Talk:2008–09 NBA season

Standings

I replaced the inline standings with transclusions of the already-existing standings templates. I did this so the standings do not need to be updated in multiple places at the conclusion of a game. It looks a little bit different because the templates have a few more columns than what was inline. If people do not like the current layout, my suggestion is to remove some of the columns from the template (games played can go first, IMO). – X96lee15 (talk) 18:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I suggest using this format:

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	Div	Conf

–Howard the Duck 11:15, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so. ● 8~Hype ^@ 08:06, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Would you even say why? Road and away records don't matter in playoff seedings anyway. –Howard the Duck 03:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

What does Home, Road, Div and GP stand for?--Dany3000 (talk) 15:43, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Home = record @ home, road = record on the road, Div = divisional standings, GP = games played? I dunno why we should even add home, road and GP. –Howard the Duck 05:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Unindent: Currently, NBA.com uses the following format:

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	Conf	Div	Home	Road	L 10	Streak

Yahoo Sports does it this way:

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	Home	Road	Div	Conf	Streak	L10

I also ripped off Yahoo Sports' conference standings and applied to the previous season's article and I was pleasantly surprised to see it on this article until right before the playoffs start.

ESPN's regular version:

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	Home	Road	Conf	Div	PF	PA	Diff	Streak	L10

Compare to the current convention:

Team	W	L	PCT	GB	Home	Road	Div	GB	GP

If you'd notice, GB always comes after PCT. Check out my proposed table above to see the differences and similarities. I proposed ditching home and away records since they don't matter in playoff seedings, unless the NBA proposes a rule similar to the Away goals rule in soccer. –Howard the Duck 16:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I like the suggestions, HtD, but can you add column space for a link to the respective teams' 08-09 season details page, a la the current NFL season page? Like this:

Team	W	L	T	PCT	PF	PA
New England Patriots	5	2	0	.714	153	132	Details

Thoughts?

–Whatisthenatrix (talk) 17:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that'll be highly recommended especially if all teams have one (I think every team has one for the current season). –Howard the Duck 17:30, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

What if we replace the team name with their 2008-09 article? Such as:

Team	W	L	T	PCT	PF	PA
New England Patriots	5	2	0	.714	153	132

That way the team will show up bolded on the season article. It also reduces the number of columns. "Details" isn't that intuitive to mean "08-09 season" — X96lee15 (talk) 17:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

That was my initial thought too X, and I still think it makes the most sense - in the game logs as well. But it does involve breaking from the format that the NFL page uses (ideally major sports would use roughly the same format for these tables), and also making considerable changes to existing pages that use a particular team's main organization page as the default. I'd vote for it, though, since it seems most logical and intuitive for the pages we're talking about. After all, it's the 08-09 teams in particular that have these records/results, and not the organization as a whole (which includes last year's team too, as well as any that have come before it). –Whatisthenatrix (talk) 17:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(EC) The baseball WikiProject had a workaround on this so that on a team season article, that team's row is highlighted. But since once the playoffs approach, the table will become colorful, I guess some other way of distinguishing it must be used (like italicizing it perhaps?)

Plus if I see "New England Patriots", I expect to be taken to that team's article, not its season article. The "details" link at the end seems plausible for it to refer to the season article.

BTW, have you suggested this to the NFL WikiProject? Since we're ripping off their idea, we might as well follow with what they'd do with their original idea and apply it here. –Howard the Duck 17:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean, HD, regarding baseball or football. I'll try to respond to the issues you bring up:

WRT the baseball project, it seems like you're referring to the standings pages that exist on pages like 2008 Boston Red Sox season. And while I take your point, and an updated divisional standings excerpt would be a nice thing to have on each NBA team's page, I don't think it achieves what X96 and I are suggesting, which is this: on the main 08-09 NBA season page, there should be an easy and intuitive way to travel from the team listings in the Div/Conf/League standings to each respective team season page, where users will be able to find the current coaching staff, roster, depth chart, game log, etc. for the appropriate team.

I'm not sure the NFL WP 'Details' route is the best way to go, since the team info that I think is most relevant to the current season is the stuff I just mentioned, and not the stuff you'd find on the team article, such as organization history, owners, color schemes, etc.

Also WRT NFL, I'm not sure it's ripping off NFL WP's idea if we're trying to find a good way to list current season info for individual teams on the main 08-09 season page. If we end up using their specific format, then I suppose we should work in concert with them, but I'm not sure how to achieve that - any suggestions? I looked around a bit for any discussions they've had dealing with the standings template we're discussing, and I couldn't find any. I apologize for the ignorance; this is my first attempt at helping out with a WikiProject. Thanks. –Whatisthenatrix (talk) 19:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

In baseball, the standings for every division is on a separate template. To transclude the template, you'd have to add another code syntax for the team to be highlighted in its season article page.

