Locker room talk: rolling basketball thread

IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
After digging a bit deeper it turns out that zonal marking was not banned until 1947. Really it's what you would expect - when people thought of the game and started codifying rules about how to play it I'm sure that where people stood when their team didn't have the ball was far from people's minds. So, yeah, it makes perfect sense that the rule didn't exist to start with but was brought in as the game grew in sophistication... and then later was removed as people began to exploit it.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
linebaugh said:
and I imagine that 6'4 number is deceiving. I imagine the average player to see playing time is still around 6'6 or 6'7.
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So that could be the squad size rather than the first team size? Fair enough. Quite time consuming to work out the expected average height of players on the pitch at any given moment - though I bet it could be done, you guys sure do love a stat.
 
linebaugh

linebaugh

Well-known member
the average height of the celtics starting lineup is 6'7.4 and alot of that is their 6'3 point guard dragging it down
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
After digging a bit deeper it turns out that zonal marking was not banned until 1947. Really it's what you would expect - when people thought of the game and started codifying rules about how to play it I'm sure that where people stood when their team didn't have the ball was far from people's minds. So yeah, the game was freeform as it came into existence, then as it grew more sophisticated they started putting in rules that were far from intuitive but which they thought would improve the game... and then as the game grew still more sophisticated and teams were able to exploit that rule in ways that spoiled it - it just doesn't make sense for a player to have to run after his man and leave a huge path for the attacker to exploit if he beat his marker, if I was watching the game and saw that repeatedly happening I would become increasingly frustrated, it sounds like playing one of those computer football games with bad intelligence so that the players you're not in direct control of are running in crazy directions - then it had to go.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Some other things that I need to understand... I keep seeing references to "the lane" and I assumed that was a figrue of speech like you might say "the wing" in football, but I didn't grasp that it was an actual marked out officially sized thing. So, what is the lane and where is it?
Simiarly, what do they mean when they talk about "the paint"?
And what are the standard positions? I am struggling to work out which are the official demarcations - I'm thinking Guard is one - and which are descriptive of players in a particular position eg Power Forward as discussed above?
 
linebaugh

linebaugh

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
Some other things that I need to understand... I keep seeing references to "the lane" and I assumed that was a figrue of speech like you might say "the wing" in football, but I didn't grasp that it was an actual marked out officially sized thing. So, what is the lane and where is it?
Simiarly, what do they mean when they talk about "the paint"?
And what are the standard positions? I am struggling to work out which are the official demarcations - I'm thinking Guard is one - and which are descriptive of players in a particular position eg Power Forward as discussed above?
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the lane and the paint are the same thing. its the painted zone on the court. guards are little guys that dribble. fowards are bigger guys that dribble less and the center is the biggest guy who doesnt dribble at all.
 
linebaugh

linebaugh

Well-known member
power foward is practically a dead position. most teams just typically run two guys that would traditionally be considered 'small fowards' in the two foward slots and nominal power fowards spend half of the time playing center, if not most of the time.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
linebaugh said:
the lane and the paint are the same thing. its the painted zone on the court. guards are little guys that dribble. fowards are bigger guys that dribble less and the center is the biggest guy who doesnt dribble at all.
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That's quite funny, I had literally no idea that they were the same thing. One fewer thing to learn about I guess.
Is that basically all the positions then? Guards, forwards and centres? I always assumed that a guard was a defender.. in fact, until I learned that everyone had to mark man to man until relatively recently I would have assumed that they were a player specially given an opposition player and told to mark him out of the game.

And the other positions are types of the above? Power forwards and point guards (what they?) and... what else?
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I dunno how I accidentally signed up to this weird magazine that keeps plopping into my inbox with increasingly spurious debates, todays offering... Is Michael Jordan more Intelligent than LeBron James?

https://www.quora.com/
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Um... I'm probably too late now, but I don't know what happened so, as long as you trust me, I can still make a guess. But, I want to make clear that at the start I tihnk I was understood to make some kind of prediction - but really all I said was that it is a common mistake to write off the team who has had the tougher path as that can in fact count as etxtra practice or warming up. And I stand by that. But i've no idea which team it was that had the tougher route, in other words I don't know which team that argument favoured.
Whatever... I predict tthat Celtics will probably lead by 10 or 15 points at half-time and hold that lead to the end despite it diminishing somewhat over the second half.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
I grew up in Massachusetts, lifelong Celtics fan. Your prediction could be accurate, the Celtics are up 10 points with about five minutes left in the first half.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Aha, so this is literally your first team, not one of those "Well, my team got slaughtered in the first round so I'm switching to my second (and then third etc) choice". And this is the actual final final?
Did I get this right, Linebaugh's team was in one of the recent rounds but they got well and truly dicked on in the most humiliating way imaginable? And everyone else is watching out of general interest and may have a slight preference but they are not fully, nailbitingly involved like you are.
When was the last time your team was in the final @Leo ? I'm guessing they have won it before? Which is the most successful team in history? Are there perennial greats like... Real or Bayern or Milan in football or does the socialist draft system means that honours have been shared in the same way over the years?
So many questions I know... but that's what you get if you start a basketball threa for loads of limeys. The way I see it I could either ignore it or try and get involved, I'm taking the latter path and I hope it's not too annoying.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
Even as a longtime Ws fan the consistency of their finals 3rd quarter performance this run has been... wild/surprising. They do this a lot obviously in regular season but. Even with the big 3pt foul/breakaway layup swing going Cs way, they closed what, a 15pt gap?
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Ah wait so Warriors are your team Gus? So this is a proper meeting of your teams? I hadn't properly grasped tbat unitl now.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
Celtics are one of the most successful teams in NBA history, but their dominant years were back in the late 1950s-1960s. they won the championship seven years in a row, 11 out of 13 years. last time was 2008. the warriors have been great in recent years.
 
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sus

sus

Moderator
IdleRich said:
Ah wait so Warriors are your team Gus? So this is a proper meeting of your teams? I hadn't properly grasped tbat unitl now.
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Yup it's a California team! We have three—one in LA, one in Sacramento. Sacramento is very far from me and also... a very bad team. LA Lakers and GS Warriors about equidistant. Hometown has pretty split loyalty. Lots of natural bandwagoning depending on which one is doing well.
 
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