Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Basketball Association/Archive 21

Slew of "All-NBA" and "All-NBL" navboxes cropping up

 * User:Lnhbm has created a slew of All-NBA and All-NBL navboxes (see 2004–05 All-NBA Team and 1939–40 All-National Basketball League (United States) Team for examples). I'm strongly opposed to these. First of all, no individual articles exist for these awards, which is a criterion of navboxes. Furthermore, this is information much better served in the honors/awards section in infoboxes. These are also junking up articles with WP:CLUTTER and they may even border on WP:CRUFT. I'd like input before proceeding with a mass TfD. Jrcla2 (talk) 14:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I would like to see one template per decade for All-NBA. I think I have even asked about it here before.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Definitely don't think this is necessary. For some players you are talking about upwards of 10 navboxes for this alone (and those players likely have a ton of navboxes anyway).  At least with Consensus All-America teams the max a guy would have is 4. Rikster2 (talk) 16:29, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Has anyone reached out to him to ask him to hold off until some consensus is reached here? It is my experience that the guy doesn't communicate with anyone. Rikster2 (talk) 16:32, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Well I don't generally like navboxes of this type at all. Guidelines suggest only creating infoboxes that contain links that a reader would expect to already find in a finished version of the page the box is being included on and where there is a high likelihood that those articles are the immediate next article a user is likely to want to go to. They also suggest award winners not be a reason for a navbox but to instead use succession boxes. Though I am not sure that works for an award with so many winners each year. So I would be cool with a mass tfd. -DJSasso (talk) 16:37, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I've had issues with this user in the past, and like Rikster2 said, he doesn't communicate on his own talk page, your talk page, or article talk pages, period. Look at his edit counter. Out of 1,344 total edits, it's roughly 50/50 for template and article mainspaces, meaning he just creates a plethora of one type of navbox, puts them on bio articles, and that's it. He will not respond you, and sometimes a direct mass TfD might get the point across. Jrcla2 (talk) 17:14, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


 * In case anyone was wondering what this would look like fully played out - check out Bill Russell and his 10 new templates. Rikster2 (talk) 17:39, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ugg and he was already one of the overly templated articles. Yuck. -DJSasso (talk) 17:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Can somebody set up the TfD? Just looked at Jerry West and Oscar Robertson - it's getting ridiculous. Rikster2 (talk) 22:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Above, I mentioned a compromise of one template per decade, but seemed to have missed my point. No one is going to get more than 2 or 3 if we do it by decade.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:22, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


