Michael Jordan vs Lebron James

Who is the greatest basketball player of all time?  Well, based on consensus it should be Michael Jordan.  Lebron has gained some more supporters in the Jordan/Lebron debate since he called Donald Trump a bum.  Recently Lebron played his 1072nd career regular season game, which is the same number that Michael Jordan played.  ESPN was treating it like an apples vs apples comparison, and so has plenty of people on twitter.  The problem is, it isn't.  Lebron came into the league out of high school, and Jordan played two seasons with the Wizards, which he was 38-40 years old.  Lebron James is closing in on his 33rd birthday, and is either in his physical prime, or pretty close to it.  That makes the comparison, which still is in Jordan's favor statistically, less fair.  Given the different circumstances of their career, I decided to try and make some fair comparisons.  Looking at them at similar stages in their life.  Now what if we started with Lebron's 4th season, and make comparisons, which wouldn't count those two seasons Jordan played with the Wizards.  Lebron turned 22 years old a couple months into this 4th season, while Jordan turned 22 about 3 and half months into his rookie year, so the age comparison is fair.  What isn't fair is that Jordan was a rookie, while Lebron had 3 seasons of NBA experience.

       
1st comparison looks at Lebron from his 4th season until now, and compares it to Jordan during his first 11 seasons.  The ages they were are close enough. PER is Player Efficiency Rating, and True Shooting % factors in field goals, and free throws, and gives the extra point for 3 point shots.

Regular Season

	PER	PPG	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	TS%
Lebron	28.8	27.3	7.4	7.2	1.6	0.8	.598
Jordan	29.6	32.0	6.4	5.7	2.6	1.0	.586

Playoffs

	PER	PPG	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	TS%
Lebron	28.2	28.3	8.9	6.9	1.8	1.0	.575
Jordan	28.9	33.9	6.4	6.2	2.3	0.9	.577

The slight edge in PER goes to Jordan.  You have to give Jordan credit for being such an efficient scorer despite being a high volume shooter.  The rest of the comparison goes as someone should expect.  Jordan averaged a good deal more points, with Lebron having the edges in rebounds, and assists, while Jordan averaged more steals.  There are still a couple of issues here.  Jordan's teams played a slightly faster pace, while there's a slight difference in minutes per game.  So I decided to depend on basketball reference, and their PER 100 possession statistics.

Per 100 possessions

Regular Season

	Pts	Reb	Ast	Stl	Blk	TO
Lebron	37.6	10.2	9.9	2.2	1.1	4.7
Jordan	41.6	8.3	7.4	3.4	1.3	3.8

Playoffs

	Pts	Reb	Ast	Stl	Blk	TO
Lebron	36.6	11.5	9.0	2.4	1.3	4.5
Jordan	43.4	8.2	7.9	2.9	1.2	4.2

The comparison is similar to the per game statistics.  While Lebron was great all around, Jordan was the better scorer, and turned the ball over less.  Turnovers are something the goes along with high assist numbers.   

Now what about the fact that Lebron already had 3 season of experience by the time he got to his fourth season?  What about the wear and tear factor of Lebron's games played (though it hasn't had much effect on him)? Lebron by his second season was already and  grown man, and well adapted to the game.  His one season of NBA experience probably meant as much, and maybe more than all of Jordan 3 seasons of college experience.  So I wanted to look at Lebron from his 2nd season until now, and compare it to Jordan's career with the Bulls.  I won't go the the tables like I did previously.  In terms of PER Jordan has the edge at 29.1 to Lebron's 28.4.  He also get's the edge in the postseason with a PER of 28.6 to 27.9 for Lebron.

Now other parts of the comparisons between them are about their team accomplishments, and are usually unfair.  Jordan fans point to his 6-0 record in the Finals, while Lebron fans point to how Lebron has beaten, and played better teams in the Finals.  Both are team accomplishments.  If you want to argue about who's teams were better (Jordan's, just my opinion), then you can bring up those arguments.  It's not Michael's fault that he never played a team as good as the last 3 Golden State teams in the NBA Finals.  During the late 90s, it was Jordan's Bulls that dominated like Golden State has recently.  Should that be held against Jordan that his team was the juggernaut? Lebron has gotten to 8 NBA Finals, but the East has been soft during most of those seasons.  Overall Michael's teams faced better competition on their way to the Finals, while Lebron's faced better competition in the Finals.  Lebron's teams lost 3 of their 5 NBA Finals, before they even met Golden State, and their competition in those series' was similar to what Jordan and Bulls faced in the Finals.  It's just that the Bulls won all of their Finals so their opponents appear weaker, because they didn't win the title.  Also San Antonio 2014 domination of Miami, helps the reputation of the 2013 team.  In terms of individual numbers the edge goes Jordan.  Lebron is pretty close though.  

2016 FBI crime statistics

The FBI's 2016 crime statistics have been recently released, and I have looked though some of the data.  With so much attention, again, being paid to white criminals, and racist, I was wondering what happened to the issue of black crime.  Did things get better, or worse in 2016.  Data like this is also important, because one thing that is often done, is picking out individual instances, and implying that it represents to big problem.  SJWs do this often when it comes to white men, but the big thing is to look at the big picture to see what is going on.


