Yesterday I hinted about an advanced statistic that MDsr created back in the day. Hopefully by now you've had a chance to read Kevin's post about MDsr and effective field goal percentage. It was a great story, I have to say. Dena had stopped recording by then so there's no video of it unfortunately.
Coincidentally, both Kevin and Lisa Dillman of the Times highlighted MDsr's reference to the old 'One Dribble Rule' as regards Chris Kaman. Here's yesterday's quote:
Which got me thinking back to November 2006, almost three years ago. Most of you weren't around then, but after I wrote this about Kaman:[Kaman]'s got all the tools. It's just a matter of better reads and taking care of the basketball. If he just used the rule of thumb of just one dribble, make your move, he'd hardly have any mistakes.
He needs to catch the ball, and make his move, or if it's not there, kick the ball back out. If he ever takes more than one dribble, something is wrong.
suspiciously, references to the 'One Dribble Rule' started cropping up in the press a couple months later.
So if we're giving MDsr credit as the father of effective field goal percentage, isn't it time to set the record straight about the 'One Dribble Rule?' I asked MDsr after practice, pointing out that obviously I invented the rule, since the earliest published reference to it is Clips Nation in Nov. 2006. He seemed pretty certain that neither he nor his staff had taken the idea from me, maintaining that they came up with the idea all on their own. A likely story.
Still, if Leibniz and Newton could each indepently devise calculus, then I suppose it's possible. Just another example of great minds thinking alike.
As for the practice session, he was again pretty positive. When asked who is standing out, he once again praised the 'new rotation guys' (which is what I'm going to start calling them - the NRGs, or is that too lame?), Telfair, Butler and Smith. He also had nice things to say about DeAndre Jordan, who is working with that second unit.
Blake Griffin sat out once again, although he'd rather be out there. In yesterday's afternoon session, coach caught Blake Superior doing some things he wasn't supposed to be doing (like 'jumping five feet in the air') and had to tell him to cut it out. As we suspected, Blake thinks he's fine and is chomping at the bit to bang some, and the coaching and training staff are being extra cautious. Which is exactly what you want from each of them in late September.
(Of course, Blake was also 'jumping five feet in the air' at Media Day on Monday, and we have photographic evidence of that.)
Taj Gray sat out today's session.