Free Ballin’

I’m an optimist.  When I was six and the Princess in Voltron dove into the pool and her top surfaced before she did, I was fairly confident that something wonderful was about to happen, network television or not.  I’m even confident that there are women somewhere in the world (somewhere) who might be a little [...]

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Portland had no reason to panic.  For a few years they suffered mostly from an embarrassment of riches: a young star in Brandon Roy, loads of other young talented players who weren’t making big dough yet, cap space, draft picks, a generous owner, and a kick-ass city to play in.  It looked to be the [...]

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Continuing my NBA VIEW Toronto Raptors: No fans are in worse shape than Raptor fans.  You know Chris Bosh is going to leave.  You know it, don’t you?  Toronto’s management is in an awful position (of their own making,) trying to figure out a way to entice Bosh to stay.  He says he loves it [...]

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Continuing from my NBA VIEW introduction. New York Knicks The biggest joke of this NBA season is how many teams are desperately trying to clear salary cap space for this all-time great free agent class, when this is what they should be doing every year.  Teams should either be contending for a championship, growing into [...]

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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 [...]

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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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Why are you here? I’ve asked so many people that question, over the last four months. Are you originally from Sacramento? Do you have family near Greenville? Was it Orlando, death, or tiki? I want to know why people are where they are. Family, school, work, and work-release are common answers. But people move to [...]

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I like the Rockets’ new point-guard tandem of Aaron Brooks and Kyle Lowry quite a bit, for numerous reasons, most of which you can find at any other basketball site that reported this trade, so I won’t go into all the “what this means to the Rockets” stuff.  I will just comment on Brian Cook, [...]

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I’ll be heading to Toronto in a few weeks, and I was really hoping to see Jermaine O’Neal play.  I’m a huge fan of his, and I wanted to see what he had, at this point.  I’ve read all season about how disappointing he has been, but his numbers indicate more of a mixed bag.  [...]

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Add the Robert Johnsons to my cool list.  They’re leaving me a few tickets at Will Call for Friday’s game against the Hawks.  I’m excited to see how they look, post Richardson trade.  I saw them in New Orleans the night of the trade, and they looked awful, but they didn’t really have much of [...]

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