Mamba Out, Beard In - Yahoo is reporting this morning that James Harden has been named starter for this weekend’s All-Star game. As we covered before, Harden was the logical choice. He will start alongside Steph Curry in the backcourt, with Kevin Love, Blake Griffin and Kevin Durant making up the frontcourt. West coach Scott Brooks made the right choice.
Mike and Mike, Rockets Edition - Wednesday morning Coach Kevin McHale was a guest on Mike and Mike, in which they talked about Greenie and Golic playing in the Celebrity All-Star game, Dwight Howard’s progress and the difficulties of preparing for Kevin Durant.
This morning, James Harden joined the guys for a public taping from New Orleans. Topics included the complications of owning such an epic beard, how injuries have affected the Rockets’ season so far and whether Durant has ascended to LeBron’s level.
Stat Geekery -
In case you missed it last night, .NBA.com/stats boxscores now include SportVU player tracking data: http://t.co/mcyqkPWZmj
— John Schuhmann (@johnschuhmann) February 14, 2014
This isn’t Rockets’ news per se, but if you’re into the nerdier side of following the NBA, this is a pretty cool development. That is, if you like knowing things like the average speed Jeremy Lin played at, or how many touches Dwight Howard had, or how many rebound chances Terrence Jones received.
The fact is, this is the way front offices are watching and evaluating basketball these days and for fans who like to stay as informed as possible on which players do what and why, these stats provide that window. Nice job by NBA.com.
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