>the idea that there are people who love basketball enough to
>pore through stats without watching games is beyond
>ridiculous. if they exist, they're definitely not on this
>board.

the #s are interesting, but the discussion will (and always should be) rooted in watching games. the #s support that, don't supplant that. and generally when I nitpick is when I don't like how the #s are being presented without context, because I'm interested in the context. that's all I'm trying to get at.

completely, 100% tangential -- have you ever played / are familiar with the Football Manager series?

in case you haven't, it's a long-running soccer game that reduces it to #s, allows you to manage a team. it's weirdly, strangely addictive and as much as I wanna say basketball is about watching and avoiding the #s, for YEARS and YEARS now I've dreamt of a Basketball Manager game (which oddly enough sounds like exactly what that one gambler built in that ESPN Mag swipe, what could become the guts of a video game franchise). if I ever made it to Sloan, I'd be trying to do some video game development...