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REPORTS--#21 THROUGH #40


Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Hawks Rout the Nuggets 104-93, and Part 1 of the George Karl Fiasco

Taking full advantage of the absences of the Nugget’s starting PF Kenyon Martin, the second PF Nene, and the theoretical starting PG Chucky Atkins, the young and energetic Atlanta Hawks routed the Nuggets in Atlanta, 104-93. The Hawks dominated the 1st half, and led 65-44 at the intermission. The outcome was never seriously in doubt. But you should never say die in sports. And sure enough, Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, and J.R. Smith piloted a furious rally in the 4th quarter that was doomed to fall short and ended in a bizarre pair of missed calls by an inexperienced referee.

Hanging over the proceedings and making the game seem even more dismal than it was, Nene underwent surgery Monday in Denver to remove a testicular tumor. A biopsy will determine if it was cancerous

Amazingly, the Nuggets had 3 players who scored exactly 0 points: Anthony Carter in 26 minutes, Eduardo Najera in 22 minutes, and Yakhouba Diawara in 12 minutes of action. Just as amazingly, three Nuggets scored 84 of the Nugget’s 93 points: Carmelo Anthony scored 36, Allen Iverson scored 27, and J.R. Smith scored 21. Meanwhile, six Hawks scored in double digits. Iverson, with 21,816 career points, passed Larry Bird (21,791) and Gary Payton (21,813) for 21st place on the NBA all-time scoring list. Iverson began the day three points behind Bird and passed both Bird and Payton in the same game.

With J.R. Smith playing, the Nuggets are not one of the worst 3-point shooting teams, and one of the few categories in which the Nuggets were better than the Hawks in this game was in 3-point shooting. Smith was 4/8 and the Nuggets overall were 7/19 or 36.8% from downtown, while the Hawks were just 4/14 or 28.6%. The Hawks are just about the worst three-point shooting team in the NBA. Otherwise, this would most likely have been a monumental rout instead of just a garden variety rout.

The Hawks had a huge 33 assists, while the dysfunctional and depleted Nuggets made only 22 assists. The Hawks had 8 players who made 3 or more assists, something you very rarely see and are always very impressed by. The Nuggets did manage to have 5 players with 3 or more assists.

The Nuggets committed 17 turnovers, while the Hawks committed 13 turnovers. All losses are ugly to one extent or another, but this one was especially ugly.

The Nuggets managed only 8 fast break points, while the young and well managed Hawks had 27. And the Hawks, taking full advantage of the absence of Martin and Nene, outscored the Nuggets in the paint 48-34. But Camby, Anthony, and Kleiza enabled the Nuggets to stay a little better than even with the Hawks in rebounding.

Making the game even more tasteless was an incompetent referee. Iverson was blatantly shoved to the floor and out of bounds by Hawks PG Anthony Johnson with about a minute left in the game and the Nuggets trailing by 8. Iverson and Smith at the time were still in the midst of a furious comeback attempt that armchair fans watching knew was futile, because there simply wasn’t enough time left for the Nuggets to pull it out. Instead of making the obvious foul call on Johnson, the seemingly blind referee called Iverson out of bounds.

On the next Nuggets possession, with 38 seconds left, Johnson again obviously bumped Iverson as he was bringing the ball up in the backcourt, and Iverson lost the ball out of bounds. But once again, the same referee failed to call the foul on Johnson. Iverson was understandably enraged, not only because of the two blown calls both of which went against him, but also because it prematurely ended an especially intense and well played quarter for the Nugget’s scoring trio of himself, Smith, and Carmelo Anthony. To Iverson, even it was impossible for the Nuggets to win the game, the referee was disrespecting him and the Nuggets by not making the obvious foul calls against the Hawks. Iverson and Smith were in a high zone of peak performance when the seemingly blind referee made them look like fools.

Iverson was so enraged that his protestations earned him a double technical and an ejection with 38 seconds remaining. J.R. Smith, already mad about the blown calls against his team, then became even more enraged when Iverson was ejected, and was ejected himself.

It was a tasteless and demoralizing, but fitting end to a tasteless and demoralizing game. Iverson was probably more mad at a referee than he had been in years, and with good reason.

Now that the J.R. Smith Fiasco story has been completed for the time being, I am going to move on to the George Karl Fiasco story. Of course, I am always pointing out specific mistakes Karl has made in specific games. But in subsequent parts of the story, I will show why Karl should not have been hired as the Coach of the Nuggets, and I will go over in close detail the reasons why Karl is, at best, a slightly below average coach and, at worst, a very below average coach.

Today I will start the story by going over an extremely important subject that you must understand and always keep in mind if you want to know why and how Karl falls short. This is the root cause of most of Karl’s actual mistakes in actual games.

The most important thing to keep in mind about George Karl is that to him, abstract things such as philosophy and honor are more important than concrete things such as whether someone can bury a 3-point shot and whether the shooting guard out on the floor can successfully guard the opposing shooting guard. As a result, Karl has a bad relationship with the whole concept of talented, professional players. In his philosophy, all such players are small potatoes compared with the grandeur and glorious history and present day reality of basketball. If you don't worship basketball as a concept, it doesn't matter how talented or good a player you are, you are small in Karl's eyes.

Most coaches value players and what they do and what they might be able to do in the near future much more and abstract concepts much less than Karl does. Karl seems to think that if a team has the right philosophy, or in other words the right way of thinking, it can offset all kinds of other shortcomings. But to coin a phrase by twisting Shakespeare a little, there are more things important in basketball than Karl’s or Carmelo Anthony’s or J.R. Smith’s or anyone’s philosophy.

Unfortunately for the Nuggets, the two abstract concepts that are considered critical by most successful coaches, strategy and tactics, are not considered very important by Karl. So paradoxically, and very ironically, while the Nuggets have one of the most abstract coaches in pro basketball, they have one of the least developed and ineffective combination of strategies and tactics in the NBA. Because Karl’s favorite abstract concepts are not the ones that have the biggest payoffs in terms of wins.

