Welcome to The Triangle and 2 - a newsletter dedicated to basketball analysis, the business of sports and self improvement!
“You have to chase what seems impossible. Over and over and over again.” - LeBron James
THE TRIANGLE…
Best-Selling NBA Champion of All-Time
In the wake of the Los Angeles Lakers 2020 NBA Championship — their 17th as a franchise — Lakers-related merchandise is on fire. According to online sports apparel retailer Fanatics, the 2020 Lakers have already become the best-selling NBA champion of all-time, surpassing the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers (selling more apparel in 12 hours than the 2016 Cavs did in 30 days). Demonstrating the NBA’s global reach, these items sold to fans in over 100 countries, with 85% purchased via mobile device after the game.
Riding the same wave, the market for LeBron James memorabilia is, not surprisingly, also surging. Along with the aforementioned Lakers title gear, Fanatics is selling limited-edition LeBron autographed jersey collages (each jersey color numbered to 23) for a mere $12,999.99. On eBay, the evening the Lakers clinched the title, a 2003 Topps Chrome Refractor LeBron rookie card (PSA Grade 10 — “Gem Mint”) sold for over $52,000; another version of this same card sold for over $90,000 shortly thereafter. To give you a sense of this LeBron-mania, a ticket from LeBron’s NBA debut (17 years ago in Sacramento!) recently sold for over $2,000.
Got $12,999.99 to spare?
Rumors have long circulated that LeBron wants to play until he’s 40, and chalk up even more accomplishments. With that in mind, we fully expect the demand for rare, limited-edition LeBron memorabilia to continually rise to new levels. Making them great long-term investments…if you can afford it!
All-Bubble Team Part III - Anthony Davis (LA Lakers):
The fifth and final member of our All-Bubble Team is Anthony Davis. He broke out the entire bag of tricks for this playoff run — we saw him do anything he wanted at any point of the game. Nikola Jokic is a Triangle & 2 favorite, but Davis was the best center in the Bubble. The Lakers’ best moments came when Davis was manning the center position.
Let’s start with the shooting and scoring. Davis was a hyper-efficient offensive machine — to the tune of 27.7 PPG on 61% from 2 and 38.3% (a career high) from 3 (23/60)! Per Second Spectrum data, his three-point shooting was 7.7% higher than his expected field goal percentage. Davis was also as dominant as LeBron in the paint — a crazy 69.7% on shots in the paint and restricted area.
However, where Davis really shined was in the “dreaded” non-paint two-point areas (in between the paint and three-point line). In the playoffs, Davis took 114 non-paint 2’s, blowing away the next closest guy (Jokic) by 19 shots. The NBA average on these shots this year was 37% — Davis shot 46.5%! Shots in this area tend to be well-contested and, per Second Spectrum, 72 of Davis’s midrange shots (63%) were highly contested; he shot 42% on these shots, whereas the average NBA player would be expected to shoot 34% if taking the exact same shots under the exact same conditions — a fancy way of saying Davis is really good at making difficult shots! On top of all that, Davis also got to the free throw line often — 8.5 free throw attempts per game — and put a ton of pressure on opposing bigs to defend him without fouling (never easy in today’s offensively-favored game).
“Playoff Davis” was also a rebounding and defensive beast. He crashed the boards much harder than usual, taking his rebounding up a notch (from 9.3 RPG in the regular season to 9.7 RPG in the playoffs); he upped his offensive rebounding percentage from 7.5% in the regular season to 8.6% in the playoffs. Defensively, Davis’s versatility allowed the Lakers to spring any and every kind of defensive tactic, whether it was aggressive trapping on James Harden in round 2 of the playoffs, or going WAY under on Jimmy Butler ball screens in the NBA Finals.
Davis’s mobility, athleticism, and defensive awareness made the Lakers defense incredibly stingy, causing opposing offenses to struggle mightily at times. It’s arguable that the Lakers best defensive groups had Davis at center, where he spent about 57 possessions per game — in those possessions, the Lakers defense was significantly better than their “2 big” lineups (where Davis played power forward). Davis’s size, quickness and hustle allow him to play in any defensive scheme and make up for his teammates’ mistakes.
Here’s a video highlighting Davis’s defensive versatility!
Rookie Rewind - Eric Paschall (#41 overall in the 2019 NBA Draft):
We highlighted the Golden State Warriors in a previous post, so we won’t talk about the usual suspects again. However, Eric Paschall made a name for himself during an otherwise forgettable Warriors season. Paschall’s story is interesting — he started his college career at Fordham, where he spent a year and put up nice numbers (15.9 PPG/5.5 RPG on modest shooting percentages). After transferring and sitting out a year at Villanova, he became an integral part of the Wildcats’ 2018 NCAA Championship team. Showing his continual improvement, Paschall averaged 16.5 PPG/6.1 RPG, on a significantly improved 34.8% from 3 and 53% from 2, during his senior year in college.
