From Kobe Bryant to Chris Paul, Blake Griffin to Andrew Bynum, the NBA All-Star game is shaping up as an L.A. story.

Two Lakers and two Clippers were voted as starters Thursday for the game, the first time in 15 years that two pairs of teammates have been voted to start for one conference.

“It’s pretty cool,” Griffin said.

- Via LA Story by Brian Mahoney

Eh, it’s not so cool to have 4 starters from the same city (unless you’re from the city), but you can’t argue with the fan voting results this year. Everyone voted in was surely all-star caliber. Furthermore, the players are worthy of starting, even if there’s stiff competition in the case of Blake Griffin’s forward spot.

The Eastern Conference, however, did have a mild dud in Carmelo Anthony. Chris Bosh or Paul Pierce would be better served in his starting spot, but it’s nothing to picket the David Stern’s Ivory Tower about. However, there have been some duds in all-star voting’s past that merit uprising.

This week’s Pursuit is dedicated to unearthing the most egregious and vile instances of mobocracy run a mock in all-star voting. When fans get drunk on the selfish nectar of seeing their middling hometown role player start ahead of a Hall of Famer. Getting high on the glue of prematurely anointing a spectacular young player as one of the 10 best players in the game. Or just simply stuffing the ballot box for [redacted] and giggles.

Shoulder Shruggers

These are the votes that are like Carmelo’s starting spot this year. They’re not terrible, you just know the fans could have made a better decision.

Brian Winters over Fred Brown – 1976 Western Conference guards

Pretty much speaks for itself. Fred Brown was better than Winters in every dimension except passing. Not by a mile, but decisively enough to make this a shoulder shrug of a pick. In the actual ’76 game, Brown ended up playing 24 minutes to Winters 16. All’s well that ends well.

Rudy Tomjanovich over Larry Kenon, Campy Russell, Bob Dandridge, Elvin Hayes and Bob McAdoo – 1979 Eastern Conference forwards

The Eastern Conference was pretty stacked at forward that year and yet the voters made the worst pure basketball decision possible. Well, almost. Don’t let Bob McAdoo’s numbers fool you. He was sleep-walking through this season with New York and Boston. Which is frightening to consider someone could sleep-walk to those kinds of numbers.

My pick would have been Spurs forward Larry Kenon, despite my personal affinity for Bullets small forward Bob Dandridge. As for Elvin Hayes, the NBA of today would have dodged this bullet in a Tim Duncan-like fashion and declared him a center to avoid the logjam.

So why Rudy T when he was clearly the worst player? Simple. It was his first season back after being decked by Kermit Washington and fans would have sympathetically voted him president if there was an election that year.

Head Scratchers

These are the fan votes that were kind of understandable, but still just wrong and shouldn’t have happened. At least the player selected was all-star caliber. It’s just that sometimes all-star caliber isn’t good enough to be an all-star starter.

Doug Collins over George Gervin and Billy Knight – 1978 Eastern Conference Guards

Yeah, Doug Collins was a terrific shooting guard, but he had no business starting Buffalo’s Billy Knight and, especially, San Antonio’s George Gervin. The Ice Man led the league in scoring and his PER was the highest of his career. This was vintage Ice as he was still young enough to have the gifted athleticism, evidenced by the blocks, but getting a bit more sage and judicious with his moves, evidenced by the 2nd-highest TS% of his career. But when Philadelphia is behind Collins who was also generally beloved by the public at-large, you’re going to have disappointments like this.

John Drew over Larry Bird, Larry Kenon and Dan Roundfield – 1980 Eastern Conference Forwards

Finally, it’s a white player who gets snubbed instead of unjustly winning the fan vote! But seriously, Larry Bird should have easily took this starting gig over John Drew who passed comparably to Nick Young. And if not rookie Bird, how about our good friend Dr. K, Larry Kenon? Or Atlanta’s big forward in Dan Roundfield who was one of the finer defensive players of his era. Nope, the fans apparently loved Drew’s  all-scoring and little-else production.