Also for all of the league season articles, when you click the team name, it goes to the team's main article, not its season article. The team's main article should always be linked to the league season page. The team's season article, if it exists, should also be included in the league season article.

If the standings were to be edited, I'd highly recommend W-L-PCT-GB as the first four to be seen, with PCT-GB appearing side-by-side. Div and Conf standings may be included, while Home and road standings may not be included. So if we'd go through my proposal, it's W-L-PCT-GB-DIV-CONF, 6 headings. –Howard the Duck 04:48, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think nobody will object if I'll put PCT and GB together again, isn't it? –Howard the Duck 12:42, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I placed them together. I also added tooltips to make easier for non-NBA followers to know what Div and GB means. –Howard the Duck 12:50, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I've added {{tnavbar}} to make it more accessible to be edited. You guys can practically do anything you want with the standings templates but please keep PCT and GB together. You people can ditch the tooltips or remove the tnavbar but keep PCT and GB together. Thanks. –Howard the Duck 12:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Playoff qualification

Since the templates use colors to highlight the team on its own season article, I suggest we use the traditional method of labeling teans that qualified for the playoffs. Like this:

x- Cleveland Cavaliers (4)

The (4) is optional. The letters used will mean:

• z- clinched home court advantage throughout the playoffs
• y- clinched division title (I prefer using "y" instead of "a" or "c" or "sw" since it'll be uniform for every team.)
• x- clinched playoff berth
• e- eliminated

–Howard the Duck 13:07, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Well it appears that somebody is going ahead and color coding the Conference standing templates anyway, ignoring the initial use for the color coding. Is there pretty much a consensus here at least not to use colors to highlight playoff qualifying teams? Shamedog18 (talk) 02:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The reason why we don't color code the division standings tables is because the color is used for highlighting teams in the team season articles. Since we don't use the conference standings table to highlight the different teams, someone added color but I will suggest to use the letters to be consistent. –Howard the Duck 03:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Turnover/Fouls

In the statistic leaders section, why do we need to have the turnover/personal fouls leaders? It just doesn't seem to go together with the rest of statistics in the section. If we are going to include these somewhat uncommon stats, will we also include the leader in technical fouls per game or minutes per game?Henry talk 00:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

"Notable" Occurrences

I think it needs to be said that there is a definite glut of "notable" occurrences in this article. With everyone's blessing, I'm gonna try and trim that section's length down. Dknights411 (talk) 05:21, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Question

How many games does each team get to play? 24.12.249.201 (talk) 17:43, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Each team plays 82 games. Shamedog18 (talk) 19:35, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

OK 24.12.249.201 (talk) 03:00, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Trade Table?

I'm thinking about turning the several first "notable" events, the trades on June 26th into a table.

Would this be suitable?

Trades

Teams Involved	Players Traded
Milwaukee Bucks / New Jersey Nets	Bobby Simmons, Yi Jianlian	for	Richard Jefferson
Indiana Pacers / Portland Trail Blazers	Jerryd Bayless, Ike Diogu	for	Brandon Rush, Jarret Jack, Josh McRoberts
Indiana Pacers / Toronto Raptors	Jermaine O'Neal, Natha Jawai	for	T. J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovič, Roy Hibbert, Maceo Baston.
Memphis Grizzlies / Minnesota Timberwolves	Kevin Love, Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal Jason Collins	for	O. J. Mayo, Antoine Walker, Marko Jaric, Greg Buckner

or this

Trades

Teams Involved		Players Traded
Milwaukee Bucks	New Jersey Nets	Bobby Simmons, Yi Jianlian	for	Richard Jefferson
Indiana Pacers	Portland Trail Blazers	Jerryd Bayless, Ike Diogu	for	Brandon Rush, Jarret Jack, Josh McRoberts
Indiana Pacers	Toronto Raptors	Jermaine O'Neal, Natha Jawai	for	T. J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovič, Roy Hibbert, Maceo Baston.
Memphis Grizzlies	Minnesota Timberwolves	Kevin Love, Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal Jason Collins	for	O. J. Mayo, Antoine Walker, Marko Jaric, Greg Buckner

