Lebron chasing .500

Lebron James is approaching a .500 career FG%. This is remarkable considering how far from .500 he was at one point in his career.

I have game-by-game data (not shot-by-shot). Let's start with:
 - He was last above .500 after two career games (20 for 37). Warning: small sample size!
 - His lowest career shooting shooting % came through 20 career games (.3988)

Here's how his career FG% has progressed game by game.

But I would not consider game 20 with a .399 FG% to be his career low point relative to shooting .500. Far from it! A 40% shooter through just 20 games is much closer to .500 than a 47% shooter through 500 games (on a similar volume of shots/game). Here's how I measure how "close" a player is to a .500 shooting percentage. Look at each game by shots above/below .500 (e.g. 12 for 20 is two shots above .500; 6 for 17 is 2.5 shots below .500). I'll call this ".500 FG% +/-" or simply "+/-" for short.

By this measure we can evaluate each game:

- Best game: +6 (13 for 14 in career game 734)

- Worst game: -7 (3 for 20 in career game 140)

We can also measure how far above or below .500 a player is by +/- after each game. While Lebron was at his lowest career shooting percentage through 20 games, his +/- was only -32.5 at that point. He'd need to make 65 consecutive shots to get back to .500. When we look at his cumulative career +/- after each game, we find:

- Highest career +/-: +2 (after game 1 - warning small sample size!)

- Lowest career +/-: -309 (after game 591)

At that point, he needed to make 618 consecutive shots to get to .500. That's much further away than 65 shots! I doubt any NBA player has ever dug out of such a big hole to become a .500 FG% shooter. (This could be a fun study for folks with the data - I'm looking at you STATS guys...)

Take a look at each season and his career +/- at the end of each season:

                            Career  Career

Season FGM  FGA  FG%  +/-     FG%     +/-

03-04  622 1492 .417 -124    .417    -124

04-05  795 1684 .472 - 47    .446    -171

05-06  875 1823 .480 - 36.5  .458    -207.5

06-07  772 1621 .476 - 38.5  .463    -246

07-08  794 1642 .484 - 27    .467    -273

08-09  789 1613 .489 - 17.5  .471    -290.5

09-10  768 1528 .503 +  4    .475    -286.5

10-11  758 1485 .510 + 15.5  .479    -271

11-12  621 1169 .531 + 36.5  .483    -234.5

12-13  765 1354 .565 + 88    .490    -146.5

13-14  767 1353 .567 + 90.5  .497    - 56

14-15  624 1279 .488 - 15.5  .496    - 71.5

15-16  737 1416 .520 + 29    .498    - 42.5

16-17  462  868 .532 + 28    .499    - 14.5

Though it looks like the low point of -309 came in 08-09 or 09-10, it actually came after a 7-24 performance in the 43rd game of 10-11 season. He was much better in the second half of that season.

Here's how his career FG .500 +/- has progressed game by game.

First of all, the turnaround after the low point during the 10-11 season is really dramatic. Lebron was remarkably efficient over the next three and a half seasons.

After 13-14, it looked like he'd get to .500 in the second half of 14-15. But with a new team, new coach and new teammates, Lebron took a step back in 14-15. At that point, I figured he'd never make it; the aging process means his shooting efficiency is bound to fall off at some point. But he got back on the plus side of the ledger in 15-16, and has been even better so far in 16-17.

He is currently the closest he's been to .500 by +/- since career game 13 (-12). He's -14.5 with a career mark of .4993. With 8 consecutive makes he'll move above .4995 which rounds to .500. But he needs 29 consecutive makes to truly get to .500.

How long will it take? Well, he's made up 14.5 shots in just his last 9 games going a torrid 94 for 159. It certainly looks like he'll get there before the end of the season.

Boquete to Bocas and Home

We were off the grid for most of the remainder of the Panama trip, but here's an after-the-fact recap of the rest of the trip.