Paul Westphal over David Thompson – Western Conference Guards 1981

In our final entry of Good Players Cornering the Disaffected White Fan Vote, we have Paul Westphal who was on his last legs in Seattle up against David Thompson who was also on his last legs, but for different reasons. Westphal was just getting old, Thompson wouldsoon succumb to his cocaine addiction. But my goodness, on the numbers alone Thompson should have smashed Westphal and then consider Thompson’s highlight reel game tailor-made for the All-Star game and you just scratch your scalp raw at this one.

Dale Ellis over Clyde Drexler, Fat Lever, Chris Mullin and John Stockton – Western Conference Guards 1989

When someone averages 27 points on lights out shooting like the Sonics’ Ellis did and he’s still the wrong choice, you know it was a deep year for guard. Hell, I can’t even choose who should go in over him. Just marvel at the ridiculous play of these cats.

Selections that Make You Go Hmm… and then throw a chair in disgust 

A.C. Green over Karl Malone – Western Conference Forwards 1990

Huh? This just don’t… I don’t even… this is why Utah hates the Lakers!!!

(And this very snub was written about just recently over at SLC Dunk)

B.J. Armstrong over Mark Price, Mookie Blaylock, Nick Anderson… hell, anyone – 1994 Eastern Conference Guards 1994

This is why Cleveland hates you, Chicago… and for other reasons too. But this is kicking a man while he’s down.

Kobe Bryant over Mitch Richmond, Clyde Drexler and John Stockton – Western Conference Guards 1998

Now, I’m not saying 6th men shouldn’t start in an all-star game, but this instance didn’t help the cause.

Yao Ming over Shaquille O’Neal – Western Conference Centers 2003

Yao’s rookie year is better than people remember now or acknowledged at the time, but you see what Shaq was doing in comparison. The Diesel was chugging along quite nicely… woeful conditioning aside.

Finally, there’s the most inexplicable All-Star starter… Allen Iverson in 2010. The fans just lost their mind and voted purely on nostalgia and Lord knows what else. This is worse even than the B.J. Armstrong and A.C. Green votes. At least they were cogs on really good teams. Iverson got booted from Memphis and then sagged in Philadelphia, appearing in a total of 28 unspectacular games that year.

So, with all this information, we can agree with Kent Brockman and abolish fan voting.

photo by Nebraska Farm Boy via Flickr

This week’s wonderful, glorious and super fantastic Pursuit was inspired, as usual, by that great water cooler in the cyber sky, Twitter. Like any enjoyable conversation, you’re not entirely sure how it got started or how you encountered the subject. Well, on Friday afternoon, someone said something. Then someone else chirped. Then another person dropped a nugget of wisdom. And this went on for hours or maybe minutes, I don’t remember… but finally this tweet popped up:

1984 had a monster class man. That's the best draft class ever.

January 27, 2012 12:43 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@Quentin315

Quentin Esquire

And hard to argue with that. The popular opinion is that the 1984 draft class is indeed the best ever. Hard to argue considering that Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, John Stockton and Charles Barkley were the highlight members and guys like Kevin Willis, Alvin Robertson, Michael Cage, Otis Thorpe and Sam Perkins are afterthoughts.

However, we here at Paroxysmal Pursuit are not in the business of kowtowing to popular opinion. Instead we look at the cold hard facts and then shrug shoulders as to what they mean. So the task at hand is to discover with Cold Hard Facts, which draft class is the best ever… or at least the best since the ABA and NBA merged prior to the 1976 draft.

So, why the merger cutoff?

Because the best, singular analysis I could think of to judge the draft classes was win shares. The dual existence of the NBA and ABA wreaks havoc with a universal look at the stat between 1967 and 1976. Perhaps in the future I will separately look at those classes. As for the drafts prior to the ABA/NBA dual, they too deserve a specialized look in the future. Hooray, sequels!

