A Stats Primer

I was reading the Internet last night. I only made it about halfway through the Internet when I came upon this article from the New York Times. It was written by a guy who wrote a book about the use of stats (short for "statistics," which is short for "numbers of things that happened") in baseball, but this article is about stats in basketball (proposed new name: statsketball). The piece is centered on Houston Rockets forward Shane Battier (proposed new name: Stattier).

It was intriguing! I learned a bunch about stats. I don't know if you guys have heard about stats, so let me teach you some things about stats.

First and foremost, you need to know what stats are. A stat is a way that we count things that happen. If you have more than one stat it becomes stats. In essence, stats is the plural form of stat, which is a name for something that happened. For instance, if a player takes a jump shot, that is a stat. Let's say that player (Rajon Rondo) misses that shot, that is also a stat. If you combine these, that is a player's stats.

The formula:

STAT + STAT = STATS

That is how we get stats.

(Note: sometimes people say statistics when they are talking about stats. They are the same things. These people just like to sound like scientists.)

Now that you know where stats come from, let's learn about what the article talks about. Because it's not just about stats. It's also about advanced stats, which are kind of like if stats could get superpowers. But between stats and advanced stats are intermediate stats.

Some people didn't think stats were good enough. They were haters. So they decided, "we need more stats." They took all the normal stats (like points and assists and rebounds) and divided them by other stats (games and shots and ratios). This made new stats which are called intermediate stats. They're pretty much normal nowadays, like how the average height of humans has increased over time.

But intermediate stats were not enough for some people. These people were probably people who liked; a) numbers and b) basketball. I don't know for sure, but that's a guess (they'd call it a hypothesis). So these people took stats and intermediate stats and decided to make advanced stats. It's the same as when John Madden invented the Turducken or Charles Darwin invented evolution.

Here's a diagram that shows how stats became advanced stats:

As you can see, stats was a quadroped in the primordial ooze until John Hollinger (a stat-liker/maker) made advanced stats which stands on two legs and lives in a forrest.

Advanced stats can tell us a lot of things. They can tell us how many points a player scores per minute. They can tell us what a player's PER is, which is a measure of how much good a player does. They can allow us to compare a team that plays fast but sucks (the Knicks) with a team that plays slow but sucks (the Wizards). All of these things are possible because of advanced stats. They're pretty cool.

But even advanced stats can't tell us everything. For instance, the Rockets have to have super-advanced stats that tell them how good Shane Stattier (nee' Battier) is at playing basketball. The public (me and you) do not have access to these, but we can assume that they would be like if humans grew wings. Even with super-advanced stats, the Rockets still need to use their eyes to assess things like Stattier's head folds, gap teeth, and ability to place his hand millimeters away from another player's face without actually touching it (REALLY annoying on car trips to Six Flags). Unfortunately, not even Tom Ziller can invent stats to measure those things.

I'm pretty sure I covered everything there is to know about stats, intermediate stats, advanced stats, and super-advanced stats but I might have missed something. If you think you'll get some extra learning from it, go read the article about statsketball. You'll be glad you did because then you can tell all your friends about stats.

Thanks for learning!

The Differences Between Anthonys

The NBA is a big place. There are over 15, 000 players currently playing and it's understandable to sometimes get confused about who is who. Trust me, I know. One time, I mixed up Tony Dumas and Richard Dumas and felt like a jerk for upwards of 8 months.

But that's not the point right now. The point right now is the various Anthonys who are in the NBA. Did you know there are nine current NBA players who have Anthony as a first or last name? I did. I did the research. Furthermore, did you know that greater than 25% of NBA players have Anthony as a middle name? That's true, too. Players such as Brad Miller, Andrew Bynum, Francisco Garcia, and Joakim Noah all share this middle name. In fact, Anthony is even the middle name of Carmelo Anthony, making him Carmelo Anthony Anthony. I know, it's hard to believe but I wouldn't make that up.

Even more confounding is that there are FOUR current point guards who have the first name Anthony. Johnson, Carter, Roberson, and Parker are all point guards and it's easy to get mix them up. But in order to subvert that confusion, I've created this annotated guide to the different point guard Anthonys in the league. It is suggested that this be printed in your wallet and carried at all times. Or you can just bookmark this page. Either way, it's best to have this information with you at all times.

For this chart, green connected boxes are similarities and red boxes that aren't connected are things that are unique to each player. As you can see, I've numbered each box for easy reference. Green:

1. Johnson and Carter are both bald.
2. Johnson, Carter, and Roberson all have facial hair.
3. Parker and Johnson both have the number 8 on their jerseys.
4. Roberson and Parker both have closely trimmed hair, but are not bald.
5. Carter and Roberson both have tattoos.
6. Carter and Roberson both have the number 5 on their jerseys.
7. Parker and Roberson both have necks while Johnson and Carter are neckless.

Red:

1. Roberson wears a thin rubber strap bearing the word "BALLA."
2. Parker wears a black wrist wrap that conceals the sweet friendship bracelets he got while playing overseas.
3. Parker wears a white wristband.

As you can see, these Anthonys are VERY similar and also interchangeable. There are rumors around the NBA that, at times, these Anthonys have been switched between teams without anyone knowing. However, with this detailed diagram, we won't be fooled again.

Thanks for learning!

Explaining Hook Shots

The hook shot is something near and dear to my heart. When the Trey Kerby YouTube mixtape (currently in production) finally drops, you best believe that there will be significant hooking involved, along with a very loud and ignorant rap song. That's the YouTube way.

Given these credentials, I'm pretty much the internet's leading expert on the hook shot. Furthermore, I have a degree in Health Science which allows me to explain things by using physics. Also, MS Paint lines/Helvetica.

Our first case is Yao Ming: Notice the three main elements that make a successful hook shot:

1. Full extension of the shooting arm.
2. Body and off-arm shield the defender from blocking the shot.
3. Strange facial expression.

Let us compare this to Dwight Howard:

As you can see, Dwight has his elbow bent which prevents him from getting the proper arc on his hook. Plus his body is nearly facing his defender, whom he hasn't shielded with his off-arm. However, his face is pretty crazy, so that's working for him.

Now another successful hook shotta, Tim Duncan:Fully extended. Defender shielded. Face showing no emotion due to his cyborg innards. Two out of three ain't bad. MEATLOAF QUOTE.

Anyways, when Duncan decides to get balanced and shoot a real hook, it's perfect. Surprising. Of course, if you were Tim Duncan and could throw up anything and have it go in, why wouldn't you? Because you would. You know you would.

But here's Greg Oden:

While his arm is extended and he's trying to shield the defender, he just isn't doing it right. His hooks look like when your high school coach teaches you a hook shot, so you try it in a JV game and airball it short. But you got fouled and make both free throws anyway, so whatever. That's exactly what it looks like. His arm needs to be extended so that he can get some separation from his defender.

Here's our last comparison.

First, Pau Gasol:Good extension, shielding, and separation. Being that it's Pau Gasol, obviously his face is insane. THIS IS ONE OF THE KEYS.

But fellow European (not really) Kosta Koufas isn't so great:I guess if you're a Jazz fan, you love this hook shot and think it's better than Chris Paul. But it's wrong in a lot of ways. But it's Kosta Koufos, so it's basically irrelevant. But you should note that if you can't gain separation any other way, a solid kick in the groin is a great way to get your shot off too. Just ask Joel Pryzbilla.

But fear not, fellow humans, even if you go outside right now (don't go outside right now, it's cold) and shoot your first hook shot ever, you'll still be better than Josh McRoberts: