White of the Night: Jose Calderon

Beautiful night in Indiana, as the Pacers start three American Whites, and win a big one over the Rockets!

Interesting stat from NY: New York has outscored opponents by 53 points when Gallinari has been on the court during the four games since he returned from injury. Gallinari made our list of top performers again tonight, scoring a smooth 11 on 5, in only 17 min.

Sean Marks thrust into the starting C spot in N.O., and good to see him do well.

But, oh, J.C. Superstar! Jose Calderon, in his return from injury game, proves his worth, leading the Raptors to victory, and earning our White of the Night.


Top White Performers:

Nowitzki: 26p - 7 reb -- 36 min
Scola: 25p - 7 reb -- 38 min
Calderon: 23p (10 shots) - 10a -- 29 min
Bargnani: 22p (13 shots) - 5 reb -- 30 min
Turkoglu: 22p - 3 reb - 2a -- 38 min
Lee: 19p (11 shots) - 14 reb -- 34 min
P Gasol: 18p (12 shots) - 6 reb -- 28 min
Hinrich: 17p (11 shots) - 5 reb - 7a -- 32 min
Stojakovic: 17p -- 39 min
B Lopez: 15p - 8 reb -- 35 min
Nocioni: 15p (10 shots) - 6 reb - 3a -- 33 min
Murphy: 14p (10 reb) - 16 reb -- 33 min
Dunleavy: 13p - 4 reb -- 27 min
Vujacic: 13p (7 shots) - 2 reb - 3a -- 25 min
M Miller: 12p - 9 reb - 5a -- 29 min
Gallinari: 11p (5 shots) -- 17 min
Love: 11p (6 shots) - 5 reb -- 22 min
Marks: 10p - 7 reb -- 29 min
Novak: 10p -- 22 min
Szczerbiak: 10p (5 shots) -- 14 min
Radmanovic: 10p (5 shots) -- 13 min
Nesterovic: 9p (5 shots) -- 15 min
Pachulia: 9p (3 shots) - 6 reb -- 22 min
Najera: 9p (4 shots) - 6 reb -- 25 min
Foster: 8p - 7 reb -- 30 min
Barry: 8p - 8 reb -- 21 min
Ridnour: 7p - 4a - 5 stl -- 26 min
Gray: 7p - team high 7 reb -- 22 min
Biedrins: 6p - 13 reb - 4 blk -- 34 min

Analysis: First 1/3 of Season

The good news is, a number of our guys are having better years than ever. The bad news is, many of our favorite and most well-known guys are having down years.

On the rise (better stats than last year):
Nowitzki, Calderon, Okur, Lee, Murphy, Biedrins, Ridnour, Blake, Hawes, Kirilenko, Varejao, Kapono, Bonner, Pachulia, Swift, Andersen, Belinelli, Rodriguez, McRoberts, Amundson

Treading water (about the same as last year):
Pau Gasol, Bogut, Udrih, Bargnani, Ilgauskas, Foster, Scola, Nesterovich, Przybilla, Radmanovic, Redick, Gray, Kurz

Declining production:
Turkoglu, Kaman, Mike Miller, Brad Miller, Stojakovic, Ginobili, Collison, Hinrich, Nocioni, Kleiza, Korver, Milicic, Barry, Szczerbiak, Quinn, Oberto, Morrison, Songaila, Vujacic, Carroll, Pavlovic, Scalabrine, Walton, Diener, Harpring, Najera, Jaric, Croshere, Madsen, Cardinal, Mihm

