Ben Wallace; armpits

Fantasy Sports:

If you play in a H2H (Head-to-head) nine-category fantasy basketball league (FG, FT, PTS, 3PTM, REB, AST, STL, BLK, TO), you might like Ben Wallace.

Under what circumstances would you ever want a guy who can't score more than 5 points a game or make more than half of his free throws? Well, if your team already stinks at FT and PTS, you'd want Ben Wallace

If you filter the NBA player rankings for seven categories, omitting FT and PTS, Ben Wallace is ranked 4th in the entire NBA.

Life:

I want to find a way to stop my armpits from sweating while I'm at work. Armpit sweat is an affliction--a quiet affliction--that doesn't garner the same attention as pimples or hair loss, but it is arguably more devastating. Pimples and hair loss don't stain your favorite button-down.

I heard a rumor that there is this prescription strength anti-perspirant that you put on once a month. You coat your armpits with this stuff that is the consistency of cake batter, you let it dry and then your sweating issues are solved for thirty days.

For anyone who has had to tolerate the chill of a corporate air conditioning unit on their damp armpits for eight hours a day, armpit cake batter sounds like a delicious solution.

The Complete List Of Current NBA Players That Don't (Can't) Dunk In Games

Growing up, my favorite basketball player was Eric Murdock. I used to go to a lot of Providence College basketball games, and Murdock and Carlton Screen were the stars of the team back then. Murdock wasn't a dunker, and although I have a hazy memory of seeing him dunk in a game once, the only video clips of him scoring that I could find were of his signature layup off the glass (see picture).

As I was watching the NCAA Tourney today, I was reminded of Murdock and his non-dunking ways, and I began to wonder how many current NBA players can't dunk. Well, judging from this article, about 20 current NBA players can't dunk. Good to know, but not specific enough for me; I needed to know exactly which twenty-ish current players are unable to dunk. I used the process of elimination and YouTube to get my answer.

What follows is a list of all the guys who do not have an in-game dunk posted on YouTube. Not the most scientific way of separating the dunkers from the non-dunkers, but one could argue that if a dunk isn't on YouTube, it never happened.

List A: These players are on the non-dunking list until a YouTube clip of an in-game dunk surfaces

(Note: I also referenced the CBS Dunk-O-Meter.)

6'5" Roko Ukic - Easily, but in warmups & in writing only.
6'3" Steve Blake - Almost. In-game dunk @ 2:26.
6'3" Steve Nash - This is the closest he's come.
6'3" Beno Udrih - Lots of layups in this mix.
6'3" Jamaal Tinsley - No dunk in top 5 plays.
6'3" Jason Hart - Layup-ish.
6'3" Damon Jones - Gets dunked on here.
6'3" Sergio Rodriguez - Reverse layup.
6'2" Luke Ridnour
6'2" Rafer Alston - Rumored to have in-game dunked.
6'2" Anthony Roberson
6'2" Kevin Ollie
6'2" Mike James - Blocked dunk attempts don't count.
6'2" Marcus Banks
6'2" Chris Quinn - Elevates on jumper.
6'1" Mo Williams - Blocks shot near rim. Added 9/21/10 by Anon: Mo Williams dunking on Pierce.
6'1" Travis Diener
6'1" Eddie House
6'1" Jacque Vaughn - Mix sans dunks.
6'0" DJ Augustin - Layup.
6'0" Sean Singletary - Almost.
6'0" Jameer Nelson - Layup.
6'0" Tyronn Lue
6'0" Seb Telfair - This low-quality video, but no dunks in this mix.
6'0" Kyle Lowry - This low-quality video, but no dunks in this mix.
5'11" Speedy Claxton - All-alone fastbreak layups here.
5'11" Chucky Atkins
5'10" JJ Barea - Practices floaters in this clip.
5'10" Brevin Knight - Floater.
5'10" Mike Wilks - A good view of someone else's dunk.

List B: These players are confirmed dunkers and have been crossed off the non-dunking list (click on name to play video of qualifying dunk)