Karl is always out for someone's blood for imagined slights against basketball honor, ethics, and morality as he defines them, and he is always playing damaging games of revenge with those who are the most lacking. J.R. Smith is by far the Nugget who Karl thinks commits the most offenses against basketball honor, tradition, and morality. And indeed, Smith, being nothing more than an impulsive 22 year old high school graduate who spends a lot of spare time playing video games and watching old movies, is about the last player you would think of when thinking of players who most epitomize the glory and honor of basketball and the history of basketball.

But who other than Karl really cares that Smith doesn’t fit the honor and tradition of basketball? To me, what is far more important is whether Smith can score and whether he can defend his man. And what is more important than having honorable and right thinking players who reflect well on the great sport of basketball is whether those players have been given some strategy and a few tactics which they can use to win games. Sorry if it seems selfish or crass to want to win more than to want to represent the glory and great traditions of the game, but that’s the way I see it and I am sticking to it.

So J.R. Smith is George Karl’s worst nightmare. Smith to Karl is seemingly someone whose every action or inaction seems to be an affront to the wonderful and glorious history and present day reality of the game. Karl seethes about it, and then overestimates Smith’s negatives and underestimates Smith’s positives. Then he takes the next logical action, which is to bench Smith, or at least partly bench him. Realistically, the only hope for Smith to get playing time often is if a key player is out with an injury or a sickness. The Chucky Atkins hernia was just what Smith needed to stand a chance to get good playing time from Karl, even though he is hated by Karl.

The continual benching and partial benching of JR Smith is just one example of how Karl's belief system produces for him a different reality from the one that the average fan sees. He literally sees things differently than most others do. There are many other, more subtle things that go on in the management of the Nuggets that make the team quite a bit different in actual games from how it would be if it were coached by most other possible alternative coaches. I will point out a few of those things when this story continues in the next report.

INJURY SUMMARY: PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS
Kenyon Martin: A staph infection.
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (Sports Hernia) on 1/9 and underwent successful surgery on 1/11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks.
Nene: He has taken an indefinite leave to tend to a tumor growth.

HAWKS
Speedy Claxton: He is still unable to even practice with the team as he continues his recovery from off-season knee surgery. There are also conflicting reports stating he's away from the team for personal reasons
Salim Stoudamire: He sustained a sprained ankle on Dec. 14. He is still unable to cut and is not traveling with the team.
Zaza Pachulia: He was forced to sit after a doctor's visit revealed an ingrown toenail on his left foot. He should be ready to return to action soon.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of January 16, 2008

The Nuggets are under an ORANGE ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Kenyon Martin illness 22 points
2. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
3. Nene illness 14 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incompetence, hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver Coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 2 points.

2. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 1-12 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers, with too many fouls, and so forth. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here.

The bad use of reserves score for this game is 4 points. Steven Hunter should have played a little.

3. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad terms, the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy. More specifically, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and schemes: 9 Points

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans sometime think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 69, which constitutes ORANGE ALERT.

ORANGE ALERT (55-74): Moderate damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under serious threat, and you can just about forget about beating quality teams. About 3/4 of all wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is much more difficult. About 1/2 of games against mid-level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. Even poor teams can often beat an otherwise good team that is under this alert. Close to 1/4 of games against low level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. A good team has been reduced to being a mid-level team, at best, when it is under this alert.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
Injury and illness disaster has once again struck the Nuggets, with Kenyon Martin, Chucky Atkins, and Nene all out. The losses to the Bobcats and then to the Hawks in what would have been relatively easily won games had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would win normally, it’s that simple.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played 6 or more Minutes: Nuggets 8 Hawks 8
Number of Players Who Played 10 or more Minutes: Nuggets 8 Hawks 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 26
Hawks Non-Starters Points: 28

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 11
Hawks Non-Starters Rebounds: 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 4
Hawks Non-Starters Assists: 11

This feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
3: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines

PLAYER RATINGS FOR THIS GAME:
You can tell how well every player played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Carmelo Anthony: Game 55.2 Season 38.6
Allen Iverson: Game 32.6 Season 41.3
J.R. Smith: Game 29.6 Season 15.4
Marcus Camby: Game 24.4 Season 33.3
Linas Kleiza: Game 10.7 Season 18.5
Anthony Carter: Game 8.1 Season 21.2
Yakhouba Diawara: Game -0.5 Season 5.4
Eduardo Najera: Game -0.7 Season 12.9

Kenyon Martin: Did Not Play-Illness
Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness

Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

HAWKS PLAYER RATINGS
Marvin Williams: Game 40.1 Season 26.6
Joe Johnson: Game 33.7 Season 32.8
Josh Childress: Game 29.6 Season 21.9
Anthony Johnson: Game 29.0 Season 17.0
Al Horford: Game 25.3 Season 21.8
Josh Smith: Game 22.3 Season 34.3
Acie Law: Game 11.5 Season 8.4
Tyron Lue: Game 7.4 Season 9.5

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON RATINGS:
The Nuggets had by far the best player on the court, Anthony, but still lost the game. As you can see, the Nuggets had only 4 players who were moderately or more productive, while the Hawks had 6. Kleiza and especially Carter could not get it done. Both of these, especially Carter, seem to be negatively affected by playing on the road. But J.R.Smith who we know doesn’t care too much about the substantial amount of negativity he generates by his style and off the court problems, also doesn’t seem to be affected much by the negative vibes that flow from the arena when playing on the road. This is yet another reason why Smith is valuable in the playoffs; he is one of the few players the Nuggets have who plays about as well on the road as he does at home.

At the bottom, the Hawks two least important players, Lue and Law, out produced the Nuggets two least important, Diawara and Najera, by a wide margin.

Important to note here too is that the Nugget’s power forward, Najera, and the center, Camby, were extremely below and well below normal respectively, while the Hawk’s PF Marvin Williams was way above normal and the center Al Horford was a little above normal. So the Nuggets were heavily dominated in the front court, due not only to Martin and Nene being out, but also due to Camby having an off night. The only way the Nuggets could avoid being routed was with stellar play from their guards and from Anthony, which they did get.

