I’ve wanted a place like this for a while, kind of a Cheers on the Web for the growing number of smart and witty basketball fans looking for something different who are finding each other on the information superhighway. Well, like Cheers but you have to supply your own drink (as if Diane was going to get your order right anyway). Still, a friendly place where conventional wisdom was challenged, assumptions laid to waste, some fun poked at people and all of it that done with some style.
Enter CourtsideTimes.net. It’s the brainchild of Mike, better known around here as Knickerblogger, and he’s not shy about saying he saw what baseball fans had at places such as Hardballtimes and Baseball Think Factory and wanted to to convert the ideas to NBA themes. To really get an idea of his vision, check out the site’s manifesto.
Log on to the Courtside Times home page and on the right side is some of the NBA news headlines of the day, followed by comments from everyone — ala Baseball Think Factory’s Primer (if you’re a baseball fan and don’t read this, you’re missing out). On the other side are fresh articles every day from some of the best NBA writers on the Web — particularly “NBA moneyball†stats writers, who appear to be going by the term APBRmetricians — with insights into everything NBA related.
What will make this a must read are the people. There’s Knickerblogger, the dean and still best of the NBA bloggers; there’s Justin Kubatko, who is the driving force behind basketball-reference.com; there’s Harlan Schreiber from Hoopsanalyst, one of my favorite hoops sites; there’s Kevin Broom, who has done some of the best work at Real GM and has done great work on defensive charting and statistics; there’s Ed Küpfer, who does some of the best statistical breakdowns on the Web (for long-time readers of this site, Ed used to have a site called Stats Pimp that I often referred to, I have no idea why he would give up that moniker); Scott from the very good Raptor Blog; and themightymjd, which, if you haven’t found it, is one of the best all-around sports blogs out there, this guy is funny and insightful. Plus there are a couple of people who may pitch in now and then who are as good or better than those mentioned.
And there’s me. I’m in way over my head with this crowd, but I’m going to bluff my way along and hope nobody figures it out. Already up are my NBA season predictions, and there is a lot more to come. Plus, you can bet I’ll be an active part of the news and notes comments daily — as you should be.
Check it out, and bookmark it. Pretty soon I think you’ll find Courtside Times as comfortable a part of your life as swinging by the bar with all your best friends.
Kurt says
Before someone asks, my goal is not to have CourtsideTimes impact the (cough, cough) quality of work here — some of my more league-wide thoughts and posts may get fleshed out and end up there rather than here, and I’ll be linking to things there that I think are must reads, but nothing is going to change on this end.
john says
kings 3rd? you crazy.
i think them not being as good of a passing team now will take em down a few notches. poor abdul rahim.
warriors still won’t make it. too many honkies in the starting lineup. if davis stays healthy they got a shot maybe.
sonics might fall a couple spaces. lakers’ll finish higher.
uh..ahem, something’s stuck in my throat that doesn’t want to come out…
.clippers might sneak in
Kurt says
I only have the Kings third because I think they win the Pacific (with Phoenix hobbled) and with that comes a top-three seed for the playoffs. If I was just ranking teams I’d have the Kings fifth, but I think they are very good.
Like I said in the notes for that prediction piece, the Lakers, Clippers, Warriors, T-Wolves and just about every other team in the West is good enough to get a playoff spot. The key is staying healthy.
And I may be alone in this, but I like the Warriors this year. Say 47 wins, but Davis has to play 70ish games.
Kurt says
In case you didn’t see it updated below, the Lakers just cut Corie Blount, so Devin Green makes the squad. Good on him.
christian says
all the predictions are great and all but when it comes down to it everything or at least a lot of the factors that come in to play are like previously stated a team being able to stay healthy. I mean look at how everyone is viewing Pheonix right now. With Amare gone there is a huge doubt in everyones mind that they are going to be even a glimmer of what they were last year. What happens if say Tim Duncan goes down for 2 months and Manu gets hurt a little bit later for a streach is everyone going to say that the west and the title is up for grabs? Like I said predictions are great and I think that Kurt you are almost right on the money with yours but the clippers not making the playoff’s? I see them getting the 7th or 8th spot and the lakers moving higher then predicted. (That is if they can stay healthy for the majority of the season) and that “if” is a huge one. (man my head hurts from thinking too much into it.) Thank you for your information because I use this website as the major contirbutor to my knowledge of “The Greatest Team” (and I mean as a franchise not this year of course) to ever play the game.
john says
ahhhh yes, that division crap. forgot about that. now you got me thinking the lakers could finish 3rd instead of middle of the pack. that’s pretty crazy thinkin.
i think most people are picking the warriors to make it this year because of how they surprised everyone with last year’s finish. that’s the key word to me, though “surprised”. they’ll probably have to go through another season of taking their lumps and getting used to playing games that actually mean something and are very competitive.
then again they could very well be this year’s version of the suns.
Kelly Dwyer says
I have the Kings second, I think they’ll have a bettter record than Denver.
The NBA really needs to get rid of this divsional seeding crap. The way things are fleshed out now, the second and third best teams in the conf. are getting the 4th and 5th seeds, and the playoff Final Four will never have the best actual teams.
EARL JENKINS says
ONE THING FOR SURE…WE ALL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE.
Kurt says
Kelly, I flip flopped Sacramento and Denver in my picks a few times. I think the Kings could be very good, but I’m not 100% convinced.
More importantly, I’m with you on the seeding thing. As long as they play a balanced schedule why not have the teams seeded 1-8 by record, and just say division winners are automatically in?