Also, in the interest of fairness, there was a second cutoff with the 2002 draft class. I deemed that classes thereafter haven’t had the time to fully blossom and let history be a Cold Hard Judge of their merit via win shares.

Finally, the win share totals for each draft class were calculated by adding up the 25 highest totals from each class.

Historical Timeline

10 Lowest Win Shares

10 Highest Win Shares

Paroxysmal Notes of Interest

Well, well, well. Turns out the 1984 Draft class may not be the best ever!

OK, I still think it is, but looking at the Cold Hard Facts does show that the subsequent 1985 Draft was bloated with talent and the 1987 Draft not that far behind as well. Some of the members of the 1985 class include Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Terry Porter, Detlef Schrempf, Charles Oakley, Chris Mullin and Joe Dumars. 1987 churned out David Robinson, Reggie Miller, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Kevin Johnson, Mark Jackson, Muggsy Bogues and Reggie Lewis.

So in a four year span, the NBA was injected with tremendous talent from the blockbuster 1984, 1985 and 1987 draft classes and also added Jeff Hornacek, Dennis Rodman, Mark Price, Ron Harper and Brad Daugherty from the below-average 1986 draft (which suffered from the loss of Len Bias, Arvydas Sabonis waiting a decade to join the league, the drug addiction of Roy Tarpley and the injuries to Daugherty).

So if you’re wondering why the mid-80s to mid-90s NBA was spectacular, there’s your reason and it could have been even more awesome if the 1986 Draft had held together better.

The 2nd Wave

You’ll notice a second node of talent injection to the NBA: 1995-1999.

The ’96 Draft is often cited as the 2nd best following the ’84 class. By win shares, it’s third overall, which means it’s certainly no joke with playes like Kobe Bryant, Ray Allen, Steve Nash, Allen Iverson, Jermaine O’Neal, Marcus Camby, Stephon Marbury, Peja Stojakovic and Shareef Abdur-Rahim. The 1995, ’98 and ’99 Drafts further fueled the league by adding Rasheed Wallace, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, Vince Carter, Shawn Marion, Elton Brand, Manu Ginobili, Lamar Odom and Rip Hamilton.

Mirroring the mid-80s injection, there was a slight dud year in 1997, but even then the league still got Tim Duncan, Tracy McGrady and  Chauncey Billups.

The Doldrums

You’ve seen the good, now it’s time for the bad: the late 80s/early 90s and the early 2000s. To make this eyesore digestible, check out the following table!

Admittedly, the 2000-02 range will continue to add win shares over the coming years, but not enough to remove its putrid stench. It’ll be a miracle for them catch the mediocre stretch from 1988-94. This is to be expected though when Kwame Brown (bust), Kenyon Martin (middling) and Yao Ming (bless his oft-injured heart), are the #1 picks. Even with his bad legs, Yao is still the 2nd-highest win shares contributor to the 2002 draft class. Only Amar’e is higher. Just a disappointing draft all around.

1988-94 suffered from the bust syndrome (Pervis Ellison) and bad luck injuries (Larry Johnson, Grant Hill, Alonzo Mourning, Penny Hardaway, Danny Manning), but even the successes weren’t all that successful, relatively speaking (Chris Webber, Glenn Robinson, Shawn Kemp). Only Shaquille O’Neal, Gary Payton and Jason Kidd really were able to shirk the bad vibes and reach all-time status. Just a generally depressing time for basketball. So many promising stars that never quite reached their full potential.

Rollercoaster Ride

Lastly, there’s the curious late 70s and early 80s period where the drafts alternated between boom and bust. See for yourself:

What should be noted here is that the 1980 draft was historically awful. When Joe Barry Carroll is the #1 pick, bad things are bound to happen. Kevin McHale is the only draftee of the class to gain over 100 win shares for a career and Kiki Vandeweghe was 2nd with 75.6. I love Mike Gminski, but when he ends up having the 3rd best career for a draft class, that class stunk.

