All D v Not All D (1989-90 to 2011-12) per 48

The charts below (click to enlarge) break out conventional offensive and defensive statistics for All Defensive players versus all other players by position category (i.e., PGs, wings, and post players) for every season from 1989-90 to 2011-12. The statistics are standardized on a per 48 minute performance, which gives some indicator as to how these groups would perform over an entire NBA game. (Although fatigue, injury, etc. would likely result in declining play--significantly for some players--as minutes played  approached 48. Thus, this should be viewed as a rough estimate of full-game performance.)

The charts show that over 48 minutes, All Defensive players are better in virtually every offensive and defensive category than are non-All Defensive players. The exceptions are all All Defensive positional categories are slightly more likely to turn the ball over than their non-All Defensive counterparts (which makes sense as they are more likely to possess the ball), and that All Defensive wings average slightly fewer offensive rebounds than their non-All Defensive counterparts. The difference is most stark with post players, where All Defensive post men far outperform their non-All Defensive counterparts, whom over 48 minutes average almost six and a half fouls. These statistics simply present more evidence that All Defensive players are all-around superior players, which should not come as a surprise but may give reason to believe that offensive performance could influence NBA coaches' decision to vote a given player to the All Defense team.

Last 15 #1 Picks WS & WS/ 48

In preparation for this Thursday's draft--where if Alex Len is drafted first overall the NBA, the sport of  basketball, the concept of competition, physical activity will all mutually implode as that signals that some mysterious dark matter is going to instantaneously subsume all of the galaxy--basketball-reference reported the Win Share and Win Share/ 48 minutes of the last 15 number one picks.

What's interesting from the chart? Despite being injured for much of his rookie year Anthony Davis has about tripled Michael Olowokandi's career contribution and almost exceeded that of Greg Oden (who it's obviously unfair to compare to without taking injuries into account). It's also surprising that over the entire course of his career,  Elton Brand has had more of a contribution than Dwight Howard. Taking Brand's longer tenure into account however, Howard has contributed more per game (as indicated by the higher WS/ 48).

Of course, no draft analysis, no matter how basic, can be complete without troubling results for Wizards' fans--John Wall and Kwame Brown share the same WS/ 48 thus far in their career, and the only two players with lower ratings are Olowokandi and Andrea Bargnani, the latter of whom ended the debate re: the question: If there isn't strong domestic talent in a given draft (i.e., 2005, 2013), do you just select the foreign player most often described as "the next Dirk Nowitzki"?

Per Minute Performance: All D v Not All D (1989-90 to 2011-12)

While previously addressed factors, like age, make sense when considering the qualities of superior defensive players--as measured by being voted to an All Defensive team (ADT)--it is also important to look at conventional performance measures (i.e., points, rebounds, etc) to understand other potential correlations. Below is a heat map of a range of performance measures (listed in the bottom columns) standardized per minute of play* for ADT players and non-ADT players grouped by type of position (i.e., PG, wing, post) from every season between 1989-90 to 2011-12.

A heat map is basically a matrix that illustrates, in this case, how well the ADT/ non-ADT position groups performed in a specific standardized category. As the legend in the top right illustrates, superior performance is indicated by red, and from there more moderate performance is indicated by orange-red then orange then yellow . . . down to white, which indicates inferior performance. (In other words, more red = good; less red/ more white = bad.)

Not surprising, Post ADT were the highest in rebounding categories, FGM, FGA, FTM, and FTA. While it may come as a surprise that they ranked so high in FTM as post players are typically not considered successful FT shooters (in terms of %), it likely reflects that playing the post results in them getting fouled more and, thus, getting more FTA than other positions. This is supported by the fact that this group has a relatively low FT% (indicated by "FT_Per"). Post non-ADT performed the best at fouling and were abysmal at FT%, both of which are expected considering the position.

PG and Wing non-ADT (middle two groups) were mediocre to poor across categories except that the PG group was among the highest in TOs and the two groups performed just marginally worse than their respective ADTs in 3FG, 3FGA and 3FG% (all indicated by "ThP" in the place of "3FG"). PG ADT (the second to bottom group) ranked exceptionally high in steals, assists and TOs--again, which all makes sense considering the position is inclined to accrue those stats relative to other positions--and Wing ADTs led in FGM, FGA, points and FTM. 

