Basketball's Think Tanks

A wise man asks, "Is there a game tonight?"

A wiser man replies, "There's always a game."

With that in mind, while it seems like only last week TTLA noted a handful of baseball-related think tanks, now the Aybarsand the Loneys are all done and the Bassy's and Mbengas and their fellow NBA'ers have started another regular season.

So, the day after the Clips at least held their road opener close, here's a quick starting five of baller-related tanks and theorists:

• 
  82games.com, where work like this resides: "College to NBA: Which Schools Deliver?" and "Individual Defensive Ratings."
• APBRmetrics (motto: The statistical revolution will not be televised"), cousin to baseball's SABRmetrics.
• Basketball Reference, which is the CHIS of roundball, quantitative not qualitative.
• John Hollinger and his Player Efficiency Ratings.
• And, of course, Bill Simmons, thanks in part to his 'Dork Elvis' obsession.


The rest of our early season rotation:

• Via Freakonomics, from Wired, a profile of hoops' Bill James. (R.I.P., Sonics.)
• "The Economics of Discrimination: Evidence from Basketball."
• Reason on eminent domain and the would-have-been owner of the New Jersey Nets.
• Prometheus on "Athletes' Salaries Reflect the Market."
• And video from Duke University and U.S. Olympic coach Mike Krzyzewski at the Milken Institute's most recent Global Conference.

P.S. -- Hall of Fame status to author, thinker, and Foundation leaderKareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Photo Credit: The image accompanying this post was taken by Flickr user K.Luu. It was used under Creative Commons license.