The List of Greatness - 1987

I think this is the first time this has ever happened - where the top ten guys stayed the same. Well, obviously Tiny Archibald isn't here anymore since he was inducted last year and was replaced by somebody else. So I should really say, everyone in the top ten who wasn't inducted last year was still in the top ten this year. There was some shifting of positions, but the names are all the same. Also, the new member of the top ten had an incredible season in 1987. Moved all the way from #82 to #4 and increased his rating by 72.9 points. That also might be a record for a single season.

2012 All-Stars

Well, I was 10 for 10 in predicting the All-Star starters. (My Rookie of the Year prediction, however, is not looking so great... To be fair, I did say I don't pay any attention to college basketball...) Although I really don't take a lot of pride in nailing every one of those picks - I'm pretty sure anyone who pays even a casual amount of attention to the NBA and saw the ballot could've predicted that. And that was really more of an exercise in knowing who was popular than good at basketball (at least this year, those two coincided, thankfully.) Now comes the fun part: figuring out the rest of the rosters.

The List of Greatness - 1986

I just realized it's been about three months since I've done one of these. Yikes. I have high hopes I'll get it brought current before the end of the season. (Assuming I don't take three months do the next one.) This year, we get to see the rare occurrence of a supplemental member jumping up to the regular list. (Slater Martin, Chet Walker, and Jerry Lucas are the only other ones to do that so far.)

Is Kobe Gunning for Kareem?

You know, I'd never even considered the possibility that Kobe Bryant could end his career as the all-time leading scorer in NBA history, but after he went for 48 points last night (something I didn't really think he could do anymore), I started to think that it might conceivably happen and started some crunching some numbers.

An Exercise in Egotism (My Pre-season-ish Award Picks)

The All-Star ballot was revealed today and voting opened - a full ten days into the season. But what are you gonna do when the All-Star Game is on the same date and the season started two months late? At least we're getting an All-Star Game this year.

Anyway, I was kind of waiting for the ballot to be revealed to make preseason picks, since I knew it wasn't going to be too far into the season. But I really didn't need to. I could've made these picks at the end of last year with 100% certainty.

One Last Thought on the Chris Paul Trade (and a couple other thoughts)

I've been developing this tool for a while now, which I originally intended to find a player's three year "peak" - the best three season stretch of a player's career. Incidentally, this can be used to identify the value of any three season stretch of a player's career. Of course, I've only been using this to evaluate (mostly) elite players and compare them to other elite players so far, so, it may need tweaking to accurately rate role players. But I think it works well for the greats right now. Anyway, I'm going to use this to analyze the value of the two Chris Paul trades, and see which one actually would be more beneficial for the Hornets.

Winners and Losers of the Chris Paul Non-Trade

In the wake of the ridiculous blocking of the trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers, I'm going to try to assess who actually came out ahead on this, and who has gotten hurt the most.

The Trade That Wasn't

Hey, remember when the Lakers, Rockets, and Hornets were involved in a three-team deal that sent Chris Paul to Los Angeles, Pau Gasol to the Rockets, and Lamar Odom/Kevin Martin/a few other players to the Hornets? No? Well, I can't blame you. It happened, and then un-happened in the span of about two hours. "How can a trade un-happen?" you ask. Good question.

Labor Deal Done

Well the new labor deal is "officially" done. I have it in quotes because there aren't any official details released yet. Sources are just reporting that the deal is in place, all sides have agreed to everything, and the season is set to go Christmas Day. Huzzah! I'll put up the details of the deal as soon as I hear the "official" news of what exactly is in it.


In other, sadder news, Caron Butler has signed a deal to play with Clippers next year. R.I.P. Caron. You had a lot of potential and it just never happened.

The List of Greatness - Active Players

In anticipation of the return of the NBA as well as the (probably to a much lesser extent) my List of Greatness posts, I thought I'd let everyone take a sneak peak at how the active players stack up so everyone can kind of keep track of them throughout the year. I was thinking about putting up who the closest candidates were for making it in 2012, but that'd give too much away for the future 2000 onward posts of who gets in and who doesn't. (Although you can probably guess, anyway.) Also, as a side note, the "Ultimate Season" will happen, it's just slow going figuring out how to make it work in this format. Anyway, on to the rankings.