BryanPovlinski.com

Update: I’ve recently started a new site specifically for sports spreadsheets. The tool below is out of date. You can find an updated version along with many other tools and fantasy basketball spreadsheets over at www.spreadsheet-sports.com

What’s the difference between fantasy football and fantasy basketball? Aside from the different stats and different playing formats a casual fantasy player might not see much of a difference. In both games, the most basic strategy is to get the best possible players at their respective positions and hope for the best. However, there’s a big difference in the schedule between basketball and football. In football, every team plays once per week. Matchups play a factor in football, but you generally play your best guys when you have the opportunity. In basketball (assuming you’re playing in a weekly head-to-head matchup format) you’ll often have some teams playing 5 games in a given week and others playing only 2 or 3. With this kind of variance, a lesser player can easily put up superior stats given an extra game or two. Because of this, it’s really important to set your team up with players who play a high volume of games during your playoff weeks.

Take this year’s typical fantasy basketball playoff schedule – April 2nd through April 16th. During that stretch the Atlanta Hawks play only 6 games. By contrast, the Boston Celtics play 9 games. In nearly every category, Josh Smith of the Atlanta Hawks is having a better year than Kevin Garnett of the Celtics. Smith is a better scorer, rebounder, passer, and defensive player. But during the playoffs, Garnett is going to play 3 more games than Smith. That changes the comparison dramatically. If you could trade Smith for Garnett there’s a good chance you’d put yourself in a better position for the playoffs.

Some of the schedule differences are fairly difficult to see unless you spend a lot of time doing research or subscribe to a paid service for analysis. To automate this research for my own teams I built a simple fantasy basketball spreadsheet. The best way to view the sheet is to rank players in order on each specific category (points, rebounds, blocks, steals, etc). Here’s a screenshot:

This is the “Need Categories” tab of the spreadsheet and is currently sorted by Field Goal % Impact – a statistic I borrowed from John Cregan of ESPN fantasy basketball. So the players at the top of the list will help your team’s overall field goal percentage the most. Remember, field goal percentage is a cumulative stat for your entire team so even if you have a little-used sub that shoots 1-1 – it’s probably not going to affect your team’s percentage very much. Guys like Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum take a lot of shots at a high percentage and that’s what’s going to ultimately help you the most in that category.

To change the statistic that the sheet is sorted by – change the number in in the boxed cell beneath “Sort Column” to the number of the column you’d like to sort by. So rebounds would be 4 and 3 pointers would be 3.

Brief rundown of all the other tabs on the spreadsheet:

Schedule: number of games each team plays per week

Filter Averages: Allows you to filter by name so you can compare specific players at once. Just click on the filter on the name column, first select None, then search the players that you’d like to compare and click to add them to the filter.

Weekly Best: This sheet provides the weekly data and allows you to change the date to look at a different week. The sheet is designed to show you data for the current week, but if you’d like to see another week just enter a date within the week you’d like to see within the boxed cell next to “Today.” Then the “Need Categories” tab will display results based on the new week you’ve entered.

Per Game Averages: This shows you on a per game basis how each player has done so far this year. This might be helpful if you’re deciding on a guy for a spot start on 1 or 2 nights during the week.

All of the data in the spreadsheet is based on public data from ESPN. All of the calculations are made based on data from the current 2011-2012 NBA season.

To use the spreadsheet you’ll need to make a copy of you’re own in your Google Docs account. To do this, Click File > Make a Copy and you’ll find the sheet added to your own account which you’re now able to edit and do anything you’d like with.

Good luck with your league! If you have any questions or problems with the spreadsheet feel free to contact me and I’ll troubleshoot – bpovlins@gmail.com

Download the fantasy basketball spreadsheet here

For as long as I’ve been a college basketball fan I’ve been a UNC fan. I grew up watching Michael Jordan and the Bulls with my dad, and when I started to get into college basketball Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison were playing for Carolina and that became my team. I can’t even count how many UNC shirts I bought in high school, and I went to my first game when UNC came to IU for the ACC/Big Ten challenge in 2005. I vividly remember being the only UNC fan at my friend’s party for the 2005 national championship. I sometimes get a little nervous during big games, but during the 2nd half of that game I was visibly shaking during Illinois’ comeback. Ray Felton was my favorite UNC player of all-time and I still get the chills watching One Shining Moment from the 2005 championship when he stole the ball at the end to seal it. I went to my 2nd game in 2009 when UNC came to the United Center to play Valpo. That made my attendance at Carolina games a perfect 2 for 2 in leading to National Championships. Both of those games were a lot of fun, but I had always wanted to attend the game that mattered most. The ultimate rivalry. Separated by 8 miles and a shade of blue. UNC vs. Duke. With a fully loaded roster on both sides, I felt like 2012 was as good of a time as any to attend the best rivalry in sports in person. It turns out I was right.

