User Blog - Jason

Last October, Jeff Clark from CelticsBlog coordinated yet another team-by-team season preview, featuring 63 NBA bloggers this time. As in 2006-07 and 2007-08, overoptimism was a general trend. As a result, this season brought plenty of disappointment: bloggers predicted a total of 236 more wins than their teams actually achieved.

Now that we have 3 years of predictions under our belts, I decided to plot actual vs. predicted wins for each team (throwing in 2005-06 actuals for context). Here's the result; click the team names below to update.

Interesting examples: ridiculous accuracy, great expectations, mediocrity defined, depressing trend.

Finally, this table compares the 2008-09 preview predictions to the each team's actual win total on the year. It's sortable—you can toggle the sort and direction by clicking the column headings.

The big news in Oakland tonight: the impending departure of Baron Davis. Because Baron's opting out of his contract and signing with the Clippers, the Warriors will soon have nothing to show for their top star but memories of last year's playoff run.

Unfortunately, losing talent for pennies on the dollar is nothing new for Warriors fans—it happens on a regular basis. Don't believe me? Take a look at what happened to the team's top performers from the past decade. The table below shows all seasons in which a Warriors player posted a Player Efficiency Rating of at least 18, which translates to a "Solid 2nd option" according to Hollinger.

Granted, some of these guys probably weren't worth what it would have taken to keep them around. And hey—2 of the 13 will most likely be back for next season. But when you effectively trade Baron, Gilbert, J-Rich, and Jamison for a half season of Nick the Quick and the upside potential of Brandan Wright, you're going to have a tough time staying competitive.

The Hornets fell just short of advancing to the Western Conference Finals, but Chris Paul's play was surely one of the highlights of the first two rounds. There's been a lot of talk about Paul's ascension to the NBA elite, and John Hollinger named him as his early playoffs MVP. In only his third season in the league, and at 22 years old (an age at which many of the all-time greats hadn't even begun their careers), Paul finished 2nd in MVP voting.

Given this, how much better can we expect CP3 to get? One way of guessing is to look at the careers of other NBA stars, as TZ ran a couple of weeks ago (spoiler alert: the title says that he has no ceiling). Here, I extracted a list of elite NBA players for comparison using data from basketball-reference.com. The list includes all players who achieved a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of at least 20.0 through at least 820 minutes in at least 3 seasons over the past 50 years. 106 players fit that criteria, and here's the average PER by age for these stars:

The basic shape is of course what you would expect - young players improve, and old players decline. The average peak age is 27. As it turns out, you can slice this data in a number of ways with these stars but still end up with the same peak. Players who enter the league before they turn 21, players who enter the league after they turn 21, players shorter than 6'4", players taller than 6'8" ... all peak at just about the same time:

That's not to say that there aren't differences, though. As you can see from this chart, shorter star players are outperformed by taller stars on average for most of their careers, but the ones that last into their late 30's contribute more than aging giants. This height-performance trend applies to NBA players in general as well as the elite players, although John Stockton's efficiency at the later stages of his career was a big factor in this relatively small sample. Stockton's per-minute output was amazingly consistent throughout his 30's; he just played less as he got older.

Given that shorter players tend to have a tougher time posting big numbers, we'll first show the 6-footer Paul's career trajectory compared to other shorter stars. Here he is vs. other players from the list of 106 stars who are 6'1" or shorter:

Impressive. Compared to similarly-sized players, he's already better at age 22 than any of them hit at any point in their careers. Here he is against 6'2" players, ...

... and against 6'3" stars (Fat Lever and Sidney Moncrief missed full seasons due to injury--this is reflected in gaps in their lines):

In fact, only one NBA player shorter than 6'6" has ever posted a single season PER score higher than the 28.3 score that Paul achieved this year: Dwyane Wade, who hit 28.9 as a 25-year-old. Or maybe two, if you don't buy Charles Barkley's official height—he posted a 28.9 as a 27-year-old.

Perhaps even more impressive is the way that Paul stacks up against the taller greats. CP3 already has the 10th-higest career PER in the history of the league. Here are the top 10:

Looking at these numbers, it's easy to claim that he's off to a Jordanesque start in terms of overall production (as is LeBron, for that matter: believe the hype).

