I lost the only bet of the night with the Phoenix-San Antonio under 187.5 on Wednesday, but I definitely had a clear picture of what went wrong. The game looked to be going as predicted after the first quarter with the score 19-16, but both teams put up 30 apiece in the 2nd quarter and easily pushed the game to a total of 201.

So what went wrong? The game had the second slowest pace of the entire nights 12 game schedule just as predicted, but I got bit by the efficiency bug. The game ran at a pace of 89 possessions each, which is much slower than the 92.4 league average. The problem was that Phoenix scored 103 points in 89 possessions for an offensive efficiency rating of 115.5. San Antonio wasn't too bad either with 98 points scored on 89 possessions for an offensive efficiency rating of 109.9. Both teams were well above their offensive efficiency ratings from last season. Phoenix shot 39-79 for 49.4% from the field and San Antonio shot 40-80 from the field for a 50% clip. Simply put, the teams just weren't missing.

To show a comparison, the slowest paced game of the night was the Memphis-Houston game with a pace of 87.1, only 2 possessions for each team less than the Phoenix-SA game. That game ended with a total of 153 points scored, while the Phoenix-SA game ended with 201 points. Memphis scored 71 points with their 87 possessions while Houston scored 82 points with their 87 possessions. This gives efficiency ratings of 81.5 for Memphis and 94.1 for Houston. This just shows how much better (more efficient) Phoenix and San Antonio are.

San Antonio's defensive rating last season was 101.9, but they gave up a 115.5 rating to Phoenix. Is San Antonio losing a step on defense? Oberto was out with a heart problem and Ginobili was out with an injury. Maybe those guys helped the defense more than people thought? Maybe Bruce Bowen is slowing down at 37 years old? I'm not sure on any of those, but it is definitely something to keep an eye on as the season progresses.

Definitely an interesting lesson here so I hope you guys take something away from this loss that you can use in the future. I know I sure did.

Are you using Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%) to accurately assess shooting performance and productivity when handicapping your games? You should be. Most casual fans however still use the outdated simple Field Goal Percentage (FG%) as their primary metric for evaluating shooting ability. The old metric does a poor job of providing accurate information due to the fact that it was implemented before the introduction of the three point shot. Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%) has a built in variable to take the difficulty of the three point shot into consideration.

As an example, say you wanted to compare the shooting ability and production of Raja Bell (42.1 FG%) with Antonio Daniels (45.9 FG%). Based on the simple field goal percentage statistic, it would seem that Daniels is clearly the better shooter. But is this really true?

Effective field goal percentage is defined as: eFG% = FGM + (3PM x .5) / FGA. When we plug in the stats for Bell and Daniels we get a completely different story as to who the best shooter is. Bell bumps up to 53.8 % while Daniels bumps to only 47.8 %. Who looks like the better shooter now? Just looking at a simple FG% doesn't tell you where the player shot the ball from on the floor. We all know that Raja loves the three ball, while Daniels doesn't have much of a shot from that distance. Say Raja was true to form and took 12 shots in a game and walked away with 5 three pointers for a 41.7% shooting night, which is pretty close to his actual FG%. Now say Daniels took all 12 of his shots from inside the arc and hit 6 shots or 50%, which is much better than his actual talent of shooting 45.9%. Who had the better night, Raja scoring 15 or Daniels scoring 12? Who shot the higher simple FG%? Just looking at the simple FG% doesn't give you a clear picture of the better shooter or the more productive player.

Simple FG% is a very misleading statistic that no longer provides useful handicapping information. It is clear that handicappers are much better off using effective field goal percentage (eFG%) when it comes to predicting the actual score of an NBA game.

Well, now we know why Brad Miller showed no motivation last season and lost playing time to Spencer Hawes. Seems like Brad may have been smoking a little too much, and I'm not talking Marlboro's. He is gone for the first five games of the season. At least he wasn't using something to improve his play, as he would have gotten a 10 game suspension for that.

Think about that for a moment, if you smoke weed and really suck at your job because of it, you get a 5 game suspension. On the other hand if you take steroids to improve yourself so you can do your job better than anyone else you get a 10 game suspension. How fair is that and what kind of message does it send?

Offseason Fantasy Winners and Losers

July 10, 2008 FantasyBasketballDaily.com

It has been a busy couple of weeks with the NBA draft on June 26 and the free agency game playing out since July 1, but we are starting to get some early signals of changing fantasy rankings and values for several players. While it is still very early, I'll try to shed some light on some guys moving up the draft board in ranking and some moving down. First the winners:

WINNERS

Jose Calderon (Toronto) Toronto shipped T.J. Ford to Indiana and brought in Jermaine O'Neal, thereby leaving Calderon as the starting point guard for the Raptors. Calderon averaged 30.3 minutes a game last season putting up 11.2 points, 2.9 rebounds, 8.3 assists, 1.06 steals while shooting 51.9% from the field. His numbers should get even better this year with the extra minutes. Having Jermaine O'Neal will also draw the defense in, leaving Calderon to possibly improve on his three point shooting where he was 79 of 184 (42.9%) last year.

T.J. Ford (Indiana) The trade out of Toronto also helped the ranking value of T.J. Ford as he will likely replace Jamaal Tinsley as the starting point guard for the Pacers. Ford only managed 23.5 minutes last year while fighting for playing time with Jose Calderon, but he was still able to put up 12.1 points, 2.0 rebounds, 6.1 assists, 1.1 steals per game. Indiana has some good scorers and Ford should be able to set them up on a regular basis and improve on his career assist average of 6.9 per game.

