CAVS.SPACE

On Thursday night, TNT aired a video clip of David West talking about playing with Tim Duncan and the Spurs. West expressed his amazement with how Duncan, an accomplished basketball legend, remains open to constructive criticism from Gregg Popovich and allows himself to be coached. On Friday afternoon, news reports confirmed that David Blatt had been fired as head coach of the Cavs, with Tyronn Lue being promoted on a permanent basis. Rumors have been swirling that Coach Blatt had butted heads with stars LeBron James and Kevin Love and did not have the buy-in of the players. During an impromptu press conference, David Griffin confirmed that there was a sentiment of disconnect in the locker room. The media airwaves and social media were blowing up with discussions about whether or not LeBron and the rest of the team are coachable. Some people went as far as saying that the team tanked the game versus Golden State on Monday. Griffin advised that the blowout loss to the Warriors was n...

The Cleveland Browns drew a lot of attention when announcing the promotion of Sashi Brown to Executive Vice President of Football Operations and the hiring of Paul DePodesta as Chief Strategy Officer. In particular, DePodesta worked for the Cleveland Indians in the past and was recruited to the Oakland Athletics by General Manager Billy Beane. Beane is seen as the figurehead of "Moneyball", a movement in baseball focusing on statistics and advanced analytics. Bill James had helped the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) publicize their research on key baseball statistics, which became know as "SABRmetrics" or "sabermetrics". Michael Lewis wrote about Beane and the Athletics' front office in the book " Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game ". When a movie was made based on the book, DePodesta asked that his real name not be used, so Jonah Hill ended up playing the part of "Peter Brand". While advanced sports anal...

From 2010 to 2012, I wrote some articles for Suite101.com and the Yahoo! Contributor Network. Since then, both websites have changed their formats and have shut down their previous operations. As such, I will be uploading most (if not all) of these articles here and on my business/education blog Motivated Innovation . The sports articles will all be on this site under the labels " Suite101 " and " YahooContributorNetwork ". These articles had quite a few hits. The most popular one was an article on Drazen Petrovic , which I coincidentally wrote 3 months before the release of the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary "Once Brothers"  in October 2010. Other popular articles included features on Reggie Lewis , the 1996 Chicago Bulls , and a baseball article on the hall of fame candidacy of Bert Blyleven . I hope you enjoy the addition of these articles!

Finally, it's time for the 2015-2016 NBA season. Here are the preseason Team Chemistry Rankings. The primary contenders from the Western Conference are the Spurs, Warriors, Clippers, Thunder, and Grizzlies. Meanwhile, the primary contenders from the Eastern Conference are the Cavaliers, Hawks, Bulls, and Wizards. 1.   San Antonio Spurs 2.   Golden State Warriors 3.   Los Angeles Clippers 4.   Memphis Grizzlies 5.   Oklahoma City Thunder 6.   Cleveland Cavaliers 7.   Atlanta Hawks 8.   Chicago Bulls 9.   Washington Wizards 10. Dallas Mavericks 11. Houston Rockets 12. New Orleans Pelicans 13. Toronto Raptors 14. Miami Heat 15. Phoenix Suns 16. Minnesota Timberwolves 17. Boston Celtics 18. Los Angeles Lakers 19. Portland Trail Blazers 20. Milwaukee Bucks 21. Charlotte Hornets 22. Utah Jazz 23. Sacramento Kings 24. Brooklyn Nets 25. Indiana Pacers 26. Denver Nuggets 27. New York Knicks 28. Detroit Pistons 29. Philade...

The Cavaliers take a 2-1 lead heading into Game 4 tonight. Coach Steve Kerr and the Warriors made some effective adjustments in the 2nd half of Game 3 and look to build on that tonight. Here are some notes heading into the game: Stephen Curry Cavaliers : The Cavs have exposed Curry's experience at the point guard position. Curry has strong dribbling skills, but the Cavs have honed in on disrupting his passing. The Warriors live on ball movement and player movement--lots of picks, cuts, and passes. Cleveland's defense has slowed Golden State's pace down to 89.7 (approximate possessions per game) from 98.3 during the regular season and 91.5, 91.5, and 98.1 in the previous 3 rounds of the playoffs. In turn, they have pressured Curry into committing 5.3 turnovers per game, which is much higher than his 3.1 TOPG during the regular season. His errant behind-the-back pass in the 4th quarter of Game 3 reflected his frustration in trying to run the offense against the observant...

Here are Team Chemistry Rankings to open up the 2014-2015 NBA season. The primary contenders are the Spurs, Clippers, Warriors, Grizzlies, Mavericks, and Thunder from the West; and the Wizards, Cavaliers, Bulls, and Heat from the East. (Previous rank is in parentheses) 1.   San Antonio Spurs (1) - The defending champions have the deepest rotation in the NBA and are the most able to handle in-season injuries. 2.   Los Angeles Clippers (4) - Lob City has continuity, a team identity, and in-house growth. 3.   Golden State Warriors (5) - They might not have enough to win it all, but they are a steady playoff team for the foreseeable future with the Splash Brothers in town. 4.   Memphis Grizzlies (6) - They are getting older, but their team defense and overall chemistry keep them as a threat in the West. 5.   Washington Wizards (7) - The young team rallied into the second round of the playoffs last season. They are building a team culture, adding Paul P...

Here is a closeout of the NBA Team Chemistry Rankings for the 2013-2014 season. Playoff teams are ranked 1-16; non-playoff teams are ranked 17-30. Previous rankings are in parentheses. 1.   San Antonio Spurs (2) 2.   Miami Heat (1) 3.   Oklahoma City Thunder (8) 4.   Los Angeles Clippers (7) 5.   Golden State Warriors (6) 6.   Memphis Grizzlies (5) 7.   Washington Wizards (14) 8.   Dallas Mavericks (19) 9.   Indiana Pacers (3) 10. Brooklyn Nets (9) 11. Portland Trail Blazers (26) 12. Toronto Raptors (21) 13. Houston Rockets (10) 14. Atlanta Hawks (13) 15. Chicago Bulls (4) 16. Charlotte Hornets [formerly Bobcats] (22) 17. Phoenix Suns (29) 18. Minnesota Timberwolves (11) 19. New York Knicks (15) 20. Cleveland Cavaliers (12) 21. Denver Nuggets (16) 22. New Orleans Pelicans (25) 23. Sacramento Kings (28) 24. Detroit Pistons (20) 25. Boston Celtics (23) 26. Los Angeles Lakers (24) 27. Utah ...