The 2009 Production Plan: What Quest for the Ring Produces, and When

=======INTRODUCTION TO AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRODUCTION PLAN=======
First, what is a production plan? It is a plan that details the types of reports produced, the number of each type of report that we would like to produce, and the planned calendar schedule for them.

Ideally, all such plans would be exactly met: the number of reports planned would actually appear, and they would appear according to schedule. Prior to this version, Quest Production Plans were based on this perfectionist ideal. During the first two years of Quest (which was born on the Internet in April 2007) there were three distinct Production Plans were produced, but each one was totally unrealistic, quite honestly.

In fact, those earlier Plans were ridiculous and were really not very useful, not only due to factors that continue on today that will be discussed shortly, but especially due to the inherent explosive instability of a brand new Internet site fueled in the early months by a large amount of ambition but few specific guiding objectives. Making production plans in the early months of Quest was equivalent to making plans for a garden party at a house while the house is on fire!

To be more specific, during the first two years of Quest, there was an explosion of report types and an explosion of available features for that exploding number of report types. Production planning in such a quickly changing context is obviously absurd. So naturally, all of the early production plans failed miserably.

BUT NOW WE CAN MAKE A PLAN THAT WON'T BE DEAD ON ARRIVAL....
It is strongly believed that the rate of new Quest content and features is permanently lower from now going forward, simply because most of the best possible stuff has already been created. A new era characterized much more by improvements of existing reports and features is now here to stay.

Therefore, and in light of the crucial value of production plans (more on this shortly) Quest is presenting this new 2009 What we Produce Production Plan.

THIS PLAN WILL FAIL TOO BUT IT WILL BE A LOT CLOSER THIS TIME
Unfortunately, although we expect this new production plan to be far more realistic than earlier ones, we do not expect this one will be closely achieved. But it will be achieved to some extent and much more so than the previous Plans. And the crucial importance of having a production plan that is as realistic as possible trumps not being able to meet it closely.

In real life, it will never be possible to exactly meet any production plan. The objective is always going to be to meet as many of the specific plans as possible, and to get as close as possible to meeting the plan overall.

Reasons plans can not always be met, even after a site is no longer exploding new types of content, are numerous. They include uncertainty about the overall time resources available.

Another major reason why this new production plan will probably not be closely achieved is that although we have adjusted as much as possible for the issue, Quest ambitions are most likely still out of proportion to available resources.

Due just to large-scale uncertainty about time resources alone, it can be argued that specific production planning is a waste of time. However, production planning remains very necessary, crucial really. Having no production plans leads to day to day confusion about what to produce.

More broadly, and in the longer term, having no specific production plans will eventually lead to the site losing focus, or in other words losing ability to meet preset objectives. Once the site loses focus on these things, the danger that the site will "die out" completely greatly increases. In summary, a site needs to keep this process going: mission >> objectives >> production plans >> focus >> meeting objectives >> Site continues indefinitely.

Therefore, for most of the reports, even though we know we won't be able to produce everything specified, we have to and do provide estimates of the number of each type of report that will be produced, and when they will appear. A likely length range is also given for most types of text reports (expressed in terms of the number of words).

So always remember, the production plan details are not strict quotas, are not guarantees, are not promises, and are too often not even good predictions of what production will be. On the other hand:

--We are virtually 100% certain that some of the specific production plans will be exactly met. For example, you can bet the ranch that NBA Real Player Ratings will be produced according to the schedule and specs shown.

--We are virtually 100% certain that at least half of the production plans will be largely met.

--We are virtually 100% certain that most of the production plans will be at least partially met, with "partially" defined as 1/3 or 33%.

A new Quest what we Produce and When Production Plan will be done at least once a year. It is obvious that each new Plan will be more closely met than the one before, because we will have more knowledge about everything involved, including for example to what extent our ambitions can simply not be met without additional resources, such as at least one additional writer. The possible eventual addition of one or more carefully chosen new writers argues against making the Plan cautious and conservative.

THE QUEST FOR THE RING PRODUCTION PLAN AS OF AUGUST 1, 2010
REPORT CATEGORY: TEXT REPORTS
As you might expect, Text Reports are considered to be the most important of all types, and this type of Report receives more production time than any of the others.
There are two sub-categories: Playoff Season Text Reports and Regular Season Text Reports. The Quest Regular Season runs from December 11 through April 19 each year. The Quest Playoff Season runs from April 20 through December 10 each year.
Many but not all types of Text Reports are produced only in one or the other Season, but certain types of Text Reports may appear at any time.

MULTIMEDIA ADD-ONS TO REPORTS
Some reports are accompanied by photos and, beginning in the spring of 2009, some Reports include video jukeboxes offering about 50 YouTube videos to choose from, with the subject usually being a team or an important player. Another video add-on can simply be the inclusion of one or more selected videos. Also, slideshows can and occasionally will now be added to some reports. Multimedia add-ons are due to become much more common beginning in the fall of 2009.

=======REPORT CATEGORY: REGULAR SEASON TEXT REPORTS=======
FAST BREAK
A Fast Break is a text report of less than 800 words. This is a fast break type of posting, a short post needed to be pushed out the door quickly to be timely. In the great majority of cases, a fast break posting is followed up by much longer articles that will contain a lot of proof for any points made in the fast breaks. Remember that many Quest reports have much more detail than this one; Quest for the Ring prides itself on game, team, and League breakdowns that are as long as necessary to make and prove the points. Fast Breaks are especially useful to comment on major breaking news in a timely fashion.

This type of Report can appear in either season (year round). In fact, this type of Report is just as common in the Playoff Season as it is in the Regular Season.

Approximately 30 such Reports are expected to be produced per year, or 2.5 each month.

REGULAR SEASON FULL REPORTS
(The regular season is from December 11 through April 19)
Regular Season text reports are at least 800 words long and can be up to 4,000 words long. Most Regular Season text reports are between 1,000 words and 3,000 words long.
The overall average length of all such reports is approximately 2,200 words.

Subject matter can be anything that relates to pro basketball, as long as it to one extent or another relates to discovering and explaining how NBA games, especially playoff games, are won. Quest reports are known for being loaded with at least as much proof as is needed to prove the points and the proof very often consists, at least in part, of custom, advanced statistical information.

TYPES OF REGULAR SEASON FULL REPORTS
ANNUAL TEAM REPORT
Annual Team Reports are short by Quest standards, although still longer than this type of report done by other general NBA writers. Annual Reports for the 21-24 non-contending teams are between 1,200 and 1,400 words. Annual Reports for the six to nine contending teams are between 1,500 and 1,750 words.

Each annual report focuses a lot on what the team players, coaches, and managers are doing right, and at least as much on what they are doing wrong with respect to the objective of winning playoff games.

One of these is done for each contending team, and other teams are selected such that the total number of annual reports is expected to be 20. The following year, any team that did not have an annual report the prior year will definitely get one.

These twenty reports are to be produced and released at the pace of one every three days, over a total of 60 days. These 20 Reports are to be produced and released between December 11 and February 8 of each year.

MAJOR CONTENDER TEAM REPORT
This is probably the most important single type of report appearing during the regular season (which you will recall is December 11 through April 19). Also, this is the one report which is most closely related to the conception behind Quest Reports in the first year.

There are usually only going to be two, three, or in unusual circumstances, at most, four major contenders. Quest specializes in two of the major contenders during the regular season. Quest is first and foremost about how teams win or lose NBA playoff games, so this type of Report is heavily focused on what the major contending team
is doing right and what it is doing wrong with respect to the prospect of winning playoff games.

