The Blazers won in Dallas but lost Center Joel Przybilla for the year, thus ending any hopes whatsoever of escaping the first round to the playoffs. I've got nothing to say but: "What are the odds?"

P.S. You all do realize that when I calculated the number of incapacitating surgeries for the Blazers at 1.43 PER PLAYER if current trends continued over the course of the season a while ago, I WAS NOT MAKING THAT UP, don't you??? I'm an NFL fan and I've never seen anything like it in that sport, let alone this one...

By the way, did you notice the report that Brandon Roy is going to undergo an MRI for his shoulder when he gets back to Portland? Just thought I'd mention it...

*     *     *

This makes the 15th of these columns here at BE. I also did something like 50 or 60 more before that over at the SBN Laker blog, Silver Screen and Roll. I'm not quite sure how many — I'm too lazy to count. Point is, I've been around the basketball blog neighborhood a couple times accumulating "opposition links" for Laker and Blazer fans.

I noticed a couple people in a BE game thread commenting on the comparative "deadness" of the SBN blog for the Miami Heat, Peninsula is Mightier, relative to Blazers Edge. That point can't be argued, but it was stated something to the effect that "most SBN blogs" are pretty dead. That's not really quite correct.

I thought it might be interesting to take a trip around the two main blog networks — Sports Blog Nation (founded, I understand, by Markos Moulitsas of the left wing political blog, The Daily Kos) and TrueHoop (part of the ESPN → ABC → Disney media conglomerate) — to assess and compare the status of the NBA blogs of each.

I want to identify my biases from the top: I am not affiliated with Blazers Edge nor do I pretend to speak for Dave and Ben, but am rather just a reader and frequent poster here. I remain on the masthead of Silver Screen and Roll although I resigned there on the morning of Nov. 20, 2009. I might write again for them at some point in the future — or not. I haven't talked to Josh or Chris about that. I feel that our parting was on good terms, I like them, read them, and frequently post there as a reader. I am currently banned from two of the following blogs, Blog-a-Bull (SBN) and CelticsBlog (SBN), the former very deservedly and the latter because the moderators are stupid. I will make an effort not to let any of these circumstances affect my analysis of those digital publications. 

I've decided to make use of a color-coded rating system, as follows:

  PURPLE — denotes a basketball blog that is one of the standards of the genre. Superior content, frequently updated, and an expansive and active readership.

  GREEN — denotes a fully healthy blog, generally featuring daily posts during the business week and producing intelligent analysis on a timely basis. 

  YELLOW — denotes an ailing blog, with a pattern of slightly sporadic posting or of posting of hastily written and somewhat insufficient material. 

  RED — denotes a seriously ill blog, with altogether insufficient coverage of the subject team. There is an occasional post, but the irregularity of new content makes regular readership unlikely.

  BLACK — denotes a dead blog, which I am defining as a publication with no new content during the month of December 2009. A dead blog is one which needs to be buried and relaunched.

Teams will be listed alphabetically by team nickname, Western Conference today and Eastern Conference tomorrow. What I deem to be the better of the two blogs (SBN v. TrueHoop) for each team will be listed first. Links will be provided for each. My free time being limited, I do not read more than a few of these blogs with any regularity, and so I may be wrong about this or that particular. Please don't take anything here as gospel. This is a subjective list, okay?

On with the show...

Continue reading this post »

I've always thought that the assist is the most over-rated statistic in basketball.

Think about it — when's the last time you heard a post-game expert say, "Portland won this game because they out-assisted Denver 19 to 12"?

The answer is never, because assists simply are not decisive factors in winning or losing a game. Assist totals are, at best, a statistic like single game +/- which is indicative of larger trends within a basketball contest. Particularly low assist totals, such as the team-record-low 7 collected by the Blazers on Saturday night in Orlando, might be indicative of poor movement away from the ball or excessive one-on-one play or an inability to hit open-look spot-up jumpers. (To what extent each of these things? Use your eyes and theorize, be an informed critic of basketball art...) Consistently low assist figures may be a warning flag for a self-centered, me first, gunning offensive mentality.

But decisive? No, one can not say that. Bad offensive design or poor hustle or ball greed might be the cause of a loss — but not a low assist total. There are lots of ways to lose a game, but that is not one of them.

