Basketball is Back: Your Guide to the HPBasketball Network for 2014-15
Welcome my friends, to the show that never ends. Come inside, come inside. Another year, another NBA season at Paroxysm, celebrating seven years as the not-worst general NBA blog on the planet. But this year we have some friends. Since last April when we joined FanSided, we’ve added a whole NETWORK of sites. We’re growing, we’re expanding our brand and seeking out new synergy solutions in an ever-expanding ideas marketplace hoping to achieve peak viral WHATEVER THE WHATEVER BLAH BLAH BLAH. But these sites? They are legit. They are really cool, and with the season set to tip off we thought we’d give you a site-by-site guide why you should be following the HPBasketball Network.
(By the way, we wanted to name it the Hardwood Paroxysm Network but that is just too damn long. Instead, I have a network based on my trainwreck of a Twitter handle. And that trainwreck has its own Twitter handle: @HPBNetwork. AMERICA!)
NYLON CALCULUS (@NylonCalculus)
Heralded by resident genius Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh, formerly of Hickory High, now appearing at The Cauldron and 538), Nylon Calculus is our advanced metrics blog. TNC looks to merge academia with the sport we love. TNC has its roots in the spirit of the old APBR metrics board and wants to use empirical methods to discover more about the NBA. In an era where the war annoyingly rages on between staunch opponents of “them mathy numbers” and those that would seek to find one solution to an incredibly complex problem, Nylon Calculus is more concerned with this fundamental query: “Are we asking the right questions?”
At Nylon Calculus, Austin Clemens has built a heat-map shot chart system. Those heat maps that are so popular on certain sites? We’ve made them interactive (click to see how a player shoots from an area), more advanced (points per shot vs. simple field goal percentage) and most importantly, you’re welcome to create them, save them, and use them on Twitter or your blogs, or print them out and paste them all over your walls like you’re that dude in 7even.
TNC is where you’ll find work like Seth Partnow’s illuminating post on point guard styles, which shows us the most divisive position in the NBA in a new light, and an actual empirical look at whether a woman can ever play in the NBA. And you’ll see Layne Vashro’s Player Comparison tool. Go play with the stats and get ready for the revolution.
Mid-Level Exceptional (@MLExceptional)
Guided by the essential Jared Dubin (@jadubin5, Grantland, The Cauldron), MLE is our business site. We’re looking to explore the money side of the league, from player contracts to TV deals to the branding initiatives of the league. MLE is the only site of its kind and we expect big things from it in the next two years before, you know, we’re all locked out.
Don’t understand what the hell Bird Rights means? We’ve got you covered. What would the league look like with a hard cap? Here’s a look. What’s the true value of a contract? Read on. You can’t be a real NBA fan without looking at salaries and what goes on with the league’s money-making. MLE is the merger between “the business” and the “game.”
THE PODIUM GAME (@podiumgame)
A BASKETBALL MULTIMEDIA EXPERIENCE! OK, it’s not, like, basketball epcot, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun. TPG is our site for video breakdowns, podcasts, and terrible, God-awful photoshops. We’ve got multiple podcasts on our feed and we’re updating more content all the time. Expect original videos and bigger projects this season. TPG is just cool, and lead by Jordan White (@jordanswhite), who is already sorry for his photoshops. #sorrynotsorry
You can find podcasts with big time writers like David Roth of the Classical, and the essential Over and Back podcast which looks at things like the career of Detlef Schrempf. And you know, NBA Musicals, because you need that in your life.
UPSIDE AND MOTOR (@upsidemotor)
Our draft, D-league, and Euro prospects blog, U&M is edited by Scot Rafferty AKA Raffers (Ridiculous Upside, Crab Dribbles) (@crabdribbles) and looks at what’s next in the NBA. You can find scouting reports on Bogdan Bogdanovic, and features on rookies like Jordan Adams, along with mock drafts and big boards.
THE FRIENDLY BOUNCE (@FriendlyBounce)
The NBA has bigger and better personalities than any other sport and TFB, edited by Andrew Lynch (@AndrewLynch) is the place to find the best and weirdest stories on the web about the players you love. Hilarious GIFs like Amar’e NOOOOOOOT quite making contact, and the idea that Michael Jordan is Elsa from “Frozen.” This is the most fun site we have and you can’t miss the steady stream of content we’ll have every day.
HARDWOOD PAROXYSM
Finally, there’s Paroxysm. We’ve moved to 26 alumni who have gone to have part or full-time jobs in sports or sports media this year. It features the same bizarre and insightful writing it always has.
You want detailed analyses of guys trying to figure themselves out during Summer League? BOOM. We got that. How about a list of random stuff that makes us SO GODDAMN EXCITED FOR THIS UPCOMING SEASON WE CAN HARDLY CONTAIN OURSELVES? Got that, too. Hot takes? Well, we’ve got some specialists on the roster who’ll serve’em up fresh from the oven.
We’re bringing back Lion Face/Lemon Face and the 15 Footer for the SEVENTH YEAR. We write about basketball, we love basketball, in many ways, we are basketball. OK, that’s not true. But you come visit us, and you’re going to find something worth your time.
Thanks for reading, we hope you have a great season, and as always…
Welcome to the Paroxysm. Everybody get the **** up.
