@ Game of Thrones (TV Show) A Human for Scale on Size of The Mountain's Actor

[Delores Mulva]

Re: NBA fight: amateurs. Skip to 1:30 mark:



Or this one from the minors:



Even though I don't like goons in hockey, I don't blame Tie Domi for this one, which wins the fan the karma award:

[PPatty]

IDK why anyone would complain about the 3 pointer. It is a harder shot and forces the defense to play at a higher level to cover a larger area of the court.

You don't have to work as hard on offense with the three-pointer. You don't need as much ball movement and don't need as much variety on offense; mid-range jumpers and low post skill have largely disappeared from the game, now that offense has been reduced largely to variations on drive-and-kick and high screens.

It's also kind of silly. How about nine-point touchdowns if they're scored from outside the red zone? Or 1.5 runs for homers that travel more than 400 feet?

Since you mentioned Gregg Popovich:

Gregg Popovich hates 3-pointers. The San Antonio Spurs head coach said as much during the 2014 NBA Finals, despite the fact that much of his team's success was based on spreading the floor with long-range shooters. In Toronto on Wednesday he reiterated his stance: You have to shoot 3s, but he'd rather not.

"I still hate it," Popovich said. "I'll never embrace it. I don't think it's basketball. I think it's kind of like a circus sort of thing. Why don't we have a 5-point shot? A 7-point shot? You know, where does it stop, that sort of thing. But that's just me, that's just old-school. To a certain degree, you better embrace it or you're going to lose. And every time we've won a championship, the 3-point shot was a big part of it. Because it is so powerful and you've gotta be able to do it. And nobody does it better than Golden State, and you know where they're at. So it's important. You can't ignore it."

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-...ver-embrace-it

The ones who pushed for adoption of the three-pointer knew how it would change things:

Newton, who is now running the NIT, was the basketball coach at Vanderbilt and later head of USA Basketball. In 1986, he was also chairman of the NCAA basketball rules committee.

“It’s interesting and the reason I laugh, the basketball coaches, when they were polled, there was only about 20 percent in favor of changing the rule,” Newton said. “Basketball coaches are basically very traditional when it comes to rules.”

Never was that more apparent than the day before the 1987 national championship game when then-Indiana coach Bob Knight scoffed at the 3-point shot and derisively referred to the late Ed Steitz, secretary of the rules committee, as “the father of the 19-foot, 9-inch rule.”

He wasn’t complaining, however, the next night after Steve Alford hit seven 3-pointers to lead the Hoosiers’ 74-73 victory against Syracuse.

Said Knight, “and we make three more points from the 3-point shot than Syracuse does, and that’s the difference in the game. So, uh, thanks, Ed.”

Newton’s Vanderbilt team capitalized on the new rule right away. Behind shooters like Barry Booker, Barry Goheen, Derek Wilcox and Scott Draud, the relatively diminutive Commodores hit 43.6 percent beyond the arc.

“I was a little bit ahead of the curve because I had experienced it and knew it was coming in and I knew the impact it was going to have on the game,” Newton said. “We recruited shooters and shot more 3s than anybody.”

That mid-range jumper?

“We did away with it totally,” Newton admitted. “We told them there will be no 12- to 15-foot jump shots. We’re either going to shoot it from 3-point range or in closer … We absolutely just took that out of our offense.”

http://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-...e-changed-game

Data was Ed Steitz's backbone. In looking at the numbers, he immediately deemed the ACC's experimental 3-point line of 17 feet, 9 inches too short. He believed that a team should make between 36 and 38 percent of its shots beyond the arc. Anything less would be ugly; anything more would damage the integrity of the game.

"The distance," Bob Steitz said, "was critical. He knew you had to protect the delicate balance between offense and defense."

But in the numbers, Ed Steitz also saw why the game had to be changed. Dominated by post play, basketball was turning into a scrum, with guys huddled and bottlenecked underneath the basket. The little men -- the guards -- had been virtually eliminated from the game.

By the time he got around to actually implementing the 3, at 19 feet, 9 inches, the brute Big East had gone to six fouls in an attempt to keep guys on the court.

"It's going to force teams to play more defense away from the basket," Ed Steitz said when the 3-pointer was adopted. "People will say, 'You're putting the little man back in the game,' and that's good."

