Just trying out some new stuff. Here’s a short post with some quick hits and interesting tidbits from around the Web. Hit play for some tunes while you read…

• Did you know that Allen Iverson and Joe Dumars actually played against each other?

• Here’s an interesting blog post about the Toronto Raptors. With Chris Bosh, Jose Calderon, and Jermaine O’Neal, how can this team be bad? Interesting reading there…

• Ken Berger at SportsLine writes a comparison of Greg Oden and Derrick Rose. Who would you rather have? A few league GMs joined the debate.

• Who was the better point guard, John Stockton or Isiah Thomas? We know who Quinn would choose, but is it warranted?

• For the Boston dudes, how did you celebrate “Birdmas” this year?

• BallHype is a promising blog with lots of videos and news.

• Is Lebron James as good or better than Kobe Bryant? The guys at “Kobe Bryant. Respect.” don’t think so, but they lay out their case pretty well.

• I meant to put up a short post to experiment with the tunes, and this has now taken me over an hour and a half. WTF?

• Though The Mighty is a multi-ring holder, he has never won a H2H ring. In my view, this makes him somewhat of a charlatan.

After an extremely hectic period at work and great relaxing Thanksgiving weekend with The Main Event (the cornbread sausage stuffing was straight dope), I’m back with a new (temporary) picture from The Show’s fabulous wedding in Playa del Carmen. Whaddya think? Anyways, it certainly feels like a long way to the playa right now, and it’s just getting colder every day here in Prague. That has me thinking of heat, and who’s hot in the NBA right now.

Biggest news I’ve seen today is the emergence of none other than Flambo’s pre-season sleeper, Mr. Enigmatic Dan Gadzuric. He busted out last night with a whopper of 11 pts (4-5 shooting), 14 rebs, 3 blks and a steal in just 21 minutes. Is this the beginning of an all-star season for this unheralded beast?

Speaking of hot hands, where did Devin Harris come from? Last week he played four games with an average of 33pts (60.7% FG%), 84.8 FT% (11 attempts per game), 4.3 rebs, 5.3 asts, 1.3 stls and 1.0 3FGM. Damn! I guess he’s trying to prove that the YouTube video of him getting punked on the streets of London was a fluke. Whatever, that’s some serious heat.

Another guy playing well of late is Rajon Rondo. Unfortunately, my nemesis of the week, Dark Knight, has Rondo and is taking advantage of my injuries to serve me something fierce this week. Last night Rondo had his first career triple-double with 16pts (50% FG%), 13 rebs, 17 asts and 3 stls. Damn, Blount-man, you should be the one writing about this.

On another note, I came across another basketball blog, not fantasy, that had some really interesting articles. It’s called The Painted Area, and I particularly like this one talking about the Cav’s offense with LeBron in the post. Check it out, there aren’t too many places on the web where you get an interesting read and learn about the game, as well.

That’s it for me today. Got my first Christmas party of the season tomorrow night, then another week before leaving freezing Prague for warm California for a nice extended break with the family. Meanwhile, I’m hoping Josh Howard plays tonight, and plays well, damn it!

A fan favorite in the TTL, unnamed sources have reported that a deal has been reached sending Allen Iverson to the Detroit Pistons for Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess. Overall, I’d have to say I’m pretty pleased with this trade.

I think Iverson really liked playing in Denver, and he had one of his best overall years last year. But now he is going to a really solid team. Tayshaun Prince, Richard Hamilton, and Rasheed Wallace have played together forever and have great chemistry. But though they perenially have a great regular season, I don’t think too many people outside of Detroit really believed they could win a championship. Clearly they had to shake things up, and I’m sure this decision was a tough one.

Can Iverson fit in with this squad? For sure, I think a trade so early in the season is better than a last-minute trade like the one that landed him in Denver. But I don’t think it will be that hard for him to fit in. This will be a better team than any he’s ever played on, including the scrappy team that went to the Finals in 2001. I think they’ll find a way to make it work.

From a fantasy perspective, I don’t think this will really affect Iverson’s performance. He’s a stud, and there’s no changing that. I think Billups will have a harder time adjusting in Denver. Carmelo Anthony will likely see an increase in scoring. This could boost him to close to 30 PPG. It will be interesting to see what happens, but I don’t really see Denver as that much better off.

