The NBA's Baseball Series Chronicles
Plenty of trade talk and Numbers Game goodness, too, in the latest Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza
The Dallas Mavericks just concluded a seven-game homestand in my presence that started and began with one of those two-game baseball series deals that regular readers have heard me rail against for years now.
A baseball series, of course, is NBA shorthand (until we come up something better) for one team hosting another in two straight games at the same venue.
Quick refresher for those who have banished the specifics of this Stein Line rant from their memories: I simply feel as though it robs the home team of its homecourt advantage to an unfair degree to host two games in a row against the same extremely settled-in opponent.
With the help of Mavericks play-by-play voice Mark Followill and our colleagues at SportRadar, as well as the usual sterling input from my fellow Substacker
This is the third season that the NBA has worked a handful of these two-game sets into the schedule to try to reduce travel and, for the third successive season, we're seeing splits as the most likely outcome of a baseball series.
2023-24
Home team sweeps: 8
Away team sweeps: 6
Splits: 12
Home team record: 28-24 (.538)
(PS — There are 14 baseball series left on this season's schedule.)
2022-23
Home team sweeps: 21
Away team sweeps: 14
Splits: 20
Home team record: 62-48 (.564)
2021-22
Home team sweeps: 7
Away team sweeps: 6
Splits: 10
Home team record: 24-22 (.522)
This is the NBA's 20th season with 30 teams. Across the previous 19 full seasons, home teams have boasted an average winning percentage of .586. That includes the 2019-20 season (.551) that had to be completed at a neutral-site bubble which took teams out of their arenas completely and the 2020-21 season (.544) which featured numerous games in mostly empty arenas.
The league's composite home winning percentage was an uncharacteristically low .544 again in 2021-22 before rebounding last season to .580. Entering Tuesday's play, .580 was also this season's overall success rate for home teams.
The Stein Line is a reader-supported newsletter, with both Free and Paid subscriptions available, and those who opt for the Paid edition are taking an active role in the reporting by providing vital assistance to bolster my independent coverage of the league. Feel free to forward this post to family and friends interested in the NBA and please consider becoming a Paid subscriber to have full access to all of my posts.
As a reminder: Tuesday editions, on this and every Newsletter Tuesday, go out free to anyone who signs up, just as my Tuesday pieces did in their New York Times incarnation.
Chatter Box
A couple good podcast interviews in case you missed them …
The Knicks’ Julius Randle joined Chris Haynes and me on our #thisleague UNCUT podcast which dropped Monday.
Here’s a sample from Randle when I asked him if he agrees with the oft-cited sentiment that he’s never looked more comfortable as a Knick than he does in Year 5 at Madison Square Garden:
"Yeah, accurate. Very accurate. Like I said, you guys asked me earlier, can you be prepared for [New York] or you got to go through it? And I feel like for me, like I said, I had to go through it. … Every year I just get more comfortable. It’s almost like the city’s kind of made me, like, bulletproof in a sense, to where it’s like I don’t feel any type of criticism. … I would definitely say I’m more comfortable than I ever have been. I even felt that, like, I think this summer. I lived in the city for the first time and I’m just like, man, this feels like home."
The full conversation with Randle can be heard here:
Before that chat posted, on the most recent edition of my weekly radio show on 97.1 (FM) The Freak in Dallas, Mavericks guard Tim Hardaway Jr. joined me. On Media Day back in early October, Hardaway acknowledged that he "didn’t know if I was going to be here" after hearing his name in trade rumors both at last season’s trade deadline and at draft time in June, but he told me on The Saturday Stein Line that he’s doing his best to block out such noise as this season’s trade deadline approaches on Feb. 8.
"Being a part of that back in 2019, I mean, it was weird, especially midway through the season,” Hardaway said of his inclusion in the Knicks’ trade that sent Kristaps Porzingis to the Mavericks four years ago. “So at the end of the day, you only control what you control out there, and that’s me doing what I love, playing the game of basketball.
