I wanna go!

So, the NBA is about to announce that this year's All-Star Saturday Night events will be broadcast live and in 3-D at movie theaters this year. Sounds very interesting. Superman dunk in 3D?, Rudy's (hopefully he gets an invite) ridiculous high arcing 3s? Sign me up! Read from the LA times.

Last night was one crazy night of basketball. Big props to Sacto for putting the Lakers in their place. To be honest, I only caught part of the 4th quarter (was watching SAS/DAL then POR/ORL), so I don't really have much commentary on it, 'cept CONGRATS Sacto and "You Suck!" LA. I guess we can put to rest any more stupid talk of 70 wins. Keep in mind the 72-10 Bulls started 41-3 and the Lakers already have 3 losses (actually worse than Boston, LOL).

Phoenix had a good (kinda) win last night. The offense was flowing and running and we racked up our highest points for a game (125) and the first half (74) all season. Shaq looked awesome as he dropped 35 pts on Bogut and Co. in a vintage dominating performance. Still though, I'm a bit wary of this win. The freewheeling offense looked a bit *too* much like the old Suns. We won and scored a ton, but still let MIL shoot .468 (on the road). We need to find a middle ground between the too slow/confused offense of this early season and the pedal-to-the-metal/no defense offense of previous years. It's probably a very poor and naive analysis/strategy, but I would only like us to run (but every time) on misses. But walk it up on made shots. The old seven-seconds-or-less Suns would run on makes and misses. The Suns earlier this season weren't running even on misses. I think that could be a middle ground to work from.

Fantasy wise... I've been picking up Barea in a few leagues. For the month so far, he's avg. 19 pts, 2 rebs, and 4.8 asts. Excellent percentages, low TOs, but no 3s or steals. With Josh Howard out indefinately and the Mavs on a 9-2 streak since he became a regular part of the rotation (and now a starter), I think Barea's a good play for the near future.

Real world wise... a trade just went down that sent Mike James and Javarais Crittenton to Washington and Antonio Daniels to New Orleans. WAS also dropped Dee Brown to make room for the new players. I wouldn't pick him up now... but keep an eye on James. WAS is thin on PG and if he gets the minutes, maybe James can revert to his TOR year and do a mini Gilbert impersonation. At least for a month or two until Gilbert comes back or they hand the reins to Crittenton. Btw, the only incumbant "PG" in WAS now is Juan Dixon and he's more combo guard/off the bench type anyways.

And finally, random observation. But the Celts are 20-2 in the east and the Thunder are 2-20 in the West. If we combine and divide the two teams in each conference, can we get two .500 teams? Would those two teams be better/worse than .500?

Here's how I would split them...

C. Wilcox	J. Petro
K. Garnett	J. Smith
K. Durant	L. Powe
D. Wilkins	D. Mason
R. Rondo	E. Watson
K. Perkins	G. Davis
N. Collison	J. Green
P. Pierce	B. Scalabrine
R. Allen	E. House
R. Westbrook	T. Allen

Alright, that's all I got for now...

Another one bites the dust...

So, Randy Wittman (MIN) is the latest coaching casualty in the NBA. McHale will assume the coaching duties for MIN in the interm. Fantasy wise, the only sure thing I think is that Kevin Love's value is gonna jump. Love is a McHale favorite (enough that he gave up Mayo on draft night, lol), and I expect Love back in the starting line up and playing close to 30 min. a game shortly. If he's available in your league pick him up.

Wittman's firing makes him the fourth coach to be fired this year, following P.J. Carlesimo (OKC), Eddie Jordan (WAS) and Sam Mitchell (TOR). I know coaches get fired all the time, but 4 coaches in just over a month seems kind of harsh. I wonder what the record is for number for coaches fired in a season (excluding off seasons).

For what's it worth... I found a post on Vegas Watch listing Vegas odds for first coach to be fired at the start of the season.

Lawrence Frank (NJN), 6/1
Sam Mitchell (TOR), 5/1
Mike Brown (CLE), 7/1
Mark Ivaroni (MEM), 5/1
Eddie Jordan (WAS), 8/1
George Karl (DEN), 5/1
Randy Wittman (MIN), 3/1
Field (Any Other Coach), 5/2

Speaking of Vegas odds, I didn't do too hot with my predictions last Friday. 11 games, 22 bets, and I only won 9/22. Pretty bad. I think I'm betting on too many overs. I chose 9 overs, only 2 actually went over. The thing is, the league average per game is only 98.29. So an "average" score should be 196.58. Yet the Vegas odds gave 7 over 200, 1 right at 196, and 2 below. They're probably accounting for chances of overtime, but anyhoo, I need to be more cautious with my optimism for NBA scores.

