I started reading this article, but couldn't stand it after a while. I'm really not sure why, either. I guess it just feels like nothing more than a sophisticated attempt to talk about "intangibles" and all the other nonsense that sportswriters come up with all the time.

Does anybody here know much about APBRMetrics? Any better insights would be appreciated.

Dan, I've already sent that article around, and you should read it all the way through. And Nathan, many props for posting it here.

All Lewis is trying to do is to come up with a way to make sense of out the phenomenon of Shane Battier, and what he represents. (Full Disclosure: Even though I'm a lifetime Carolina fan, he's always been one of my favorite players, even at Duke.)

Here's a player whose conventional statistics are humdrum to the max, and yet everywhere he goes, and virtually every minute he's on the court, his team improves quite dramatically. And it's not a case of "small sample size," either, since he's been doing this for his entire career. If you're truly interested in understanding why some basketball teams win and others don't (beyond the obvious current examples of the Celtics, Lakers, and Cavs), then this may be the most thought provoking article you'll read all year. It was wholly deserving of its cover status on the Times Magazine. If nothing else, read the long segment about Battier's approach to guarding Kobe Bryant. It's the farthest thing in the world from being "nonsense," and as you should know, the author of "Moneyball" is hardly your typical sportswriter.

I thought it was a great story: I stopped following the NBA (after being a big fan since the early 80s) sometime around the turn of the millenium, and had no idea about this guy.

Anybody who reads this article will probably better understand what SABERMETRICS is all about (even if this article is basketball related), if only because this article EXPLAINS the mindset and output of a SABERMETRIC game plan very well.

And what makes the article even more interesting is the acceptance on the part of both Lewis and the Rockets that they're only beginning to understand what makes Battier so special. It's not as if they're proclaiming that they've already found a way to find hidden Battier clones all throughout the NBA and college drafts. It's a case where the old cliche "it's the journey, not the arrival that matters" really does apply.

I decided to read the whole thing. You're all right -- it was much better than I thought.

Next time they show a Rockets game on CCTV-5, I'm going to have to pay a bit more attention to Shane Battier.

I decided to read the whole thing. You're all right -- it was much better than I thought.

You should have realized that it was going to go that way when you saw it was by Michael Lewis. Lewis has always been more interested in why the conventional wisdom is wrong than in finding a way to justify it.

Lewis did a particularly bad job of explaining the statistical side of basketball. All he said was that Battier was making Kobe probabilistically less productive and would go on talking about battier's background for another page and a half. I also don't think Battier's the only player and the rockets aren't the only team which considers making kobe shoot an 18 ft jumper a defensive success.

also Basketball plus/minus, which lewis refers to, is a pretty awful statistic unless you have a ridiculously large sample size.

I also don't think Battier's the only player and the rockets aren't the only team which considers making kobe shoot an 18 ft jumper a defensive success.

Yes, but they consider making Kobe go to his left a success. And shooting off the dribble a success.

Lewis did a particularly bad job of explaining the statistical side of basketball. All he said was that Battier was making Kobe probabilistically less productive and would go on talking about battier's background for another page and a half. I also don't think Battier's the only player and the rockets aren't the only team which considers making kobe shoot an 18 ft jumper a defensive success.

also Basketball plus/minus, which lewis refers to, is a pretty awful statistic unless you have a ridiculously large sample size.

Anyone who reads the article will realize that this is hardly "all [Lewis] said" about how Battier dealt with Kobe, and that Lewis acknowledges the shortcomings of the current plus/minus stat. As I said above, one of the great virtues of the article is the frank acknowledgment that we are venturing into uncharted territory. Lewis is certainly not making any grandiose claims that he can transplant Billy Beane's methods into the NBA, based on today's measurements of basketball skills.

Lewis is certainly not making any grandiose claims that he can transplant Billy Beane's methods into the NBA, based on today's measurements of basketball skills.

Here's the money quote of the piece:

There is a tension, peculiar to basketball, between the interests of the team and the interests of the individual. The game continually tempts the people who play it to do things that are not in the interest of the group. On the baseball field, it would be hard for a player to sacrifice his team’s interest for his own. Baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team one: by doing what’s best for himself, the player nearly always also does what is best for his team.

As it relates to strategy and operational implementation for NBA teams, this is a really, really complex point. I also happen to think the teams first to crack the code will begin to differentiate themselves.

When I ask Morey if he can think of any basketball statistic that can’t benefit a player at the expense of his team, he has to think hard. “Offensive rebounding,” he says, then reverses himself. “But even that can be counterproductive to the team if your job is to get back on defense.” It turns out there is no statistic that a basketball player accumulates that cannot be amassed selfishly.

I mean, that's just fascinating stuff.

Here's a player whose conventional statistics are humdrum to the max, and yet everywhere he goes, and virtually every minute he's on the court, his team improves quite dramatically.

More importantly, he is also a player that has won Naismith awards in high school and college and been named to the US Olympic team. This Lewis fellow tries to take people that he thinks are under the radar and pimp them to be some type of savant.

It doesn't matter if you do a bunch of arithmetic or not, Battier has been valued as a player.

Anybody who reads this article will probably better understand what SABERMETRICS is all about (even if this article is basketball related), if only because this article EXPLAINS the mindset and output of a SABERMETRIC game plan very well.

First and foremost, I don't imagine the persons that publish basketball statistics want to be lumped into "SABERMETRICS". This is the realm of bombastic speakers talking about "economic illeterate b1tches" and "pitchers having no control over balls in play" Most of the persons publishing their research have managed to take a more Tangoesque approach to their output.

Second, it also should not appeal to fanboy interests because the NBA teams are the originators of most of the research available in the area. Its not being penned by some crumudgeon who is more interested in sarcasm and developing cults of personality.

Third, what this does is show the value of game film and game film research. Only in recent years has SABERMETRICS even attempted to use real time or anytime type results to influence a "game plan." In fact, most of the saber-garbage takes OUTCOMES of large event spaces, which at best can be used for personnel planning. Then, they misapply it to small event spaces, like games, series or at bats, and claim the outcome is luck.

Basketball game planning, statistical or otherwise, would tell Battier HOW to guard Kobe. Most of the saber-garbage would probably lead you to not even having Battier on the team. You don't have a VORP, WARP, or DIPS that is going to tell you that you pitch batter A in X manner. In fact, your DIPS is likely to tell you that no matter how you pitch him, you aren't going to affect his probability of getting a hit.