There are about 5.8 times as many white people as black people, but in terms of total arrest whites were only arrested about 2.6 times as much as blacks, so blacks are more likely to be arrested per capita.  One big difference is in the type of crimes.  When it comes to violent crimes numbers are worse for black people.  Whites were arrested for violent crime about 1.57 times as much as black people.  Adjusting for population, black people are about 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for violent crime than whites.  Things get even worse for black people in terms of murder.


Black people killed more than white people, despite making up much less of the U.S. population.  I looked up the data for 2015, and then blacks made up for an estimated 53.3% of murderers.  Last year out of the 11390 murderers for which their race was known, blacks made up 6095 of those.  That's 53.5%, which is pretty consistent with last year's data.  Another thing worth mentioning is that the vast of majority of the hispanic population is counted as being white, so if we looked at non hispanic whites, the murders numbers for them would be a good deal lower than the 5004 number shown.  Looking at the population data, and doing some numbers crunching black people are still about 7 times more likely to commit murder than white people.  It seems like it's been that way forever, with blacks being about 7 times more likely to commit murder.

A look at single victim/single offender data shows some other patterns that are staying the same.  Of the murders in which the race the offender was known 83.3% of white people murdered were killed by other whites, while 90.8 percent of blacks murdered were killed by other blacks.  Last year I had those numbers at 81.3, and 89.3 percent respectively, but I made the mistake of counting all murders, and not just those in which the race of the offender was known.  If I did this year's stats the same way as I did last year, the percentages would be 81.6% of murdered whites being killed by whites, and 89.5% percent of murdered blacks being killed by other blacks.

There's another pattern that has stayed similar to last year.  Black people killed white people, more than white people kill black people.  According to the single victim/single offender data 533 black people killed whites, and 243 white people killed blacks.   That's a ratio of 2.19/1, which is similar to the 2.21/1 ratio from last year.

Another issue is the fact that the murder rates increased for the second consecutive year.  It went from 4.4 per 100,000 to 4.9 from 2014 to 2015, and in 2016 it went up to 5.3.  While we won't get 2017's murder statistics until late September next year,  this article https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/murder-is-up-again-in-2017-but-not-as-much-as-last-year/, predicts an increase in murder for 2017 based on data from big cities.  Hopefully this isn't a long term pattern.

Links

Murder Victims stats  https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-1.xls

Murder Offender stats https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-2.xls

Single Victim/Single Offenders Murder stats  https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls

Demographics https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045216

Arrests stats  https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21

Murder rates 1997-2016  https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/violent-crime/tables/table-1

Brady vs Manning In The Regular Season (Written Before 2017 season)

Tom Brady will go down as being a better quarterback than Peyton Manning.  That is surely true.  As surely as Joe Montana is generally considered a better quarterback than John Elway, and Dan Marino.  In football, which is such a team game, so much credit is given to the quarterback for team wins, and teams winning championships.  I believe that too much is put into how many Super Bowls a quarterback wins.  It is important to consider it, but that is a team accomplishment, and individual greatness is what I am looking at. Still Brady is seen now as the greatest quarterback of all time.  There isn't much arguing against it at this moment.   I wanted to compare Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in the regular season, and look at the advanced metrics of DYAR (Defense Adjusted Yards Above Replacement), from Football Outsiders.  Manning and Brady are two of the greats who've played their entire career in the DYAR era.  I looked at pass plays as counted by pro football outsiders, which counts sack plays, and their career DYAR.  Pro Football Outsiders doesn't show their career numbers for their metrics like other sites so I had to do come calculator work

                                 Pass Plays   DYAR
Peyton Manning         9668            26296
Tom Brady                 8633            21136

The edge goes to Manning even when you factor in pass plays, which Manning had around 1000 more of than Brady.  Doing the division Manning averaged 2.72 DYAR per pass play, while Brady has averaged 2.45.  I wonder why Manning would have that type of edge.  Their career passer ratings are close to equal. 97.2 for Brady, and 96.5 for Manning.  One advantage of Manning is that he got sacked less often.  Despite having 1156 more pass attempts is his career Manning was sacked over 100 times less than Brady

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/B/BradTo00.htm
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/MannPe00.htm

Manning had 9380 pass attempts, and was sacked 303 times, which adds up to 9683, which is close enough to the total pass plays I got from Football Outsiders.  Maybe some of those sacks weren't counted as pass plays.  Brady has 8224 pass attempts and has been sacked 417 times.  That adds up to 8641 plays.  Manning's sack percentage for his career 3.1, while it's 4.8 for Brady.  Manning has slight edges over Brady in Net Yards Gained per pass attempt (NY/A), and Adjusted Net Yards per Pass Attempt(ANY/A).  Despite their big difference in playoff success their playoff numbers are fairly even.  Brady has the slight edge in passer rating, while Manning has edges in NY/A, and ANY/A, the margins of which are similar to Manning's advantages in the regular season.

