Nique, Glove, & Reign Man (Feat. My Favorite Broadcaster)

The Oklahoma City Thunder blew a 22-point lead to the Los Angeles Clippers in a 103-98 decision at Staples Center last night. That immediately made me think of a YouTube highlight clip I've watched a number of times over the last few years.

February 27, 1994: Seattle SuperSonics at the Los Angeles Clippers from the old Sports Arena.

On February 24th, Dominique Wilkins was traded with a first round pick from the Atlanta Hawks to the Los Angeles Clippers for Danny Manning. This was Wilkins's first game with his new team after and illustrious 11-and-a-half years in the ATL.

Meanwhile, the Sonics were 14 years away from moving to Oklahoma, and a little over two months away from being upset by the 8th-seeded Denver Nuggets in the playoffs. In the meantime the duo of Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp were tearing their way through the league.

This game is a fun one, especially in highlight form, and it ends with a close-but-high-scoring 122-118 result. But the reason I like this video so much is because of the greatness that is Sonics broadcaster Kevin Calabro. He has a smooth voice, an extensive vocabulary, and is great at keeping up with the pace of the action. It's exactly why he's one of my favorite broadcasters of all-time. I hope you enjoy him - and the game itself - as well.

The NBA According to Scenarioball

Happy Monday and Happy Black History Month! I hope you had a great weekend.

A lot of exciting stuff will be coming your way this month, including my first video for the Scenario Mode YouTube channel. I'm still working on my rhythm from recording games to editing to posting. So as of this writing, my first video isn't ready just yet. In the meantime, I decided to give you a post that puts my new game Scenarioball into perspective. While I have done some tabulations for individual games, I eventually wanted to look at my game from a more macro level. The beginning of a new month seems like a good time to reflect.

Below are NBA team Scenarioball stats through January 31st. While the game can get much more advanced by tracking things such as ugly-looking shots and missed open layups, I figured I would keep it simple and look up the tracked stats that you can find in the NBA.com stats section.

It's really cool to see it all laid out in front of me. Here are a few loose observations I extract from the numbers:

• I'm not surprised that in terms of what I enjoy the most about basketball, the Warriors bring it the most and in spades. Every Warriors game I watch has been an event for me. I have been particularly enamored with the play of Steph Curry like almost everyone else, but Golden State's entertainment value is a team effort. I'm looking forward to seeing if they can cap off a historic season, dunking and dropping treys along the way.
• Depsite their underacheiving, the Rockets seem to still be entertaining to watch. I had been avoiding Rockets games up to this point because of the organizational and defensive mess they're in, as well as their outright refusal to play the raw but talented K.J. McDaniels. In the face of these stats, maybe I'll give them a look when they come back around on the national schedule.
• When Doc Rivers replaced Vinny Del Negro as coach of the Clippers in 2013, Blake Griffin quipped that Lob City "[didn't] exist anymore". Yet there they are, leading the NBA in alley-oops, propelling themselves into 3rd place in the Scenarioball standings. A few things turn me off from the Clippers. Among them are Doc's constant whining for calls (more than what's normal for NBA players and coaches), torpedoing his roster with each transaction, and the team's below-average logos and uniforms. Biases aside, there's no doubt the Clippers are fun to watch.
• It's hilarious that the worst team in the league are a Top 10 Scenarioball team, coming in at #9. We should get them a trophy! The Bulls, my favorite team, are all the way down at #20.
• The Brooklyn Nets are at the bottom of the Scenarioball standings with only 118(!) points. They're 48 games into the season, yet are barely over 100 points. If you doubled the Nets' point total, it would still fall short of the second-to-last Hornets. After all of the fanfare of moving into a cool, new arena in the heart of Brooklyn and paying big bucks to be an immediate contender, this franchise has stagnated. The team is attempting to transition with the removal of head coach Lionel Hollins and reassignment of GM Billy King. At this point in American history, however, the future is up in the air. They will be hard to watch for the foreseeable future.

There's a look at the NBA according to basic Scenarioball. Let me know what you think in the comments. Do any of these findings surprise you? Are their teams you enjoy or dislike that are in different places in the standings? I will definitely be updating the stats and adding some advanced categories at a later date. I also want to comb through the college ranks, too, but with 351 schools, that post will take awhile.