in the final two Tests of the year will break the all-time reco

This story was originally published on Oct. 4, 2016.STEVE BLAKE DOESNT?sit by the phone, but his cell is never far from reach -- during his morning workouts, picking up his boys from school, or lying in bed with his wife watching television while ruminating over whether hes actually retired.For now, he is out of the NBA. [Blake signed with the Sydney Kings in Australia on October 22.]Its the first time in 13 NBA seasons that no team has offered the 36-year-old point guard a contract. When the?Houston Rockets?hired Mike DAntoni, his former Lakers coach, Blake perked up, optimistic. But then the Rockets locked up?Pablo Prigioni?with a two-year?contract?in July. When?Mo Williams abruptly notified the Cavs he would retire on Sept. 26, Blakes hopes were raised again that Cleveland might call. But the?Cavaliers?reached out to Norris Cole and Mario Chalmers instead.Ive never had to wait this long, Blake concedes. Ive always had a place to go. To be in this space ... its definitely different.Kobe Bryants magnificent show and Tim Duncans disappearing act notwithstanding, precious few NBA players script their own endings. For the typical NBA player, the ending is far murkier and significantly more anticlimactic. Careers simply peter out, clouded by the disappointment and bitterness that mounts as the months drag on and the realization sets in that nobody wants them anymore.There were 201 free agents on the market on July 1. There are still 20 who remain unsigned, among them Chalmers, Cole, Josh Smith, Kevin Martin, Matt Bonner, Kendrick Perkins, Andre Miller and Chris Kaman. Some of those players may not have known it at the time, but they have already played their last NBA game.Blake is not planning to be one of them. He spent each morning during the preseason scrimmaging with?Trail Blazers?players at the teams facility near his Portland home, but that option went away when training camp began. At night, Blake lifts and does conditioning drills.?He doesnt need the money -- he just craves the game. Blake has three sons -- ages 9, 7 and 6 -- and he has moved them each time he has changed teams, from Portland to Los Angeles to San Francisco, back to Portland and, last season, to Detroit. If he does get picked up, Blake says, his kids and his wife, Kristen, will remain in Oregon, which will be a difficult adjustment for all of them. But it will be palatable because it will be for just ... one ... more ... year. While his first priority is to play, Blake says he is also open to taking a coaching job. He started planning for the future years ago by enrolling in coaching clinics and attending real estate symposiums.But Blake knows its a numbers game. There were 60 players selected in the draft in June, and most of them will garner roster spots.Sometimes, Blake says, you dont realize you are retired until you dont have a job.THERES A REASON?some of the greatest players of all time (including Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson) embarked on ill-fated comebacks: Civilian life isnt nearly as exhilarating or lucrative or validating. Neither is retirement, for other reasons.Its hard enough for people who are 65-70 years old to retire, never mind someone 25 to 30, says Golden State general manager Bob Myers, who used to be an agent. Its a complete loss of identity. For many of these guys, its all theyve ever known. Theyve been doing it since they were 5 years old and they want to keep doing it, but suddenly nobody wants you to do it anymore.Some players warrant a courtesy second look because of their championship pedigree. Yet it doesnt take much time for them to be exposed if theyve stayed out of the game too long.We had a player who had been good for us who wanted to come back midseason, says San Antonio general manager R.C. Buford. He came in and did a 15-minute workout with us. It was tough to watch. We told him, Man, you dont want to do this to yourself. We wont let you do this to yourself.Buford declined to identify the player. I dont want to embarrass him, he says.Power forward Carlos Boozer didnt play in the NBA last season but contacted the Spurs last spring and told them he wanted back in. Buford suggested he play in San Antonios June minicamp, but Boozer declined. Then he was going to come for a piece of our summer league, but then he said, Nah, Im not going to do that, either, Buford says. So we moved on. How can we evaluate him if hes not playing? Boozer ended up signing with the Guangdong Tigers in China on July 30.JERRY STACKHOUSE IS a two-time All-Star who played 19 seasons for eight different teams. He made it to the NBA Finals twice: In a cruel twist, he lost to Miami in 2006 while playing for the Dallas Mavericks, then played for the Heat during the Mavericks title run in the 2010-2011 season.Once a guy hits 30, theres a lot of GMs out there who decide your career is over, Stackhouse says. You get nagging injuries that you cant recover from as fast as you would like. You spend more time in the training room than with the guys, so you lose out on the camaraderie.The preparation just gets harder and harder. And now, instead of going through all that to start