Sports Reference Blog

Heavy Play Index users, especially those who try to share their findings, may have noticed that the URLs for Play Index queries tend to be very long and unwieldy. Here, for example, is the URL for a simple query of most HRs in a season:

As many an infomercial host has suggested, there simply has to be a better way. Fortunately, there is! Every Play Index tool has a button in the top right that says "Make Tiny URL" Read the rest of this entry

On Friday, we moved all of the sites over to secure http (or https, more simply). Here's the Wikipedia explainer. Basically, this just means that the data between your computer and our browser is now encrypted, rather than plain text. You should now see "secure" and/or a lock in the address bar when you are on the site. We have never stored credit card information and still don't. All payments were always encrypted and handled by third parties, Paypal and Stripe.

We have not seen any issues surface in this switch, but if you do find something, we'd greatly appreciate you letting us know.

We have added a new frivolity to Hockey Reference: player twitter accounts. In addition to the list in the frivolities section, the handles can also be seen on player pages. If you see any missing that you think we should list, please let us know.

We have added some new features to the Hockey Reference Play Index.

In the Player Season Finder, we have added filters for Draft Status and Amateur Team. This new features allow for searches such as:

• Most goals in a season by a player drafted after the 7th Round
• Most career goals by a former NCAA player
• Most career goals by a former Kitchener Ranger drafted in the 1st Round

Additionally, we have added a feature to the Player Game Finder, which allows you to filter by specific playoff series game numbers. For instance, you can now search for Most Goals in Stanley Cup Final Game 7.

We hope you enjoy these new features. Please let us know if you have any questions

We recently added WNBA players to our Linker Tool, which allows for bloggers to use our bookmarklet to instantly link their blogs to our player pages and then have their posts show up in the newsfeed section of the player's page. We hope to have the newsfeeds up and running on the WNBA player pages in the near future.

The 2017 NBA Playoffs are in the books and one thing is clear: people like the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors. The TV ratings reached record highs as two of the most dominant teams we've seen in NBA history rampaged through their respective conferences on the way to a showdown that featured plenty of memorable moments, even while lacking in suspense. Barring an unprecedented shakeup during the offseason, there's little reason to think we won't be seeing something a lot like this next year. However, for one night on Thursday, the basketball world will turn its attention to building a future without the Warriors and Cavs' dominance.

That's right, it's time for the 2017 NBA Draft because basketball never sleeps! This year's draft could be particularly important to the shape of the league's future, especially in light of the blockbuster trade between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers, giving the latter the number one pick while the former picked up an extra asset to potentially trade for a star.

For fans enmeshed in the NBA for the last few months, it might be hard to think back to the NCAA season, so consider this blog post a refresher on the top five prospects. However, as any fan of Jimmy Butler or Kawhi Leonard will tell you, there's often talent to be found in the deeper parts of the draft. So, to pair with the big names, I'll also identify a player outside of the lottery who may have his own star-level upside. Read the rest of this entry

We have posted the results of the recently completed 2017 MLB Draft.

In advance of July's NBA Free Agency season, we have added our 2017-18 NBA Free Agent Tracker, which we will keep updated (as best we can) as deals are agreed to and signed. The headliners of this year's free agency class are reigning champions Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, but something tells us they're not going anywhere.

With the 2017 NBA Finals in the books, we've gone ahead and updated all of our NBA Finals leaderboards. This year's Finals was an important one from a historic perspective, as it saw LeBron James move from 7th to 3rd all-time in career points in the Finals. Along the way, he passed Bill Russell and Michael Jordan, among others.

A quick blog post, just to save this table as a reference and for posterity...

A couple years ago, we ran a blog post which featured a comparison of various players when facing elimination from the playoffs. At the time, LeBron James appeared to be objectively the best of the elite group we looked at. Since that time, he's played five more games facing elimination, winning four of them before losing in Game 5 of the 2017 NBA Finals last night. For his career, LeBron is now 11-9 when facing elimination, with averages of 33.0 PPG, 10.9 RPG and 7.4 APG on a 52.1 eFG%, with an average Game Score of 26.2. For comparison's sake, Michael Jordan's average Game Score when facing elimination was 23.3. Furthermore, LeBron's 33.0 PPG is the highest in NBA history by a player facing elimination (Jordan averaged 31.3 and Wilt Chamberlain averaged 31.1) Some point to the 2011 NBA Finals as a case of LeBron going out meekly (and they'd be right). But since then, he's faced elimination 12 times, winning nine times and putting up these insane numbers: 35.1 PPG, 11.9 RPG and 7.3 APG on a 55.7 eFG%, with an average Game Score of 30.1! Here are his lines for those 20 games, with links to each of the box scores if you'd like further details. And remember to bookmark this page the next time someone argues LeBron hasn't been a clutch performer.

Read the rest of this entry