Links of the Week

JPO has taken a blogging hiatus for most of this lonely winter, but we haven't stopped watching hoops in the interim. Sheepishly, we now return to the WWW with a rundown of our favorite articles from the past couple weeks. More substantive commentary will follow soon.

SI.com's Rob Mahoney breaks down Tim Duncan's still-stout defensive game.

Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard shows us how Stephen Curry became perhaps the best shooter in all of basketball.

Mahoney, again, illustrates with video and nifty charts the resurgence of Roy Hibbert's offensive game.

Charley Rosen moves the chess pieces in an imagined showdown between the 2013 Miami Heat and the 1972 Lakers, the owners of the two longest winning streaks ever seen in the league.

ESPN.com's Ethan Strauss explains that basketball fans should prefer the NBA to college ball because the NCAA tournament, with its lose-you're-out format, has too many lucky, undeserved outcomes. To his argument I would add (1) the talent is far higher in the pros, obviously, and (2) college basketball corrupts the academic culture of universities, diverting attention and resources to a side business far afield from the institution's mission. (The recent scandal at Rutgers revealed what is likely not an atypical power base in a university's athletic department.) If universities need more revenue, state legislatures should respond with ordinary taxation and spending. If the NBA needs a minor league, it should pay for it.

William C. Rhoden of the New York Times opines on Chris Webber's relationship with his former college in advance of Monday night's NCAA men's championship game.