It's About The Journey- Don't Stop Believing

I love statistics. I have always loved statistics. I loved statistics so much as a kid that in fourth grade I bought a Fantasy Football magazine with leftover birthday money and created a two-man league. I calculated the weekly scoring with box scores from the Monday newspaper and, armed with the knowledge of experts at draft time, assembled a team that went 16-0-1 against my dad. It was clear in my nine-year-old mind that I had quickly and thoroughly mastered the intricacies of football statistics and, emboldened by my success, I began branching out to other sports. I soon came across the basketball book The Experts Picks: Basketball’s Best 50 Players in the Last 50 Years. There were charts, career statistics and organized rankings of the greatest players of all-time. As a child, I could not imagine a player superior to Michael Jordan and the book validated that opinion with a number one ranking for His Airness. Satisfied with the opinions of these “experts”, I devoured the book and its’ statistics and was later inspired enough to make my own attempt at ranking every starter in the league by position with a very simplistic version of PER (okay, really I just totaled points, rebounds and assists per game). I adjusted the list for defensive contributions (or for my own personal whims and completely arbitrary reasons) where necessary and thought myself the undisputed authority on everything about the NBA. And among the other pre-teen boys on the playground, I certainly was. How little did I know…

Jumping Off with Jordan Part Two: The Cheese Stands Alone

Having just discussed the bad about Michael Jordan (and his Charlotte Bobcats), I thought it fitting to make like Matchbox Twenty and get "Back 2 Good." (Re)Jumping off with Jordan returns. Finally.
 
The Internet is a wonderful thing. America has been introduced to the world of cute British babies thanks to YouTube. Nearly six million people follow (and have the privilege of reading) Ashton Kutcher’s astonishingly generic “thoughts” and “musings” via Twitter. (Follow me! If I get to double digit followers I will do something appropriately crazy and (probably not at all) entertaining/worthwhile.) Facebook lets you network and look at friends pictures and…play Farmville…and stuff. But most importantly, sports message boards eliminate the need to travel to the local sports bar to engage in a passionate, mostly ignorant debate comparing LeBron to Kobe to Kevin Durant to Michael Jordan to that eleven year old phenom who definitely has the inside track on becoming the number one pick in the 2018 NBA draft and will probably break every record in the history of basketball. A far more interesting debate would be determining how many WNBA All-Stars Dwayne Wade could defeat by himself, but that’s just a personal opinion (the answer is three, by the way).