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The intersection of the Cilppers and Warriors


Owen and I have been watching lots of NBA games this season. Now the season is over and we're in the NBA Playoffs, our two favorite teams, the Golden State (Oakland) Warriors are matched up against the Los Angeles Clippers (not the Lakers, who suck, f'real).

We noticed that the two teams have a lot of overlap in the space of names: the intersection of the Clippers and Warriors player names has a lot in common. Here's what we've come up with:

There are 2 Crawfords:

Jamal Crawford is in the running as the best sixth man in the league, coming off the bench to play the scoring guard for the Clippers. Meanwhile, Jordan Crawford comes off the bench to play scoring guard for the Warriors.

There are 2 Barneses:

Both come off the bench as small forwards: Harrison Barnes for the Warriors, vs. Matt Barnes for the Clippers

There are 2 Greens:

Willie Green comes off the bench as the third-string shooting guard on the Clippers while Dramond Green comes off the bench at power forward for the Warriors.

There are 2 Blakes:

Steve Blake is the backup point guard for the Warriors, vs. Blake Griffin the starting power forward for the Clippers.

There are 2 Jordans:

DeAndre Jordan starts at center for the Clippers while Jordan Crawford comes off the bench for the Warriors at two-guard.

There are 2 Davi[d-s]es:

David Lee starts at power forward for the Warriors while Glen Davis was traded by the Magic at the trade deadline and comes off the bench at center/power-forward for the Clippers.

There are two *Andres:

DeAndre Jordan starts at Center for the Clippers while Andre Iguodala starts at shooting guard for the Warriors. Also, and I realize this is stretching a bit, Andrew Bogut starts at center for the Warriors.

So there you have it! The intersection of the name-space between the 3rd and 6th seed in the Western Conferences of the NBA playoffs this year!

Stretching further, two players played college ball in Michigan:

Jordan Crawford played at U. Michigan while Dramond Green played at Michigan State.

Reggie Bullock (backup shooting guard for the Clippers) played at North Carolina, as did Harrison Barnes.

But stretching to find commonalities among college origins results in far fewer overlaps than the name-space does!


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