NUGGETS REAL PLAYER RATINGS—EXPLANATION
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real Per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.60 More Rare Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance Plus-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Spectacular Performance-Star Plus
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-HAWKS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.284
2. Marvin Williams, Atl 1.215
3. Anthony Johnson, Atl 1.115
4. J.R. Smith, Den 1.057
5. Josh Childress, Atl 0.846
6. Joe Johnson, Atl 0.802
7. Al Horford, Atl 0.791
8. Josh Smith, Atl 0.743
9. Allen Iverson, Den 0.741
10. Marcus Camby, Den 0.659
11. Tyronn Lue, Atl 0.617
12. Acie Law, Atl 0.523
13. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.382
14. Anthony Carter, Den 0.312
15. Eduardo Najera, Den -0.032
16. Yakhouba Diawara, Den -0.042

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Anthony for the Nuggets and Williams for the Hawks were star plus, while Johnson for the Hawks and Smith for the Nuggets were stars. The Hawks had 6 of the top 9 performing players in this game, which is way more lopsided than most NBA games are. It is almost impossible to win a game with that amount of disparity. Camby must have been slightly worn out playing on the second straight night following his superstar performance the night before in Charlotte.

The Nuggets had 4 no shows. Kleiza and Carter were near disasters, and Najera and Diawara were actual disasters, although the latter two are good defenders and probably made at least a handful of made you miss defenses that do not show up in the measurement. So if you counted those, they would probably be near disasters or possibly in the very poor zone. By contrast, the Hawks had no disasters or near disasters. Their worst player, Law, was poor, which is substantially better than near disaster.

The Hawk’s Coach deserves a lot of credit for having had 7 players playing mediocre or better; it shows that there is a lot of coordination, sharing of possessions, and well defined roles on this team. That would go a long way to explaining why the Hawks might surprise and get a playoff berth this year.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

J.R. Smith: +4
Linas Kleiza: -5
Carmelo Anthony: -5
Anthony Carter: -7
Marcus Camby: -9
Allen Iverson: -10
Eduardo Najera: -11
Yakhouba Diawara: -12

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
It’s so nice to see Smith at the top and the only plus in this game, because as you know, I have been working my rear end off to prove that he should never be benched and should get a lot more playing time then he has been getting. Meanwhile, there is a surprisingly and annoyingly large minority of forum goers around the internet who have been supporting Karl’s periodic decisions to bench Smith completely. Sorry, but I think you are kind of blind and very biased when you agree with Karl on this.

Anthony played extremely well, and Kleiza did not, but they both ended up next down the line with -5 each. Diawara was a total non-factor other than make you miss defending, and since the Hawks made 52% of their shots, I doubt Diawara made too many made you misses in this game. 9 times out of 10, if a defensive oriented player does not get a substantial number of rebounds or steals, he has not gotten a substantial number of made you miss defenses, either, although Diawara can be an exception to the rule sometimes. In this game, Diawara made only 1 block and 2 rebounds

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Yakhouba Diawara played 12 minutes and was 0/4 and 0/1 on 3’s for 0 points, and he made 12 rebounds and 1 block.

Eduardo Najera played 22 minutes and was 0/5 for 0 points, and he made 4 rebounds.

Anthony Carter played 26 minutes and was 0/5 and 0/1 on 3’s for 0 points, and he made 7 assists and 3 rebounds.

Linas Kleiza played 28 minutes and was 2/8 and 1/4 on 3’s for 5 points, and he made 8 rebounds and 1 assist.

Marcus Camby played 37 minutes and was 2/6 for 4 points, and he made 12 rebounds, 4 steals, 3 assists, and 1 block.

Allen Iverson played for virtually the whole game, 44 minutes, and was 9/18, 2/4 on 3’s, and 7/11 from the line for 27 points, and he made 4 assists and 1 block.

J.R. Smith played for 28 minutes and was 7/15, 4/8 on 3’s, and 3/3 from the line for 21 points, and he made 3 assists, 1 block, and 1 rebound.

Carmelo Anthony played for most of the game, 43 minutes and was 14/24, 0/1 on 3’s, and 8/12 from the line for 36 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Thursday, January 17 in Denver to play the Jazz at 7 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Jazz will be playing on back to back nights.

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TWO WAYS TO LOOK AT HOW LONG QUEST FOR THE RING HAS BEEN KEEPING IT REAL

The above shows you in two different ways the exact amount of time since The Quest for the Ring began to completely explain how the Quest is won, while having as much fun as possible at the expense of basketball pretenders and player haters. The first panel shows how long it has been in each of seven units. The second panel shows how long it has been in the more usual "remainder" way.

QUEST FOR THE RING SOMETIMES GOES INTO HIATUS
Regardless of any temporary unavoidable absences, the Quest is in this project to explain in detail for the very long term--indefinitely, for many, many, many years ahead. At this writing we have the equivalent of 15 basketball books under our belt and we plan on doing dozens more. Count on us being right where basketball is at, which is here, actually.

Blog Archive


QUEST REPORTS #41 TO #60, GOING BACK IN TIME


QUEST IS FREE BUT ABOUT 3 MINUTES OF YOUR TIME CAN GET YOU MORE OF IT

Although there is a guaranteed minimum rate of Report production regardless of traffic, it is in your power to help increase the number of and frequency of Quest Reports. All Quest sites are developed and produced according to both superseding criteria and site traffic. Like all sites started in recent years, Quest receives very little help from Google and other search engines. The search engines mostly serve to keep the older, popular sites popular; they preserve the same old, same old status quo.

The amount of reporting and the frequency of Quest Reports could easily be double what it is were site traffic higher. If Quest obtained the traffic we know it deserves, than production would go from the equivalent of roughly three books about basketball a year to at least five and to as many as six books a year!

WE NEED A GRAND TOTAL OF ABOUT 3 MINUTES OF YOUR TIME
Please take three or four minutes every now and then to recommend Quest and post links to Quest on your favorite sports and other sites. In other words, wherever possible use us to back up what you are posting and writing. The resulting automatic increase of traffic will in turn increase the resources that go in to producing Quest home page Reports. After helping us, feel free to e-mail how you helped and we will throw some Internet love back to your Internet hangout. The email address is thequestforthering1. This is a gmail address, so you use @gmail.com after that address.