Here are our top 40 contributors, calculated by adding up their average points, rebounds, assists, and minutes played:

name PRA+M
Dirk Nowitzki 76
Pau Gasol 65.4
Hedo Turkoglu 64.2
Mehmet Okur 61.7
Andris Biedrins 61.7
Steve Nash 61.3
Jose Calderon 60.7
Chris Kaman 60.7
David Lee 59.8
Troy Murphy 57.9
Andrew Bogut 55.3
Brad Miller 54.3
Mike Miller 52.7
Beno Udrih 51.2
Zydrunas Ilgauskas 50.2
Spencer Hawes 50
Luke Ridnour 49.2
Andrei Kirilenko 49.1
Manu Ginobili 49.1
Peja Stojakovic 49.1
Marc Gasol 47.8
Steve Blake 47.5
Brook Lopez 46.2
Anderson Varejao 42.7
Rudy Fernandez 42.3
Luis Scola 42.1
Andrea Bargnani 42
Jeff Foster 41.4
Kevin Love 40.4
Rasho Nesterovich 40.4
Andres Nocioni 38.9
Nick Collison 38.5
Kirk Hinrich 38.5
Joel Przybilla 37.7
Jason Kapono 37.1
Linas Kleiza 36.4
Matt Bonner 34.9
Kyle Korver 33.7
Darko Milicic 31.6

White of the Night: Steve Blake

White of the Night: Steve Blake, for putting together a solid 22-10, to go along with 4 steals, helping to power the Blazers in an exciting victory.

Varejao starting at C, continues to outplay the guy (Ben Wallace) who normally starts ahead of him at PF. Weird how that works.

Not quite as weird as Biedrins getting only 23 minutes. At least Belinelli continues to rise in Golden State!

Solid White performances for games Wednesday and Thursday:

Nowitzki: 27p - 10 reb - 4a -- 38 min
Okur: 23p - 9 reb -- 29 min
Blake: 22p - 4 reb - 10a - 4 stl -- 38 min
Nocioni: 22p - 4 reb - 3a -- 35 min
Belinelli: 21p - 4 reb - 4a -- 38 min
Korver: 18p - 9 reb -- 31 min
Ginobili: 17p - 9 reb - 5a -- 30 min
Biedrins: 16p - 10reb (5 off) - 2 blk -- 23 min
Nash: 15p - 11a -- 35 min
M Miller: 14p - 7 reb -- 34 min
Ridnour: 14p - 3a -- 32 min
Varejao: 13p - 11 reb - 2 slt -- 34 min
Calderon: 11p - 5 reb - 10a -- 37 min

White of the Night: Troy Murphy

Troy Murphy earns White of the Night for his strong game against the Lakers, winning the game for the Pacers with his buzzer beating tip shot, just one of his 17 monster boards.

Other solid games over the past two nights:

Nowitzki: 29p (27 shots) - 10 reb -- 2 stl - 2 blk -- 43 min
P Gasol: 20p (12 shots) - 9 reb (4 off) -- 36 min
Lee: 19p (11 shots) - 12 reb -- 40 min
M Miller: 19p (13 shots) - 10 reb - 5a -- 34 min
Turkoglu: 19p (16 shots) - 5 reb -- 40 min
B Miller: 18p (13 shots) - team high 9 reb - 4 blk -- 38 min
Fernandez: 18p (11 shots) -- 21 min
Biedrins: 17p (10 shots) - 15 reb -- 34 min
Udrih: 17p (12 shots) - 4a - 3 reb -- 36 min
Murphy: 16p (12 shots) - 17 reb (6 off) -- 37 min
Korver: team high 15p (9 shots) - 4 reb -- 28 min
Blake: 15p (9 shots) - team high 6 a - 4 reb -- 28 min
Barea: 15p (11 shots) - 6a -- 24 min
Hawes: 14p (12 shots) - 7 reb - 6a - 3 stl -- 34
Ukic: 13p (9 shots) -- 16 min
Ginobili: 13p (11 shots) - 3 reb - 3 a -- 27 min
Kleiza: 12p (9 shots) - 4 reb -- 23 min
Love: 10p - 8 reb -- 22 min
Przybilla: 8p - 14 reb - 2 blk -- 25 min

Many of our guys are out with small injuries right now, including Foster, Harpring, Kirilenko, Kaman, Barry, and Bogut. Not to mention the longer term injuries to Hinrich, Dunleavy, Gallinari, and LaFrentz.

