December 15, 2009

Tuesday Potpourri: Fouls, Tweets, Rebounding Miseries

• Leading all NBA point guards in fouls per game? Stephen Curry. Leading all NBA shooting guards in fouls per game? Monta Ellis; ESPN lists Morrow and Dahntay Jones ahead of him, but they've both spent most of their time at the three thus far. Morrow is tied for seventh among small forwards, a bit behind Maggette, who's fourth. High minutes totals make some of these guys look worse than they are (particularly Monta)... still, as Carrot Top once said, that's a whole lotta Snapple.

• Other than Maggette, our bigs don't get enough minutes to feature high on the per-game leaderboards. But on a per-minute basis, they more than hold their own. Mikki's tied for 14th overall in fouls per 48, Randolph's 30th, Maggette's tied for 37th and Vlad's tied for 65th. Hunter has not played enough minutes to qualify, but his 8.4 fouls per 48 would rank him fourth in the league, behind Amir Johnson, Chris Pronger and legendary rudo El Satanico.

• If that all sounds like it adds up to a lot, that's because, well, it does. We rank third in the league in fouls per game -- only the Pacers and Raptors offend more often -- and we give up the fourth-most free throw attempts per game, with Milwaukee also besting us there. Your 2009-10 Golden State Warriors: simply smacktacular!

• You may have noticed that eight of our nine currently dressable members rate highly on some foul leaderboard or another. The angelic exception? CJ, of course! He not only has the team's lowest foul rate, but ranks sixth in the league in steals per personal foul amongst guys who've played 10 games or more. CJ is also seventh in the league in steals per turnover, and is the only NBA player to rank in the top ten on both lists. Goofy stats? Sure, but they paint a clear picture, of a guy who forces many more mistakes than he makes. Warriors fans, be sure to appreciate the subtle pleasures of C.J. Watson. We will truly miss him when he's gone.

Kelenna Azubuike is now on Twitter! 'Buike becomes the fourth Warrior Tweeter along with Curry, Morrow and the ever-prolific CJ; while other purported Warriors litter the site, I'm pretty sure that this is not Monta (though part of me hopes this is actually Vlad). Congrats to 'Buike, who joins the millions-strong fight to make the English language shorter and less capitalized.

• Incidentally, we are also on Twitter. Follow us, if you're in the mood. We are determined to catch up to CJ in readership. You know what they say -- the first 218,912 are the hardest.

• It's worth mentioning one more time: last night's game was one of the most woeful rebounding performances in recent league history. The Sixers came into last night as one of the worst rebounding teams in the league, 24th in differential at -1.9 per game; they left it tied for 17th in differential at -0.4 a game. This glass-feeble team not only outrebounded us by 33, but more than doubled us up on the boards. That has happened only fourteen times in the 23+ seasons that Basketball Reference's Play Finder has on record, and just three times this decade:

1986-11-14: Blazers outrebound Clippers by 34 (62-28), win by 10
1988-02-29: Mavs outrebound Nuggets by 36 (65-29), win by 27
1990-12-14: Spurs outrebound Cavs by 39 (69-30), win by 10
1993-03-17: Pacers outrebound Bucks by 38 (69-31), win by 23
1994-03-16: Lakers outrebound Bullets by 33 (61-28), win by 35
1994-12-14: Blazers outrebound Clippers by 37 (66-29), win by 48
1995-03-10: Nuggets outrebound Pistons by 38 (62-24), win by 11
1995-12-03: Blazers outrebound Magic by 36 (67-31), win by 11 (yes, Shaq was injured)
1996-02-16: Knicks outrebound Sixers by 34 (58-24), win by 34
1997-04-07: Bulls outrebound Sixers by 34 (66-32), win by 26
1998-02-17: Suns outrebound Mavs by 38 (67-29), win by 18
2005-11-09: Cavs outrebound Sonics by 35 (56-21), win by 27
2009-02-17: Suns outrebound Clippers by 37 (58-21), win by 40
2009-12-14: Sixers outrebound Warriors by 33 (59-26), win by 16

Not surprisingly, the outrebounder went 14-0, winning every games by double-digits. In fact, our sixteen-point loss
was, on some morbid level, impressive; the average margin of defeat for these fourteen outreboundees is a clean
24 points a game.

• After last night's game, we are now being outrebounded by 9.4 a game. That would be the second-worst margin
in NBA history, behind... wait for it...

Don Nelson's 1989-1990 Golden State Warriors. If you don't know whether to laugh or cry, the correct answer is "both".

2 comments:

Dave said...

So sad. I feel so bad for you guys. Even if you run eighteen years away, you're still living in the same disaster. This certainly made me laugh. I haven't cried yet, but it hasn't quite sunk in yet, either.

Owen said...

There is something almost magical about it, as though the Warriors were not a shitty sports team so much as a "Lost"-style space-time disruption. 69 and fat though he may be, I am not yet totally convinced that Nellie's current stint will be his last.