QUEST FOR THE RING USER GUIDE

QUEST FOR THE RING USER GUIDE: YOU CAN QUICKLY LOCATE AND GET THE SITE INFORMATION YOU NEED OR WANT RIGHT HERE

LATEST 25 REPORTS THREE AT A TIME -- TO LOAD THE NEXT THREE, CLICK ">" AT THE TOP ON THE RIGHT



QUEST REPORTS #61 TO #80, GOING BACK IN TIME


WORD IS BOND

WELCOME TO THE QUEST--THINGS ARE VERY DIFFERENT HERE

WELCOME TO THE QUEST FOR THE RING, ALSO KNOWN AS THE REAL ZONE
This is one of the most serious basketball sites on the internet, focusing on how and why playoff games and NBA Championships are won. We also love to take comedy and music breaks, but not every day.

WELCOME TO THE QUEST FOR THE RING. YOU HAVE LEFT THE HYPE ZONE AND HAVE ARRIVED IN THE REAL ZONE. Please check any rose colored glasses at the door. The Hype Zone is where you can find out about the personalities and the styles and how popular they are and what they are up to lately. The Real Zone is where we DO NOT think personalities and styles and how popular or unpopular they are things to waste time on just for ratings or traffic.

Instead of hype, here we post as much truth about how NBA playoff games and Championships are won as we can 365 days a year and at at any hour of the day or night. Please have a productive visit, and a nice trip back to the Hype Zone when your visit is over.


A SMALL SAMPLE OF CURRENT AND SOON TO COME QUEST FOR THE RING REAL ZONE TOPICS
--How and Why the 2010 Los Angeles Lakers, the 2010 Cleveland Cavaliers, and the 2010 Boston Celtics Win or Lose in the 2010 Playoffs
--The right "amount of" LeBron James
--How players we know deserve to win a first or second Ring can get one, highly talented players such as Chris Paul, Chris Bosh, Rajon Rondo, and Dwyane Wade.
--How and why the Denver Nuggets Franchise has repeatedly fooled the public, and possibly themselves for that matter. (No, we still have not completely finished with the Nuggets, thanks to how successful they were in 2008-09, albeit there was no chance of a Championship; Continuing, much done already)
--How and why much of what you may think you know about Allen Iverson is dead wrong (Continuing, much done already)
--How and why the playoffs are something completely different from the regular season, and why your team may be simply not prepared for them despite a lot of regular season wins

A SMALL SAMPLE OF ALREADY COMPLETED QUEST FOR THE RING REAL ZONE TOPICS
--How and why Carmelo Anthony has been downsized due to a quest for "well-roundedness," and why this is really bad
--How and why the owner of the Nuggets shortchanged and cheated his team out of a possible Championship
--How and why being physical alone can not win you a Championship
--How and why the Nuggets' high fouling defense will take them only so far
--How and why George Karl is doing more harm than good with respect to J.R. Smith
--How and why George Karl's obsession with personalities is wrong and bad for any team
--How and why George Karl and the Nuggets can not win in the playoffs (2007, 2008) or a West final (2009). If Quest commits a foul, we own up to it, as we do right here: we thought the Nuggets could not win in the playoffs in 2009. They did win 10 games before being eliminated by the Lakers in the West final, so in response we corrected our evaluation of what you can do with the Nuggets' unique 2009 approach to basketball without, however, going overboard.
--How and why George Karl cheats the fans and the franchise out of performance and development of "reserve" players
--How and why playmaking is so important, probably more than you think, and how you manage playmakers correctly.
--How and why you have probably been fooled regarding the Nuggets' 2008 off-season and their 2008-09 defense

UNIQUE SITE DESIGN
The Quest is organized in a completely different way from what you are used to on the internet. We have combined the best features of the blog and the conventional web site formats, the latter being the norm for large organizations. However, since we do not like the idea of using flash to "wow" visitors, we do not use flash except within video and other discrete components. So we are state of the art in terms of expanding the power of visitors to get exactly what they want very quickly, but we do not have the latest flash gadgetry just to "keep up with the Joneses". More broadly, you will find that Quest for the Ring never seeks to keep up with the Joneses, simply because the Joneses never had the nerve and the intelligence to do what we do.

2009: A PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION COMES TO QUEST
Just before the 2009-10 season tipped, the very large number of features and links to important resources were strategically reorganized and placed within an easy to use and clearly labelled section system. So ended the era of the rapidly developed, sprawling and slightly disorganized Quest, and so began the era of the big but under careful control and extremely well organized and professional Quest for the Ring.

The Quest Home Page consists of numerous types of content, organized carefully into the new sections as of November 2009. Features can be any educational and / or entertaining thing you can think of, including everything from music players to videos to photos to breaking NBA news readers to top teams performance breakdown pages.

Quest for the Ring has a world class link system for those who know what they are looking for and wish to find and engage the appropriate link, But the Quest visitor does not HAVE to hunt for links to have an intelligent and entertaining experience. The Quest home page is big enough and chock loaded enough that link hunting is not absolutely necessary the way it normally is at many other basketball sites.

THERE MUST BE TEN WAYS TO READ REPORTS [PAUL SIMON LOL]
There are close to ten ways to find out about, select, and read Quest Reports! The standard, traditional blog presentation is available as one of the many ways to choose, access, and read reports. On the Home Page, only one report loads in the traditional format in order to keep this page as quick loading as possible.
See the "Total Freedom of Navigation" section for complete details about how to find, choose, and read reports.

One key place to find Older Reports is on sequentially numbered url's thequestforthering2.blogspot.com, thequestforthering3.blogspot.com, and so forth.

THE QUEST USER GUIDE VERSUS an about page
Other sites most often have undeveloped and limited in scope "about pages" which is usually all they have for what we call a "User Guide". Our User Guide material is a vast improvement, quantitatively and qualitatively, over a mere "about page" While many other sites don't help their visitors to make the best use of the content, we do. Also, the User Guide is chock loaded with invitations to visitors to participate in all kinds of ways, including for example advertising for free, link exchange, and getting a team site supported by Quest.