Mayweather/Mcgregor Reaction

The fight I thought was a farce went down this past Saturday.  The general feeling is that Conor Mcgregor did better than expected, and that the fight was competitive.  I don't know what to think.  How do I judge the fight when it was pretty clear to me that Floyd was carrying him?  In the first 3 rounds Mayweather threw a total of 28 punches.  Was it really Conor's awkward stance, and pitty pat punches that was making Floyd hesitant to throw punches?  Floyd got semi serious in round 4, and caught Conor with some sharp punches in the middle portion of the round.  Mcgregor was landing his own punches, but they had no snap whatsoever.  He did land a good uppercut in the first round, but beside that he was just making contact with punches that make Floyd's punches look like Julian Jackson's by comparison.  Floyd continued to gain steam, and win easily until the 9th round, where he finally went all out.  Mcgregor had shown signs of fatigue before that.  Late in the 7th round he laid on the ropes, and took a deep breath after they were broken apart.  Now in the 9th he was taking hard punches to go along with that fatigue.  He had very little left, and was nothing but a punching bag for that round, and the 10th round, until the referee stopped the fight a little more than a minute into the round.  As a fighter Mcgregor looked awkward.  His stance was awkward, and his punches lacked steam.  Floyd was very kind to him, and Conor would have taken a serious beating had he been in there with a strong aggressive fighter like Canelo, or GGG.  Mayweather showed his 40 years to some extent, though it's hard to tell how much age caught up with him in this fight, because he seemingly could take over whenever he felt like it.

The fight was a money grab, and a very successful one at that.  Floyd went in there with an opponent that was no threat to beat him, and he behaved like it.  He walked forward for most of the fight, which isn't what he does.  He could afford to do it here, because Mcgregor's punches didn't have the type of power to make him pay for coming forward.  He had a big smile on his face after the second round.  It is also worth noting that Mayweather says that he tried to place a 400k bet that he would knockout Mcgregor within 9.5 rounds, but wasn't allowed to.  He wanted to place another bet on him winning by knockout, but wasn't allowed to do either.  He did get someone else to place a bet for him.  The numbers aren't in yet, but this fight is either the 1st, or 2nd biggest money fight in history, with Pacquiao/Mayweather being the other.  At 40 years old, and not the fighter he used to be, maybe Floyd will retire for good, or maybe some issues, like tax problems, could have him coming back for another money grab.

Michael Jordan Is Wrong: Lebron is better than Kobe

Michael Jordan recently said that Kobe Bryant was better than Lebron James, because 5 sounds better than 3.  He brought up the ring count.  This is something he did before, when Lebron only had 2 rings.  There could be a number of reasons that Jordan prefers Kobe to Lebron.  Jordan, and Kobe are friends, and I've never heard of him being a friend of Lebron's.  Kobe also copied many of Michael Jordan's moves, and mannerisms.  Maybe in MJ's mind, a vote for Kobe over Lebron is like a vote for him over Lebron.  I'm as big a Michael Jordan fan as there is, but he is wrong on this one.  Lebron James is better than Kobe Bryant.  Sure Kobe has 5 championships, but championships are a team accomplishment.  They are something to consider when judging who is better than who, but there are plenty other things to look at.  If Jordan said that Kobe and Lebron as so close in terms of their individual greatness, that he gave the edge to Kobe because of rings that would make a little more sense, even though Kobe isn't up there with Lebron in terms of individual greatness.

Both players could score, and that is the area where Kobe is closest to Lebron.  Lebron has averaged 36.7 points per 100 possessions, and 27.1 points per game.  Before Kobe fell off late in his career he averaged 36.1 points per 100 possessions and 25.5 points per game.  Now the fact that he played with Shaq early in his career can be seen as a large part of the reason that his averages are under Lebron's.  The thing is a prime Kobe got plenty shots while playing with Shaq.  The big difference is in the roles they played when they came into the league.  Lebron was already bigger and stronger than most NBA players when he got to the league out of high school.  He only shot 41.7% from the floor, but played over 39 minutes per game as a rookie, and averaged over 20 points per game.  Kobe on the other hand was a backup in his first two seasons.  He played only 15.5 minutes per game in his rookie year, and 26.0 in his second season.  It wasn't until his third season that he got big time minutes, and it wasn't until his 4th that he established himself as one of the best players in the league.  Lebron was already one of the top players in his second season.  Lebron was two years ahead of Kobe.  Lebron never averaged 35+ like Kobe did in 2005-06, and he never scored 81 in a game, but he has been so consistent over the course of his career, and he's a more efficient scorer than Kobe.  Kobe never shot 50 percent in a season.  Lebron has shot around 50% for his career, with a career high of 56.5%.  Kobe's true shooting percentage for his career is 55.0%, and was 55.5 before he really fell off.  Lebron's is 58.4%.  Both were less efficient as scorers in the postseason, but Lebron has scored the same 36.7 points per 100 possessions, while Kobe's average per 100 possessions fell to 34.7 in the playoffs, and Kobe didn't play any playoffs games after he became washed up and injury prone, so it's more fair to compare their career postseason stats.  Lebron may well be the better scorer of the two, but it's debatable.  What's more obvious is that Lebron is clearly better at mostly every thing else.  He's a better passer than Kobe,  a better rebounder, just as good at getting steals, and clearly a better shot blocker.  Overall Lebron is the better defensive player.  Kobe was on the NBA's first team all defensive team for 9 seasons, but I think there were a few of those in which he got on the first team based on reputation.  Lebron is the better of the two defensively.  He is probably a better perimeter defender, and his shot blocking gives him another element to his defense.  In terms career PER Lebron is second all time at 27.6, while Kobe's career mark is 22.9, but Kobe was washed up for those last three seasons.  What was his mark before then?  It wasn't much better at just 23.4.  Lebron has had 4 seasons with a PER of over 30, including 3 over 31, and another at 30.7.  Kobe's career high is 28.0, and in that season he was given free reign to jack up shots.  Kobe had a 26.2 PER one year, and a 26.1 in another, but has no other season of 25+.   In terms of the postseason it's 27.7 for Lebron, and 22.4 for Kobe.  Lebron is the better individual player.