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bask...ege-basketball

The three-point field goal, used by the National Basketball Association and adopted for next season on a trial basis by the Big Ten Conference, is getting a chilly reception from many college coaches around the country, although some large Eastern schools welcomed the innovation.

"Basketball has always been a game of strategy," said Grant, whose team made it to the Final 16 this year. "I don't want to see it get into the pro style of run and gun. I'm not for gimmicks."

https://news.google.com/newspapers?n...,3355299&hl=en

But again, it's a moot point now. It's in the game and as Pop pointed out, coaches just have to deal with it.

[MI Redeux]

Those 5 defenders don't vanish above the 3-point line. Before the 3 point shot defenses can sit behind the semi-circle all day and don't have to play as effectively as a unit to be in a position to contest shots and get in the passing lanes. Basketball is better for it because it exposes terrible defenses and enables new strategies on both sides. On the offensive side, strategies are more open because if they cannot defend your perimeter players well they are going to have easy drives to the basket all day or when the PF/C switch off a team mate is available to dump off to.

I would not blame the absence of low post skill on the 3-point change. You cannot play an interior game anymore because of how they call fouls. You go to post up on someone and the defender flops and you just had a turnover. Even if they don't flop but the defender is about 150 pounds less than the big man trying to play a post game, the defender inadvertently gets annihilated and it is a foul. It is an all around softer game nowadays.

Another factor is that that style of gameplay is reliant on having reached maturity physically, freshman/sophomore draft picks are still growing into their bodies by the time they get to the NBA, they have never played high level ball before due to lack of competition and are wholly unprepared for the NBA compared to the 90s where you could not come into the draft until the junior year. New draft picks look like they are still in High School compared to a NBA player that is not on a rookie contract anymore. That did not use to be the case. Physically they are outmatched.

The changes in points based on distance does not make sense in the context of football. In baseball I would just settle for allowing a consistent strike zone. You cannot have variant homeruns like that until you enforce a consistent ballpark dimension. Then you also have to take into account the atmosphere of the ballpark.

And unlike the baseball scenario, in the NBA you can defend every shot [1]. A center fielder cannot catch a baseball in the upper decks no matter the skill.

[1] Except for a Rajon Rondo tip-in from an out of bounds pass @ 1:39

[Nerkahia]

PG: Stephen Curry
SG: Kobe Bryant
SF: Lebron James
PF: Kevin Garnett
C: Tim Duncan

Any list like this that does not include Michael Jordan cannot be taken seriously.

[PPatty]

Those 5 defenders don't vanish above the 3-point line. Before the 3 point shot defenses can sit behind the semi-circle all day and don't have to play as effectively as a unit to be in a position to contest shots and get in the passing lanes. Basketball is better for it because it exposes terrible defenses and enables new strategies on both sides. On the offensive side, strategies are more open because if they cannot defend your perimeter players well they are going to have easy drives to the basket all day or when the PF/C switch off a team mate is available to dump off to.

You're basically making the same philosophical argument that was used to justify neutering defenses in the NFL. People like to see scoring, so make it easier for the offense and harder for the defense. Offenses are more wide open, yes, but they're simpler.

I would not blame the absence of low post skill on the 3-point change. You cannot play an interior game anymore because of how they call fouls.

The problem with this argument is that the 1970s and early 1980s happened. You could hardly breathe on a guy in the NBA back then without being called for a foul, yet Kareem, Reed, Walton, Unseld, Lanier and Parish thrived in that era.

Another factor is that that style of gameplay is reliant on having reached maturity physically

True to a point, but the style also isn't taught much at the lower levels these days and wouldn't be even if guys were staying in college three to four years.

[Daxil Solshok]

Any list like this that does not include Michael Jordan cannot be taken seriously.

Yeah, he's the Babe Ruth of basketball. I would rank him as identical to Kobe in terms of game, but he blows him away on legend status.

[Nadiar]

I haven't paid any attention to whatever the fuck is happening this thread, but the Babe Ruth of basketball is Wilt Chamberlain. A superstar before there were dozens of superstars in the sport.