Marie and I took a few days off work and planned to visit the campuses and the Durham/Chapel Hill area in addition to the game. Both campuses are incredible. UNC definitely reminded us a lot of IU. The Old Well is just like the Sample Gates. Kirkwood Ave = Franklin St. There’s an arboretum, an old rec center and a new one, and beautiful scenery in both places. At Duke the buildings all have this medieval look to the point where (in the words of our friend who just enrolled in nursing school at Duke)  ”you feel like you’re in Harry Potter.” When we were looking for Cameron Indoor Stadium we were shocked when we actually saw the sign. The building looks the same as all the others on campus. The big double doors are made of wood almost like an old church. I really felt like I was in a high school gym when I was inside, but I guess that’s what gives it its mystique. We ate at some fantastic restaurants and really enjoyed ourselves.

…And then there was the game. On one hand the game we saw will probably go down as one of the greatest in the history of the rivalry. Unfortunately, it was for all the wrong reasons. The 3 pointer that Austin Rivers hit at the buzzer to complete the 10 point comeback in less than 2 minutes was the absolute worst sports-related feeling I’ve ever had in my life. I felt like someone punched me in the gut as hard as they possibly could. It was just disheartening that our senior leader, the 7 foot Tyler Zeller was the only person in the building that didn’t know what Rivers wanted to do on that last shot. When the ball went through the net the arena literally went into shock. It was completely silent for about 30 seconds as no one really knew what to do. Then everyone just started filing out silently like they were leaving a funeral. It took me a good 15 minutes to calm down and to stop replaying all of the terrible final possessions in my mind.

Other than the final 2 minutes the rest of the game was an awesome experience. We got to the game an hour and 15 minutes early and we got to go down nearly to the court and take pictures of warmups. The student section was already packed and going wild when we got there. OUr seats were all the way up in the very last row, but we still had a surprisingly good view. Duke came out on fire from downtown so the beginning of the first half was a little frustrating, but things really got going for UNC with about 2 minutes left in the half. They finally got close and took the lead on a big steal and fastbreak layup. Then UNC just took complete control in the 2nd half. Kendall Marshall was unstoppable driving into the lane. Harrison Barnes was making tough jump shots and getting into the paint at will. With a 10 point lead and under 2 minutes to play it got to the point where everything had to go completely right for Duke and completely wrong for UNC for Duke to get the victory. We needed just one solid possession or one of their shots to rim out. It didn’t happen. Zeller and Barnes missed key free throws. Barnes was  called for a charge. Zeller tipped in an airballed 3. The one other shot Duke missed was immediately rebounded and put back in. Basically, it came down to the fact that Carolina stopped attacking and playing their brand of basketball (which they arguably had to do to take time off the clock) and that gave Duke the window they needed.

When I first heard that Indianapolis was going to host a Super Bowl I didn’t think much of it. It sounded good for the city economically with the influx of out of town visitors, but I knew I wouldn’t be willing pay the absurd prices for a ticket. So I didn’t think there would be much of a difference if it was hosted in my city. I thought my experience, watching the game on TV, would pretty much be the same.

Boy was I wrong.

I realized that the Super Bowl was a lot more than just the game. It’s an entire week of parties and entertainment, and unlike any other Super Bowl, it was all happening in my city of Indianapolis. I tried to take full advantage of this and went downtown 3 separate days. The Sunday before the game was spent taking in the sights. Tuesday evening was spent at the NFL Experience, and Saturday was spent at the Pacers game and watching Sportscenter film live.

