Because now you can:

The Cleveland Indians are currently scouting for Promotion Team Members (aka Fun Bunch) to assist with the execution of all in-park and plaza entertainment, which enhances the atmosphere and fan experience. Fun Bunch team members will assist with opening ceremonies, national anthem, ceremonial first pitches, in-game and post-game contests and promotions, promotional giveaways, and special celebrations. They will also assist Slider with all skit performances as part of our in-game entertainment, and interact with Fans and the general public to generate excitement at Progressive Field. Each member of the Fun Bunch will be involved in additional responsibilities as assigned by Manager of Promotions. Fun Bunch members should be available to work extended days, evenings, weekends, and holidays as directed. Team members are also required to make outside appearances (Club Functions, Private Parties, etc.) at various times throughout the year with the team mascot (including evenings and weekends). We are seeking energetic individuals with previous experience in promotions, special events, street teams, youth programs, and exposure to performing in front of large audiences. Fun Bunch applicants must have some type of previous training in high school sports/track and cardio/respiratory endurance between 400-800 meters. Running skills will be tested as Fun Bunch employees will be required to participate in the Hot Dog Races. If you are an enthusiastic entertainer interested in creating excitement, we want to meet you! Please apply today!

Nine dollars per hour to dress up as a hot dog and defeat the evil Ketchup? I'm so down. Although if you're a reader of this blog, it's doubtful you have the necessary "previous training in high school sports/track and cardio/respiratory endurance between 400-800 meters".

You can apply at the Indians' job board. Good luck, everyone.

The 1996 Chicago Bulls won 72 regular season games and are widely regarded as the greatest team in NBA history. Indeed, no one has ever played more efficiently over an entire season: the '96 Bulls' Pythagorean win percentage (.850) is yet to be outdone. The closest any squad has ever come to a Pythagorean win percentage that high would be the 1997 Bulls (.824), followed by the reigning NBA champions, the 2008 Boston Celtics (.818).

A third of the way through the current season, however, the 2009 Boston Celtics are making a valiant attempt to challenge that mark. As of this morning, Boston is sitting on a Pythagorean win percentage of .815, having just won 16 in a row, and showing no signs of slowing down.

Okay. Now... I'm here to say Fuck That. The 2009 Cavaliers have a Pythagorean win percentage of .872; they've not only been more efficient than the Celtics, let alone the hard-charging Lakers—the Cavs have been more efficient than any team ever. Michael Jordan must be rolling over in his grave.

Here are the top 10 in Pythagorean win percentage, dating back to the NBA-ABA merger, and updated as of this morning:

2009 Cavaliers .872
1996 Bulls     .850
1997 Bulls     .824
2008 Celtics   .818
2009 Celtics   .815
2009 Lakers    .804
1992 Bulls     .801
1999 Spurs     .782
1994 Sonics    .778
2007 Spurs     .778

Of course, this is hardly a fair ranking. For one thing, it's a lot easier to maintain an "outlier" statistic—like the best-ever team efficiency—over 25 games than over a full 82 games. So, of the three 2009 teams currently in the top 10, it's overwhelmingly likely than one, two, or even all three will regress enough in the coming months to fall off the list (the 1997 Jazz are sitting at home, sweating this out, I'm sure). If you're curious, over the season's final 57 games, the Cavs would need to post a Pythagorean of .840 or higher to hold on to the all-time record and edge the '96 Bulls (basically, they would need to score about 113 points for every 100 they allow). To remain in the all-time top 10, depending on what happens to Boston and the Lakers, the Cavs would need to post a minimum Pythagorean of between .734 and .737 (basically, scoring about 109 points for every 100 they allow).

That said, even if our claim is merely that the 2009 Cavs so far have been the most efficient team ever, there is another worthwhile objection. For all we know, the Cavs' success so far could be the result of a soft early schedule. By season's end, this variable will be all but washed out, but after only 25 games, it's common for NBA teams to have NFL-like strength of schedule fluctuations.