And today for your viewing please... Garnett being a jerk to 3rd string / rookie point guard Bayless of the Raptors. Garnett gets down on all fours to mock him on D and after a Bayless turnover, Garnett comes up to get in the rookie's face. If you didn't know, Garnett was also roundly criticized for similar unsportsmanlike shenanigans against Jose Calderon earlier this year.



One good thing to know though... KG is a jerk to his teammates too. Here's him making Big Baby Davis cry... same game.



If you wanna see more crying (by other players and not necessarily caused by KG) go to Hoop Heads North.

Jason and his crazy predictions

One more post before the weekend... 3 posts today, gotta be a new personal best ;-)

So I was in Vegas last weekend after the Suns/Heat game. Didn't do too well. Placed 5 straight bets and 2 parlays, won just 2/5 straight and 0 parlays. I blame the Spurs and their blowout loss to the Rockets for ruining my last Vegas venture. They were 3 point underdogs, just got Parker back, and the Rockets were playing without T-Mac. I thought for sure the Spurs would cover... 'cept they decided to choke and lose by 20 instead. That cost me a straight AND a parlay... a $136 swing. =(

Anyhoo, that's when I came up with the idea that the next time I'm in Vegas, I'm just going to go ahead and place a small bet on EVERY game, both on the spread and the over/under. The scattershot approach. That way one miscalculation won't wreck me too much. So with that in mind, here's a practice run. Below are the odds are every game tonight and my picks are in bold. 11 games tonight, 22 picks total, one for each point spread and one for each total score. I'll be back later to post how I did. I'll doing these practice runs once a week from now on until I go back to Vegas. =)

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	Spread	O/U
LA Lakers	-11.5	+213
Washington	11.5	-213
Oklahoma City	13.5	+203
Orlando	-13.5	-203
Minnesota	6.5	+201.5
New Jersey	-6.5	-201.5
New York	10.5	+215.5
Atlanta	-10.5	-215.5
Indiana	11	+207
Cleveland	-11	-207
Phila.	8	+187.5
Detroit	-8	-187.5
Portland	8	+184
Boston	-8	-184
LA Clippers	1	+196
Memphis	-1	-196
Golden State	9	+209
Houston	-9	-209
Charlotte	4	+186
Milwaukee	-4	-186
Toronto	5	+206
Utah	-5	-206

Sky is falling...

So, last night was a disaster by the Suns. Phoenix have so many problems, I don't even know where to start. If things stay as is, I think we're looking at a 7th-8th seed at best and a 1-4 early playoff exit again (and those are best case scenarios imho). Here's a little comic courtesy of BDL and Garbage Time Allstars. Click the image for the zoom at BDL.



The good thing though is this is the NBA, so things don't have to stay as is. A trade can really shake things up for an organization and I think the Suns definitely need a shakeup. December 15th is coming up soon and that's the date when free agent contracts signed during the past off-season can officially be traded.

I think any and all Suns trades should begin and end with Amare Stoudemire. Amare is by far the Sun's biggest asset and actually has a lot of value in the league and can get us some assets that would better mesh with the new Porter half-court system. IMHO, our priorities should be a borderline allstar (fair considering Amare is a perennial allstar) to appoximate Amare's production and a backup PG (because Dragic and Singletary sucks). That borderline allstar can be at the 2, 3, or 4 spots. Doesn't really matter. Diaw can start if necessary if the returning player ain't a big.

With that in mind, here's some of my pipe dreams... mostly realistic and all within salary cap rules. Feel free to consider additional draft picks on either sides to make it more even if necessary.

1) W/ Portland

Amare, Tucker for Aldridge, Lafrentz, Rodriguez.

2) W/ Milwaukee

Amare, Tucker for Jefferson, Villanueva, Sessions

3) W/ New Jersey

Amare, Tucker for Carter, Lopez, and Dooling

4) W/ Washington

Amare, Tucker, Amundson for Jamison, Daniels, McGee, and Young.

5) W/ Philadelphia

Amare for Brand, Williams

A noticeable trading partner being omitted are the Chicago Bulls. IMHO, Hinirch would be an ideal backup for Nash and can even play some starter minutes alongside Nash at the SG spot. However, Hinrich is currently injured and won't be able to be traded until almost the trade deadline (if he comes back in time)... if we're waiting THAT long, the season is toast and we might as well wait till summer for easier trade opportunities.

