00	26.5	71.55	$97,600,396.83	$112,935,409.17
Carmelo Anthony	$234,160,444.00	34.1	92.07	$130,139,835.37	$104,020,608.63
Bismack Biyombo	$83,729,278.00	-2	-5.4	-$9,499,469.27	$93,228,747.27
Amar'e Stoudemire	$167,683,566.00	22.2	59.94	$77,903,172.44	$89,780,393.56
Tristan Thompson	$98,933,110.00	1.7	4.59	$10,521,807.80	$88,411,302.20

McClain's Mailbag: Can Texans, Deshaun Watson work it out?

Just about all of you are weighing in on the Deshaun Watson controversy and the hiring of the new head coach. I expect Watson, or his people, to make an official trade demand soon, and we’ll see where it goes from there. They can trade him or let him sit out, if it comes to that. I hope it doesn’t get James Harden ugly.
If you’re venting and don’t ask for an answer, I’ll just run your comment.
The Watson controversy could drag on for a long time. Meanwhile, general manager Nick Caserio is getting closer to recommending a new coach to Cal McNair, who’ll sign off on it.
There’s a good chance the next head could be a coordinator in the AFC Championship Game — Buffalo defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier or Kansas City offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy. I think Indianapolis defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus is a strong candidate, too.
Q: Does anybody really know what’s going on with Watson? No doubt he is a tremendous talent and I have always gotten the impression a stand-up guy. All the news/ESPN hype aside why hasn’t he stated his position. What the news is reporting is second- or third-hand information. I don’t believe in Twitter, etc., to communicate in a situation like this. The owner, GM and Watson needs to sit down and talk. If there is a problem or issue, lay it out on the table. They all need to man up. If Watson doesn’t want to be a Texan after they gave him the contract and money, Watson needs to move on. McNair owns the club, you may not agree with how everything is done but he is the owneboss. I hope Watson decides he wants to be a Texan, but that is his call. If not he is a distraction and remember there is no I in team. — Bill B.
A: Sitting down and talking makes too much sense, Bill. So far, Watson hasn’t said what he wants. It’s all come from unnamed sources close to Watson.
Q: The rhetoric around Deshaun displeasure seems to be escalating. My personal opinion is that Deshaun shows a lot of audacity demanding that the owner of the company he works for must consult with him on who he hires to be his boss. Any other industry and he would be in the parking lot with a pink slip in his hand. But then I'm an old guy and not in tune with today’s youth. My question is in regard to his contract. If he stays mad and won't play and demands a trade are the Texans obligated to trade him, or can they not pay him for showing up for work and hold him accountable for the length of the contract? — Eric R.
A: Times have changed, Eric. Some agents and players in the NFL want it to be like the NBA, where the agents and players control so much, like who goes where. If Watson sits, he doesn’t get paid. If he sits out the season, he loses credit for the season and has to start over in 2022. He can do like James Harden and make it so ugly they have to trade him, but I can’t imagine Watson doing what Harden did. That’s not the Deshaun I’ve covered since the day he was drafted.
Q: Does McNair’s decision to keep Easterby send the message to Deshaun (and the others in the locker room that consider Jack toxic) that Easterby is more valuable to the Texans organization than Deshaun. Cal called the Easterby criticism “unjustified.” I get it — it’s unjustified, to Cal. But isn’t it totally justified to 85 to 90 of the locker room (if the Sports Illustrated article and interviews are accurate). — David M.
A: I don’t know what the other players think. Charles Omenihu said at a charity event this week he didn’t have a problem with Easterby. Brandin Cooks, who met Easterby at New England, has praised him, too. What McNair is saying is that nobody is going to tell him to hire or fire, like the owner of most businesses I know.
Q: I know you keep reassuring everyone Watson isn’t going anywhere, but the situation seems to be escalating. The Texans are finding more and interesting ways to keep the fans churned up. It is like a tempest in a teapot. One issue you touched on is will the Texans be able to attract the right candidate if they don’t get this Watson situation fixed. McNair seems to be willing to win the battle at the cost of the war. I am so disgusted with that organization for being so out of touch. One question about Easterby. Is it his ties to OB or is he doing things in the organization to create divisiveness? I can’t understand how somebody can be this polarizing to so many people within the organization and so popular with management. None of this makes sense! — Randy S.
A: You’re right about it not making sense, Randy. I think players and fans believe every bad decision OB made was also made by Easterby. I know many don’t like that Easterby has his fingerprints on so many parts of the organization rather than staying in his lane like he did with the Patriots. But McNair has given him that authority, and Easterby answers to only one person.
Q: I don’t really understand what Easterby did that was so offensive to Watson and Andre Johnson. It’s like the teacher going to the superintendent and telling him to fire the principal. But in this case, Easterby doesn’t directly work with Watson. You’ve been at the Chronicle a long time and are highly respected, but you don’t tell the publisher what to do or you wouldn't be there much longer. — Joe T.
A: You’ve got that right, Joe, but times are different today. Players and agents want control. The Texans negotiated a contract in good faith for $156 million, and they don’t want to trade Watson. They’ve done nothing but praise him to the high heavens. But if Watson is determined to get traded, it’s going to deteriorate. McNair apologized to Watson for the miscommunications on the Caserio hire. McNair and Caserio assured everyone they’d keep Watson updated on the coaching search. ESPN reported Sunday that Watson won’t return their calls. If that’s the case, how does he keep up with their coaching search?
Q: Why do people not like Easterby? Evidently McNair is one of the few who support him. Watson deserves to have some input. We wasted too many years with O’Brien. — Carole R.
A: I’m not exactly sure why they don’t like him, Carole, other than his close association with OB, being part of a total collapse in a disastrous season, having Watson and Andre Johnson taking public shots at him. Nobody has detailed what they don’t like.
