My Five Favorite NBA Teams to Watch

Note: This was originally posted on my old blog on Sunday, January 31, 2010.

At the beginning of every week I look at the week's upcoming NBA schedule. Given that my NBA viewing is limited to what is on ESPN, TNT, and ABC I watch what I am given to watch. So when I see the schedule I hold my breath and hope one of these five teams is on the slate of upcoming games (not that I won't watch if they're not).

NBA Roster Ratings (Preseason 2009)

 Note: This was originally posted on my old blog on Tuesday, October 13, 2009

In June I said that I was going to be working on two major projects to post on this blog. One of the two, the NBA Genesis draft, I completed. The other, roster analyses of every NBA team, I hardly even started, much less finished. Shortly after beginning to work on the first of these roster analyses, I realized that in order to do a good job and produce something that someone would want to read I would have to put in way more work than I was prepared to put in. I also realized that throughout the time that I was working on this, teams would be changing due to free agency, etc. This would make this project even harder. So sometime near the end of the summer I realized that I would not be able to produce all of these roster analyses before the NBA season started.

Recently though, my desire to do something like this has resurfaced. Being as I am pretty busy right now with school and basketball and everything I decided to abbreviate the analysis quite a bit. I came up with a pretty elementary rating system to rate certain elements of each team's roster that resulted in a nice, neat chart that tells you everything you need to know about every team's roster. OK, so it might not tell you everything, but it does do a pretty good job of summarizing the various strengths and weaknesses of each team's roster.

MAC Commonwealth Advanced Stats and Such

Note: This was originally posted on my old blog on Sunday, August 30, 2009.

Over the summer I have worked sporadically on calculating some advanced statistics for Messiah and the other teams in the MAC Commonwealth conference (it's DIII, so no, you haven't heard of it). I was curious as to what some of these stats could tell me about some of the players and teams in our conference. 

2009 NBA Genesis Draft

 Note: This was originally posted on my old blog on Sunday, August 02, 2009.

So here it is, my 2009 NBA Genesis Draft.

But first, a few notes.

For every genesis draft I do I designate one team to be my "trash team." I put players on my "trash team" that I don't want to have to draft on any of the other teams. Usually the trash team ends up being almost as talented as any of the other teams, but the team is composed of players I wouldn't want on my team or I don't know what to think of. You'll find out pretty quickly which team is my trash team.

Creating Your Own Shot

 Note: This was originally posted on my old blog on Thursday, July 23, 2009.

You know what’s funny? My last post, you know the really long weird one about basketball and biology, well that post was meant to just be what this post is, a short note about what the phrase “creating your own shot” means. Somehow it turned into the behemoth that it now is. I wish I knew how that happened. Anyway, before this post gets out of hand too, I’ll get to the point.

You know when people say that so-and-so can “create his/her own shot.” They usually mean that this player is athletic and skilled enough to take his/her defender one-on-one and get a good shoot. I would say that this is only one way to create your own shot, but it is not the only or even most common way of doing so.

Basketball is Like Biology

Note: This was originally posted on my old blog on Thursday, July 23, 2009.

I love basketball and I hate biology. Those are just two constants of my life. I’m always in the mood to play basketball. I have vivid memories of the one time in my life that I turned down that opportunity. But biology, I run from it like the plague. I didn’t even try to take the AP Biology exam even after taking (or rather, being forced to take) regular and AP Biology in high school. If you asked me what my favorite hobby was, I would say basketball without any hesitation. And if you asked me what my least favorite subject in school was, the first word out of my mouth would be biology. These two things could not be any more different. Basketball is my passion and biology is my nemesis. I mean I love basketball and I hate biology. Or at least that’s what I thought.

2009 NBA Genesis Draft, Top 5

Note: This was originally posted on my old blog on Sunday, July 19, 2009.

True to my word I am working on my 2009 NBA Genesis Draft. Currently I am midway through the 3rd round of what will eventually be a 10 round draft. To give you a taste of the draft I am going to post the first five picks of the draft. But before you delve into the sweet, buttery goodness that is my 2009 NBA Genesis Draft I should tell you what this draft is...