Coach Tailor actually had a chance to work with Paschall at the 2015 USA U19 camp, where he was an under the radar, but intriguing, prospect to the NBA scouts that watched practices. Listed at 6’8”/255 lbs, he was projected as an undersized big, but as the 41st overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, he actually played all over the floor for Coach Steve Kerr and the Warriors.
Putting up 14 PPG/4.6 RPG, Paschall had quite the productive season and figures to be a key rotation piece for the Warriors next season. Though he will likely have some statistical drop-off next season with the return of the Big 3 (Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green), we’re excited to see how impactful he can be on a fully-healthy Warriors squad. As we previously highlighted, the Warriors click when they move and cut 100 MPH, and Paschall is a vicious cutter and sneaky offensive rebounder — the game should be much easier for him with the defensive attention his superstar teammates will require.
Coaches love players that have a great motor, hustle, and bring tons of energy. Paschall is that guy — have a look below!
…AND 2
Pizza, Tacos and Los Angeles Rams T-Shirts?
The game is about to start and you go onto Postmates to order a pizza, some tacos and a…Los Angeles Rams t-shirt???
You could have last month.
In connection with the Monday Night Football game two weeks ago (Chicago Bears vs. Rams), food delivery company Postmates (acquired by Uber this summer) partnered with Fanatics and the Rams to launch a special pop-up shop for fans to buy team apparel. From 10 AM until kickoff, in selected parts of Los Angeles, Postmates delivered t-shirts, hats, and other Rams gear with no delivery fee. As the company stated, “After you pick out your new Rams swag, make sure you order your favorite gameday treats to enjoy during the game.”
A Rams jersey to go with your sushi?
Apparel delivery, though still limited to special occasions such as the aforementioned Monday night game, is a logical extension of Postmates growing relationship with the NFL. In September, they became the first official on-demand food delivery partner of the league. Furthermore, Postmates became the official mobile order delivery partner of the Rams and Baltimore Ravens last month— and plans to roll out promotions (such as the Rams apparel pop-up shop) and experiences in connection with each franchise throughout the season. As Nana-Yaw Asamoah, the NFL’s Vice President of Business Development states, “Fans will be watching NFL football this season from their couch more than ever before, so teaming up with Postmates as the first official on-demand food delivery partner of the NFL was a perfect combination. We’re excited for Postmates to bring an NFL experience directly to our fans’ doorsteps throughout the season and around the year.”
As sports teams keep looking for more ways to generate revenue, it’s worth keeping an eye on how teams partner with innovative third-party companies to increasingly engage with fans. We suspect that on-demand apparel delivery is just the tip of the iceberg…
“Can’t be perfect, don’t try to be perfect. It’s impossible. No one is perfect. If you make a mistake, you have to live with it and you have to be able to grow from it.” - LeBron James
LeBron James. King James. Four-time NBA MVP. Four-time NBA champion.
Also, a 4-6 record in the NBA Finals, with a stunning upset loss in the 2011 NBA Finals (against the Dirk Nowitzki-led Dallas Mavericks).
Of course LeBron isn’t perfect — no one is perfect. It’s impossible to be flawless and that’s okay. We have to accept that mistakes and missteps aren’t scary things, but simply a natural part of life. The important thing, however, is that, as LeBron says, “you have to be able to grow from it.”
Encouraging people to grow from their mistakes is far from novel advice. In fact, we’ve all probably heard some variation of this since we were children. But, funny thing: how many of us actually do this? How often do you see people that either (1) beat themselves up so badly over their mistakes that they never recover or (2) don’t learn and keep making the same mistakes over and over again?
Responding in either manner leads to the proverbial road to nowhere. Too often the negative self-perception that forms from repeatedly judging yourself too harshly is a confidence killer. Lack of confidence often leads to poor results — in other words, more mistakes — which leads to more lost confidence. This vicious cycle perpetuates itself until one finally gives up because “there’s no point in trying anymore.” Moreover, to not learn from your mistakes — to keep repeating the same errors — is obviously an unideal path.
So what to do?
There’s no magic formula. Rather, we believe the best way to handle a mistake is to:
(1) Remind yourself that you’re human and these things are inevitable (so RELAX!), and (2) Ask yourself: what’s at least one thing I can learn from this?
After all, it works for LeBron.
We’re just getting started here and would love to get your feedback on how we can get better! Drop us a line at thetriangleand2@gmail.com and help spread the word!
— Ali K. & Coach Tailor (aka “THE TRIANGLE AND 2 GUYS”)
Ali Khan is a graduate of Harvard Law School; Amit Tailor is a graduate of Yale University and the video coordinator for Clemson Men’s Basketball