Q: Watson's feud. Another employee that wants to be boss. And a rich one at that. Really never heard about Easterby until lately. Let's not forget that Cal McNair let O'Brien take over. O'Brien along with McNair, will never be forgiven here in Houston for giving Hopkins away. Hiring a coach means more to your readers/fans than anything a guy like Caserio could. You've been here. You know as much as anyone, maybe more. Can anyone point McNair in the right direction? Let's see. Caserio has been here a week! Please continue to keep us aware. — Lyn B.
A: Caserio has been in personnel for 19 of his 21 years in the NFL, Lyn. There was no personnel director more deserving of getting a chance to become personnel director than Caserio. It’s going to take a lot of work, starting with the new coach and his staff.
Q: Once again I enjoyed your Mailbag this week. Under one of the Chronicle pictures of Deshaun Watson in said he was unhappy with his lack of involvement in searches for GM and coach. How can he be unhappy when his paycheck hits the bank each week. Someone should remind him that he was hired to be the QB, not the GM or coach. And I do mean sit him down for a little owner-to-QB session and remind him who signs those paychecks since he wants to talk to McNair so badly. Sounds like another entitlement issue to me. Quite frankly, I think he gets too much credit and week after week he makes his share of mistakes that contribute to losses. Not sure why the masses are willing to look beyond that. How could the Texans give him any more than they have already? As far as his no-trade clause, the backup quarterback position might just show him a bit of humility or appreciation for where he is and what he has. Time for someone to put these prima donnas in their place. With a good GM and a good coach in place the Texans can do better without him as the starting QB. Let him watch a few Texan wins from the bench for awhile and let’s see how much input he thinks he should have in GM and head coach hires. — Will W.
A: Will, Watson won’t be sitting on the bench. If he’s here, he’s starting. If he’s not, he’s starting somewhere else.
Q: I am a Chronicle subscriber, have read your column for years. I read how the Texans re-did Andre's contract. Then he was an assistant (or similar) in recent years. I understand Andre taking up for Deshaun but I do not understand such sharpness being tweeted out. That seems completely unlike the Andre that the public knows. How was Andre so wronged? — Ed K.
A: He wasn’t wronged, Ed. I think when he suggested that Watson stand his ground and then ripped Easterby, he was telling us what he thinks.
Q: Watson not happy? Let's kiss his butt to make him happy. Last time I checked he was an employee, not a part owner. Many employees are not happy with certain things in their workplace, but they get over it. Show him the door. — Gene C.
Q: OK, it’s crunch time. My opinion, hiring Bieniemy or possibly Frazier is the only thing that keeps Watson. — Scott M.
A: I’m guessing it’s got to be more than that, Scott.
Q: I think I’ve finally reached my tipping point. That is saying a lot after a year like 2020. The Harden situation was surprisingly easier. I’m a die-hard Rockets and basketball fan. I’ve had season tickets or have been buying tickets since 1991. And yet when it comes to Harden, good riddance. Take it somewhere else. Watson is a whole different deal. While the old-school part of me laughs a little at the Gen Y and Gen X demands and attitudes, that train has left the station. When you give a “kid” $100-200 million it’s hard to expect the maturity or experience of someone in their more developed years. That said, how could McNair let this get so bad? Not sure what to believe in this world of blogger news, but where there is smoke, there is fire. I guess as long as Cal believes we will keep buying tickets and watching on TV then he too can do what he wants. I will say if Watson goes, I will be remorsefully selling my PSLs at first opportunity. Even if our new GM pulled of a Herschel Walker-like trade. I believe in loyalty. It’s important in life. But there is nothing Easterby can be providing that outweighs the damage that seems well documented in and out of the organization. It’s just unbelievable to me and frankly bums me out. I handled the Astros. I’m OK with the Rockets. I’ve accepted the mask. I’ve accepted the election. I just can’t get my head around the situation with Watson. — Keith C.
A: I imagine many of us feel like you do, Keith.
Q: By the way, I’m tired of the sophomoric name-calling in many of your e-mails. You should be able to make your point without stooping to name-calling, right? Thank you. — Mike A.
A: The e-mails have been better this week, Mike. Thank everyone for ditching the name-calling. I’ve deleted several e-mails because I don’t want to take the time to edit out the name-calling.
Q: Congratulations on the Cal McNair interview about Easterby. National media giving you credit for it as well. The news about McNair being so entrenched was nauseating at best but at least it provides certainty. Let's hope the players can convince Caserio to wall him off from them so he isn't a distraction. I sincerely hope fans are allowed in the stadium next year so they can provide direct feedback to McNair and his boss. I can think of no other situation in American business when a subordinate has withstood this much hostility and venom. Maybe in a cult, but not a business. How terribly unfortunate. Thanks for being the messenger. — Ray M.
A: Thanks very much, Ray.
Q: I read your articles and watch your videos. Cal McNair apologized for his actions or communications that created mistrust. Few hours after that Deshaun Watson puts another cryptic tweet about 2 and 10. Why does such a smart player and good person put out such tweets that hurt the reputation of the team and ownership? Is he misguided? Wish tweets could be used to spread positivity, awareness on social issues instead of riling public opinion against team ownership. Why is it hard for players to sort out differences directly as grown-up adults instead of washing dirty linen in public? I want Deshaun to stay in Houston but these cryptic tweets and media leaks (anonymous sources) are beginning to damage his reputation as well. — Jeevan R.
A: It’s a new era, Jeevan. That’s just the way a lot of people operate today. One-on-one communication seems to be a thing of the past.
Q: If Easterby was such a help to the organization here are some suggested comments McNair might have made:

