Give Me The Rock

It’s hard to like a team with James Posey on it, but it’s also hard to like the group of Lame-O players clustered around LeBron James.

I don’t remember where I read about it first, but someone noticed how in those There Can Be Only One commercials how they two players’ eyes always blink at the same time.

Here’s a really noticeable example.

Seriously? I am starting to think they’re fake. Or at the very least, heavily digitally edited. I mean, is it really possible that in every ad, two different people blink at the exact same time? I don’t think so. I think they probably edited it because someone found it distracting when they blinked at different times.

Whatever the case, they are really cool ads, but I do have a hard time watching them now without noticing the blinking. And now I inflict that suffering on you as well.

I was going to actually write something about the whole DeShawn-LeBron-Soulja-Boy-Jay-Z thing, but I’ll just do a quick recap in case anyone missed it:

0. Evidently, LeBron said the Wizards suck.
1. Publicly, DeShawn Stevenson said LeBron was overrated.
2. LeBron said that responding to DeShawn would be like Jay-Z responding to Soulja Boy.
3. Soulja boy showed up at Game 3.
4. Jay-Z recorded a track dissing DeShawn (you can download it at the link up there)

I’m pretty sure R. Kelly is orchestrating this whole thing. Just you wait. When a midget shows up in the beef, then you’ll believe me.

I’m cutting short the whole MisPlaced CapitaliZation ScanDal because Becky through out an Arrested Development reference. I almost felt like that was worth a whole post by itself, but there really isn’t anything more to write. Too bad I had the Suns getting to the WCF in my BallHype Bracket. But, since none of the series are over yet, I am still tied for first place overall.

And finally, LOLSonics. It’s almost like today is Friday with all this stuff that going around.

I know the feeling. The NBA regular season is over and your life feels empty. Fantasy baseball is a nicotine patch to last through the summer, but fantasy football sucks, as does having to face the real world without being able to talk about how you picked up Beno Udrih in the third week of the season and now he’s your starting point guard on your first place team. So, what do you do?

Have you tried playoff fantasy basketball? You don’t hear much about fantasy basketball during the playoffs. With the popularity of regular reason fantasy sports, I wonder what’s keeping it from being bigger. An extremely long regular season can’t help. After 82 games and almost 6 months, it can be tough finding takers for another month and a half. And after scouring the internet for good 2 minutes, I wasn’t able to find a site that will let you manage a fantasy basketball league with your friends during the playoffs. As Bill Simmons would say, its 2008, can’t we make this happen already?

In fact, this playoff league is the first that I’ve done. We were able scrounge up five teams and the commissioner is keeping stats by hand like its 1985. Eight players per team. Scoring consists of adding up points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks for each player for the duration of the playoffs. Here’s how my draft went (I had the second pick).

1. Kobe (Garnett was my first choice, but he went number 1)
2. Pau Gasol (At this point, I’m pulling for a Lakers/Celtics final)
3. Ray Allen (Really pulling)
4. Amare Stoudemire (all the good Celtics and Pistons are gone – time to speculate)
5. David West (I feel better about this pick now, but at the time, all the “experts” could talk about was the Hornets “lack of playoff experience”)
6. Caron Butler (with guys like Jason Kidd and Mehmet Okur going at this point in the draft, I couldn’t help myself)
7. Gilbert Arenas (As long as I was hitching myself to the Wizards bandwagon… ugh… this will probably turn out to be the worst pick out of anyone’s draft)
8. Tracy McGrady (Give me 7 games, Tracy. That’s all I ask)

Considering guys like Rondo and Tayshaun Prince were drafted, it seem like I went with “pick great players even if they’re going to go out in the first round approach.” And now that the Suns, Wizards, and Rockets all look they won’t make it out of the first round, I can see how that might have not been the best plan of attack. Interestingly, no Hawks or Sixers were picked and I picked the only Rocket (in the last round). Now that the Jazz are up 3-1, maybe I should have passed. But Carmelo Anthony and Iverson were drafted from the Nuggets and Chris Bosh was taken, so maybe there’s still a chance.