What is stated in that article is so far away from what has passed as SABERMETRICS that it is close to being its antithetical opposite. The only similarity is that the GM interviewed happend to use arithmetic in getting its results. If that similarity puts them under the same umbrella, then the GM that uses BA is also doing sabermetrics, and there isn't anything that couldn't be called sabermetrics.

SHAEN BATTILER 4 DA POPE!

As it relates to strategy and operational implementation for NBA teams, this is a really, really complex point. I also happen to think the teams first to crack the code will begin to differentiate themselves.

Well, it depends. If the players who help their teams the most are the same players who people already think help their team the most (and by the current advanced metrics, guys like Wade, LeBron, Howard, Yao, etc. are indeed the most valuable), basketball teams are pretty limited in how many of those guys they can acquire. Because those are the guys generally (except for the 2004 Pistons) needed in order to be successful, I'm not sure a team who "cracks the code" will necessarily stand out other than as an OK or pretty good team. I mean, the Rockets have 2 of those guys and Morey, yet they haven't been especially successful. Much of that probably has to do with McGrady being washed up, but it's hard to view a guy (Morey) who assembles a supporting cast for Yao that has 6 rotation players shooting under 40% as some sort of revolutionary genius.

edit: also, Backlasher's right about Battier. even in the NBA he was always valued. He was the #6 pick, he made 1st-team All-Rookie. The article claims that Jerry West was always trying to deal him, but West signed him to a $37 million deal.

I also happen to think the teams first to crack the code will begin to differentiate themselves.

NBA teams have been "cracking the code" since 1990, and before that on game film. This isn't a case of "Five Shane Battiers would be the best offense in the league". Selfish players exist in the NBA because their skill set is still needed. When the athleticism reaches the level of the NBA, you still must have players that can exploit an offensive match up. Therefore, you still need prima donnas that can score.

Some are smart, learn the game, and improve even when it looks like their statistics are declining (e.g. Melo). Some still glare at numbers, look awfully great when playing, but don't always make the best decisions (e.g. Starbury). Nevertheless, the latter still have value if they are put in the correct system. Most type tier NBA players understand when they can get a shot; most have an instinct about how good a shot they are getting; what they don't always know is whether their shot is better than another shot that their offense can produce during a given possession. This leads to the "not enough balls" phenomena.

That can be compensated by systems, e.g.

Nellieball - constantly creating mismatches through personnel deployment.

6 seconds or less- The D'antoni system which is similar to old NBA ball; when you have a good shot take it; otherwise put in the PG's hands

Other systems tend to be just running the same half court sets really well; e.g. the Sloan Pick and Roll; the Jackson Triangle. In those, the shots obtained tend to cluster, and each player understands which to take through rote conditioning.

The difference in basketball is that it happens to be the sport that is most like life.

A lot of pointless running around that somehow only gains importance in the last 5 minutes?

Opposing player's shooting percentage? (The guy you're guarding, that is)

Whoops, that was re 11, thinking about a stat that can't be amassed selfishly

Good take as usual, BL. But I would quibble with one point, that about Battier being valued. All those traditional awards that he's won predated his professional career. As a longtime fan of his, I can safely say that since he's turned pro, this is one of the first articles I've seen in the national media that acknowledges his true worth as a player.

Beyond that, Battier's current salary is $6.1 million, a fortune by rational standards, but not that much above the average $5.3 million NBA salary, and certainly not on the level one might have expected based on all those awards, not to mention the Duke pedigree. He may be valued as a player by those who see what the Rockets do when he's on the court, but not by the average fan or media type, and not if you go by his paycheck.

I've said this before: The sport that's most like life is bullfighting. And only for the bull.

Andy sent me this in an email; I didn't know that it was posted here. I guess he sent it along to include kevin who was cc'd, and who would have a lot of good stuff to add to any basketball talk (after he told us what a selfish overrated prick Kobe Bryant is). Anyway, here is what I wrote to Andy:

Battier has always been known for this, and he is a fine player. Like Kirilenko and a few other guys, he can help you without touching the ball much. There is some noise (as noted) in +/-, though--like you are getting your burn with. Morey and co likely do analysis using a PER-variant weighted by minutes to allow for that. Odom was leading the Lakers in +/- earlier this year--in part due to getting his burn with the Lakers' second unit, which is better than most. 82games.com and other sites have +/- up every day.

Two other notes:

1. IIRC Morey used to work with John Dewan and Bill James. For this reason, James' two fave NBA teams are Boston--and Houston. Morey wrote a partial chapter in the essay abook about James.
2. People have always talked a lot about Nash making everybody better, etc. With D'Antoni gone, and Marion's having lost a step and gotten traded, we don't hear much about that anymore.

***

As far as BB stats, Hollinger's PER is useful. Hollinger himself ackmowledges that there is much it does not capture--notably position defense. Other things--floor spacing, boxing out, making the second pass in a three or four-pass sequence, good weakside d etc--are also hard to capture without detailed game breakdowns.

Incidentally, BL, I have exchanged an email or two with kevin and I am going to give him a buzz tonight to let him tell me how much the Lakers suck and to see how he is doing. He tells me that things are going very well for you.

I mean, the Rockets have 2 of those guys and Morey, yet they haven't been especially successful. Much of that probably has to do with McGrady being washed up, but it's hard to view a guy (Morey) who assembles a supporting cast for Yao that has 6 rotation players shooting under 40% as some sort of revolutionary genius.

He will be if the "subculture" decides to constantly write about him throwing chairs and what-not. Its generally not about the advancement and more about the cult of personality. Personally, I wish that he would go back to claiming how Micheal Oher would revolutionize the NFL, and keep his sensationilism out of the NBA. The last thing that is needed is hearing about "PG have no outcome on an offensive possession."

Nevertheless, there is value in being able to find players whose key virtues are not being maximized. I fail to see how Battier is that player. As previously mentioned, he has always had value. It might be true that Jerry West undervalued him, but I saw no reporting or investigation by Lewis to make that point. It just seemed to fit his story to throw Jerry West to the wolves.

Lewis writes stories, not journalism. As such, he must have an antagonist to go with his protaganist who is Morley. Battier is just a rather two dimensional character in his story, even with all the purported backstory about how hard little Shane's life was as a kid. He does have a knack for doing it, like pulling up little anecdotes (my favorite is when Battier tells the ref that everyone knows Kobe is a whiny #####).

I would think a better subject for the "undiscovered" player would be a profile on Bowen, but that is no longer true as he is also made Team USA. Maybe Raja Bell would have been better, but his game has deteroiated and he then would have a different protaganist. If the idea is to have Morley find diamonds in the rough, then maybe Skip 2 my Lou or Von Wafer would have been better stories.

