February 17, 2012; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Phoenix Suns head coach Alvin Gentry watches game action against the Los Angeles Lakers during the first half at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-US PRESSWIRE

The Suns has missed the playoffs 3 of the last 4 seasons, and also missed the last two. The Suns are one of the most winning franchise in the league ranking 5^th among all teams in regular season winning percentage. Year in and year out the Suns are almost staples for the playoffs. After the biggest off-season in years for the Suns, moving on from the Steve Nash era and hauling in a bunch of young players as well as a couple of veterans, are the Suns capable of making the playoffs?

As a Suns fan I’m saying and hoping yes. For several reasons, the first being I’m tired of not seeing my Suns in the playoffs. Secondly with now a young team playoff experience is very valuable. Third and lastly! Even if the Suns fail to make the playoffs they won’t be bad enough to grab a high lottery pick instead they’ll once again get a late lottery pick which usually doesn’t turn into a superstar. Personally even though I was happy about all the Suns signings this off-season I felt they went a little overboard and once again put themselves in that position where they are a borderline playoff team and if they don’t make it they don’t get a high draft pick. History shows unless you get really lucky, you have to bottom out to go back up.

As a realist I’m going to have to say no the Suns don’t make the playoffs simply because aside from the 7 teams Lakers, Clippers, Spurs, Thunders, Grizzlies, Mavericks, and Nuggets who are all but locked up a playoff spot there are better teams than the Suns. The Suns also has a lot of new players which would require time for everyone to gel together and develop good chemistry, but hey crazier things have happened. Who knows, maybe Michael Beasley will play at the all-star level he’s capable of, Goran Dragic will play even better than he did in Houston and maybe Wesley Johnson will play like the 4^th pick in the draft. Then again that’s all just wishful thinking.

I expect that if the Suns aren’t a competitive team by all-star break, the Suns front office will certainly make some moves to acquire more draft picks and just bottom out so they have a better chance to get lucky come the end of May at the draft lottery. Keep in mind the Suns still have cap flexibility come next off-season and maybe they can steal James Harden from Oklahoma City, steal Chris Paul, hell maybe they can even steal Dwight Howard or Andrew Bynum. But then again all of that is wishful thinking too.

The Grizzlies fouled so often in Game 1, sending the Spurs to the line 47 times, that some experts wondered if perhaps they did so on purpose as a way of halting San Antonio’s dribble penetration before something really bad happened. In other words: Two free throws are better than a wide-open corner three.

“Questions loom as Spurs try to even series.”

Something that on the surface may seem counter-intuitive – why purposely send a player to the free throw line? – actually makes a world of sense when viewed through a basic application of expected value.

Used often in poker and the financial sector, expected value is simply a way of determining the average result of a probability-based situation. By defining specific parameters, we can effectively calculate which of two or more options is the most profitable – or in basketball terms, which action creates the most points on average.

If Tony Parker, for example, is handling the ball for the Spurs and forces the defense to collapse on his penetration into the lane, we can readily figure out the value of fouling him and giving him two free throws. As a 77% free throw shooter, each one is worth .77 points; two free throws, then, are worth 1.54 points.*

*For the sake of simplicity (and due to lack of data), we’ll be ignoring the impact of offensive rebounding and assume that the offensive rebound rate on misses is equal across shots. This is almost certainly not the case, depending on where an offensive set leaves potential rebounders versus the static rebounding formation on a free throw. For ease of explanation, though, we’ll skip that.

The other option in this scenario is an open corner 3 for Matt Bonner or Gary Neal. According to the invaluable StatsCube on NBA.com, Bonner shoots 41%, on average, from the corner; Neal shoots 43%. Multiplying those rates times the value of a made 3 produces an expected value of 1.23 points for a Bonner 3 and 1.29 for Neal.

But wait, we’re not dealing with the average corner shot – Lowe mentioned wide open shots specifically. A recent episode of ESPN’s SportsScience referenced the fact that an open shot is 12% more likely to go in than one tightly defended. If either player makes 51.4% of their corner 3s or more, than the value of that shot (greater than or equal to 1.542) is more than sending Parker to the line.

In Game 1, there was no difference between the two propositions. Parker shot 75% from the free throw line, giving two free throws an expected value of 1.5 points. Bonner and Neal went 4-for-8 from deep – also an expected value of 1.5 points.

Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the larger sample size of Bonner and Neal’s accuracy when open in the regular season – but you can be certain that the Memphis Grizzlies (and all other NBA teams) track exactly that and hundreds of other bits of data. If the Grizzlies are fouling the Spurs so aggressively, you can be sure they’re doing it with the knowledge that Tony Parker on the line is less destructive than Matt Bonner raining sandwich-laced bombs all over your dome-piece.