I had an empty feeling in my stomach this weekend because there were no regular season games to recap (although the playoffs started on an exciting note). But after investing 170 days of our lives, it’s only fitting to recap the best and worst of the season that was. What do you say, Nels?

Let’s start with the fantasy MVP

Nels: Chris Paul. I mean, as much as I was going with the Heart thing as kind of a running joke (for me, at least) I came to real that Paul really was the fantasy basketball MVP this year. Also, interesting to note that even though Kobe played 2 more game than CP3, their Fantasy Scores are actually closer when you look at Average stats than totals.

Patrick: Chris Paul. He finished the season number 1 on the GMTR player rater by a Chicago mile (both with turnovers and without – which is a big deal – since LeBron went from 2nd to 4th when turnovers were included). What more can I say about Chris Paul that I haven’t already said a thousand times? Not much. I would take him number 1 again next year without a worry.

Line of the Year

Patrick: After digging through 170 days worth of lines, I like Lebron James’ 50 points, 8 rebounds, 10 assists and 4 steals on Day 128, Kobe’s 53 points, 10 rebounds, 3 steals, and 9 threes on Day 151, Chris Paul’s 42 points, 5 rebounds, 9 assists, 4 threes, and 8 steals on Day 100, and Baron Davis’ 33/11/15 with 5 threes on Day 25. I’m tempted to throw in Marcus Camby’s line of 8 points, 24 rebounds, and 11 blocked shots. But he didn’t even get LotN that day, so I guess I’d go with Lebron on Day 128. He had 4-5 jaw dropping lines during the year, so he gets the award for style and consistency.

Nels: It’s probably not physically the best line, but with 39 points and 5 threes on 14/28 and 6/7, alongside 11 rebounds, 8 assists and 2 steals, Kobe Bryant’s game on Dec. 23, 2007 was one of the few Lines of the Night that I can remember that got to a 7 on NBA.com’s Player Rater.

Rookie of the Year

Nels: Kevin Durant is the first rookie listed on NBA.com’s Player Rater. He’s at number 61, which seems pretty high for a rookie.

Patrick: Kevin Durant: As much as I like Al Horford (not particularly that much) facts are facts. Despite all the press about how Durant “can’t shoot” or “play defense” or “doesn’t rebound” or “isn’t a shooting guard”, he finished ranked 60 on the GMTR rater to Horford’s 103. Hell, Horford isn’t even the rookie runner-up as Jamario Moon finished at 99. It wasn’t a glorious season for the Sonics (that’s a bit of an understatement) but Durant led the Sonics as well as any other 19-year-old in the history of the game and he finished the season averaging 20.3 points and 89% from the line.

Most Improved Player

Patrick: I’ll go with Danny Granger, who finished the year ranked #25 on the GMTR rater, ahead of Jason Kidd, Andre Iguodala, Vince Carter, and Gerald Wallace. Granger took control of a Pacers team that missed Jermaine O’Neal for 40 games this year, and he went from a 14 point a game guy to a 20 point a game guy, with 2.1 threes to boot. He’s also a good defensive player, averaging 6 boards, 1.2 steals and 1.1 blocks a game this year.

Nels: Chris Paul. That’s right. Find me someone who increased their assists by nearly 3 per game while decreasing their average turnovers. Find me someone took 400 more shots, while increasing their FG% by 5 points. Paul also increased his FT% by over 3 points, and got almost 1 more steal per game than in the previous season. I know I should try to find someone who fits the mold of a MIP more (i.e., someone who isn’t an MVP candidate), but Chris Paul has to have improved as much as anyone else in the league.

And look at this picture from his NBA.com profile page.

Biggest Disappointment

Nels: My starting bid here is Mike Conley. I was expecting something more along the lines of Chris Paul’s rookie year (16.1 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 7.8 assists) rather than what MC gave us (9 pts, 2.6 rebs, 4.2 ast). I mean, I wasn’t realistically expecting actual Paul performance, but I was looking at something more like 11/4/6. Yeah, not that much of a difference, but Conley also only played 53 games.

