Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Much to Louis' Chagrin...

....after tonight's victory, the Sixers currently are holding down the eastern conference's final playoff spot. And by point differential, they're the sixth best team in the conference (these are per game, rather than per possession numbers, but good enough for this post). Granted, I think the Cavaliers' point differential is artificially low because of the games that Lebron missed with injury, but it still speaks well to the Sixers chances to make the playoffs.

That makes me happy, even if it doesn't make anyone other Sixers fan happy.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

What would your All-star Weekend look like?

TrueHoop today points us to this blog entry by the president of the D-League. In it, Dan Reed (the D-league president) talks about the introduction of H-O-R-S-E to the D-League All-star weekend, and more generally talks about the D-League's role in trying out new things for the NBA. He asked people to send in ideas for all-star weekend.

So that got me thinking. What would I want to see? Off the top of my head, I can think of two competitions I'd like to see.

1. An NBA Jam style full-court two on two competition. Maybe play the games to 50 by twos and threes (but with a 20 minute cap). Not sure if it could be played on a full court-- maybe a 3/4 size court would be better. Set it up like a tournament so that there's a steady stream of games.

2. A half-court 1 v 1 tournament. You'd need to play with the rules in some way to try and not give too big of an advantage to either smalls or bigs, but I think the odd match-ups would actually be the most interesting part. I'm thinking an 8 second shot-clock, need to take the ball back, and one "teammate" whose only role is to pass the ball in so that big men don't need to dribble from the top of the key. And have it reffed-- award foul shots and allow people to foul out.

I'd be interested in watching these games. Think these events would be interesting? How about other ideas? Share them in the comments!

Monday, February 11, 2008

A (very) belated link- self-promotion edition

I find it amazing that for a number of months I was able to put a post up just about every day. Now, ever since I went onto my (very) sporadic posting schedule, I wonder how I ever had the time in my schedule to put up all those posts. I'm even more impressed now with the people who blog every day (while also maintaining a full-time job) than I was before.

That's all a long-winded way of saying that I've had a few links that I've been meaning to post for awhile, but somehow haven't gotten around to. At this point, they're pretty old, but I'll still give you two.

  • About a month ago, Lebron James got pulled over for going 100 mph on the highway. I thought Henry (from TrueHoop) was a little flippant about it, and I wrote him with the reasons that I didn't think a 100 mph ticket was really similar to your run of the mill 75 mph speeding ticket. He was kind enough to add parts of my email to his post. (It's the fourth bullet from the bottom. I told you this post was going to be self-promotional.) He did make a point in his email response to me with which I agree: while what Lebron did was wrong, it probably wasn't deserving of the media storm that followed it--especially when you consider all of the other types of more socially destructive behavior by athletes that doesn't get any coverage.
  • And while we're on the subject of old links from TrueHoop, I thought this paragraph from a post that Henry linked to by a player who signed with the Golden State Warriors was fascinating:
One thing that shocked me was during a timeout Coach Nelson doesn't say nothing. He just sits there and rubs his head and will occasionally draw up a play every now and then. When you have been in the league as long as he has, and accomplished the things he has at a high level, you shouldn't have to. I asked one of the players "why he doesn't talk during timeouts?" They said he just doesn't. They were like "if that shocks you about this team, then you are in for a bunch more surprises and weird things."