In this situation I am not using the word dominates lightly–Team USA beat the Canadian basketball team 120-65 tonight.  For just a couple facts about the game, it was a very balanced scoring effort by the USA, and who can complain when the team shoots just over 65% from the field.  Especially when this is compared to the 33% of the Canadian squad.

More interesting, however, than this overwhelming victory is the components of the team that led to it.  I feel that there was a lot of thought and planning that went into choosing how to compose this team.

The team consists of:

• Carmelo Anthony, Denver Nuggets (Forward)
• Carlos Boozer, Utah Jazz (Forward)
• Chris Bosh, Toronto Raptors (Forward)
• Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers (Guard)
• Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic (Center)
• Lebron James, Cleveland Cavaliers (Forward)
• Jason Kidd, Dallas Mavericks (Guard)
• Chris Paul, New Orleans Hornets (Guard)
• Tayshaun Prince, Detroit Pistons (Forward)
• Michael Redd, Milwaukee Bucks (Guard)
• Dwayne Wade, Miami Heat (Guard)
• Deron Williams, Utah Jazz (Guard)

This roster works for several reasons.  For one, there is a great mix of talent and of positions played.  There is a combination of both stars as well as very talented roll players.  Also, there is a solid distribution of ages throughout the group–there are the veterans to guide the team as well as the young players to give the squad more energy.  I am excited to see what this team will be able to do.  Obviously, they have a lot of pressure to succeed, but I feel like the right pieces are in play, and now it is just a matter of executing.

Each year, as more and more international players improve their basketball games, the competition gets harder and harder.  In addition, the international talent that plays in the NBA will usually return to their respective countries to play in the olympics.

[cross-posted on olympics.babyhook.com and www.babyhook.com]

So, I decided to test the waters again in AT&T park and see if I could witness the Giants win.  This was game number three of the season, and it was the first win!  Here are some pictures as evidence.

The post-game high-fives are a sure sign of a victory:

And just in the case the above picture wasn’t close enough to guarantee that they were in fact the San Francisco Giants, here they are again on the big screen:

If Stanford entered the Beijing 2008 Olympics as its own country, it would be interesting to see how they end up ranking compared to all the other countries.  Including past and current students and coaches, Stanford has 47 going to these Olympics.

These athletes represent 7 different countries:

• United States (33)
• Austria (1)
• Brazil (1)
• Canada (4)
• Kenya (2)
• New Zealand (5)
• Tunisia (1)

Once the Olympics begin, I will try to give semi-regular updates on how these athletes have done in terms of medals won, etc.  But in the meantime, I’m going to try to go through some of these individuals and learn their stories.

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The Stanford participants are:

United States Olympians (33)

Azevedo, Tony ‘05 Men’s Water Polo
Banks, David ‘05 Men’s Rowing (Men’s Four)
Barnhart, Nicole ‘05 Women’s Soccer
Beaubien, Layne ‘99 Men’s Water Polo
Breeden, Elaine Women’s Swimming (100 fly, 200 fly)
Bryan, Bob ‘98 Men’s Tennis (Doubles)
Bryan, Mike ‘98 Men’s Tennis (Doubles)
Buehler, Rachel `08 Women’s Soccer
Camarena, Jillian ‘04 Women’s Track and Field (Shot Put)
Dobson, Ian ‘05 Men’s Track and Field (5000 meters)
Gall, John ‘00 Baseball
Gardner, Gabe ‘99 Men’s Volleyball
Gregorka, Alison ‘07 Women’s Water Polo
Hall, Ryan ‘06 Men’s Track and Field (Marathon)
Hansen, Kevin ‘04 Men’s Volleyball
Hudnut, Peter ‘03 Men’s Water Polo
Lappin, Lauren `06 Softball
Logan, Elle Women’s Rowing (Women’s Eight)
McLain, Erica ‘08 Women’s Track and Field (Triple Jump)
Meyer, Lindsay Women’s Rowing (Women’s Eight)
Mendoza, Jessica ‘02 Softball
Nnamani, Ogonna `05 Women’s Volleyball
Rittman, John Softball (Assistant Coach)
Robertson, Michael ‘07 Men’s Track and Field (Discuss)
Schroeder, Jamie ‘05 Men’s Rowing (Quadruple Sculls)
Smit, Julia Women’s Swimming (4×100 and 4×200 free relay)
Steffens, Jessica Women’s Water Polo
Thorburn, Christine, M.D. ‘99 Cycling
Tom, Logan ‘03 Women’s Volleyball
Varellas, Peter ‘06 Men’s Water Polo
Villa, Brenda `03 Women’s Water Polo
Walsh, Kerri ‘00 Women’s Beach Volleyball
Wildman-Tobriner, Ben `07 Men’s Swimming (50 free, 400 free relay)