SEARCH THE QUEST FOR THE RING, THE EQUIVALENT OF MORE THAN 15 BOOKS ABOUT BASKETBALL

Custom Search
SEARCH THE 15 BOOKS / 1.5 MILLION WORDS

QUEST REPORTS #81 TO #100 GOING BACK IN TIME

RECOMMENDED SCHOOL--CLICK FOR DETAILS


VIDEOS

QUEST FOR THE RING VIDEOS--The primary Quest video page with video juke boxes for all 30 teams

QUEST FOR THE RING VIDEOS #2--Specially chosen video juke boxes and individual videos

QUEST FOR THE RING PRIMARY HOME PAGE B--A few key video players are here

LATEST NBA.COM NBA VIDEOS
LATEST YAHOO SPORTS NBA / BASKETBALL VIDEOS
LATEST CBS SPORTSLINE NBA VIDEOS

MOST RECENT LEAGUE WIDE REAL PLAYER RATINGS

Note: This is generally a once a year, end of season Report. For many teams and players, more recent ratings are often available.

NBA REAL PLAYER RATINGS
2009-10 REGULAR SEASON

POSITION AND TEAM CODES
In the Real Player and related ratings shown for the League, two codes follow each players' name (and before his rating). The first code tells you the players' team and the second one tells you his position.

TEAM CODES
ATLA Atlanta Hawks
BOST Boston Celtics
CHAR Charlotte Bobcats
CHIC Chicago Bulls
CLEV Cleveland Cavaliers
DALL Dallas Mavericks
DENV Denver Nuggets
DETR Detroit Pistons
GOLS Golden State Warriors
HOUS Houston Rockets
INDI Indiana Pacers
LACL Los Angeles Clippers
LALK Los Angeles Lakers
MEMP Memphis Grizzlies
MIAM Miami Heat
MILW Milwaukee Bucks
MINN Minnesota Timberwolves
NJRS New Jersey Nets
NORL New Orleans Hornets
NWYR New York Knicks
OKLA Oklahoma Thunder
ORLA Orlando Magic
PHIL Philadelphia 76'ers
PHNX Phoenix Suns
PORT Portland Trailblazers
SACR Sacramento Kings
SANA San Antonio Spurs
TORO Toronto Raptors
UTAH Utah Jazz
WASH Washington Wizards

POSITION CODES
PG Point Guard
SG Shooting Guard
SF Small Forward
PF Power Forward
C Center

SCALE FOR REGULAR SEASON REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.820 0.899
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.760 0.819
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.700 0.759
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man 0.640 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player / Preferably should not start 0.580 0.639
Marginal Role Player / Generally should not start 0.520 0.579
Poor Player / Should never start 0.460 0.519
Very Poor Player 0.400 0.459
Extremely Poor Player .399 and less

NBA REAL PLAYER RATINGS
2009-10 REGULAR SEASON

--Shows the real quality of players
--Includes all tracked actions and also includes untracked or hidden defending
--The average Real Player Rating for all players who play 300 minutes or more is about .700.
--All players who have played at least 300 minutes are included here and in all other ratings to follow in coming days

MAJOR HISTORIC SUPERSTARS
1 LeBron James CLEV SF 1.382
2 Tim Duncan SANA PF 1.254
3 Chris Paul NORL PG 1.202
4 Dwight Howard ORLA C 1.121
5 Andrew Bogut MILW C 1.112

HISTORIC SUPERSTARS
6 Steve Nash PHNX PG 1.095
7 Jason Kidd DALL PG 1.092
8 Rajon Rondo BOST PG 1.084
9 Deron Williams UTAH PG 1.076
10 Dwyane Wade MIAM SG 1.075
11 Marcus Camby LACL C 1.071
12 Pau Gasol LALK PF 1.065
13 Greg Oden PORT C 1.060
14 Kevin Durant OKLA SF 1.051
15 Dirk Nowitzki DALL PF 1.034
16 Josh Smith ATLA SF 1.033
17 Kevin Garnett BOST PF 1.033
18 Manu Ginobili SANA SG 1.023
19 Kobe Bryant LALK SG 1.005

SUPERSTARS
20 Carlos Boozer UTAH PF 0.994
21 Lamar Odom LALK PF 0.982
22 Andrei Kirilenko UTAH SF 0.976
23 Chris Bosh TORO PF 0.972
24 David Lee NWYR C 0.971
25 Al Horford ATLA C 0.970
26 Marcus Camby PORT C 0.967
27 Jameer Nelson ORLA PG 0.959
28 Joakim Noah CHIC C 0.955
29 John Salmons MILW SF 0.937
30 Andrew Bynum LALK C 0.936
31 Troy Murphy INDI PF 0.934
32 Kevin Love MINN PF 0.934
33 Anderson Varejao CLEV C 0.933
34 Brendan Haywood DALL C 0.929
35 Vince Carter ORLA SG 0.928
36 Gerald Wallace CHAR SF 0.918
37 Sergio Rodriguez SACR PG 0.908
38 Tyrus Thomas CHIC PF 0.904
39 Derrick Rose CHIC PG 0.903