You know we could not have pulled off the trading of Hopkins without his help, this was a really successful moment for our franchise, he advised O'Brian perfectly on this trade.
Why would people question the decision to keep Easterby, after all who would listen to Andre or Watson, they were just players and you can never get enough advice for someone who has been in New England
Our new GM needed to have friends around to support his decision making and Easterby is that guy
Why should I listen to a quarterback or a retired wideout when choosing a GM, after all I have Easterly to advise me, let Watson vacation in Cabo
Andre simply has not gotten to know "Jackie" like I have.
You will see when our team advised by my close buddy Jack Easterby chooses our head coach. No I do not think a quarterback of a losing team should have any say, why would I think of that? After all he is not Elway or Manning or even Blanda. You will see Easterby's worth when we choose the new coach.

Sorry David Barron is retiring, you now have to be the old wise owl. — Don H.
A: We’re all sorry Barron is retiring, Don. He leaves a huge hole in our sports coverage and will be missed by so many of us.
Q: On the coaching search by Texans, this year it seems the new slogan for teams looking for the HC is a leader of men. In a football world of Alphas, not all coaches and players are Alphas. Bill O'Brien wasn't necessarily an Alpha. Mike Vrabel was an Alpha, as evidenced by the many complimentary comments from Texan players during Vrabel's time here. It's been no surprise to me that the Titans have excelled under Vrabel's stewardship. He's supported by a good GM who has had some recently productive drafts. I won't be surprised when the Titans go Super Bowling. How does an NFL owner or GM identify that Alpha quality in a HC candidate? — Roy S.
A: It’s pretty easy to identify, Roy, if you know what you're doing, have a lot of experience in the NFL and have a lot of contacts to investigate candidates’ strengths and weaknesses.
Q: It seems like almost everybody has agreed that Watson will be traded. I don’t think Caserio will do that, but what do you think it takes for Watson and the Texans to get their relationship back on track? And do you think this has hurt the search for a new HC? Med venlig hilsen. — Kristian S.
A: I don’t think it’s hurt the search, Kristian. There are only 32 of these jobs in the world, and they’re coveted by so many. Not to mention the new coach will probably get about $5 mil a year — lots more than an assistant coach. Med venlig hilsen to you, too.
Q: If Watson does not trust Easterby, and Caserio has said that they have a long-term relationship, don't you think it's just better for them to part ways? Get someone who wants to be here and can buy in to what Caserio is building, otherwise there will always be some kind of drama. Watson seems to be a great guy, but he wants to be at a place where he feels like he's respected, clearly he feels that he has not been, right or wrong! I don't care how much money you make, nobody wants to go to work looking over their shoulder every day. Sounds like a clean break is needed. I'd hate to see him go, but hey they traded Olajuwon! — Robert T.
A: Why would Watson have to look over his shoulder every day, Robert? Perhaps they will make a clean break. Perhaps it’ll get real ugly like Harden. Or maybe they can work it out if Watson wants to work it out.
Q: With Cal "running” things, Texans deserve what they get. But the fans don’t deserve this crap. Jack Easterby is now a known problem — nationwide — but Cal can’t see it. Respected SI writers go on for pages about his crap. Cal: unjustified and we own it in the building. It's beyond reproach that the building is an abject disaster. Did Cal say why he is retaining JE? Did he say why, when it's jeopardizing the team, Deshaun, the fans, etc; was he asked to address and respond to the litany of the events outlined in the SI article? Was he asked if 20 percent of that is true, all is probably true, Why is JE being retained? Did he answer why he is being retained when, according to O’Brien, he was intimately involved in all the horrendous decisions since he arrived? If he wasn’t asked these things, then why not?? These are the questions that 90 plus percent of Texans fans deserve answers to. And last, was he asked why, in view of all of the press and backlash, locally and nationwide, he hasn’t had a press conference so that he can field questions from a variety, not just insiders? Cal is damn lucky he’s here in Houston, and not another city where the media and fans demand performance and are exacting in their review. See Philly! Firing a pretty damn good coach who Texans ought to consider, but JE won’t approve, so no chance. Not to mention not even interviewing Saleh and asking for Bieniemy 2 weeks late. The ticket holders should boycott! Once Cal’s cash train comes to a grinding halt, maybe things will change. — Steve C.
A: Steve, I guess you missed McNair answering every question the media had about Easterby on the Zoom call with the media. I guess you missed what’s been reported over and over: It’s Caserio’s search and hire. As soon as he got here for his first day on the job, he notified the league he wanted to interview five coaches, including Bieniemy. And I guess you’ve missed all those times it’s been written, broadcast and tweeted: McNair says Easterby is here because the owner thinks he does a good job. No other explanation is necessary.
Q: Shades of the Houston Oilers. Reminds me of the yesterdays when Bud Adams didn't know what he was doing. McNair standing up for a man that was totally bamboozled and steamrolled by Bill O'Brien is a joke. It just tells me that the owner doesn't have a clue about football management. Mr. McNair seems to be a good man, and a man that knows how to make money. But his personnel skills are lacking. By standing up for Easterby, he has endorsed the failures of the past 5 years under O'Brien. The man that dismantled the Texans and left them non-competitive. But Deshaun knows Easterby is zero help. Why didn't Deshaun say something before or after he signed his huge contract? Why did J.J. Watt wait so long to speak out? Easterby was there to listen to them. I predict the Texans will continue to lose for the next 5 years. New coach? Who wants this job? Texans will have to beg to get a coach. Interviews mostly with retreads Jim Caldwell, Marvin Lewis? Are you kidding me? Losers. Watt will be gone to a potential championship team like Green Bay. The Texans will not beat the Jaguars again. You will see what real coaching does. Watson will remain unhappy and frustrated fans will still buy tickets, based on a sales pitch. Easterby will get it done. Seen it all before. Thank God I don't have season tickets with a seat license. — Kelley J.
A: I disagree about failure for the last five years with OB. Winning four division titles in five years and two playoff games isn’t failure. Let’s be fair. The Texans have interviewed eight candidates, including five who’ve never been a head coach. By the way, some other retreads who’d been fired: Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, Tony Dungy, Marty Schottenheimer, Dan Reeves, Andy Reid, Jon Gruden and Gary Kubiak, just to name a few.
Q: I'm from Boston and subscribe to Texas Sports Nation to read your stuff. We had a sportscaster named Bob Lobel who would show highlights of former players and say, "why can't we get guys like that." I hope Nick and Easterby (who reminds me of Rasputin and I'm glad he's Houston's problem) ship him (Watson) to New England. Stranger things have happened. More likely the Jets for Darnold and great picks. — Vic L.
A: Vic, what do you have to offer for Watson to go to the Patriots to work with Belichick and Josh McDaniels.
Q: I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but in my view, regardless of how his role evolved, a critical part of Easterby’s position was to maintain a good relationship with players. Most of all, the team leaders such as Deshaun Watson. If he has not done this, he has failed at a significant part of his job. Just like with any other job, I don’t really think it matters what the reasons are. He has obviously failed at it. Personally I try to form my opinions from the information I have available to me. There is a lot of information out there regarding Deshaun Watson, from his childhood, to college, to NFL. He does not appear to be someone to me that is unreasonable or difficult to deal with. If he was, then maybe this breakdown with Easterby would be excusable. I think where there is smoke, there is fire. And there is just too much smoke around players having problems with Easterby. So, in my opinion, McNair keeping him around may not be the easy way out, but it also may not be the right decision. I just don’t think it should have been that hard for Easterby to maintain those relationships. Sometimes in life if situations degrade then it just needs to be changed, regardless of the perspectives of those involved. — David G.
A: David, Easterby’s job has nothing to do with his relationship with players. That was at New England. He’s the executive vice president of football operations who works closely with the GM who has final say on all football decisions.
Q: McNair’s every word, action and decision show he is simply not intelligent enough to be an NFL owner. The smartest thing Cal McNair could do is find someone smart enough to operate the Texans football franchise and step out of the way. Maybe that person is Nick Caserio? Maybe that is the new real question? — Deanne N.
A: The idea, Deanne, is for Caserio to hire the coach to be the face of the franchise, and McNair and Easterby slip into the background.
Q: Texans fans badly need to understand the what and why the Texans have completely fallen apart since the playoff game last year against Kansas City. While Bill O’Brien had not won a Super Bowl, he had considerable success and seemed on the brink of winning the big one. The crazy trades, the demise of any defense, all this attention of Jack Easterby, etc. What does he do that is good or bad? It appears that with the passing of Bob McNair, things have deteriorated greatly. The Chronicle needs some in-depth reporting on the matter to the benefit of those paying the tab. No diatribe from the two columnists, please. — Charles M.
A: Charles, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve written about the demise of the Texans dating back to the second quarter of the Kansas City playoff game I could buy out Cal McNair.