What do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments.

Special shout out to PennyCCW over at YouTube. He’s put together an amazing collection of Iverson videos. Here’s one of them from Iverson’s second game as a Nugget…

The company I work for, Good Data, makes business intelligence software that allows you to slice and dice large data sets and produce insightful reports. While testing it out, I decided to input the NBA’s stats that I found on a website. Unfortunately, the data don’t go down to the game level, but just have player stats aggregated by season, playoffs, all-star games, team stats, etc.

This is an interesting table below. It shows a list of all players who have averaged more than 30 points a game in the NBA’s history. I’ll probably be adding more tidbits like these in the days to come. If you want to see something, leave me a note in the comments and I’ll try to see if I can do it.

NBA’s Greatest Scorers

Players who have averaged over 30 PPG for a season

. Year Player Scoring Avg . 1961 Wilt Chamberlain 50.3625 . 1962 Wilt Chamberlain 44.825 . 1960 Wilt Chamberlain 38.3924 . 1961 Elgin Baylor 38.25 . 1959 Wilt Chamberlain 37.5972 . 1986 Michael Jordan 37.0854 . 1963 Wilt Chamberlain 36.85 . 1966 Rick Barry 35.5769 . 2005 Kobe Bryant 35.4 . 1987 Michael Jordan 34.9756 . 1971 Kareem Abdul-jabbar 34.8395 . 1960 Elgin Baylor 34.7671 . 1964 Wilt Chamberlain 34.7123 . 1974 Bob Mcadoo 34.5244 . 1968 Rick Barry 34 . 1962 Elgin Baylor 33.9875 . 1972 Nate Archibald 33.9875 . 1989 Michael Jordan 33.5732 . 1965 Wilt Chamberlain 33.5316

. 1971 Charlie Scott 33.3797 . 1979 George Gervin 33.141 . 2005 Allen Iverson 33.0139 . 1984 Bernard King 32.8909 . 1992 Michael Jordan 32.5769 . 1988 Michael Jordan 32.5062 . 1981 George Gervin 32.2911 . 2002 Tracy Mcgrady 32.0933 . 1972 Julius Erving 31.9437 . 1970 Kareem Abdul-jabbar 31.6585 . 1961 Walt Bellamy 31.5823 . 2006 Kobe Bryant 31.5584 . 1971 Rick Barry 31.475 . 1990 Michael Jordan 31.4634 . 1963 Oscar Robertson 31.3924 . 2001 Allen Iverson 31.3833 . 2005 LeBron James 31.3671 . 1965 Jerry West 31.3418 . Oscar Robertson 31.2895 . 1969 Jerry West 31.2027

. 1959 Jack Twyman 31.1733 . 1961 Bob Pettit 31.141 . 1976 Pete Maravich 31.137 . 1975 Bob Mcadoo 31.1154 . 1981 Moses Malone 31.1111 . 2000 Allen Iverson 31.0845 . 1989 Karl Malone 30.9756 . 1964 Jerry West 30.973 . 1961 Jerry West 30.8 . Oscar Robertson 30.7848 . 1987 Dominique Wilkins 30.7308 . 1982 Adrian Dantley 30.7273 . 2004 Allen Iverson 30.6933 . 1980 Adrian Dantley 30.65 . 1974 Rick Barry 30.625 . 1983 Adrian Dantley 30.6076 . 1971 Dan Issel 30.5783 . 1973 Bob Mcadoo 30.5541 . 1966 Oscar Robertson 30.5316 . 1960 Oscar Robertson 30.493

. 1964 Oscar Robertson 30.3867 . 1995 Michael Jordan 30.378 . 1981 Adrian Dantley 30.3333 . 1985 Dominique Wilkins 30.3333 . 1979 World Free 30.2206 . 1968 Connie Hawkins 30.2128 . 1972 Kareem Abdul-jabbar 30.1579 . 2007 LeBron James 30.0676 . 1991 Michael Jordan 30.05 . 2002 Kobe Bryant 30.0122 .

Scottie Pippen was amazing in 1996. EJ, this one’s for you…

I was on YouTube recently and found this sweet video. Allen Iverson has pretty much been unstoppable in the NBA since his rookie year. In college, it was ridiculous, and fun as hell to watch. Go Hoyas!