So what does all this mean? Basically, that over the last 23 seasons, ADT nominees also dominate those offensive categories associated with their position, which suggests that ADT players tend to be well-rounded players (i.e., effective defensively and offensively). Conversely, it could present problems for using nomination to an ADT as an indicator of superior defensive ability if the coaches that vote these players to the ADTs confuse or belie offensive aptitude for defensive skill.

* Statistics are standardized per minute to account for the fact that players that play more minutes accrue more stats so playing time tends to positively affect most measures. (Of course, there are measures that a player does not want to accrue, like TOs, that would also be higher with greater playing time.) Failure to account for performance per minute would likely benefit averages of players in the ADT groups on account of the fact that they are all starters and, thus, average more time than non-ADT players, which is a compilation of starters and (many) non-starters/ low MPG players.

Age, Defense & Position

From the 1989-90 until 2011-2012 players selected to an All Defensive Team (average age 28.5) were about 1.5 years older than all other players (average age 27.0) in the NBA. The median difference was slightly larger at 3 years (29 for All Defense, 26 for all others). The question then becomes--Does the difference hold by position?

To measure this I categorized players over the last 23 seasons (excluding the 2012-13 season) into three positional groups based on their positions assigned in basketball-reference.com. 'Point Guards' captured any player that was classified at one point as a point guard regardless of any other position he played during a given season. 'Post players' captured any player that was classified at one point as a center or power forward regardless of any other position he played during a given season. (Note: During these 23 seasons there were no players that were classified as point guards and power forwards or centers.) Finally, 'Wings' captured all other players (i.e., shooting guards and small forwards) that were not captured in the other two groups.

Admittedly, this isn't a perfect approach as there are players in a given season that played in more than one of these three categories. Examples include players, like Jalen Rose (2003-04) who played PG and SF, Mike Dunleavy (2006-07) and Kyle Korver (2007-08), who were assigned the positions of shooting guard and power forward, and any number of shooting guard-point guard combos, like Jarrett Jack, Kirk Hinrich, Bobby Jackson, Terry Dehere, and Shammond Williams. That being, said the approach represents a reasonable method for aggregating defensive players based on the offensive positions they are most likely to guard.

The first two charts below break out the mean and median for 'Point Guards'. It shows that for every season All Defensive PGs were at least the same age or up to 3 years older than all other PGs until a precipitous decline starting in the 2007-08 season, after which there is a gradual increase in All Defensive PGs over the next four years until last season where the two groups were about the same average and median age. (The sharp drop in the age of All Defensive PGs reflects that at the time third year players and 23 year olds Chris Paul in 2007-08 and Rajon Rondo in 2008-09 became regular All Defensive PGs.)

The next two charts break out the mean and median for 'Wings' (i.e., SGs and SFs). They show that except for the 1993-1994 season All Defensive wings were almost always older, and by quite a bit in the late 1990s, than all other wings. (The drop in 1993-94 is most explained by 23 year old Latrell Sprewell receiving his first and only All Defensive [Second] Team nomination.)

The final two charts show the mean and median for 'Post' players (i.e., PFs and Cs). Similar to Point Guards and Wings, All Defensive post players appeared to be older than all other post players except for about a 5 year stint starting with the 1999-2000 season, which reflects the beginning of a ten-year Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett reign as first or second team PF and C. (The 1999-2000 season was Duncan's third and his third time on an All Defensive team and Garnett's fifth season and first on the team. Where Duncan entered the NBA after a four year college career and, thus, started his career at a later age than Garnett, Garnett entered the league straight out of high school but was only a month younger than Duncan despite his additional NBA experience.) Taken together the charts on the three groups suggest that with the exception of the emergence of a few precocious superstar defenders, across major defensive positional categories players nominated to an All Defensive Team tend to be older than all other players.

Age & Defense

Of the many factors that might explain a successful NBA defender, his age is one worthy of consideration. To measure it I collected data from basketball-reference.com on full season stats for every NBA player from the 1990-91 season until the 2011-12 season. Because qualifying a player as a 'successful' defender demands subjectivity, I also categorized players based on if they were voted 1st or 2nd All-Defensive Team in a given season or if they were not voted to an All-Defensive team.