[PPatty]

I'm going to use "first really awesome competitor to transcend the sport" definition (if we just use "first big superstar" as the definition, then the Babe Ruth of baseball is Ty Cobb), so the Babe Ruths of various sports (at least from an American point of view) are:

Baseball - Babe Ruth
Basketball - Wilt Chamberlain
Football - Jim Thorpe
Hockey - Gordie Howe (Bobby Orr has a case)
Soccer - Pele
Men's golf - Arnold Palmer
Women's golf - Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Boxing - Joe Louis (Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey have valid arguments)
Women's tennis - Billie Jean King
Men's tennis - Bjorn Borg
Horse racing - Man O' War
Stock car racing - Richard Petty
Indy car racing - Mario Andretti
MMA - Ronda Rousey
Sprinting - Jesse Owens
Gymnastics - Nadia Comaneci
Speed skating - Eric Heiden
Downhill skiing - Lindsey Vonn
Skateboarding - Tony Hawk
Snowboarding - Shaun White
Swimming - Mark Spitz
Cycling - Lance Armstrong (I know, I know, but still. Anyway, there's a case for Greg LeMond)
Chess - Bobby Fischer

[Nadiar]

Most of the breakdowns of Cobb vs Babe Ruth are indeterminate. It kind of depends how you want to judge the differences in rules, balls and bats of the time.

[Delores Mulva]

For hockey, assuming you exclude goalies (the early goalies have some insane numbers), I'd go with someone else: Maurice "Rocket" Richard. Howe was rarely a league leader during his career. What he had was insane longevity, playing at a high level for decades, and getting the career numbers to match. Richard was someone who did things that were exceptionally rare. In '44-'45 he scored 50 goals in 50 games (the length of the season). It took almost two decades before any other player in the league scored 50 goals, and that person did it in 70 games. To this day, there are only four other players that have managed to get 50 goals in the first 50 games of a team's season, and three more that managed to get 50 goals in their first 50 games of the season. Richard was someone so insanely popular that his suspension by the league in 1955 led to a riot:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Riot

...which is considered a precursor to the rise of Quebecois nationalism in the 1960's:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_Revolution

That is "transcending one's sport", even from an American perspective.

[Ninetoes]

For hockey, assuming you exclude goalies (the early goalies have some insane numbers), I'd go with someone else: Maurice "Rocket" Richard. Howe was rarely a league leader during his career. What he had was insane longevity, playing at a high level for decades, and getting the career numbers to match. Richard was someone who did things that were exceptionally rare. In '44-'45 he scored 50 goals in 50 games (the length of the season). It took almost two decades before any other player in the league scored 50 goals, and that person did it in 70 games. To this day, there are only four other players that have managed to get 50 goals in the first 50 games of a team's season, and three more that managed to get 50 goals in their first 50 games of the season. Richard was someone so insanely popular that his suspension by the league in 1955 led to a riot:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Riot

...which is considered a precursor to the rise of Quebecois nationalism in the 1960's:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_Revolution

That is "transcending one's sport", even from an American perspective.

Yeah I would put Richard over anyone else.

[Grindel]

I'm going to use "first really awesome competitor to transcend the sport" definition (if we just use "first big superstar" as the definition, then the Babe Ruth of baseball is Ty Cobb), so the Babe Ruths of various sports (at least from an American point of view) are:

Baseball - Babe Ruth
Basketball - Wilt Chamberlain
Football - Jim Thorpe
Hockey - Gordie Howe (Bobby Orr has a case)
Soccer - Pele
Men's golf - Arnold Palmer
Women's golf - Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Boxing - Joe Louis (Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey have valid arguments)
Women's tennis - Billie Jean King
Men's tennis - Bjorn Borg
Horse racing - Man O' War
Stock car racing - Richard Petty
Indy car racing - Mario Andretti
MMA - Ronda Rousey
Sprinting - Jesse Owens
Gymnastics - Nadia Comaneci
Speed skating - Eric Heiden
Downhill skiing - Lindsey Vonn
Skateboarding - Tony Hawk
Snowboarding - Shaun White
Swimming - Mark Spitz
Cycling - Lance Armstrong (I know, I know, but still. Anyway, there's a case for Greg LeMond)
Chess - Bobby Fischer

The Babe Ruth of Women's tennis is Serena Williams if it isn't Martina Navratilova. King was great, but not the greatest. And Rousey isn't the Babe Ruth of MMA any more than Christie Martin is the Babe Ruth of boxing, please. Otherwise it's a fine list.

