Posts tagged Dirk Nowitzki
Nowitzki and Pierce opt out of contracts
Jun 30th
Both Dirk Nowitzki and Paul Pierce have decided to opt out of their contracts and become free agents on July 1st. Read more
http://blogs.bettor.com/Nowitzki-and-Pierce-opt-out-of-contracts-a14297
All-Star reserves announced
Jan 29th
Dirk Nowitzki narrowly missed being a starter for the All-Star game in his team’s home town but there was never any doubt that he wouldn’t be selected as a reserve for the game.
If he had been selected as a starter it would have been his first time in his career despite the fact that he is a former league MVP, however it will be his ninth consecutive All-star appearance. The German is averaging 25.2 points a game this year and scored his 20,000th point this season and was pleased to be able to play as an All-Star in his hometown.
“It is an honour to represent the Mavericks in my new hometown of Dallas, I am always thankful for the opportunity to play in the All-Star game. We hope to put on a good show for our fans,” Nowitzki said.
Another local will be appearing as well, although he doesn’t play for the Mavericks. Chris Bosh is a Dallas native and will make his fifth consecutive appearance as an All-Star, and with his contract expiring in the summer the fans will surely give him a rapturous reception.
The Eastern Conference will boast four first-timers including last year’s Rookie of the Year Derrick Rose and Boston’s Rajon Rondo. Rondo is joined by teammate Paul Pierce who is playing in his eighth All-Star game and still cherishes the honour of being selected.
“There’s going to come a day that they don’t pick me, so every time I get a chance to make it, it’s definitely an honour,” Pierce said.
The rest of the east’s reserves include Gerald Wallace and Al Horford, both appearing for the first time, and Atlanta’s Joe Johnson who will make his fourth All-Star appearance.
The west, just like the east, also boasts a number of first-timers. Texas native Deron Williams will astonishingly make his first appearance after being a standout point guard for a number of years.
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant makes his first appearance as well and with the talent level he possesses it will be the first of many. And after eight years of playing in the league, Zach Randolph makes his first ever appearance after averaging 21 points and 11.6 rebounds a game.
Chris Paul, Pau Gasol and Brandon Roy round up the rest of the western reserves and all three will be making their third appearances at an All-Star game.
All-Star weekend is always fun for both players and fans and with two players having strong ties with Dallas the fans will definitely have something to shout about.
Race to MVP – Week 10
Jan 20th
There are a few teams in the league who quite frankly have surpassed all expectations this season and yet none of their players feature heavily in the MVP race.
The Memphis Grizzlies, LA Clippers, Sacramento Kings and the Charlotte Bobcats, maybe less so the Bobcats, have all impressed partly due to the fact they have played well or they have a star who is carrying the team. We are leaving out the Oklahoma City Thunder because they were predicted to have a good year this year, even though they only won 23 games last year.
This is how they finished last year:
Charlotte, 35-47
Memphis, 24-58
LA, 19-63
Sacramento, 17-65
This season?
Charlotte, 20-19
Memphis, 22-18
LA, 18-22
Sacramento, 15-25
While the Kings have only won 15 games this season many had them pencilled in for the worst record in the league, but as we know the 3-37 New Jersey Jets will, barring a miracle, win that accolade. And when Kevin Martin went down with a wrist injury it looked like the Kings would be in major trouble, step up rookie Tyreke Evans.
The point guard out of Memphis is averaging 20.8 points, five rebounds and five assists a game as well as 1.5 steals and has pretty much saved the Kings from being the second worst team in the league, and let’s not mention that he hits game winners to go along with the stats.
Charlotte are being lead by Gerald Wallace who is having a career-year grabbing 11.3 rebounds with 18.5 points, and are now in a position to finish with a winning record and challenge for the eighth seed in the east.
Despite their losing record, the Clippers are just a game away from matching their win total from last year. That’s partly down to good teamwork but largely down to Chris Kaman who is averaging over 20 points a game for the first time in his career, not to mention he grabs 9.4 boards a game next to the rebounding machine that is Marcus Camby.
Memphis are just two games off their win total from last year and at this moment in time can boast about their winning record. The Grizzlies don’t have anyone in particular who stands out with his stats, but they do have an amazing young tandem who you could argue are the main reason for the Grizzlies’ rise out of mediocrity.