Kobe's argument is largely dependent on the ring thing, but as great rings are, they are overrated in judging an individual's greatness.  Michael Jordan finished his career with more rings than Magic, and Bird, but 5 less than Bill Russell, and Robert Horry surpassed Jordan in championships with his 7th title in 2005.  The thing is that Jordan didn't need to pass Bird, and Magic in terms of championships to be considered better than them.  He was already considered the greatest player of all time when he retired the first time, and he only had 3 titles then, which was 2 less than Magic, and the same as Bird.  He didn't gain his status as the consensus GOAT when he came back and won 3 more, he was already the consensus greatest of all time before then.  He just added to his legacy.  The argument for Jordan as greatest of all time back then wasn't about rings.  It was about his scoring ability, dominance, skill, athleticism, and mastery of the game.  After his retirement, though, 6 has become some magic number.  People wondered could Kobe get 6, and he finished his career with 5.  Horry got 7, but isn't close to being in the GOAT debate, and 6 seems to be the number that Lebron is measured against.  Instead of looking at Lebron's individual greatness, and looking at rings as a bonus, the 6 title things is put there as some obstacle that he has to reach.  Kobe won 3 titles with Shaq, and while Kobe was important to those teams, Shaq was the key.  I don't consider Kobe to have been a Robin, but if there was a Robin between the two of them, it surely wasn't Shaq.  He did win two titles as the lead player, but had an underrated cast of big men in Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, and Andrew Bynum.  While Bynum had injury problems, he was strong in the 2010 playoffs.   Both Kobe, and Lebron have played with some talented players, but Kobe had better teammates than Lebron.  He played with a prime Shaq.  Lebron never played with a player that had that type of dominance.  Dwyane Wade was still great when Lebron got to Miami, but slowly went downhill.  I don't know how much value I should put in Lebron's 8 Finals appearances since the East hasn't been strong in recent years, but he has done a lot to get his teams in position to be in the Finals.

In the Finals both men have had mediocre series'.  Kobe had one in 2000 (he did come through in game 4), and another in 2004, while Lebron wasn't that good in his first two NBA Finals in 2007, and 2011.  From there the advantage goes to Lebron.  Kobe had some really good Finals, but Lebron has had some all time great Finals, and that's a big difference.  Kobe was never as good in the NBA Finals as Lebron was the three times he won the title, and you can argue Lebron was better in the last 3 Finals series that his team lost, than Kobe was in any of his Finals appearances.

So yeah, Lebron is better than Kobe in my humble opinion.  

Lebron James' and Michael Jordan's NBA Finals Opponents

So I recently looked at something else concerning the Lebron vs Jordan debate.  All of Lebron's Finals opponents had better Postseason Net Efficiency, than the any of Jordan's Finals opponents.  Net Efficiency most likely measures a team's point differential per 100 possessions.  There are a couple of problems with this though.  The first is that the playoffs are only a small sample size of games.  Why not count regular season games as well. Another problem, and a bigger one, is by counting the Finals into the stats you reward Lebron's teams for bad performances, which make their opponents look better.  This is even more of a factor when you look at how short the playoffs are as a whole.