Notable Trades

Trades

Off-Season
Date	Teams Involved		Players Traded
June 26, 2008	Milwaukee Bucks	New Jersey Nets	Bobby Simmons, Yi Jianlian	for	Richard Jefferson
	Indiana Pacers	Portland Trail Blazers	Jerryd Bayless, Ike Diogu	for	Brandon Rush, Jarret Jack, Josh McRoberts
	Indiana Pacers	Toronto Raptors	Jermaine O'Neal, Natha Jawai	for	T. J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovič, Roy Hibbert, Maceo Baston.
	Memphis Grizzlies	Minnesota Timberwolves	Kevin Love, Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal Jason Collins	for	O. J. Mayo, Antoine Walker, Marko Jaric, Greg Buckner
July 9, 2008	Minnesota Timberwolves	Philedelphia 76ers	future second-round pick	for	Rodney Carney, Calvin Booth, future 1st Round Pick
July 15, 2008	Los Angeles Clippers	Denver Nuggets	Option to exchange 2010 second-round picks	for	Marcus Camby
July 21, 2008	New Jersey Nets	Orlando Magic	Trade Exception, Cash Consideration	for	Kenyan Dooling
July 23, 2008	New Jersey Nets	Golden State Warriors	Marcus Williams	for	future first-round pick
July 23rd, 2008	Utah Jazz	Los Angeles Clippers	Jason Hart	for	Brevin Knight
July 28, 2008	Denver Nuggets	New York Knicks	Taureen Green, Bobby Jones, 2010 second-round pick	for	Renaldo Balkman, cash considerations
July 29, 2008	Sacramento Kings	Houston Rockets	Ron Artest	for	Bobby Jackson, Donté Greene, a 2009 first-round pick
August 6, 2008	Los Angeles Clippers	Houston Rockets	Option to exchange 2011 second-round picks	for	Steve Novak
August 14, 2008	Houston Rockets	Sacramento Kings	Bobby Jackson, Donte Green, 2009 first-round pick	for	Ron Artest, Sean Singletary, Patrick Ewing Jr.
August 25, 2008	Houston Rockets	Phoenix Suns	Sean Singletary	for	DJ Strawberry
August 29, 2008	New York Knicks	Houston Rockets	draft rights to Frederic Weis	for	Patrick Ewing Jr.
October 10, 2008	Dallas Mavericks	Indiana Pacers	Eddie Jones, 2 future second-round picks	for	Shawn Williams
In-season
Date	Teams involved		Players involved
November 3, 2008	Detroit Pistons	Denver Nuggets	Chauncey Billups, Antonio McDyess, Cheikh Samb	for	Allen Iverson
November 21, 2008	New York Knicks	Los Angeles Clippers	Zach Randolph, Mardy Collins	for	Tim Thomas, Cuttino Mobley
	New York Knicks	Golden State Warriors	Jamal Crawford	for	Al Harrington
December 10, 2008	Charlotte Bobcats	Phoenix Suns	Jason Richardson, Jared Dudley, a 2010 second-round draft pick	for	Boris Diaw, Raja Bell, Sean Singletary
January 7, 2009	Memphis Grizzlies	Miami Heat	2012 conditional second-round pick	for	Shaun Livingston, cash considerations
	Oklahoma City Thunder	Denver Nuggets	John Petro, 2009 second-round pick	for	Chucky Atkins, 2009 conditional first-round pick
	Los Angeles Clippers	Toronto Raptors	cash considerations, future second-round pick	for	Hassan Adams, cash considerations
January 16, 2009	Charlotte Bobcats	Dallas Mavericks	Matt Carroll, Ryan Hollins	for	DeSagana Diop
February 10, 2009	Los Angeles Lakers	Charlotte Bobcats	Vladimir Radmanović	for	Adam Morrison, Shannon Brown
February 19, 2009 Trade Deadline	Toronto Raptors	Miami Heat	Jermaine O'Neal, Jamario Moon	for	Shawn Marion, Marcus Banks
	Toronto Raptors	Boston Celtics	conditional 2014 second-round pick	for	Patrick O'Bryant
	Toronto Raptors	Sacramento Kings	Will Solomon	for	cash considerations
	Chicago Bulls	New York Knicks	Larry Hughes	for	Tim Thomas, Jerome James, Anthony Roberson
	Chicago Bulls	Oklahoma City Thunder	conditional 2009 draft pick	for	Thabo Sefolosha
	Oklahoma City Thunder	New York Knicks	Chris Wilcox	for	Malik Rose
	Minnesota Timberwolves	Sacramento Kings	Rashad McCants, Calvin Booth	for	Sheldon Williams, Bobby Brown