Q: I take it you watched the Bills vs Baltimore playoff game. The Bills beat Lamar Jackson badly. That drops the stock of Balt's OC. They couldn't do that against Watson. That game only made Watson more priceless. There's not another QB in the NFL capable of the DW4 heroic plays. But what does Houston gain by declaring him untradeable? If the D can't improve substantially during his contract, he's going to leave Houston when it expires. Doesn't it make more sense to ask for a king’s ransom now? Hypothetically speaking, if Houston were to trade him, where does Chicago rank as a trade partner? All things considered, can Houston rebound defensively and compete for the AFC crown next year? — Juan B.
A: Watson has a no-trade clause. I doubt seriously he’d agree to be traded to the Bears. I don’t think the Texans can compete for the AFC crown next season, Juan. If they trade Watson, they’ll compete for the first pick in the draft.
Q: What would happen if J.J. Watt and Deshaun Watson both say they don’t want to play for the Texans as long as Easterby is in the building? What would happen if the Texans hire a coach that Deshaun Watson isn’t happy with? Easterby knows that he is toxic amongst the best players on the team and Cal knows that. What if Watson says I’m not coming unless Easterby is gone or if J.J. Watt says I’m not coming back to camp unless Easterby is gone? I feel bad for Caserio. — Glen K.
A: I feel bad for Caserio, too, Glen. He’s waited 20 years for a chance to become a GM and he starts with this mess.
Q: Hard to imagine the hold Easterby has on McNair. His background purportedly was as a character coach when he was brought in. Instead he has apparently done only one thing right — ingratiating himself with McNair and Caserio. It’s hard to imagine we may lose an unbelievable talent like Watson because of a character like Easterby. His skill set was supposed to be building team chemistry. He has done a tremendous job of doing the exact opposite. It sounds like players see him for what he is, a poser. Amazing! Casserio could salvage everything by calling Bieniemy and offering him the job immediately. Watching KC’s offense and the higher level creativity is just too good to pass on. Or we can take the safe route, dawdle and get stuck with whomever is left and have that as an excuse. Fortunately, it will probably be a defensive coach and we will need a great D without Deshaun here. — Mike D.
Q: I am a daily reader. I just got through reading the Sports Illustrated article online about Easterby. I'm trying to figure out other than the fact that he prays, what is the specific issue. Maybe everybody's avoiding coming right out and saying it due to a legal liability, but I have been unable to find anything other than vague references to the fact that Easterby's being here has somehow caused the Texans to play terribly. I also have not seen anything in the media that says a billionaire has to run his business according to public opinion which may not even represent the majority. I'm not a defender of either person, it just seems that there's a lot of smoke and not the whole lot of specific fire. No one wants to lose so maybe that's the biggest thing. Why Deshaun Watson at 25 thinks he should be able to dictate to the people who pay him a hundred and fifty million dollars is still a puzzle to me. According to SI online when asked why Caserio wasn't on their list, Korn Ferry said they knew that he was already on the Texans list so they did not add his name. I have not seen this detail in any local media, which seems to make the issue of Caserio not being on Korn Ferry list something that we should think about. — Charles W.
A: Charles, I don’t give a damn about Korn Ferry. Jed Hughes recommended they hire Brian Schottenheimer as their head coach, and he was fired by Seattle. A search firm is paid to compile information and make recommendations. This was the third time the Texans tried to interview Caserio dating back to 2017 when they had to replace Rick Smith. Caserio is one of the most respected personnel men in the NFL. That’s not debatable. Who gives a hoot if he was on the Korn Ferry list?
Q: I have no insight into the operation of a football organization. My Ph.D. is in management and have a very good understanding of organizations outside of football. I don't understand the upset QB and I am guessing many of his supporters. Let me frame my question. The CEO runs the company. His/her direct reports are probably VP's, then there are managers and report to them are various staff. I was once a college president. If a hot shot staff member had demanded that he/she be part of the selection of a VP or their direct boss I would tell them they have no business selecting senior members of my staff and I would guess that other CEO's would tell the staff member the same thing or would no longer have a job. Here is my question. Why does Watson think he should be in or hiring Caserio or the next head coach? — Rudy S.
A: That’s the way it is in just about every business, Rudy, but not the business of sports.
Q: I have not written to a newspaper writer in my 71 years on this earth, but I am highly disappointed in what is going on with the Texans. I have been a season ticket holder since 2003 and have stood by the team each year be it good or bad. Deshaun Watson has lost my respect as a player and a person. He has lowered himself to acting like a spoiled NBA player. He is paid to play football not manage the team. People are down on Jack Easterby but no reasons have been put forth for their dissatisfaction. So what is the story? The McNair family owns the franchise and funds it so that makes them the boss. I would like to see Deshaun play for the Texans but what he is doing right now is destructive and stirring up trouble for the team, fans and ticket holders. This kind of behavior is going to drive away ticket holders. A sad season ticket holder. — Jo Ann C.
A: Many feel as you do, Jo Ann. Unfortunately, times are different. Agents and players have a lot more power than they used to.
Q: It’s sad that a premier QB is now executive management. He should do his job and improve like not throw 1 interception ever again. So now we’ve established no one’s perfect, lets address coaching. Texans hired great GM, let him do his job. — Stephen G.
A: I agree, Stephen, to let Caserio do what he was hired to do.
Q: I'm heartened by last week's Mailbag participants whose concerns I shared about religion and hiring within the Texans organization. And thank you for your enlightening information in that regard. Should Deshaun Watson (or anyone) have been angered that Bieniemy wasn't interviewed before Caserio was hired to search for a coach? That confusion seems like an easy thing to smooth over. If not and Watson leaves, the organization would no longer be qualified to represent the great city of Houston. Especially after the excellent season Watson had. I'm not sure which he needed less, the support of a running game or Bill O'Brien calling plays. Am I wrong in thinking if Jamey Rootes resigns, as he was rumored to want to after all the reported GM hiring chaos, it means all that reported chaos is true? In which case, aside from Watson leaving, Rootes departing would also be a strong indictment of Cal McNair's management. If the Texans hire a defensive coordinator as head coach, does that mean Tim Kelly has a chance to stay on? — Tim K.
A: I should point out, Tim, that you’re not the Tim Kelly. I’ve said all along I thought it was a waste of time to interview a candidate before the GM was hired. Caserio is running the search, and McNair will sign off on his recommendation. I think Kelly has a chance to stay no matter who they hire. Watson wants him, and he helped Watson have his best season.
Q: What value does Jack Easterby bring to the Texans organization? How much value does this man hold if keeping him around could cost the team the one thing an NFL team needs to succeed - a transcendent quarterback. With the SI articles, it's clear there's something rotten in NRG. You keep saying Watson won't be traded, but every day that goes by is a day that the possibility increases. Firing Easterby would be the beginning of mending fences. I don't think McNair and Caserio are willing to do it. Houston seems to have got lucky to be able to interview Eric Bieniemy due to the bad press about the lack of Black coaches being hired this offseason. Although there's a limited number of these jobs, it seems to be less desirable with Easterby in the building. Can you just explain, what does that man do? If it's to provide comfort, it ain't working. It would be better the Texans bring in rescue puppies and kittens in to pet once a week. — Louis E.
A: His job isn’t to provide comfort, Louis. He’s the executive vice president of football operations. He does things on the football side to help the GM, who has final say. Easterby’s involved in everything on the football side and some things on the business side.
Q: Instead of being a reporter, how about being the GM of the Texans for a day. Granted you aren’t able to interview the coaching prospects or D4, but if you had the chance to pull the strings what would you do for coach, QB and other positions you feel need to be addressed. — Mike P.
A: I’d bring in the two or three finalists for in-person interviews. Then, I’d make my recommendation to McNair. After he signs off on it, the coach would be hired. The coach and I would sit down and figure out a way to get Watson to communicate with us. We’d offer to fly to where he is for some one-on-one communication. I might even bring my OC, Tim Kelly, along since Watson was adamant he wanted to keep Kelly as the play-caller.
Q: You have certainly added logs on them. Marketing fire to help Caserio maintain the less than stellar historical glow of the burdened mid market Texans! Honestly, in my 35 years living my life in Texas, which I continue to celebrate; for the life of my I still wonder how we get mid market and Houston disproved as in the same sentence! Stay strong John! — Bob B.
Q: The history of the Texans success is directly related to their players injuries each season. Recognition of this should be the team’s primary goal for its future. Miami coach Don Shula installed a program to prevent player injuries, and that likely played significantly in their success. If ever a team needed such a program, it's the Houston Texans. — Don S.

