Forum Blue and Gold's momuskles liveblogged the Lakers' loss to the Hornets, and Laker fans didn't end up looking so good: "A weak chant of 'defense' breaks out. Lakers follow suit and allow David West to get his 34th point." Niall Doherty of Hornets247 on West: "40 points on 14-23 shooting, 12-13 from the free throw line, 11 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 turnovers in 42 minutes of work. This was his best game of the season. He tortured Pau Gasol inside and outside. He was raining J's whenever he was given an inch of space, but also picked his spots to drive really well. For as much as he put the ball on the floor tonight, it's remarkable that he turned it over just twice. He was patient with the ball out high and made strong moves to the basket whenever the lane opened up. He did a great job of beating the help defense, several times getting his dribble up and swinging the ball past the second defender on his way to the rack. That's where he most often turns the ball over, but not tonight. Oh, and while I didn't particularly notice West defensively in this one, it's surely no accident that the Laker bigs all had a pretty quiet night offensively."
Yesterday I pointed out that Rajon Rondo has been taking very few jumpers this season. Zach at Be the Three points out that last year, Rondo shot more jumpers (and he made a lot more of them, too).
Evidence of inflation in how assists are recorded. Last night, for instance, Chris Paul was credited with assists several times for passing it to someone who then used multiple dribbles, and all kinds of skill, to beat tough defense. According to the rules, that's not an assist. David Friedman of 20 Second Timeout has been charting several games himself, and has found several weak examples of assists. He writes: "There is some statistical evidence to support the assertion that assists are awarded more generously now: as I noted in one of my earlier posts, assists were awarded on 52.2% of made field goals in the 1961-62 season but in the 2007-08 season assists were awarded on 58.4% of field goals. Why does this matter? One, it distorts the record book and results in faulty comparisons between today's playmakers and the playmakers of yesteryear. Two, these errors -- combined with the subjectivity and/or inaccuracies involved in tracking other statistical categories such as rebounds, steals, blocked shots and turnovers -- skew the basic data used by basketball statistical analysts and thus introduces an even higher margin of error into their player and team rankings than would otherwise exist."
On IMDB, a user called Gndsgrl reviews a new Dennis Rodman-hooping-with-little people movie like this: "The only thing I can think of saying good about this movie is ... It has decent cinematography. They seem to have use good quality cameras and film, along with someone to run the cameras that appeared like they knew what they were doing. Audio is decent too. You can clearly hear that bad acting going on."
Smush Parker is in the D-League, and trying hard to make it back to the NBA, where he feels he belongs. Parker talks at length with HoopsTV about it, and I'm sure most people will remember this moment: "What is it like to play with Kobe? Ohh boy. That's an alley I won't go down."
An Israeli team, playing in Turkey, is terrified by an attacking crowd. The crowd, in turn, was livid about Israel's incursions into the Gaza strip. It's a mess. War is bad, and makes people angry. Too bad the crowd didn't apply their conviction that "hurting innocent people is bad" to include the players on the Israeli team. I first learned of this from Inside Hoops, which has been all over the story.
Kevin Durant has 27 and 12, and the Thunder beat the Knicks. If Carmelo Anthony hadn't nailed a 3 with a hand in his face the other night, the Thunder would have three straight wins. And in addition to improved play from Durant, thanks to a change of position, they're about to add another big man in Nenad Krstic.
Neil Paine of Basketball-Reference on Durant: "Since I wrote about him in November, Durant has improved in virtually every offensive phase of the game ... He's shooting better, passing better, taking better care of the ball, rebounding better, and getting to the line more often (even as he's more than doubled the % of his shots that come from beyond the arc). Defensively, the Thunder have been worse under Brooks than P.J., but Durant's still very young, meaning he has time to get stronger and smarter at that end. In other words, in light of the evidence Durant has presented since the first post, I think it's time to reassess his potential. In terms of young players with similar production, now he's looking at a better career path than Michael Finley and Mitch Richmond - which I know doesn't exactly sound megastar-ish, but it's certainly better than what he was looking at back in November. I don't know if he'll ever reach the lofty "Rich Man's KG level of stardom some predicted, but I'm a big enough man to admit that I was probably a bit too hasty when I said: '...it's doubtful [Durant] will live up to the considerable hype that surrounded him when he first came out of college.'"
You know about black swans? The idea is that if you see something really really rare, you notice, remember, and talk about it. As a result, rare things like black swans get publicized a lot, and seem to be more common than they are. White swans, as a result, aren't noticed as much. It's a phenomenon of humans. It has a big effect on how we perceive risks in our life (we're more scared of mass murderers than heart attacks, even though heart attacks are so much more likely). But it also has an effect on how we watch basketball. If David Lee finishes in traffic, or grabs a rebound, it doesn't even register as noteworthy. (Talk about a white swan.) But that doesn't mean it isn't exceptional.
Life as a ballboy. Sadly, in this account, it seems to be mostly about getting players to give you things of value. However, there is also a nice account of passing trash-talking notes from locker room to locker room, between Michael Jordan and Bryon Russell.
Jason Thompson didn't bring the bagels, so several other Kings filled his car with popcorn. It's funny and all, but filling the car with popcorn ... that has been done. And done. Next time, we need something new.
Pistons VP of Basketball Operations Scott Perry tells NBA.com's Rob Peterson about one of my favorite NBA players, Tayshaun Prince: "Tayshaun Prince is the one basketball player who knows all five positions on the floor. He's been asked to play four of them so far this year. That's invaluable when you have a guy that, when we did go to a smaller lineup, he slid down to play the four position. Now, he's back at his natural three position. We've had him play the point guard position, the off-guard position. He's defended all four positions. He's a very smart, cerebral basketball player. He studies the game, studies his opponents and he's one of those guys who's in the right place at the right time all the time. That's invaluable for a team and for a coach to know you have a player out there that knows all of his assignments and carries them out well. And in Tayshaun's own way, he's started to develop more leadership qualities. You see him talking to a lot of younger players and helping them along with assignments and where they're supposed to be. I could see why coach Curry feels that way because Tayshaun has been so versatile, he's been so valuable to us this year, but in year's past as well."
Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress blogging a rousing kick-off to the D-League Showcase: "The first game was delayed by about 40 minutes because of a malfunctioning shot-clock (the announcer was a virtual shot-clock in the first quarter, counting down seconds at the end of possessions). The games were very sluggish to start off, too many whistles, too many bad shots, and a very minor league feel to the overall play. You heard a player yelling out "by yourself to a teammate on pretty much every other possession, and most of them don't need to be told twice to go one on one. Still, you learn to make the most of what you have here-there are all kinds of interesting people to talk with, there are certainly some intriguing prospects scattered about the rosters, and it still beats what most people have to do to make a living at the end of the day. It can actually be quite entertaining if you come here with the right mindset-a classic example would be Carl Elliott taking an in-bounds pass and running the wrong way to score on his own basket, before being redirected by his entire team jumping up and down from the bench to make him realize his mistake. He promptly turned around, drove all the way to the other end completely unopposed and scored easily-a classic D-League play." Also, the Nets' Sean Williams, a decent NBA center, has been playing small forward.
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