and play 35 minutes a night, youre doing it to play eight minutes a game off the bench.In Stackhouses final season with the Brooklyn Nets in 2012-13, coach Avery Johnson eyed him as a valuable mentor who would tutor a young roster.I wasnt expecting to play, Stackhouse explains, but once I got out there and started practicing, I realized, Hey, Im better than most of these guys. Coach realized it, too, and next thing you know, Im out there.But on Dec. 28, 2012, Johnson was fired and assistant P.J. Carlesimo was elevated to interim head coach. Carlesimo was given a number of directives by the front office; one of them was to find out whether MarShon Brooks, who was buried on the bench by Johnson because of his defensive deficiencies, could play. Carlesimo briefed Stackhouse on his plan to give Brooks some minutes, with the idea that come playoff time, the Nets would lean on Stackhouse again.I guess the plan was, Oh, hes a vet, once we get back in the playoffs well throw him back in the mix, Stackhouse says. But you cant sit there all that time and just turn it on in April.The Nets played the Bulls in the opening round of the playoffs. Stackhouse was rusty, but he did what he always did when he entered the game -- he shot the ball. His first 3-pointer was shockingly short. The next one was the same.Two air balls, Stackhouse says. I couldnt believe it.Stackhouse continued his shooting drills during his forced hiatus from the lineup, but game simulation cannot be duplicated. Older players in particular need reps and minutes to preserve their continuity. Stackhouse was mocked on social media for his misses; even NBA players Mo Williams and Jared Dudley poked fun at him for it. In that Bulls series, Stackhouse finished 1-of-10 from the floor and 0-of-7 from 3-point range. The final three games of his illustrious career were DNP-coachs decision.It left a bad taste in my mouth, Stackhouse admits. Nothing against P.J., but what are you talking about? Youre choosing MarShon Brooks to save your job over someone who has done it. But I gotta sit there, be the veteran and take it.Now that hes an assistant coach with the Toronto Raptors, Stackhouse says he understands why development of young players trumps veterans who have a little juice left. Stackhouse, who never formally retired, practices with the team daily and still has success against the 20-somethings hes teaching.Dont think [a comeback] doesnt cross my mind, Stackhouse says. When [the Raptors] were looking for a stretch-4, Im thinking, Why dont you sign me?THE RECENT JUMP in NBA salaries comes with an influx of retired players clamoring to return. When sniper Ray Allen announced he was mulling a comeback at the age of 41, no one snickered, because his skill (shooting) is a timeless asset -- even though Allen did ultimately drop the comeback thought by announcing his retirement on Nov. 1. Likewise, when Jeff Schwartz, the agent for 34-year-old Emeka Okafor, confirmed his client would try to return in December or January after a three-year hiatus, his potential availability (providing the herniated disc in his back is healed) generated interest because in a 3-and-D league, Okafor could serve as the last line of defense for a contending team.Fresh off career lows in every statistical category, including minutes per game (18.1), Paul Pierce considered all options before announcing that hell retire after one more season with the Clippers.Superstars cant be role players, Clippers coach Doc Rivers declared. Actually, they can be if they want to be, but fans dont want to see that.Paul had an awful year and he knows that. He doesnt want to go out like that, and I respect that totally.Minnesota bought out Pierces former teammate, first-ballot Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett, rather than pay him $8 million to counsel?Timberwolves?superstar?Karl-Anthony Towns?from the bench this season. It was a stunning -- and humbling -- ending for one of the games transformative players.Derek Fisher and Baron Davis have hinted at possible returns. Davis says he wants to play for Golden State.Who doesnt? says one Eastern Conference general manager. The hardest thing for these guys to understand is they cant play anymore. And were the ones that have to break it to them.It stings for a bit, Stackhouse says. Were all alpha males.And then we get over it.LARRY HUGHES ADMITS, in retrospect, he probably hung on too long. Hughes says he realizes he should have stopped playing in 2010, when he started spending more time honing his womens fitness spa business than keeping his skills sharp.Hughes points to his years in Cleveland, when he signed with much fanfare to play alongside a young LeBron James, as where his career took a wrong turn. He broke his finger in the 2005 preseason, he says, but because he had been labeled as injury-prone he didnt tell anyone about it.I played four to five months with essentially a broken shooting hand, Hughes says. I ended up having surgery. You are never the same after surgery. I should have said something.That same year, Hughes brother, Justin, died while awaiting a heart transplant. I dont remember much of what happened that season, Hughes says.Hughes began contemplating