STARS
40 Baron Davis LACL PG 0.899
41 Russell Westbrook OKLA PG 0.897
42 Zach Randolph MEMP PF 0.885
43 Danny Granger INDI SF 0.885
44 Marc Gasol MEMP C 0.885
45 Joe Johnson ATLA SG 0.883
46 Chauncey Billups DENV PG 0.883
47 Roy Hibbert INDI C 0.880
48 Ben Wallace DETR C 0.877
49 Andre Miller PORT PG 0.874
50 Carmelo Anthony DENV SF 0.874
51 Brandon Jennings MILW PG 0.870
52 Tyrus Thomas CHAR PF 0.870
53 A.J. Price INDI PG 0.868
54 Paul Millsap UTAH PF 0.866
55 Craig Smith LACL PF 0.865
56 Samuel Dalembert PHIL C 0.864
57 Andre Iguodala PHIL SG 0.858
58 Raymond Felton CHAR PG 0.857
59 Delonte West CLEV SG 0.856
60 Al Jefferson MINN C 0.856
61 Eric Maynor OKLA PG 0.856
62 Serge Ibaka OKLA PF 0.855
63 Nene Hilario DENV C 0.852
64 Chris Andersen DENV PF 0.849
65 Shaquille O'Neal CLEV C 0.842
66 Brandon Roy PORT SG 0.842
67 Ryan Anderson ORLA PF 0.840
68 Antonio McDyess SANA PF 0.839
69 Tony Parker SANA PG 0.837
70 Paul Pierce BOST SF 0.836
71 Mo Williams CLEV PG 0.835
72 Kyle Lowry HOUS PG 0.835
73 Ersan Ilyasova MILW SF 0.828
74 Amare Stoudemire PHNX PF 0.828
75 Luke Ridnour MILW PG 0.827
76 Erick Dampier DALL C 0.826
77 Tyreke Evans SACR PG 0.825
78 Andris Biedrins GOLS C 0.825
79 Kyle Korver UTAH SG 0.824
80 Anthony Randolph GOLS PF 0.820

VERY GOOD PLAYERS / SOLID STARTERS
81 Eric Maynor UTAH PG 0.819
82 Carlos Arroyo MIAM PG 0.819
83 Antawn Jamison CLEV PF 0.819
84 Nazr Mohammed CHAR C 0.818
85 Luol Deng CHIC SF 0.817
86 Dorell Wright MIAM SG 0.817
87 LaMarcus Aldridge PORT PF 0.817
88 Carl Landry HOUS PF 0.816
89 Luis Scola HOUS PF 0.816
90 Nick Collison OKLA PF 0.812
91 Carlos Delfino MILW SG 0.809
92 Kendrick Perkins BOST C 0.807
93 Jermaine O'Neal MIAM C 0.805
94 Nate Robinson NWYR PG 0.804
95 Goran Dragic PHNX PG 0.803
96 Mike Bibby ATLA PG 0.803
97 Stephen Curry GOLS PG 0.803
98 Mehmet Okur UTAH C 0.800
99 Jose Calderon TORO PG 0.797
100 Jason Terry DALL SG 0.791
101 Ronnie Price UTAH PG 0.784
102 DeJuan Blair SANA PF 0.784
103 Chris Kaman LACL C 0.783
104 Shaun Livingston WASH PG 0.783
105 Joel Przybilla PORT C 0.782
106 David West NORL PF 0.781
107 John Salmons CHIC SF 0.776
108 Matt Barnes ORLA SF 0.775
109 Darren Collison NORL PG 0.775
110 Ronny Turiaf GOLS C 0.774
111 Udonis Haslem MIAM PF 0.774
112 Shawn Marion DALL SF 0.772
113 Jason Williams ORLA PG 0.771
114 Keyon Dooling NJRS PG 0.771
115 Andray Blatche WASH C 0.770
116 James Harden OKLA SG 0.770
117 Brook Lopez NJRS C 0.770
118 Ray Allen BOST SG 0.770
119 Amir Johnson TORO SF 0.769
120 Ty Lawson DENV PG 0.768
121 Beno Udrih SACR PG 0.768
122 Chuck Hayes HOUS PF 0.765
123 Matt Bonner SANA PF 0.763
124 Reggie Evans TORO PF 0.763
125 Gilbert Arenas WASH PG 0.760

MAJOR ROLE PLAYERS / GOOD ENOUGH TO START
126 Zydrunas Ilgauskas CLEV C 0.758
127 Rasheed Wallace BOST PF 0.757
128 Lou Williams PHIL SG 0.756
129 Stephen Jackson CHAR SF 0.754
130 Dan Gadzuric MILW C 0.754
131 Jamario Moon CLEV SF 0.754
132 Ron Artest LALK SF 0.752
133 Rodney Stuckey DETR PG 0.749
134 Shelden Williams BOST PF 0.748
135 Oleksiy Pecherov MINN C 0.748
136 Aaron Brooks HOUS PG 0.747
137 Boris Diaw CHAR PF 0.746
138 C.J. Watson GOLS PG 0.746
139 Brendan Haywood WASH C 0.744
140 Emeka Okafor NORL C 0.742
141 Taj Gibson CHIC PF 0.741
142 J.R. Smith DENV SG 0.738
143 Mike Miller WASH SF 0.732
144 Channing Frye PHNX C 0.731
145 Louis Amundson PHNX PF 0.731
146 Elton Brand PHIL PF 0.726
147 D.J. Mbenga LALK C 0.725
148 Tayshaun Prince DETR SF 0.724
149 Francisco Garcia SACR SG 0.724
150 Tyler Hansbrough INDI PF 0.724
151 Trevor Ariza HOUS SG 0.723
152 Allen Iverson PHIL SG 0.722
153 Rashard Lewis ORLA PF 0.721
154 Richard Jefferson SANA SF 0.721
155 Luc Richard Mbah a Moute MILW SF 0.721
156 Jamal Crawford ATLA SG 0.721
157 Brad Miller CHIC C 0.720
158 Josh Boone NJRS C 0.718
159 Jason Richardson PHNX SG 0.718
160 Sebastian Telfair LACL PG 0.717
161 Marvin Williams ATLA PF 0.716
162 David Andersen HOUS C 0.715
163 Caron Butler DALL SF 0.715
164 Michael Beasley MIAM PF 0.714
165 George Hill SANA PG 0.713
166 Ronnie Brewer UTAH SG 0.712
167 D.J. Augustin CHAR PG 0.712
168 Monta Ellis GOLS PG 0.711
169 Sean May SACR PF 0.710
170 Anthony Tolliver GOLS PF 0.709
171 Kenyon Martin DENV PF 0.709
172 Tyson Chandler CHAR C 0.709
173 Rodrigue Beaubois DALL PG 0.707
174 Stephen Jackson GOLS SF 0.704
175 Shane Battier HOUS SF 0.703
176 Stephen Graham CHAR SF 0.702
177 Mike Conley MEMP PG 0.702
178 Earl Watson INDI PG 0.701
179 T.J. Ford INDI PG 0.700

