A lot of people are going to freak out about Wally World's 20-point, 4 threes performance on Wednesday night, but he's very far from being an up and coming gazelle.
This gazelle was mentioned in my
1+ block & 77% FT piece, and he finally busted out on Wednesday.
I was high on Travis Outlaw before the season started, but he lost the starting job to Martell Webster and has been kind of quiet early on. His shooting has been off and his steals and blocks especially are way down. If Outlaw was dropped in your league, NOW is the time to pick him up. Here's his line from last night:
It was only his second 30+ minute game of the season, but he'll start getting more of them with Channing Frye now in Coach Nate's doghouse. Outlaw showed you what he's capable of doing and there's plenty more where that came from.
The man to add right now is Travis Outlaw!
"All people who live subject to other people's laws are victims. People who break laws out of greed, frustration, or vengeance are victims. People who overturn laws in order to replace them with their own laws are victims.
We outlaws, however, live beyond the law. We don't merely live beyond the letter of the law -- many businessmen, most politicians, and all cops do that -- we live beyond the spirit of the law. In a sense, then, we live beyond society. Have we a common goal, that goal is to turn the tables on the nature of society. When we succeed, we raise the exhilaration content of the universe. We even raise it a little when we fail."
-from Still Life With Woodpecker, by Tom Robbins
A Man-Beast
Dwight Howard scored a career-high 39 points to go with 16 boards and 5 blocks on Wednesday! He shot 12-17 from the field and 15-20 from the line to bring his season %'s up to a nearly identical 61.2% FG and 61.7% FT.
The Man-Beast's crazy 70% FG, 75% FT game makes it even crazier to think about how high he can raise that bar. The highest single-season FG% while maintaining an equal FT% in NBA history belongs to Artis Gilmore, when he shot 67.0% from the field and 70.5% from the line in the '80-81 season. However, Gilmore's best season percentage-wise was '81-82, when he shot 65.2% from the field and a career-best 76.8% on free throws (at the age of 32).
I don't think it would surprise anyone if Howard shot 65%+ from both the field AND the line over an entire season. He could even challenge Gilmore's record of 67%. Could D-Ho even shoot....gulp...70% from both the field and the line at some point???
The only guy to hit 70% of his field goals (or even come close) is Wilt, who shot 72.7% in '72-73 (his last season in the league) and 68.3% in '66-67 (at the age of 30). Considering the advanced ages of Chamberlain and Gilmore's best % years, it's clear that Howard has plenty of room to grow as one of the most dominant centers to ever play the game. Note: Wilt and Shaq shot over 60% from the line just ONCE in their careers, so Howard's points per shot (PPS) mark is clearly going to top both legends. Oh yeah, and the Magic keep winning: Orlando is now 9-1 on the road.
A Warrior
Speaking of road wins, the Warriors won their 5th in the past 10 days by beating the Kings. They won just 12 games all of last year on the road, so this is a pretty good sign that I'll win my bet with my homey Dave that G.S. will win more games than the Clippers this season (at least he got to feel good about it for the first 2 weeks).
My thoughts go out to Matt Barnes and his family. His mother passed away on Tuesday but she told him that he should re-join his second family and he represented her well by winning in his hometown of (Citrus Heights) Sacramento on Wednesday. He's one of my favorite 22-26 minute players in the league and it's no wonder the Warriors voted him as a tri-captain with Baron and Stephen Jackson. He's got so much heart and hustle. And speaking of pick-ups, he's not a bad one either...
I apologize for
the lack of in-season updates thus far. I'm currently working on my 1st installment of "Buy Low, Sell High" (maybe even in video blog format?) and plan on more frequent updates in the future. If any of you web developers pick up T. Outlaw and he plays so well that want to thank me for it, feel free to drop me a line. I'm trying to create a fresh, new site for your viewing pleasure, and I could use all the help I can get!