Occasionally, specific games will be discussed in detail. More commonly, whether the team as a whole, managers, coaches, and key players on it are strategically and/or tactically correct is extensively discussed.

Team reports not only cover players and coaches, but also discuss the performance of managers with respect to what they have done right or wrong with respect to the team's prospects in the playoffs. Quest looks beyond the trees to the surrounding forest as a whole much more so than do most other basketball sites.

Expect about one such report per week between January 25 and April 18 of each year. So, for each of the two specialization teams, expect one such Report every two weeks during that period. Therefore, in total, expect about twelve such reports per year, six for each team specialized in.

Generally, this type of report will be between 2,000 and 3,000 words long. The average length will be about 2,500 words.

PLAYER REPORT
A report about how a very important player is doing in the current season, with a review of that players' entire career via Real Player Ratings by year.

Expect about four such reports per year, one in January, one in February, one in March, and one in April.

Generally, this type of report will be between 1,500 and 3,000 words long.

THIS YEAR'S QUEST REPORT
This is a special, very valuable kind of report. This type of report, as the name implies, discusses the current Quest for the Ring. Specifically, it covers which of the (between six and nine) contending teams are on the right track and why, and which are on the wrong track and why.

This Report focuses on the six to nine contending teams and especially on the two or three major contending teams. Exactly what these teams are dong right and exactly what they are doing wrong is covered.

Expect about three such reports per year, one in February, one in March, and one in April.

LEAGUE REPORT
This is a report about the NBA, often involving economics and how the NBA fits in with society as a whole.

This type of report is relatively uncommon; expect two or three of these per year. This type of Report can appear in either season (year round).

SOCIETY REPORT
This is a report about society and how basketball relates to it and what basketball can teach everyone.

This type of report is uncommon; expect one or two of these per year. This type of Report can appear in either season (year round).

REPORT CATEGORY: PLAYOFF SEASON TEXT REPORTS
(The Playoff Season is April 20--December 10)
PLAYOFF SEASON REPORTS FOCUSED ON A PLAYOFF SERIES
PLAYOFF SEASON FULL REPORTS
Playoff Season text reports are at least 800 words long and can be up to 4,000 words long. The average length will be approximately 2,200 words.

The subject matter is generally a single, specific playoff series. The focus is on how and why teams win and lose playoff games.

Although specific game coverage is important and is a major part of these reports, how and why teams win and lose is a subject which goes beyond particular games. Therefore, focus is often on factors that are wider than specific games, especially of course on various coaching and management factors.

Quest reports are known for being loaded with at least as much proof as is needed to prove the points and the proof very often consists, at least in part, of custom statistical information.

TYPES OF PLAYOFF SEASON TEXT REPORTS
CHAMPIONSHIP REPORTS
One report for each Championship game is produced. Such reports are produced and posted during the series. Unlike for other series, expect the Championship Reports to appear one to three days after the game. Obviously, since the Championship is in June, you can expect these reports each June.

Generally, Championship game text Reports will be between 2,000 and 3,000 words long.

Aside from the text report, there is an Ultimate Game Breakdown separately produced for each Championship, Conference Final, and Conference Semi-final game.

EAST AND WEST CONFERENCE FINAL REPORTS
One report for each East Final and each West Final series game is produced. Expect the reports for the East final games to appear between July 1 and July 25. Expect the reports for the West final games to appear between July 26 and August 19.

Generally, this type of Report will be between 1,500 and 2,500 words long.

Aside from the text report, there is an Ultimate Game Breakdown separately produced for each game.

EAST AND WEST CONFERENCE SEMI-FINALS REPORTS
There are four semifinal series, two in each conference. One report for each and every semi-final game is produced. Since there are approximately 23 such games, expect about 23 such reports per year.

Expect the reports for the East semifinal series (1 of 2) between August 20 and September 11. Expect the reports for the West semifinal series (1 of 2) between September 12 and October 4. Expect the reports for the East semifinal series (2 of 2) between October 5 and October 27. Expect the reports for the West semifinal series (2 of 2) between October 28 and November 19.

Aside from the text report, there is an Ultimate Game Breakdown separately produced for each game in each semifinal. Generally, this type of Report will be between 1,000 and 2,000 words long.

PLAYOFF SEASON REPORTS NOT FOCUSED ON A PLAYOFF SERIES
ANNUAL DRAFT REPORT
This is a planned new annual Report that strategically discusses the NBA draft in between 1,500 and 2,500 words. This is important, since it is very, very difficult to win the Quest while getting little from the draft and from younger players in general.

Expect this report to appear approximately July 5. It is not yet known how long this report will be.

ANNUAL TRADES AND ACQUISITIONS REPORT
This is a planned new annual Report that discusses the most important off-season roster moves made by teams, especially contending teams. In other words, this is largely a report about the roster moves made by the contending teams between the end of the last regular season and the start of the new regular season. Focus is most intense on the best players, the ones with Real Player Ratings exceeding .750.

Expect this once a year report to appear approximately November 5. It is not yet known how long this report will be.

FAST BREAK
A Fast Break is a text report of less than 800 words. This is a fast break type of posting, a short post needed to be pushed out the door quickly to be timely. In the great majority of cases, a fast break posting is followed up by much longer articles that will contain a lot of proof for any points made in the fast breaks. Remember that many Quest reports have much more detail than this one; Quest for the Ring prides itself on game, team, and League breakdowns that are as long as necessary to make and prove the points. Fast Breaks are especially useful to comment on major breaking news in a timely fashion.

This type of Report can appear in either season (year round). In fact, this type of Report is just as common in the Playoff Season as it is in the Regular Season.

Approximately 30 such Reports are expected to be produced per year, or 2.5 each month.

LEAGUE REPORT
This is a report about the NBA, often involving economics and how the NBA fits in with society as a whole.

This type of report is relatively uncommon; expect two or three of these per year. This type of Report can appear any time during the year.

SOCIETY REPORT
This is a report about society and how basketball relates to it and what basketball can teach everyone.

This type of report is uncommon; expect one or two of these per year. This type of Report can appear any time during the year.

=======REPORT CATEGORY: ADVANCED STATISTICAL REPORTS=======
ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWN
This is a statistical breakdown of a game, consisting of two main parts, Real Player Ratings and Real Game Ratings.

The Real Player Ratings are accompanied by the Real Player Production breakdown. You can see the exact level of performance of the players at a glance.

Real Game Ratings consist of about seven very important "advanced" statistical indicators, ones that are believed by top basketball people to be crucial with respect to how games are won and lost. Real Game Ratings also consist of three Quest custom-made statistical performance measures intended to show the offensive quality, power, and potential of NBA contending teams. These three custom designed offensive performance measures are called "play making identity," "play making quality," and "play making power".

In a Game Breakdown, there may be a short section for notes about how the game was won, but the vast majority of any discussion of a game will be in a text Report, not in a Breakdown.

Starting in 2009, about 95% of all Ultimate Game Breakdowns will be for playoff games. In the regular season, only a small number of crucial and interesting games, usually involving major contending teams, will be treated to a Breakdown.

Ultimate Game Breakdowns will be produced for all Championship games, all Conference Final games, and all Conference Semifinal games. Also, Ultimate Game Breakdowns will generally be produced for a limited number of carefully selected Conference Quarterfinal games (The Conference quarterfinals are the first round of the playoffs). Resources are not currently adequate to provide Breakdowns for more than about 15% of quarterfinal games. 15% of them would be about seven.

Scheduling of Ultimate Game Breakdowns of playoff games is parallel to the scheduling of text reports for those games. In the first 18 months of Quest, text reports and Ultimate Game Breakdowns were combined into huge reports that eventually grew to be more than 9,000 words long!

