Links To The Present: December 28th, 2009

-Via The Sporting Blog’s “Moments of the Decade” series, here’s Shoals on the LeBron-TMac Christmas Day showdown back in 2003, when T-Mac was the best scorer on the planet and LBJ was a rookie. Good Stuff.

-CelticsHub’s Zach Lowe on the Celtics’ defensive strategy, which revolves around not allowing baskets in the paint or from beyond the arc, just like the Cavs’. Lowe is also down with a New Orleans Funeral for the mid-range jumper, as I generally am. However, I will note again the extremely bizarre thing I found this off-season while I was doing some research, which is that there was zero correlation at the team level between proportion of shots taken from mid-range and offensive efficiency, even though mid-range shots are far less efficient than shots at the rim and threes.

-Orlando Pinstriped Post with the definitive report on Matt Barnes at the trimester. Worth a look, as he was one of the ones that got away from the Cavaliers this off-season. As it stands now, the only guy I’m kicking myself over the Cavs not getting is Channing Frye. I mean, who knew? Ben’s report on Barnes seems to be that Barnes is playing smart, but not hitting his shots.

That’s pretty much how I’d describe Jamario, except exactly the opposite. I kid; Jamario will make you scratch your head, but he seems to have a knack for throwing down the alley-oop or making the three at the right time so far this season. By the way, when I was writing my Laker recap a few days ago, I actually forgot that Moon’s fourth-quarter three was banked in. If Jamario’s banking in threes, it’s officially not your night. Actually, if Jamario Moon banks in a three in the fourth quarter with his team up 10 or more, the game should just end right there. That should be like death cup.

-LeBron James is your Eastern Conference Player of the Week. Woot.

-Alright, that’s all for now.