I was incredibly impressed with all Indy had to offer, and it sounds like the national media felt the same way. I really liked being able to easily park downtown and then walk to pretty much anything I wanted to do. The weather was great so the heaters along the main Georgia St. walkway were simply a nice addition – not overcrowded hotspots. The zipline was a little bit overcrowded so we decided not to take the time to stand in line. Here was our view of Indianapolis’ Super Bowl Village:

We didn’t run into any celebrities, but we did have a couple of highlights for the week. The NFL Experience is like an NFL theme park that they have set up at every Super Bowl. You get to try kicking a field goal, run a 40 yard dash, and a few other football activities. The best part by far was the field goal. It really is similar to the pressure of an NFL game because you only get one shot after standing in line for 45 minutes and everyone is watching you. You could choose to kick from 10, 20, 30, or 40 yards. In the time we were watching I would say the percentage of makes was between 10 and 15%. Marie opted for the 20 yard attempt and I went for 30 yards. You can see our results in the video, but it’s a little difficult to see what happened to mine. My thought process was to kick it as high and as hard as possible. Unfortunately, I did not factor in the ceiling of the building because my perfectly straight and easily good from 40+ yard field goal promptly hit the rafter and came crashing straight down before it went through the goal posts.

We also stopped by the ESPN booth on our way to the Pacers game on Saturday night. Stuart Scott and Co. began taping a segment just as we arrived. There was already a huge crowd so we didn’t get a chance to get in very close. However, when they changed the camera angle to zoom in on Stuart on the right side I could see on the big screen that there was a chance that we could be in the picture. I started jumping up and down and waving my hands to see if I could see if it could be noticed on the broadcast. Sure enough my big orange coat showed up next to Stu on Sportscenter that night. You can’t really tell it’s me because it’s blurred out, but you can definitely see a guy in an orange coat jumping up and down in the bottom left corner.

Overall, we had a great time experiencing the Super Bowl in Indianapolis!

It’s interesting to me that ESPN’s headline “A chink in the armor” has become such a major issue to the point where the editor that approved the headline was fired.  Dan Patrick explained that it was a 28 year old editor that made the decision and ultimately was fired. First, I think the idea that the editor needed a more senior editor over him to give the final approval simply because of age is ridiculous. ESPN has to be a fast moving enterprise. Having layers upon layers of editors to give approval is not the way to accomplish that.

Second, I wouldn’t be surprised if the editor was unaware of the offensiveness of the term “chink.” I’ve certainly heard the term before and was loosely familiar with it, but it would never have occurred to me that “chink” is anywhere close to the offensiveness of the term “nigger.” I don’t mean that to say that we need to be more sensitive to African-Americans, but that knowledge and history of the term “chink” is severely lacking.

As I mentioned before the sports media world is extremely fast moving. The Knicks-Hornets game came down to the last few possessions so there wasn’t much time to plan a headline. When they lost and the seemingly major flaw was that Lin committed 9 turnovers – ESPN needed to quickly think of a headline that conveyed that message. “A chink in the armor” is probably the best known phrase to illustrate that, and without previous knowledge of the history of that word I’d be surprised if a potential backlash even occurred to the editor.

The headline was removed within an hour and an apology quickly followed. If the double meaning was intentional, then yes, I believe firing the employee was the right course of action because using a headline to make racial slurs is not acceptable. But if the employee honestly did not intend for any controversy then I think he deserves a second chance and ESPN was wrong in trying to save face to the media by announcing the employee’s termination.

When the web became mainstream back in the early 90′s it was all about the destination. The goal was to get visitors to your site and then hope they never leave. You bookmarked your favorite sites so you could easily get to the 4-5 sites that you’d visit everyday. Everything was separate and although everything was “connected” through the web there weren’t many strong ties from one site to another.

The web in 2011 is no longer about the destination. It’s about the data created by all of us that’s flowing through hundreds of different sites and apps. Blogs, social media, and RSS have completely changed the landscape. The major tech blogs like Mashable, Techcrunch, and ReadWriteWeb are starting to take notice of the major role that data is starting to play on the web. Take a look at some of their most recent posts:

Using Big Data and Analytics to Automate the Sales Cycle

Making Data Relevant: New Metrics for Social Marketing

Why We Invested in Groupon: The Power of Data

Two of the most popular services on the web are Facebook and Twitter, and the more popular these sites become the more valuable data skills are. Both of these sites produce massive amounts of data, and they also cater to developers to make the data open and accessible. What we need now is a simple tool for consumers to analyze and report on this data. A familiar interface might be a spreadsheet where users could quickly make calculations and summaries on a set of data. I think Google Spreadsheets is a good start, but limitations on the size of data sets and calls to web services prevent it from performing certain analyses.

