It must have been about a week ago when I decided to write a “5 (or 10) surprising facts about the NBA at the halfway point” blog. Since then, I have, well, not done that. And – typically – if I delay a blog more than a day or so, it doesn’t happen.
So, as a comprise, here are four (potentially) surprising facts about the NBA at this point in the season.
The rebound leaders:
- Kevin Love, 15.6 RPG (good gracious)
- Dwight Howard, 13.6
- Zach Randolph, 13.3
- Blake Griffin, 12.8
- Andrew Bogut, 11.7
If you’ve been paying attention, this was also my Surprise of the Year for the 2010 BISdom awards, and it was what gave me the idea for this blog. When I wrote that blog, Marcus Camby was in the top five, making this a bit more surprising, though Bogut is still a bit of a surprise – unless you consider the #1 surprising fact of last season: the Milwaukee Deer made the playoffs, and there had to be some reason.
Manu Ginobli is an MVP candidate. The Spurs are 4 games better than the Celtics, the other best team in the league. San Antonio’s record: 40-7. In ’95-’96, when they set the NBA season record with 72 wins, the Bulls were 42-5 through 47 games. The Spurs are playing that well this year, and Manu Ginobli is their best player so far. His PER is about 2 points higher than Tim Duncan and Tony Parker. He also leads the team in scoring and steals, is second in assists, and is fifth in rebounding.
The third most important rookie in the league is New York’s Landry Fields. We all know about Blake Griffin and John Wall at this point, but Fields – the 39th overall pick in this year’s draft – is the only other rookie to average more than 30 minutes per game. Amongst rookies, he’s 4th in PPG (10.1), 3rd in RPG (7.1), and 2nd in FG % (52.3 – ahead of both Griffin and Wall).
I started my fantasy basketball season a perfect and fantastic 12-0. I finally lost this past week to Bryan, after Stephen Curry failed to score 900 f-points in the late game last night. We play an 18-game season, so I’m guaranteed at least a 66.7% win percentage.
Quote(s) of the Week:
Two gems from Kevin Durant, a usually soft-spoken guy:
“Jimmer Fredette is the best scorer in the world!!”
“There's a lot of fake tough guys in this league and [Chris Bosh is] one of them.”
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And for of those top 5 rebounders are on my fantasy team...which is part of the reason your undefeated season went up in smoke.
ReplyDeleteAlso I love that KD is calling out players, especially Heat Players. The NBA needs more bad blood. Even if it comes from the nicest player in the leauge.