Indy
Hamilton may not have been perfectly vertical, but I saw him as a lot closer than you did. Then again, I am not an Indy guy, so maybe my viewpoint is different :) Hamilton came out hard then jumped nearly perfectly straight up, and Reggie elected to jump straight into him after Hamilton left his feet. From where I sat, this was a no call in any NBA game unless they wanted to bail the star out.

Offensive players don't have the right to just jump into somebody because they aren't perfectly vertical. That is a terrible misinterpretation of the rules. If what you said was true, then an offensive player could also push off on a defender if they aren't vertical. Lack of verticality is not license to kill for the offensive player, it just means that if the offensive player is doing normal offensive movements, contact is likely to be the fault of the defender.

And Dan, no cone jokes please ;)

Oh, Travelin Man - if what Reggie does was so basic, everybody in the NBA would do it. Reggie works incredibly hard off the ball and comes off screens as well as anybody I have seen. His tremendous skills allow him to get off shots that others cannot, and have been a tremendous boost to Indiana's fortunes. Not MJ, but a damn fine player.

Unfortunately, most sportscasts are littered with them.

Some other meaningless stats
<LI>Team X wins 90% of the time when they're ahead by 10 or more at the half.
<LI>Team Y wins when 95% of the games where they shoot over 50%.
<LI>Team Z wins 80% of time when they out rebound the opponents.

All of these are probably true for any team. Teams that are playing better in the middle of the game or beating their opponents in real statistical categories tend to win.

The most accurate one (I made it up but I'm surprised I haven't heard it come out of the mouth of Billy Packer):

Team Q wins 100% of the games where they score more than their opponents. ;)

[Edited by Camron Rust on Jun 2nd, 2004 at 06:22 PM]

Nothing is absolute in my world, Camron
 

That last stat is true unless you use ineligible players :)

Actually, I think Bill Walton DID say it!

Hawks Coach, where did I say it was so basic?????? I SAID Miller was the VERY BEST in the NBA coming off a screen. I gave him the highest compliment. But, he is too one-dimensional to be compared to MJ. MJ excelled on both ends of the floor. Quite a number of fans don't realize what a GREAT defensive player Jordan was. He was on the all-defensive team too many times to remember.

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“The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion."--James Russell Lowell

Sorry Travelin - when I read it, I thought you were slighting him not complimenting him. I think we would agree - not MJ, but an incredibly valuable player. Of course, compared to her peers, Cheryl was better :)

A close second is surely a dissertation for an Ed.D. in physical education. They wrote an entire dissertation showing that the team that gets more rebounds is more likely to win a game of basketball.