Where Does Amazing Come From?

It's my favorite time of year - playoff time in both the NBA and NHL - and that means one thing: I drink way too much and don't sleep enough. Hey, you gotta go out and break down the games with the guys, right? (aka "Honey, we need some milk. I'll be right back.") The eventual drunken sports talk inevitably results in silly pontification of useless sports claptrap like Are You Smarter Than A Denver Broncos GM? or Who Really Is the Best Player to Wear #29 in the NHL? (Joel Otto).

Watching the end of the Utah Jazz - LA Lakers game the other night and watching the mad skillz of Deron Williams (who also wins the Soul Glo Worst Hair in the NBA Award), I commented that the Dallas area may be among the most productive cities in terms of churning out pro ballers.

It's on! What city really does pump out the most and best hoopstahs?

It seemed simple enough. All I needed to do was just go to each team's roster and see where they went to high school.* One problem. The fucking InterNutz doesn't have any such rosters. I had to individually check each player. (Good thing I'm getting paid so handsomely for this, eh).

Enough bitching. I selected what I felt would be the most obvious cities: LA, New York, DC/Baltimore, Philadelphia, Houston, Chicago, Detroit, the Bay Area and good ol' Big D. Out of all of the players from each city, I selected a starting five, then listed the "benches"and then ranked the squads from worst talent factory to Hoop Babylon.

Ladies and gentlemen, drum roll puulleeezze...

9. DETROIT
Not only were there surprisingly few players in the league from this area, but the only five I did find pretty much stink. Poor Detroit. Shitty football team, imploding auto industry, and now this hair ball of a roster:

Paul Davis
Charlie Bell
Maurice Ager
Chris Douglas Roberts
Willie Green.

That's it. Five players. Oof.

8. HOUSTON:
Huge wasteland of a city. Pretty much a wasteland of good ballers too.

Emeka Okafor
Daniel "Boobie" Gibson
T.J. Ford
Gerald Green
Ronnie Price

Bench: Jake Voskuhl. That's it. There's a reason it's called Space City - you want to shoot this shitload of a squad right out in to space.

7. BAY AREA:
Cool place to live. Not much of a basketball factory though:

Jason Kidd
Leon Powe
Drew Godden
Eddie House
Roger Mason, Jr.

Bench: Chuck Hayes, Mark Madsen, Ryan Anderson.


6. D.C./ BALTIMORE:
As I don't know this area at all, I'm pretty sure I accidentally left a player or two off that should be considered a product of DC/Bodymore. Fuck it though. It would take a lot to get this chumpy team competitive with those ahead of it. Also, they have ZERO depth.

Kevin Durant
Rudy Gay
Jeff Green
Roy Hibbert
Delonte West

Bench: Mark Blount, Keith Bogans, Juan Dixon.


5. NEW YORK:
You know how Austin, TX calls itself the "Live Music Capital of the World" when it's really not much better than any other big city? Well, those that refer to NYC as the "Mecca of Basketball" are pretty much delusional too.

Ben Gordon
Joakim Noah
Rafer Alston
Ron Artest
Sebastian Telfair

Bench: Stephon Marbury, Speedy Claxton. Shit Sandwich.


4. DALLAS:
I knew DFW would have a pretty good starting five, but I was pretty surprised at the number of Dallas-based ballers that are in the L:

Chris Bosh
Deron Williams
Kenyon Martin
Darrell Arthur
C.J. Miles

Bench: Acie Law, Jason Maxiell, Anthony Randolph, Maceo Baston, Quinton Ross, Desmond Mason, Tony Battie, Ike Diogu, Kurt Thomas.


3. PHILADELPHIA:
Dallas actually had more players in the league, but the starting unit of the Philly squad is pretty top-heavy.

Kobe Bryant
Richard Hamilton
Rasheed Wallace
Cuttino Mobley
Jameer Nelson

Bench: Flip Murray, Matt Carroll, John Salmons, Kyle Lowry, Mardy Collins, Hakim Warrick, Malik Rose.

Now, the two cities that were markedly superior to their competition...

2. CHICAGO:
Not only do you get robbed at gunpoint, duct taped and held captive in your own home in Chicago, but it's also likely that you know how to play ball as well.

Kevin Garnett
Dwyane Wade
Derrick Rose
Corey Maggette
Michael Finley

Bench: Tony Allen, Shannon Brown, Juwan Howard, James Singleton, Will Bynum, Luther Head, Bobby Simmons, Eddy Curry, Quentin Richardson, Dee Brown.


And now we reach Numero Uno. And this was a fucking landslide.

1. LOS ANGELES:
I was stunned at the volume of players that came out of the LA area. While Chicago's starting five might be a little stronger than LA's, the Los Angeles roster can throw WAVES of basketball studs at you. (Get it? Los Angeles...waves...as in beaches...never mind):

Paul Pierce
Baron Davis
Tayshaun Prince
Tyson Chandler
Gilbert Arenas

Bench: Gabe Pruitt, Ryan Hollins, Jason Hart, Arron Afflalo, Amir Johnson, Trevor Ariza, Jordan Farmar, Dorrell Wright, Austin Croshere, the Collins Brothers, Kevin Ollie, Craig Smith, Russell Westbrook, Andre Miller, Bobby Brown, Jacque Vaughn, Hassan Adams, Jason Kapono, Nick Young. Yikes!


So what did I learn from this? To shut my fucking mouth when I'm drunk.


*I used their high school, as opposed to birth place, as I felt that it was more indicative of where the player grew up.