Composite NBA Power Rankings for Feb. 21

In case you haven't figured this out yet, let me give you a quick refresher on the Composite NBA Power Rankings: I've picked 11 representative weekly power rankings and two automated daily power rankings from around the web. I drop each team's highest and lowest ranking, then average out the remaining 11 rankings and sort the teams by lowest average.

For the second consecutive week, we've only got 12 rankings. This time it was Britt Robson of SI.com, doing midseason grades for each team, rather than ranking them. I'd recommended checking them out, especially if you're a Bobcats fan (no F!).

For full disclosure purposes, here are the 13 rankings usually included in the composite. If there's a major one you think I've missed, let me know and I'll be happy to add it, as long as it gets published on either Monday or Tuesday.

Sam Amico (FoxSports.com), Complex.com, Zach Harper (HoopSpeak.com), Kurt Helin (ProBasketballTalk), Matt Moore (CBSSports.com), Eric Pincus (Hoopsworld), Britt Robson (SI.com), John Schuhmann (NBA.com), Chris Sheridan (SheridanHoops.com), Marc Stein (ESPN.com), Tom Ziller (SB Nation), Jeff Sagarin (USA Today), John Hollinger (ESPN.com)

There's been some movement within the rankings, but not at the top or bottom, where the same teams come in where they did a week ago. But should they be? Let's take a look at all 30 teams and find out.

The Best Last Pick

On Sunday, in DDL, one of the commenters presented a question that intrigued me. I wanted to answer it in the chat, but I knew anything other than a snarky answer would require some actual research. The question? Who is the best 'last' pick in the draft in NBA history?

The NBA Draft goes back to the very beginning of the league, though early records don't have pick-by-pick data beyond the first round. It does appear the records for 1954 are complete, and Joe Holup -- picked 100th overall -- would seem to be the first "last pick" to play in the NBA. However, from then through the 1989 draft, the only last pick to even play in a single regular-season NBA game was Roland West, who was selected 162nd overall in 1967 by the the Baltimore Bullets and played four games for them that season, finishing with four career points (but 10.3 points and 12.9 rebounds per 36 minutes!).

The draft got insanely long following the ABA-NBA merger, making it highly unlikely that any last pick would even sniff a roster. In 1984, Dan Trant was the final selection of the draft, coming in at 228th overall. The next season, the draft was cut from 10 rounds to seven, which was still too many. It finally dropped to three in 1988, then two a year later. Finally in 1990, another last pick actually cracked a roster: Sean Higgins (who won a national title with Michigan in 1989) was selected 54th overall by the Spurs, and went on to play 220 games for six teams over seven seasons.

Still, even with the shortening of the draft, it's an uphill battle for the last pick to ever make an NBA mark. Since 1989, just 10 of the 23 players selected last overall have played an NBA game, and only five of those have a career win shares total higher than 1.0.

As of right now, the answer to the initial question "Who is the best 'last' pick in the draft in NBA history?" is probably Don Reid. Selected 58th overall out of Georgetown in 1995, Reid played seven full seasons in the NBA (plus one game in his 8th and final season), and was actually a regular starter for a Pistons team that made the playoffs as a rookie. Reid finished his career with 403 games played, 149 starts, and 13.7 career win shares, which puts him more than five ahead of any other player selected last overall.

But Reid may not have his place in history for long, which I'd assume is why the DDLer (who I can't remember at this point) was asking the question in the first place. Kings guard Isaiah Thomas was selected with the final pick in the 2011 NBA draft and is already making an impact on the league. He's averaging 7.9 points per game, but 15.5 points per 36 minutes, which is more reflective of his production, particularly now that he's getting more consistent minutes for Sacramento. Thomas's PER of 16.5 is well above any mark Reid posted in any single season of his career.

Despite a productive college career, Thomas was overlooked on draft day because of his size. He's listed at 5-foot-9, and is one of the shortest players in modern NBA history. It's tough to project how his career will end up, but considering where he was drafted, he's already been more productive than the Kings could have expected.