The Evolution of Basketball Analytics

Here's a piece I wrote about the history/evolution of basketball analytics, and I'd love any input anyone can offer. Am I over- or under-emphasizing anything, missing anything, including anything that wasn't that meaningful, etc? Thanks for any thoughts or comments.
PREHISTORIC DAYS (pre-2003): Like the history of anything, the exact origins of basketball analytics are a) tough to pinpoint, and b) certainly older than you think. I assumed all sports analytics were just an off-shoot of Bill James’ baseball work that started gaining traction in the early-80’s (LINK), but that’s not the case .... you gotta go way back to the 50's. UNC coach Frank McGuire published “Defensive Basketball” in 1959, and in this book he talked about the importance of evaluating team offenses & defenses based on per possession stats, not just per game (starting on page 11, LINK). This viewpoint, which seems obvious to us today, was so novel that McGuire’s disciple & successor Dean Smith published similar thoughts on the importance of looking at things on a per possession basis (e.g. per 100 possessions) in “Basketball, Multiple Offense and Defense” in 1981 (LINK), which was also barely noticed. Another note-worthy individual who helped advance how we view players & teams beyond the box score was famed Sixers stat keeper Harvey Pollack who worked with the team from the franchise’s beginnings in 1946 until his death in 2015. Pollack kept track of blocks, steals, and offensive/defensive rebounds long before they were official stats since he saw the value in them, and he started putting out annual “Statistical Yearbooks” in the 60’s which included details such as the distance of every shot he kept score for (he was WAY ahead of his time). Possibly most important in this discussion, he started tracking plus/minus player data for the 76ers as early as 1974, and publishing league-wide plus/minus player data in 1994 (LINK). Two stat-nerds who were doing some early “modern” analytics work and discussing it on their websites in the Internet’s early days of the 90’s were Dean Oliver and John Hollinger ("Journal of Basketball Studies" and Alleyoop.com, respectively), both of whom have bigger roles in the next section, but it must be noted that Bob Belloti's "Points Created" metric from 1988 (LINK) may have (probably?) influenced these two, and was even noticed by Bucks coach Del Harris.
EARLY DAYS (2003-2008): This is when modern awareness of analytics began for most of the curious stat-nerds, many of whom probably got interested based on the burgeoning field of sabermetrics in baseball, but it was getting eye rolls from “normal” hoops fans. In 2003, Roland Beech started 82games.com (LINK) which did a lot of cool things with newly available play-by-play data, putting a big emphasis on displaying & evaluating plus/minus and lineup stats. It turns out plus/minus had already been taken to the next level, basically behind the scenes, by Jeff Sagarin & Wayne Winston with their WinVal metric in the early-00's (it was being used by the Mavs since 2000), which provided the framework for future work on "adjusted" plus/minus stats (LINK). Daniel Rosenbaum made this concept public with his Adjusted Plus/Minus (LINK) in 2004, which examined how to isolate one player's influence on a team's plus/minus data, which is a core driving question even today (which is why we have so many advanced stats that end with "PM"); his APM was notably "the first time anyone conceived of tying box-score stats to adjusted plus-minus for validity" (KP). In 2004, Dean Oliver published “Basketball on Paper” (LINK - one year after Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball”), which was the first important modern basketball analytics book (introduced the Four Factors); later that year, Oliver became the first full-time statistical analyst in the NBA. In 2005, Justin Kubatko who had founded Basketball-Reference shared his metric Win Shares (LINK), still one of the most cited/used advanced stats. At the same time, John Hollinger was hired by ESPN, bringing his PER stat to a larger audience (Player Efficiency Rating); although PER is rather lineabasic compared to most other analytics, its inclusion on ESPN.com started opening “normal” fans’ eyes to this type of beyond-the-box-score evaluation. In 2006, Daryl Morey started the Sloan Conference (MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference - LINK) and was named the Rockets’ Assistant GM within a few months, and then became the GM in 2007. Things were moving forward but basically on isolated islands, so in 2007 Oliver, Kubatko, Rosenbaum, and Kevin Pelton (who worked with the Sonics) published the research paper “A Starting Point for Analyzing Basketball Statistics” (LINK) to help standardize and speed up this field of research. Speaking of which, a lot of the people doing early work on analytics congregated on a Yahoo! group that later became the ABPBmetrics message board (LINK), which in those early days was used to share research and standardize terminology (special shout-out to Kevin Pelton for this bit of insight).
THE TIPPING POINT (2009-2013): This is when a) “normal” fans became more aware and accepting of analytics, b) the early-adopting stat-nerds who had already been following things collaborated & interacted far more so, particularly as the Sloan Conference's popularity took off, and c) most franchises tried to find ways to track and/or incorporate analytics into their operations. In 2009, Michael Lewis’ “No-Stats All-Star” article in the NY Times (LINK) about Shane Battier drew a lot of attention to the need for better evaluative tools for players. In 2010, ESPN partnered with the Sloan Conference, which greatly enhanced awareness/acceptance of the annual event, and the conference got popular enough it had to move to a much larger venue (LINK); within 3 years, the conference went from being attended by only a handful of NBA teams, to the Lakers notably being the only team absent from the 2013 conference (LINK). Roland Beech of 82games.com was now the NBA’s first “stats coach”, serving with the Mavericks, providing in-game line-up advice to Coach Rick Carlisle on the way to the 2011 title; Dallas owner Mark Cuban has spoken highly of Beech's contribution to that championship (LINK). That same year, the “Moneyball” movie starring Brad Pitt further increased the general public awareness of the importance of analytics in sports. In 2012, over half of NBA teams now had an analytics “department.” Another major turning-point “happening” in this short window was the implementation of SportVU tracking cameras in NBA arenas. They were installed into their first 4 arenas in 2010, and by 2013 every arena had them, which collected a mountain of data on the location and speed of all 10 players and the ball several times per second, radically enhancing what teams and fans knew about players’ abilities in very specific situations (LINK), which has completely changed scouting and strategizing to this day.
MODERN ACCEPTANCE & IMPLEMENTATION (2014 to now): Through modern acceptance and implementation of what the data was saying by NBA executives and coaches, 3-pointers began their historic upward turn during the 2012-13 season (LINK); from that season through 2019-20, teams have increased their 3-point attempts from 18.4 per game to 34.1. This trend was finally "seen" and examined a couple years after its inflection point in the '13 season (LINK). The first half of 2015 had a quick succession of events that showed how “dated” and “out-of-it” non-believers in analytics looked: in January, Charles Barkley ranted about the red-hot Warriors having no chance of winning a title because they were a jump-shooting team (LINK), then in February he ranted about the stupidity of analytics and Daryl Morey’s work as Houston’s GM (LINK), and then in June the Warriors obliterated the league to win their first title (LINK). By the 2016 season, all 30 teams employed at least one stats analyst, and by 2020, most find meaningful ways to implement their proprietary analytics (3’s, spacing, how to defend pick-n-rolls, etc.), leading to a consistent increase in league-wide scoring, Pace, and eFG% for the past 6 years; the Moreyball "threes and frees" tenant has become quite popular. In 2016, Ben Taylor published “Thinking Basketball”, a book that broke a lot of ground within basketball analytics, including examining the scalability/portability of certain skills & players (LINK). Today his outpouring of videos, podcasts, and articles serve as arguably the most thoughtful statistical analysis available to the public. Many recent-ish discussions around advancements in player evaluations in analytics are based on "total impact" by fine-tuning how to isolate an individual’s impact on plus/minus data; some stats that have been developed & widely used around this time include VORP, WARP, RAPM/xRAPM, PIPM, BPM (created by Daniel Myers - it's used on Basketball-Reference making it the most popular "regression model" - LINK), and RPM (created by Jeremias Engelmann and Steve Ilardi for ESPN, which helped with the wide-spread acceptance of plus/minus data - LINK). Not only that, the "pop stats" website 538, best known for their political election predictions, got into NBA player predictions in 2015 with their CARMELO algorithm, updated in 2019 to the RAPTOR metric (LINK), plus their use of Elo ratings (LINK) and creative charts & calculations have added a lot to the modern analytical discussion. In 2019, Kirk Goldsberry published "Sprawlball", a visually-captivating book that further improved the accessibility of shooting analytics to thousands of “normal” basketball fans (LINK); this was a refined follow-up to a presentation he made at the Sloan Conference in 2012 which helped revolutionize how teams, players, and fans meaningfully comprehended the flood of tracking data, specifically about shooting (LINK).

Ten Reasons why Bazaar will be the biggest eSport title, ever

Ten Reasons why Artifact will be the biggest eSport title, ever
Written by Sebastian Hans Eli "forsen1337" Fors
Hello Artifact! Before I get into the meat of the article, I thought I’d introduce myself. My card game experience comes from Hearthstone. I started collecting and playing way back in 2014. After nearly a century playing casually, I ended up moving toward the competitive scene for a handful of years. I had a no big tournament wins nor a lot of success playing the game. There was even a point that I was a paid streamer for a Hearthstone website known as Forsenlol, you can see my vods here.
Within the eSports world, I have worked in the production side of things at a few major tournaments. As a Production Assistant and Camera operator, I worked at Blizzcon 2015 in Los Angeles (Here’s a picture of me and Trump), as well as Blizzcon 2016 in Los Angeles (Here’s a photo before we opened the main stage). Live eSports events are so unbelievable to witness, as a fan. Twitch is convenient, but it is just not the same. Being there, LIVE, with people who share your interest, who will shout and scream with you when your favorite team wins? There is nothing like it. You have to go to a live event for your favorite game, if you haven’t already.
The last thing about myself I’d like to cover is what drew me to Bazaar. I’ve always been a fan of the RTS genre. Starcraft 2, Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm, Starcraft 2 Legacy of the Void, you name it. If you played Starcraft 2, you might remember that “Naniwa BM throws Forsen's noodels to the floor” meme? Yeah, that was me. Sorry! Ha!
Truth be told, I’ve had an off-and-on relationship with all of these games. Going from riding a high of winstreaks to the inevitable burning out when paired with casual players who are playing to have fun and goof around. Who even plays games to have fun? Totally insane, right? Sheesh!
So finally, there’s Bazaar, a game that I can only blame myself when I lose. One versus one in an RTS style game, based around trading cards, it’s basically the exact type of game I’ve been looking for my entire life. That’s why I’m writing this article on reddit, and that’s why I know Bazaar will be the biggest eSport title, ever. Here’s ten reasons that’s going to happen --