Championship Breakdowns are scheduled for June. Unlike for other series, Breakdowns for the Championship are intended to be produced and reported out within a day or two of each game.

Breakdowns for the East final series are scheduled for between July 1 and July 25. Breakdowns for the West final series are scheduled for between July 26 and August 19.

Breakdowns for the East semi-final series (1 of 2) are scheduled for between August 20 and September 11. Breakdowns for the West semi-final series (1 of 2) are scheduled for between September 12 and October 4. Breakdowns for the East semi-final series (2 of 2) are scheduled for between October 5 and October 27. Breakdowns for the West semi-final series (2 of 2) are scheduled for between October 28 and November 19.

Breakdowns for a small number of selected semifinal games are scheduled for between November 20 and December 10.

REAL TEAM RATINGS
This is an advanced, custom-designed statistical report based on an algorithm intended to reveal the playoff performance potential of all NBA teams, but especially, of course, of contending teams. Each team's Rating is based on close to a dozen factors that impact a team's playoff potential. Similar to as with Real Player Ratings, the individual factors are strategically combined together to yield what is intended to be an accurate and easy to use playoff projection tool.

There are between six and nine contending teams in any season, and between two and three major contenders. Teams that are contenders but not major contenders are nicknamed "wild card contenders".

Four Real Team Ratings Reports are scheduled as follows: Dec. 20, Jan. 31, March 10, and April 20.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS
There are several different types of reports featuring these ratings….

REAL PLAYER RATINGS FOR THE NBA
All players who have played at least 300 minutes are rated according to their Real Player Ratings in a League-wide listing. Although each player's team is shown, players are not grouped by team in this version, but by evaluation scale category. So this is where every NBA player is rated and ranked in one place.

Other than the keynote Real Player Ratings, there are three other important ratings shown in this type of report: Total Real Player Production, Offensive Sub-Rating, and Defensive Sub-Rating.

Hidden Defending adjustments are made to three of the four series. These adjustments are not applicable to the Offensive Sub-Rating. Note that hidden defending adjustments are not possible for Real Player Ratings in Game Breakdowns. Nor are they possible for Ratings for a team for a single month. The adjustments are possible only where every significant player has played for 300 minutes or more.

Twice a year, Real Player Ratings are done for the entire NBA. This report appears AFTER all of the by team versions are rolled out (see the schedule for them just below). The two NBA-wide Reports are scheduled as follows: between March 27 and March 31, and between May 27 and May 31

REAL PLAYER RATINGS BY TEAM
In this report, all players who have played at least 300 minutes are ranked according to their Real Player Ratings broken down by team. Players are grouped by team in this version, and so there is no NBA-wide ranking here.

Other than the keynote Real Player Ratings, there are three other important ratings shown for the individual team: Total Real Player Production, Offensive Sub-Rating, and Defensive Sub-Rating.

Hidden Defending adjustments are made to three of the four series. These adjustments are not applicable to the Offensive Sub-Rating. Note that hidden defending adjustments are not possible for Real Player Ratings in Game Breakdowns. Nor are they possible for Ratings for a team for a single month. The adjustments are possible only where every significant player has played for 300 minutes or more.

Twice a year, Real Player Ratings are done for the entire NBA. The team by team versions are presented BEFORE the overall NBA version. The objective and plan is for one Team Real Player Report to be released daily over a 30-day (1 month) period. Specifically, Team Real Player Rating reports for all teams are to be produced and released as follows:

--Data is collected as of February 22, and by team reports are posted starting on February 24 and finishing March 25.

--Data is collected as of the end of the regular season and by the team reports are posted starting on April 24 and finishing May 23.

QUEST MAJOR CONTENDER MONTHLY REAL PLAYER RATINGS
This is a very useful Report which summarizes for you the quality and the quantity of the players on the major contending teams during specific months. You might be surprised about how much players can differ from one month to the next.

This type of report is especially useful for evaluating coaching, for example, rotation and starting lineup changes. Similarly, this type of report is very useful for determining who if anyone steps up after one or more players are not playing due to injury. Generally, this type of report, which straddles the very wide gap between Game Breakdowns and Seasonal Breakdowns, is extremely useful in seeing how things change when coaching and/or when the available roster changes.

For each of the two major contending teams that Quest specializes in, the objective and plan is that a monthly Real Player Rating Report is produced and posted for each regular season month. Specifically, expect a pair of such Reports in early December (for November) in early January (for December) in early February (for January) in early March (for February) in early April (for March) and in late April (for April). Therefore, expect twelve such reports per year, six for each major contending team.

Each such Report will feature ratings for the most recent complete month, and also regular season to date ratings. Other than the keynote Real Player Ratings, there are three other important ratings shown: Total Real Player Production, Offensive Sub-Rating, and Defensive Sub-Rating.

Since hidden defending adjustments require a minimum of 300 minutes of playing time, monthly Real Player Ratings for major contending teams do not include them. Therefore, these reports feature the legacy Real Player Ratings, which are technically known as "Basic Real Player Ratings".

=======REPORT CATEGORY: OTHER REPORTS=======

REPORT CATEGORY: SPECIAL REPORTS
Special Reports are either general or formatted.

GENERAL SPECIAL REPORT
General Special Reports are investigative journalism for pro basketball. Such journalism is rare and, unfortunately, Quest time resources for Special Reports have proven to be very limited. That might change in the future though.

Special Reports are posted on the Special Report page, and also on the Home Page.
Production of General Special Reports is highly variable and unpredictable. Anywhere from zero to twelve general Special Reports might be produced in a year.

Currently: there are two uncompleted Special Report series.

"Allen Iverson, What Could Have Been," is a long-term project that is roughly 30% done.

The other uncompleted Special Report Series is "The George Karl Fiasco". This is roughly 80% done, and so obviously it would not take a huge amount of time to finish it. Interestingly, the surprising 2009-10 Denver Nuggets season casts some new light on Karl and yields new, valuable information about him. So when the surprising 2008-09 Nuggets season happened, it was actually fortunate that the Series was not considered over and done.

FORMATTED SPECIAL REPORTS
Currently only one kind of formatted Special Report exists:

HERO OF THE QUEST REPORTS
Ten "Heroes of the Quest" are recognized each year. See the applicable User Guide article for selection criteria. Each Hero of the Quest designation will be accompanied by a posting which will feature important informational links, pictures, videos, a video player, and such other features as may be appropriate and available. The text will be short, less than 800 words.

Since most heroes are basketball players, and since many of the recognitions are mostly based on Real Player Ratings for a season, the recognition time frame is not calendar year, but rather from July 1 of one year through June 30 of the next year. The ten reports are to be produced and posted variably throughout the year starting after the reference year is over. So, for example, heroes recognized for 2009-10 will be reported out in the next time frame, between July 1 2010 and June 30 2011.

REPORT CATEGORY: MULTIMEDIA REPORTS
MUSIC BREAK
This will feature music videos that highlight usually one, but sometimes more than one high quality music artist or rapper. Music Breaks are sometimes started off with notes about site developments. Music Breaks are year-round. Expect roughly one per month but there is no regular schedule. It is possible that the frequency of the music breaks will occasionally be much greater than this, and/or that these will become more numerous in the future.

LATEST VIDEOS
Recent advances in internet capabilities allow for this new type of report, which generally consists of one or more video jukeboxes for an important team and/or an important player. An example of this type of multimedia report is the March 20 one for Rajon Rondo.
Latest Videos are year-round; expect roughly one per month but there is no regular schedule.