Opposing player's shooting percentage? (The guy you're guarding, that is)

Depends on who you are guarding. If its a single dimensional NBA shooting guard, then it probably is a good indicator. If its Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, etc., I would want to see how many dimes they dropped. If its Dennis Rodman or Paul Millsap or Charles Oakley, I would want to see how many boards they got. IOW, if you are guarding a prototypical 2 or 3, it might have value. If its a 1, 4 or 5, or transendant player, it still could be selfish.

NBA teams have been "cracking the code" since 1990, and before that on game film.

Sure, but I think a more analytical and quantifiable approach will foster more buy-in from players. I would imagine making the case to someone averaging 19 a game but contributing little else that he isn't worth #### compared to Battier would be aided by straightforward, accurate, data-driven metrics.

Many players have it in them to contribute the way Battier does.

He may be valued as a player by those who see what the Rockets do when he's on the court, but not by the average fan or media type, and not if you go by his paycheck.

As noted by another poster, he got a pretty good deal with the Grizzlies when it was signed. Also, if you look at distributions, a team usually only can afford two of those really outlandish contracts. The Celts are something of an anomaly with the Big 3, and the Lakers are likely to run into a quandry with their soon to be Big 3. I don't know if you can afford to pay Battier to be one of your two most expensive players. YOu have to have at least two repetative offensive options. The market usually gives them the highest contracts.

. People have always talked a lot about Nash making everybody better, etc. With D'Antoni gone, and Marion's having lost a step and gotten traded, we don't hear much about that anymore.

There is an article today about the prospect of Porter getting fired, and how he has even moved to putting the ball more into Nash's hands. When you watch the Suns, you can see why there is a dip in both Nash's effectivness and statistical output. The Suns run their entire offense through Shaq. Nash doesn't hold the ball as much. If you put Chris Paul, Wooo, on the Suns, he wouldn't be looking as good right now either. A good 2/3 does look good in that type of offense, which is why I thought getting Richardson was a good move.

More important, when Nash was playing in 6 Seconds or Less, it was a beautiful thing to watch. The way he would probe ever area of a defense, before firing a bullet to the player with the highest percentage shot (or taking it himself if that was the best option) will always be one of my favorite NBA viewing memories.

Many players have it in them to contribute the way Battier does.

I agree, but quite often that is lost. Supposedly, Jackson asked Kobe to be that type of player. He refused and that probably cost both he and Shaq some championships. To my knowledge, there has only been one player with the level of Kobe's athletic ability willing to take on that role during the prime of their career; that was, Scottie Pippen.

Incidentally, BL, I have exchanged an email or two with kevin and I am going to give him a buzz tonight to let him tell me how much the Lakers suck and to see how he is doing. He tells me that things are going very well for you.

I spoke to Kevin last week. It was good to talk with him. Obviously, it would be nice if someone who could speak on behalf of Kevin would find this thread. Kevin would definately be a valuable contributor.

Somebody also needs to send out the Bat Alarm to JC and Moses. It would be good to hear their take.

Would one of youse guys tell kevin that Joe Bivens says "hey"? Thanks.

Would one of youse guys tell kevin that Joe Bivens says "hey"? Thanks.

I will let him know when I speak next. Hopefully, this ban thing will run its course.

RE: Battier and the Story

I checked out Battier on Basketball Database. He is reasonably consistent with his numbers; although it appears he use to be a better shooter and effective shooter. The most interesting thing was his minutes. Battier has typically gotten about the same level of playing time throughout his career. THis includes some very different coaches, including: Lowe, Fratello, Van Gundy and Adelman. THere was one stretch when he was getting less playing time, this was under Hubie Brown. More importantly, its also when the Grizz had James Posey, who is another person that could have been the subject of this article (and how received far less fanfare coming from Xavier).

Battier's most similar list is also very interesting:

James Posey (907)
Chris Mills (904)
Kerry Kittles (904)
Raja Bell (897)
Terry Mills (896)
Dee Brown (893)
Morris Peterson (892)
Raef Lafrentz (892)
Quentin Richardson (888)
Todd Day (887)

in that I would also think Chris Mills fits this profile pretty well. Kittles, Terry Mills, and Dee Brown also had decent size careers for people being not the familiar with them.

I don't quite know how Raef Lafrentz's expiring contract, Q or Todd Day fit into the profile.

Personally, I wish that he would go back to claiming how Micheal Oher would revolutionize the NFL, and keep his sensationilism out of the NBA.

Obviously that was not the point of the book, and I'm assuming you know that, but you do realize Oher is about to be a first-round pick, don't you? And that he was an AP All-American this past year?

Supposedly, Jackson asked Kobe to be that type of player. He refused and that probably cost both he and Shaq some championships.

Maybe, but again, it was Buss who didn't want to pay Shaq 20M a year for his dotage. Bryant bears a lot of responsbility for what happened, but so do O'Neal, Buss, and Jackson. And, given where the Lakers are now, it is hard to second-guess the decision to let O'Neal walk, in spite of Bynum's latest injury.

As I have said every time this comes up, Bryant has his faults and he is slightly overrated as a player. But the positives outweigh the negatives by a wide margin. He is one of the 5-10 best in the league.

I enjoyed this, as I do anything Lewis writes on sports, but all the "N.B.A." references drove me a little bit C.R.A.Z.Y.

There is a difference between what more often are called "intangibles" - purported leader in the clubhouse, leads others to work out harder by example, sets a professional tone, projects calm in the midst of a bad start to a game - and something else being talked about here.

There are basketball players about whom little can be said in their favor beyond what is on that boxscore sheet. Others are able to incorporate themselves into the flow of the game so well that good things happen for their teams.
An example would be a loose ball, where a teammate and an opposing player each have the only shot to grab at it. Some players can only grasp that they can't get to it. Others can sense that even if they can't get it, the angle from which they are going for it coincides with the angle of the opposing player. They wind up bumping that player or just altering the angle enough so that the teammate gets the ball. It's subtle, but it matters.

That sort of thing also can come into play off missed second free throws, if you're looking for it you can see it.

It is a tricky thing, though: You don't just endow any scrub on a title team with this quality, or dismiss the guy whose team didn't make the playoffs.

e is one of the 5-10 best in the league.

No one should argue this point.

Maybe, but again, it was Buss who didn't want to pay Shaq 20M a year for his dotage. Bryant bears a lot of responsbility for what happened, but so do O'Neal, Buss, and Jackson. And, given where the Lakers are now, it is hard to second-guess the decision to let O'Neal walk, in spite of Bynum's latest injury.