"You work your tail off to get to this point, so that right there should just be a motivator — just a mind-free-type zone to just go out there and hoop and doing your thing … and whatever happens happens. But for me personally, you know, I love it here. I want to play here for as long as I can help this team."
PS — If you want your voice heard on The Saturday Stein Line, click the red microphone icon on the 97.1 (FM) The Freak feed on the iHeart Radio app to leave a 30-second message or a question for me to answer on an upcoming show. League sources say that Paid subscribers to The Stein Line are very likely to see their submissions moved to the front of the line for possible airing.
Numbers Game
🏀 32.3
Since our aforementioned sitdown with Tim Hardaway Jr., Dallas’ sixth man has stepped into the starting lineup in place of an injured Luka Dončić and averaged 32.3 points per game over three games while shooting 18-for-36 from 3-point range. #justsayin
🏀 16
The Sixers got the nationally televised win Tuesday night against Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets, so Joel Embiid presumably won’t mind too much, but Embiid’s 41 points, seven rebounds and 10 assists mean his streak of consecutive 30-point, 10-rebound games is over at 16. Embiid also missed 10 games due to injury during that run.
🏀 7
Embiid can only miss seven more games to remain eligible for his second straight regular-season MVP award.
🏀 353
A total of 353 days — nearly a full calendar year — elapsed between Jokić vs. Embiid showdowns. Embiid rampaged for 47 points and 18 rebounds in a win over Denver on Jan. 28, 2023, in the stars’ last head-to-head duel.
🏀 24.1
Are we sure Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren has the Rookie of the Year race sewn up? San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama has averaged 23.8 points, 9.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 3.6 blocks over his past 10 games … while on a playing time restriction that allowed him to log just 24.1 minutes per game in that span.
🏀 3
Only three coaches in NBA history have won more games with one team than Miami’s Erik Spoelstra, who is 728-507 as Heat coach and received an eight-year, $120 million contract extension last week. Those three coaches are San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich (1,370 wins), Utah’s Jerry Sloan (1,127) and Boston’s Red Auerbach (795).
🏀 19
We’ve written a couple times recently about Utah’s Collin Sexton potentially playing himself off the trade market because he's played so well lately. As a reserve this season, Sexton averaged 12.7 points per game and shot just 32.5% from 3-point range through 23 games. In 19 starts, per statistician extraordinaire
, Sexton is averaging 21.9 points per game and shooting 41.5% from deep.🏀 15-4
The Jazz are 15-4 in Sexton's 19 starts.
🏀 30
Leading into Saturday's play, Memphis rookie GG Jackson had scored a total of eight points in 30 minutes logged in the NBA. In his next two games for the Grizzlies, Jackson posted 20 points in 27 minutes against New York and 23 points in 29 minutes against Golden State.
🏀 2
Jackson became the second-youngest player in league history, at 19 years and 29 days old, to record consecutive games with 20 or more points. The only player in NBA annals to do it at a younger age: LeBron James did it five times in his early days in Cleveland.
🏀 13
Cleveland’s Tristan Thompson has returned to jersey No. 13 after wearing No. 12 in his first 32 games this season. Thompson wore No. 13 during his first nine NBA seasons in Cleveland and has reclaimed the number after Ricky Rubio’s recent departure from the Cavaliers via buyout.
🏀 97.1
I’m on the radio Saturdays from noon to 1 PM CT on 97.1 (FM) The Freak in Dallas with an hour of live NBA talk presented by Panini Trading Cards and Collectibles. Join us online by clicking the link embedded in this sentence or via the iHeart radio app to listen to The Saturday Stein Line on this or any Saturday ... or catch the podcasted version of the show once it drops via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or #whereveryougetyourpodcasts. And we repeat: Click the microphone icon on the 97.1 (FM) The Freak feed on the iHeart Radio app to leave a 30-second message or a question for me to answer on an upcoming show.
Curious to know Mark if those splits of the home hone series are road team winning the 1st or 2nd game?
You can change jersey numbers during the season??!?