How much of that has to do with the dominant performances of Jordan's teams in the Finals.  I mean while Lebron has won 3 of the 8 Finals he has been in, his teams have actually been outscored in 6 of those Finals.  I decided to take a look at how each their Finals opponents performed in their conference playoffs.  So I looked at the stats for each of their series' leading into the Finals, to come up with an estimate of their point differential per 100 possessions.   ESPN uses a slightly different formula than Basketball-Reference.com, which is the site that I used to come up with my estimates.  My estimates aren't exact, but are close enough to the truth to make a good comparison

Jordan's Opponents
1991 Lakers  +5.24
1992 Blazers   +7.81
1993 Suns  +1.19
1996 Sonics  +3.66
1997 Jazz   +5.71 
1998 Jazz    +7.32

Lebron's Opponents
2007 Spurs  +3.76
2011 Mavericks +8.22
2012 Thunder  +7.37
2013 Spurs +10.91
2014 Spurs +8.52
2015 Warriors +8.55
2016 Warriors +6.47
2017 Warriors +16.36

You can't blame Lebron for the Cavs losing to the Warriors this year.  The 2016-17 Golden State team is truly one of the greatest teams of all time.  In my opinion the best NBA team ever was either them or the 95-96 Bulls.  My data isn't as one sided as ESPN's.  In fact the 92 Blazers, had better a differential per 100 possessions than 3 of the 8 teams that Lebron played in the Finals, while the 98 Jazz beat out 2 of Lebron's Finals opponents.  Still 5 of the teams Lebron played in the Finals had better Net Efficiency in their conference playoffs, than any of the teams Jordan played in the Finals.  In terms of regular season SRS, according to Basketball-Reference, Lebron's oppnents have been better in the Finals than the teams Jordan played in the finals, but the difference is the past 3 Golden State Warriors teams.  The average regular season SRS of Lebron's Finals opponents was 8.20, while it was 6.84 for Jordan's opponents.  Before the 2015 Finals the average SRS of Lebron's opponents, in the Finals, was 6.77,
and Lebron's teams won only 2 of those 5 series.  The idea of Lebron's Finals opponents being so much better than Jordan's is largely based on 2 things.  The last three Golden State teams, and the fact that 5 of those teams won the championship.  It just so happens that they had to beat a team with Lebron on it to win the title.  It was of those paradoxical things.  If your team wins all of the Finals, your opponents look weaker, and if you lose in the Finals, your opponents look better.  I did gain a bit of an appreciation of the 2011 Mavericks, whom I considered to be the worst team either Jordan, or Lebron played in the Finals.  While they were the worst of those 14 teams in the regular season, they had a great run to the title.  A better way to look at things would be to factor in the regular season, and playoff stats of all of these teams, and factor in their strength of schedule, but that would be complicated.  Another thing worth mentioning is that these are team accomplishments.

A Better Look At Russell Westbrook's Selfish Season

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5986047154583537199#editor/target=post;postID=2642354291579556567;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=10;src=postname

I wrote a blog earlier in the season about how selfish Russell Westbrook was playing, and now with the season over, and him being the first person in 55 seasons to average a triple double, it's time for a better look at things.  Previously I combined Usage% with Assist Per 100 possessions to give an idea of just how big a roll Westbrook was playing in his team's offense.  With the season over his numbers changed slightly.  He finished the season with a Usage percent of 41.7, and 14.7 assists per 100 possessions. That adds up to 56.4, which isn't as high as the 57.3 those stats added up to when I wrote the blog above.  That still puts Westbrook in a league of his own when combining the two stats.  His numbers from the 2014-15 season added up to 50.9.  The other player with a somewhat comparable season is James Harden, but when it came to having the whole offense revolve around him, Harden was chasing Westbrook.  Harden's Usage%, was 34.2 this season, and he averaged 14.8 assists per 100 possessions.  That adds up to 49.  If I were to redo the list I made earlier.  Harden's season would still be 3rd, and Westbrook would still have 3 of the top 4 seasons.

 So it was obvious that he had the ball in his hands a lot.  Of course he was going to get high assist numbers, and a high scoring average.  One thing that i didn't get into was his rebounds.  A couple seasons ago Westbrook had a string of 7 consecutive triple doubles.  It was when Kevin Durant was hurt, and it's what led to his triple double average this season.  It was like Russell got addicted to triple doubles, and running the whole offense.  I watched one of those games a couple seasons ago that was on ESPN, and it became apparent why this little guy was getting the numbers he was getting.  He had the ball all of the time.  If a teammate got a pass from him, and the shot wasn't there, they would pass it right back to him.  At one point it seemed to me that teammate tipped a rebound to him.  How obvious must you make it that you are going all out to help this guy get a triple double.  It just went to another level this season.