Three-way Trades
Date	Team	Recieves	Team	Recieves	Team	Recieves
August 13, 2008	Cleveland Cavaliers	Mo Williams	Milwaukee Bucks	Damon Jones, Luke Ridnour, Adrian Griffin	Oklahoma City Thunder	Joe Smith, Desmond Mason
December 10, 2008	Washington Wizards	Mike James, Javaris Crittenton	New Orleans Hornets	Antonio Daniels, conditional second-round pick	Oklahoma City Thunder	conditional first-round pick
February 19, 2009	Orlando Magic	Rafer Alston	Houston Rockets	Kyle Lowry, Brian Cook	Memphis Grizzlies	Adonal Foyle, Mike Wilks, first-round pick from Orlando

I'm just thinking about doing this for all the trades this year and creating a "Trades" section so the "notable occurences" section seems less inflated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SyogunAW (talk • contribs) 08:50, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'll just go ahead and do it. If it itself becomes distracting, turn into a separate page or have the option to hide/show it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SyogunAW (talk • contribs) 08:51, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Decimals in the statistics section

User:Syjytg keeps changing the stat section into using five decimal numbers in each stat. This is excessive and it makes no difference as to the informativeness of the table. In fact, the stats are harder to read this way. It is a common policy to use one decimal for figures over 10, two decimals for under 10 and three for percentages. NBA.com uses this policy and unless the aforementioned user (or anyone else for that matter) manages to provide valid reasons for using five instead, we should stick to the one that is generally used. Antti29 (talk) 15:18, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

3O WP:MOSNUM states: "The number of decimal places should be consistent within a list or context". I would suggest that unless greater precision is warranted as a result of there being closely-ranked teams being indistinguishable on the basis of the prevailing standard on previous seasons' articles, that this prevailing standard likewise apply to this page. If articles for other seasons use 3 decimal places of precision and there's no reason to increase precision for this season, this article should also use 3 decimal places. Madcoverboy (talk) 19:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Given the on-going edit wars over this issue, I would suggest that page protection be requested until consensus is established and the article stabilizes. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The stats changes everyday, by asking protection, the stats cannot be changed and hence it would be inaccurate. GeniusAcameldeSatosta (talk) 16:15, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I've filed the request. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Syjytg and GeniusAcameldeSatosta were sockpuppets of the same user. They have been blocked and the article should be more stable now. Madcoverboy (talk) 16:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Scores

How about adding the scores but in a tabular format? Since the NBA is doesn't have an equal strength of schedule, I suggest having an intradivision, intraconference and interconference tables. For example for the Southeast Division:

Intradivision	ATL	CHA	MIA	ORL	WSH
Atlanta	–	88–83 83–79	91–83 Apr 14	102–106 82–88	91–87 111–90
Charlotte	97–102 98–91	–	100–87 92–97	85–90 80–82	80–72 101–89
Miami	73–87 95–79	100–96 96–92	–	103–97 95–101	97–77 93–71
Orlando	85–99 121–87	107–102* Apr 15	86–76 122–99	–	106–81 89–80
Washington	98–102 89–98	89–92 95–93	87–94 104–118	90–105 103–112	–

Intraconference	BOS	CHI	CLE	DET	IND	MIL	NJ	NY	PHI	TOR
Atlanta
Charlotte
Miami
Orlando
Washington

Interconference matchups can be placed in one table:

Interconference	DAL	DEN	GS	HOU	LAC	LAL	MEM	MIN	NO	OKC	PHX	POR	SAC	SA	Utah
Atlanta
Boston
Charlotte
Chicago
Cleveland
Detroit
Indiana
Miami
Milwaukee
New Jersey
New York
Orlando
Philadelphia
Toronto
Washington

–Howard the Duck 10:04, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this is excessive and doesn't really add to the value of the article. On the contrary it makes the readability worse as I find it hard to imagine anyone being that interested in the result of a specific game. In addition it's a bitch to update and all the results are available in other sources. Not encyclopedia material in my opinion. Antti29 (talk) 11:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

How about instead of scores, the regular season series? For example, for Denver vs. Dallas it's 4-0 in favor of Denver. –Howard the Duck 12:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Tied Teams

How about adding a small section explaining how the tied teams were ordered? Especially that 3-way tie in the west for second place. I'm talking about displaying the season series among the tied teams, and not just repeating the tie-breaking rules.Juve2000 (talk) 01:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll try to do this in the way it was handled at the 2008 NFL season. –Howard the Duck 12:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. I could've done for non-playoff teams but apparently the ties are not broken that way in the draft so I left them out. –Howard the Duck 12:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Excellent! That is exactly the information that I was looking for. I am assuming that Portland cannot finish ahead of San Antonio by virtue of the fact that in case of an identical record, a division champion will always finish ahead of a non-champion, regardless of other tie-breakers.Juve2000 (talk)