Jose Calderon
Tony Parker
Chris Paul
Jason Kidd
Kirk Hinrich
JJ Reddick
Ray Allen
Zach Randolph
Allen Iverson
Sun Yue
Oberto
Luis Scola
Deron Williams
Derek Fisher
Anthony Carter
Mike Bibby
Jason Williams
Earl Watson
Luther Head
Chauncey Billups
Louis Williams
Leandro Barbosa
Devin Harris
Monta Ellis
Rajon Rondo
Shannon Brown
Raymond Felton
Lindsay Hunter
Eric Snow - With Snow commentary.
Randy Foye
Goron Dragic
Daniel Gibson
Delonte West
Jason Terry
Aaron Brooks
TJ Ford
Jarrett Jack
Ronnie Price
Jordan Farmar
Mario Chalmers
Gilbert Arenas - I miss Gil.
Kenyon Dooling
Charlie Bell
Will Bynum
Fred Jones
Mike Taylor
Bobby Brown
Anthony Johnson
Willie Green
Jerryd Bayless
George Hill
*Ramon Sessions
*Matt Bonner
*Royal Ivey
*Juan Dixon - Hmm. Small & grainy pic.
*Andre Miller
**CJ Watson - He can...video? (Dunk-O-Meter says 1 in '09)
**Chris Duhon - Yes, but in game? (Dunk-O-Meter says 1 in '09)
**Mike Conley - Pops can, but... (Dunk-O-Meter says 2 in '09)

*Photo proof only (no video found)
**Dunk-O-Meter proof only (no video found)

List C: It is possible these players are non-dunkers, but they are no longer in the NBA

5'5" Earl Boykins (playing in Italy)
6'0" Dan Dickau (waived)
5'10" Damon Stoudamire (retired)

My guess is that about ten of the guys on List A have actually dunked in a game, but for whatever reason that video isn't posted on YouTube. If true, this would still leave about twenty guys left on the non-dunker list, which is consistent with the SI article I referenced earlier in this post.

Am I missing anyone? Do you have video proof that could move a player from List A to List B? Great. Post it in the comment section and I'll update the list. The idea is for this list to get more accurate over time.

Chris Bosh vs. Nate Robinson: What Happened Next?

Check out this photograph:

Now vote in this poll...what do you think happened immediately after this photograph was taken?



Want to know what actually happened? Then watch this video by clicking here.

And that's all for this installment of What Happened Next?

Sinkhole Vertical Leaps: 2009 Slam Dunk Contest

How high can the 2009 Slam Dunk contestants—J.R. Smith, Nate Robinson, Rudy Fernandez, and Dwight Howard—jump?

Truth is, it’s hard to say because it is difficult to believe any vertical jump / vertical leap data that's out there. But let’s pretend that all the vert data we find on the net is true. Here are the standing vertical leaps of the 2009 Sprite Slam Dunk contestants:

Rudy Fernandez’s vertical leap: 120 cm

What does 120 centimeters mean to you inch-lovers? Well, it converts to 47 inches. Do I believe it? Not really. (That picture feature in the link above isn't helping his case.) I mean, his draft profile said that he needed to “work on his vertical leap.” So unless he really worked on it, I’m guessing it isn’t 47 inches (note: other pre-draft sites said he had a "nice" vertical, so clearly the information is conflicting). But maybe he surprises us during the contest and and makes some "so so awesome dunks." Sort of like how he surprised Dwight Howard on this play.

J.R. Smith's vertical leap: 44 inches

He’s a very good in-game dunker, and he supposedly had a 44 inch vertical coming out of high school.

Nate Robinson’s vertical leap: 43.5 inches

This is, of course, according to wikipedia. Incidentally, he also set the Washington state record in the 110 hurdles, keeping up his trend of playing sports that most short people avoid. Nate Robinson's official height (and I believe these numbers) is only 5 feet, 7.75 inches, and his standing reach is only 7 feet, 7.5 inches. So he has to jump almost three feet just to dunk the ball in a non-fancy way.

Dwight Howard’s vertical leap: 38 - 40 inches (and a standing reach of 9'3 1/2)

Fast forward to the 2:39 mark of this video to see Baby Dwight touching 80% of the way up the backboard.

Click here for more vertical leap information, as well video of some of the dunks Dwight Howard didn't get to use in the Slam Dunk Contest last year.

A-Rod, Steroids, and The Eddy Curry Lineage

In the 2007 – 2008 NBA season, Eddy Curry epitomized my biggest fan dilemma, as he was my least favorite NBA big man and he was playing for my least favorite coach alongside my least favorite point guard on my most favorite NBA team. On any given play, I found myself rooting for Eddy Curry to miss a shot and then rooting for David Lee to hit Marbury with a stray elbow as he put back the resulting offensive board for a score. This added complication ruined the experience of watching the Knicks play, so much so that I briefly considered pretending I liked the Charlotte Bobcats. Things got so bad that I even tried to postulate that Walter “Dub R Dub N” Herrmann was the most exciting player in the NBA.

As many of you probably know, a few years ago the “Eddy Curry Line” was established by Matt Buser, a former Y! fantasy sports writer who currently runs busersports.com, as a measure of futility. 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.