retirement in 2010. His wife and four children were living in St. Louis and he had promised his daughter Lauren, who was a promising player, that he would be done with basketball by the time she reached high school. He changed his mind when Larry Brown, his former coach in Philadelphia who had moved on to Charlotte and was looking to add some punch to a floundering 9-19 team, reached out.A few days later, [assistant coach] Jeff Capel called me, Hughes recalls. I thought he was telling me what time I needed to be there to sign my contract. Instead he said, Larry, theyre letting us [the coaching staff] go. The new coach, Paul Silas, politely informed Hughes agent he wasnt interested.Hughes sat out the 2010-11 season but jumped at one final opportunity with Orlando in 2011. The Magic called him on Dec. 23 and he flew to Oklahoma City to log a DNP on Christmas Day while his family opened presents in St. Louis without him. His stint there lasted just 22 games -- and he played in only nine of them. Coach Stan Van Gundy called Hughes into his office after he logged 14 minutes against Washington in what turned out to be his final NBA game.It was different, having someone tell you, We cant use you anymore, Hughes concedes. It had never happened to me before.Hughes, who never formally announced his retirement, wishes his NBA career had ended in a more dignified fashion. But, he says, he was warned.It all goes back to the Players Association, he says. They come in every year and visit the locker room and talk about preparing you for the end of basketball. Some years when you are making good money you ask your coach, Do I have to sit in on this if Ive heard it all before? But the message is a good one.WHEN ALONZO MOURNING was a college freshman at Georgetown, Hall of Famer Bill Russell took him to lunch. A young Mourning asked Russell when he knew it was time to retire. Russell said he went over a checklist of things he needed to do to get ready, and when he couldnt meet those, he knew it was time. Good health, Russell informed him, was the most important factor on the list.Mourning learned for himself during a routine physical in 2000, when he was diagnosed with focal glomerulosclerosis, a serious disease that can lead to kidney failure.The condition forced him to miss all of the 2002-03 season. The Heat, gravely concerned about his health, declined to re-sign him, but Mourning was hell-bent on continuing. He joined the New Jersey Nets on a four-year contract, but his declining condition and the extraordinary steps he needed to take to continue playing left then-coach Byron Scott admitting each day he put Mourning on the court scared me to death.The most immediate danger was dehydration, so the team and Mourning had to fastidiously monitor his liquid intake. He was also required to ingest a host of toxic drugs, including an ace inhibitor that left him exhausted. He spent most of his days lethargic and fatigued, while his teammates spent most of their days terrified for him.It took me seven to eight hours every day just to get ready to play, Mourning says. Aside from the practice, I had to do extra stretching and massages. I couldnt take any ibuprofen or painkillers like I had earlier in my career, so I had to figure out other ways to control the pain.It was crazy. I was a little off sometimes, on edge. I admit it.On Nov. 25, 2003, Mourning scored 15 points in 16 minutes in a loss to Toronto, then finally succumbed to his illness. He underwent a kidney transplant a month later.Two days after his surgery, Pat?Riley came to visit him in the hospital. Mourning, who was heavily medicated with tubes and wires sprouting from his battered body, woke up, saw his former coach and declared, Im playing again.Over the next 11 months, he endured the cellular rejection of his new kidney, which landed him back in the hospital. When he finally got back on his feet, he visited the weight room and discovered he could only lift 15-pound dumbbells. As he tried to rebuild his core, he felt certain he was ripping his incision, but was informed those painful tears were adhesions.Mourning eventually returned to the Nets in a limited role, then later rejoined Miami and won a championship with the Heat in 2006. Before the start of the 2007-08 season, Mourning announced it would be his final year. He made it as far as December when, as Atlanta journeyman Mario West went to lay the ball in, Mourning steeled himself to leap up and block the shot, as he had done 2,356 other times in his career. This time, Mournings knee buckled without contact. He tore his patellar tendon and -- just like that -- his career was done.As he lay crumpled on the court, he pounded his balled fist onto the ground, howling, Its over! Its over!Riley and trainer Ron Culp rushed to his side and gingerly tried to help position him on a stretcher.I made a move towards it, but then I decided, If this is my last time on a court as a player, I dont want this to be the final memory people have of me, Mourning says. So I told them, Man, get that f---ing thing out of here!Its hard to walk away. Its a love affair, like a long marriage. Ive been in a relationship with basketball since I was 5, 6 years old. Its