While Thomas probably only needs to string together a couple more seasons like this one to be considered the best last pick ever, he's got a LONG way to go to be the best 60th pick -- both Michael Cooper and Hall-of-Famer Drazen Petrovic were drafted 60th overall, back when the draft was longer.

2012 Rising Stars Challenge Mock Draft

Since the NBA announced the change in format to the Rookie-Sophomore game, there's been speculation on how exactly the picks will shake out. Well, we can't possibly know what's going through the minds of Charles Barkley ("Weight Watchers... meatballs... turrbull... meatballs... Kenny looks stupid... meatballs") or Shaquille O'Neal ("ImSupermannotDwightHowardmumblemumbleShaqPun"), but we can certainly take a stab at making the picks ourselves.

Joining me for this exercise in futility is the incomperable Jared Dubin of Hardwood Paroxysm (follow him on Twitter @JADubin5), who took some time out from Linsanity to play the Shaq to my Charles. Or Charles to my Shaq. Who knows? Either way, I gave Jared the first pick, since he's on my home turf.

First Pick: Jared Dubin selects Ricky Rubio, Minnesota Timberwolves

Rubio's not the best overall player on the board, but his game is definitely most suited to the Rising Stars Challenge. Point guards always wind up controlling the flow and the pace of these games, and that's why I'm going with Ricky. His handles, his passing, his ability to find impossible angles, his flair and his unselfishness are exactly what you're looking for when building a team to compete in a high-flying, fast-paced exhibition. There are plenty of exciting finishers available to draft later on, so I wanted to lock up the best available set-up man with the first overall pick.

Second Pick: Adam Reisinger selects Blake Griffin, Los Angeles Clippers

Jared went exactly the same direction I was planning on going with the first pick, with exactly the same player, for exactly the same reasoning. Which means I already need to blow up my big board, because I refuse to let my team get run out of the building with Rubio-to-Griffin alley-oops all game. Plus, the Rising Star Challenge game flow will minimize Blake’s weaknesses (mid-range jumpers, free-throw shooting), while maximizing his strengths (dunks on dunks on dunks)

Third Pick: Jared Dubin selects Paul George, Indiana Pacers

I figured Blake slipping to me here in Round 2 was a long shot, but I was perfectly fine "settling" for Paul George anyway. He's efficient, he's explosive and he's got a great three-point stroke; and everyone knows these games pretty much solely consist of threes and dunks. He's a much better athlete than he first appears, and if the game gets close at the end, he can D up either 2s or 3s. Plus, I mean, there's this.




Fourth Pick: Adam Reisinger selects John Wall, Washington Wizards

Play Index Plus: Mana From Heaven

For those of us who could be classified as basketball elitists (or, if you prefer, "nerds"), Wednesday was something like Christmas and Independence Day and New Year's and Arbor Day combined.

The popular statistics site Basketball-Reference.com added a new layer to its play index database tool, Play Index+. The feature allows you to search through play-by-play data for the last 11 seasons to break down stats based on event type, shot type, time of game, score situation and even five-man lineup. It's incredible information, and now fans have accuess to short it however they'd like.

For example: since 2001 (which is as far back as the database goes, for now), there have been 76 game-tying or go-ahead baskets made in the last 10 seconds of fourth quarter or overtime of the postseason (I'd link to that query, but it actually required doing a year-by-year query and summing them manually). Two players have made four of those baskets, the most in the NBA. Those players? Kobe Bryant, which would've likely been everyone's first guess, and LeBron James, which might surprise people.

The level of detail in Play Index Plus is the kind of thing you can lose yourself in for hours at a time. For example, did you know that all but one of Ryan Anderson's 3-pointers this year have been assisted? Or that Anderson Varajeo leads the NBA in highest percentage of assisted dunks (min. 10 attempts) with 100%. Or that Norris Cole has attempted the most shots in the NBA with his team leading by at least 25 points?