White of the Night: Memhet Okur

Okur playing very solid for Utah since rejoining the team, good for him.

Don Nelson is a total crackpot. Will somebody push him over, he forgot to notice he is dead. Playing Biedrins only 20 minutes? No, he was not in foul trouble. Add it to the WTF!!! file.

The most notorious Blacksketball teams, ie teams that play with no significant white contribution on a regular basis, to be boycotted by all White Basketball fans:
Philadelphia (never any whites at all), Boston (an occasional couple minutes for Scalabrine), Miami (rare and short PT for Quinn), Washington (a rare Songaila sighting), Detroit (an occasional Hermann explosion excepted). Add Atlanta to the list when Pachulia is out.

Speaking of Zaza, he yanked down 17 boards, including 8 offensive, in his mere 24 minutes. What a stud.

And Hermann, again proving his worth in the little and rare time he is alloted: pouring in 16 points on only 6 shots, in his whopping 18 minutes.

I dream of an all-White team with Zaza and Hermann starting, and logging starters minutes, leading the league in rebounding and scoring. Instead of rotting on the bench on racist teams in a racist league.

Sweet White players on Friday:
Ilgauskas: 21p (13 shots) - 19 min
Stojokovic: 21p (14 shots) - 3 reb -- 31 min
Okur: 20p (10 shots) - game high 12 reb - 3 stl -- 32 min
Nowitzki: 19p (15 shots) 12 reb - 4 a - 3 stl -- 36 min
Hawes: 18p (13 shots) - team high 6 reb -- 20 min
M Miller: 18p - 8 reb - 4 a -- 41 min
Hermann: 16p (6 shots) - 4 reb -- 18 min
Kapono: 16p (10 shots) -- 21 min
P Gasol: 14p - 7 reb (4 off) - 4 a -- 39 min
Blake: 14p (9 shots) - 3 a -- 28 min
Ginobili: 14p (10 shots) -- 20 min
M Gasol: 12p - 6 reb (4 off) -- 33 min
Kirilenko: 12p (5 shots) - 6 reb - 3 a -- 27 min
Murphy: 7p - 12 reb -- 37 min
Pachulia: 3p - 17 reb (8 off) -- 24 min


WTF!!!
Biedrins: only 20 min

White of the Night: Chris Kaman

Great night for the Caveman Kaman, earning the prestigous White of the Night award tonight! Playing an almost perfectly efficient game (11-13 FG, 3-3 FT) and filling up the stat sheet, team leader in points, rebounds, and blocks, second in assists, powering the Clips to victory.

Pachulia, rebounding machine! 18 total, 8 offensive, in his 34 starting minutes, wow. As I have detailed elsewhere, Zaza is one of the most highly skilled offensive rebounders in the league (he actually has more offensive rebounds than defensive rebounds so far this season), and is always quite efficient on offense. For some reason, he only put up four shots though, although he did earn 6 FTAs. Maybe it has to do with the two starting guards on his team taking 22 shots each! Good grief.

Bargnani starts, along with Bosh and ONeil, and Toronto wins again, surprise surprise, as the developing Italian leads everyone in scoring. Beautiful trend there!

Ahearn minutes trend up, all the way to 6! Ha ha, start him, coach! Popovic is crazy like that, starting a guy straight from the end of the bench. It may happen! The only guys ahead of him are a rookie (Hill) and an antique (Vaughn). Hell yeah, bring it on, and Blake, you better take 20 shots if it does!!!

Aaron Gray, the monster in the middle, gets the start for the Bulls! Promptly busted for DWW (Defending While White), picking up 3 early fous, and doesn't even start the second half. Beautiful, coach Vinny, just beautiful.

Shit that pisses me off:
Kleiza gets rewarded for his beautiful game last night with a grand total of 17 min PT.
Joe Alexander comes off his 31 min/14 point game to a very underwhelming 8 min PT.
WTF???


