When we updated the site a while back, some things slipped through the cracks in the transition. I mean, when you have a site as sprawling as this one (and I'm not tooting our horn here, either -- for better and for worse, it's "sprawling"), it can be easy to lose sight of some little features here and there, so you don't end up missing them until you need a particular tool, you look for where it used to be, and it's not there anymore. Which is a sad moment.

Fortunately, oversights like this are easy to correct here on the internet... All of which is basically my way of saying, we're sorry we took away the Player Game Finder tool, we missed it too, and we decided to bring it back -- this time to stay. It's also my way of saying "thank you" to the many people out there who e-mailed and helped remind us that an important feature on the site had been lost, one that we needed to resurrect.

So, now that the Player Game Finder has made its triumphant return, what can you do with it again? Well, first, you have to pick a player: let's say, Kevin Garnett. Go to his main profile page, and directly above the first table of stats (entitled "Totals"), next to the Game Logs and Splits drop-downs, you'll see a link to the Game Finder. Go there, and you'll access a tool that allows you to search through every game of KG's career, specifying whatever criteria you want. Since the logs go back to 1987 (1991 for the playoffs), you'll be able to run queries on every game of The Big Ticket's career. For instance, what's Garnett's career-high in scoring?

47 points vs. the Suns on January 4, 2005.

Alright, that was an easy one to get you settled in. How about Garnett's best shooting % for a game in which he scored at least 25 points? Or the most assists in a game in which he also scored 20 points and grabbed 10 boards? We've got you covered.

But let's kick it up a notch: Notice the other options on the search, like regular season/playoffs, year-by-year dropdowns, age, team and opponents, home/road, game outcomes, and starting status. Let's search for Garnett's highest scoring output in a road playoff win during which he also shot 50% from the floor... And you get the three games from KG's career that match the criteria.

Moreover, you can also expand the search beyond single games, but also to show how many times in a season or a span of seasons the player met the criteria you set. For example,the number of times since turning 30 that KG has scored 30 and pulled in 10 rebounds... Or his most games in a season with 20 & 10 and 50% shooting. The possibilities go on and on, and you can use the tool in conjunction with the league-wide Player Game Finder, which allows you to execute the same queries, but over all players instead of just one.

So now you can see why demand was so high for this feature to return, because it's darned cool. Play around with it for a while, and I'm sure you'll be wondering how we ever let it get lost in the first place.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Site Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.