The off-season is not only a time for Stacey to reflect upon his previous seasons' work, but to also prepare for the upcoming year. "What worked and what didn't? Did my cadence properly reflect the moment? How can I fit more catch phrases into the telecast? Should I just tell Funk to suck it and talk 100% of the time?"
The 2013-2014 Bulls roster is basically complete. It is now that Stacey begins to craft his verbal sculptures. This is the Summer of Stacey.
Stacey King - The Offseason
Stacey slowly opens the door as it moans with resistance. Feeling up and down the the wall, he flips the power switch on. A single, bare bulb awakens, filling the room with a silent hum. The dusty, windowless room bites his nostrils. This place hasn't seen life in exactly a year.
"Hello, old friend", he mutters as he sets his supplies in place.
His family thinks he's on his annual week long summer Bulls PR tour. No, this is a time for Stacey to carefully create the next catch phrase sensation.
Notes: Steph Curry's 54 points are the 10th highest since 2000-2001 (Kobe Bryant - 81 pts - 2006).
Kobe Bryant (8), Carmelo Anthony (8), Kevin Durant (6), Steph Curry (2), James Harden (2), and Kyrie Irving (2) were the only players to record multiple 40+ point games.
Kobe/Carmelo's (8) 40 point games are the 10th most since 2000-2001 (Kobe Bryant - 27 - 2005/2006)
14 players recorded a 40+ point game (the lowest amount of players since 2000-2001)
Paul Pierce (40 points) had the best FG% (81.3) and Kevin Durant (52 points) had the worst FG% (41.9).
John Wall (47 points) attempted the most free throws (24) and Deron Williams (42 points) attempted the least free throws (1).
Kevin Durant (52 points) played the most minutes (50) and Paul Pierce (40 points) played the least minutes (34).
Deron Williams (42 points) had the most 3PA (16) and Al Jefferson had the least 3PA (0)
LeBron James (40 points) had the most assists (16) and Kobe Bryant (40 points)/Carmelo Anthony (41/42/42 points)/Kevin Durant (52 points) had the least assists (1).
Carmelo Anthony (41 points) had the most rebounds (14) and also the least rebounds (2)
I originally posted this on my friend's blog Son of Hilljack
The NBA has had some interesting personalities come and go through the league in its lifetime. "Interesting personalities" is probably the nicest way possible of putting it. The league has done a lot to clean up its public image of a "overpaid thugs", with mostly great success, but players personal lives still inevitably make it into the headlines. With great athletic ability comes great responsibility to not do dumb shit, according to that quote from Spiderman that I just manipulated.
Athletes today are observed through such an intensely judgmental microscope that any slip up immediately becomes world knowledge. Some of these are hilarious (J.R. Smith trying to get laid), some disturbing (Kobe Bryant trying to get laid), and some aren't any fault of the athlete (Carlos Boozer), but they all now have a place in internet history. I've decided to try and chronicle some of the most stand out moments from NBA players past and present.
Way back in 2006, Prince was leasing a 10 bedroom, 11 bathroom house from Carlos Boozer for $70,000 a month. That was a weird sentence to write. Anyways, apparently Prince didn't like Boozer's taste in decor so he decided to make some slight alterations. According to the article, he made the following changes without Boozer's knowledge:
Painted the outside of the house with purple striping, Prince's symbol, and the numbers 3121 (his upcoming album title)
Installed purple monogrammed carpet in the master bedroom
Installed purple plumbing and piping to the downstairs bedroom 'for water transfer for beauty salon chairs.'
Lots of other purple shit probably
As part of a promotion, Prince is expected to hold a private concert at the Hollywood property--which recently was listed for sale at $11.9 million--for album purchasers who find a Wonkaesque 'purple ticket' inside their CD cases.
"No way bro, the best concert I've ever seen was a very intimate Prince show at a house that Carlos Boozer owned in Hollywood while getting my hair done in a purple salon chair because I found a winning purple ticket in his album sleeve." How much do you wish you could say that?
It's humbling to think back on the past. My aunt stocking up on rations for Y2K and the 9/11 catastrophe are still very fresh memories for me, but the 2000-2001 NBA season was 12 years ago! That's roughly half of the time I have spent experiencing things on this planet.
Associating the passage of time with the NBA is something I've always done, but I also have a bedroom plastered with 90's Bulls memorabilia so maybe I'm just stuck in a perpetual state of nostalgia.
In the 2000-2001 season, Kobe Bryant was a spry, young 22 year old with a full head of hair in the middle of a historic dynasty. This makes me feel all existential and shit. So much time has passed between then and now even though it only feels like a few years ago. Think about how many random breakout seasons there were and how the NBA landscape has completely changed since then (i.e. No more hand checking, new CBA, the stretch 4 becoming prevalent)
I decided to go back and search for some of these seasons in the Basketball Reference database. I chose 2000 as a starting point because it's roughly the past decade, and the 1990's are a whole different post. Most of these findings weren't exactly shocking, but it's nice to look back and see just how good some of today's aging veterans used to be. This journey will feature way too many players spanning from the year 2000 - 2009 and will be split into multiple posts.
2000-2001
Detroit Pistons, SG: Jerry Stackhouse 26 Years Old
That is, obviously, excellent company to be in. I doubt that anyone would mentally place Stackhouse in with these other players without first seeing that stat. That season also included Stack posting an enormous 35.2% usage rate which puts him in even slightly rarer company. Kobe owns the highest mark with 38.7% during the year he put up 35 points a game.
Stackhouse finished the season scoring 30+ points in an unbelievable 44 of 80 games, including 8 games of 40+. He also got to the foul line 10.1 times a game shooting 82.2% along with 5.9 3PA at a 35.1% clip.
The Bad News
Stackhouse shot an abysmal 40.2% overall and Detroit finished 5th in the Central Division with a record of 32-50. I'm sure a lot of these huge seasons will also be on bad teams, so don't sweat it, Stack.
Where is he now?
Now with his 5th different team in the last 5 seasons, Stackhouse (38 years old) has played 27 games and averaged 4.8 points in 14.4 minutes for the Brooklyn Nets this year. He had a season high of 17 points against the Celtics on November 28th. Keep on keepin' on, brother.
49.2 eFG% (Effective Field Goal Percentage, this statistic adjusts for the fact that a 3-point field goal is worth one more point than a 2-point field goal.)
1 Free Throw per 4.90 Field Goals Attempted
.204 Free Throws/Field Goal Attempts
15 Player Efficiency Rating
This is a list of everyone attempting 10 or more shots a game while only averaging only 1 more point per game than shots attempted per game.
>= 10 FGA/G
PPG - FGA/G = <=1
I added Monta Ellis to the list because he was really close to the target numbers and the sheer volume of shots he puts up at an average effeciency deserves mention. He's 4th in the league in shots attempted per game.
Let's get this out of the way first. Spencer Hawes has, by far, the worst hair in the league. It's a shaggy, trash mullet usually reserved for Wal-Marts in the south. I really don't know why anyone who is seen by hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis would walk around like this. Here are my theories:
He lost a bet to one of his liberal teammates on the presidential election and is now forced to sport this cut for the rest of the season.
Someone shaved the sides of head while he was sleeping and he just hasn't checked a mirror since.
No other hairstyle goes with his trash 'stache as well.
He thinks it is funny and is being "ironic".
He enjoys the flop sweat the mullet provides.
With that nastiness out of the way, let's take a look at the rest of the best and worst stylings in the NBA.