Russell Westbrook ranked 11th in the league in rebounds per game with an average of 10.7.  Among the top rebounders in the league Westbrook's percent of contested rebounds stands out like a sore thumb.  Among the 10 players ahead of him in rebounds per game, the player with the lowest percentage of their rebounds being contested is Kevin Love at 31.7.  For Westbrook that percentage of 20.6.  Out of the top 20 in rebounds per game, the closest to Westbrook in contested rebound percent is Lebron James at 24.7.  The next lowest is Giannis Antetokounmpo at 31.6.  There are other players who have played good minutes and have contested rebounds percentages similar to Westbrook, but almost all of them are below average rebounders.  It makes sense that players who aren't good rebounders, would get a big portion of their rebounds uncontested.  Better rebounders would be more likely to grab rebounds in traffic.  Westbrook's low contested rebound percent is unusual for someone who is one of the league leaders in rebounds.  There are a few things that help out his rebound averages.  For one his teammates often concede rebounds to him, and sometimes go as far as tipping rebounds to him.  It makes sense that if they want him to get triple doubles (which they do), and if no one from the other team is around with a chance to get the rebounds, teammates wouldn't have a problem letting Russell get it.  Another thing is that teammates will sometimes box out to help Westbrook grab rebounds.  Steven Adams pretty much admitted that he does this.  While Westbrook has been selfish, his teammates have been unselfish to a fault, in helping him achieve history. Westbrook also plays very little defense.  At the the time of Washington Post article that I linked below, Westbrook contested just 3.6 shots per game.  Westbrook typically goes around the painted area, so he can be in better position to grab rebounds.  So here is a guy whose teammates let him get rebounds, and who will often leave the guy he is guarding to get in position for a rebound, and we are just supposed to act like none of this shit goes on.  People are worried about being "haters", but in this case we have good reason to complain about this shit.  If we are judging the greatness of Westbrook's season, the fact that his teammates concede rebounds to him is something that should be brought up.  When it comes to Oscar Robertson's triple double, some people bring up the insane pace that games were played at back then, and it should get brought up.  Teams were playing around 125 possessions per 48 minutes back then.  So this isn't about hating on Westbrook to enhance what Oscar did.  This is about being honest about the way he plays, and how get so many rebounds.

I can feel safe saying that I don't think that Russell Westbrook will win a championship, and if he does it will be in a very reduced roll.  I don't believe he will be one of the top 3 players on any championship team in his career.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2017/04/05/russell-westbrooks-triple-double-domination-is-not-as-impressive-as-it-seems/

http://stats.nba.com/players/rebounding/

The Greatest Choke In Super Bowl History

New England has their fifth Super Bowl, and did so in dramatic fashion by pulling off the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history.  It was a game that didn't have to be that dramatic.  The Falcons got a 28-3 lead, and then were outscored 31-0 for the rest of the game.  The Houston Oilers blew a bigger lead 24 years ago against Buffalo, but that was a Wild Card game.  This one was for all the marbles.  I want to take a closer look at comeback of the Patriots.  You could have a good argument about how much of it was a great comeback by the Patriots, and how much of it was just a choke by Atlanta.  My feeling is that it was more a choke job by the Falcons.  Part of it his human nature.  You get a big lead, and stop playing with the same intensity.  You let up, or you're just playing to run the clock out.  In recent Super Bowl history only the Seattle Seahawks got a blowout win.  The Super Bowl used to be known as a game that would end in a blowout.  This was especially true during the NFC's 13 year win streak.  In the last 14 Super Bowls Seattle, in Super Bowl XLVIII, was the only team to win the game by more than 14 points.  All of the other 13 games were 1 possession games at some point in the 4th quarter.  When Atlanta went up by 25, you should've known they weren't going to win it by that much.  You had Tom Brady on the other side, and the Patriots had moved the ball throughout the game, even if they didn't get the points.  Atlanta still should've been expected to win the game.  New England got a touchdown to get the score to 28-9, but that was a long drive.  A field goal got them within 16, but the Pats had to be disappointed they didn't get a touchdown.  Now they would need 2 touchdowns, 2 two point conversions to tie the game, and that's if the Falcons didn't score anymore points.  Then came one of the biggest plays in the game.  It was 3 and 1 for the Falcons, though it was a long 1 yard as they say.  Most people seem to be bothered with the fact that they didn't run the ball, but I wasn't bothered by that as much as I was by the formation.  Devonte Freeman was close to the line of scrimmage in a way that made it obvious that this was going to be a passing play.  I noticed that before the play started.  This allowed the Patriots to pin their ears back, and rush Matt Ryan, which they had done a good job of throughout the game.  The play resulted in sack/fumble, which set the Patriots next touchdown, and then their two point conversion that made the score 28-20.  Up by the 8, it seemed like the Falcons got their edge back.  They got a big screen pass to Freeman, and Julio Jones made an incredible catch.  Honestly it was one of the greatest catches in Super Bowl history, as he somehow got his second foot down in bounds, while maintaining possession of the ball.  Atlanta had a first and 10 at the New England 22, and preceded to fuck it up, with what can accurately be described as a massive choke job.  Freeman lost a yard on first down, but at this point the Falcons are still well within field goal range.  Then on the second down play Matt Ryan is in the Shotgun formation for some stupid reason.  He then backed up to the 35 yard line, and got sacked.  Why did Matt go that far behind the line of scrimmage?  Why would Kyle Shanahan call that play when you are in field goal range, and a field goal would make it a two possession game?  After those two awful plays the Falcons are still within Matt Bryant's field goal range.  Bryant has made 26 of 42 field goal attempts of 50+ yards in his career.  The 3rd down call should be simple.  A quick screen pass, or something of the like, to get you closer for the field goal.  The Falcons call a short pass, but the fuck up on this play is an obvious hold, in which Jake Matthews had Chris Long in what looked like half a sleeper hold.  It was an unnecessary hold, as the play was just a quick pass, and Matt Ryan didn't need that much time. The next play was an incomplete pass, and Atlanta punted it after that. So Atlanta had a first and ten at the New England 22, with a 28-20, and preceded to lose 23 yards, almost handing New England the opportunity to tie the game.  Atlanta's defense didn't stand a chance.  The Patriots got their touchdown, and two point conversion to tie the game at 28, and then won the coin toss, and scored a touchdown on the first, and only drive overtime to win the game.  It was a game that shouldn't even have reached that point.