What kind of tools do you use to analyze data on the web and what kinds of interesting applications have you seen from others?

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/1kQjMbmDCyk/post-2.php

Recently I setup a league for fantasy basketball through ESPN.com. As the league manager I wanted to give some stats to my league on who had the best draft. I decided I would take the season projections that ESPN has on every player and total them for each team. That way we could see who is predicted to do the best throughout the season. I could do this manually by looking up each player and recording their season points projection. That would have taken forever though and I wasn’t interested in spending my entire day analyzing my fantasy league.

So here’s what I did:

1. Opened a new Google Spreadsheet and wrote a formula to get all of the teams on one sheet. Each team in the league has a unique URL that displays their team information. So my team is located at http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=131029&teamId=1&seasonId=2011. All the other teams in the league can be found at the same URL, but the number after the “teamId=” is different.  The formula I need to use is the “importHTML” function in Google Docs.  This allows you to pull any data that’s visible online (and it will be updated every time you open the spreadsheet).  So here’s the function I write to get all of my players listed in my spreadsheet.

=importHTML(“http://games.espn.go.com/fba/clubhouse?leagueId=131029&teamId=1&seasonId=2011″,”table”,4)

Make sure to have the URL and table in quotes and the last number is just the number of the table on the page that you’d like to import if there are multiple tables on one web page.  Now I have all my players listed on my sheet and I’ll open a second sheet to bring in my rankings/prediction data.

2. I’ll write the same importHTML function to bring in the data from ESPN’s season predictions.  These are located at http://games.espn.go.com/fba/tools/projections?leagueId=131029.  I’ll write that same function:

=importHTML(“http://games.espn.go.com/fba/tools/projections?leagueId=131029″,”table”,0)

Now I have all of the projections in a second spreadsheet.  To overlay the projections on each team I’m going to have to write a vlookup query.  That means I’m asking the spreadsheet to find a player’s name from my team on the projections list and grab the total points from that same row.  So here’s what I’ll do in the first column next to my team data.

=vlookup(Cell with player’s name from my team, entire range of projections data, column with season projections, FALSE)

Then I’ll have projections for each player and I can sum them for each team so I know which teams in my league are the favorites and which ones might struggle.

If you’d like you can take a look at the fantasy basketball spreadsheet that I built for our league

Update: I’ve recently started a new site specifically for sports spreadsheets. The tool below is out of date, but you can find an updated version along with many other tools and fantasy football spreadsheets over at www.spreadsheet-sports.com.

Recently I’ve gotten involved in a fantasy football league for the first time. For a sports fanatic and numbers geek like me I think I was a little bit late to the game. Admittedly, I’m doing pretty poorly so far, but I think I might have some good weeks ahead of me. I’ve learned a few lessons along the way on how fantasy football really works.

1. Luck is a huge part of the game. You never know when some relatively unknown player is going to erupt for 150 receiving yards and 2 TD’s (like Austin Collie has twice in the first 3 weeks for the Colts) or that one of the preseason top 10 running backs would have less than 100 yards combined and 0 touchdowns after 3 weeks (Shonn Greene of the Jets).

2. Even though luck plays a big part you can dramatically increase your chances of being on the right side of luck if you have the right data available. Fantasy football is all about numbers and match-ups, and there are hundreds of decisions that need to be made throughout the season on who to start or who to potentially trade. Your chances of being lucky are much better when you make those decisions based on data rather than just a hunch every single time.

I’ve also realized that there really isn’t a way to have the information you need all in one place. It’s time-consuming to go back and forth between ESPN, Yahoo Fantasy Sports, team websites, etc. to gather the data you need to make decisions. That’s why I’ve created this fantasy football spreadsheet to act as a hub for all of my fantasy football decision making.

How To Use The Fantasy Football Data Hub

First things first, I want to make this tool available and useful to everyone.  I’ve built it using Google Spreadsheets, and the nice thing is that all of the data updates automatically week to week.  Here’s what you’ll need to do to use the fantasy football spreadsheet yourself:

1. Make sure you have a Google account (if you don’t have one you can sign up for free here)

2. Open the Fantasy Football Data Hub

3. Click File > Make a Copy so that you save your own version of the spreadsheet into your account. You won’t be able to edit the master sheet, but once you make a copy you’ll be able to put your own players and use all of the player comparison tools.