 * so I'm to blame, eh? I don't care one way or the other.  Personally, I don't think they are needed but I don't think that decision necessarily needs to be made before TfDing these. Rikster2 (talk) 23:51, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I guess no one really has any passion over this. Rikster2 (talk) 12:42, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well I would suggest deleting them, but I already said as much. Don't have much more to say on the topic. -DJSasso (talk) 13:23, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * These templates are unnecessary and clutter the articles severely. I support mass-TfDing them.— Chris! c / t 21:27, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * And TonyTheTiger please creates mockups of the navboxes you suggested. I would like to see them.— Chris! c / t 21:31, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I am also in favor of TFDing the individual years. I'll get to some mockups.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:15, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I have mocked up the two easiest ones: 1930s All-National Basketball League (United States) Team and 2010s All-NBA Team. Do you want to see a full decade version?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:28, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. This is fine. I can envision what the full version looks like.— Chris! c / t 23:37, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Tony - thanks for mocking those up. Could you do one full decade so we can see what it looks like?  I get a little worried 150 links on a template could get heavy.  Thanks Rikster2 (talk) 02:04, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * 1970s All-NBA Team and 1990s All-NBA Team show two- and three-team eras. Go preview these on a couple of pages to see what they look like.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:53, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Not a fan of these, way too many links involved which is the reason why the individual years boxes are so bad. All this changes does is remove a few headers but the main problem of too many unrelated links are still there. -DJSasso (talk) 11:38, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I kind of agree. 150 links is a lot for a navbox - think about it, that is more than Template:Liverpool F.C. seasons.  Also, not sure if others are having this problem, but when I go to really loaded pages like Larry Bird or Michael Jordan, the pages don't load correctly anymore and making updates takes forever on many of my browsers.  I have to think the huge number of transclusions has something to do with that. Rikster2 (talk) 18:19, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * When you say 150 links, do you realize that the number of unique links is probably less than half that number. If the 150 links are only going to 60 or 70 unique articles does it cause as much problem as if all 150 links are unique? 100-150 links does not seem that excessive to me in comparison to a lot of template that are acceptable such as Kentucky Derby Winners, 2000s WSOP Bracelet Winners, Cold War or 2000-2009VSFashion Show. The problem with 100-150 link templates is when the person is likely to have more than a handful of the same type of template. If they are only going to have a couple, it has not been a problem.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:35, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll let others chime in. I will say that two of those templates - Victoria's Secret and WSP - seem to be of questionable value to me.  But those subjects aren't my bailiwick. Rikster2 (talk) 21:23, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Performance is definitely something we should keep in mind. It takes over ten seconds for some of these pages to load. Zagal e jo^^^ 00:08, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Would the pages load notably slower with this template or are they taking ten seconds because of all the other stuff on the page? I.e., is adding these templates going to even add a full second to the load times.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 01:19, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know exactly, but all the little things add up. Zagal e jo^^^ 02:34, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I have had two templates TFDed due to too many links. In those cases. If you added the template to a stub the stub would load slowly. I don't think this template has the same issues.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Listing a decade fails WP:NAVBOX on these points: "The articles should refer to each other, to a reasonable extent", and "You would want to list many of these articles in the See also sections of the articles."—Bagumba (talk) 03:35, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you part of WP:HOCKEY. Never heard a WP:NBA guy make that argument.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:37, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I understand, it's a general WP guideline and not hockey-specific. Is there a compelling argument to ignore it?—Bagumba (talk) 04:41, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It is a general argument against most sports templates that only HOCKEY interprets as the proper interpretation. It is why HOCKEY has almost no templates and other sports do. That argument would eliminate every team (NBA Finals, Olympic, etc), every award template (League MVP, NCAA MOP, etc.) and every statistical championship (NBA scoring champ, NCAA scoring champ, etc.). I.e, it is not an interpretation that NBA agrees with.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:46, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Look, my history proves that I generally support templates when they are useful. This discussion is getting funny because DJSasso never shows up unless it furthers the agenda of eliminating templates, meanwhile Tony would create a template for his dog's dumps if people would let him.  At the end of the day, my personal opinion is that All-NBA teams just don't lend themselves to templates.  Either you go the yearly route and end up with 10-15 templates on some pages (ones that are typically already weighted down I might add), or you go the decade route and the things have so much info they cease to be useful ( and still add a trillion wiki links to the article).  My vote is we TfD the yearly templates and don't try to create the decade templates. Rikster2 (talk) 15:38, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * What is with the WP:PERSONAL on my templating. Are you confusing my history of liberal support of succession boxes with my fairly prudent use of navboxes (see redlinks at User:TonyTheTiger/creations). I don't think there has been a trivial navbox deleted in either the WP:NBA or WP:CBBALL universe. I have proposed some navboxes that have been shot down, but I have not been creating dumpy navboxes. Note that the decades templates created here were requested. Also, note that the so much info that they fail to be useful seems to be a mischaracterization. The majority of the 150 links are probably from guys who have 5 or more links in a decade. On a page like Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan or Charles Barkley 1990s All-NBA Team is not useless. Then on a page where there is only one link like say Anthony Mason (basketball), the template serves the purpose of listing contemporary stars, unless you take the HOCKEY approach that says such use is against policy.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:57, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This isn't particularly true. I agree with many templates. I just believe ones that include an excessive amount of links that include people who are only very tangentially related to the topic often can overwhelm a reader and instead of help the reader get to the next most useful article actually serve to do the opposite. Basically exactly the reasoning you list above is why I don't like this particular template. As for Tony's comments, I really wish you would quit trying to vilify the hockey project. It isn't the only sport that follows that interpretation of the policy (which compared to most wiki guidelines is pretty crystal clear). Soccer to a large extent has also been removing similar templates. And lately baseball has been more open to doing so as well. -DJSasso (talk) 15:04, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't see soccer as taking the HOCKEY approach. Every navbox template on Landon Donovan or David Beckham's pages would be deleted by Hockey.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:06, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * While there are varying opinions on the use of navboxes, I do not see any advantage to labeling views to specific projects; it can only lead to animosity. I suggest comparing and contrasting the views based purely on their perceived merit.—Bagumba (talk) 17:51, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes that is basically the point I was trying to make. Feel free not to agree with a projects use or non-use, but making us sound like we are doing something horrible in that project is a bit ridiculous when we are just following a guideline that is pretty crystal clear. "The subject of the template should be mentioned in every article." and "The articles should refer to each other, to a reasonable extent." and "You would want to list many of these articles in the See also sections of the articles." It is really pretty hard to interpret that guideline any other way. Other than simply not liking it. In most award or team templates that wouldn't be the case for articles in these navboxes. By all means feel free to get the guideline changed if you don't like it, but don't try to label a project as bad because they choose to follow a guideline. -DJSasso (talk) 18:01, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think there are valid uses for navboxes beyond the current guideline; however, nobody has come up with additional objective criteria, so we end up in endless subjective discussions.  While someone could take all the "bad" navboxes and instead replace them with succession boxes, that wouldn't be optimal either, as I wouldn't want to see succession boxes for things like LeBron James' ESPYs. In the meantime, we either have severely limited use of navboxes in the interest of following guidelines to a tee, navbox overkill in the name of WP:OTHERSTUFF, or over-proliferation of succession boxes that technically don't violate any guideline.—Bagumba (talk) 18:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It is also impossible to get the right group of people together to do any kind of meaningful review of the guidelines, so they stay basically the same as they have for 5-6 years. I think navboxes have come a long way and the guidelines should change (but not open the floodgates), but good luck reaching consensus on that or anything else.  I just re-read a dialouge about redlinks in navboxes on the navbox essay's Talk page that was about a year old and went nowhere.  Wikipedia inertia in action. Rikster2 (talk) 18:36, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Personally I don't have a problem with succession boxes for things like the ESPYs as long they are under a collapsible box if there are multiple succession boxes. Then it gives the fewest possible links for context. One to the award page which presumably has a list of all winners. One to the previous winner and one to the next winner which gives the "contemporaries" that some people really like. I kind of wish we would head more towards that direction. Of course assuming they were under collapsible boxes. But I do agree with alot of what Rikster mentions about good luck reaching consensus. I do think navboxes have gotten quite a bit worse over the last few years as people use WP:OTHERSTUFF as reasons to add more and more and more navboxes to pages. -DJSasso (talk) 18:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * In the discussion at Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_90, it was split on the preference of navboxes over succession boxes. Both navs and succs are collapsible, so they are equal in clutter concerns and I find the difference in number of links to be a red-herring. I see no benefit to limiting navigation to a specific order in a sequence as a succession box does. Regardless of whether a succession box or navbox is used, my common concern is establishing objective criteria for determining the inclusion of either for a given honor.—Bagumba (talk) 19:21, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I can see what you are saying and limiting the number of boxes in some fashion would definitely be a move in the right direction. (of either type). But for me the issue is very much about the number of links. I think the ideal situation would be individually crafted navboxs for each page where only the most high value "see also"-type links would be found. Sort of like an infobox but horizontal along the bottom with things like links to award pages that they won which would list all the award winners. Thus merging many 10's of links for each award into a single link for each award. But I doubt we would ever get to that point because it would probably be considerably more work to do that than to just slap navboxes as they currently are onto articles as a one size fits all solution. -DJSasso (talk) 19:30, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the actual benefit to the reader compared to the work to customize navboxes per article probably does not outweigh the relative ease of "one size fits all" slapping together of navboxes.—Bagumba (talk) 19:55, 27 September 2012 (UTC)


