NBA Summer League: Cavaliers fall to Pelicans 66-62
July 16, 2013Indians All-Star Break Review: The Starting Rotation
July 16, 2013“While We’re Waiting” serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.
Suggestions for a new football box score– “I’m against overwhelming the classic box score with a variety of so-called advanced statistics. I’m a fan of these and I think they are great, but the box score is not the place for unpronounceable acronyms. So below is a non-exhaustive list of very basic, very simple, hopefully very clear changes I think would greatly improve the quality of the traditional box score.” [Smart Football]
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On Summer League– “As far as it relates to a fan’s understanding of the NBA, the Las Vegas Summer League is no less a mirage than Vegas itself. Any thought that the teams assembled here have some concrete correlation to what their NBA franchises will look or feel like in the regular season can be handily banished by looking down the list of past Summer League MVPs and standouts: Anthony Randolph, Adam Morrison, Byron Mullens, Randy Foye, Nikoloz Tskitishvili.” [McPherson/Grantland]
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Beards. All the cool kids are wearing them. [Oz/Big League Stew]
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“Too often, the play of the free safety next to Ward was so bad that Ward had to play the role of free safety, which he can do, but there is a reason he is a strong safety. When the Browns were blitzing a safety, they would usually have someone like Usama Young do it while Ward was responsible for playing deep coverage. That is not an endorsement of the free safety’s ability to protect the deep part of the field. There were a lot of opportunities for plays to be made and situations where coverages were blown, especially deep, which highlighted how big of a hole that position was. If they can get good play out of that position, it will completely change the complexion of what he is able to do in the defense, play more to his strengths and make more plays as a result. Ward is far more comfortable patrolling up in the box than he is playing deep and he has good instincts as a run defender as well as being able to slide around and make plays when he is closer to the line of scrimmage. He is also the best option in man coverage against tight ends, which is a huge issue in the AFC North with every team in the division having at least one if not two viable targets at that position.” [Smith/Dawg Pound Daily]
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Finally, an interview with Indians’ top prospect Francisco Lindor. [Morosi/Fox Sports]
12 Comments
First time I’ve heard/seen Lindor talk….seems like a pretty good guy with a good head on his shoulders
Rick, from looking at film you might know better than me, but regarding the article about Ward, I thought what I had read from rufio at DBN was that the Browns really didn’t play a free safety and a strong safety last season? I thought Jauron’s defense had Ward and Young playing interchangeable roles just as a “safety” with no “free” or “strong” attached to it. So if that’s the case, then the article is basically nonsense… Ward wasn’t having to cover for the other safety, they were both just doing what Jauron’s defense demanded.
pretty much every DC now tries to delineate from having FS/SS designations. Mangini used left/right, Jauron just said safety. However, there are still strengths and main use-cases for safeties.
I agree with the author that TJ Ward is the best tackler in our secondary and the best at man-coverage for TEs (Robertson might actually be the best from the ILB slot giving Horton interesting blitz choices). So, it makes more sense for him to be near the LOS on more downs having the other safety covering the deeper portion of the field.
I don’t really have any trust in our other safeties though as they will have to make a pretty big leap from last year and we didn’t add anyone that we can really trust without seeing first. We’ll see, but it’s the most “close your eyes and hope” spot on defense.
of the stats suggested to add to the box-score, I like “avg. starting field position” and YAC (yards after catch) the most. I’d also suggest adding a YAC for running as well (yards after contact). Adding those to the common box-score stats would help a ton for 1st glance evaluation.
Ah, I think I misread the article as indicating that Ward was making these decisions himself to cover for the other safety rather than the safeties both just doing what Jauron designed. I’m not sure that I’m ready to assume that Jauron saw a need to play Ward deeper because the other safety couldn’t do it, though. In fact, a recent film-study article on Tashaun Gipson over at DBN seemed to indicate that he did a nice job as the deep coverage safety and there were PFF stats backing up that assertion.
I remember in 2003 a certain Cavs 1st round pick had a pretty nondescript summer league debut and he turned out ok…
you’ve got to be talking about Dejuan Wagner. Dude ended up having a much better NBA career than his dad Milt Wagner. Respect.
yeah, I want to see the breakdowns of how often he actually was back there. there is a good reason to mix it up occasionally, but I’m not sure it was as frequent as the author suggests.
I’ll look for that Gipson article. sounds interesting.
no, he’s talking about DaJuan. Pffft.
agree. Very self-possessed.
as penance for my spelling blunder:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2oAvvakIEY&noredirect=1
forgiven, sire. Unsurprisingly, more were from high school than with the Cavs. And looking at his last one, could it be that he was the progenitor of the crab step?