Kaman: 25p (13 shots) - 14 reb - 6 a - 4 blk -- 38 min
Bargnani: 25p (15 shots) - 4 reb - 2 blks -- 37 min
Nowitzki: 24p (17 shots) - 12 reb - 37 min
Kirilenko: 16p (6 shots) - 7 reb - 3 a - 5 stl - 4 blk -- 29 min
Bogut: 16p (13 shots) - 20 reb -- 40 min
Scola: 15p (12 shots) - 7 reb -- 41 min
Przybilla: 14p (6 shots) - 9 reb - 3 blk -- 22 min
B Miller: 14p (8 shots) - 8 reb - 2 a - 2 stl -- 34 min
Udrih: 14p (9 shots) - 4 reb - 7 a -- 33 min
Ilgauskas: 13p (11 shots) - 6 reb -- 28 min
Nocioni: 13p (13 shots) - 4 reb -- 26 min
M Miller: 10p (7 shots) - team high 10 reb - 6 a - 2 stl -- 39 min
Varejao: 5p - team high 11 reb -- 33 min

White of the Night: Ryan Anderson

Since preseason, based on his measurable production, I have been pointing out that this rookie deserves way more playing time. Tonight, Ryan hammered that point home, scoring 17 points on only 5 shots, including 6-6 from the line, helping the Nets to a victory over the Atlanta "BlackHawks" (with Pachulia down, not having a single white to play at all). This follows on the heels of yesterday's game where he scored 15 on 7 shots.

Ryan came off the bench, but for the second game in a row, played more minutes than either starting forward, and has gotten the crunch time 4th quarter minutes in both games as well. Here's a radical thought, coach: the white rookie is clearly your best big man, so start him, play him 40 mpg, let him produce! "My whole life I've been out there starting, getting minutes so it's been different," said Anderson. "I've tried to stay positive and work my butt off, showing everybody I'm committed to the team."

In other good news, rookie Joe Alexander's minutes continue to trend upwards, playing 20 mintues tonight. Drafted with the 8th pick by the Bucks, Joe looked buried early on, but appears to be earning his coach's trust.

Nocioni: 20p (13 shots) - team high 11 reb - 2 stl -- 31 min
Bogut: team high 20p (14 shots) - game high 9 reb (4 off) -- 41 min
Ridnour: 19p (7 shots) - 4 reb - 4 a -- 48 min
Anderson: 17p (5 shots) - 5 reb - 1 stl -- 25 min.
Biedrins: 17p (15 shots) - game high 16 reb (8 off) - 4 a -- 36 min
Ilgauskas: 16p (11 shots) - 7 reb (3 off) - 3 a -- 27 min
Kaman: 15p (11 shots) -- team high 13 reb (6 off) -- 38 min
Murphy: 12p (11 shots) - game high 13 reb - team high 5 a -- 37 min
Nesterovic: 12p (13 shots) - 12 reb (5 off) - 2 blk -- 33 min
Scola: 12p (8 shots) - game high 10 reb - 3 a - 2 stl -- 32 min
Przybilla: 10p (5 shots) - team high 8 reb - 1 stl - 1 blk -- 21 min
M Miller: 10p (8 shots) - 5 reb - 5 a -- 32 min

White of the Night: Kevin Love

Kevin Love gets his first start tonight, and makes the coach look like a genius, putting in 20 points (team high) on only 7 shots (with 8-10 FT), and pulling down 8 boards in 30 minutes of play.

Biedrins was a close second, winning his rematch with Marc Gasol: producing game highs in points (27) and rebounds (12), on only 13 shots in his 35 minutes.

Marc Gasol had a statistically good night, scoring 8 on 4 shots, with 6 rebounds, but he only played 17 minutes because of foul trouble.

More good news from that game: Belinelli played for almost 10 minutes.

Other solid white gamers tonight:

Kaman: 23p (18 shots) - 11 reb (5 off) - 2 blk - 2 stl -- 42 min. The Caveman needs to stay mentally sharp and do this every game, it is that simple.

