No matter where the Chicago Bears-Minnesota Vikings game is played on Monday night, the Bears should come away with the victory. I have heard Indy’s Lucas Oil Stadium, Atlanta’s Georgia Dome or even Detroit’s Ford Field as options. The NFL is committed to having the game at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium. The [...]
Bears Backer
I was reading this piece on Jamie Moyer over at Seamheads and was struck by a remarkable occurrence, prompted by a tidbit I hadn’t remembered: Moyer was one of the players who went with Rafael Palmeiro to the Rangers in the deal that brought Mitch Williams to Chicago. Palmeiro, like Moyer, came up in 1986, but he’s now been retired five years and is on the Hall of Fame ballot.
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 |
Hoopism has a cool post with word clouds for each NBA team based on minutes. Check the site for other teams, but here’s the Pistons:
The first name to jump out at me of a player I’d never heard of was Eddie Miles. Who here surprises you?
Share:
That whiff on the easy interception turned touchdown pass to Emory Blake certainly looked strange, and now we find out why. From BOL:
If it appeared that something wasn’t right after University of Alabama junior safety Mark Barron moved into position only to watch Terrell Zachery make the reception and race into the end zone for the 70-yard touchdown, it’s because Barron was playing with a torn pectoral muscle.
“I couldn’t pick my arm up,” Barron said following Friday’s 28-27 loss to No. 2 Auburn. “I have to get an MRI. They don’t know how bad it is.”
Barron sustained the injury while trying to swat the ball out of Emory Blake’s hands on Auburn’s first touchdown, the 36-yard reception with 5:08 remaining in the first half. Under normal circumstances he probably wouldn’t have played the second half, but the Crimson Tide was already dangerously thin at position, with walk-on Will Lowery and true freshmen Nick Perry the backups.
Guess that explains it, eh? The injury bug bites again at a very inopportune time for ‘Bama, and a big tip of the hat is in order to Barron. That had to be incredibly painful, and given that injury you have to give him credit for playing as well as he did. Most guys, especially ones with the professional future of a guy like Barron, would have just mailed it in and stayed on the sideline. The fact that he played through all of the pain for the final thirty-five minutes says quite a bit about his competitive character
We’ll have to see how the severity of this one turns out. I don’t claim to be a doctor, but I do know from past experience with NFL players tearing pec muscles they usually end up missing at least several weeks and a lot of them end up being put on injured reserve (i.e. out for the season). Hopefully Barron can play in the bowl game, but with him expected to test the NFL Draft waters, if this was the last we see of him then thanks for all the memories.
If you’ve ever been around a major college football program, you know there are two absolute truths:
(Astonishing? Yes. Unbelievable? No.)
1) Every player who ever signed with such a program thought he had a legitimate chance to make it to the NFL.
2) Coaches at those programs use the false lure of the NFL as a primary recruiting pitch.
But the really scary part, at least according to two NFL officials who spoke to USC football players in L.A. this week, is the mindblowing number of players who, after making NFL teams, actually enjoy a football career over 36 months.
From a blog post on the official USC football website this week: (more…)