Even before Shaq walked there was a loss to DEEEEEETROIT BAS-Ket-BALL. Some of that was due to disfunction, and you can pass that around also. There are definately two championships in the post Shaq era that could have come to LA.

I don't see how the Lakers current position really ways too much on the Shaq decision. I'm not sure Odom has ever felt comfortable or been the cog you needed. The only expensive player on the bench was Radmonovich, and he and his Vans were sent packing. I presume that you still want to draft Bynum, so he is still with the team. The big difference is probably Pau, but I don't think it was part of the game plan to be able to get one of the world's best players for some naval lint.

@Backlasher: the fact that all of those numbers of 907 or less implies that there aren't many players with a similar career to Battier. For example, Battier doesn't even make Raja Bell's most similar list, which suggests there are more players that look like Raja Bell than players that look like Battier.

(To be fair, none of those numbers include various bits of defense: they're all based on traditional statistics so you only get blocks and steals. That's why Lafrentz looks like Battier: one could imagine Lafrentz as being an approximation of a Battier without much of the positioning and effort plays.)

For a more extreme example, Michael Jordan's most similar player is listed as Charles Barkley (759). That doesn't mean that those two are similar, but rather it gives an indication of how unique Jordan is in NBA history.

It's subtle, but it matters.


That is true, but some things lost, particularly when Lewis gets his hands on it. FOr instance, Lewis wants to prop Battier's knowledge up so high, he ends up overly diminishing Battier's skill set.

For instance, consider another Duke alumni, Billy King. King excelled at all the same things that Lewis extols about Battier. The difference is that Battier can shoot better than King, is bigger than King, and is probably more athletic than King (if you could reduce that to a measure).

Smart Billy King still found a place in basketball. He has been a coach, GM, or other front office person for a nice career. The difference is that Smart Shane Battier also has the size and athleticism to play in the NBA. Reading Lewis' article, you would think that Battier is the size of Nate Robinson with the foot speed of Greg Ostertag. He just overcomes this by solving basketball mysteries with maths.

The big difference is probably Pau, but I don't think it was part of the game plan to be able to get one of the world's best players for some naval lint.

I always thought it was funny how some Lakers fans act like Mitch Kupchak's master plan was always to trade Caron Butler for 2.5 useless years of Kwame Brown and then turn around and deal Brown for a top 20 player. Kupchak got so unbelievably lucky to get bailed out of the decision to trade for Brown. That said, Pau's brother is much better than I expected him to be (losing weight can really help a big man), so Memphis didn't get quite as little in return as it first appeared. Marc is nowhere near as good as Pau, obviously, but he is useful.

Even before Shaq walked there was a loss to DEEEEEETROIT BAS-Ket-BALL.

The Pistons were just better than the Lakers, and IMO would have been if Kobe had turned into a basketball Mother Teresa. After adding RWallace, the Pistons were the best in the league, statistically and otherwise. With Malone out, the Lakers were simply not as good as the Pistons. Even with Malone there, the Pistons still take the series in 6 or 7. Payton's not being able to fit his game into the scheme and a lack of decent depth were far bigger problems with that team than the Shaq v. Kobe stuff.

If the Lakers had kept Shaq, they probably never get Bynum, or Gasol, as you note. WRT Odom, he is an odd player--does a little of everything, but is not great at anything and has a 3's mindset in a 4's body. That said, he was doing very well as 6th man and is now in a contract drive with Bynum out, as his big game on TV at Cleveland showed.

I always thought it was funny how some Lakers fans act like Mitch Kupchak's master plan was always to trade Caron Butler for 2.5 useless years of Kwame Brown and then turn around and deal Brown for a top 20 player.

It was Jackson who wanted Brown.

Kupchak has been lucky in some ways, and has done some smart things and some dumb things. Just like Danny Ainge.

The Pistons were just better than the Lakers, and IMO would have been if Kobe had turned into a basketball Mother Teresa. After adding RWallace, the Pistons were the best in the league, statistically and otherwise. With Malone out, the Lakers were simply not as good as the Pistons. Even with Malone there, the Pistons still take the series in 6 or 7. Payton's not being able to fit his game into the scheme and a lack of decent depath were far bigger problems with that team than the Shaq v. Kobe stuff.

I don't know, Kobe played exceptionally poorly in the losses in that series. With him playing a more team oriented game and Malone healthy, I think LA wins the title even though Detroit was an exceptional team after they acquired Rasheed. I still can't believe they got Rasheed from Atlanta for so little, even all these years later. Too many stupid teams bought into all the bad things he brings to the table and ignored all the great things he does.

It was Jackson who wanted Brown.

Even if that's true, so what? Kupchak's the GM, not Phil. A good GM would have never thought Brown was worth giving Butler up for. Butler's not the greatest player around but he's far more valuable than Brown and always has been, at least imo.

A good GM would have never thought Brown was worth giving Butler up for.

I've fallen into the Kwame trap before myself. You see the guy's size and athleticism; you see flashes of him asserting himself in the paint; and you think he SHOULD be a great player.

still can't believe they got Rasheed from Atlanta for so little, even all these years later.

I think that was fallout from the JR RIder fiasco. The Hawks did not want to have another control issue, and Sheed purportedly has baggage. The Hawks were not the most functional unit at that time anyway.

Even if that's true, so what? Kupchak's the GM, not Phil. A good GM would have never thought Brown was worth giving Butler up for.

Jackson is a huge deal out here, and at the time, Kupchak was under fire, so it is not that simple. I was intensely critical of Kupchak for years, but he has done a very good job the last three years.

I don't know, Kobe played exceptionally poorly in the losses in that series. With him playing a more team oriented game and Malone healthy, I think LA wins the title even though Detroit was an exceptional team after they acquired Rasheed.

Naw. It's funny--people who dislike Kobe Bryant try to make him into some kind of mind-controlling wizard who determines how everyone else plays. That Laker team was using Brian Cook, Kareem Rush, Devean George, and Slava Medvedenko for heavy minutes. The Lakers are winning now because they have a secondary star (Gasol), a guy who who clogs up the paint and can convert inside (Bynum, when available) and have the other positions covered with 2 decent players at each (Walton/Ariza, Farmar/Fisher plus Odom and Vujacic). It's not that complicated.

I've fallen into the Kwame trap before myself. You see the guy's size and athleticism; you see flashes of him asserting himself in the paint; and you think he SHOULD be a great player.

Hands. His hands are small for a man of his size, and they are made of balsa wood. This made it hard for him to convert in traffic, which frustrated everybody. That plus his bad head/lowrev motor makes him what he is.