hard to flip a switch and say, OK, its done.The trick, Hughes says, is to start planning for the end long before it ever happens. He offers some pointed advice for current NBA players.Think about what youre going to do next before you ever become a free agent, Hughes warns. Because most of us never really do know when its over.One day it just happens. Stitched Jerseys . Colin Wilson had two goals and an assist, and Mike Fisher scored a goal and helped set up two others in the Predators 6-4 victory over the Red Wings on Monday night. China Jerseys . After Mondays hard-fought loss, the wait seemed longer than usual. Getting set to go their separate ways for a short Christmas break, the Raptors coach credited his team for their effort on a seemingly impossible three-game road trip, urging them to build on that success when they get back to work at the end of the week. http://www.jerseyscheapsale.com/ . -- Matt Kuchar and Harris English ran away with the Franklin Templeton Shootout, shooting a 14-under 58 on Sunday in the final-round scramble to break the tournament course record. Discount Nike NFL Jerseys . PAUL, Minn. Wholesale Jerseys China . It says Pocklingtons lawyer filed the appeal Friday in a California court. CTV Edmonton also says Pocklington gave a $100,000 cash deposit as part of the conditions of his bail, and that he will be out on bail until his appeal is heard. Click here for week one of The Confectionery Stall Stat-vent CalendarSeven more stats for you to unveil, one each morning, instead of looking at a badly-drawn picture of a robin, or eating a disappointing chocolate, or releasing a live and irritable scorpion, if you have been given a prank advent calendar by a lifelong foe.December 8Parthiv Patel is the sixth greatest Indian Test opener in history - if you judge greatness purely by the time between the first time you do something and the last.Parthiv first opened the batting for India in December 2002, when he walked out alongside Sanjay Bangar in Hamilton, in the third innings of the only Test in history in which both sides were bowled out for under 100 in their first innings. It would have been a tough assignment for a 100-Test veteran opener. Parthiv was a 17-year-old wicketkeeper with fewer than 500 first-class runs to his name. If someone had told the teenager then that he would still be opening for India almost 14 years later, he would probably have thought to himself: Well, this is obviously going to go very well indeed. I can confidently look forward to a glorious career of unremitting run-scoring and national adulation.Parthiv was bowled for a fourth-ball duck, and, before Mohali last month, had opened only once more, making 69 in an innings victory in Rawalpindi in 2004, partnering Rahul Dravid in the early stages of his career-best 270.The 13 years and 11 months since the Hamilton debacle (which was also, excluding matches curtailed to fewer than 25 overs, the only Test since 1890 in which no batsman has reached 40), put Parthiv in sixth place on the all-time longest-serving Indian Test openers list. If he can open again in February 2021, he will supplant all-time leader Mushtaq Ali, the legendary stylist from Indias early Test years, whose 16 innings as opener spanned 18 years and a month from January 1934 and February 1952.(The rest of the top five: Sunil Gavaskar (16 years, March 1971-March 1987, 203 innings); Vijay Merchant (15 years and four months, June 1936-November 1951, 12 innings); Navjot Sidhu (15 years, December 1983-January 1999, 69 innings); and Dravid (14 years and nine months, November 1996-August 2011, 23 innings).)December 9Joe Roots 179-ball 78 in Mohali was only the fourth time in his last 32 Test innings (over 17 Tests since November 2015) that he has faced more than 130 balls.He also topped the 130-ball mark when making 124 off 180 in Rajkot. He faced 406 deliveries in his 254 against Pakistan at Old Trafford, and his Johannesburg 110 took 139 balls. In his previous 33 innings, over 19 Tests after his 2014 recall, he had lasted 130-plus balls on 14 occasions.He batted for 130 balls six times in his first 29 Test innings before he was dropped for the final Ashes Test of the 2013-14 horror tour. You may well argue that 130 balls is an oddly random number of balls on which to base a statistic. And you may well have a point. But, as the Confectionery Stalls sole stat-arbiter, I declare that the stat stands. Especially when viewed in the context of the following…December 10 Some time on December 10, England will participate in their 43,104th delivery of international cricket in 2016 - breaking their national record for most balls of cricket played in a year. (Assuming good weather in Mumbai.) (And a match that lasts into the third day.)At this point, England will have played 31,009 deliveries in Tests, 9807 in ODIs, and 2288 in T20 internationals since New Year, breaking a record set way, way back in 2015. By the end of Chennais fifth Test, they will have played around 83,500 balls of international cricket since the 2015 World Cup in all formats, the equivalent of 155 90-over days of actual cricket in just over 21 months.As a bonus multiple-choice question, are the December 9 stat and the December 10 stat in any way related?