Jump Ball! It seemed like this game was filled with jump balls and after some investigation seems there were roughly 230 games in WNBA history since 2006 (more on this later) that had 4 jump balls. The record is set at 9 jump balls in a game.
| Number of Jump Balls (excluding opening tip) | Total number of games (since 2006) |
| 4 | 230 |
| 5 | 108 |
| 6 | 40 |
| 7 | 12 |
| 8 | 2 |
Who was playing in that game with nine jump balls? Atlanta Dream, of course. Against the Chicago Sky, on June 21, 2011. Maybe this is deep somewhere in the Dream’s team culture. Be defensive and steal, and if you can’t steal then force a jump ball. It could be on a poster the team sees every day when they are in their training facility.
In this process the filtering required additional attention because the opening tip jump ball needed to be separated in the analysis, but then an additional wrinkle appeared. The WNBA before 2006 did not have four quarters, but two halves. Each 20 minutes long and both halves started with a jump ball. The switch to four quarters also illuminated the jump ball that happened at the second half. The halves format is originally from the Naismith Basketball Rules from the late 1800s, except back then it was 15 minutes, and when the WNBA was formed they used college basketball that did the 20 minute halves format.
On this historical cruise, what else has changed? The court itself of course! The three-point arc has gone from 19 feet 9 inches to 20 feet 6.25 inches to 22 feet 1.75 inches. The paint itself was originally 12 feet wide and grew to 16 feet in 2004. How were these numbers reached, and was there a room where the discussion was had: “We can’t have it be 23 feet. Let’s settle at 22 feet + 1.75 inches”? The careers spent in boardrooms advocating for quarter inches! (The odd inches actually come from matching the international 6.75-meter line.)
Back to the jump ball analysis, an interesting aspect of these jump balls is the jump ball violation which is an immediate turnover. There were four jump balls, and the Dream on two of them gave them up to Liberty through jump ball violation. The jump ball violation seems to be chasing the Dream with their August 18 game against Vegas Aces where they had 3 jump ball violations. That game however only had one jump ball violation committed by the Dream but maybe the Aces passed on the jump ball violation bug that then the Dream has caught and now … will the Liberty commit 3 + jump ball violations?
There was construction that seemed to have forced the Cesar’s Empanadas to be moved down a few extra feet but the empanada truck is operational. Calculating the empanada trucks operational costs, if they sell one empanada a minute for 18 hours a day we should see sales of $4,320 per day. Further analysis on this figure will be done in future posts but annualized figures estimate revenue in the $1M+ territory. The usual chicken with vegetable was missing however chicken was available and … Elephant and Torch now wonder if the vegetable with chicken is diminishing the deliciousness that could be achieved with consuming just the chicken empanada. The bean empanada is slowly approaching staples empanada status however mashed potato was an option contemplated but they did not have it. There is still no sight of Apple Pie. Maybe the Liberty post season will make the Apple Pie return.
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