Finally, here's a tool you can use run your own PER comparisons among top NBA stars. Choose up to 5 different players from the select boxes to add them to the chart below. Some examples to get you started: [2003 draft], [1984 draft], [2008 Celtics], [all-time Grizzlies greats].

Last October, Jeff Clark from CelticsBlog coordinated yet another team-by-team look at the 2007-08 season, featuring dozens of NBA bloggers. And once again, there was more than enough optimism to go around in the preseason ... with disappointment for many fans once the real games begun.

This table compares the preview predictions to the each team's actual win total on the year. It's sortable—you can toggle the sort and direction by clicking the column headings.

Interesting footnote: in the last two years, predictions in the range of 40-42 wins have been the kiss of death. Last year, 7 predictions came in at between 40 and 42 wins, and they overerstimated by an average of nearly 8 wins. This year was even worse—the 7 near-.500 predictions were off by a whopping 12 wins. Word to the wise: if you find yourself predicting a .500 record for your team next year, you may want to consider ratcheting down your expectations.

Congrats to the most accurate predictions from this year: TWolvesBlog, Pounding the Rock, Spur of the Moment, and Basketball John were all just one win off.

To see what fans are predicting for the playoffs, check out the master bracket from the BallHype playoffs pick'em contest.

For some time now, Deadspin has been running their Media Approval Ratings series--daily polls which ask readers their opinion of various members of the sports media. Some of the results have been predictable, others somewhat surprising, and on the whole, they've been very interesting.

Several times, I've found myself wanting to compare the results, so I decided to put something together here. You can fiddle with the controls below to toggle the sort and filter. The chart is updated daily with new personalities and late-arriving votes.

This is where Howie normally highlights some of the best comments from the past week. He's been busy setting up our big ShowHype Oscar Quiz, though, so I've been called in off the bench.

First off, TheHype Himself goes Rachael Ray on this blogging manifesto:

Next, Rod Benson's blogging sidekick gives a great example of justifiable homicide:

Finally, comment of the week goes to meech.one, for reminding us of the inimitable John Moschitta Jr.:

Also receiving votes: more Shaq persecution, jersey popping explained, and blogger stereotyping.

After I posted a set of maps last month denoting NBA player birthplace and high school locations, a few people wondered about per capita implications as well as other sports. Thankfully, I got an email from Andrew Percival, who a few years ago plotted much nicer-looking maps that tackle those very questions.

First, here's his NBA production map (click to enlarge), which shows how many high schoolers made it to the NBA for every 1 million males in each respective state. Not surprisingly, the results are quite similar to what Truth About It calculated from the later birth stats, with states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Illinois, Iowa, and South Dakota producing more than their share of players. When presented in this format, it's evident that there isn't much of a strong regional pattern.

Next up is his MLB production map (again, click to enlarge), which shows stronger geographic patterns. As a warm-weather sport, baseball's strength is in states with mild to subtropical climates, with Washington and North Dakota being the only real northern outliers.

My favorite was this NFL production map, which is even more geographically concentrated in the Southeast. No shocker here--Sarge at First and 10 Inches pointed out just yesterday that 32 of this year's top 50 high school senior football prospects are from Florida, Georgia, Texas and Alabama.

So why is basketball more geographically diverse? Andrew offered two explanations, paraphrased here:

• Basketball is can be played year-round, indoors and out, so it doesn't rely on optimal weather conditions.
• The basketball map is based on about 1/3 as many players as baseball and 1/5 as many players as football. The smaller sample size increases the relative importance of each individual player, contributing to the more checkerboard like pattern.

His last gift was a set of Google Earth files which frankly make my old Google Maps offerings look like garbage. (You can download Google Earth here, but don't blame me if you get sucked into zooming in and out on your neighborhood for the next 15 minutes.)

These files map the high school of every player in each league from last season. Click a dot to see which players are represented, and double-click to zoom in on the school. If you made it this far (and don't have vertigo), you'll love them.