Videos and video players are also increasingly being included, with many kinds of text reports; they will be found after all of the text.

REPORT CATEGORY: SITE REPORTS
INTRODUCING
This is a generally relatively short announcement for and detailed description of a new site feature, or of a major improvement of an existing site feature.

SITE USER GUIDE ARTICLE
This is information for visitors about site content and features and how best to use them. These articles are especially useful for regular visitors.

The most important User Guide Articles are updated from time to time and/or are completely reissued whenever a major update, planned or unplanned, occurs. Articles regarded as less important are updated if necessary but not reissued unless there is a rare change requiring this. Still other articles become legacy, and so notice is inserted that they have sunset. The ones that sunset are not deleted, however, in order to preserve Quest for the Ring history.

Most new User Guide articles and all important updates to existing articles are posted both to the Quest Home Page and to the User Guide page. For maximum reference convenience, there is a Site User Guide reader on the Site User Guide page and also on the Quest Home Page. Generally, the most important Site User Guide articles are found near the top of the reader (and also among the most recent posts) at the User Guide page.

REFERENCE USER GUIDE ARTICLE
Keep in mind that there are two kinds of User Guide articles. Site User Guide articles (such as this one) are on the Quest User Guide Site. Meanwhile, Reference User Guide articles are on the Reference Site.

As the name implies, a Reference User Guide is for explaining key content features. How and why the feature was developed and how best to use it are among the things included in a Reference User Guide.

One of the most important and the longest Reference User Guide is the one for Real Player Ratings This one is updated and added to on a regular basis.

FOR MORE INFORMATION...
The Quest User Guide page has many articles (including this one) that give you details about the site and tips about how to best use reports and features.

See the Real Player Rating Reference User Guide for complete details about the crucial Real Player Ratings and the other associated ratings.

======= PLEASE CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS =======
You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

The User Guide for Real Player Ratings, and for the Defensive Adjustments, is located here. You must consult the Guide in order to fully understand the ratings and the value of them, and to understand how to make the best use of them.









Unedited, Raw Game Notes are Here
DIRECT CONTACT ADDRESS
thequestforthering1 @ gmail dot com [Remove spaces and replace "dot" with an actual (.)
Use this address for the following:
--Private responses to Quest content
--Requests for free advertising (Advertising on Quest is free until at least the end of 2010)
--Link exchange
--Requests for Use of Quest Reports on other site(s)

You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

The Quest 2009-2010 Traffic Promotion Plan

Editorial Note: This is a new Site User Guide article which explains the Quest for the Ring policies and plans, for at least the next year, regarding traffic development, including for example how much and where we provide Quest content to other sites. This is NOT a basketball content report. However, there is important information here regarding Internet traffic. And there are several valuable opportunities for Quest visitors explained below, such as free advertising, link exchange, and several content support platforms offered by Quest Internet.

Although this is apparently true for every single independent Internet site, the traffic to Quest for the Ring has not met expectations and is much lower than one might think it would be. We do have a non-trivial, fairly substantial amount of traffic. And we do definitely have visitors who spend quality time at Quest, which is a major achievement in itself, but the overall traffic counts and especially the returning traffic counts are much lower than we want them to be.

There is much evidence that virtually all independent Internet sites have much less traffic than the average non-webmaster person might think, and have far more difficulty in generating that traffic.

The objective of the Quest for the Ring Traffic and Publishing Plan is simply to build traffic, especially returning traffic, while taking into account the realities.

There is a lot of evidence that building traffic is so difficult that for all practical purposes it is not possible, at least not possible for a good number of years:

FACTUAL BASIS OF THE QUEST TRAFFIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN
1. The “Internet (or technology) bubble of the late 1990’s was followed by a bust much worse in real terms than even the ongoing “housing bust”. So the Internet has seemingly from day one always been a place where the actual potential is far less than the perceived potential. The gap between perceived potential and actual potential is so large (or huge even) that it is actually mysterious.

2. There are numerous scam type offers on the Internet and via e-mails where the come-on is a false claim about how much a site’s traffic will go up if only it sends a little money to the scam.

3. Google and other search engine policies are substantially secret, made extremely difficult to understand with arcane and confusing terminology, and subject to continual modification as well. It is simply not reasonably possible to study search engine policies and “tailor” your site to maximize search engine response, regardless of what Google or any other search engine tells you publicly.

4. To the extent that search engine policies are not secret, they are generally difficult to understand, complicated to work with to produce higher traffic, and subject to continual change. Believe me, Google does not want you or I to know exactly how they do what they do.

5. There are several major “catch-22s” involved. The biggest one is that to the extent you spend large amounts of time building traffic, you are neglecting the content, which of course means you are less likely to see loyal, returning traffic from any traffic you generate. Generally speaking, the vast majority of the traffic you get from most traffic generating activities is one time only traffic.

6. Experience shows that direct traffic generation, such as through content placement on aggregator sites such as Yardbarker or BallHype generates much less traffic than most people would think. And again, such traffic is overwhelmingly one time only traffic. So the idea that you can spend a few months on traffic building and then sit back and watch your traffic grow is generally false.

7. Similar to (6) experience shows that any traffic that is generated through content placement on other sites is temporary traffic that generally does not come back and is not loyal. In other words, traffic generated in this way does not result in any continuing or long-term benefit, so that you would have to continually spend a lot of valuable time cross posting content in order to improve traffic counts, which in turn would reduce the quantity and very possibly the quality of the content.

8. Evidence shows that the overall traffic pattern on the Internet is extremely unequal to say the least: there are a tiny number of sites that get a huge amount of traffic, and a huge number of sites that get essentially no traffic at all.

9. Independent sports (and presumably other) sites that are linked to or “sponsored” by huge corporate sites, such as ESPN, get much less of a boost in traffic than you would think; even those sites do not get anywhere near 1,000 visitors per day, which is probably the benchmark for traffic to be considered substantial from the economics and advertising perspective.

10. Traffic seems to be much more dependent on what the site starts out with than many people would think. In other words, how many friends and associates the site owners bring to the site from day one is a primary determinant of traffic not only in the early days, but for many years after the site has been launched. In other words, a site owner can not depend on the Internet itself for traffic, but rather needs to have a following outside of the Internet in order to get more than a small number of visitors per day.

11. Judging from extensive review of traffic counter details, most Internet traffic is simple people looking for simple things, such as nice pictures or simple opinions. Although Quest is fiercely multimedia and sometimes relatively simplistic, it is generally fiercely sophisticated, fact based, and controversial wherever called for, which means simple people looking for a quick fix are not going to be interested. The Quest audience is clearly limited to people who take basketball very, very seriously, either because they make their living from it, or because they are the kind of intelligent people who always gravitate to the most sophisticated or “advanced” sites.

12. Due to the remarkably limited and problematic nature of RSS traffic counting, Quest is unable to determine the number of readers it has via RSS. Moreover, we are in the dark about the overall reader preference breakdown between Internet site and various RSS options. Nor do we know what actual readership is via cross posting, which is another reason by the way we have severely cut back cross posting. For all of these reasons, although we know exactly how many folks visit the Quest sites themselves, Quest is actually unable to determine what its total readership is.

In light of the above and possibly other related facts, and with the need to reduce confusion and counterproductive time expenditure, Quest adopts the following Internet traffic and publishing plan:

2009-2010 QUEST TRAFFIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN, (Effective August 1, 2009)
1. In general, you can conclude from everything above and below that Quest needs its visitors to help us improve traffic counts, because we have concluded that it costs us more than it benefits us to spend a lot of valuable time on activities intended to improve traffic. Therefore, we request anyone who likes or who benefits from Quest content to exchange links, and also to give us a shout out on any Internet site where they think basketball people are who will like or benefit from Quest. Email questforthering at Gmail .com whenever you act to help the Quest, and we will subsequently help you out as well.