Austria
Rogan, Markus Men’s Swimming (100 and 200 Backstroke)

Brazil
Morrison, Phillip Men’s Swimming (800 Free Relay)

Canada
Gentry, Matt ‘05 Wrestling (74 kg Freestyle)
Kreek, Adam ‘06 Men’s Rowing (Men’s Eight)
Kolker, Sabrina ‘03 Women’s Rowing (Women’s Pair)
Oriwol, Tobias ‘06 Men’s Swimming (200 Backstroke)

Kenya
Dunford, David Men’s Swimming (50 Free)
Dunford, Jason Men’s Swimming (100 fly, 100 Free)

New Zealand
Bodensteiner, Clare ‘07 Women’s Basketball
Elliott, Simon `98 Men’s Soccer
Harmon, Jillian Women’s Basketball
Nelsen, Ryan ‘00 Men’s Soccer
Riley, Ali Women’s Soccer

Tunisia
Ben-Youssef, Leila `04 Women’s Track and Field (Pole Vault)

*****

[cross-posted on olympics.babyhook.com and www.babyhook.com]

I have started this new blog at http://olympics.babyhook.com/ to share some of my thoughts about the olympics as they progress and to follow specific athletes that peak an interest. I love the Olympics and am sure that I’ll have something to say about them every once in a while.

Most of the posts will be cross-posted at olympics.babyhook.com along with www.babyhook.com, but just in case you are only interested in the olympics and not some of the other topics I like to write about, the olympics blog is the place for you.  *I pretended like I have a lot of readers in the last sentence–there’s not too much harm in flattering myself every once in a while.

I also plan to follow how Stanford does in the Olympics and follow the athletes that are present and past students of the university.

What a move by Childress– and I’m talking about off the court.  Childress has agreed to play for a Greek team called the Olympiakos.  Usually, it is the NBA that is pulling away talent from the Euroleagues, but this situation has things reversed.  In three years, he will be making $20 million after taxes.  This is a better deal than he could’ve received as a restricted free agent with the Atlanta Hawks.  It is the biggest contract in Euroleague history.

But enough with the facts!  What does this really mean for one of Stanford’s finest ballers and what does it mean for basketball?  I’m not even going to pretend that my answers to these questions are extremely knowledgeable or profound, but instead, they will simply be my opinion on the matter.

First, I think that it is probably a good move for Childress.  As long as he stays focused and continues to improve his game, he will continue to have a bright basketball future.  Also, it is important to realize that he can opt out of his contract at the end of each year and the money is guaranteed.   Therefore, it doesn’t seem like he has a tremendous amount to lose by making this decision.  Who knows?… He may be extremely well-received in Greece and become one of the stars of the Euroleague.  Of course, being a star in the NBA and being a star in the Euroleauge are two different things all-together, but Josh was probably not destined to be a super-star in the NBA, so he might as well test the waters in Europe.  And if this reasoning isn’t enough, he’ll be making more money on top of it.

Now for a quick comment on players going to Europe instead of playing in the NBA or college for that matter.   Brandon Jennings decided to play in Italy instead of playing at Arizona for a year before trying to make it to the NBA.  Going off on a quick tangent, in the case of Jennings, I’m not sure that he made the right decision.  One fact that never really got disclosed were his SAT scores.  In order to be eligible to play NCAA Division 1 Basketball, you must fall above a sliding scale consisting of high school GPA and SAT score.  Although I don’t know, one could hypothesize that Jennings did not make the cut (or possibly cheated his second time taking the SAT).  Click here to see the sliding scale to be NCAA Division 1 eligible.

Brandon Jennings also left for Europe, but for very different reasons than Childress.

*****

My last note on players going to Europe is that although it might not be the best thing for the NBA, I do think it is a positive for the sport of basketball.  The more world recognition and appreciation the sport can gain, the better it will do.