For that, we turn to a metric called Simple Rating System (SRS), refined, appropriately, by Doug Drinen of Pro-Football-Reference.com for analysis of NFL seasons. Long story short, SRS uses matrices to adjust every team's average point margin for strength of schedule. You can find SRS for NBA teams over at Basketball-Reference.com. Anyway, here are the all-time top 10 in SRS, once again dating back to the merger, and updated through this morning:

2009 Cavaliers 12.53
1996 Bulls     11.80
1997 Bulls     10.70
1992 Bulls     10.07
2009 Celtics    9.87
2008 Celtics    9.31
2009 Lakers     9.19
1986 Celtics    9.06
1994 Sonics     8.68
1986 Bucks      8.67

From this, it looks to me like the Cavs' schedule so far has been as tough or tougher than the Celtics'. At the very least, I am comfortable with the claim that the Cavs are the best team in the NBA right now, and that they've put in a performance so far that makes them the most efficient team in NBA history, based on all available information.

For what it's worth, the Cavs' current offensive efficiency (O-Rating) is 114.3 points per 100 possessions—that's the 14th-highest since the merger. However, it's not quite fair to compare offensive or defensive efficiency ratings across eras, since the league average efficiency changes so much over time (in the 80s, for example, offenses were generally more efficient than in the current decade, so an O-Rating of 110.0 in 1985 is not as impressive as an O-Rating of 110.0 in 2005). That in mind, I can tell you that the 2009 Cavs' O-Rating is about 7.32% better than the 2009 NBA average, and that suggests the current Cavs offense is the 5th-best ever. Here are the top 10 offenses, measured by percentage difference between O-Rating and league average:

                O-Rtg   lg avg   % ovr avg
2004 Mavericks  112.1    102.9     8.94%
2005 Suns       114.5    106.1     7.92%
2002 Mavericks  112.2    104.5     7.37%
1998 Jazz       112.7    105.0     7.33%
2009 Cavaliers  114.3    106.5     7.32%
1997 Bulls      114.4    106.7     7.22%
2004 Kings      110.3    102.9     7.19%
1996 Bulls      115.2    107.6     7.06%
2007 Suns       113.9    106.5     6.95%
1982 Nuggets    114.3    106.9     6.92%

On the flip side, the Cavs' current D-Rating is 99.7, which is tied for 60th-lowest since the merger. However, once again we need to adjust for era to discover that the Cavs actually have the 10th-best defense ever. Here are the top 10 defenses, measured by percentage difference between D-Rating and league average:

               D-Rtg   lg avg   % ovr avg
2004 Spurs      94.1    102.9    -8.55%
2009 Celtics    97.8    106.5    -8.17%
2008 Celtics    98.9    107.5    -8.00%
1993 Knicks     99.7    108.0    -7.69%
1994 Knicks     98.2    106.3    -7.62%
2004 Pistons    95.4    102.9    -7.29%
1999 Spurs      95.0    102.2    -7.05%
2005 Spurs      98.8    106.1    -6.88%
2007 Bulls      99.6    106.5    -6.48%
2009 Cavaliers  99.7    106.5    -6.38%

Note that the 2009 Cavs are the only team to appear on both lists.

In conclusion, the Cavs are really, historically good. If you don't have a wicked case of Cavs Fever already, you better go catch it, and fast. Remember, with LeBron, all things are possible.

Currently, the Cavs are second in the N.B.A. in defensive efficiency (points allowed per possession) and first in offensive efficiency (duh). That's amazing. It's especially amazing since, in recent memory, the Cavs have been a severely defensive-oriented team. Last season, they were eleventh in defense and twentieth in offense. And the year before that, they were fourth in defense and nineteenth in offense.

This begs the question, how have they turned things around on offense? Here's how the Cavs rank offensively in the Four Factors, both this season and last:

                2008  2009
      Shooting    26     2
     Turnovers    14     5
 O. Rebounding     2     5
Getting fouled    20     9

Looks to me like shooting did the trick—especially since it's the most important factor. It's nice to know that, but I wonder where the improvement is coming from. So let's look at who's been doing the shooting. Here's a breakdown of the percentage of shots taken the last two seasons:

                   2008   2009
    LeBron James  25.3%  23.9%
Maurice Williams     --  15.8%
    Everone else  74.7%  60.2%

LeBron has been shooting almost just as often this year (about one fewer shot per game), but the Cavs have replaced plenty of non-Jamesian shots with Williamsian shots. Could this be the reason for the shooting turnaround? Let's look at the effective field goal percentage for those same three in 2008 and 2009:

                   2008   2009
    LeBron James  51.8%  51.9%
Maurice Williams     --  53.4%
    Everone else  46.7%  52.6%

Oonce again, LeBron has been playing like Himself on offense. And Maurice Williams is a significant upgrade over the 2008 crew of Everyone Else. Additionally, perhaps because they don't have to carry as much of the load—or maybe it's just shedding Larry Hughes—Everyone Else has picked up the shooting slack, to Jamesian and Williamsian levels.