A few things to note about the All Defensive Team. First, while this seems like a reasonable measure of defensive aptitude, it's worth noting that head coaches vote for the team. As a result, there could be bias in the voting process. For example, if a coach harbors ill will toward an opposing player for personal or competitive circumstances he may consciously or subconsciously disregard that player when casting his vote. There's also the issue that popular players may possess greater relevance in a voter's memory. As a result, coaches might continually vote for Kobe Bryant not because he was a top ten defender in a given year, but they recall his name quicker than less popular and less offensively capable players or because Kobe's defensive achievements from prior seasons affect perceptions on his defense for the current voting season. In other words, this isn't a perfect measure but it is reasonable. Also, most seasons ten players--five for the first team and five for the second team--are selected to the First and Second All-Defensive Teams. In other seasons, like 1998-99, 2004-05 or 2005-06, there is a tie in voting so 11 players are selected.

Before introducing some basic analysis it's important to identify why age would affect defensive ability. On the one hand, successful man-to-man defense (which is the dominant scheme of the NBA) demands exceptional athletic ability because the defender must react to the cuts, bursts and moves of another world class athlete. As a result, we might expect younger players to have an advantage as defenders because youth better serves athleticism than the time, wear, and injuries experienced by a rugged veteran. On the other hand, defense also demands intelligence and guile to read an opponent's tendencies, to process and predict offensive schemes, and to understand how to best neutralize an opponent's offensive strengths. These are qualities one might expect a veteran to possess from his year's of competition and, thus, would suggest that older players serve as better defenders.

Below are two charts. The first shows the mean and the second shows the median (or middle age of the group) of all All-Defensive First and Second team players and all other players (i.e., those that weren't voted to an All-Defense team)*. The top chart on average age shows that for every season since 1990-91 except for the 1999-00 season the average age of the All-Defense team was greater than the average age of the rest of the NBA.

The second chart shows that the median age of All Defense players is greater than or equal to all other NBA players in every season except 2009-10 when the two groups had the same median age. Therefore, looking at data from the last 22 NBA seasons it appears that defensive aptitude, at least in terms of being measured by whether a player was voted first or second team All-Defense, increases as players age and gain experience. (Of course, only up to a point as All-Defensive Team players' age seems to hover in the late 20s/ early 30s. There likely comes a point in the mid-30s where despite the knowledge and guile of these defenders, age compromises athletic ability to too great a degree.)

*The reason for looking at the mean and the median is because very large or very small values can skew the mean but won't skew the median. In other words, if you took a sample of five players and their ages were 24, 25, 25, 26 and 41 then looking just at average would make us think that the average age of the group was greater than the rest of the population of players because of the anomalous 41 but the median, 25 in this example, gives another perspective on the 'central' age. Because NBA player age is usually at most a total variance of 20 years between the youngest and oldest player, anomalous ages would only affect small groups, like that of ten or eleven players voted into All-Defensive Teams.

Marc Gasol & Advanced Defensive Stats

With Marc Gasol receiving Defensive Player of the Year he becomes the third straight center to win the award, which since Jordan won it in 1987-88 has only been won by centers and power forwards except for Gary Payton in 1995-96 and Ron/ Meta Artest/World Peace in 2003-04 (thus, giving some idea of the value of frontcourt, help defenders). What's interesting about Gasol's winning is that he's a relatively unimpressive nominee based on conventional defensive measures.

Looking at the performance of all players in the 2012-13 season that played at least 100 minutes and standardized over 36 per minutes of play (which simply helps take account for the fact that some players play more than others so we're interested in performance per minute of play rather than total performance, which would benefit players that play more minutes), Gasol is 127th in defensive rebounds (tied with Kawhi Leonard and Antawn Jamison), 75th in steals among just PFs and Cs, and 46th in blocks (to give some context, in both steals and blocks he is tied with Ronny Turiaf). Even among the more basic advanced statistics,  like DRB%, STL% and BLK% (basically, all just estimate the percentage of DRBs/ STLs/ BLKs that player achieved while on the floor), he's unimpressive. For DRB% Gasol is 105th, for STL% he's 60th among PFs and Cs, and for BLK% he's 45th among all players.

It is perhaps the two most advanced defensive stats (among popular advanced defensive stats) that signal Gasol's value as a defender. Gasol's defensive rating (DRTG), which is an estimate of the number of points a player gives up per 100 possessions, is 98, which is 4th in the league--one point behind Hibbert and Paul George and 3 points behind Tim Duncan, the leader. Based on defensive win shares (DWS), which is an estimate of the number of wins the player's defense contributes to his team, Gasol was second with 5.4 behind only Paul George's 6.3.