Hands, incidentally, are one of the things that separate MJ from Bryant. Jordan has massive mitts even for a guy 6'6" which was one of the things that kept his turnover rate down even when he was handling the ball every trip. Kobe has good hands and they are pretty big--but, well, Jordan was Jordan.

I've noticed that a lot of the stars in all the sports have huge hands. I like to believe that is why I am not a professional athlete. I like to delude myself.

Anyway when was the last time you heard anyone say the preeminent players in a sport had small hands?

Boxing? No way
Football?
Baseball?
Basketball?
Hockey?
Golf?
Bowling?

Two separate issues:

1) Players undervalued by media--Battier fits here

and

2) Players undervalued by teams--Battier is, as several mentioned, not a great fit for this category. Yes, he isn't a max player, but he has played a lot and been highly valued by many teams. You would have to trade a lot to get him.

I would suspect that the NBA has many players who are undervalued by the media but highly valued by their teams not just because basketball stats are weak but because NBA staffs spend an enormous amount of time watching video of their own teams, something reporters (understandably) never do. The paucity of stats has meant that coaches have always known there were aspects of the game not captured by them. These aren't the vague intangibles but the real unmeasurables--the guy who makes what Hubie Brown called the "hockey pass," the pass that sets up the assist rather than the assist itself, the guy who rotates over on defense.

They watch tape to see literally what happened, instead of to explain why it happened. They begin with the premise that the box score does not explain much, and no NBA coach has ever tried to argue otherwise.

The flip side of this is that I'm not sure exactly how much statistics will help. Maybe they will, but it's a very different situation than baseball. In baseball you had people making unexamined, highly counterproductive decisions, and better statistics emerged in part to prove this. In basketball you have staffs make highly examined decisions based not upon "the book" but the tape. In the end, does a stat express a player's defensive rotation better than a coach's hundreds of hours of film watching? Maybe.

A kid named Paul B (cannot remember his last name) wrote an interesting paper using multivariate analysis on the interdependencies on a basketball court. Not a real fan of the game but that paper had some really good work. I wonder if he's working for a front office somewhere?

On the hands issue one of Favre's legit physical assets is that his hands are much bigger than most quarterbacks. Until he broke his thumb in 1999 Favre ALWAYS played well in bad weather because his big hands allowed him to squeeze a wet/cold ball far better than his counterparts. Once his thumb got hurt he couldn't squeeze as well so his accuracy eroded. The ball would sail far more often.

Golf?

I watch a lot of golf, and I don't remember any announcers really mentioning this about the greats. Due to the size of the instruments used and the manner in which they are held, I'd almost guess that abnormally large hands would be a detriment.

Backlasher, predictably, is wrong. Just like with baseball, basketball statheads started out as whiny losers on the internet saying that Allen Iverson was overrated. Then teams started hiring them as consultants, and now some smart young guys are GMs.

He is also wrong about basketball stathead stuff not being about value. It's about that too. Most notably for those of you guys who are casual NBA fans, the mainstream media has just recently started writing about Lebron James being a contender for "Best player in the NBA" over Kobe. Lebron has been the best player in the league for 2-3 years, and he took the crown from Duncan, not Kobe.


Also, +/- is terrible, but people need to learn to read. Morey is claiming his people have some sort of proprietary adjusted +/-.


GregD- Just last year the Mavericks traded Devin Harris for Jason Kidd. Devin Harris was better than Jason Kidd, but for some reason the Mavericks threw in the extra value. And the Mavericks aren't a really dumb team, either. They just whiffed badly on player evaluation.

We had a point guard in Boston who refused to pass the ball to a certain guy.”

So, as non-NBA fan, can someone identify both players for me?

Thanks

I'm guessing Antoine Walker was the guy not getting the ball.

I have no interest in basketball but I found this article very interesting.

The interesting thing about this article, to me, is that it shows that certain teams' proprietary research is a few lightyears ahead of anyone else's outside the game. The Rockets probably think that John Hollinger is a donkey.

The Rockets probably think that John Hollinger is a donkey.

Is he playing A-rag in early position?

it shows that certain teams' proprietary research is a few lightyears ahead of anyone else's outside the game.

I don't think it shows much of anything, other than what the Rockets are willing to say about one of their players and what Lewis crafted his statement about that to be.

This might sound anti-Battier. It's not - he's long been a poster child for adjusted +/- metrics and for good reason. But, as Backlasher noted, there's a difference b/w being a "marginal" NBA athlete and bottom of the barrel or non-pro caliber (marginal is too strong, imo, I'd say below average).

The Rockets probably think that John Hollinger is a donkey.

Nah. He's Neyer, no shame in that.

Opposing player's shooting percentage? (The guy you're guarding, that is)

This has little credibility, given how far away from NBA caliber comp it is, but... I remember the one player-season I had where I was selfish. I was on a tremendous hot streak when it came to stopping my man and it got to point where I was less willing to switch off, even on penetration, in order to keep my scoreless streak intact. (I also wasn't shooting at all, as part of a conflict with our lead guard. Lot of selfishness and bad decisions on that team - so of course we won our league.)

all the "N.B.A." references drove me a little bit C.R.A.Z.Y.

That's a NYT thing, right?

Anyway when was the last time you heard anyone say the preeminent players in a sport had small hands?

Jake La Motta had these small hands, like a little girl's hands.

Daryl Morey was with the Celtics from 2003-4 to 2005-6 seasons. Point guards in that time: Chucky Atkins, Marcus Banks, Gary Payton, Orien Greene, Dan Dickau

Antoine Walker was only on the team for a brief period, in that time.

Anyway when was the last time you heard anyone say the preeminent players in a sport had small hands?

Bobsled?

orien greene wasn't a position to deny the ball from anybody. :)

Obviously it was Dan Dickau refusing to pass to Brian Scalabrine. "I am the best white guy on this team and don't you forget it!!!"

Dickau is now playing in Germany, BTW.

I have no interest in basketball but I found this article very interesting.

I agree. (Although, I have a slight interest in SU basketball. Can't escape your youth.)

I don't think it shows much of anything, other than what the Rockets are willing to say about one of their players and what Lewis crafted his statement about that to be.

The probability stuff - for example, allowing Kobe Bryant to drive to the hoop instead of taking a jump shot from 7 feet out is an expected loss of 3/8 of a point - nobody in the media has access to information like that. Hollinger would need all of the film and a small army of interns.

Nah. He's Neyer, no shame in that.

The equivalent in baseball would be Neyer pinning his entire daily discussion of baseball on Adjusted Range Factor, while the teams know that if a player hits the ball at angle 36 with a trajectory of 24 degrees at 86 mph, and Jeter is standing at coordinates X,Y and slightly leaning to the left because he expects a breaking ball, he has a 43% chance of fielding the ball and a 36% chance of recording an out at first.