 * If you think there are trivial navboxes out there in the NBA or CBB projects, by all means propose deletion of them. Rikster2 (talk) 18:04, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I meant none of my NBA or CBB navboxes have been deleted. So your dog dump thing was highly inappropriate.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:54, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Tony - I apologize for my remark. My opinion on what we should do about these templates stays the same, but I am sorry I made the remark and offended you. Rikster2 (talk) 18:45, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It seems I am in the minority on the decade All-NBA template. So be it.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:54, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * P.S. I am sorry if you are not a Fairy Tale fan!}--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:55, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I dont see objective criteria for determining when WP:NAVBOX should be ignored, and when it is sufficient for an article to only have a link to a list like All-NBA Team, which readers can click on to see other members of the list. I'm not saying all navboxes should be removed, I'm just saying its pretty subjective until general guidelines are layed out.—Bagumba (talk) 05:59, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Official mass TfD
Here it is: Templates for discussion/Log/2012 September 26. Thanks. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:25, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking this on, Jrcla2. Rikster2 (talk) 21:46, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure. It was no small task, unfortunately. This is the biggest mass TfD I ever threw together. Jrcla2 (talk) 13:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Highlights order example
Per discussion above, I updated Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Any final comments?—Bagumba (talk) 23:52, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The orders may vary. For example, if you compare players who have won championships, usually they leave individual awards in lower parts of the infobox's highlight section, but players like Dwight Howard or Kevin Durant who have not won championships, the order of achievements varies. Don't know if i'm making myself clear or not. Jay Starz (talk) 00:03, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * If there are no championships, then nothing needs to be done. Just move on to the next potential honors on the ordered list. As for different bios varying, the intent of the discussion was to determine if there should be consistency.  It was a weak consensus based on limited participation; assumingly everyone else agreed.—Bagumba (talk) 00:12, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it looks good. Minor question - why is it that NBA "champion" isn't capitalized, but NCAA "Champion" is?  Is there a compelling reason for the NCAA version to differ? Rikster2 (talk) 20:08, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Changed to lower case. There was a recent effort to change "NBA Champion" while likely overlooked the NCAA counterpart.—Bagumba (talk) 20:14, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Camp invite
NBA camps started Monday. I saw this tweet on Sunday from DeShawn Sims. Does anyone know if he signed with someone?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't remember seeing his name mentioned anywhere, as far as the NBA goes. The latest news I see is that he signed in Lebanon: Zagal e jo^^^ 00:36, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

"league" field in bio infobox
There is a discussion on the use and display of the "league" field in Infobox basketball biography at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball.—Bagumba (talk) 15:52, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

MOS for team season articles
Could it be possible to start throwing ideas around for a manual of style on team season articles? The 1975–76 Buffalo Braves season is rated as a good article so I thought we could take it from there.Xaviersc (talk) 23:55, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That article was mostly my work. Not sure if it is an example of what a post internet era team season should look like. Seasons for the last 10 years or so might be different.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:27, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The structure it's pretty much the same as in most recent season articles. I based on that article to edit 2007–08 Seattle SuperSonics season, and added a few more sections like injuries/suspensions and transactions.Xaviersc (talk) 12:44, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Patrick Mills
Can somebody rescue this article? Tons of content removed (including the lead and his entire college career) with no explanation. My access doesn't allow me to restore the edits automatically so I am hoping somebody here can restore an earlier version. Rikster2 (talk) 12:53, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks like User:Edgars2007 took care of it: Zagal e jo^^^ 00:18, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I wanted to say it here, but I had some problems with Wikipedia and saving pages and I was bussy, so I choosed not to write here anything (I had to save Mills' page several times :D) -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 04:59, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Playoffs
There is move request that may be interesting to all of you. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 14:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Andrew Bynum trade
Could use some more input at Talk:Andrew_Bynum.—Bagumba (talk) 17:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

2011 NBA lockout for GA?
Hi everyone. I think 2011 NBA lockout is well written enough to be nominated for GA. If no one objects, I will nominate it. Thanks.— Chris! c / t 02:21, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The article looks like it's close to GA quality, based on a quick scan, though I did find a few problems with verb tenses. I fixed a few things, but some statements may still need to be updated to reflect that the lockout ended. Zagal e jo^^^

