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Ranking the fastest stars ever measured at the NBA Draft Combine

Speed is an important predictor of success in the NBA, particularly for guards, which is why officials measure prospects’ lane-agility time and three-quarter sprint times every year.

And with the NBA Draft Combine having just passed, we decided to take a look at some of the fastest times measured for some of the league’s current and former All-Stars, including Dwyane Wade, John Wall and James Harden.

To determine speed, we added up both the players’ lane-agility time and three-quarter sprint times.

You’re in for some surprises, which further prove you have to take combine results with a grain of salt.

Ranking the fastest stars ever measured at the NBA Draft Combine

HoopsHype presents the fastest NBA stars ever recorded at the annual NBA Draft Combine, led surprisingly by Devin Booker.

Speed is an important predictor of success in the NBA, particularly for guards, which is why officials measure prospects’ lane-agility time and three-quarter sprint times every year.

To determine speed, we added up both the players’ lane-agility time and three-quarter sprint times.

You’re in for some surprises, which further prove you have to take combine results with a grain of salt.

The players who have been swept the most times in NBA playoffs history

Making it to the NBA playoffs is not easy. And winning games once there is even more difficult. Just ask the players on the list below made up of the men who have been swept the most times in NBA playoff history.

Shockingly enough, there are some legends on this list, including one from Spain and one who is considered one of the most dominant centers of all time.

Pau Gasol is one of two players to have been swept six times in their career. Gasol got swept as a member of three different teams, with the Memphis Grizzlies, Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs. Same with Shaquille O’Neal, who was swept as a member of the Lakers, Orlando Magic and Miami Heat.

Gasol was swept out of the first round of the playoffs four times while O’Neal in the first round just twice.

Al Horford could join the Six Sweeps club this season if the Boston Celtics get swept this year, as it has happened to him in the playoffs five times already. Three of them came at the hands of LeBron James, who terrorized the Atlanta Hawks like no other.

Check out the list below.

The worst losing streaks of NBA legends

Even the best players can be dragged down by their teams (or age) in the NBA, as we are about to establish on the list below.

Sometimes, these losing streaks happened either very late or very early in these legends’ careers, when their legs were either too heavy or not strong enough to carry such a load.

Other times, poorly-run organizations were the root of legends losing a lot in their primes.

Still, seeing NBA legends lose this many games in a row is rare, which is why we thought it would be interesting and fun to put this ranking with the members of the NBA75 list who lost at least eight consecutive times.

NBA players who never missed the playoffs

Although every NBA team starts off seasons with the idea of winning a championship (at least they used to, pre-tanking), a more realistic goal many set for themselves is to make the playoffs.

There are only a select few men, however, who never missed the playoffs in their NBA careers.

Check out the list below.

Note: We only used players who played a minimum of 10 seasons.

‘Very chunky’ great white shark leaves researchers in awe

Cape Cod-based researchers were astonished recently, while reviewing footage, to spot a male great white shark with such extraordinarily girth.

Researchers were astonished recently, while reviewing footage, to spot a male great white shark with such extraordinarily girth.

The largest and fattest white sharks are females, especially during pregnancies. (They can measure nearly 20 feet and weigh 5,000-plus pounds.)

The accompanying image was captured by the Cape Cod-based Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, which commented this week on Facebook:

“There are some sharks that make our data team stop and take a double-take. One of our data team members was analyzing GoPro footage, they came across this very chunky, male, white shark.”

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White sharks are ambush feeders that prey largely on seals and other pinnipeds. They’ll also feast on whale carcasses if the opportunity arrises. So it stands to reason that male sharks might exhibit considerably more girth after mealtime.

The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy added: “Our data team can assume that the shark recently ate due to the size of its stomach.”

–White shark image courtesy of Atlantic White Shark Conservancy

How many wolves can you spot in these photos?

Zoologist Roland Kays on Sunday tweeted a trail-cam image showing members of a Michigan wolf pack in the darkness and asked his followers how many animals they could spot.

Zoologist Roland Kays on Sunday tweeted an image showing members of a Michigan wolf pack in the darkness and asked followers how many animals they could spot.

We’re asking the same question, using the same trail-cam image and two others that show a different number of wolves (see immediately below).

Can you spot the wolves in all three images? (Answers are provided at the end of the post, with red circles showing animals that aren’t as clearly visible.)

The images were captured on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula via motion-sensor cameras monitored by Diana Lafferty, Assistant Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Northern Michigan University.

The top image was captured in September 2020; the other two were captured in 2019.

They show members of the Echo Lake wolf pack, which inhabits a territory that spans about 30 square miles across wilderness and rural communities near Marquette, Mich.

The five-member pack hunts as a social unit and preys on white-tailed deer and smaller mammals.

