On the First Day of Christmas, I Really Tried to Watch: 12 Hours of Basketball

In case you had to spend your Christmas with family members, or doing something other than watching over TWELVE HOURS of basketball – don’t worry, I tried to do it for you. This was me at 12:30 last night:

12:00PM EST – Brooklyn Nets vs. Chicago Bulls

Q1 – 12:00 – Scrimmage Game #1 today features a rematch from the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs last May. You can understand why the schedule included these two teams – Derrick Rose was supposed to elevate the Bulls to ‘contender’ status, and the Nets have spent more money on players than...actually than nothing. They've spent more money on players than anyone has on anything. Ever.  However, the teams are a combined 19-34 this year, somehow failing to be a part of the playoff picture in a dismal Eastern Conference. But Jimmy Butler and Kirk Hinrich are both back in the Bulls lineup (they’re still missing Luol Deng), so maybe they’ll continue their upward trend from their last 10 games (6-4). The Nets, meanwhile, get Kevin Garnett back in action, which is a major boost after losing their leading scorer/rebounder/pickup line artist/basketball player Brook Lopez for the season. Plus...DJ Augustin!

Can you tell I’m trying to convince myself it is worth sitting in front of the TV for this game?

ICYMI: There's A New Jetson

We now bring you the first part of a new and what we hope will be a season-long series: Did You See What Happened on "Inside the NBA on TNT?"

The Scene: December 19, 2013.  Halftime of the Golden State Warriors vs. San Antonio Spurs.

What: Charles "Chuck" Barkley fails to correctly remember Elroy Jetson's name, instead calling him Leroy Jetson.

Our favorite things about this segment:

Some Studs, Some Duds, and Kevin Love's Moustache

We’re back, baby! That’s right, after a lengthy hiatus due to the off-season, other time commitments, and general apathy towards the sort of NBA “news” typically found between July and October (Al Jefferson thinks the Bobcats are “ready to take the next step!”), Volume Shooters is returning for a second season. This year, in addition to the quality writing (OK, just quality .gifs, but please bear with us here) you’ve come to expect from Paul, Jack and Brian, we have a veritable stable of new writers coming into the fold this year anxious to share their thoughts on the greatest professional league in the world. We will have them introduce themselves when they write their first pieces, but trust us when we say they all will have good insight into the season – despite what you may think from talking to them every day.

But onto the important stuff: this NBA season! Most teams are 16-18 games in so far, so most of the extremely small sample size results (the Sixers can win the East! The Nuggets will be favorites in the lottery!) have evened themselves out. Despite this, there have been some major surprises thus far, and people are starting to backtrack on some of their preseason predictions. So which of these trends are likely to continue and which will die out by season’s end? Considering I was correct on a full ONE AND A HALF out of FIVE bold predictions last year, I feel as though I’m uniquely qualified to answer that question. We will examine some early season trends, and grade them as True, Truthy, Falsey, and “Skip Bayless-certified.” So here we go…

Trend: Indiana is the best team in the league

In fact, they are so good it bores Lance Stephenson

More Than Just a Pretty Shot

We know. We know. We post about Steph a lot. Ok, ok, ok...a LOT. But over the last few days a couple of pieces have gone viral in the Davidson social media circles that have absolutely spoken to the heart  of Davidson, Stephen Curry himself, and why everyone enjoys watching him play.

The first comes from a good friend from our Davidson years (she lived on the same freshman hall as Paul and Jack), Gabi Wallace. Fair warning - it's quite touching.

Davidson Daybook: An Old Man's Wish and a Wildcat Favor - by Gabrielle Wallace

The second piece comes from another Davidson classmate of ours, one who played on the women's basketball team while at Davidson and spent a decent amount of time sharing the gym with Steph.