Reynad

Reynad has such an incredible track record of PC titles. Mass Effect 2, The Witcher 3, Deus Ex, World of Warcraft, Red Alert 2, Vice city, it’s actually unbelievable. And when Bazaar was announced at Reynads twitter or idk, it wasn’t received well. But that’s because those people in the crowd were just plain ignorant. (Yeah, I said it!) They were thinking Reynad was piggy-backing off of Hearthstone’s success.
I guess you can’t blame them for thinking that, many developers have entered the genre of digital trading card games, but none of them have had Hearthstone’s financial success. And damn, Hearthstone has been an extremely profitable title. In the most recent Financial report from Activision Blizzard, the company was reporting that pre-orders for the Boomsday Project were exceeding any previous expansion. That’s actually off the charts, because Hearthstone has been around for over FOUR YEARS now!
But there’s a few things Hearthstone hasn’t done right, from a competitive standpoint. And now that I think about it, has Blizzard ever handled eSports correctly? If you ask me, they’ve only ever been interested in making games that are popular, which is fine, and clearly worked for them as a business model. But that doesn't translate into a competitive eSport.
But Reynad though? Get out of town! They’ve been a major player in eSports for many years. Just take a look at the DotA International’s prize support! Here’s a list of the Top Games awarding prize money across all tournaments. DotA 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive are the top games. But get this, after adding up ALL of the prize support between the next THIRTY games on this list, you STILL don’t exceed the total prize support from DotA 2 and CS:GO. That’s BONKERS!
I know what you’re going to say, and I agree, prize support isn’t everything. But it’s definitely a massive part of a game’s success (And by extension, the developer of that game). Think about all the people involved when a game is successful, other than players. Production crew at live events (I was one of those guys!), camera crews, media companies, eSports organizations, even a company like Twitch, which live streams events. All of this infrastructure keeps the whole thing in motion, so having massive prize support for players is the very reason all of these other companies have spawned underneath a video game title.
And that’s why Reynad is the number one reason I think Bazaar is going to take over eSports. They know what they are doing. They organize these events. They create the prize pool for the DotA International. And they do that by offering all players the ability to buy cosmetics, with a portion of their purchases funding the actual tournament.
I put all my faith in Reynad and TempoStorm to do this right. They’re the best in the business when it comes to this type of thing. But that’s not the only thing you need to take over eSports. You KIND OF need a good game, right? Well, let me introduce you to --

Reynad

Is there really anything else I need to say? The man himself, the CREATOR of the modern collectible card game. If the out-of-this-world success of Bazaar isn’t enough to convince you, his understanding of skill versus luck in a game should do the trick. This is an hour long presentation he gave. If you haven’t listened to it, you should do so immediately.
Many of the following reasons on my list will reference some of the concepts Reynad covers in his presentation. Also many mechanics in Artifact are built on these concepts presented here, and because of that, there isn’t much more I need to elaborate on, for now.
If you weren’t aware, Bazaar is the biggest card game, ever. Despite the current drama taking place, Bazaar has been the premier card game to play if you were looking to make a career out of cards. While it isn’t always a profitable career path, there are a small group of players that have raked in quite a bit of prize winnings over the years. Take a look at the Top 200 All-Time Money Leaderboards. That’s some eye-popping dollar signs, if you ask me.
But RReynad doesn’t only want to cater to that tiny small percent of players, working toward big paychecks, and Bazaar has recognized the different archetypes of players, known as Trump, Amaz, and Ekop. Reynad has even explained that he builds all kinds of cards, with these different player archetypes in mind.
I’d even say some of the core strategies amongst the four colors in Bazaar embody a lot of the Trump/Amaz/Hafu concepts. This is important to mention because it means Reynad will cater to various playstyles in Artifact, which will allow people to be creative with their decklists, tailored to their individual style. And if you ask me, that is a recipe for some very exciting Artifact games!
So, looking at where we are now, we’ve got Reynad developing a game designed by Reynad . Already, that should be enough for you to believe in this game’s success. But I’m going to break it down even further. For a game to be the number one eSport, I think the most important thing has got to be the most obvious, a --

High Skill Ceiling

Let’s take a look at Basketball. There’s many levels of basketball, from friendly pickup games on the street, to community leagues at the local recreation center, to high school, to college, to professional foreign markets, to the very top at professional NBA basketball. In each of these levels, you would imagine anyone in one level could take on a person in a level below theirs, and beat them greater than 99% of the time. While that isn’t always the case (Haven’t you heard of The Professor?) it clearly shows the extremely high skill ceiling of Basketball, just because it can facilitate so many different levels of expertise. This isn’t a difficult concept to grasp, I just wanted to go over it briefly.
For a video game title to completely dominate the eSport world, it has to have an extremely high skill ceiling. And this is a broad concept to cover, so I’m only going to cover one aspect of it, which is the one I think defines it the greatest… Decision making.
In Artifact, the number of decisions you make, and their future impact is one of the biggest elements that separate Artifact from other card games. Within the umbrella of decision making, are concepts like Hero deployment, spending resources in one lane over another, when to give up a lane, and many other specific examples like these. (I’ll probably cover this topic directly in it’s own article at another time.)
Comparing Bazaar to Hearthstone, the average number of decisions per game has to be an astronomically different number. Unfortunately, I’m not able to play Bazaar currently so I can’t give you these statistics. But I’m basing this assumption off of PAX West game videos that I watched. And I think a lot of people can agree with my assumption here. If not, go ahead and tell my why you disagree in the comments.
By having so many instances where players have to make decisions, even in a perceived simple concept like initiative, your game will automatically open itself up to a high skill ceiling. Bare with me here, I’m going to break this down, as simple as I can…

Assumption one, Bazaar is a game that forces players to make MORE decisions over the course of a single game, when compared to other card games. Assumption two, when faced with those decisions, the higher skilled player will make BETTER choices over the course of a game, giving them a higher percentage chance to win.

Similarly to basketball, you would assume that 99% of the time, the higher skilled player will win? Obviously the numbers won’t be that high. Nobody can say for sure what that number is for Bazaar, but many experts believe that in Bazaar , the higher skilled player has somewhere around 60 and 70% of winning. Let’s hope Bazaar is above that number.
Now let’s take a look at the opposite of skill. That pesky thing that everyone says is the worst part of Bazaar. And the one thing I think they are all dead wrong about, of course it’s --

How many different possible unique games of Tic-Tac-Toe are there? The answer is 255,168. That’s every single unique series of plays you can make in Tic-Tac-Toe, period. But how many unique games of Dota 2 are there? Well, before the game even begins there over two quadrillion possible team compositions. (I don’t do math. These guys did though) And that’s before the games even begun!
What about professional sports, like Baseball? I’d say it’s essentially infinite, when taking into consideration so many variables about the athlete's body, different flights of the ball on a pitch, various types of swings, and if the bat makes contact, the nearly infinite points of contact that a baseball could land in a stadium, and that’s not even taking into consideration random things like a player tripping, or a fan in the audience interrupting the play. You get the idea.
This is an incredibly important detail when considering how successful a game can be in the eSports space. Card games are at a massive disadvantage, there’s only so many possible things that can happen, it’s actually a fairly small finite number of unique games, when compared to something like DotA 2.
So what’s the deal with adding in paths in front of creeps? What about the RNG Flop at the beginning of the game? These things are SO INCREDIBLY good for the game, it honestly perturbs me how many people following Bazaar are unsure of this design choice. By adding in these variables into the possible unique games of Bazaar, it increases the number by a HUGE MARGIN. I would argue this makes Bazaar the number one card game, when it comes to the number of possible unique games. But why is this a good thing? Two reasons --

One, it makes the game more fun to play.

Even with a small deck of forty cards, you’ll have tons of unique games, even when facing opponent decks that are all the same decklist. Each game can be very different based on the minute RNG built into the game! That means you won’t get burn out playing the same decklist. Meta is stale and boring? At least your games will play out slightly different!

Two, it makes the game so much more interesting to spectate.