Basically, a stathead trying to glean information from NBA box scores is a joke.

I strongly, strongly suspect the PG/"other guy" were Gary Payton and Wally Szcerbiak. Both have reputations as ########.

Basically, a stathead trying to glean information from NBA box scores is a joke.

So you think, say, 82games provides no insight, whatsoever? Their lineup based stuff is quite insightful.

Orien Greene played 15 minutes a game for that horrible, horrible Celtics team. Delonte West spent a lot of time at point guard too, I forgot about that.

So you think, say, 82games provides no insight, whatsoever?

No, it's certainly not useless. It's better than the box score itself. But it can't possibly approach the depth of analysis that Lewis suggests the Rockets are capable of

Nah. He's Neyer, no shame in that.

He is Neyer NOW maybe, but he got there partly by putting together an Abstract-type annual all by his lonesome, which Neyer never did. Dean Oliver is the closest thing to a James-type guy.

true, but it's not like neyer hasn't put out a steady stream of books either (in a world where stat-oriented baseball annuals already existed). there are differences, don't get me wrong, and i could list pros and cons for both, but i was just trying to analogize hollinger's role in the basketball world. that said, PER has had an influence beyond anything i'm aware of neyer doing...
i thought of the oliver/james analogy too, but decided i wasn't keen on it. i saw things like what oliver was trying to do years earlier - it was just the wrong time, with not enough data.

But it can't possibly approach the depth of analysis that Lewis suggests the Rockets are capable of

<emphasis mine>
But that's the rub. I don't feel I learned what the Rockets can do - how those estimates were derived. Heck, I could bs some numbers for that very scenario (not that I'd place much stock in them). Unless we know what Houston's doing (and they shouldn't tell us), we can't assess (at a micro level) if they're any good (or appreciably better than what I could do with shot zones and a decent regression model).

I generally don't care much about basketball, but I agree that this was an enjoyable article.

These aren't the vague intangibles but the real unmeasurables--the guy who makes what Hubie Brown called the "hockey pass," the pass that sets up the assist rather than the assist itself, the guy who rotates over on defense.

This is why I think there aren't a large number of players that are undervalued by the media. For instance, your example lists someone that has spent almost as many years being a color commentator as he has an NBA coach. Basketball fans have been lucky to get folks like Hubie Brown. Back in the studios, you can see the same things from The Jet during Kenny's pictures; he will show you the player making "the best pass" as opposed to "the pass to get an assist." Greg Anthony has also been very good at filling that role.

Walton tends to McCarver-it-up, and talk more about celebrity than actuality. He is too quick to diminish a player that isn't nationally known. Nevertheless, I don't think you see this across the board. The resounding sound byte from last year's playoffs was people recognizing the value that James Posey was bringing to the Celtics.

I can remember watching the Hawks in the late 70s and early 80s. Even then, the announcers were extolling the virtues of Dan Roundfield and Tree Rollins without being as complimentary over the higher scoring John Drew.

He is Neyer NOW maybe, but he got there partly by putting together an Abstract-type annual all by his lonesome, which Neyer never did. Dean Oliver is the closest thing to a James-type guy.

I agree, there aren't any BIG BAD BOOKS OF BASKETBALL shoe laces. Oliver and Hollinger were looking for insight and they were publishing their own works. They weren't riding on other coat tails, trying to gloss over their lack of knowledge with a bunch of mean statements, or publishing statements they couldn't back up. Hollinger has never called a single player anything like "Grimace". I don't think he is ever called a GM, an "idiot" He has never done a blog that was totally about tearing apart another person. His contributions aren't "Hollinger Counts". Comparing Hollinger to Neyer is an insult to Hollinger.

Anyway when was the last time you heard anyone say the preeminent players in a sport had small hands?

I found this kind of interesting so I did some googling.
This article describes a little bit how different body types work better with different sports. It seems that the small hands usually come with endomorphic body types. Top athletes in this body type usually do well in endurance events. (How big are Papi, Babe Ruth, Rick Reuschel, Terry Forster and David Wells hands?)

Most of the popular sports are usually those with fast bursts so we see more of the mesomorphic body types.

As for hands, has anybody noticed the size or Chris Webber's hands. He has one of those Jai alia xisteras at the end of his wrist.

But that's the rub. I don't feel I learned what the Rockets can do - how those estimates were derived. Heck, I could bs some numbers for that very scenario (not that I'd place much stock in them). Unless we know what Houston's doing (and they shouldn't tell us), we can't assess (at a micro level) if they're any good (or appreciably better than what I could do with shot zones and a decent regression model).

You may could. I don't think the message is that the NBA teams would crush all the puny statmen out there. (They would crush some of those people purported to be sabermetricians). The issue is that the NBA has cared about collecting and analyzing data for a very long time. I don't recall if it was Oliver, but one cagermatrician told a story of offering his research to a team== the response was, "We have got all of that".

Obviously talented researchers/analysts that have a love for the game can find a role in the sport. Oliver is/did consult with the Sonics/Thunder. However, they have largely kept out most of the junk stats, junk conclusions and the name calling.


I don't see anything about the publically available information that couldn't be done by most anyone mathematically inclined. I think the earlier point is the accurate one though. Its a hell of a lot of multivariate data, and you need labor hours to dissect it. You can't just buy a stream of all of it from STATS, Inc.

I seem to remember an article from SI in the early 90's that talked about the detail analysis that teams were already doing in basketball. This was long before I ever heard anything about sabermetrics.

Posey(and Bruce Bowen) are both significantly less valuable players than Shane Battier.

The resounding sound byte from last year's playoffs was people recognizing the value that James Posey was bringing to the Celtics.

Yeah, and the resounding sound bite of the Angels WS title was the value David Eckstein has brought.

Do you not have ESPN.com on your internet? Posey went from the Celtics to the Hornets and the Celtics are playing .800 ball without him. Paying a tiny bit of attention will prevent you from embarrassing yourself like this again.


Also, wrt your random anecdotes about Tree Rollins, you are acting like Lewis wrote that the Rockets discovered the concept of defense, which is absolutely not what the article is talking about.

Anyway when was the last time you heard anyone say the preeminent players in a sport had small hands?

Dave Krieg had famously small hands when he was playing in the NFL. He wasn't ever a preeminent player in the sport, though he actually fashioned a pretty good career. The small hands were a liability.

Lewis, I think, is not entirely unwilling to exaggerate and oversimplify for the sake of a better story. But I still think he gets the larger story right most of the time, including here, I suspect.