We spent a couple more days in Boquete. We toured the Cafe Ruiz coffee plantation, learning plenty about the various processes for drying and roasting coffee beans, the ideal coffee growing conditions in Boquete, and Panama's place in worldwide coffee production. They emphasize light and medium roasts at Cafe Ruiz. Delicious.

We took a car shuttle from Boquete to Bocas Del Toros on the Caribbean side. The shuttle actually dropped us in Almirante where we took a water taxi to Bocas followed by another water taxi to Al Natural eco resort on Bastimentos.

The resort can host something like 20 people, and we made great friends there. The family-style dinner each night brought together travelers from Costa Rica, America, Spain, Germany, France, Japan, and more (I'm sure I'm forgetting some). We spent the days hiking, snorkeling, finding dolphins, touring a local indigenous village (Salt Creek), and relaxing. There may have been some cocktails in there, and there were definitely some beautiful sunsets.

We returned to Panama City for a final day. We stayed in an amazing flat is Casco Viejo that was perfect except for the nearby church with loud church bells every 15 minutes for most of the day. We loaded up on ceviche, had a great meal at Manolo Caracol, and stayed in during a few amazing downpours.

Until next time!

Boquete Waterfalls

We took a short flight yesterday from Panama City to David, then took an 80 minute bus ride to Boquete. The bus was super crowded, cheap, and full of locals.

We grabbed a late lunch in town at Mike's Global Grill and we lucked out: it was Mike's birthday. Instead of the normal high price of $1.25, the beers were $.44 in honor of Mike's 44th.

Boquete is a relatively small mountain town with a sizable US ex-pat community. I guess the AARP recommended it as a retirement spot some years ago. It is a lovely setting. Today we did a couple of waterfall hikes. Each took a couple of hours.

Panama Canal

We booked a boat tour of the Panama Canal and started with a 40 minute bus ride to Gamboa, a town on the Southern end of Gatun Lake. The lake was formed by damming the Chagres River, a river that flows to the Atlantic. At the time it was created, it was both the largest dam on the planet and the largest man-made lake. (Today, Lake Powell is larger.)

We headed south towards the Pacific (and Panama City). The canal crosses the Continental Divide at the Gaillard Cut, the largest excavation needed for the canal.

Gatun Lake is 85 feet above sea level, and there are three locks in each direction to get to sea level. Each lock is 1000 feet long, 110 feet wide, and 39 1/2 feet deep. The largest vessels that can navigate the canal are basically the dimension of the locks with all of two feet of clearance on each side. Such vessels are called Panamax. Here's such a vessel in the first lock heading to the Pacific.

Each lock holds 26 million gallons of water yet takes just 8 minutes to fill or empty. Here's our boat in the first lock before the lock empties.

Here we are ~30 feet lower after the lock has emptied.

The canal operates 24x7 and completes an average of 42 transits a day. An average transit takes 8-10 hours; a transit around the Cape takes ~22 days. Panamax-size ships can only fit one at a time through the Gaillard Cut, so there's a daily schedule to manage traffic. Each vessel is boarded by a Canal Captain at the start of transit who navigates the vessel through the entire canal. Large vessels are also required to be escorted by tug boats. An engine failure at the wrong time could be catastrophic - running aground could close the canal.

The Bridge of Americas at the Pacific entrance is one of two bridges across the canal (the other was pictured at the Continental Divide).

More canal info:

• 35% of commercial boats in operation are too big for the canal. A second set of locks is set to open in 2016. These will be 1400 feet long, 180 feet wide, and 50 feet deep. The expansion cost has passed $5B.
• The canal employs 9000 people full-time.
• Transit is generally first come, first serve. Today, the wait to transit is ~24 hours.
• The minimum fee to use the canal is $3k. Our 120 foot boat was $4k. A typical Panamax boat is $120k. It was noted, though, that boats that size use ~$100k in fuel each day, so it's very economical to use the canal. The largest fees go to cruise ships and can be more than $400k. Fees are based on size and cargo; passengers command a premium fee.
• The 3-mile causeway built at the Pacific entrance to the canal used about 10% of the material excavated for the canal.
• The original canal proposed by the French was a sea-level canal. Such a canal, however, would not be commercially viable. At the canal location, the Atlantic has tides of just 1 to 2 feet while the Pacific has tides up to 20 feet. This would have created dangerous currents.