Norris Cole
Can someone take a look at the Norris Cole article? A user is angrily insisting that Cole's weight be listed as 174.4 pounds, exactly (rather than 175, which is what NBA.com has). This isn't even the first time the issue has come up; someone tried to do the same thing about a year ago. A basketball player's weight is going to fluctuate over a season - even within a single practice, a player probably loses at least a pound of sweat - so I don't know why anyone would want such precision in the infobox. Zagal e jo^^^ 04:27, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * User has been blocked for edit-warring. Should we make it a general guideline that height/weight should follow nba.com link in the infobox for verifiability.  Otherwise, there will always be discrepancies.—Bagumba (talk) 23:08, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think for active players the team site (fed by NBA.com) needs to serve as their official listed weight. I'd say the same is true of other leagues, though I realize that is outside WP:NBA's scope.  For retired players, I believe there are more cases of conflicting information, but I could be wrong. Rikster2 (talk) 23:12, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps if there was a discrepancy for active players and reliable sources discussed it (e.g. Shaquille O'Neal in the past) it could be dealt with in prose that the listed weight conflicted with other sources. In the case of Norris, the 174.4 seems to be from a year ago and is outdated.—Bagumba (talk) 23:20, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I guess if there is a wide discrepancy. The whole Norris Cole thing was absurd. Rikster2 (talk) 23:49, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Cole case aside, I'm more interested in handling general discrepancies in this area than this specific one.—Bagumba (talk) 23:56, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * For active players, it really needs to be team site unless there is very compelling evidence to a significantly different weight. In the end, that is why it says listed weight.  The team is who does the listing. Rikster2 (talk) 00:04, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Sound reasonable, even if WP is mocked for it Eddy Curry.—Bagumba (talk) 00:09, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * My practice is a little bit complicated, but for active NBA players, I always use the NBA.com weights. We're never going to satisfy everyone if we try to determine their "true" weights, and the infobox does say "listed weight". Of course, there are times when NBA.com itself varies (eg, the main profile says something different from the nightly game notes PDF). There are also cases when third-party sources report something radically different than anything NBA.com has. In such cases, we might use footnotes to acknowledge discrepancies. That said, I don't think we should be giving undue weight to the draft sites' combine numbers for weight. Those numbers were taken a while ago, and a given player's weight has probably changed at least a little bit (if we're measuring to tenths of pounds). Zagal e jo^^^ 02:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If someone is playing in a different league, I'm willing to use whatever weight that league has listed. For retired NBA players, I would use the NBA.com historical profile figures, mainly because it's most convenient. However, I've sometimes thought about completely removing weights for retired players, because most players will get heavier or lighter over the course of their careers. Zagal e jo^^^ 02:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I have been following this weight controversy for a while. I agree with the need for consistency, but if we are going to use NBA.com as the official statistics then there also has to be consistency with that. For example, look at the stats that are listed, many stats on NBA.com are excluded from Norris Cole's wikipedia page like turnovers. Why is this? Also, there stats that begin with 0 such as 0.5 omit the 0 on wikipedia but do not on NBA.com. We cannot be inconsistent in one area yet demand consistency in other areas, because that by definition is inconsistent. Rat8787 (talk) 00:58, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The whole issue is not about consistency, it is about whether the weight given is verifiable. 174.4 is not Cole's verifiable weight. Even if it is, the weight is going to fluctuate over time. So the best way is to list Cole's listed weight on NBA.com, which is 175.— Chris! c / t 02:38, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed with Chrishmt0423. What is verifiable is different from how/if it is presented.  Also, due weight (no pun intended) needs to be given to the measurement in terms of the number of sources and the fact that it was from 1 year ago.—Bagumba (talk) 05:17, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * hey, what's up, sockpuppet? Rikster2 (talk) 01:03, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * excuse me? I have no idea what you're implying and the NBA talk page is not a place for accusations or personal attacks. I am trying to have a conversation here about something that I've noticed and apparently many other people have and that is a need for consistency because with statistics there are 100's of iterations or variations that could be used and all proclaimed "correct." So if you don't want to have an honest conversation about this please go elsewhere because I'm trying to be civil and am in no way a "sock puppet" whatever that may be. Rat8787 (talk) 01:07, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Let's move away from sock puppet accusations; there are worthwhile things to discuss here. To address one of your questions, I don't think there was ever a project consensus to leave turnovers out of the stat tables. One version of the stats table happened to gain momentum, and that's what people ended up using. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with including turnovers (or fouls), although it would end up being a huge amount of work if you want to add them to every article. As far as the zeros go, that's just a minor matter of style, in my opinion. I personally wouldn't care if you started adding those zeros, as long as you were consistent. Zagal e jo^^^ 02:56, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed with Zagalejo. However, the topic of all stats is totally unrelated to this thread about listed weight, so it should be continued in a new section if anyone wishes to continue.—Bagumba (talk) 05:17, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Rat8787: If a source conflicts with NBA.com on a player's weight, how are you proposing it be handled? Listing measurements from every source or arbitrarily choosing to ignore NBA.com in some cases seems unwieldy. Perhaps you have a better idea.—Bagumba (talk) 05:17, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Depth charts
A depth chart was removed from Los Angeles Lakers, which I tend to agree with. Even if it were sourced from ESPN, I would argue that it can't be verified when the site last updated its chart, and that it doesnt reflect that Bryant can play SF, Gasol can play C, etc. Should all depth charts from articles be removed (e.g. 2012–13 Los Angeles Lakers season, Miami Heat, etc.)? If not, how do we make sure they are verifiable as of a specific date, or deal with multiple sources with different depth charts?—Bagumba (talk) 21:37, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Whenever this subject comes up, I argue to remove them. They oversimplify things way too much. Zagal e jo^^^ 23:18, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Zagalejo.— Chris! c / t 23:31, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I've done the bold part of WP:BRD and removed depth charts from all team articles for the current season. I'll monitor, but others can also help either revert if it's re-added or invite editors here for further discussion as needed.—Bagumba (talk) 08:36, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Despite asking an IP to discuss, they seem to prefer to edit war on 2012–13 Indiana Pacers season—Bagumba (talk) 21:43, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The Pacers case also illustrates some of the problems with depth charts. Even if one source is added, ESPN and Yahoo swap backups for SG and SF.  Is it an error, difference in opinion, or outdated?  There is no easy way to verify nor present reliably. While ESPN and Yahoo are generally reliable, WP:IRS guideline says we must "judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made."  Depth charts from there are not reliable as they don't reflect that players can be primary backups for multiple positions, and they don't indicate when the source performed an update.—Bagumba (talk) 22:14, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The ESPN depth chart actually is out of date; a couple of those players have been waived. Zagal e jo^^^ 23:59, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I am in the scrap the depth chart crowd. Very few coaches use that regimented a substitution pattern and they are more trouble than they are worth. Rikster2 (talk) 00:02, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Player position revisted
In an earlier discussion, there was thoughts of going to generic G/F/C positions for players as that is what nba/bbref use, and original research sometime creeps in with PG/SG/SF/PF, especially with a lot of players being interchangeable. We now have LeBron James changed to a "point forward". Even if we argue that point forward is not an official position, do we still list him as SF when he often plays PF as well?—Bagumba (talk) 00:24, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd be fine with just "Forward". Zagal e jo^^^ 00:46, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Standings
I wasn't sure so I decided to ask. Do we need this article? -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 12:22, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I WP:PRODed it. I previously tried to discourage the creator for the need for this at User talk:BasGuy.  Sigh.—Bagumba (talk) 18:54, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And what about this article: 2000–01 National Basketball Association Eastern Conference playoff leaders (i'm just asking)? -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 07:03, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * My first reaction is WP:NOT, but Featured_list_candidates/Failed_log/June_2008 make a point that it could be cleaned up. I think it we want to salvage it, it should just be merged into 2001 NBA Playoffs.—Bagumba (talk) 08:08, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Useful links for researching basketball statistics
Awhile back I started a list of on-line basketball sources on my userpage to help with researching player and coach articles. Essentially it's a list of links to international league player databases, etc. User:Jrcla2 recently appended these to appear as a resource link for WP:College Basketball and I thought they would be useful to editors here as well. Here is the link: WikiProject College basketball/Research sources. Enjoy! Rikster2 (talk) 15:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool! That'll be really useful, thanks. Zagal e jo^^^ 03:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