These aren't the vague intangibles but the real unmeasurables--the guy who makes what Hubie Brown called the "hockey pass," the pass that sets up the assist rather than the assist itself, the guy who rotates over on defense.

Such passes may generally go unmeasured, but they are by no means unmeasurable. The Rockets are probably measuring them -- and presumably they're not the only ones.

I found this. I am hopeful folks take it in the spirit intended and don't rip the young man's efforts. This would appear to be a serious quantitative effort versus some simple Excel handiwork.

Paul Bessire, Measuring Individual and Team Effectiveness in the NBA Through Multivariate Regression, June 3, 2005 (Michael Fry, Jeffrey Ohlmann [University of Iowa], David Kelton)
At the conclusion of the 2003-04 National Basketball season, the Detroit Pistons, without one player among the NBA's top ten scoring leaders, found themselves atop the NBA with a championship ring. Conversely, Team USA, composed of the most individually talented players in the world, failed to win Gold in the 2004 Olympics. How could this happen? We believe that much of the variation found in a basketball team's success can be explained mathematically through looking at the interactions of the five players on the court and not just individual player abilities. We examine several methods for rating individual NBA players and we utilize multivariate regression analysis to assist in building successful NBA teams. We seek to predict the success of an NBA lineup consisting of the five players on a court at any time. We measure success as the lineup's average scoring margin per minute. In order to predict a lineup's success we consider a set of individual player attributes that serve as our explanatory variables. We use two-way interactions between player abilities to help explain teamwork in the NBA. Applications of the model include examining which players should play at each position, predicting the lineups that should have the greatest team success, and specifying which skill areas the coaching staff should seek to improve through the annual NBA draft, free agency, and trades.

Dave Krieg had famously small hands when he was playing in the NFL. He wasn't ever a preeminent player in the sport, though he actually fashioned a pretty good career. The small hands were a liability.

they also used to mumble this sometimes about Troy Aikman--his smallish hands were a cause for fumbling and especially, why he had such trouble in bad weather (or so they said)

Does Daunte Culpepper have small hands, or is he just amazingly unaware of his surroundings?

PH:

Correct.

At the combine the measuring of the qb's hands is actually something scouts look for with tremendous interest. It isn't so much the fumbling as much as it is being able to control the release of the ball in rain, snow, wind, etc. Being able to squeeze the ball is an important innate skill.

I suspect that the 40 yard completion by Ben R. in the Super Bowl where he double-clutched would not have been possible by a qb with smaller hands. Ben was able to hold onto the ball well into his motion whereas another qb may have had control problems.

there were some very interesting insights in this article. still, missed was the fact that memphis was a bad, bad team in battier's first 2 years there, and that perhaps his teams at duke and memphis (in years 3 and beyond) and houston had some things going for them beyond battier's contributions that helped make them winners?

he's a great complementary player, a very useful part to a good team. but a team full of battiers would probably be a lottery team, no?

but a team full of battiers would probably be a lottery team, no?

No ####. Way to miss the point of the article, and of basketball itself.

Daryl Morey never should have written this article.

Of course, but a team full of Kevin Martins or Joe Johnsons would be a lottery team too, and I don't mean just because somebody has to play center. All that means is that Battier has a specific skill set that needs to mesh with players with different ones. I think Lewis' point is that the Martins and the Johnsons are much more highly valued than the Battiers (no one is denying that Battier is no LeBron or Duncan or Paul).

That said, while I like the article, I'm not sure this is generally true. Battier may be an exception because he does seem to be a legitimately excellent player, but it seems like the James Poseys of the world get overrated, not underrated.

Dean Oliver rocks!

a team full of battiers would probably be a lottery team, no?

Yes, they would be a lottery team. Battier is possibly a great complementary player but he offers too few of the traditional "tangible" things to be a truly great player. The article says that he can't create his own shot at all, which is true if you watch a Rocket game. A team of 12 Battiers (with heights to match their positions) might be able to hold teams to 80 points per game (probably not, because he isn't an especially good rebounder for a guy as big as he is, excuses about how he tips the ball out a lot notwithstanding) but it would score 70 points per game, if that. His offensive game is not great for an NBA player, though he usually gets the most out of what he has by only taking shots he has a chance to make.

Way to miss the point of the article, and of basketball itself.

Why not tell us what the point was? Was it that Battier has not been valued throughout his career? Patently false. Was it that teams should look beyond the box score? They have for decades, if not for the entirety of NBA history. Was it that basketball takes a lot of teamwork? Obviously, which is why Chairman Mao decreed that it would be the sport of choice for the proletariat. Was it that Morey is revolutionizing GM'ing? If so, where is the proof? Is it that he traded for Ron Artest, a former defensive player of the year, this offseason? That he re-signed Dikembe Mutombo, another former defensive player of the year, this season? Is it that he lets Rafer Alston, a guy who is terrible, be the PG of his team? Or that Aaron Brooks, another terrible player, is the backup PG?

He traded for Luis Scola the summer before, which was a good move, but Scola had long been known as a good player among people who follow non-NBA basketball: he was the all time leading scorer in the Euroleague and an Olympic gold medalist who put up 25/11 in the gold medal game. He would have been in the NBA years earlier if his Spanish League buyout hadn't been around $15 million (the NBA caps the amount teams can give non-NBA teams for buyouts at $500,000, otherwise somebody would have paid the $15 million). The one move that was somewhat under the radar was drafting Carl Landry near the beginning of the 2nd round of the 2007 draft, but every team has hit on a few 2nd round picks.

I think that in order to prove that the way other people are doing things is wrong, you have to do something pretty different than what other people would do. So far, all Morey has done is try to acquire people who everybody already considered good players (with the possible exception of Landry, who would have got drafted at some point, perhaps just not in the top half of the 2nd round). I guess Wafer was a nice move, but they only kept him because he played so well in the pre-season, which suggests stupidity on their part.

As a Rocket fan (Yao is my favorite player), I certainly wish Morey all the success in the world, but so far he has not been very distinguishable from most other GMs. Perhaps he arrives at the reasons to trade for Artest or re-sign Mutombo in different ways than another GM would, but why should anybody care even if that is true? Until he does something truly different like trade Yao for David Lee or something, his process is just a difference of degree. Every team has always valued defense. They've always valued shooting. They've always valued intelligent players (Bill Bradley is in the Hall of Fame with career averages of 12/3/3, for ####'s sake). This is not new. Attempts to measure those things are also not new. Until Morey can show his way of measuring those things is better than anybody else's, he's just a GM like any other one.