Turnovers will lose a game for you. Allowing an opponent a high shooting percentage will lose a game for you. Not closing on open 3-point shooters will lose a game for you. Sending an opposing team to the (very efficient) free throw line too many times with fouls will lose a game for you. Failing to generate points efficiently yourself will lose a game for you. But a lack of assists? Never.

So why do many fans make such a big deal about assists? Why do people go to the work of calculating something as absurd as an "Assists-to-Turnovers Ratio" as if a good A:T ratio or a bad A:T ratio proves something or another? Why not a "Rebounds-to-Personal Fouls Ratio"? At least rebounding is a decisive factor in the question of who wins or loses a game...

After all, you do hear analysts say, "the Blazers won because they killed the Spurs on the glass, 45 to 32" or "Houston beat Portland because they had 8 more offensive rebounds than did the Blazers." If you get the boards, you are able to score points and your opponent is not. Rebounding is decisive. Assisting is not.

Seriously — who cares if a player has 14 assists or 10 assists or 5 assists or 1 assist? Obviously, the nights when Steve Nash has 12 assists are going to go better for the Phoenix Suns than nights when he has 4, but that's just another way of saying that the team hit some shots on the former night and which they didn't on the latter. Express that decisive fact in terms of shooting percentage or total points scored or points per possession — don't try and pretend causation where there is none.

By extension: of what value is a statistic like PER which pretends great value in the simple assist? 

That so many otherwise intelligent people are in love with this pseudo-stat continues to baffle me...

Continue reading this post »

"It is Tuesday morning, the 11th of September and you will not forget this date."

I watched something really scary on TV after the Blazer game. The History Channel had a documentary on the 2001 World Trade Center attack — no corny narration, just real-time cut-cut-cut-cut-cut-cut from dozens of cameras on the scene and around the city. Official photographers and citizen cameras on the streets, chopper video and police emergency radio, news camera outtakes and random snippets of sight and sound.

Confusion and panic. Frantic calls to 911. A woman on the street crying in fear.

You survey the scene from a nearby window, home movie looking up at the damage, a tower burning above. Suddenly BOOOMMM!!! — a fireball so sudden and so massive that it makes you jump off the couch and bite your tongue.

Holy shit.

We're with the FDNY soldiers massing to go in. Cops bullying civilians out of the danger zone.

"What's that falling — is that a person? OH MY GOD!!!  No. Way."

People are jumping to their deaths rather than burning alive.

Now we're in an elevator, trying to get away. Everyone is scared with us.

And you the viewer know those buildings are coming down...

It's all in real time. Real sounds. True horror.

The towers are burning, both of them.

Then with an unearthly shriek of metal and the rumble of an earthquake explodes the mushroom cloud of the first collapsed tower.

A voice narrates news footage: "There is panic on the streets — thousands of people running up Church Street, trying to get away."

We see it from a 3rd floor apartment window — a rolling cloud of cement dust and debris. Beautiful from a distance, menacing as it approches, terrifying as it hits. Blackout...

It's Tuesday morning. Welcome to Pompeii.

The rain of rubble as the rolling bank of dirt catches the fleeing crowd and dirt envelops the lens.

"Help me. Help me. Somebody."

Cut. We're a block away in a hallway, trying to escape. We're in the street. There's no air. Trapped in the lobby and scared.

A newsman speaks: "The building, we can say, is not where it was 10 minutes ago."

We're with the firemen in the other building. They're covered with grime. Alarm bells are ringing. They're in shock. They're calling loved ones to let them know they weren't in the building that collapsed. Many of them will soon be in the other tower that collapses, we realize.

Now we're in Hoboken, looking across the Hudson River through a window. Grey and black smoke stream into the wind. There is only one tower standing.

We make the discovery through the viewfinder of a home video camera. "It's gone. It's gone. Linda, do you know how many people work in those buildings? There are 30 or 40,000 people that work in those buildings! And it's gone."

Suddenly we're on the street. Fellow fire fighters trying to catch their breath, washing their mouths out with saline solution from the emergency units. Wheezing and choking, searching desperately for water.

And you know the other tower is coming down next...

The devastation looks like the aftermath of a nuclear attack or a moonscape.

It is really, really bad.

So the Blazers lost to the Magic Saturday night.

