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Sorry for the lack of posts over the past few days; Sports-Reference is having its annual company meeting, so I've been a little indisposed. That said, I thought I'd share these gems with you from the 1977-78 season:
There's a surprising name atop the Southeast Division these days, and it's the Miami Heat, winners of 3 straight and 6 of their first 7 games. How have they been doing it? Well, with Dwyane Wade powering the attack (via 31.8 pace-adjusted P/40) you might think they were an offensive team, but it's actually been their 3rd-ranked defense that's staking Miami to the hot start. After the jump, check out the box score-based defensive stats for the Heat so far (league average pts/possession = 105.9):
In case you're a hoops fan that's been living under a rock these past 6 years, 82games is the web destination for NBA game-tracking data, including plus/minus, counterpart stats, and a variety of other incredible numbers that you can't find anywhere else. Today Roland Beech released the 2009-10 stats pages, so head over and just bask in the raw data. Bask in it!!
Today at ESPN, J.A. Adande wondered if Kobe Bryant is playing better now than ever before, ultimately concluding that if not, then he's doing a pretty darned good approximation of his peak. Well, that's a sentiment I can agree with -- Kobe Bryant is nothing if not mega-consistent, and this year he's defying both the aging curve and the natural complacency you'd expect from someone who just won his 4th title. Take a look at his career numbers, adjusted for pace (after the jump):
Okay, so I finally made a Sporcle quiz myself, and I think it might just be the most brutal NBA quiz on that site: Can you name the NBA Players' and Coaches' Given Names? All you have to do is enter some combination of the player's full name (i.e., first + last, or middle + last, etc.), but last names alone will not be accepted. Good luck, you'll need it!
Today I would like to unveil a new feature on the site: the NBA MVP Award Tracker. Before I say much more, let me get two disclaimers out of the way:
The NBA MVP Award Tracker ranks candidates based on a model built using previous voting results. This list does not represent the opinion of this site. Rather, these are the players that the voters are likely to target.
I am not trying to come up with a formula to pick the MVP Award winner. In my opinion it would be silly to use a single formula as the basis for determining who should win an award.
According to ESPN's MVP Watch, Steve Nash is currently your frontrunner in the race for the NBA's most prestigious individual award, and our own MVP tracker doesn't disagree much -- it lists Nash second behind the incumbent, LeBron James. Could it be that Nash is on track to capture his the third MVP of his career, giving him the same number of trophies as Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, & Moses Malone (and more than Tim Duncan, Karl Malone, & Bob Pettit)?
There's a surprising name atop the Southeast Division these days, and it's the Miami Heat, winners of 3 straight and 6 of their first 7 games. How have they been doing it? Well, with 
Today at ESPN, J.A. Adande wondered if 