Mark Cuban and the Mavs have their own proprietary +/- system and he recently released their system's top players for the first half. Jason Kidd being the 2nd best player in the NBA by their numbers probably has a lot to do with why they traded for him last year and why they supposedly won't trade him now. Of their system's top 10 players, 4 are guys who are widely viewed as top 10 players (#1 LeBron, #3 Wade, #4 Chris Paul, #10 Yao), 3 are guys who are multiple time all-stars (#2 Kidd, #6 Ray Allen, #7 Rashard Lewis), 2 are young guys seen as future stars (#5 Iguodala, #8 Okafor) and 1 guy is pretty surprising (#9 Randy Foye). What do 9 of the top 10 have in common? They all make max or very close to max money. Foye hasn't been eligible for an extension yet but he'll likely get $10 million or more per year as well and was the #7 pick in the draft. My point is that all of those guys are seen as extremely valuable throughout the league, which is why they make big money, why they were top 10 draft picks (except for Lewis), why they make multiple all-star and Olympic teams and why acquiring them would be very difficult. Of the top 30, only Jarvis Hayes, Sebastian Telfair, and Matt Bonner are guys who don't or won't soon make huge money. Even then, Telfair and Hayes were lottery picks. Grant Hill doesn't make $10 million a year either but that's because he was so injury prone during his last max deal.

The salary cap is a severely limiting factor in what a smart GM can do vs. what a stupid GM can do. It's pretty much the luck of the draw whether you are able to draft a guy like LeBron (#1 pick), Wade (#5), Paul (#4), or Yao (#1). Even the dumbest GM can fill in some good or at least OK players around that type of player if given enough time. But even the smartest GM can't entirely fill their roster with good players because there aren't enough of them available at low enough prices.

Dean Oliver works for the Nuggets as Director of Quantitative Analysis. He moved from the Sonics a few years ago.

Anyway when was the last time you heard anyone say the preeminent players in a sport had small hands?

Soccer players?

JoeHova- It is amusing, because that is the exact same critique people leveled against Beane after Moneyball. Of course teams love OBP, Rickey Henderson was a star. Outfield defense is important? There have been good defensive outfields before. etc. etc.

I like that you casually brush aside Scola and Landry, though. Whatever, everyone finds good players for almost nothing. That one team has managed to find two in the space of 2 years? Who cares! They traded for Ron Artest, many teams could've, but they were the team that did.

The analogy to Moneyball holds on the bigger picture stuff, too. You are also taking away that the point of the article was that the Rockets figured out defense is important, but that's simply not the case. The article was about the way they approach the game.

Bill Bradley is in the Hall of Fame with career averages of 12/3/3

Bradley is not in the HOF as an NBA player, of course {/nitpick}

If Battier is an exceptionally valuable player but five of him would be a lottery team, that has interesting implications back to baseball. At least to my feeble way of thinking. Seven David Ortizes (plus P and C, the truly specialized positions) would have a larger version of the Battier problem (even with the offense they'd produce, they'd have the worst defense ever contemplated in the majors, particularly their immobile left-handed infield). But a team of seven decent complementary baseball players (seven Placido Polancos?) – they'd probably be pretty good; at least, no team has hitters as strong as Polanco at every position, and he'd be a decent-enough defender at all positions save P and C. Or am I overrating my Polancos?

If Battier is an exceptionally valuable player but five of him would be a lottery team, that has interesting implications back to baseball.

Not really :P The reason Battier's value can vary so widely in the context of different teams is because basketball as a sport is based around interaction with one's teammates. Baseball has remarkably little of that. Double plays require teamwork, and some other fielding plays. That's really about it, and of course those are not the most important aspects of the sport. Baseball is first and foremost about the individual pitcher vs. the individual batter; secondly, as a subset of what happens there, the individual fielder. This stuff is very interesting with respect to basketball, but the concept doesn't really apply to baseball IMO. Well, I guess the quote in #11 said this better than I did.

Phil Birnbaum chimed in on Sunday.

DA, you are quite right of course; I was thinking solely about baseball, trying to think of how certain individuals in baseball are all-purpose players (Polanco) and others are not (Ortiz), as well as thinking of the quality issue.

Baseball does not depend on interaction, but certain player types are complementary and others are all-purpose. That's a better way of putting it; it's not so much that Polanco blends well with teammates à la Battier, but that he can do different things if asked to do them, and is not great at anything (hence a whole team of him would do OK, I think). Meanwhile Ortiz had better not play left field if you want to win, just as Yao Ming should not be your point guard ...

Seven David Ortizes (plus P and C, the truly specialized positions) would have a larger version of the Battier problem

Seven David Ortizes would have a larger version of just about everything.

Don't most people say that Kobe got small hands. And Ewing too.

Basketball needs a BBTF type sight that aggregates good basketball stories/news/analysis to build, share, and spread some basketball information.

I thought that Courtside Times was going to be that site, but it never happened.

There are a lot of people here who know more about basketball than I do, so I won't try to talk about advanced metrics or anything like that. I did happen to go to Duke at the same time as Battier, however, and I can say that:

*On the handful of times when I (briefly) talked to him, he was a very, very nice guy.
*He comes across as a very smart guy for a student-athlete, even by Duke standards.
*Lewis is right about him being preternaturally mature as a player. I watched an awful lot of games, and thinking back, I can't come up with a single instance where he had the ball and I was worried that he'd #### something up. Which is actually kind of creepy.

I find Truehoop to be a very good aggreator.

Vlad, I suppose you didn't find Corey Maggette to be a very, very nice guy and a very smart guy for a student-athlete.

Does Daunte Culpepper have small hands, or is he just amazingly unaware of his surroundings?

no one not even the rain has such small hands. e.e. cummings

I don't recall if it was Oliver, but one cagermatrician told a story of offering his research to a team== the response was, "We have got all of that".

This is a very, very vague memory. But I believe that story was told on our own site, by one of our members. And I think it was Rich Rifkin. And the team was the Sacramento Kings. He was tracking something like opponents field goal percentage. Not terribly confident about that, but, it may be true.

I never talked to Maggette, but the general consensus on campus was that he was dumb as ten Tommy Lasordas.

I find Truehoop to be a very good aggreator.

Yeah, I check that out now and again, but without snipping at the comment quality there, it's not designed to foster conversation.

As much as things get bogged down here with meta or hijacked threads, I think it's random luck that this site exists and developed as is. I mean, tracking number of comments, and having a last comment/hot topic sidebar is really simple (I assume, as not being very tech savvy), but lots of sites don't have it. And for some reason, there is a right mix to sustain multiple very active threads, that most forums can't match.