Actually, if two teams from different divisions are tied for #2, and one is a division champ, they division champ doesn't always finish first, if the one it is tied with is the best division runner-up. The only reason Portland was #4 is that the Denver-Portland was broken first, after the tie was broken, Portland's tie with San Antonio was not broken anymore and they were relegated to #4; the Denver-SA tie was broken instead. See a similar discussion at 2009 NBA Playoffs. –Howard the Duck 18:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Now I am confused. If Denver wins tie-breakers against both Portland and San Antonio, then we know Denver is the number 2 seed. There must be a reason why Portland cannot be seeded 3rd and San Antonio 4th.Juve2000 (talk)

The DEN-POR tie was broken first. With that resolved, POR automatically goes to 4th, while the winner of the DEN-SA tie (in this case DEN) would be #2. –Howard the Duck 04:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

You keep on saying that, and I don't disagree. But my question is "Why does Portland automatically go to fourth?" You just SAY IT without explaining it. I figured that given identical records, non-division champions are always seeded lower than division champions of any division, but you have disagreed with that. So I'm still waiting for some answer from anyone. Juve2000 (talk) 19:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

NBA.com: "(1) (a) Since the three division winners are guaranteed a spot in the top four, ties to determine the division winners must be broken before any other ties.

(b) When a tie must be broken to determine a division winner, the results of the tie-break shall be used to determine only the division winner and its playoff position, not any other playoff position(s)." The DEN-POR tie is broken first. Now if that's resolved, POR can't/shouldn't affect SA's seeding, hence they're automatically #4; if we'd include POR in the mix, it'll "determine other playoff positions". POR and SA's tie won't be "broken" anymore, considering POR was beaten by DEN in the first breaking of the tie; it eliminates POR from the rest of the tiebreaking procedure. –Howard the Duck 20:15, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

To you its clear but to me its not, and maybe, its my problem. Thanks for trying.Juve2000 (talk) 23:11, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Let me try some example for you, if Denver win their division with 54-18 and tied with Phoenix who is second in their division (below Lakers), then the tiebreaker goes to head-to-head, where Phoenix as non-division winner may finish #2 if they win the tiebreaker. Different things happen when Denver is tied with team from their own division such as Portland, where Portland automatically relegated below their division winner. This explains why Portland finished #4 because they can't finish higher than Denver who might be #2 or #3 depending on Denver-San Antonio head-to-head record. Well, this is as far as I understand from various references in NBA.com or ESPN.com and some discussion topics on RealGM.com forum. Please correct me if I made a mistake. Martin tamb (talk) 16:31, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but no one has explained why the seedings can't be 2-Denver, 3-Portland, and 4-San Antonio. Saying that Denver wins the division in a tie-breaker against Portland and, thus Portland is forced to be 4th is not just good enough for me.Juve2000 (talk) 22:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand your questions, but I'm afraid I didn't have any explanations for it. But I guess that's probably NBA automatically relegated Portland to 4th just to make sure that they finished lower than Denver who may be 3rd if Denver lose the tiebreaker against San Antonio (which isn't the case for this season). Or probably in three-teams tie, there is a rule that states that the division winner automatically gets higher seed than non-division winner. Sorry if this isn't really clear as I'm not really an expert on this subject. Martin tamb (talk) 04:39, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the reason why Portland was 4th was because they shouldn't affect San Antonio's seeding. –Howard the Duck 16:12, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

2008-2009 Northwest Division Title Shared

The Portland Trail Blazers share this title with The Denver Nuggets. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.237.87.149 (talk) 03:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Notable Occurences

I don't think Stephon Marbury signing with the Celtics and Shaun Livingston signing with the Heat (before he was waived and signed by the Thunder) are notable enough. There are plenty of free agency signing that resulted in the players who made more impacts than these two. 125.161.247.198 (talk) 09:25, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Also if the 'Noche Latina' event was mentioned, I think NBA Green week need to be mentioned as well. 125.161.247.198 (talk) 09:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

More suggestions about notable events

How about a separate section for records broken this season? There seems to be a lot and it takes up a good portion of the "Notable Events" category. I think the "readability" of the article would be better if large blocks of text were broken into smaller sections. You guys agreed with that when I took off the player transactions and coaching changes and gave them their own sections, but I want to make sure. Yea or nay?