The 100 Best Players in Basketball History, Part 3

The previous installment is here.

We hit the top 100 for career value.  Here’s the first ten.

100.Andre Miller 97.95 PG 1178 .083

He’ll be below Worthy and above Dumars.  Below Lewis…the career value is enough to put him above Marques Johnson.

99.   Terry Cummings 98.12 PF 1293 .076

Below PJ Brown…but ahead of the guards that come next.

98.   Hersey Hawkins 98.22 SG 1057 .093

Look at the solid per game value on Hawkins, he’s going to rank high.  Between Sharman and McAdoo?  Let’s put him there.

97.   Sidney Moncrief 98.27 SG 860 .114

-Do we have a new leader?  Moncrief gets by Bosh…but not Johnston, that per game value is really very far above any of the other contenders. 

96.   Shawn Kemp 99.01 PF 1139 .087

Below McAdoo…ahead of Jones.

95. Lenny Wilkens 99.83 PG 1141 .087

You would not have guessed that the career most similar to Lenny Wilkens was the Rainman.

94.   Mark Jackson 100.08 PG 1427 .070

The first hundred win player…ahead of Cassell , ahead of Cummings…that’s it.

93.   Bob Cousy 100.71 PG 1033 .097

On this page, not as good as Moncrief.  Sorry Celtics fans.  Below Bosh too; fourth overall.

92. Charles Oakley 100.88 PF 1426 .071

Right above Cummings in that run of power forwards. 

91.   Tony Parker 102.2 PG 1045 .098

If Parker quits right now, before Game 5 in the Warriors series, he and Cousy will have had almost identical careers.

60 players down.  90 left.  Here’s where we stand.

1.       Neil Johnston

2.       Sidney Moncrief

3.       Chris Bosh

4.       Tony Parker

5.       Bob Cousy

6.       Dave Cowens

7.       Amare Stoudemire

8.       Alonzo Mourning

9.       Vern Mikkelson

10.   Bill Sharman

11.   Hersey Hawkins

12.   Bob McAdoo

13.   Lenny Wilkens

14.   Shawn Kemp

15.   Jimmy Jones

16.   Cliff Hagan

17.   Anthony Mason

18.   Chris Mullin

19.   James Worthy

20.   Rashard Lewis

21.   Andre Miller

22.   Marques Johnson

23.   Bobby Dandridge

24.   Chris Webber

25.   Harry Gallatin

26.   Peja Stojakovic

27.   Joe Dumars

28.   Dale Davis

29.   PJ Brown

30.   Mark Jackson

31.   Charles Oakley

32.   Terry Cummings

33.   Sam Cassell

34.   Isiah Thomas

35.   Steve Smith

36.   Glen Rice

37.   Tim Hardaway

38.   Tiny Archibald

39.   Dennis Johnson

40.   Antawn Jamison

41.   Lou Hudson

42.   Dan Majerle

43.   Cedric Maxwell

44.   Michael Finley

45.   Derek Harper

46.   Calvin Murphy

47.   Marcus Camby

48.   George McGinnis

49.   Rod Strickland

50.   Lamar Odom

51.   Earl Monroe

52.   Nate Thurmond

53.   Cliff Robinson

54.   Byron Scott

55.   Dale Ellis

56.   Don Nelson

57.   Gail Goodrich

58.   Paul Silas

59.   Tom Chambers

60.   Kevin Willis

Kobashi.

Thanks.

2013 MLB All Stars - At the Quarter Pole

Current All Star Starters+top reserves. I'll do this again at the 60 game mark and then do my full rosters, starters/reserves, at 80 games.

AL
C JMauer, CSantana
1B CDavis, JLoney
2B IKinsler, RCano
SS JPeralta JLowrie
3B ELongoria MMachado
LF VWells, MTrout
CF CCrisp, MSaunders
RF SVictorino, RRaburn
P CBuchholz, FHernandez,

NL
C BPosey, RMartin
1B PGoldschmidt, JVotto
2B CUtley, MCarpenter
SS JSegura, TTulowitzki
3B DWright, CHeadley
LF SMarte, JUpton
CF CGomez, DFowler
RF GParra, HPence
P MHarvey, CKershaw

MLB Playoff Predictions - At the Quarter Pole

We're 40 games in (38 for SFG, actually, but today's a good day to do this) time for our first look at the season.

Here are the updated picks.

AL East
NYY

AL Central
Detroit (best record)

AL West
Texas

WC - Tampa, Boston


NL East
Atlanta

NL Central
Cincinnati (best record)

NL West
SFG

WC - St Louis, Wash

I picked Tigers/Reds before the season, no reason to move from that.

This is Not Tendown, May 12 2013

Dear Internet:

And so it ends.

I mean, probably, I don't know.

The cultural velocity has increased in the years since I started the weekly recap; while simultaneously my ability to craft a response worth reading has diminished, due to a lack of time and probably (gasp) ability.

I started tweeting this week @JimJividen, and that will serve my need to share links and offer abbreviated participation in the global conversation.  To the extent that I'll do longer pieces, they'll either be here or the other place to which I occasionally contribute.  The weekly deadline gave me the needed push to carve out those thoughts, and absent it, hard to know I'll find the space to do that.

For example - Will Leitch wrote a piece this week at Sports on Earth, castigating those who...eye roll, I guess, at Josh Hamilton's constant crediting his Christian god for his baseball success.  On the same day, Michele Bachmann said this:

Our nation has seen judgment not once but twice on September 11 and that’s why we’re going to have ‘9-11 Pray’ on that day," she said at an event called “Washington: A Man of Prayer,” according to Right Wing Watch. "Is there anything better that we can do on that day rather than to humble ourselves and to pray to an almighty God?"

And that's part of the same thought for me; Bachmann is a highly profiled elected official; she ran for President just last year - and she says 9-11 was her Christian god's judgment against us.  The public space that is allowed for that very specific type of magical thinking encompasses both she and Hamilton and just is not granted for anybody else.  A congressman could not say 9-11 was Allah's judgment on the US and stay in office; a baseball player could not say that his success was caused by his knowledge that there are no gods, Christian or otherwise, and not get booed out of his city. That Hamilton (who despite multiple drug offenses still gets to be Josh Hamilton, and his overt Christianity is, I'd suggest, an enormous reason why he's accorded that) occasionally has to hear some snickering is hardly evidence of an oppressive intolerance.

That's a thought too complicated for a tweet, but not one that I have time and probably (gasp) ability to develop beyond that; it's unfortunate, the combination of sports and not sports has been my lane since before that lane existed. I'd read the Bachmann/Hamilton piece, and that's how I know I'd like to write it.  

And maybe sometimes I will; I don't know.  My plan for this space is largely just the various sports lists that I need to obsessively work on to manage my anxiety.  Consider following me on twitter for some reason - I don't have a product to sell, and increasing the number of platforms on which I don't sell something is of dubious merit.  But I'll tweet links and tell jokes when they strike me.  And not when they don't.

I work full time now from the physical space that I'm occupying as I write this; if it's not how I spend the rest of my professional career either something unexpectedly great has happened or, more likely, I'm in a really hard spot.  Something's got to give and it's going to be this.

Least for awhile.

Thanks for reading.

I'll see you next time...if there is a next time...

Your pal,

Jim