GOOD ROLE PLAYERS / OFTEN GOOD 6TH MAN PLAYERS
180 Ramon Sessions MINN PG 0.699
181 Corey Maggette GOLS SF 0.699
182 Marcin Gortat ORLA PF 0.698
183 Terrence Williams NJRS SG 0.698
184 Jarrett Jack TORO PG 0.698
185 James Singleton WASH SF 0.696
186 JaVale McGee WASH C 0.694
187 Jose Juan Barea DALL PG 0.694
188 Marcus Thornton NORL SG 0.693
189 Daequan Cook MIAM SG 0.691
190 Jordan Farmar LALK PG 0.689
191 Kirk Hinrich CHIC PG 0.689
192 Carl Landry SACR PF 0.689
193 Shannon Brown LALK PG 0.687
194 Anthony Carter DENV PG 0.686
195 Jason Thompson SACR PF 0.686
196 Mike Dunleavy INDI SF 0.686
197 Robin Lopez PHNX C 0.684
198 Spencer Hawes SACR C 0.680
199 Rudy Fernandez PORT SG 0.678
200 Drew Gooden LACL PF 0.678
201 Steve Blake LACL PG 0.677
202 Bobby Simmons NJRS SF 0.676
203 Larry Hughes NWYR SG 0.675
204 Jerry Stackhouse MILW SF 0.675
205 Quentin Richardson MIAM SG 0.675
206 Rudy Gay MEMP SF 0.675
207 Darko Milicic MINN C 0.674
208 Drew Gooden DALL PF 0.674
209 Reggie Williams GOLS SF 0.673
210 Ronald Murray CHAR SG 0.671
211 Grant Hill PHNX SF 0.669
212 Nate Robinson BOST PG 0.668
213 Travis Outlaw LACL SF 0.668
214 Steve Blake PORT PG 0.667
215 Devin Harris NJRS PG 0.665
216 Antawn Jamison WASH PF 0.665
217 Danilo Gallinari NWYR SF 0.664
218 Wilson Chandler NWYR SF 0.664
219 Gerald Henderson CHAR SG 0.664
220 Tony Allen BOST SG 0.663
221 Kyrylo Fesenko UTAH C 0.662
222 Anthony Morrow GOLS SG 0.661
223 Jordan Hill HOUS PF 0.661
224 Jared Dudley PHNX SF 0.660
225 Daniel Gibson CLEV PG 0.660
226 Jeff Green OKLA PF 0.659
227 Josh McRoberts INDI PF 0.659
228 Anthony Johnson ORLA PG 0.658
229 J.J. Redick ORLA SG 0.658
230 Al Harrington NWYR PF 0.655
231 Luther Head INDI PG 0.654
232 Nicolas Batum PORT SF 0.653
233 Theo Ratliff CHAR C 0.650
234 Mario Chalmers MIAM PG 0.648
235 Brandon Bass ORLA PF 0.648
236 Kris Humphries NJRS PF 0.646
237 Chris Duhon NWYR PG 0.643
238 Nenad Krstic OKLA C 0.642
239 Kris Humphries DALL PF 0.642

SATISFACTORY ROLE PLAYERS / USUALLY DO NOT START
240 Rasho Nesterovic TORO C 0.637
241 Hedo Turkoglu TORO SF 0.635
242 Johan Petro DENV C 0.635
243 Randy Foye WASH PG 0.634
244 Jrue Holiday PHIL PG 0.633
245 Mickael Pietrus ORLA SG 0.631
246 Jared Jeffries NWYR PF 0.627
247 Leandro Barbosa PHNX SG 0.626
248 Joel Anthony MIAM C 0.624
249 O.J. Mayo MEMP SG 0.622
250 Chase Budinger HOUS SF 0.621
251 Roger Mason SANA SG 0.619
252 Caron Butler WASH SF 0.617
253 Peja Stojakovic NORL SF 0.615
254 Marreese Speights PHIL PF 0.613
255 Jamaal Tinsley MEMP PG 0.613
256 Bobby Brown NORL PG 0.611
257 Jonas Jerebko DETR SF 0.610
258 Omri Casspi SACR SF 0.609
259 Kurt Thomas MILW PF 0.608
260 Thaddeus Young PHIL SF 0.607
261 Brandon Rush INDI SG 0.606
262 Hasheem Thabeet MEMP C 0.605
263 Damien Wilkins MINN SG 0.601
264 Rodney Carney PHIL SF 0.601
265 Earl Boykins WASH PG 0.599
266 J.J. Hickson CLEV PF 0.599
267 Willie Green PHIL SG 0.598
268 Anthony Parker CLEV SG 0.596
269 Jamaal Magloire MIAM C 0.594
270 Wesley Matthews UTAH SG 0.592
271 Devean George GOLS SG 0.592
272 Richard Hamilton DETR SG 0.592
273 Kevin Martin SACR SG 0.591
274 Andrea Bargnani TORO C 0.591
275 Ryan Gomes MINN SF 0.589
276 Thabo Sefolosha OKLA SF 0.589
277 Rafer Alston NJRS PG 0.589
278 Tracy McGrady NWYR SG 0.588
279 Marco Belinelli TORO SG 0.587
280 Michael Finley BOST SF 0.585
281 Marcus Williams MEMP PG 0.583
282 Martell Webster PORT SG 0.583
283 Charlie Villanueva DETR PF 0.582