2. Quest will NOT any longer cross post a large percentage of content on other sites.

3. Approximately 25% of content MAY be reproduced on other sites, with an absolute limit of 33% of content.

4. The primary site for content sharing will continue to be http://www.sportstwo.com. Like all sites other than major corporate sites such as ESPN, SportsTwo is also subject to ultimately surprisingly limited traffic. There was discussion about moving to a somewhat higher traffic sight, but in the end it was decided that since the objective is to build traffic to Quest for the Ring, and since the objective is not met regardless of where content is posted, that it doesn’t matter much where cross posting is done. Although SportsTwo is not in the highest traffic tier among independent sports communities, it is not in the lower tiers either. Finally, even the highest traffic independent sports sites are still surprisingly limited in traffic, at least when you break down their traffic to actual relevant areas, such as a specific team forum. So more for the sake of tradition than anything else, SportsTwo has been renewed so to speak under the present Traffic Plan for most but not necessarily all cross posting.

5. Limited additional cross posting at other sites is under consideration and may be done on an experimental basis.

6. Quest may visit totally independent team forums once or twice a year. From now on, the conversations on such sites will be reproduced in real time on Quest, and not after a delay of weeks or months.

7. Links (without any content) to Quest content will be provided on certain sites that invite them, most notably Yardbarker, but only on an as time permits basis. It is expected that the percentage of reports for which links are provided will be between 20% and 50%.

8. Other than active forum discussions (see(6)) Quest content posted at SportsTwo and occasionally at other sites will be posted at those sites only after a delay of about 30 days, meaning that those who want or need immediate access will have to visit Quest even for the limited (see(3)) amount of content that does eventually appear elsewhere. This will completely reverse the bad habit we have sometimes had of posting content elsewhere and then not posting it on Quest until weeks or even months later.

9. The policies being adopted here represent a major cut back in time spent on tasks intended to build traffic. Quest is now 32 months old in terms of content and is now 26 months old as an Internet site. In light of the above facts, Quest will not, as was the case in many of the first 20 months of its Internet existence, spend large amounts of time on various things intended to build traffic. Roughly speaking, in the first 20 months, 35-40% of total working time was spent on such activities, with the other 60-65% on the content. Under the new plan, the amount of time that can be spent on activities intended to build traffic will be capped at 15%, with a target of 10%.

10. The cap described in (9) will ensure the continuing improvement in the quality and quantity of Quest content, something which as already occurred during the phase in of the change. For example, the Real Player Rating system was upgraded a year or two more quickly than it would have been had we been still spending close to 40% of time available on activities intended to build traffic.

11. Quest has decided, in other words, that given the choice between a very small amount of traffic and a moderate quality and quantity on the one hand, or a very small amount of traffic but a high quality and quantity of content on the other hand, that the latter combination is better for us. What this means is that the “chosen few” who do make the effort to bookmark and visit Quest, or at least to read Quest in an RSS or My Yahoo page or the like, will be treated as royalty more so than ever, as they will get the high quality and high quantity basketball content that is unique on the Internet and that (as has been explained) the vast majority are missing.

12. In conjunction with (11) and in conjunction with this plan as a whole, Quest is planning and in some cases developing new ways for treating our actual small audience base to even more features not found hardly anywhere else, such as Blog Talk Radio, an almost Real Time Real Player Rating database, and free or virtually free custom Real Player Rating and Basketball Winning Consulting Reports.

13. Quest continues to offer link exchange to any basketball site as long as it passes a basic qualification test. Any even half serious basketball site is invited to email Quest at questforthering at Gmail .com to get the link exchange. Such links will go somewhere in the top quarter of the Quest home page.

14. Quest continues to offer free advertising until at least June 30 2010. For details, see the User Guide article on the subject that is located here: http://thequestfortheringuserguide.blogspot.com/2009/03/free-advertising-program.html Any one who has a basketball related good or service that they would like to advertise for free is invited to email Quest at questforthering at Gmail .com

15. Quest has set up a “Ning Site” and invites participation in it. The address is http://thequestforthering.ning.com/

16. Quest has disabled the comment by post system and has established a centralized discussion page, where comments for any and all posts can be made. We are waiting and will apparently have to wait until the cows come home for participation in this. The discussion page is at http://thequestfortheringdiscussions.blogspot.com/

17. Aside from the basic discussion page described in (14) Quest also has established a relatively unique site called My Quest for the Ring, which is best described as a “public blog”. Anyone who has posted a few non-trivial comments on the discussion page can apply and be approved to be able to make posts on My Quest for the Ring which, were it ever to develop interest, would be an unusual, truly fun, and interesting basketball spot.

18. Those who outgrow My Quest for the Ring explained in (15) can get their own full scale site with any number of Quest features and with substantial support from the Quest Internet Service, which at this time has created and maintains more than 200 content rich Internet sites. Some of them are maintained and improved much more often than others of them.

19. The sites described in (15) (16) and (17) represent a truly comprehensive and state of the art social community system which, however, is so far lacking participation. Quest has done more than its duty in this area, and will simply have to wait indefinitely for participation. We can actually live with no one ever participating, and a case can be made that it is actually better long term if there is very little or no participation, since heavier participation would drain valuable resources from the production of primary content.

20. If someone wishes to post Quest content on another site, they should write to questforthering at Gmail .com with their proposal. We are more likely than not to gladly approve such requests as long as you follow a limited number of requirements, most notably a requirement that you credit and link back to the content posted.

21. Posting Quest content elsewhere without permission and/or without attribution and link back is an illegal violation of copyright law and will be contested legally. Quest actually spends a little time now and then to search for those violating our copyright. All Quest content is copyrighted in the year it is produced, and all copyright rights are reserved.
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The User Guide for Real Player Ratings, and for the Defensive Adjustments, is located here. You must consult the Guide in order to fully understand the ratings and the value of them, and to understand how to make the best use of them.

You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

Unedited, Raw Game Notes are Here

You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

The Mission and the Primary Objectives of The Quest for the Ring

Before we state the mission and objectives it’s interesting to see how they developed:

A BRIEF EDITORIAL PLAN HISTORY
This site was born as of about January 1, 2007 as a Denver Nuggets fan site. Editorial Plan #1 was basically that reports were done for each Denver Nuggets game. In the first year or so, most articles were centered around particular games, although even back then some of the topics covered while the games were being reviewed were ones that transcend any individual game.

In those very early days, we didn't yet realize that understanding how basketball games are won is even more important to us than it is to most other fans and writers.

The game-based reports started out short and became longer and longer. More and more performance measures were added into the mix. The statistical measures and the text reports were all rolled into one, and these reports eventually exceeded 9,000 words in length, so these reports are most likely the longest reports based on NBA games ever produced!

During the course of the second year, 2008, we gradually decided that Plan #1 was too narrow, that being mostly a rose colored glasses wearing fan of a team was not going to be a productive enough way to spend time long term.

So we graduated from that in the summer and fall of 2008. For about 10 months, we had an editorial plan, "Plan #2," that was an expanded and modified version of the basic fan site concept.

The number of teams covered in detail was doubled to two. We phased out extensive game recapping in favor of more wide ranging team-based reports and in favor of reports even more focused on how games are won than they already were. We started to focus more on how playoff games are won as opposed to mere regular season games.