But, why if George leads Gasol in these two advanced measures did he not receive the award? (More so, how did he finish 7th in voting?) Perhaps that's the case because 5th in DWS was Roy Hibbert and much like George's high DRTG (which Hibbert shared) it may be the case that voters feel George's defense is bolstered by Hibbert's (and other phenomenal Pacer defenders, like David West's) defensive contribution. (Interestingly, LeBron, the runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year, didn't finish in the top ten of DRTG or DWS.)

Syracuse 3FG Defense

During the NCAA Men's tournament Syracuse received much publicity and warranted praise for its 2-3 defense. (In fact, it received such recognition that even NPR ran a segment on it.)  The movement and the length of the defenders seemed to receive most of the credit for the zone's success. But there's something equally important that Jim Boeheim understands as well as anyone--college kids are not good jump shooters and the further from the basket you make them shoot the worse they get. Blame it on the 'AAU-I gotta do me' culture or Youtube dunk contests or whatever but what Boeheim gets so well is that if opponents do something poorly then make them do a lot of it.

Among division 1 college basketball teams over the last season, Syracuse had the third best opponent three point field goal defense percentage at 28.4%. (The two teams ahead of them--New Hampshire and Weber St--were sub 80 RPI teams and didn't play close to the competition that Syracuse did.) Among the top 100 division 1 basketball teams in terms of opponent three point field goal defense percentage Syracuse averaged the 7th highest opponent 3FGA per game at 21.7 (all 6 teams ahead of them allowed a higher opponent 3FG% and were from much lower-tier conferences than the Big East).

One way to look at this is--what was the value an opponent should expect for each shot attempt against Syracuse. For threes it was 0.852 points (28.4% opponent 3FG% x 3 points) and for twos it was only slightly higher at 0.854 points (42.7% opponent 2FG% x 2 points). But considering that two point attempts are far more likely than three point attempts to incur fouls and, thus, free throws (Syracuse's opponents averaged 19.1 FTA against them per game), opponents would have benefited even more by relying less on threes.

What became clear during the tournament was that not only did Syracuse's guards play excellent perimeter defense but the zone forced opponents to take a seemingly irrational number of contested threes--if history shows opponents that they have a low probability of making the shot then don't take it, or at least minimize the number of attempts. It wasn't just that their 5 tournament opponents shot 19% from the three, but the fact that their opponents averaged 23 3FGA while they should have known the three point attempt was an exceptionally low probability method for scoring points. (To give some reference, Montana took 31 3FGA, and Marquette and Michigan each took 24.) So what happened in the loss to Michigan? After shooting around 36% from threes in the first four tournament games, Syracuse shot 21%.

NBA Stats: Opponent FG%

The NBA's newish resource for statistical analysis, NBA Stats, illustrates why despite the attention that Moneyball,Sabermetrics et al garner baseball as sports' source of quantitative analysis, progress in the NBA's data collection techniques(and presentation) signal the league's appreciation for analysis. The facts that there are fewer players in basketball and that more of the game is quantifiable (especially now that spatial factors can be captured) will likely arouse greater interest in NBA analytics.

The main problem with NBA Stats is that they don't share the data so you're stuck with either using their standard reports or their limited filters on larger data sets. Of course, it makes sense that the NBA doesn't share the data because they are expensive to collect (and, thus, like most other organizations that collect vast amounts of data demand compensation for sharing) and because individuals could take the data and run their own analyses and draw attention away from NBA Stats, which the NBA presumably created simply to draw more traffic to NBA.com (as well as to build their brand with more quantitatively inclined consumers and fans).

A great set of individual defensive metrics that the NBA provides is on opponent's field goals (so how well all opponents shoot when being guarded by an individual player). It represents an intuitive measure of an individual's defensive success because it isolates individual defensive performance in a way that plus-minus or turnovers, which both largely reflect team defense, fail too. The metric is limited by the fact that a defender may still benefit from exceptional help defense, especially in the paint, and by the fact that some defenders' presence actually dissuades field goals from ever being taken in the first place. The data is organized in 5 foot increments so you can determine which player is a better defender closer to the basket (i.e., less than 5 feet) or on the perimeter (20 to 24 feet). 

