Archive for the 'Just For Fun' Category

Ever feel bad for the Washington Generals? If so, then this video -- by loyal BBR reader Sean and his comedy group Rat Pageant -- is for you:

Be sure to vote "funny" and help out Sean's video at Funny or Die!

As a follow-up to this afternoon's list of the Top 593 Players of 2012, here's a positional breakdown for the 452 players who played at least 1 game in 2011:

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(Note: File this squarely under "Insane Ideas".)

Watching one of the NFL Network's "Top 100 Players of 2011" shows this weekend, I was inspired to create a similar list for the NBA using APBRmetric stats. But why stop at 100? Instead, I ranked all 593 players who played at least 1 NBA game since 2008-09.

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Just saw this while watching a replay of the Flu Game that I DVR-ed from a few days ago...

Proof that somebody in TV was thinking about on/off-court plus-minus as early as 1997.

Here's a great story at Slate by Benjamin Markovits, whose German minor-league team played against a 17-year-old Dirk Nowitzki in the mid-1990s.

"What amazes me when I watch him now is the effort that goes into each of Nowitzki's offensive moves—how he uses all of his length and athletic ability to win a few inches of separation for his turnaround fadeaway jump shot. When he played against us, nobody could keep him out of the lane. He was not only the tallest player on the court but one of the fastest. I remember switching on to him once at the top of the key. One dribble later and he was at the rim. How can you stay in front of a guy who can go around you and past you in a single stride? After that, it didn't even matter if he missed the shot—he was the quickest man to the ball and could tap it back in at will."

UPDATE: In the comments, Chris shared another link that gives quite a bit more of Markovits' backstory, and how his path came to intersect with Dirk's that summer.

As you no doubt know, Shaquille O'Neal, one of the NBA's greatest centers, announced his retirement earlier this week. In honor of Shaq, here are 19 bullet points, one for each season of his illustrious career:

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Remember Hoopism's sweet dunk contest history poster?

Awesomely enough, Brent Barry is a fan as well. And he's wearing the LAC warmup in the photos.

Derick "Dizzy" Grant is not only the Harlem Globetrotters' 4-point shooting specialist (somebody call Antoine Walker!), but he's also pretty good at impersonating other players:

I have maintained for years that basketball needs its version of the Batting Stance Guy... Could Grant be the hoops impressionist we've been waiting for?

Awesome post here from SportsDelve.com:

Playoff Matchups by City in Professional Sports << SportsDelve.com

Andrew researched how many times pro sports teams from various cities faced each other in the playoffs (with multi-game series counting as 1 matchup). Los Angeles and Dallas just finished their 15th battle (with L.A. leading 9-6), while relative newcomer Miami spoiled what would have been the 16th Boston-vs-Chicago matchup of all-time (Boston currently leads that series 10-5).

Sorry about the lack of posts recently; I've been busy working on the new Stathead Blog. Don't worry, though -- I will have playoff previews and other posts forthcoming, once we find out the matchups for Round 2. And in the meantime, here's a funny video parodying those incessant Clyde Frazier-Keith Hernandez (and now, inexplicably, Randy Johnson) Just For Men commercials. (Note: PG-13 for language.)