But has Everyone Else's improvement come from just cutting deadweight? It could also be other new talent joining the team in the off-season. Or how about the players leftover from last year just improving? Here's the eFG% of those three groups of players for the past two seasons (not including James or Williams):

                 2008   2009
former players  45.9%     --
      new guys     --  50.7%
familiar faces  47.5%  52.8%

It's all three! The old guys weren't too great and getting rid of them looks good in hindsight, the new guys have been doing very well for themselves, and the guys who've played in both seasons are playing better. However, since Williams is the only new player who's been making much of a contribution this season, I'm suspicious of how meaningful it is that the other new players have improved greatly over the guys who've left. So, one final table, the percentage of shots taken by those same three groups, still excluding James and Williams:

                 2008   2009
former players  34.3%     --
      new guys     --   5.2%
familiar faces  40.5%  55.0%

Looks like I was right to not trust that improvement so much, 5.2% is just a few shots per game. The guys who've struck around (and improved their shooting) are fortunately getting more shots. Then again, Hughes, Gooden, Marshall, etc. aren't around to compete with them for playing time.

Really, it looks like an across the board improvement. LeBron is still playing awesomely, but the addition of Williams has made a huge difference. And that's not all: the other players leftover from last season have shot much better, too. A lot of those shots have come from Delonte West, Ben Wallace, and Wally Szczerbiak. That Larry Hughes trade is looking better and better with each passing day.

Regular readers have surely noticed recently that there just aren't as many articles on our blog anymore. And when Corey or I write something new, it's often long past the arbitary deadline we had tried to impose. This has been most obvious in the case of "Born and Raised on the Cleveland Browns"—a weekly football season tradition since 2004. We used to publish "Born and Raised" on the Monday after a game, but those days are obviously long gone.

Why have things changed? I think the easiest and maybe truest explanation is that we simply don't have much to say anymore. That's not so say we're less opinionated about Cleveland sports. Instead, I think you need to understand why we ever started this blog in the first place. Almost four-and-a-half years ago, Corey and I were comparing our favorite Indians, Cavs, and Browns blogs. There weren't many on the list. And of those on the list, few had what we really wanted to see: statistically-informed and interesting analysis. There was a void in the marketplace, if you will, and we decided to try to fill it as best we could.

Today, the situation is completely different. There are many blogs and websites that have come along and they have plenty of things to say about the Indians or the Cavs or the Browns or all three. So when someone else skillfully expresses my opinion about Larry Hughes on their blog, instead of crowding on and saying the same thing in a different way, I would put down my pen and try to find something new to write about.

Corey and I have always wanted our blog to be a place where you'll find something you wouldn't see anywhere else on the web. More than a few times, I think we've really succeeded, and I'm proud of that. But—to give one example—now that Doug Farrar of Football Outsiders is writing a [supposedly] weekly DVOA-flavored Browns preview on the Orange and Brown Report (link goes to the Browns-Colts preview; it's not clear yet whether this will truly be a weekly feature), Corey is a lot less inclined to replicate the work in his weekly DVOA-flavored Browns preview, especially when enthusiasm for Browns coverage is at a low, relative to recent history.

So what does this mean for the future of the Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times? We're definitely not shuttering the site; I'll say that right up front. And we're definitely not quitting. But the recent trend of infrequent posts will continue. I can't say how often we'll have something new on here, because that kind of deadline-centric thinking has made blogging seem less and less appealing. For the rest of the current Browns season (at the very least), we're probably not going to be doing any more "Born and Raised" recaps, nor we will publish DVOA previews unless something truly fascinating jumps out at us. Not all of our "regular" features will be gone forever (don't worry, LeBron Day is here to stay), but we're definitely going to be relaxing the rules we've imposed upon ourselves over the last four and a half years.