2012 NBA Development League Draft
FYI - I just created 2012 NBA Development League Draft. If anyone wants to expand it a bit to make it DYK-eligible, then go in on a joint-DYK nomination, feel free and let me know. Jrcla2 (talk) 16:49, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks good, but I'm fairly sure it was a different Tristan Thompson who was drafted - this one, from North Texas. He was previously drafted by the Austin Toros: . NBA.com's 2012 draft recap lists Thompson's college as "North Thompson", which I assume is supposed to be North Texas. Zagal e jo^^^ 03:31, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Gilbert Arenas
Anyone know what his status is? He's been linked to a couple of Chinese teams within the last couple of weeks, and some sources are saying that he has signed with the Shanghai Sharks, but I don't see anything at (what I think is) their team website: http://www.shanghaisharks.cn/. Looking for information on the CBA is difficult for me, so if anyone has any information, please post a comment! Thanks. Zagal e jo^^^ 18:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Does anyone know if CBA.gov.cn is still active? The URL doesn't work for me. Thanks. Zagal e jo^^^ 04:11, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Needed dab ability for Baltimore Bullets in Template:Infobox NBA season
For the seasons for the Baltimore Bullets the Template:Infobox NBA Season is linking the team name at the top of the infobox, the problem is that there was more than one Baltimore Bullet team, the earlier one that went under and the newer one that is now the Wizards. Can someone alter the Template so that an additional argument can be added if necessary indicating where the team link should link to?Naraht (talk) 17:48, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Is this a genmeral question, or is there a specific page where you are seeing a problem? If you follow 1952–53 Baltimore Bullets season as an example, you can encode   as  .  Not the most elegant perhaps, but it is working.—Bagumba (talk) 18:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It is working for the top but not the bottom of the template, but I have edited the template to remove the header that was broken due to this fix because the header probably isn't necessary. If someone has a better solution go for it. -DJSasso (talk) 18:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Age group medal boxes
See the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball regarding medal boxes for U16-U21 FIBA medalists.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:18, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

&#123;&#123;basketballstats&#125;&#125;
Comment: modifying the title for CB3. Protecting the braces using &amp;#123;&amp;#123; ... &amp;#125;&amp;#125; rather than ... .Pldx1 (talk) 10:02, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

What is wrong with the ESPN parameter at basketballstats? It is not showing at Evan Turner.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:11, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the ESPN parameter was removed, because the URLs and player ID numbers used by ESPN have been known to change over time. Zagal e jo^^^ 21:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I thought you said at Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_June_16 that you left the ESPN links that were still working. The parameter currently at Turner's article should still lead to the right page. What is going on with the template.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:21, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * That discussion was about a different template that was deleted. This is the edit in which ESPN support was removed from basketballstats. Zagal e jo^^^ 22:37, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

&#123;&#123;WikiProject NBA&#125;&#125;
Comment: modifying the title for CB3. Protecting the braces using &amp;#123;&amp;#123; ... &amp;#125;&amp;#125; rather than ... .Pldx1 (talk) 10:02, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

While researching another issue I have found that there has been no effort to tag talk pages with WikiProject NBA and WikiProject College basketball for lottery pick type players. I was looking at 2010 FIBA Under-17 World Championship squads regarding another issue and noticed that people like Bradley Beal, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marquis Teague are all without these templates on their talk pages. I know a lot of people make sure that the articles get the proper roster templates and as well as categories for X Team players and X Team draft picks. There should be some effort to tag talk pages.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I try to do this when I see it, but please feel free to do so yourself as well. Rikster2 (talk) 21:44, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I have never paid close attention to this template. At what point does a player get the template: for being drafted, being on an NBA regular season roster, or playing in an NBA game? What about a player with only D-League experience?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:14, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, this would be easier to keep current if we employed a bot to tag all the player, coach, executive, stadia categories, IMO.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

RfC on the use of flag icons for sportspeople
An RfC discussion about the MOS:FLAG restriction on the use of flag icons for sportspeople has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons. We invite all interested participants to provide their opinion here. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:47, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Donald Sloan - minor infobox question
Donald Sloan's entire tenure with the Cavaliers took place in the year 2012, but across parts of two different seasons (2011-12 and 2012-13). How should I format the dates in the infobox? I don't think we should display the dates as 2012–2012. I imagine this has come up before, but I don't know how it should be handled. Thanks! Zagal e jo^^^ 06:19, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, just put 2012 without link. To me, that is the easiest solution.— Chris! c / t 03:59, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Players who were on a roster in-season but never got in a game
I was making some edits to Marqus Blakely and noticed that a user had added the Rockets to the club history in the infobox. It looks like he was clearly on the team and dressed for a game, but never entered the game. Should the club show on the infobox history and should the category be applied? I can see the thinking of adding it as the person was technically on the team under contract in-season, but my concern is that while these situations are relatively easy to track down and cite in the internet age, they also happened historically and are nearly impossible to verify in those situations. Has this ever been discussed? Rikster2 (talk) 14:03, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If his rights were owned by the team then I would probably list it in the infobox but I have no strong opinions on the matter. However, categories are another matter because the standard for categories is they don't go in unless they are credited with a game in their stats because you can't call them a player for the team if they never played. This is how all the sports as far as I am aware deal with categories. -DJSasso (talk) 14:53, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Understood - though it seems like you are inviting users to add the category if the club is in the infobox. That's a pretty fine distinction for many users. Rikster2 (talk) 17:00, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah that is true. Like I said I don't feel strongly either way about the infobox. Probably a good idea to leave it out there as well per what you mention. -DJSasso (talk) 17:07, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Seems simpler to just list in infobox teams that a player has played one game.  Otherwise, we are subjectively excluding players under contract that are never on active list, were traded for but never played, etc.—Bagumba (talk) 21:53, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