As a direct result of being forced to watch the ’07 – ’08 Knicks play, I transmuted Buser's idea of the Eddy Curry Line so that it became a way for me to determine my amount of dislike for a given player. Among friends, I called it The Eddy Curry Lineage—I don't know why, it just felt natural, maybe because The Lineage was a descendant of The Line.  Anyway, when a player is under The Eddy Curry Lineage, I root against them even if they are on my favorite team. If Barry Bonds ever becomes a Yankee, for example, I would root against him. Barry Bonds is below The Eddy Curry Lineage.

I understand that the timing of this post isn’t perfect, given the recent events that Curry has gone through in his personal life, but my intent is not to slander Curry. I’m not sure that rooting against Curry was ever productive, but it certainly isn’t productive now, as so much has changed with the Knicks in the last year: Thomas is gone, Marbury is gone-ish, and Curry is injured, out of shape, and probably heartbroken.

But I was reminded of The Eddy Curry Lineage when the A-Rod / steroids story broke. Given my status as a Yankee fan, I've tried to keep A-Rod above The Eddy Curry Lineage. And I have, barely. I cheer for him, defend him, and generally tolerate him. To my mind, there is no denying that he is an incredible baseball player and saying otherwise is folly.  At the same time, my feelings for him have alternated between ambivalence and mild dislike. Perhaps what has saved him for me is that I find his complete inability to control how he is perceived to be uniquely interesting.

To help me deal with A-Rod being on my favorite team, I developed a theory about it. Essentially, I decided that A-Rod had “chancha,” which I defined as a strange sort of melancholy in which an incredibly successful person who has everything feels sad because he is terrified that at some point his amazing luck will run out and things will start to suck. I suggested that A-Rod had an inability to enjoy the good times of his life because he was constantly obsessing about where or when the guillotine of ills would drop. This affliction is a subtle emptiness and brings with it a self-centeredness mixed with insecurity that makes the afflicted pretty annoying to be around.

(I have no idea if any of this is true. These are just some of the mental hoops I jump through and rationalizations I make in order make rooting for the Yankees possible.)

So while the recent steroids news about A-Rod has certainly injected an element of uncertainty into my already fragile A-Rod fandom, the silver lining of it all is that perhaps A-Rod will finally be able to shake his self-absorbed chancha affliction—he no longer has to fear the worst because baseball-wise, steroids are pretty much as bad as it gets—and become someone to root for unreservedly.

Staying In The Cafeteria With Rodney Stuckey

Until recently, I considered Rodney Stuckey to be one of those annoying players who is relentlessly hyped by those who are in the business of relentless hype-making. You know the sort of player I mean: he performs well for a game, maybe two, but ultimately no amount of opportunity enables him to harness his potential. A 29 point, 11 assist game is immediately followed up by a forgettable three point, four foul effort. People get on and off his bandwagon like it is a trolley car. Think Tyrus Thomas, or Yi Jianlian.

I mostly ignored Stuckey.

Looking back, it is impressive that a certain NBA guru had Stuckey pegged so accurately earlier this past summer. In a way, it reminds me of the high school history teacher who knows that Sonya Marks in his AP History class will ultimately blossom into a beautiful woman. Meanwhile, all the high school boys naively pursue Alicia Cartova. Ten years later, Sonya Marks is in makeup commercials and Alica Cartova still lives in your hometown, looks tired all the time, and works behind the counter of a local hardware store that is slowly being run out of business by Home Depot.

My relationship to NBA players is all about teenager-maturity-level love. To give this pursuit of love some context, it should be noted that in my hometown, school dances were held in the cafeteria. Students who were bored with the dance were permitted to go down the hall to the basketball gym. So that's what my friends and I did. We didn't even play real games, either. Instead, we threw court-length baseball-style passes in our never ending attempt to reenact this moment.

So, when it recently (and finally) occurred to me that I was in love with Stuckey, that he was more Sonia than Alicia, I rushed to my fantasy basketball league's waiver wire and was elated to see that he was still available.

I promptly asked him to the homecoming dance.

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.

Who Is The Most Exciting Sports Athlete Today?

Well, it's a toss up between The Black President, Purple Jesus, and...Walter Herrmann.

You don't know who Walter Herrmann is now. But you will soon.

Note: After Sean May got hurt and Adam Morrison tore his ACL in a preseason game, I had to pick another distinctive-looking Bobcat to root for. I will continue rooting for Herrmann and the Bobcats until Isiah Thomas is fired and Eddy Curry and Stephon Marbury are traded.

Sinkhole Vertical Leaps

Welcome "vertical leap" and "vertical jump" google searchers. If you are looking for a one-stop shopping list of some of the best vertical leapers and the answer to the question "how high can so-and-so jump," you've come to the right place. Before you leave, don't forget to check out the rest of the blog. It is a bit fantasy baseball focused, but perhaps you'll find something else fun to read. A recent post on the 2009 Slam Dunk contestants might be of interest.

