If Los Angeles is going to get a stadium that can house an NFL team, it needs three things:
1) The unmitigated financial backing of billionaire Phil Anschutz
2) State political support
3) The Chargers
At the moment, the financial support of AEG founder Anschutz for an L.A. Stadium is not yet a certainty, though AEG CEO Tim Leiweke [...]
SPORTSbyBROOKS
Here’s a photo titled “SnowCam” that was posted Christmas day on the BIRMINGHAM NEWS official website.
The “family” is not amused.
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Urban Meyer coached his last game with the Florida Gators today, a come-from-behind, 37-24 win over Penn State. Florida safety Ahmad Black sealed the win with an 80-yard interception return for a touchdown – see it after the jump.
SportsGrid
The Dallas Cowboys are dangerously close to capping off their disappointing 2010 season by finishing as the last place team in the NFC East. If Dallas winds up at the bottom, it would mark the first time they finish in the NFC East cellar since 2002.
In order for Dallas to stay out of last place, they need to win next Sunday afternoon against the Eagles and have the New York Giants beat the Redskins.
If Dallas marches into Philadelphia and loses, they would finish the season at 5-11 in last place. The only positive would be a higher draft pick. The [...]
The Landry Hat | A Dallas Cowboys blog
Facing his former team in Cleveland last night, LeBron James played like his vintage Cavs-era self, pouring in 38 points on 15-25 shooting with 8 assists in 30 minutes. That had me wondering, where did James’ performance rank among historical instances of a player facing his ex-’mates the season after he left town?
So I ran a database query on all games since 1987 where a player was facing a team he had played for the previous season. And for the performance metric of choice, I want to introduce an adjusted plus/minus-based game score-style metric called “APMVAL”. I basically ran an intercept-free regression between APM value over replacement (minutes * (APM + 6)) and raw box score totals, coming up with this formula:
APMVAL = 45*pts – 35*tsa + 18*reb + 30*ast + 72*stl + 41*blk – 75*tov – 39*pf
The best APMVAL game of the overall 1987-2010 period was Michael Jordan’s 69-point outburst vs. Cleveland in 1990 (Kobe’s 81-point game was 2nd). Here were the best games against a player’s former team in the first season after his departure:
| Player | Date | Tm | Opp | MP | FG | FGA | 3P | 3A | FT | FTA | RB | AS | ST | BK | TO | PF | PTS | APMVAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Willie Burton | 12/13/1994 | PHI | MIA | 43.0 | 12 | 19 | 5 | 8 | 24 | 28 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 53 | 1524 |
| Terrell Brandon | 3/19/2000 | MIN | MIL | 36.0 | 11 | 13 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 13 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 28 | 1322 |
| Tony Delk | 1/2/2001 | PHO | SAC | 50.0 | 20 | 27 | 0 | 1 | 13 | 15 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 53 | 1200 |
| Tom Gugliotta | 1/5/1996 | MIN | GSW | 41.0 | 14 | 17 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 10 | 10 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 36 | 1156 |
| Charles Barkley | 3/3/1993 | PHO | PHI | 44.0 | 14 | 19 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 17 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 36 | 1127 |
| LeBron James | 12/2/2010 | MIA | CLE | 30.0 | 15 | 25 | 2 | 7 | 6 | 9 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 38 | 1100 |
| Devin Harris | 12/19/2008 | NJN | DAL | 38.6 | 14 | 25 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 3 | 13 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 41 | 1090 |
| Tom Chambers | 2/15/1989 | PHO | SEA | 38.0 | 12 | 16 | 2 | 2 | 9 | 10 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 35 | 1084 |
| Shaquille O’Neal | 12/6/1996 | LAL | ORL | 41.0 | 9 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 10 | 18 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 25 | 1066 |
| Vince Carter | 4/15/2005 | NJN | TOR | 43.0 | 15 | 26 | 3 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 39 | 1043 |
| Reggie Williams | 11/5/1991 | DEN | SAS | 30.0 | 7 | 14 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 9 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 24 | 1012 |
| Mario Elie | 3/7/1993 | POR | GSW | 31.0 | 7 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 1011 |
| Moses Malone | 1/29/1992 | MIL | ATL | 30.0 | 10 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 9 | 13 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 1000 |
| Rasheed Wallace | 3/14/2005 | DET | ATL | 43.0 | 10 | 18 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 12 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 28 | 985 |
| Mookie Blaylock | 12/10/1999 | GSW | ATL | 41.0 | 4 | 12 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 19 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 978 |
| Player | Date | Tm | Opp | MP | FG | FGA | 3P | 3A | FT | FTA | RB | AS | ST | BK | TO | PF | PTS | APMVAL |
| Nick Van Exel | 2/1/2003 | DAL | DEN | 26.0 | 11 | 13 | 7 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 30 | 976 |
| Jason Kidd | 3/15/1998 | PHO | DAL | 44.0 | 9 | 16 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 13 | 12 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 20 | 967 |
| Dikembe Mutombo | 3/9/2002 | PHI | ATL | 36.0 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 966 |
| Micheal Williams | 4/9/1991 | IND | CHH | 32.0 | 6 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 21 | 959 |
| Boris Diaw | 2/24/2009 | CHA | PHO | 41.4 | 10 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 27 | 958 |
| Jim Jackson | 1/28/2004 | HOU | SAC | 37.0 | 11 | 12 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 28 | 942 |
| Dudley Bradley | 4/23/1988 | NJN | MIL | 28.0 | 8 | 12 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 941 |
| Sleepy Floyd | 1/20/1989 | HOU | GSW | 40.0 | 12 | 25 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 10 | 7 | 12 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 35 | 941 |
| Sam Cassell | 4/8/2000 | MIL | NJN | 34.0 | 8 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 11 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 934 |
| Danny Ainge | 12/27/1989 | SAC | BOS | 45.0 | 12 | 21 | 2 | 5 | 13 | 13 | 6 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 39 | 932 |
| Micheal Williams | 4/7/1993 | MIN | IND | 43.0 | 6 | 13 | 2 | 4 | 16 | 16 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 30 | 928 |
| Ruben Patterson | 1/8/2007 | MIL | DEN | 37.9 | 13 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 12 | 7 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 29 | 925 |
| John Lucas | 2/14/1987 | MIL | HOU | 26.0 | 13 | 15 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 29 | 921 |
| Rod Strickland | 3/26/1991 | SAS | NYK | 45.0 | 6 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 10 | 4 | 16 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 21 | 914 |
| Armen Gilliam | 4/17/1992 | PHI | CHH | 41.0 | 10 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 11 | 10 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 908 |