team & position field in Infobox basketball biography
I think the team & position field in the template should be disabled for coaches. People often add stuffs to both fields. This is confusing and problematic when coaches are retired players. Thoughts?— Chris! c / t 03:56, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand people's motivation to add those things to coaches' infoboxes, but I agree that it usually doesn't look right. Take this version of the Kevin McHale page. It looks like he is number 32 on the Rockets, which doesn't make sense. And then below that, you have "Power forward / Center / Head Coach", which makes it seems like he is a player-coach or something.
 * The coaches' infoboxes would look better with a little color, but there needs to be a better way to keep the playing career elements separate from the coaching career elements. Zagal e jo^^^ 05:36, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Is the retired-player-turned-coach the only reason we dont fill in those fields for coaches? For numbers, I notice that Michael Jordan lists all his past numbers.  Do we want to add a field for historic numbers for players that are still active?  This could be reused for players who become coaches if we want to add color for coaches boxes.—Bagumba (talk) 22:00, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, this is the only problem I can see right now. Anyway, your suggestion is interesting. We can certainly try.— Chris! c / t 22:45, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * A "historic numbers" field would be helpful. We might need another new field, something like "Position(s) as a player", to prevent the other problem seen in that Kevin McHale diff. I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement, however. Zagal e jo^^^ 23:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Noting professional leagues/countries in infobox
Interesting edit summary from IP 203.217.29.187 on the Jonny Flynn article: "In infobox, it's not clear why all non-NBA leagues are in parentheses, and the NBA isn't (as if it's *the* standard and therefore its identification's deemed superfluous (why?))" I think it is helpful for users to see what league/country each club that a player competed in, and in most cases the convention (though never really discussed) has been to note country or league in parentheses next to the club name - except for the NBA. Personally, I think the NBA is clearly the world standard for basketball leagues - but I wonder if it might not be time to flesh out how this should appear in the infobox (perhaps in partnership with WP:Basketball). Thoughts? Rikster2 (talk) 16:53, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The previous consensus was at Template_talk:Infobox_basketball_biography. It did always seem strange that for D-League or modern ABA we listed the league and not United States.  It does seem US-centric on the surface.  Maybe we only list country if different from a player's nationality?  Or do we simply not clutter the infobox as David Beckham does not list league/countries.  It would look cleaner to have a dedicated column for the country if listed, but there is not enough space.—Bagumba (talk) 18:32, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
 * We absolutely could not add league/country, and that may be the easiest path. Though as someone who does a LOT of player article maintenance I will say that it is sometimes difficult to discern what country some clubs are if there is no corresponding article.  Given how hard it is to research international leagues if you don't speak the language (or read the alphabet), the countries do help know more about the player's journey. Rikster2 (talk) 19:05, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

The current options seem to be: —Bagumba (talk) 18:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) US-centric status quo per past consensus: List countries for non-American leagues.  For American leagues, list league if non-NBA.
 * 2) Dont list countries/league at all e.g. David Beckham.
 * 3) List country if different from player's nationality
 * 4) Find a way to have a dedicated column to list a team's country that addresses earlier concerns about limited space.

Picture series in articles
I have started a conversation at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball regarding adding picture series to articles.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:43, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Notice of merger discussions regarding overforking of basketball terminology
See discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:05, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

shot clock
Did I overdo the WP:CAPTION at Shot clock? Comment at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_College_Basketball.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:26, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Dennis Rodman's first marriage
Anyone know exactly when it began and when it ended? See Talk:Dennis_Rodman. Thanks. Zagal e jo^^^ 05:24, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Triple-doubles
I have a proposition that some of you may find intriguing. How would you feel about making an attempt to catalog every triple-double in NBA history? Even though basketball-reference.com only uses stats going back to the 80s, there are still sites online where you can find box scores from past games I believe. The way we could sort them is by making a link on each franchise's page saying something like Triple Doubles in Boston Celtics History (or whatever other team). Just a thought...Coulraphobic123 (talk) 06:17, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
 * My first reaction is WP:NOTSTATSBOOK.—Bagumba (talk) 19:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

NBA Finals in lead of player bios
This topic has come up in a few articles. Can we agree that it serves no purpose to mention that a player was in the NBA Finals in XXXX year or YY number of times, but tease and not also say in the lead whether he won or not. I propose the following guidelines for the lead: —Bagumba (talk) 08:07, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Always mention the number of NBA championships in the lead if one or more.
 * 2) For players that have never won a championship, never mention the number of appearance in the Finals without it being clear that they lost all those appearance. For those players, it is subject to consensus for the given biography whether the NBA Finals is notable enough for mention in the lead.