It's only a basketball game. They'll play again tomorrow.

Big deal.

Continue reading this post »

It's kind of funny how NBA games ebb and flow.

I suppose that the backwards and forwards waves of scoring have something to do with the fact that points are accumulated by 2s and 3s. If a team manages to put a couple of makes together, the first thing ya know it's a 7-0 run and momentum is completely altered.

I reckon that the old adage that "basketball is a game of runs" is probably just another way of saying that in the course of a 48 point evening, teams are apt to score several times in a row now and again. The key is keeping your opponents' scoring runs minimized and getting hot down the stretch, when games are actually decided.

When one is playing the Phoenix Suns, the ebb and flow of scoring runs is even more pronounced. If Portland is down 9 to a healthy Houston Rockets team late in the 3rd Quarter, they're probably toast. Down the same 9 to Phoenix or the New York Knicks or Orlando any one of those ultra-offensive 3-point raining teams — less of an issue, for sure.

The gunning teams might drop 3 or 4 treys on your skull in quick succession, or they might just as easily clank 5 in a row and let ya back in it. A little luck, a little defense, who knows? Just get those rebounds, that's key.

I figure you look at the lead in a Suns game and divide by 2 and that's the approximate situation in real terms. The Blazers were down FIFTEEN POINTS pretty late in the 3rd Quarter on Thursday night and it looked grim. The raw magnitude of the lead was clearly something that clearly could be surmounted (7.5 "real" points), but I was convinced the Blazers had stopped hustling and given it up. This perception was short-lived, thankfully. Then the long jumpers stopped falling for Phoenix and Portland unleashed a new secret weapon...

All hail Jerrydus Rex! Sixteen points, 3 rebounds, and an assist in the 4th Quarter!

Phoenix has been snakebit during their appearances on TNT. Their 105-102 loss to Portland marked the 17th straight time they earned the big L in the bright lights — a Nets-like clip for a team that is anything but Nets-like. It is pretty weird, if you think about it, that a team that good can lose that many in a row. Bad luck? No. There has to be a reason, does there not?

Well, allow me to advance a theory. I think that Phoenix's abysmal performance on TNT probably relates to the fact that pressure intensifies for marquee television games. Teams close on open perimeter shooters a half second quicker, they rebound just a little bit harder, they hustle just a little bit more — and jumpshooters get just a little bit tighter. They think more and flow less.

Something else happened in the second half of the Blazers-Suns game, however. Portland started taking and making a bunch more 3s themselves. I believe Portland opened the game 2-for-4 behind the arc in the first half; Phoenix made a bunch, like 8 or something like that. By the time the game was over, Portland was 10-for-20 and Phoenix was 10-for-21 from downtown. In short: the Blazers gave the Suns a taste of their own medicine.

There were mismatches, to be sure. Portland had no answer for Amar'e Stoudamire in the paint, true, but by the same token, Phoenix had no way to keep Roy or Bayless from driving and finishing. Portland wound up shooting 35 foul shots, making 25. Phoenix shot 22 and made 16. Easy money. Winning basketball involves getting to the rack.

It's good to have another guy other than Brandon who can do it.

Here's an interview with The Rex and his brother just before the NBA draft...

Continue reading this post »

I still had the services of the 11 hardworking immigrants from Central America for one more day, so I asked 'em really nice to pretty please produce some "Points Per Possession" stats for 4 other NBA guards as sort of a baseline for the 4 Blazer guards...

We know how the 4 functional Blazer guards stack up against each other, but what I wanted to know: how do the Blazer guards stack up against their comparable NBA peers?

The guys I've chosen as baseline players for the Portlanders: 1. Deron Williams (my favorite PG in the NBA and the dude whose game is most similar to that of Brandon Roy); 2. Jason Kidd (a veteran peer of Andre Miller, a bit long in the tooth but still highly desirable and playing for a playoff-caliber Western Conference team); 3. Derek Fisher (the classic example of the "steady stable veteran" in the Blake mold, World Championship level vet mediocrity); and 4. my buddy Sergio Rodriguez (head-to-head competitor with The Rex here in Portland last season who has been proclaimed by some to be succeeding marvelously now that he's getting a little bit of run as a backup PG for the good old Sacramento Kings).

The numbers which appear in this post were run on Sunday night and make use of the statistics on each player's page at NBA.com.