Google Earth: NBA High School | MLB High School | NFL High School

2007 was a big year for sports blogs: fans turned to them in growing numbers, mainstream media took notice, and (some) bloggers got paid. To commemorate, we dug through the archives for the top 10 stories about the sports blog revolution.

	1. Deadspin: This Hurts Us More Than It Hurts You, Colin Posted April 5, 2007 Related: Do it Again and the Kitten Dies, Schreiber: Radio host's blog attack was 'off limits'
	2. Crashburn Alley: Conlin's Losing Numbers Posted November 23, 2007 Other sports journalists weren't too happy with the blogs, either: Stephen A Smith, Chris McCoskey, Sam Smith (but if you can't beat 'em ...)
	3. FanHouse: Sports Illustrated Steals From FanHouse and Gets Punk'd Posted July 7, 2007 Related: How to Give Blogs Credit: a Handy Guide for the Mainstream Media
	4. Larry Brown Sports: Sports Bloggers Can Be Hypocritical, and Lazy Posted July 26, 2007
	5. Ladies...: Hot Blogger Bracket Posted June 6, 2007 Or: 2007 Sports Blog of the Year Tournament
	6. TrueHoop: Major Announcement: TrueHoop is Becoming Part of ESPN Posted February 13, 2007
	7. Dan Shanoff & Jamie Mottram: The Top 20 Most Influential Sports Bloggers Posted March 1, 2007 Or if you prefer pictures--Jamie Mottram & Dan Shanoff: The Top 20 Most Influential: Sports Bloggers
	8. mgoblog: Breaking the Lloyd Carr Retirement Announcement Posted November 12, 2007
	9. 2007 BallHype Sports Blogger Study Posted August 1, 2007
	10. Dawg Sports: Deadspin, ESPN, and the Sports Media Revolution: A Blogosphere Anthem Posted July 22, 2007

The first annual BallHype Person of the Year award goes to ... You[tube]. If pictures are worth a thousand words, then a hilarious sports video is worth a million. With videos like these, who needs writing?

1. Giving Him The Business!

Found by Mr. Irrelevant

2. Trinity (TX) Laterals Their Way to Division III Win

Found by East Coast Bias

3. Miss Gossip Interviews Greg Oden

Posted by TheHype

4. Mayor of Cincinnati Not Much of a Pitcher

Found by With Leather

5. Craaaazieesst #$%^ing Fall In X-Games!!

Posted by TheHype

6. Mike Gundy Lectures the Oklahoma Media

Found by FanIQ Blog

7. Minor League Manager Meltdown

Found by Sox & Dawgs

8. Keep Your Eyes on the Bat

Posted by studes

9. Stephen A. Smith Heckled at the 2007 NBA Draft

Found by Deadspin

10. The Worst Flop Ever

Posted by gurdflavor

On Wednesday, Rob Iracane unveiled his picks for Deadspin commenters of the year, and Camp Tiger Claw came out on top. Regular comments section readers are well aware that CTC brings the funny, but was he really the #1 commenter for 2007?

To find out, I printed out each post from 2007, divided them up among 5 monkeys, and had them count up all of the +1's, +2's, +10's, and other variations that commenters have awarded each other—you know, in lieu of comment voting. (See footnote for a few caveats.) Before we get to the final tally, here are a few other nuggets we were able to extract:

• Most points awarded in a single comment: a hundred quadrillion.
• Fewest points awarded in a comment: 0.4 (S2N), 0.7 (Skeets)
• Most plusses received from the combudsman: 3 each for Camp Tiger Claw and UkraineNotWeak
• Most generous with the plusses: Signal to Noise (61), BigTenObsession (44), Gourmet Spud (42), MrRedDevil (40), Camp Tiger Claw (39)

As you can see from the chart below, Camp Tiger Claw was in fact the top commenter by this measure, with a comfortable lead over Tuffy at #2. The rest of the top 10 follow, with some of their highest-rated contributions for your reading pleasure.