The top image was captured as part of an ongoing trail-cam research project run by NMU Master’s student Tru Hubbard and Lafferty.

Kays, in his Twitter post, tagged Snapshot USA, a collaborative camera-trapping project he leads at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science, along with Bill McShea of the Smithsonian Institution and researchers from other states.

Below are the answers (five wolves in the first image, four in the last two) and we apologize if the animals were too easy to spot.

Spectacular false killer whale attack documented by researchers

Researchers in Hawaii have captured footage of a false killer whale ambushing an unsuspecting mahi-mahi with a spectacular breach.

Researchers in Hawaii have captured footage showing a false killer whale ambushing a large mahi-mahi with a spectacular breach.

“One of many predation events documented by our team while working with the endangered population of false killer whales in the Maui Nui area!” Cascadia Research Collective wrote Friday on Facebook, asking viewers to turn on the volume.

The footage, reminiscent of clips showing great white sharks breaching after seals or seal decoys, shows the false killer whale smacking the mahi-mahi into the air while also leaping free of the surface.

False killer whales (Pseudorca) – named because their skull characteristics are similar to those of killer whales (Orcinus orca) – inhabit tropical and sub-tropical waters worldwide but are not frequently encountered.

In Hawaii, three populations exist, including a small endangered population most closely associated with the main islands.

The Washington State-based Cascadia Research Collective, in collaboration with the Scripps Acoustic Ecology Laboratory and Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, is studying foraging behavior of this population, in relation to oceanography and prey.

False killer whales routinely snack on mahi-mahi, which like to gather beneath floating debris, making them vulnerable to predation. (Note the floating object in the video.)

Asked if the footage captured Friday is rare, Robin Baird, a Cascadia Research Biologist, told For The Win Outdoors:

“Well, we’ve been working with false killer whales in Hawaii for 22 years and have seen this type of behavior a number of times, and filmed it a few times, although not necessarily long clips or great footage.”

Baird added that false killer whales “do throw fish into the air more so than any other species I’ve worked with.”

During some predation events, individual mammals shared food with other pod members. Prey sharing is common among false killer whales, which have also been known to present their kills to people watching from boats.

Cascadia on Friday published an update for the ongoing Maui Nui project in waters off Maui, Lanai, Kahoolawe, and Molokai.

The endangered false killer whales are the team’s “highest-priority species” and scientists captured several images showing the mammals preying on mahi-mahi and engaging in social behavior.

Based on their observations, the most common methods are ramming the fish with their heads or slapping them with tail flukes.

Scientists obtained several photo identifications for their catalog and collected biopsy samples “for genetics and hormone chemistry.”

The team also encountered or was hoping to encounter bottlenose dolphins, short-finned pilot whales, and less-common species such as rough-toothed dolphins and pygmy killer whales.

–Images courtesy of Jordan Lerma (top and bottom two) and Robin Baird of the Cascadia Research Collective

Rare sighting involves dolphin eating an octopus; no easy meal

A research team from Portugal on Wednesday watched in amazement as a Risso’s dolphin emerged with an octopus in its mouth.

A research team from Portugal on Wednesday watched in amazement as a Risso’s dolphin emerged with an octopus in its mouth (top photo).

“Sightings like this are very rare so everyone aboard in Ketos were very excited!” the group, AIMM, wrote on Facebook. “It was a good day for AIMM researchers and interns.”

While dolphins will attack an octopus, the feeding events are rarely witnessed. When they are witnessed, at the surface, it’s sometimes because the dolphins are experiencing issues with their clever and sticky adversaries.

Bottlenose dolphin with ‘naughty octopus.’ Photo: Joan Gonzalvo/Ionian Dolphin Project

The AIMM sighting brings to mind an event documented off Greece in 2012, involving a bottlenose dolphin that was jumping with an octopus clinging to its belly – more precisely, its private region.

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Joan Gonzalvo, a researcher with the Ionian Dolphin Project, used the term “naughty octopus” in a blog post describing the encounter. The dolphin eventually shook off – and presumably devoured – the pesky octopus.

Grandma the river dolphin. Photos: Jodie Lowe/Port Macquarie Cruise Adventures

In 2017 in Australia, photographer Jodie Lowe of Port Macquarie Cruise Adventures captured images showing a dolphin leaping from the Hastings River with an octopus clinging to its belly.

The company wrote on Facebook: “Awesome encounter with our local river dolphins on our National Park Eco Cruise today. We got to witness one of our local river dolphins, Grandma, with an octopus stuck to her and she was getting into midair trying to take it off.

“In the end she got it off and ate it.”

At the time, Grandma, matriarch of the Hastings River pod, was estimated to be 25-30 years old.

–Risso’s dolphin image atop this Post is courtesy of Michal Topczewski/AIMM