Earl Barron Gets a Tryout with Blazers

Earl Barron tweeted that he was arriving in Portland for a workout with the Blazers.

In 7 games with the Bucks earlier this season, Barron, a 7'0" center, averaged 5.1 points and 3.1 rebounds while playing 12.1 minutes per game.  He was the leading scorer for Milwaukee in a loss to Boston on March 13.  The Bucks passed on signing Barron for the season after the second of his two 10-day contracts expired -- giving hm the flexibility to sign with a playoff team.  Barron also spent 12 games with Phoenix earlier in the season.

Did the Pistons' CEO Accidentally Make a Pre-Lockout Revelation of 'the Books'?

Pistons CEO and President Alan Ostfield went on-air with Piston broadcasters Greg Kelser and George Blaha during the second quarter of Friday's Bucks-Pistons game to announce that a deal was reached to sell the Pistons to Tom Gores.  In addition to a confirmation of the pact, the Pistons' chief executive offered a surprising candid assessment of the inner workings of the deal and the financial situation surrounding the organization.  According to Ostfield,

Karen Davidson and Tom Gores today signed a tentative agreement and now they're going to dot a few more i's and cross a few more t's, get the Board of Governors approval at the right time and, um, hopefully that will all happen in an expeditious manner. 

Where Does Andray Blatche's 16-Offensive-Rebound Game Rank Historically?

On a night where Jordan Crawford netted a triple-double and JaVale McGee put together a very efficient 25 points, the most astounding line of the night by far belonged to Andray Blatche.

• 36 points
• 19 rebounds
• 4 assists
• 1 steal 
• 1 block
• 16 offensive rebounds, a Bullets/Wizards franchise record

The statistics for offensive rebounding on basketballreference.com go back to 1985-86.  Here is a link showing all the players who garnered 15 boards on the offensive side.  Quite a list of players, but none put up as many as Andray's 36 points.

The fact that Blatche set the franchise record is even more impressive when you consider that Moses Malone, the holder of virtually every offensive rebounding record, played two years at the tail-end of his prime in DC.  But Moses never topped more than 11 offensive rebounds in a game as a Bullet.**

Moses holds the following NBA offensive rebounding records:

• Career:  6731                (7382, if you count his ABA seasons)
• Season: 587                  (Houston, 1978-79)
• Game: 21                      (Houston vs. Seattle, February 11, 1982)
• Career Average: 5.1
• Season Average: 7.2     (Houston, 1978-79)

It's hard to imagine averaging 5.1 offensive rebounds per game for a career that spanned over 1300 games.

Can you guess which player holds the career mark for defensive rebounds per game?  (Hint: Blake Griffin is pretty high on the list, but it's a different redhead.)

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** Offensive rebounding stats have only been kept in the NBA since '73-'74, so Wes Unseld's early years don't count.  I wonder if Wes ever got 16?

What Kind of Royals Will Anaheim Get?

Earlier today, KXTV News of Sacramento reported that an organization with Sacramento connections has filed applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office reserving the names "Anaheim Royals" and "Sacramento Royals". They also stated that

The web domains losangelesroyals.com and anaheimroyals.com have also been registered within the past three weeks.

The trademark applications were filed on behalf of Crickets Corp., a Nevada corporation represented by Sacramento attorney Scott Hervey. Hervey specializes in intellectual property issues and also represents the Maloof family, owners of the Sacramento Kings and the Palms Casino in Las Vegas.

The Maloof family is part of the ownership group of the NBA's Sacramento Kings. The filed trademarks demonstrate that Kings ownership is considering moving the Kings to Anaheim.

Further research of trademark applications also show that Mr. Hervey has filed a previous trademark application for the "Maloof Cup World Championship of Skateboarding", indicating direct connections to the Maloof brothers.  In addition to the two patents mentioned in the KXTV article, Mr. Hervey has also filed applications for trademarks for the titles "Orange County Royals" and "Anaheim Royals of Southern California", although it is customary to file extra trademarks as red herrings to conceal the identity of the planned name.

The Sacramento Kings were originally named the Rochester Royals, before moving to Cincinnati.  Their move to Kansas City prompted the name change to 'Kings', so as not to be confused with baseball's Kansas City Royals.  In a bit of history repeating (and reversing back on) itself, it is thought that the Kings will change their name back to Royals to avoid conflict with the NHL's Los Angeles Kings.

In a separate and previous transaction, NBA Properties, using a correspondent other than Mr. Hervey, had a review for the trademark name "Anaheim Amigos" completed in February.  However, it appears to focus on merchandise instead of sporting events.

See the information below on the applications for each trademarked name:

• Orange County Royals 
• Anaheim Royals 
• Anaheim Royals of Southern California 
• Los Angeles Royals 
• Maloof Cup World Championship of Skateboarding
• Anaheim Amigos 

An Area Where Deron Williams Doesn't Help the Nets

The New Jersey Nets added one of the premier point guards in the NBA when they traded for Deron Williams. Williams belongs to the upper echelon of floor leaders, which includes the likes of Chris Paul, Rajon Rondo, Russell Westbrook, and Derrick Rose.  Replacing Devin Harris with Deron should prove to be a sizable upgrade.
But even if acquiring Deron Williams improves the Nets, there are problems that he does not solve, including the fact that starting center Brook Lopez (12.5%) collects defensive rebounds at nearly the same rate as Sasha Vujacic (11.8%).  Point guards do not usually impact rebounding, though, so Deron may not help much there.  There is another area, though, where point guards do make a difference:  turnovers.  The league leaders in steals, for example, are point (or combo) guards.  Rondo, Paul, Monta Ellis, Mike Conley, and Westbrook fill out the NBA's top-5 leaderboard in steals per game.  Will getting Deron Williams help them get turnovers and steals?

An Odd Statistical Quirk and a Huge Advantage for the Thunder

One way to measure the effectiveness of a team's ability to draw fouls and successfully shoot free throws is to look at their ratio of free throws made to field goal attempts (FT/FGA).  By using FG attempts in the denominator, this ratio largely negates the impact of pace. This statistic also takes into account accuracy of each team's free throw shooters, by counting free throws instead of free throw attempts.

Through the NBA games played March 8, the league average for this ratio was 0.231.  The average number of free throws made was 1188, the average number of field goal attempts was 5144, and the resulting quotient gives the number listed above.

The interesting quirk lies in comparing the league average to each of the NBA's 30 teams.  When each team is compared to this 0.231 mark, only nine teams are above the league average.  That's right -- there are 21 teams performing below the league average in this index.  How can that happen? It turns out that way because there are a few squads that sit significantly higher than even the above-average teams.  Here are the nine teams (note the outliers pulling up the average on the high end):

The Celtics: Looking at the Numbers on Pairing a Center with the Big Four

On the night of the Kendrick Perkins trade, Danny Ainge made some intriguing statements regarding Shaq's role replacing for Perkins.  His remarks indicated that he understood the simple analysis of the situation -- the Celtics went 33-10 before Perkins' return to the team.  His words, however, also implied the team's usage of more advanced, lineup-based analytics:

Shaq has proved to be excellent with our starters.  The numbers actually show that he has been better with our starters.  We beat all the good teams in the league while Kendrick was out.