Basketball IQ

Here’s an article from the Oklahoman, written by Darnell Mayberry, which talks about one of the most elusive concepts in the game: basketball IQ. The author quotes Scott Brooks (Oklahoma coach), Rick Adelman (Houston coach), Shaun Livingston (Oklahoma guard) and Stan Van Gundy (Orlando coach).

The best definition of the player with high basketball IQ comes from Van Gundy:

It’s a guy who has an innate understanding, the game comes easily to him… They see things once and it all makes sense to them. Basketball just makes sense to them and they make smart plays. They’re ahead of the play defensively. They can pick up plays you put in easily.

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In Search of Hidden Gems

On Thursday, November 26th, Mark Montieth wrote an article for Sports Illustrated in which he outlined some past hidden gems (Jermaine O’Neal, Chauncey Billups, Ron Artest) and players who might become their future equivalents (Ike Diogu, Sebastian Telfair, Yi Jianlian).

Is Jennings’ Route to the NBA Fit for Everyone?

Yannis Koutroupis wrote an article for the Hoops World about Brandon Jennings (ESPN interview) and his path to the NBA. I am sure it will be an intriguing discussion in the years to come as more high school players go to Europe instead of one mandatory year in college. Some will obviously succeed there and some will fails. It won’t be much different than when HS players were jumping straight into the NBA.

The author of mentioned article was inspired by Jennings’ more than solid stats to start his rookie season.

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Good Things Happening in the NBA

The best thing happening in the NBA right now is… the STANDINGS. Look at both conferences and you’ll see teams nobody expected in the top eight. Read more ->

Pick and Roll in Today’s Game

Synergy Sports Technology is a very cool company which tags videos of every basketball game in the world. This makes it possible for the company to know exactly what every player did during every minute he played. From this, the company derives the gold mine of data pertaining to individual players, offensive and defensive team tendencies, and they can also roll up the stats for the whole league.

In the New York Times article from November 19th, the author Jonathan Abrams analyzes some data from Synergy and extrapolates interesting facts about the usage and value of the old-school “pick and roll” offensive strategy.

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