Rudy Gay may be taking the headlines but OJ Mayo has played like the complete team player, allowing his teammates to take the big shots during games. So why has neither been mentioned for MVP? Surely after all the Most Valuable Player should be judged on what he does for his team. By not being voracious and trying to get his numbers in, Mayo is allowing the Grizzlies to play basketball how it should be played, as a team, and that has translated into the winning record.
Normally MVP races only pick players on teams who have winning records, because it is considered that a player on a losing team cannot be that valuable seeing as how the team still continues to lose.
But if, let’s say the Grizzlies, go on to finish the season with a 40-42 record, that would be an 18-game improvement on last season and if that improvement is down to a player like Mayo doesn’t that qualify him for MVP? If it doesn’t then maybe you need to re-think how you view the MVP.
Of course we don’t know what records these teams will finish with but at this moment in time surely players like Mayo, Evans and Wallace are playing like real MVPs.
That said this race only picks the top eight in the race for reasons which are still unknown and even though Mayo, Evans and Wallace aren’t in it they are still very heavily considered – heck, we had Josh Smith in the race during the early weeks.
1- LeBron James, 29.6 PPG, 7.8 assists, 7.2 assists, .359 3pt%, 1.56 steals
On Tuesday night LeBron missed out on a triple double by just one rebound. The race is wondering whether there will be a year where King James averages a triple double for the season.
2- Kevin Durant, 29.1 PPG, 3 assists, 7.1 rebounds, .360 3pt%, 1.32 steals
He nearly made it six consecutive games in a row with 30+ points but missed out by just one point. He scored 29 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists to lead the Oklahoma Thunder over the strong Atlanta Hawks. Many thought the Thunder would be better but not this good – welcome to superstardom KD.
3- Kobe Bryant, 28.3 PPG, 4.5 assists, 5.2 rebounds, .316 3pt%, 1.80 steals
In his last five games Kobe has only scored over 20 once and clearly the injuries he has are bothering him. Continue like this Kobe and your run at MVP may be over. It’s time to get healthy.
4- Dirk Nowitzki, 25.5 PPG, 2.6 assists, 8 rebounds, .391 3pt%, 1.20 blocks
Dominated the Celtics by dropping 37 points in the Boston Gardens and has averaged 29.4 points in his last five games. He is one of the best shooters in the game and barring a bad performance against the Raptors he has been money from the charity line.
5- Carmelo Anthony, 30 PPG, 3.3 assists, 6.3 rebounds, .364 3pt%, 1.23 steals
Since his return from injury he has scored 24, 27 and 37. Melo has already found his form and the Nuggets have won those three games. If he keeps scoring like that then the Nuggets will be pretty tough to beat.
6- Steve Nash, 18.7 PPG, 11.1 assists, 3 rebounds, .426 3pt%, .942 FT%
The Suns have lost their last four games and in two of those Nash has failed to reach double figures in assists in two of those games. Against the Bobcats he got shut down by the defence and managed just five points and five assists – not what we’ve come to expect.
7- Dwight Howard, 17 PPG, 13.1 rebounds, 1.6 assists, .605 FG%, 2.49 blocks
Howard needs to become a go-to guy but because he lacks offensive moves his team don’t give him the ball enough. He had eight points against Denver in 31 minutes of action and in the next game against Portland managed just 11 points in 32 minutes. He did however have 24 points and 12 rebounds against the Lakers, but the Magic still lost.
8- Dwyane Wade, 27.2 PPG, 6.2 assists, 4.8 rebounds, .292 3pt%, 1.85 steals
After being left out of the race for a few weeks, Wade is back following some high scoring displays. He’s averaging 28.2 points a game in his last five games as well as 6.4 assists. Miami’s increase in form coincides with Wade’s good performances.
Race to MVP – Week 9
Jan 13th
Fantasy sports has a way of distorting people’s opinion about sport in real life, especially when it comes to judging a players potential or his chances of winning the MVP.
This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem normally, it certainly isn’t a problem in England or in Europe, but in America fantasy sports are huge and it plays a big part in American social sporting culture.
Fantasy football (soccer) isn’t the big deal that fantasy football (American football) is in America or any other fantasy sport for that matter.
Just compare the structure of the official Premier League fantasy to any of the NFL, NBA or MLB and you quickly understand that the American fantasy sports are built and structured to encourage competition between friends.
The draft system, the in depth statistics and statistical analysis as well as the different scoring categories force the participants to have an in depth knowledge of the players they are picking, hence the huge sections dedicated to fantasy sports on sites like ESPN and Yahoo.