I could go on and on, but really you're going to want to dive in and play with this thing yourself. You can use it to amuse yourself (Garbage time is fun!) or use it to be a smarter fan (Chris "Mr. Clutch" Bosh?), there's really something for everyone in there. Mostly, though, it allows all of us the OPPORTUNITY to be smarter fans.

You don't have to take advantage of the opportunity. There's nothing wrong with preferring to be an observer of the game, someone who loves it for its asthetic beauty. But if you're going to be the kind of fan who wants to draw conclusions about things that happen on the court, it's nice to be armed with as much evidence as possible, and Play Index Plus is like having your own team of hoops paralegals doing discovery for you.

Composite NBA Power Rankings for Feb. 14

In case you haven't figured this out yet, let me give you a quick refresher on the Composite NBA Power Rankings: I've picked 11 representative weekly power rankings and two automated daily power rankings from around the web. I drop each team's highest and lowest ranking, then average out the remaining 11 rankings and sort the teams by lowest average.

However, we've only got 12 rankings this week, because Tom Ziller of SB Nation ranked the teams based on lovability, rather than power. I highly recommend you check them out, but for obvious reasons I couldn't include them in the composite.

For full disclosure purposes, here are the 13 rankings usually included in the composite. If there's a major one you think I've missed, let me know and I'll be happy to add it, as long as it gets published on either Monday or Tuesday.

Sam Amico (FoxSports.com), Complex.com, Zach Harper (HoopSpeak.com), Kurt Helin (ProBasketballTalk), Matt Moore (CBSSports.com), Eric Pincus (Hoopsworld), Britt Robson (SI.com), John Schuhmann (NBA.com), Chris Sheridan (SheridanHoops.com), Marc Stein (ESPN.com), Tom Ziller (SB Nation), Jeff Sagarin (USA Today), John Hollinger (ESPN.com)

There's been some movement within the rankings, but not at the top or bottom, where the same teams come in where they did a week ago. But should they be? Let's take a look at all 30 teams and find out.

10 Years Ago Today: LeBron vs. Carmelo I

It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since the first meeting between LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. On Feb. 10, 2002, 'Melo led his Oak Hill team against LeBron's St. Vincent-St. Mary's squad, in one of the most hyped meetings of high school basketball players ever. Anthony was considered one of the best players in the Class of 2002, while James was the no doubt No. 1 player in the Class of 2003. And while at the time of this meeting, 'Melo was dead set on going to college, there was already talk about LeBron's ability to jump to the next level.

I had the opportunity to interview 'Melo one-on-one about a month before this game, and he was very complementary of LeBron. It was clear the two were friendly rivals and there was no animosity between them. It was also clear that while Carmelo knew LeBron wasn't likely headed to college, he had no intention of going the prep-to-pro route -- he spoke glowingly about wanting to play in front of huge crowds at the Carrier Dome and how much he'd loved Syracuse's campus when he visited.

LeBron outscored Carmelo 36-34 in that first meeting, but 'Melo's Oak Hill team, stacked with eight future Division I players, won the game. Looking at that highlight video above, a few things stand out.

• The game itself was played in Trenton, NJ, in front of a stunningly sparse crowd. It wasn't until the next season that LeBron was such a phenom that he was playing in front of packed houses every game.
• I don't know what's stranger: LeBron with no headband or Carmelo with that hairstyle.
• Also, LeBron had to cover up his tattoos back then, because of state rules, but it's weird to see how few he had. There's no covering paper on his forearms or legs at all. Now he'd pretty much have to wear long sleeves and tights.
• I remember all the talk about LeBron around the draft was how he had an NBA ready body, but look at how rail thin he looks compared to now.
• Seriously, Carmelo's hair...

One of my few disappointments with the documentary "More Than a Game" is how it glossed over this meeting, which was a huge deal in 2002. It wasn't televised nationally, but it was on in the northeast (again, for some reason it was in New Jersey), and I remember watching it. It was pretty clear who the two best players on the court were, and it's pretty impressive that 10 years later they've become two of the best players in the NBA.