Dwight Howard, who made the only memorable 2007 slam dunk contest dunk when he placed a sticker at the very top of the backboard before dunking, now has a video circulating on YouTube in which he kisses the rim before dunking.

After witnessing Dwight pucker up and kiss rim in mid-flight, I decided to catalogue as many vertical leaps as possible here in this post. I have listed the vertical leaps of a handful of athletes, but please remember that these are only ballpark figures. In the same way that many 5’11” basketball players are listed in programs as being 6’2”, accurate vertical numbers can be hard to obtain.

Note: A true vertical is measured from a standing jump. I assume that these figures were taken when these players were in their prime. I highly doubt that Kemp could jump out of a shoebox lid these days.

UPDATE: 2/9/09: Take these numbers with a grain of salt. As someone mentioned in the comment section, sometimes people like to use the running vert because it is higher, but a true vert is a standing vert. All the numbers below are supposed to be standing verts, but again, many of these numbers are more marketing than reality. Oh, and Lionel Marshall supposedly has a 50 inch vert, as this youtube clip shows. Sounds like a running vert to me, but the guy can clearly fly.

Oh, and if you're using these numbers to win a bet, I'm not sure this clinches it for you. I mean, seriously. This is a random blog quoting random sources from around the net, right? Heh, heh. Busted.

• 6’11” Dwight Howard: 38-40 inch vert, 12’6” jumping reach, 9'3 1/2 standing reach
• 6’8” 2007 NBA All Star Slam Dunk Champion Gerald Green: 46 to 48-inch vert
• 7’0” Andrew Bogut: 28-inch vert, can touch 9’2” while standing flatfooted
• Andre Iguodala 34-inch vert
• 6’7” Marvin Williams: 29-inch vert, has a wingspan of 7’3”
• 6’2” shooting guard Troy Bell: 41-inch vert
• Andre Iguodala: 34-inch vert
• J.J. Redick: 33-inch vert
• Vince Carter: 43-inch vert, 8'11" standing reach, 12'6" jumping reach
• Karl Malone: 28-inch vert, 9'2" standing reach, 11'6" jumping reach
• Shaq: 32-inch vert, 9'8" standing reach, 12'4" jumping reach
• Kobe Bryant: 38-inch vert, 8'10" standing reach, 12'0" jumping reach
• Steve Francis: 43-inch vert, 8'5" standing reach, 12'3" jumping reach
• Antonio McDyess: 42-inch vert
• Allen Iverson: 41-inch vert
• Shawn Kemp: 40-inch vert (Seattle)
• Rex Chapman: 39-inch vert
• Desmond Mason: 38-inch vert
• Lamar Odom: 32-inch vert
• Michael Jordan: 48-inch vert (Chicago), 8'10" standing reach, 12'5" jumping reach
• Dominique Wilkins: 42-inch vert, 9'0" standing reach, 12'6" jumping reach
• Larry Bird: 28-inch vert, 9'1" standing reach, 11'5" jumping reach
• Dr. J: 41-inch vert, 8'11" standing reach, 12'4" jumping reach
• Spudd Webb: 46-inch vert, 7'4" standing reach, 11'2" jumping reach
• Daryl Dawkins: 34-inch vert, 9'4" standing reach, 12'2" jumping reach
• Dee Brown: 44-inch vert
• Harold Miner: 44-inch vert
• Larry Nance: 40-inch vert
• Ralph Sampson: 36-inch vert
• Magic Johnson: 30-inch vert

Other High Vertical Leaps (Non-NBA)
• 5’10” Kadour Ziani (slamnation): 60-inch vert
• Michael Wilson (Globetrotters): 51-inch vert
• Reggie Thompson (Jumpsoles): 56-inch vert
• Ronnie Fields (CBA): 48-inch vert
• Melvin Levett: 45-inch vert
• A Zombie: 0-inch vert
• Me: at least a 13-inch vert (I can reach 7'5" and I just touched my 8'6" ceiling)

NFL
• Randy Moss: 51-inch vert
• Jevon Kearse 265 lbs: 40-inch vert

NCAA
• Brandon Dean: 39-inch vert

UPDATE 3/11/09: Anon is the comments section gave a good tip. Check out this "Golden Child" of TFB dunking here. He's got a strange dunking style, almost like he's too high and has to dunk the ball down from too far up...he looks like he's dunking on a nerf hoop over door frame, you know? What is TFB? It is all explained here.

(sources: here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Other Reading(s):

NBA players that don't (can't) in-game dunk (according to youtube).

The complete list of female in-game dunks (according to youtube).