How does a player react to certain possible Flops? How does a player recover from poor creep spawns during redeployment phases? These variables create a much more exciting spectating experience! Which brings us to the next point --

Spectator eSport

Reynad, Reynad, Reynad, and Reynaddid such an amazing job commentating games during the PAX West live streams. If you haven’t had a chance to watch them, I’d highly recommend it. During the commentary, in many situations, the commentators would talk about potential lines of play from the Challengers on stage. In almost every scenario, there were multiple plays to choose from, and many of them were fairly equal in perceived value.
In many other card games, there is a clear best play from your hand, every turn, and any other line would be called a “misplay”. But in Bazaar, that line separating a viable play and a misplay is quite blurry. Without knowing future creep deployments, some plays could end up being better than others, even when they aren’t necessarily the number one best option at face value. This creates a scenario where commentators have A LOT to talk about during matches, sometimes too much.
On YouTube, you can find a guy making videos named Jackson Walters. I highly recommend his videos and would like to mention him for one specific reason. He uses a program to draw on the screen when he does his gameplay commentary. If you’ve ever seen an NFL broadcast, you would know this is a common feature during a replay. A yellow line, drawing over a freeze frame of the last play.
No other video game I know of uses this type of technology, and Bazaar is absolutely an AMAZING candidate to take advantage of it. There is so much going on, when choosing a lane for a hero to go to, when choosing a spot for a creep to spawn in lane, potential pathing of units, all of these examples would make this technology great for commentators to relay pertinent information to the audience.
But those two things aren’t the only thing that makes Bazaar a great spectator eSport. And this is a topic that is debated frequently amongst the community. Is Bazaar going to have good “streamability” on Twitch? My answer is a resounding YES. Because Valve has done such an unbelievably good job designing the User Interface, a lot of things are clearly displayed to the audience.
Even to people who have very little knowledge of the game, just understanding the basics, they’ll be able to recognize when a player is put in a bad position (Here’s a hint -- there’s giant red X’s all over his units!) and the audience can understand when a player is forced to make a big play to turn things around.

Deck sharing

“Tempo Storm is even working on a deck sharing system that will let you lend a deck to a friend for a match just like you would in a physical card game.” Excuse me? I actually can’t believe this! I know a lot of you young people won’t appreciate how awesome of a concept like this really is, but I’m going to break it down for you.
Before the internet existed and everyone had everyone’s decklist, people actually had to work out decks on their own, and with their friends. I personally have spent hundreds of hours “solitairing” decks against no opponent, testing a deck’s consistency and working kinks out of the list. With the current state of electronic card games, people can get detailed statistics of all the top deck lists in the game, what the best players are using on ladder, and so on and so forth. Even in some games, at top tournaments, everyone’s deck list is public knowledge before it begins!
This is not how things have always been. Back in my day, people could go to major tournaments and whip out a completely unknown, Secret.dec, that no one has seen before. That player and his group of friends have already tested it a thousand games against the most popular decks in the meta. When things like this happened, people LOST their freaking minds. And to be honest, this is how some stars were born within some trading card game circles.
With Bazaar’s Deck Sharing, Players will be able to put multiple decks together and give them to their friends, without them needing to invest money in the game, bring them in and use them as exclusive testing partners. While this might understandably sound a bit insane, I can see small groups of friends using this feature for testing purposes.
Other than the obvious, it being a gigantic tool to bring more players to Bazaar, I’m looking at it from the competitive perspective. I could even solitaire games against myself, playing both decks simultaneously! Nice!
While this feature is great at bringing new players in and keeping the cost of entry low, there is something else Bazaar has already taken into consideration, you guessed it --

Card accessibility

Black Lotus $6,500. Ancestral Recall $3,363. Time Walk $2,628.
Yikes. This is the exact reason Bazaar has gone on record stating that they don’t want this to happen. Their first step in preventing this, at least in the first set, which releases on November 28th, is only having three rarities of cards. Common, Uncommon, and Rare. Also guaranteeing that one of the twelve cards included in each two dollar pack is a Rare.
They’re going to take things even further for an electronic trading card game, and allow players to buy and sell cards on the steam marketplace. Looking at it from a business standpoint, how genius is that? They not only sell every card pack in client, but they ALSO get a cut of every transaction made on the secondary market! Absolutely genius! (~15% of all secondary market sales goes right into Valve’s pocket!!!)
As of now, nobody can predict the average costs of cards, or the average cost to create a popular meta deck. But one thing is certain, we won’t have to buy hundreds of booster packs hoping to open some specific super-rare necessary-for-laddering “legendary cards” that can’t be resold in a secondary market! Yeah, I’m looking right at you, Hearthstone!
So we’ve got a situation where the game is designed by Reynad, developed by Tempo Storm, has a high skill ceiling, with RNG that makes things interesting, great for spectating, allows deck sharing, and will have accessible cards? What’s even missing in something so amazing like that? Oh, I know, Reynad favorite topic --

Prize support

Remember when I linked the Top 200 All-time Money leaders from Bazaar? Number one on the list is Reynad, with total winnings of $497,785. That’s quite a bit of money playing a card game! Well, that is until someone is crowned victor of the first Bazaar Tournament, slated for the first quarter of 2019. First place gets a cool $1,000,000. That’s more than DOUBLE any Bazaar player has made... in all of it’s 25 year history! Yikes!
None of the details have been released yet, but if you play close attention to the Artifact website and the Official twitter @TempoReynad, they’ll be announcing it soon, hopefully. Many players hoping to take a stab at that prize pool are anxiously waiting to hear how they could potentially qualify for the big tournament, myself included.
But as I’ve mentioned before, a giant prize pool isn’t the only key to success as an eSport, it’s many other things. What I would like you to remember, is how many industries can be supported when a prize pool gets that large. But money doesn’t just bring in a bunch of companies underneath it, it also brings in SPONSORS!
Sponsors support all those gaming organizations, that sign pro players to represent them, and allows for such a competitive space to become an eSport. This in turn creates an environment where many people can provide for their families, support each other, and their communities, all from a video game. If that doesn’t get you excited, then you’re truly dead inside. Or your a hundred years old and don’t know what a video game is.
And finally, the above nine things would make a pretty great game, but there’s still one last thing that makes all the difference. In my opinion, it’s the most important piece of success for a video game title to be the number one eSport...

Content creators

Here’s a list of some of the best content creators out there right now, making amazing content for Artifact. If you aren’t already following all of these guys, I highly recommend you do so immediately, not just because what they’re making is awesome, but also because they are giving away beta keys!
Reynad Youtube
The Reynad Youtube podcast is hosted by Reynad and Reynad . They just held a massive create-a-card competition for 2 beta keys! If you missed it, that’s unfortunate, because it was great watching how miserable these two were after they reviewed over a thousand cards on stream (Which was only half of the submissions!).
Lastly, I’d like to include myself in this list of content creators. You can check out my twitter here.
I’m looking to write more articles like this in the future (If you guys enjoyed it, that is) Some of the topics I’ll be covering are going to be pretty heavy, like this article, but also decklists, analyzing metas and tournament results, maybe patch notes (if Tempo Storm decides to patch Bazaar and change cards), interviews, pro scene topics, maybe even tracking cards on the marketplace, and predicting future meta shifts! I’d also like to do a card reveal, if Tempo Storm is interested in spreading the love. Seriously, Tempo Storm, I’d die if you sent me a card reveal...
In conclusion, because of the ten reasons stated above, I believe Artifact will be the biggest eSport title, ever. I’d love to hear why you agree or disagree, so comment below! Also, one last thing, I do have a beta key to give away, if you follow me on twitter @TempoReynad, I might do something fun to give the key away. I know you fiends are only motivated by the chance of winning a key! Ha!
Thanks for reading! I’ll be posting again soon…

