3. Tim Duncan, Dunking Again

Over at SB Nation’s Spurs blog, Pounding the Rock, they have a really excellent look at Tim Duncan. Specifically, his dunking—why he’s doing it more this year, and what that means. It’s yet another example of why blogs are so awesome. Would this happen ten years ago? Or even five?

Seriously: Would someone look at Tim Duncan’s career dunking numbers, juxtapose them season-by-season, and compose a statistical analysis that proves he’s healthier than ever before? To wit:

According to my admittedly questionable calculations, Duncan’s currently dunking at a rate that nearly matches his 2005-2006 performance, 4 years ago, and is on pace to match his dunks total of the 2006-07 season despite playing 2,2 fewer minutes per game. So, accepting our previous theory (Duncan’s age and knee problems meant less dunks), what can we glean from the sudden dunks deluge?

Duncan’s healthy, guys, and he’s feeling better than he has for a very long time. Whether we can credit his weight loss, the extended rest because of our early playoffs exit or that new knee brace he’s using, I think we can all agree that he’s confident and comfortable enough to display some showmanship. The dunks aren’t important by themselves (although they can energize a team and swing a game’s momentum like no other play in basketball – but I digress) but they’re a sure sign of health and youth. Duncan’s willingness to jump that extra inch fills me with hope for this season’s outcome, regardless of our early record.

And it’s 100% true. Duncan is healthy, and he’s got the Spurs quietly playing great basketball, and on track for another deep playoff run. They noticed a subtle detail like “Hmm, Tim Duncan looks like he’s dunking more” and then take the time to look it up, and made sense of it for the rest of us. It’s the type of thing that would never, ever come from a print journalist; not because of any oversight, but because there’s just not much broad interest.

But for people that love basketball, there’s absolutely that sort of interest. And it’s pretty cool to see something like that emerge. Who cares about Alfajores? This is why blogs are great.

(Another reason to love the internet? Tiger Woods’ Slow Jam Voicemail, courtesy of edsbs.)