Plan #2 was considered "state of the art," but it turned out it didn't last very long! In May 2009, a huge editorial change was made. It was realized that resource limitations made it foolish to spend a lot of time on regular season games, especially since this site is focused like a laser on winning the whole thing: the NBA Championship. So we decided to plan to pour a far higher percentage of our production effort into NBA playoff games (including the Championship) then all other basketball sites do.

Meanwhile, as the editorial plan for reports has changed from time to time, the quantity and the quality of the statistical reports have been growing almost month by month. The primary, pre-formatted performance measurement reports can and generally do stand well alone (they are no longer attatched to text reports). But other, more freelance performance reporting is interwoven into the text articles.

For much more detail about "Plan #3," the current Site Editorial Plan, see this User Guide article. For details about exactly what types of reports are produced, see the User Guide article on "What we Produce and When".

MISSION OF THE QUEST:
First and foremost, the mission of this site is to investigate, to determine, to verify results, and then to reveal right here at this site exactly how basketball games are won and lost.

The specific League covered is the NBA of the USA. Two teams are picked for especially close coverage each year. Generally, the two teams closely covered will be the defending Champion and the team in the other Conference considered (as of October of eadh year) to be most likely to challenge the Champion for the ring.

This is the developmental site for Basketball Winning Inc., which is currently a completely non-profit organization. The scope of what we do has expanded exponentially, and so it is planned that the home page address will gradually become www.thequestforthering.blogspot.com during late 2009 or in 2010.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE
As the name of our company implies, our mission, first and foremost, is to inform players, coaches, and managers about what they need to do if they want to become basketball winners. When you are a loser, basketball is nowhere near as fun and rewarding as it is when you are a winner. And you make a lot less money when you lose in basketball than when you win. So in other words our mission is really to make our readers winners.

MAJOR SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
Specific objectives are too numerous to list in full, but here are what the main specific objectives are:

1. To determine and report on how basketball games are won, specifically and in general, which is information that can be worth millions or at least thousands of dollars to NBA and other players, coaches, and managers. You can and we do fine tune our understanding of how and why games are won from breaking down each and every game that we report on. Game breakdowns, known as Ultimate Game Breakdowns, consist of Real Game Ratings and Real Player Ratings.

2. To determine and report on how the NBA teams are doing and why. The NBA teams are broken down and ranked via the Real Team Ratings. Also, two specific teams are covered in extensive detail. These teams are sliced and diced to the point where every substantial mistake or problem becomes public knowledge here. They go under the microscope so that we can see in enough detail what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.

3. To determine and report on how well the NBA players are doing, which is reported in words and by using the Real Player Ratings, which can be produced just as easily for a player's career as they can be for a team.

4. To determine and report on why certain organizations such as the Lakers, the Celtics, and the Spurs, are so often to be found at or near the top of the standings, in the Conference finals and in rhw NBA Championship, whereas other organizations, such as the Nuggets, frequently drop down to become major losing teams, and seldom if ever reach the Conference finals or the Championship. In explaining why and proving the reasons, what we are really doing is giving advice to managers and coaches on how to keep their teams on the long term winning track. This information (assuming of course that it is correct) is worth millions of dollars, and could in theory be worth tens of millions of dollars.

What is the common denominator of all of these objectives? That is obvious: its how and why players, coaches, and franchises who win in basketball do so. If you know exactly how they do it, then you can do it too. The internet is where secrets are revealed, and here we have and will continue to reveal how and why the winners win in basketball.

You may be surprised about what the real factors are. Basketball, like life, is much more complicated than it seems. For example, you are a fool if you think that the truly best players, coaches, or managers always win. Having great players, coaches, and/or managers is necessary but not sufficient. And there is a lot more involved than "how good" the players are or "how hard" the players play. Also, you are a fool if you think the styles or personalities of players are among the important factors.

In order to win the Quest for the Ring, you don't have to be perfect, and you don't have to be better than everyone else in everything, but you do have to do a truly large number of things very well, with some of those things being unknown to most of the general public and to many players, coaches, and managers. Always remember, the Quest for the Ring Site is out to make the unknown the known for those who hang with us.

In summary, here, you will find out the true, verified, real factors that determine basketball winning and losing. We will relentlessly do research, study games, and verify findings until we have discovered and reported all of the factors, and have put those factors in the right order of importance.
DON'T LOSE OUT: BOOKMARK NUGGETS 1 NOW--CLICK HERE

2009 Site News and Site History: The New Design of The Quest for the Ring

The Quest for the Ring is only 2 1/2 years old as of May 2009. Actually, it's in effect only about 2 years old, because the reports in the first six months were relatively short and not all that earth shaking to be honest.

This site has come a very long way in a very short time. Especially considering that there are only two people who produce it.

The Internet is a very powerful communication system, so powerful that people who produce and post content to the world wide web are continuously developing their content and their editorial scheme. The guy behind the Quest is a creative and perfectionist type person, which means that he is always coming up with new ideas (most of which are quickly rejected) and that he is never completely happy with whatever the current Quest editorial strategy is. Therefore, it is no surprise that a decision was made recently to once again revamp the editorial strategy of the Quest.

A BRIEF HISTORY
The editorial scheme of the Quest started out very simply in late 2006: the site started out as "Nuggets 1," and was to be a simple basketball fan site for the Denver Nuggets. In the first two years, the size and the scope of basketball reports grew by leaps and bounds.

By early 2008, we had already outgrown the simple one-team fan site concept. The outgrowing of it was rapid, and the rapidity was due more than anything else to the amateur way the Nuggets were managing and coaching their team when Allen Iverson was on it. So by early 2008, the myriad mistakes of the Nuggets franchise were getting on our nerves, and also by then we realized that merely being a fan site for one particular team was not going to be enough for the long term. Not enough from a basketball perspective and not enough from a worthwhile web site that can generate good traffic perspective either.

As you can read about in detail elsewhere in the User Guide, the mission expanded to become a dedication to discovering and reporting on how basketball games are won. Since if you win more games than anyone else you win a Championship, and since in the NBA at least you are awarded a very sharp looking ring if you are a Champion, we decided during the summer of 2008 to drop the "Nuggets 1" name and to adopt the name "The Quest for the Ring."

Furthermore, it was decided during the summer of 2008 that we would compromise between on the one hand being a site for just one team, and on the other hand being a site which tries to cover the entire League. The former is too narrow and the latter is too broad.

If you are covering just one team, you can discover and report things that even the Coach and/or the managers of the team don't seem to know or understand, but by definition you can not know very much about other teams, nor can you do much true analysis of the League as a whole. If on the other hand your site is for the NBA as a whole, you can seldom if ever get detailed enough to be truly useful to readers who are trying to learn about exactly how and why basketball games are won.

So the objective, which at first we were thinking was more of a dream than an obtainable objective, was to compromise between the two editorial positions.

It was considered a truism that if we attempted to cover every team in the NBA, our reports would have to be watered down and thus less useful. In other words, the reports would not have the detailed accuracy needed to help players, coaches, and managers to win basketball games, a detail that can only come if you limit the teams covered to no more than three.

So in early November 2008, we decided to cover two teams: the Detroit Pistons and the Denver Nuggets.

In October 2008 the name of the site officially became "The Quest for the Ring." However, the site remained, and still remains at this writing, located at the original Nuggets 1 blogspot web address. We plan to migrate the home page (including every report) to here in the summer of 2009, but the nuggets1.blogspot address will always of course link to the new address, and we may post the reports on both addresses for about a year.

