http://bkref.com/tiny/WHD8b
Bates averaged 26.7 ppg on 59.4% TS over two playoff series in the early 80s. In both series, an injury to a Portland starter placed Bates (who played just 16 NBA games before his first playoff series) in the starting lineup, and he basically took over the offense.
Bates fell out of the league after playing under 200 games in 4 seasons, apparently due to drugs and attitude problems. Unfortunately not a rare story in early 80s basketball.
Few NBA fans will have heard of the name Billy-Ray Bates, and for good reason.
Billy-Ray entered the league as a 23 year old rookie for the 1979-1980 Blazers, after being drafted and subsequently waived by the Rockets in ‘78.
His rookie season was largely unimpressive, playing 16 games with averages of 11-2-2.
The Blazers won 38 games.
His sophomore year, Billy-Ray improved a bit, playing 77 games with a decent statline of 14-2-3. Blazers improved to 45-37.
But sadly that would end up being the peak of his career. In ‘82 he regressed to 11-1-2.
The following year he played just 19 games between the Bullets and Lakers, and was cut before the playoffs. That was the end of his unremarkable 4 year career.
BUT
For all the talk of Playoff LeBron, Playoff Rondo or Playoff P, none of them come close to Playoff Billy-Ray.
After that mediocre rookie regular season I told you about (11-2-2 in case you’ve forgotten), the 38-win Blazers still made the playoffs and were swept, despite Billy-Ray’s 25-3-4 averages.
That may have seemed like a random playoff explosion, but shockingly, it re-occured the following year.
After his career best 14-2-3 in the regular season, sophomore Billy-Ray got swept in the 1st round again, this time averaging 28-2-4.
He would never play a playoff game again.
So good ol’ Billy-Ray ended his career with regular season averages of 11.7 points, 1.7 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 0.8 steals and 0.1 blocks on 52.5 TS%.
And playoff career averages of 26.7 points, 2.8 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.7 steals and 0.3 blocks on 59.4 TS%.
Removing the “Games Played” minimum requirement, Billy-Ray ranks 9th all-time in career playoff PPG average, ahead of Steph Curry, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird, Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Dirk Nowitzki, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain.
On higher efficiency than any of them except Steph.
Damian Lillard is currently averaging ~28 ppg through the first two rounds of these playoffs (update: 27.8), and for his career he is averaging 24.9 ppg in the playoffs. Those numbers are the best of almost every Blazer ever, better than those of Clyde Drexler, LaMarcus Aldridge, Bill Walton, Brandon Roy, Kiki Vandeweghe ..... everyone except Billy Ray Bates.
1979-80 SEASON: Bates first showed up in the NBA on a 10-day contract with the Blazers near the very end of the '80 season. The electric guard played a total of 16 games as a reserve, averaging 16 minutes/game and 11 ppg. His points/minute were the best on the team, plus he was easily the team's best 3-point shooter. He was named the NBA Player of the Week in late-March after scoring 26, 20, 22, and 16 in consecutive games -- again, coming off the bench for a team he had just joined. The Blazers limped into the playoffs to face the defending champion Sonics, and despite not starting, the super-athletic, thick-and-strong, high-flying, Dwyane-Wade-before-Dwyane-Wade guard (both were 6'4 and over 200 pounds) scored 29, 20, and 26 in a 2-1 series loss (25.0 ppg). He was being guarding by Dennis Johnson, the best defensive guard of the past 40 years. Here are Bates' highlights from that series (which includes an interview with Musburger where Bates almost seems unaware of who Dennis Johnson is); he truly appears unstoppable, much more dynamic than everyone else on the court. He could dunk on everyone, earning him the most direct of all nicknames: Dunk (similar to Wade's nickname Flash).
1980-81 SEASON: The Blazers signed him for the entire '81 season, and again he came off the bench. Why? In a nutshell, he didn't really know how to play. He was insanely good, but he never knew the team or mental or nuanced part of the NBA game. Bates played 20 minutes/game and averaged 14 ppg. He lead Portland in points/minute by a considerable margin, was again the team's best 3-point shooter by a mile, and his two highest scoring outputs of the season both came in the final two weeks of the season: 35 and 40 points. He also hit this crazy athletic game-winner in a December game. The Blazers faced the Kings in the playoffs, where again Bates came off the bench, putting up point totals of 25, 26, and 34, again a Blazers 2-1 series loss (28.3 ppg). Through 2 seasons, he was averaging 26.7 ppg in the playoffs for his career,
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I'm interested to know what you guys will do, would you try to escape? Would you try to join them?
Everybody was riding high, end of 2021; portfolios were fat with gains. Those folks splurged for Christmas/Hanukkah/Festivus/Kwanzaa. Now bills got to be paid and everyone is screaming "market is tanking."
So I was thinking... if I employed some Billy Ray Valentine logic, I would think the real dip would occur the week before Valentine's day. Because people would be thinking, "shit, I gotta buy extravagant gifts for my wife and my mistress because they got great Christmas gifts, which I still gotta pay for. And if they don't get something nice, I ain't gonna get laid."
There is a FOMC meeting next week which will contain goals and monetary policy strategy. I think it will aid the sell-off. [NOTE: For us apes, the real report is in March which contains the Summary of Economic Projects - the real status of the economy for the US. and our market strategy for Q2-Q4. Plus, by that time, the Omicron storm will have peaked in February for the US, new infections will be in rapid decline - so back to work, people!]
My pick: dip floor, second week of February
For Billy Ray Valentine Reference (Trading Places, 1983):
>Randolph Duke : Exactly why do you think the price of pork bellies is going to keep going down, William?
>
>Billy Ray Valentine : Okay. Pork belly prices have been dropping all morning, which means that everybody's waiting for it to hit rock bottom so they can buy cheap and go long. Which means that the people who own the pork belly contracts are goin' bat-shit. They're saying, "Hey, we're losing all our goddamn money, and Christmas is just around the corner, and I ain't gonna have no money to buy my son the G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip, right? And my wife won't f... my wife won't make love to me 'cuz I ain't got no money, right?" So they're panicking right now, they're screaming "SELL! SELL!" to get out before the price keeps dropping. They're panicking out there right now! I can feel it! They out there!
>
>Randolph Duke : [on the ticker machine, the price keeps dropping] He's right, Mortimer! My God, look at it!
>
>Billy Ray Valentine : I'd wait until you get to around sixty-four, THEN I'd buy. You'll have cleared out all the suckers by then.
Does anyone have links to the Billy Ray Cyrus Interviews about John Saunders and Juiced Balls?
Thanks!
I’m watching the complete series for the first time and Billy ray cyrus just appeared on screen in season 3 episode 22 HAHAHA. it caught me off guard 😭
Anyone know what’s going on with Billy Ray Cyrus? Maybe I missed it, but he wasn’t in any holiday photos with the whole family.
My achey breaky heart.
https://twitter.com/BRayStutzmann/status/1437475787502927874