My previous post, which includes the whole spread of numbers for Messrs. Roy, Miller, Blake, and Bayless through 24 games, may be viewed by CLICKING THIS LINK.

To review:

For purposes of this analysis...

I make the assumption that 9 out of 10 free throws taken are neither technicals nor AND ONE situations, so:

Points Per Possession = TOTAL POINTS / {FIELD SHOTS TAKEN + (.9 * FTs TAKEN / 2) + TURNOVERS}

Relevant disclaimers and rationales appear in the previous article.

Per 36 Minutes and Points Per Possession averages for our mighty Blazers were:

• Brandon Roy: 20.3 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 4.8 RPG. Turnovers = 2.24. PPP = 0.983
• Andre Miller: 15.3 PPG, 3.7 RPG, 5.8 APG. Turnovers = 2.83. PPP = 0.894
• Steve Blake: 8.6 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 5.0 APG. Turnovers = 1.85. PPP = 0.804
• Jerryd Bayless: 19.8 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 3.9 APG. Turnovers = 1.87. PPP = 1.092

Okay, hardworking friends, let's get number crunching.

An additional disclaimer here: I am making no effort to adjust these next figures for pace. So the Per 36 figures for everyone else will be slightly inflated vis-a-vis the Blazer guys since NOBODY plays as ploddingly as PDX.

DERON WILLIAMS — Royesque All-Star caliber PG of the Utah Jazz. 

• 21 games played, 39.1 minutes per game. 19.6 PPG, 4.4 RPG, 10.1 APG. Turnovers per game = 3.33.
• In Per 36 Minutes terms: 18.0 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 9.3 APG. Turnovers = 3.07.
• Two Point Shooting: 130-for-251 = 51.8%
• Three Point Shooting: 25-for-71 = 35.2%, effectively 52.8%
• Free Throw Shooting: 76-for-102 = 79.4%
• Points Per Possession: 411 / (322+32+70) = 0.969

JASON KIDD — venerable veteran PG of the Dallas Mavericks a la Andre Miller. 

• 24 games played, 35.4 minutes per game. 8.3 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 9.0 APG. Turnovers = 2.67.
• In Per 36 Minutes terms: 8.4 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 9.2 APG. Turnovers = 2.72.
• Two Point Shooting: 22-for-62 = 35.5%
• Three Point Shooting: 47-for-110 = 42.7%, effectively 64.1%
• Free Throw Shooting: 14-for-18 = 77.8%
• Points Per Possession: 199 / (172+8+64) = 0.816

DEREK FISHER — Blake's hero, winning another ring while doing nothing particularly well as a steady old vet. 

• 22 games played, 26.5 minutes per game. 7.0 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 3.1 APG. Turnovers = 1.18.
• In Per 36 Minutes terms: 9.5 PPG, 3.8 RPG, 4.2 APG. Turnovers = 1.60.
• Two Point Shooting: 41-for-92 = 44.6%
• Three Point Shooting: 17-for-55 = 30.9%, effectively 46.4%
• Free Throw Shooting: 20-for-22 = 90.9%
• Points Per Possession: 153 / (147+10+26) = 0.836

SERGIO RODRIGUEZ — former Blazer that rookie Rex couldn't quite get around. 

• 18 games played, 14.5 minutes per game. 6.6 PPG, 1.4 RPG, 3.3 APG. Turnovers = 1.39.
• In Per 36 Minutes terms: 16.4 PPG, 3.5 RPG, 8.2 APG. Turnovers = 3.45.
• Two Point Shooting: 32-for-66 = 48.5%
• Three Point Shooting: 11-for-25 = 44.0%, effectively 66.0%
• Free Throw Shooting: 25-for-28 = 75.0%
• Points Per Possession:  118 / (91+13+25) = 0.915

What Have We Learned?

1. Roy v. Williams. We perceive Roy as having a rather bad year, but so must be Deron Williams. Roy has shown a marginally better efficiency with the ball in Points Per Possession terms and is outscoring his counterpart in Points Per 36 minutes of play. Now admittedly, Deron's role calls for more passing and setting up of teammates than does Roy, so the two are not fully comparable... But still...  Advantage: Roy.