But let’s end this bad boy on a high note: the hidden gems of the 1981 and 1977 drafts. The 1981 draft featured five players who are really, really good but juuust a smidgen below Hall of Fame caliber but I love them so I think they should be in anyway: Buck Williams, Larry Nance, Tom Chambers, Rolando Blackman, and Mark Aguirre.

Add in Isiah Thomas on the Hall of Fame side and Danny Ainge, Eddie Johnson, Kelly Tripucka and Orlando Woolridge on the excellent role player side and you got yourself a helluva draft… and a stew.

Finally, the colossal 1977 draft. Defying the odds and truculence of Kent Benson being the #1 pick, this class was a sight to behold with Jack Sikma, Marques Johnson, Cedric Maxwell, Walter Davis, Tree Rollins, James Edwards, Otis Birdsong, Norm Nixon, Robert Reid, (that other) Eddie Johnson, Greg Ballard and Brad Davis.

And the cherry on top of that class? None other than Bernard King.

Nice. Very Nice.

Photo by Mike Saechang via Flickr

winning a championship with 2 guys taking 50 out of 77 shots for the whole team? No way. try to pass the ball OKC Thunder

January 19, 2012 2:59 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@Dschrempf

Detlef Schrempf

That’s former NBA all-star and general basketball legend Detlef Schrempf critiquing the shot selection and offensive execution of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant from their loss earlier in the week to the Washington Wizards (box score).  Ever curious, I stepped beyond my initial ‘aghastedness’ and wondered, well, has a team ever won a title with two players dominating shots like that?

So, I decided to look back from 2011 to 1970 to see exactly how dependent each NBA champion was on its top two shooters. Why 1970? Because that’s as far back as Basketball References finals boxscores go. A great reason, I know. In any event, you’ll find the percentage of shots taken by the top two shooters for regular season, playoffs and finals below for each of those champions.

Note: Percentages were derived by taking the FGAs per game of the two players divided by the FGAs of the entire team for the regular season, playoffs and finals, respectively. This means there is going to be some imperfection in the percentages here, since for instance Scottie Pippen in 1998 averaged 16 FGAs per game for Chicago but only appeared in 44 games. This means other players FGAs were ‘artificially’ inflated during Pippen’s absence and skew the numbers.

Even if not perfect, this still gives an excellent idea of how dependent each team was and no way in the world was I going to peruse every single boxscore from 1998. ENJOY!

*The 1995 Houston Rockets regular season was a particular pain to analyze. Olajuwon was clearly the #1 shooter but for half the season Vernon Maxwell was the #2 option and then Clyde Drexler joined the team and clearly took over that role. So, I averaged their shots per game in the regular season for the ‘regular’ calculation. For the ‘playoffs’ and ‘finals’ it was solely Clyde Drexler since Maxwell was banished from the team.

Paroxysmal Notes of Interest

Firstly, it is indeed true that the further teams get into the season, the more the offensive options constrict. ‘Constrict’ meaning that fewer players are entrusted with the ball. Rising from an average of 39.46% in the regular season to 44.24% in the finals, the top bananas take over shooting for championship teams.

The most extraordinary example of this dictatorial offense is the Jordan-Pippen Bulls, although the Olajuwon Rockets and Shaq-Kobe Lakers also showed this.

The dozen year era of 1991 to 2002 encompassed all three of these championship squads and was the most duo-centric seen in this Pursuit. Of particular amazement is the 1993 Finals where Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen combined to take nearly 60% of the FGAs for the Chicago Bulls. Meanwhile, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant in 2001 were the only duo to crack the 50% barrier for a regular season.

