Archive for the 'YouTube Finds' Category

Ryan from Mixmakers.net passed along some links that you might enjoy:

• Rare. Air. - A great collection of black & white photos from Michael Jordan's career
• '96 Bulls Highlights (Part I) - Want to watch highlights of every game from the Bulls' 1996 season? That's the place to start. I swear I'm going to watch them all back-to-back at some point.

Derick "Dizzy" Grant is not only the Harlem Globetrotters' 4-point shooting specialist (somebody call Antoine Walker!), but he's also pretty good at impersonating other players:

I have maintained for years that basketball needs its version of the Batting Stance Guy... Could Grant be the hoops impressionist we've been waiting for?

Sad that in the same week as one of Dirk Nowitzki's greatest professional triumphs, the man who was always linked to him via a draft-day trade -- Robert Traylor -- was found dead in his Puerto Rico apartment today at the age of 34:

"Robert Traylor, the former University of Michigan standout and short-time NBA forward, was found dead in his apartment in Isla Verde, Puerto Rico, according to Traylor's club (via Scott Schroeder). The big man affectionately known as 'Tractor' Traylor due to his size and strength was just 34 years old.

A cause of death and confirmation from Puerto Rican officials are not yet available. [...] Traylor struggled to make an impact at the NBA level, constantly struggling with both his weight and a heart defect that required aortic surgery in 2006."

Aside from a solid rookie season, Traylor's NBA career was nothing to write home about, but here are his career NCAA stats:

Following an NIT MVP performance at the end of 1997, in '98 he averaged a double-double on 58% shooting, leading Michigan to the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament. He also had this backboard-shattering slam:

Rest in peace, big man.

Sorry about the lack of posts recently; I've been busy working on the new Stathead Blog. Don't worry, though -- I will have playoff previews and other posts forthcoming, once we find out the matchups for Round 2. And in the meantime, here's a funny video parodying those incessant Clyde Frazier-Keith Hernandez (and now, inexplicably, Randy Johnson) Just For Men commercials. (Note: PG-13 for language.)

On April 29, 2011, Google Video is shutting down. While hockey fans will lament the loss of these full-length games (some of which are also available on Hulu), this doesn't mean a lot to the NBA fan -- after all, games like this can also be found on YouTube, and who really wants to see grainy footage of a 2005 Celtics-Sixers game?

However, Google Videos also housed a number of old Charlie Rose interviews with basketball players and writers (Rose, from North Carolina, is a big fan of the game). Here are some that you should watch while you still can:

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From Hoopism, makers of the dunk contest video library and various other neat NBA visualizations, comes an extremely cool Valentine's Day gift for b-ball aficionados:

NBA’s Greatest Shots – Court Location & Video

Via Yahoo's The Dagger college hoops blog, here's a countdown from YouTubers Mixst311 and Dawg5, featuring the 50 sickest slams in NCAA basketball history:

Send it in, Jerome!!!

(A Special Hat Tip goes to my buddy Brent for the link.)

Before Bill Walton was leading the Blazers to a championship, bringing a spark off the bench for the Celtics, and saying hilariously weird things on television, he was one of the best players in college basketball history, helping UCLA survive the loss of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar without missing a beat. And Big Red was perhaps at his very finest in the 1973 National Championship Game against Larry Kenon and Memphis State, pouring in 44 points (on 21-22 shooting) and grabbing 13 boards en route to the Bruins' 87-66 victory. Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, here's Walton's performance, what some consider to be the best ever by a college player:

16 years later, music historians generally look back at 1994 as a time of major changes to the cultural landscape -- the death of Kurt Cobain, the arrest of Tupac Shakur, Green Day breaking through into the mainstream, etc. They also consider it the end of the so-called "Golden Age of Hip-Hop", the genre's most innovative and artistically-fulfilling era. Perhaps not coincidentally, 1994 also marked the release of B-Ball's Best Kept Secret, a "compilation album released by Epic Records that featured NBA players performing songs with hip hop artists". With the likes of Brian Shaw, Dana Barros, and Jason Kidd on the mic, is this the album that led to the Golden Age's end? Or was it merely the final ray of brilliance in the Era? You be the judge:

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