Today is a big day for the basketball community, and while it is due to someone changing teams, it is not any of the big names that were mentioned yesterday at the trade deadline. It is the acquisition of writer John Hollinger by ESPN.com. John, as you probably know, has written the fantastic Pro Basketball Forecast (formerly prospectus) for the past few years, and was most recently writing for SI.com. At ESPN, even in its for-pay-only 'insider' capacity, he will have his largest audience to educate his readers on statistical analyses of basketball. Getting off to a great start, John spends his debut article explaining defensive efficiency.
Hollinger is not only a guy with great ideas and analysis, but also an enjoyable writer. His sense of humor will undoubtedly help soften any barriers that some readers may have put up while questioning his methods. As Rob Neyer has become the voice-to-the-masses in terms of baseball sabermetrics, Hollinger can do the same for basketball. That will only help those in the same community like Kevin Pelton and Knickerblogger (And on my good days I can include myself?) who write in the vernacular of Hollinger (and Dean Oliver). Congrats to John and even moreso to ESPN for getting in on the revolution.
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As far as the Bulls are concerned, they have the Wizards tonight, and then travel to Charlotte to face the Bobcats the following night to close out February. I wish those games were reversed, since any back-to-back makes me leery, even if it's the Bobcats.
If you haven't already, check out my trade deadline comments for some weekend reading. And the return of the 'Carnival of the NBA' will be up by Sunday, so if you have written (or read) something that you want mentioned, just send me an email.