The greatest team of 5 players of all time is the 1964 Celtics. Everyone else listed their favorite five players, which isn't what the original question asked.

Best 5 players?
Guards: Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan
Forwards: Tim Duncan, Karl Malone
Center: Wilt Chamberlain

Your lists are moot.

[Nerkahia]

I'm going to use "first really awesome competitor to transcend the sport" definition (if we just use "first big superstar" as the definition, then the Babe Ruth of baseball is Ty Cobb), so the Babe Ruths of various sports (at least from an American point of view) are:

Baseball - Babe Ruth
Basketball - Wilt Chamberlain
Football - Jim Thorpe
Hockey - Gordie Howe (Bobby Orr has a case)
Soccer - Pele
Men's golf - Arnold Palmer
Women's golf - Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Boxing - Joe Louis (Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey have valid arguments)
Women's tennis - Billie Jean King
Men's tennis - Bjorn Borg
Horse racing - Man O' War
Stock car racing - Richard Petty
Indy car racing - Mario Andretti
MMA - Ronda Rousey
Sprinting - Jesse Owens
Gymnastics - Nadia Comaneci
Speed skating - Eric Heiden
Downhill skiing - Lindsey Vonn
Skateboarding - Tony Hawk
Snowboarding - Shaun White
Swimming - Mark Spitz
Cycling - Lance Armstrong (I know, I know, but still. Anyway, there's a case for Greg LeMond)
Chess - Bobby Fischer

Pretty good list imho. I'd consider Jack Nicklaus over Arnold Palmer, but not vehemently.

[Delores Mulva]

I think Rousey is fair for MMA. Her fame is far beyond what past mixed martial artists could claim, and the record she compiled before Holly Holm rearranged her face was very dominant. Apparently the UFC was shocked by how popular her PPV's were - Rousey/Holm had the third highest number of buys in company history, with relatively low promotion. There's even going to be a "Do Nothing Bitches" comedy with Tina Fey:

http://deadline.com/2016/01/ronda-ro...es-1201684099/

[Grindel]

What does popularity have to do with any of it? OK, Kim Kardashian is the Babe Ruth of MMA because she has more twitter followers.

Rousey is the Mike Tyson of female MMA - Really good at a couple of things during a weak era but powerless against someone with reach and skill. Did people actually watch the whole fight where she lost? It wasn't even competitive. I get the hype machine and "OMFG body paint I can't wait to see that ugly duckling get her swan on" but that's called marketing, not ability. Silva or St.-Pierre are much more accomplished over the course of their career, and if Jones manages to find some way to take his game to Heavyweight (and not flame out personally) then it won't even be an argument.

[Delores Mulva]

What does popularity have to do with any of it?

If you're talking about someone transcending their sport, it's not enough that they're good. They have to be so good that people outside of the usual fans of the sport know who they are. That's why I'd disqualify someone like Anderson Silva, even though he was an excellent fighter.

I think it's also worth, in the case of MMA, looking at how those people won. GSP was, for most of his career, a decision fighter. Some of those fights were much more dominant that "decision" would otherwise indicate - just ask Josh Koscheck how he feels about that second decision loss at UFC 124, or about the jab in general. But it's still a big difference compared to "I defended the title four times in a total of two minutes", even if one of those fights (Correia) had no business being a title fight. That's a display of dominance that sticks out.

Did people actually watch the whole fight where she lost? It wasn't even competitive.

She couldn't compare to Holm in striking, and it was embarrassing that she even tried for so long. This is what the striking looked like all night (image too large, linking it instead): https://media.giphy.com/media/3o85xp...xXLG/giphy.gif

There were one or two close spots for Holm in the grappling exchanges, though. I wish the original hadn't been taken down because of the UFC being dicks about copyright, but here's the repost of Firas Zahabi's breakdown of the fight:



If Holm doesn't break even one of those attempts, the fight is over.

...if Jones manages to find some way to take his game to Heavyweight (and not flame out personally) then it won't even be an argument.

I'd put Jones and Rousey at about the same point in their careers. Roughly the same age, both trying to regain their belts after a significant personal setback. The big difference is dedication. Jones seems serious about getting back on track, even with that minor kerfuffle this past week. Rousey is being pulled in the same direction Gina Carano went in, which is too bad. If Rousey went to a real gym to plug the holes in her game, instead of to movie sets and photo shoots, she could have an MMA career like Silva's.