Al Thornton (LA Clippers) Elton Brand and Corey Maggette have left town leaving a huge hole which Thornton will surely help fill. Thornton averaged 27.3 minutes a game last season with 12.7 points, 4.5 rebounds, .5 blocks. Those numbers don't really tell the whole story though, because Thornton really improved in the last 6 weeks of the season, highlighted by a 39 point performance on March 29. He also had a three game streak of 26, 25 and 22 points from April 10 through April 15. Thornton appears set to get big minutes and should produce.

Charlie Villanueva (Milwaukee) Villanueva should get a boost in value after the Bucks gave up on the unhappy Yi Jianlian sending him to New Jersey. Villanueva showed some real improvement in the last two months of the season, exceeding the 20 point mark in 9 of the season's last 22 games. Milwaukee did bring in Joe Alexander, but he is still raw and shouldn't cut too deeply into Charlie's minutes. Don't get overly excited with Villanueva though, as he is behind a bunch of good scorers in Redd, Jefferson and Bogut. Villanueva is 6'11 and still has alot of room to improve at just 23 years old.

Chris Duhon (New York) One thing is for certain, we are going to get to see what Chris Duhon is made of now that he is playing in the spotlight in New York. I'm not sure Duhon is going to be a great fantasy play, but his value does increase with the trade into a starting job. He is a good source of three's and should manage 6+ assists with 30+ minutes a night. He isn't a great shooter though, managing only 38.7% over his short NBA career.

Mickael Pietrus (Orlando) Pietrus should move into a starting job with Orlando, probably at shooting guard. He should see a big bump up in minutes from the 19.3 he got in Golden State last year, but more importantly he should see a boost in value moving to a position (shooting guard) that better suits his skill set. He will be a decent souce of steals and blocks from the guard position and will be a big source of threes, as he went 170 of 387 from beyond the arc last year.

Beno Udrih (Sacramento) Sacramento gave Udrih a 5 year deal and handed him the starting point guard job. Udrih looked pretty good last year getting 32 minutes a game and putting up 12.8 points, 4.3 assists, .9 steals while shooting 46.3% from the field. Udrih will still be a mid level point guard, but the added security and the guaranteed starting minutes moves him up the board from last season.

Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City) Westbrook finds himself in a situation where Oklahoma City has nothing to lose and everything to gain by throwing him on the court and letting him play. Earl Watson just had surgery on his thumb and has a recovery time of 3-4 months, which takes us right up to the start of the season, so that may even get Westbrook more court time. Alot of fantasy players won't draft rookies, don't be one of them. Keep an eye on how much time Oklahoma City commits to Westbrook.

Jamal Crawford (New York) Jamal Crawford is one of those guys who probaby isn't a great real life team player, but he can be a fantasy stud at times. It looks like he is going to get a boost in value with the arrival of Mike D'Antoni. As we saw in Phoenix, D'Antoni likes to run and gun, which is perfect for Crawford. New York just signed Chris Duhon to play the point, so it's pretty obvious that Crawford will still be the primary scoring option.

O.J. Mayo (Memphis) Mayo is another rookie who could get significant minutes on a team that is going nowhere (except the lottery). Memphis has shown no willingness to try and put a winner on the court this year even though they have plenty of cap space to try and do so. This may be another case of a team throwing a rookie on the court for some on the job training. The result may not prove to be so great in real life, but it makes a nice fantasy play.

LOSERS

Jamaal Tinsley (Indiana) The arrival of T.J. Ford is the end of Tinsley's fantasy value, at least in Indiana. His only hope of regaining fantasy relevance is to get a trade back into a starting job, which doesn't look promising.

Kirk Hinrich (Chicago) The arrival of Derrick Rose really hurts Hinrich. He wasn't that good last year anyway, but decreasing his minutes definitely hurts his fantasy value. Like Tinsley, he needs a trade or at least a trade of someone else so he could possibly slide into the shooting guard spot.

Ryan Gomes (Minnesota) Gomes was starting to play pretty well last year, but the arrival of Kevin Love (and McHale's mancrush on Love) will probably mean that Gomes moves to the bench where he won't hold enough value to stay on fantasy rosters.

Steve Blake (Portland) I'm not sure how much Jerryd Bayless is going to cut into Blake's minutes, but you can bet that some of them will go to Bayless, if not a majority of them. Blake also has newly acquired Rudy Fernandez to deal with. Portland needs to get their young core of Roy, Oden, Aldridge and Bayless working as soon as possible to develop some chemistry. Blake isn't the future in Portland, so he could take a big fantasy hit this year.

Desmond Mason (Milwaukee) If Mason had any fantasy value left, it pretty much disappeared with the arrival of Richard Jefferson. He will still get some minutes, but probably not enough to justify being on fantasy rosters.

Stephon Marbury (New York) New York sent a pretty clear signal to Marbury that he is probably done. Unless he catches on with a starting job somewhere else, he probably won't be a fantasy option (unless D'Antoni tries some unconventional setup).

Andrea Bargnani (Toronto) With the arrival of Jermaine O'Neal, Bargnani moves back to the bench, or better yet, back overseas.

Maurice Evans (Orlando) Evans wasn't a great fantasy option, but he had some value and was getting good minutes last season, however even that value has probably evaporated now that Mickael Pietrus has arrived in Orlando.