The Outside World is a weekly recap of the best basketball writing and analysis the internet has to offer.
– The Rockets have gotten a lot of attention the past few years for finding hidden gems in the draft and through free agency. Their ability to find effective players to fill the roster gives their team a very different distribution of production than most of the other teams in the league. David Berri, at The Wages of Wins, explains.
– Kobe Bryant is selfish! He passes less relative to his Usage Rate than any other guard in the NBA. His assist increase in clutch situations is also an illusion. Also, someone told me he hates unicorns and dolphins. What a jerk!
– Headline of the Week: Kevin Garnett Is a Jerk, But He’s Our Jerk
– Basketball-Reference has started an incredible project. It’s an attempt to collaboratively create an ordered list of the best NBA players of all time. The simplified explanation is that you are offered a pair of randomly selected NBA players who meet some basic statistical requirements. You simply choose who you think was a better player. The criteria for making the choice are entirely up to you. Have a few thousand people repeating that process a few thousand times, calculate the results and you get a truly egalitarian ranking of NBA talent. Please make sure you contribute to this effort!
– Joey Whelan put together a great breakdown of the Celtics’ propensity for avoiding isolation plays, especially in crunch time.
– The All-Star Team according to advanced stats.
– When talking about defense it’s generally assumed that each player on the court has equal responsibilities. But is that really true? Is it possible that point guard defense is less important than defense from other positions?
– If you’ve got 5 seconds or so to spare and need a laugh check out DidTheCavsWinLastNight.com
– Hey Kobe Bryant, Sherman Alexie’s got something for you!
– Jerry Sloan resigned as coach of the Utah Jazz on Thursday after 23 years on the bench. The Salt Lake Tribune has the story. Salt City Hoops has an emotional thank you. I’ve got some gigantic numbers.
You can also find Ian at Hickory-High.com and Indycornrows.com
The Cleveland Cadavers pull a Lazarus as they come back from the dead to actually win a game. Strangely enough,it looked like a sellout crowd at home. The Cadavers must be an attraction for those “other unspoken reasons” … Probably getting a lot of those NASCAR fans who go to races just to see wrecks and carnage. Next home game, they’ll probably have fewer than 8,000.
Is Andre Kirilenko possibly the worst 1st round draft choice EVER in the NBA???
Is the Suns’ Robin Lopez or the Lakers’ Pau Gasol a better stunt double for the Geico Caveman??
Kirilenko is definitely in the discussion of worst first round ever.
I wouldn’t even have Kirilenko in the top 10. Ever heard of Mouhamed Saene, Yaroslev Korolev, Pavel Podkolzin, Kirk Haston, Reece Gaines, Chris Jeffries, Jerryl Sasser, Erick Barkley, Cedric Simmons, Wayne Simien? Exactly! and those are just 1st round picks since 2000.
Kirilenko used to be good. In 2004 he averaged 16.5 points, 8.1 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.9 steals, 2.8 blocks, 44.3 FG% and 33.8 3PT%. He was productive for a pretty long stretch.
Any discussion of an NBA caveman look alike needs to include Chris Kaman during his Joe Dirt days.
https://www.theranksters.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/kaman.jpg
But wasn’t Kirilenko like a Top 5 pick? You’re certainly gonna get a lot of lemons in the back half of 1st round, but a lottery stinker is much more rare. If it’s not Kirilenko I’m thinking of, what other foreign born player was a top draft choice bust?
Kirilenko was the 24th pick in 1999. I actually didn’t know, I had to look it up. You might be thinking of Yaroslev Korolev, Pavel Podkolzin or Nikoloz Tvishkili