On Thursday, after LeBron James and the Miami Heat won their second consecutive N.B.A. championship, I noted on Twitter that James was on the same pace as the Chicago Bulls great Michael Jordan. Both James and Jordan won their first championship at 27 and their second at 28, I wrote. Jordan went on to win four more N.B.A. titles, for a total of six. Mike Segar/Reuters LeBron James and Michael Jordan were about the same age when they won a second championship. My statement depended on a technicality, I later discovered: Jordan’s biological age was 28 when he won his first championship, in 1991, and 29 when he won his second, in 1992. However, basketball statisticians generally define a player’s...
This year’s N.C.A.A. tournament has not featured all that many great games — with some exceptions, like Michigan’s come-from-behind win against Kansas on Friday. The flip side is that the four teams that remain have all played exceptionally well, often dominating their opponents. Louisville won its first four games by an average of 22 points — the same margin by which it beat Duke on Sunday. Syracuse has won by 20 points, on average. Michigan’s margin of victory has averaged 16 points, despite the close call against Kansas. Even Wichita State, which has a chance to become the most poorly seeded team ever to win the tournament (and probably the least likely, statistically), has won its games by an average...
Matt Slocum/Associated Press Georgetown is among the Big East’s seven nonfootball members that could thrive in a new conference. A variety of reports suggest that the seven Big East schools that do not compete in high-level football may split off to form their own basketball-centric athletic conference. Georgetown, Villanova, St. John’s, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall and DePaul share a history of relatively successful men’s basketball programs, along with a heritage as Roman Catholic colleges. They have more in common with one another than they do with the other members of the Big East, which has diluted its basketball brand in its effort to remain intact as an elite football conference. A conference composed of these seven teams, along with select...
Barton Silverman/The New York TimesJeremy Lin’s performance alone did not reflect the impact of Linsanity. The Knicks’ parent company has added about $600 million in market capitalization. In February, during the height of the Linsanity phenomenon, I attended a game at Madison Square Garden between the Knicks and the Sacramento Kings. The tickets cost an arm and a leg. But Jeremy Lin and the Knicks did not disappoint. Lin had just 10 points in 26 minutes of play, but many of his 13 assists were spectacular, a series of flawless alley-oops that sent Tyson Chandler and Landry Fields dunking on the Kings like the guys from Sacramento were the Washington Generals, the Harlem Globetrotters’ perpetually hapless opponents. What was more...
Even an average N.B.A. player can have a great game. Within the past two seasons, players including Jordan Crawford, Hedo Turkoglu and Goran Dragic have recorded a triple-double. The Milwaukee Bucks’ Brandon Jennings scored 55 points in a game in 2009, nearly quadrupling the 15 points per game he scored on average that season. But what about four great games in a row — especially when they coincide with your first three N.B.A. starts? The New York Knicks’ Jeremy Lin has scored at least 23 points in each of his last four games, including 38 on Friday night against the Lakers. He has also recorded at least seven assists in each game, and he has been efficient, shooting at least...