4. **Important** Read the “Week to Week” section below. It’s the only manual effort that you’ll have to make to get the data to display correctly.  If you don’t follow these instructions the data will be invalid after a week.

What Can You Do With The Fantasy Football Data Hub?

I’ve included several different fantasy football tools in the spreadsheet that should help you make decisions as the season goes on. Each tool is located on a different tab of the spreadsheet.  There are a few tabs that only  contain raw data and won’t be used, but they’re important to keep intact because the data feeds into all of the other tabs.  Here’s a list of the tools contained in the Fantasy Football Data Hub.

What To Watch For

This tool gives you a data driven perspective on which offenses or defenses you should look out for in the coming week.  It takes each matchup into account and looks for the biggest disparities in rank.  The first column (Defenses That Should Do Well) is based on scoring in past weeks.  Each team is ranked based on the total amount of points their defense has given up.  Then the matchup is taken into account by looking at the points per game of the opposing offense and displaying the defenses with the biggest difference in ranking against the opposing offense they’re playing.  So if the #28 defense is playing the #2 scoring offense they’re going to show up on the “Defenses to Avoid” list.

Top 20 Players This Week

This data is an aggregation of all of the top fantasy sports sites (ESPN, Yahoo, etc) and the projected points their analysts assign to each player.  This data comes from the brilliant work of the Fantasy Football Nerd at www.fantasyfootballnerd.com.  They should get all the credit for compiling these rankings, and I’ve simply displayed them here along with all of the other fantasy football tools in the spreadsheet.  These will be updated each week by Wednesday or Thursday so you might see errors or old data if you look at it on Monday or Tuesday.

Player Comparison

This tool allows you to quickly compare season stats on up to 13 players at once.  You’ll get projected stats for each week as well as cumulative season stats on fantasy points, touchdowns, passing, rushing, receiving yards etc.  This might be useful if you’re exploring potential trades and you want to see how a few different players have performed up to this point in the year.

Should I Start/Should I Trade?

Both of these tools allow you to input players into the boxes that you’re trying decide between.  The Should I Start? tool simply looks at the upcoming week and the data that FantasyFootballNerd.com aggregates.  It will return an answer and will show you how many points better that player will be for the week.  The Should I Trade? tool looks at total season data and the average amount of fantasy points each player has scored per week and let’s you know if you’re getting the better deal on the trade.  This tool doesn’t take into account your current lineup so the results might be skewed if you’re trading a running back for a wide receiver (since RB’s generally score more points than WR’s based on the scoring systems in fantasy football).  However, it will give you a quick idea of whether a trade is fair or not.

My Teams

On this tab you can input your League and Team ID’s of ESPN and Yahoo fantasy leagues so that you can import your own team data into the spreadsheet.  Currently the integration with ESPN works well, but the Yahoo import is not quite complete.  However, you can still manually input your own player names in the players column and the projected points will then appear.

To find your League ID and Team ID you’ll need to check the URL of the webpage you use to manage your team.  For ESPN leagues it should look like this:

The first box is your League ID and the second is the Team ID.  Those are the numbers you’ll need to plug into the spreadsheet.

For the Yahoo leagues (integration coming soon) it should look like this:

The red box is the League ID and the green is the Team ID.

This tool will give you a quick indication if any of the players that you have sitting on your bench should start (based on a higher projection that another player at the same position).

Breaking News

The breaking news tab is an RSS feed of all of the latest news, injury updates, and insider information that might affect the week’s fantasy football matchups.  This is compiled from Footballguys.com, and they do an amazing job of getting the latest information displayed immediately.  Here you can find their fantasy football RSS feed.

Week to Week

This tab is actually the most important part of the spreadsheet because it’s the one sheet that you have to manually change each week to make the data display correctly. Currently, the next week of the NFL season is at the top of this sheet.  In order for all of the data to work correctly you must make sure the next week is always at the top of this sheet.  Here’s what you’ll need to do.

Scroll down the spreadsheet to the next week (or whatever week is upcoming in the NFL season) and cut the entire chunk of rows and paste it into the top of the spreadsheet to replace the data from the old week.  Don’t replace the very top row with the headers, but take the row starting with “Week x” and all the way down through all of the games for that week.  So you cut the new data and paste into the top of the sheet and you’re good to go.