MARGINAL ROLE PLAYERS / RARELY START
284 Derek Fisher LALK PG 0.578
285 Jannero Pargo CHIC PG 0.577
286 Toney Douglas NWYR PG 0.577
287 Chris Hunter GOLS PF 0.576
288 Derrick Brown CHAR SF 0.575
289 Yi Jianlian NJRS PF 0.575
290 Nathan Jawai MINN PF 0.575
291 Ime Udoka SACR SG 0.574
292 Sergio Rodriguez NWYR PG 0.574
293 Arron Afflalo DENV SG 0.573
294 Kevin Martin HOUS SG 0.572
295 Hakim Warrick MILW PF 0.571
296 Al Thornton WASH SF 0.569
297 Will Bynum DETR PG 0.568
298 Jonny Flynn MINN PG 0.568
299 James Posey NORL SF 0.564
300 Mikki Moore GOLS C 0.561
301 Darius Songaila NORL PF 0.561
302 Jerryd Bayless PORT PG 0.556
303 Jon Brockman SACR PF 0.554
304 Sasha Vujacic LALK SG 0.554
305 Dante Cunningham PORT SF 0.551
306 Michael Redd MILW SG 0.551
307 Eric Gordon LACL SG 0.550
308 C.J. Miles UTAH SF 0.549
309 Al Thornton LACL SF 0.547
310 Julian Wright NORL SF 0.545
311 Jeff Teague ATLA PG 0.544
312 Marquis Daniels BOST SG 0.543
313 Dahntay Jones INDI SG 0.542
314 Chris Douglas-Roberts NJRS SG 0.541
315 Zaza Pachulia ATLA C 0.538
316 Etan Thomas OKLA C 0.538
317 Sonny Weems TORO SG 0.537
318 Devin Brown NORL SG 0.533
319 Jason Maxiell DETR PF 0.532
320 Bill Walker NWYR SG 0.532
321 Courtney Lee NJRS SG 0.528
322 James Jones MIAM SF 0.525
323 Donte Greene SACR SF 0.524
324 Kenny Thomas SACR PF 0.523
325 Wayne Ellington MINN SG 0.521
326 Juwan Howard PORT PF 0.520

POOR PLAYERS / SHOULD NEVER START
327 Charlie Bell MILW SG 0.518
328 Corey Brewer MINN SF 0.518
329 Hakim Warrick CHIC PF 0.514
330 DeAndre Jordan LACL C 0.512
331 Rasual Butler LACL SG 0.509
332 Glen Davis BOST PF 0.508
333 Sam Young MEMP SF 0.508
334 Austin Daye DETR SF 0.507
335 Ronald Murray CHIC SG 0.504
336 Vladimir Radmanovic GOLS SF 0.494
337 Solomon Jones INDI PF 0.493
338 Ben Gordon DETR SG 0.491
339 James Johnson CHIC PF 0.487
340 Rafer Alston MIAM PG 0.482
341 Eduardo Najera DALL PF 0.482
342 Chucky Atkins DETR PG 0.477
343 Earl Clark PHNX SF 0.474
344 Joey Graham DENV SF 0.473
345 Fabricio Oberto WASH C 0.468
346 Jason Smith PHIL PF 0.466
347 Andres Nocioni SACR SF 0.464
348 Jared Jeffries HOUS PF 0.462
349 Nick Young WASH SG 0.462
350 Maurice Evans ATLA SF 0.462
351 Keith Bogans SANA SG 0.462
352 Josh Howard DALL SF 0.460

VERY POOR PLAYERS
353 Eddie House NWYR SG 0.454
354 Joe Smith ATLA PF 0.453
355 Kwame Brown DETR C 0.452
356 Antoine Wright TORO SF 0.451
357 Darrell Arthur MEMP PF 0.443
358 Jarvis Hayes NJRS SF 0.438
359 Ricky Davis LACL SF 0.437
360 Mardy Collins LACL PG 0.436
361 Malik Hairston SANA SG 0.433
362 Jeff Pendergraph PORT PF 0.432
363 Jermaine Taylor HOUS SG 0.428
364 Chris Wilcox DETR C 0.417
365 DeMar DeRozan TORO SG 0.414
366 Jodie Meeks MILW SG 0.413
367 Quinton Ross DALL SF 0.406

EXTREMELY POOR PLAYERS
368 Morris Peterson NORL SG 0.394
369 Josh Powell LALK PF 0.386
370 Jason Kapono PHIL SG 0.383
371 Jawad Williams CLEV SF 0.369
372 DeMarre Carroll MEMP SF 0.357
373 Ryan Hollins MINN C 0.351
374 Steve Novak LACL SF 0.345
375 Trenton Hassell NJRS SF 0.342
376 Brian Scalabrine BOST C 0.329
377 Michael Finley SANA SF 0.321
378 Sasha Pavlovic MINN SG 0.314
379 DeShawn Stevenson WASH SG 0.287
380 Malik Allen DENV PF 0.282
381 DaJuan Summers DETR SF 0.266

SCALE FOR REGULAR SEASON REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.820 0.899
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.760 0.819
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.700 0.759
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man 0.640 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player / Usually do not start 0.580 0.639
Marginal Role Player / Rarely start 0.520 0.579
Poor Player / Should never start 0.460 0.519
Very Poor Player 0.400 0.459
Extremely Poor Player .399 and less

AVERAGE RATINGS BY POSITION
Not all positions are created equal. These are the average ratings by position among all NBA players who play 300 minutes or more. There are very few small forwards and shooting guards who are superstars. Most (but definitely not all) superstars are players who can play point guard, power forward, or center.

Point Guard .750
Shooting Guard .640
Small Forward .640
Power Forward .720
Center .750
All Positions / All Players (NBA Overall Average) .700

PLAYOFF GRADE PLAYERS
Playoff Grade Players have ratings of .560 and higher. Players with ratings below .560 should not play in the playoffs unless the team is forced to play them so that they have two players at a position and/or so that the team has at least eight players playing in the playoffs and/or because the coach is absolutely certain the low rating player will play better in the playoffs than he did in the regular season.

REGULAR SEASON STARTING PLAYERS
All starters on all teams should have ratings of .575 and higher. If a team has no player at a postion with at least a .575 rating, then it is extremely deficient at that position due to injuries or due to management incompetence.

THE ALL IMPORTANT, AWARD WINNING REAL PLAYER RATINGS USER GUIDE
The above are a few hightlights from the User Guide for Real Player Ratings. For complete details regarding how the Real Player Ratings are designed, how and why they work, and how exactly you can use them, see the User Guide. The User Guide for Real Player Ratings is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the Real Player Rating performance measures.

Also, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.

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