I looked only at the 2012-13 season and focused only on defense close to the basket (less than 5 feet) and defense close to the three point line (20 to 24 feet). It's necessary to qualify based on some minimum number of FGA otherwise bench players who happened to be in when their man missed three of four close attempts appear to have the lowest opponent FG% (the lower the % suggests better defense). In fact, Terrell Harris, a 6'4" guard, has the lowest percentage of any player with opponents who have taken more than 10 FGAs (37 total for Terrell), which may reflect his superior interior defense but more likely suggests that Anthony Davis and co. help protect the net. Interestingly, of the top five defenders with opponent's that have taken at least 100 FGAs, four are on the Pacers--Roy Hibbert (48.8%), Orlando Johnson (49.4%), Gerald Green (49.6%), and Jeff Pendegraph (50.0%). (In addition, Pacers' C Miles Plumlee allows only 44.4% but he's only faced 36 FGAs.) Ronny Turiaf is the only non-Pacer with over 100 opponent FGAs within 5 feet, not on the Pacers, and allowing a FG% below fifty (49.6%). 

The Pacers' impressive interior defense likely reflects one of two scenarios. They're either the best coached and do an excellent job of executing sound interior defense, or one individual defender that gets a lot of playing time (i.e., Roy Hibbert) is such an imposing interior defender that his presence and help defense decrease not only his opponent's FG% but also his teammates' opponents' FG%. Here lies an issue with the NBA not sharing the data. To measure these two scenarios you would want to compare the other Pacers' opponents' FG% with Hibbert in the game and without him in the game. If the percentages hold in both scenarios then it suggests exceptional coaching and play. If his teammates' opponents' FG% increase without Hibbert in the game then Hibbert's value as an interior defensive player is immense.

For perimeter defense, we expect opponent FG% to be much lower as the shots 20 to 24 feet from the basket have a lower likelihood of going in than ones within 5 feet. In fact, 110 NBA players thus far in the 2012-13 season have held their opponents to under 35% FG on shots from 20 to 24 feet from the hoop. Reviewing the list of players that accomplish this low opponent FG% shows that many of them are power forwards and centers. Ideally (and NBA Stats does not let you filter by position in this table), we would want to look only at PG, SG and SF because presumably opposing PFs and Cs aren't accurate to begin with from 20 to 24 feet so low FG% may not reflect exceptional perimeter D, but rather that those PFs and Cs benefit from being able to guard poor perimeter shooters.

Three of the top five guards and SFs (not Ellington and Prince) with close to 100 opponent FGAs or more from 20 to 24 feet are surprising: Jordan Crawford (28.4%), Eric Maynor (28.8%), Wayne Ellington and Marquis Teague (both 30.7%), and Tayshaun Prince (32.2%). Interestingly, the worst perimeter defenders are dominated by rookies (Doron Lamb, Josh Selby, and Cory Joseph [second year but little playing time]) and lower-tier centers (Viacheslav Kravtsov, Joel Freeland, and Hamed Haddadi).

Measuring Defense

As DBSF has exhausted much of his take on the peculiarities of the NBA and the styles and idiosyncrasies of certain players and their subcultures, it's time the blog goes in a different direction. Absent an Adam Morrison return to the NBA or JR Smith and Andray Blatche teaming up to lead a team to a first round, four loss, zero win playoff series in which each is suspended at least once for conduct detrimental to the team, this move will have been long over due.

The new focus will rely more on analytics, and for the foreseeable future the focus will be to identify the best defensive player in the NBA. This approach will demand more original analysis, which will also be more time consuming and result in less frequent posting. Finding the appropriate measure(s) of defense won't be accomplished in a single analysis and likely demands re-configuring and fine-tuning previous models. But--and depending upon the available data (this is key)--the goal is to establish some measure that in addition to a range of conventional defensive statistics as well as the other existing 'advanced' defensive statistics grants greater insight on a player's value. (Admittedly, this is no way a novel endeavor.)

But why defense? And, don't we already know who are the best defenders? To answer the first question, it's 50% of the game and gets maybe 5% of the attention on a good day. To answer the second, the NBA All-Defensive team is certainly a start. However we cannot be confident that All-Defensive nominees don't benefit from having superior defensive teammates and, thus, help defenders. Consider Dwight Howard at his prime. He was such a defensive presence in the paint that guards on the Magic could assume far greater risk on the perimeter and attempt to challenge more threes and perimeter shots because even if their man gets by them he still had to convert in the lane with Howard, arguably the best shot blocker in the last decade, contesting. In other words, Dwight Howard's aptitude as an interior, help defender might have made all of his teammates appear as better defenders.