Note: User:James edwin has been invited here, due to possible interest based on his past edits.—Bagumba (talk) 08:12, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Propose eliminating the "country" after team names in Infobox: Basketball Biography
Hello- We have somewhat inconsistently applied country or league (in the case of minor leagues like the D-League or CBA) after each club in the club history section of the infobox. At first these were linked to the actual country name, but that was later changed to the league displaying as the country name. But with most European leagues using a relegation system, linking the leagues brought many errors - people linking the French Pro A when the team split time between Pro A and Pro B during the players' tenure for example. When the league model is followed to the letter, you get infoboxes like Oscar Schmidt, where he played three seasons with the same club but it displays as theree entries because of relegation/promotion moves. I say we just show the club and try to ensure countries and leagues are spelled out in the prose. What do others think? Hoping we can get a consensus because right now it is inconsistent as all get out. I posted primarily to WP:Basketball, but there ire implications to WP:NBA too for D-League assignments, players who join the league from abroad, etc. Rikster2 (talk) 16:59, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Jonas V... height dispute
Some more opinions could be useful at Talk:Jonas Valančiūnas. Thanks. Zagal e jo^^^ 06:47, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Link to team season article in player stats table
Inspired by basketball-reference.com format, I updated Malcolm_Lee_(basketball) to have the "team" column point to the team season article instead of just pointing to the generic team article e.g., not. This provides convenient links to the relevant team season articles, whereas we currently only have links to the generic NBA season articles in the "year" column. I'm not usually a big updater of stat tables, so if others like the idea, hopefully we'll get them slowly converted.—Bagumba (talk) 08:56, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I often use those links at basketball-reference, so I like the idea, although it would take a while to implement. Zagal e jo^^^ 00:41, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * LeBron James already had it for his regular season stats, but I updated it to the playoff stats. I'll try to get to this year's All-Star starters as a start.—Bagumba (talk) 08:24, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
 * 2013 All-Star roster done. Will do more later.— Chris! c / t 01:20, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Call for consensus - unusual NBA to D-League movement
All - an unusual case at Scott Machado. He played for the Rockets, was on assignment to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, was cut by the Rockets and was subsequently re-signed by the Valley Vipers. The sum of all this is two consecutive entries for the Valley Vipers, one with an arrow showing assignment from an NBA club, then another with no arrow but covering the same season. In my opinion, this is too complex player movement to try to depict in the club history of the infobox. Should Machado finish the season with RG, in ten years this will make no sense historically. IMO, His contract status (cut by the Rockets and re-signed by the Vipers) should be explained in the prose, but the club history just needs to explain the result - he split he season between the Rockets and Vipers. But we need consensus. There are many cases of players shuttling between the NBA and CBA that don't try to depict multiple moves between the major and minor league club and this instance should be no different IMO. Rikster2 (talk) 04:01, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
 * We currently use → when a player is still under contract to the parent club. If we dont put another entry, some would mistakenly believe he is still on an NBA roster.  Machado's situation is so rare, I'm not clear what the compelling reason is to deviate from this convention.—Bagumba (talk) 05:54, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Ideal team
There is a new article, Ideal team, that deals with virtual teams of top players like the All-NBA Team. You are invited to discuss at Talk:Ideal team how best to handle this.—Bagumba (talk) 02:28, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

NBA franchise timeline
I was inspired by the Timeline of Major League Baseball, I decided to create a timeline of NBA franchises, with the idea of placing it at Timeline of the NBA. It's currently in my sandbox, check it out here. I'd appreciate comments and corrections. Fitnr (talk) 17:55, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks pretty good. The inside cover of the Official NBA Encylopedia (2000) had a similar chart, which may be helpful for checking your work. Zagal e jo^^^ 20:13, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks good at a quick glance. It might even be more helpful to put it in National_Basketball_Association instead of a standalone article.—Bagumba (talk) 20:41, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I've created it as a standalone article because I didn't think that it would fit in the main NBA article without violating WP:TOOLONG. I could see it fitting into a History of the NBA standalone article, which doesn't seem to exist yet. Fitnr (talk) 21:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:AVOIDSPLIT does says "Editors are cautioned not to immediately split articles ... editors are encouraged to work on further developing the main article first". As it is NBA is only 30K in readable prose, far below the 50–60K where it starts to be a concern.—Bagumba (talk) 23:10, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks excellent. I'd favor having it in the article, if that was palatable to others, though I'd probably put it at the bottom, after the text of the article. HuskyHuskie (talk) 00:35, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems more relevant at National_Basketball_Association than dangling at the bottom; do you think it would be too distracting in the middle?  The section already has the map and large table.—Bagumba (talk) 00:59, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * My feelings on this matter are not strong, but I'll state them nonetheless. Articles should be dominated by text.  #Teams is already, with the maps and table, already so filled with non-text that it fills my entire screen at once.  I truly love Fitnr's graphic, but I would rather see it not double in size the dominant graphics of that section.
 * Having said that, I'm not going to argue the point any further--indeed, I hope I'm not perceived as arguing this at all. My feelings are really not vehement. HuskyHuskie (talk) 05:50, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

