Give Me The Rock

While some people from Canada will make fun of this page obviously written by someone whose first language is not English in emails to other basketbloggers, I will refrain from such behavior and list 5 blogs that have nothing to do with basketball. Except to say that Slam Online has an explanation of why today is BlogDay. Interesting that the BlogDay page doesn’t mention the reason that 08/31 (or 31 08) was chosen as blog day.

Anyway…

1. Penny Arcade - Video games are awesome, but the comics on Penny Arcade are awesomer.
2. Free Money Finance - C.R.E.A.M.
3. Career Intensity Blog - Inspiration and useful advice for anyone working for the man.
4. South Side Sox - Where I get my Sox news.
5. Jon’s Radio - Had to include a tech blog. Jon is money.

I would think that certain people would need to return to work eventually, but perhaps the case is that those people have found gainful employment in a place that is not Chicago, and said gainful employment is already demanding so much of their time as to make it impossible to email former friends and lovers with updates as to their whereabouts and alive vs. dead status.

That said, I may have to actually write some Team Previews myself. Which I am certainly looking forward to, after having only had the chance to do one so far this summer.

In the mean time, check out this Offseason Wrap Up from Rototimes for your fantasy fix.

And this article about Shaq’s new shoe line. Or, I guess, just a truckload of shoes rather than a whole so-called line. I found out about that from my new second-favorite blog SunsGossip, who report that Starbosa (as he is evidently known) is also looking for a lucrative shoe deal. If you’re not going to click on that link, let me just say there is a hot picture of one of the Suns cheerleaders wearing a prototype of Leandro’s shoes.

And in case you’d forgotten who Travis Outlaw was, Blazer’s Edge has a nice recap of the young fellow’s career thus far. I believe the logical conclusion to draw from the article is that Outlaw will soon be traded for a solid, but aging, player, and then become an All-Star in the 07-08 season.

As much as I hate slacking during the summer, I have been remiss in posting links to the Carnivals. Well, just one really, since the newest one just went up. Before that though, Mavs Moneyball threw up (or maybe down is better for throwing?) one of the best Carnivals of the NBA I have seen (and I do believe I’ve seen them all). Didn’t hurt that Rachel was featured as the number 4 link. I’m sure she appreciates being linked to Wes Cox. Seriously… better than that? No.

Carnival of the NBA #35 is up at the fairly new Bench Renaldo. It’s another blog from the Kanye West look-alike from Canada who brought you Mutoni’s Musings (which is also worth reading). I appreciate his more straightforward-not-messing-around-quite-as-much style.

Through Mutoni’s Carnival, I checked out a fairly decent post on Rising Suns about Pink Taco. No, I could not resist clicking on that link. A little bit heavy on the use of the strikethrough. I’d say that strikethrough has jumped the shark, but, as YAYSports NBA knows - I’d link but, at the time of this post, they’ve exceeded their bandwidth - jumped the shark has jumped the shark. Not sure where that leaves us… Anyway, ultra-compound sentences aside, I found another - there aren’t many that I’m aware of - NBA blog written from the female perspective. I bet Rachel could probably write a blog about “the lig” - as it will soon be called in official marketing collateral - if she were only a little bit more concerned with the sport itself and a little less concerned with the players’ wes cox.

Apparently, the Nets are content leaving their 49 win team intact from last season, even to the point of re-signing Cliff Robinson, you know, the guy who is approaching his 5th decade and was suspended DURING THE PLAYOFFS for a drug violation. I know that Kidd, Carter, and Jefferson are good, no doubt, but these guys need some help out there. Ok, Nenad Krstic has potential and they did sign perennial PMad favorite Eddie House to come off the bench this year, but, really, is Eddie House going to push the Nets over the top? My first instinct was to say - you bet your golden ass he will - but six previous teams have a slightly different opinion.

Fantasy rankings are the wrong tool to evaluate actual player performance, but sometimes a team’s weakness is so obviously glaring that pretty much any type of objective or subjective analysis is enough to pinpoint the problem. In this case, even fantasy rankings show that the Nets have absolutely no bench. They just don’t just need a good 6th man, but a 5th, 7th, and 8th man. At least they have the PG position all set.