Now LIVEBLOGGING... sorta, not really

Man, even Shaq is sad... here's his Twitter posts after last night's game.

--------------------
If you cant command then u must learn to follow, but what if u aint winning when u listen, then what????????
--------------------
Whatthe hell is wrong wit da suns
--------------------

Speaking of Twitter... I hope you'll notice that I now have a Twitter feed of my own on the right hand side of the page. That is "Yokels_tv" Basically it's my retarded version of a live-blog. It'll pretty much only be updated during games, where I will text online what I usually yell at my TV set

Dangers of flying...

Man, that must be one dangerous flight from LA to New York. Cutino Mobley had played in EVERY game so far this season, averaging 33 minutes a game. He's averaged over 35 minutes and 77 or more games for the last 3 seasons. In his last game as a Clipper (Friday, 11/19), Mobley had arguably his most productive game of the season, scoring 23 points on 11/20 shooting and snagging 7 steals. Then he gets traded over the weekend, takes a flight out to New York, now suddenly he has a heart condition and is seriously considering a health related retirement. What I want to know is WTF happened on that plane?!?

Besides the fact that I had snagged Mobley in a bunch of leagues (which I have since dropped), hoping for the D'A bump, Mobley is still a very productive player. If the Knicks don't want him, I'm sure they're are lots of teams around the league (BOS, DAL, HOU, PHO, ORL, comes to mind) that would love to sign a veteran SG at the league min. If the Knicks are just trying to push the retirement agenda to get insurance to cover Mobley's salary and save cap space... I'm surprised Mobley is just going along with all this. Really weird situation in NY and I really wish we knew more.

Giant Killer

How about them Pacers, huh? The just beat the Lakers 118-117 and earlier in the season blew out the Celts 95-79. For a "bad" team that's just 7-10, they sure have beaten their share of "good" teams. Of their 7 wins, they've beaten LAL, BOS, HOU, ATL, NJ twice, and OKC. That's 6 winning .500+ teams. How they've managed to lose to the likes of CHA and CHI, I don't know. But props to the Pacers, esp. considering they're missing one of their top 3 players in Mike Dunleavy.

Speaking of Dunleavy... he's really killing me in my fantasy leagues. I've got him rotting on the bench in one of my Yahoo and one of my CBS leagues, and I really need the games played in both. Still, though, I'm reluctant to drop him considering he could be a top 60ish player if he ever comes back. I just wish there was some definative news so I can drop him now before I lose too many more weeks.

On the fantasy front... trade vetoes are really wrecking my season. I already mentioned that in CBS I had managed to get a Kidd/B.Miller for AI/Kaman deal worked out, only to be vetoed by the league. With AI's erratic performance and now Kaman's injury... that trade would have REALLY helped me. I know that trade is a bit lopsided now, but at the time A.I. was still on his way to Detroit and Miller hadn't played a game yet. On paper that was as fair as it gets. If every trade was perfectly even at the time AND in the future, then what's the point of trading in the first place? I'd like to throw in the fact that 3/12 managers (not including the traders) explained why they thought the trade WAS fair. But nobody that vetoed gave an explanation.

In my Yahoo leagues, I just worked out a Paul/Salmons for Deron/A.Miller deal, with me giving up Paul. I was the one who offered Paul and my reasoning was to keep stacking my team with Jazz/76ers players in anticipation of fantasy playoffs. That deal got vetoed too. Why? I don't know. It seems pretty damn fair on paper to me. An elite PG for an elite PG and a top 70ish player for another top 70ish player. And of course nobody bothered to post an explanation of why they vetoed as well.

That kind of league attitude really ruins the fun of fantasy imho. Now when I see a trade, I feel like vetoing just for the hell of it too. At least the Yahoo league is my keeper league and I'm the commish. I think I'll implement a new policy where vetoes must come with an explanation post. That's how it works in my "experts" league and it works out well.

Pickup wise, I'd keep any eye out for any Knicks on the FA list. Just look at the box scores of the NY/GS game to see what playing under D'Antoni can do to inflate a player's numbers. That means almost any Knick such as Chandler, Q-Rich, or even Tim Thomas are worth a look. And call me crazy, but keep an eye out for Jared Jeffries as well. Jared Jeffries is currently hurt, but he's supposed to be making his debut either this or next week. Rumor has it that D'A had him in mind for the "Marion" role before the season started. Don't pick him up right now, but keep an eye on him and be prepared to snatch him up quick if he's suddenly getting starters minutes.