TEMPORARY SUSPENSIONS OF PRODUCTION
As you can read about in detail in the 2008 Site News and History postings in this User Guide, there was a virtual suspension of production of reports during 2008, from April through September to be exact. This was due primarily to the real estate crash; that crash forced us to put in far more hours than we would have put in otherwise in real estate projects that were absolutely mandatory to achieve. Starting in October 2008, the site, now called The Quest for the Ring, sprung back into life. During October and into the first half of November or so, content that actually had been produced during the suspension was posted.

At the very beginning of March, 2009, we published the first ever Real Player Ratings (by Team) that included a statistically valid adjustment for "hidden defending," for another words defending not tracked by scorekeepers such as man to man defending.

Three short weeks after that milestone, a technological disaster, and simultaneously the necessity of completing another large-scale project, forced a suspension of production again. For the second year in a row, the suspension was at about the worst possible time during the year: just before the playoffs were to get underway.

The 2008 suspension was for 6 months, though content was actually being produced during 4 of those months but not posted to the site until October, as already explained.

Now, the 2009 suspension has been for 7 weeks, a little less than two months.

We apologize to readers for the suspension, particularly to any regular readers out there.

In 2008 we promised that, as we were then doing, we would in the future, whenever we were forced to temporarily suspend operations, always come back stronger than ever.

NEW EDITORIAL DESIGN OF THE QUEST AS OF MAY 2009
Of course we are making no changes in the mission or the primary objectives of the Quest: to discover and explain exactly how basketball games are won and lost, and how and why teams and franchises are successful or unsuccessful. But we are making smart changes on how best to achieve the mission and the objectives.

We are making two major changes. First, although we are continuing the two team specialization plan, the amount of freedom we have to choose which teams to specialize in is being reduced to very little. From now on, we will be covering the defending Champion and whichever team is considered (by basketball people we believe in including our self) to be the most likely to challenge the Champion in the next Finals.

However, we decided to, given that Kevin Garnett is not available to the Celtics, to technically violate the new rule for the few weeks between the beginning of new editorial policy and the 2009 finals. Starting in October 2009 and in each subsequent October, we will specialize in whatever team won the June Championship, and whichever team is considered most likely to challenge for the Championship in the next June.

But the other major change is even bigger, and means that the particular teams chosen for specialization will be somewhat less important than before, because we are increasing the overall League focus even more so than we did in the fall 2008 changes.

Now we will be dividing the year into two parts:

MID APRIL THROUGH MID DECEMBER
The playoffs will be broken down in detail. There will be reports on every single playoff game.

The reports for the first round, which is really just a washout round, where a big thing which happens is that the teams with injuries are washed out, will generally be performance measure reports with no text article. The full set of performance measures for a game is called an "Ultimate Game Breakdown". As of Spring 2009, such Breakdowns were expanded. Along with Real Player Ratings, the Ultimate Game Breakdowns now include key team statistics that you can not find in box scores, such as team offensive efficiency, team defensive efficiency, effective (true) field goal percentage, and turnover percentage.

Starting in May 2009, there is also a completely unique set of three measures that tell you exactly how organized, effective, and efficient a team's offense was, both in potential and in actual result. These three can be easily located in the Breakdowns by looking for the descriptive word common to all three of them: "playmaking".

CONFERENCE SEMIS, CONFERENCE FINALS, AND NBA CHAMPIONSHIP
The heart of the new Editorial Plan, called "Plan #3" by the way, is that for the second round (Conference Semis) the third round (Conference Finals) and for of course the NBA Championship, we will be producing both Ultimate Game Breakdowns and written article reports for each game.

Other than "fast break" type articles, all of our full scale reports are between 2,000 and 4,000 words long. The typical post for a game you see on fan sites is in the range of 500 to 1,500 words. We do more because our objective is beyond that of a fan site, because there are a good number of myths regarding basketball that have to be continually debunked, and because basketball is more complicated than it seems. The one and only way to discover, report on, and explain exactly how playoff games are won is to produce reports of that length.

In summary, we have decided to give the Quest a virtually unique, detailed focus on NBA playoff games, the games where the best players and teams play.

At this point we have decided, quite frankly, that analyzing regular season games in great detail is sort of a waste of time, assuming that you don't have enough time to do both detailed breakdowns of every playoff game and detailed breakdowns of some, many, or all regular season games of one or more teams. You don't have that time unless you have at least 60 hours a week. If and only if you have a staff of multiple part time writers, or at least a 60 hours a week full time writer, could you possibly do quality breakdowns of every single playoff game and also quality breakdowns of many or all of the regular season games of even one team.

So, given what we are working with right now, we have realized that it is much smarter to reverse the usual pattern of basketball sites. Almost all, and it honestly seems all, other basketball sites, including ones that have multiple writers, are making the mistake of over covering the regular season and under covering the playoffs. The breakdown of effort is backwards: too much stuff is done for the regular season and not enough stuff is done for the playoffs.

Instead of most of the writing and breakdowns being focused on the regular season, most of the writing and breakdowns here at Quest will be focused on the playoffs. Only from mid or late December until mid April will we be focused to any extent on the regular season. But even during these four months, we will seldom be doing game breakdowns of regular season games. Rather, we will be producing team reports for the teams we are specializing in, which will be the defending Champion and the most likely challenger, as explained above.

MID DECEMBER TO MID APRIL
During this 1/3 of the year, the focus will shift to the regular season, but only to a degree. We will never lose the focus on how playoff games can be won. Regular season full reports will sometimes look at a regular season game to some extent, and there will be as many Ultimate Game Breakdowns of regular season games as we can produce, but we will still be mostly looking at what the team and individual players are doing right, and what they are doing wrong, with respect to the ultimate objective of winning playoff games.

In other words, the team reports during these four months will focus on the regular season itself only to what extent what is happening in the regular season matters for the playoffs beginning in April.

SUMMARY
In summary the focus of the Quest for the Ring will always be on the playoffs. This will be the World Wide Web's best "NBA Playoffs Site". From mid April until mid December, the focus will be on the actual playoff games that were played from mid-April until mid to late June. You will not be able to find out what exactly happened in those games in greater detail anywhere else other than right here. Then from mid December until mid April, the focus will be on how well teams, especially the teams specialized in, are preparing for the upcoming playoffs.

We hope you agree that this is by a good margin the best idea yet for the editorial plan for the Quest for the Ring. This was one creative brainstorm that should not and did not go into the trash can.

At this time we plan to maintain the new banner design indefinitely. At all times in the Quest banner, the banners and most important players of the teams we are specializing in will appear.

Welcome to The Quest for the Ring; Things are Different Here

WELCOME TO THE QUEST FOR THE RING, ALSO KNOWN AS THE REAL ZONE
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SITE WILL BE GRADUALLY MOVING TO WWW.THEQUESTFORTHERING.BLOGSPOT.COM DURING 2009 or 2010. This site will never be entirely abandoned, however, and will always link to the new all-NBA site.
The Quest is organized in a completely different way from what you are used to on the internet. We have combined the best features of the blog and the conventional web site formats, the latter being the norm for large organizations.

Moreover, all our reports (original content) has been seemlessly integrated into the many components of what we call the User Guide, and into many other entertaining features. By integrating everything together, we enable the visitor to absorb all the aspects of a great basketball website simply be reading and scrolling a little. Unlike with other web sites, the Quest visitor does not need to continually be thinking about what link to look for and to continually be looking for links to different types of content.

Other sites most often have undeveloped and limited in scope "about pages" which is usually all they have for what we call a "user guide". Our User Guide material is a vast improvement, quantitatively and qualitatively, over a mere "about page" While many other sites don't help their visitors to make the best use of the content, we do.

