CSL Four Point Play
A look around the league and what's going on
By Tanner OwenA look around the league and what's going on
First of all, this article has nothing to do with Jamal Crawford. This is something that we used to do when I ran a league. Jamal Crawford is the poster of this because...He is the four point play (<- Click it!). Reggie Miller is second on the list of made four point plays of all time, at 23. Jamal Crawford has 44. Almost double the person in second. And an active player on the all time four point play list? Dirk Nowitzki at 4th with 13. So you can see why Jamal Crawford is seen in the image above.
To start this article off, there will be four main topics I’ll write about...and they’ll be anything I find interesting around the league.
The Lottery Race
So to kick this off, I’ll start with the race for the top pick in the 2014 CSL Draft. It’s a four way race between the Orlando Magic (3-44), the Milwaukee Bucks (6-46), the Sacramento Kings (8-42), and the Philadelphia 76ers (9-38). These are the only teams in the league that have yet to break 10 wins almost half way through the entire season. The Magic, at this pace, wont even win 10 games at the end of the season. They’ve got a young prospect in Harrison Barnes, who isn’t playing to his potential at all...but he’s a youngster who should get better. It’s certainly a change for Willy, who last season as the Rockets GM, took them to the finals before getting their behinds handed to them by the eventual champions (Miami Heat). It’s good to see that a great GM took over this disaster of a franchise and I’m eager to see what Willy has planned.
They've got a few expiring contracts after the season, nothing significant although they have lots of cap space to try and fetch a player to Orlando. They've got quite a few players locked up long term in [Anthony] Bennett (4 years), [Harrison] Barnes (3 years), [Jamaal] Franklin (3 years), [Dennis] Schroeder (4 years), [Terrence] Ross (3 years), [Jonas] Valanciunas (3 years), and [Andrew] Nicholson (3 years), so I'm curious as to which of those players stays in Orlando and which get traded. Obviously there are a few that we know will be staying in a Magic jersey for awhile but that's 7 players, over half the team, locked up for 3+ years. I'm rooting for Orlando to land Jabari Parker though.
Then we have the Bucks...who now likely wont see 10 wins this season after sending their two leading scorers Ersan Illyasova (17.3ppg) and OJ Mayo (14ppg) to the Warriors and Pelicans respectively. Coming into this franchise, the GM said he wanted to shed salary off the books for the Bucks...With the exception of Giannis Anteouhdf7eru34t3, Khris Middleton, Nate Wolters, and Steven Adams, who all have very small contracts, everyone else will be off the books. I can’t see them keeping anyone else for the next season. A great job so far by the new guy in town if you ask me. With their own pick along with the Nets pick, they’ve got two guaranteed lotto picks to rebuild this franchise from the ground up.
Moving on to the Sacramento Kings, they traded away their star player, DeMarcus Cousins, for pieces to a puzzle...that I’m not sure where they go. We have little Benny Mc starting at SF up against the likes of Durant, Melo, LeBron, Chandler Parsons at PF against Aldridge, Griffin, Love, and finally Derrick Williams playing center, while holding his own here and there, is just not a good formula for success. But with BT as the GM of the team, you know he’s gotta have something up his sleeve this season. He thought he had two lottos going into the season with his pick and Denver’s pick, but Parka came in and ruined his hopes taking over the Nuggets. He’s also hoping that Boston holds on to the division lead over the Raptors because if the Raps win the division, they go from 9th looking in to top 4 seed in the East. While no team that just barely missed the playoffs have ever sprung up into the top 3 in the draft, you never know what could happen.
And lastly, the 76ers. Led by Thaddeus Young’s 21.4 points per game and Carter-Williams’ up and down play...they’ve got a long ways to go before they even sniff the playoffs. They’ve got tons of cap space to play with come off season and a few very small expiring contracts coming off the books. They’re hoping a free agent will decide to come to Philly for some odd reason...Maybe potential? I’m not real sure. Hopefully they have something good for their plans and have some good target free agents...I’ll be paying attention to them. Maybe trade Thad for some more pieces with potential? I'm sure there is a team out there that would be interested in picking up Young for the playoffs.