The Black Struggle Article On MLK Day

In the 1960s, and into the 70s there was a strong civil rights movement.  You had the more rational people such as Martin Luther King (even though he thought homosexuality was a problem that could be cured), and Bayard Rushtin.  The type of black people that could fight for the rights of black people without hating white people.  There was another side.  The Nation of Islam, The Black Panthers, and other black revolutionary groups.  The Nation of Islam feels that white people are devil.  Even the original Panthers were an anti white, anti police organization.  Looking at things now it appears that the theological battle may have been won by the less reasonable portion of the movement.  The black movement of today doesn't bare a strong resemblance to the movement of Martin Luther King.  The riots in Baltimore, Ferguson, and Milwaukee don't bare much resemblance to what Martin Luther King would have wanted.

You could argue that the feelings of Malcolm X (for most of his life in the spotlight), Assata Shakur, and Huey P. Newton is much more attractive to black activists.  Another point to be made is that we as black people have our rights.  We have the right to vote, discrimination based on race isn't allowed in terms of job hiring, schools, etc., we are desegregated, and other programs are in place like Affirmative Action.  Despite that black people continue to lag behind white people in terms of money, civility, academics, and living conditions.  In order for black people to still complain about how white people are fucking us over, you've got to go beyond reasonable arguments.  The black rights movement now is one filled with conspiracy theories.  The crack problem of the 80s.  They blame that on Ronald Reagan supposedly "dropping the crack off in the inner cities", despite the fact that high powered drugs were already popular in the inner cities before Reagan became president.  There are plenty Illuminati believers, though I wouldn't say most believe in that.  There are those who constantly talk about white privilege, and systematic racism.  When you can't come up with reasonable complaints good enough, just say some other shit.  The strategy is effective enough.  Where are the reasonable leaders at now?  It would be tough to be reasonable and be a black leader now a days.  What are you going to complain about?  It isn't that racism is over, it's just that you can't blame it for the situation that black people are in now, and there is also plenty anti white racism.  Being reasonable about black problems would mean admitting that black people's problems have a lot to do with black people.  We ,as a whole, have not capitalized on the gains of the civil right movement, at least not in a way to close the financial gap.  Those problems of poverty and violence still plague the black community.  There are reasonable black people who speak on political issues, but they are often called coons, and Uncle Tom.  I mean King was called an Uncle Tom also, but was able to build up support.  The black leaders of Black Lives Matter are far from reasonable.  They are pretty much a modern version of the old Panthers, more so than the New Black Panthers

The fuck white people thing is big.  The fuck white males thing is big. The SJW shit is big.  The same thing has happened in the feminist movement.  A very long time ago they were fighting for rights.  I could get into how men also had it tough way back when, but I won't get to that now.  The feminist movement had more to fight for back then.  Now that they have their rights, and things haven't changed the way they want it to, its become a crying, conspiracy garbage movement.

On October 23, 2015 three white high school football players attacked a mentally ill black teammate. They lured him into the locker room, before pretending to offer him a hug.  Then they held him down and put a wire hanger in his ass.  One of them kicked the wire hanger several times, forcing it further into the kid's body.  They allegedly yelled racial several racial slurs to him during this attack. One of the attackers, John R.K. Howard plead guilty and avoided jail time.  He instead will get 2-3 years probation and 300 hours of community service.  The other attackers are Tanner Ward, and an unidentified person who was 16 at the time of the attack.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/idaho-teen-football-player-walks-free-after-sodomizing-black-disabled-teammate-with-wire-hanger/

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ex-football-player-avoids-jailtime-assaulting-disabled-teen-article-1.2917313


Recently a story in Chicago has gathered a lot of attention.  A mentally ill white man was kidnapped and tortured by a group for 4 black people.  Three of them are 18 years old.  Those 18 year olds are Jordan Hill, Tesfaye Cooper, and Brittany Covington.  The other person involved is Brittany's older sister Tanishia Covington.  The victim was held for 2 days.  He was forced to say "fuck Trump" and "fuck white people", among other things.  Part of the incident was recorded on Facebook Live by Brittany.  The victim was forced to drink toilet water, had his head cut to the point that some white meat was visible, had cigarette ashes dumped into that same scar like it was an ash tray, and was hit several times.  During the incident the blacks shouted "fuck Trump", and "fuck white people".  The victim had his arms and legs tied up, and had something covering his mouth.  All of those things are on the video, so it's going to be hard to spin that narrative in court.