Brad Miller looks solid in his first game this season, sending Hawes back to the bench, although they played about the same minutes, and both put up solid games.
B-Miller: 11p (6 shots) - 10 reb - 2 blk -- 26 min
Hawes: 13p (9 shots) - 8 reb - 1 blk -- 21 min
Udrih also shows up strong for the Kings: 15p (11 shots) -- 32 min

Mike Miller does well for himself, scoring 16 with 6 rebounds.

Peja goes for team leading 20 points and a team leading 7 rebounds for the Hornets.
And STOP THE PRESSES!!! Matt Carroll gets off the bench for 27 minutes! Holy cow, what is going on? Larry Browns figures he might want to play his best shooter? Wow, what a concept! Matt goes a modest 3-8 for 7p - 4 reb - 3 a. Low and behold, Charlotte wins! Adam Morrison jacks up 9 shots in his 15 minutes, scoring 9 points, and hey, that is how you get it done.

Klieza scores 14 (on 10 shots) in less than 15 minutes!

Chris Quinn finally gets some minutes in Miami, pouring in 15 points on 9 shots in his 17 minutes.

Robin Lopez goes off for 14 points on 6-9 shooting in his first start as a Sun, to go with his team high 7 rebs and 2 blks, in his 30 minutes of play. Amundson has also earned some nice time for the Suns, playing 23 minutes off the bench, punching in 7 points, hauling 4 rebs and 1 blk.

Hinrich and Aaron Gray picked up the start for Chicago, but played on 16 and 15 minutes each. Weird. Kirk still picks off an insane 5 steals in that short time.

Okur and Kirilenko both pick up 16 points on 9 shots for Utah tonight in their 36 and 31 respective minutes. AK-47 also rips down team highs with 12 rebounds and 2 blocks.
Korver scores 13 on only 7 shots in his 23 minutes off the bench.

David Lee scores 13 on his 10 shots in almost 27 minutes, but only 1 rebound? What's up with that, D-Lee?

Varejao, very nice! 18p (12 shots) - 8 reb (3 off) - 3 stl -- 30 min
Szczerbiac goes off for 11 points on only 4 shots in his 26 minutes.
Ilgauskas scores 17 on his 9 shots, very efficient as usual in his 29 minues.

Scola: 14p (10 shots) - 7 reb -- 18 min

Barry: 2 shots in 29 minutes??? WTF

White of the Night: Luke Ridnour

Luke Ridnour is the White of the Night for his very solid night leading the Bucks to victory tonight: 20p (13 shots, 6-7 FT) - 11a - 7reb - 2 stl -- 42 min

Jose Calderon was close second: 24p (12 shots) - 8 a - 4 reb -- 35 min

A number of whites played well the in the battle of the whitest teams: Utah vs Portland.
Blake: 16p (10 shots) -- 35 min as starter
Pryzbilla: 7p (3 shots) - 16 reb (6 offensive) - 2 blk -- 37 min as starter
Rudy: 14p (8 shots) - 3 reb - 3 a -- 27 min off bench
Okur: 22p (14 shots) - team high 9 reb -- 36 min as starter
Kirilenko: 17p (8 shots, 7-8 FT) - 4a - 4 reb - 2 stl - 1 blk -- 32 min off bench


Other notables:

Mike Miller: 25p (19 shots) - 7 rebs - 6 assists -- 48 min

K-Love also posted a solid game making progress off the bench: 14 p - 9 reb - 3 blk -- 36 min

Andersen: 9p (5 shots) - 4 reb - 2 blk -- 18 min off bench

Bargnani: 12p (6 shots) - 4 reb -- 21 min off bench

Bogut had a solid game in support, bagging 10p (7 shots), 13 reb - 2 blks -- 37 min.

Biedrins: 12p - 11 reb (5 offensive) - 5 blks -- 34 min

Songaila played a surprising number of minutes tonight for Bullets, woops, I mean, the Wizards and put together some solid numbers: 9p (5 shots) - 2 blks -- 23 min.

Amundson also played some strong but limited minutes for a deep Suns squad: 6p (3 shots) - 5 rebs -- 10 min