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Sometimes you miss

I felt so proud of myself, a guy from Kansas City informing a native born Chicagoan the city had more than one NBA team. I enlightened him that the Washington Wizards had begun life as the Chicago Packers in 1961. A year later the name was changed to the Zephyrs, at the end of the year season three (1963) the team moved to Baltimore and underwent another name change becoming the Bullets. From the Baltimore Bullets it was the Capital Bullets and then in 1974 the Washington Bullets. In 1997 the team took on Wizards as the team name. This is the portion of the Chicago NBA story I overlooked, the Chicago Stags. The Stags were charter members of the Basketball Association of America which began play in the league’s inaugural year of 1946.

When the BAA and NBL merged in 1949 becoming the NBA the Stags moved into the newly formed league. As for why the Stags ceased operations after four seasons the Stags new ownership citing monetary issues closed shop prior to the 1950-51 NBA season. Although they failed to win a championship the Stags were successful on the court with 145 wins versus only 92 losses. Most of the names associated with the Stags are lost to history however there are two names of note. They are Kenny Sailors generally credited with being the first jump shooter, up to his time most players shot two-handed set shots. Sailors has been enshrined in the Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. The name of Max Zaslofsky is also mentioned, this guard was the BAA scoring champion in the 1947-48 season. The Chicago Bulls are the latest NBA team to represent the city, before them came the Packers/Zephyrs and Chicago’s first team the Stags.

The real truth

I admit that I sometimes get distracted by all the attention given to “The Top 25.” Like many people, I end up focusing on these rankings, but it’s been my long held view that they’re really more about popularity. Now please don’t misunderstand me, they do provide a degree of reality. What’s the real measure? For me and several others that would be the Basketball Power Ranking or BPI, which relies on analytics to determine the position of college basketball teams. For example, consider the Coaches Poll—can we realistically expect college coaches, with all their responsibilities, to have time to accurately rank the Top 25 teams on a week to week basis? If you want to believe it, go ahead, but it seems questionable—that would be the same for the media poll. The BPI, however, is different. I’m not going to detail the parts of BPI, check it out for yourself. See if it’s a tool you might find useful, so, what does the Top 25 BPI ranking look like? Here it is:

   

  1. Duke Blue Devils

  2. Michigan Wolverines

  3. Gonzaga Bulldogs

  4. Houston Cougars

  5. Arizona Wildcats

  6. Iowa State Cyclones

  7. Purdue Boilermakers

  8. Louisville Cardinals

  9. Illinois Fighting Illini

10. Florida Gators

It’s more than him

The San Antonio Spurs have played outstanding basketball (31-14) to date. Winning basketball always requires teammates who are willing to do stuff that contributes to this culture. This is a salute to the roster, the clear leader of this team is ‘The Alien’ Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot ? giant is having an outstanding season. He’s been impacted by injury however across the board the majority of his numbers this season exceed his career numbers. As an example his field goal percentage for his career is 47.8%, this season Wemby is shooting 51% from the floor, his 3-point shooting is higher over his previous effort. The only area that’s dipped slightly is blocked shots, career wise he’s 3.5 per game this season it’s a healthy 2.6.

Rebounds are about the same nearly 11 per game technically placing him alongside league leaders. Due to the extended time Wemby missed with injuries he’s short of qualifying for many of the stats we follow. I have no method of providing evidence of what you are about to read so keep that in mind. I wrote this past Friday I believe Wemby wants badly to win NBA Defensive Player of the Year, he’s hinted as much. His chief competition since his arrival in the NBA has been fellow Frenchman Rudy Gobert, the Wolves center has won DPOY four times over his career. I’ve said this previously, critics of Wemby’s game claim “he should develop a low post game.” No disagreement with that statement however shooting 39% from three provides proof he’s got outstanding talent in that area as well.

Which team shows up

This is written 24-hours in advance of Oklahoma facing Mizzou in Columbia. The headline is a reference to the roller coaster play of Mizzou lately, they beat Top 25 Florida yet lose to LSU. Mizzou plays a winnable game versus Georgia but comes out of it with another loss. The question becomes which team is the one we should view as the norm? The starting five has basically been the same since day one, the problem as I see it is the inconsistency of play. Power forward Mark Mitchell is producing good numbers but he alone cannot make up the difference for the poor play at times. My finger is pointed directly at Anthony Robinson, Jacob Crews and Jayden Stone…all are starters and this is where I disagree with Gates.

If they are not effectively producing he needs to replace them in the starting lineup. The coach has gone with a  9-man rotation to this point in the season however maybe Northweather and Mack need to be moved too and replaced by I’m not sure who. As I’ve pointed out in other instances I’m far from ready to replace the coach, that’s for more than one reason. Gates has proven to be an outstanding recruiter however moving those prospects into the rotation has not produced much to date. Back to the coach a moment, who replaces him plus the revolving door of coaching hires has got to cease at a point. Although we have not completed this season for me the 2026-27 becomes the litmus test for coach Gates. Depending on which source you utilize the number 2, 3 or 4 best prospect class in the nation will arrive on campus. This will be the true test for me and maybe others.