The League's Top Scoring Trios
(as of 8.27.14 IRL and 2.7.14 ICSL)
1) Oklahoma City Thunder - Kevin Durant, Kevin Love, Kyle Lowry - 72.4
2) Miami Heat - LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Deron Williams - 66.7
3) Portland Trail Blazers - LaMarcus Aldridge, Kobe Bryant, Damian Lillard - 62
4) Charlotte Hornets - Al Jefferson, Kemba Walker, Gerald Henderson - 61.8
5) Memphis Grizzlies - Mike Conley, Kevin Martin, Zach Randolph - 60.5
6) New York Knicks - Carmelo Anthony, JR Smith, Tyson Chandler - 59.3
7) Atlanta Hawks - Al Horford, Aaron Afflalo, Jeff Teague - 58.8
8) Golden State Warriors - Stephen Curry, Ersan Illyasova, Victor Oladipo - 58.1
9) Los Angeles Clippers - Ty Lawson, Klay Thompson, Chris Paul - 57.8
10) Houston Rockets - James Harden, DeMarcus Cousins, Dwight Howard - 56.4
11) Dallas Mavericks - Monta Ellis, Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion - 56.1
12) Denver Nuggets - Blake Griffin, Nicolas Batum, JaVale McGee - 55.9
13) Washington Wizards - John Wall, Bradley Beal, Nene - 55.3
14) Brooklyn Nets - Brook Lopez, Dwyane Wade, Tyreke Evans - 54.4
15) Minnesota Timberwolves - Russell Westbrook, Nikola Pekovic, Serge Ibaka - 53.9
16) New Orleans Pelicans - Anthony Davis, Joe Johnson, Jrue Holiday - 53.7
17) Toronto Raptors - DeMar DeRozan, Rudy Gay, Amir Johnson - 53.6
18) Chicago Bulls - Derrick Rose, Pau Gasol, Joakim Noah - 52.9
19) Boston Celtics - Goran Dragic, Rajon Rondo, Brandon Knight - 52.6
20) Detroit Pistons - Brandon Jennings, Josh Smith, Greg Monroe - 52.6
21) Indiana Pacers - Paul George, Evan Turner, George Hill - 52
22) Utah - Gordon Hayward, Enes Kanter, Derrick Favors - 49
23) Philadelphia 76ers - Thaddeus Young, Michael Carter-Williams, Nerlens Noal - 48.8
24) Cleveland Cavaliers - Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson, Dion Waiters - 47.7
25) San Antonio Spurs - Tony Parker, Kawhi Leonard, Tim Duncan - 47.4
26) Phoenix Suns - Eric Bledsoe, Markieff Morris, Avery Bradley - 46.9
27) Los Angeles Lakers - Carlos Boozer, Danilo Gallinari, Nick Young - 45.3
28) Sacramento Kings - Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lin, Ben McLemore - 41.4
29) Orlando Magic - Terrance Ross, Jonas Valanciunas, Harrison Barnes - 38.2
30) Milwaukee Bucks - Kris Humphris, Ben Gordon, Khris Middleton - 29.8
There’s your standings for the league’s top scoring trios. The last time I posted these on oCSL, people loved seeing them and seeing that some teams despite having really good records, have low scoring trios, where as other trios that are high scoring but just playoff teams. No surprise here seeing Kevin Durant's team on top, much like we saw during the oCSL. That's just what he does, he scores. Which always leads to his team being a tough title contender too. Anyways, it’s always fun seeing things like this, I think. Yeah, they may not really mean much but it’s definitely interesting.
Three Way Trades
Just something I noticed as of late, but there have been quite a few three team trades going down in the league. If you look at the last ten trades to happen, more than half of them involved three teams (six to be exact). The Bucks have been in three of them, the Nuggets two of them, the Raptors two of them, and the Cavaliers two of them. All that happened in the month of IRL August. It’s kind of cool to see trades going down, especially three team trades. I sort of like when a league doesn’t have trades happening left and right all the time. When I ran a league of my own, we didn’t have any trade restriction rules, and would see players have 3-5 different teams in the span of a week. At the time, I liked it because it helped keep activity up on the forums, but looking back at it now...Some of those players were like Yao Ming, Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, etc...Which just isn’t realistic at all.
I know it’s not that big of a deal, but I respect that about this league. A great idea by Myles and Dylan in my opinion. Sure, it can sometimes be frustrating when you’ve just landed a player and then you come across a deal that could make your team instantly better...but I guess that’s why there have been so many three team trades. GMs are learning to not post the trade right away, but to try and gauge interest before hand. I’ve done it before myself.
With the trade deadline fast approaching, I’m eager to see what last minute deals happen around the league...and if I’m tempted to make another deal myself to help better my team for this championship run.
From last to first!
Where the heck did this Grizzlies team come from all of a sudden? They were last in their division...a tough division at that. If you would have told me that this would be the Southwest division leader almost half way done with the season, I would have laughed at you. Well, I still would laugh at you. But thinking about it now, they are being run by Andrei, who is a fantastic GM. Picking up Kevin Martin to come off the bench, was brilliant. Mike Conley is having a career year as he’s stepped up his game and has become the true leader of this team. They were in bad need of a leader and Conley has become just that. They put in a 13-2 month for January, just barely losing to the Hornets by three, having their 10 game win streak snapped. Their other loss came against the Thunder, who put a bit of a beating on them. Still though, this team is putting in work and pushing strongly to make a good case as a Western Conference threat. Do I think they’ll win the West? No. But they are a tough team to face, a team that I would not want come playoff time.
So to Andrei, great job running this team. I remember what you were doing with the Trail Blazers, having mainly Dame and Aldridge running the show with a few decent players supporting them and you were a top team. No doubt in my mind that the Grizzlies will be able to keep up this pace a bit.
I should note though, that when I was making the top trio list, I completely overlooked Kevin Martin at first, and when I started writing this bit, I noticed that he was putting in 19 a game off the bench and had to go back. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to backtrack too much as I had Gasol there and just had to move them ahead of the New York Anthonys.
2028