There's always a silver lining, however. As I see it, when Corey and I do have something to say, you can bet that it'll be unique and interesting—not the same rehashed and phoned-in comments about the Browns every week. We'll be returning to the truest sense of our unstated motto: to write things about Cleveland sports you won't see anywhere else.

Unfortunately, and undeniably, this will hurt our readership. People who regularly check the site will notice we haven't posted in a long time and will stop checking so frequently. Eventually, they'll stop checking at all. The solution, I believe, is one of the best things to have come out of the "blog revolution" or whatever you call it. Undoubtedly, many of you have already done this, but I know that some still don't: you don't have to check your favorite sites everyday, looking for changes. Instead, sites can notify you whenever there's something new.

Since this site will lie dormant for longer stretches of time, I highly highly highly suggest—nay, beg—that you subscribe to our feed. Feed readers like Google Reader and Bloglines are simple to use and free. And if you aren't totally sure what a feed is, or don't want to bother with a feed reader, you might consider signing up to receive e-mail updates whenever there's a new post. You won't get spammed (we promise!) and you can unsubscribe at any time.

You know what? That message is pretty important for the future of this blog, so I'll repeat it. Please subscribe to our feed or sign up for e-mail updates whenever there's a new post! There are even handy links to both options near the top of our sidebar.

I hope that you understand our decision to scale back our commitment to this blog. And I also hope that you continue to read what we have to say, whatever may come in Cleveland sports. Now, who's excited for the Dorsey Era?

Corey continues: I'm with Alex on everything he says here, but I just want to add my two cents about a couple of things. This was not an easy decision. If we felt comfortable discontinuing "Born and Raised" as soon as it stopped being fun for us, we would have stopped writing it months ago, maybe as soon as Jim Sorgi failed in his bid to bring pancake glory to Cleveland in 2007. But we truly felt an obligation to the loyal readers who have supported us over the years. It still amazes us that people value our opinions about the Browns, Cavs and Indians, and it breaks my heart to think that we may be disappointing some of them. That said, our lives have gotten busier since the carefree days when we started this blog, whereas our passion for blogging—and the feeling that we were doing something truly unique—has grown a bit stale.

It was always in the area of Browns football where I felt like we had the best opportunity to carve out a "niche" for ourselves. Football Outsiders is blazing a lonely trail in a field that many consider to be an impossible quagmire: making sense of football data. I'm really proud of the fact that we've been a small part of their movement, and of the relationship we've developed with Aaron Schatz as a result.

That in mind, I understand if many of you feel it's high time we shift our focus to Cavs basketball, not just because the well of Browns football seems to be drying up, but because the Cavs seem to have embarked on a historic season. It's true that the Cavs will certainly be on our minds in the coming months, so to the extent that we do have blog posts to present, they will more than likely be about the Cavs. But I don't want anyone thinking that we'll be able to pour anything like the time and energy we spent on writing "Born and Raised" into Cavs coverage. We were already over-extending ourselves with Browns content, and I can't stress enough how important it is to us that anything we publish be something unique, of which we can take full ownership. This may seem like a cop out, but we've never been able to just "drum up" Cavs content (and we only managed to force ourselves to "drum up" Browns content—often weak Browns content—thanks to the arbitrary rules of the "Born and Raised" format). Our enthusiasm for the Cavs is on an upswing right now, but that alone doesn't mean we can promise to have unique insights. All my favorite posts of the last three years or so were things that just popped into our heads one day, and I honestly can't predict when the next big idea will hit us. Could be tomorrow, could be next month.

In closing, thank you so much to every loyal fan of "Born and Raised" and of our blog in general. This is not the death of "Born and Raised"—with the pressure now off, who knows—it might be quite fun to resurrect the feature some day, especially if the Browns become good again (I know, ha ha). I hope you'll continue reading our much-less-frequent but hopefully just-as-interesting musings, starting with some Cavs coverage just as soon as inspiration strikes (or on LeBron Day 2008, whichever comes first).

With much love,
Corey and Alex