In contrast to this highly centralized offense of the 1990s was the free-flowing 70s and 80s basketball. Between 1970 and 1990 there were 21 champions and only 11 had duos surpass the 40% mark in the Finals. The reason for this may be that the teams of that period were blessed with more talented players per squad, such as the 1984 Finals that featured over  a dozen players who were current, former or future members of All-Star, All-Defensive or All-NBA teams and 6 players who would at one point win a Finals MVP.

With all that quality running around, little wonder that Larry Bird and Robert Parish combined for just 34.49% of the Celtics shots.

Since 1990, only one team has come close to falling below the 40% mark in the Finals and that was, unsurprisingly, the 2004 Pistons (40.71%). However, the lowest mark recorded here is the 1970 Finals where regular season shot leaders Willis Reed and Walt Frazier combined for a paltry 28% of the Knicks shots in the Finals against the Lakers.

And about that 1970 Finals. That was the one where Willis Reed miraculously came back for the Game 7 and scored an amazing 4 points. Meanwhile, Walt Frazier went Rambo on the Lakers and bludgeoned them for 36 points and 19 assists to win the game and the title.

Go on wit’ yo’ bad self Clyde!

Photo by hubertk via flickr

In this Paroxysmal Pursuit, we continue the quest of seeing when players peak. However, unlike the 1st two installments, this one eschews scoring for the other noble hardwood pursuits of rebounding and assisting.  Below are the 49 players to have averaged 6+ apg for their career and the 48 players to have 10+ rpg for their career. All players chosen had to have played a minimum of 500 career games. Furthermore, the career high had to have come from a season in which they played 50+ games. So no credit for putting up 10.4 apg in a 16-game season, Mark Price.

After the tables will be the usual Paroxysmal Notes of Interest to give meaning to the globs of numbers.

Note: Bob Cousy, Harry Gallatin and Dolph Schayes had the great fortune of playing part of their careers during a time when the NBA did not log minutes played. Their minutes played were not used in the overall averages.

REBOUNDING

ASSISTS

Paroxysmal Notes of Interests

Rebounding Pre-80s, Assisting Post-80s

There is a pretty stark difference in when rebounding aces abounded and when assisting dynamos sprouted. Only 14 of the 48  rebounders (29%) peaked after 1980, whereas only 10 players who peaked prior to 1980 (20%) made the assist list. A rather strange phenomenon that can’t be completely answered here. The generally acknowledged glut of possessions in the 1960s spiked rebounding (and point) totals of the era, but didn’t do so for assists apparently. Maybe team offenses weren’t so centralized to the point guard position at that time. More players initiated offense and spread the assists out more, perhaps. Or maybe old curmudgeons are right when they say assists are handed out too liberally by score keepers these days.

Who knows?

Youthful Rebounders, Geriatric Passing

Rebounding is the domain of the young player. At least rebounding peak. Players, of course, continue to be great at it for years, but the peak happens incredibly early: season 4.6, age 25.8 and by the 12,000th minute played. On the flip side, playmakers take their time maturing. The averages were season 6.12, age 27 and just over the 15,000th minute played. Also, it’s worth mentioning that Gary Payton at age 33 and with over 34,000 minutes is both the oldest and, literally, most played player to hit a career high in scoring, rebounding or assists.

EDIT: If I could read my own table, I would see that Lenny Wilkens was 34 years old when he hit his peak, thereby beating Payton. My poor eyes.

To refresh your memory on scorers, they hit their peak in season 5.35, age 25.7 and minute 14,293.

Ageless Wonders

For scorers, only 5 of the 60 members of the 20+ ppg club hit their peak in season 10 or higher. That’s 8.3%. For rebounders this was 2 out of 48 (4.2%) and for assist leaders it was 6 out of 49 (12.2%).

Shifting the focus to age, 16.7% of scorers were 30 years or older at their peak. 22.4% of the playmakers and 10.1% of the rebounders achieved the same feat.

Finally, with minutes played, 23.3% of scorers peaked after their 20,000th minute. 16.7% of rebounders and 28.6% of playmakers did the same.

