Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Fives In Quintuplicate


No one in the history of the NBA has ever had a quintuple double.*

I have recently become interested in the next best thing to a quintuple double: the 5-by-5 stat. Current players who are threats to get 5-by-5 include: Gerald Wallace, Ben Wallace, Josh Smith, Kevin Garnett, Andrei Kirilenko, Marcus Camby, and Shawn Marion. Tonight, for example, Josh Smith was one block short of his first-ever 5-by-5: 18 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 5 steals, and 4 blocks.

I postulate that the 5-by-5 stat has a high correlation with Ex-Factor.

Sinkhole Poll: Who do you think will be next NBA player to get a 5-by-5?

*This is not exactly true: steal and block statistics have only been kept since the 1973-74 season.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your theory will blow up in your face when Eddy Curry, the least exciting NBA player in the history of the game, is the next player to get a five-by-five.

DrGravitee said...

I hope not. Eddy Curry currently epitomizes my biggest fan dilemma, as he is my least favorite player in the universe and he is playing for my least favorite coach on my most favorite NBA team. On any given play, I may be rooting for Eddy Curry to miss a shot and then root for David Lee to put back the resulting offensive board for a score. This added complication ruins the experience, as the only true fun fan experience is the where you wholeheartedly yearn for the victory of your team. In this same way, steroids inject an element of uncertainty into fandom that is rather deflating.

DrGravitee said...

Tangentially, I have invented my own “Eddy Curry Line.” For me, it represents how much I dislike a player.

For example: A-Rod is above the Eddy Curry Line. When A-Rod was a Yankee, I cheered for him, defended him, and generally tolerated him. There is no denying that he is an incredible baseball player and saying otherwise is folly. I was happy to have his ability wearing a Yankee uniform. Now that he is not a Yankee, however, I can go back to alternating between feeling ambivalent and mild dislike for him. His inability to control how he is perceived will always be interesting to me (and it underscores how good Jordan was at this), but I will not stay up late to watch one of his at bats. And I will root against him.

When a player is under the Eddy Curry Line, I root against them even if they are on my own team. If Barry Bonds ever becomes a Yankee, I will still root against him. He is below the Eddy Curry Line.

DrGravitee said...

Note, the original Eddy Curry Line was established by Matt Buser, a Y! fantasy sports writer. The standard: a player must average more turnovers than assists, steals, and blocks combined – in order to qualify, a player must have appeared in at least half of his team's games and averaged at least 20 minutes of playing time.

DrGravitee said...

Josh Smith's line for Nov. 7th: 22 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals and 5 blocks. (Another near 5-by-5!)

Musa D said...

The Blog 5x5 is when someone posts 5 times in a row uninterrupted, each post with 5 comments from the author.

The only person ever to accomplish this is Gilbert Arenas (under the blogger name StickItInYour0) on his underground DC United/fantasy MLS site, Unreal Heroes de la Foot.