We are four humble men who love sports, but hate sports commentary. Peter Gammons is our hero and John Madden is our enemy. If you were to ask us our purpose, our answer would be simple: "We are forever locked in Mortal Kombat for the souls of sports fans everywhere. Statistics are our science and 'the immeasurable character of men' is the obsolete religion of blind faith. Our job is to prove that God doesn't exist and that athletes are merely cold, metal machines with no hearts or souls."
Before the Illini upset #5 ranked Michigan St, Bruce Weber challenged Tom Izzo to a free throw shooting contest in an effort to raise money for Coaches vs Cancer. To quote Tom Izzo
"It's something Bruce and I both believe in and this is a great way to let people know how much the cause matters to us."
They believe in fighting cancer...as opposed to all those other Big 10 coaches who are totally against it. I love unorganized events like these that put athletes outside their comfort zone. Like the bowling match today prior to the Super Bowl between Chris Paul and LaMar Woodley(Chris Paul won). I pegged the contests as a 9 to 7(out of 10) victory for Tom Izzo, who is notorious for dominating the charity stripe. Luckily we have video evidence in HD
Just as predicted, Izzo won the challenge 9 to 7, and both coaches pledged to donate $20k for cancer research. Kudos to them both. Maybe i'll put up a video of me draining it from the line one day. I'll challenge Izzo for his title any day
Why does nobody listen to The 'Bright' One? In a previous post, I pointed out a how the best basketball players in the NBA are all at the top 30 list of free throw attempts per game. The correlation between being good at basketball and getting to the free throw line is unfathomably high.
So i'm sitting in my room at 230 in the morning, studying for a crazy biochem exam, watching the Bulls exhibition game on tivo. The announcers bring up a Text Question to the audience. "What stat do you think will be the key for the Bulls in the 1st half?" Simple enough qustion. There is no right or wrong response. You can say, number of times Joakim Noah gets busted for pot, and that would be a fair response. However, the people making the multiple choice list of answers need to include the most relevant stat, and not just the most obvious ones. It's like voting for the MVP based on wins or RBIs. The 4 answer choices provided are FG shooting(yes putting that round thing into the round whole is important), 3-Pt shooting(yes putting that round thing into the round whole from really far away is important), Rebounding(Will be important when you cant put that round thing into that round whole), Steal(never heard of anyone winning a championship because of steals.
The fact that they didnt include FTA is disturbing to me. Yes, it's not flashy, but it's free points. With Ben Gordon gone, i have no clue who will be shooting free throws for us. Derrek Rose only averaged 4.5 last year and no one else has play-making ability. Just another reason the Bulls will probably suck this year. Cant wait for 2010. If Reinsdorf has enough money to buy the Phoenix Coyotes, he has enough money to buy Wade and Amare
Us Chicago Bulls fans have seen the immense potential of Derrick Rose lead the Bulls from a lackluster start all the way to the 6th spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Although smaller in size than LeBron James, Rose's athleticism and basketball IQ all point to the fact that he will be a superstar for many years to come. But how does Rose's rookie campaign compare to LeBron, as well as other young successful point guards Chris Paul and Deron Williams?
Truth be told, Rose's season compares favorably with each of the NBA superstars listed above. The most impressive part of Rose's game is his shooting percentage. While most rookies shoot in the low 40% range, Rose has a top shooting percentage for guards at 47.5%. Not to say that Rose is a pure shooter, which he definitely is not, but he has the unique ability to finish in the lane over or through centers. His ability to constantly penetrate the defense is possible the most important quality of any point guard, as it breaks down the defense and allows the player to finish or find the open man.
The assist numbers are very comparable among these particular players, except Chris Paul showed a superior ability to distribute with an 8 assist avegare, while the other players sit in the 6 assist range. Rose's greatest weakness was his ability to distribute the ball to the appropriate player, however, the Bulls recent stretch of 15 home wins in 16 games has been partially a product of Rose's ability to run the fast break and pitch the ball out to shooter like Gordon, Salmons, and Hinrich. Still he has yet to record a double digit assist game this season, but i expect his assist totals to jump into the 8 range much like Paul, Willians, and James had.
A second major complaint I have of Rose this season is his low free throw attempt numbers. He is only averaging 3.0 attempts per game. As i had pointed out in a previous post, nearly every NBA superstar is in the top 30 of free throw attempts per game. If he is able to improve in this essential category, Rose's point per game average can sky rocket from 17 to 22 points per game. This would be concurrent with James(+6.3) Paul(+1.2) Willaims(+5.4).
The biggest jump in production for most NBA players comes in the second year in the league, just look at players like Wade, Roy, and Bosh etc...if you need more verification. I'll go as far as predict that next year Rose will be the first Bulls all-star since the Michael Jordan era. I can't say if the supporting cast will be talented enough for the Bulls to compete for a title, but look out 2010.
Throughout my years of consuming NBA basketball, I have come across a very interesting observation. One of the best predictors of how valuable an NBA player is can be derived from his free throw attempts per game(FTA). This may seem obvious to some, but the exact correlation is actually very striking in how exact it is. On a yearly basis, the top 30 players in terms of FT per game will show you most of the top 30 players in the league. It's uncanny!
As the name indicates, these points are "free" and should never be underestimated in how valuable they are. The history of the NBA has shown that a top player for any given year most likely scores between 25-30 points per game. Now we have to consider how many field goal attempts he averaged that year. If a guy scores 20 points by taking 20 shots per game, he is a BAD player. That is a bad ration of points to shots and very inefficient if you want to win games. Think about it, most teams average between 75-80 shots per game. If your best player gets only 1 point for every shot he takes, your team isnt going to score much and lose. That is a problem with Derrick Rose at this point in his career. He does not get to the free throw line enough to be considered a top player. He averages about 16.5 points on 15 shots per game. That is highly inefficient. He only averages 3 FT's per game. A great player who scores 26 points per game will most likely average about 20 shots per game. When Kobe averaged 35 and T-Mac averaged 33, the didnt simply have out of this world seasons, they simply took more shots because the team around them sucked. Those years kobe took 27 shots, per game, much more than his career average of 19, and T-Mac took 24 shots that year well above his 18 career average.
What stays consistent year to year is free throw attempts is directly proportional to a players efficiency and most times effectiveness. One example from last night. Al Thornton shot 13-28 for 34 points. The extremely high shot total accounted for the 34 point game. He got to the line 6 times and made all 6 shots. So a solid but not great night for the 2nd year player. His teammate Eric Gordon shot 12-19 for 41 points. So he took 9 less shots and scored 7 more points. Far more efficient. How? He took 8 more free throws and made 6 more than Thornton. A spectacular night!! And it just so happens that the best and most talented guys are the ones who get to the line the most. Here is the top 20 this year in FTA per game. Tell me who of these is not great?
1 Dwight Howard (10.7) 2 Dwayne Wade 3 Kevin Martin(most underrated player in NBA) 4 Devin Harris 5 LeBron James 6 Corey Maggette 7 Chris Bosh 8 Shaq O'Neal 9 Danny Granger 10 Amare Staudemire 11 Brandon Roy 12 Kobe Bryant 13 Chris Paul 14 Paul Pierce 15 Kevin Durant 16 Carmelo Anthony 17 Dirk Nowitzki 18 Tim Duncan 19 Chauncey Billups 20 Gerald Wallace(6.4)
Coincidence, I think not.
2 examples on the other spectrum. Peja Stojakovic this year has taken just 44 free throws in 34 games and Bobby Simmons has only taken 31 free throws in 40 games. Both of these players are paid in excess of 10 million and both of them suck!