Youthful Exuberance

The exact same number of playmakers hit their peak under 10,000 minutes as did above 20,000 minutes (28.6%). For rebounders this fresh from the can experience was done by 43.8%. As for scorers, 28.3% topped off under 10,000 minutes.

For the under-25 crowd each category had the following percentages: rebounding 35.4%, assists 24.5% and points 40%.

To bring this exercise to a close, there’s the percentage of players who hit their peaks before their 5th season: rebounding 54.2%, assists 32.7%, and scoring 43.3%.

Bird is the Word

I would have loved to conclude this with an Hakeem Olajuwon clip, again, but since Larry Bird is the only player to appear in each table thanks to his assists, rebounding and scoring averages meeting the lofty minimums, he deserves this spot.

Go get ‘em, Larry!

Photo by Petur Gunnarsson via Flickr

 In last week’s first-ever Paroxysmal Pursuit, I looked at when scorers reach their peach average based on seasons and chronological age. However, the always cerebral Clint Peterson chimed in that I might want to take a gander at this same phenomena but from the perspective of minutes played in a players career.

Not in the mood to argue or think of a fresh research idea, I happily took up Clint’s suggestion, so here we are with a different look at the same question: when do scorers reach their peak?

Note: The minutes are the grand total of minutes the player played up to and including the season he reached his highest scoring average.

*Paul Arizin’s minutes are incomplete since minutes played were not kept by the NBA as a statistic during his rookie season.

Paroxysmal Notes of Interest

Under 10000 Minutes

Has a quickly perceptible flow for these players. All players are age 24 and under and weren’t beyond their 3rd season. Curiously though, only 3 of the 17 players here had their scoring average peak after 1984. Looks like players are increasingly able to prolong when they finally reach their peak.

10000 – 15000 Minutes

A whopping 19 players hit their peaks during these minutes parameters. Those closer to 10k minutes were generally speaking in their 3rd/4th season while those on the higher end of the spectrum were in their 5th/6th season. As for chronological age, 24 – 27 is the lion’s share of player ages. Also, in this group 10 of the 19 players hit their peak in 1984 or beyond.

Outliers in various categories include World B. Free who reached his peak in his 5th season at 10,963 minutes. Tracy McGrady (23) and Carmelo Anthony (22) were the youngest players in this range of scorers.

15000 – 20000 Minutes

10 players fell into this group with 6 peaking after the 1984 season. All were in their 6th, 7th or 8th season except for David Robinson who was only in his 5th. However, the Admiral was already 28 years old which made him average for chronological age in this group.

The oldest player was Paul Arizin at 30 years old in his 7th season who lost two years of his career to the Marines, so conceivably he might have worn down quicker and therefore peaked earlier in his career or might have maintained the same production and instead have logged over 20,000 minutes before reaching his peak.

The youngest was Chris Bosh at age 25, but he also played the 3rd highest minutes of the group.

20,000 – 23,000 Minutes

All of the 7 players here was in their 8th season except Alex English (10th) and all except Bob Pettit (1962) peaked after 1980.

23,000+ Minutes

Another 7 players here to complete the group. All were 30 years of age or older except for the 27-year old Kobe Bryant who logged in at just over 25,000 minutes in his 10th season. And as for seasons, 3 players were in their 9th and 2 a piece for 10th and 11th seasons.

Minus John Havlicek’s glorious 1971 campaign, all of the players here peaked during or after the 1988 season. Players are definitely  prolonging the time it takes to peak. In fact, prior to 1985, 30 of the players here hit their peak. Only 9 did so above the average minute mark of 14,293. After 1985 another 30 players hit their peak and 19 of them did so above the average minute mark.

And of course, only one man reached the peak after logging 30,000 minutes… Hakeem Olajuwon.

Roll that beautiful Dream footage.

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Paroxysmal Pursuit! In this and subsequent editions, I will let my mind wander the landscape of the NBA, past and present, in order to answer nonsensical, mostly unimportant and definitely trivial questions.