The main Quest pages consist of three types of content interspersed evenly throughout: Report Directories/Readers, User Guide components, and Features. Features can be any entertaining thing you can think of, including everything from music players to videos to photos. On the main home page (which is also known as page 1) aside from the three types of content that are on pages 2,3,4, and so on, the traditional blog presentation is available as one of several ways to choose, access, and read reports. The reports are shown their in the standard way, below the other content.

The Quest for the Ring Welcomes You to the Real Zone; Have a Nice Visit

Welcome to the Quest for the Ring. You have left the Hype Zone and arrived in the Real Zone. Please check any rose colored glasses at the door. Here we post as much truth as we can 24/7. Please have a productive visit, and a nice trip back to the Hype Zone when your visit is over.

A SMALL SAMPLE OF CURRENT AND SOON TO COME QUEST FOR THE RING REAL ZONE TOPICS
--How and Why the 2009 Detroit Pistons Win or Lose in the 2009 Playoffs
--How and Why the Nuggets Franchise Has Repeatedly Fooled and Committed Fraud on the Public
--How and Why Much of What You Think You Know About Allen Iverson is Wrong (Continuing, much done already)
--How and Why Carmelo Anthony Has Been Downsized and Why This is Really Bad (Continuing, much done already)
--How and Why the Owner of the Nuggets Shortchanged and Cheated His Team (Continuing, much done already)
--How and Why the Pistons Maximize Their Playoff Chances, and why Joe Dumars is One of the Best GMs in the Game
--How and Why the Playoffs are Something Completely Different From the Regular Season


A SMALL SAMPLE OF ALREADY COMPLETED QUEST FOR THE RING REAL ZONE TOPICS
--How and Why George Karl is Doing More Harm Than Good With Respect to J.R. Smith
--How and Why George Karl's Obsession With Personalities is Wrong and Bad for Any Team
--How and Why George Karl and the Nuggets Can Not Win in the Playoffs (2007, 2008, and now 2009)
--How and Why George Karl Cheats the Fans and the Franchise Out of Performance and Development of "Reserve" Players
--How and Why Playmaking is So Important, and How You Manage Playmakers Correctly.
--How and Why You Have Probably Been Fooled Regarding the Nuggets' 2008 Off-Season and Their 2008-09 Defense
--How and Why So Many Nuggets Fans Hate Camby, Allen Iverson, and Antonio McDyess For False Reasons

Complete Directory of all the Ways to Find and Read Reports: The Readers are in Command at The Quest

THE READERS ARE IN COMMAND AT QUEST
Quest for the Ring has graduated from the "read everything we write or else" page format. Furthermore, we have now graduated from the boring, traditional "content rules" that most blog type web sites follow in general.

There are at least six ways to find, choose, and read reports at Quest. If you insist, you can read reports off our pages, by using RSS readers, personally configured browsing home pages such as i Google, or by email if you prefer. But by giving you as many options for choosing and reading reports as possible, we are doing everything we can to persuade readers to read reports at the Quest itself rather than elsewhere. We want as many people as we can get to come to our pages. We have no way of knowing how fast outside readership is growing. And if you read the content elsewhere, you will miss out on having access to all kinds of other pages and content.

So in hopes of getting as many people as possible to read reports here rather than elsewhere, we have six reading options rather than just one or two....

OPTION ONE: REPORT READERS: As you scroll down either the Quest for the Ring home page, or any of the Quest report reader pages, such as The Quest for the Ring 2, and so forth, you will come upon many separate content readers, with 20 titles appearing in each one. Each one will be labeled with the posts that are contained in that reader; the latest post is #1, the next to the latest is #2, and so forth. The reports are not actually numbered; the numbering in the reader headers is only a temporary numeric description of how each report ranks chronologically. Whenever a new report is published, the "number" for all other reports increases by one, and the readers change accordingly. Every time a new report is published, each reader will have a new report appear at the top, and what was the oldest report in each reader will disappear from the bottom, to appear now at the top of the next oldest reader. Both for the readers by page as a whole, and within each reader, the order of the reports is always from newest at the top to oldest at the bottom.

By using any of the readers, you can quickly choose between and access any of the reports within the reader, right here right now. Please note that if you read reports in the readers, you usually must use the vertical scroll on the side of the reader to be able to see all of each report.

To read a report, simply click the title, or icon on the left, and the report will appear. To close an article you have opened, click the title again or the icon on the left next to the title. The titles and the icons are like an on-off switches. When the article closes, you are ready to pick another article to read.

Here are quick links to the pages containing the report readers:

Reports #1 to #100

Reports #101 to #200

Reports #201 to #300

Reports #301 to #400

Reports #401 to #500

OPTION TWO: QUEST FAST BREAK: THE LATEST 100 REPORTS INSTANTLYGo to the Fast Break Page if you like the readers, are not interested in anything other than Quest Reports, and/or if you are in a hurry.

OPTION THREE: QUEST EXPRESS VERSION: THE REPORTS ONLY ON A FAST LOADING PAGE IN THE STANDARD, PURE BLOG FORMATGo to the Quest Express Version Page if you need quick access to reports in the well known blog format, and you do not need any of the features and resouces available on the main home pages.

Even if you usually come to the main home page, you may wish to visit either Fast Break or Express when your time is limited.

OPTION FOUR: COMPLETE CONTENT DIRECTORY: You can use the complete Quest For the Ring Content Directory. This is a separate page which has links to every single report ever posted at Quest, all in one place. Each report link will lead to the Quest Express Version, which means it will load instantly and no scrolling will be needed to read it.

On your first visit to the Complete Directory page, please read the short User Guide that is right at the top. One of the notices in that Guide is that the index will probably not load in the Internet Explorer Browser. You will probably have to use Firefox, Safari, or another browser to be able to use the Complete Directory.

OPTION FIVE: THE GOOGLE ARCHIVE: You can use the Google archiving system. The Google archive has every single report ever published. We have our reports indexed by week which makes the archive as easy and convenient to use as possible. You will find the Google archive not far above where the reports start on The Quest for the Ring home page.

In the Google archive, the small triangle icons are "switches" that open and close title lists according to the weekly date ranges. In other words, each small triangle opens (or closes) all of the reports that were published in a particular week. If you click on the date range itself, all of the reports that were posted in that time frame will be loaded.

If you click on any title in the archive, the home page will reload with that article only. Once the home page is reloads with your selection, click the yellow Jump to Reports link near the top of the page to avoid having to scroll past everything above the report.

OPTION SIX: TRADITIONAL ON THE HOME PAGE: On the main home page, you can access a huge number of features, and you can use the traditional blog way to read reports. (See option #3 above for the traditional format with no features.) This may be your favorite way of reading if you do not wish to pick and choose among many different kinds of reports, and among many different reports. You can simply immediately go to the latest report and start reading: simply and quickly. This jump link will take you directly to where the traditional format is found.

Or, when arriving on the home page, click the yellow Jump to the Reports link near the top of the page to avoid having to scroll down past everything that is above the latest report.

To be totally clear, and helpful to those who are unfamiliar with the Google blog presentation system, a quick explanation of it is in order. At any time on the home page, either a particular, single report is loaded or, if the home page in general is loaded, the Google traditional post presentation format is in effect. In this format, the webmaster chooses how many reports he or she will show with each page load. We have chosen to show four reports in full. The newest report is at the top of all reports, the second newest report is below the newest, and so on.

At the bottom of these four, you click on "Older Posts," to load the next oldest four. If you click "Older Posts" over and over again, you will be loading older and older reports, four at a time. Every time you click "Older Posts" you can click the yellow Jump to the Reports link near the top of the page to avoid having to scroll down past everything that is above the reports on the home page.