Panama City Day 2

We headed to El Parque Metropolitano on Friday morning. It's an urban park with a few simple hikes that promised views of the city and the canal. We hiked 45 minutes to the viewpoint and had a view of the city but couldn't see the canal.

Lunch called for a visit to El Mercado de Mariscos - the fish market. Lots of fish!

Yes, of course we got ceviche!

We spent the afternoon walking southeast along the Pacific waterfront and exploring the downtown neighborhood. We grabbed some Italian before heading back to our neighborhood for the evening.

Panama City - Day 1

We flew to Panama City via Dallas and Miami on Wednesday, arriving a bit past 10p local time. It wasn't too hard to fall asleep on Eastern time since we'd gotten up at 4a for an early departure from Portland.

We're staying near the Pacific entrance to the canal. There's a 5k causeway that was constructed to connect the mainland to a few small islands and create a harbor (and calm water) at the entrance to the canal. We walked to the end of the causeway. We could see a bunch of huge ships lined up to enter the canal, but only saw a couple go in. No doubt there's a lot of logistics on who gets to go in and when.

We grabbed some lunch - ceviche, empanadas and camorones (shrimp), tried a few of the local brews (Atlas and Panamá), then took a cab over to El Casco Antiguo.

El Casco Antiguo was built from 1673 after the original site of Panama City (a few kilometers east) was destroyed. The architecture is European; it feels like the French Quarter in New Orleans. We started in La Plaza de Francia.

We spent the afternoon walking the streets and poking our heads in a few shops. We checked out El Museo del Canal. It was entirely in Spanish! Fortunately, Leena minored in Spanish and I took cuatro años in high school, so we managed to put together most of the story. We actually just missed the 100-year anniversary of its opening (August 1914). To summarize a bit… The French started the project, but abandoned it - the project was costing too much in both money and lives. The US took another 10 years to finish the canal. Even today, it would take a monumental engineering effort, so it's remarkable that it was completed a century ago. We also learned about some of the political history, including US military bases. The ownership by the US and lack of revenue for Panama from the canal boiled over in the late 60s in riots that numbers more than 250,000 people. Jimmy Carter eventually signed a renegotiated treaty that did in fact hand over control of the canal to Panama in 1999. Panama holds Carter in high regard for this; the act was described as an act of political suicide.

El Casco Antiguo is situated on a peninsula and looks across at the modern downtown. Panama City is the largest city in Central America with over 1 million residents.

Random sighting: a guy was riding his skateboard while being towed along by his dog - a beagle! Oh, hey, it's also really hot and humid here!

Passes to the Nike Company Store

Friends,

One of the perks of working at Nike is access to the Nike Company Store in Beaverton, and I can extend access to friends through passes. A pass is good for a family - any couple (married or permanent partner - they generally just look that you have the same address) plus kids (I believe age 22 or under).

I get a set of passes a year to use any time. I try to reserve these for out of town guests.

I then get additional passes during the year. These are usually given in May, August (back to school) and December. If you're in town, I may ask you to visit during one of these windows.

To set up a pass, I just need 24 hours notice from you with the day you wish to shop. I send a quick email with your name and your shopping date. It's very easy.

Please feel free to reach out any time to ask about a pass!

A few more details...

Store address:
3485 SW Knowlton Rd
Beaverton, OR 97005

Hours:
Sunday: 10a - 5p
Monday - Saturday: 10a - 7p

(There are occasionally later hours during peak times like Holiday.)