(a) Yes (b) Probably (c) YesAnswers on a postcard to: The ECB Head Golden Goose Squeezer, Department Of Excessive Scheduling, Cricketsville, England.I would go for (a) or (c), I think. Root is still batting well, still scoring influential runs, still looking like Englands most complete all-round batsman for decades. But have his powers of concentration been slightly dulled by Englands ceaseless cricketing churn?Depending on the length of the final two Tests, England will probably end fifth or sixth in the Most Balls Of International Cricket Played In A Year list, at around 46,000 deliveries, still some way behind Indias 2002 record of 50,826 (in 16 Tests and 35 ODIs).December 11 Since the end of Engglands superb series win late in 2012, visiting batsmen in India collectively have averaged 21.dddddddddddd84 in 16 Tests, while recording a Won 0, Lost 14 record. Indias spinners have averaged 20.22 in these matches.By comparison, when touring the West Indies at its statistical peak-unplayable, from 1984 to 1986, visitors collective batting average was 20.69, and the West Indian pacers averaged 20.77 (a figure bumped up by an almost heroic devotion to no-balls). The challenge currently provided by India in India, then, is statistically comparable to what is rightly regarded as perhaps the toughest batting assignment in Test history. Not as frightening, nor as likely to result in a nasal rearrangement, nor promising a lifetime of harrowing flashbacks of Michael Holding limbering up to come on as second change, but almost as damaging to the batting average.Other inhospitable hosts have provided statistically similar obstacles - for example, Australia and South Africa around the turn of the millennium, Pakistan in the late-1980s and early-1990s, Sri Lanka from 2005 to 2008, when Murali averaged 16 in home Tests, England in the mid-to-late 1950s, Australia in the immediate post-war years. In terms of numbers, India in India in the past four years have been in a similar bracket of statistical difficulty for visiting batsmen.December 12Adil Rashid needs five wickets in the final two Tests to become only the third England bowler since Ian Botham in 1979-80 to take 30 wickets in a winter season.In between these two somewhat contrasting bearded allrounders, Steve Harmison took 32 in 2003-04 (nine in a Test in Bangladesh, 23 in four in the West Indies), and Graeme Swann 37 in 2009-10 (16 in two matches in Bangladesh, 21 in four in South Africa).Few bowlers have enjoyed a seven-Test winter to achieve this landmark, but Rashid already has 25 victims after five Tests. Other than Swann, who took 25 or more in three winters out of four from 2008-09 to 2011-12, the only England spinner of the last 50 years to record a 25-wicket winter has been Derek Underwood, who took 33 in both 1970-71 and 1976-77.Conclusion: You cannot take 25 wickets in a winter season as an England spinner without going on to take at least 250 in your Test career.(Tony Greig took 29 in eight Tests in 1974-75, but how many were with spin and how many with seam is something Statsguru does not reveal. Ashley Giles came close, taking 24 in six Tests in Englands victorious series in Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 2000-01, when he became the first England spinner to have even a 20-wicket winter since Geoff Miller in the 1978-79 Packer-era Ashes.) December 13 During the first 29 matches of their 31-Test 2015-2016 marathon, Englands batsmen have made 46 scores of 80 or more, but converted just 23 of them into centuries.You do not need to be a rocket scientist to work out that this means they have a 50% conversion rate of 80s into 100s. A very basic grasp of arithmetic will suffice. Even excluding the two not-out sub-100 scores, the conversion rate is 52%, compared to 77% in the previous four years, and 69% by all other Test teams combined in the 2015-2016 period.Moreover, 17 of Englands 21 80-plus conversion failures have been dismissals in the 80s, giving them an astonishing 39% out-in-the-80s rate (other teams combined in the same period: 22%; all teams throughout Test history: 18%).If you want to repeat the multiple choice question above, please do so.England players have been out in the 80s ten times this year. One more in the final two Tests of the year will break the all-time record by a Test team in a calendar year, currently shared with the England of 1982, and the Australia of 1977.December 14 Australias 378 for 5 in the second ODI against New Zealand in Canberra on Tuesday was the eighth successive time they have scored 320 or more when batting first in an ODI on home soil.The sequence began with a ritual flaying of England in their World Cup opener at the MCG in February 2015, and they had scored 329 for 5 against South Africa, also in Canberra, late in 2014, meaning that nine of their last ten innings batting first in home ODIs have been scores of 320 or more. They had posted 320 in four of their previous 49 home first innings (excluding two rain-shortened matches). More numerical proof of the statistical trauma inflicted on modern ODI bowlers.Click here for week one of The Confectionery Stall Stat-vent Calendar ' ' '