Photo by gareth1953 via Flickr

For this first installment of Paroxysmal Pursuit, I tackle the issue of when NBA players reach their peak in terms of scoring prowess. Now, there’s no way on earth I could peruse each and every single player in league history. Nor would I really want to. I’m not too interested in seeing when Tree Rollins averaged a career high scoring for this exercise.

So, the players sampled here are those who averaged at least 20 points per game for their career and also played in at least 500 games in the NBA and/or the ABA. The points per game minimum is my way of singling out the best scorers, even if it does come with flaws. The 500 game limit is to dispose of players whose careers didn’t last long enough to descend from peak play.

This leaves us with 60 players and the following data:

Season: the season the player hit their ppg peak.

Year: the year of their playing career ppg peak was reached.

Age: the age the player at.

% of career ppg: How much larger the high avg. was than the career avg.

Paroxysmal Notes of Interest

Averages by Decade

It’s important to note that Tim Duncan, Ray Allen, and Tracy McGrady are likely to drop out of the 20 ppg career average club. Michael Redd is sitting right at 20.0 ppg and is gearing up for a season in Phoenix of spot minutes, so his average is assuredly about to fall below the line.

Scoring Spike: 1962 is often noted as the most statistically ridiculous season in NBA history. The distinction is well-deserved since it’s the year Wilt averaged 50 points and Oscar threw up a triple double average for the season. However, did you notice that in 2006 and 2007 NINE of the 60 players here set their career high in ppg? Something was definitely in the water.

The Least Deviant: Glenn “Big Dawg” Robinson was the most steady of scorers in this survey. his career average was 20.7 and his career high ppg of 23.4 represented only a 13% increase. Other steady-as-they-come scorers are LeBron James (13.4% increase), Paul Arizin (15.8%), Jerry West (15.9%), Dirk Nowitzki (16.2%), Carmelo Anthony (16.5%), and John Drew (16.9%).

The Most Deviant: These are the players who certainly scored in bunches during their career but at some point they cut back on the binging. Unsurprisingly, Wilt Chamberlain paces this group with his 50.4 ppg high being 67.4% larger than his career average of 30.1.

Other deviant scorers include Charlie Scott (61.4%), Tracy McGrady (57.4%), Walt Bellamy (57.2%), Bob McAdoo (56.1%), and Moses Malone (56.1%).

Baby Faces: Spencer Haywood at 20-years old is the youngest player here to set a career high in ppg. His 30 ppg in 1970 were good enough to take home both MVP and ROY for the ABA that season. LeBron James during his 3rd season at age 21 is the only other player to set a career-high under the age of 22.

Walt Bellamy is the only other player to set a career-high during his rookie season in the go-go season of 1962. Dave Bing, Charlie Scott, Dan Issel, Bob Lanier, Rick Barry, Julius Erving, and Marques Johnson all set their high ppg during their 2nd season.

Fine Wine: Only 8 of the 60 players set their career high in ppg after reaching age 30 and only two of these did so prior to 1986, showing that player longevity and ability to produce during their career arc has increased. The two super studs who defied the aging processes of their eras were Paul Arizin and John Havlicek. Arizin did so at age 30 in his 7th season (1959). Havlicek hit his peak at age 3o, too, in his 9th season (1970).

The most vintage of these wines, though, is Hakeem Olajuwon. In his 11th season at age 32, he crested at 27.8 ppg. Centers at age 32 are usually creaky and starting to resemble the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. Hakeem’s 27.8 ppg represent the single highest scoring average for a center over thirty years of age. His average of 20.8 ppg overall after passing 30 years of age is 2nd only to the wondrous Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

And really, perusing Hakeem’s career stats is what inspired this Paroxysmal Pursuit, so let’s go ahead and see him and his Rockets do their thing back in the mid-90s as he was entering his most vintage years.