The Stanford Cardinal did pretty well in ESPN’s prestige rankings for D1 basketball programs starting from the 1984-1985 season.  Considering there are 300+ programs, hitting number 25 is no small accomplishment.  In fact, check out some Stanford Basketball’s achievements in the graphic below.

The Cardinal will definitely be in some good company in the top 25 of ESPN’s Prestige Rankings.  Go Card!

I realize this post is a little late, but I spent July 4th with the fam in Santa Barbara, CA.  And without going any farther, I feel it is necessary to speak of the irony of the whole situation.  At the time I was there, the Goleta fires were barely contained and burning strong.  In fact, on my drive down from the Bay Area, I drove under a cloud of smoke that was an opaque brown oblong shape, looking like a 20-mile-long ship floating off to sea.  At 4pm in the afternoon, I was forced to remove my sunglasses.

*****

The cloud in the picture below is actually from smoke from the Goleta fires.  This one however is not as dark as the one I drove under because there was more of a breeze.

So with such an out-of-control fire not far away, it seemed like the perfect time for fireworks.  Maybe.  Nonetheles, many gathered to watch the fireworks off the coast of Santa Barbara that evening, and it was quite a show.  Somehow my family ended up almost underneath the fireworks and enjoyed the entirety of the 30 minutes display.

But fireworks was not all they had– there were also many stands selling food, drinks and other goodies.

[More Pictures.]

I tried to pick an easier productivity metric to start, and at least at first glance, the NBA Efficiency metric looks to be that.

NBA.com evaluates all players based on the efficiency formula: ((Points + Rebounds + Assists + Steals + Blocks) – ((Field Goals Att. – Field Goals Made) + (Free Throws Att. – Free Throws Made) + Turnovers)).

However, when I started giving it more thought and reading what others had to say about it, I started to realize that it was much more complicated than I first imagined.  Two points in particular are interesting to discuss here: first is the value applied to scoring opportunities and the second is the value of gaining or keeping possession of the ball.  For example, points, assists, field goals, field goal attempts, free throws, and free throw attempts would all be associated with scoring.  On the other hand, rebounds, steals, blocks and turnovers all relate more to possession of the ball.

This raises the question of how to value scoring and possession relative to each other when trying to maximize a team’s wins.  How much is a rebound worth compared to a field goal?

David Berri speaks of this issue on his blog.  Some people criticize Berri for giving too much value to rebounds, and that the value a rebound receives in a calculation such as the NBA Efficiency Rating is much more accurate.  One of Berri’s arguments against this is that it is important to appropriately account for shooting percentage.  For example, if points are weighted too much relative to possessions (rebounding, steals, blocks, turnovers), then this will give an advantage to prolific shooters rather than “efficient” shooters.

For example, if one rebound is equivalent to one point, as it basically is in the NBA Efficiency metric, then a player will break even shooting 25% from 3-pt range, and 33% from 2-pt range.  If he hits one out of four 3 pointers, he gets 3 points and the opponent can acquire 3 rebounds, which cancel out the points.  Therefore, by taking more shots from any range, the frequent shooter will increase his NBA Efficiency Rating despite not being a great percentage shooter.

I am not saying that I feel that Berri’s analysis is bullet-proof either, but I just wanted to point out some of the interesting issues that I learned while diving into the statistic known as the NBA Efficiency Rating.

According to ESPN, these Prestige rankings come with some very specific rules.  Starting with the 1984-85 season (before I was even 1 yr old) because it was the first season the NCAA tournament welcomed 64 teams.  Being from LA and growing up a Bruin fan, I feel that this is definitely not fair to the accomplishments of John Wooden and company.

Within this time frame, points were received for going deep into the tournament, performing well in your conference as well as in your conference tournament, not choking in high pressure situations, as well as some other factors which can be found here.

So back to the real question: Which teams still remain and where will the Stanford Cardinal fall?

I haven’t had a post in a while on the topic of basketball analytics, and I feel that a good way to get back into it would be to go through several player productivity metrics over the next couple posts and attempt to identify their strengths and weaknesses.  Some metrics that I hope to cover include John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Rating, the NBA Efficiency metric, David Berri’s Wins Produced per Player, the Alternate Win Score, and possibly more.

I don’t necessarily hope to come up with one metric that is better than the others or a new and improved metric.  In such a dynamic sport as basketball, to thoroughly assign a metric to a particular player is a difficult task, and I am hoping to shed some light on what is currently out there.