2. Miller v. Kidd. The games of these two oldies are exposed as diametrically opposite, with Miller unable to hit a 3-pointer while Kidd slays as a long ball shooter. Conversely, Andre's midrange game is proficient and Kidd's non-existent. Miller's turnover number is not obscene and his Points Per Possession is significantly more efficient than Kidd's. In Per 36 terms, Kidd has shown himself to be a better assist man, while Miller has demonstrated himself a far better scorer. Kidd's game is actually very Blakelike, I observe. Advantage: Miller.

3. Blake v. Fisher. Blake's stat line in Per 36 terms is very comparable to Fisher's, with Fisher demonstrating very slight superiority is scoring per game and Points Per Possession used. The difference is not decisive, but it can be discerned. Advantage: Fisher.

4. Bayless v. Rodriguez. The biggest eye-opener for me has been Sergio Rodriguez's new found ability to hit the 3-point shot. This year he is hitting them at a percentage which even exceeds that of Jason Kidd, who is off to the best start in his career in that department. Sergio's scoring is surprisingly efficient, particularly when one allows that he is a pass-first player, not adverse to the risky pass. His Per 36 scoring is simply unbelievable to me, exceeding that of Andre Miller, who has been solid if unspectacular. Sergio remains something of a turnover machine, but that's not such a big deal if he scores efficiently. His stats are not quite up to the levels of The Rex this year, but Sergio does seem to be showing that he's gonna stick in the NBA — much to my surprise, bordering on shock and amazement. Advantage: Bayless.

I guess the bottom line is this: would you rather have a guard lineup of Deron Williams, Jason Kidd, Derek Fisher, and Sergio Rodriguez, instead of Brandon Roy, Andre Miller, Steve Blake, and Jerryd Bayless? If so, you'd be taking a set of guards with inferior stats...

Now that we have benchmarks inserted: the Points Per Possession numbers show Rex as amazingly efficient and Blake as disturbingly challenged.

Here's how the 8 shake out in terms of scoring efficiency:

1. Jerryd Bayless — 1.092 Points scored Per Possession used
2. Brandon Roy — 0.983 Points scored Per Possession used
3. Deron Williams — 0.969 Points scored Per Possession used
4. Sergio Rodriguez — 0.915 Points scored Per Possession used
5. Andre Miller — 0.894 Points scored Per Possession used
6. Derek Fisher — 0.836 Points scored Per Possession used
7. Jason Kidd — 0.816 Points scored Per Possession used
8. Steve Blake — 0.804 Points scored Per Possession used

Interesting, no?

Continue reading this post »

GRRRRRRRR...

No jokes today, other than the decision of Nate McMillan and his surrogate Dean Demopoulos to sit The Rex in clutch time, overtime, and double overtime...

It irks me watching Bayless on the bench while Andre "Larry" Miller, Steve "Curly" Blake, and Brandon "Moe" Roy flush YET ANOTHER game, this time to the bottomfeeding Milwaukee Bucks..

Let it be said once again: Milwaukee is a crappy team. Bad. Losing to that team is NOT ACCEPTABLE.

My eyes say Bayless is the best of the 3 Blazer PGs, do the numbers verify this?

I'm actually not adverse to number-crunching, believe it or not.

Season stats, let's do it. All these numbers derive from the player pages at NBA.com, run through my old school calculator by hard-working immigrant laborers from Central America...

For purposes of this analysis...

I make the assumption that 9 out of 10 free throws taken are neither technicals nor AND ONE situations, so:

Points Per Possession = TOTAL POINTS / {FIELD SHOTS TAKEN + (.9 * FTs TAKEN / 2) + TURNOVERS}

I realize that TECHNICALLY the formula which I use here is not the definition of a "possession." Some shots are offensively rebounded and the possession kept alive. I argue that these offensive rebounds are random events independent of the action of the shooting player — that every shooter is the beneficiary of a more or less equal percentage of offensive rebounds and that none deserve credit for their fortuitous incompetence.

What I seek to demonstrate statistically is this: the level of efficiency of each of the four guards with the ball, in terms of themselves putting points on the board.

These figures are based on statistics accumulated through 24 games played...

Go!!!

BRANDON ROY — our Max Deal Super Star.