http://abc7chicago.com/news/hate-crime-charges-filed-against-4-in-facebook-live-torture-case/1687517/

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/black-captors-torture-white-victim-rant-against-trump-cpd-says/


So taking away the races of victim and perpetrators, which one would you expect to get worse punishment in a court of law.  The answer should be the second.  For one that is a case of kidnapping, which in itself is a crime.  The victim was kidnapped and held for 2 days, which hasn't been talked about much.  Then there is the torture which is captured on video, which is enough in itself to result in serious punishment.  I also have to wonder about what wasn't captured on video.  The man was held against his will for 2 days, and only a small minority of that time was captured on the video.   That hasn't stopped people from equating the two events.  Shaun King brought up the wire hanger attack when talking about why he won't speak up against the assault.   That is a big reason why people are once again talking about the wire hanger attack.  It's as if people like Shaun King, don't want to condemn the kidnappers, but want to speak on the incident  so they play the victim card and mention some shit they feel white people did wrong.  How hard is it to condemn the kidnappers.  What they did was horrible, and should be treated as such.  Or at least some of these people should just come out and say "fuck white people", instead of hiding their racism by pretending that they are freedom fighters.

Update-The unnamed person was 16 at the time of the attack, and I said he was 17 before I corrected it

How Selfish Is Russell Westbrook

How can you tell how selfish a basketball player is?  In the past I would think of a player, who took his fair share of shots, without many assists.  Russell Westbrook has me thinking about things differently in the past 3 seasons.  It is true that a person can get assists for selfish reasons.  Sure assists are seen as a selfless thing to do, but what if the guy getting the assists is also taking a bunch of shots.  A player like that effectively takes his teammates out of games.  They have to sit around waiting for him to do something, either pass the ball to them, or create the shot for himself.  A couple seasons ago it seemed like Westbrook became addicted to this, do everything style, of play.  Kevin Durant missed 55 games that season, and Westbrook took over dominating the basketball.  Even when Durant came back last season, Westbrook still played the same way to a lesser extent.  With Durant gone to Golden State this season Westbrook is having his way in OKC.  I can't help but think that Westbrook is a little happy that Durant is gone, and the team is his.  I came up with a statistics of my own. Okay it's really just a combination of other statistics that can be found on basketball reference.  One of those stats that I combined is Usage%.  Usage% is an estimate of the number of possessions a player ends for his team when he is on the floor.  Usage% doesn't factor in assists, it factors in free throw attempts, field goal attempts, and turnovers.  A player like Magic Johnson didn't have high usage rates throughout his career, but he obviously played a big role in the Lakers offense when he played.  So I decided to combine Usage% with assists per 100 possessions.  I'll just take the numbers given by basketball reference, which is rounded to the nearest tenth. This doesn't count instances in which a player could've gotten an assist, but someone missed a shot, but since they don't keep track of that, this will have to do.  I looked at Westbrook stats the past three seasons (stats this season are prior to January 5th game at Houston), and compared it to seasons from other great players

Name                            Season       Usage%     Ast Per 100     Total
Russell Westbrook        2016-17       42.4          14.9                57.3
Russell Westbrook        2014-15       38.4          12.5                50.9
James Harden               2016-17       33.7          15.9                49.6
Russell Westbrook        2015-16       31.6          15.4                47.0
Dwyane Wade              2008-09       36.2          10.3                46.5
Lebron James               2009-10       33.5          11.5                46.0
Kobe Bryant                2005-06        38.7          5.8                 44.5
Allen Iverson                2005-06       35.3           8.9                 44.2
Michael Jordan             1986-87       38.3           5.8                 44.1  
Magic Johnson              1986-87      26.3           15.9               42.2              

I believe that the seasons for everyone other than Westbrook is the season in which that total is highest of each person's career, but I'm not sure.  Kobe had a higher total in a season when he only played six games, so I didn't count that.  . Lebron James' total was 40.8 in 2011-12, his first championship season.  It was 40.3 the season he won his second title, and 41.2 last season in which he won his third title.  Jordan's totals for his championship seasons were 40.4, 39.7, 41.9, 39.3, 39.2, and 38.5 respectively.  So is Westbrook playing the most selfish season in NBA history?  Well it depends on what you consider selfish.  Wilt Chamberlain averaged 50.4 ppg, and around 2 assists per game, so obviously he was focused on getting his points.  Part of it comes down to whether Westbrook is getting a lot of assists for selfish reasons.  You can debate that one.  One thing that I am sure of is that Westbrook big numbers this seasons aren't the product of great efficiency.  It's the product of him getting so many opportunities to make plays.  He constantly has the ball.  A 42.4 Usage% would be the record if he kept that at the end of the season.  The highest Usage% usually goes a gunner.  It goes to a player whose job is to score, and who doesn't dish out a bunch of assists.  Westbrook is on his way to breaking the record, while at the same time constantly controlling the ball for his team in a way that Kobe, or Jordan, or even Lebron never have.