Patrick: This one is personal. After a hot finish to 2007 where he was averaging about 20 points a game, I drafted Walter Herrmann as a sleeper in 3 separate leagues, including the CBS 30-man in round 5 when I still didn’t have a starting center (which ultimately was my demise in the playoffs) and a keeper league where I immediately signed him to a 3 year deal. Then I sat in pain and watched him play in a measly 17 games for the Bobcats, averaging 10 minutes and 4 points a game. I got a little hope when he was traded to the Pistons (I still had him in the keeper league), but the playing time was the same, and he finished out the year averaging 7 minutes in 28 games.

Waiver Wire Guy of the Year

Patrick: Jamario Moon. Anytime someone has to ask the people running the league (as in someone asking the CBS employees in the CBS Sports 30-man league) to actually add a player to the list of available free agents so he could be picked up, that’s the waiver wire player of the year in my book. And my runner up would be Beno Udrih, who went from the D-League to starting point guard for the Kings and averaging 5+ assists a game.

Nels: Jamario Moon. Moon was another ROY candidate, and came in pretty close to Durant (3.44 to 3.86 respectively). But, unlike Durant, I’m fairly certain that Moon went undrafted in most - if not all - leagues. Maybe someone took him in Patrick’s 30 team league [Patrick – Moon wasn’t even on the list of available players to be drafted]… Moon’s year end numbers don’t look all that impressive: 8.5, 6.2, 1.2 with 1 steal, 1.4 blocks, and only 0.65 turnovers, but he played in 78 games and considering that he could have been had for the price of a last round flier pick, you could have easily done worse. I know I did in at least one league.

Injury of the Year

Nels: Gilbert Arenas. For someone declared to be a consensus #1 overall pick in August, getting injured 3 weeks into the season and not returning until day 156 (when everyone else decided to return from injury) is Major Payne.

Patrick: There are three major injuries that stick in my head: Elton Brand, Gilbert Arenas, and Andrew Bynum. Everyone knew that Brand was going to miss most, if not all, of the year, so he is out. And while Arenas’ injury came at the beginning of the season, Bynum’s injury is burned into my memory the most. He was out by January 14th and teased owners for the rest of the year.

Biggest Loser

Patrick: The New York Knicks, the worst team in the history of professional sports. Let’s start with the losing. 23-59. Throw in the Isiah Thomas, who destroyed Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry (poor little David Lee didn’t have a chance). The Stephon Marbury experience, complete with sex the back of a truck, skipping games because he was mad at Thomas, being bench by his teammates only to have Isiah play him anyway, season ending ankle surgery in January just because, and this quote: “I’ve got so much shit on Isiah and he knows it. He thinks he can fuck me, but I’ll fuck him first. You have no idea what I know.” Throw in a sexual-harassment lawsuit, a $160 million payroll, Fire Isiah chants and fans getting thrown out of games, and everything else and you have a biggest loser.

Nels: Eddy Curry. Crap. Nevermind. Curry only dropped 5 places on the GMTR Player Rater from last season. Next up, how about Marco Belinelli? He was taken (probably by me) at number 116 in the GMTR Mock Draft, and ended up at 388 on the Player Rater. Did anyone else actually pick him? I know I did it in at least one league.

Draft This Guy Next Year

Nels: Dwight Howard. I took Howard in the Readers League this year and traded him for Manu Ginobli. At the time I thought that was kind of a stupid thing to do, but since I already had a small ball team, I went with it. Ginobli ended up at 11 (according to NBA.com) while Howard finished at 27, so it was a good trade for me (not that it actually mattered anyway). But next season, Howard is only going to improve his game, and get closer to being the perennial lottery fantasy draft pick that Shaquille O’Neal once was.

Patrick: Zach Randolph. It might sound crazy, but you probably could get Randolph around pick 70-100 in next year’s draft. He finished this season ranked 73 on the rater and with Isiah gone, it can’t get any worse than that, right?

Don’t Draft This Guy Next Year

Patrick: Unless the Raptors trade TJ Ford, avoid Jose Calderon in drafts next year. Nothing against the talented Calderon, who was sweet peaches for Toronto this year, averaging 8+ assists a game (9+ assists in his starts). But the end of this season has shown that the Raptors consider Ford is their starting point guard. As long as he’s healthy, Calderon is going to average around 22 minutes a game. And that’s not worth a high draft pick.

