Free Ballin’

Watch games featuring your favorite team being broadcast on the opposition’s network (with NBA Season Pass) and see if they know what they’re talking about, when they discuss your team.
Tonight I found the Clippers team to be really good.  I was surprised that they made a number of insightful comments about the Rockets that the [...]

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Continuing my NBA VIEW
Philadelphia 76ers:
Aw hell, I liked the Elton Brand signing.  Tells you what I know.  Well, really, it tells you what I knew.  Prime Brand would be a very solid match for this team.  I just wasn’t up on the latest dope on him—i.e. that I hadn’t paid attention to the Clippers for [...]

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Do you remember back in the day, when Baron Davis and Corey Maggette signed huge long-term contracts?  Oh yes, that was last summer; two teams bet their prospects on players who had spent a quarter of their careers on the injured list.  Actually, that’s inaccurate; Maggette has now missed 22% of games played during his [...]

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I’m for the 3s, myself.  This trade is fun and Toronto’s half is amusing.  I won’t get into salaries because…I don’t feel it.  Suffice to say, they have comparably bad contracts: too big, too long.  So what’s worth discussing?
Toronto gets Evans: I find this amusing because it’s a deal to help facilitate Andrea Bargnani’s development.  [...]

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Bill Simmons posted a great email exchange he had with Malcolm Gladwell, in which they discuss the NBA’s deeply flawed (league-damaging) draft.  Both make good (though imperfect) suggestions for how to improve it—I’ll write about how to fix NBA draft, in the near future—but at one point, Simmons, noting how the draft could be used [...]

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Yes, Ingenious Hitchhiking Strategies 001.  I will undoubtedly provide you with at least 100 hitchhiking tips—one per ride—and as many as 999, over the course of this blog.  After that, you’re on your own.
I’m going with 001 instead of 0001, because I figure good luck is finite, and thumbing 9,999 rides is just begging for [...]

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I think “Fire Isiah!” should be the universal chant when calling for a coach’s head.
I was thinking about this during player introductions for the Clippers/Celtics game, last night.  It almost seemed like the announcer tried to sneak in “Head Coach Mike Dunleavy”, quickly and quietly, so no one would notice.  But they did, Clippers fans, [...]

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There’s nothing funny about this, but the funniest thing about it is that the Clippers mediocrity could be Elgin Baylor’s best argument.  “I’ve been awful at my job for 22 years, and now you fire me?”
Seriously, are the Clippers going to claim he was fired for performance reasons?  They knew he was a terrible GM [...]

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I’m planning for the cross-country venture I’m taking in some ten days, from North Carolina to Los Angeles, and weighing the pros and cons of ride-sharing vs. hitchhiking.  Don’t mind if I think aloud here…
It’s a fairly simple issue.  Ride-sharing is vastly more comfortable and vastly more expensive.  I needn’t really go into detail about [...]

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I’m hitchhiking out of Charlotte today, up to the house of a friend of my mother’s, in Little Switzerland, NC, which I’m told is sensational, overlooking Mt. Mitchell (tallest peak east of the Rockies.)
My next game is the Clippers/Celtics, on February 25th, in Los Angeles.  My plan is to stay in Little Switzerland for a [...]

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