Charlotte Magazine: Prettier Than He Looks - by Amanda Ottoway

It's no wonder why the Davidson community has suddenly morphed into some of the biggest Golden State fans in the country. And if these pieces haven't convinced you to cheer for the Warriors tonight as they attempt to level their playoff series once more, then maybe this will:

Obscure NBA Player of the Week: Festus Ezeli

Each week at Volume Shooters, we highlight an NBA player, past or present, who doesn't spend much time in the spotlight but is nonetheless a valuable cog in his team's quest for the championship. Obscure players tend to be on obscure teams, but with the playoffs going on, we tried to pick somebody out from one of the title contenders. Here's this week's edition:

While watching the Spurs-Warriors game yesterday, I thought Mark Jackson's coaching Chi that he had built up over the course of the playoffs would finally come crashing down. In the first 4 minutes of the game, both of his starting post players (Andrew Bogut and Carl Landry) had picked up 2 fouls, which would ordinarily relegate both of them to the bench for the remainder of the quarter. Yet Jackson for some reason could only be bothered to retrieve Landry (replacing him with David Lee), leaving Bogut in...to defend the best power forward ever...without fouling? Sure enough, it took about 45 seconds for Bogut to pick up a bad foul, so Jackson was forced to bench him...for Landry? Sure enough again, Landry also picked up a quick third, leaving Jackson without any trusted options...save for one. As he has done all season, he called on a rookie to come in and play big minutes, and while he did not play spectacularly, he did just enough to keep the Warriors in the game until halftime. Who was this mysterious rookie (and no, it wasn't Kent Bazemore)?

In his much younger years...

Yep, it was none other than Festus Ezeli, an athletic big man in his first NBA season. So why did Jackson turn to him in this spot? ...well, probably because the only other option was Andris Biedrins. But keep reading anyway.

Live Blog - Nuggets-Warriors, Game 6.

The gang invited a special guest to live blog (most of) Game 6 from Oracle Arena. Below is the largely unedited transcript of our conversation, with parentheticals added to delineate critical events within the game.

 Paul:  Well guys, welcome back to another exciting edition of the Volume Shooters live blog! We've got a special guest with us tonight, resident Warriors fan William "Frattin" Stratton Roberts. Bulls v. Nets however is still ongoing so we're catching the end of it quickly. What say you all?

 Jack:  DAVID LEEEEEEE

(For reference, a TNT game break just showed David Lee warming up.)

 Brian:  hey will!

(i'm sitting next to him)

that's so funny

 Will:  regretting inviting me yet?

 Jack:  I don't know if we get the same commercials or not, but I would like to say that I hate the "Hopper" commercials with all the miniature crap. "It's the same thing"...the hell it's not! I don't want a tiny ass beer and one nacho!

Related...I do like the AT&T commercials. I'm sorry, what's going on? The Bulls are down 4 with 2:45 left?

 Brian:  Resident Warriors fan Will can barely contain himself. Will Steph go for 40? Can Andrew Bogut continue his resurgence? Can the Nuggets continue their dirty play from game 5 with plenty of help from the refs? So many story lines!

 Will:  Thanks for the invite guys! I have a number of opinions. I'm glad I have you in my reach to share them. And probably have to reach the.

Read *

Them *

Already Drunk.

Obscure NBA Player of the Week: Marco Belinelli

Each week at Volume Shooters, we highlight an NBA player, past or present, who doesn't spend much time in the spotlight but is nonetheless a valuable cog in his team's quest for the championship. Thanks to our readers for the suggestion of this week's Obscure NBA Player.

Pop quiz: there are three current NBA players who were born in the beautiful country of Italy (not including Kobe Bryant, who spent a number of years there but was in fact born in Philadelphia). Two of these players, Danilo Gallinari and Andrea Bargnani, are fairly well known - the former for knocking down clutch shots this year and the latter for being lustily booed by his home fans for recent terrible play. But who is the third player? This guy:

No, not Sylvester Stallone, but Bulls shooting guard Marco Belinelli! Here's what you need to know about Marco.

How Deep Are They?

Along with "clutch player," "great execution," and "hand down, man down," one of the most common platitudes you hear while watching an NBA game is "this team goes [X] players deep." While it is true that every NBA player is one of the best players in the world, there are certain guys who pretty much don't play unless a team has foul trouble or the game is a blowout. Announcers love to talk about how deep a team's bench goes, but how can one really quantify the depth of a bench? At Volume Shooters, we take a (highly scientific) look at this question using the following criteria: which team has the best player as the Xth guy in their rotation? One man's opinion is below:

(Best team) 1-deep: Miami Heat

A fairly obvious choice here considering the Heat have the best player in the world right now. While you could argue that a better scorer would be more important if the rest of your team has minimal talent, LeBron's variety of skills would allow him to adapt however the team needed on that night.

Also Considered: OKC Thunder, LA Clippers, San Antonio Spurs