Nels: Jamario Moon. I’m using Moon more as a template of the kind of player you need to watch out for when drafting next season. The kind of player I’m talking about is the one that comes out of no where to have an awesome season (what we call a “sleeper”). The problem is, he’s not a sleeper anymore. Now he’s a player that everyone is going to want to take to look like they know what they’re doing. If you establish a round or specific place in the draft where you’ll take a player like that and don’t get tempted to take them earlier, then, well, that’s what you’re supposed to do anyway. [Patrick - So, what you’re saying is that I shouldn’t draft him like I did Walter Herrmann this year (/taking notes)]

Friday’s Tiny Dancer of the Year

I added this category at the last moment so Nels will have to respond in the comments, but, in the spirit of Friday’s Tiny Dancer, I’ll go with a dancer from the best team in the league this season. First up, the queen bee of the Celtics dancers, Alison:

You can never go wrong with white knee high boots. Never. Finally, Michelle and her barely long enough “jersey” is also enchanting.

Ryan over at HoopsAddict scared up a pretty good selection of bloggers (and others) to give their predictions for the playoffs. I only say it’s a pretty good selection because I got some quotes in there. But, if you’re not drowning in playoff prep material already, or you just can’t get enough of it, go on over and see what some peeps have to say.

Line of the Night: Only 3 games yesterday, but one of them was the epic showdown between the Nuggets and the Warriors for the 8th playoff spot in the West (using the current exchange rate, that roughly translates into the 3rd seed in the East). So, it’s only fitting that Carmelo Anthony (6.0) wins the LotN. I watched most of the game and it was pretty apparent that, when he wanted to, Melo could get to the hoop and score with little trouble. He finished with 25 points off 12-20 shooting and 9 boards. And his score was certainly boosted by the 5 steals and 2 blocks he racked up.

Honorable Mentions: Dirk Nowitzki’s (5.6) Mavs beat the Jazz 97-94, helped by Dirk’s team-high 32 points. He was 4-5 from three, and yet he only had 2 boards and 1 assist. Strange. He must have been helped by that steal and 2 blocks (after a quick check of the various components in the rater… yep. Also the shooting percentages and the threes gave him a big boost. It wasn’t a good night for the three). Allen Iverson (5.1) only had 1 three, but he did score 33 adding 9 assists and 3 steals; and a triple double for the bearded one, Baron Davis (4.6), who finished with 20/10/11. His shooting (9 for 25 overall and 1 of 9 from three) was what did him in.

Waiver Wire Line of the Night: Luke Walton (5.0) is back after missing 2 games with a hamstring injury. And in 24 minutes, he managed to score 18 points (going 4-5 from three) with 5 boards and 4 assists. With the Lakers fighting for first in the West, I wouldn’t expect to see much more than 24-25 minutes for Walton going forward.

After that? Ah, Brandon Bass (3.8) had 14 points in 16 minutes. That’s pretty cool.

The Biggest Loser: Josh Howard (2.2) left in the third quarter of yesterday’s game with a bruised right knee. But what he had done up to that point was go 1-8 from the floor, scoring 3 points with 4 rebounds and 1 assist in 20 minutes. That was bad enough for me not to give him the pass because of injury.

Dishonorable Mentions: Going into the championship week, you may have picked up Mickael Pietrus (1.6) or Josh Powell (2.1) because of their strong play in the previous week. Unfortunately, that would have been a huge mistake. Pietrus saw 10 minutes in yesterday’s showdown vs. the Nuggets (scoring 0 points), while Powell saw 19 for the Clips, going 0-3 from the field, scoring 2 points with 0 assists. But hey, he did have 6 rebounds.

Friday’s Tiny Dancer

The very sexy Chad, who you may remember from the Nuggets Cheer Team.

No, I wouldn’t do that to you guys. Nels would forever remove me from the Friday shift. Instead, I’ve been trying to figure out which Nuggets dancer has the better name. First up, Caty Sue Green:

Also in the running is Linda Koucky (I’m not sure how you pronounce it, but every way is funny):