• 37.4 minutes per game. 21.1 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 5.0 APG. Turnovers per game  = 2.33.
• In Per 36 Minutes terms: 20.3 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 4.8 RPG. Turnovers = 2.24.
• Two Point Shooting: 145-for-297 = 48.8%
• Three Point Shooting: 30-for-92 = 32.6%, effectively 48.9%
• Free Throw Shooting: 127-for-157 = 80.9%
• Points Per Possession: 507 / (389+71+56) = 0.983

ANDRE MILLER — our Highly Touted Free Agent Acquisition.

• 27.1 minutes per game. 11.5 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 4.4 APG. Turnovers per game = 2.13.
• In Per 36 Minutes terms: 15.3 PPG, 3.7 RPG, 5.8 APG. Turnovers = 2.83.
• Two Point Shooting: 82-for-179 = 45.8%
• Three Point Shooting:  8-for-31 = 25.8%, effectively 38.7%
• Free Throw Shooting: 89-for-108 = 82.4%
• Points Per Possession: 277 / (210+49+51) = 0.894

STEVE BLAKE — our Safe, Steady, Secure, Reliable Veteran.

• 30.0 minutes per game. 7.2 PPG, 2.6 RPG, 4.2 APG. Turnovers per game = 1.54.
• In Per 36 Minutes terms: 8.6 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 5.0 APG. Turnovers = 1.85.
• Two Point Shooting: 24-for-62 = 38.7%
• Three Point Shooting: 36-for-101 = 35.6%, effectively 53.5%
• Free Throw Shooting: 16-for-23 = 69.6%
• Points Per Possession: 172 / (163+14+37) = 0.804

JERRYD BAYLESS — Nate's Towel Boy.

• 10.2 minutes per game (17 games played, 7 DNP-CD). 5.6 PPG, 0.8 RPG, 1.1 APG. TO per game = 0.53
• In Per 36 Minutes terms: 19.8 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 3.9 APG. Turnovers = 1.87.
• Two Point Shooting: 28-for-50 = 56.0%
• Three Point Shooting: 1-for-6 = 16.7%, effectively 25.0%
• Free Throw Shooting: 36-for-48 = 75.0%
• Points Per Possession: 95 / (56+22+9) = 1.092

What Have We Learned???

1. A Jerryd Bayless possession is more efficient than a Brandon Roy possession, much more efficient than an Andre Miller possession, and comically more efficient than a Steve Blake possession.

2. Jerryd Bayless has about the same turnover rate as the "reliable veteran" Steve Blake, a superior turnover rate than that of Superstar Brandon Roy, and a much superior turnover rate to that of Fancy Passer Andre Miller.

3. Steve Blake is the worst Free Throw shooter of the four and thus the one LEAST reliable to put on the line during crunch time to hit two key FTs. Blake's FT shooting this season is more closely comparable to that of Joel Przybilla (66.7%) than it is to that of the other guards.

4. Steve Blake's one marketable NBA level offensive skill is that of a 3 point specialist. It makes best sense to use him situationally in that capacity.

A is for Andre — Start him!

B is for Blake — Bench him!

C is for Coaching Change Needed if Nate can't figure it out...

D is for Duh.

Continue reading this post »

Well, I had my Tracy McGrady jokes all written and then the whole story got smashed flat as a pancake by 540 basketball writers all riding the news cycle... Now I'm forced to scramble to find something else funny.

So let's go with a sight gag...

How's this authentic (!!!) police diagram of a whoopsie which took place in front of the headquarters building of The Eldrick Woods School of Driving ?

That should at least raise the corners of your mouth a little, eh?

No alcohol involved, of course! 

"Tiger"™® says he is gonna take an "indefinite leave" from professional golf. I'm sure there is more sentiment among his neighbors that he take "indefinite leave" from driving his Escalade.™®

Now, here are those controversial Western Conference All-Star results-to-date in an easily digestable form...

Western Conference

Forwards:

1. Carmelo Anthony (Den) 588,958;
2. Dirk Nowitzki (Dal) 366,300;
3. Pau Gasol (LAL) 280,758;
4. Tim Duncan (SA) 271,321;
5. Kevin Durant (OKC) 177,205;
6. Trevor Ariza (Hou) 168,167;
7. Shawn Marion (Dal) 161,653;
8. Luis Scola (Hou) 134,321;
9. Ron Artest (LAL) 99,209;
10. Lamar Odom (LAL) 85,817;
11. LaMarcus Aldridge (Por) 70,588.

