Lottery

Via TrueHoop:

Alok Pattani of ESPN Statistics and Information Research has done something fabulous: He has come up with basketball things that are about as likely as this or that team winning the lottery:

• The Kings are 25% likely to win the top spot, which is about as likely as Kevin Martin scoring more than 30 points in any given game.
• The Wizards have a 17.8% shot, which is about how often they lost a game by 20 or more points this season.
• The Clippers are 17.7% likely to win. That's roughly how often Eric Gordon scored 25+ points.
• The Thunder have an 11.9% chance at the top spot. That's about as likely as Kevin Durant shooting over 60% from the field for a whole game.
• The Timberwolves have a 7.6% chance of winning the lottery. That's about as common as this year's Timberwolves winning consecutive games.
• The Grizzlies have a 7.5% chance of winning, which is about as likely as the Grizzlies having a 50-win season.
• The Warriors, with a 4.3% chance, are about as likely to win the lottery as they are to hold an opponent below 90 points in a game.
• The Knicks likelihood of winning, 2.8%, is about the same as their likelihood of shooting fewer than 20 3-pointers in a game.
• The Raptors are as likely to win (1.7%) as Jose Calderon is to likely to miss a free throw.
• Michael Redd is as likely to make five straight 3-pointers as the Bucks, with a 1% chance, are likely to win the lottery.
• The Nets are as likely (0.9%) to see Devin Harris, as a Net, having a 40-point, 10-assist game as they are to win the lottery.
• The Bobcats chances of winning (0.7%) are roughly the same as their likelihood of going on a six-game winning streak.
• The Pacers have 0.6% chance at the top spot. Troy Murphy, as a Pacer, scores 25+ points about 0.6% of the time.
• Shaquille O'Neal is about as likely to make eight straight free throws as the Suns are to win the lottery, with a 0.5% likelihood.

Soulsearching in Laker Nation

Via TrueHoop:

On Silver Screen and Roll, a guest post from someone calling himself Frying Dutchman explains that his heart will always be high on these Lakers, but his mind is extraordinarily frustrated with what he sees as a lack of effort:

If the Lakers win the championship, part of me will be disappointed. The part of me that thinks that effort and hard work are important and should be rewarded. The part of me that gets angry at how unfair the world is. Because that's exactly what it will be. If the Lakers win it all this year, it will be unfair. Unfair to the game of basketball. Unfair to all the past champions. Unfair to the Houston Rockets, who lost their 2nd best player in the regular season, and got better. Who lost their best player for the playoffs, and came out and played harder. It was bad enough when Shaq would take half the regular season getting into shape, but this? Those teams never took entire playoff games off. The Lakers today were the Detroit Pistons, a team with much of the same talent that had them go to the EC finals 5 years straight, and yet this year saw them limp into the playoffs before getting swept as a mere formality. The Lakers today were the LA Clippers, a motley assortment of players who could care less about the team. The Lakers today weren't champions, and they don't deserve to be champions.

My heart doesn't work on logic, so I'll be there in front of my TV rooting the team on like I always do for Game 5. But in the back of my mind, I'll be hoping that one of these teams comes along and finally gives these Lakers the lesson they deserve, that some group of guys dedicated to each other and to playing the game as best they can ALL THE TIME drives the point home to my team and makes them suffer for it. We all thought it would have happened last year, but it didn't. Maybe it can't happen, maybe its a lesson the team will never learn. But my mind will be hoping for a hungrier team to come and ruin the Lakers season again, because my mind does work on logic. My mind seeks justice.

Even if it costs my heart the chance to celebrate a championship.

Clipper Darrell

My fellow brown writer Arash Markazi has a great feature on my main man Clipper Darrell. It is especially cool for me to be reading about these guys who I have had the opportunity to have multiple conversations with during my times wandering around Staples Center during Clipper games.

Playoff Buzzer Beaters

Some other great Playoff clutch buzzer beaters

Big Baby

I have loads of thoughts on what was another great classic weekend of NBA Playoff basketball, but I will leave it as just a few:

• The Los Angeles Lakers are not a championship team. The title teams of Jordan's Bulls and Duncan's Spurs would never take opposing teams so lightly like the Lakers did Sunday. The Lakers played with more laziness than I would on a Sunday matinee game, except that is their career that they get paid to perform on national television. My dislike for the Lakers and their many bandwagon fans is well documented, but now I have really turned against this particular team. Playing defense and showing effort seems like such a chore to this group of overly skilled yet sadly lackadaisical individuals.
  
• The Lakers winning the title would be an insult to basketball enthusiasts such as myself, and even more so to other playoff teams such as the Cavs, Celtics, and Rockets who leave it all on the floor every game.
  
• Remember how Kevin Garnett shouted at Glen "Big Baby" Davis with such intensity that he cried on the bench earlier this season? You could not have written the end of that story better than with Big Baby hitting an unlikely game winner filling in for Garnett during the playoffs.
  
• If defense breeds championships, what to the Lakers deserve? I vote for a fishing trip.
• Each series has been led by the team with more former Seattle Sonics. Just saying.
  

Ron Witnesses Murder

Ron Artest on the madness during last night's physical Lakers Rockets game, which featured two ejections:

"I understand it's the playoffs. I remember when I used to play back home in the neighborhood. There was always games like that. I remember one time, there was um, one of my friends, you know, was playing basketball and they was winning the game. It was so competitive they broke a piece of leg from a table and they threw it. It went right through his heart and he died right on the court. So I'm accustomed to playing basketball really rough."

Oh Yao, you so funny

Yao to teammate Ron Artest as he left the podium after a win:
"See you in the club"

Yao on whether he viewed the Rockets as underdogs against the Lakers:
"Well I just learned that word a few days ago. Like NBA says...where amazing happens."

Boston-Chicago: Amazing

Boston-Chicago Top 10

The Top Ten Moments of the Boston-Chicago Series.

Ron Artest Interview on TNT (4.29.09)

Chicago Boston

I don't know where to begin.

Highlights of each of the first six games of the series.