Commenter		Daps	Examples
	Camp Tiger Claw	81	Romo's athletic roots Everywhere you look, everywhere you go
	Tuffy	63	The Karate Kid: 14 years away Hartman was awesome
	Weed Against Speed	61	How the mighty have fallen Van Peezy's other handle
	UkraineNotWeak	47	What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss? The juice is loose
	Lady Andrea	29	Vigo the Carpathian = Fred Thompson Ewwww
	Phony Gwynn	25	Those bears can ball Can't we all just get along?
	Stev D	25	IT WAS JUST THAT ONE COLUMN Ha—I bench 520!
	Gourmet Spud	24	Charlie Hustlin' Rocket needs rest
	ArkansasFred	23	La Liga race watch Define combat, sir
	Rob Iracane	23	Tomorrow night, Paul O'Neill has to catch a fly ball in his hat Do as I say, not as I do

Notes:

• All plusses were counted equally: +1, +2, +1000, whatever.
• We only included plusses that were attached to @username replies, which seem to show up sometime in February.
• Only the first page of comments per post was parsed--any points awarded after #100 weren't factored in.
• Total plusses tracked: 1,860.

Since its release last year, The Wages of Wins has sparked a number of discussions on how best to evaluate basketball players statistically. Most recently, we have seen a blog debate over this season's top Laker and The Pot Calling the Kettle Black from Dan Rosenbaum and Dave Lewin.

We can all agree that quantifying the performance of basketball players is very challenging, and all of the currently-available techniques have their flaws.

The primary metric used in Wages of Wins to evaluate basketball players is Wins Produced, or Wins Produced per 48 minutes (WP48). Find out how well you know your Wages of Wins by taking the following quiz, which matches up 12 pairs of NBA players and compares their WP48 scores for the 2006-07 season. Good luck!

Fun things to do with Google Maps #3: plot the birthplace and high school location of every NBA player from the 1946-47, 1956-57, 1966-67, 1976-77, 1986-87, 1996-97, and 2006-07 seasons.

As with the last version, use the controls on the left to zoom, and drag 'n drop to pan. This time, multiple players from the same city are grouped into a single marker, with the number indicating how many players are represented. Click markers to see the list of players. And change the season to see how origins have evolved over time. A larger version is available here.

The most obvious trend is the league's internationalization, beginning in the 80's and exploding in the last decade. There also seems to be a fair amount of rural-urban migration between birth and high school, apparently as early as 1946-47.

Thanks to Basketball-Reference.com (and last week's commenters) for the birth and high school data.

Fun things to do with Google Maps #2: plot the birthplace of every current NBA player.

As with the blog map, use the controls on the left to zoom, and drag 'n drop to pan. This time, multiple players from the same city are grouped into a single marker, with the number indicating how many players are represented. Click markers to see the list of players. You can also filter by team.

A few things that jumped out at me:

• Strong showing from the Euros.
• Zoom in two ticks on the U.S.--the eastern half of the country is dominant.
• Celtics: 100% born in the U.S.A.
• Not a single Pacers player was born west of Texas.
• The Suns are one Yuta Tabuse away from having a player born on every continent.

Thanks to Basketball-Reference.com and Yahoo for the birth data.

Update: A larger version is now available.

This is where Howie normally highlights some of the best comments from the past week. He's been busy helping us with the ShowHype launch, though, so I've been called in from the bullpen. Not playing over the loudspeakers: Welcome to the Jungle.

First off, Agent Zero's biggest fan told us that Halo hacks work in RL:

Perennial CC contender chone explained the decimation of Dickie V's October Madness Bracket:

Finally, comment of the week goes to goathair_3, who had empathy for Brad Miller's new look:

Also receiving votes: more justification for cornrows, Tiki doesn't miss you that much, and Everybody Loves H.E.R.

This is where Howie normally highlights some of the best comments from the past week. He's busy partying with the Joneses, though, so I've been called in to pinch-hit.

Upon learning that the Astros had hired former Phillies GM Ed Wade, meech.one from Bugs & Cranks summed up the views of countless Philly fans eloquently and succinctly:

After watching ESPN's Rob Stone getting friendly with the soccer talent, McLovin from Nyjer Please offered this observation:

Finally, comment of the week goes to JaketheSnake from Bullets Forever for the following bit of news related to Barry Bonds' impending free agency: