(sJacas)

A friend of mine, a childhood Chicago Bulls fan, once told me he refuses to watch replay of the historical Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals. He doesn’t want his childhood memories ruined. Having watched said game myself years after it took place, I am certain he is doing the right thing. Subtract the magnitude, the end-of-an-era charm and you’re left with a stagnant, 48-minutes iso-feast, during which Michael Jordan took more than half of his team’s shots. He missed 20.

I always expect to come away disappointed from watching tape of an all-time classic. Most people will tell you the 2002 Final between Kinder Bologna and Panathinaikos was one of the best in modern Euroleague history. It had Bodiroga, Obradović, Ginobili, Rigaudeau, Smodiš, Messina, a large first half lead, a comeback, worthy star performances, a fired-up crowd and tension until the last minute. And yet — guess what — players missed shots. They committed dumb turnovers, left the backdoor open, failed to box out, missed fouls shots, just as they do today. 65 free throws too often brought the game to a standstill. All things considered, it was a great game.

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(sJacas)

On the day the Beko-BBL celebrates its fan-voted Allstars in Bonn, here are a bunch of graphs to outline team trends at the halfway mark.

(Raw data from RealGM schedules and team stats; post uses graph code from mbostock)

Bayern lead the league in win percentage (Win%) after 17 games, but Alba Berlin rank first in Pythagorean/Expected Win Percentage (Exp%), which is a win estimate based on offensive and defensive rating (or points for/against, if tempo free stats are unavailable). “Luck” is here merely the margin between expected and actual win percentage.

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