This is sort of a random data dump/trivia post, but this old Doug Drinen post about NFL teams' records vs. fellow playoff participants inspired me to run a similar query for NBA top-4 seeds' records against other top-4 seeds (in either conference). Since the NBA expanded to 16 playoff teams in 1984, here are the top-4 seeds with the best records vs. their fellow top-4 seeds:

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2010-11 NBA power rankings through the games played on December 16, 2010:

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Just how much would Carmelo Anthony help the New York Knicks?

Keeping Score: Anthony’s Potential Impact on Knicks

This will also appear in Friday's print edition.

Tyrus Thomas is in some pretty heady company this season:

(For single seasons; played in the NBA/BAA; in the regular season; in 2010-11; requiring Offensive Rating >= 110 and Usage Pct >= 26 and Defensive Rating <= 101 and Minutes Played >= 450; sorted by descending Win Shares Per 48 Minutes.)

Now, the defensive rating might overstate Thomas' case (although the Bobcats are 4 pts/100 poss. better on D when he's in the game), but even if you remove the defensive rating requirement, he's still in a good group:

I'll also grant that Thomas is the only non-starter in the group, meaning the lineups he's faced have not been as strong as the others on that list.

Still, that's impressive production thus far... Thomas flies under the radar because he always seems to come off the bench for mediocre teams, but he's quietly having a strong season. With BBR Blog favorite Gerald Wallace slumping and suffering an ankle injury this week, Thomas now has a chance to show everyone what he can do in expanded minutes.

Back in early May, I conducted a poll asking our readers to vote on who should be inducted into the inaugural Fantasy Basketball Hall of Fame class, and you responded very well, registering almost 1,000 votes. According to the rules of the HoF (based on the Baseball Hall of Fame process), a player had to be named on 75% of ballots to be inducted, which left us with two players (2 point guards, actually): Kevin Johnson, and Tim Hardaway. KJ was honored in July, so now it's time for the original king of the killer crossover...

Timothy Duane "Tim Bug" Hardaway
Position: Point Guard
Height: 6-0 ▪ Weight: 175 lbs.
Born: September 1, 1966 in Chicago, Illinois
High School: Carver in Chicago, Illinois
College: University of Texas at El Paso
Draft: Selected by the Golden State Warriors in the 1st round (14th pick, 14th overall) of the 1989 NBA draft.

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Yesterday I made some additions to the Player Season Finder, so let me briefly describe them here:

• Tooltips were added below the seasons section for the last three seasons, making it easier to restrict your search to a recent season.
• Birth country was added as a parameter, so you can now search for players born (or not born) in a particular country.
• Single season searches can now be restricted to players who qualified for the Minutes Per Game leaderboard.
• Games started was added to the statistics list in the additional criteria.
• A fifth option was added to the additional criteria section, allowing you to compare two statistics. For example, you can search for players with an assist-to-turnover ratio of at least 5:1 (minimum 100 assists).

This is pretty sweet... It's a PDF version of the Book of Basketball painting ESPN commissioned John Alexander to create, featuring all of the players the top 50 players in Bill Simmons' Hall of Fame pantheon-pyramid.

(Btw, somebody should make a Sporcle quiz where you identify the players from their depiction in the picture.)

Although we're only a month and a half into the season, the 2010-11 campaign has already seen its share of impressive winning streaks. The Spurs rattled off 12 straight across almost the entire month of November (a streak matched by the Mavericks last week), the Lakers & Hornets each won 8 consecutive to start the year, and the Celtics, Heat, & Knicks are currently in the midst of 8+ game win streaks themselves. How probable have these runs of victories been?

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For those who played their share of Connect Four growing up, ESPN Arcade gives you a chance to take on either Stuart Scott, Jeff Van Gundy, Amare Stoudemire, Rajon Rondo, Derrick Rose, Steve Nash or Brandon Jennings in the classic Milton Bradley game.

Be warned, though: all of these guys are apparently world-class Connect 4 players. And they will taunt you when they win. Which will be often.

This is just a quick reminder for everyone to check out the Basketball-Reference Play Index. In case you don't already know about the PI, it's a set of research tools that allow you to create customizable queries on our database, save the results, and share them with others. With the PI, you can:

• Use the Player Season Finder to search through all NBA, ABA, & BAA players' regular season and playoff statistics for performances that match your criteria.
• Use the Player Game Finder to search through NBA players' regular season and playoff game logs (since 1986-87) for games matching your criteria.
• Use the Head-to-Head Finder to search for games in which two selected players played against each other.
• Search for player and team consecutive-game streaks that match your criteria using the Streak Finders.
• Search for team performances that meet your criteria with the Team Season Finder and Team Game Finder.
• Use the Draft Finder to search through every NBA/BAA draft for picks that match your criteria.
• Use the Player Comparison Finder to compare the stats of up to four players through (or in) a given season.

And best of all, these features are 100% free to use!

So go ahead, give them a try, and you'll wonder how you ever got along without them.