Guards:

1. Kobe Bryant (LAL) 692,518;
2. Tracy McGrady (Hou) 281,545;
3. Steve Nash (Pho) 272,135;
4. Chris Paul (NO) 248,049;
5. Jason Kidd (Dal) 207,247;
6. Jason Terry (Dal) 131,422;
7. Aaron Brooks (Hou) 131,167;
8. Chauncey Billups (Den) 112,509;
9. Brandon Roy (Por) 106,416;
10. Deron Williams (Utah) 94,715;
11. Manu Ginobili (SA) 75,392.

Centers:

1. Amar'e Stoudemire (Pho) 447,776;
2. Andrew Bynum (LAL) 299,484;
3. Nene (Den) 90,439;
4. Marc Gasol (Mem) 75,765;
5. Greg Oden (Por) 73,874;
6. Al Jefferson (Min) 48,676;
7. Antonio McDyess (SA) 46,323;
8. Mehmet Okur (Utah) 35,606;
9. Marcus Camby (LAC) 35,471;
10. Andris Biedrins (GS) 28,287;
11. Emeka Okafor (NO) 19,827;
12. Spencer Hawes (Sac) 10,733.

As you can see above, and as you you've no doubt heard by now from 17 different sources: unless things change in the balloting, the starting Western Conference All-Star Guard tandem will be Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady.

Well, I don't know about you, but mark me down on the short list of people who think that would be awesome!

Let's review those 2009/10 seasonal stats of this Western Conference All-Star Starter, shall we?

Tracy McGrady

Houston Rockets.

6-foot-8 [or so they claim], 203 pounds, G/F.

Salary: $22,483,124.

Games Played in 2009/10: Zero.

Average Minutes Per Game: Zero.

Points Per Game: Zero.

Field Goal Percentage: .000

3 Point Shot Percentage: .000

Free Throw Percentage: .000

Rebounds Per Game: Zero.

Assists Per Game: Zero.

My sincere apologies to those of you who feel that it's not a real conversation about basketball unless one trots out some so-called "advanced" stats like Effective Field Goal Percentage or Rebounds per 36, but you get the point...

Look, serious Houston Rocket fans are not cynical or delusional. They wouldn't vote for an injured T-Mac on a bet, even as a tribute to their highly compensated Unrestricted Free Agent-to-be... This embarrassing tally for a guy who hasn't even been functional this year is attributable to one and only one thing — internet voting from China.

I now suspect that video of Yao Ming's old games are the Chinese equivalent of reruns of "Gilligan's Island" and "I Love Lucy" from Shanghai to Beijing to the village of Hwang Chung in Xinhui County. And since this season the average Chinese fan doesn't have the option of stuffing the NBA All-Star ballot box for 国家英雄光荣与脆性陶瓷脚 [Glorious National Hero with Feet of Brittle Porcelain], the next best thing a proud Chinese basketball fan can do is to vote for those old familiar names who play alongside him.

Hell, 布鲁克斯先生 [Mr. Aaron Brooks] is running ahead of Deron Williams in the balloting. That alone should tell you that something is seriously screwed up. It's not that Aaron is awful — it's just that Deron is deserving. 

These bizarre little early voting idiotosyncrasies™® emerge almost every year when fan balloting opens up. Not to worry... There will no doubt be a big push in the near future on behalf of Steve Nash and Chris Paul, both of whom will end up on the team, barring the crash of a gigantic meteor into the earth which causes cancellation of the NBA season.

Still, you have to admit the concept of 0-for-2009 Rocket Tracy McGrady being voted a starter in the All-Star Game is pretty damned funny... And the truly crazy madness would probably come during the run-up to the game, when it would be discovered, I'm just guessing here, that McGrady's participation would void out about $20 Million of insurance coverage that the Rockets are no doubt banking on. (You don't really think they're going to play him again this year, do you?)

One final aside: Kudos to the NBA for listing Amar'e Stoudamire as the Center of the Phoenix Suns — at least they got that much right, nearly two dozen box scores listing squeezably soft Charmin Frye as their starting C notwithstanding. But what does poor LA Clippers Center Chris Kaman have to do to get the love?

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