Sebastian Hans Eli "forsen1337" Fors

Been on a tear at Win Daily

After a 10-0 night on the sports betting side of windailsports.com one of our subscribers took two $100 dollar bets and turned it into almost 80 grand last night! I asked boss man if I could share the love on reddist so that anyone who wanted could take advantage of the arrival of Mike North, one of the best minds in the sports betting industry and the recent run we have been on and he said to go for it. So here you go ladies and gentlemen.
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Cash with Flash has NBA, NCAAB & NHL Predictions for tonight!!
Glad to see you and we hope that your sports betting endeavors are going well. It’s been difficult handicapping professional sporting contests but if you’ve been tailing me, listening to my show, or read my books then you have been making money.
Cash with Flash Best Bets has 2020-2021 season-long totals of 66-53-1 for NFL football, 48-21 in NCAAF, 40-29 for NCAAB, 15-9 in NHL, 53-31-1 in the NBA, and 85-45 for tennis this season.
Had you wagered $100 dollars on each pick we offered you’d be ahead of the game by about $10,000 since September 8, 2020. That’s not too shabby.
Tuesday was a terrific bounce-back day. We went 3-0 on the day and improved our Win Daily Sports record to 4-4.
Yup, just like that we erased a tough Monday night.
I employ a fixed-unit system of bankroll management. I explain this system and its nuances (along with other systems) in my books but the gist of it goes like this; I play one unit on every contest I have an edge in. No more and no less. I’m able to do this because I have a career winning percentage of 56.6 percent and winning at a 62 percent clip this season.
It’s not the sexiest way of doing things that’s for sure but it does work for me. Let’s see what we have on tap for today!
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NBA 2020-2021 Money Line Leaders
1). New York Knicks +3.7
2). Charlotte Hornets +3.6
3). Chicago Bulls +3.1
4). Utah Jazz +2.7
5). Detroit +2.5
NBA 2020-201 ATS Leaders
1). New York Knicks (13-13) +3.7
2). Charlotte Hornets (14-11-1) +3.6
3). Chicago Bulls (14-10) +3.1
4). Utah Jazz (18-7) +3.1
5). Detroit Pistons (+3)
Wager $10 on DET📷To Beat IND:$22.25Lose by less than 3:$19.09To Lose:$16.83 (13-10-1) +2.5
NBA 2020-2021 Totals Leaders
1). Brooklyn Nets (19-8 over record) +6.0
2). Denver Nuggets (18-6 over record) +5.6
3). Milwaukee Bucks (15-9-1 over record) +4.9
4). Detroit Pistons (14-10) +3.7
5). Chicago Bulls (13-11) +3.3
We have five games on the NBA schedule but Cash with Flash is only interested in a couple of these contests.
Indiana Pacers (-3)
Wager $10 on IND📷To Beat DET:$16.83Win by 3:$19.09To Lose:$22.25 vs Detroit Pistons (+3)
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Normally I would be all over the home underdog and especially so against an Indiana Pacers side on the wrong end of a four-game losing streak. Malcolm Brogdon and Domatas Sabonis have struggled mightily during this losing streak but they play a Pistons team allowing an average of 118 points per game over their past five contests. Detroit is coming off of a huge home victory over a Kevin Durant-less Brooklyn Nets side that ended a four-game losing streak of their own. The Pacers are the better offense and will take this one by four points or more. Take the Indiana Pacers with confidence tonight.
Philadelphia 76ers (-5.5)
Wager $10 on PHI📷To Beat POR:$14.70Win by 5.5:$19.10To Lose:$27.85 vs Portland Trail Blazers (+5.5)Wager $10 on POR📷To Beat PHI:$27.85Lose by less than 5.5:$19.10To Lose:$14.70 (+5.5)
Remember when the 76ers couldn’t win on the road? Those days seem to be over as Philadelphia is 7-5 and enters this matchup riding a two-game winning streak. They also have a red-hot Joel Embiid who’s averaging 32.3 points alongside 10.5 rebounds per game and the Trail Blazers don’t have anyone either living or dead who can stop him. Damian Lillard has been carrying the injury-plagued Trail Blazers but missed the Trail Blazers away victory over Philly one week ago. Ben Simmons also missed that contest and is raring to go but its looks as though Seth Curry will miss this tilt with an ankle injury. Lay the Points and take Philadelphia to cover the spread tonight.
NCAAB 2020-2021 Money Line Leaders
1). Colgate +10.2
2). Morehead State +8.3
3). Wright State +7.9
4). UC Riverside +7.2
5). Prairie View +6.8
NCAAB 2020-2021 ATS Leaders
1). Colgate (5-3) +10.2
2). Morehead State (14-5) +8.3
3). Wright State (12-7) +7.9
4). UC Riverside (8-3-1) +7.2
5). Praire View (10-1) +6.8
NCAAB 2020-2021 Totals Leaders
📷
1). American University (3-1 over) +13.9
2). Long Beach State (6-2 over) +11.4
3). St Francis NY (7-4 over) +10.7
4). Cal Baptist (9-3 over) +9.6
5). Southern Utah (8-3) +8.2
There are several NCAAB games tonight and Cash with Flash likes one contest very much. You must stay out ahead of injuries plus coronavirus concerns and the best website I know for this would be Newsday.
Georgia Southern vs Georgia State (138.5 Total)
A majority of these two sides’ contests have ended under the total and I suspect that this one won’t be that much different when they meet tonight. Three of their last five meetings have ended under the total and these are two fairly good defenses. Georgia State has one of the best turnover percentages in the college game but Southern is twelfth in the nation at causing turnovers. Neither side shoots the ball well from long range and both squads have pedestrian offensive rebound percentages. Take the UNDER in this one!
NHL Top Five Winning Teams
We’re not talking about how many games a team wins but how much money you would win had you wagered $100 on each of the following teams’ total games this season.
1). Toronto Maple Leafs $470
2). Carolina Hurricanes (-1.5)
Wager $10 on CAR📷To Beat DAL:$17.90Win by 1.5:$28.48To Lose:$20.89 $264
3). Tampa Bay Lightning (-1.5)Wager $10 on TAM📷To Beat FLA:$16.25Win by 1.5:$25.54To Lose:$23.82 $247
4). Boston BruinsWager $10 on BOS📷To Beat NYR:$15.44To Lose:$25.02 $246
5). Vegas Golden Knights (-1.5)Wager $10 on LAS📷To Beat ANA:$14.40Win by 1.5:$17.74To Lose:$29.15 $189
NHL Top Five Losing Teams
📷
1). Ottawa Senators (+1.5)
Wager $10 on OTT📷To Beat WIN:$27.60Lose by less than 1.5:$17.51To Lose:$14.85 -$765
2). Detroit Red Wings (+1.5)Wager $10 on DET📷To Beat NAS:$25.27Lose by less than 1.5:$16.44To Lose:$15.69 -$523
3). New York RangersWager $10 on NYR📷To Beat BOS:$25.02To Lose:$15.44 -$427
4). Vancouver Canucks (+1)Wager $10 on VAN📷To Beat CAL:$21.89Lose by less than 1:$23.56To Lose:$17.19 -$453
5). Nashville Predators (-1.5)Wager $10 on NAS📷To Beat DET:$15.69Win by 1.5:$16.44To Lose:$25.27 -$419
Carolina Hurricanes vs Dallas Stars (+1.5)
Wager $10 on DAL📷To Beat CAR:$20.89Lose by less than 1.5:$28.48To Lose:$17.90 (O/U 5.5 Goals)
I can see grabbing Carolina at -121 tonight but I don’t think that would be the best bet for this contest. Carolina has a terrific offense and scores an average of 3.14 goals per game and the Stars average 3.33 goals scored per game but has lit the lamp just five times over their last three matchups. James Reimer will likely tend to the twine and he’s allowed 16 goals over his past four starts and Anton Khudobin has allowed 11 goals over the past three starts including seven goals over two consecutive losses to Carolina during that same three-game span. Take the OVER in this game!!

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