2005/2006 Fantasy Rankings

(16) Jason Kidd
(22) Vince Carter
(34) Richard Jefferson
(117) Nenad Krstic
(222) Clifford Robinson
(270) Jason Collins
(309) Jeff Mcinnis
(340) Bostjan Nachbar
(441) Antoine Wright

“Significant” Additions
(188) Eddie House
(336) Mikki Moore
(NA) Marcus Williams
(NA) Josh Boone
(NA) Hassan Adams

Significant Subtractions
None that I know of

BUY

Jason Kidd – Chris Webber, Amare Stoudemire, Rashad McCants, Allan Houston, Penny Hardaway, Zach Randolph, Jamal Mashburn, Kenyon Martin… they’re all pussies. Anyone who takes more than 5 months to return from microfracture knee surgery should grow a set and follow the way of the master - Jason Kidd. 8.4 assists, 7.3 rebounds, 1.7 threes, and 1.9 steals last season – that’s at least second round talent – and he put those numbers up almost directly after walking out of surgery. Kidd will be as good if not better again this year.

Richard Jefferson – The “big board” has him ranked at 44. Last year, coming that big injury year in 2004, he finished up the year at 34. I think a lot of people downgrade him because he and his game are boring as hell, and let’s be honest, we all look for players we like and excite us to some extent. But, he’s definitely a buy because however boring his game is, it’s also consistently good.

Nenad Krstic – I could care less that he’s playing well in the world championships… What really matters are two things: (1) he’s a center and (2) his per game stats over March and April 2006 work out to 15.2/8/1.4 with 0.8 blocks. Those numbers are slightly above what he did for the entire season last year and I see that kind of slight improvement for Krstic in 2006/2007. Just don’t expect any kind of breakout season. He is however, inching his way into being a solid contributor to your fantasy team, C eligibility or not.

HOLD

Vince Carter – I want everyone to check back here in June of 2007. My prediction for Carter is 24/6/4.5/1.2/0.6. I guarantee that 6 out of 10 times, I’m right every time.

SELL

Everyone else who the Nets will throw out there for 10 to 20 minutes a game. Especially:

Jason Collins – When you start and play 27 minutes and score 3.6 points and grab 4.8 rebounds a game, that’s bad. In 2004/2005, playing 32 minutes a game, he arguably sucked even more.

Marcus Williams & Eddie House – It’ll be real tight for minutes behind Kidd (37 min/gm) and Carter (37 min/gm). Although if you own one of the aforementioned all stars and have a large bench, it might be worthwhile to stash either of these guys in case of an injury… if you have a REALLY large bench.

Clifford Robinson & Josh Boone – They’ll get more minutes than Williams and House, but likely play worse when they’re out there. The end result won’t be worth very much.

WATCH

The Nets win 45 to 50 games and depart from the 2007 NBA playoffs in the second round again. Whoo-hoo, that’s exciting! Maybe they’ll get some additional depth while the big three are still in their primes.

Where I’d Draft Em (in a 10 team league)
Jason Kidd – 2nd
Vince Carter – 3rd
Richard Jefferson – 4th
Nenad Krstic – 9th

Bloglines went nutzo on me last week reporting all kinds of posts that I had already read and it was pretty much impossible to go through 4 months worth of posts to get to the new ones and not look like I was actually trying to kill time (or kill myself).

So, that leaves me with just 2 links for you:

Tracy McGrady will be on the cover of NBA Live (at least in the US). Since D-Wade was there last year and had a season worthy of our #7 ranking, perhaps things are looking up for T-Mac…

RotoRob throws down some Boston Celtics analysis. I guess I can post this as a comment to the Boston Celtics Fantasy Preview, but I’m not sure if anyone besides me is actually reading the GMTR Comments Feed.

