Free Ballin’

It doesn’t have to be a great game to get my attention.  The other night’s Trailblazers/Heat matchup was competitive, but nothing special.  Watching Greg Oden and Michael Beasley go at each other, on the other hand, was sensational. Amid a bevy if impressive sequences, the most significant play of the game to me (in a [...]

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People are too concerned about the accuracy of their sports predictions.  Predicting what you feel most likely to occur is a perfectly reasonable thing to do if you’re a necessarily disinterested party, like a journalist, or have a stake in the outcome, like degenerate gamblers.  But otherwise, the only benefit of being right is say, [...]

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Chad Ford makes me chuckle. His first mock draft has Tyler Hansbrough going to the Utah Jazz: “It feels like destiny for Hansbrough to end up in Utah. His tough, blue-collar game should work really well for Jazz coach Jerry Sloan.” Indeed, Hansbrough will fit right in with other tough, blue collar Jazz players on [...]

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The Milwaukee Bucks (wonderfully hospitable) took an interest in Free Ballin’.  Along with making me the Extreme Fan of the Game, giving me some groovy team goods, and putting me up on the jumbotron—my bald “spot” 6 feet across—they did a little interview with me before the game.  For my first time on camera, not [...]

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NJ and Milwaukee mixin’ it up! This is a fun deal, because there are significant talent and financial elements involved, and both teams are radically changed. That’s fun, no? NJ Gets: a huge roundhouse to the chin in losing Richard Jefferson; huge cap-relief for the all-important free-agent class of 2010; two interesting players with significant [...]

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