Make sure to leave all of the other tabs alone if you want the spreadsheet to work as it’s designed.  However, if you want to build your own formulas feel free to tweak the data.

I’d love to get your feedback on how you’ve used the Fantasy Football Data Hub, and any feature requests you might have.  I plan to continually develop the tool to use in my own fantasy football leagues so look for additional tools and features over the next couple of months.

I’m a huge college basketball fan. It’s the only sport that I truly care about, and it has BY FAR the best format for the regular season and post-season for any major sport.

Think about it: Major League Baseball is ungodly long. Teams routinely give players days off when they’re not injured just because there are so many games. Only 8 teams make the playoffs so half the league is playing for nothing before the All-Star break. The NBA and NHL are also too long. Single games mean nothing through the course of the year so it’s not a big deal if a team loses one. And seriously…2 months to get through the playoffs? College football is on the opposite spectrum. If you’re a national title contender and you lose the first game…you’re done. It doesn’t matter if you win every other game by 50 for the rest of the year. There are still going to be two teams that go undefeated and they’re going to play for the championship. And of course the post-season in college football is beyond bad with the BCS and all the random bowl games. The NFL is probably the only other sport that comes close to college basketball. My only problem with the NFL is that the games are only on Sunday/Monday. The rest of the week is just dead.

Now take college basketball. Each team plays about 30-35 games so every game truly matters. So you can’t have a bad streak and lose 4 in a row (which wouldn’t be a big deal in MLB/NBA/NHL) and expect to have a great year, but you know that everyone is going to lose at some point so 1 loss at the beginning of the regular season doesn’t ruin the whole year. You have games almost every day of the week, major upsets where fans rush the floor, parity to the point that anyone can win on a given night, and new superstars emerging every year. Plus, I think everyone can agree that there’s not a more exciting week in sports than the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. The NCAA tournament is without question the best event in sports. No other event can stir up that many different emotions from everyone involved. I seriously get goosebumps every single time I watch the One Shining Moment videos from 2005 and 2009 when my Tar Heels won it all. It won’t do much if you’re not a UNC fan, but try watching the video from when your team wins. If you don’t get a little emotional then you’re probably not a real fan.

Now, on to my second point (which was going to be the original point of this post until I felt compelled to justify my thoughts on college basketball).  Tom Izzo is considering taking the head coaching job of the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Tom has won a national championship with Michigan State, and taken his team to the Final Four in 6 of the last 11 years.  Every player that he has recruited that has completed their full eligibility has gotten an opportunity to play in the Final Four.  The thing is, MSU wasn’t that good in at least 2 of their Final Four runs – getting there as a 5-seed twice.  Izzo was great at getting his team to play it’s best when it counted and became a master of the back-to-back format of the tournament because of his thorough preparation.  Plus, he makes 3 million/yr and has an incredibly talented team coming back to play next year.  He’s only won once in 6 trips to the Final Four so he has some unfinished business there that I’m sure he’d like to clean up.  Oh, and one other thing.  Michigan State is known to run nearly a hundred different set plays that Izzo orchestrates.  In order to succeed in Izzo’s system his players have to know what their role is on every different set play.

Now, take everything you now know about Tom Izzo and tell me why he thinks going to coach the Cleveland Cavaliers would be a good idea.  Ok, if Lebron James stays in Cleveland, than yes Lebron alone makes it a good idea.  If that’s the case then I can understand Izzo’s thinking.  But Lebron hasn’t given any indication that he wants to stay in Cleveland.  Plus, you’d think that Cleveland management would at least consult Lebron on the new coach if he’ll be staying, but clearly they have not.

My question is : Why would Tom Izzo succeed in the NBA?  Do you think the 1-on-1, streetball mentality of NBA players is going to fit well with Izzo’s huge list of set plays?  Has any other college coach actually done well in the NBA? (Calipari -no, Pitino – no, Donovan-quit before he started) Is Izzo going to be able to mow through the NBA playoffs like he did the NCAA tournament when it’s so drawn out that it gives everyone more than enough time to prepare?

I just see the move as a bad idea for Izzo, a bad move for the Cavs, and a disappointing blow to Michigan State.  Nobody is a winner there except Izzo’s bank account, and that’s already doing just fine.

So Tom you have the opportunity to become one of the also-ran college-turned-NBA coaches, or you have the chance to become one of the best college basketball coaches ever.  I think it’s an easy choice.