FA reviewers
What is going on with this project? It is quite active, but there have been no WP:NBA articles promoted to WP:FA since Magic Johnson on 2009-04-18. It seems pretty likely that the project is going to go 4 years without an FA. I am unable to get almost any feedback at WP:FAC, despite the project's current active state.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 13:56, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Everyday maintenance takes up a lot of time. Many articles are poorly watched; vandalism often lasts for hours by the time I get to it. Zagal e jo^^^ 02:08, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Everybody is a WP:VOLUNTEER here, and each with varying interests. There was an effort  a while ago to get an article to FA, I helped out, but it fizzled.  The article was improved though, even if it hasn't attained the FA star.  While this project page is active, it really is only a few of us actively participating. But there are plenty of others who work on NBA articles even if they are not active on this page.  Your assessment is fairly correct that FAs are not a high priority currently w/ NBA article.  Not being an FA regular, is it typical in WP that reviewers only come from an article's immediate project?  If so, that could make for biased reviews too.—Bagumba (talk) 06:29, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Team captains
Just wondering: is there a one-stop source that lists all the NBA team captains? Thanks. Zagal e jo^^^ 02:57, 10 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Are captains significant enough to the NBA to warrant this? We have List of current NHL captains and alternate captains for hockey, but hockey captains and alternates play a more significant role in games than basketball captains do. —C.Fred (talk) 03:03, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't think they are particularly important. I'm not aware that they can affect anything within a game solely because of their captain status. It's mostly a ceremonial title. But all the roster templates highlight the team captains, and I'd like to make sure everything is correct. Zagal e jo^^^ 03:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It used to be on NBA.com rosters, like this LAL 2010–11 roster. If I look at a recent roster, though, "Captain" is still listed in the key even though the players are no longer marked.  No issue if someone wants to remove it for failing WP:V.  I would expect the "Roster" links at the bottom right of each template is expected to be the source for all info.—Bagumba (talk) 06:38, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Free agents who were cut
Was wondering what we should with them, e.g. Greg Somogyi or Darius Johnson-Odom. I didn't think it was a good idea to create the articles when their contracts weren't even guaranteed. Somogyi's article has been hit with a notability tag, but i'd like more guidance: AFD, PROD, or leave alone? hbdragon88 (talk) 02:56, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Johnson-Odom actually played games for the Lakers, so he's fine. I agree creating these when they were in training camp was a bad idea.  Some meet GNG based on their college careers, but I don't think that is true of all.  I'd AfD any you think aren't notable.  Somogyi already has a notability tag and I know there was some sentiment that it should go through an AfD vs PROD because he might be on the line (I disagee - I don't think he's notable).  Personally, I don't think anything happens when the notability tag gets applied.  I say either AfD it, PROD it, or leave it be. Rikster2 (talk) 03:01, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I added the notability tag. Per WP:BEFORE, it's a good faith notice for other editors that want to keep it to spruce it up.  Personally for me, it for cases where I dont see the sources explicitly in the article, and I haven't spent the time to research that the person is not notable.  And there could be Hungarian sources in this case :-) —Bagumba (talk) 06:05, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the notability tag is a good first step. There probably should be some follow up after a given time to see if the article has progressed (maybe there already is some subject specific work list and I just don't know about it).  See, I don't want to keep EVERY article. Rikster2 (talk) 06:08, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Please help get to consensus on college display names in basketball infobox
Hello - I started a discussion on this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College Basketball. Please stop by and register your opinion so we can get to speedy consensus on this matter. Thanks! Rikster2 (talk) 21:02, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Readability of Miami Heat colors in infoboxes and navboxes
There is a discussion at Template_talk:NBA_color.—Bagumba (talk) 02:31, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Heads up - Bill Simmons encouraging readers to edit Donyell Marshall page
Today, there has been a lot of activity at the Donyell Marshall page in response to this Bill Simmons column, which says, "How has someone not added 'First athlete to definitively prove Dave Cirilli's Ewing Theory' to Donyell's Wikipedia page yet?" I've semiprotected the Marshall article, but some older accounts might come out of the woodwork, so it would be helpful to get some extra eyes on the page. (We might also see some spillover into other articles.) Zagal e jo^^^ 03:28, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * we should just replace the content of Simmons' article with "overrated hack who thinks he is funny, the blank space below represents his meaningful contributions to sports journalism," then about 50 blank spaces. LOL - just kidding.  Simmons really has jumped the shark though. Rikster2 (talk) 03:38, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Improved NBA.com stats
Here's an article on the improvements. Too bad, for example, the stats for Chris Paul don't seem to be linked to his NBA.com profile.—Bagumba (talk) 07:30, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * There's some interesting stuff to look at. I just hope we don't end up having to change a bunch of links. Zagal e jo^^^ 06:51, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Review open
It has been nearly 4 years (2009-APR-19, Magic Johnson) since this project has had an FAC promoted. Featured article candidates/Juwan Howard/archive5 now open. Please consider reviewing this article.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:07, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Templates in the Michael Jordan article
User:Moxy removed all templates at the bottom of the Michael Jordan article, calling them spam. I don't think they are spam and allow readers to navigate between articles. Can someone join the discussion at Talk:Michael Jordan?— Chris! c / t 20:46, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Championship roster template eligibility
Someone removed two names from Template:Miami Heat 2011–12 NBA champions taking the roster size down to 13. For an NBA team 13 dress, but they can have up to 15 on the NBA roster. Often, #14 and #15 are on assignment in the NBADL, but they are often with the big club in civvies, especially at playoff time. When in comes to championship roster templates the number of players listed varies if you look at Category:National Basketball Association Championship navigational boxes. Here are some quick counts 2011: 15, 2010: 13, 2009: 14, 2008: 15, 2007: 15, 2006: 15, 2005: 15. How many should be on a template?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 08:38, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the standard is the players who are on the playoff roster - could this be what is going on? Rikster2 (talk) 13:11, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't the rosters change with each round. Is the playoff roster 13 or 15? (P.S. when did it change from 12 to 13? When I was a Knicks season ticket holder in the early 90s it was 12 that dressed. It must have changed with one of the CBAs.)--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:50, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It's only 12 active players for each game, but the team can change the roster before each game, choosing from a pool of up to 15 players: I always thought the templates included anyone who won a ring (although for older teams, that's not always obvious.) Zagal e jo^^^ 22:45, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that all 15 players should be on the template. They represent the scout team and such. They may be the guys who get to stick around by giving the stars after practice work on being double-teamed, working one-on-one or whatever. Everyone on the roster that practices with the team should be on the template, IMO. However, I don't think NFL includes their taxi squad players on their Super Bowl templates. We just need to be consistent across the years.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:55, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The template should include everyone who plays for the team in the playoffs (even for a minute). Isn't this the way teams determine who gets a ring?.— Chris! c / t 23:04, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Jamaal Wilkes won a ring in 1985 even though he didnt play in the playoffs..—Bagumba (talk) 23:32, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, but that is an exception, right. I know that teams ultimately have the power to award whoever they deemed worthy a ring, but usually they give it to participants who play in the playoffs. I checked, both Terrel Harris and Dexter Pittman played in the playoffs for the Heat.— Chris! c / t 23:42, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * When the Bulls were winning, they would give rings to players like Keith Booth and Rusty LaRue, who didn't make the playoff roster. Zagal e jo^^^ 23:53, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * You mean they were on the 15-man roster, but not the 12-man gameday roster, right?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:56, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yep. Zagal e jo^^^ 00:00, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

How do you verify who received a ring? Especially for historic titles? Rikster2 (talk) 00:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * We might not find all of them. However, I dont think it is of any benefit to not list a player winning a championship if we do find sources that say he either won a championship or received a ring. I would guess that anyone still under contract with the team at the end of the season would usually be called a member of the championship team by sources. There was a related discussion of Riki Ellison previously not being mentioned in WP as being on a Super Bowl team because he never played a game that season after being injured in preseason.  However, he was under contract, and sources mentioned him winning a championship, and it was added.—Bagumba (talk) 06:31, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * We credit Eric Riley who was on IR.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 08:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It sounds like the short run solution is to revert the edit that started this discussion. I don't have any advice on how to handle historical roster verification and it seems like we are without a solution.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 08:18, 25 February 2013 (UTC)