Add a trade option, and you have a game that runs real-time with the actual sport where fans can battle it against each other, like managers do in real life. – The only difference here being that fantasy allows for owners to have an assortment of all sorts of all-stars, a luxury real life coaches do not have. –
This is why a game like Football Manager would never be popular on the other side of the Atlantic, they already have a game like that and they compete against real people.
But here is where the problem with fantasy sports lies. People become too reliant just on stats and forget to measure the intangibles that make the great players great.
Go into a pub in England and everyone in it will have some sort of opinion about why a team is struggling, who isn’t pulling their weight and so on, they do not care about fantasy it’s all eyes on the TV and the sport.
That gives them a better knowledge of the game and not the stats, but in America go to an NFL game and just look at how many people in the stands are on their Blackberry’s or Iphone’s looking at how their fantasy team is doing?
Fantasy does not measure the defence that forces a player to miss-play a pass or the offence that forces a team to change the way they play, that can only be measured by the human eye and it’s why journalists vote for awards like the MVP, although not all of them get it right.
LeBron James is by far and away the front runner for fantasy player of the year in the NBA, based on the Yahoo fantasy league, but for most of the season it has been Kobe Bryant who has been leading the race for the MVP, Kobe Ranks third in fantasy. James has been so dominant in fantasy this year he is more than 500 points ahead of his nearest challenger, any guesses who is second? Chris Bosh would be the answer to that and he hasn’t featured in the race since week one.
Dwyane Wade is fourth on the list and he too hasn’t featured in the race for a while and this is one of the major problems fantasy sports causes, good fantasy performance doesn’t necessarily equate to good real life performance.
There are only certain things stats can measure, the rest must be decided by human brain and ultimately when it comes down to it stats will never be able to replace the understanding a human being can possess for the game.
1- LeBron James, 29.4 PPG, 7.8 assists, 7.2 rebounds, .358 3pt%, 1.43 steals
Yes LeBron is averaging career highs in rebounds and assists – a full one assist above his average – but if Kobe wasn’t injured he would still be number one on the list. That said LeBron is arguably having his best year so he still is a worthy no.1
2- Kobe Bryant, 29.2, 4.6 assists, 5.4 rebounds, .315 3pt%, 1.89 steals
Kobe’s finger is bothering him and as a result his shot is not falling like it normally does. He had a season-low 12 against Milwaukee and had to leave the game against the San Antonio Spurs after suffering from back spasms. Is this the result of Kobe playing so many minutes and games in his career?
3- Steve Nash, 19.2 PPG, 11.3 assists, 3 rebounds, .441 3pt%, .945 FT%
Last five games? He hasn’t handed out fewer than 11 assists or scored fewer than 16 points. Add the fact that he is money from the three throw line and you get a candidate for MVP. If he can continue to lead the Suns like this for the rest of the season surely he should be MVP?
4- Kevin Durant, 28.8 PPG, 3 assists, 7 rebounds, .327 3pt%, 1.43 steals
Oklahoma are 21-16 and Kevin Durant is one of the main reasons for that record. Last five games he’s scored at least 25 and topped out at 40. Against the Knicks he scored 30 on 8-of-14 shooting and continues to learn how to play defence. If OKC continue their winning record Durant could be MVP, he certainly is one for the future.
5- Carmelo Anthony, 29.8 PPG, 3.3 assists, 6.3 rebounds, .370 3pt%, 1.15 steals
Melo just returned after missing five games with a knee injury and scored 24 points helping the Nuggets beat the Timberwolves. Hopefully he can get back to his pre injury form where he was averaging 30PPG.
6- Dirk Nowitzki, 25 PPG, 2.5 assists, 8 rebounds, .394 3pt%, 1.28 blocks
After a slump following an injury Dirk is back and has scored over 22 points in his last five games. He scored 29 in a loss to the Utah Jazz but did lead the Mavs to a 112-103 win over the Spurs, scoring 26 and blocking 3 blocks.
7- Dwight Howard, 17.2 PPG, 1.6 assists, 13.2 rebounds, .610 FG%, 2.47 blocks
He might be the best defensive player in the league but he is not dominant in the post despite dropping 30 points on the Kings. What happened against the Hawks? He only had 8 shots and the whole game with 4 fouls in 23 minutes, not quite MVP form.
8- Tim Duncan, 20.1 PPG, 3.1 assists, 10.4 rebounds, .556 FG%, 1.88 blocks.
He has 25 points, 13 rebounds, four assists, two steals and four blocks against the Lakers, need I say more?
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