Makes total sense that the league would want one of its very best players to be in a different market.

Just not in a huge market like LA…

…Oh, wait, yes in a huge market just exactly like LA.

Wait…

…dude I’m so confused now.

But this is accounted for all the time. How many times have you seen Jowles or even myself and others talk about league overall stats and how efficiency is always relative to the league averages?

If we take one of Bird’s seasons, let’s say 84-85, not his best and not his worst shooting, he had a .538 efg%, while the league overall shot .496. Comparing to Kevin Durant, last season he shot a .586 efg% while league average was .521.

How are those numbers not comparable? They show Bird was an absolutely fantastic player in comparison to the league at the time, and they show Durant is also fantastic but probably a slightly better shooter. Out of players who played relevant minutes, Poeltl lead the league in efg% last season with .660, while James Donaldson lead in 84-85 with a .637 (a big outlier, as the second was Artis Gilmore with .623 and the third was Otis Thorpe with only .600).

Of course the numbers alone don’t tell 100% everything about what you need to know about the players involved or the league in both eras, and not every aspect of the game can be compared in such an easy way, but the stats are definitely comparable and the comparison is clearly useful as a tool for analysis.

So. Many. Long. 2s.

This is one of many reasons I don’t think stats from the past are comparable to the present. I’d rather take an inventory of their skills. If Larry Bird was playing now, he’d be taking 3 times as many 3s and his TS% and PP36 would be higher. He’d also probably be working on them a lot harder than he did back then and be better at it.

It’s like watching a game from the Dark Ages, and it was only 10 years ago.

Why did the league want to break up NO again?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Katrina_in_New_Orleans

$70B in damages, as many as 1,464 dead, and 80% of the total area of the city was underwater 2 days after the storm hit. The local economy lost 70,000 jobs and payroll went down 13.6%. This while the franchise had just completed its 3rd season.

It was a small-market team in a decimated metropolitan area. Makes total sense that the league would want one of its very best players to be in a different market.

My fave is CP’s fake around 8:07 – soooo nasty.

Though Manu’s fake around 4:25 is kind of hilarious. So awkward it could’ve been me.

All in all, though, it reminded me how good Parker was in his prime. Not the player Paul was, but still, pretty damn good. So quick, so good with his dribble. I watch games like these (admittedly, highlights of a great game) and know why I was so disinterested in the playoffs the last few years.

This link got posted to one of the NBA subreddits. God damn, Chris Paul was amazing. He’s still great, but I forgot just how aggressive he was in the paint for so long. The guy looks like a 6’1″ Jordan in this one. Attack, attack, attack.

Also, there is no way you can teach this kind of spatial awareness. Look at his move at 2:28. He gets Parker destroyed by a great Chandler screen, gives a short hesitation move to draw the roll defender (a mediocre rim protector known as Tim Duncan and gives an easy lob to a streaking Chandler, who, as we know, has a nose for easy baskets.