[Daxil Solshok]

I think Rousey is fair for MMA. Her fame is far beyond what past mixed martial artists could claim, and the record she compiled before Holly Holm rearranged her face was very dominant. Apparently the UFC was shocked by how popular her PPV's were - Rousey/Holm had the third highest number of buys in company history, with relatively low promotion. There's even going to be a "Do Nothing Bitches" comedy with Tina Fey:

http://deadline.com/2016/01/ronda-ro...es-1201684099/

Not really surprising. They're pretty good fighters and it also hinges on soft porn when they get entangled.

[Grindel]

And this is my entire point about Rousey - she's an OK fighter but she's known outside of MMA circles for the same reason Danica Patrick is - because she has boobs. It's crude but let's be honest and not sugarcoat things here. She's hyped up because hey here's this MMA fighter WHO HAS BOOBS, let's put her in everything! That doesn't make you the Babe Ruth of your sport - dominating people the way Silva did before age caught up with him makes you the Babe Ruth of your sport. A fair number of people in Ppatty's list don't have movie deals or endorsements either and still are the very pinnacle of their sport.

[Merrick ap'Milandra]

For MMA, I would have gone with Royce Gracie.

When UFC was still new and I was still watching MMA, he was "the man".

[MI Redeux]

You're basically making the same philosophical argument that was used to justify neutering defenses in the NFL. People like to see scoring, so make it easier for the offense and harder for the defense. Offenses are more wide open, yes, but they're simpler.



The problem with this argument is that the 1970s and early 1980s happened. You could hardly breathe on a guy in the NBA back then without being called for a foul, yet Kareem, Reed, Walton, Unseld, Lanier and Parish thrived in that era.



True to a point, but the style also isn't taught much at the lower levels these days and wouldn't be even if guys were staying in college three to four years.

On point [1] I can see how that is unclear. I am actually coming from the opposite direction though in terms of what I enjoy, I love watching great defenses, in the NBA in particular. Anyone can come down the court and throw up a shot and make it, but it takes excellent defensive strategy and defensive execution to reduce the succes rate a fragile offense has. An example are the 2011 NBA Finals with the Mavericks v. Heat. I was rooting for the Heat, but the Mavericks played better as a team and executed a defensive strategy that wrecked havoc on the Heat despite the Mavericks being overwhelmingly outmatched with respect to talent.

So, I like that the 3-pointer exposes defenses in new ways that makes composing a great team rather than individual players even more important for that reason. It makes the great defensive teams even more impressive because they are doing it with the cards stacked against them further.

On point [2] I was not watching basketball back then, so I'll take your word for it.

On point [3] I think the interior game that was successful in the 90s, especially in the case of Hakeem, is underrated in how difficult it is to execute at a dominant level. There is no question that Hakeem is the goat center and is without any peer. How difficult is Hakeem's gameplay to replicate? The most talented person in the NBA in recent memory is Lebron James and he has only been able to incorporate a small part of Hakeem's game. Shaq and Howard could not pull it off either. Both James and Howard were directly instructed by Hakeem yet cannot pull it off in a real-game.

Another factor on playing an interior game is that aside from people like Nowitzki who utilize fade away jumpers successfully to get separation, there is as much anticipation and situational awareness necessary to play a post game against a great defender as there is for a point guard or shooting guard starting out on the perimeter. What makes doing so from a low post position is that you have less room to maneuver, less starting separation, and the player is very reliant on having a SG/PG that can get them the ball in the first place aside from the rare player who dominates rebounds so heavily that they can rack up significant points off of second chances.

And they never call over the back anymore, I cannot remember actually ever having seen that called at the NBA level, so big men are constantly having to carry smaller sized people when they are trying to score. Staying healthy as a big man is harder even ignoring problems associated with being that big in the first place as far as even more frequent knee problems etc.

So, with how difficult executing the post game is and how reliant it is on perimeter players and how reliant it is on having the right attributes to start with, it is much harder to have an opportunity to transfer those skills in the first place, and then someone who could be taught has to have luck in finding a coach who can instill that into them as well, so a lot has to go right. A perimeter player can work on his game much easier in isolation compared to someone who has to train to work the low post.