With all due respect to Al Harrington, and I did say all due respect, it’s been a pretty slow August in terms of big name player movement. I was waiting for all the moves and suspense to build before reviewing the fantasy implications of all the recent transactions… and then Nels beat me to the punch with his review of how Harrington’s move will affect both the Pacers and the Hawks. Relish in it while you can Nels, because that sweet taste of victory will be short-lived…

Allow me to sum up the remaining dregs, starting with the next “biggest” move over the past few weeks: Drew Gooden agreed to three-year, $23M deal with the Cleveland Cavilers. And those moans are my fantasy preview quickly becoming hopelessly outdated. On the plus side, you now don’t have to worry about the possibility of having to draft Aleksandar Pavlovic. Everyone short of Pavlovic’s immediate family is happy about that development.

Other news that stands on the fringe of relevancy: Chris Wilcox reached a three-year agreement with the Sonics. Take a look at his split stats from last year and I think you’ll see the importance of that move to Wilcox and fantasy owners in deepish leagues. Also, number two pick in the 2006 draft, LaMarcus Aldridge, tore his shoulder ligament and will miss the start of the regular season. I’ll catch up with you in 2007, LaMarcus. And, to my surprise, in-between launching rockets into Israel, Lebanon finds some spare time to play international basketball.

Top 7 Moves That You Might Have Missed That Will Make Absolutely No Difference to Any Fantasy League Whatsoever on Earth.
7. Eddie “My Boy” House will bring his crazy per minute averages to the New Jersey Nets.
6. Jay Williams’ works out for Nets officials and is invited to training camp. A nice story but a long, long, shot.
5. The Charlotte Bobcats re-signed center Jake Voskuhl. And Green County rejoices.
4. 17 year Veteran forward Clifford Robinson re-signs with Nets. I imagine that if Julio Franco and Snoop Dogg found a way to have an illegitimate love child, it’s name would be Clifford.
3. Alonzo Mourning re-signed with the Miami Heat. I will refrain from the obvious kidney jokes. I am a better man than that.
2. Scot “Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer” Pollard takes his 4 pts a game to the Cleveland Cavaliers and immediately declares himself the missing piece of the championship puzzle. He also promises to teach that Lebron kid a little something called “hustle”.
1. Surprise! The Wizards decide not to match Knicks’ offer for Jared Jeffries. How will they cope?

The Quote of the Century

“Someone started trouble and I ended it”

-Ron Artest, to 50 children at a panel on black empowerment at the Judge Mathis Community Center

Al Harrington, as we all now know, is headed back to Indiana.

I definitely look at it like Indiana got over on Atlanta
-Al Harrington

Yes, Mr. Harrington is correct. Too bad… I was really hoping for something more interesting to write about. Oh well. Can’t win em all.

First off, there goes the emergence of Danny Granger. Harrington should easily dominate the SF position in Indy. It also means that Shawne Williams probably won’t see a lot court time. The trade also opens up the possibility of running Jermaine O’Neal at Center with Harrington at PF, Stephen Jackson at SF, and then Marquis Daniels or Sarunus Jazzy-vicious at the SG with Tinsley at PG. I think O’Neal and Jackson should be able to keep up their averages from last season, but since Harrington will be the 3rd option, it may be difficult for him to get up into the 18-19 point range again. S-Jax isn’t a great rebounder, but Jermaine and J-Fos will soak up a lot of the rebounds out there. Harrington will probably be down a rebound or two next season.

I’d like to think the impact on the Hawks is more interesting, but it’s really not. The people filling Harrington’s position are Josh Childress, Marvin Williams, and Josh Smith. That was pretty obvious, right? They’re all pretty even, so you can estimate that they’ll all go from 9-11 points to 13-15 points. I don’t think Joe Johnson can really get more than he had last season. He’ll still be the number one option, but he already had that going for him. And I’d really like to say that he’s going to be fatigued from playing in the World Championships, but since SLAMOnline is on the watch for someone to say something about that, I’ll refrain.

Overall, Marvin Williams will probably see the biggest gain, since he played the least minutes last season, he’s got the most room for improvement. Childress and Smith can’t really get more than about 4-5 more minutes with which to boost their stats, but Williams could probably get another 6-10.

One thing I don’t know is who’s going to rebound for the Hawks now. I guess you’ll have to give some of Harrington’s rebounds to Shelden Williams, but after his Summer League showing, nothing about him is certain.

So, make sure to move M-Will up on your Big Board. Everyone else you can just kind of eyeball at draft time.