Then what about conventional measures of defensive achievement, like steals or blocks? Both are undeniably important as one ends the opponent's offensive possession (steals) and the other potentially ends the possession or at least negates a potentially made field goal (blocks). But both demand the defender to assume risk, where undesirable outcomes include fouling or missing the steal and granting the opponent more direct access to the basket or missing the block and being out of position for a defensive rebound, which is a critical conventional measure of defensive aptitude because the defensive rebound absolutely ends the opponent's possession.

Take Allen Iverson, a three-time NBA steals leader, who was All-NBA first team 3 times, second team 3 times, and third team once but was never voted to an All-Defensive first or second team. There are likely many factors that explain this but consider Iverson's success in steals. While his great quickness would be an asset on perimeter defense, his 6'0" 165 pound frame becomes a liability the closer the offensive opponent draws him to the basket. As a result, it would be in Iverson's best interest to assume risk and attempt more perimeter steals (and, thus, increase his steal average) at the cost of sacrificing  interior defense where his physical size would prove ineffective.

So was Iverson a good defender or not? That's what the following posts will hopefully uncover. It may be that he was an excellent perimeter defender but a mediocre to poor defender inside the three point line--so we need to know where Iverson was on the court to answer if he was a good defender or not. Unfortunately, although NBA teams are collecting the spatial data necessary to conduct such analysis, they are not sharing it.

As a result, most "advanced" measures of defense reflect formulas that attempts to standardize one or more conventional defensive statistics, or they look at things, like the points allowed while the player was on the court. The latter is certainly an important indicator of all around defense however it is necessary that the measure accounts for the defensive aptitude of a player's teammates and the offensive ability of his opponents. (In other words, if a defensive player is stuck with four JR Smiths for teammates and is playing against the Heat and Thunder every night, then it's not fair to say he's a bad defender because his team gives up a lot of points.)

So what categories should define a defensive player? One was mentioned--defensive rebounds because it effectively ends a possession. Second, opponents' turnovers while the player was on the court. Many steals or poor offensive decisions (resulting in TOs) occur because of otherwise non-quantifiable defensive plays, like hustle, active hands, and quick help defense. Third--and this is likely the most difficult data to access--time left on the opponent's shot clock per their possession. This would have to be standardized by opposing team because some teams aim to shoot earlier in the shot clock than others. This measure would show which players (or teams) cause opponents to take more time to shoot than they do on average, which likely captures successful on-ball and help defense. All of this has to be standardized by minutes and position (and maybe size) as we wouldn't expect similar defensive rebounds from a center and a PG.

One limitation that's worth recognizing is that even if some useful measure of defense is determined it will only allow comparisons within cohorts of players. So, you could compare LeBron with Ibaka but you couldn't compare LeBron with Jordan. Besides the fact that rule changes over the years can affect a player's output (there is no better example of this than in the NFL where the restrictions on defensive backs have enabled QBs to shatter records in recent years), it would require comparing a line of cohorts to establish some inter-generational standard.

In other words, you'd have to do something, like compare a cohort of young players that played with Jordan (say Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett) to a next level cohort (say Kenyon Martin and Tyson Chandler) and then compare how LeBron played against them while controlling for age and other factors. So you could say based on how LeBron plays against Tyson Chandler and based on how Chandler played against Rasheed Wallace and based on how Wallace played against Chris Webber and based on how Webber played against Dan Majerle and based on how Majerle played against Jordan we could expect LeBron and Jordan to match/ not match defensively? Obviously too much uncertainty (or, "noise") arises across generations so any attempts to standardize defensive performance will be relative to probably a 3-5 NBA season period.

Spencer Hawes--Harden'ing

The problem with when white bros go for the James Harden look--which Harden very well may have appropriated from some musician or entertainer, bear in mind that outside of HGTV the NBA serves as this blog's sole connection to pop culture--is that rather than look Urban Lincoln hip, white bros really just resemble a  rural terrorist. Take Spencer Hawes, his Harden beard makes gives him an air of Amish extremist. Like--no he does not like your values and yes he does hate technology with the exception of when it is used to create IEDs. The type of guy that is reaaaallllyyy holding out on believing that the President is an American citizen until he gets that real life birth certificate in his own personal hand. (But, heck, even then what with computers, Netscape and America On Line any hack can make a duplicate, right?) It's probably not to fun to be a rookie on the 76ers and on every road trip get coerced into boarding with the teammate that all the veterans say is a nephew of Ted Kaczysnki.